Wolves of the Beyond 02 - Shadow Wolf

beautiful note the Whistler had sung when Duncan MacDuncan’s lochin reached the top of the star ladder. But why, Faolan wondered, did he seem to feel that the mist of MacDuncan still lingered even though it could no longer be seen? It was as if there was a scent trail Duncan MacDuncan was following through the stars, and it led straight to Faolan. It made no sense, but Faolan felt the mist of MacDuncan hovering just above him.
     
    All of these thoughts were streaming through Faolan’s mind when he mounted a ridge and caught sight of a wolf. Lael! The Obea of the MacDuncan clan. Faolan’s breath caught in his throat. There was only one reason why she would come so far from Carreg Gaer. A malcadh must have been born into the River Pack, Heep’s pack.
    Faolan was upwind of the Obea, so she could not catch his scent. He crouched low in a ditch, peeking above the fringe of winter grass. The only scent he could detect was that of the newborn pup the Obea carried by the scruff of its neck. It must have been the pup of the mother he had seen just before the gaddergludder .
    The Obea’s sterility seemed to have affected even her urine and other scent marks. Faolan imagined that the Obeas must be bereft not only of scent and offspring butof feelings as well. Lael might as well have been carrying a clod of dirt. And even from where he crouched, he could see that her eyes were strange. They were green like the eyes of all the wolves of the Beyond, but absent of any light whatsoever—as cold and as distant as the stars. He thought of the winter stars that the wolves called the muted constellations, which appeared in the blizzard-wrapped nights of the hunger moons.
    From his vantage point, he could not see any obvious deformity in the pup. He assumed that this pup’s only fault was to have been born too early, for this moon was not the birthing time for wolves. Early pups, although not precisely malcadhs , were abandoned because they were deemed too hard to care for. More often than not, they had unseen flaws within and would soon die.
    Lael climbed a very steep incline to the highest part of the ridge. She kept her pace steady. The tiny creature dangled from her muzzle, and Faolan could see its hind feet kicking weakly. When Lael reached the top, she put the pup down. Smack in the middle of an owl flight path! Faolan knew it was a route to the volcanoes, where Gwynneth gathered coals. But it was also a moose trail.
    “How thoughtful!” Faolan muttered. If the owls didn’t get the pup, the moose surely would. It made him shudderto think of that pup squashed under giant hooves. He hoped it would be over shortly. But he could not help wondering how long the little pup would be left mewling into the vast nothingness, how lonely it must feel.
    Faolan’s own recollections of abandonment were vague. He knew only what Thunderheart had told him, what she had surmised. That he had been left on the big river’s edge during the time of the Moon of the Cracking Ice, and the fragment of ice on which he had been placed tore loose. He would have died had he not snagged on Thunderheart’s foot. He had gone from cold and nothingness to warmth and milk and that huge booming heart. His fear of the nothingness was only faintly remembered, but he would wish it on no living creature. And yet he knew the death of a pup was a small price to pay for the health of the clan. It must be done. It was the most sacred of all the laws in the gaddernock .
    He continued to watch the scene from the ridge. The Obea had set the pup down not just on top of the neighboring ridge but on a flat piece of table rock that looked as if it had been placed there for exactly this purpose. The perfect tummfraw ! Then, without giving a backward glance, the Obea turned and headed down the path she had come.
    Faolan was filled with an agonizing mixture of anxiety and curiosity. Did the little pup wonder what had happened to the milk scent of its mum? What was it feeling right now? Was it cold? A chill wind had blown up. Could he rescue this pup, as Thunderheart had done for him? But that was impossible for he had no milk, and it was most certainly against the codes of the wolves of the Beyond for another wolf to interfere with a malcadh .
    When the Obea had dissolved into the gathering mist of twilight, Faolan could stand it no longer and began to move out of the ditch and make his way to the tummfraw . When he was almost to the top, he could hear sporadic soft