Watch Wolf

when another wolf walked over the place where they would take their last breath.
    “Let’s begin with the scanning leaps.”
    “Scanning leaps?”
    To answer the question, Twist shot up as fast as any burning ember and spun around at the highest point of his leap. He did a forward somersault and landed neatly back on the cairn. Faolan blinked in astonishment.
    “That was a full gainer with a double spiral and a little something of my own devising at the end. But the real point is not how fancy you can get but how much you can see while you’re up there. How much you can scan in theshortest amount of time. We can’t fly like owls, but …” Twist chuckled a bit. “Well, we try!
    “Right now, your job is to learn about the good owls, not the graymalkins yet — how to recognize them, who they are.
    “And now,” Twist said. “Time for your first jump. The trick is to spring from your back legs and immediately tuck your front legs under. Don’t try anything fancy on this first one. Just up and down and land on your hind legs.”
    On the count of three, Faolan sprang. Burning embers whizzed by him and he could feel the heat of the flames from the volcano and smell the lava thick and boiling in the crater. Hot gusts brushed his pelt, and for a few seconds, he felt as if he were one with the sky — the stars, the moon, the racing clouds — until he saw an owl high above him.
What a world they live in!
he thought. Before he knew it, he was back on top of the cairn.
    “Your jump was very high and that is good. But for now, I would sacrifice a bit of height so you can better master the flips and twists.”
    Meanwhile, atop the cairn on Morgan, Edme was also concentrating hard on her jumps. She did not attain the height she desired, but her form was good, even excellent,until she caught sight of Banja below, sneering at her. She came down hard on her rump.
    “Ouch!”
    “Ah, you were distracted!” Winks said. “Can’t let that happen. What pulled your attention away?”
    Edme was reluctant to say that it was Banja. She didn’t want to sound as if she were complaining, blaming someone else for her mistakes. But inside her head, she was cursing the wolf who had lodged like a burr inside her brain ever since the meeting with the Fengo.
I am not going to let her do this to me,
Edme silently vowed.
She wants to get at me and she won’t!
    Edme squared up for her next jump. She took off beautifully, tucked her legs just as instructed to reduce the wind, soared as high as she had yet, then rounded down for what would have been a perfect landing, until a loud cackling burst out below her. Once more, she landed on her rump.
    “Hey, quiet down there!” Winks shouted.
    “Oh, we didn’t realize we were so loud,” Banja said. “Sorry, Winks. I was just telling Paddy that joke you told me the other night about the caribou who tried to play
biliboo.”
    “First of all, it was a limerick, not a joke. Andsecondly, with the wind in this direction, your words carry and I am trying to do some serious instruction up here.”
    “Yes, I see she does need it. So sorry. My apologies to both of you,” Banja answered. Winks looked at Edme, a perplexed expression shining in the
taiga’s
single eye.
    “Hmmm” was all she said.
    Did that apology sound as phony to Winks as it did to me?
Edme wondered.
    Back atop Stormfast, Faolan worked hard onhis jumps until the very end of the watch. Twist led him on a much longer trail back to the den so Faolan could see the changing of the Watch shifts at the other volcanoes.
    “We’re coming up on Kiel now. That’s Leitha just going up to the cairn.”
    Faolan saw a black wolf with a glossy pelt and three legs nimbly make her way up the cairn. When she reached the top, she sprang into the air, executing a dazzling backward somersault. Faolan gasped. “She did that on only three legs!”
    “Yes, indeed,” Twist replied. “Some think that Leitha is the best jumper of the Watch.”
    Faolan could not help being ashamed that he’d once felt so special because of his jumps.
    They had almost completed the circle and were approaching the volcano Dunmore when Twist stopped. Directly ahead was a cairn, but no wolf stood atop it. It was not as tall as the other cairns, but as Faolan looked at it, he felt a shudder pass through him. His hackles rose.
    “The cairn of the Fengos,” Twist said quietly. “This is where their bones rest and many of the bones they carved. When their time is