Watch Wolf

for believe me, it is better for us to fight for something than to livefor nothing. We of the MacNamara clan do not trek into war with the jingle-jangle of the
tinulaba
of our bone necklaces. We do not go in for gewgaws, the decorations of rank, as other clans. For we are she-wolves and have no need of such trappings. We know who we are. We are the toughest frinking fighting force in the Beyond.”
    There was a great roar of howling from the troops, a roar as loud as the drumming of the grizzlies. The Namara signaled for quiet and continued. “If a she-wolf does her best, what else is there? No need for medals, or bones scraped up from the battlefield. And when those MacHeaths see us coming, they will raise their hind legs and wet in their own blasted fur, crying, ‘Great Lupus, it’s the frinking MacNamaras and that daughter of a she-wolf, the Namara herself!’”
    The she-wolves went wild. The Namara’s voice rose higher.
    “And when this war is over, and you have a grandpup and she asks, ‘What did you do in the great war against the bears?’ you can look her straight in the eye and say, ‘Daughter, your granny traveled with the great MacNamara expeditionary force and fought for justice alongside the toughest old she-wolf, Galana, the Namara of the clan!’”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“E DME! E DME! E DME!”
    AFTER ALL THE TERRIFYING HOURS spent in the Pit never uttering his own name, Toby had shouted out the name of a friend. Soon the walls of the Pit were resounding with Old Cags bellowing, “Edme! Edme! Edme!” Long bubbly threads of foam inscribed the air as he advanced on Edme. She quit her jumping. Her intense green eye locked on Old Cags and began to grow dim.
It’s turning to stone!
Faolan thought.
    Not only had Edme seemed to freeze, with her eye so dim that it was now as blank as the missing one, as if it had become a void through which her marrow leaked out, but Old Cags seemed steady and focused. A new light burned in the diseased wolf’s eyes, a glowing that spoke of his terror of dying diseased and alone.
He is frightened to die alone!
Faolan realized.
He wants to share his sickness and his final death!
    “Edme! Edme!” Old Cags chanted. “I need a name, I got a name, now nothing more will be the same. Edme, Edme, Edme! Come share the foam. We’re not alone. Edme, Edme!” Old Cags was walking steadily, staggering no longer, and closing the distance between himself and a frozen Edme.
    Arthur looked down.
Has the wolf gone yeep?
Yeep was a state in which an owl got so scared in midair that its wings locked, and the bird plummeted to the ground. And it looked as if the same thing had happened to the wolf. Edme stood stiff-legged and dazed as Old Cags advanced, screaming her name.
    “Move! Edme! Run!” Faolan shouted.
    It was as if she were ensnared in a terrible web that grew vaster as it reverberated with the din of her name, Edme, spinning through the Pit. The sticky threads of disease ensnared not just Edme but all of them.
    Then the air seemed to split, the whining filaments of sound ripped apart as a blur of feathers bolted from above. Old Cags jerked, and then there was a terrible shriek — the alarm call of a Spotted Owl.
    “Arthur!” Faolan let the name slip before he couldstop himself.
    “Arthur!” The sound was muffled, for Old Cags had afirm grip on Arthur’s port wing, which hung broken between his jaws.
    “Run,” Arthur cried. “Get the cub and run!”
    They heard delicate owl bones crunching between Old Cags’s jaws and saw blood dripping from his mouth. Edme raced to Faolan’s side, where the cub huddled. They were still close to Old Cags, but the sick wolf was was so absorbed with his new partner in death that he paid them no heed. They watched the light fade in the Spotted Owl’s eyes. Even the jewel-like sprinkling of white spots across the top of Arthur’s head seemed to grow dull.
    “Out!” Faolan ordered.
    And the two wolves and the cub raced up the trail.
    High above, on the edge of the rim, they looked down to the floor of the stone hell of the Pit as life expired in the brave young owl.
    And it all began with a foolish dare,
Faolan thought. There was a loud crack of thunder, and the sky splintered with lightning. And still they stayed as the Spotted Owl teetered on the threshold of death.
    Toby looked up at the two wolves. He sensed they were in some deep trance as they watched their friend dying. The word the cub did not know was
lochinvyrr,
a