Watch Wolf

towered above the others.
    “The Hot Gates!” they both exclaimed at once.
    “The Fengo said stop
at
them.” The two wolves looked at each other, perplexed. A simple word such as “at” could have different interpretations. Edme, who had a very practical streak, cocked her head and regarded the two towering formations. “Well, he didn’t say ‘between’ them, and he didn’t say ‘beside’ them. So I would think we should just go right up to the base of one and stop there.”
    Just then, two howls peeled off the tops of the HotGates and two wolves began to scramble down them. Faolan and Edme were transfixed. The Hot Gates were so steep, they had no idea how the wolves could make such a spectacular descent without falling to their deaths.
    “Great Lupus, will you look at that!” Edme cried as the two wolves took the last twenty-five feet in two dazzling leaps. They might as well have had wings. As they landed, they appeared to bounce gently for a few feet, then began trotting toward Faolan and Edme.
    They have sent wolves to greet us that are our twins!
The thought streamed through both Faolan’s and Edme’s mind. For as the two wolves from the Watch came closer, Faolan recognized one as the wolf missing an eye whom he had seen at the
gaddergnaw
competition, and the other as the wolf with his front paw twisted backward.
    Faolan and Edme sank to their knees and began the sequence of submission postures.
    “Up! Up! Quickly,” the flip-pawed one urged. He was a brindled wolf with swirling patches of dark brown and tawny fur. “Much to learn!”
    When they rose, the she-wolf spoke. “I am Winks, and this is my fellow
taiga,
Twist.”
    “More properly Twistling, but Twist will do. I believe my paw speaks for my name.” The brindled wolf raised his flip paw into the air and waved it about.
    Winks now continued, “We don’t indulge in excessive formality here. It takes up too much timeand there’s so much for you to learn.”
    “But don’t let that fool you,” Twist said. “If you thought your life was tough as gnaw wolves, it will be tougher now.”
    “Don’t frighten them, Twist,” Winks said.
    “I don’t think these young’uns are easily frightened, Winks.” He turned to Faolan and Edme. “Followus and we’ll escort you to the Ring.”
    The ring of volcanoes was smaller in circumference than Faolan and Edme had expected, although at press-paw speed, it would take almost half a day to complete the circle. They entered through the Dunmore-H’rathghar quadrant, named for the two volcanoes that dominated this section of the Ring. Between the two volcanoes were four large
drumlyns
of gnawed bones that rose to an impressive height. Atop each one, a gnaw wolf was perched, now and then shooting high into the air to perform jumps as spectacular as those they had witnessed from Twist and Winks. Faolan was known for his impressive leaps, which he had learned while attempting to walk on his hind legs like Thunderheart. These wolves,however, executed fantastic somersaults, twists, and turns in the air. Were they just showing off or was there some purpose to their staggering feats of agility? No sooner did the question come to Faolan’s mind than Twist answered it.
    “I imagine you’re wondering about the aerial tumbling you see. The wolves are not showing off — although that’s not beyond them. They’re monitoring the plumes of ash and observing the cool glow of the embers.”
    “Cool glow?” Edme said.
    “It’s a term, one of many that you shall learn, that helps us understand the behavior of the volcanoes, their stages of eruption and so forth,” Winks replied. “Come along now.”
    “It’s the new gnaw wolves!” one wolf cried out midair as he swung into a high arc, then tucked his hind legs in tightly and came down in a loop. “Welcome to the Ring!” he cried. A chorus of hullos rang out.
    It was all so different from what Faolan and Edme had expected. In the Beyond, the wolves of the Watch were thought of as austere in their ways, aloof and not at all social with those outside their clans. But Edme and Faolan were being welcomed with great enthusiasm and inthe most cheerful manner.

CHAPTER TEN
T HE B ONE OF B ONES
    AS THE TWO YOUNG WOLVES entered the
gadderheal
of the Watch, the Fengo rose from a bed of pelts to greet them.
    “Welcome to the Ring,” Finbar the Fengo said. “We wolves of the Watch serve as the highest governing wolf body in the Beyond. We decide