Lone Wolf

missing its tail and with a crooked hip.
    "You have brought your bone?" Duncan MacDuncan asked.
    "Of course, honorable chief." The young wolf named Heep sank to his knees and was grinding his face into the dirt.
    "Rise up," Duncan MacDuncan snapped. "Stop venerating and start carving." He turned to the others and began to speak in a tremulous voice. "Let it be recorded on the gnaw-bone that in the moon of the frost blossoms, when the river ice still locked the water, a pup was born with one splayed paw to Morag and her mate, Kinnaird. The pup was taken by the late Obea, Shibaan,  to be abandoned. This pup did not die. This pup survived and has now earned its place as a gnaw wolf in the MacDuncan clan."
    The gnaw wolf Heep slid his eyes around nervously as if looking for something and then returned to the bone. Duncan MacDuncan then turned to the Sark. "Where is that wolf now?"
    "He's on the other side of the trap fire with Gwynneth," the Sark replied.
    "Gwynneth, the Rogue smith?"
    The Sark nodded.
    "He survived the fire?" the chieftain asked.
    "He did more than survive," the Sark answered acidly. "He jumped the wall of fire! You all saw him!" She tried to speak evenly, but she was seething with anger.
    "He challenged the order," a wolf from the MacDuff clan whispered.
    Heep looked up again, a glint now in his eyes. Into the bone he began to chisel with his teeth a design depicting the Great Chain. Cleverly, he placed the chain over a large crack in the bone, making it appear broken.
    "Can you fetch him and bring him forth?" MacDuncan asked.
    The Sark nodded. She soon came back with Faolan. He looked fresher than the outflankers who had chased him so hard. Standing bright and silver, a soft breeze stirred his pelt so that he appeared almost to shimmer. He sensed the wariness of the nearby wolves as he advanced. He kept his eyes forward, focused on the horizon and refused to even glance at the gathering of chieftains to whom he was being led.
    Duncan MacDuncan stepped forward. The air began to buzz when the wolf with the splayed paw did not begin to lower himself to the ground, but Duncan MacDuncan took no offense. "Heep, come forward and read what you have recorded thus far in the gnaw-bone."
    Heep quickly trotted up with the bone in his mouth, dropped it, and began an elaborate sequence of movements and postures that soon had maneuvered him into a state of flatness as if a boulder had crushed him.
    "Honorable chieftain, highest lord of the MacDuncan clan, I offer what I have carved in respect and profound humiliation."
    "Sycophants, the lot of them," the Sark whispered to Gwynneth.
    "Just get on with it!" Duncan MacDuncan boomed.
    So Heep began to read. He did not read the last symbols he had started to carve regarding the Great Chain. He had a feeling that this might not please Duncan MacDuncan.
    "Bring the bone you just gnawed, Heep, and show this wolf your work."
    "It is not quite finished, sir."
    "No matter. I just want for this wolf to see examples of gnawing, for this will be his task."
    Faolan walked somewhat stiff legged, his lip nearly cleared his teeth -- a silent snarl threatening to break out. He was trying to sort out in his mind what exactly was happening. These were the wolves that had wanted to kill him and now they were staring at him with an odd mixture of wariness and deference. He wasn't sure what was expected of him. Gwynneth had briefly explained to him about the mistake. That they thought he had been afflicted with the foaming-mouth disease. But no one was saying they were sorry. There were no apologies being offered. Heep dropped the bone between Faolan and the chieftain.
    Faolan looked at the bone carefully. He was not impressed. The lines were clumsy, the narration disorganized. There was one part that was not finished. Faolan  had never even lived within a clan and yet the bones he had gnawed were much finer. He thought of the paw bone of Thunderheart on which he had gnawed their story, the story of that glorious summer, fall, and the winter den. He had buried that bone on the other side of the slope he had climbed to see the salt lagoons and had not had time to go back for it. But better that it was buried in a secret place. Better that this young gnaw wolf called Heep never see it.
    He was suspicious. Suspicious of all these wolves. But something within him bade him to keep his thoughts to himself.
    The chieftain turned to Faolan. "It takes a long time, a very long time to become a