Wolves of the Beyond: Watch Wolf (7 page)

KATRIA’S DEN SEEMED SO TERRIBLY
empty since Kyran had been killed. She had been a silly little wolf, but Katria could not believe her daughter meant any real harm. It was very tempting to blame Ingliss, her best friend, for Kyran’s character flaws. Ingliss had always dominated Kyran. But that wasn’t fair either. Ingliss’s mother, Pegeen, had been killed the year before in a mating dispute
. Such disputes were not uncommon in the MacHeath clan. Some lord of higher rank took a fancy to a she-wolf and normally had to fight it out with the she-wolf’s mate. But this time, Ingliss’s mother had stepped into the fray to object and called the lord a stupid cur. Well, that was the end of her. Malan, the pursuing male, forgot Pegeen’s beauty and lashed out at her, ripping open her neck. As she was dying, Pegeen managed to bite him and draw blood.

It was from Pegeen that Ingliss got her spirit. Now, Katria thought Pegeen was lucky to have escaped the horror of knowing that her only daughter had been murdered. What kind of life was this?

Katria’s mate, Donaidh, entered the den. “Well, you made a spectacle of yourself at the
gadderheal,”
he snarled. Katria didn’t answer him. “Oh, you’re getting all sulky on me, are you?”

He advanced on her to give her a bite. After all, he had to keep up with his chieftain, who had drawn her blood back there in the
gadderheal.
But this time, Katria did not cower; she did not sink to her knees and commence the submission postures as she normally did. She stood up, shoved her ears forward, peeled her lips back, and growled. Donaidh was stunned.

“What are you doing?” he snarled.

Katria did not answer but took a step forward and continued growling.

“Well, let me tell you something! I’m going with the chieftain and Malan and Blyden and Fretta. Yes, you idiot she-wolf. I’m going after the cub and then you’ll see. I’ll be promoted. I might rise nearly as high as Malan.”

It was obvious to Katria that Donaidh had not seen the malicious look that Dunbar MacHeath had shot him
in the
gadderheal.
Katria knew Donaidh was aiming to succeed Dunbar, but he was
not
Dunbar’s choice. She sensed that Donaidh might be walking right into one of Dunbar’s tricks. He had never before been invited to join a
slink melf
or any other special mission. They needed him for all the wrong reasons.

But Donaidh was musing now about his luck at being selected for this cubnapping mission. “We’ll see who is dominant in this den. Remember, Dunbar has no sons to succeed him as chieftain of the clan. His mate is too old. But I am not old, nor are you. You could be the mate of the next chieftain, the mother of one someday.”

Never,
Katria thought.
I shall never bring another pup into this clan.
But she cast her eyes down in a semblance of submission. “We’ll see,” she replied in a docile voice.

“I thought you would.”

Donaidh turned and ran out of the den to join Dunbar, Malan, Blyden, and the scout Fretta, who had tracked Edme to the river where she had played with the bear cubs.

As Katria watched Donaidh vanish from the entrance of the den, she knew the time had come. She must leave the MacHeath clan for good and seek refuge with the MacNamaras. She-wolves had tried in the past, but they
rarely succeeded — at least not in Katria’s lifetime. But now the chieftain, his highest lieutenant, her own mate, and two of the best scouts were heading out of the MacHeath territory to look for a bear cub. The time to go was now!

She would leave in broad daylight as if she were going to hunt for small prey — rodents or marmots. Her trail would take her north and east, toward a peninsula jutting out into the Hoolemere Sea.

Over the centuries, a secret language had evolved among the abused females of the MacHeath clan. In Old Wolf, this language was called
banuil caint,
which roughly translated to “she-wolf talk.” There had been whispers about it for centuries. But it remained a my
stery how the abused females learned
banuil caint.
The language was said to have been invented by Hordweard, the founder of the MacNamara clan. Hordweard had lived a thousand years before, in the time of the first embered monarch, King Hoole. When she escaped the MacHeath clan, her mate, the chieftain Dunleavy MacHeath, had tried to follow her. Near Broken Talon Point, she had slain him.

Hordweard went on to
form her own clan and
became known as Namara, which in the Old
Wolf language meant “maker of strong spiri
ts.” It was said that ever since
the clan was founded, secret agents of the MacNamaras left bones with Hordweard’s hidden language gnawed into them in MacHeath territory, to embolden the she-wolves who wanted to flee.

Katria had found a
banuil caint
bone shortly after she gave birth to her first litter. She didn’t really understand it but somehow sensed that this bone was meant for her. It took her years to decipher it, and when she did, it ignited a small glow deep within her marrow. The words were simple.
You are good. You are wise.
She had deciphered the bone after Donaidh lashed out at her, calling her a mangy cur and ripping off her dewclaw, the fifth claw on one of her front paws. There had been other messages since. None of them were addressed specifically to Katria — they could have been
meant for any she-wolf who had suffered a harsh life in the Beyond’s most brutal clan — but Katria seemed to find them at moments of utter darkness and despair. The most recent she found soon after the death of Kyran. She buried the bones where no one would discover them.

Through the years, the language had become easier and easier for her to comprehend. The messages were never demanding or didactic. They never told her what to do or even suggested a course of action, for the words did
not seek to teach as much as to make her believe in herself and her own power. Most important, the bones of the
banuil caint
allowed her to reflect deeply on her life and its meaning. Gradually, she began to believe in her own worth. With this belief came a trust in her dignity as a living creature on earth. It became clear to her that nothing was owed her but that there were things she needed to do if she wanted to live a life of courage instead of fear.

And now the MacHeaths were planning a war, and Katria knew she had to leave. If anyone could stop the war, it would not be the wise wolves of the Watch but the MacNamara clan. For no one knew the ways of the MacHeaths better than t
he MacNamaras. And no wolf was braver than a MacNamara she-wolf. They were slow to anger, but once set upon, a spark ignited deep within them that forged their marrow into stone. It was as if flint ran in their bones.

Katria set off shortly before dawn, just a
fter the departure of her chief and his top lieutenants to grab a cub. Katria blessed the prevailing wind that would speed her journey and slow the chieftain on his own diabolical mission in the opposite direction. Her journey would take longer,
but she planned to travel at press-paw speed. Females were the strongest runners in any wolf pack, and outflankers were the strongest of all. She felt a kindling in her bones. Was it the flint of the MacNamaras? She was determined to get to them in time.

She had been on the trail for a while but
was not in the least tired. The words of the
banuil caint
seemed to sing down her bones, and with each step, she became increasingly invigorated. As high noon approached and her shadow grew shorter, a bright shadow inside her seemed to be growing. Katria did not have a name for it. She had never before felt this sense of emboldened spirit expanding within her.

A sound emanated from a sparse copse of birches and brambly thornbushes, and Katria stopped for a moment. She knew in her marrow that if Donaidh followed her, she would slay him. Something white moved in the thicket. Her hackles rose. Was it a
slink melf?

She crouched into a defensive posture but shoved her ears forward. The days of submission to tyrants were over. Like a silent rebellion, the words of the
banuil caint
rumbled through her marrow.

But it was not a tyrant who stepped into the clearing. It was Airmead the Obea. It was as if she had materialized from the very bark of the birches.

“You!” Katria gasped.

“Yes. You were not the only one reading those bones. But you were much braver. I left when I knew you would.”

“But how did you know? Were you the only one who saw me leave?”

“I didn’t see you leave. I saw when you decided to go.”

“B-b-but … b-but …” Katria stammered. “
You weren’t in the den when Donaidh and I argued.”

“I was in the
gadderheal
when the chieftain lashed out at you. I saw your eyes as you buried your muzzle between your paws. I knew you would be leaving soon.” Airmead paused, then continued, “If it was not for the threat of this war, I might not have ever worked up the courage to go. A hundred times I promised that I would leave, but I was frightened to go alone. Don’t worry. I was careful to cover my tracks and I left many false scents.”

It hadn’t even occurred to Katria to leave false scents; her head had been too filled with leaving. “I should have thought of that,” Katria said. “I have been careful o
nly to urinate in streams, though.”

“That’s good.” Airmead paused. “I think we can make it, Katria. I think we have a chance. The chieftains and the lords are all caught up in this notion of capturing a grizzly cub, setting off a war between the wolves of the Watch and the bears.” She sighed. “In my entire barren life as an Obea, I have never had to take a
malcadh
to a
tummfraw.
But I have to admit that the opposite thought did cross my mind.” She stopped and cast her eyes down toward the ground. Snow had begun to fall, even though it was the first quarter of the Moon of the Flies.

“What’s that?” Katria asked.

“I thought I might rescue that cub from Old Cags and perhaps stop a war.”

“A single wolf is not going to stop a war,” Katria said as she dug her claws deeper into the ground where the snow was beginning to stick. “Dunbar MacHeath will find another way. We must get to the MacNamaras and tell them what he’s plotting. We don’t have a lot of time. It is at least a four-day journey to MacNamara territory.”

“Yes, but it will take Dunbar at least two days to get to where the cub dwells with his mother and then back to the Pit. And remember, the prevailing wind will be against them for part of the journey on t
heir way to snatch the cub, and it will be with us for all of ours.”

“True, but we have to move fast. Are
you up to doing most of this journey at press-paw?”

“I’ll try. I’m not an outflanker like you, Katria. I’ve never had to run a
byrrgis
and press in on the prey for leagues on end. And now this weather …” Sh
e hesitated. “If it snows again, it’s going to be hard. But I’ll try.”

Airmead was right. It was going to be hard. Nearly impossible if there was another blizzard. Katria looked down. The snow was piled almost as high as the scar where her dewclaw had been.
Why are snowflakes dropping instead of flies during this moon?
Everything seemed tu
rned around. Was there something worse than war coming?

“PYGMY!” FAOLAN SHOUTED.

“Burrowing!” Edme said.

“Boreal!” they both blurted at once.

“Great Gray!” Faolan leaped a bit as the elderly
taiga
Malachy held up the jump bone with the incised profile of an owl’s head.

“Long-eared!”

“No, Faolan,” Malachy replied.

“Great Horned!” Edme said.

“Well, it had to be the other if not a Long-eared,” Faolan said. “That was an easy guess.”

“True.” Edme nodded good-naturedly.

“It wasn’t that easy,” Malachy chided. “You forget Screech Owls have tufts as well. But now for the test,” Malachy, a brindled wolf with crooked hips, said slyl
y.
“Edme, can you tell us the distinguishing characteristics between the so-called ears of the three species that sport them?”

“Uh … uh, I forget.”

Faolan cocked his head. “I think,” he began slowly, “that the Long-eared Owls’ feather tufts stick up more and are closer together.”

“Very good, Faolan. Yes, exactly, and the Great Horned Owls’ tufts are wider apart and stick out at an angle. And the Screech’s tufts are, well, somewhere in between.” He paused and squinted at the two young wolves, a merry glint in his green eyes that reminded Faolan of the green sparkles on the river on a clear summer day. “Now, here’s a tricky question for you.”

“What’s that?” said Edme, eagerly hoping to redeem herself with a truly challenging question.

“It has nothing to do with owls’ heads.”

“Uh-oh!” Edme and Faolan both said at once.

“Have a little faith in yourselves, young’uns. Whic
h owl has featherless legs?”

“Featherless legs!” Edme said.

“Not a single feather!” Malachy snapped his jaws sh
ut for emphasis. “Bare as a bear cub’s butt.”

Faolan and Edme inhaled sharply. “Uh,” Edme
said, her voice taut. “Are you sure bear cubs’ butt
s are bare?”

“Oh, yes, indeed. When they’re first born. They hardly have a patch of fur on them. By the time they come out of the den, they’re little fur balls. Th
e cutest things you’ve ever seen. But never go near them; neve
r touch them.” Faolan and Edme grew very quiet, alarmingly quiet.

“Come on now, young’uns, the question isn’t that hard. Which owl has no feathers on its legs?”

Faolan broke the silence. “Can you give us a hint?”

“Well, if you insist. I know you haven’t seen that many owls because the volcanoes aren’t very active yet, but which one did I tell you is the worst flyer?”

“The Burrowing Owl because … because …” Edme started to speak but was distracted by the thoughts of bear cubs.
Why did I play with that cub?

“Because they’re good at walking,” Faolan said in a tentative voice.

“Exactly!” Malachy boomed. “Who needs feathers for walking or running?” He paused. “Anything wrong, young’uns?” He peered at them curiously. Their enthusiasm, their wonderful keenness, had suddenly
vanished. Just then, a strange whining seeped into the den where
Malachy tutored new Watch wolves in the habits and customs of owls. He tipped his head.
Could it be?
It was strange it would come so early, but if that wasn’t the peevish complaint of the She-Winds, well, he didn’t have crooked hips.

“Hear that, young’uns?” he said softly but with great excitement.

At just that moment, a wolf came skidding down the chute into the den. “Hear that, Malachy?” It was Padraigh, wind scout for the Watch.

“Is it what I think it is?”

“It is, indeed. I’ve been as far south as the borde
r of the Shadow Forest. It’s the She-Winds. They’re
a-coming!”

“But it’s not the season!” Malachy swayed a bit
on his crooked hips, as if the very idea had unhinged him.

“She-Winds don’t seem to mind none.
They’re back, and you know the owls can’t be far behind them.” He looked directly at Faolan and Edme. “Now your real larnin’ begins, young’uns. No more jump bones. Real live owls on the wing!”

The She-Winds were unique to the Ring of Sacred Volcanoes. They seemed to arrive out
of nowhere and go nowhere, but when they blew, they stirred the hot fluids
in the deepest parts of the craters of all five volcanoes, and every Rogue smith and collier flocked to the Ring.

In the excitement of the moment, Faolan and Edme forgot their anxieties and followed Malachy and Padraigh out of the den. Twist and Winks came rush
ing up to them. “Your shifts are about to start. Get to you
r cairns.”

The gusts were so strong that Faolan and Edme had trouble even standing straight at first. The ground beneath their paws shook as the first quaking belches of the volcanoes rumbled up from deep inside the earth. Faolan couldn’t imagine how he was supposed to stay upright on his cairn, let alone perform the repertoire of scanning
jumps they’d learned.

“Hang on to your fur, young’uns.” Padraigh laughed raucously as he trotted away, angling himself to the winds that were lashing about them.

“Don’t worry, we’ll stay with you through your shifts,” Twist said. “But regard Paddy — Padraigh — see how he is angling himself across the gusts.” But Paddy always walked oddly. Of all the wolves of the Watch, his deformities were possibly the most curious. On one side, he was missing an ear, an eye, and a paw. I
t was as if he had been born lopsided, and yet despite his odd gait, he was
effectively cutting through the maze of gusting winds that seemed to blow willy-nilly across the Ring, first from one direction and then another.

“The thing is, Faolan,” Twist said as they reached
the top of Stormfast’s cairn, “I know these winds seem very confusing. But there’s a peculiar order to them, which you’ll see.”

Faolan didn’t see any order in the least. The air swirled not only with embers but with the grit scooped up from broken lava flows.

“Do you notice anything?” Twist asked eagerly.

“Yes, I notice that I’m having trouble standing upright.”

“Tuck in your dewclaw and dig in with your others. Look. There are four nice femurs on the cairn, placed just so. Wrap your claws around them. We didn’t place them that way just for the fun of it. Good gripping. Especially the bear femur.”

“Bear?”

“Yes, there’s a grizzly femur. Can’t beat it for
gripping.”

Faolan’s splayed paw was drawn to it
by an invisible force. He knew that the bones in the cairns sometimes shifted, but why had he never seen this one before?

“Has this bone always been here?”
Faolan cried out over the screech of the She-Winds.

“Oh, yes. It’s what we call a keybone. It locks the whole cairn together. It never shifts.”

“How come I never noticed it before?”

“Maybe you never really needed it before. But you’ll see that it puts a spring in your leaps. Draw a bead on that bone. Fix it in your mind and it will keep you steady and your jumps true. Just feel it and picture it in your mind’s eye.”

And how he did feel that bone! It was as if he were experiencing a completely new way of seeing, as if his mind’s eye were in his splayed paw. His first jump was not the best. He landed fine but didn’t do the double inverted twist that would allow him to scan the entire rim of the crater and the sky above for graymalkins.

“I’m sorry,” he said upon landing. “I didn’t do that very well.”

“It’s challenging in these gusts. You see those owl
s flying in?”

“Yes, sir.” Faolan had never seen so many owls before. They seemed to be pouring in from all directions.

“See how they are flying just off the wind? ‘Crabbing,’ they call it.”

“Crabbing?”

“Yes, like a crab walking sideways, except they are flying. The wind is pushing them one way, away from their destination. So they angle their flight toward the direction of the wind. They are not really flying sideways, but instead of flying directly toward the slopes, they have slightly turned into the direction of the oncoming wind to compensate for the wind drift. The amount that the owls turn is called the wind correction angle. Now think about doing that when you jump.”

“You mean I should jump into a gust.”

“Yes, smack into it. And don’t start your twists, flips, or pikes too soon or you’ll miss the thermal drafts, and that’s the great treat of leaping when the She-Winds blow.” Twist looked up suddenly. “Look, Faolan! Look at that Masked Owl up there. By my marrow, I think it’s your old friend Gwynneth — a lovely flyer if there ever was one.”

“How does she do it?” Faolan was amazed. His dear friend appeared to be gliding effortlessly in the buffeting winds above, never even waggling a wing.

“She’s riding the thermals, those billows of warm air. They lift the owls up high. A free ride, you might call it. And you can do it, too. We can’t get as high as owls do,
to ‘owl point’ as the term goes, but there’s a place at the
very top of a lifting draft that is known as the wolf’s peak. Jump into a thermal and let it take you. It’s the closest we wolves ever get to flying. Ready to try it?”

Faolan was so excited that his paws were almost dancing on the bones.

“All right. Now let’s not rush this,” Twist said. “When I say jump, you jump.”

Faolan sensed the lead edge of a very hot gust.

“JUMP!” Twist shouted.

Suddenly, Faolan was rocketing into the ai
r. It was so fast he barely had a chance to breathe. Embers whizzed by him like shooting stars. He had entered the sky, a peculiar firmament in which the constellations were composed of red swirling stars.

Faolan wasn’t flying and yet he might have been. He had fur not feathers, legs not wings, and yet he felt a strangely familiar sensation — a stirring just where his shoulders joined his backbone. The billowing drafts of warm air caressed his underbelly and lifted him higher still. He wasn’t as high as the owls, but he was in their world and it felt good. So good that he almost forgot to do any of the moves he had learned. So he drew up his hind legs for a backward walkover.

“Faolan! Welcome to the sky!”

“Gwynneth!”

She waggled her wings and flew off.

“Very nice, very nice indeed!” Twist said when Faol
an landed back on the top of the cairn. “
But you nearly forgot your scanning maneuvers.”

“I know! I know!”

“Don’t worry. It’s a common thing for young Watch wolves when they first discover thermals. Look over there at Edme on Morgan. She’s getting a lot of bounce out of them.”

Yes,
Faolan thought,
and she is managing several scanning moves — a double twist linked to a backflip.
Edme was not nearly as easily distracted as Faolan.

“What a jumper you are!” Gwynneth exclaimed as she alighted on the cairn. “A natural if I ever saw one.” Faolan felt a surge of happiness stream through him.

“Well, I forgot to do any real scanning moves. It was just so … so … wonderful.”

“You looked like you belonged up there with us.”

“Really!” Faolan tipped his he
ad to one side and looked deeply into Gwynneth’s shiny dark eyes.

“Yes, really, Faolan. I never saw anything like it!”

After his shift was over, Faolan trotted happily back to the den. “Wasn’t it fantastic, Edme?” he said, sliding down
the slope into the den. “I mean, those drafts lift you right up. I felt it was as close as I’d ever come to flying like an owl —” He broke off mid-speech. “Edme?”

Edme was curled into a ball in a far corner with her muzzle buried between her paws. Absolute silence as loud as any noise engulfed the den.

“Edme, what is it?”

Without looking at him and with her muzzle still buried, Edme mumbled something in a muffled voice that Faolan had to strain to hear.

“You’ve been what?”

“Dalach’d,”
Edme said again.

“Dalach’d?
No!”

“Yes. I can’t jump for three nights.”

“But why? What did you do?” Faolan asked.

“You know that arrangement of bones that they make so you can grip better?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t show the proper reverence for the keybone.”

“And so you got
dalach’d?
I mean, Twist never said anything about proper reverence. Did Winks tell you that?” Faolan asked, totally bewildered.

“It wasn’t Winks. It was Banja. Winks wasn’t feeling well.”

“Banja — that old she-bag of a wolf!”

“She hates me, Faolan. I don’t know why. I mean, she’s missing one eye. If anything, she should understand me better, like Winks does. I’m not allowed on the cairn for the next three nights. How will I ever
learn to navigate the She-Winds?”

“It’s wrong. Completely wrong.
Winks would never have done such a thing. I think we should protest,” Faolan said staunchly.

“No, no. And it’s my problem, not yours. I’m just going to try and forget about it.” Edme circled her car
ibou pelt before she settled down again to try to sleep.

Neither wolf could close their eyes. They were both thinking about Banja and her unrelenting criticism of Edme. It was a mystery. Although Banja’s constant harping didn’t qualify as abuse, it was damaging.

“Faolan, you asleep yet?”

“No.”

“Do you ever miss them?”

“Miss what?”

“The old days.”

Faolan was on his feet in no time. “Edme, have you gone
cags?
Miss being a gnaw wolf? Miss the MacHeath
s and the delightful time you had in that lovely clan!”

“No, not that. But you know, when we were all at the
gaddergnaw.
I think that was the best time of my life
. Except for Heep, I really liked those other gnaw wolves — Creakle, Tearlach, the Whistler.”

“I do miss the Whistler. He was —” Faolan paused
. “He was something special, I think. I loved his voice. It was almost as if that hole in his throat … I don’t know, drew in a special kind of air that made his howls so much more beautiful even though he kind of croaked when he talked.”

Imagine,
Faolan thought.
Banja has driven us to long for the awful old days when we were gnaw wolves.
And then he remembered two other wolves — Mhairie and her sister, Dearlea. By this time, Mhairie was probably a lead outflanker for the MacDuncans. Both of these sisters had come to his defense when he was wrongly accused of murdering a
malcadh
on the ridge, and then both of them cried with relief when he was exonerated of the crime and selected for the Watch. He was caught between the poles of two emotions — the sadness that comes when missing old friends, and anger at Banja that he was loo
king back with such wistfulness to a time marked by scorn and abuse.