Robert Asprin: The Blood of Ten Chiefs

Her fingers grew cold and clammy on the smooth wood of the spear. "Food was set before you-to share equally with the others." Her heart pounded but it sent no strength to her trembling legs or to her frantic mind. Timmorn had said she'd find leadership within her; at the moment she didn't think she could find her way back to her lair.

"Roots and leaves," another voice-Rustruff, Threetoe's lairmate and the dominant female of the hunt. "What are we? Forest pigs? The blood of true-wolves, not pigs, moves within us-or have you forgotten?"

"The blood of the high ones moves within us as well-or have you forgotten?" Timmorn's daughter replied, knowing

she was losing the contest for dominance with each word she uttered.

Threetoe strode to the edge of the pit. Starlight caught his eyes and turned them feral silver.**Timmain gave herself to the true-wolves and never came back. Wolf-blood is strongest. Wolf-ways are best-the right of the strongest to lead-**

It was blasphemy to turn Timmain's sacrifice around like that. The elves drew a collective breath of shock and the first-born, including Timmorn's daughter, felt their hearts go cold.

"The true-wolves are animals," an unfamiliar elfin voice proclaimed. "Animals no different from the forest pigs. Timmain chose true-wolves because she could touch their minds and take their shapes. The forest pigs had migrated from the land of snows already; she could not use them."

Zarhan, whom the hunt called Fastfire because of his hair, which was the color of the setting sun, and his magic, which made flames come to the fire pit, edged in front of the other elves. Like Timmorn's daughter he was just leaving his adolescence, but unlike her it had taken him several hundred full turns of the seasons to reach that age and in the eyes of the hunt he was as ancient as the rest of the others. He was no hunter, but, because of the fire pit, he held the hunt's respect.

Momentarily nonplussed, Threetoe faltered. His shoulders fell, his back slumped, and he lost his edge of dominance even within the hunt. It took Rustruff, whose position of privilege absolutely depended on Threetoe's continuing stature, to set him on the track again.

"The pack is not led by nameless she-wolves!"

A snarl of assent passed through the hunt. They took up the refrain with their minds, assaulting Timmorn's daughter with the taunt of**she-wolf, she-wolf,** reminding her of her lowly, nameless status. They would have succeeded had their target been a true-wolf or if she had not already felt so

alienated from the more atavistic of Yellow-Eye's children. Instead, by driving her from them, Rustruff and the hunt pushed her further into her mother's heritage. She found the strength her father had seen from the beginning.

"As Timmain became a she-wolf to save her people," she both said and sent. "So I am the She-Wolf and I will make her people whole again!"

She took her father's spear, spun it under her wrist, and slammed its flint head into the ground. The butt, which some elf long ago had carved into the likeness of a growling wolf, bared its teeth across the fire pit. Then, so fast and subtle that the just-named She-Wolf had no time to flinch in surprise, the carved head began to glow. The eyes and teeth showed a seething red that spread to include the entire ominous wooden skull before the whole butt burst into flames.

The She-Wolf pulled her hand back; she trusted fire no more than Threetoe. But she kept her advantage.

"Take it if you dare," she screamed at him and watched in triumph as he broke away from her stare.

The hunt drifted away from the fire pit, their thoughts as quiet as their tongues. Most of the elves retreated too; displays of such sheer dominance were alien to them.**Like father, like daughter** their thoughts echoed as they accepted her leadership. The first-born, a group of no more than a half-dozen, lingered longer. Their thoughts were confused-wondering if any of them could have done what she had done, or could have done it better, or sooner. The She-Wolf outwaited them.

Only Zarhan remained, watching the flaming spear-butt rather than her.

**You?** she asked in a narrow thought for his mind alone.

He smiled and shrugged and faded into the darkness.

She stayed by the spear throughout the night, falling asleep in the endless time before dawn when the spear had been

reduced to glowing ashes. She dreamt of her father, which did not surprise her, and of her grandmother, which did.

Timmorn, in her dream, towered protectively over the members of the hunt. They were born of his wolf-spirit, he told her. Their elfin nature was deeply buried but no more lost than her own leadership skills had been. They needed time to understand themselves just as the elves and the first-born needed time. She should forgive them, Timmorn asked, and wait for them.

She-Wolf nodded. Yellow-Eyes gathered his children in his arms and disappeared into the brilliance at the edge of her dream.

She recognized Timmain and saw the truth behind the whispers. Timmain had been a high one-an elf from the place beyond the sky; there was no real resemblance between them but the She-Wolf felt that they were true kin to each other.

**Care for my children,** the unspeakably beautiful vision told her.**Love them. Make them part of yourself.**

It was the same command Timmain had left in her son's mind, but it opened different doors in the She-Wolf's memory. The high one smiled and vanished through one of the open doors.

The spear was gone when the dawnlight awoke her; the ashes scattered on a sharp-edged wind. The hunt was gone as well, every last one of them save the other first-born. The elves, misreading the signs, thought they had gone searching for game worthy of a great celebration and began, in their naive way, to anticipate the feast. Zarhan knew better-She-Wolf saw that in his eyes-and the first-born, who'd seen at once that the hunt had taken its few treasures as well as its weapons.

"How will you tell them?" the first-bom who now called himself Treewalker asked. "They're expecting a feast."

She-Wolf looked up from the fire-scarred spearhead she fondled in her hands. The elves-should she start thinking of them as the true-elves just as the four-footed wolves had been true-wolves?-were busy with their berries and bits of leather and fur. Gift-making-the offerings they gave the hunt after special meals; the clothing that would keep them warm through the bitter winter she could smell on the wind.

Words formed in her mind-and the anxious, fearful reactions they would provoke. She could not tell the elves that the hunt had abandoned them. Besides, everyone deserved a feast. No one had eaten well the previous day, and if the ascendance of a new chief did not call for a feast, then nothing ever would again.

"They'll get a feast," she said to Treewalker. "We'll get it for them. Gather the first-born by the stream."

"We're not hunters-not like you."

"You're exactly like me." She grabbed his shoulder, shaking him hard for emphasis. "And don't you ever forget it!"

Treewalker staggered back, stunned that she had done what neither Yellow-Eyes or Threetoe would have dared: laid hands upon him. She-Wolf knew it too, though touching and discipline were common enough between a mother and her children. But then, she thought of them as her children- even though she'd never had children of her own before. Breaking away from her stare, Treewalker shook himself straight and went off to find the remaining first-born.

They gathered at the upstream drinking pool, proclaiming the names they had chosen for themselves since dawn: Treewalker; Mosshunter-the smallest among them and the most daring jokester; Laststar-the She-Wolf's older, full sister; Glowstone-who wore his name from a thong around his neck; Frost-who carried a javelin and shed her fear like a snake sheds its skin; Sharpears-whose talent the hunt had recognized if not named and, to everyone's surprise, Zarhan Fastfire.