Lone Wolf (Wolves of the Beyond), page 1
Lone Wolf (Wolves of the Beyond #1)
Kathryn Lasky
"And in our wolf language the word Hoole simply means 'owl.' You see, my friend, it was the spirit of a Hoole that I followed when I led my kind here from our ice-locked land."-- From the first book of the Hoolian legends
CONTENTS PART ONE: THE BEYOND
Away. 31 The River Roars.13
2 The Spark from the River.17
3 Milk and Light...22
4 Thunderheart26
5 Den Lessons.36
6 Blood Lesson.41
7 The Golden Eyes of Thunderheart.54
8 The Winter Den.66
9 A Dim Memory.73
PART TWO: THE OUTERMOST
10 The Frost Forest.8311 A Savage World.93
12 Outclanners. 97
13 The Bitterness of the Obea.104
14 The Cave Before Time...113
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15 A Story in Stone...118
16 First Milk.124
17 The Byrrgis of One 127
18 A First Drumlyn .133
PART THREE: THE BEYOND
19 The Skull in the Woods.14320 An Owl Listens .151
21 A Fireside Conversation.156
22 "You Must Go to the Wolves".168
23 Inspiration..173
24 The Ridge178
25 Moon Rot and Doom189
26 The Sark of the Slough.195
27 The Trail of the Splayed Paw.202
28 Jump for the Sun...208
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PART ONE THE BEYOND
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***
A WAY...
BEFORE SHE FELT EVEN THE FIRST twinge in her belly, the she-wolf set out to find a remote birthing den. She knew somehow that this birth would not be the same as the others. She had been traveling for days now, and she could sense her time was near. So far she had seen nothing that would serve as a den. There were several shallow pits, but those wouldn't do. Pits offered no shelter, and though it was almost spring, the weather could turn treacherous in a flash. The pups could freeze. The sound of their fresh hearts beating so fiercely would grow dim under a thin glaze of ice until the hearts stopped, and there was only silence. This had happened before to the she-wolf. She had licked those three pups until her tongue was dry and bleeding from the cold shards, but she had not been able to keep up with the ice.4
This was her third litter. And this time, she knew she had to get far away from the pack, away from the clan, away from her mate, and most of all, away from the Obea.
Finally, on the night of the fifth rising moon that now hung like an ice blade low on the horizon, she found a crevice under a rock ledge. She smelled it before she saw it. The scent of fox was distinct. She hoped it wasn't a whelping den. Just the fox, dear Lupus. She sent up a silent prayer. She did not want to contend with fox kits.
And it had been just a fox -- a fox waiting to give birth. The she-wolf routed her and took the den, settling in for her time. The fox smell lingered. Fine, she thought. It would provide another layer of concealing scent. She rolled in the scat that she found nearby and then snorted to herself as she imagined what her pups would think of their mum. No matter, they would live -- and if need be, live away from the clan.
Then they came. Three pups, two tawny like their father, the other silvery gray. They were perfect in her eyes. Indeed, it took her a while to discover the one little flaw on the silver pup -- a slight splay to his front paw. When the she-wolf examined it more closely, she saw that this paw had a dim tracery of a spiral, like a swirled star, on its footpad. It was odd, but certainly not a deformity.
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And she told herself the splay of that paw was minor. He was not malcadh, the ancient wolf word for "cursed." It was such a slight flaw, and she had hope that the splay might lessen in the days that followed. The toes that pointed out might rotate back, and the tracery was so dim it wouldn't leave a print even in soft mud. The silver pup was strong. She could tell by the way he sucked on her teat. Still, she was glad she had taken the precaution of finding a birthing den far away.
She dragged the pups one by one into the deeper recesses of the crevice, which thankfully had two or three tunnels that extended into a nesting chamber. Here she planned to stay wrapped around her pups for several days, nursing them in the quiet darkness as long as she could. She knew that soon enough they would become restless, and when their eyes finally opened, they would seek that pale thread of light that gleamed feebly at the den's opening, drawn to it as strongly as they were drawn to the milk from her teats, as strongly as they would later be by the scent of meat. But if they could remain concealed, they would survive and the silver pup would grow stronger and stronger so that the threat of the Obea would begin to fade, like an old scent mark scoured away by wind and rain and snow.
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The she-wolf would have only a few hours for such fanciful thinking.
***
In a world that to any other wolf might appear trackless, Shibaan, the Obea of the MacDuncan clan, had found the she-wolf's trail. The laws of the wolf clans were harsh. The Obea was the female wolf in each clan designated to carry deformed pups out of the whelping den to a place of abandonment. Only barren she-wolves were eligible, since such wolves were assumed not to have developed maternal instincts. With no blood offspring, Obeas were devoted entirely to the well-being of the clan, which could not be healthy and strong if defective wolves were born into it. The rules were precise. The deformed or sick pup was to be removed by the Obea and carried to a remote spot where it would be left to die of starvation or be eaten by another animal. If the pup somehow managed to survive, it was permitted back into the clan as a gnaw wolf and became the lowest-ranking wolf in the clan. A malcadh's mother was never welcomed back. The clan must be rid of her and her mate, who had contaminated the bloodlines. If they were to survive, they must separate and seek new lives in different clans, for they were deemed to have
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destinies marked by blight that might be set right only by finding new bloodlines.
Shibaan had learned to become suspicious when a pregnant female about to give birth went by-lang, which meant "deeply away." She was an experienced Obea and was not fooled long by the tricks of the she-wolf Morag. Shibaan had to admit that Morag was more thorough than most in covering her tracks. Morag had not urinated except in streams or the ice-free parts of the river. She had left no scent marks to declare her territory. The average wolf would not have noticed the clues to the desperate mother's flight. But Shibaan was no ordinary wolf, nor was she an ordinary Obea. She found the subtlest of traces. A tuft of silver fur caught on some thistle. Scratch marks on a rock that had served as a foothold when Morag crossed a stream. A slight whiff -- a scent message perhaps, not from Morag, but another. To Shibaan, it flared up like a signpost. The message was clear: My territory, first lieutenant of the MacDermott clan, a response to an outsider veering too close to MacDermott land. So, thought Shibaan, Morag has crossed the MacDermott border. Daring!
Then there was the scent of fox, but not pure fox. Shibaan shook her head wearily. I always find them, no
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matter what tricks they play. And she did. The fox scat outside the den even had a thread of fur, like a silvery pennant quivering in the breeze to announce that inside a she-wolf concealed herself, sticky with fox scat, but still redolent in the sweet fragrances of new pups and warm milk.No fuss, no muss. The mothers of malcadh never did put up a fight. They knew the consequence of resistance -- immediate death to all the pups.
***
Morag watched the Obea carrying the splay-pawed pup in her jaws until they were a dark speck on the horizon. How perfectly suited Shibaan was for this job! It was as if the years of performing her duty with unquestioning obedience had scoured away any kind of feeling or imagination. When Morag looked into the green eyes of the Obea, they were completely devoid of light, or depth, or anything that might reflect emotion. They were like dry stones, bleached of nearly all color.
The silver pup had allowed itself to be picked up by its neck scruff and had instinctively curled its body into carrying position. Did he not sense the Obea's scent was different from his mother's? Did the pup not mind the
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milkless, dry, sterile wind of her being? The pup had nursed constantly -- but constant had been just a sliver in the short day since it had been born. The pup's eyes and ears were still sealed shut. It would be days before they opened. The pup's only way to know his mother, the Milk Giver, was through her scent and perhaps the feel of her fur and the throbbing rhythms of her heart. Would he remember? But what did it matter.
A tween season storm was brewing, and these were the worst. Coming on the edge of spring or the cusp of summer, tween storms were full of rage, tumultuous winds, and slashing ice. Morag had felt it coming and seen the leaden skies sinking lower and lower, clamping down on the land like a trap for earth's creatures. Her pup would be abandoned in the midst of this storm. And she herself would have to remain with the two other pups to await the Obea, who would return to lead Morag back to the clan. The Obea would carry one pup and Morag the other as they traveled that trail of shame. The news of the malcadh pup would be announced, and Morag would have to leave the clan immediately, an outlaw. The surviving pups would be nursed by another wolf.
***
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The Obea, though lacking imagination, did have thought
What Shibaan did know was her job: to take care of the bad business of the clan. She did not mind her duty now. Long ago her failure to have pups was like a sharp pebble underfoot, a constant reminder that she would never be a mother but instead an unranked wolf charged with an unpleasant task. However, she performed her work well, and over the years she had gradually gained some respect from the chieftain. The sharp pebble, once an irritation, became smooth and settled in her being like a polished river stone -- there not as a reminder of failure, but simply as part of her character, her charge, her duty as an Obea.
As she carried the pup, she glimpsed again the odd spiraling mark on its footpad. She felt a tremor in her heart. She could have killed the pup, but the Obea was very superstitious. It was against the law to take shortcuts, and she wanted to climb the spirit trail to the Great Wolf, Lupus, and the Cave of Souls.
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Ahead, Shibaan saw the gleam of the river under the gray skies that pressed down. It was there she intended to leave the pup. The river was just beginning to break up in the spring thaw. And when that happened the level would rise suddenly, torrentially, and the pup would drown. She would leave it on the edge, where it would be caught by the surging waters.
She arrived at a spot where the bank had been undercut by the course of the river. There were already signs of thaw, so she placed the pup on an ice ledge. It was a spot certain to be swamped, especially when the storm rumbled in.
The Obea was careful as she put the pup on the ice -- heedful, precise. The pup was an it, neither a he nor a she, nor even a wolf. Just an it that squirmed, mewling and whining weakly. But all that would be over soon. If the storm didn't take the pup, an owl would. The river was on a major flight path of collier owls who flew into the Beyond for the coals spewed from the volcanoes. They were always hungry when they got to this point. This malcadh would not be the first seized by an owl from the kingdom of Ga'Hoole. There were smith owls, too, that set up temporary forges near the volcanoes. Smithing was hard work. Those owls ate a lot. Despite the close
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relationship between owls and wolves, a malcadh was fair game.
There was a tick-tick sound as the pup attempted to grip the cold, smooth surface with its tiny paws. The mewling and whining escalated to weeping, but the Obea didn't hear it. Her ears were sealed as effectively as the pup's. There were no vague stirrings deep within her. If anything, she felt only the cold, smooth weight of that stone that had become synonymous with her duty, her charge, her identity. I am the Obea. That is all I need to know. All I need to be. I am the Obea.
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CHAPTER ONE
***
THE RIVER ROARS
HE COULD NOT SEE, HE COULD NOT hear, and vainly he poked out his tongue to lick, but the smell of milk was gone and with it the warm teat. He could feel only cold, nothing else. It filled him until his small body was racked with violent shivers. How had everything changed so fast? Where was the stream of warm milk, the soft fur, the squirming presence of the other pups? In his brief life, he had known little, but now he knew less. Smell, taste, and feeling, the only senses he had, were starved. The pup felt himself drifting off into a void that was neither life nor death, only a terrible nothing. And with this great void came numbness.Something stirred -- a vibration -- and with it a new element entered his barely pulsing life. The terrible cracking and booming as the river ice buckled was so loud
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that it penetrated the pup's sealed ears. Then suddenly, a roar surged through his head. There was a great lurch, and he began to skid off the ice shelf, but digging in his sharp little claws, he gripped hard.
It would seem a cruel trick that the lone pup gained two vital senses, sight and sound, as the winter-locked river ruptured and broke free. It was perhaps the shock that caused his eyes to unseal and his ears to open.
The final thaw of the river unleashed immense cataracts of water that tore at the banks, uprooting trees, dislodging boulders and rocky outcrops. The shelf on which the Obea had placed the pup creaked, then tilted, and at last, there was a sharp crack that splintered in his ears. Light flashed brutally in the pup's eyes as the moon scorched the ice floes sweeping down the river.
Dim in the pup's memory was a previous violence. Birth. He had been launched from the warmth of his mother's womb into the grip of forces greater than himself. His small body was nothing against the intense contractions that expelled him. And now it was happening again. But instead of going from the inviolable warmth of his mother's womb, he was sliding into the frigid waters of the tumultuous river. He dug harder with that splayed paw, which seemed to have a better grip than the
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others. He clung, clung dumbly to the shelf that had joined the other flotsam in the river.
It would have been easier, less painful, to release his grip, to slip off and drown. But there was only instinct, and the instinct was to grip. He opened his eyes wider and saw the gleam of the full moon on the river. The brightness made him squint.
His first lesson: He could adjust his eyes to the light. His first thought: What else might he adjust or be able to change? Might he bring back the warmth he once knew? The smell of milk, the taste? The soft crush of those wiggling furry creatures that had tumbled about him as they all scrambled for the milk? The comforting rhythmic vibrations he felt as he pressed close to suck? There was something beneath the fur, deep in the Milk Giver, that beat.
Icy water dashed over him, but still he clung. Occasionally, he felt the ice shelf spin round and round in one place. The light swirled and he experienced a dizzying nausea. To steady himself and keep his grip he had to shut his eyes tight. Then there would be a jolt and his raft would break loose and join the tumult of the stream again. He felt the ice diminishing beneath him. His hind legs hung off the raft now and were growing numb in the
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water. The numbness crept through him. It was not an unpleasant feeling, but with it something else seemed to grow dimmer, to seep from the deepest part of him. His claws began to lose their grip.
The last thing he felt was a tremendous jolt; the last thing he heard was the sound of his claws skidding across the final fragment of his ice raft.
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CHAPTER TWO
***
THE SPARK FROM THE RIVER
ON THIS STORMY NIGHT, THERE was a sound that rose louder than the roar of the river and the howling of the wind. The anguished cries of the mother grizzly shook the banks on which she sat. Her great gulping grief seemed to suck the air from the earth. The long guard hairs on her back were sheathed in ice and trembled, creating a bristling litter of small sounds beneath the rage of her grief.When the river had threatened to flood her den, she had turned her back for a few seconds to scan for higher ground. In those seconds, cougars had erupted out of nowhere and made off with her cub. Her single cub. She had only grown one this time. All summer and fall she had eaten, fattened herself up, and for what? To have what would most likely be her last-born killed.
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Now, with her teats still dripping with the milk meant for her cub, she was ready to die. She welcomed the river that she had hoped to escape. Not since the mating time five summers before, when a male grizzly had killed one of her cubs to get near her, had she grieved like this. She would not move from the den where she had birthed and suckled the cub. She tipped her massive head toward the moon that watched her like a dead eye, and pleaded with Great Ursus, Take me, take me!
***
The grizzly had lost all sense of time, but the night became darker as the moon slipped down in the western sky. Near dawn, the storm had blown out, leaving dark clouds on the horizon like smoldering ashes. The river flood had reached its peak, but still had not taken the grizzly.
A dark sodden clot snagged on her half-submerged hind leg. She shook her foot at the annoying scratching sensation. But when she shook, the clot clung tighter. It made her irritable, and she dragged her paw up onto the bank.
She would later wonder what it was that stopped her from reaching forward and simply scraping off the clot. It betrayed no sign of life. The scratching could have been
