The Blood of Ten Chiefs

by Robert Asprin

  Or perhaps it was Zarhan himself. Threetoe she had understood and her fear of him went through every layer of her mind unchallenged. Not Zarhan. His eyes filled her with the smell of lightning as if she, like Yellow-Eye's spear, might burst into flames.

  She should have sent him back. She was chief now and Timmorn wasn't around to see that she kept her promises. The first-born would stand with her. They were eager to hunt together and almost as discomforted by the true-elf's presence as she was. But the promise weighed too heavily in her mind, and she could only hope that he would discourage himself.

  "Come on then."

  In any other season Zarhan's unnaturally brilliant cloud of hair would have been a liability. Come winter, when the forest was reduced to a world of grays, browns and deepest evergreen, it would definitely need to be concealed from any color-sensitive prey, but now, in autumn, he was no more conspicuous than any of the sugar-bushes.

  And about as useful, although the She-Wolf knew it was unfair to blame all their missed opportunities on their least experienced hunter. Twice Frost threw her javelin too soon,

  panicking their quarry and sending it to cover. Treewalker and Sharpears almost came to blows over the former's tendency to sing while he stalked. Even the She-Wolf was finding her mind too filled with other thoughts to fling her weapon accurately. Zarhan, who used his spear like a walking stick but kept his mouth shut, was about the least of their problems.

  At last, well after midday, they came upon a flock of wattle-necks intently devouring a small glade of wild spelt. The fair-sized, slow-flying birds took no notice of the hunters as they fanned out around the glade.

  **All together… now!** the She-Wolf sent as she sprang into the glade, spear high and ready for the kill.

  The birds squawked, flapped their wings in the dust, and defended themselves with beaks and wickedly sharp claws. Still, when the commotion settled, they had killed five and could fairly taste the juicy meat in their mouths. Seven hunters, five wattle-necks; they had a long way to go and much to learn but they weren't going to starve just yet.

  No… wait. Only six hunters. Zarhan was missing.

  The She-Wolf gathered her energy to send his name in every direction before she heard thrashing in brush beyond the glade.

  **Zarhan!** She let the energy loose, knowing full well that at such a short distance it would echo between his ears.

  The brush froze, then emitted a wattle-neck and a sending-staggered elf. He'd trapped the bird, but he couldn't bring himself to strike it. The spear went wide each time he thrust, then it would swing in a swift arc and bat the bird back to the ground. The She-Wolf raised her own spear to end the spectacle.

  Another hand fell gently over hers.**It's his-if he can. If not-it lives.** Sharpears reminded her of the hunt laws by which she, herself, had lived.

  She relaxed and let the frantic duo return to the glade. The true-elf's face was nearly as red as his hair when, as much by accident as design, his spear struck home.

  "I killed it," he muttered, sinking down beside the still-twitching body. "I killed a living creature…"

  Laughter stuck in the throats of the first-born. Fastfire had no wolf-blood singing in his heart to tell him that hunting and killing were the ways of the predator, but he had elf-blood that let him share his stunned emotions with all those who could feel. There was little that passed for consciousness in the wattle-neck's brain, but it had known terror and it had felt death.

  **Never in jest or the lust of the hunt,** the She-Wolf told them, making her first laws.**Never with cruelty or meanness. And never a mother with young if there's another choice to be made.**

  They voiced their accord as the hunt had always voiced it-with heads thrown back and a wolf-howl wrapped around their tongues. Zarhan Fastfire tried, choked and fell over backward. The suppressed laughter made its escape.

  Zarhan looked around, his mind that dark swirl of hidden thought which told all of Timmorn's children when their elders were angry, disappointed, or worse. With equal parts of distaste and determination he got the bird through the carry-noose of his borrowed spear and put his back to them.

  The true-elves were inexperienced and disinclined, but they weren't incompetent. Zarhan strode out of the glade in the proper direction; the first-born hurriedly gathered their own kills and raced to catch up with him.

  "Talk to him," Laststar advised as they jogged through leaves the same color as Zarhan's hair.

  "Why," her silver-haired sister replied.

  "They are the elves-Timmain's blood. Their anger hurts."

  "They are as arrogant as Threetoe and even more dangerous."

  The She-Wolf glowered at Laststar until the other female looked away.

  "It will get worse, She-Wolf," the elder sister said, and there was an image under her words that had nothing to do with hunting.

  It did get worse, though not in ways any of the first-born had anticipated. Their entire group had shrunk to less than a third of its summer size. They needed less meat, but in actuality there were fewer hunters to provide it. The firstborn, with Zarhan, Talen, and others of the younger, hardier elves, braved the snow-covered forest every day. On more than one bitter occasion they returned to the camp with little more than sacks of fist-sized rodents, which even the first-born preferred cooked and disguised within the elders' root stews.

  Nature itself seemed against the She-Wolf and her inexperienced hunters. The snows had come early, before the last leaves had fallen, and they'd come heavy. Small game was around in some quantity. They could smell and they could hear it scampering through tunnels beneath the snow. The true-wolves were thriving and the more atavistic of the hunt could have followed the ravvits and mask-eyes back to their teeming dens. But not the first-born.

  The cold, dry winds came early, too, putting a thick crust on the snow that held their weight-sometimes. The deer were starving, and the hunting was better for a while-though they'd pay the price, eventually, for each weakened doe whose misery they ended. Then the deer staggered south. The first-born hunted vermin again and listened while the elders clicked their tongues over the stewpots.

  "Timmain's sacrifice! Timmorn's cunning! That's all I ever hear any more!" the She-Wolf muttered as she struck the flint with her chipper-stone. Too hard. Too deep. The would-be arrowhead shattered, and black splinters shot into her fingers.

  Glowstone sniffed the air and set his own stones aside. "If Timmorn were here they'd howl a different song," he added darkly.

  "No they wouldn't," Talen told them, not looking up from his lopsided spearpoint. "They do this every winter."

  "That's not true," Zarhan injected.

  "Yes it is-well, maybe it's a bit worse this year. But the hunt never heard any of it. They laired together outside, and we stayed here in the cave. We didn't exchange hardly a word or thought with them until the spring thaw."

  Zarhan grunted noncommittally and went back to whatever mystery he was perpetrating with the ribs of one of their last big kills. The She-Wolf stopped sucking on her bleeding finger and tried to remember the previous winters. Had the hunt laired together-apart from the others? Apart from the first-born as well, she guessed; she couldn't remember being with either group. Alone. Yes, alone; by herself almost the whole time and, yes, eating rodents. That was how she'd known where to find them.

  Memory played tricks on the first-born. There were things you remembered in your nose and eyes as if they'd just happened. Then there were the gaps. The She-Wolf shivered involuntarily. Whole years were gone-more than years, she suspected-vanished into the wolf-blood and the wolf-song. It had been worse for the hunt; they never knew the time was gone except through the dreamberries.

  The berries had held them together. They had shared things on the nights when Samael brought out his bowl. They saw Timmain through the elders' eyes and images older than that: a marvelous mountain rising out of the forest, full of light and music. It was more than sharing, though; they became individuals, too, with their w
hole past opened up and the wolf-song reduced to a faint throbbing.

  Sometimes it was better when the berries had worn off and the emptiness had gone back to its hiding place.

  "Well, I wish they'd do some work, too," Treewalker exclaimed, putting a welcome end to the She-Wolf's unseen wanderings.

  Zarhan Fastfire examined the bent, delicate, sharp-pointed thing he'd made from the bone a moment before speaking. "Everyone does what they can, Treewalker," he explained.

  Hooks-that's what he called his little pointed things. He said they were far better at catching fish than a spear though none of the first-born could imagine how he was going to throw it or how it was supposed to kill the fish. Certainly he was the only one who could make them, and he was worse with the chipper-stones than Talen so no one complained.

  He put the hook with the others, then turned back to Treewalker. "Who made your boots? Who made the double-hat that keeps your ears warm?"

  Treewalker looked away. "Murrel," he admitted after a long pause.

  The elders made all their clothes. They knew how to scrape the bloody hides, then wash and stretch them, then work strange-smelling magic on them that sometimes made the hair fall out and always made them soft and supple. The first-born didn't know how; they'd have been naked or stinking if the process had been left to them.

  If the elders weren't busy it was because there was nothing for them to do: no fresh pelts to scrape and freeze; no more reeds to be worked into baskets; no more leather to be turned into clothing. All they had were piles of flint and Zarhan's pile of bones. The She-Wolf stole a guilty glance at her mother, who was napping beneath a mound of furs, then took up another piece of flint.

  "They're always cold. They're always hungry. Timmain's sacrifice didn't help them at all. They can't get smaller or learn to hunt."

  It seemed to be Fastfire's day to contradict and lecture. "I don't think that's what the sacrifice was for," he mused

  aloud, setting his bone-carving implements aside. Unlike everything else he'd said so far, his thoughts about Timmain were ideas he'd never put into words before and he had the first-bom's undivided attention.

  "If it had been just that the high ones were too big and ate too much, or because they weren't good hunters, she wouldn't have needed to make the sacrifice. Look at me-sure I'm taller than all of you, but I'm shorter than everybody else. Everybody's been smaller than their parents. Everybody-Talen, Rellah, me, Chanfur, even Feslin would have been shorter if she'd lived. Timmorn Yellow-Eyes towered over me like an oak tree. I remember Murrel's father; he was taller than Timmain!

  "And we're hardier; that started almost from the first, too. Smaller, stronger, more resistant to the cold. But way before the sacrifice the high ones were the hunters, not their children. They hunted in their own ways-with magic-and the oldest were the best."

  The first-born, except for the She-Wolf, shook their heads. Samael-tall, stately, and ancient-would not even touch a weapon and would only eat meat that had been boiled beyond recognition. It was impossible to imagine him, or anyone like him, beating the bushes for game. Only the She-Wolf had been listening closely enough to suspect that the elders hadn't used spears, bows, or rocks to make their kills.

  "What kind of magic?" she asked slowly, her dreams about Timmorn and his mother bubbling to the forefront of her mind.

  Zarhan smiled-she was the one he'd really been talking to, the only one whose understanding and acceptance he craved. "Many kinds. Some of them could paralyze prey with their sendings. My grandfather could make anything burn-anything-even things that shouldn't burn like water and rocks. They would drive a herd of black-neck deer with his fire until the whole herd collapsed with exhaustion or stampeded into a rock chasm-"

  "A whole herd of black-necks?" Glowstone shuddered with a different sort of amazement. "Didn't they know that was wrong? The weakest, the slowest-a few at a time-but never the whole herd. No wonder their magic stopped working for them. I'm just as glad we have wolf-ways instead of magic."

  "You're right!" Zarhan danced over the flint-pile to give a surprised Glowstone a hearty embrace. "The key to the sacrifice. The old ones didn't belong here! They used the magic they had from the sky-mountain to survive here, but the world here rejected them. Their magic got smaller along with everything else. I can only make fire where it could properly be; my father's magic was somewhere in between.

  "Timmain's sacrifice: she gave her magic to this world to create Timmorn. You, Timmorn's children, are truly a part of this world. It won't reject you or your magic."

  Sharpears tightened his lips, exposing teeth that weren't lupine but did have the strength and edge to tear through raw meat. "We have no magic," he declared, locking eyes with the elf.

  It was challenge as practiced and perfected by the hunt. The flame-haired youth felt a savagery rip through him that threatened to leave him numb and senseless. He'd seen this in the hunt; seen the weaker hunter turn his head and offer his neck in submission. He fought to keep the cords of his neck from twisting around. "Are you wolves or elves?" he croaked.

  Sharpears was trembling as well. Challenge seldom lasted more than a few heartbeats. That was its virtue-it established order without harming either side. He had had the strength. Fastfire knew he was beaten, but the ignorant elf hadn't known how to quit, and now Sharpears was himself strained past his limit.

  "We're both," the She-Wolf snapped, placing herself between them.

  Zarhan thumped to the floor behind her.

  "Challenge right!" Sharpears gasped. "My right! Submit or dominate-you had no right to interfere."

  "Challenge me instead."

  Sharpears simply looked away. His heart and mind would burst if he met her icy eyes. The She-Wolf kept him twisted before her while she contemplated the audacity of her gesture. Yellow-Eyes had never interfered in the challenge squabbles within the hunt; Threetoe didn't even notice them unless he was, himself, involved; but she had leaped in to stop one from reaching its ordained climax.

  Why? she asked herself, blinking and letting the other first-born come erect again. Because it was one thing to have a leader but something less to have everyone arrayed in rigidly descending order. Because her father had told her to bring the halves together again. Because she wasn't sure which of them was right and didn't think hunt-challenge was the way to learn.

  Grabbing her spear from the stack at the cave entrance she stomped out into the bright, cold sunlight. She marched past her old, solitary lair, past the faint boundary of the camp and into the forest. A straight track that stumbled over fallen logs and flinched as branches snagged and snapped.

  Zarhan.

  He destroyed her peace; twisted her leadership without ever challenging it. Worse, he put ideas in her mind that the wolf-song could not swallow. They were both wolf and elf, she and her brothers and sisters, not some part elf and the other part wolf but two complete, ever-shifting natures. Natures that were, for the moment, at war within her.

  Though the hunt had its order of dominance it had never so completely emulated the true-wolves that only the supreme male, Threetoe, and his mate, Rustruff, had offspring. Each year had seen the pack grow slightly in size as more were born and survived than died. Laststar's children had departed

  with Threetoe, but the She-Wolf had no such emptiness in her heart.

  Everything had changed since the cold had driven them all into the elves' cave. The wolf-song trilled a burning chorus and so did her elfin self. Sharpears had emerged as their best hunter. His tracking and stalking skills were superb; he was almost always the first to make his kill, and the She-Wolf's dreams were filled with musky thoughts of him. She had only to nod and smile in a certain way to bring them together- then he would become the leader, not she. But that was the way of wolf-song.

  She understood the wolf-song, accepted it and knew how to resist it. The storm that pushed her toward Zarhan Fastfire was less easily grasped. He had magic and he did not hear the wolf-song. He had wisdom and courage
but he was no leader. He was clever with his fishhooks and traps and he learned things in a quicker, subtler way than any of the first-born could. His name echoed through her thoughts.

  "I do not want either of them!" she shouted to the uncaring trees as tears froze on her cheeks.

  What she wanted, the images of Zarhan and Sharpears said together, had nothing to do with it. She slumped down against a tree trunk and buried her face in her hands.

  **Yellow-Eyes! Timmorn! Father! Set me free!**

  He could have heard her if he'd been within a day's journeying, but she knew he wouldn't come. Choices never bothered Yellow-Eyes; he never made them. He embraced whatever his dominant self-wolf or elf-had pointed him toward. He'd left the consequences to his daughter.

  I don't want to bring the halves together!

  She was deep in self-pity when the nearby juniper rustled and startled her back to awareness. With her spear half-ready she rose to a crouch and waited. A wolfish head thrust through the evergreen: full-grown but small, probably a lone female. She lowered the spear slightly.

  **It isn't just me, is it?** she sent to the wolf-not that she actually expected an answer.**The first-born always stayed apart from everyone, even each other. Now we're together and with the elves as well. The whole cave is crowded and edgy.**

  The wolf whined and took a hesitant half step toward her. The first-born female brought her spear back up. Timmorn could communicate with the true-wolves as could some members of the hunt. Her own abilities were limited, unreliable, and particularly confused by this wolf. She lowered her spear only after the wolf squatted down.