Watch Wolf

at Edme, for she suddenly seemed transformed. Yes, it was the same small wolf with the same mangled face, missing one eye. But with her hackles up and her tail raised, she appeared larger. And when they glanced at their chieftain, he seemed somehow slighter. His pelt, prickly with thorns and streaked in his own blood from his assaults on the Litha rose, appeared to have shrunk and to cling to his bones. He had assumed all the postures of dominance, but it seemed a bit of a joke,as if he were a little pup trying them for the first time. Airmead the Obea slipped into the
gadderheal.
With her pure white pelt unstained by Litha grog, she seemed no more than a scrap of fog blown in on a breeze.
    Trying to muster all the dignity he could, Dunbar MacHeath stepped toward Edme. “Why have you returned if the Fengo of the Watch has not rejected you?”
    “Why do you jump to the conclusion that the Fengo has rejected me? Is there reason that he should?” Edme let the question hang in the air, which had become quite chilly for Litha Eve.
    “No! No, of course not!”
    The chieftain does protest too vigorously,
Edme thought. She nodded with just a hint of submission. “I was born a poor
malcadh,
was I not?” She turned to the Obea, whom no one had yet noticed.
    Dunbar spoke up now. “Yes, come forth, Airmead. You were the one who took this
malcadh
to the
tummfraw.
Will you not testify to that?”
    “I would prefer not to, my lord.”
    “It’s not a matter of preference!” Dunbar MacHeath growled and walked up to the Obea stiff-legged, grabbing her by the ruff of her neck and flinging her to the ground.
    “No need to abuse the Obea!” Edme rammed the chieftain with her head, throwing him off balance though he was twice her size. “I know my story. I was not born a
malcadh
but a
malcadh
made! Who was it who tore out my eye? You, Dunbar?”
    There was a gasp. Never had a wolf challenged a chieftain so blatantly. Edme had head-butted Dunbar MacHeath and, almost worse, addressed him without title, by his first name.
    “Who told you this?” Dunbar MacHeath said through clenched teeth. “Who told you?”
    “Who told me doesn’t matter. But listen carefully.” The tension in the cave thickened. Edme sensed that she was teetering on a dangerous edge as more wolves, many very drunk, made their way into the
gadderheal.
Some of these wolves were members of the
raghnaid,
the clan court that interpreted the complex laws of the wolves of the Beyond. All of them bore a dusting of snow that mixed with the streaks of blood on their muzzles.
How strange this weather is. Snowing on Litha Eve — unheard of!
thought Edme. It gave her an idea. She would play on the deep superstition that all the wolves harbored,but in particular the wolves of the MacHeath and the MacDuff clans.
    She continued speaking. “Hear what I have to say. This weather is strange, is it not? Perhaps not since the Ice March have wolves been seen with snow on them in this moon.” She nodded toward the wolves who had just entered the cave.
    “Very strange,” said a wolf named Blyden. “Weather’s gone a bit
cag mag,
I’d say!”
    “Shut up,” barked the chieftain.
    Edme nodded at Blyden as if he were the most intelligent wolf in the cave, which he definitely was not. The slender ash-colored wolf was very strong and had savage fangs, always good for a fight or one of the kill squadsknown as
slink melfs.
These squads were specifically formed to bring down any animal who endangered the clan.
    Edme began to speak again and affected a grave but considered air, as if she were turning something over in her mind. “You don’t suppose the
cag maggish
turn is because of your deceit? I ask you, distinguished members of the
raghnaid,
to ponder how the laws pertaining to
malcadhs
have been broken. Ripping out a pup’s eye so that she might become a member of the Watch! Could you have offended the spirit of that first Fengo who led us out of the Long Cold on the Ice March? Perhaps that explains this turn of weather.”
    There were gasps and strangled little mewlings, as if a milk pup had been deprived of a teat. For though violence streamed through the MacHeaths’ blood, cowardice was lodged deep in their marrow. Edme stepped closer to the
raghnaid
members. What a joke they were, compared to the
raghnaids
of clans such as the MacDuncans, the MacNabs, or the MacAnguses.
    “I will go to the Ring of Sacred Volcanoes, but I shall go not as a member of the MacHeath