Spirit Wolf

Spirit Wolf


Author	Kathryn Lasky
Publication Order
Preceded by Frost Wolf	Followed by Star Wolf

Spirit Wolf is the name of the fifth book in the Wolves of the Beyond series. Like all the other books in the series, it is written by Kathryn Lasky. The hardcover was released on May 1, 2012.

Preview

The Beyond has broken. A cataclysmic earthquake has shattered the land and flattened even the Ring of Sacred Volcanoes. Most of the wolf clans are gone, lost in the giant tremor. What the survivors need now is a leader-a wolf to show them the way to a better place.

Young Faolan's destiny has arrived. He's been a marked wolf since birth, with a strange, splayed paw and an uncanny connection to the bears. There's something about Faolan that inspires certain wolves...and leaves others deeply suspicious. Now, with survival at stake, the remaining wolves must make a choice. Will they trust the silver outsider to lead them to safety? Or will the wolves of the Beyond disappear forever?

History

It starts off exactly where Frost Wolf left off. Faolan is sleeping. He had woken up and was trying to figure out a secret deep within his soul. His sisters, Mhairie and Dearlea, were carving the bones in honor of Morag, their mother. The earth begins to shake and they watch the Ring of Sacred Volcanoes crumble. They see the H'rathghar Glacier heading toward them as the earth violently shakes. Mhairie and Dearlea are then seperated from Faolan and are trapped on the glacier.

Back at the Ring, Edme is finishing her Watch. She begins to miss all of her friends, and a tear cuts from her eye. Twistling passes by and for a second thinks that Edme is crying blood, but it turns out to be just the light. The two talk about how the volcanoes are acting strange when there is suddenly a cracking sound and Edme sees Twist stagger and vanish before her eyes. She then loses consciousness.

Back on Broken Talon Point, what was once thick ice is now big chunks of ice, land debris, dead animals and freezing, dangerous water. Faolan howls for his sisters, and then hears Dearlea. He spots them standing on a sinking Musk Ox. He tells them to jump to him, and they do, clinging to the ice floe. Suddenly, Mhairie gasps at Faolan's paw, and he realizes that the ember has been destroyed along with the ring. He looks down at it, and it is no longer splayed, but perfectly normal, besides his spiral mark, which has stayed. However, Foalon feels incomplete. Mhairie shrieks for him to hold on as he slides toward the edge of ice floe.

In the Shadow Forest, the Sark, Gwynneth and Liam are returning Gwyndor's mask. The earth egins to shake here as well and Liam is crushed by a boulder, giving a agonized scream as it crushes his bones. Gwynneth finds herself going yeep and can't find the Sark.

In the aftermath of the erathquake, Myrrglosch finds himself alone. He begins to cry, and tries to find other survivors. But every watch wolf is dead; even the fengo and owls have been killed. He hopes that if there is one survivor, let it be Edme. He comes upon terrifying sights, such as wolves that have been frozen forever in the ash and lava flows, their bodies frozen in eternal anguish. He then hears a whimpering, and looks round. He spots what is left of Edme's and Faolan's den, and he looks into it. He sees Edme in the dark, and he skids down into the den to her, happy. But he notices that she still has her one eyes; every other watch wolf he had seen had their derformities fixed, such as Colleen's ears, Snowdon's toungue, and even Leitha had grown her fourth leg, even though they were all dead. She asks him in a daze what had happened, and Myrr replies, "A bit of a miricle, I'd say. Myrr glosch!".

In the Cave Before Time, the "Whistler" is sleeping. He was very tired from a double shift in the Blood Watch. He wakes up and begins to look at the drawings on the wall. The earth as well trembles, and he believes he is going to die as his legs are caught.

Outside the clan borders, Heep has a mate, Aliac, and a son, Abban. They are watching Heep's new 'tradition' been executed by Rags - the tradition is that all tails are to be bitten off of dead wolves. Heep has created what he calls a 'community', and the outclanners are learning to crouch into submission whenever Heep passes. But as Rags bites off the dead wolf's tail, the earthqauke begins, and all the wolves escape. But Heep stops, and looks behind him. A white tip is poking out where his tail should have been. and it grows until he has a yellow tail with a white tail tip. Heep is joyous, and does all this and that with it, such as forcing his mate to groom it for countless hours, and tucking it between his legs whenever no wolf was looking just for fun. But behind his back, the other outclanners are snickering at him, for his vanity is eating away at him.

In the sea, Faolan is struggling to adapt to his new paw, as his second milk giver, Thunderheart, had taught him to use his splayed one in a special way to make it efficent. The tide is carrying them out to sea, and they have to get back to the land before they are sent directly into the sea of Hoolemere. Faolan sees a piece of driftwood, and has an idea. He gnaws it, and asks his sisters what he would look like if he were to put it on his tail. Mhairie has no idea, but then Dearlea realizes that he would look a bit like an owl. Faolan explains about owls using their tails from the example of his friend Gwynneth, and he says that if they stuck it in the back of the ice floe, they could steer back to land. After several attempts, Faolan is near to giving up because his new paw is proving difficult. But with his sisters' encouragement, he tries again, and manages to get it in a good position. As the ice floe begins to head back to the land, he thinks of Edme all the way, and worries for her, thinking that she was much more then a watch mate.

After a journey through the remains of the wrecked Beyond, Faolan, Mhairie and Dearlea reach the sacred ring. They are shocked by the damage, as the Hrath'ghar glacier has cut all the way to the ring, making the land look white and black. They see many dead bodies, and Faolan still thinks about Edme. Suddenly, Edme and Myrr explode from the remains of Faolan's and Edme's den, delighted to see them. Edme begins to cry, as she is so happy to see Faolan is alive. She says that she didn't get her second eye, as she was malcadh made, not born. It is revealed that Finbar is dead, and the wolves decide to put his bones on the Fengo cairn.

Gwynneth searches for The Sark desparatly, but can't find her. She sees the Beyond - what is left of it. She decides to look in her forge, which is almost completly concealed. Gwynneth sees that branches have been pulled purposely over the entrance, and she flips her head so that she can see what is in her forge. She the hears a voice - she recognises it, but the tone is very different, and she is shocked to realize that it is Banja.

Gwynneth discovers that Banja has given birth to a beautiful she-pup called Maud, or Maudie. Banja explains, and that she wouldn't mind if she wasn't let back into the ring, because she wanted to be a mother so much. Banja has turned from a spiteful to a kindly, caring wolf. She also tells Gwynneth that Maudie had both eyes, as she had peeped beneath her eye lids. Gwynneth says that Maudie is like her, and at first Banja thinks that it is an insult because of her former personality. Gwynneth corrects her, saying that she now had two eyes. Banja is shocked, and blinks many times to make sure it was there. Banja guiltily explains why she hated Edme, and that she wouldn't mind if she didn't forgive her.

The Sark, meanwhile, has survived, but is losing a lot of blood fast. She wants to get back to the Slough, to her memory jugs before she dies. After a long, hard trek, she reaches it, but collapses with grief, as all of them are shattered. But she scents one, of sweet grass. She then remembers her time as a pup, as a lone wolf. She dosen't remmeber being carried away by an Obea, but thinks that she was abandoned. She remembers following a pack of the MacNabs, and being mesmerised by a stunning she-wolf she called Amber, because of her pale amber coloured coat. The male wolves all flirt with Amber, who does nothing to stop it, and she disoplines her pups severly, sometimes drawing blood. One night, Amber was staring at her reflection in a stream for hours on end. One of her pups came over, wanting to nurse, but Amber picked him up and flung him through the air, and the impact of landing broke his spine, killing him. Amber picked up his body, and dropped him in the deepest part of the stream, looking at her reflection once mroe, before walking away. The Sark realizes that Amber is her mother, and is angry and sad at the same time. Then, whilst searching for The Sark, Gwynneth hears her faint heart. When Gwynneth finds her, lying in a pool of her own blood so deep that her memory jug shards float around her, Gwynneth screams like no owl had screamed before.

Edme feels her marrow go cold as she hears a terrible screeching. Myrr asks what it is, and Faolan freezes, knowing who it is. The group head toward the sound, and find Gwynneth shrieking, and flying above The Sark's cave, shrieking her grief to the sky. She yells that she tried everything, but the Sark wouldn't wake up. They enter the cave, and see the dying Sark. Edme tries to conivnce the Sark to lie on a caribou pelt instead of the uncomfortable memory jug shards, but the Sark declines. The Sark says that they must go on without her, and she dies. Faolan, mournful, asks Gwynneth to come with them to a place he had seen, of The Distant Blue. Gwynneth asks of the place he had seen.

Release Date

The hardcover of Spirit Wolf has been released on May 1, 2012.

Excerpt

(Excerpt from the Prologue: Dream Shards)

Faolan stepped toward the cave opening and saw his two sisters limned in the light of a full moon. They were diligently gnawing the bones of their mother, Morag, in order to honor her. When they were finished, they would place the bones with the others that Faolan had carved on a cairn, a drumlyn, on this lonely prospect of Broken Talon Point. Faolan had selected this specific place because on a clear night he would be able to see the drumlyn from his watch at the Ring of Sacred Volcanoes. And from here, on this peninsula of land that hooked out into the Sea of Hoolemere like the broken claw of an owl, he could see the jagged ring of flames that shot from the volcanoes.

Tonight, every volcano was active, so the five crowns appeared like a circle of glowing rubies against a sky roiling with silver-lit clouds. The snow of Broken Talon Point had been scoured by the sea winds, leaving a sheath of ice. As Faolan stepped from the cave, he felt something shiver beneath his paws. The ice began to splinter. Beezar, the small constellation known as the blind wolf that stumbled across the night, gave a great lurch and seemed to crash. The stars shuddered and the sky began to slide as the earth convulsed. Mhairie and Dearlea stood locked with fear. There was a deep rumbling that burst from the very center of the earth and then a shattering crack that threw the two sisters onto their backs.

They scrambled to their feet again but the earth was still shaking too violently. They tried to wrap their paws and legs around each other, clinging to each other as they looked toward the sky.

“Look! Look!” Mhairie gasped, her eyes wide with terror. Flames swept through the night.

“It’s the Ring!” Dearlea cried. One by one, like stars dying, the volcanoes collapsed into themselves, shooting rivers of flames and smoke into the sky.

“What’s happening?” Dearlea shrieked. “Look to the east!” But once again the earth was seized with a deep and terrible spasm. A huge rock shot straight up into the air, almost crushing Faolan as it crashed to the ground.

Then there was a new sound. A jagged, tearing noise from the north. The three wolves wheeled about and caught sight of a white tide of ice advancing toward them, the leading edge jagged with frozen fangs. The H’rathghar glacier, anchored for centuries, had cut loose and was plowing across the open water. They felt another tremendous quaking beneath their paws and were thrown down again onto the frozen ground. It was as if the center of the earth could not hold.

On his back, Faolan saw the moon throbbing in the flame-ripped night. He began slipping on the ice and clawed feebly at the sky as if to gain purchase. Beneath him he felt the spasms of the dying earth. I am rocking in the cradle of my lost souls, he thought. The constellation of the Great Bear blazed above him, and Lupus and Skaarsgard had suddenly reappeared, in defiance of the season.

The earth had slipped its moorings and the constellations hung haphazardly in the sky without rhyme or reason.

His sisters screamed and Faolan whipped his head around to see the peninsula fracture. The two she-wolves scrambled and struggled, but slid inexorably off the edge into the sea. The last thing Faolan saw was Dearlea’s bright green eyes roll back into her head until they showed only white- the white of the glacier’s fangs that tore across that sea.

Parts

There are three parts, but they ar not named.

Characters

Chapters

Dream Shards

A Scarlet Rain
Castaways
A Strange Voice
A Tail Reclaimed
Water Wing
Another Pelt
Out of Chaos
The Broken Ring
The Cairn of the Fengos
Almost as Good as Two Eyes
Shattered
The Offing
"No! No, and No Again!"
Beyond the Beyond, Before the Before
The Long Blue Night
Of Wolves and Metal
The New Great Chain
Blood and Stars
The Toe of the Glacier
Into the Spirit Woods
The Wind of Her Wings
Bits of Miracles
Bronka
This View of Life!
"He Still Lives"
The Moon Crack
The Lovliest of Bones
"Who Is This?"
The Crystal Plain
A Wolf Named Aliac
Caila!

The Last Den

Trivia

Spirit Wolf was thought to be called Ice Wolf, but the real title was revealed by sites such as Amazon.com
The pages in the contents are off by a few pages starting on chapter 15 The Long Blue Night.
Spirit Wolf, along with Shadow Wolf, Frost Wolf, and Star Wolf, have no names for their parts.
In Spirit Wolf, along with most of the other books, the reader may be able to tell that Faolan has a great affection for Edme.
There is a hint on page 204 that Edme may have been the first Fengo's mate, in a past life.

Sequel

Spirit Wolf is the book after Frost Wolf. The next book is confirmed to be Star Wolf, stated by Lasky herself. The release date will be January 1, 2013.