Free Wolves of the Beyond 02 - Shadow Wolf by authors_sort Page A

him, to understand his pain, to—
    She could never wrap herself around him like the huge and gentle Thunderheart, and he was embarrassed that the thought had ever crossed his mind. He was toobig for all that. But once he had been a small, furry pup, and comfort came so easily to him. Once he had been dear to someone, cherished. He looked again at the Sark. Had she ever been dear to anyone, cuddled, loved?
    He couldn’t stand being so close to creatures like himself yet feeling so apart. He was connected to a clan and yet not a member, connected to a pack yet scorned. He recalled that he had thought—before MacDuncan told him of the gaddergnaw —that it might have been better to leave, to go to Ga’Hoole. To start somehow all over again. He sighed loudly. “I am just so tired of them and their stupid ways.”
    “Well, go ahead, be tired!” the Sark replied. She was busy arranging her pots in a niche. Faolan cocked his head with sudden interest. The pots were curious objects, odd and beautiful. There were small, colorful stones embedded in some of their surfaces, and decorative markings. But he did not want to be distracted.
    “Did you know my mother? My father?”
    The Sark turned toward him, her skittering eye spinning madly. Her fur was always in some sort of disarray, but now her hackles rose up in a little private storm of their own, adding to the wildness of her pelt. She spoke slowly, as if she were addressing a pup who was not very bright. “Don’t you understand? I am packless. I amclanless. I have no friends, no associates. I don’t know any wolves.”
    “But they seek you out. The clans did when they came after me.”
    “Yes, and that was a big mistake. I should have demanded more evidence that you had the foaming-mouth disease.”
    Faolan nodded toward the she-wolf. “She came to you.”
    “It’s different. They come in need. Not to chew the bone, not to howl. Your mother did not come here. I did not know her.”
    Faolan whimpered and settled down with his muzzle buried between his paws.
    “Stop whimpering. I can’t stand whimperers.”
    Faolan snuffed. “I just want to know, that’s all. I had a Milk Giver, you know. A second one after the Obea took me.”
    “I know, a grizzly.”
    “How did you know?”
    “I picked up her scent when the byrrgis was tracking you. So did the others. Except they thought it was a foaming-mouth grizzly that had bitten you and given you the disease.”
    “But you didn’t?”
    “I wasn’t sure, really. As I said, not enough evidence. But I did pick up the scent of milk—long-ago milk.”
    Faolan thought this strange wolf must have the most extraordinary sense of smell imaginable. “But if you picked up the scent of my second Milk Giver, why would you think she would ever bite me? I was like Thunderheart’s own pup. Even if she were crazy with the foaming-mouth disease, she would never have bitten me.”
    The Sark cocked her head, and for a moment the skittering eye grew still. She looked not at Faolan but at the ground. “Oh,” she whispered wearily, “you would not believe what a Milk Giver can do.”
    “What do you mean?”
    The Sark considered for what seemed a long time and slowly turned her head toward the very back of the cave, where the darkest shadows collected and where some of her first memory jars perched in niches.
    She did not realize that Faolan had been watching her carefully.
    “What are those things?”
    She angled her head so that her skittering eye was pointed toward the jug and turned her steady eye on Faolan. “Those are my memory jugs.”
    “Your memory jugs? Do you have any memories of gaddergnaw s?”
    “No. Why do you want to know?”
    “There’s to be one when the Singing Grass Moon comes.”
    “If it ever comes.” She shook her head wearily.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Something is cag mag with the weather these days. The seasons. I’ve been trying to figure it out.” She sighed. “So they’re having another