Part 11 (2/2)
CHAPTER NINETEEN.
KILLING FEAR.
THE PROBLEM IS THE NAME, CAGS thought in his feverish and disorderly mind. Yes, that's the problem. There were two names the wolves had called this pup who did not look like a pup. Was he really a pup? Cags needed a name. He liked to call out the pup's name, hear it bounce off the walls. It was as if the name crawled around inside the pup's head, and the pup's brain got all twisted up, like Cags's. It got foamy.
But if Old Cags didn't have a name, he couldn't focus. And if he couldn't focus, his terror shrank to the size of a dried-up peaberry in the hunger moons. Old Cags fed on terror a” the terror that he could create. But he didn't know what to do without a true name. So he walked back and forth in front of the rock wall where the pup who was not a pup had hidden himself in a crack.
Old Cags's job was either to scare a pup to death or into a kind of mute insanity. Sometimes the pups who came to him died of hunger if they couldn't find the mice and rats that lived in the Pit, and sometimes they just plain gave up and ran directly at him. Then he would bite at them with his back teeth, which was actually hard for him to do since he had no fangs left, and the pup would die foaming. Cags had not died for some strange reason, and that made him special. The chieftain told him so. He was almost like a G.o.d in the eyes of the MacHeaths, a G.o.d who must live separately in his stone heaven.
It was no fun for Cags when a pup charged him and he bit it. It was all over too quickly. Even their dying became boring if it lasted too long. Sometimes Cags envied their death throes a” their lives had ended, their fear was finished, and their loneliness was over. They could begin to climb the star ladder, which he seemed never to reach in his living death.
The best was when a pup became what Old Cags called stony-eyed and he could make it do his bidding. The pup could chase red squirrels and kill them so Old Cags could eat. He much preferred the taste of red squirrels to rats. And then when the chieftain came, he would praise Old Cags. ”You always turn out an obedient pup, dear Cags,” he would say. ”No more trouble from this one.” The pup would leave, his eyes as smooth and lifeless as river pebbles.
Toby peered out from the crack he was squashed into. If he retreated to the rear of the slot, there was more room and he could be more comfortable. But he had to keep a watch on the foaming-mouth wolf. He had found a few mice to eat, but he was too frightened to be hungry. He shook so hard with fear as he watched Old Cags coming closer to the rock wall that he thought his fur might fall off. In fact, his pelt had begun to shed and he simply hadn't noticed it, until a breeze blew into the cave and he saw filaments of his own dark brown fur swirl up into the dim light. He looked around and inhaled sharply. The small stump of his tail was bare, with pink skin showing through. First he was shocked by the stupid pink stub that looked as if it had been tacked to his b.u.t.t with sticky gum from a pine tree, and then he got mad. And when he got mad, it was as if something inside him broke in two. Part of him was still a baby seeking his mother's comfort, and the other part was not a cub any longer. You have to grow up! Grow up! Don't cry. Think! In his mind's eye, a picture formed of his baby self saying good-bye to the cub he was becoming.
Toby pressed his face against the crack and looked out at Old Cags, who was staggering about, muttering something. It's just me and Old Cags, Toby thought to himself. No, he corrected with a sudden burst of inspiration. It's not just me and Old Cags. It's me, Old Cags, and fear. Fear was as much a part of their small company as anything. Fear was alive, with a heartbeat of its own. There were three living things brought together in this stone prison, and one of them had to die. Toby decided to kill fear.
His first task was to listen carefully to try to understand what Old Cags was muttering about. He tried as best he could, but all he could decipher was something about names. Dare he step outside just a bit?
He inched out from the crack for the first time since he had found it. A blade of moonlight sliced across the ground, and he felt the cold, harsh wind on his ridiculous pink stub. Just thinking of his tail made him mad.
Old Cags regarded him with a dazed look. Toby held his breath, but Cags did not charge.
”Whazz name?” The words slurred.
”I told you already.”
”They said two names.” He swung his head back and forth, his eyes spinning and a small cataract of foam spilling onto the ground. ”Need name.”
If he needs it, I'm not giving it to him, Toby thought. That would be his first move. So he said simply, ”I have no name.”
Confusion swam in the sick wolf's eyes. He lay down and buried his muzzle in his paws.
Toby had just put the first nick in the pelt of fear.
CHAPTER TWENTY.
BREAKING RULES.
”HOW DID YOU FIND THIS OUT? Who told you about the impending war and the cubnapping?” Finbar was fuming, but Faolan could tell that the cubnapping was not news to him.
”It's out there. Gossip. I heard the owls talking about it.”
”The owls don't know a thing.”
This was true, but Faolan could hardly say it was a graymalkin who was the source of his information, because he would be in trouble for not sounding the alarm. And in truth, he hardly thought of Arthur as a real graymalkin. He seemed more like a confused youngster than anything else. But Faolan could be dismissed from the Ring if they discovered he had spoken to a graymalkin and had not sounded the howl alarm.
Faolan had also not yet mentioned that he knew where the bear cub was being kept. If the foaming-mouth wolf bit anyone from the Watch, the disease would spread like wildfire. The fewer who went to the Pit, the better. Faolan's intention had been to say that he would like to go talk to the bears, and not mention his and Edme's plan to rescue the cub. But he wasn't sure how to introduce the notion of a parley with the bears.
Faolan would do anything to stop the war. He couldn't tolerate the idea of going against the bears, his second Milk Giver's species. It was like making war on himself. I will die before one drop of grizzly blood is shed.
Jasper, a dark brown wolf who was the highest-ranking wolf of the Watch after Fengo, now stepped forward. One of his hind legs was half the length of the others and ended not in a paw but in a k.n.o.b with claws sticking out of it every which way.
Jasper always spoke slowly as if he were turning over each word before uttering it. ”Now a young'un a this is a council of war. Whatever makes you think that you belong in this cave? You've been here, what” a” he looked around with a musing air a” ”one moon, certainly less than two, and you feel that you have the right to interrupt this meeting. What could you possibly contribute in this situation?”
Faolan was growing desperate. He would have to tell them he knew where the cub was being held. But it was Edme who stepped forward. She looked up with her single eye into Jasper's large and handsome face.
”Sir, I was a MacHeath. I know where they took this poor cub.” The cave grew still. ”They took him to the Pit.”
”The Pit? You mean it really exists?”
”Yes. It does. It's a terrible place. Let Faolan and me go after the cub.” She was careful not to mention Arthur.
Thank Lupus, Faolan thought.
”I know the ways of the MacHeaths, and Faolan knows the ways of bears,” Edme continued.
”But it will be dangerous for the two of you,” the Fengo said. ”Is there truly a foaming-mouth wolf in the Pit?”
”Yes. But the danger of the Pit is nothing compared to the danger of a war between the bears and the wolves. If we can save that cub a”
”I see what you are saying.” Finbar paused and thought for several seconds before speaking again. ”I have been informed,” he said, ”that the cub s.n.a.t.c.hed was not any mere cub but the great-grandson of none other than Grizz, the Bear of Bears.” There were gasps as the wolves absorbed this latest information. ”Yes, so you can understand how truly dire this situation is. Scouts have already brought in reports of the bears ma.s.sing. If they attack, we shall have no choice but to defend ourselves. Therefore, I think it is wise that Edme and Faolan go to the Pit immediately and try to rescue the cub. But, by Lupus, be careful! If one of you is bitten, the other must leave you to die alone. The disease must not be spread. In the meantime, our raghnaid will go and seek to parley with the bears. If you can bring the poor cub back in time, we might be able to avoid war.”
Banja now stepped forward. ”I do not think it is at all advisable that we permit Edme to go on this mission. She is, after all, a MacHeath. Suppose she decides to join them.”
”What!!” Edme and Faolan both barked in astonishment. The Fengo himself seemed to stagger upon hearing Banja's words.
Every hair on Edme's pelt stood up and she suddenly seemed twice her size. ”Are you accusing me of being a turnpelt? You think I want to help the monsters who tore out my eye and then killed my mother? You have hated me since the second I stepped into the Ring. I don't know why, but you have.”
”Stop!” roared the Fengo. ”This is no time for squabbling.”
Squabbling! Edme thought. This wolf accuses me of being a turnpelt and he calls it squabbling!
”Banja, I do believe you've lost your senses. If Edme doesn't go, how will Faolan find the Pit?” Finbar demanded.
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