The Blood of Ten Chiefs (16 page)

And this was the day he would prove strongest of all, both men and elves...

With a sharp twist he ripped the metal spear from his enemy's grasp and sprang back. As the man tried to rise, Swift-Spear cracked the butt of the weapon under Kerthan's chin. Quick as thought, the elf chief reversed the spear and thrust it through his enemy's heart.

Swift-Spear retreated then from the corpse that lay pinned in the mud by the spear. The man's blood was hot on his skin. That was it? It was over so soon? The man had been a good fighter: Swift-Spear knew few others of the human tribe would have had a chance against him in fair fight, but still ... so quick? So easy to kill your nightmares? One thrust and the fear that haunted the elfin-kind for so long is ended? He sighed as he withdrew the spear. Not so quick, really, he thought. Not so easy.

There would be the tribe's own dead and wounded. And though he had avenged Blackmane, it didn't really seem to matter all that much.

The elves came to the village at midday, Swift-Spear leading them, the mad No-name pacing quietly by his side. The humans closed the gates against them, but they knew it would do no good. Kerthan had taken all the hunters with him. There were only old men and boys to defend the village now. The elves stood outside the front gate, and the humans looked over the barrier, staring in" fear at their demonic conquerors.

Then a tall one, tall as a man, walked out from the fierce band.

"Humans of this village," Talen said—for he alone of the elves knew the human tongue. "Your men are dead."

A few sobs answered this, but none were really shocked. After all, many of them had expected this outcome. The bravest just wanted to die with some dignity.

"Our chief"—Talen waved a hand at Swift-Spear—"has decreed that your village is an evil place, and it must be destroyed." Now crying could be heard from inside the walls. "However," Talen continued, "you will be allowed to leave in peace."

The people within the walls stood shocked, a few whispering among themselves. Could this be? Was this a trap? They moved closer to the wall to hear the tall demon's words.

"On one condition," Talen concluded.

So here it comes. Many of the villagers nodded their heads in perverse satisfaction.

"He does not know if you have honor, but some things must be sacred to you. He says if you will pledge by these things never to come here again, and to make no more war upon his people, you may go free, with whatever you can carry. Or," Talen added in a harsh voice, "you can die. I suggest you waste no time making your decision."

The humans marched off into the west in a long line, shocking the elves with how many things they wished to take with them. One old male talked quietly with Talen and Swift-Spear beside the front gate as the people of the village filed past, sneaking last looks at their lost homes.

The man bowed once to Talen, then to Swift-Spear. His mouth was tight and his eyes were hard.

"We will keep our pledge. The tribe will never come to these lands again." He drew himself to his full height. "I am glad you have explained this to me. I am glad you have given us our lives. But do not expect me to love you for it." Talen translated this for Swift-Spear, who responded quietly in the faintly musical language of the elves.

"My chief says," Talen answered the human, "we 3o not want your love, nor do we want your hate. What is important to you is not important to us. You have painted your destiny in blood, and you have paid the price. Remember that always. Go in peace."

The man bowed, but he heard the words that Talen murmured under his breath:

"I would that we could have been friends." The old human just nodded his shaggy head once and followed his people into exile.

The night was lit by the burning village. Wavering fires made Swift-Spear's shadow dance at his feet as he stood to face the tribe.

"We have done as we had to do. We fought and won, not for love of fighting, but for justice. No longer will we hide from any threat, but we will face it boldly, and in this world to which we have always been strangers, we shall make a true home, and a new life." He raised his left hand which held his stone-tipped spear. "I shall carry this spear in the hunt, I shall carry it to remember what has been." He held out his right hand, which grasped the metal spear of Kerthan. "And I shall carry this spear, to remind me of what can be, what will be if we have the courage to find it!"

He stood tall and bold, the homes of his enemy burning behind him. He felt the warmth of the flames playing across the muscles of his back. Alive! I am alive!

And he knew his people rejoiced with him.

"No longer shall I be called Swift-Spear." He shook his weapons at the tribe. "But Two-Spear!"

"Two-Spear!" they shouted back, and even the high ones joined that cry.

"Two-Spear." He met their eyes and gloried in what he saw there. "I shall weld the old and the new ways together, and I shall lead you down a path that no elves before us have dared to dream of!"

And with that he cast both spears into the air, one and the other, as if he really believed that they could pierce the stars.

They came as they always did after the howl had filled their memories with Two-Spear. They came like the first stars at dusk; Longreach saw Scouter arrive at his brookside bower and when he looked up again there were eight Wolfriders silently choosing their places on the rocks and grass. They loved the recklessness that characterized Prey-Pacer's son but, like too much honey, they could not always digest what they'd swallowed.

"He was mad, wasn't he," Scouter said, more a statement than a question, "like a sick wolf."

Longreach shook his head. For all their vividness and detail, the memories and stories of Two-Spear were the hardest to hold in the mind. He knew Timmorn better than he'd known the ill-fated chief.

"But Huntress Skyfire had to drive him away. He moved against the Way so he lost his wolf-friend and his place with the Wolfriders." That was Clearbrook, but she was speaking her own hope and imagination, not from the treasure of memory. "He would have destroyed the Wolfriders with his madness."

The storyteller unslung his pouch of dreamberries. "No," he said as he handed the soft leather bag to Scouter. "Two-Spear was the only chief who ever made the five-fingered ones leave once they'd made their stone-piles. And Huntress Skyfire didn't set the Way until after he'd gone. But he was mad, and that made him leave the Wolfriders when they would no longer follow him."

Cutter pushed the wheat-pale hair from his eyes and stared at Longreach. "Not follow their chief?" His interest was clearly personal.

"It has happened at other times. Zarhan Fastfire left before Prey-Pacer tied his hair in the chief's knot, and that was madness, too. Though his was a grief that could not swallow his Iifemate's death. He left alone, but there have been others, by themselves or in small groups, who have gone and never come back."

They vanished from the Wolfrider memory, the treasure of which Longreach was the guardian. There had been a few who had not vanished from his own long memory, and there might be more if the feud between Strongbow and Bearclaw flared instead of smoldered.

"But never a chief, excepting Two-Spear?" Bearclaw's son demanded.

"Only Two-Spear and an eight or so of his followers."

The youth seemed satisfied, but not his slightly older friend. "It always seemed that he'd gone alone," Skywise mused, spitting his second dreamberry pit into the brook. "But now I can feel that some would have gone with him and believed that he, and not Huntress Skyfire, knew the Wolfriders' Way best."

There was no question that the silver-maned Wolfrider ran deep—too deep to be the guardian of the dreamberry memories, though that truth cut Longreach's heart like one of Bearclaw's cold, metal knives.

"I wonder where they went?" Skywise asked the treetops.

A shiver ran down Longreach's spine. Dreamberries were for remembering and sharing memories—not for asking unanswerable questions. He could see that Skywise had caught the others. Their eyes were glazing over and the youth's mouth was open as if he could answer his own question.

"We are the Wolfriders," Longreach intoned, wrenching control of the howl away from the unsuspecting dreamer. "We are Huntress Skyfire's children. She knew the Way, she lived it, and she taught it to us—"

That year, the season of white cold was worse than any elf in the holt could remember. The storage nooks were empty of the last nuts and dried fruit; and still the wind blew screaming through bare branches while snow winnowed deep into drifts in the brush and the hollows between trees. Huddled beneath the weight of a fur-lined tunic, Huntress Skyfire paused and leaned on her bow.

"Hurry up! It's well after daylight, past time we were back to the holt."

A soft whine answered her.

Chilled, famished, and tired of foraging on game trails that showed no tracks, Skyfire turned and looked back. Her companion wolf, Woodbiter, hunched with his tail to the wind, gnawing at the ice which crusted the fur between his pads.

"Oh, owl pellets, again?" But Skyfire's tone reflected chagrin rather than annoyance. She laid aside her bow, stripped off her gloves, and knelt to help the wolf. "You're an unbelievable nuisance, you know that?"

Woodbiter sneezed, snow flying from his muzzle.

"This is the second night we come back empty-handed." Skyfire blew on reddened hands, then worked her fingers back into chilled gloves. Woodbiter whined again as she rose, but did not bound ahead. Neither did he hunt up a stick to play games; instead he trotted down the trail, his bushy tail hung low behind. Hunger was wearing even his high spirits down. Skyfire retrieved her bow in frustration. The tribe needed game, desperately; the Wolfriders were all too thin, and though the cubs were spared the largest portions, lately the youngest had grown sickly. Tonight, Skyfire decided, she would range farther afield, for plainly the forest surrounding the holt was hunted out.

A gust raked the branches, tossing snow like powder over Skyfire's head. She tugged her leather cap over her ears, then froze, for something had moved in the brush. Woodbiter stopped with his tail lifted and his nose held low to the ground; by his stance Skyfire knew he scented game, probably a predator which had left its warm den to forage for mice in a stand of saplings. Skyfire slipped an arrow by slow inches from her quiver. She nocked it to her bowstring and waited, still as only an elf could be.

The shadow moved, a forest cat half-glimpsed through blown snow. Skyfire released a shot so sure that even another elf might envy her skill; and by Woodbiter's eager whine knew that he scented blood. Her arrow had flown true.

But unlike the usual kill, her companion wolf did not rush joyfully to share the fruits of their hunting. Woodbiter obediently held back, for in times of intense hardship, game must be returned to the holt for all of the tribe to share. Skyfire elbowed her way through the saplings, grumbling a little as snow showered off the branches and spilled down her neck. She picked up the carcass and felt the bones press sharply through the thick fur of its coat. Half-starved itself, the cat was a pathetic bundle of sinew; it would scarcely fill the belly of the youngest of the cubs. Skyfire sighed and worked her arrow free. She permitted Woodbiter to lick the blood from the shaft. Then, as wind chased the snow into patterns under her boots, she pushed her catch into her game bag and resumed her trek to the holt.

She arrived exhausted from pushing through the heavy drifts. Breathless, chilled, and wanting nothing more than to curl up in her hollow and sleep, she unslung her game bag. Shadows speared across the packed snow beneath the trees that sheltered the holt; but the tribe did not sleep, as Skyfire expected. Elves and wolves clustered around the blond-haired form of Two-Spear, who was chief. Closest to him were his tight cadre of friends, including Graywolf, Willowgreen, and sour-tempered Stonethrower.

Skyfire frowned. Why should Two-Spear call council at this hour, if not to take advantage of her absence? The chief might be her sibling, but to a sister who liked her hunts direct and her kills clean, Two-Spear's motives sometimes seemed dark and murky, as a pool that had stood too long in shadow. And his policies were dangerous. Elves had died for his hotheaded raids upon the humans in the past, and the chance he might even now be hatching another such reckless solution for the hunger which currently beset the tribe made Skyfire forget her weariness. Woodbiter sensed the mood of his companion. He pressed against her hip, whining softly as she pitched her game bag into the snow.

A younger elf on the fringes turned at the sound. Called Sapling for her slim build, her face lit up in welcome. "You're late," she said, cheerful despite the fact that hunger had transformed her slender grace to gauntness.

It was unfair, thought Skyfire, that lean times should fall hardest upon the young. She pushed the game bag with her toe, trying to lighten her own mood. "I'm late because of this." Then, as Sapling's thin face showed more hope than a single, underfed forest cat warranted, she forced herself to add, "Which was hardly worth the risk."

Sapling paused, her hand on the strap of the game bag, and a wordless interval passed. Dangerous though it was for an elf to fare alone during daylight, when men were abroad and chances of capture increased, the game in the bag was too sorely needed to be spurned. "The other hunters made no kills at all," Sapling pointed out.

The admiration in her tone embarrassed; brusquely, Skyfire said, "Is that why Two-Spear called council?"

Sapling hefted the game bag. "He plans to send a hunting party deeper into the forest than elves have ever gone, to look for stag.''

Which was wise, Skyfire reflected; except that all too frequently Two-Spear's intentions resulted in discord and chaos. Frowning, she pulled off her cap, freeing the red-gold hair which had earned her name. "I think I had better go along," she said softly. And leaving the game with Woodbiter and Sapling, she stepped boldly toward the clustered members of the tribe.

Her approach was obscured by the taller forms of the few high ones whose blood had not mixed with the wolves, yet Two-Spear saw her. He stopped speaking, and other heads turned to follow his glance. "Skyfire!" said her brother. "We were just wondering where you were."

Skyfire endured the bite of sarcasm in his tone. She looked to Willowgreen, and received a faint shake of the head in reply; no. Two-Spear was not in one of his rages. But at his side, the half-wild eyes of Graywolf warned her to speak with care. "I wish to go with the hunting party, brother."

"You went with the hunting party last night," Two-Spear said acidly. He tossed back fair hair and shrugged. "Yet again, you returned alone. In strange territory, that habit could endanger us."

Skyfire bridled, but returned no malice; the carcass in her game bag was too scrawny as a boast to prove her success on the trail. Instead she sought a reply that might ease the rivalry that seemed almost daily to widen the breach between herself and this brother who was chief; above anything she did not want to provoke a challenge. The white cold made difficulties enough without elf contending against elf within the tribe. Still her thoughts did not move fast enough.

Sapling came hotly to her defense, calling from the edge of the council. "The Huntress brought us game! She was the only Wolfrider to return with any meat."

Skyfire gritted her teeth, embarrassed afresh as hungry, eager pairs of eyes all focused past her. Jostled as tribe-mates pushed by to crowd around Sapling and the pathetic bundle in the game bag, she hid her discomfort by pressing her hair back into her cap. Aware only of Two-Spear's sharp laugh, she missed seeing Graywolf part the drawstrings. The bloody, bone-skinny cat was held aloft, a trophy of her prowess for all the tribe to see.

Yet hunger robbed the mockery of insult; and even the tribe elder who had taught her dared not mock her affinity for the hunt. When the vote was cast, Skyfire found her name included in the party of seven that would seek new territory to forage. That satisfied her, though the choice of Two-Spear's henchman, Stonethrower, as leader of the foray pleased her not at all.

The kill was skinned, then divided among the youngest cubs. Emulating Skyfire, Sapling tried to refuse her portion, until the focus of her admiration sternly instructed her to eat. At last, bone-weary, the finest huntress in the tribe since Prey-Pacer retired to her hollow and curled deep in her furs. The only things she noticed before she fell asleep were the dizzy lassitude of extreme hunger, and the snarls of the wolf-pack as they fought over the forest cat's entrails. The sound gave rise to discordant dreams, in which she faced her brother over the honed points of the twin spears he carried always at his side...

"Get up, sister."

Skyfire opened her eyes as the fair head of her brother tilted through the entrance to her hollow beneath the upper fork of the central tree. His eyes were blue, and too bright, like sky reflected in ice. "You promised to hunt down the grandfather of all stags, remember? Stonethrower is waiting for you."

Stung by the fact that this was the first time since she had been a cub that her brother had succeeded in catching her asleep, Skyfire peeled aside her sleeping furs. She reached for laces and stag fleece to bind her legs against the cold. "Tell Stonethrower to sharpen that old flint knife he carries. I'll be ready before he's finished." But her retort fell uselessly upon emptiness; Two-Spear had already departed.

The worse ignominy struck when she emerged, arrows and quiver hooked awkwardly over one arm while she struggled to lace her jerkin. Her other hand strove and failed to contain the brindled fur of her storm cape. She hooked a toe in the trailing hem and nearly fell out of the great tree before she realized that sunset still stained a sky framed by buttresses of black branches; the cleared ground beneath was empty of all but the presence of her brother. In all likelihood, Stonethrower was still in the arms of his lifemate.

Hunger made it difficult for Skyfire to control her annoyance. With forced deliberation, she sat on the nearest tree limb and began to retie the bindings that haste had caused her to lace too tightly. She pulled the chilly weight of the cloak over her shoulders and hung her quiver and bow. Then, hearing Stonethrower shout from below, she rose and grimly climbed down. By the time her feet sank into the snowdrifts beneath, her temper had entirely dissolved. Woodbiter had bounded up to nose at her hand, and her thoughts turned toward game, and thrill of the coming hunt.

The hunters gathered quickly after that. But unlike more prosperous times, as the afterglow faded and twilight deepened over the forest, they did not laugh or chatter. Their wolves did not whine with eagerness, but stood steady as riders mounted. Then, Graywolf with his unnaturally silent tread breaking the trail, seven elves departed with hopes of finding meat for a starving tribe.

Night deepened, and the cold bit fiercely through gloves and furs. Fingers ached and toes grew slowly numb. Yet the elves made no complaint. Generations of survival in the wilds had made them hardy and resilient as the wolf-pack that shared their existence. Beasts and riders traveled silently through the dark while the wind hissed and slashed snow against their legs. The weather was changing. Though stars gleamed like pinpricks through velvet, the air had a bite that warned of storm.

Skyfire did not travel at the fore, as was her wont; on foot, to spare Woodbiter the stress of carrying her when his ribs pressed through his coat, she hung back toward the rear of the line. These woods were barren of game, and she preferred to contain her eagerness until the holt lay well behind.

Yet even starvation could not entirely curb Woodbiter's high spirits. He cavorted like a cub through the snow drifts, snapping at twigs to show off his strong jaws. Skyfire smiled at his antics, but did not join his play. She dreamed instead of green leaves, and the fat, juicy haunch of a freshly killed stag.

Clouds rolled in before dawn, flat and leaden with the threat of snow. In the hush that preceded the storm, Skyfire sensed movement behind her on the trail. She paused, a shadow among the snow-draped boles of the trees. The other elves passed on out of sight ahead. Skyfire held her ground, and again the faintest scrape of leather on bark reached her ears; someone followed. Not a human; the tracker moved too skillfully to be anything but an elf. Tense, and troubled, and wondering whether Two-Spear's madness had progressed to the point of setting spies after his own hunting parties, Skyfire bided her time.

After a short wait, an elf emerged between the trees, thickly muffled in furs, and moving with the stealth of a stalker. Huntress Skyfire did not wait to identify, but sprang at once on the unsuspecting follower. Her victim squealed sharply in surprise. Then momentum bore both of them down into a snowdrift. The tussle which followed was savage and sharp, brought to an end when Skyfire pinned the other elf's neck firmly beneath the shaft of her bow. Her cap was knocked askew; enough snow had fallen down her collar to put fire in her temper as she shook the hair free of her eyes to view her catch.

A merry face with tousled dark curls grinned up from a pillow of snow.

"Sapling!" Skyfire raised her bow, angry now for a different reason. Two-Spear's recklessness had provoked the humans to boldness; often now they set snares for unwary Wolfriders. And Sapling was still almost a cub, having yet to shed her child-name for the one she would earn as an adult. "What are you doing following the hunters?"

Sapling sat up, the hollows carved by famine accentuated in the growing light. "I wanted to be with you Skyfire turned her back, arms folded, and her cap still crooked upon her head. "You're lucky the humans didn't catch you instead." She spun then, and glared at her young admirer. "You know they caught Thornbranch. They burned him. You're not too young to remember."

Sapling scuffed at snow with her toes. She seemed more embarrassed than cowed by the reprimand. Tall, now, as her mentor, Skyfire was forced to realize that little remained of the cub who had once tugged at her tunic. Sapling had nearly grown up. If she had tracked this far without drawing notice, she would not disturb the game, and she would be safer with the hunters than on a return trek to the holt.

"AH right." Skyfire set her cap straight with a hard look at her junior. "If you dare to track your elders, then you can act like one."