"How do you know she will not lead Faolan into it and leave him there?"
There was a gasp. But before anyone could think or stop what happened next, it was as if a silver comet streaked through the gadderheal. Faolan leaped upon the red wolf and rolled her, her ruff firmly clamped in his jaws. He then held her down with both paws. "You know nothing! Edme is my dearest friend, and only a treacherous wolf would accuse her of such deceit." The other wolves were mute with shock.
"Off! Off! Faolan, now!" the Fengo ordered.
Faolan released his grip and backed away.
"Faolan! Banja! Listen to me," the Fengo commanded.
"Make her take it back," Faolan gasped.
"Don"t act like a puppy who just lost at a game of biliboo." The Fengo wheeled around and then snapped at Banja. "Banja, you of all wolves should know better. What has gotten into you? Where is your dignity? You are a wolf of the Watch!" He was breathing heavily, as if this kind of outburst and the reprimand it demanded taxed him.
"Banja has had it out for Edme from the start," Faolan yowled.
"Stop whining!" The Fengo paused as if to catch his breath. "Now, both of you listen to me! The war is not in this gadderheal!" Finbar tossed his head toward the entrance. "It"s out there. I will not tolerate such behavior. You go and make paw right a" this instant!"
Paw right was the traditional gesture of making amends, setting disagreements aside, and reconciling with one"s adversary. Each wolf was required to take three steps toward his or her opponent, then lift a paw and touch the other"s paw lightly.
The two wolves approached each other as was prescribed. But when Faolan lifted his splayed paw, Banja made no move at all. Her eyes clamped onto the pad with the spiraling marks. She seemed transfixed and began to tremble.
"Banja!" the Fengo said sharply.
"I can"t touch it, honorable Fengo."
"You can or you shall be dalach"d."
The wolf swallowed and finally lifted her paw and fleetingly touched Faolan"s, then turned and stumbled away.
Faolan and Edme left immediately. Arthur flew overhead. He seemed like a different owl from the one Faolan had s.n.a.t.c.hed out of the sky, mewling and frightened. It was as if he had grown up overnight, even acquired a slight measure of dignity. He took his job seriously, although he would not need to fly cover until they entered MacHeath territory. At the moment, Arthur was flying a quarter league ahead. But they saw him carve a turn and head back toward them as he sailed over a high ridge.
"He"s flying fast!" Faolan observed. "What do you think he"s found? Certainly not MacHeaths yet."
"No, not yet," Edme replied.
Arthur landed. "Bears, hundreds of them! You"ll see them when you get to the top of the ridge."
"Oh, Great Ursus!" Faolan whispered at they scrambled up the shale slope. It was as if a dark ocean were rolling in from the west. He had no idea that there were so many bears in the Beyond. "They"re marching on the Ring!"
"Let me find out," Arthur said. The Spotted Owl spread his wings and lifted into flight.
This is my chance, Arthur thought. I"m tired of being bullied. Made fun of because of my wing tip. Had he been born a wolf rather than an owl, he would have been flung from the nest. But Faolan and Edme had returned stronger, braver than ever. He wasn"t sure if he had it in him to be really brave. Courage was a strange thing. For some, it came easy. But could there really be courage without fear? Was it courage that had made him take the dare to dive for the ember? Or was it something else a" a poor imitation?
What had he hoped to gain? Respect? Glory? Not really. Just to be liked, accepted. How pitiful was that? Halfway through the prank, he began to realize how stupid it was. He had seen Faolan looking at him while he was cratering, and had begun to wonder if he could gather up his nerve to tell the wolves of the Watch about the cubnapping he"d witnessed. He"d been just about to fly down to Faolan"s cairn, when suddenly that wolf was on him. He"d never seen a wolf jump so quicky or so high.
And what would he gain from his latest adventure? He wasn"t sure, but he was certain that a war between the wolves and the bears would crack Faolan"s gizzard. Of course, Arthur knew that Faolan didn"t have a gizzarda. Marrow! That was it. The wolves were always swearing oaths by their marrow. But Arthur"s own bones were hollow, so he swore by that organ most revered by owls. By my gizzard, I must help stop this war!
At that moment, Arthur knew he had crossed some invisible line. It was no longer simply about himself and his poor wing tip. His actions were on behalf of someone else and something larger than himself. There would be no glory, just hard work.
When Arthur drew close to the first line of bears, he swooped down low, swiveling his head one way, then another, to pick up conversation that might help. The words and language didn"t differ that much among owls, bears, and wolves, but Arthur"s ear was unaccustomed to the thick, rumbling brogue that ran through the bears" speech like the m.u.f.fled roar of an underground river. He turned his head toward the southwest, and in the glimmering light of the dawn, he spotted the first of the wolves from the western Beyond approaching a" a dark swagging line on the purpling horizon. "Great Glaux!" Arthur murmured. "They"re coming from all over!"
Arthur was gone only briefly before Faolan and Edme saw him streaking his way toward them again.
"He came back," Edme said. "I thought he might fly away."
"He certainly had every chance to." Faolan paused. "But I had a hunch he wouldn"t."
Arthur alighted on a flat rock, shoulder high to the wolves. "The bears are heading south and east. Toward the Black Gla.s.s Desert. It"s their rallying point, and there are wolves going, too. Something about a gaddergludder. Not sure what that means."
Faolan and Edme looked at each other. "A rally a" a wolves" rally before a hunt to raise the marrow and the taste for blood," Faolan replied.
"It"s war," Edme said quietly.
"It must be. The Fengo and the raghnaid must a must a" He could barely utter the words. "Must have failed in their parley." The Fengo"s voice echoed in their minds: Words are cheap!
"How long do the bears rally before they attack?" Edme asked.
"A day and a night, I think," Faolan answered. He tried to remember stories that Thunderheart had told him about bear rallies. But of course, there had never been a rally for a war with the wolves. They"d only been for small fights over territory.
Faolan had one thought: No war. He had one speed a" attack speed, not press-paw. For Faolan, a war of sorts had already begun, a war between his wolf marrow and his bear heart. This was a war in which there would be no winners or losers. He would lose all, and win nothing.
So it was at attack speed that Faolan and Edme set out for the Pit, where the cub was held hostage by Old Cags. As they traveled, Edme explained as best she could about the peculiar torture chamber the MacHeaths had devised.
"I"m not sure why Old Cags never died of the foaming-mouth disease, but he didn"t. The clan feeds on terror, brutality. Old Cags has become a" how should I describe it? a" their talisman, their charm, for young rebellious pups. They come out of the Pit with eyes like stone."
"Moon blinked," Arthur said.
"What?" Edme asked.
"Moon blinked. Before I was hatched, there was this bad place where some owls a" bad owls a" would take baby owls. It was called St. Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls. But the truth was, the owlets weren"t orphaned, they were s.n.a.t.c.hed. The bad owls took the babies to a place in the canyonlands that sounds a lot like the Pit. It was a deep, deep canyon, and they made the babies walk around at night under a blazing full moon. It did something to their brains. They couldn"t think. They could only do what they were told."
"Moon blinked, you say," Faolan said. And he quickened his pace.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.
THE PIT.
FAOLAN"S PLAN WAS TO RESCUE the cub and take him to the Black Gla.s.s Desert as quickly as possible. Surely, there was time. They had left shortly after midnight, and thankfully the wind was with them. At this speed, they could rescue the cub by the next dawn, and just possibly make it to the Black Gla.s.s Desert by evening.
Edme was intensely worried. Although she had never seen the Pit with Old Cags staggering about in it, she knew it was deep. Even though bears were much better climbers than wolves, it was said that the walls of the Pit were so sheer that climbing them was almost impossible.
There was a hidden trail in and out of the Pit, but how were they to find it? Old Cags"s brains were such mush that he"d never found it in all the years he"d been there.
To add to all this was the problem of completing the rescue before war broke out between the wolves and the bears. Edme felt her marrow melt whenever she thought of it. But the anguish in Faolan"s eyes was worse. She knew that to go to war with the bears would destroy Faolan in a way no foaming-mouth wolf or even the crushing blow of a grizzly bear could.
They traveled at attack speed as long as they could, then slowed to press-paw and ran on through the night. Just as the first rays of dawn peeped over the horizon, they arrived at the rim of the Pit. Faolan scrambled to the top of an outcropping and looked straight down. He saw the foaming-mouth wolf staggering along the east wall of the ravine, but there was no trace of the cub.
Then, after several anxious minutes, they saw a smudge of something emerge from the sheer rock wall. It was the cub.
"No name!" yelled the cub.
"Name!" screeched Old Cags and gathered himself to charge. But the little cub did not even flinch.
"Amazing," Edme whispered.
"It"s a standoff." Arthur alighted on the outcropping. "I"ve been hovering here for a while. It"s strange. There"s a slot in the stone wall, just big enough for the cub to squeeze into."
"And not Old Cags?" Edme asked.
"I think he could if he was able to aim true for it. But you see how he staggers about. Something"s wrong with the way he sees. But the strangest thing of all is how he keeps asking the cub his name. The cub won"t tell. Just comes out and shouts, *No name!" and this sets Old Cags off. The cub doesn"t seem that scared. And every time he comes out, I can see that he"s scanning the rock walls for the trail out." Arthur paused. "And I think I"ve found it."
"You have! Arthur!" Faolan exclaimed.
The Spotted Owl led them to a snarl of brambly bushes. "If you can slither under those on your bellies, a path widens out and then pitches almost straight down. Be careful."
"Let"s think this out," Faolan said. "It might take us a bit of time to get down there. But once we do, we"ll need to distract Old Cags."
"I can do that," Arthur quickly offered. "I can fly in. Go for a few kill spirals. Back loops. It"ll drive him crazy."
"It"s hard to think of him any crazier," Edme mused softly.
The trail was steep even for animals with four legs. They slid down the last part, causing a small avalanche of pebbles and loose rock. Old Cags heard this and came trotting over in antic.i.p.ation of another pup or perhaps a b.l.o.o.d.y offering of fresh meat delivered by the wolves who worshipped him.
He stopped short and snarled as Faolan and Edme appeared. "Whazz name?"
Faolan and Edme were trembling. They had never been so close to a diseased animal, an animal with the foaming-mouth sickness. They split off in opposite directions as planned. Old Cags stood bewildered. He did not know which way to turn, and suddenly the wolves didn"t seem to be wolves anymore. They were leaping and spinning in the air. For when Arthur had said he would distract the sick wolf with kill spirals, the two young Watch wolves immediately came up with the idea of running a series of scanning jumps. This they hoped would distract the wolf, and the less time they spent on the ground with Old Cags, the better.
The plan seemed simple. When the sick wolf"s attention was sufficiently engaged, Faolan would race to the crack in the rock wall to fetch the cub while Edme and Arthur continued to distract Old Cags with jumps and fantastic flight maneuvers.
Old Cags"s head was spinning as he tried to keep track of what appeared to be missiles of fur and feather streaking through the air. Faolan raced to the slot in the rock and stuck his head into the dim light. The damp shining eyes of a cub met his. Toby looked up, shocked. "Are you here to kill me? Drag me to Cags?"
"We"re here to rescue you. Follow me. Be quick."
"You came for me?"
"Yes, quick now while Edme distracts Cags."
The two raced from the slot in the wall. The little cub looked up in time to see an owl dive straight down upon Cags and then see his old wolf playmate, Edme, leaping in somersaults.
"Edme!" Toby shouted. He couldn"t help it. The name just burst out of him.
"Name!" shrieked Old Cags and swung his head in the direction of Edme. At last he had found his target a" a real wolf.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.
DRUMS OF WAR.
THERE WAS A FEELING OF UNREALITY as the Namara led an expeditionary force of one hundred MacNamara wolves south and west toward the Black Gla.s.s Desert, where the grizzlies of the Beyond had gathered for their drumming. The last war in the Beyond had been the War of the Ember, before the Namara had come of age and long before she was chieftain. Never had there been a war with the grizzlies. Was the world as she knew it falling apart? The seasons were all turned around, and now this threat of war. The Namara knew it had all started with the MacHeaths, for two she-wolves had fled to her and told her of a cub being s.n.a.t.c.hed. For some dark reason that made sense only to twisted minds, the MacHeaths believed they would advance themselves by stealing a cub.
The Namara had brought the MacHeath she-wolves with her. The wolf Katria was an outflanker, and outflankers were good in battle. She only wished the blind wolf Morag was healthy enough to fight as well. Morag"s mate had generously offered his services, but if he were killed, who would care for the ailing Morag?
On their second day of traveling, while they were still far from the Black Gla.s.s Desert, a strange rumbling could be heard seeping up from the ground. They were traveling at half press-paw speed. Their hackles raised as the earth trembled beneath their paws.
The Namara howled the signal for a halt. She jumped up to a rock and eyed the troops of her clan. She was a wolf of middling size, with a pelt the color of storm clouds and vivid green eyes. She had a n.o.ble bearing, and the calmness of her demeanor concealed the turbulence of her feelings.
These are good wolves, she thought. More than half were she-wolves, but they could fight as ferociously as any male. In fact, she was now leading into battle the largest expeditionary force of she-wolves ever a.s.sembled. She had great confidence in her clan, and yet they"d never before gone against grizzlies. These wolves had honed their fighting skills on frequent skirmishes with the odious MacHeaths.
Often, MacHeaths came to the far reaches of the Beyond in attempts to reclaim one of their deserters, and yet, never since the time of Hordweard had they succeeded. The Namara knew that in truth, it should be the MacHeaths they were fighting. But it was too late now. The MacHeaths had wreaked incalculable damage on the Beyond a" on all its creatures a" and now a war was coming. A messenger had come with the news that the first round of parleys had failed, and all clans were to report to the front. The grizzlies were not willing to talk; they were convinced that a sacred trust had been irrevocably broken. The wolves had no choice but to defend themselves or be destroyed by an enemy vastly larger and stronger than themselves.
Never had any wolf force gone up against the grizzly bears of the Beyond. And now this drumming, which was done expressly to stir fear and anguish in their marrow!
It was time for the Namara to address her troops.
"What you hear is not an earthquake. This is bear drumming, like our gaddergludders before a byrrgis. The purpose is to raise their blood thirst and to frighten us; that is all.
"Listen to me, wolves. I am not simple enough, not fool enough, to think you do not fear these bears. I fear them, too. But I am going to tell you something that might shock you. Our real enemy is not the bears."
There was a hush, and then the gathered wolves began to exclaim and murmur.
"No. It is not the bears we need to fight." Whispers began to rise, hackles stirred amid the Namara"s troops. "We need to fight the cause of this heinous war, and the cause is the MacHeaths!" Utter silence now fell upon the Namara"s troops. "The MacHeaths s.n.a.t.c.hed an innocent bear cub, ripped him from his mother. And now if we do not stop the MacHeaths, the bears will attack, and we shall have no choice but to defend ourselves. So our first war is with the clan we know so well, through our blood and our history. We shall attack the MacHeaths. The MacNamaras, of all the wolves, know how to fight a MacHeath! And in fighting the MacHeaths, we can bring peace to the Beyond!
"Let me speak to you about fear. It is merely the other end of the bone of courage. One cannot exist without the other. Courage, as an ancient warrior once said, is fear holding on just a bit longer. We are fighting for our way of life in the Beyond, for which the first Fengo led us out of the Long Cold. It is worth the holding on, for believe me, it is better for us to fight for something than to live for nothing. We of the MacNamara clan do not trek into war with the jingle-jangle of the tinulaba of our bone necklaces. We do not go in for gewgaws, the decorations of rank, as other clans. For we are she-wolves and have no need of such trappings. We know who we are. We are the toughest frinking fighting force in the Beyond."
There was a great roar of howling from the troops, a roar as loud as the drumming of the grizzlies. The Namara signaled for quiet and continued. "If a she-wolf does her best, what else is there? No need for medals, or bones sc.r.a.ped up from the battlefield. And when those MacHeaths see us coming, they will raise their hind legs and wet in their own blasted fur, crying, *Great Lupus, it"s the frinking MacNamaras and that daughter of a she-wolf, the Namara herself!""