Wolves of the Beyond: Watch Wolf (2 page)

WHEN THE MOON SLIPPED AWAY,
the wolves fell asleep and huddled against each other as the night became colder. Faolan dreamed of fire — a particular fire in the meeting cave of the MacDuncan clan when he had been brought before the
raghnaid,
the wolf jury, for having violated hunting law. It was not the warmth of that bright fire of which he dr
eamed — a foil to the cold stares of the jury. It was a pattern of sorts that flared into his mind, a swirl of bright orange and yellow buried deep in the base of the flames. The spiraling flame echoed an odd mark on Faolan’s splayed paw. In his dream, the spiral became larger and larger and seemed to devour him in a spinning madness as the late chief Duncan MacDuncan’s face loomed immense behind the flames.

“He knew! He knew!”

“Faolan! Wake up!”

Faolan leaped instantly to his feet, towering over Edme. She looked up, concern filling her eyes. “Who knew what?” she asked.

“Did I say something in my sleep?”

“In your dream more likely — a bad dream at that.”

“No! No! Not really bad. At least I don’t think so.
I dreamed of fire, of warmth,” Faolan said.

“I dreamed, too, of warmth, a winter dream,” Edme replied.

“For a summer vanished. Look!” Faolan peered out from their shelter.

A thin coat of ice skimmed the shallow water of the marsh. To the east, the rising sun splintered on jagged points of grass now stiff with frost.

“What in the world is going on?” Edme said. “Lo
ok, the spiderweb is still here, all frosty, and the wind blew hard last night — but there isn’t a tear in it! You said it was strong.”

“Yes, and you can see that the frost must have doubled its weight. But it’s all in one piece.”

Edme’s teeth were chattering as she
stepped close to Faolan. “It’s almost the summer moons, the Moon of the
Flies. It makes no sense for it to be this cold!”

“Those elk and caribou, all the migrating animals, are going to turn right around and head south if this keeps up,” Faolan said.

“If this keeps up, it’s going to be the hunger moons of winter all year round.”

The two wolves, both carrying antlers carved with their
Slaan Leat
stories tucked beneath their chins, parted ways at the edge of the marsh. Faolan was heading farther south toward the river, Edme heading north toward Crooked Back Ridge. They would meet at the beginning of the Moon of the Flies, the first of the true summer moons.

“Let’s hope the flies don’t become snowflakes,” Edme said with a touch of her old familiar cheer, which relieved Faolan. Perhaps she was not as downcast about this
tummfraw
business as he had thought. Surely she would feel something when she arrived at her peak.

The sudden frost of the previous night had melted away, and the sun shone bright in the blue bowl of the sky. Edme had expected the ridge to be capped in snow but was surprised at how low the snow line fell. Nevertheless, there was an abundance of tiny flowers flecking the slopes. The flowers that grew at this time of
year were called Beyond Blossoms and were known for their toughness and ability to thrive in a harsh land with more rocks than soil and with abrasive winds that scoured away anything that could not cling fiercely. Their blossom time was short, but a night of frost had not discouraged them. Edme paused and set down her antler to study the tiny face of an ice violet. They were the first of the Beyond Blossoms, popping up at the end of the Moon of the Cracking Ice. As she peered into the purple cup with tiny little branching filaments at its center, she marveled at how the flower surv
ived. It was no higher than half the length of one of her claws, and appeared to be growing straight out of the rock.
It’s so fragile and yet so strong, like the spiderweb after the frost.

I must be strong, too,
Edme thought as she plodded on toward the crest of the ridge. But with each step forward, she felt an increasing sense of unease. She was anxious, anxious to be done with what she felt was a travesty of some sort regarding this
tummfraw.

By the time she reached the crest and headed toward the northern peak, it was high noon.
Get it over with,
she told herself.
Just get it over with.
The peak, of course, was not a pointy mountaintop. She knew it wouldn’t be. From a distance, all peaks appeared sharp and seemed to prick
the sky. But it was just a distortion of perspective. The greater the distance, the sharper the profile of a peak, but when approached, the land flattened. The
tummfraw
loomed up before her now, a flat table rock. She felt nothing. Absolutely nothing.
I was never here — never, ever here. This is not my
tummfraw!

THE SCENT OF THE RIVER DOESN’T
change much, no matter the season. Even when the ice is thick upon it, somehow the river’s tang seeps through. After the Moon of the Cracking Ice in spring, the river unlocks; the deep ooze of the bottom mud mingles with the woody fragrance of tree roots that grow on the banks and are scrubbed by the coursing waters. Faolan fel
t a quickening in his marrow as he passed the summer den and then the spring den where he had spent his infancy tucked in the embrace of his second Milk Giver, the great grizzly Thunderheart.

He knew the den as soon as he saw it. There was a steep embankment and just above it a large cave, where Thunderheart’s last cub had been murdered by a pair of cougars. Faolan stopped. After all this time, there were
still signs of a skid path down from the higher ground of the cave to the water. Stumps from broken trees stood witness to the grizzly’s rage as, wild with grief, she had hurled herself toward the roaring river, only to find that it was too shallow for her to drown. There she had sat for hours, keening into the wind, begging Great Ursus to take her life, until something snagged on her foot. At first she thought it was a clump of river debris torn from the bank in the river’s spring tumult. But it was not. It was a tiny wolf pup.

So often Thunderheart had told this story to Faolan. Her words came back to him now as he stood on the spot where Thunderheart had found him, half a league from the
tummfraw
where the Obea Shibaan had left him. He would go to his
tummfraw
soon, but he needed to stop here for a spell and think.
I sought death,
he remembered Thunderheart saying,
and you sought life. You were a gift from the river.
There were no more stories now, for Thunderheart was dead. There were only bones left to gnaw to her memory.

Faolan made his way toward his
tummfraw.
It wasn’t as difficult to find as he had thought. He looked down at the bank gouged out now by three winters of rampaging ice and water. A pulse seemed to quiver deep in his
marrow, and his hackles rose. This was indeed the place. There was a weathered rut that could have been the very one made when the fragment of ice on which the Obea placed him had torn from the bank. So this was his
tummfraw,
this little spot of bank was where, as a
mewling pup, he had been left to die.

He circled it three times. There was a fam
iliarity to the spot that stirred the scent glands between the toes of his paws, and he found himself marking the ground. Then he settled on his haunches and looked out at the river flowing gently by. A mist began rising as the river water, still cool from winter, mingled with the warmer air. The mist became thicker, furling and unfurling into undulating patterns that were almost hypnotic. The roar of the river’s torrential rampage during the night he was abandoned came back to him. He gripped the banks now as once as a tiny pup he had gripped the ice raft. All of the sensations of those moments c
ame back to him — the dizzying nausea as the ice shelf bounced in the turbulence, the terrible cold when icy water dashed over him, and the roar that grew louder and louder. His claws still digging into the bank, he looked deeply into the mist and saw a familiar pattern. The same design that had swirled through the fire in his dream the previous night now swirled in the mist before him.

In that moment, Faolan knew what he would do. He would bring some of Thunderheart’s bones back to the cave high up on the riverbank and build a
drumlyn,
a small mound, to honor her. It had bothered him that he had never seen the
lochin
of Thunderheart climb the star ladders to Ursulana, the bear heaven. If he made this
drumlyn,
it might be a perch from which her spirit could leap. He would build Thunderheart’s
drumlyn
not on the place of his abandonment but on the place where he had been found. This was the meaning of the
Slaan Leat
for him. The mist had cleared and the river ran on smooth and dark, like an amber ribbon. As Faolan trotted at a brisk pace toward the secret place where he had buried the bones of his sec
ond Milk Giver, another thought began to seep into his mind as if out of nowhere.
My first Milk Giver! Who was she? What did she think of me? Did she feel cursed to give birth to such a pup? Were there others? Do I have sisters or brothers still in the clan?

AS EDME MADE HER WAY DOWN
from the northern peak of Crooked Back Ridge, she could not help but wonder what Faolan had felt when he found his
tummfraw.
She was certain that he would not have experienced the same emptiness she had when she stepped onto the table rock at the peak. Whenever she thought about it, she wanted to blame herself,
but she knew this made no sense. She was not to blame — if anything, it was the
tummfraw
that was wrong, or the Fengo who had made a mistake. She was almost tempted to go to the Obea of the MacHeath clan and ask her point-blank if this was the right
tummfraw.
But Edme had to be honest with herself. She loathed the entire clan and had no desire to go back into MacHeath territory.

The MacHeath Obea was a white wolf named Airmead. This was a cruel name, for in the Old Wolf language, it meant “barren.” Of course all Obeas were barren, but only the MacHeaths would choose to take away whatever the Obea’s real name was to call her after her pathetic condition. The MacHeaths had a malevolent instinct that flowed through their blood like a treacherous current. They fed off it like vampire bats drink blood from animals, leaving just enough to ensure that the animals live and the bat can come back for more. MacHeaths who did not feed off cruelty either grew weak and die
d or left for one of two places — west to the Outermost to live with the savage outclanners, or far to the northeast to the MacNamara clan. No, Edme had no desire to see any of the MacHeaths. She was already too close to their territory for comfort.

As she wound her way down and across the steep slopes of the ridge, Edme tried to imagine how a little one-eyed pup could have made her way down the precipitous slope and back to her clan. They said that all
malcadhs
who survived had an instinct that led them back to their clan’s territory. But Edme found it hard to believe. Her urge had always been to put as much distance as possible between herself and her clan.

She was still occupied with these thoughts when she reached the bottom of the ridge, and a pair of yearlings, Ingliss and Kyran, from the chieftain’s pack of the MacHeath clan appeared. She felt a twitch deep in her marrow. These two young females had particularly enjoyed abusing her when she was a gnaw wolf. They knew exactly where to attack to cause her the most fear as well as the most pain, and took pleasure in biting her as close as they could to her one good eye. She instinctively lowered her tail and began to sink into a submission posture, but suddenly stopped.
I don’t need to
do this anymore. I am not a gnaw wolf. I am a member of the Watch. If anything, they should submit to me.
Edme’s hackles raised, she shoved her ears forward, and her single eye glinted bright green.

“Well, you’ve certainly learned quickly!” Ingliss, the larger of the two, said.

“Yes, but doesn’t a one-eyed wolf look funny with her hackles up?” Kyran added nastily. Kyran always took her cues from Ingliss. They worked as a tag team of abuse.

“You know, of course, you don’t deserve to go to the Ring,” Ingliss said. Edme tilted her head. She wouldn’t deign to answer them and walked on. But they followed her, one on either side, pressing close.

“Get away!” Edme yipped. “You can’t do this to me anymore, either with words or bites.”

“Oh, yes, that’s true,” Ingliss said brightly. “Indeed we should never have abused you. Seeing as you were never a true gnaw wolf.”

This stopped Edme. “Are you
cag mag?
What are you talking about?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Ingliss teased. She turned to Kyran. “Should we tell her?”

“I suppose so,” Kyran replied casually, as if she had better things on her mind.

“Dear Edme, we have come to apologize for our behavior,” Ingliss said. Edme’s head swiveled between the two wolves.

Edme tried desperately to maintain a cool, disinterested demeanor. “An apology is not necessary, really. Now on your way. I must get to the Ring and the Watch.”

“I wouldn’t rush if I were you,” Kyran said.

“No, no, definitely not. For what will they say when they discover you were not born a
malcadh,
but made one!”

“What are you talking about?” Edme said, and she bared her teeth. Never had such a small wolf seemed so fierce.

The two yearlings cowered. “He did it to you, the chieftain Dunbar MacHeath!” Kyran blurted.

“Did what?”

“Tore out your eye!” Ingliss said.

“You mean … you mean …” Edme’s jaw dropped open. It was as if she was searching for the actual words. “I wasn’t born this way?”

“Not at all,” the two wolves said at once, regaining their composure. A smirk crawled across Ingliss’s face. “We heard it whispered in the
gadderheal.
So you see, you are not a true gnaw wolf,” Ingliss said.

“You’re a fake,” Kyran offered. “They’ll reject you when they find out.”

“They sense these things,” Ingliss said.

“What if I tell them?” Edme said, turning around and heading straight into the heart of MacHeath territory.

“Tell them? Tell who? Where are you going, Edme?”

“To your chieftain.”

“What?” the two wolves shrieked.

“You’re telling him what we told you? We’ll get in big trouble!” Ingliss was running beside Edme now, pleading with her.

“You should have thought of that before.”

“But what’s the use of telling Dunbar MacHeath? What will you tell him exactly?”

“Exactly?” Edme stopped short, and the beam from her single eye seemed to pierce Ingliss right to her marrow. “I shall tell him that I will serve at the
Ring not as a member of the MacHeath clan, but as a free runner!”

The two yearlings collapsed and began crawling after Edme on their bellies, begging her not to go to the chieftain. But Edme closed her ears and trotted on toward the Carreg Gaer of the MacHeath clan. Now it all made sense. She felt nothing when she arrived at her
tummfraw
because she had no connection with it whatsoever. Had they gone through the rituals of kicking out her birth mother and sire from the clan? What did it matter? It was all a charade and nothing more.

But she had not endured this life of violent abuse for nothing, nor had the
gaddergnaw
in which she had competed been for nothing. She had won that contest fair and square. She might not have been born a
malcadh,
but she was a true member of the Watch. She would serve honestly, although her origins were not honest. She would serve courageously, although for most of her life she
had cowered in the shadows of intimidation. Deep, deep within her marrow, Edme knew that she was meant t
o be a wolf of the Watch.

While Edme was heading for the MacHeath cl
an, Faolan was dragging Thunderheart’s immense femur from where she had died to the place where she had first found Faolan and become his second Milk Giver.

Thunderheart had been killed in an earthquake when Faolan was barely a year old. A gigantic boulder had rolled down on her, knocking her senseless. There she must have lain, bleeding to death. When he had first come upon her huge skull a few moons after her death, it loomed immense and pure white in the moonlight. But now, after two years, new life had taken root in it. Mosses and lichen crept over the cranium and down her long muzzle. And out of one eye popped a small constellation of starflowers. There was no way that Faolan could move her skull, nor did he want to. The skull its
elf had become a memorial to life. But he did transport as many of the smaller bones as he could. The
drumlyn
he would make would not stand simply as a tribute to life but to Thunderheart’s afterlife in Ursulana.

Faolan wondered if Thunderheart had traveled to Ursulana. He knew she had died, but her spirit seemed to linger on earth. Did she have unfinished business? His friend Gwynneth, a Masked Owl, had told him it was that way with the scrooms of dead owls. They would not seek Glaumora in earnest until their business on earth was complete. By building this
drumlyn,
Faolan hoped to give Thunderheart’s spirit, or what wolves called her
lochin,
a sign. The
drumlyn
would declare that he, Faolan, was fine,
that Thunderheart could cease her watch on earth. He had already carved the story of their life together on a paw bone he had retrieved soon after he had found her skeleton. He didn’t need to carve any more. The moment he placed Thunderheart’s femur on top of the paw bone he had incised so beautifully, it was as if a weight had shifted somewhere within Faolan’s chest. He looked up as the stars broke out, and began to howl: