Wolves of the Beyond 02 - Shadow Wolf

caribou with their rumps pointed into the weather and was not even tempted to chase one. He could not feel hunger. He could feel only deep sorrow for the creature he had left dying on the ridge.
    He made his way down a winding trail into the shallow basin that led to the Slough and the odd wolf who lived there. He was very curious about her. She lived alone and though wolves came to her for embers and tonics, they were deeply superstitious about her powers. Didthey see moon rot in her eyes? he wondered. He had a sense that, though she lived apart from the wolves, she was wise in their ways. He might learn something from her, something that would help him in the gaddergnaw . And he could talk to her about the malcadh . He had a compelling need to speak about the little tawny pup.
     
    At the entrance to the Slough, Faolan caught his first scent of smoke and then saw a thread winding up from what appeared to be a domed earthen lodge. He had found the Sark of the Slough’s camp. The cave in which she lived was surrounded by a cleared area where she kept her various fires. It was different from Gwynneth the Rogue smith owl’s open-forge fire. The Sark had built little dens to shelter her fires.
    The Sark seemed to be waiting for him. Faolan had been downwind of the Sark, so he was uncertain how she had caught his scent, unless she had caught it hours before when he had still been coming down the ridge, and the wind had been blowing in a different direction. His first reaction was one of shame, for he was walking up that path with Heep’s bone of contrition still gripped in his teeth. As the Sark stepped forward, Faolan set down thebone and immediately sank to his knees, then to his belly. He was profoundly embarrassed. The last time they had seen each other was at the wall of fire, where the Sark had defended his triumphant leap and fumed at the chieftains, calling them idiots for chasing him down without evidence that he had the foaming-mouth disease. And now what was he? Nothing more than a disgraced gnaw wolf sent on a trail of shame.
    “Surely”—the Sark began to speak in her raggedy voice, which seemed always to have a snarl embedded in its center—“you are not pulling that old V-and-O stuff with me.”
    “V and O?”
    “Veneration and Obeisance. The submission rituals.”
    “Actually, these are the contrition rituals. I violated the byrrgnock , the laws governing the byrrgis .”
    “I know, I know. You don’t have to explain to me what the byrrgnock is or what you’ve done. I could have predicted it,” she said scornfully, although Faolan wasn’t sure if the scorn was directed at him. “Get up, for Lupus’ sake. I have little tolerance for these displays.” She nodded toward the mouth of the cave, where another fire burned at the entrance. “Go inside. I have to get these pots out of the kiln.”
    The fire in the cave threw off a great heat. Faolan was just about to settle in as close as possible, when he noticed a sleeping she-wolf on the pile of hides and caught her scent. The mother of the malcadh ! Faolan began to tremble. He stood stiff-legged, his ears laid flat, his eyes narrowed. He could not shift his gaze from the she-wolf.
    “Don’t worry; she’s asleep,” the Sark said, entering the cave.
    “I saw her pup on the ridge.”
    “I know.”
    “How?”
    “I smelled her on you.”
    “But I didn’t touch her. I swear!”
    “I know that, too.” The Sark moved around him, carrying something in a skin bag. Perhaps it was the pot she had mentioned. But he wasn’t interested. He couldn’t take his eyes off the mother of the malcadh .
    “Did my mother come here when…when…” Faolan felt as if he were tipping at the edge of the universe, about to fall into an abyss. But if his mother were still alive, he would have everything! He would find her. He would run beyond the Beyond to the farthest ends of the earth.
    “When the Obea took you?”
    Faolan nodded.
    “No.” The Sark was glad she didn’t have to lie. She would have lied if Faolan’s mother had come, but thankfully she hadn’t. The Sark was contemptuous of many of the wolf conventions, but she believed that the less a malcadh knew about his birth mother, the better. Still, the Sark knew she was in for a rough time with this young wolf.
    “Why do they do it?”
    “You know why, Faolan. Don’t be stupid! It’s one of the few things the clans do that does make sense. It is for the health of the