Watch Wolf

repeated.
    “I did, but there are two wolves whosaved many lives,” Katria said.
    “Wh-what …” Grizz stammered softly. It was as if his mouth could not form the words.
    “Edme, the wolf who killed the MacHeath chieftain, and the other, the silver wolf. These two found the cub and brought them here to stop a war that should never have started.”
    “Yes, yes,” the Bear of Bears said softly, marveling at the wonder of it all.
    The Fengo now made his way up to where the Bear of Bears knelt.
    “Honorable Grizz, Bear of Bears, the peace that has reigned in the Beyond for over a thousand years was nearly destroyed by the brutality of one clan.”
    He looked toward the MacHeaths. Dunbar and Andreen were dead. Donaidh had escaped, but Malan and Fretta had been rounded up. “As Fengo of the Watch, I now invoke the privilege accorded only to myself, the privilege of the Supreme Sayer. On occasions of great peril, it is my right to dispense with a Court of
Crait
and issue an immediate pronouncement — a
Fengasso,
or lastword of the Fengo. I hereby declare that the MacHeaths are no longer a clan of the wolves of the Beyond.” Malan and Fretta’s eyes flashed green in the night as they looked at each other.
Was it regret, remorse, or was there the glint of a challenge?
Edme wondered.
    “From this moment hence, they are outclanners and shall be treated as such. Nevermore will their gnaw wolves be permitted to participate in the
gaddergnaw
competitions for selection to the Watch. Nor will they be permitted to attend the moon celebrations of the longest night, when all the clans gather. Nor will they be permitted to join with packs of other clans for
byrrgises.
I shall ask the Namara to dispatch a patrol from her clan to chase the MacHeaths from the Beyond into the Outermost immediately. From this moment, they are
crait!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
E IGHT M OONS P ASSING
    THE MOON OF THE FLIES HAD come and gone, along with the Moon of the Mossflowers and the Caribou Moon, followed by the three winter moons. The odd thing was that, although the sun still rose and fell according to the seasons and the days were growing longer now, the rivers were still frozen. It was the Moon of the Cracking Ice, but snow still lay thick on theground. Faolan and Edme were nearing the completion of their first year on the Watch of the Ring. They had now perched on every cairn that overlooked each of the five volcanoes. They had learned the volcanoes’ temperaments and how their moods changed through a moon from first shine to no shine, when the moon vanished. They knew the smell of each volcanoes’ sulfurous expulsions. They knew that the most boring watch was on Kiel,a shield volcano whose long, gently sloping lava flows yielded the fewest retrievable coals and therefore was the least visited by colliering owls.
    One evening early in the Moon of the Cracking Ice, Faolan stood perched on a cairn overlooking Dunmore. He had just completed a series of scanning jumps off the keybone when he looked down and saw a wolf trotting toward him. An unmistakable wolf, the Sark of the Slough.
    She was a freakish creature with eyes of different colors — one the true green of a wolf of the Beyond, the other an amberish gold that skittered about without any seeming focus. Her pelt blew like a She-Wind in raging disorder about her bony frame, so she looked like a small approaching weather front. Icicles had formed on the fur beneath her jaw so it seemed as if she had a long, glistening beard, which added to the strangeness of her appearance. But along with Gwynneth and Edme, the Sark was one of Faolan’s closest friends in the Beyond.
    She looked up at Faolan and said, “Come with me.”
    “I can’t. I’m on watch,” Faolan answered.
    “I’ve arranged it with the Fengo,” the Sark replied. And sure enough, Faolan saw Twistling trotting toward the cairn.
    “Go along now, young’un. You got business to do with the Sark. I’ll take this shift and have arranged to cover the rest while you’re gone.”
    Business?
Faolan was completely confused and suddenly apprehensive. A quiver ran through his marrow.
    Before the moon had risen to wolf’s peak, they were well on their way. The Sark had set a course due north, but now they had begun to veer to the east. She hadn’t spoken since they left, not a word about their destination or why she was taking him to it. He knew better than to ask. Unnecessary questions made the Sark incrediblycranky, and a