Watch Wolf

T HUS S AYETH THE F ENGO
    TWO WOLVES STOOD ON AWINDSWEPT bluff overlooking an encampmentwhere, two days before, a contest had been concluded. Faolan, the larger wolf, had a silver pelt and a malformed paw. The second wolf, Edme, was a dusty, rather pathetic-looking creature with one eye. But against the odds, they had won the contest and would now become members of the most elite wolf group in the Beyond — the wolves of the Watch at the Ring of Sacred Volcanoes.
    At last, after years of abuse as gnaw wolves, the lowest-ranked wolves of all, they were able to stand tall, their ears shoved forward and their tails stretched high into the wind. But before they traveled to the Ring of Sacred Volcanoes to begin their new lives, there was one last journey to be made. The
Slaan Leat
— the journey offarewell, the journey to make peace. It was a journey toward truth and understanding, toward reconciliation with their fate to be born malformed, a
malcadh,
a cursed one.
    All
malcadhs
were cast out of the wolf clans at birth, left to die in the wilderness. Only if they made it back on their own could they win a place with their clan. And they only won honor if they gained a seat on the Watch at the Ring of Sacred Volcanoes. But from the time the first wolves arrived in the Beyond, it was decreed that all gnaw wolves must seek out the
tummfraw
where they were abandoned, before traveling to the Watch. By confronting the place where they were abandoned as pups, they would know that their days of humiliation and desolation as gnaw wolves were finished.Faolan and Edme had each been told the place of their
tummfraw.
Faolan had been abandoned on the banks of the big river that sliced the Beyond in two. For Edme, it was the northernmost peak of Crooked Back Ridge.
    A bitter wind cut through the two wolves’ pelts. The weather was unseasonably cold for a spring moon, the Moon of the Shedding Antlers. Both wolves looked up. The sky was sealed with roiling storm clouds, as if a blizzard was about to be unleashed. But weather did notconcern them as much as this last journey. Through each wolf’s mind coursed the same questions.
Will my desolation dissolve? Will I truly find peace? Will I finally belong?
    Their Fengo’s words still rang in their ears.
Go forth, find your
tummfraws,
and know that you are cursed no more. You are
malcadhs
no more. You are wolves of the Watch and ready to serve. Thus sayeth the first Fengo who led us out of the country of the Long Cold and into the Beyond over one thousand years ago.

CHAPTER ONE
U NDER THE S TARS
    “FAOLAN, DID YOU HAVE A SENSE of where your
tummfraw
was before the Fengo told you?” Edme asked.
    “Well, I knew it had been on the banks of the river. Thunderheart told me so, but I was never sure where exactly.”
    “But now that you know, does it seem right?” Edme peered at him intently with her single eye.They had set out together for the first part of their journey since their
tummfraws
were in vaguely the same direction. When the sun rose tomorrow, they would each go separate ways, and then after they had found their
tummfraws,
they would meet up again and travel together to the Ring of Sacred Volcanoes.
    “Why do you ask if it seems right, Edme? The Fengo must know.”
    “I suppose so, but I can’t explain it. That peak on Crooked Back Ridge just doesn’t seem to fit. I’ve heard that every gnaw wolf carries a sense of the place they were left to die. That the gnaw wolf has a hunch.”
    “And you don’t?”
    “I’m not sure.” She paused. “But if I had, it wouldn’t be the north peak on the ridge. That just seems entirely wrong to me.” She shook her head, as if she was trying to figure out something disturbing.
    Faolan looked at her. Their acceptance into the Watch was supposed to mark the end of their desolation and despair, but Edme seemed more hopeless than ever.
    Edme was a small wolf. Of all the gnaw wolves, her outward appearance was the most wretched. Yet her bold spirit dispelled pity. She possessed a natural optimism, a good cheer that was all the more remarkable because her clan, the MacHeaths, was known for their brutality. Even now, she tried to muster some of that good cheer, which made Faolan feel sorrier for her.
    “Look, Faolan — look at the stars. There’s the Great Wolf pointing to the Cave of Souls. Now, what did you say Thunderheart called it?” The question was so likeEdme — full of curiosity, so ready to be interested in someone else and