Shortly after that, they met up with a MacDuff wolf.
“My mate died, so did our pups. I couldn’t take it anymore. What was the use of sticking around when I’ve lost my family?”
“How many in all do you think have died?” the Sark asked.
“Oh, no telling. I have heard rumors that Creakle, our gnaw wolf, still lives,” the MacDuff wolf answered. He was a silver wolf and so ragged it was almost impossible to determine his age, but he seemed to have a feisty spirit. “I’d say the strongest clan right now is possibly the MacNamaras. They are close to the sea, you know. ’Tis said those wolves know how to fish, and so far the sea ain’t frozen. So some wolves might have headed north and east to their territory. But I would think that we’re half gone right now. I considered going that way, but I heard the Blood Watch needs some help. The thought of outclanners filling up the Beyond with their kind — not a pleasant one. And you know they are just about mean enough to survive. Don’t let anybody tell you life is fair.”
After this depressing encounter, the Sark and Gwynneth continued. The weather worsened, if that was possible, and although they had been heading in vaguely the same direction, they soon lost sight of the lone wolf.
It was as bitter as in the darkest days of the hunger moons. “It’s cold enough to freeze a wolf’s shadow,” the Sark huffed, enveloping her own head in a huge cloud of breath fog. She continued to grumble as they tore apart a snow hare that Gwynneth had spotted. They licked up every bit of its warm blood and moved on.
They were now entering one of the loneliest reaches of the Beyond. But the Sark seemed to be onto something. Gwynneth sensed that the spoor had become stronger. How often she had wished that she had been blessed with the Sark’s keen sense of smell, but owls’ perception of scent was decidedly dull. It was their ears and their eyes that guided them. And right now, slipping through the fissures of the wind, Gwynneth detected a tiny creaking sound ahead. It sounded like a tree groaning in the wind, but there were no trees in this stretch of land. The Sark was quickening her pace on the ground below Gwynneth and appeared to be tracking toward the sound source as well.
Gwynneth began tipping her head one way, then the other, while contracting the muscles around her facial disk to scoop up sound. It was a black night with no moon, no stars. Perhaps if there had been, Gwynneth would have seen it sooner. But on the blackest of nights the blackest of trees melted into the dark void of the Beyond. The Sark, guided only by sporadic scent clues, felt like the blind wolf Beezar. Beezar was a small constellation that appeared during the spring moons. Under a starry ceiling, the blind wolf stumbled west, his front paw always raised as if fearing that with his next step he might fall off the edge of the sky. But the scent guiding the Sark was growing stronger.
“It’s straight ahead, ma’am! Straight ahead!”
And then the Sark saw it, too. An Obea tree — as such trees were called by the wolves. And she knew instantly that this was where the helmet of Gwyndor, father of Gwynneth and best friend of the Sark, would be found.
It might seem odd in a sparsely wooded country that it was a tree with which the Skaars dancing had begun. But the Sark was almost sure it was so. The Obea tree, of which there were very few, was so named because it was said that only one in a thousand of its seeds ever sprouted. And then it took hundreds of years for it to grow. So it was fitting to name the trees after Obeas, the barren she-wolves charged with the task of taking malcadhs from their mothers and leaving them to die. Some also called these trees witch’s trees for their black spectral branches that clawed darkly at the sky. The skreeleens told howling tales of witches when they read the lightning, the ceilidh fyre, that scratched the sky during summer thunderstorms. Obea trees were to be avoided, for it was rumored that even to be near them would cause barrenness. Such were the superstitions of the wolves.
“I know about Obea trees,” Gwynneth protested. “But, ma’am, it makes no sense that a wolf would make a hero mark at a tree that wolves feel is cursed.”
“No, it doesn’t make much sense. However, I don’t believe for one minute that this was the place your father died. There is a scent missing. But the helmet rested here, among these roots.”
“Then what is this place?”
“It’s a place where someone has been hiding the helmet.” The Sark paused. “And it’s a wonderful hiding place. No one wants to come near the tree for fear of being cursed by barrenness. And you see these roots? They’re called buttress roots,” the Sark said in an oddly distracted voice.
“What?” Gwynneth had been lost in a maze of questions as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing. She had not paid attention to the tree roots, which she now realized were rather unusual for this region.
“Buttress roots. They’re like walls in a cave. They flare up to help support the tree because the ground is too hard here for roots to dig in. And the roots provide a perfect hideaway for your father’s helmet. My goodness gracious!” she exclaimed. “Look at this!”
“What?”
“A cache! A rather nice cache — frozen pretty solid. A baby weasel, also a stoat. And, oh my goodness, some ptarmigan eggs! Now, tell me that a decent bird like a ptarmigan is not going to have tastier eggs than an odious tern! We’ve got ourselves a little feast here, my dear.” The Sark paused and looked up. “But we need patience just as much as we need food.”
“Patience for what, ma’am?”
The Sark’s eyes narrowed. “I feel it in my marrow that if we stay here long enough, we shall meet the wolf who took your father’s helmet and mask. This is his hiding place. All we need to do is lie in wait.”
Gwynneth did not say anything for a long time. Then she turned to the Sark. “Ma’am, if my father didn’t die here, where do you think he breathed his last?” Finding the helmet and visor was important to Gwynneth, but she wanted to know where Gwyndor died almost as much. She hoped it was a lovely spot.
The Sark spoke softly now, almost gently. “I think he died in a patch of rabbit-ear moss.”
“But how — how would you know that? You wouldn’t just say something to make me feel better, would you?”
The Sark’s hackles rose. Gwynneth realized almost immediately that she had said the wrong thing.
“What kind of wolf do you think I am?”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“When you brought me the voles wrapped in moss, it was the scent of the moss that triggered my memory.”
“Yes. So?”
“There was blood on that moss — vole blood. And now it begins to make sense. There were traces of the scent of blood and rabbit-ear moss on that helmet. Your father died of a wound to his head. I assure you his head bled onto a bed of rabbit-ear moss. That’s where he took his last breath and where some wolf decided to honor him.”
The Sark got up now and pressed her nose to a buttress root, inhaling deeply. Then she took a step back and sniffed the ground.
“You think so, ma’am? You really do?”
“I do, Gwynneth,” the Sark replied solemnly. She looked straight into the owl’s dark eyes while her own spinning eye grew very still.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Don’t thank me, thank that scroom.”
Gwynneth knew that the Sark, who prided herself on logic and disdained anything smacking of the supernatural, must be pained to give credit to a scroom.
The two settled into a snug little space created by the soaring buttress roots. Although Gwynneth could not help but think it would have been much cozier had it been lined with rabbit-ear moss. It was the softest moss and was often used in owl hollows, particularly when chicks hatched out. Meanwhile, the Sark was thinking how clever it was of a wolf to take the helmet and visor to an Obea tree, certain to be avoided by any other wolves. It was a perfect place to hide a disguise used for what she was beginning to believe was a diabolical dance, a dance of submission and death. It was not a warrior who led these dances, nor was it evil incarnate — j
ust a weak and stupid wolf. No gall grot, thought the Sark. Wasn’t that the owl word for “raw courage”?
Toward midnight, the tree began to shake and shudder as a slashing rain pelted the branches. Ice driven by screeching wind slanted across the night. “Sounds like a pack of foaming-mouth creatures out there,” the Sark commented.
It became even colder. The two animals huddled closer to each other and tried to conjure up memories of the warm snow hare blood that had coursed down their throats the day before. The meat was not the tenderest, but became more succulent in their memories.
“What’s the best meat you ever ate?” Gwynneth asked.
The Sark answered immediately. “Spring grass–fed caribou. If you get them during the Moon of New Antlers, there is just nothing better. You’ve never tasted anything like it.”
“And I don’t suppose I will. They’re a little out of my size range.”
“Spring is the only time I run with a byrrgis, really.”
“I never knew you went out with a byrrgis at all.”
“Don’t be shocked. I’m not totally antisocial.”
“What position do you run?”
“Something middling — a packer, most often a tight end packer. Nothing spectacular like an outflanker. But when I have a yearning for caribou, I join up.”
“What’s your favorite food after spring grass–fed caribou?”
“Marmot.”
“Marmot — really?”
“I know, most wolves find it too gamey. It’s an acquired taste. What about you? What do you like?”
“Red squirrel — very nutty with a hint of winter grass. You can get them during the Caribou Moon.” Gwynneth paused. “Funny, isn’t it, how just talking about food sort of feeds you twice?”
“Indeed! There must be a scientific explanation for it,” the Sark replied.
“I think it’s just imagination. Imagination can feed you, keep you alive.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said the Sark. She was thinking, however, that the imagination of the cag mag wolf who wore the helmet and visor of Gwyndor was becoming absolutely lethal. She recalled that faint tinge of death on the wind when it had come down from the ice cliffs. Outclanners, she had thought at the time — outclanners who would not hesitate to feed on a dead or dying wolf.
For some reason, the Sark did not believe that the wolf who wore Gwyndor’s helmet was an outclanner. She was not sure why she felt this way, but she was certain. And perhaps the most frightening thing of all was that this prophet might not have any idea of the real harm he — or she — was doing. Innocence with a core of evil — could there be such a thing? Did this make the Prophet pitiable, or benighted? Did he perhaps think that he was delivering his followers from the pain of a slow death?
The Sark tossed her head. And why dancing? Dancing was for celebration and not for dying. But then again, the final act of dying known as cleave hwlyn, the separation at the time of death from the clan, the pack, and finally a wolf’s body from its soul, was a kind of celebration, a dance of sorts, although one did not move but remained as still as possible so the soul could gently separate itself from the failing body. But was it honorable to confuse the two and divert the ritual of one to another? It is wrong! Utterly wrong! she thought. Cleave hwlyn was a deeply private act, done alone in the most solitary manner possible. It was one unique soul parting from one unique body to find its way up the star ladder with only the guidance of Skaarsgard. It’s not a frinking byrrgis! the Sark silently cursed.
Did this wolf realize, the Sark wondered, that he was depraved? Well, truth be told, evil had many guises — it could seem quite ordinary, even sleep in your pack and run shoulder to shoulder with you in a byrrgis.
When the dawn broke, the landscape had been transformed once again. The Obea tree was clothed in a drapery of ice that sparkled so fiercely they could hardly look up into those twisted branches that writhed in glaring brightness toward the sky. Every black limb and twig was sheathed in a crystal armor of ice. But soon, as the sun rose above the horizon, it was as if a thousand rainbows had shattered in the tree, for every ice bead became a prism. When the wind blew, the colors shivered and the air flashed with pinks, reds, blues, purples, and greens in eruptions of dazzling beauty. The morning was jeweled in a phantasmagoric display of light and color.
CHAPTER TWENTY
STRANGE LIGHTS
THE LAST OF THE SUMMER MOONS was waning, and if this was summer, what would autumn bring? The last blizzard had been the worst. Faolan could not help but wonder how many sick or dying wolves were buried beneath the mountainous drifts. The wind had stopped for the moment and the swirls of snow had stilled. The Beyond had been transformed into an undulating whiteness with no separation between sky and earth. The two spheres were continuous. It was an eerie and disorienting feeling as the five wolves made their way back toward the cairns, for it seemed as if all borders had dissolved. Although they were not blind like Beezar and did not stumble, they felt as if any moment they might.
Faolan could not help but wonder if the Beyond would ever look as it once had. Would this featureless white world ever sort itself out, would the snowy blanket pull itself apart from the pale sky?
As the five friends drew closer to the Blood Watch, they spotted wolves topping the cairns. But more impressive was the sound of skreeleens howling. Since the five travelers had first arrived at the border between the Beyond and the Outermost, they’d heard the howlings of many skreeleens — many more than they would hear staying with a clan. But they quickly realized that skreeleens were needed at the Watch, for they were fluent in the code needed to report anything from the sighting of a caribou herd to the trespassing of territorial boundaries. On the Blood Watch boundary, they were especially valued, as it was crucial to report any outclanner movement immediately.
But now it wasn’t trespassing outclanners that had the skreeleens howling, their marrow aquiver. Low in the milky sky, the skreeleens had spotted dozens of spheres of different lights in vibrant colors they had never seen. Sizzling, acid-hued globes bobbed lazily on the horizon. This spectral phenomenon had followed the ice storm of the previous night, and the skreeleens, who had a wealth of tales to help them interpret the sky fire of a lightning storm, were bereft of any narration for these queer orbs. So they howled in confusion, asking the Great Star Wolf the meaning of it all.
Faolan, Edme, the Whistler, and the sisters continued to serve on the Blood Watch. Tamsen had been right about the futility of attempting to break up a Skaars circle. When the five wolves had returned, she said what they had already concluded — unless the Prophet himself could be caught, there was little hope of stopping the deadly dancing. The Whistler had quickly made himself invaluable as a skreeleen, howling out to alert blooders to any outclanners who had slipped across the border. Tamsen was therefore very open to the notion of sending out scouts to collect other gnaw wolves, such as Creakle and Streak.
The strange bobbing lights that had appeared so mysteriously on the horizon were having a profoundly damaging effect. Skaars dancers across the Beyond had seen these lights as a sign of the imminent arrival of Skaarsgard. They began to dance even more intensely, particularly since the Caribou Moon would soon be upon them and the star ladder would disappear from the sky, taking Skaarsgard and the heavenly constellation known as the Cave of Souls far beyond them. It was never good to die when the star ladder had vanished. Spirits were left marooned on earth and could not hope to ascend to the Cave of Souls until the constellation returned in the spring.
From the top of the cairn where Faolan was perched, he had an unparalleled view out into the night. Above the bobbing lights, the star ladder was just forming, and he could see the wolves in their palsied dance circles desperately attempting to jump for the lowest rungs. But they were too weak to make it. The Skaars dancers became more hysterical with each passing hour of the night, as the strange and luminous lights floated above them on the dark purple line of the horizon.
Below
Faolan, several wolves had just collapsed, and the skulking shadows of outclanners were drawing nearer. Have heaven and hell ever come so close together? Faolan wondered. Or is it all just hell?
A cohort of blooders rushed in, but they were too late for one wolf. In a shaft of moonlight, a stain of blood spread slowly over the snow.
As Dearlea and Mhairie approached the top of the cairn, Faolan’s attention was momentarily distracted.
“You’re not on duty yet,” he commented.
“Oh, we just thought we’d come keep you company,” Dearlea said.
“Some blooders who went out hunting found two ptarmigan. So we’ve saved some for you when your watch is done.”
“We thought it might make you happy just thinking about the ptarmigan,” Dearlea said.
“Yes, it does, thanks,” Faolan answered. He knew the bird was just an excuse for the sisters to come up and see him.
When they were not on watch, Dearlea and Mhairie tended to stay close to Faolan. Yet Faolan was still uncertain how they felt about what he had revealed to them.
Faolan’s feelings, however, were clear. He was a member of a family. He had living sisters, he had blood kin! Ever since he could remember, there had been a small void inside him that could not be filled, not even by Thunderheart, his second Milk Giver. He had learned to ignore it, get on with life. But now that void had been filled by his sisters, and it was as if an ember burned inside him, glowing with warmth. His very marrow seemed to shimmer with this new knowledge that he was a brother — a brother to Mhairie and Dearlea. For Faolan, nothing would ever be the same again.
The Blood Watch was not as diminished as Faolan and Edme had originally thought. This was largely due to the arrival of several wolves from the renowned MacNamara clan from the northeast, the only female-led clan of the Beyond. Four nights after the strange lights appeared in the sky, two more MacNamara wolves arrived for duty on the Blood Watch. As they came up the trail toward the jagged ridge that was spiked with watch cairns, Edme recognized them almost immediately.
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