Wolves of the Beyond: Shadow Wolf (5 page)

THE MACDUNCAN CLAN WAS
comprised of five packs of wolves. Faolan had already performed the ritual of contrition at the pack of the Carreg Gaer in front of Elpeth, Stellan, and Mhairie, the outflankers. But there were three other packs he must visit with the bone of shame before returning to his own. They were the River Pack, the Pack of the Blue Rock, and the Pack of the Fire Grass. The Blue Rock Pack was on the border with MacDuff territory. It would be a whole day’s run at half press-paw from where he was, and then if he started early the next day, he would be able to travel west to the River Pack. Faolan really wanted to get that over with fast, for he could just imagine Heep’s pleasure in seeing Faolan having to grovel with the bone of shame in his mouth.

Faolan had been thinking all this as he traveled the trail of shame. Soon in the long blue dusk, a raggedy wolf trotted out toward him. The wolf made a strange noise that was neither a bark nor a howl but a kind of strangled whistling. Faolan knew instantly that it must be the gnaw wolf from the Blue Rock Pack. He had heard about this wolf who had been born with a crookedness deep in his throat that made his every utterance sound like a whistle. Thus his nickname, the Whistler.

The only time a gnaw wolf was expected to show submission to another gnaw wolf was on the trail of shame. Faolan immediately prostrated himself before the Whistler, a pale gray wolf who seemed painfully thin.

“I did not expect to arrive so quickly. I didn’t know I was so close to the honorable Blue Rock Pack,” Faolan said after dropping the bone from his mouth.

“You aren’t. I was just out hoping for a hare. They are often where the lichen eaters graze and much easier prey.”

“I’ve heard about lichen eaters but never seen one,” Faolan replied. “Their meat is supposed to be very tasty.” He knew they had antlers and appeared nearly identical to caribou but were smaller and seemed to have a taste
for lichen as much as for the grasses that caribou fed on. The Whistler definitely needed easy prey, from the looks of his bones, which appeared to be nearly jutting through his pelt.

“You can rise up now,” the Whistler said.

“Are you sure?” Faolan was trying to do everything just right. He would become the best possible gnaw wolf he could, so he could leave the clans behind and beome a member of the Watch.

“Yes, please come. They are expecting you.”

Faolan was taken aback. No wolf had said “please” to him since he had been taken into the clan. He tucked the bone snugly under his chin and began to walk. But then he stopped. This poor wolf looked as if he hadn’t had a decent meal in months.

“What’s the problem?” The Whistler turned around.

“Why don’t we go track down some of those lichen eaters. I’ve never hunted them. And you look as if you could use a good meal.”

The Whistler twitched his ears. “You know how it is in a big pack like the Blue Rock. I’m last to eat after twenty-five others.”

“Twenty-five! How do you get even a bite?”

“Often I don’t.” He sighed. “I mostly go after hare. Small stuff. Not very satisfying. No fat on a hare, you know.”

“I know. So let’s go after these lichen eaters. There’s time. You said I’m early.”

“Are you sure? I mean, you think just the two of us could do it? Take down a lichen eater?”

“Well, if we succeed, it’s going to be a lot tastier than a hare. And two have a better chance than one,” Faolan answered.

“I certainly could use some real meat. I think we might be able to pick up a trail yonder.” He nodded toward a dry creek bed. “They often travel through that way.”

“Let’s go,” Faolan said.

They found the trail immediately.

“One of them might be limping,” the Whistler said after a few minutes. “It’s setting down its east foreleg unevenly.”

Faolan was impressed. The Whistler was clearly an observant wolf and knew how to read tracks.

It was hardly a herd, just four lichen eaters traveling together, two females, a calf, and an elderly male.
The male had a deep wound in its hock and was indeed limping. It seemed to Faolan as if he would be an easy takedown. The strategy was simple. Split the male off from the others and chase him down. Faolan and the Whistler were working well together and gaining on the old male by playing a bluff strategy in which they would run him hard for a period, then ease up and feign loss of interest. This gave the prey a sense of false security so that it became less vigilant, perhaps even stopped to take a rest. Faolan had the feeling that this was just about to happen, when all of a sudden, they heard a commotion in the brush on a hillside. A big healthy buck came charging down a slope, stopped a short distance from them, and pawed the ground. Lichen eaters were generally fleet and small of build, but this one was huge. There was nothing small about him. The buck began dipping and raising his immense rack of antlers. Faolan had seen caribou do this. It was an aggression display that often preceded territorial conflicts or mating battles among male members of a herd. But he had never seen it used in confrontation with predators.

“Uh-oh!” the Whistler groaned. “We better get out of here!” But Faolan wheeled about, dug in his four paws,
shoved his ears forward, and snarled at the buck, who was lowering his head as if to charge.

What is this wolf doing?
the Whistler thought.

There was a silver streak, like a low-flying comet in the twilight.

It took the Whistler a moment to figure out that the streak was Faolan hurling through the air. There was a large smack and an expulsion of breath, followed by a high whinnying screech. Faolan was straddling the shoulders of the buck, who reared into the air. The buck took off like a bolt, but Faolan clung, with the Whistler following.

It was absolutely the strangest thing the Whistler had ever seen. He had been there when Faolan vaulted over the wall of fire set up to trap him. The Whistler knew how the descriptions were soon exaggerated, and it was not long before Faolan was said to have jumped for the sun. But there was no exaggeration needed for what the Whistler was witnessing here. Faolan was actually riding a buck lichen eater, blood flying in their wake.

The blood was the buck’s. Faolan had sunk his long fangs into the buck’s neck and pierced the life-giving artery. His claws were embedded so deeply in one shoulder that the buck’s muscles were torn. The lichen eater
began to stumble, then soon crumpled to the ground. The buck’s stomach was heaving, and his chest worked to draw every breath. The Whistler came up, and both he and Faolan sank to their knees, laying their heads close to the dying buck’s and peering into his eyes, searching for that last guttering of light. The death ritual of
lochinvyrr
was not code, nor law engraved on any bone. It was an urge that flowed stronger than hunger through a wolf, a need to let the dying animal know that the life it gave was valued.

For several seconds, Faolan and the Whistler were silent, their thoughts focused on the beauty of this animal’s grace and spirit.
You are worthy, your life is worthy, your meat will sustain us.
There was a moment just before the last beat of the animal’s heart when a light flickered deep in its eyes, as if an agreement had come to pass. A second later, the buck died.

Thin, frayed clouds floated low over the darkening horizon like cobwebs clinging to the day. Faolan and the Whistler ate for a long time, until the moon began to rise in the eastern sky, and then, with heavy bellies, they turned toward the Pack of the Blue Rock.

Faolan was supposed to follow behind the Whistler, but they soon fell into a companionable trot shoulder to shoulder. It seemed natural to Faolan, and he had hardly been aware of it until the Whistler spoke.

“I was there when you jumped the wall of fire.” The words came like a wind rising up from the depths of a deep canyon. “I was one of the wolves who chased you there. And now you are the one who has given me my first decent food in weeks.” He paused. “Thank you.”

There was a long silence. This was the first wolf who had admitted to being a part of the
byrrgis
that had tried to drive Faolan to his death when they thought he had the foaming-mouth disease. He didn’t think that any of them had felt guilty about mistaking him for a foaming-mouth wolf. What had disturbed them was that Faolan had not died. Instead, he had jumped the wall of fire meant to catch him, jumping for the sun and challenging the order of the Great Chain. This was considered a blasphemous act, not to be spoken of again but consigned to the silence of a carved bone. To talk about it casually, or “off the bone” as the Whistler was doing, was not acceptable.

“You’d better not talk about it,” Faolan said.

The Whistler shrugged and then, with a strange
chuckle that sounded like a rattling wind, said, “I don’t exactly speak, now, do I? Would you consider this a voice?”

Well,
Faolan thought,
they are words, even if they sound odd
. “Can I ask you about the
gaddergnaw
?”

“I know very little. There hasn’t been one since I’ve been with the Blue Rock Pack.” The Whistler paused. “However, they do say that during the competition, they treat the gnaw wolves with great respect. No cuffing, no muzzle bites. None of that nonsense.”

“And after the
gaddergnaw
?”

“Well, I’m afraid, for all but the one wolf selected, it’s life as usual.”

Life as usual!
These were bitter, bitter words. Faolan simply had to be selected, and yet he already felt far behind.

“Have you started the practice yet?”

“Oh, yes, one of the
gadderlords
, the wolves who run the competition, came and prepared me for the type of bones we shall be asked to carve.”

“What type is that?”

“The usual. More inscriptions of the Great Chain—no surprise there! And then, a bone of our own making.”

“What do you mean?”

“A story bone. That, I think, will be the most difficult. When we all traveled to the west country to perform the mourning ceremonies for the great chieftain of the MacDuncan clan, they had us practice on some bones. We carved grieving bones for Duncan MacDuncan, and the lords came around and told us what was good and what wasn’t in our carving.”

Faolan couldn’t help but think how far behind he must be without the benefit of this early training.

“And then there is a
byrrgis
in which we are not sweepers.” The Whistler nodded at Faolan. “You’ll do well.”

Faolan dropped his head. “I hope so,” he mumbled.

“I know so. You’re built for it.”

They came up on the pack’s encampment, and there was no time to talk further.

The camp was beneath an immense ledge of blue rock veined with white quartz and glistening with tiny bright crystals. Faolan had taken up his proper position behind the Whistler and had shifted the bone of shame from under his chin to his mouth. It would not do for any of the pack to know that the two gnaw wolves had passed the time chatting amiably.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” the Whistler whispered to Faolan, and nodded at the rock.

But Faolan couldn’t answer with the bone in his mouth.

He wondered about the rock. It looked as if the stars had tumbled from the sky and rooted in the stone. A handsome black male came out from behind it and gave a gruff greeting to the Whistler and a harsh cuff to Faolan’s ear. Faolan didn’t mind, but it seemed so odd that, moments before, he had been enjoying the easy companionship of another wolf, and now he was once more an object of abuse.

“Lachlana and Tamsen are waiting, over there.” The black wolf nodded toward the overhang of the blue rock. Faolan could see other wolves pressing through the shadows and felt their narrowed eyes clamp down on him. Their curiosity was unnerving. Before, he was the freakish wolf who had jumped for the sun, and he was now the shamed wolf who had cracked the
byrrgis
.

Off to one side, the Whistler watched the other wolves. He could tell they were amazed by Faolan’s size and his vigor, for even when Faolan was groveling in the dirt, he did not look like a gnaw wolf. His coat was too sleek; there was nothing raggedy about him. They were utterly baffled.

“I’ve never seen such a gnaw wolf,” one young male said with a tinge of envy in his voice.

The Whistler wondered what the other wolves might think if they knew that, just hours before, Faolan had ridden a buck to death. The Whistler worried about this strange young gnaw wolf.
He’s outside anything they’ve ever imagined!

And although Faolan immediately sank to his belly and began the crawl of humiliation toward the two outflankers, a shadow of dignity clung to him.

Faolan caught only a glimpse of the two outflankers before he began crawling, but he saw that they were powerful wolves with almost identical creamy-hued pelts. He judged them to be sisters. When he reached their paws, he stopped and dropped the bone of shame. The slightly smaller wolf picked up the bone quickly, but not before giving Faolan a sharp bite to the nose. Then her sister presented him with a fresh bone, a fragment of an antler. This was the contrition bone he was to carve. But first the pack leader came forward to read the bone of shame. The two outflankers took several steps back.

Standing directly over Faolan’s head, Dain began to read in a deep, sonorous voice, “As recorded by the gnaw wolf, Heep, of the River Pack of the MacDuncan clan…”

Faolan could not help but flinch as he heard Heep’s
name spoken.
I’d better get used to this,
he thought.
I’m going to have to hear it again and again!

“On the morning after the fifteenth night of the Caribou Moon, a
byrrgis
was assembled on the Burn in pursuit of a bull moose….”

By the fifth “humble” in Heep’s story, Faolan thought he detected a snicker among the assembled wolves. This momentarily heartened Faolan, but not for long.

“He was really bad, wasn’t he, Mum?” he heard a little pup say.

“Indeed!” his mum replied.

Faolan pressed his tail more tightly between his legs and shut his eyes. Why had he been such a fool? Duncan MacDuncan’s words once again echoed in his ear.
You have no sense.