C. Cherryh: Swift-Spear

"And what would you know of wolf-friends, healer?" Skyfire shot back.

"I know he loved Blackmane as he loved nothing else." Willowgreen rose to tower over the elf-woman. "And I know if it was you who had been hurt he would be more concerned with your pain than with any fear of the humans."

Skyfire said nothing to that. She just turned her back and walked away.

"She is hot for her womanhood." Talen touched Willow- green with a pale, thin hand. "She is jealous of your stature in the tribe, that is all. She will come around."

"She is hot for the chieftainship," Willowgreen muttered. "She disagrees with everything Swift-Spear does. It is a pretext, an excuse."

"Perhaps this time," said Talen, "it would have been right to disagree. It was so foolish of him to think the humans would fight him fair."

Willowgreen said nothing as she stared at Skyfire's retreating back. She reached up and wiped the tears from her eyes. And from Rellah there was only cold comfort. **Go,** Talen's thought came, soothing and quiet.**Go, my child. There is nothing more you can do here.**

Willowgreen looked down at the sleeping form of Swift- Spear, watching silently as Talen knelt down to take up a gourd of water, a handful of moss, to wash away the dried blood from the Wolfrider's chest. She knelt down too and took Swift-Spear's head in her lap.

"My place is here," she said, "with him."**And I, I will protect him from anything that dares try to hurt him, human or elf…

Graywolf slid down from Moonfinder's shoulders and kept a firm grip on the brindled fur-tugged at it slightly to focus the wolf's attention on the place below them in the twilight.

Now was the wolf-time. Moonfinder lowered his head and turned and nosed Graywolf s arm, quick, anxious gesture. ' And in the way of wolves another of the pack came ghosting through the brush, a loner who disdained the elves; No-name was all he answered to, and he was grudging and suspicious, living on the fringes and showing up unpredictably. Moonfinder bristled up when he came up onto the rocks and slunk into shadow, high-shouldered, flat-eared silhouette in the fading light above the human camp.

No-name was scarred with battles, more than a little crazy. He was a disease in the pack, one that Blackmane had not tolerated-but he would not leave them alone, refusing to leave the pack, refusing to accept the pack's allegiance to unwolves. No-name was a wilder thing, and more than once taunted Blackmane himself, knowing that the pack-leader, being elf-ensorceled, would not execute him. Too much peace. Too much soft living, perhaps. Graywolf knew this one, read his attitude in that surly slink into the fading light as he caught the ghostly, wordless thoughts of a hostile wolfish mind. Joy that Blackmane was dead. Satisfaction. And Moonfinder, second-leader, supporting the dead pack-leader with a tenuous hold.on the pack as yet unchallenged, felt a fear that no human ever put into him; he bristled, and bared teeth, and growled his uncertain displeasure, so that No-name slunk a little less and let his tongue loll.

He infected the air itself with unreason; and Graywolf licked at his own not-quite-elvish teeth, and the hairs lifted at his nape and his smooth hand knotted on Moonfinder's fur to prevent him from violence.**No.** Now was not the time for challenges, least of all challenge when his own chief lay wounded and diminished in his authority. They were alike, he and Moonfinder, two pack-seconds equally desperate in their attempt on a situation that had defeated their chiefs; and this came, this hateful killer, radiating satisfaction in the prospect of bloodshed. That was what brought the loner: a project to No-name's liking-No-name was eager to help, would take pack-second's orders; that was in the wolf-thoughts.

Moonfinder growled and snapped at No-name's closest approach; and the loner skittered aside and slunk back again, bristled all down his lank shoulders; but when Moonfinder started to go farther, Graywolf clamped his hand down on the wolf's muzzle, hard, dodged teeth and held him a second time till Moonfinder gave him the throat, a little twisting of his head to be free: Peace, that meant, my leader. But not too much humility; and not too much of standing still; that was against the wolf-nature. And the twilight was coming down in which wolves and a halfling elf saw very well indeed. **Come,** Graywolf said, and slid down among the rocks, hardly more conspicuous in taking that line of half-lit shadow than the two wolves which skirted the rocks, one on a side. He did not ride, now. He would not tire his wolf-friend for a retreat which might well be in desperate haste. Now it was stealth he wanted; and he had as lief be without No-name,. but no thrown rock would shake that shadow, Graywolf knew that from experience; not even Moonfinder's teeth might drive him farther than around the hill and a few moments back-he knew No-name's tactics. So he tolerated the loner himself, who trotted along the hillside like a trick of the eye for any human watching from that place below.

Beside him, Moonfinder glided-not easy at all to spot a wolf in deep dusk, in the scattered scrub and rock of the slope that led down to the stone camp. Less easy to spot an elf with a wolf's instincts and a mind that thought in past and future.

Wolf-boy, the high one had called him, and driven him away with a force of mind that he could not put a name to nor describe nor even remember. That was the way of high ones: subtleties so tissue-thin that one could never catch j them on the wind or smell or taste them, or accuse them in words. They just were, and that was the trouble with them, they were, all in the past and the power that they never used, on enemies -only on their own kind, a force that had made the hair:' stand up at his nape; and the animal had risen up in him and shamed him and driven him from his friend and from the council.

Therefore he went to redeem himself-and Swift-Spear. It; had been no fool's act to challenge the humans. It had only,; given the humans too much credit. And wolf-blood and* wolf-instinct hated that mewling retreat of the tribe, that; milling in confusion once the chief was down. Wolf-bloods understood it very well; and knew what to do about it But there were the high ones, whose power sapped the will; out of the tribe, and left only the confusion apt to their kind of guidance, which was chaos, and leaderless.

To which Skyfire and her little band ascribed-only Skyfire had her own motives, like No-name, the loner on the fringes. It was power for which Skyfire had her appetite, and if it took her brother, if it took the tribe, if it demanded ducking the head and mewling soft answers to the high ones when- might disavow her brother in her favor-to all these things she was apt.

Gray wolf chose his own allies. He aimed to prove the humans vulnerable, as Swift-Spear had said. And most of all; he meant to do what wanted most doing, so that Swift-Spear would not have to do it-because he knew his cousin, that he could not rest or forget or delay for his healing. What had broken in him was too profound and too close to the spirit, and lying defeated and within the high ones' nebulous disapproval-no, Swift-Spear would not bear that. He would go against the humans again. And Swift-Spear, having less wolf and more of high blood in him, would dwell too much on immaterial things like pride and honor. Graywolf's intentions were simple and direct: do the deed and nip the flanks of the intruders and tell them they were fools to stay near the woods and greater fools to enter another's hunting range, greatest fools of all to make their tents under the sun, of stone that could not be moved.

Then a cold doubt came not to wolf-mind, but to the elf in Graywolf. Could not be moved. Wolf-fights were skirmishes, ending in retreat for one, territory for the other; elves fought sharply and keenly, and retreated when it was time for re- treat, carrying all they had, in this age when elves, like wolves, had no possession which could not be moved.