“Old Cags, this is Macoon. Macoon, meet Old Cags! I’m sure you’ll be friends. If you survive, Macoon.”
“Macoon!” Toby’s eyes flew open. “My name is not Macoon. It’s Ishodd. Ish-odd!” He said it slowly, enjoying each syllable as all the wolves, including Old Cags, began to tremble.
Dunbar MacHeath let out a viscious snarl. “Say that again and I’ll bite your ear off.” But Toby didn’t listen. He streaked across the pit and squashed himself into a crack in the rock walls.
Toby stayed inside this crack while the steep shadows of midday fell directly into the pit and then lengthened as the afternoon grew into night.
When the four wolves who had captured him left, Toby had heard them still muttering about his name. “Can you believe it? Ishodd. Of all the names!”
“What bad luck!”
“And now with this strange weather.”
Why were they worried? His mum had told him that wolves were a very superstitious lot, not at all like bears. Had he stumbled across some sort of curse word or cursed name by accident? And why was it so important that the foaming-mouth wolf know his name?
Toby peered out from his hiding spot in the sheer rock wall. The old wolf was leaping about in the middle of the pit as if chasing his own tail. When he caught sight of Toby’s muzzle, he bolted on a dead run toward the rock wall. Surely it’s not big enough for him to get in! Please, Ursus, take care of me. I don’t want to die.
There was a dull thud as the wolf slammed into the rock. He snarled, then began bellowing loudly. His language was garbled and there wasn’t a word that Toby could understand. It was snarling gibberish. Again and again, the foaming-mouth wolf ran toward the crack. Then a sudden horrid odor suffused the air. Something slithered through the crack and into the narrow space, like a dark pink snake coated in yellow slime.
“Urskadamus!” Toby cried. It was Old Cag’s long, fat tongue. The air reeked with disease. The tongue slithered toward Toby and he began to back away. He felt a sharp stone under his hind foot. Without even thinking, he grabbed it and slammed it down on the fetid slab of flesh.
There was a terrible yowl. Instantly, the tongue disappeared.
Toby’s first sensation was not one of relief but fear. That was stupid of me! For he looked down and saw some dribbles of the deadly foam on the floor of the crack. He had gotten rid of Old Cags for now, but the sick wolf had left behind some of his disease. The glistening white bubbles seemed to wink at Toby in the dim light of the small space. He could catch the illness now and die, die without anyone ever knowing.
Shut up! he commanded himself. Do something! He dug his claws into the floor of his slot in the rock wall. The floor was not entirely rock. There was dirt, earth! The word blossomed in his mind like the most beautiful flower. Frantically, he began digging with his two front paws.
In no time, the deadly foam was buried under a pile of dirt. Toby looked around now for a rock. There was the stone he had slammed down on Old Cags, but he didn’t want to touch that. Even though it had no foam on it, it was streaked with something that might have been blood. I should bury it, too, he thought. So he began digging again. After burying the foam and the rock, he peered into the back of the slot. Was there any chance, he wondered, that this crack went someplace? Could it be an escape tunnel? He felt along the walls and began to hope, for he had crawled quite a length, and the space had widened. But then his muzzle bumped up against a cold rock wall. A sickening feeling swam up in him. It was a dead end. There was no way out.
Outside he heard the wind blowing. It seemed to be growing colder. Well, he thought, there is no sense staying in the back of this rock slot. Old Cags must sleep sometime, and if Cags were sleeping, Toby could sneak out into the pit and see if he could find his way out. The pit was deep. He knew that. But the wolves had brought him down here by a path because wolves don’t climb. But bears do! Toby thought. He and Burney climbed trees whenever they could find one. If he got a good look at the rock walls, maybe he could climb out of the pit.
Carefully, he approached the opening to the rock slot.
Another dead end! Old Cags certainly was sleeping — right by the opening. As soon as Toby peeked out, the wolf staggered to his feet, rushed toward the slot, and began snarling. Toby backed off. It was hopeless. And he could see that it was snowing much more heavily.
Toby shook his head as if trying to better comprehend his dire situation. The snow sealed his fate, for if the snow moons had come early, the bears’ cold sleep would soon begin. Toby’s mum had told him and Burney about cold sleep. When the winter moons arrived, the bears would grow sleepier and sleepier, and their hunger would fade. The three of them would find a cozy winter den and all “lump up” together. He and Burney would nestle in their mum’s thick fur and sleep until the very end of the last winter moon.
“But how can you not be hungry, Mum?” Toby had asked.
“You just aren’t,” she replied.
“But I always think about fish, the taste of salmon,” Burney said.
“And I loved the moose liver we shared with the wolves,” said Toby.
“And the spring onions,” added Burney.
The two cubs had begun to name their favorite foods.
“You just forget,” their mum replied. “You forget about food. You forget about everything, really.”
Even me? Toby thought now. Will they forget about me? Do they miss me? They must know now I’m gone, got lost or something. But if the cold comes, will they even forget about missing me?
On the day Toby had been carried off, Burney had awakened from his nap. Before he even opened his eyes, he sensed that something was wrong. Very wrong!
“Mum, Mum. Wake up!”
“Burney, what are you doing waking me up so early from my nap? You and Toby go on and play. Let me get a bit more —”
“Mum, Toby’s not here!”
“What?” Bronka’s question came out more as a rumble than an actual word.
“He’s gone, Mum. He always wakes up before me, but he’s not here now!”
Bronka was up in a flash, galloping to the edge of the river and across the shallows to the bar. Toby couldn’t have drowned. The water was too shallow and he knew how to swim. She clambered onto the bar and looked about. Then she saw the prints — wolf paw prints! She saw the scuffle marks and even some dark fur — her Toby’s fur.
Burney stood in fear as he watched his mother’s eyes slide back in her head. There was a horrible renting bellow. She began the most awful roaring he had ever heard. Bronka heaved a huge boulder into the river and began pounding her feet and paws.
“My child, my cub, my cub! The wolves stole my cub! I’ll tear their heads off! I’ll tear off their legs and gouge out their eyes!”
“Mum! Mum!” Burney cried out. He was so scared, but she could not hear him through the roaring din and the thunderous pounding of her massive feet.
A league or more down the river, another grizzly mother heard the rage of a mother whose cub had been taken, wounded, or killed. Instinctively, she reached for her tiny cub and pressed him close to her chest.
“Mum! Mum you’re squeezing me too hard!”
She licked his muzzle with her warm tongue. “Hush! Hush, little cub.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SHADOWS OF WAR
KATRIA AND AIRMEAD HAD BEEN traveling at press-paw speed. They now were standing on the edge of the shore of the Sea of Hoolemere. The fog rolled in from the southeast across the inlet, known as the bight, where a narrow strip of land hooked out and into the choppy water.
“Broken Talon Point,” Katria said. “We could save half a day at least if we swam this inlet. And the current would be with us, along with the wind.” She turned her head slowly toward Airmead. “Do you swim?”
“What wolf doesn’t?” She chuckled.
“It’ll be cold.”
“We have fur.”
“Our fur might freeze when we get out and the wind hits us. Ice will add weig
ht.”
“We’ll shake the water off,” Airmead said. She was already striding into the water.
“It won’t be easy. I just want to warn you,” Katria called after her.
“Living with the MacHeaths isn’t easy either. I’d rather die at the bottom of the Sea of Hoolemere than in the clan of the MacHeaths.”
That did it — Katria leaped into the churning waters of the inlet. The current was with them and it was strong. It almost seemed as if they couldn’t paddle their legs fast enough to keep up with it. The hardest part was holding their heads above the slapping waves. The fur on their face was soon rimed with salt. When they were about two-thirds of the way across, they began to feel themselves being pulled south.
“What’s happening?” Katria said.
“There must be an eddy swirling out from the shore.”
The eddy was dragging them fast now. They were swimming as hard as they could, for they were in real danger of being swept past the point and straight out to sea.
“Swim! Swim!” Katria yelled. She was younger and much stronger than Airmead. She could see Airmead’s head drooping and the water dashing in her face.
Katria, too, was having to fight hard. She did not have breath to spare, but she shouted out, “Airmead! Think of the MacHeaths and then think of life. Life, Airmead!” The words of the banuil caints flowed through her mind, words from bones that she had long forgotten but now seemed inscribed in her marrow. You are good. You are wise. You have strengths you have never known. And she shouted out all of the words she had found on those buried bones, until the salt air seemed to sing with them. She felt a surge within herself and she saw that Airmead was lifting her head higher. It was as if there were three powers propelling them toward the shore of Broken Talon Point — the wind, the current, and the secret language of Hordweard.
When Katria and Airmead staggered out of the water, they knew they had only a short distance to travel, another day at the most. They had cut a four-day journey into one that would barely take them three. Although they should have been exhausted, they found themselves oddly invigorated, and pressed on at almost attack speed. Their stops for rest were brief. Their food was restricted to prey nearby, small creatures that barely satisfied their hunger but were easy to catch. They had set out from the MacHeaths with a surge of energy that came with their sense of release, of deliverance from constant fear and savagery. But like the stench from a foul place, the brutality of the MacHeath plan to snatch a cub and take him to the Pit clung to them every step they took. Could they get to the MacNamaras in time? Could a cub be saved and a war averted? These questions drove them to a relentless pace.
When they finally slowed, Airmead noticed something. “What a strange track,” she said, looking up at Katria.
“How so?” Katria came over to where Airmead was standing. Katria lowered her muzzle to the prints that were blurred in the mud. The snow had ceased, the sun had come out and melted any remains of it, but the air was colder. That made sense, for they were far north, as far to the northeast as they had ever been. The previous day, they’d crossed the Broken Talon Peninsula, and by nightfall at the latest they would be with the MacNamara pack. By now, they were at least a hundred leagues from MacHeath territory. With each league, they had felt freer and a bit safer, for twice it had snowed and covered their tracks. They were both thankful for this strange weather, so peculiar to the summer moons. But then ahead of them, they had caught sight of paw prints.
“It’s an outflanker’s print!” Katria said.
“An outflanker’s!”
“Absolutely.”
Airmead would not question her word because Katria herself had long served as an outflanker for the MacHeaths, first in her natal pack and then in the pack of the chieftain when she had joined with Donaidh.
“But she …” Katria stopped.
“What? She what?”
“Something is wrong with her.”
“Not the foaming-mouth disease. Her paw mark is straight,” Airmead said quickly. A splayed paw print was the sign of the disease.
“No, no, it’s not splayed at all. And the scent is not MacHeath. I want to backtrack a bit and look at the prints more closely. You can wait here. I’m not going far,” Katria said.
Airmead settled down on a soft clump of rabbit-ear moss. She knew that the owls sometimes used this moss to line their nests. She looked at Katria as she quickly loped down the trail, her gait easy and efficient. The MacHeaths would miss her as an outflanker. Katria was not given to much talk, but she was obviously still grieving for her daughter, Kyran. That would pass. Perhaps she would find a new mate in the MacNamara clan and have a new litter. How lovely to raise pups free from the brutality and terror of the MacHeaths. She herself could have no such dreams, of course, for she was barren.
It wasn’t long before Katria returned. “I think she’s blind.”
“Who’s blind?”
“The outflanker. She’s being led.”
“I can understand how you can tell that she is being led. I mean, there are other wolf’s prints up ahead. But how can you tell she’s blind?”
“It’s hard to explain. There’s a certain hesitation before she puts down her lead paw, and she plants it too hard. As if … as if … she thinks the earth might slip out from under her.”
Airmead nodded. “Let’s get on our way.”
“Yes, we might catch up with them.”
It was nearing noon when they spotted the two wolves. As they rounded a bend, a wolf with a pelt the color of cooling flames stepped out from a thin stand of trees.
Airmead and Katria immediately began the submission postures.
The red wolf blinked. MacHeath she-wolves, he thought. No other wolves would begin submission postures so far in advance. They were now crawling on their bellies toward him. One of them had powerful shoulders, and he could tell she had been an outflanker. He trotted up to greet them.
“Please, please, rise up. No need for such observances here.” He spoke in a kind, respectful voice.
Airmead and Katria stole glances at each other. They were not used to such greetings. Slowly they rose to their knees but kept their tails low and their ears pressed back demurely.
“I am Brangwen, out of the MacDonegal clan.”
“Oh, my,” Katria said. “You have come a long way.”
“Yes. My mate …” He tossed his head in the direction of the stand of trees. “You see she is not well.” He hesitated, then said in a trembling voice that nearly broke Airmead’s and Katria’s hearts, “She … she’s blind.”
“And she was an outflanker,” Katria said softly.
“Yes.” Brangwen nodded, lifting his eyes to Katria. “You could tell, couldn’t you? Because you’re one as well.”
“Yes.”
“I thought so. Your shoulders.” Katria said nothing. “My wife, Morag, had a lot of good years left in her until the blindness came to her. We had to leave. There’s no place for an outflanker who can’t … can’t …”
“I understand,” Katria said. “You seek the MacNamaras. They make room for such females.”
“Yes, and you two seek the MacNamaras and don’t need to explain why, either.” He paused, then said in a more buoyant voice, “Come, let me introduce you to Morag. She’ll enjoy meeting a fellow outflanker and her friend.” He nodded at Airmead.
Airmead was struck by this wolf’s gentle manners. How kind of him to include her — she who was no use at all to anyone. She was an Obea, and most wolves, MacHeaths or otherwise, looked skittishly at barren females. Especially other she-wolves. She was thankful that Brangwen’s mate, Morag, was blind and might not sense her barren state. But then again, it was said that blind animals’ awareness of smell was sharper than creatures who could see.
Airmead didn’t need to worry. Morag seemed only happy to meet the two MacHeath she-wolves. She betrayed no sign of sensing that Airmead had been an Obea. There was not the slightest twitch of her nostrils to indicate
that she’d picked up a whiff of Airmead’s sterility.
“Well,” Morag said. “A clan can always use another outflanker. I’m not sure what they’ll do with me.” She spoke in an almost cheerful manner.
“Now, my dear, you can’t see,” Brangwen offered, “but you’ll be a good auntie.” Aunting behavior was common among wolves. If a she-wolf was too busy to mind her pups, another she-wolf often stepped in.
“I’m a good auntie because as an outflanker I had to depend on other good aunts when I was out on byrrgis. I appreciate what they did for my pups.” A shadow passed through Morag’s eyes and there was the dimmest pulse of green behind the milky film that covered them.
“No one can tell stories to pups like Morag,” Brangwen continued. “She has a true gift for the old ones, the stories of the Long Ago.”
Both Katria’s and Airmead’s tails drooped. There was rarely any storytelling among the MacHeaths. They did not value the tales of the Long Ago, when the wolves had first arrived after the Ice March. They lived only in the strife-torn depravity of their own here and now, smug in their ignorance of the past and the rich lore of the wolves of the Beyond. The MacHeaths didn’t even have a proper skreeleen. One of the tasks of a skreeleen was to read the sky fire to tell stories. The MacHeaths only had one ancient, nasty female whose sole tasks were to croak out territorial boundaries and announce what prey was in the region.
The four wolves returned to the trail. Morag seemed to gain confidence in the company of strong she-wolves, and Brangwen noticed that her pace had picked up. Airmead trotted behind Morag, and Katria was right at her shoulder, gently guiding her just as she might have initiated a flanking action to bend a byrrgis on the hunt.
“We must be nearing the camp,” Brangwen called out. “Look at this fog rolling in. We’re close to the northern sea. The Bittersea, I believe they call it.”
Mist began threading the air and quickly they were enveloped in an immense cloud that seemed to have settled across the land. The tips of their guard hairs were soon bristling with drops of vapor, and their pace slowed.
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