The Blood Of Ten Chiefs

Night Hunt by Diane Carey

The beast moved nearer to the cave mouth. Even the fires crackling softly could not dissuade the tug of a stronger instinct. The smell of blood made feral nostrils flare, and the beast's eyes narrowed in anticipation. Only the sky was angrier.

But this was not the anger born from having been threatened, nor fear of any kind; rather, it was born of indignation and the boiling struggle between thought and instinct. The beast knew in her intelligent mind that death waited here, but not the natural death to which she would someday submit in a cuff of sleep. Death in this place, because of its violence, would make her fight and bring to the surface every reflex of survival. The suffering, then, would last much longer. She would feel these creatures' claws, feel her flesh rip between their teeth, and even though she knew death was coming, she would fight all the harder. Nothing like going to sleep in the coolness of her own den.

She smelled the object of her quest. Her heart thumped rapidly inside the rough, gray coat. Through the dark cave mouth she homed in on the blood—not the scent of butchery. This was the scent of need and she meant to answer it.

She moved forward, more like a cat than her own kind, only her lower legs and shoulder blades moving. As though to scoop up the scent, her head hung low. The aroma became succulent and drove her mad. She hardly blinked at all now. Behind her, the yellow glow from the campfires ended abruptly at a line of large rocks, which kept the breezes from moving inside the den. It was here ... here, and very close.

Pausing as her eyes adjusted to the blackness, the beast picked out shapes on the cave floor—long rolls of animal skin, wooden receptacles full of fruit, a stone-lined cavity that had recently held fire but now was cool and ashy.

The beast moved in. Her own gray fur remained flat against her back instead of ruffled up in a crest as it might have been were she not the intruder here; this danger was of her own making. She hesitated only once, crouching back as one of the bundles on the floor groaned, rolled over, and settled down again. Still crouching, she crept forward and reached a wooden tub with a small roll of ravvit fur inside. She trembled violently now, in waves brought on both by tension and by the insurmountable drive she felt. Here was the source of the blood-scent—a pool of desires and needs and warmth.

She pulsed within herself. Her kind did not fully understand possession, but she had to have the bundle of ravvit fur.

So she took it. Suddenly. Quickly. Before the fear closed in. And she dragged it toward the cave mouth. When the long bundle behind the rocks stirred, the beast took the ravvit fur in her teeth and lifted it awkwardly, expecting it to fall apart. When it remained intact, she got a better grip and scrambled out of the cave, her paws scratching at the hard ground. Behind her the noises of panic arose to chase her out of the cave. They were awake. And they were shouting with their strange, cutting voices. The night was her friend and it hid her well. Soon she was gone.

The cave dwellers were all awake within seconds. When they pieced together the tragic bits of evidence, they came out of the caves and hunted along the ground until they found the beast's paw prints.

Then they began to light the torches.

Night over the holt felt wrong.

Upon low-hanging clouds flickered an unexpected patchy glow. The undersides of the clouds went orange, then gray-black, then orange again where the trees were thin. There was very little noise. A footfall ... the rustle of hands pushing aside boughs and branches ... quiet voices, very rare, worried.

Worried or something. Bearclaw tried to decide. The words could not be understood from this high up, this far away, but he heard the voices and their tremors and tones. He stayed hidden. It was his art.

Beside him, Strongbow's silence felt different tonight too. Not even the mild sensation of question crossed between him and Bearclaw, and Bearclaw felt stiff in that isolation. Both tall for elves—and Bearclaw even a bit taller than the archer— Bearclaw and Strongbow had to dip down slightly to see through the separation in the leaves before them.

The torches continued to move, slowly, across the forest floor. Tall hunters moved beneath them, each bearing a torch. They moved randomly, their only pattern being to spread outward, step by step, expanding the scope of their—

"What are they doing?" Woodlock crowded in beside Bearclaw in the privacy of their heavily-vined vantage point, unable to bear the tension.

**Hunting,** Strongbow decided, but only because it comforted him.

Bearclaw immediately said, "They're not hunting."

"Then what?" Woodlock asked, quietly moving a stray branch from his thick gold hair.

"I don't know," Bearclaw grumbled. "But I don't like it."

**They've got to be hunting,** Strongbow sent. **There's no other reason for it.**

"Humans don't hunt at night." Bearclaw watched only a few more seconds. "Those walking hairballs are afraid of the dark. Both of you stay here. Tell me if anything changes. I'm going back to the holt. I want to talk to Rain."

He traveled back to the Father Tree overground. The forest floor was unsafe tonight and Bearclaw had to have answers. The five-fingered hunters were predictable, and he disliked it when they decided not to be.

Tonight Bearclaw saw none of the holt's mythic beauty as he approached, saw nothing of the flickering fireflies against the dark tree shapes or the indigo patches of paler blue where moonbeams slanted through the canopy of leaves overhead. He missed entirely the prettiness of the holt's skirt of wildflowers and the brush of common weeds that added a cushiony comfort to the ancient trees. The great trunks flared out into tangles of roots as thick as Bearclaw's whole body, but tonight he used them as stepping-stones, without a thought of how important they were. He hopped over the thin brook that trickled through the center of the holt, and headed for the central tree.

Both above and below him twisted the snarl of timber and leafage that was home for the Wolfriders. Treeshapers had made other trees grow into the Father Tree ages ago, creating a great knot of branches and trunks and tunnels and hollows. Thus, the holt had its own underground and overground systems, each tunnel or hollow carved out and weathered to smoothness by time and use. Bearclaw could hardly remember anymore which of the hollows had been created by tree--shapers he had known personally and which had been made by Goodtree herself. All he knew as he approached the embracing clutch of huge trees, nestled as they were in their cool evening cloak with its milky belts of moonlight, was that the holt looked particularly vulnerable to the bite of flames.

The Father Tree's usual mossy coolness closed around his shoulders as he slipped into the big opening that led to all the hollows. To his left was a stepway of chunks of wood carved out of the inner trunk. It led to the thick hollow branches where young Skywise lived, high up in the next tree, in a place where the stars could be watched. Bearclaw ignored it and headed down a packed slope, deep into the ground, to the hollows between the ancient root system there. Rain's hollow was the deepest in the holt. Here, in the earth's cool belly, Rain's healing herbs could be stored, and his lichens and mosses and mushrooms grew freely.

The walls were lined with animal skins, trapping in the warmth from a small fire glowing in a pit at the hollow's center. Few of the Wolfriders were comfortable with fire other than the little chunks of tallow Rain prepared for them, which they used to light their hollows, but Rain kept the small flame glowing both for warmth and for melting ingredients for the remedies he used. Tonight Bearclaw approached the opening to Rain's hollow as a cat approaches the water, seeing the fire more than anything else. For a long time he stood in the shadow of the opening, while Rain obliviously plucked seeds from a collection of nightbloomers he'd gathered. Rain's bushy sideburns and short chipmonkish features gave Bearclaw less comfort than usual. The coneshaped leather headpiece with its long tails made Rain's ears seem extra large, and his orange hair glowed unnaturally in the firelight. He went about his grinding, humming sweetly. He was always happiest while tending his herbs.

Bearclaw stood in the shadows, listening.

Rain reached for a jar of murrawort with one hand and popped a dreamberry into his mouth with the other, then went on humming. But when he brought down the jar, his eyes caught a shadow in the opening of his hollow—and he flinched.

"Oh ... Bearclaw, are you hurt?" He buried his surprise in concern. Though they had already spent a long life together, he would never get used to the chief's blade-boned, blade-eyed face any more than he would get used to dealing with Bearclaw's imperishable will.

That face, bracketed by a triangle of whiskers, moved slowly into the hollow. Rain gathered in Bearclaw's rough, lean appearance, noting once again how the chief's eyes were nearly hidden by thick bangs. The fawn-brown hair was poorly cut and climbed down around his features like vines around a jutting of rocks. With the bound-up lock that marked him chief mounted high and shaggy, Bearclaw's wild mane seemed patterned after the turbulent mind it sheathed. Rain absorbed all that with some difficulty, as always.

"Why should I be hurt?" Bearclaw asked. His words were blunt as the thoughts of the wolves he ran with.

Rain shook off the effects of the ungracious entrance and moved toward him, proving to himself that Bearclaw had some other reason to be here. "I've never known you to come in from a night hunt without the others."

Bearclaw came fully out of the shadows. "Have you ever known the tall ones to hunt at night?"

Rain's narrow eyes grew narrower still. "A strange question." His voice was barely a whisper. He spoke so softly, the other Wolfriders sometimes wondered why he didn't just send all the time, like Strongbow.

"It's a strange night," Bearclaw said. The firelight played on his features, but it didn't like him and avoided his eyes.

Rain continued, "Are you telling me the humans are moving in the forest and hunting?"

"They're moving," came the chiefs verbal shrug, "with fire. But they're not hunting. They're not beating the bushes or tracking or anything."

"Hmm ..." Rain clasped his hands together as he did when there was nothing to do with them. "Are you sure they aren't just doing one of their night things? Rituals, I mean. After all, Crest just ... just left the pack—"

"You can say she died. My wolf-friend is dead," Bearclaw snarled. "You don't have to pretend."

"Died ... maybe they found her."

"When a wolf dies, there's nothing left to find," Bearclaw grumbled. "The pack took care of Crest. Those oversized greengrubs couldn't find her any more than we could."

"Well, then," Rain said, "to answer your question—no."

Bearclaw spat out a few choice expletives—something about the mating preferences of humans—then turned and angled back into the shadows.

Once more alone, Rain simply sighed.

Bearclaw slipped through the maze of hollows, once again embraced by comforting coolness. **Joyleaf.**

**Here, beloved,** the immediate answer came.

As he slipped into his own hollow, Bearclaw steadied himself with the firm courage in his Iifemate's sending. There he found her, a glorious opposite of himself. Her hair was as sunny as his was muddy, as curly as his was shaggy. She was female, entirely. Her blue eyes made his seem hardly eyes at all, but sharp stone lances shooting toward whomever he looked at. And where his was the pale skin of a night creature, Joyleaf's cheeks always held the memory of flowers. He found her in the light of a single lamp, nursing a tiny infant at her breast. He strode up, almost as though to pretend nothing was wrong.

**How's our little cubling?**

Together they gazed at their newborn son, a thing so tiny that Bearclaw hesitated even to touch him sometimes. The baby was asleep, his tiny mouth working against Joyleaf's breast, a crown of wheat-pale hair already hiding his eyes. His little fists were barely the size of acorns as they pressed his mother's fountain of life.

Joyleaf turned her curled smile up at her lifemate. **What've you done?** she sent. **Have you stolen another human cub and given it to the wolves?**

Her plan worked. Bearclaw hunched slightly and said, "You know I don't really do that anymore. I just like to say I did."

"Then what frightens you?"

He wasn't entirely surprised that she already knew something was amiss. That was part of being thoroughly Recognized. "I don't know yet. The humans are in the forest tonight and I don't know why. Until I do, I want you to go deep into the Father Tree. Go into the rear hollows with Clearbrook so you can get out the back way if you have to."

"It's that bad?" she asked, her mouth straightening into a pink ribbon.

Bearclaw gazed down and felt he could fall into her huge blue eyes, rounder than was usual for elves. He had fallen into them once, and never climbed out. "I don't like to take chances. Not with that herd of belches. And they're acting strange as mad bats tonight."

Joyleaf nodded. "All right." She slipped her forefinger between her infant cub's tiny mouth and the skin of her breast, breaking the suction and releasing the cub into Bearclaw's arms. The baby slurped discontentedly, then settled immediately into deeper sleep, smelling the distinct scent of his father against him. Bearclaw held the impossibly small bundle between his shoulder and his neck, soaking in the vibrance of new life, wishing he could continue holding their cub for the rest of the night. Usually he didn't like to hold cubs so young, but tonight felt ... different.

Joyleaf rearranged her clothing, gathered what she needed, and took the cub back into her own arms. "You should tell the others," she mentioned as they left their hollow and parted in two different directions.

"When I know more," he said.

Joyleaf paused at the top of the rise. "Tell them now, beloved. It's their right to know."

He knew she had him cornered with his own conscience. He shook his shaggy head and muttered, "Hairballs ... all right. I promise."

His lifemate smiled. Finally they parted.

Bearclaw went to the core of the great Father Tree- and filled the holt with his thoughts in a single clarion alarm.

**Wolfriders, hear me! The humans are in the forest tonight, carrying fire. Stay near the holt. Be prepared for whatever comes.**

From all over the holt came incorporeal answers—Rain ... his daughter Rainsong ... Treestump ... Rillfisher ... Fox-fur ... Clearbrook ... One-Eye ... Moonshade ... Briar ... Redmark ... Amber ... River ... Brown-berry ... Longreach ... and others he didn't wait for. They'd heard him; that was all that mattered right now. From all over the vast snarl of trees, above and below, from out in the forest and down by the pond, members of his band sent their answers upon the winds of thought and he knew, at least so far, that they were all safe. Satisfied, he moved up the root-slope toward the open forest.

And ran headlong into Woodlock, who was panting from the long run. "Bearclaw," he gasped, "they've changed direction. They're heading toward the holt."

The beast hunkered down, covering the small bundle of ravvit fur with her warm body, guarding her catch with instinctive slyness. She hid in a thicket now, deep within layer upon layer of viney overgrowth. Twice the fire-claws passed by her. near enough that she smelled the crackling wood and the sweaty bodies carrying them. They were good at silence, these enemies of hers, better than she expected them to be. But then, they were hunter-creatures like herself, and had learned to be silent, lest they miss their kills.

Tonight she would be the kill, unless she lay very ... very still.

They passed by and moved on, searching for her. She felt her mate in her mind—nearby, but unable to move through the fronds and brushwood lest the enemy notice him. She hunkered even lower, gathering the ravvit bundle close to her silver coat.

When the enemy passed by and was gone, and before more came, her mate slipped through the coppices to join her in the thicket. Around them was a perfect wall of glossy dark-green vines that had grown up around the dead branches of a fallen tree. To one side, the great trunk still lay, decaying and bare, but massive enough to hide them. It was almost hidden itself in the natural predation of other plant life. Its morbid branches curved around them, bent by their own collapse, and created a hideaway. But it was also a prison.

The male beast floated between the vines to his mate's side. His body was blacker than the shadows from which he emerged, bigger than the female's by half. And he was enraged.

From deep in his throat a long growl drew out. When his mate sought him with her snout, he responded with a vicious snap. She recoiled, her head dipping to the moist ground. Only her gray eyes dared approach him.

The male stalked her as if she were prey, coming around to the side where the chunk of ravvit fur lay half-covered by silver coat. This time it was the female who growled. The two beasts locked eyes in mutual threat. The male's spine arched and gave rise to sharp shoulder blades. His sable fur rose into a crest.

The female backed down with a tiny whimper, but only after her mate moved to her other side, away from the bundle of ravvit skin. They smelled more fire ... more smoke. Images of fear and threat cluttered their animal minds, and finally the male lowered his thick body down beside his mate's. Their heads dipped down until the ground brushed the undersides of their jaws. Daring not even a quiver, they waited for the fire to pass.

Ever since memory, the Wolfriders had been responsible for every misfortune to befall the humans who shared their forest. Fear and misunderstanding remained the cleft between the two tribes. Somehow Bearclaw knew that, but he was as guilty as the humans. There were times when Joyleaf made him see that. Tonight he saw nothing but the threat. Resentment clawed deeply into his chest as he watched from the treetops while humans and their torches searched for the hidden holt. They knew it was in this direction, but so far they hadn't discovered exactly where. He resented his tribe's having to be accountable for the humans' faulty god, who so poorly cared for his charges, so much so that the humans had come to believe that anything not directly complementing or worshipping him must be demonic.

So the Wolfriders were demons. Bad weather, accidents, ill magic, crop failure, poor hunting—it was all the elves' fault. Born of fear, the danger swelled as he watched.

"Bearclaw, I don't understand..." Woodlock's voice trembled now. He gripped the branch beside Bearclaw and actually had to hold on to steady himself.

**We've got to fight them,** came Strongbow's opinion, thoughts so direct they were barely words at all. The archer held his bow over his shoulder like a spear and glared out from beneath the band around his forehead. Over it his russet hair hung untended, some of it reaching lower than his shoulders. Strongbow's philosophy—get things done. **If they find the holt—**

Bearclaw heard the archer's thoughts and gazed hungrily down at the fluttering torches with their amber hazes cast upon the forest's leaves. Who among the Wolfriders had not dreamed of killing the humans once and for all and having the forest to themselves? He couldn't count the times he'd come within a spitfall of declaring war on the tall ones. If Joyleaf hadn't been there to talk him out of it-Kill the humans, Strongbow wanted. Bearclaw crawled inside that idea and swam around for a while. Felt pretty good, too.

All at once he grumbled out a second truth lying dormant beneath the first. "They don't want the holt. They want something else. And they think we've got it."

"What makes you say that?" Woodlock asked.

"They always think we've got it."

"Got what?"

Bearclaw started to explain, then changed his mind. "Be quiet."

"What are we going to do?" Woodlock persisted, atypically.

Bearclaw opened his mouth to speak, not sure what he was going to say, but never got the chance. Strongbow's sending stopped him.

**Fight. What else?**

Bearclaw closed his mouth, tipped his head, and gave the archer an annoyed sneer.

Woodlock shifted uncomfortably.

Strongbow twisted his leather wristguards to tighten them, then adjusted the quiver strap across his chest; he would kill to defend the holt. Bearclaw would assemble the elves into a single force, bringing out their best fighters. Moonshade. Treestump. Pike. Longreach. Clearbrook. Foxfur. River. **I'm ready.**

His clear thoughts vanished as Bearclaw uttered words the archer never expected to hear:

"Well, I'm not."

Strongbow stared at his chief.

But Bearclaw wasn't explaining. He simply watched through the night-blackened foliage while fireglow puckered the night. Beneath them, spreading wider and thinner across the depths of the forest, the torches continued their slow search, moving ever nearer to the holt.

After a disturbingly long time, the chief moved down the long branch on which they stood together, peering through the leaves, and said, "Woodlock, I want you to count the humans. I want to know how many—"

**Kill smell**

Bearclaw wavered suddenly. He caught himself on Strongbow's shoulder and endured a tremor passing through his mind. For an instant he felt himself on the forest floor, hidden in thick overgrowth, wrapped in distress. He put his hand to his head.

Woodlock doubled back to him, coming along the same branch. "Bearclaw?"

Without turning more than his head, Strongbow leaned slightly toward Bearclaw. **You all right?**

Bearclaw closed his eyes. "I think s—"

**Blood hunt.**

He squeezed his palm against his eyes and pushed his way out of the invasion. He groaned with the effort—but won.

It was over.

He shook himself. With some strain he pulled his hand away from his face and forced his eyes open. "Do you hear anything strange?" he asked.

An eerie shiver went down Woodlock's spine, judging by the way his shoulders hunched slightly. "No ... do you?"

"Strongbow?"

**Nothing.** The archer still looked at him, but now his expression was different.

"You didn't send?" Bearclaw asked. This disturbed his friends. Bearclaw didn't ask things twice.

**Just told you.**

"Someone from the holt?" Woodlock hoped.

Bearclaw struck him with a reproving look and barked, "I know all of you."

Woodlock almost apologized, but frowned instead and moved a few steps down the branch, away from his chief. "We should get out of the tree. If it happens again, you might fall."

"Yes ..." Bearclaw fought to clear his mind. "Out of the tree."

They didn't have to help him down. He had recovered quite enough to drop steadily into the ferns below by himself, but they did watch him. By the time they were all standing at the base of the tree together, Woodlock was muttering again; it gave him comfort to think things out aloud, even as Strongbow found solace in his perpetual silence. "It could be a trick," the gentle elf suggested. "Maybe the humans have found out how to send and are trying to draw us out."

Bearclaw shook his head. "Those five-fingered stench piles have all the cunning of dry moss. Humans sending— that doesn't make sense."

**Who needs sense?** Strongbow argued. **We know what they're doing. It's time to respond, Bearclaw.**

"No. Not yet."

**Are you saying we're not going to fight? Not going to kill them?**

"We'll fight. But killing humans might not be like killing deer. I don't want to go in blind."

**I'd go in hacking.**

"You would. But you don't have the whole tribe to worry about, and I do."

Woodlock's mouth curled upward on one side. "Good for you," he said. He didn't care what Strongbow thought.

The archer gripped his bow tighter and brandished it threateningly before Bearclaw. **But it's the Way.**

Bearclaw struck him with a look. ' 'Maybe the Way doesn't work all the time. I have to find out why they're coming toward the holt."

**We're easy prey if we wait. They'll find the Father Tree—**

Sharp knuckles crashed across Strongbow's jawline, reeling him backward. Somehow he managed to stay on his feet and brought a trembling hand to his mouth.

"I know that, stinkhole!" Bearclaw hissed. "Think past Now for once! There's something different about this." He paced away, his body taut and twitching, bare arms strung like bowstrings. He spun on Strongbow, his words striking out in a personal attack. "Use your head for something other than a place to put your nose. We can't kill them all, no matter how well we fight. And we'll have to kill every last human once we start. If we don't, they'll come back on us like bad meat and we'll never be done with it. Don't forget how easily they can have more whelps."

**They're vulnerable at night,** Strongbow shot back. **And they're stupid. They spread themselves too thin. We can kill them now!**

**We can't!**

Strongbow had to lean forward slightly to brace against the abrupt shock of Bearclaw's sending.

The chief spun around and blasted with molten thought. **This is more than just an attack on the holt, fool!**

"We have to use more than our instincts, Strongbow," Woodlock echoed.

Strongbow lashed out instantly. His nail-hard sending made Woodlock flinch. **Stay out of this!**

Suddenly the archer was wrenched back around by a force more physical than sending could ever be. He found himself face to face with ferocity. Bearclaw's eyes speared at him, looking ultimately wolfen tonight—nothing elfin here anymore. "Leave him alone."

The two elves locked glares and did not look away.

Without blinking, Bearclaw rumbled, "I gave you something to do, Woodlock. Do it."

Woodlock knew he lacked the strength to stand between these two if they were truly determined to challenge each other. With a despondent sigh, he set his lips and melted into the forest.

Bearclaw gritted his teeth at Strongbow. "Are you challenging my authority9''

**What if I am? Who says your line must be the only chiefs of the Wolfriders? The rest of us have something to say about it too.**

"Oh? Do you? And who would be chief? You? Treestump? Maybe Rain or Woodlock."

**Or my lifemate. She's got all your experience and four times your judgment. I spit on your chief-blood.**

Bearclaw circled the archer now, prowling around him with a disgusted expression curdling his features. "You do and I'll make you lick it up. You're the one who always wants to follow the Way. Well, the Way says from parent to cub—my parent to my cub—straight back to Timmorn's blood."

**Too bad you don't have Timmorn's brain.**

Bearclaw's teeth showed as his lips quivered back in rage. Veins bulged in his arms. Too furious to speak, he sent his feelings directly to Strongbow's mind. **I should kill you for that.**

Strongbow's head snapped sideways, his gaze landing on the mossy ground beside him. **Tonight might mean the deaths of many Wolfriders. Including you.**

They leered at each other with a mutual bitterness so spiny it nearly drew blood. Finally, Bearclaw broke the spell. "Then you can howl ever my carcass."

He stalked off the way Woodlock had gone. Behind him, torchlight flickered between the trees.

He was still stalking when Woodlock popped out of the branches, breathing heavily, and gasped, "I counted twice eight of them. And there are more coming from the camp. I'm sure they outnumber us."

Bearclaw thought about it. What Strongbow said made sense* If a chief had said those things, there might never be a chance to think about it; it would already be done. But because the ideas came from a source outside himself, Bearclaw automatically resisted. Yet Strongbow's logic was good. Certainly the humans would spare nothing and no one if they found the holt, no matter what caused the anger. Sixteen or more humans ...

In his mind, Bearclaw carefully considered his Wolfriders. They could all hunt, of course, but fighting was different. Redmark was the best tracker and he loved the chase, but he usually left the actual kill to someone else, unless he was alone. Clearbrook could fight as well as Bearclaw himself, but she thought she might be with cub and he didn't want to take any chances. Amber was fair with a knife, but she had an infant even younger than Bearclaw's tiny son—the little she-cub called Nightfall. Skywise ...no. Too young for this kind of thing. Eager, but too young. One-Eye—yes. Now, there was a fighter. Steady, but willing to give in to the killer's instinct at the appropriate second. Strongbow—went without saying. The archer's lifemate, Moonshade, was always dependable, especially if she and Strongbow could fight near each other. Rain ... no. Rain never participated in the hunt, coming along with the hunting party only to ease the death-pain of an animal who had not died quickly. He would put the thrashing, agonized prey at ease, calming it so that its last moments would not be moments of terror, until the Wolfriders could dispatch it with a single thrust to the brain. Then there was Longreach, as good at amusing the tribe as he was with—

**Blood guilt .**

Bearclaw staggered. His hands clamped the sides of his head. He plunged sideways into Strongbow, who had followed him through the forest at a slight distance.

"Bearclaw!" Woodlock caught the chief's elbow.

Something was in his mind. Bearclaw knew that for certain now. "Stay back," he choked, wrenching away from the others and stumbling to the center of the clearing.

**Dangerous. **

Grimacing, his teeth bared again, he forced his hands down and willed himself to relax. Something was trying to overpower him—or contact him. There on the mossy mound in the clearing, he stood still.

Strongbow and Woodlock shared an uncomfortable glance-almost an embarrassed awareness of each other—and immediately looked once again at Bearclaw's back. He turned away from them. They couldn't see his face at all.

Bearclaw no longer fought the invasion. He gave himself to the impassioned sending as it overwhelmed his thoughts and replaced them. He felt nauseated, disoriented. Pictures of carnage flooded his mind—images of mutilation, of blades or teeth chiseling through bone while on the run—panic— splattering flesh—blood.

Were they images of madness? Or intent? —And which was worse?

"There's something out there."

The others stiffened behind him.

**Humans?**

"Not humans. Something else."

Woodlock unconsciously moved closer to Strongbow. "And it's sending? What could do that?"

**Animal?**

"One of our wolves?" Woodlock offered.

Bearclaw frowned. "Our wolves don't send like ... like what I'm getting."

"What are you getting?"

"Images ... no—feelings. Like the hunt and the kill."

"Something out there means to kill?"

"Or has already," Bearclaw concluded.

Woodlock scanned the forestscape with new apprehension. "And the humans are blaming us ... Bearclaw, what can we do? Reason with them?"

**Invite them home for a game of stones,** Strongbow sent on a sting of bitterness.

Woodlock's anxiety made him face the archer boldly now. "But I don't want to die fighting a cause that's not ours! The Wolfriders shouldn't pay for something we didn't do."

Insulted, Strongbow pushed past him and confronted Bearclaw. **What is it? Can you tell?**

The night became a bodiless enemy, its silence like an animal's throaty growl. The three Wolfriders stood alone in its midst. Even Woodlock and Strongbow imagined they felt something—perhaps only because Bearclaw did.

"A bear," the chief murmured, "or a big cat ... a longtooth—maggots! I don't know. Maybe something we've never seen before. It's out there, hiding or waiting. ..."

"But how can it be sending?" The tremor came out in Woodlock's words no matter how hard he tried to steady it. He forced himself to unclench his fists, loathing the images of Rainsong's beautiful face crumpled in fear when she learned of this. He longed to have the problem solved and finished before he had to go back to the holt and tell her what was going on. Bearclaw would surely order him home when things got bad—he always did. Woodlock knew he was nothing with a blade and only fair with a bow, but he shuddered at the idea of waiting at the holt to see if death was coming tonight. "If it killed humans, how can we defeat it? And if it hurt them, why would they head toward our trees?"

"Maybe they don't know what it is either," Bearclaw said. "If you were human and you didn't know what animal hurt you, what would you think?"

Woodlock stared at him and tried to put it together. Bearclaw waited, hardly even breathing, forcing his tribe-mate to piece out the problem. It was hard for a Wolfrider to think like a human, to imagine life among the animals and trees while not really a part of them. The humans hid from the night— usually—and they either hunted or feared all the creatures of the forest. Woodlock's task was a strain. Bearclaw continued to wait.

"No ..." Woodlock's eyes drifted closed. "Our wolves!"

**Our wolves?** Strongbow hadn't put it together yet, either. **What do you mean? What do the humans want with our—** He stopped suddenly, and nearly choked on his own sending. His eyes glazed with sudden knowledge.

Bearclaw looked at him. "Now you know. And Woodlock's right. We shouldn't pay for another beast's kill. And neither should our wolves. We've got to get the humans off our trail. Woodlock, go back to the holt and tell our pack to move into the hills and stay away for a few days."

"But if we have to fight—"

**We can't fight the humans without our wolves!**

"Swallow it, Strongbow! We'll fight them on squirrel-back if I say we will. Get going, Woodlock."

"All right ... Bearclaw?"

"What?"

This time Woodlock's message was sent rather than spoken, excluding Strongbow as he gazed at his chief. **We'll follow you, no matter what happens.**

Touched to calmness, Bearclaw breathed deeply and squeezed Woodlock's shoulder. Then he gestured him off into the woods toward the holt.

He and his archer stood in the core of their home forest, between their holt and the encroaching humans, whose torchfire they could now smell strongly as it wafted through the trees.

"We've got to find the longtooth," Bearclaw said.

**First sensible thing you've said all night.**

Bearclaw hovered a moment before leading the way in the direction the poignant sending had come from. "Let's hope it's not the last."

The images of fear and hurt and flesh flayed to the bone led Bearclaw unerringly to the area of forest where the beasts lay together in their thicket. As he came nearer, he moved more slowly, trying to piece together more and more of the images as they came to him. They no longer caused him pain, but something was touching the deepmost parts of his being—even his soulname fluttered toward the surface now.

And that frightened him.

Could he be so much beast himself that a longtooth or a demon-beast or something with thoughts so horrible could actually reach his soulname? Joyleaf knew his soulname, as a Recognized lifemate must. And Crest had known it before she died. She had been his wolf for moons uncounted, and when she saved his life during an attack by enraged waterbirds in the far lakes, Bearclaw had given her his soulname in gratitude. It was part of the Way, as Strongbow would have insisted, but it was also a matter of choice.

Now, though, he had no choice. His soulname floated near the beast's sending star at the top of his mind, swimming in and out of the kill-thoughts, ready to jump into one of them and be taken freely by the invader. All at once he had something else to guard besides his holt and his tribe. The barriers to his personal self were being clawed down. Only constantly reminding himself that he was chief and had responsibilities kept him from fleeing in the opposite direction, farther and farther from the distressing thought waves gushing over him now. Behind him, Strongbow was still apparently unaffected. This sending came only to Bearclaw. So close now, he ached to know what beast this was who stirred his soulname and almost caught it.

Before them, still many paces away, lay a giant fallen tree, sheathed in vines. Its plate of roots rose high out of the ground. Evidently some cataclysm of the earth had pushed it out, and it had collapsed, sacrificing itself to the nourishment of other life. Now it hid the source of Bearclaw's shredded perceptions. He stopped. Behind him, Strongbow stopped too.

"There," the chief said quietly. "It's there."

**Will it attack?**

"If it has to," Bearclaw whispered.

In his mind he saw a blackness that had life—a creature more dark than a bottomless pit, blacker than the starless sky, driven by instinct and yet—more than instinct. It knew the difference between sense and impulse. It had chosen to send; he felt that clearly.

**We'll have to kill it.** Strongbow drew an arrow. **I'll do it.**

"Stay where you are. I haven't decided yet."

**What needs deciding? It's the only way we can prove to the humans that we didn't hurt them.**

"I'm getting tired of you. Now stay here."

**You're not going alone.**

"I'll go as I please," the chief snapped, teeth showing. Moment by moment he became more like the images he saw.

He started forward, slowly, but a hand in the crook of his elbow pulled him back. Astonished, he looked to his side and saw the face of embodied determination.

**You are not,** Strongbow sent, **going alone.**

Mellowed by the disorientation in his mind, Bearclaw let himself be overcome by Strongbow's willingness to face the unknown at his side. Others would not be so willing, he knew. It was a gift. He would accept it. "Then, follow."

He moved once again toward the wall of vines.

The two elves moved carefully, one step at a time, around the huge plate of torn roots, around to the other side where hedgy overgrowth concealed their quarry. Strongbow kept his bow nocked and ready to fire. A longtooth or a bear would attack instantly, without warning. He couldn't be sure of Bearclaw's condition, with all this sending and confusion, but he was sure of himself and kept the arrow leveled over Bearclaw's shoulder.

"I feel pain," Bearclaw said, hushed, "but not body-pain."

**What, then?**

"Heart-pain."

Strongbow resisted the cold shiver that ran down his arms. **Didn't know you had a heart.**

Even in the midst of "heart-pain," Bearclaw smiled his wicked smile.

They stopped abruptly as a faint glow of torch flame washed across the vines before them. The humans were coming closer. Time was sifting away.

The elves froze still and remained still until the torch glow passed. Each of them felt the new urgency—having passed them, the humans were now between them and the holt. If anything was to be done, it must be done soon.

Too soon for Strongbow.

He nudged Bearclaw out of the way and approached the vine hedge quickly, before Bearclaw could shake off the numbness of the beast's sending.

The chief blinked, his concentration broken. To his horror, Bearclaw watched his archer shove through the vines and take aim at a looming shape that rose before them there. He heard the twang of the bowstring and a distinct thud as the arrow struck not flesh, but the hard ground. Incredible! Strongbow had missed—

Sounds of struggle flashed at him, both into his ears and into his mind through sending. Strongbow was sucked into the vines. The leaves closed up.

"Strongbow!" Bearclaw rushed forward, eyes so wide they burned. He grated to a stop at the vine hedge, gripped by a notion no Wolfrider had had before; the beast sent whole-thought into his mind!

Reversing the course, he sent, **Don't hurt! We can help!**

He barely understood why he would send such a message. Only now did he realize that the rabid sendings had been messages of desperation, not of intention. Help what? Why had he told the beast they would help it? What could Wolfriders do for a longtooth?

The vines rustled violently, and there was a great gush of breath as Strongbow's form catapulted over the root plate and crashed through dense foliage. Bearclaw drew back his sending star instantly. "Hairballs—!" he swore, and rushed through the leaves, thrashing around until he found Strongbow crumpled beside a stump. Bearclaw shuddered as he lifted the archer to his feet. If Strongbow had fallen a pace farther, the stump's jagged spires would have impaled him.

Strongbow's eyes were squeezed shut in pain. His arms coiled around his ribs. Bearclaw got a good hold of him and dragged him deeper into the woods, away from the fallen tree. He leaned Strongbow against an outcropping of rock and checked for bleeding.

"Look at me," the chief demanded when he could find no cuts—only red tooth marks scoring the archer's rib cage. Bearclaw tore a leaf from a nearby frond and pressed it to Strongbow's ribs. "You all right?'

Strongbow struggled through a brief nod. He leaned heavily against the rock wall and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, still breathing heavily.

"That was stupid," Bearclaw said.

**No stupider ... than doing nothing...**

"You don't know what you're talking about," Bearclaw told him. "The longtooth doesn't want to kill us or the humans. I thought it was sending me dreams of killing, but it wasn't."

**They were dreams of flowers, then.**

"They were dreams," the chief said firmly, "of fear. There's a difference. They're images of what it thinks the humans will do to it."

Strongbow straightened up with effort, still holding his sore ribs. **And what the humans will do when they reach the holt. Don't forget that. We have to kill the longtooth and put it in front of the humans. They'll find it and leave us alone. It's the only way.**

"There's more than one way!" Bearclaw bellowed. "If the longtooth has killed, then it's entitled to its kill."

**Then, what do we do, great chief? Offer them our home, wolves, and cubs instead?**

"Idiot! You're impossible to talk to!"

**And you're perfect proof that the blood of chiefs carries no chief's wisdom. You'll never be half the chief your father was.**

Bearclaw prepared to rip away Strongbow's thoughts, lips peeling back from white teeth; but something stopped the flood of accusations and tirades that gurgled in his throat. He looked at Strongbow's battered form, saw the concern as well as the challenge in the archer's half-hidden eyes beneath the headband, and shook with the effort of pulling the anger back within himself. He raged so in his mind that even the beast's sending was crowded out.

In a low kind of firmness, he intoned, "You'll say the same thing to my son some day." With a gesture that ended the argument, he stomped a cake of mud from the bottom of his boot and scraped the sole with the long metal knife he called New Moon. He hadn't even realized the blade was drawn. Drawn ... on Strongbow?

"Come on," he said, and turned back toward the fallen tree, already thinking about how he would deal with the beast within it.

He was halfway back to the fallen tree before he realized Strongbow was not following. Bearclaw turned to look.

A different being stood there against the rocks. The harshness was gone from the angular face. The archer's arm hung limp at his side now. His eyes were fastened unseeing on the ground.

Bearclaw came slowly back to him. Strongbow didn't move, not even when Bearclaw's eyes, squinting with suspicious concern, peeked into the corner of his vision. The silent question was neither spoken or sent. Bearclaw waited for it to be answered.

Like a brush leaving delicate swipes on a cave wall, the mild sending came—very unlike the usual terse snaps of Strongbow's mind.

**I hope I die before I must see your son become chief.**

He might as well have shot an arrow into Bearclaw's chest. Bearclaw hated new territory, especially inner ground. He shifted his weight and licked his lips. "What kind of talk is that?"

A tinge of sarcasm mellowed the words.

Strongbow's mouth twitched. No other response.

Bearclaw reached out uncomfortably and took hold of the muscular bow arm, welding the bond. "Come on, soul brother. Let's get back to business before I give you my soulname and embarrass us both."

**You know, you could lose your hand.**

"I know."

Bearclaw stood flush against the vine hedge. His arm sank deep into the leaves. True—he expected to feel the keen cut of fangs in his flesh, but he steadied himself to the bond between his mind and the beast's, and endured the chance of dismemberment.

Strongbow stood close beside him now, cooperating. The way of violence hadn't worked. He had seen new facets in. his chief this night. He would deal with them cleanly and head-on, for he knew nothing else. Bearclaw was still chief.

Strongbow flinched when Bearclaw did—something had rustled deep within the leaves.

**Something?**

**Yes ... fur. Moist flesh. He's sniffing me.**

**He?**

**Definitely.**

They waited.

Bearclaw vowed he would allow the hand to be bitten off before he withdrew it from this test. Hot breath puffed against his hand. He closed his eyes, bracing for—

The sending came again. More violence, but this time the violence of the victim. In his mind Bearclaw saw four tiny bundles of fur, torn and bleeding. He had to steady himself against the image of flapping wings and the sickening picture of talons—a predator bird's weapons spread wide and dangled with bits of flesh. He felt the heart-pain once again, as though it was suddenly new. The pictures became clearer and clearer in his mind. The beast had left its den in despair. Now it lurked behind the vine hedge, calling out to what it thought was a kindred spirit.

Teeth closed around his fingers. Knuckle by knuckle, his hand was encased within a huge, wet maw. The jaws closed to press his hand, but never broke the skin. His palm lay against a sopping tongue. The teeth held tightly, testing him. Sweating, he awaited the verdict.

The jaws tightened around his hand, pressing sharp fangs into his skin, separating the tendons between his knuckles. Bearclaw gritted his teeth, determined to tolerate the pain. If this was a challenge he would endure it. Sweat poured down his forehead beneath the shag of bangs and a grunt was forced from his lips as the fangs pressed deeper into his hand.

He waited to feel them pop through the skin and flood the beast's maw with elf-blood. Then—the pressure eased off. Bearclaw panted away the pain as his hand started throbbing, but still refused to retreat. He waited.

It came. A firm tugging. He was being pulled into the thicket. He resisted only slightly before allowing the vines to engulf him.

**Bearclaw ...**

**Don't interfere. I'm all right. Stay there.**

The leaves brushed his face, grew thinner, and opened before him. Though he expected to see a bear or a longtooth, he really wasn't as surprised as he thought he should be.

A wolf.

Not from the home pack. This one must have come from very far away indeed to be so unknown here. The wide head and jaws into which Bearclaw's hand disappeared were black as obsidian. But the wolf's hide did not shine like obsidian. The beast was more like a great hole in the night, cut out of the forest fabric and left empty. Except for its eyes. Bearclaw almost backed away from the yellow slashes through which the wolf peered at him. Like two crescents of torchlight, the eyes looked as though they might be blind. But Bearclaw knew the wolf could see him—quite clearly.

The animal was massive, hunched over until his head snaked along the ground, more like a bear than a wolf. He moved in slow, effective motions, not the quick jolts of a cornered animal.

Not like the twitching of his mate, who Bearclaw saw with some surprise as he was drawn into the thicket's core. A she-wolf lay before him, shivering from nervousness. Evidently she did not trust him as her ghostlike mate did. She coiled her silver body around a lump of fur. But the fur was moving. There was something inside. Bearclaw squinted at it, wishing there was more moonlight.

Something nudged the back of his thigh. The huge male.

Cautiously Bearclaw approached the female and slowly knelt beside her, keeping an eye on those tense jaws. He reached for the lump of fur—

And tumbled backward when the she-wolf snapped at him.

Instantly the big male corralled his mate in a jaw-lock around her throat. He held her down, growling a clear threat if she interfered again. She rolled onto her back in the subservient position, and no longer challenged Bearclaw's right to look at her bundle.

He folded back the layers of ravvit fur.

**Bearclaw?**

"Strongbow, come here."

The archer pushed his way through the vines, took in the odd sight with a shocked expression and his typical silence, then moved around the edge of the thicket toward Bearclaw. He gave the nearly invisible black wolf an especially wide berth.

Bearclaw was crouching down, looking at something. Strongbow leaned over his shoulder, and inhaled sharply.

**What in eight storms is that?**

Bearclaw looked up at him. "What do you think it is? She stole it from the humans. Her own cubs were killed by eagles in the mountains. She just wanted to suckle it like Timmain did."

**What are we going to do? Will she give it up?**

"Would you? She took it. She thinks it's hers." He looked up rather cagily at his archer and added, "It's the Way, you know."

Strongbow inclined his head slightly to his chief. **All right, I know.**

Bearclaw's wily smile twisted his lips. "Get out of the thicket. I'm going to try something. Maybe I can make the shadow-wolf understand."

He stood up, waiting until Strongbow was out of the thicket entirely. Then he moved to stand before the great black beast and concentrated upon a sending star of now-thought.

Minutes passed. The scent of fire drifted ominously back upon them, a constant reminder. Outside the thicket, Strongbow peered through the blood-dark trees to the yellow flashes of firelight moving across the forestland. **Bearclaw, they're getting closer.**

"I know that. Come back in."

Exasperated, Strongbow shoved through the vines again. **Now what?**

He stopped, rocked by what he saw—the shadow-wolf lay across his mate's shivering form. The she-wolf lay complacently beneath him, helpless, almost despondent.

"Get your bow," Bearclaw said. He was standing over the tiny fur bundle which had caused such trouble. He gathered the ravvit fur up carefully and collected the squirming newborn baby into his arms. So much bigger than an elf cub— but still helpless. Bearclaw offhandedly wondered if he would have felt this much for the infant before his own cub was born. Probably not. His cubling's birth had changed him, he grudgingly admitted. He didn't like to have Strongbow see him act so protective of the human whelp, and stood up quickly. "She's giving it back. Let's put it where it belongs before the humans get to the holt. From the direction of the fire-smell, they're almost there."

**We're going to the humans' camp?**

"One of us is. You do whatever you want."

Bearclaw wrestled the five-fingered baby into a better position against his chest. The infant gurgled and yawned, but its belly was full of warm milk from the she-wolf's aching and swollen teats and it made no complaints as he carried it out of the thicket.

Strongbow—very, very cautiously—retrieved his bow from where it had landed jammed between two branches of the fallen tree, and followed his chief through the forest.

The human camp was desolate. Only a single fire burned in a pit at the camp's center, the fire they had used to light the torches. Bearclaw and Strongbow would ordinarily never venture to such a place, but tonight was far from ordinary. Several times Bearclaw stopped short and listened. Strongbow had no idea what he was listening for until the halting sound of sobbing filtered out of one of the caves.

**Stay here,** Bearclaw sent firmly.

Strongbow didn't have any arguments this time. He dipped into a shadow, watching nervously as Bearclaw took a deep breath, clutched the human infant to his chest, and disappeared into the cave's wide mouth.

Agonizing minutes slogged by. Strongbow dared not even twitch. Bearclaw would have his hide if he interfered. The sobbing inside the cave stopped, then changed pitch—a different message altogether.

Bearclaw slipped out the corner of the cave mouth. Strongbow started breathing again. Bearclaw joined him in his shadow.

**She was hardly old enough to be a child, much less have one,** the chief sent.

**Humans multiply like flies,** Strongbow responded.

Bearclaw gripped the archer's wrist and turned him toward the woods. **Move along, reckless one.**

The elves were barely within the comforting cloak of trees before a clanging signal rang out through the forest. It was the ringing song of stone against stone, a song the elves heard sometimes in their sleep, when they knew the humans were calling each other, and the Wolfriders would curl up against each other and be glad they roamed at night rather than in the daylight.

Deep within the woodlands, within a few trees of the holt itself, the torchbearers turned suddenly, stared for a moment in disbelief, then ran with their crackling fires back through the forest to their own camp.

The newborn elf cub suckled greedily at the nipple in his tiny mouth, his tongue pressed up around the source of nourishment. It was a peculiar kind of ecstasy, but every infant born to every kind of fur-bearer understood it.

Bearclaw put his arm around Joyleaf's shoulders and together they watched their precious chief-son suckle to his heart's content.

"Are you sure about this?" Bearclaw asked her. "It's you I'm worried about."

Joyleaf's lashes dropped and rose again over her sky-blue eyes and she gazed placidly at her newborn cub. "I learned to share you," she said. "I can learn to share him."

She reached down and scratched the short, pricked-up ears of the she-wolf. The animal lay on her side in the middle of their hollow, nearly entranced with the joy of the tiny mouth at her teat. The warmth within her flowed easily from her heart to the heart of the elfin female.

Bearclaw sensed the invasion of his presence in this feminine art. He touched Joyleaf's face, unable to word his feelings, and slipped out of the hollow, and out of the holt altogether.

It was nearly dawn. The sky glowed with shades of pink from the horizon. A new day. The forest was still dark, and an eternity had passed since sun-goes-down, when the humans first lit their torches. Now the forest snoozed peacefully. The torches had been guttered hours ago.

Bearclaw wandered into the forest. He told himself he was just wandering. But when he stopped wandering, he was at the fallen tree. He moved through the vines, but the thicket was empty. Only the blackness of pre-dawn fell here now.

Immediately he left, and wandered—perhaps foolishly—near the human camp. Something drove him to seal in his own mind the end of the terror. He had to be sure the humans had forgotten their rage.

He watched for a while as gossamer shapes moved about in the pre-dawn haze, gathering kindling for a new campfire, preparing the day's fruits and meats, stretching after the little bit of sleep they'd managed to get last night. Humans ... just acting like humans instead of avengers.

Bearclaw stiffened when he saw something vaguely familiar—the same woman-shape he'd perceived in the darkness: the girl with the baby. She emerged from the cave, holding and hugging her newborn child, kissing the rosebud face and playing with the tiny fingers that gripped her thumb. After a moment, she handed her child to another woman, who seemed to love it almost as much.

Bearclaw drew his shoulders in. The girl had held her baby as Joyleaf held their own cub—a special holding. By the dawn light, these tall ones were no longer his nightmare, and with that came a touch of regret.

His eyes narrowed suddenly, acute to movement. His thoughts dissolved into wolf-time, and he sank back into the leafy brush.

The girl was walking toward him, toward the woods, her safe cave-porch left behind. With a piece of soft leather she was buffing something cradled in one hand.

He drifted deeper into the bushes, and became still.

The leaves and branches around him rustled gently. Her leather skirt brushed by, near enough to touch. She paused, less than an arm's length away. Seen through the leaves in the dimness of new-dawn, she was only a faint outline as she tugged at young branches and placed something in them. There was a faint clink of stones, but no other clue. Satisfied, the girl paused for a moment to gaze thoughtfully at what she had done, almost as though a decision was not yet completely made. But then she turned and, without a backward glance, returned to her encampment.

Bearclaw waited until his heart stopped pounding.

The smell of humans clung to the tree. For the first time in his long life, Bearclaw was drawn to it.

There, hanging on a stubby branch, was a bit of dawn. Red-gold amber and green water-polished pebbles reflected his wry smile. "Toad turds," he muttered. Too bad—he had always enjoyed hating the humans.

His whiskered face twisted into a grin as he tossed a glance toward the retreating human girl. He slipped the necklace over his head. The amber was warm against his skin, the pebbles cool. He would give it to Joyleaf. It would gleam against her neck like the glow of her hair and the shine in her eyes. Yes, Joyleaf should have this gift. Sometimes it is harder to share than to give, and Joyleaf had given the greatest sharing, after all.

Dawn. Time to retreat to the holt.

This time he didn't bother with his usual morning sending that would rouse the tribe from their activities and tell them to retire to the safety of the holt. If they didn't know by now, then too bad. He sauntered along with his private thoughts, rather self-satisfied.

**Relief.**

He stopped.

Before him, the darkness moved. With his mind, Bearclaw listened.

The ebony wolf lowered its head, and sent.

**Renn.**

Astonishment tingled through Bearclaw's body. The night beast knew—he knew!

The Wolfrider chief's faint trembling suddenly ceased as a glimmer appeared in his own mind and he also knew. The rightness of it overwhelmed him with a deep and intriguing calm.

His eyes grew slim. **Blackfell.**

This time the wolf came to him. As though nodding, its massive head glided close to the ground at the end of the thick arched spine. Crescent eyes glowed, unaffected by dawn light. Bearclaw put his hand out slowly.

Yellow eyes closed as the black beast's muzzle slid under Bearclaw's fingers. The bond was made and it was true, truer than either wolf or elf could yet know. As twin moons faded into the lightening sky, two night creatures melted like shadows into the forest's deep and silent embrace.