Watch Wolf by Kathryn Lasky

allowed on the cairn for the next three nights. How will I everlearn to navigate the She-Winds?”
    “It’s wrong. Completely wrong.Winks would never have done such a thing. I think we should protest,” Faolan said staunchly.
    “No, no. And it’s my problem, not yours. I’m just going to try and forget about it.” Edme circled her caribou pelt before she settled down again to try to sleep.
    Neither wolf could close their eyes. They were both thinking about Banja and her unrelenting criticism of Edme. It was a mystery. Although Banja’s constant harping didn’t qualify as abuse, it was damaging.
    “Faolan, you asleep yet?”
    “No.”
    “Do you ever miss them?”
    “Miss what?”
    “The old days.”
    Faolan was on his feet in no time. “Edme, have you gone
cags?
Miss being a gnaw wolf? Miss the MacHeaths and the delightful time you had in that lovely clan!”
    “No, not that. But you know, when we were all at the
gaddergnaw.
I think that was the best time of my life. Except for Heep, I really liked those other gnaw wolves — Creakle, Tearlach, the Whistler.”
    “I do miss the Whistler. He was —” Faolan paused. “He was something special, I think. I loved his voice. It was almost as if that hole in his throat … I don’t know, drew in a special kind of air that made his howls so much more beautiful even though he kind of croaked when he talked.”
    Imagine,
Faolan thought.
Banja has driven us to long for the awful old days when we were gnaw wolves.
And then he remembered two other wolves — Mhairie and her sister, Dearlea. By this time, Mhairie was probably a lead outflanker for the MacDuncans. Both of these sisters had come to his defense when he was wrongly accused of murdering a
malcadh
on the ridge, and then both of them cried with relief when he was exonerated of the crime and selected for the Watch. He was caught between the poles of two emotions — the sadness that comes when missing old friends, and anger at Banja that he was looking back with such wistfulness to a time marked by scorn and abuse.
    “One last thing, Faolan,” Edme said in a small voice.
    “What?”
    Edme hesitated. She had vowed that she wouldn’t tell Faolan this, but it felt like a stone too heavy to carry alone.
    “What?” Faolan asked again.
    Edme sighed. “You know what she said when I didn’t hit the keystone at the proper angle?”
    “What?”
    “She said, ‘You and your friend Faolan are
moldwarpy
curs.’”
    “What? She called us
moldwarps?” Moldwarp
was one of the most disparaging terms a wolf could use.
    “Yes. I don’t know what she has against you except that you’re my friend.”
    “Cag maglosc,”
Faolan muttered, and then launched into what sounded to Edme like a string of Old Wolf curse words.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A T WINGE IN THE M ARROW
    TINY WHITE FLOWERS NO BIGGER than a pup’s dewclaw bloomed out of the moss that clad the rocks of the Beyond. At night it seemed as if both the earth and the sky blossomed with stars. But the moss-flowers didn’t last. The wind blew in an unseasonable snowstorm, which snuffed the flowers out.
    At the Ring, there was incessant talk about the peculiar weather. The elders seemed worried, but Faolan was rather pleased, for the owls followed the She-Winds, and his learning took on a new dimension. He met owls, from Masked Owls to Great Grays, diving into the ember beds.
    Although the weather was colder than usual for summer, Faolan rarely went to his and Edme’s den when they were off duty. It was simply too interesting to hang aboutwith the owls. Especially when a bird rarely seen in the Beyond arrived. She was a magpie who went by the name of Trader Luce and traveled with her assistant and a bundle of wares the likes of which neither Faolan nor Edme had ever seen.
    “Where do they get all those … those …” Faolan grasped for a word to describe the strange objects. “Those things?” he finally blurted out.
    “They belonged to the Others,” Gwynneth