Frost Wolf (12 page)

TULLY WAS ABLE TO REVIVE ONLY two of the wolves. The rest died. The two who had survived walked off on wobbly legs with nary a word of thanks or a look back. The Snowy shook his large white head.

“No good deed goes … oh, what is the saying?” muttered a voice from behind Tully.

Tully spun his head around and blinked at the ash-colored wolf.

“How you owls do that always amazes me.”

“Do what?” Tully asked.

“Spin your head about like that.”

“It’s the extra bones in our necks.” Tully cocked his head to the side. “You’re not one of them, are you?”

“A Skaars dancer! What, you think I’m
cag mag
? And would they ever let a gnaw wolf join them? Not on their pathetic lives!”

The wolf began limping down the slight escarpment, and Tully noticed that he was missing a forepaw. “Who are these wolves?” he asked. “You say they were dancing? I don’t understand what’s going on.”

“Nor should you understand. It’s too bizarre, too grotesque, unnatural, absurd.” The wolf paused. “Do you have any word to add to the description of that ritual?”

Tully blinked. “Who are you?” he asked.

“Creakle’s the name. Gnaw wolf for the MacDuff clan. But those two, I believe, are the last survivors of the clan. And all that’s left for me is to try and fend off the scavengers.”

“Shouldn’t the others have stayed to help you at least?”

Creakle sighed. “They’re
cag mag
.
Yoicks
in your language. Crazy. They don’t care about the dead ones left behind. In their twisted minds, they actually don’t think of them as dead. They think of them as saved by Skaarsgard and of themselves as unworthy of his attentions. So they will go on dancing until they die, too.”

Tully tipped his head and looked at the gnaw wolf, blinking rapidly.

“Confused, confounded, astonished, bedeviled?” the wolf asked.

My, he has a large vocabulary
, Tully thought. It seemed to be Creakle’s habit to use long strings of words to suggest a single idea, but every word he spoke did describe Tully’s mental state.

“Yes, yes, all of the above,” Tully replied. “But who is this prophet? I heard them all mumbling about him as they were dying. One or two of them even thought I was the Prophet.”

“Yes, in their delirium I can see how that might happen — it’s the shape of your face.”

“What?”

“He wears the helmet and visor of an owl — a guardian, perhaps from the great tree.”

“What! I can hardly believe it.”

“Believe it! I’ve seen him.”

“But do you know who he is?”

“No. I have my suspicions and I’ve tried to track him, but he’s clever. He never leaves scent marks, and in this famine, all of our scent marks have become quite faint anyway. So it’s difficult.”

Creakle continued, “I’m heading north now, north and west to the Blood Watch. Now, that’s a real job. There are rumors that my old friend the Whistler has distinguished himself and is now a lieutenant of the Blood
Watch. Imagine that! A gnaw wolf becoming a lieutenant. I’ll tell you, there are some blessings to this famine.”

“Do you know Gwynneth?” Tully asked.

“Of course. Who doesn’t know Gwynneth!”

“Well, then, have you seen her?” Tully persisted.

“Not for a while. There are rumors that she moved her forge.”

“Might I travel with you to the Blood Watch? My mission was to report on the condition of the wolves and find Gwynneth. But so far I’ve had no luck on the Gwynneth front. And as for the wolves …” He looked at the bodies of the six dead wolves in the snow. “Well, I’d like to be able to report something more positive.”

“I would find your company most satisfactory, pleasing, gratifying. It would gladden me, delight me, indeed tickle the cockles of my marrow.”

Cockles of his marrow? Where does he get these expressions, these words?
It suddenly struck Tully that this poor gnaw wolf had had no one to talk to for so long that he’d had to save up all his words.

“Aah,” Creakle said, “I can see that you are a bit perplexed. I think I’ve mixed my metaphors here. Cockles and marrow. Cockles are a bivalve mollusk. Gnaw wolves eat those, too — river clams. Most wolves won’t touch
them. I have even gnawed their shells. We gnaw wolves — amazing lot, aren’t we?”

But what was most amazing, Tully realized minutes later when he was flying above Creakle, was how beautifully this pawless wolf moved through the snow. The deep drifts seemed to part for him as he loped north and west. Plumes of snow fanned out from either side of his path, as if he had sprouted gigantic wings. For a moment Tully forgot that Creakle was a wolf at all, but thought he was looking down on some mythical creature.
Great Glaux
, he thought,
what am I seeing?

YES
, GWYNNETH THOUGHT AS SHE looked at the sleeping Sark,
we can see more perfectly in the dark than almost any animal, and yes, we can twist our heads nearly all the way around, and we can fly so silently, and yet …
She tipped her head to regard the Sark’s muzzle with wonder.
What that wolf can smell!

With only two little holes in her nose, the Sark was able to know that the Prophet had been to the place where Gwynneth’s father had died. The Sark in many ways knew more about and certainly had a longer history with Gwyndor than Gwynneth did. Did Gwynneth envy the Sark? In some ways she did. Gwynneth’s mother had died shortly after she had hatched, and her father didn’t have the time to raise her. So he had taken Gwynneth to the owl she knew only as Auntie, the Rogue smith of the
Silverveil. Gwynneth couldn’t have asked for a better teacher. The Great Snowy had learned her craft in the Northern Kingdom from the legendary blacksmith Orf on the Island of Dark Fowl in the Everwinter Sea. But although Auntie was a wonderful caretaker, Gwynneth couldn’t help feeling jealous that the Sark knew things about her father that Gwynneth didn’t. She could almost hear her auntie scolding:
Envy is the worst of all sins. To be envious is to be cursed, to be blind to your Glaux-given gifts. Envy is trouble. Envy gets you nowhere in life!

I better get unenvious real quick
, Gwynneth rebuked herself. She heard the Sark sigh in her sleep, almost sweetly, as if she were having a deeply pleasant dream. Was she dreaming? Did wolves dream? It seemed an impractical activity for a practical creature such as the Sark.

Gwynneth dreamed when she slept, but it was nighttime now — time for an owl to be awake and flying. Gwynneth did not particularly care for the schedule they had fallen into, but she supposed it worked well. She could be abroad at night keeping a sharp lookout for the Prophet, while the Sark could keep watch during the day. So Gwynneth took one last look at her sleeping companion and stepped out from the buttress roots to lift off into the air.

It was a cold, windless night, perfect for flying, as the air was dense.
It’s like flying on the downy
, Auntie used to say. The downy was a reference to the soft feathers an owl has beneath its tougher exterior ones. When chicks hatched out and finally dried, they were clad entirely in down tufts. She had just spread her wings to lift off, when the Sark awoke.

“Your second flight tonight, I think. I never realized owls had so little patience,” the Sark said.

“It’s not a question of patience. It’s being cooped up on this — this — this vigil or whatever you call waiting in these roots for some lunatic wolf to show up in my father’s helmet.”

“He’ll come, just give him time. You yourself said that the Skaars dancers are more active than ever now.”

“Yes, but the Prophet’s not there. So far, I haven’t had a glimpse of him.” Gwynneth sighed. “And when we do find him, what exactly do we do?”

The Sark’s head jerked with new attention. “Why, we get your father’s helmet and visor back and restore it to its rightful place — to wherever his hero mark was made. We shall force this wolf to tell us where exactly that is. And in the process we can expose this fool, unmask a false god, and stop the dancing.”

“Can you be sure?”

“No, of course not. No one can ever be sure of anything.”

“Why do you think the dancing has increased, ma’am?” asked Gwynneth after a small pause.

“Now, that’s a good question. I have a theory. Those odd lights that have been appearing for the last several nights have somehow incited the dancers. I think they feel it is some sort of sign that Skaarsgard’s arrival on earth is imminent.” She paused. “Poor fools.”

“But, ma’am, what do you think those lights are? I myself find them … well … eerie.”

“Spook you, do they?”

Gwynneth cast her eyes down and nodded her head. She was somewhat embarrassed to admit that they did.

The Sark continued in a much gentler voice. “Oh, Gwynneth, don’t worry. They are nothing more than air — an atmospheric phenomenon similar to ice halos. As the sun sinks below the horizon, ice crystals caught in layers of cold air act like prisms and bend the sun’s rays. We are seeing them now because, although the weather feels fiercely cold like winter, the sun still rises and sets on its summer schedule. In the winter we don’t see such a
phenomenon because the sun is at a different angle to the earth. It’s as simple as that!”

It did not seem at all simple to Gwynneth. Nevertheless, she took solace in the Sark’s dispassionate explanation. But what was the explanation for the growing madness of the wolves of the Beyond? Gwynneth and the Sark had estimated that fully half the wolves were caught up in the strange cult of Skaars dancing. The sights that Gwynneth had seen as she flew over this territory near the Outermost seeped into her dreams and clung to her feathers like cobwebs. She could not rid herself of them. And the knowledge that the Sark had tried to protect her from — the fact that wolves were eating other wolves — had been revealed to her one night as she flew over a circle where the last Skaars dancer had collapsed. Wolves wild eyed and reckless had melted out of the shadows. They had not even waited for the dancing wolves to die but began dismembering them as they still breathed.

It was all too horrifying for Gwynneth. She had flown into the savage wolves’ faces, batting their paws, and even lost one primary in her attempts. It was not a severe injury. She would molt that feather come spring — if spring ever came. But her fight had proved useless.

She had returned to the Obea tree determined to say nothing, but the Sark smelled them on her. Smelled that Gwynneth had tangled with a wolf-eating wolf.

“Don’t, Gwynneth, don’t!” the Sark had said somberly.

“Don’t what?”

“You know, dear. What they’re doing is unspeakable. But you can’t stop it.” The Sark had squeezed her eyes shut. Her voice broke. “I couldn’t stand to lose you, Gwynneth. Don’t do anything foolish. Now let me see about that feather.”

That had been the end of their discussion. They never spoke of it again.

The clear patch appeared in the thickly clouded night sky, and a few stars gleamed down upon them. Gwynneth spread her wings to take flight.

“Be careful!” the Sark cried out.

Gwynneth spun her head almost entirely around to look over her tail feathers. “Don’t worry, ma’am.”

But the Sark’s words of caution frightened her. It was so unlike the Sark to say good-bye in this fashion. Gwynneth was not fearful for herself but worried about this new, somewhat gentler Sark. It was so uncharacteristic of her to fret about Gwynneth’s safety.

Gwynneth had not flown far when she saw two plumes of snow rising from the ground. They were slightly uneven, like the mismatched wings of a bird. There was only one wolf who ran like this — the gnaw wolf Creakle. If Faolan was the swiftest runner, Creakle was certainly the most beautiful runner in the entire Beyond.

“Gwynneth!”

At the cry, Gwynneth swerved in flight. “What in the name of Glaux,” she muttered, and then saw Tully melt out of a cloud bank.

Creakle had slowed to look up. “Here, land on my back, you two. The snow is awfully deep,” Creakle called.

The two owls alighted on Creakle’s withers. Gwynneth noticed they were very thin, but of course it was supposed to be summer and wolves shed their thick undercoats in the summer moons.

“Creakle!” Gwynneth exclaimed. “I am so happy to see you — see that you are alive. I have wondered how you gnaw wolves are doing.”

“Some better than others. Tearlach died.”

“Oh, no!”

“But the Whistler is, so far, still alive, and rumor has it that he’s with Faolan and Edme at the Blood Watch. That’s where we’re headed. The Blood Watch is in poor shape, and they need all the help they can get.”

“Faolan and Edme are at the Blood Watch!” Gwynneth was shocked. “How could I not know this? I’ve been camped so close with the Sark.”

“Is that where you’ve been?” Tully exclaimed. “The Great Tree sent me to find you. You have been absent, gone, vanished, unaccounted for, missing in action, Gwynneth!” He caught himself. He was picking up Creakle’s penchant for synonyms. “The tree is none too happy. They need you now, they need an owl who knows the Beyond.”

Gwynneth cocked her head. “I’m sorry, but let me tell you what’s happened.”

“Please do,” Tully said somewhat huffily.

“You know about the Skaars dancers, right?”

“How could we not know about them?” Creakle asked.

“And the Prophet?” Gwynneth asked.

Creakle and Tully nodded.

“Do you know what that stupid prophet wears to hide his identify?” Gwynneth asked.

“I’ve heard a mask of some sort,” Creakle said.

“Not just some sort. The Prophet wears the helmet and visor of my father.”

There was a long silence.

“What?” Tully squawked.

“Gwyndor’s mask?” Creakle asked.

Gwynneth nodded.

Gwynneth explained how they had found the helmet and visor’s hiding place and how sooner or later the Prophet would come back to it. “So you see, I have to return to the Obea tree and stand watch with the Sark. I had no idea Faolan and Edme were so close. It’s close as the owl flies but not as the wolf runs, and you can bet that no wolves come near that tree. That’s why it’s perfect for concealing something. Can you two continue on to the Blood Watch and tell Faolan and Edme what the Sark and I have discovered?”

“Of course, of course!” Both the owl and the wolf nodded.

“And if the Blood Watch can spare them, perhaps they might come.” Gwynneth hesitated. “I mean, who knows what we’re up against with the Prophet. There is only so much an elderly wolf and one owl can do. And for Glaux’s sake, don’t ever tell the Sark I called her elderly!”

Gwynneth paused. Another thought came to her.
“Tully, I’ve introduced the Sark to rodents — rodents as nourishment.”

“Yes, I introduced — or tried to introduce — mice to the Skaars dancers. They were too far gone for it to matter.”

“But not everyone is a Skaars dancer — certainly not yet. You could be of great service. Catch rodents. You know where to look for them.” Gwynneth paused. “You could bring them first to the Blood Watch and then to the wolves at the Ring of Sacred Volcanoes. If the owls want to help, that’s the best thing they could do.”

Then Creakle spoke. “Tully, could you fly back to the Great Tree and get other owls to join you?”

“The search and rescue and the tracking chaws would be perfect for this. Yes. I’ll help. I’ll leave now. I saw a place where there might be voles. I’ll hunt them down for the Blood Watch and then fly east to the Ring and on to Ga’Hoole.”

And so it was decided that Creakle would continue on to the Blood Watch and report to Faolan and Edme what Gwynneth had told them.