The Calling of the Wind

A fanfiction by FlightRewritten, *The Calling of the Wind* focuses on a lone wolf of the Distant Blue, her banishment from her clan, and her journey across the Distant Blue and into lands far beyond... the true ancestral home of the wolves of the Beyond, before the Ice March, before it all...

## Gone

Kylomere was awoken by nothing but the soft whisper of the grass. The light breeze ruffled her brown fur as she inhaled the crisp morning air, tinged with the salty scent of the ocean. How long it had been since she had been carried away by those powerful waves, clinging onto her life- and a weak, waterlogged branch. Kylomere gave her fur a shake as if to rid herself of those memories. The ocean couldn't harm her now.

"Kylomere, you're needed outside. We've tracked a meat trail to the Stone Barrier, and we need you and Lyta to track down the prey. Bison, by the scents of it." A wolf, with fur as black as night, had stalked over to the entrance of Kylomere's den, his paws touching down as silently as an owl flies.

"Yes, Gilmor." Kylomere sighed, dragging herself to her paws and shaking her fur once more. Her eyes gleamed like green fire, almost like the lava that once flowed from the Five Sacred Volcanoes, back in the Beyond, before it had been pulverized by the earthquake. Kylomere trotted out of the den, shoving Gilmor aside with a *hmph* of content. Outside, basking in the morning sunshine, was Lyta. Kylomere snorted.

*Stupid moldwarp.* She scoffed, padding behind the long-furred white she-wolf, who's tongue was lolling out of her mouth.

"WAKE UP! MEAT TRAIL TO FOLLOW!" Kylomere boomed, startling any sleeping wolf and earning a good cuff to the ear from the awakened ones. Lyta scrabbled at the rock with a perturbed expression, staring at Kylomere with an expression that read, *why did you howl in my ear so freakishly loud?* She shook her fur angrily.

"Hello, *Kylomere."* Lyta growled with her irritation hinting in her voice. "A meat trail, you say? I tracked one of those down *yesterday."* She started turning away when Kylomere snapped her jaws around Lyta's fluffy tail, getting a yelp of pain in response as she yanked it.

"Don't start, Lyta. You're too soft. You don't like doing anything but laying in the sun all day and playing with pups. It's an honor Gilmor asked you to track those scents, as that could be our first successful hunt in a month. We've been feeding on fish, did you know? Oh, of course you didn't, because you've been hunting by yourself without sharing with us!" Kylomere glared at Lyta's plump belly.

"I'm not eating extra meat, I swear by the spirits!" Lyta blurted at once. Her eyes darted around frantically, her breath quickening in fear. "It's nothing you should know!"

"Ah, yes. Because you're lying, is that why?" Kylomere loosened her grip on the white she-wolf's tail, but she still took a threatening step forward with her ears shoved forward and her tail held rigid, the sign of utmost dominance. "Confess now. You ate the-" but she was cut short by a pale gray male wolf rushing up to Lyta's side, glaring at Kylomere, ire burning in his eyes. Lyta backed away, glancing at her paws furtively.

"Stop, Kylomere! You have lost your senses- you are absolutely crazy! *Cag maglosc! Tine smyorfin,* Kylomere, show some respect!" At that, the gray wolf started hurling Old Wolf insults at the brown she-wolf, half of which had been discarded from common use.

*Who's this, the next Faolan? By MY marrow, it'd better not be.*

"Listen, gray wolf. Lyta here has committed a crime, a crime that should result in severe consequences." Then, looking back at her den, she howled, "GILMOR!" The black wolf came rushing up at once.

"Oh, great chieftain, honorable lord of lords of the esteemed MacMoores, this inferior creature, terribly undeserving of her rank as outflanker, has committed a crime forbidden by the byrrgnock. Why, she hunted in a lone *byrrgis* and ate the prey without giving to her pack. The Bone of Bones, twenty-second *gwalyd:* No wolf of a clan can hunt in a lone *byrrgis* without sharing with the other wolves. That is exactly what Lyta here did, O honorable Gilmor." Kylomere lowered herself into a posture of submission, though she hardly meant it.

*I am no gnaw wolf! But it is only for the best,* she reminded herself.

"Honorable chieftain, I feel that Kylomere only fills this clan with lies. For this is not what is going on with Lyta. She would never disobey the Bone of Bones, the very foundation of the clans." the gray wolf started. To Kylomere's surprise and to her fury, Gilmor nodded.

"She is expecting pups." At that, Lyta slammed her paw down onto his muzzle. And Kylomere could see why. Soleel, the Obea, had padded up out of nowhere. Her gaze had hardened and lost its emotion over the years, once she had taken up the role of Obea. Of course, the golden wolf once had a personality of her own, but now, even her eyes were growing dull and concealing.

"Congratulations," Soleel's forced the praise out in a slithering, unsettling voice. The smile looked fake. Very fake. Kylomere guessed she was looking forward to abandoning the pups in a moon or so, nothing more. Lyta growled in response.

"Sure." She muttered disbelievingly.

"Anyways," Gilmor said casually, "You are not fit enough to track down the bison herd now. I will ask another wolf to go."

"Can I go, sir?" A yellowish-brown wolf crawled up, tail tucked in between his legs as a sign of submission. His ears were flat against his head and his lively green eyes stared straight down at the floor.

"Maglosc." Gilmor growled. "How many times do I have to tell you? GNAW WOLVES DO NOT JUST CONFRONT THE CHIEFTAIN LIKE THAT!" Gilmor's eyes were burning with fury and displeasure, and a low growl escaped the chieftain's throat. "But of course you wouldn't know that, as a distant relative, BUT RELATIVE NONETHELESS, of HEEP."

A gasp arose from the crowd of gathered wolves. Soleel just stood stationary, staring at something in the distance with her unsettling dull gaze. "Heep!" One she-wolf yelped, drawing her pup away by the ear. "Don't look, Hyleen." She swept her long, plumose tail over the pup's eyes and slowly walked away.

Kylomere's furious gaze locked with the chieftain's. "This is despicable! *MALGLOSC?* ARE YOU SERIOUS? You gave him a name that's derived from *CAG MAGLOSC?* And Maglosc is perfectly fine! Not one flaw! No missing tail, no splayed paws, all his eyes are there, ugh. You made him a gnaw wolf just because he was a DISTANT relative of Heep."

Gilmor shrugged. He ran his tongue over his sleek black fur, his green eyes flickering away from Kylomere's defiant gaze. Lyta clawed the ground furiously, while the gray wolf observed the action, his face stamped with an expression of interest. Soleel let out a bark of forced laughter, for no reason at all except to seem like she fit in. She couldn't have been more left out.

"You know the Great Law, Kylomere," Gilmor finally rasped. "Any wolf with a traitor's blood is immediately demoted to gnaw wolf." He faced Kylomere with a weary gaze. "Maglosc is-"

"NO! I don't want to HEAR it!" Kylomere was instantaneously pinning her chieftain down, jaws snapping dangerously close to his neck. She was much closer to killing Gilmor than he was to her. Gasps of shock rippled through the crowd of gathered wolves. A pup whined worriedly somewhere among the cluster of brown, black, and gray pelts. Maglosc looked utterly dumbfounded.

"Get. Off. Me!" Gilmor rolled onto his side, yanking Kylomere down under him. She struggled under the muscular black wolf's grip- he was older and stronger than the brown she-wolf.

"Surrender?" He snarled.

"Never!" Kylomere spat back, fury flashing in her eyes. Power suddenly surged through her entire body and she shoved the chieftain off, watching him crash into a tawny male wolf, defeated.