Wolves of the Beyond 02 - Shadow Wolf

You have brought me a good bone. And look at these marks—an unintelligible blizzard that speaks only of violence and murder and supports what you heard. Why we must ask ourselves. Perhaps that is a more important question than this confounding tangle of scents.” The Sark peered down at the bone. “By method of exclusion, we can eliminate Faolan. He was with me in the cave at the time of the murder. So he could not be the culprit. We do know it is a wolf, for you, with your excellent auditory skills, heard the panting. These teeth marks support that it was a wolf and they cut deeply, deeper than a fox’s teeth yet not with the distinctive slashing of a cougar. The scent marks are too scrambled for me to figure out much. So far”—she beganto scratch some lines on the ground—“I can detect five different wolf scents.”
    “Five!” Gwynneth found this staggering.
    “Yes, five. Some are direct lay-downs, as I call them. Others are indirect, or what we might term remote, scents picked up by association with one of the main players. The pup, of course, is a direct lay-down, as is the Obea’s scent, as well as Faolan’s. But mixed in with these three is at least one other, possibly two. One is a direct lay-down, presumably from the murderer, but the other is indirect, I am fairly sure. The problem is that these two other scents are hopelessly intertwined.”
    “So you can’t sort out which is the murderer’s and which is not.”
    “Exactly.”
    “One could be an accomplice,” Gwynneth offered.
    “True! True.” New light twinkled in the Sark’s good eye.
    Please don’t call me a conductor of light! Gwynneth thought.
    “I must give the notion of an accomplice, perhaps a remote accomplice, more thought,” said the Sark.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
T HE G ADDERGNAW G AMES B EGIN !
    MOST OF THE BEYOND WAS BARREN. Ice-pruned over thousands of years, the land grew few true forests. The soil, poor and thin, could not support much vegetation. But to the south, near the borders of the Hoolian kingdoms, there were vast expanses of grasslands. It was true, Faolan thought, the grass did sing as the dry southeast wind blew through it. But the singing grass was lost now in the barking and howling of the gaddergludder in anticipation of the Gaddergnaw Games. All the packs of all the clans, even if they did not have a gnaw wolf, attended the gaddergnaw . There were festivities, howling by the skreeleens , lively and sometimes acrimonious debates on various finer points of the gaddernock . And this all happened before the competitions even started. The most dramatic moment of the gaddergnaw ,almost more exciting in many ways than the announcement of the games winner who would go on to serve in the Watch, was the arrival of the Fengo and the taigas from the Ring of Sacred Volcanoes.
    Faolan and the Whistler had just been trotting over to the bone piles to select their bones for the first event, when Mhairie stepped out from behind one of the mounds.
    “There are some awfully good femurs over there in that stack.” She nodded toward a mound that was not nearly as high as the others. “I know the pile looks picked over, but it hasn’t been.” Neither Faolan nor the Whistler nor any of the other gnaw wolves could get used to the new deference and respect shown to them by the other wolves. But it was only temporary. Once the games finished, it was life as usual for the gnaw wolves not selected. Faolan simply could not imagine going on forever as a gnaw wolf. But he had no way of gauging his chances. He might have skills that were valued by the wolves of the Watch, but there were so many rumors swirling about him. He had challenged the order, and now he heard whispers about his “profane” carving of the Great Bear constellation. Heep had been effective in getting the word out about that. Faolan wasglad he had not changed his design, but he had no idea if his odd and beautiful carving would hurt or help his bid for the Watch.
    “Let’s get over there before anybody else does!” The Whistler trotted off, with Faolan behind him.
    “Can you wait up a moment, Faolan?” Mhairie asked.
    “Uh, sure.”
    “I…I…” Mhairie stammered. “I just wanted to wish you luck in the contests. And you know I’m sure you’ll do wonderfully in the byrrgis . You can run full out. You get to run in the sublieutenant positions—as a packer or a line wolf. But sometimes packers bump up against the captains. It takes a great deal of