Wolves of the Beyond 02 - Shadow Wolf

whimpers from the pup. The last part of his climb seemed endless. Every step he took felt like a betrayal of the most sacred codes of wolves. But he only wanted to look.
    No, this is a lie . A voice seemed to fill his head. You want to give comfort . By his marrow, it felt as if the mist of MacDuncan had followed him right to the top of this ridge. He looked across the starry indigo dome of the night sky. There was not a sign of the Great Wolf constellation, nor the star ladder, nor the Cave of Souls. Then why do I feel him?
    Faolan took one more step. There was the pup, tinier than he could have imagined. She was a tawny drop of gold and perfectly formed. He had never seen anything so perfect. But so tiny that every time her heart beat, it shook her entire body. How tempted he was to lick her, to give her a momentary bit of warmth before she died. He could tell she would not live long. The first snowflakes of the season began to fall. Perhaps she would be buried under them and fall into a frozen sleep. They said it was a good way to pass from life. Yes, he wished for a blanket of heavy snow. Perhaps it would camouflage her from the owls or the prowling land animals such as bobcats and cougars. And it was doubtful that moose would take this path if the snow was deep.
    He would not touch her, but from the top of the ridge, Faolan began to howl a prayer to Great Lupus, a prayer for snow.
    The night has come on, the stars walk the skies,
    now let the snow fall where a dying pup lies
    on this tummfraw, left with no mother, no milk,
    so cold in the night, so all alone,
    with only the nothingness to call its home,
    with only an emptiness as wide as the sea,
    with no place to go and nothing to be.
    Oh, where have you gone, Great Wolf of the night?
    Oh, where have you gone, as this pup fights for her life?
    Oh, what do you see from your den in the sky?
    Oh, what do you see where this sweet pup does lie?
    Like a tiny gold star her light grows dim,
    her breath grows shallow,
    her whimpers grow thin.
    Spare her the tearing teeth of the fox,
    spare her the ripping talons of the owl.
    If take her you must, then do it so sweetly
    for she cries now so softly
    and her heart beats so weakly.
    Let a snowy pelt cover her so thick, so white.
    Then let her soul take its very last flight,
    where she’ll frolic and play with pups in the stars,
    where bellies are full and malcadhs are fair,
    where there is no hunting and hunger is gone,
    where you stand on a star and can touch the sun,
    where the wolves and the bears and the caribou are one.

CHAPTER TEN
T HE S ARK OF THE S LOUGH
    THE SARK OF THE SLOUGH WAS outside her cave building up the fire in her kiln when the bedraggled she-wolf staggered up the trail. “Oh, my!” the Sark sighed. “I’ll be with you in a moment, dear.”
    She tossed her head toward the cave. The Sark’s skittish eye, which some said was the color of a spoiled egg yolk, slid in the opposite direction. She saw a shudder pass through the she-wolf. Well , thought the Sark, at least she has enough strength to be a wee bit frightened of my stupid eyeball .
    The she-wolf walked stiffly toward the mouth of the cave. She was desperate for comfort but half afraid to enter the den of this strange wolf living outside the clan, who toyed with fire and who some said was a witch. But it was the fire the Sark used to brew herpotions. The forgetting potions. And the she-wolf needed to forget.
    The she-wolf let her eyes adjust to the darkness, found the pile of pelts in the back, and, circling tightly three times, sank down to rest. She sniffed the fur and picked up traces of the scent of the last malcadh mother who had slept on the pelt. It was old, more than a year. The she-wolf was utterly exhausted, but she couldn’t sleep.
    Her eyes darted about the cave. It was the oddest wolf den she had ever been in. Skin bags hung on protruding spikes made from antlers, and on some ledges, there were clay pots and jugs. She had heard that the Sark knew the magic of turning earth into objects—things that could be used. The Sark was like the owls in that way, but the owls mostly used their fires for metals, not earth and clay. On the cave walls were also skins with marks that looked as if they had been scratched in with a shard of burnt wood, but the she-wolf had no idea what the marks meant. Some of them were rather pretty, however, and made pleasing designs. There were also bundles of feathers—no owl feathers but ptarmigan and