Robert Asprin: The Blood of Ten Chiefs

"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.