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  CHAPTER FOUR

  A TRUE GNAW WOLF?

  AS EDME MADE HER WAY DOWN from the northern peak of Crooked Back Ridge, she could not help but wonder what Faolan had felt when he found his tummfraw. She was certain that he would not have experienced the same emptiness she had when she stepped onto the table rock at the peak. Whenever she thought about it, she wanted to blame herself, but she knew this made no sense. She was not to blame — if anything, it was the tummfraw that was wrong, or the Fengo who had made a mistake. She was almost tempted to go to the Obea of the MacHeath clan and ask her point-blank if this was the right tummfraw. But Edme had to be honest with herself. She loathed the entire clan and had no desire to go back into MacHeath territory.

  The MacHeath Obea was a white wolf named Airmead. This was a cruel name, for in the Old Wolf language, it meant “barren.” Of course all Obeas were barren, but only the MacHeaths would choose to take away whatever the Obea’s real name was to call her after her pathetic condition. The MacHeaths had a malevolent instinct that flowed through their blood like a treacherous current. They fed off it like vampire bats drink blood from animals, leaving just enough to ensure that the animals live and the bat can come back for more. MacHeaths who did not feed off cruelty either grew weak and died or left for one of two places — west to the Outermost to live with the savage outclanners, or far to the northeast to the MacNamara clan. No, Edme had no desire to see any of the MacHeaths. She was already too close to their territory for comfort.

  As she wound her way down and across the steep slopes of the ridge, Edme tried to imagine how a little one-eyed pup could have made her way down the precipitous slope and back to her clan. They said that all malcadhs who survived had an instinct that led them back to their clan’s territory. But Edme found it hard to believe. Her urge had always been to put as much distance as possible between herself and her clan.

  She was still occupied with these thoughts when she reached the bottom of the ridge, and a pair of yearlings, Ingliss and Kyran, from the chieftain’s pack of the MacHeath clan appeared. She felt a twitch deep in her marrow. These two young females had particularly enjoyed abusing her when she was a gnaw wolf. They knew exactly where to attack to cause her the most fear as well as the most pain, and took pleasure in biting her as close as they could to her one good eye. She instinctively lowered her tail and began to sink into a submission posture, but suddenly stopped. I don’t need to do this anymore. I am not a gnaw wolf. I am a member of the Watch. If anything, they should submit to me. Edme’s hackles raised, she shoved her ears forward, and her single eye glinted bright green.

  “Well, you’ve certainly learned quickly!” Ingliss, the larger of the two, said.

  “Yes, but doesn’t a one-eyed wolf look funny with her hackles up?” Kyran added nastily. Kyran always took her cues from Ingliss. They worked as a tag team of abuse.

  “You know, of course, you don’t deserve to go to the Ring,” Ingliss said. Edme tilted her head. She wouldn’t deign to answer them and walked on. But they followed her, one on either side, pressing close.

  “Get away!” Edme yipped. “You can’t do this to me anymore, either with words or bites.”

  “Oh, yes, that’s true,” Ingliss said brightly. “Indeed we should never have abused you. Seeing as you were never a true gnaw wolf.”

  This stopped Edme. “Are you cag mag? What are you talking about?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Ingliss teased. She turned to Kyran. “Should we tell her?”

  “I suppose so,” Kyran replied casually, as if she had better things on her mind.

  “Dear Edme, we have come to apologize for our behavior,” Ingliss said. Edme’s head swiveled between the two wolves.

  Edme tried desperately to maintain a cool, disinterested demeanor. “An apology is not necessary, really. Now on your way. I must get to the Ring and the Watch.”

  “I wouldn’t rush if I were you,” Kyran said.

  “No, no, definitely not. For what will they say when they discover you were not born a malcadh, but made one!”

  “What are you talking about?” Edme said, and she bared her teeth. Never had such a small wolf seemed so fierce.

  The two yearlings cowered. “He did it to you, the chieftain Dunbar MacHeath!” Kyran blurted.

  “Did what?”

  “Tore out your eye!” Ingliss said.

  “You mean … you mean …” Edme’s jaw dropped open. It was as if she was searching for the actual words. “I wasn’t born this way?”

  “Not at all,” the two wolves said at once, regaining their composure. A smirk crawled across Ingliss’s face. “We heard it whispered in the gadderheal. So you see, you are not a true gnaw wolf,” Ingliss said.

  “You’re a fake,” Kyran offered. “They’ll reject you when they find out.”

  “They sense these things,” Ingliss said.

  “What if I tell them?” Edme said, turning around and heading straight into the heart of MacHeath territory.

  “Tell them? Tell who? Where are you going, Edme?”

  “To your chieftain.”

  “What?” the two wolves shrieked.

  “You’re telling him what we told you? We’ll get in big trouble!” Ingliss was running beside Edme now, pleading with her.

  “You should have thought of that before.”

  “But what’s the use of telling Dunbar MacHeath? What will you tell him exactly?”

  “Exactly?” Edme stopped short, and the beam from her single eye seemed to pierce Ingliss right to her marrow. “I shall tell him that I will serve at the Ring not as a member of the MacHeath clan, but as a free runner!”

  The two yearlings collapsed and began crawling after Edme on their bellies, begging her not to go to the chieftain. But Edme closed her ears and trotted on toward the Carreg Gaer of the MacHeath clan. Now it all made sense. She felt nothing when she arrived at her tummfraw because she had no connection with it whatsoever. Had they gone through the rituals of kicking out her birth mother and sire from the clan? What did it matter? It was all a charade and nothing more.

  But she had not endured this life of violent abuse for nothing, nor had the gaddergnaw in which she had competed been for nothing. She had won that contest fair and square. She might not have been born a malcadh, but she was a true member of the Watch. She would serve honestly, although her origins were not honest. She would serve courageously, although for most of her life she had cowered in the shadows of intimidation. Deep, deep within her marrow, Edme knew that she was meant to be a wolf of the Watch.

  While Edme was heading for the MacHeath clan, Faolan was dragging Thunderheart’s immense femur from where she had died to the place where she had first found Faolan and become his second Milk Giver.

  Thunderheart had been killed in an earthquake when Faolan was barely a year old. A gigantic boulder had rolled down on her, knocking her senseless. There she must have lain, bleeding to death. When he had first come upon her huge skull a few moons after her death, it loomed immense and pure white in the moonlight. But now, after two years, new life had taken root in it. Mosses and lichen crept over the cranium and down her long muzzle. And out of one eye popped a small constellation of starflowers. There was no way that Faolan could move her skull, nor did he want to. The skull itself had become a memorial to life. But he did transport as many of the smaller bones as he could. The drumlyn he would make would not stand simply as a tribute to life but to Thunderheart’s afterlife in Ursulana.

  Faolan wondered if Thunderheart had traveled to Ursulana. He knew she had died, but her spirit seemed to linger on earth. Did she have unfinished business? His friend Gwynneth, a Masked Owl, had told him it was that way with the scrooms of dead owls. They would not seek Glaumora in earnest until their business on earth was complete. By building this drumlyn, Faolan hoped to give Thunderheart’s spirit, or what wolves called her lochin, a sign. The drumlyn would declare that he, Faolan, was fine, that Thunderheart could cease her watch on earth. He had
already carved the story of their life together on a paw bone he had retrieved soon after he had found her skeleton. He didn’t need to carve any more. The moment he placed Thunderheart’s femur on top of the paw bone he had incised so beautifully, it was as if a weight had shifted somewhere within Faolan’s chest. He looked up as the stars broke out, and began to howl:

  Thunderheart

  Go away

  Shut your eyes on this earth

  The time has come

  Leave your bones behind

  Climb high, then higher

  On the star rungs

  Claw your way to Ursulana

  That’s where you should go

  How I do long to look to the sky

  And see your deep glow

  Among the stars that rise in the night

  Go now, go now, join that constellation so bright

  There is nothing left for you here

  And know that your son has nothing to fear

  Though the pangs of your death

  Leave me forever stunned

  The taste of your milk is still sweet on my tongue

  The huge paws that cradled me

  Never betrayed me

  But held me so close to your breast

  That the beat of your massive heart

  Still echoes within my own chest

  Oh, Thunderheart, Thunderheart,

  Time to go away.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  BLOOD AND THORNS

  ON THE CUSP OF SUMMER, WHEN the earth begins to tilt more steeply toward the sun, there is a day when the sun and the moon hang side by side in the sky. It is on this single day and night when the Litha blossoms in the Beyond. The tiny red roses tip their faces toward the radiant sun and her softly glowing sister, the moon, from which they gather their nourishment.

  The Litha blossoms are the deepest red and their thorns are as sharp as wolf fangs. The leaves of the Litha are succulent, with a juice strong enough to make a wolf tipsy. However, to get past the thorns to the spirited grog of the leaves is an uncomfortable task at best. Although the appearance of the roses marks the longest day of the year, it also signals the turn of the earth toward winter, for in the warm days after, the sun will slip below the horizon a bit earlier and a sliver of daylight will disappear as the shadows of evening advance more quickly. The night the Litha appears is called the eve of Blood and Thorns and there are rowdy celebrations in all the packs of all the clans in the Beyond. None celebrate Litha Eve more exuberantly than the MacHeath clan, often with disastrous conclusions as some wolf gets killed in what was supposed to be a “friendly” wrestling match.

  As a gnaw wolf in the MacHeath chieftain’s pack, Edme had made herself scarce on Litha Eve, but now as she entered the encampment, the howls and baying that had scored the air dwindled, and she felt a silence fall in behind her. The wolves of the pack stared in utter dismay as Edme returned with her tail lifted high and her ears shoved forward. A grimace of aggression scored her face as she moved toward the gadderheal, the ceremonial cave of the chieftain’s pack. She heard low growling whispers as she drew near.

  “What’s she doing, going to the gadderheal?”

  “On Litha Eve?”

  “Look at her tail and ears. She certainly learned the dominance postures quickly.”

  “Well, by my marrow, I’ll not scrape to her!”

  Edme heard the last remark and could only laugh to herself. By tomorrow or sooner, you’ll come begging. But I’ll be gone, gone to the Ring as a free runner.

  “Free runner” was the term for a gnaw wolf who was born clanless in the wild and left to die by its mother. Free runners were permitted to compete in the gaddergnaw, and if they proved themselves, they could be selected for the Watch at the Ring of Sacred Volcanoes. Edme had always felt that Faolan was essentially a free runner because he had not found his way back to the MacDuncan clan until well past his first year. She fully intended to declare herself first to the MacHeath clan as a free runner and then to the Fengo. The Slaan Leat was a journey toward truth, a journey toward peace. Well, she had found her truth and her peace, and so had completed her task.

  As Edme drew toward the entrance of the gadderheal, she saw the chieftain Dunbar MacHeath staggering to his feet with the aid of one of his sublieutenants. A scar ran diagonally down his face from the edge of one eye all the way to his neck, where no fur grew. The exposed skin of the scar was puckered and raw, giving him an especially savage look. Although now, swaying unsteadily and mostly supported by his sublieutenant, the chieftain simply looked ridiculous. His muzzle was thick with his own blood, from his attempts to get at the Litha leaves. He had apparently succeeded, for he was quite drunk. Edme guessed that he would sober up quickly when she announced the reason for her visit.

  “What in the name of the dim world are you doing here, cursed one?” he snarled. “Did they reject you already?”

  “It’s not a question of their rejection, but mine.”

  “What’s she saying?” The chieftain turned to his lieutenant and then vomited on the ground.

  Edme’s hackles rose so high, they made her look larger than she had ever seemed. The beam of green light from her one eye grew more intense, and Dunbar MacHeath and his lieutenant averted their gazes as one might shift one’s eyes during a solar eclipse when the pinpoint needle of the sun becomes blinding.

  “Step into the gadderheal and call your raghnaid, if you please.”

  Dunbar MacHeath suddenly stood erect, but his tail drooped in a half-submissive posture. His lieutenant went around to his hindquarters and flicked his tail as a reminder to Dunbar not to cower. Edme led the way into the gadderheal.

  I can’t quite believe this, she thought. It was as if the whole world had tilted on its axis. She was leading the chieftain into his own ceremonial cave. She was commanding him, or so it seemed, on this Litha Eve.

  Fewer than a dozen wolves in varying states of inebriation entered the gadderheal. They glanced first at Edme, for she suddenly seemed transformed. Yes, it was the same small wolf with the same mangled face, missing one eye. But with her hackles up and her tail raised, she appeared larger. And when they glanced at their chieftain, he seemed somehow slighter. His pelt, prickly with thorns and streaked in his own blood from his assaults on the Litha rose, appeared to have shrunk and to cling to his bones. He had assumed all the postures of dominance, but it seemed a bit of a joke, as if he were a little pup trying them for the first time. Airmead the Obea slipped into the gadderheal. With her pure white pelt unstained by Litha grog, she seemed no more than a scrap of fog blown in on a breeze.

  Trying to muster all the dignity he could, Dunbar MacHeath stepped toward Edme. “Why have you returned if the Fengo of the Watch has not rejected you?”

  “Why do you jump to the conclusion that the Fengo has rejected me? Is there reason that he should?” Edme let the question hang in the air, which had become quite chilly for Litha Eve.

  “No! No, of course not!”

  The chieftain does protest too vigorously, Edme thought. She nodded with just a hint of submission. “I was born a poor malcadh, was I not?” She turned to the Obea, whom no one had yet noticed.

  Dunbar spoke up now. “Yes, come forth, Airmead. You were the one who took this malcadh to the tummfraw. Will you not testify to that?”

  “I would prefer not to, my lord.”

  “It’s not a matter of preference!” Dunbar MacHeath growled and walked up to the Obea stiff-legged, grabbing her by the ruff of her neck and flinging her to the ground.

  “No need to abuse the Obea!” Edme rammed the chieftain with her head, throwing him off balance though he was twice her size. “I know my story. I was not born a malcadh but a malcadh made! Who was it who tore out my eye? You, Dunbar?”

  There was a gasp. Never had a wolf challenged a chieftain so blatantly. Edme had head-butted Dunbar MacHeath and, almost worse, addressed him without title, by his first name.

  “Who told you this?” Dunbar MacHeath said through
clenched teeth. “Who told you?”

  “Who told me doesn’t matter. But listen carefully.” The tension in the cave thickened. Edme sensed that she was teetering on a dangerous edge as more wolves, many very drunk, made their way into the gadderheal. Some of these wolves were members of the raghnaid, the clan court that interpreted the complex laws of the wolves of the Beyond. All of them bore a dusting of snow that mixed with the streaks of blood on their muzzles. How strange this weather is. Snowing on Litha Eve — unheard of! thought Edme. It gave her an idea. She would play on the deep superstition that all the wolves harbored, but in particular the wolves of the MacHeath and the MacDuff clans.

  She continued speaking. “Hear what I have to say. This weather is strange, is it not? Perhaps not since the Ice March have wolves been seen with snow on them in this moon.” She nodded toward the wolves who had just entered the cave.

  “Very strange,” said a wolf named Blyden. “Weather’s gone a bit cag mag, I’d say!”

  “Shut up,” barked the chieftain.

  Edme nodded at Blyden as if he were the most intelligent wolf in the cave, which he definitely was not. The slender ash-colored wolf was very strong and had savage fangs, always good for a fight or one of the kill squads known as slink melfs. These squads were specifically formed to bring down any animal who endangered the clan.

  Edme began to speak again and affected a grave but considered air, as if she were turning something over in her mind. “You don’t suppose the cag maggish turn is because of your deceit? I ask you, distinguished members of the raghnaid, to ponder how the laws pertaining to malcadhs have been broken. Ripping out a pup’s eye so that she might become a member of the Watch! Could you have offended the spirit of that first Fengo who led us out of the Long Cold on the Ice March? Perhaps that explains this turn of weather.”