Part 13 (1/2)
The she-wolves went wild. The Namara's voice rose higher.
”And when this war is over, and you have a grandpup and she asks, *What did you do in the great war against the bears?' you can look her straight in the eye and say, *Daughter, your granny traveled with the great MacNamara expeditionary force and fought for justice alongside the toughest old she-wolf, Galana, the Namara of the clan!'”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.
”EDME! EDME! EDME!”
AFTER ALL THE TERRIFYING HOURS spent in the Pit never uttering his own name, Toby had shouted out the name of a friend. Soon the walls of the Pit were resounding with Old Cags bellowing, ”Edme! Edme! Edme!” Long bubbly threads of foam inscribed the air as he advanced on Edme. She quit her jumping. Her intense green eye locked on Old Cags and began to grow dim. It's turning to stone! Faolan thought.
Not only had Edme seemed to freeze, with her eye so dim that it was now as blank as the missing one, as if it had become a void through which her marrow leaked out, but Old Cags seemed steady and focused. A new light burned in the diseased wolf's eyes, a glowing that spoke of his terror of dying diseased and alone. He is frightened to die alone! Faolan realized. He wants to share his sickness and his final death!
”Edme! Edme!” Old Cags chanted. ”I need a name, I got a name, now nothing more will be the same. Edme, Edme, Edme! Come share the foam. We're not alone. Edme, Edme!” Old Cags was walking steadily, staggering no longer, and closing the distance between himself and a frozen Edme.
Arthur looked down. Has the wolf gone yeep? Yeep was a state in which an owl got so scared in midair that its wings locked, and the bird plummeted to the ground. And it looked as if the same thing had happened to the wolf. Edme stood stiff-legged and dazed as Old Cags advanced, screaming her name.
”Move! Edme! Run!” Faolan shouted.
It was as if she were ensnared in a terrible web that grew vaster as it reverberated with the din of her name, Edme, spinning through the Pit. The sticky threads of disease ensnared not just Edme but all of them.
Then the air seemed to split, the whining filaments of sound ripped apart as a blur of feathers bolted from above. Old Cags jerked, and then there was a terrible shriek a” the alarm call of a Spotted Owl.
”Arthur!” Faolan let the name slip before he could stop himself.
”Arthur!” The sound was m.u.f.fled, for Old Cags had a firm grip on Arthur's port wing, which hung broken between his jaws.
”Run,” Arthur cried. ”Get the cub and run!”
They heard delicate owl bones crunching between Old Cags's jaws and saw blood dripping from his mouth. Edme raced to Faolan's side, where the cub huddled. They were still close to Old Cags, but the sick wolf was was so absorbed with his new partner in death that he paid them no heed. They watched the light fade in the Spotted Owl's eyes. Even the jewel-like sprinkling of white spots across the top of Arthur's head seemed to grow dull.
”Out!” Faolan ordered.
And the two wolves and the cub raced up the trail.
High above, on the edge of the rim, they looked down to the floor of the stone h.e.l.l of the Pit as life expired in the brave young owl.
And it all began with a foolish dare, Faolan thought. There was a loud crack of thunder, and the sky splintered with lightning. And still they stayed as the Spotted Owl teetered on the threshold of death.
Toby looked up at the two wolves. He sensed they were in some deep trance as they watched their friend dying. The word the cub did not know was lochinvyrr, a death ritual that was instinctive among wolves. An urge flowed through them to acknowledge the dying animal's value.
The silent flyer will be gathered into the greater silence, Faolan thought. Speed you to Glaumora now. And he wondered if, as for wolves, the owls' Glaumora had a star ladder and a kindly spirit guide to help Arthur on his way. He looked toward the eastern horizon so bright with sun that the stars seemed far away, and then took one last look at Arthur. One wing was nearly torn off. But surely there is a spirit owl who will help fly him to Glaumora, surely! Faolan thought.
Now there was not much time.
Faolan knew that he and Edme must race with the cub to the Black Gla.s.s Desert, where the wolves and bears would battle. He had to get to the Fengo so the word could be spread that the cub was safe! Even from this vast distance, it seemed to him that he could hear reverberations of the drumming. A day and a night a a day and a night. That was how long Thunderheart said the bears ma.s.sed. The very air seemed to throb with the sound of the pounding of the grizzlies' feet. There wasn't much time left now.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.
THE BLACK GLa.s.s DESERT.
SOME CALLED IT THE DARKLANDS after the black sand made of gla.s.s fragments that absorbed nearly all light and reflected nothing. On this night, the blackness seemed to devour even the stars, the sliver of the newing moon, the threads of lightning that didn't flash or crackle but seemed to hang limply in the sky like gauzy cobwebs.
Faolan, Edme, and the cub stood on a cliff overlooking the desert, the rock beneath their feet trembling with the drumming of the bears. They could see the ma.s.sive silhouettes of rank upon rank of bears. A gap of perhaps half a league separated the bears from the wolves, who were far greater in number but appeared, in comparison, like dwarf creatures.
Within Faolan a terrible war was already raging. I am as much bear as wolf. How can one part of me lift a paw against the other?
He closed his eyes for a moment and pictured the spiraling lines on his pad a” swirling in the night, like embers caught in the twisting hot drafts from a volcano's crater. He sometimes imagined that the spinning tracery that had marked him as a malcadh spoke of something not cursed but sublime. That the swirling design whispered of another pattern, a larger one of infinite harmony. Faolan knew that deep within him, two elements, bear and wolf, combined to make his essence, make him who he was. Now his marrow was turning bitter; to kill a bear was unthinkable. He raised a paw and gently stroked Toby's shoulder.
”I can't see my mum from here. It's too dark.” Toby had flattened himself on the ground and was hanging his head over the edge of the cliff to peer out into the blackness.
”We'll find her, dear,” Edme said consolingly.
How are we going to do this? Faolan thought. There were hundreds of bears out there, maybe thousands, and in the thickening darkness they all looked like one big ma.s.s.
There was an awkward fluttering in the air above them. It was an owl, and she was furious.
”Gwynneth!” Faolan shouted.
”Are you yoicks?” she spluttered. ”Numbskulls! You're supposed to be back on your cairns at the Ring. You're going to get in big a”” Gwynneth stopped abruptly. ”Who's that?” she asked, looking at Toby.
”I'm a cub. And I don't like the way you talk to my friends, stupid!”
”Now, now, dear.” Edme b.u.t.ted Toby gently on the neck. ”She doesn't understand.”
”I certainly don't,” Gwynneth said. She looked dumbfounded for a moment, but then a light sparkled in her black eyes. ”No! The cub!” She gasped. ”You're the missing cub!”
”I certainly am!” Toby growled.
Faolan stepped forward to where the owl perched. ”This is Toby. The MacHeaths s.n.a.t.c.hed him and put him in the Pit.”
”The Pit!” Gwynneth murmured. ”Great Glaux, I thought the Pit was just a rumor a” such a horrifying one that every owl is frightened even to fly over it. A foaming-mouth wolf! How did he survive a””
”They rescued me!” Toby shouted. Gwynneth's beak dropped open with astonishment. ”And you called them numbskulls!” Toby growled low and deep. It was such a mature growl, it surprised all of them.
”Calm down, Toby. Gwynneth meant no harm. She didn't understand. She's one of my oldest friends in the Beyond,” Faolan soothed.
”How can she be your good friend if I am?” Toby began to whine, sounding once again like an immature cub.
Edme put her muzzle right in front of Toby's brown eyes. ”Faolan has a large, generous heart. He can be a good friend to many. Now, let's end this nonsense and figure out how to get you back with your mum and stop this disastrous war!” Edme turned to Gwynneth. ”Gwynneth, will you fly back to the Fengo and tell him we have the cub? The word must be spread as fast as possible.”