Watch Wolf

cranky Sark was not one that any wolf wanted to deal with. A Masked Owl suddenly appeared overhead.
    “Gwynneth!” Faolan howled. But she merely looked down and gave him an intensely somber look. The quiver that had coursed through his marrow quieted and was replaced with a strange and deep longing. He quickened his pace.
    “Slow down,” the Sark said gently. “Don’t wear yourself out. We’ll get there in time.”
    In time for what?
he wondered. He thought he noticed a glimmering in the Sark’s steady eye, a tear. Gwynnethswooped down to fly low, and Faolan felt a quiet shudder of air as she hovered over him. It seemed to Faolan as if he were folded into the shadow of her wings, as if she were tying to protect him. For the next day and a half, they traveled this way, making only brief stops for rest. Faolan had never been so far north. It was in the late afternoon with the sun still bright on the horizon that he realized they were crossing the top of a peninsula.
    “We’re going to the MacNamara clan, aren’t we?” Faolan said.
    The Sark stopped. The snow was up to her belly. Gwynneth lighted down on a snow-covered rock and spread her talons wide to support her weight so that she didn’t sink into the powder. Faolan looked at thetwo creatures regarding him with tear-filled eyes. “Wouldyou two like to tell me what this is about?”
    “Fao-lan.” The Sark’s voice cracked. She beganagain. “Faolan, we’re taking you to meet your first Milk Giver.”
    The Namara herself came out to greet them and lead them to a den at the edge of the encampment. “She’s waiting. Brangwen thought it best that we not tell her yet.” The Namara turned to Faolan, who was still reelingwith astonishment and had not uttered a word since being told. “You mother, your first Milk Giver, is dying. She’s blind, so she might not know you.”
    “Oh, but she will! SHE WILL!” he replied fiercely.
    “Come, young’un.” A large, handsome red wolf appeared beside Faolan. “I am your mother’s second mate, Brangwen MacDonegal. Follow me.”
    The den was a small west-facing cave flush with the low-angled afternoon sun. On a pile of thick elk skins lay a frail but once beautiful silver wolf. As soon as they entered the cave, Morag’s nostrils began to twitch. She lifted her head from the pelt, but just barely. “Who is this? Who comes?”
    No one spoke a word as Faolan crawled on his belly toward his first Milk Giver. He tipped his muzzle so she could sniff him. Tears began to stream from her filmed eyes. “Is it? Is it really you?” she asked.
    Faolan lifted his splayed paw and pressed it gently to Morag’s mouth. She knew instinctively what he wanted. Her tongue slipped out and began to lick the spiraling marks on the pad of his paw.
    “Great Lupus, I am blessed! You survived! You survived! I thought so when I found the bones of the grizzly. What was it, ten moons after your birth? I smelled you onthose bones. I had hoped, I had prayed. But now I know it’s true. The blessed grizzly gave you her milk. I smell that, too, even now.”
    “Yes, Mum. I survived. Thunderheart made me grow. I am a wolf of the Watch now.”
    “The Watch!” she exclaimed as tears streamed from her sightless eyes and she began to lick his face. “Thunderheart was the name of your second Milk Giver?”
    “Yes, Mum.”
    He nestled closer to her until he could feel the beat of her heart, its strange rhythms as it sped up, then seemed to falter. He closed his eyes and listened as he rested his face against her shoulders. Her breathing grew ragged.
    “And what do they call you?” she gasped.
    “Faolan. Thunderheart named me Faolan. It means ‘gift from the river.’”
    “Gift,” she murmured. “I had planned to name you Skaarsgard after the Star Wolf, who helps spirits climb the star ladder to the Cave of Souls.”
    “Why?” Faolan asked.
    “Because although your pelt was not yet thick, I could tell it was silvery and it looked as if thestars had fallen into it. But Faolan, that is a lovely name. Gift, yes. That’sa perfect name, for I felt blessed when you were born. You were not cursed in the least. You were my gift and they took my gift away…. Gift …” she whispered, her voice growing dimmer. “Gift,” she said, her tongue still on his paw. Once more she said the word, barely audibly, then Faolan felt the last beat of her heart.
    He lay there for a while. But soon the warmth began to seep out of her body, and he knew