Chapter Twenty-Four
Callan listened to Hippolyta’s worries, occasionally offering a word of concern, but for the most part letting her speak without interruption. Thestia, leader of the pack from the deep ravine, lay alert nearby, her brow creased with worry. The three senior canini were gathered on the grassy mead by Hippolyta’s den, where the injured scout Mashtuk lay. In the days since the vulpini attack there had been little change in his condition, and that for the worse, thought Callan. Mashtuk had grown weaker, and his mindvoice was so deeply absent that when they reached for him, they found only an echoing darkness, like a shadow of where Mashtuk had once been. Like a hint of his scent in a place he had walked many moons before, thought Callan. Like the whisper of a long-forgotten
