Frost Wolf by Kathryn Lasky Read Free Book Online Page A

prophet.”
    “What you say is true, but it does not mean they are not calling to one. They are,” the Whistler said levelly.
    “There’s very little sense to be made from any of it,” Faolan said.
    Outside the den, the wind roared and Faolan wondered if on some ice-sheathed ringing rock a desperate wolf was using the last of its energy to scratch a message of death.
    “This was a whelping den, wasn’t it?” Edme asked to break the ominous silence that had settled upon them all.
    “Yes,” Dearlea said. She looked at Faolan, Edme, and the Whistler. “I guess none of you really knew about whelping dens, being gnaw wolves.”
    “
Tummfraws
were our whelping dens,” the Whistler said curtly. His strength was definitely returning. “But it must have been nice,” he added softly.
    The two sisters nodded. Then Dearlea said quietly, “At least we had a mother — a very good mother — but you three never really had one.”
    “You know” — the Whistler spoke suddenly as if he sensed that the tension needed to be broken — “Tearlach thought that he had seen his mother once.”
    “How did he know the wolf he saw was his mother?” Dearlea asked.
    “Her ears.”
    “Her ears!” the sisters exclaimed.
    “Yes, he said that if he had had ears, he knew they would look just like those.”
    “Odd, very odd,” Mhairie mused.
    But it did not strike Faolan as odd at all. He had met his first Milk Giver, Morag, in the last hours of her life, but when he saw her he realized that she had hovered on the edges of his consciousness throughout his entire life. A wisp of fog passed through his mind, stirring his marrow and then dissolving like mist in the noonday sun. Faolan shivered, and he shook his head almost violently.
    “What is it, Faolan?” Edme asked.
    “Nothing — nothing really,” Faolan said lightly. “Just the edge of an old dream that came back to me. Can’t quite remember it really.” He turned toward the Whistler. “Whistler, have you heard any description of what this prophet looks like?”
    “The only thing I have heard is that” — the Whistler hesitated and glanced at Mhairie — “is that he wears a mask.”
    “A mask!” they all exclaimed.
    Faolan gasped. “You mean like the warrior owls wear in battle?”
    “I think so. I don’t know of any other kind of mask.”
    “But how would a wolf get an owl’s visor?” Edme wondered aloud.
    Faolan groaned. “If only I could find Gwynneth.”
    The wind was abating. Faolan got up to stretch his legs, and walked toward the mouth of the den to peek out. Ice crystals flowed through the darkening sky like sparkling plumes. He was feeling restless and decided to go out to search for more small game. If the Whistler could get his strength back, they could press on toward the border. He knew his decision to bring the Whistler with them was the right one. It seemed especially so when he thought back on what the sisters, Dearlea and Mhairie, had saidabout the clans breaking up. What were the exact words of Mhairie?
We are all gnaw wolves now
, and that maybe they would have to become a new clan. Perhaps the time had not yet come for a new clan, but the sisters might be right, and for now they would all go together to the border. And if they could find Streak or Creakle, they would take them as well. No sense in leaving any gnaw wolves behind to eat last and to suffer endless abuse as their packs became more desperate in this endless winter of the summer moons.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A H ERO M ARK
D ISTURBED
    GWYNNETH HAD NOT BEEN IN THE Beyond for several moons. With the confounding weather, she had been forced to relocate from a lovely vale between the MacDuff and MacNab territories in the Beyond to the old forge of her auntie, where she had learned her craft.
    She missed the Sark and Faolan, but most of all she missed hearing the wild untamed music of the wolves’ howling, which she had grown accustomed to over the long years she had spent in the