Spirit Wolf Read Online Free PDF Page B

on the piece of wood. It did not take them long to shred the bottom third of the branch.
    â€œNow for the test,” Faolan said. The ice floe on which they were floating was not any really regular shape. It somewhat resembled a bulging triangle, with the point of the triangle facing toward the far side of the bight, the direction they wanted to go. Faolan noticed a slight notch on the backside of the floe and thought it might be just about the right size to hold the water wing.
    â€œHelp me here,” he said to his sisters. “I don’t want the currents to pull this away. We all have to hang on to it.”
    â€œHow will you fit it in?” Dearlea asked.
    â€œCarefully! Get a firm grip on it with your jaws while I try to guide it into this slot.”
    Water splashed up on the wolves. “Urskadamus!” Faolan muttered as a wave caught him right in the face. He was attempting to grip the ice with one paw and guide the water wing with his other. If only he had his splayed paw back, that blessed paw that had cursed him as a malcadh ! He knew how to use it, how to turn it. This new paw was good for nothing.
    Four, five times he tried to slide the branch into the ice notch and each time he failed. Mhairie and Dearlea never gave up. Even as they gripped the branch in their jaws they spoke encouraging words to him.
    â€œYou’ll do it, Faolan!” Mhairie mumbled, trying to cheer past the wet wood that filled her mouth.
    â€œYesh!” Dearlea agreed.
    On the fifteenth try, Faolan gave up. “This is impossible. Mhairie, put down the branch and step on it as hard as you can so it’s braced and won’t slide off.”
    Dearlea’s pelt was shingled with ice. She looked exhausted, but there was a bright, determined light in her eyes. “Faolan, you can do this!”
    â€œNot with this paw. This good-for-nothing paw! I’m just not used to it.”
    â€œFaolan,” Mhairie snapped. “I have never in all my life heard you whine. Don’t start now. You can do it!”
    â€œQuit thinking about your paw and start thinking about the one you had,” Dearlea urged. “Let your old paw, the splayed one, teach the new paw.” Faolan blinked at his sister.
    â€œThat seems odd, doesn’t it? Kind of upside down?” Faolan replied.
    Dearlea snarled. “Look around you. The whole world has been turned upside down.”
    â€œAll right. I’ll give it another try.” Faolan closed his eyes and tried his best to imagine his other paw, to feel how he would have used it to move the branch into that slot in the ice. He saw his old splayed toes, the way the paw turned. He felt it in his mind’s eye and then he felt a kind of muscle memory moving his new paw.
    â€œHold tight!” he cried as the branch slipped into place and caught.
    Angle it! Angle it! he thought as he recalled the countless times he had tipped his head skyward and watched Gwynneth carve a turn or negotiate a wind draft. The branch trembled, then suddenly caught the pressure of the current. He bit firmly into the upper part of the limb with his mouth and gave Dearlea and Mhairie a flick of his ears to signal them to let go. He pushed the stick slightly to one side and felt the ice floe move inthe opposite direction. That makes sense , he thought, getting a hang of it. Then he pushed it the other way and the ice floe clearly responded.
    â€œYou’re doing it, Faolan!” Mhairie cheered. “You’re doing it!”
    Yes , he thought, I am doing it! But his marrow grew colder and colder as the opposite shore drew closer and he could see the land in utter ruin. The Ring of Sacred Volcanoes, which used to stand so proudly in the distance, had disappeared, collapsed.
    But Edme? Where is Edme? Her name wound through his mind like an urgent beat. Where is she? Where is she?
    The waters calmed as they approached shore and the sun began to rise. But without Edme, what did it