Spirit Wolf (12 page)

ORDINARILY, THE RIDGE FROM
which the Blood Watch commanded its vigil could be seen from leagues away. It was a rocky profile that reared up like the jagged spine of some primeval beast, casting long sharp shadows across the high plains. But the spine had been fractured and the plains seemed to spread endlessly into the savage country known as the Outermost. The little brigade of motley animals — six wolves, two wolf pups, two bear cubs, and a Masked Owl flying overhead as scout, made their way to the west.

With the sun just past noon, their shadow prints on the snow began to lengthen. The design of their silhouettes sliding across one another on the white blanket of snow was stunning. Occasionally, Gwynneth gave a quick spin of her head to take it in. It was, she realized, a kind
of chain. She remembered what Faolan had said about the Great Chain — how they needed a new Great Chain — when they rescued Edme from the crevasse.

Everything has changed in the Beyond. There is no more Ring, the Sacred Volcanoes have been smashed. There is no more Fengo, no Watch wolves to guard an ember. The land has been disrupted and so has the order.
Gwynneth looked down at the dark shadows gliding across the white snow — the two rotund bear cubs, the tiny wolf pups, the wolves, and her own broad wingspan. The design could make a beautiful chain. If she ever had the good luck to set up another forge, what a challenge it would be to make a piece with such wondrous shapes.

Gwynneth felt a calm steal into her gizzard. There was a grandeur in this view, this design of these creatures moving away together from famine and death to seek new life on a new piece of earth. How magnificent these different creatures were that must have had life originally breathed into them by one creator, whether it be called Lupus or Glaux or Ursus. How many forms grew out of something so simple.

It took Gwynneth back to those days at the forge in the Beyond when she would devote endless hours to making art pieces. The strong rocks, as the Rogue smiths called
those stones and bits of stones that were full of the metals that they used for their smithing, were plentiful in the region where she had set up her forge. They seemed to cry out to be made into something beautiful, not merely weapons. Besides, most weapons were actually rather boring to make — the battle claws, the blades, the helmets — one could only vary their shapes so much. It might be challenging to make double-action retractable battle claws, but once you had done it a few times, it became rather tedious. Gwynneth's preference for making art worried her father, Gwyndor, who had been known for his superb double-action retractable battle claws. But her auntie, the Rogue smith of Silverveil, had forged many items beyond the practical or those made for military purposes.

As Gwynneth looked down and saw Faolan's silhouette stretched out to an immense length across the snow, she remembered when she had first met him. She had been trying to forge a metal replica of a willow leaf. This might have seemed odd to some, as there was not a willow tree nor a willow leaf to be found in the barren landscape of the Beyond. Gwynneth could barely remember ever seeing a willow tree, even in Silverveil where she had spent much of her youth. Where had she gotten such an idea? she wondered.

And where had Faolan gotten this idea about heading west? Certainly he had not experienced a scroomly visit from her dead father, Gwyndor. Had a
lochin
come to Faolan and told him to go west? Whatever the reason, Faolan was now a wolf with a purpose.

She watched as he set a steady pace, cocking his head slightly to starboard as a northwest wind blew across the high plains. He was a magnificent wolf. Huge. His silvery coat seemed to sparkle in the sun. When he waved his tail to indicate a slight course correction, it flashed like a comet streaking down to earth. His gait had altered slightly since his paw mended. She noticed that he bore down heavily on it every few strides, leaving a blazoned mark in the snow as if to declare unequivocally,
A wolf named Faolan has passed this way!

But why, Gwynneth wondered, did Faolan still have the spiral mark on his paw pad? Banja's second eye had been restored perfectly; the Whistler's twisted throat had straightened and the hole repaired, patched so there was no longer the sibilant hiss when he spoke. Faolan's paw, too, had mended. It was like any other normal wolf's paw except in this one respect. Why was the spiral left? There must be a reason.

The shadows on the ground had slid across one
another into a new configuration. Now the shadow of her wings spanned either side of Faolan's elongated body. Gwynneth inhaled sharply.

A flying wolf!
The sun went behind a cloud and the shadows vanished. But the image lingered in Gwynneth's mind's eye.

As she was contemplating it, she caught a disturbing sound in her ear slits. It was a tiny crackling coming from beneath the snowy surface deep in the earth.

Oh, no!
she thought.
It can't be.
She had heard that sound before — a prelude to the last earthquake when she was in the Shadow Forest at the blue spruce.
Not again!
Should she alert the wolves below? She didn't want to alarm them unnecessarily. They were going at a fairly good clip. Banja had slowed down some. She was carrying Maudie, who was sound asleep in her jaws. Perhaps she could relieve her. Gwynneth swooped down. “Let me take the pup, Banja. You look tired.”

“I'll do it,” Edme offered. “Best you keep scouting, Gwynneth.”

“Oh, you are both too kind,” Banja said and shook her head slightly as if she could hardly believe this generosity. It was not the first time Banja had looked upon kindness with astonishment. Ever since she had joined
them with her pup, she seemed overwhelmed when the wolves were nice to her. Why had she never been this way at the Ring? Did she have to give birth to learn that the world was not a stingy place?

The glare was exceptionally fierce as they headed into the setting sun. Faolan soon noticed that Banja was not the only one who had grown tired; the others' energy seemed to be flagging as well. He was determined to reach the border and the Cave Before Time by evening. He knew now that this was where he would meet the third
gyre
. There had been Eo, and before Eo, Fionula. Who would be the third?

He slid his eyes toward Edme, who was trotting beside him. She had handed off the pup to Mhairie. Sometimes he felt that Edme perceived more about him than he did himself. He wondered about the nightmare she'd had in the spirit woods. What had she seen as he had walked with his
gyre
souls? Did she sense who that third soul would be?

Impossible!

“You're thinking about the Cave, aren't you? The Cave Before Time,” Edme asked.

“I'd — I'd just like to get there by dark.” He tried to sound casual.

Edme said nothing. He noticed that her gait was rough. At first he thought it was because she had been carrying Maudie. But now he turned and looked as she walked a bit ahead of him. Her starboard leg was striking the ground unevenly.

“Edme, are you lame?”

Edme wheeled around. “What? No! I'm perfectly fine.”

“You're walking as if you have a pain. Pain in your starboard femur.”

Edme laid back her ears, barely disguising a snarl. “My femur is perfectly fine.”

Her femur was not perfectly fine. Faolan knew it. He could feel that it was twisted. He wasn't sure why he had never noticed this before. Perhaps it hadn't affected her when she was younger. It could have been bone freeze, a condition that often afflicted elderly wolves. Gradually the bone twisted and became gnarled, which made for an uneven gait. But the condition never occurred in a wolf as young as Edme.

If it was bone freeze, it seemed grossly unfair to Faolan. Poor Edme! Because she was a
malcadh
made and not born, her eye had not been restored, and now a twisted femur that could not be detected at birth and probably had not troubled her until this long journey had flared
up. Faolan could tell that Edme was angry, especially when he mentioned her femur. This all seemed oddly familiar to him. Her annoyance with him, the funny way she walked, her defensiveness when he said the word “femur.” He had to think of something quickly to placate her.

“I'm sure it's nothing. We would all be walking a bit peculiarly if we had fallen into a crevasse and had to hang on to that ice ledge such a long time.”

“Exactly!” she mumbled. “Now please drop the subject.” She picked up her speed as if to prove she was fine.

Faolan watched her as she moved off. There was something haunting about the way she was walking, something that scratched at the back of his brain, like an old dream.
Dream!
That was it! He'd had a dream the night before the earthquake on Broken Talon Point.

While his sisters were carving the bones of their mother, Morag, he had fallen into a deep sleep in a den nearby and dreamed of carving another bone, a twisted femur.

He stopped in his tracks. But how could that be? He could not have carved Edme's femur. He hadn't even known it was twisted. She had never before betrayed a trace of lameness. Suddenly, Faolan was frightened of what he
would find in the Cave Before Time.
I can't go there
, he thought.
I can't!
His legs refused to move.

“Faolan, what's wrong?” the Whistler asked.

“I … I think I need to rest. Right here. I think we should stop here for the night.”

“What!” Edme roared. “Have you gone
cag mag
?” She raced toward him, her ears shoved forward, her tail raised, and her hackles bristling. Her single eye gleamed and seemed to pin him to the ground as Faolan sank down into the most abject posture of submission.

There was absolute silence. One could have heard a feather drop or a strand of fur shed. Never had the wolves seen Edme and Faolan face off in such a display. To see Faolan, of all wolves, sinking down as if he were once again a gnaw wolf, and Edme rigid, her ears shoved forward as if her marrow was about to boil over with anger … There had been many strange things that had occurred in the Beyond during the last moon, but this was the strangest of all.

All the creatures, the six wolves, the two pups, and the two bear cubs froze in their tracks. This standoff was a spectacle that not one of them could have anticipated. They all knew, even the young pups, that Faolan and Edme had a profound respect for each other. They had
both been gnaw wolves in their clans. They had both competed in the
gaddergnaw
and earned themselves coveted positions on the Watch at the Ring. To see them fight was as peculiar as the unseasonable moons that had brought blizzards in the summer.

Faolan felt a shiver course up his paw right through the swirling marks on its pad. He saw Edme's hackles bristle up and a frightened light in her eye replaced the glint. Her tail dropped. At just that moment Gwynneth lighted down.

“What are you standing here for? We have to move. I think —” There was a shudder from deep inside the earth.

“We have to move now!” Gwynneth said. “This ground could crack. There's softer ground ahead — a bog.”

“The Frost Forest! It's at the edge of the bog. And then the Cave — the Cave Before Time. We have to get there.” Faolan's voice was firm and an urgent new energy streamed through him.

He raced forward. Edme and the rest of the little company fell in on his port flank. The earth was shaking, but the motley brigade of creatures raced on, confident that even if the land cracked, order had been restored for them. Faolan was in the lead, Edme beside him, then his
sisters with Myrr between them, the cubs next. The Whistler carrying Maudie, and Banja at his side.

“Crevice opening to port!” Gwynneth shreed. The raspy call cut like a blade through the lavender twilight that was beginning to stain the land. Faolan headed a few points off course to skirt a gash that was opening up.

A minute later, Gwynneth sounded another alarm. “Press starboard now! There's another dead ahead!”

They were traveling at press-paw speed. “It's like a
byrrgis
,” Mhairie whispered to Dearlea, “except we're the prey!” The ground fractured all around them, like a furious beast that would swallow them if they made the slightest misstep. Immense slashes opened up to the front of the wolves, behind them, and on all sides. The land was a deadly maze.

“Bear two points off to port, three! Now three to starboard! Quarter off the wind!” Edme had taken the lead and Faolan fell back. It was uncanny, but the one-eyed she-wolf seemed to sense the cracks before they opened. They ran on and on until the land finally stopped heaving.

Faolan shouted the order to halt. “We're here!” The creatures skidded to a stop. The ground was solid but ahead there was a tumble of rocks. The entrance to the Cave was blocked.

“Where are we?” Gwynneth asked, setting down on a large boulder.

“This is the Cave … the Cave Before Time.” Faolan looked at Edme.

“Lead us in, Faolan,” she said softly. “You know the way.”

And he did. The swirl on the once twisted paw of his was drawn to an almost invisible passage, like a lodestone to a strong rock.

“This way!” Faolan said. “This way.”