The Blood of Ten Chiefs

by Robert Asprin

  He had not wanted to think the thought. But the question

  had its answer. Dead, dead, dead. So it became true. So he knew he could not get back to that place where he had been, deep inside, where a motion might disturb the dead. He had admitted that thought and therefore the other thought was beyond recall.

  Therefore he slumped down with Graywolf's small brown hands clenched on his wrists; he sat on the rock and he looked his friend in the eyes… More than Graywolf had come. There was the wolf-friend, prowling below the rocks, hump-shouldered, ears flat to the skull-Moonfinder was his name. Not Blackmane. Moonfinder, second in the pack-till now. Till Blackmane was dead and Graywolf's friend came to sudden primacy.

  "Where?" Graywolf asked, jolting him. "Where dead? How?"

  "Humans," Swift-Spear muttered, and shoved off the grip that hampered him, thrust himself over the side of the rock on which he sat and landed on the next and the next, so that Moonfinder shied away and flattened his ears.

  He paid no heed to this hostility. He cared nothing that Graywolf and his wolf-friend followed him, or that all the woods were roused, the call going through the forest in wolf-howl and the rising of birds. He had his spear in hand. He ran without sight in the present, searching out of his memory all the detail of the place where Blackmane's mind had stopped.

  Trees, growing in such a pattern, of such a type, a broken branch, a thicket. It was like all other places. There was only one such specific place. He ran and he racked his memory of the forest on the borders of men. He listened to the sounds of the wolves and the cries of the birds. He heard his own harsh breathing and heard the steps which coursed like a whisper behind him.

  He ran, for all that, alone. His friend, a wolf he knew. None of these were help to him. The pack-leader was dead,

  Blackmane was dead; humans had intruded into the woods, the humans who had encroached closer and closer to the tribe with their strange stone buildings and their diggings and he wings and making of things. They had brought death with them. But when did they not?

  It was the forest edge. That much he knew. He knew the way the light had fallen. Knew the size of the clearing. Knew the prey Blackmane had taken. It was all burned into his mind. He gave these things to Graywolf, as he gave them to the forest, to anything which would listen-he knew that Graywolf and Moonfinder searched with their own understanding; and Graywolf was half a wolf himself, not the shapeshifting kind, but wolf by disposition, wolf by senses and by instincts, elf by mind and by a curious blend of elvish and wolfish cunning.

  And it was Moonfinder, or it was Graywolf, who first smelled the blood. He was not sure. It came from both minds at once, and into his own, so that he changed his direction on a pivot of his foot and followed the scent of blood and of men. But both scents were cold.

  Memory of trees and reality of the forest began to merge. Birds flew up and screamed warnings; but only selfish ones: the enemy was gone, the chance of revenge was fled, like the warmth in the blood.

  **The tribe is coming.** He caught that thought from Graywolf's mind. He did not care. He plunged ahead, fought his way through the underbrush, and at the last, having caught the scent of the place (or his companions had, and he knew it) he did not run. He had no wish to find what he had now to find, what, his senses told him, was screened from him by the brush.

  Willowgreen came with the hunters. Her skin was torn and her feet were bleeding, and worst of all was the pain in her side; but she followed as best she could. She had no weapon.

  She had her little magic, which could heal the worst of her cuts if she had had leisure, but she took none and only bit her lips and followed at what speed she could the swift-coursing Wolfriders, limping heavily at the last, after even the wolves were winded.

  She came hindmost into the clearing, among Wolfriders who gathered and stared numbly as Swift-Spear cradled the bloody corpse.

  They all waited. The silence went on and on.

  "Graywolf." Swift-Spear's sudden voice was harsh. Graywolf looked up, a small figure, fey and furtive, by Moonfinder's side. And Swift-Spear rose and turned to the others, his slim form covered with his wolf-friend's blood. "Graywolf goes with me. The rest of you go back to the tribe, move them farther into the woods."

  "What will you do?" someone asked.

  Swift-Spear turned and looked down at the mutilated corpse. "I go to get his ears back." He looked up again, his eyes dark with emotion. "I go to get myself a new spear." He licked the blood off his hands. "A man-hunting spear."

  The hunters lingered a moment in shock. Then they began to move. But Willowgreen limped forward, one pace and two.

  "Get back to the tribe!" Swift-Spear snarled at her. And with his thought came resentments that she was what she was, that she had hurt herself and that she was helpless to heal even that.**Take care of yourself,** the thought came.**Or can you do that much?**

  It struck her to the heart. She stood there with her hands held out to offer sympathy, and then she did not know what to do except to let them fall, and turn and walk away after the others, with no strength left-he had said it-even to heal herself.

  But Swift-Spear set out with that tireless run that meant distance, and Graywolf ran behind him, afoot, with Moonfinder

  coursing along the game trails. There was blood on the trail. It was not that hard to follow. And that Swift-Spear had no haste to follow it was indication that he had no haste for his revenge.

  Graywolf marked this. And marked the thoughts that strayed to him from Swift-Spear's mind-wordless thoughts, like pain and rage that did not care what it wounded, like a wolf in its extremity snapping even at a familiar hand. He kept silence himself and did not invade this privacy, which leaked resentments of him, whose Moonfinder had the primacy now. They were very secret thoughts he intercepted-Follow me because you could be chief, you with your wolf-friend that bowed only to Blackmane-do you want what he wants? Follow because you expect I may fall, and you will come back bringing the dead-to challenge my sister, is that it, cousin?

  Thoughts like that fell like blood, scant and seldom, smothered in anguish and self-reproach: Graywolf, my friend-which was the way with wounds, which tried to seal themselves; and Graywolf, whose mind could go silent to his prey, still as deep waters, heard things of private nature. It was his gift, and his curse, to live with too much honesty.

  Like now, that he had sense as Willowgreen had not, to put these things away and to remember them for what they were-private fears, the things in-spite-of-which. They made Graywolf wise. Like knowledge of his own-I hate you, my friend, I hate myself that I hate you, I hate the fair, the bright elves that hate the sight of me, of which you are chief, and kindest, giving me no enemy. Fool, do you think they would ever follow me?

  If we die we will only please our enemies in the tribe, mine and yours, cousin.

  But, my fair, my bright, tall friend-temper is your privilege. I have had to master mine, or go mad. So I follow you, and indulge yours.

  But all the latter was quiet in that still depth where Graywolf stored things and mulled them over, and where he made his choices.

  In this case the choice was already clear.

  And in Swift-Spear's another kind of thought that shot like lightning through the moiling anger: a chief's thinking, a cold, clear reason that sought to use the anger for its own ends. Revenge can serve two purposes. There are always two purposes. The tribe would not approve this. But if I win they will; and after that, they will approve anything. And he knew he was right, for it was his gift to know such things. He had the magic of the born leader, the empathy for others' dreams and wishes, and the strength to stave off the corruption such power always brought.

  It was that kind of thinking that daunted Graywolf, the kind of thoughts anyone had, but that came to Swift-Spear most surely in his hottest rages and his coldest passions. It was that faculty for planning that surpassed any of Graywolf s own capacity that made him doubt, deep in that secret well of opinions, whether he, Graywolf, was n
ot indeed the lesser, born deficient in elf-blood and with too much wolf in him to be capable of such calculation. So he was doomed to be pack-second, deservedly-and perhaps… in his blackest self-despair, he wondered whether other elves also had some mental attributes he lacked, secret things, like his own inner secretiveness, that let no thoughts out to betray what proceeded there. In that sense he was deaf and helpless, not knowing whether he was greater or lesser than other elves; but knowing that he was helpless to think Swift-Spear's thoughts, or do other than run behind him, following, because they neither one could be free of the other.

  The trail ran to forest edge. It ran onto the downslope, which led out under sunlight and into the valley where humans lived. And the humans in their foolishness and their bravado-or was it knowledge of the wolves?-did not take

  any pains to hide their trail through the grass, to seek the rocks or the hillsides to throw off pursuit.

  Moonfinder was nearby, keeping to the undergrowth as long as he could.**Come,** Graywolf said to him. And the wolf defied instinct and joined them in their course, which was not like the foolish humans-straight to the goal.

  They were Wolfriders, stalkers and hunters. They did not trust an easy trail leading to an easy target. No, not that simple to trap such as they. Graywolf was not surprised at all when Swift-Spear left the track and sought the rocky hillside, where there was vantage and where the prevailing wind brought them information.

  The human camp lay spread across a small hill. It was full of straight lines and built-things that confused the two Wolfriders.

  "There are so many," Graywolf hissed between fanged teeth. Swift-Spear did not answer. Even in his pain and rage a clear voice still spoke to him. ' Here are things you have never seen before…

  The humans all lived close together in their strange stone tents, as no other men ever had, all of them seeming in constant motion, going from one place to another. What did they do? Why did they build such homes? What did they know that he and the other elves did not?

  Graywolf s strong hand grabbed his shoulder and shook him from his wonder.

  "Swift-Spear." The elf pointed down at the humans. "That-uh-those trees. They are dead, yet they stand upright. Even wolves could never jump that."

  Swift-Spear stared at the high fence for a moment. Why this? Ah. Of course. These men are smart, very smart…

  **It is a barricade,** he sent to Graywolf,**to keep enemies out, to keep the world out!** Behind them Moonfinder whined at the scent that came up from the village.

  "So many. Which one killed Blackmane?" Graywolf's

  harsh voice hurt the chief's ears, hurt him with its reminder of why he was here, what he had come to do. Swift-Spear searched the details of the distant figures below them. Many of the elves claimed they could not tell one human from another, but Swift-Spear had taught himself on his lone spying missions to see the differences. He looked for the tall, bearded one. The black eyes and scarred body he had seen last through the dying eyes of his wolf-friend.

  Swift-Spear's vision blurred and his breath stung him, coming in short gasps. He dug callused palms into his eyes. The memory was too fresh! Red blood, wolf-friend's blood, sound of flesh ripping, scents of fear, of death. Eyes going dim… pain, pain! Cold numbness as strong heart stops, lungs collapse…

  Graywolf shuddered at his friend's thoughts. Swift-Spear was reliving Blackmane's death as if it happened now-again. He was the wolf, he was dying… There was something wrong and Graywolf could not understand it. A moment ago his chief had forgotten his anguish, losing it in those bright, strange thoughts that Graywolf knew he could never understand. Lost in that why? that always tore the two of them apart.

  Moonfinder, belly to the ground, bumped his head into Graywolf's side, seeking comfort. The elf hugged his wolf-brother to him, biting the wolf's nose to calm him. The thoughts leaking from Swift-Spear affected them both, and Graywolf struggled to find his elf-blood and not to join the wolf in his animal whine of confusion.

  "Silence," Swift-Spear said aloud. The two bowed their heads and stared back with yellow eyes. "That one." The chief pointed to one human striding through the village surrounded by other men. "He is their chief." The sun reflected off the man's spearhead. "He will give me Blackmane's ears. He will give me his spear. And"-the Wolfrider stood up-"I will take his life!"

  "How?"

  "Chief to chief, as it has always been. The challenge. One against one, but this time the loser dies!"

  Graywolf said nothing. It was right, even if the tribe was not here. Neither of them had any conception of warfare. This was their only choice. This was their path to vengeance.

  Swift-Spear strode boldly down the hillside, leaving the other two to wait. The stink of the human camp was bitter. Why would they live with their own waste? Even the wolves would not soil their own dens. He could see now that outside the great barrier there were plants in straight rows growing at the same pace. Among them women worked, pulling up the bitter weeds, digging up more ground. Like Willowgreen's herb garden, but he knew enough about humans to know that they grew these not for healing, but for food. And now that he understood the barricade, he knew why. This way they would not have to leave, this way they would not have to follow the trails of the beasts. They could stay and build their things, could do things in their days that elves never had time or thought to do. Not even the high ones…

  Kerthan heard cries and reached the front gate as the women streamed through it, all pointing behind them and shouting inarticulately. He and five of the hunters went out to find what the uproar was all about.

  Outside the walls he saw, walking across the fields, one of the forest demons. It was taller than most he had seen, and well-muscled. Its hair was light brown and dangled in two side braids. It wore some pelt about its loins and carried a stone-tipped spear. Twenty paces away from Kerthan it stopped.

  "Chief," it said in the people's tongue. It shook its spear at him and pointed to the wolf's ears pinned to the top of the outward-opening gate. "My!" It hit its chest. "My!" It pointed at him again. "Chief!" And shook its spear once more.

  Kerthan felt the people crowding behind the gate, knew their fear of the demon. He watched the creature for a moment, trying to decipher its strange actions. He looked up at the wolf ears, the flies buzzing about them now, then looked back at the demon, staring at its sharp-pointed ears. "My," it said; it must mean "mine." Those are his ears? No. His wolf. Everyone knew that the demons paired unnaturally with the werewolves. So it was his wolf and he wanted the ears back.

  And looking into those strange eyes at this range, Kerthan knew the demon came for more than the trophy. It came for him.

  "Leave us, demon!" he cried aloud. "Leave us or die as your cursed monster died-by this!" He lifted up the magic spear he had found so many years before.

  The demon's eyes narrowed at the sight of the weapon, its head lowered between hunched, broad shoulders.

  "Chief, chief!" it cried, making stabbing motions with its spear.

  Then Kerthan knew. It meant to fight him, to take blood vengeance for the death of the werewolf. He looked it over. He had killed the wolf… but a demon! That was different, even with the magic spear.

  "Kill it!" he yelled at the others behind him. "Kill it! It means to curse us with its black magic!"

  The men turned to one another, some still spotted with the dead wolf's blood. Finally Creth, Kerthan's youngest cousin, took a hesitant step toward the demon. The creature ignored him, staring at Kerthan with hot eyes. Creth took another step, and, lifting his spear, threw it at the monster.

  It was badly cast and Swift-Spear saw it coming and dodged easily aside. He cursed himself for not learning more of the human language, but he knew that their chief understood him, knew that the man knew why he had come here. Why did the human not fight?

  Another man threw a club at him, nearly hitting him. Swift-Spear danced away. Why were the others attacking him? What madness is this?

  "Chief! Chief!" h
e cried as more of the humans moved toward him. Their leader was yelling incomprehensible words at them as he stepped back into the line of the crowd. Now ten human hunters faced Swift-Spear and a thrown club hit him in the chest, knocking him down. As he fell, the humans stopped for a moment and a sigh went through their ranks. Then with a great cry they charged him.

  Swift-Spear rolled to his feet and braced himself-earned his name again as he dodged amongst his enemy, every thrust of his stone weapon drawing blood. But he was unused to this kind of fighting, and the humans surrounded and outnumbered him. Even as he killed, he, like Blackmane before him, was being killed.

  Graywolf could not understand the men's actions any better than his chief, but now, too late, he recalled the tales of the high ones, about their long-ago first meeting with the humans. He leapt on Moonfinder and the two raced toward the battle.**I am coming, brother,** he sent ahead.

  But no answer came back.

  "Ayoooooo!" Graywolf and Moonfinder cried together as they charged into the enemy. They flashed through the men, spear and fang taking a dreadful toll. Graywolf leaned down to grasp Swift-Spear, pulling him up and atop the wolf's shoulders as it sped on toward the waiting forest. Swift-Spear was covered with blood, hanging as a heavy weight in Graywolf's arms, his mind for once closed to his cousin as the pain of his wounds wiped clean any coherent thought.

  Swift-Spear spoke in the human language over and over. "Chief… chief…"

  The ride was a nightmare for Graywolf. He struggled with all his imagination, trying to decipher exactly what had happened. Had the humans misunderstood Swift-Spear's challenge? Or had they in their guile simply pretended ignorance in order to trap the elf and make sure of a kill?

  He urged Moonfinder to greater speed, Swift-Spear's blood hot and wet across his chest.