Robert Asprin - The Blood of Ten Chiefs

The sun was the color of the leaves of the sugar-bushes when they came to the stream-border of the camp they had used since she was born. Most of the hunt rose to greet them, nostrils flared to read the nuances of their scent. There were no fresh hides stretched between spear-poles to dry; whatever the hunt had brought back was small and already eaten. Threetoe pushed to the front of the hunt, looking uncomfortable as he stretched up to his full height. The look he gave them was not at all friendly.

Murrel and the others were more open with their welcome calls, though perhaps no more sincere. The hunt usually ate first, the unquestioned right of the hunter, and when the kill was sparse the others made do with berries, roots, and gristle. A stag, Timmorn's stag, would see their bellies full for once. They were already starting a fire in the pit when Yellow-Eyes and his daughter splashed out of the stream.

Timmorn struck the antlers loose from the stag's skull and

Selnac, lately his favorite among the others, stepped forward to receive the prize. He thrust them instead into his daughter's limp hands and proclaimed, with a sending more triumphant than it should properly have been, that she had brought the stag down with one spear, alone.

She could have proclaimed herself Stagslayer or Lonehunter or something similar in the moments after her father's powerful images. Instead, with the bloody antlers scratching her arms and legs as she ran, she escaped to her tree-branch lair beyond the clearing, beyond the eyes of the hunt and the elves.

Embarrassment and unfamiliarity robbed her of triumph and left her with bitter resentment. If he hadn't been there- If the hunt instead of her father had answered her call she would have simply given the stag to Threetoe. The dark- and shag-haired hunter would have kept the antlers to himself and let everyone know that the kill had been his, but for a while, at least, she'd have eaten a bit better.

The hunt understood. Status should be changed slowly; too much attention brought challenges or worse.

**Daughter who calls herself she-wolf!**

Timmorn's thoughts burned upward from the base of her tree. He did not climb and did not have to. His images carried a commanding power that would have brought even Threetoe belly-crawling through the leaves.

"Yes, father?"

**The hunter must attend her feast.**

She followed him, then, to the fire pit, sat atop the fur-draped stone seat of honor, and felt utterly miserable with the eyes of the hunt glaring at her. The others smiled; she was first-born, after all, and more like them than many in the hunt. Perhaps they thought the first-born, having half their blood from their elfin mothers, should be the better hunters. They had never seen Threetoe hurl his spear.

Threetoe threw so hard that bones and flint shattered more often than not. The others feared him-and so did the hunt.

The feast drew to a close as the fire died back to embers. Samael, an elf, brought forth a deep wooden bowl filled with sun-wizened berries. Everyone, hunt and other, took a handful. The dreamberries still held their fragile group together, though whether the young, silent members of the hunt actually shared images and memories with the ancient elves was a question no one ventured to answer.

When the bowl returned to Samael, that green-eyed elf arose and prepared himself for the night's story. But flickering, outstretched arms of shadow fell across his face: Timmorn would have their attention. Samael sat down, plucking another handful of berries from the bowl as he did.

**I have led you all for many twists of moons and seasons. Many, elf and hunt alike, do not recall the times before when Timmain made her sacrifice and went to dwell among the true-wolves. She went to save her people, to bring the strength and cunning of the true-wolves to those whose memories held only gentleness.

**She could do nothing for those already born; she meant her sacrifice to benefit their children. She sent me, her child, to teach her people to hunt, to move them safely from the land of long winters, and to insure that her sacrifice was given to the children.**

The gathering around the fire pit grew edgy. With the dreamberries in their bellies they heard and felt Timmorn's thoughts in painful intensity. But they felt Timmain too, even the sharp-toothed silent ones and especially the anxious firstborn who'd wrapped herself in the honor-seat furs.

**I have failed,** Yellow-Eyes howled, filled with his mother's despair.**Her people do not hunt and do not have children. My children see only each other and chafe to be free of their weaker, elfin kin-and I grow old. I can no longer hold my family together, so I shall let it fall asunder and pass my spear to the strongest of my first-born.**

No one had marked the spear beside him until he flung it

across the fire pit into the ground at his silver-haired daughter's feet. They all gasped, but none more loudly than she did herself, recoiling from the stout wood as if it were a venom-snake looming over her in the night.

**Find your name, kitling,** he sent to her alone.

She didn't, though she did take up the spear and hold it firmly through Threetoe's menacing glower. The dark hunter looked away. He sent no thoughts or images to her. He didn't need to; his posture said everything: how long can you hold it, first-born-if Yellow-Eyes truly leaves.

They watched her, her father most of all. She felt the stirring of leadership deep within her but it could not rise far enough to reach her thoughts and actions. Shivers of anxiety radiated out from her spine. The wolf-song told her to surrender Timmorn's spear to Threetoe and become his favorite, but, as little as she was prepared to succeed her father, she was even less inclined to turn her neck to Threetoe. There were murmurings, sent and spoken, as she marched out of the firelight, but no one stood to challenge her.

Timmorn's speech had shocked them but not as much as their realization, shortly after dawn the next morning, that he had made good his promise. The hunt, led by Threetoe, spread into the forest, searching for Timmorn's scent. They returned at high-sun. He had vanished without a trace. His trail entered the stream at the edge of the camp and had not emerged either at the rocks which marked its source or the downstream waterfall.

The hunt had been equally ineffective at flushing up any game. None of them were hungry, but the knowledge that they had nothing to eat-except for the gleanings of the timid others-weighed heavily in everyone's mind.

Timmorn's nameless daughter had followed the hunt after sunrise, fully aware that they'd find no trace of her father. He had come to her in the dead of the night, scaring her half out

of her wits, and demanded her assistance. She had carried him around the waterfall and taken him to a glade where, he promised, he'd remain until the two moons were both above the treetops. He was not gentle with her as he told her what he expected her to do.

In the frosty time before dawn, as she scurried back to her lair, she'd almost decided on a name. One of the fancy words that the others used when they didn't want the hunt to understand: Starcrossed. It fit her mood.

And there was no doubt that she needed a name now. Eyes followed her every move-or the movement of Timmorn's spear, which she kept at her side. Timmorn's Daughter, Spearbearer, Firstchosen-those were the more complimentary names she heard whispered from mind to ear. The hunt had other names, names that would remain with her if she lost the spear.

The tense air exploded after sundown when the hunt, which scorned the others' glean-foods as always, used their own failure as an excuse to make a challenge.

**We'll starve with you as our leader,** Threetoe snarled from the darkness on the opposite side of the cold fire pit.**We're starving already.**