The Blood of Ten Chiefs Read online

  Seilein wondered if he would touch her, for there were places on her body she enjoyed touching, and she let her imagination wrap itself around Timmorn's fingers.

  For several moments, neither spoke. Timmorn, thoroughly enjoying the stroking, suddenly rolled wolflike over onto his back, exposing his belly and groin as if to say, "More." Seilein, lost in her own sensual reverie, was startled, but felt a pleasant warmth in her face. She recalled in a rushing mix the feelings of her sleeping furs against her body; and the time she had tried to touch one of the elf males. He'd been shocked and discomfited, unable to comprehend her innocent experiment. Seilein wondered what Timmorn's furry body might feel like against hers…

  Still, though, there was unfinished business, and she shook herself back into the present. "There must be another hunt," she said, her voice low. "Some might die if there's not. The ones who can best hunt will go. I'll go…"

  Timmorn sat bolt upright; the reaction shocked them both. "No!" he rasped. "No. The longtooth. There's danger-you will be in danger." He leaned toward her, his face almost touching hers. "You must not be in danger. It is wrong." His eyes widened as if he were seeing something beyond her. He almost smiled. "Wrong!"

  Seilein collected herself and wondered what had affected Timmorn so. Suddenly he was acting… possessive? Protective? Both concepts were nearly alien to her, to all the elves. And yet, in the flush of sensation she was enjoying, neither repelled her. Quite the opposite.

  She took his hand in hers. "The beast you spoke of did not cry out last night. You said it was badly wounded; it surely has died. We must go out. Lead us, you and your wolves. You must go to show us the way; we must go to learn from you. It's the only way."

  Timmorn sat for a long while, not moving. Within him the wolf and the elf whirled, pulling close, scampering away. An

  ancient feeling tugged at him, one that the firstcomers had long ago forgotten in their timeless immortality. Timmorn tasted the feeling. It tasted of the wolf, and the cub. "Tonight," he said.

  There were five of them, aside from Timmorn and the wolf-pack. Seilein was there, and Valloa, and three males who also showed skill with the spear. The wolves were even less easy than they were when only Timmorn accompanied them, but somehow this night the halfling exerted a will that caused even the high-ranking male wolf to accept the small elfin band.

  They hunted, going farther and farther from the camp, deeper and deeper into woods where none of the elves had ever gone. Here they felt more vulnerable, more fragile than they had ever before. Much as they spoke among themselves in the softest voices of the need for a successful hunt, they wondered in minds suddenly made insignificant if they belonged here in this deep darkness, with giant unseen, unknown life all around. They wondered if they would ever belong here.

  Seilein watched Timmorn, when she could see him. Though the night was clear and crisp, only one moon shone in partial phase, and its light barely penetrated the needled branches that wove overhead. And Timmorn was like the wolves, a running shadow, a ripple of gray in the deeper gray. The elves followed as they could; they were not without grace themselves, but their own animal beginnings were far in the past. Still, they ran and tried to sniff the night air as Timmorn did, to read the knowledge in a broken twig or tuft of pine needles. Seilein tried to determine in her mind if Timmorn was disturbed this night, or if it was only a reflection of her own subtle fears. Every so often, it seemed, he stopped and cocked his head, as if listening for something just beyond hearing.

  One of the male elves had just made the dispirited remark that it seemed that even this hunt was for nothing when there was a yip and the sound of hooves pounding and wolf paws running and a grunting squeal and more yipping and the boar burst from somewhere and ran straight at the elves, who stood there stupidly as if they weren't there, and it was Valloa who acted without thinking and who spun and struck with her spear and the boar screeched and even though it was a clumsy strike it was a lucky one and the boar went down and took Valloa with it and the two rolled across the forest floor and the boar died and covered the elf with its blood.

  For long moments, nothing and no one moved. Then Timmorn arrived, followed by several wolves. He took in the scene; his expression of surprise gave way to a toothy grin and low chuckle. The wolves did not quite know what to make of it all; they had not made the kill, so they could not feed in pack order. This had never happened before. They were confused, and Timmorn was enjoying it. Seilein and the other elves joined in with smiles, and good-natured fun poked at Valloa, who sat up and looked herself over and rolled her eyes, and the pleasant anticipation of more meat for a while.

  From the deep shadows, the longtooth attacked.

  It was thinner, its wound was worse; clearly it was further gone into pain and madness than it had been before. It had tried to hunt and failed; it was close to death. And the elves and the wolves had come back into its dark place and spilled blood for it and there was meat to be had. The dead meat lying on the ground or the live meat next to it covered with gore. The longtooth didn't care.

  It charged. Though it showed the ravages of its starvation, it still bulked greater than an elf or a wolf. It bowled into Valloa, its claws raking her leg as its momentum carried it past. The elf screamed; she did not know what pain was and she scrabbled wildly at the air, at her torn leg, at her spear still buried in the boar. Her mind raged blindly.

  In an instant there was panic. The wolves scattered; they could do no different. The elves scattered; unassailable fear took them, for they did not know creatures like this, or death like this. Timmorn started to run, wolflike, but in the same instant he stopped and turned to take in the sight of the longtooth turning to charge again, to finish its grisly work on the wounded elf. Memory pounded upon memory, collided with instinct, fought with feelings only recently stirred. He growled, "Wrong!" and hurled himself.

  He hit the longtooth just as the beast reached Valloa. The impact sent the longtooth careening to one side and sent Timmorn thudding to the ground. He knew the creature was heavier than he, and stronger; even as he snarled and shrieked at the longtooth in defiance he glanced about quickly for something to aid him. He spied Valloa's spear and wrenched it free of the boar's carcass; the elf would not need it now.

  The longtooth charged again, the fire in its brain driving it. It leaped at Timmorn, at the meat, at the pain, and flew past as Timmorn caught it in the shoulder joint with the spear tip. It hardly felt the new pain, and spun to attack yet again. It screamed, and leapt, and this time took the spear point squarely in its chest, deep into its heart. The body thumped heavily to the ground and lay there.

  Slowly the wolves came back, but Timmorn was already bending over Valloa, gingerly touching at the cruel gashes in her thigh, wincing at the moans that escaped her lips. He could smell her blood over that of the boar and the longtooth- there was something… A shock, a tingle, something he'd felt only recently; though not as strongly. Very gently, he touched his tongue to one of the open wounds. Something in the blood.

  For just a moment, Valloa seemed to become calmer, despite the pain that beat at her. She opened her eyes. Timmorn bent his shaggy head over her and said gruffly, "In the blood. Who are you?"

  For just a moment a look of puzzlement clouded her face. "You know me-I am Valloa. I'm…" Then something deeper passed through and over her, and she said, "But there's another name inside me. I don't know why it is, but I want to say it to you. I am Murrel."

  Even more slowly the elves returned to the place where two beasts lay dead and Timmorn cradled the wounded huntress. Seilein, still pale with shock but boldest of the little group, went to touch Timmorn, remembering the earlier day's comfort. He turned to her and snarled, showing his teeth, and she drew back in surprise. "Mine," he said, locking eyes with her again, and in that moment Seilein understood what Timmorn meant. She raised an eyebrow as if to say, "We'll see. This may turn out to be most interesting," but what she did say was, "We'll take her back to camp. There are heal
ers there." Then she walked away.

  Timmorn turned back to her whom everyone else called Valloa.

  Later, Timmorn ran through the darkest part of the night, through the deep woods. His eyes, yellow as twin moons, saw the world swirl mistily by him in the starlight as he ran, his breath and blood singing, the wolf high within him. Somewhere, behind the trees in the deepest shadows, he knew the wolf-pack was with him, though they still ran their own path, black and fluid in the night. Not true elf, not true wolf, Timmorn was both now, instead of neither. That knowledge lived, secure, in his blood.

  Back in the camp, the one who had been Valloa slept, her wounds attended by the healer. Among the others, there was some little confusion, for they did not understand why she went by another name now. No matter. The new name, the Murrel name whispered in his mind with a voice no one else could hear or share, and it called to him. The two had not joined this night as the voice had gently urged, for she was

  still weak, but Timmorn knew that matings-and cubs-would come. There was a something, a bond, a feeling he had not experienced before. It was a feeling both fresh and new, and incredibly ancient. It warmed within him.

  (And as he ran and turned the new thing over and over in his mind, tasting it, Timmorn also thought of the other one, Seilein. He grinned, wolflike, lips tight over sharp teeth; there would be joinings there too, if he had sensed her own mind and scent correctly…)

  It is life, he realized, slowing to a gentle lope. He went in his mind to the place that had been so troubled, to the empty hole that had been gouged there by the death of the wolf days before. The new thoughts filled the hole and soothed it, and they were the shape and color and smell and feel of life.

  Timmorn had seen death before, and he knew he would see it again. The world was full of death. But now he could fight it and not scamper aside from its fangs and claws like a frightened wolf who only knew self, and not others.

  He did not yet know if the new feeling meant much or little to the others, the ones who slept and tried and succeeded or failed, but at that moment, in the now that filled him up, it meant all.

  The young elf-woman's face showed the effects of an eight-of-days spent eating poorly and sleeping worse. Dark bruises clouded her green-and-gold eyes, and her gestures, as she slid down the tree trunk to sit amid its roots, were weariness personified. Even her hair, normally full of sunlight and curls, fell limp around her face.

  **I don't know what to do,** she sent to the elf hidden in the branches above her.**Could it be Recognition?**

  The leaves rustled and Longreach leaped to the ground, agile for all that Bearclaw was his fifth chief. "If you have to ask, it isn't Recognition," he said with a sly smile.

  "Then what is it? Finding my soulname was nothing compared to this. No matter what I do there's an ache somewhere inside. I wake up from a sound sleep knowing that I've dreamt something awful but not being able to remember it. Sometimes I just go to the tall grasses and run until I collapse. Not even my wolf-friend can help me."

  Longreach loosened the laces of his tunic and produced a small, lumpy pouch from which he removed a handful of wrinkled berries. He offered them to Nightfall, then poured them into her hand when she refused to take them.

  "A story? I don't see how a story can help me."

  "There are many stories you've never heard, little one." The storyteller leaned against the tree as a farseeing look came over his face. Longreach no longer needed the berries

  to find the treasure trove of Wolfrider memories. "Some stories, I think, wait for generations until the right pair of ears is born to hear it."

  "I don't want to hear how Darkwater quested for two turns of the season before she found the secret of setting the feathers in an arrow's tail," the adolescent warned. "I want my answer now.''

  Longreach frowned in feigned offense. "I wasn't even thinking of that one. And anyway, she was looking for something while you've been found by it."

  Nightfall relaxed. They all came to the storyteller, sooner or later, when there was no one else who would understand. And his wisdom was already soothing her thoughts; she'd been thinking something was missing instead of noticing something had been added.

  "The high ones' blood runs strong in you, child. Your mother's mother had almost no wolf-blood in her. But Timmorn's blood runs strong too; you get that from your father who would have been chief if Mantricker had died before Bearclaw found his name. You mustn't be surprised when the bloods rest uneasily against each other. It's a hand of generations or more for the rest of us, but for you it is as it was near the beginning of the Wolfriders.

  "I'll tell you about Rahnee the She-Wolf, and why she'd understand how you feel.''

  Coming of Age

  by Lynn Abbey

  The spear flew from her fingers as the great stag rose on its hind feet, ready to leap from the quiet clearing. The sharp stone tip struck deep, but not in heart-flesh where it would have dropped the stag in its tracks. Hidden in the bushes, the silver-haired huntress heaved a bitter sigh and took up the chase again.

  Cursing inwardly, she followed the wounded beast deeper into the forest, tracking it by the smell of its fresh-shed blood. She need not keep it in sight nor exhaust herself in matching its early pace; its wound would kill it soon enough- though it was not her way to let her prey die of blood-death and exhaustion.

  Burdened by the height and breadth of his antlers, the stag kept to well-cleared trails, not like smaller game which went to ground in briars or swamps and, like as not, became a meal for scavengers rather than hunters. No, the danger now was that the blood would draw other hunters who would reach the dying stag first and who did not need shaped stone to make their kills. She should have called her brothers and sisters to her aid, but they would have seen the poorly placed spear and mocked her skill as a hunter.

  She pressed on, beyond the hunt's boundary, head held high and her mind tingling with the scent of blood. There were sounds on her left and a breeze brought wolf-smell mingling with the blood-true-wolves, whose friendship could not be relied upon. Without breaking stride the hunter brushed her hand along her thigh and felt the knife that rested there, slung down from her waist. A metal knife, ancient beyond

  belief, with an edge sharper than any wolf's tooth or cat's claw, and her most prized possession.

  She howled as well-a warble that would tell any wolf or other predator that this prey was claimed. The one running beside her held tongue and kept pace. A loner, then, who answered no pack and would attack her as soon as the stag. Gulping air, she ran faster and shed her pride to send an image of the trail into the minds of her huntmates.

  Perhaps the lone one caught her image. It happened that way, sometimes, when the hunt had blood in its nostrils and the true-wolves were close by. Whatever, it dropped back and she ran alone, setting the images in her mind so she could find her way back when it was over.

  Her breath was fire, but it was worse for the stag. She heard it crash into the underbrush and found the strength to sprint the last distance. Knife drawn, the huntress threw herself across the fallen, gasping beast and ended its agony. It had begun to cool before her breath came easily again and she levered herself up to her elbows.

  And into her father's yellow-blazing stare.

  **Who are you?** he asked with mind alone.

  Not that he didn't know, in a general way, that she was one of his. All the hunt was his; what wasn't other, elfin, was his one way or another. The hunt was his children, his grandchildren and beyond-down to those who neither spoke nor sent but were long and sharp of tooth.

  "She-wolf," she replied, daring to sit on her haunches as the fire in his eyes ebbed back.

  She was not the highest among his children-and the hunt reminded her of it. Names were for the ones who mattered; the ones who had earned them. And of late there had been very few of Timmorn's first-born like herself with names.

  The hunt had mated within itself and back to their yellow-eyed ancestors. They'd become pee
rless killers and regarded the first-born as failures. Strength and success were what counted within the hunt, and it did not matter that their offspring were often misborn and did not survive their milk-days.

  The crossbred hunters lived longer than the true-wolves and scorned the others with whom they shared space and food. And the others, the elves, had grown wary, seeming content to take only what the hunt wished to give. But she was first-born; her mother was one of the others. It showed in her eyes, in her hands and in her teeth, but mostly it showed in her loneliness: neither hunt nor other.

  **How are you known to your mother?**

  The silver hair shook and fell over her face, hiding her shame. "Murrel?" she whispered her mother's name and dared to meet those topaz eyes. "I am she-wolf to her as well. They do not love us, father," his she-wolf daughter told him, challenging him as no one in the hunt or elsewhere did. "They need us, but they do not love us. They would rather have the true-wolves for pets than listen to our songs.''

  Timmorn squatted down beside her, as close as he'd ever been to this particular child of his. She noticed the white hairs of age mingled through the coarse, tawny fur that covered far more than his scalp. So, he felt it too-the pull of the wolf-blood that made the hunt forever from the others who, though they were mortal and often died, did not need to die.

  **It has gone wrong.** His hand closed over hers, making the mind images stronger and filled with sadness.**Timmain's sacrifice-my mother's sacrifice-is being lost.**

  Timmain. That was a name that could draw the hunt and the others closer together in the moonlight. Or it had, once- not in her short lifetime. There were too many of the hunt now whose thoughts were closed to memory and several of the others who did not care to be reminded. The others said, or more exactly thought, among themselves that there was a

  bit of Timmain in her. Not that she'd know. She'd seen herself reflected off still water, but Timmain, the legend who had saved the others by going to the true-wolves, had never returned to her elfin shape.