Spirit Wolf Read online

  “Edme! Edme!” Myrr called. “Are you in there?” All he could hear in response were whimpers. Myrr scrambled to the top of a heap of rock and bones, bones that were carved and had most likely come from the fallen cairns. He knew he must step carefully for he did not want to cause a further collapse that might crush Edme below in the den she had shared with Faolan. He spied an opening and peered in, pressing his eye against the rock. Blinking several times, he let his vision adjust until he could make out the shadowy shape of a wolf below. Edme! His whole body quivered. He couldn’t see any blood, no actual wound on her pelt. She appeared to be sleeping, yet she was fretful and every now and then cried out or sighed as if in deep distress. She must sense that she is the last one left.

  “Edme,” he called out. “Edme! It’s me, Myrr. I’m here, too. I’m here!”

  Edme seemed to hear him. She stirred and rolled over, slowly opening her single eye. It was then that Myrr realized something was very strange. All of the other wolves he had seen, all the Watch wolves who had once been misshapen — their lives had ended and yet their bodies were whole again. He had walked by so many of them, and yet it was only now that Myrr realized that Colleen, who had been earless, seemed to have ears; Snowdon’s split tongue was no longer split; and Leitha, the beautiful black wolf with only three legs, had miraculously grown her fourth. So why would Edme of all wolves still have just one eye?

  “Edme?”

  “Is that you, Myrr?” Edme’s eye flooded with tears. “Are there any others left?”

  Myrr gulped. “I don’t think so. Are you all right?”

  “Yes. Just a bit … a bit …” Edme could not think what to say.

  “A bit of a miracle I think. Myrr glosch!” the little pup replied.

  “I’M JUST NOT USED TO THIS paw.” Faolan stared at it with a mixture of alarm and wonderment. He had managed to cling to the edge of the ice floe and avoid sliding into the sea. The paw that had marked him a malcadh had been righted, if such a word could be used, but it seemed completely wrong. “It works differently, this paw.”

  “It works. That’s the important thing,” Mhairie said, scanning the waves in front of her. “Which way are we going?”

  “Toward the western edge of the bight, if the wind keeps blowing from this direction,” Faolan answered.

  “B-b-but … b-but that white thing … that … that …” Dearlea could hardly form the words to describe the mountain of ice that had sliced through the earth.

  “The glacier. The H’rathghar glacier,” Faolan said. “Gwynneth told me about it.”

  “Where has it gone? I mean, I thought we were going to be crushed by it. How could it crash through here so fast? I thought glaciers moved slowly.”

  “I’m not sure, but I think the earthquake tore it loose. Maybe the water made it go faster.” Faolan squinted into the distance. It seemed impossible, but there was no sign of Stormfast or Morgan, the two east-facing volcanoes. There was just an immense band of white against the dark horizon. He turned to Dearlea in astonishment. “We were spared, but Stormfast and Morgan were not.”

  “What are you talking about?” Mhairie said.

  Faolan was as confused as his sisters. His eyes scoured the horizon for any sign of the two volcanoes. One moment there had been a ring of fire and then the glacier just swallowed it. He felt panic rising in him. What about Edme? Edme often guarded Stormfast. She knew that volcano’s moods better than any other Watch wolf. But now there was absolutely no sign of it, not a thread of smoke, not a bump on the horizon. Only that loom of white like a band of fog in the distance. Could a glacier travel that fast?

  There was an ancient story told by the skreeleens called the White Grizzly, about an immense ice bear that ate the ground, the meadows, the mountains. But it was just a story and he never paid it much attention because he loved his second Milk Giver, the grizzly bear Thunderheart, and he disliked legends that made bears into monsters. Now it struck him that the White Grizzly had been a glacier and the story that the skreeleens told had really happened.

  The wind started to pick up, lashing in from out at sea and howling down upon them. The seas were building, waves cresting high over their heads and then crashing down, almost capsizing their small ice raft. The three wolves crouched low and gripped the ice with their claws so they wouldn’t be scraped from the floe. Above, the sky was livid and bruised with dark clouds. An immense wave erupted like a monster from the deep trying to batter the moon.

  “Hang on!” Faolan shouted and they clung with all their might as the wave crashed. The ice floe plunged into the water then reared up. Miraculously, the three wolves had all managed to cling on, drenched but alive.

  “We’re being driven off course!” Faolan shouted.

  “What course?” Dearlea yelled back at him.

  “I’m a Watch wolf. I must get back to the Ring.” And, he thought, I need to see if Edme survived. Life without Edme was almost unimaginable. The very thought made him gasp. Overhead, the moon glowered and the stars bounced in the sky. Fool! they all seemed to rail at him. Watch wolves were not supposed to love, to have mates or families. But he could not deny that he felt something very deep for Edme.

  Now some maverick current was swirling them in a direction that would take them far from land. If they could get to the south, the water still seemed frozen, but was it solid enough for them to walk across? The glacier had left a violent track with all sorts of debris in its wake. Whole trees from the vast northern forests floated in the waves, and in shallower parts of the sea immense boulders broke through the water.

  “What are you thinking, Faolan?” Dearlea asked.

  “I’m thinking that we have to steer this ice floe. If we were closer, I’d say we should swim. But the currents are confusing. I’m not sure we’d make it.”

  “Steer?” Mhairie said. “What do you mean, ‘steer’?”

  “Is that an owl word?” Dearlea asked.

  “I suppose it’s sort of an owl notion. When owls fly they just don’t point themselves in the direction they want to go. They have to make adjustments for the wind. Gwynneth told me.”

  But as Faolan began to explain the idea, he wondered. He seemed to know more about flying than Gwynneth had told him. How would he know, for instance, that an owl must angle its tail to make very small adjustments? “Ruddering,” they called it. Ice was buoyant and it could not weigh that much. If he could just “rudder” the ice floe the way an owl rudders its tail feathers and its wings to guide its flight …

  A branch bobbled by. “Grab that!” Faolan barked and Mhairie snapped it up in her jaws.

  “Great, Mhairie!” Faolan clamped his foot down on the branch as soon as she set it on the ice floe. He studied it for several minutes.

  “Whatever are you going to do with that?” Dearlea asked.

  “First I have to gnaw it.”

  “But it’s not bone, Faolan,” Mhairie said, exchanging a worried glance with her sister.

  “No. It’s not. It’s softer than bone. So I have to take my time with it. I don’t want to break it.” He peered at the branch again. In his mind’s eye, a shape grew, something flat but with a slightly curved edge. How to go about this? Faolan wondered. He closed his eyes tight. Gnawing a branch would be so different than gnawing a bone.

  The wood had soaked up the seawater and was softer than he had anticipated. It gave way under his teeth and become slightly pulpy. But he was not discouraged. He immediately perceived that if he could somehow flatten one end of it into a fan shape, the branch just might do the trick.

  “What does this look like to you, Mhairie?” he asked.

  “Uh … a chewed piece of wood.”

  “Does it remind you of anything?”

  “Beyond a chewed piece of wood?” Mhairie asked.

  “Yes. Anything at all come to mind?”

  “Not much. Sorry, Faolan.” Once more, Mhairie met her sister’s eyes.

  “If I stuck this on my behind, what would I look like?�
�� he persisted.

  “Well, it’s shredded. So maybe like a wolf with a chewed piece of wood on his butt?” she guessed.

  “True. True, but anything else?” His sisters flicked their ears in dismay. They wanted to help him, but could not figure out what he wanted them to see in this branch with the pulverized end. They shook their heads.

  “Sorry, Faolan.” Mhairie paused. “But maybe if you could tell us what it reminds you of, we could see it.”

  “All right. Don’t laugh, but it sort of reminds me of tail feathers.”

  “Ooooh!” cried Dearlea. “I see what you mean now!”

  “Why would you want to chew a stick to look like an owl’s tail feathers?” Mhairie asked.

  “I want to make something so we can control which way this ice floe is taking us. The way owls guide their flight with their wings.” Faolan’s sisters blinked at him. Then they were silent for a long time, but at least they had not instantly declared him cag mag.

  “Well,” Dearlea said slowly, “you realize that basically owls have three wings, if you think of their tail as one.”

  “Yes. That’s a problem,” Faolan conceded.

  Dearlea cocked her head. “That branch would be just one wing. You have to chew it up much further so you have something big that can really sweep through the water.”

  Perhaps it was the word “sweep,” but something kindled an image in Faolan’s brain. One large, gigantic wing to guide this floe.

  “Why, of course! You’re a genius, Dearlea!” Faolan looked at the limb. “If I start gnawing about here” — he indicated a point that was a third of the way up the branch — “that would give this wing, this water wing, the pull we need.”

  “We?” Dearlea and Mhairie both said at once.

  “But, Faolan, we’re not gnaw wolves,” Mhairie protested.

  Faolan was stunned. “Do you think it’s beneath you?”

  Dearlea’s tail dropped between her legs. “No, no never!” said Dearlea in a soft voice. “But we know nothing about carving the way you do. And this is very different.”

  “It’s different for me, too,” Faolan said, and he looked down at the strange new paw with which he gripped the branch. “Everything is different. Come on, now. Help me out.”

  His sisters looked at each other and began to gnaw on the piece of wood. It did not take them long to shred the bottom third of the branch.

  “Now for the test,” Faolan said. The ice floe on which they were floating was not any really regular shape. It somewhat resembled a bulging triangle, with the point of the triangle facing toward the far side of the bight, the direction they wanted to go. Faolan noticed a slight notch on the backside of the floe and thought it might be just about the right size to hold the water wing.

  “Help me here,” he said to his sisters. “I don’t want the currents to pull this away. We all have to hang on to it.”

  “How will you fit it in?” Dearlea asked.

  “Carefully! Get a firm grip on it with your jaws while I try to guide it into this slot.”

  Water splashed up on the wolves. “Urskadamus!” Faolan muttered as a wave caught him right in the face. He was attempting to grip the ice with one paw and guide the water wing with his other. If only he had his splayed paw back, that blessed paw that had cursed him as a malcadh! He knew how to use it, how to turn it. This new paw was good for nothing.

  Four, five times he tried to slide the branch into the ice notch and each time he failed. Mhairie and Dearlea never gave up. Even as they gripped the branch in their jaws they spoke encouraging words to him.

  “You’ll do it, Faolan!” Mhairie mumbled, trying to cheer past the wet wood that filled her mouth.

  “Yesh!” Dearlea agreed.

  On the fifteenth try, Faolan gave up. “This is impossible. Mhairie, put down the branch and step on it as hard as you can so it’s braced and won’t slide off.”

  Dearlea’s pelt was shingled with ice. She looked exhausted, but there was a bright, determined light in her eyes. “Faolan, you can do this!”

  “Not with this paw. This good-for-nothing paw! I’m just not used to it.”

  “Faolan,” Mhairie snapped. “I have never in all my life heard you whine. Don’t start now. You can do it!”

  “Quit thinking about your paw and start thinking about the one you had,” Dearlea urged. “Let your old paw, the splayed one, teach the new paw.” Faolan blinked at his sister.

  “That seems odd, doesn’t it? Kind of upside down?” Faolan replied.

  Dearlea snarled. “Look around you. The whole world has been turned upside down.”

  “All right. I’ll give it another try.” Faolan closed his eyes and tried his best to imagine his other paw, to feel how he would have used it to move the branch into that slot in the ice. He saw his old splayed toes, the way the paw turned. He felt it in his mind’s eye and then he felt a kind of muscle memory moving his new paw.

  “Hold tight!” he cried as the branch slipped into place and caught.

  Angle it! Angle it! he thought as he recalled the countless times he had tipped his head skyward and watched Gwynneth carve a turn or negotiate a wind draft. The branch trembled, then suddenly caught the pressure of the current. He bit firmly into the upper part of the limb with his mouth and gave Dearlea and Mhairie a flick of his ears to signal them to let go. He pushed the stick slightly to one side and felt the ice floe move in the opposite direction. That makes sense, he thought, getting a hang of it. Then he pushed it the other way and the ice floe clearly responded.

  “You’re doing it, Faolan!” Mhairie cheered. “You’re doing it!”

  Yes, he thought, I am doing it! But his marrow grew colder and colder as the opposite shore drew closer and he could see the land in utter ruin. The Ring of Sacred Volcanoes, which used to stand so proudly in the distance, had disappeared, collapsed.

  But Edme? Where is Edme? Her name wound through his mind like an urgent beat. Where is she? Where is she?

  The waters calmed as they approached shore and the sun began to rise. But without Edme, what did it mean — a new day.

  THE SARK HAD BUT ONE THOUGHT in her mind — to get back to her cave in the Slough. That was all she cared about. Her flank was ripped, a bad wound, and it would turn rancid, give her blood poisoning, and undoubtedly kill her, but she had to get back to the Slough and her encampment before then. She wanted to die on her own terms, in her cave within sight of her kiln and all the memory jugs she had made over the course of her very long life. If she could not die with those pots, with the scents they contained that she had collected over a lifetime … she dared not finish the thought.

  She still wasn’t sure what had happened. One minute she had been standing beneath a blue spruce tree in the Shadow Forest with Gwynneth, and the next there was a rumble, and she felt herself heaved a great distance by the convulsions of the earth. The gash in her flank was bleeding heavily, but she had packed it with snow and some precious rabbit-ear moss. This had stopped the flow of blood and she had no broken bones. So the Sark, an ever-practical sort, kept repeating practical words and phrases that ordered her body to continue, to endure. My legs still work, my sniffer is keen. Praise Lupus, I am still a wolf. Nobody lives forever, but I can and I will make it to the Slough! Over and over, she repeated these words and urged her broken body on.

  The Sark knew that some wolves would say the earthquake was Lupus’s revenge on the faithless. But the Sark did not believe such nonsense. She wasn’t even sure she believed in a Cave of Souls, Skaarsgard, or the Great Star Wolf Lupus himself. She was too practical to ever subscribe to the elaborate codes of tradition and laws that guided every aspect of clan wolf life. The only thing truly sacred to the Sark was memory, which she considered the very marrow of a decent life. And the key to her memories was scent.

  The Sark’s sense of smell was legendary in the Beyond, and she was using it now to guide her through the ruined landscape and back toward her home.

  The scents had been dis
turbed because of the sulfurous odors wafting across the Beyond from the eruptions at the Ring. It seemed, the Sark reflected, as if the earth had a bad tummy ache. What was the wonderful expression the owls had for that? She tried to remember for a moment Ah, yes — the “yarpie barpies.” Sometimes the owls really did strike the right note with language. “Tummy ache” was such a weak, pusillanimous phrase. But it was as if the earth needed a gigantic dose of her special mixture of henbane and mint, which she often gave to wolves with the scours.

  Time stopped having much meaning for the Sark. Although the sun tracked against the sky, there was a veil of ash in the air that made it seem as if she were moving through a perpetual twilight. She didn’t feel hunger or pain, but she made herself eat the leg of a dead marmot she had come upon. She knew she had to keep up her strength if she wanted to make it back to the Slough alive.

  What she needed even more than food was rabbit-ear moss. The wound in her flank had opened up again and she could not sustain too much blood loss. But she soon came upon a stand of birch trees that had been upended and it gave her an idea. Well-chewed birch bark was something she kept a good supply of in her cave for the wolves who sought her out after sustaining an injury from an elk or moose in a byrrgis.

  And so the Sark paused to chew the birch bark into a pulpy mass, which she then stuffed into the angry hole in her side. As she chewed, she wondered about Faolan. She’d taken a liking to him ever since she had first encountered him as a young pup. Because of the odd tracks left by his splayed paw, the clans had thought he had the foaming-mouth disease and had tried to track him down and kill him. What a wolf! By my stars, she thought, I hope he’s survived. A wolf like him only comes along once in a thousand years. The thought set the Sark’s cag mag eye to spinning. Once in a thousand years, the words rang in her head like distant chimes. A long time ago, the Sark had whispered into a memory jug a strange question. Could Faolan be a gyre soul?