Wolves of the Beyond: Shadow Wolf (8 page)

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 Thunderheart 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.

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.”

“Yes, I might.” For the only privilege a gnaw wolf had was to name the account he or she inscribed on a bone. Heep had entitled Faolan’s bone of shame “The Sins and Humiliation of the Gnaw Wolf Faolan.” Then he had gone on to subtitle it “One Gnaw Wolf’s Horrifying Violations of the
Byrrgnock
.”

“Well,” Mhairie said, looking up at Faolan through the blood mask of her fur. “I just wanted to say that, you know…you let me do what I wanted to do. I know you can run fast, really fast”—she paused—“for a male, that is. So, thanks.” She turned and walked away.

“‘So, thanks,’ she says. I’m fast for a male—Urskadamus!” Faolan muttered. He hardly felt it merited his saying, “You’re welcome, Mhairie, for your overwhelming gratitude.”

THE SETTING MOON GLOWED RED,
as if it had been dipped in the blood of the
cailleach
, and slipped down behind the western horizon. The stars were out, and the first paw of the Great Wolf was beginning to show again, which always was a cause for celebration among the clans of the Beyond. The second of the spring moons, the Moon of the Singing Grass, was when the
gaddergnaw
was to be held. But as Faolan set himself on course to travel to the
tummfraw
, he was not thinking about anything but finding the bones of the little tawny wolf.

He had come to a decision. He planned to make a
drumlyn
to honor the pup. When he found enough bones, he would take them and arrange them in a mound, the
drumlyn
, from which the little pup’s spirit could spring to
the first rung of the star ladder and run to the Cave of Souls.

Faoloan climbed to the very top of the ridge where he had seen the little pup on a table rock. He looked around for a bit, and then it struck him that if indeed the pup’s bones had been left behind, they would most likely have slid down the slope. It had not snowed as he had prayed it would, but he remembered that it had rained heavily after he left the dying pup.

Faolan looked down the slope and tried to figure out where tiny bones might have traveled. The winter had been the coldest in memory, but there had not been many heavy snowfalls, and now at the end of the last of the winter moons, there had been more rain. So he decided to look for bones in the small rills made by the rain.

He searched long into the night until the sky began to lighten. Just as the horizon turned a dusky pink, he saw something very white poking from the soil. He carefully dug around it with his claws, then sheathed his teeth, using his lips to clamp on to it and pull it out of the ground. He set it down and stared at it. Was it a tiny rib? As he looked closer, he saw deep gashes that made his marrow tremble. A low growl began to rumble within him, a growl of anguish and wrath.

The hackles on his ruff stiffened. Whatever predator had taken this tiny wolf pup’s life had done so in a most violent manner. The surface of the bone was obliterated behind a blizzard of slashing marks. It was almost impossible to make out which animal had been the predator.
Well
, Faolan thought,
it does not matter anymore
. He had the bone. He would safeguard it and then come back to find others.

The only place he could think to leave the bone was with Thunderheart’s paw bone. It would give him ease to know that this tiny rib was resting with Thunderheart. He decided to take the bone there straightaway. Now he knew for certain that the little pup was done with her terrible agony, although it pained him to think of the violence of her end. But surely with the Star Wolf returning, the pup could climb the ladder to the Cave of Souls. And Faolan vowed that he would return to the slope beneath the ridge to find more of her bones—
her
bones. Faolan refused to think of the pup as an
it
, the way the Sark always spoke of
malcadhs
.

The following evening, he returned to the ridge. When he first arrived, he experienced a vague sensation that there might be another animal nearby. He lifted his nose to the wind but could not detect a scent. It was very
possible that other wolves were around, for he was not that far from the Fire Grass Pack. There might be hunters out tracking the other half of the red deer herd.

The evening was dark and moonless. There was no light for casting shadows, and yet Faolan felt shadows all about him. He scolded himself for being so jumpy.
I’m becoming as superstitious as these clan wolves,
he thought, and set himself to his task.

He found several more bones from the little pup, all with deep gashes. Despite terrible lacerations, one in particular had a lovely shape and seemed almost to beg to have the pup’s short little life recorded on it. So Faolan began to gnaw on it. He had not been carving for long before he felt for the first time ever a discomfort with incising a story on bone.

I can’t do this yet,
he thought.
The little pup’s story is not complete
. It seemed wrong to carve it, almost as if the violence that had been wreaked on this bone tangled the poetry of his marking. He had to stop.

Faolan found several more bones, too many to be carried in one trip to Thunderheart’s paw. He would go now with the first load, and by the time he came back for the second, perhaps he would feel differently and finish the carving.

But when he came back, the partially carved bone had disappeared. An uneasy feeling swept through him. Had another animal seen him here? And why would it take that bone and not any of the others he had left behind?

When Faolan returned to the clan, merriment was still swirling from the hunt two days before. The smell of the blood had receded somewhat. There were piles of bones to be gnawed by the three gnaw wolves. Faolan turned his attention to the femur that Mhairie had presented.

The Moon of the Frost Stars had slipped away now for good. The first thin wisp of the Cracking Ice Moon was rising. Alastrine joined Greer, the
skreeleen
of the River Pack, in baying to the rise of the first spring moon and celebrating the end of the hunger moons of winter. And then, at the height of the night, a torrential rain began, and the sky crackled with lightning that looked like the splinters of hundreds of tiny white bones.

The two
skreeleens
began to howl the
ceilidh fyre
, or the sky dance of fire. Tonight, they cried out the story of Skaarsgard, the leaping wolf who helps little ones up the star ladder. Was this not a sign that indeed the tiny pup was on her way? Faolan hoped it was an omen
that all would be well and he could sleep peacefully, lulled by the little pup playing with her mates in the Cave of Souls.

But the
skreeleens
told the story of a stubborn little wolf pup who kept scampering down the star ladder. It was an old favorite, a call-and-response tale in which the little pup was not a
malcadh
but one who had simply died. Alastrine sang the part of Skaarsgard, and Greer the part of the little pup.

Skaarsgard calls: “Why do you go, little pup, little pup?”

Little pup responds: “I go to eat the meat of the fox my mum will catch come spring.”

Skaarsgard calls: “But you need no meat in the soul cave, little pup, little pup.”

Little pup responds: “But I have not tasted the salmon that swim in the river.”

Skaarsgard calls: “But you have left your teeth behind, little pup, little pup. You are a spirit so free, your soul has risen, little pup, little pup. Leave your meat dreams behind, little pup, little pup.”

Little pup responds: “I can have no dreams because I have not tasted meat. Let me eat. Let me eat.”

Skaarsgard calls: “But you cannot be starving, for you
have no hunger. You have no teeth. You have no stomach. You are a soul on the star ladder.”

Little pup responds: “But I am hungry.”

Skaarsgard calls: “For what can you hunger?”

Little pup responds: “For dreams I’ll never have. For meat I’ll never eat. For rivers I’ll never swim.”

It was the first time Faolan had ever heard this tale. He did not find it as amusing as the other wolves did. And the sleep that he thought would come to him upon finding bones from the tiny
malcadh
did not. Instead, his sleep was ragged, shredded with visions of the little pup on the ridge falling back down to earth, not for the meat of a fox, not for the salmon in the river, but for vengeance.

When he awoke near dawn, his footpads were damp and encrusted with salt. Salt from night sweat. Foul-dream sweat. Fear sweat.