Star Wolf

by Kathryn Lasky

  He peered down into the water. Would he see the mysterious brinicles? The ones the fish called the teeth of death? They formed beneath the sea ice, reaching down from the frozen ceiling and sometimes touching the floor of the ocean. They were twisted into stunningly beautiful shapes resembling plumes of frozen smoke, but they could be deadly, especially to bottom-dwelling creatures such as starfish and sea urchins, which would freeze to death on contact with them. The brinicles were the coldest things on earth, their glacial edges as lethal as the sharpest battle claws a Rogue smith could make.

  Dumpster and Dumpkin had just placed half a dozen capelin neatly at Abban’s paws when Dumpkin let loose with an earsplitting buzzing noise. Abban jumped, but not soon enough. He felt fangs lock on to his hackles, and his feet were swept off the ice. He smelled a scent he knew too well. The scent of Heep!

  But it was not his father who was carrying him. His father was beside him. Abban had been snatched by Bevan, an enormous wolf, the largest of the rout that Heep led.

  “Don’t make a sound, or else Bevan will slice right through your neck to the life vein. The ice will turn red with your worthless blood.”

  Worthless, you say. Does this make sense?

  To go to such a great expense

  If I have no worth

  Then why on earth?

  “Shut up,” Heep roared, but his jagged howl was drowned out by the clamoring of the puffins. Scores of them sounded the grating squawks that were their alarm calls.

  On top of the bridge, the Whistler and Banja looked down at the mass of puffins that had gathered. Some were floating on the water lapping the pillar’s base. Others were flying overhead.

  “What in the name of the Dim World is going on?” the Whistler howled. It was a high, piercing howl that split the raucous cacophony of the puffins. Dumpette alighted and stumbled toward them. By this time, several other wolves, including Mhairie and Dearlea, had roused themselves.

  “It’s … it’s … it’s … it’s …” Dumpette was stammering madly, her chunky orange beak clattering away, creating yet another layer of noise. Suddenly, there was a pealing mournful howl. Caila raced into their midst. “He’s gone!”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to say all along, He … is … gone! They took him!”

  “Who’s gone? Who took what?” the Whistler said.

  Caila screamed, “Abban. He’s gone!” She began howling, “Abban, where are you? Abban!”

  The Whistler crouched down and growled at Dumpette. “Look at me, Dumpette. Calm your gizzard or whatever you puffins have in there. Think! What happened? What did you see? Just take it one step at a time.”

  “Steps? But we don’t walk very well. We fly better and are great swimmers! But steps?”

  Ay yi yi! These creatures are so literal, the Whistler thought. It was going to drive him cag mag. He did not want to get angry. After all, these birds had fed them. But something had to be done to bring Dumpette to her senses, if indeed she had any. A pup had been nabbed. With each minute, the situation was growing worse.

  The Whistler walked stiff legged toward the puffin until he was just inches away. He skewed his body into one of a wolf’s most aggressive postures. He held his tail straight out, his hips twisted into an angle as if he were about to leap onto this bird who was a fraction of his size. He shoved his ears forward and peeled back his lips, then emitted a fearsome growl that sounded as if it came from the Dim World.

  Dumpette quivered and swallowed several times. She shut her clownish eyes until they were just thin black elliptical marks in the pools of white feathers on either side of her beak.

  “All right. Are you ready?” she said, and then she blinked at the Whistler.

  Of course I’m ready! the Whistler wanted to scream but repressed the urge. “Yes, now just begin at the beginning.”

  “The beginning? That’s before the middle or the end, right?”

  Great Lupus, thought the Whistler. He was ready to bite the dumb bird’s head off. He nodded.

  “Well, Abban was just eating some fish we had brought him. Minding his own fish business. You know how it is when one minds fish business. You just eat them and —”

  “Just go on. What happened?”

  “All of a sudden, these two wolves came around from behind the pillar and just snatched him. One wolf did. One really big wolf.”

  “Was one wolf yellow?”

  “Yes, but not the big one.”

  Caila gave a yelp of horror. “I knew Heep would come back. I knew it! Just knew it!” She collapsed on the ground, sobbing. Banja rushed to soothe her.

  “How did these wolves get onto the pillar without us seeing them?” Mhairie asked. “I don’t understand it.”

  “Nor do I,” the Whistler said. He turned to Dumpette for an explanation.

  “Ice tongues,” Dumpette said, clacking her beak shut.

  “Ice tongues? There weren’t any ice tongues when we made camp on the bridge tonight. We checked.”

  “They can form quickly in this weather. One could have broken off from a pillar base and the current could have pushed it along faster than you were traveling.”

  “But how —?”

  “Simple!” Dumpette said. “It’s a long narrow sheet of ice. The currents carry it here, and it mates.”

  “Mates?”

  “Yep, couples up with the Ice Bridge and makes a connection, not just a single connection. They often make two. It depends on the current and the eddies.”

  “So,” the Whistler said, “if I understand this correctly, the ice tongue broke off from some pillar and got swirled around and reattached again near us. If Heep was on it, that would be perfect for sneaking up and snatching a pup.”

  “Exactly!” Dumpette exclaimed. “Here’s how.” Dumpette began dragging her beak across the ice, and Whistler blinked. This dumb puffin was actually making a crude drawing. “Here’s the bridge. We’re here.” She made an X on the bridge. “The ice sheet broke off from a pillar base and got swirled around to here.” She made another X. Dumpette had begun to speak so fast that the wolves only caught a few of the words: “attachment point,” “westerly,” and “pillar.”

  The wolves stared at Dumpette in disbelief. It was as if she had experienced a sudden infusion of brains into that ridiculous head of hers.

  “What are you staring at?” Dumpette asked.

  “You!” Dearlea exclaimed. “I mean, please don’t take offense, but you’re talking so sensibly, so … so intelligently.”

  “Oh, no offense,” Dumpette said sweetly. “When I get going, I really go! That’s the way we all are. Puffins are a little slow off the starting mark, but hey! When we’re off, we’re really off!”

  “Do you have any idea where they could have taken Abban?”

  “Well, that’s the problem. Ice tongues are much more complicated than they look, especially at this time of year.”

  “Why this time of year?”

  “It’s getting to be spring. With the sea ice breaking up and more water … well, you see how water washes in and carves out deep caves and tunnels into the tongue? They’ve probably hidden him away in some cave. There could be dozens of them.”

  “Oh, no!” Caila wailed.

  AS FAOLAN AND EDME MADE their way back to where they had left the brigade, they spotted more rocks similar to the one where Faolan had found Edme sleeping. Scattered about them were what looked like a collection of small leaves.

  “What in the world is this?” Edme crouched down and examined the leaves closely with her single eye.

  “Leaves?” Faolan asked, crouching next to her. “But there are no trees. And look at these things. They’re fuzzy.”

  “These aren’t leaves. Not at all,” Edme replied. “I think, Faolan — I think some of these things are cocoons.”

  “Cocoons? You mean for butterflies or moths?”

  “Yes, I believe so. In the Beyond, such creatures were rare. But look! One of them is moving just a bit.”


  They watched for several minutes until suddenly the cocoon began to split. They sat transfixed as the split lengthened and the tip of something poked out. A few other cocoons began to jiggle a bit and soon were showing signs of splitting. But Faolan and Edme kept their eyes on the first cocoon. They sensed that they were witnessing a great drama, a drama of life like none they had ever seen.

  “Look! It’s a wing tip if I ever saw one!” Edme said with great excitement. The cocoon seemed to heave and nearly rolled over. A moth staggered out.

  “At last!” The creature sighed. “At last!”

  “At last?” Faolan said. He and Edme were astonished. The creature had spoken, and they understood it. But why was the creature saying “at last”? And they were not sure how they understood the language the creature was speaking, for it was not exactly Old Wolf.

  “Yes. I’ll say it again. At last!”

  The creature’s wings, which seconds before had been crumpled and damp, were beginning to dry and spread out. They were a soft golden hue. Down the middle of its back between its wings was a column of black dots. “Do you want to know why I said ‘at last’?” Faolan and Edme both nodded. “It has taken me fourteen winters to get to this point in my life. To fly.”

  “Fourteen winters!” Edme cried.

  The moth spread its wings and began to flutter off into the air, shimmering in a sliver of moonlight like a gold coin. She did a few loops in the air and then settled down. “How’s that for a beginner?”

  “Lovely!” Edme exclaimed.

  “I don’t understand any of this. You’ve waited fourteen winters to fly?” Faolan asked.

  “Yes,” the moth replied, and turned to look over at a half dozen other cocoons that had begun to split. “It takes time,” she whispered. One of the fuzzy creatures began to move. An orange-and-black-banded caterpillar oozed across the ice.

  “Bindle, that you?” the moth asked.

  “Yep. Five more winters to go.”

  “And then you’ll fly?” Edme asked the caterpillar whom the moth had addressed as Bindle.

  “I better!”

  “This is very strange,” Edme said.

  “Weird,” agreed another caterpillar who had just begun to move.

  “All right, have to say good-bye. Gotta start eating now. Our season is short. Guess we won’t see you again, Bells.” Bindle, the first caterpillar, directed his comment to the moth.

  “Why not?” Edme asked, and immediately sensed that perhaps she shouldn’t have. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ask you such a personal question.”

  “No need for apology,” the moth answered pleasantly. “It’s not personal at all. It’s simply the way we are. I’ll die before the summer even starts.”

  Edme and Faolan both blinked. They had never heard any creature speak so calmly, almost cheerfully, about their impending death.

  “You don’t sound very sad or upset,” Faolan ventured.

  “Why ever should I be? I get to fly! At last I get to fly! Fourteen winters and I am finally me!”

  “Me, too,” another voice squeaked out from one of the recently split cocoons.

  “Oh, Tris. It’s you! I thought you were just in your thirteenth winter.”

  “No. Same age as you.” The moth’s wings were as damp and wrinkled as Bells’s had been a few minutes before. “Let me just dry out and get the kinks out of my wings, and I’ll join you for a flight.”

  “Explain all this to us,” Edme said looking about, for now there seemed to be many more cocoons than they had first noticed, and a small area of the Ice Bridge was covered with either wriggling caterpillar bodies or flashes of gold as the moths lifted into the dark.

  “Well, this is my story.” Bells paused. “Our story,” she said, nodding at Tris. “We are creatures who in one sense have many lives.” Faolan and Edme exchanged glances. “I daresay we are much older than you by many winters. We began as eggs laid by our moth parents,” Bells continued. “And then we turned into very tiny woolly bears.” She nodded at Bindle.

  “Woolly bears?” Faolan asked.

  “Yes, because we’re fuzzy. Every summer, we woolly bear caterpillars must eat. But the summers are so short we can’t ever eat enough for … for …” the moth began to stammer slightly. “For the big change. Eat enough to grow wings, to have the energy to fly. See, Bindle here can’t do it yet. He needs to eat for a few more summers to get the energy.”

  “And during the winter? What will he do?”

  “Freeze. Freeze solid.” Bindle seemed to yawn as he said this, but it was hard to tell for his mouth was so tiny.

  “Yes. That’s what I did for thirteen winters,” Bells said. “At the beginning of autumn, my heart would slow and then stop completely by the second autumn moon.”

  “Stop?” Edme said in a hushed voice.

  “Yes, stop. And then my gut would freeze, and next my blood and everything else.”

  “But why aren’t you dead?” Faolan asked.

  “I’m not sure. There is something in our blood that protects us from being damaged forever, even when we freeze. However, in our last autumn, our fourteenth, we weave a cocoon from the hairs of our own body — the woolly bears’ hairs and the silk.”

  “Silk?” Faolan and Edme both asked, for they had never heard the word.

  “Yes, silk. It’s … it’s … oh, how to explain! Something like your fur, I suppose. Now that I think of it, what kind of a furry creature are you?”

  “Wolves,” Faolan replied. “You’ve never seen one?”

  “Not in my caterpillar days,” Bells replied. “But as I was saying, we make silk and, with the silk and the hair, weave cocoons. And so we are sheltered, and finally fat enough, and can at last grow our wings. This spot on the Ice Bridge is a good place to roost for autumns and winters. These rocks,” she said, lofting herself into a fluttery flight above them, “are ideal. They give us protection for overwintering, and when the warm weather comes, they harbor the heat so we can hatch out or thaw out and resume our lives. Which means eating a lot for the woolly bears and flying a lot for me!”

  “Look, the caterpillars are moving away to the west.”

  “Yes, back to a good food source. Indeed, we can crawl quite fast as caterpillars. But as you might imagine, flying is even faster.”

  “And where will you fly?” Edme asked.

  “West, the Great West.”

  “You mean the Distant Blue?” Faolan asked.

  “Is that what you call it — the Distant Blue?” Bells asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Curious.” She said this word softly and fluttered right up to Faolan’s muzzle. “Perhaps I can show you the way. It’s not far.”

  “It’s not?” Both Edme and Faolan leaped to their feet.

  “How far is not far?” Edme asked.

  “Oh, just a bit beyond that star.” Bells flew straight up and seemed to hover directly beneath it.

  “Kilyric!” Faolan cried out.

  AS FAOLAN AND EDME APPROACHED camp, the air was filled with the clack of puffins’ beaks.

  “They sound absolutely hysterical,” Edme said. “What is going on?”

  Dearlea came charging toward them. “Heep! Heep has taken Abban.”

  “What? How?” Faolan was dumbfounded.

  “You see that ice tongue?” Dearlea said.

  Edme followed Dearlea’s gaze. “It wasn’t here when we left.”

  “No, it was. The ice fog was so thick we couldn’t see it.”

  “Where did they take him?” Faolan asked, hackles bristling.

  Mhairie now came up. “It’s a mess, Faolan. We don’t know where he is. Those ice tongues are riddled with caves and tunnels. And Caila and Banja already took off. There was simply no stopping Caila.”

  Mhairie paused. Her eyes filled with tears. She gulped. “He’ll kill her!”

  “No! We’ll kill him before he can touch her. Where are the eagles? Where are Zanouche and Eelon?” Faolan said.

 
“Out scouring the ice tongue for any sign of Heep and his rout.”

  Katria and Airmead raced up with Gwynneth.

  “Airmead and I have been talking. We have a strategy.”

  Faolan wheeled around to her. “What is it?”

  Airmead spoke. “Long ago, in the time of the War of the Ember, the MacNamaras were led by the Namara in a formation called a slink melf.”

  “Slink melf — what does that mean?” asked the Whistler.

  Few of the other wolves had ever heard the phrase before, but Faolan and Edme had heard of the formation. “It’s a kind of byrrgis,” Faolan replied.

  Katria and Airmead exchanged glances.

  “I suppose you could think of it as that,” Katria said.

  “Not really.” Airmead shook her head. “In truth, it’s an assassination squad, and we often swim. That was how it was done during the War of the Ember.”

  “Swim?” The other wolves were flabbergasted.

  “I’ll explain quickly, for we mustn’t lose any time,” Airmead said. “As you know, the MacNamaras lived the closest to water, the Bittersea, of any of the clans. In the time of the War of the Ember, the first action occurred in the northern kingdoms. Nyra and the Pure Ones were trying their talons at some horrendous nachtmagen. Some of the Pure Ones had flown to the Ice Palace near the H’rathghar glacier.”

  “Nachtmagen!” Edme exclaimed.

  Gwynneth wilfed. There had been no owl in the Hoolian kingdoms more dreaded than Nyra, mother of Coryn.

  “Yes, dark magic that some ancient owls once practiced. In any case, they thought they were safe there. But they weren’t. The Namara got wind of them before any of the Guardian Owls of the Great Tree on the island of Hoole. So she organized a slink melf. Two scores of wolves crossed the Bittersea, then swam across the Bay of Fangs to the Ice Palace.”

  “They swam that distance? In that cold water?” Mhairie asked.

  “Indeed. We have been trained to swim since we live in such close proximity to the Bittersea,” Katria explained.

  Airmead continued, “The water is calm tonight. We can swim around the ice tongue. It won’t be that hard.”