Star Wolf
Page 15
“Banja’s lochin!” Edme cried out. “It jumps the rungs of the star ladder just as she jumped at the Watch. I told you your mum was a beautiful jumper.”
“But look just ahead of her,” Maud howled with wild delight. There was a tiny flash of gold fluttering in the new night.
“Bells!” they all cried out.
“Bells leads her,” Maudie cried, and her voice broke. Edme came up to lick the tears from her face.
“Aah, you’re weeping wilig tears. True wiligs they are. See, they’re amber!”
THE WOLVES, THE BEARS, THE Masked Owl, and the eagles slept peacefully that night. But between the time that Beezar stumbled out of sight over the far horizon and the morning star appeared, before the first rosy hues of the dawn, Faolan left the den. He wanted to travel away from the coast a few leagues and see what kind of land this Distant Blue was. The long grasses were sprinkled with wildflowers that he had never seen. But there was meat. He sensed it, and soon they would have to find the meat trail.
For months, they had eaten nothing but fish and small, nearly bloodless rodents. He knew there was life abroad in this land. He could almost smell the blood of the big hooved animals. Bigger than caribou. Big as moose. He found a track. He could tell by the way the hooves sank in that the track had been made by a large creature. Brush was broken. A herd had come charging through. From some of the branches, long, thick clumps of coarse fur waved in the breeze like banners. He picked up a scent. A word came to him, a word he hadn’t heard in a thousand years. “Bison.” His heart beat. Yes, huge herds of bison that would thunder across the plains here.
Faolan was on a rise now. Below him was a narrow green valley. He looked across the valley, and he saw something moving down its center, flowing like a river. It was not bison; these creatures were not nearly as large. Their fur was not shaggy, but they had sweeping manes and, flagging out behind them, long tails. He heard a whinnying sound. On a promontory just ahead was a horse.
Yes, “horse”! That was the word. He knew that word. The animal was creamy white, but when it turned its head, Faolan was shocked to see that the creature’s face was scarred as if it had run through fire. There was no fur, and the skin crinkled up in ugly ridges. The horse regarded him.
You’re back.
And so I am, replied Faolan.
The horse suddenly reared up and pawed the air with its hooves. Then it whinnied loudly, The Star Wolf is back!
THEY SAY WRITING IS A SOLITARY profession. It is not, however, as solitary as one might imagine. Voices, figures, and images from the past always haunt me as I write. It is time to acknowledge some of those sources that inspired parts of this book. Abban’s fall into the sea owes a great debt to Herman Melville’s character Pip in Moby-Dick, who came back mad from his plunge into the depths of the ocean. Dearlea’s song in Chapter Eleven: Starsight was directly inspired by Bob Dylan’s song “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” I am particularly indebted in terms of images to the fantastic BBC television documentary Frozen Planet. The cinematographers’ stunning footage of the polar regions of the earth are indelible in my mind’s eye.
KATHRYN LASKY is the author of the bestselling Guardians of Ga’Hoole series, which has sold more than four million copies and has been made into a major motion picture, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole. Her books have received a Newbery Honor, a Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, and a Washington Post–Children’s Book Guild Award. She lives with her husband in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Copyright © 2013 by Kathryn Lasky
Interior illustrations by Richard Cowdrey
Interior illustrations © 2013 by Scholastic Inc.
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, SCHOLASTIC PRESS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lasky, Kathryn.
Star wolf / Kathryn Lasky. — 1st ed.
p. cm. — (Wolves of the beyond; 6)
Summary: The Ring of Sacred Volcanoes has been destroyed and Faolan is leading his small band of wolves across the Ice Bridge to the hoped-for safety of the Distant Blue — but his old enemy Heep is pursuing him and the icy path ahead is filled with danger.
ISBN 978-0-545-27962-8
1. Wolves — Juvenile fiction. 2. Animals — Juvenile fiction. [1. Wolves — Fiction. 2. Animals — Fiction. 3. Fantasy.] I. Title. II. Series: Lasky, Kathryn.
Wolves of the Beyond; 6.
PZ7.L3274Su 2013
813.54 — dc23
2012029320
First edition, January 2013
Map illustration by Whitney Lyle
Cover art by Richard Cowdrey
Cover art © 2013 by Scholastic Inc.
e-ISBN 978-0-545-47039-1
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.