Wolves of the Beyond 02 - Shadow Wolf

, mate now of Brangwen and member of the MacDonegal clan. I fear she might have picked up a trace of her son’s scent. She is a strong wolf, deep of chest, with powerful haunches. I would guess an outflanker, but her days of running the byrrgis are over. She suffers from the milk-eye disease and, I fear, will soon be blind. May Lupus watch over her until she climbs the star ladder.”
    The Sark walked from her den and looked up, scanning the sky for Gwynneth.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
T HE S TRANGER
    FAOLAN HAD LOST TRACK OF THE number of trips and the number of bones he had retrieved from the ridge. And yet he was as frustrated as ever. He simply did not understand how the little pup could have met such an unconscionable death. Until things became clearer, Faolan was hesitant to build the drumlyn he had planned for the she-pup. He did not want to disturb the bones further by gnawing through that white squall of marks to tell the short story of the pup who died dreamless on the ridge. So each time he found a bone, he dutifully took it to be buried in Thunderheart’s paw. As long as they were within those clawtips, he felt the grizzly would keep them safe.
    Shortly after Faolan left the ridge, two other animals of the Beyond began to comb the slope just below the tummfraw . Gwynneth hovered annoyingly close above the Sark as the wolf sniffed the rocky terrain.
    “Would you give me a bit of space here?! There’s hardly enough air for us to breathe, let alone for me to pick up a scent,” the Sark snapped.
    “Sorry!” Gwynneth replied.
    “Remember what I told you. You’ve got the eyes. I’ve got the sniffer. You should be flying well above me, trying to spot bones in the runoffs down this slope. I’ll try to pick up a scent.”
    “Yes, of course,” Gwynneth said. The Sark knew, however, that Gwynneth couldn’t resist hovering and would be back shortly. But the Sark herself was stymied. She felt as if she were trapped in a web of scents. It had been easy to pick up the malcadh ’s scent. After all, the pup’s mother had been in the Sark’s den for two days and three nights. Faolan had arrived soon after the mother, and he, too, bore the scent of a live pup. But mingled with those three base scents of the pup, the mother, and Faolan were other odors, similar yet distinct, that seemed hopelessly entangled. A moose had passed this way, as had a cougar. But another wolfish scent was buried beneath all that. Possibly from the MacDuncan clan, but then again, it might have been a MacDuff wolf. As to which pack in which clan—that would be even harder to determineafter all these moons. And finally, overlaying all these odors was the fresher scent of Faolan, who had visited this tummfraw many times. Curious! All the scents were layered in a vaguely chronological order and yet at the same time scrambled in a manner that made no sense to the Sark. The one thing she knew for certain was that, when Faolan had arrived at her cave, he had borne with him the odor of a live pup, and it was while Faolan was still at the cave that Gwynneth had witnessed the brutal attack. By the time she had landed, the pup was dead and the wolf had vanished.
    “I’ve got something! I’ve got something!” Gwynneth swooped down with a tiny rib in her talons. She dropped it in front of the Sark’s paws.
    The Sark bent down and nudged it gently with her muzzle. “What you have here, my dear Gwynneth, is the bone of a very young pup, perhaps two days old.”
    “Yes, the pup. The malcadh !”
    “Really, you exceed yourself. Indeed, these surpass my own minor achievements. Although your thinking is not what one would call radiant, you can on occasion be a reflection of light.” The Sark peered into Gwynneth’s jet-black eyes. Masked Owls were among the few species that had black eyes as opposed to yellow or amber-colored ones.
    Gwynneth was beginning to feel that this conversation was becoming less than complimentary. She was right. The Sark was slightly miffed that Gwynneth had come up with the first clear evidence of the victim.
    “Some creatures,” the Sark continued, “although not brilliant themselves, have a remarkable capacity for simulating it.” When the Sark became miffed, she could become rather intellectually pompous.
    “Am I supposed to thank you for telling me that I am not so bright?” Gwynneth replied in even tones.
    The Sark was instantly taken aback. “I’m sorry.” Her bad eye began to skitter. “I was unkind.