Lone Wolf (16 page)

This order had been inscribed on gnaw-bones from time immemorial. It was, indeed, the first exercise that young gnaw wolves were put to after their return to a pack. They were required to spend endless hours on repeatedly gnawing the design of the Great Chain of the cosmic order that ruled the wolves of the Beyond. Wolves of the Outermost had flouted this order and had descended into chaos and discord. Even their howling reflected the dissonance of their lives.

But there was one creature who had not precisely flouted the order, yet dared to explore elements higher than she on the Great Chain. That wolf was the Sark of the Slough. She had become familiar with fire in a way that seemed to defy the order of things, and somehow neither commotion nor chaos had ensued. She was called a witch, or a Sark, for it was believed that she had special powers. She lived in a marshy region of the Beyond called the Slough. There, in a many-chambered cavern, she pursued experiments with what she called materials of the natural world.

That, in the eyes of the wolves of the Beyond, was the first insult. Fire was not of the natural world. It was from
above and the only creatures who might consider it part of their world were owls, for they were also of air.

Of the wolves, only the Sark of the Slough had set herself to learn about fire. However, as soon as she had learned the rudiments of ember, coal, flame, and fire, she had kept herself apart from the owls. She was reclusive by nature. No one was sure where she had come from, nor did they know her clan ties.

There were, of course, rumors. Some said that she had been born so ugly, no wolf would mate with her. Considered barren, she might have been appointed Obea, but she had refused. It was then she had gone off to pursue her Sarkish practices and poke her snout into matters that were unnatural for a wolf. Others said that she had been born beautiful, so beautiful that her own mother, a she-wolf with Sarkish powers, had cast a spell upon her in a fit of jealousy that resulted in her hideous face.

Her face was not pretty, blighted by one eye that seemed to skitter a bit to the side. And her fur was wild, as if not just her hackles but her entire pelt was in a constant state of alarm. If one could look closely at her eyes—if indeed that one eye was not so skittish—one would see that her eyes were not the same color. One was the true green of the wolves of the Beyond, but
the roving eye was amber colored, like the amber of an owl’s eyes.

She was, in short, a freakish sort of creature. Of course, if she had had these defects at birth she would have been deemed a
malcadh
and been carried away by an Obea to be abandoned, and had she survived she would have become a gnaw wolf. But she was none of these and thus it was decided that she must be a Sark.

The Sark often muttered to herself as she pursued her experiments in her cave. She thought the other wolves’ attitudes toward her a “grand silliness.” There was nothing really witchy about her. She did not have powers. She had
ideas
.

She did not deal in evil charms. There was not an evil bone in her body, not an evil thought in her brain. In truth, she was a rather gentle wolf, and perhaps her greatest regret in life was not that she had never mated, but that she could not perform
lochinvyrr
as tidily as she might have liked because of her skittering eye. It was hard to look dying prey in the eye and acknowledge their lives as worthy when her eyeball was jumping about all over the place.

It would have been a shock to the other wolves that the Sark had any such emotions.

The wolves needed a Sark, because if there was one thing that fed the imagination of wolves as much as meat, it was the notion of strange, inexplicable powers. They weren’t stupid, nor were they mean-spirited. But they were credulous, from the
skreeleens
with their half-baked star predictions to the chieftains with their elaborate rituals designed to rid the
gadderheals
of ill omens. The Sark did not know how she came by her decidedly practical and un-wolfish bent of mind.

She was contemplating all this as she tended one of the fires at the mouth of her cavern, preparing to mix henbane and mint to treat the scours that had afflicted a lone she-wolf. The wolf had been driven from her clan for giving birth to a
malcadh
just days before. She-wolves were frequently afflicted after losing their young.

This particular she-wolf had been cast out of the MacDuff clan. She was resting in one of the chambers deep in the cavern. The Sark often provided a halfway den for the grieving mothers. She hunted for them, gave them restorative tonics that she brewed up. The whole business that accompanied the birth of a
malcadh
was cruel, but one of the more practical customs of the clan wolves. It kept the clan healthy and maintained good bloodlines. It was usually possible for the cast-out parents
to find new packs in other clans and new mates and produce healthy pups. This wolf would, too. The Sark would assure her of that in a few days, but it was too early now to broach the subject. The last thing this she-wolf wanted to hear about was a new pack, or a handsome recently widowed male wolf.

The Sark caught a whiff of something cutting through the aroma of the minted henbane, and stopped stirring. She walked outside the opening of the cavern to see the four chieftains approaching. “Oh, Great Glaux! What in the name of Lupus are the old codgers up to now?”

“YOU SAY THE PRINT WAS TRULY distinct?”

“Indeed.” The four chieftains nodded and replied in unison.

The Sark shook her head mournfully. She had no potions, medicines, or ointments for the foaming-mouth disease. The only way to stop it was to build a large fire and drive the foaming-mouth wolf into it. Of course she would help them.

She took her coal bucket, for which she had traded meat years before, and joined them. The Sark and the chieftains traveled together with some of their pack lords and officers, winding their way out of the Slough and onto the raised plains of the central plateau, where the chieftains had last seen the print of the splayed paw. They followed the track for the better part of the
afternoon, but the Sark was growing uneasy. The print was not as clear as she would have thought, and most per-plexing, it seemed that the wolf was favoring one paw, or at least that the other three left indistinct marks that could not be read as splayed. Was it that the sequence of footfalls was off? But she got no sense that the wolf was staggering.

It was slow going, as Duncan MacDuncan could not keep up on his arthritic legs. One corporal, a fast female, ran point. She was accompanied by two outflankers, also very fast females, who covered a wider swath on either side. There were back runners, too, both males, who looked for evidence that the foaming-mouth wolf was going back to cover its tracks. The Sark thought this was exceedingly stupid, as a wolf with foaming mouth became mad and would not have the sense to double back.

That was the other thing that disturbed the Sark. The foaming-mouth wolf’s trail was straight, not erratic in a way that might suggest a crazed creature. But what disturbed the Sark the most was the splaying of that one paw. How could one paw be affected by the disease and not all four?

The outflankers had just returned with the news that the wolf had headed west toward the lagoons, shallow tur-quoise lakes rimed in salt.

“Good! Good!” exclaimed Angus MacAngus. “There is a defile near there that’s perfect for building a fire trap. We’ll send a team with you to help dig the trench.” Angus MacAngus wheeled about and reared. “Laird, Mac, Brienne, you three head up the fuel collection.” Then he turned to the other chieftains. “Will you honor us by appointing three mid-ranking in your clan to aid quarter-master Corporal Laird in fueling operations?”

Sark looked on, impressed by the crisp commands, the flawless organization. She had to credit them for their remarkable ability to marry the irrational messiness of their minds with the precision required of operational thinking. They were a wonder!

The Sark felt this might be the moment to introduce a reasonable question. She knew she would have to go through all the nonsense of those extravagant gestures of submission. What a pile of caribou poop!

But she folded her front knees under her chest and began lowering herself, peeling her lips back in a grimace of total humility. Sinking her head, grinding her jaw into the ground, and then twisting it so her good eye looked at the chieftain, she flashed it white in the final sign of humility. The skittering eye was hopeless at this sort of thing.

“Your question, Sark?”

“I would humbly beg to ask the outflankers for a description of the marks of the toe digs.”

The chieftain nodded toward Finola. Cautiously, the wolf stepped forward. She was so frightened of the Sark that she trembled. “The toe digs were classic for a foaming-mouth creature. They dug deep into the ground, spaced perhaps twice or maybe even three times the normal width apart.”

“All of the toe digs were as you describe?” the Sark asked. It was very hard to speak with half her face screwed into the ground, but the chieftain had not given her the sign to rise up as yet. He probably didn’t want the out-flanker to see her skittering eye. The poor thing was nervous enough as it was, and there was nothing like an amber-colored eye rolling about like some spoiled egg yolk to set a stomach churning.

“I am not sure what you mean by all the toes, uh…uh.”

It was obvious that Finola was not certain how to address the Sark. The Sark held no rank. The Chieftain had called her Sark, but—

The Sark spared her the pain of this decision by ask-ing another question. “I mean were the toe digs all from
one paw? More precisely, we know that this wolf is on an easterly course. Which would mean that the splayed toe digs would flare south or north. Did you notice them all flaring in one direction?”

There was a long pause before Finola answered. “Well, now that I think about it, yes, the most distinct marks seemed to flare slightly to the south.”

“None to the north?”

“Uh…uh…I’m…” she stammered. Finally, she said, “I cannot really say those marks were less distinct, but very possibly.”

“Might this suggest that we are dealing with…well, not a clear-cut situation if only one paw seems to bear the symptoms of the foaming-mouth disease?”

“One paw, two, three, or four!” Duffin MacDuff stepped forward. “What does it matter? This disease means doom.”

“Yes! Absolutely!” There was a chorus of huzzahs, cries of approval, and paw-pounding to signal the wolves’ agreement with Duffin MacDuff.

The Sark sensed it was a lost cause, but she felt compelled to give reason one more try. “The evidence does not suggest that. I ask you to reconsider—”

Duffin MacDuff snarled and cut her off immediately.

“There shall be no more argument. We must proceed to build the fire trap immediately! The coals are still hot?” Angus McAngus asked.

“Yes, sir,” the Sark answered grimly, peering down at the bucket which glowed orange-red with the hot embers.

“Then rise up and go to the salt lagoon defile.”

FAOLAN TROTTED UP A GENTLE incline to a promontory from which he could see two sparkling lakes. They twinkled like twin gemstones in the clear air. The sun, as luminous as the amber eye of an owl, was making its stately descent. Faolan was watching this spectacle when he had the sudden sensation that there was something on his trail. Oddly enough, the feeling was not unfamiliar. He realized that this sense of being followed had been with him for some time, perhaps since the sun had first risen.

He made for the lakes, but the sensation stayed with him.

Who could be tracking me?
He crouched down to press his ear to the ground. The sound cut through him like fangs. This was not just a predator, nor was it a single animal. This was the sound of wolves, and not just a pack,
but several packs. He closed his eyes, not able to quite believe what he was hearing. The painted image from the Cave Before Time flashed in his mind. Those
byrrgises
that he had seen and longed to travel with—
that will never be!

The words dropped into his mind like pebbles in still water, the ripples radiating with the terrible truth.
I am the prey!
This was the sound of a
byrrgis,
and they were on his trail.

The sound was drawing closer. There was no time for anger, no time for regret. He had to use all his wits and all his muscle. Could he confuse wolves? Could he leave a false track somehow? But where? The landscape was barren. Could he circle back, loop around? Desperately he looked about and then he caught a glimpse of them just breaking over the bluffs behind him.

One wolf against a
byrrgis!
I’m doomed!
He could hear their pace. It was not press paw yet. They did not go full out until they were close, to conserve their energy.

A frantic thought flashed into Faolan’s mind. His chest was broader than many of the wolves he’d seen, not just the yearlings but the full-grown wolves, too. Thunderheart had made him jump and walk on two legs, and pressed him to eat the richest meat. Now he could take bigger, deeper breaths to propel himself
forward. That would be his strategy.
Let them catch up to me on the flats, and I’ll fool them into thinking they almost have me and then press paw on the hills.
There were several hills ahead; there was a slim chance he could outrun them.

But as he leaped forward, grief coursed through him. He could not believe that the wolves of the Beyond were trying to kill him. Gwynneth had been wrong. He cut off the thought and slowed. He could hear their panting now, and four long shadows stretched on either side of him. They were catching up. Just ahead was the first bluff. Faolan sprang forward as he reached the beginning of the incline and began to streak toward the crest. The sound of their footfalls receded. The shadows of the outflankers that had been closing in vanished. He knew there was another long flat stretch ahead where they would catch up again. Could he wear them out? How long could he spin out this game with them?