Lone Wolf

by Kathryn Lasky

  “You’ll need a better reason than just getting out, dearie!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean exactly what I said. Getting out is a stupid reason. Where are you going? I don’t need to stick my snout into any pot for that advice.” She raised a paw and tapped her head. “It’s right here in the old noggin. You’ve been in my den long enough. You must leave before she wakes. It will be too painful for her if she smells her pup on you.”

  “All right,” Faolan replied. He rose up, thinking again of his first Milk Giver. He had no hope of finding Thunderheart on this earth. He would not find her until he died and made his way to that place the bears called Ursulana and the wolves called the Cave of Souls. But his own wolf mother or wolf father could still be alive.

  The Sark must have read his mind.

  She gave a low growl. “Don’t do it, Faolan. Don’t go looking for your mother. She won’t recognize you, for one thing. And then how will you feel?”

  “Oh, she’ll know me. She’ll recognize me,” he said with a steely certainty. “In her marrow, she’ll know it’s me when she sees this.” And he picked up his front foot and ground it into the dirt, once again leaving the imprint of his splayed paw with its spiral pattern.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  AN ABOMINATION!

  THE WIND WAS NOT COOPERATING. It seemed to be out of sorts, as could often happen during the Moon of the First Snow. Gwynneth, Rogue smith and daughter of the late Gwyndor, had spent the better part of the night tacking against it to go north toward the Ring of Sacred Volcanoes. As was also customary during this season, the volcanoes had become active. Gwynneth could now gather “bonk” coals, the old smithy term for the coals that burned the hottest, the ones with blue centers ringed with green.

  Gwynneth had planned to get to the volcanoes early in this snow moon, ahead of the other owls from the Hoolian kingdoms to the south. She had taken a roundabout route to avoid stalling out in the cantankerous headwinds.

  An updraft of slightly warmer air came out of nowhere and allowed her a brief respite in her battle against the shifting winds. She was able to soar effortlessly while being pulled vaguely in her intended direction. It was a welcome break for her wings, but as she soared, her ears caught a thin filament of sound weaving through the winds. The sound was curious yet slightly alarming—tiny mewling whimpers. She began to cock her head this way and then that. Masked Owls were members of the Barn Owl family, known for their exceptional hearing. Because of the uneven placement of their ear slits, they were able to scoop up the smallest traces of sound. Furthermore, these owls could expand and contract their facial discs, which allowed them to focus in precisely on the source of the sound.

  The mewling had now become an agonizing shriek accompanied by a horrifying ripping. Great Glaux! A pup is being murdered! By…by…by a wolf! Gwynneth knew that of all the complicated codes and laws of these wolves, murdering a malcadh was the worst offense of all. It was an abomination!

  And Gwynneth knew the killer was a wolf. She recognized the sound of the gnashing teeth. The long front fangs were for ripping, and soon she heard the slicing sounds of the back teeth, working like blades to cut the flesh into tinier pieces. She could see nothing, for the cloud cover was thick, but she knew what was happening from the horrible noises and the panting of the murdering wolf.

  Gwynneth fell into what owls called a kill plunge. Although it was now a life plunge, a rescue plunge, if she could save the little pup and beat off the murderer. If…if…if…

  But it was too late. Just as Gwynneth broke out of the clouds, the wolf raced off the ridge. By the time Gwynneth lighted down on the table rock, the pup was dead. Gwynneth looked in horror at its body. It was a tiny little thing, a female and not really a malcadh. “Just born too soon,” Gwynneth whispered softly. The pup’s body had been ripped apart. Why didn’t the wolf smother her? Gwynneth wondered. This death was unspeakably violent. The wolf had bitten all the way though to the pup’s tiny bones.

  Gwynneth was seized by a sudden revulsion and had to yarp a pellet. Many owls came across malcadhs left on the tummfraws of their flight paths and ate them. Gwynneth had given up this practice when she had come to live in the Beyond. Never, however, would an owl tear apart a pup so mercilessly, so brutally. Usually, a quick stab of the beak at the soft place in the pup’s skull finished them off quickly. This malcadh, however, had not died quickly but in unimaginable agony.

  Oh, she thought, might it swiftly find its way to the Cave of Souls. Gwynneth knew that the Great Wolf constellation was not visible, nor would it be for another two moons. But, surely, the Star Wolf would be moved not to let this poor little pup’s soul wander aimlessly.

  Gwynneth’s first instinct, though irrational, was to take the pup’s bones and fly them herself to the Cave of Souls. But of course the Great Wolf constellation was gone, and who ever heard of any animal getting such a shortcut to their heaven? In the rational part of her mind, she knew that the malcadh’s suffering on earth was over and would not follow her in death. With the last breath the little pup took, her suffering ended and her soul was severed painlessly from her body, as painlessly as the shedding of the undercoat during the summer moons. But when Gwynneth looked upon the torn body of this pup, she experienced profound pain and revulsion. She felt her gut wrench and had the urge to yarp another pellet, but there was nothing left inside her. She felt as hollow as her bones.

  Gwynneth told herself she must be practical. There was nothing she could do here. She still had a long way to fly to the Sacred Volcanoes, and she had to get there during the first flares. Otherwise, where would she be? A Rogue smith without two bonk embers to rub together!

  Gwynneth began to spread her wings to lift off but then folded them again. In the high, piercing cries of the Masked Owl, she began to sing the owl song for when a nestling died.

  May Glaux bless you and keep you always,

  may you leave your pain behind,

  may you fledge your wings so quickly

  and climb to the night sublime,

  may you look down and see we love you

  and though you never will grow old,

  but forever stay so young,

  may you know that it’s for you

  that this song is sung.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE DARK VALE DESCENDS

  BY THE TIME FAOLAN HAD COMPLETED the trail of shame and returned to his pack on the Eastern Scree, the Moon of the Frost Stars had already risen in the skies.

  Snow had fallen at last. The slopes of the Eastern Scree that ran down from Crooked Back Ridge billowed like snow clouds. The ridge was sheathed in ice and cut through the billows like a crystal knife slicing the flawless blue sky. Many claimed that the Moon of the Frost Stars was the coldest of all the hunger moons of winter, and because of this, tempers were short. Quarrels broke out frequently within the pack, and gnaw wolves provided a convenient vessel for other wolves’ frustrations. Faolan was sore from the bites and thrashings he had received. If the wolves were successful in tracking down prey, the animals were so winter-thin that there was no meat to spare for a gnaw wolf. On this frigid day, they had managed to bring down a red deer. After they had eaten their fill, the pack wolves tossed the rumen, the deer’s first stomach with its cud of undigested grasses and lichens, to the gnaw wolves.

  The wolves scorned the rumen and loathed the taste of the fibrous vegetation, but Faolan had become accustomed to eating such foods. When he was a tiny pup, he went foraging with Thunderheart in the early spring for onion bulbs and anything else that sprouted from the earth and had slipped the lock of winter. Thunderheart would first chew up the bulbs or grasses very thoroughly, often swallowing them if they were especially tough and then regurgitating them for Faolan’s consumption, as wolf parents do with meat for their cubs. Faolan figured he could do this himself. He chewed until the partially digested vegetation of the rumen was a fine mash, then swallowed it. It tasted no different to him from when Thunde
rheart had done the same.

  For wolves, eating vegetation was unimaginable. It was not meat. When tossed the rumen, a gnaw wolf would eat only the intestinal tissue and leave the vegetation behind. But Faolan ate it all. And because he did, his coat remained glossy, and he appeared no thinner than before. This only added to Faolan’s strangeness in the eyes of the other wolves.

  Ever since Faolan had returned from the Sark’s cave, he had been obsessed with dreams of his first Milk Giver. He wondered if he had siblings, and if so, were they normal and had they survived? Where might they be now? They would have been allowed to stay in the pack and have been fostered by another she-wolf with milk to spare, for that was the rule. Would they resemble him except for his splayed paw?

  All of these questions haunted Faolan as he went about the business of becoming a dutiful gnaw wolf. He accepted the abuse with the appropriate whimpering and slid through the submission postures as if he had them engraved in his own marrow and not simply on the bones he was tediously ordered to gnaw. The one question to which he most often returned was where his parents might have gone. The harder Faolan tried to think about these questions, the more elusive the answers became. He felt as if he were tumbling through a deep vale of shadows.

  On an evening during the last crescent of the second hunger moon, a she-wolf far in MacDonegal territory was haunted by a scent she had discovered in the skull of a grizzly bear almost a year before. As soon as she had sniffed that scent, the forgetting had stopped. Like the ice slides of spring that peeled back the ground leaving raw, exposed earth, she felt suddenly vulnerable to memories, to feelings that had been long frozen, locked beneath the cold, snowy mantle of winter. The barriers that had built up so carefully deep within her and served as invisible scar tissue were swept away. Memories crashed in with a crushing force. He was silver, my only silver one.

  In all the litters Morag had borne, she had never had a pup with a silver pelt. There had been three pups in this litter, two tawny females and then the silver one with the splayed paw. She had, for those brief hours before the Obea found them, mothered him, nursed him, and adored nuzzling her nose deep into his pelt. It was a pelt of singular beauty, for it looked as if stars had fallen from the sky and been swirled through the fur. She would have named him for a constellation, perhaps Skaarsgard, the leaping wolf who caught wolf pups who fell off the star ladder on their way to the Cave of Souls.

  It was said that for mothers of malcadhs, a darkness invaded their bodies where the pup had grown in their womb and that gradually this darkness faded until it became a pale gray shadow. But the pale gray shadow was changing, blackening; a darkness was invading not just her womb but her head as well.

  During the time of forgetting, Morag had gone on and done what mothers of malcadhs were supposed to do. She had found a new clan, the MacDonegals, a new mate, and borne another litter, of three healthy red-furred pups. She had become an outflanker of some repute in the clan, and though her legs were still strong and she could run at attack speed for long distances, the darkness now seemed to be invading her vision.

  On her last byrrgis, the point wolf had given the signal for attack speed. Morag flashed out to the front of the outflankers, her usual position. The musk ox herd appeared like a storm cloud lifting from the horizon. It was her job with the other outflanker to begin to turn the herd east toward the rising sun, which would be blinding. But it seemed as if the blinding was already happening. The storm cloud that was the herd remained a blur even as they drew closer. Morag felt as if she were sinking into a haze. How would she ever spot the weak musk ox that must be split off from the herd? That had always been her strength. Morag could run at top speed while still scanning the herd to find the sick one, the old one, the dying animal. Musk ox were slow compared to caribou or red deer. She should be able to spot the cailleach. She suddenly felt herself trip. She was down. She felt the packers streak by her. Great Lupus. I have fallen! She knew that her life as an outflanker had just ended.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE RED DEER OF THE YELLOW SPRINGS

  MHAIRIE WAS STREAKING OUT ON the west flank of a large herd of red deer. This was her chance to earn her position and—Lupus be praised—the gnaw wolf seemed to have learned his lesson. He was safely behind her, far behind her, but she would not look now. Once again, she had been sent to run with the Pack of the Eastern Scree, the River Pack, and the Blue Rock Pack when a herd had been spotted near Blue Rock territory in the last of the hunger moons. This time, Alastrine and Stellan had been sent from the Carreg Gaer to accompany Mhairie. She was being observed carefully. She had to perform flawlessly, and if that cursed gnaw wolf acted up, she would personally sink her teeth into the most tender part of his muzzle and enjoy every second of it.

  They were chasing the herd through a region known as the Yellow Springs. A signal had been passed for the crimping maneuver to commence. They were going to turn the herd slightly and then split it. This was a risky maneuver, but with a herd this large, they had little choice. There was no way to spot the weak ones, who stayed in the middle of the herd as long as possible. Faolan could see Stellan close to Mhairie, passing signals to her. Within seconds, Mhairie had spotted a cailleach. Now Faolan’s job was to close in and pick up any urine or scat scents that did not seem healthy.

  What a miserable task I have, he thought as he saw Mhairie pressing forward toward the cailleach, then suddenly slowing her pace to a casual lope as if she had lost interest. The red deer would slow down a bit, but soon Mhairie would be back with Stellan and another outflanker.

  It was a strategy Faolan had used when he brought down a caribou alone a year before. Except there had been no captain passing signals, no outflankers to help press the crimp. He had done it all by himself.

  It was the endgame now. They had the old cailleach surrounded. She stood looking bewildered as blood spurted from wounds on her haunches. These wounds were enough to bring her to a stop, but not to kill her. For that, they had to get to her neck and the vital life-pumping artery. Mhairie and the other outflankers hung back. Their job was done. Some of the largest males encircled the cailleach and began to charge her in relays, but she reared up and struck one with her hooves.

  “The nerve!” muttered Heep.

  “Yes, magnificent!” It was a windy gust from the Whistler’s crooked throat.

  The Whistler had spoken the thought that was in Faolan’s own head. How had this old female found the strength of spirit to rise up and strike out at these four immense wolves?

  “It’s magnificent. The cailleach has a wonderful spirit,” the Whistler continued.

  “May it flee her body soon so as not to fatigue our own magnificent superiors, the captain, and the sublieutenants,” Heep said loudly.

  The Whistler gave Heep a withering look. “Oh, just go stick your face in some musk ox scat!”

  Faolan was about to laugh but was shocked when Heep sank to his knees in front of the Whistler.

  “Oh, dear Whistler, I humbly beg your pardon.” His pointy nostrils were expanding and contracting nervously while he ground the side of his face into the dirt. “I would never propose to elevate myself above this great and dignified beast who is dying to provide life for our exalted superiors. If I have given offense, I most humbly beg your forgiveness. For it is only through the rich meat of this noble deer that our leaders, our great and heroic chieftains, and our glorious packs will prosper.”

  But the Whistler had wandered off to have a closer view of the moment when the red deer’s life would end.

  Faolan stood transfixed by Heep’s display. Despite the extravagant apology, there was something horribly wrong in what he was doing. He does not mean to give offense? Faolan wondered. And yet Heep did give offense in some strange way. It seemed like a perversion of lochinvyrr. In lochinvyrr, words were never spoken aloud. Thanks should be expressed simply—silently—and with profound feeling, so as not to lessen the value of the life sacrificed.

  Faolan began to walk
away toward the circle of wolves that surrounded the red deer. Everyone had fallen silent now. There was no barking nor joyful yips, just a deep and respectful quiet. The captain had sunk to his knees in a posture of complete submission. He looked directly into the eyes of the dying animal, for there could be only truth at this moment. When the lochinvyrr was complete, he rose up and, without uttering a word, tore into the deer’s belly to begin the sharing out of the meat.

  Faolan stood in the shadows of the sparse birch grove and watched the division of the meat. The first to eat were the leaders of the pack, second came the captains of the byrrgis, including the outflankers. Mhairie was allowed to go first, for she had been important in initiating the crimp. There was much whooping and howling when she came forward to receive her share of the rich liver. As was customary for a young wolf who had proved herself for the first time, the other outflankers pounced on her and rubbed her head and face in the thick blood of the liver. When she rose up, her tawny face was a mask of red through which her bright green eyes shone.

  “A red deer for a red wolf!” someone barked. There would be howling all through the night, for the cailleach was fatter than they had originally thought. The smell of blood, of torn muscles, ripped intestines, and stripped fresh bones filled the air. In the midst of this chaos of meat and blood, Mhairie suddenly stepped up to Faolan in the birch grove.

  “Here,” she said, and dropped a bone, a femur from the upper hind leg. “You did well today. You would honor me by gnawing the story of my first kill as an outflanker. You might call it”—she looked down almost bashfully—“Mhairie at the Hunt of the Red Deer in Yellow Springs.”