Wolves of the Beyond 02 - Shadow Wolf

initiating the crimp. There was much whooping and howling when she came forward to receive her share of the rich liver. As was customary for a young wolf who had proved herself for the first time, the other outflankers pounced on her and rubbed her head and face in the thick blood of the liver. When she rose up, her tawny face was a mask of red through which her bright green eyes shone.
    “A red deer for a red wolf!” someone barked. There would be howling all through the night, for the cailleach was fatter than they had originally thought. The smell of blood, of torn muscles, ripped intestines, and stripped fresh bones filled the air. In the midst of this chaos of meat and blood, Mhairie suddenly stepped up to Faolan in the birch grove.
    “Here,” she said, and dropped a bone, a femur from the upper hind leg. “You did well today. You would honor me by gnawing the story of my first kill as an outflanker.You might call it”—she looked down almost bashfully—“Mhairie at the Hunt of the Red Deer in Yellow Springs.”
    “Yes, I might.” For the only privilege a gnaw wolf had was to name the account he or she inscribed on a bone. Heep had entitled Faolan’s bone of shame “The Sins and Humiliation of the Gnaw Wolf Faolan.” Then he had gone on to subtitle it “One Gnaw Wolf’s Horrifying Violations of the Byrrgnock .”
    “Well,” Mhairie said, looking up at Faolan through the blood mask of her fur. “I just wanted to say that, you know…you let me do what I wanted to do. I know you can run fast, really fast”—she paused—“for a male, that is. So, thanks.” She turned and walked away.
    “‘So, thanks,’ she says. I’m fast for a male—Urskadamus!” Faolan muttered. He hardly felt it merited his saying, “You’re welcome, Mhairie, for your overwhelming gratitude.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
O NE T INY B ONE
    THE SETTING MOON GLOWED RED, as if it had been dipped in the blood of the cailleach , and slipped down behind the western horizon. The stars were out, and the first paw of the Great Wolf was beginning to show again, which always was a cause for celebration among the clans of the Beyond. The second of the spring moons, the Moon of the Singing Grass, was when the gaddergnaw was to be held. But as Faolan set himself on course to travel to the tummfraw , he was not thinking about anything but finding the bones of the little tawny wolf.
    He had come to a decision. He planned to make a drumlyn to honor the pup. When he found enough bones, he would take them and arrange them in a mound, the drumlyn , from which the little pup’s spirit could spring tothe first rung of the star ladder and run to the Cave of Souls.
    Faoloan climbed to the very top of the ridge where he had seen the little pup on a table rock. He looked around for a bit, and then it struck him that if indeed the pup’s bones had been left behind, they would most likely have slid down the slope. It had not snowed as he had prayed it would, but he remembered that it had rained heavily after he left the dying pup.
    Faolan looked down the slope and tried to figure out where tiny bones might have traveled. The winter had been the coldest in memory, but there had not been many heavy snowfalls, and now at the end of the last of the winter moons, there had been more rain. So he decided to look for bones in the small rills made by the rain.
    He searched long into the night until the sky began to lighten. Just as the horizon turned a dusky pink, he saw something very white poking from the soil. He carefully dug around it with his claws, then sheathed his teeth, using his lips to clamp on to it and pull it out of the ground. He set it down and stared at it. Was it a tiny rib? As he looked closer, he saw deep gashes that made his marrow tremble. A low growl began to rumble within him, a growl of anguish and wrath.
    The hackles on his ruff stiffened. Whatever predator had taken this tiny wolf pup’s life had done so in a most violent manner. The surface of the bone was obliterated behind a blizzard of slashing marks. It was almost impossible to make out which animal had been the predator. Well , Faolan thought, it does not matter anymore . He had the bone. He would safeguard it and then come back to find others.
    The only place he could think to leave the bone was with Thunderheart’s paw bone. It would give him ease to know that this tiny rib was resting with Thunderheart. He decided to take the bone there straightaway. Now he knew for