Lone Wolf

but if he could learn the mysteries of this cave, he might learn who he really was. And what he was meant to be.
    He began to follow the winding path that tunneled deep into the earth. The light grew dimmer and dimmer. But like all wolves he had excellent vision in low light and could see well into the darkest hours of the night.
    He pressed closer to the walls, curious to study a silvery streak. He soon realized it was a picture of a luminous flow of wolves, wolves running against a horizon, flowing across a frozen landscape. He felt an overpowering desire to run with these wolves. There was a grace, a majesty as they moved together not as single animals but in this one elemental formation. They were like some earthly, terrestrial constellation. Not cold distant stars but flesh-and-blood wolves so beautifully etched on the rock walls that they seemed to breathe.
    Overhead a bird flew. He thought it was an owl. He had not seen many, but when he had, Thunderheart would name them for him. He wished now that he had paid closer attention. For there were several different kinds of owls and Thunderheart had known exactly which kind they were. Some she called Spotted Owls and others Snowy. But the owl that passed over the flow of wolves seemed to be rather the essence of all owls, the spirit of an owl more than a feather and bone and blood owl -- just a flash of white cutting the sky.
    ***
    Faolan lost track of time. He would never know exactly how long he spent in the cave -- the Cave Before Time,  as he began to think of it. He seemed not to need sleep or food. It was as if he fed on the story that unfolded before him. There were many gaps in the story and the paintings on the other walls did not seem sequential. The first paintings had been of caribou. The flowing line of wolves, which he would eventually learn was called a byrrgis, came in the middle, whereas it should have begun the tale. To Faolan, this particular painting was the core of the story. It was the painting that gave him hope, that reminded him of the beautiful howls of the wolves he had heard when he had ventured out from the winter den on those cold nights as Thunderheart slept. It made him realize that not all wolves were like the vicious, stupid ones he had seen in the Outermost.
    It was uncanny how the motion of the wolves had been captured by the blurring of their legs. However, it wasn't simply the depiction of the movement that impressed Faolan but rather the sense of joint action, the combined effort of many wolves working together for the sake of one another and the pack. This was completely the opposite of the outclanner wolves he had witnessed in the Outermost. And this was only a fragment of a larger story that he began to piece together in the Cave Before Time.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
    ***
    A STORY IN STONE

    FAOLAN REMEMBERED THAT THUNDER -heart had told him of the superior navigation skills of owls. Whereas most animals only used the North Star, the polestar, the owls used all the stars. So that was what he understood first. The wolves were migrating from the far east to the west and the misty owl was guiding them. Then other parts of the story began to become clear.
    The wolf in the point position of the byrrgis was a great dire wolf called Fengo, who was the chieftain of what was then called the Clan of Clans and eventually came to be known as the MacDuncans. There were other images throughout the cave of the wolves in this traveling formation. He had seen it perhaps half a dozen times so far. Usually the formation had been for hunting, but now it was clear there was another purpose as well. Faolan  could see that the wolves were on the move. He could tell from the paintings that they were leaving a place of ice -- Great Ice was how he came to think of it. Over the years, a fierce cold had set in to the country from whence the wolves came and each year stole more and more of the warm times, lengthening the wintertimes, until ice began to creep over the land and cover it for every season of the year. These ancient wolves called this period the Ice March of the Long Cold. The Ice March seemed to follow them everywhere they went in their territory. Fengo, as the leader of the Clan of Clans, decided they must leave. They wandered for many moons, but it was unclear to Faolan when or how they first encountered the spirit of the strange bird.
    Faolan suddenly realized that this owl had been called Hoole. He remembered Thunderheart telling him about