Wolves of the Beyond 02 - Shadow Wolf

that it does a disservice to our noble wolves to even think of a comparison between our clans and cougars.” And with that, Heep got up, walked around to where Edme was working, and gave her a sharp nip on the ear.
    “Youch!” Edme screeched. A trickle of blood ran down her neck.
    The other wolves were momentarily stunned. Tearlach was at Edme’s side instantly, and the other wolves soon jumped up, their hackles raised.
    “Are you all right, Edme?” Tearlach asked.
    “I’ll be fine. It wasn’t deep. I’ll be fine.” But she did not look fine.
    Edme’s face seemed to be collapsing into her skull. Her muzzle trembled, her eyes leaked oily tears. But shestared at Heep uncomprehendingly. “Why? Why would you do such a thing?”
    “You need to learn, Edme. Your comments were an insult to our species.”
    “I…I…” she began to speak.
    She can’t apologize. She can’t! Faolan thought. He had had enough of the yellow wolf for one morning. He knew it was not so much what Edme had said but her drawing attention to Faolan’s carving earlier that had angered Heep. Heep was trying to get back at her. Faolan came right up to Heep and assumed the most threatening posture he could muster, for gnaw wolves were not practiced in the basics of threat stances and dominance signals. And yet the other gnaw wolves dropped their bones when they saw Faolan with his tail erect, his head held high, his ears shoved up and forward.
    Faolan circled Heep, walking with a slight swagger until he stopped and faced him. He growled and bared his teeth. Then he began to speak, and what he said was so shocking that the other wolves gasped: “Heep, you are prideful. You are not humble at all. And you are a hypocrite. Pride and deceit have made you mean. What you just said to Edme was cruel. You are vain. Your so-called humility is false. You want to be humiliated? I’ll help you!”
    And now Faolan did the most extraordinary thing of all. He reared up and placed his two front paws across Heep’s shoulders to press him down. This was the most aggressive of all the dominance moves a wolf could make.
    This was not a fight; not a drop of blood was shed. But as the four other gnaw wolves watched, they understood that they were seeing something more disturbing than a fight. None of them had any fondness for Heep, but they were frightened by Faolan’s display of dominance. It violated every rule and code of the gaddernock for a gnaw wolf to use dominance signals.
    When Faolan removed his front paws, Heep staggered to his feet and looked around. His eyes were narrow slits. “You made an error, gnaw wolf.” The words seemed to seethe through his teeth, but Heep kept his ears flat and would not look Faolan in the eye. “I could report this. It would be the end for you.”
    The Whistler came forward then and spoke, his thin voice warbling like a wind through a deep canyon. “No, it won’t be the end. It’s the beginning. And you won’t report it, Heep. Trust me on that!” He reared up on his hind legs as well and placed his forepaws on Heep’s shoulders. No sooner had he stepped down than Creakle, who was missing a forepaw, stepped up, skewered himself around so his two back paws were squarely on Heep’s shoulders, andpressed down as well. The earless Tearlach was next, and finally Edme came forward.
    Her single eye was an intense deep green that seemed to sparkle with unshed tears. Before she reared up, she spoke in her high, distinct little voice. “You hurt me, Heep. Not the nip to my ear—that was nothing. The way you spoke was cruel. Believe me, I know cruel. I come from the MacHeath clan. We may be gnaw wolves here at the scrape, but we are civilized. You are an uncivilized wolf, Heep.”
    When she stepped off Heep’s shoulders, the Whistler came forward again. “And now, Heep, you are truly humiliated. Do us the favor of not expanding on your humiliation.”
     
    Faolan was deeply touched by the loyalty of the other gnaw wolves. And he should have slept well, but his dreams were troubled once more by the tale of the skreeleen and the little pup who kept trying to go back down the star ladder. The images of that little pup mixed with the loathsome clicking sounds from Heep’s teeth. Why couldn’t Faolan put this to rest? How many more bones did he need to find?
    He had been back once and found more, which he had also taken to bury with the paw of Thunderheart. The grizzly had been his mother in life; she could watch