Watch Wolf

by Kathryn Lasky

  “Grizz is old and unsteady!” Dunbar MacHeath said, his ears shoved forward and his hackles raised. “He’s a perfect target for a slink melf!”

  “Aaaah!” An exhalation of relief and hope reverberated through the cave.

  “There will be a war yet with the bears. Malan, Fretta, Blyden, Andreen, Aila, Donaidh! We go now. Attack speed! By my marrow, the Sacred Ring shall be ours!”

  A savage howling erupted from the gathered wolves as the largest slink melf ever assembled tore out of the cave and streaked toward the four yondos on the darkling plains of the Black Glass Desert.

  With the exception of the MacHeaths, there had been much rejoicing among the clans of the Beyond when Toby returned unharmed. What had initially begun as a march to the opening front of a terrible war was now a joyous journey to celebrate the return of a cub. There were two wolves, however, whose relief was tinged with anxiety.

  “You know what this means?” Katria said in a low voice to Airmead.

  The white wolf nodded. “Yes, of course. Dunbar MacHeath will not go silently into oblivion.”

  The two wolves stopped as the rest of the MacNamaras flowed by them.

  “He’ll still want his war,” Katria said. “They’ll be up to something.”

  Without saying another word, Katria and Airmead peeled off from the expeditionary force and headed toward the rondos in the Black Glass Desert, intent on stopping any wolves who wanted to turn the celebration into a bloodbath.

  Airmead marveled that soon Katria, hackles raised and nose to the ground, began picking up not just scents but tracks — tracks that, to another wolf, might seem anonymous. But Katria knew these paw prints from when she had to press the wolves running a byrrgis into crimping maneuvers, blocking strategies, and tackling sprints. She had run nearly every position on a MacHeath byrrgis. “This is Blyden … and of course Donaidh — the old fool. I’d know his paw print anyplace. And here’s Malan and Fretta.” She stopped in her tracks. “Andreen! Aila! Great Lupus! It’s a slink melf led by Dunbar!” She looked up at Airmead. “They’re going to assassinate Grizz!”

  A large silence opened up in the Darklands, like jaws that seemed to swallow the drumming of the bears in anticipation of the cub’s arrival. It was as if the entire Beyond had paused to savor the momentous event. Wolves shoved their ears forward, owls rotated their heads so their ear slits could catch the rumbled whispers that began to rise from the army of bears. “They say he’s coming. Toby is coming!”

  Then near the Twisted Four, a voice split the drumming. “Toby!” Bronka roared. The mother and cub ran toward each other through a dark, winding path that wove between the small hillocks, separating the four yondos. Grizz roared in jubilation.

  “Where are they?” Airmead said desperately. The track for the slink melf had gone cold almost as soon as they had reached the Black Glass Desert. Unlike dirt, the granules of the fine sand could not hold a print. The slink melf‘s scent, too, seemed to evaporate in the dry air.

  “We have to keep our eyes on Grizz,” Airmead said.

  “You watch Grizz. I’ll watch the dark.” Katria had begun to realize that the Black Glass Desert was not all dark in the same way. And although the eerie dunes and plains seemed shadowless, there were more shades of black than one might imagine. Katria caught a movement at the far edge of her vision, less than forty strides away, where Grizz had just turned behind one of the hillocks.

  An extraordinary energy coursed through her. She had no memory of her feet leaving the ground, but suddenly she was airborne and sailing over the small hill that obscured Grizz. Her teeth sank into Andreen’s ruff just as Andreen sank her teeth into the haunches of the Bear of Bears. There was a roar that sounded as if the earth were being torn apart. Katria, her vision obscured by spraying blood, somehow managed to jump clear as Grizz’s massive body began to collapse.

  There was a thunderous howling followed by the rumbling growls of bears. “Grizz was attacked!” someone yelled. And that someone was not Grizz’s guards but Dunbar MacHeath himself! The slink melf had managed to vanish except for Andreen, who was pinned under the Grizz’s body. A tangle of wolves surrounded Edme. She glimpsed Jasper and the Fengo, but there were others.

  It took Edme a split second to understand what had transpired. “It’s the MacHeaths! They attacked.”

  “No!” Dunbar started to shout as he raced away from where the slink melf had been. He didn’t get far before Edme was upon him like an airborne missile. She tore open his face, ripping the scar that her own mother had carved. She pulled and pulled on his flesh, digging her fangs in ever deeper until she sliced into the life-giving artery in his neck and a huge spurt of blood drenched her.

  Dunbar MacHeath looked at her with bewilderment. “How? How?” he gurgled.

  “I finished my mum’s work, that’s all,” Edme whispered.

  “Death to the wolves,” someone from the throng of bears cried out. “Death to the wolves.”

  “No!” roared a she-bear. It was Toby’s mum. She loped forward with both her cubs riding on her back. “Listen to me! Listen!”

  “It’s Bronka. Bronka and both her cubs,” others whispered.

  The Bear of Bears stirred. The throngs gathered closer as they watched him stagger to his feet. Crushed beneath him was the body of Andreen.

  “Who is this wolf?” Grizz asked, somewhat dazed.

  Edme stepped forward. “She’s Andreen MacHeath, point wolf for the MacHeath clan’s assassination operations.”

  “Did you kill her?” the Bear of Bears roared.

  “Not me.” Edme turned her head to look for Katria.

  “I did,” said Katria, stepping out from behind a yondo. “I’m Katria, former outflanker of the MacHeath clan, now a member of the noble MacNamaras.”

  “You saved my life,” said the Bear of Bears, and began to bow down to her painfully on his arthritic knees, though even bowed, he stood twice as high as the black-as-night wolf. “You saved my life,” he repeated.

  “I did, but there are two wolves who saved many lives,” Katria said.

  “Wh-what …” Grizz stammered softly. It was as if his mouth could not form the words.

  “Edme, the wolf who killed the MacHeath chieftain, and the other, the silver wolf. These two found the cub and brought them here to stop a war that should never have started.”

  “Yes, yes,” the Bear of Bears said softly, marveling at the wonder of it all.

  The Fengo now made his way up to where the Bear of Bears knelt.

  “Honorable Grizz, Bear of Bears, the peace that has reigned in the Beyond for over a thousand years was nearly destroyed by the brutality of one clan.”

  He looked toward the MacHeaths. Dunbar and Andreen were dead. Donaidh had escaped, but Malan and Fretta had been rounded up. “As Fengo of the Watch, I now invoke the privilege accorded only to myself, the privilege of the Supreme Sayer. On occasions of great peril, it is my right to dispense with a Court of Crait and issue an immediate pronouncement — a Fengasso, or last word of the Fengo. I hereby declare that the MacHeaths are no longer a clan of the wolves of the Beyond.” Malan and Fretta’s eyes flashed green in the night as they looked at each other. Was it regret, remorse, or was there the glint of a challenge? Edme wondered.

  “From this moment hence, they are outclanners and shall be treated as such. Nevermore will their gnaw wolves be permitted to participate in the gaddergnaw competitions for selection to the Watch. Nor will they be permitted to attend the moon celebrations of the longest night, when all the clans gather. Nor will they be permitted to join with packs of other clans for byrrgises. I shall ask the Namara to dispatch a patrol from her clan to chase the MacHeaths from the Beyond into the Outermost immediately. From this moment, they are crait!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  EIGHT MOONS PASSING

  THE MOON OF THE FLIES HAD come and gone, along with the Moon of the Mossflowers and the Caribou Moon, followed by the three winter moons. The odd thing was that, alt
hough the sun still rose and fell according to the seasons and the days were growing longer now, the rivers were still frozen. It was the Moon of the Cracking Ice, but snow still lay thick on the ground. Faolan and Edme were nearing the completion of their first year on the Watch of the Ring. They had now perched on every cairn that overlooked each of the five volcanoes. They had learned the volcanoes’ temperaments and how their moods changed through a moon from first shine to no shine, when the moon vanished. They knew the smell of each volcanoes’ sulfurous expulsions. They knew that the most boring watch was on Kiel, a shield volcano whose long, gently sloping lava flows yielded the fewest retrievable coals and therefore was the least visited by colliering owls.

  One evening early in the Moon of the Cracking Ice, Faolan stood perched on a cairn overlooking Dunmore. He had just completed a series of scanning jumps off the keybone when he looked down and saw a wolf trotting toward him. An unmistakable wolf, the Sark of the Slough.

  She was a freakish creature with eyes of different colors — one the true green of a wolf of the Beyond, the other an amberish gold that skittered about without any seeming focus. Her pelt blew like a She-Wind in raging disorder about her bony frame, so she looked like a small approaching weather front. Icicles had formed on the fur beneath her jaw so it seemed as if she had a long, glistening beard, which added to the strangeness of her appearance. But along with Gwynneth and Edme, the Sark was one of Faolan’s closest friends in the Beyond.

  She looked up at Faolan and said, “Come with me.”

  “I can’t. I’m on watch,” Faolan answered.

  “I’ve arranged it with the Fengo,” the Sark replied. And sure enough, Faolan saw Twistling trotting toward the cairn.

  “Go along now, young’un. You got business to do with the Sark. I’ll take this shift and have arranged to cover the rest while you’re gone.”

  Business? Faolan was completely confused and suddenly apprehensive. A quiver ran through his marrow.

  Before the moon had risen to wolf’s peak, they were well on their way. The Sark had set a course due north, but now they had begun to veer to the east. She hadn’t spoken since they left, not a word about their destination or why she was taking him to it. He knew better than to ask. Unnecessary questions made the Sark incredibly cranky, and a cranky Sark was not one that any wolf wanted to deal with. A Masked Owl suddenly appeared overhead.

  “Gwynneth!” Faolan howled. But she merely looked down and gave him an intensely somber look. The quiver that had coursed through his marrow quieted and was replaced with a strange and deep longing. He quickened his pace.

  “Slow down,” the Sark said gently. “Don’t wear yourself out. We’ll get there in time.”

  In time for what? he wondered. He thought he noticed a glimmering in the Sark’s steady eye, a tear. Gwynneth swooped down to fly low, and Faolan felt a quiet shudder of air as she hovered over him. It seemed to Faolan as if he were folded into the shadow of her wings, as if she were tying to protect him. For the next day and a half, they traveled this way, making only brief stops for rest. Faolan had never been so far north. It was in the late afternoon with the sun still bright on the horizon that he realized they were crossing the top of a peninsula.

  “We’re going to the MacNamara clan, aren’t we?” Faolan said.

  The Sark stopped. The snow was up to her belly. Gwynneth lighted down on a snow-covered rock and spread her talons wide to support her weight so that she didn’t sink into the powder. Faolan looked at the two creatures regarding him with tear-filled eyes. “Would you two like to tell me what this is about?”

  “Fao-lan.” The Sark’s voice cracked. She began again. “Faolan, we’re taking you to meet your first Milk Giver.”

  The Namara herself came out to greet them and lead them to a den at the edge of the encampment. “She’s waiting. Brangwen thought it best that we not tell her yet.” The Namara turned to Faolan, who was still reeling with astonishment and had not uttered a word since being told. “You mother, your first Milk Giver, is dying. She’s blind, so she might not know you.”

  “Oh, but she will! SHE WILL!” he replied fiercely.

  “Come, young’un.” A large, handsome red wolf appeared beside Faolan. “I am your mother’s second mate, Brangwen MacDonegal. Follow me.”

  The den was a small west-facing cave flush with the low-angled afternoon sun. On a pile of thick elk skins lay a frail but once beautiful silver wolf. As soon as they entered the cave, Morag’s nostrils began to twitch. She lifted her head from the pelt, but just barely. “Who is this? Who comes?”

  No one spoke a word as Faolan crawled on his belly toward his first Milk Giver. He tipped his muzzle so she could sniff him. Tears began to stream from her filmed eyes. “Is it? Is it really you?” she asked.

  Faolan lifted his splayed paw and pressed it gently to Morag’s mouth. She knew instinctively what he wanted. Her tongue slipped out and began to lick the spiraling marks on the pad of his paw.

  “Great Lupus, I am blessed! You survived! You survived! I thought so when I found the bones of the grizzly. What was it, ten moons after your birth? I smelled you on those bones. I had hoped, I had prayed. But now I know it’s true. The blessed grizzly gave you her milk. I smell that, too, even now.”

  “Yes, Mum. I survived. Thunderheart made me grow. I am a wolf of the Watch now.”

  “The Watch!” she exclaimed as tears streamed from her sightless eyes and she began to lick his face. “Thunderheart was the name of your second Milk Giver?”

  “Yes, Mum.”

  He nestled closer to her until he could feel the beat of her heart, its strange rhythms as it sped up, then seemed to falter. He closed his eyes and listened as he rested his face against her shoulders. Her breathing grew ragged.

  “And what do they call you?” she gasped.

  “Faolan. Thunderheart named me Faolan. It means ‘gift from the river.’”

  “Gift,” she murmured. “I had planned to name you Skaarsgard after the Star Wolf, who helps spirits climb the star ladder to the Cave of Souls.”

  “Why?” Faolan asked.

  “Because although your pelt was not yet thick, I could tell it was silvery and it looked as if the stars had fallen into it. But Faolan, that is a lovely name. Gift, yes. That’s a perfect name, for I felt blessed when you were born. You were not cursed in the least. You were my gift and they took my gift away…. Gift …” she whispered, her voice growing dimmer. “Gift,” she said, her tongue still on his paw. Once more she said the word, barely audibly, then Faolan felt the last beat of her heart.

  He lay there for a while. But soon the warmth began to seep out of her body, and he knew that he must go out into the cold for the last part of his Slaan Leat, a final part of the journey he would never have anticipated ten moons ago.

  EPILOGUE

  HE TRAVELED ALONE TO THE END of the peninsula, an icy point that jutted out into the raging Sea of Hoolemere. It was here that he had decided to build the drumlyn for his mother, Morag, with bones he’d found buried in the snow along the way.

  The Sark and Gwynneth said they would wait for him. “No matter how long it takes,” the Sark said. “And in the summer, if ever there is a summer again, you can come back and add her bones to the drumlyn.”

  Faolan found a rough shelter in the lee of the point and set about incising the bones. He would add more, including some from his first Milk Giver, as the years passed. Perhaps soon the huge skeleton of Thunderheart might break apart, and he could carry one to this point. But he would not worry about that now. A small drumlyn was better than no drumlyn. He began his carving with what he thought might have been his first memories — those of the other wriggling pups beside him, their scent. He only remembered their scent for, as a newborn, his eyes were sealed shut and he would not have known the other pups by sight. The sensations of those first days came back to him one by one. Many of them were feelings of absence — the absence of the wriggling movement; the void of scent; the lack of warmth. Th
en these vacancies were filled with something unbearably cold — the sterile smell of what he presumed must have been the Obea.

  After a full night of carving, Faolan looked at the bones and realized that, although he had carved them eloquently, he had very little to say. In comparison to the bones he had carved for Thunderheart’s drumlyn, these seemed empty. But he knew so little about his first Milk Giver in comparison to Thunderheart. He was not sure what to carve next. From the first moment he entered the den where she lay dying, he knew he loved her. It seemed in a strange way as if he had never left her. Her pelt was familiar although much less lustrous than it must have once been. He had loved the feeling of her tongue tracing the spirals on his splayed paw. It was so alive, so intimate, so motherly. I have a mum. The words streamed through his mind. And so that was what he carved, over and over until it became I have two mums. I grew with the milk of two mums in my blood. The milk of two in my marrow.

  A blizzard had been blowing for the two days Faolan carved, but on the night of the second day, as he began to build the small drumlyn, the snow began to fall more slowly. The wind ceased and each flake appeared like a jewel against the blackness of the night. The Great Star Wolf had just begun to climb out of its winter den on the other side of the earth to appear in the eastern sky along with the ladder to the Cave of Souls. Faolan howled as he built the drumlyn. It was the howling known as glaffling, the howl of grief and mourning. But as he placed the last bone and looked up, he saw something astonishing. The mist of Morag was shimmering in the sky, and then not far behind it was a larger mist, an immense vaporous shape that loomed at the base of the star ladder and followed his first Milk Giver. It was his second Milk Giver. It was Thunderheart! Finally, she had sprung from the drumlyn he had made by the river. Finally, she had left the earth. Finally, she knew he had grown up safely and she could look down at him from Ursulana!