had needed was food.
He had caught and killed a tree-hare with his bare hands; eaten it skin and bones and all.
He had chosen his exit point well; once he had strength to move, he turned his attention to his next need, shelter. That was not a problem, for wherever he had established a possible Gate-anchor, he had always built a shelter nearby. That was a habit so ingrained he never even thought about it, centuries old, but this time it had saved his life.
He had staggered to the hunting shelter, a small building of two rooms, but well-stocked with food, wood, and healing herbs. He spent over a moon-cycle in recovering from the worst effects of wounds and spells.
His own slaves and servants had not known whether he lived or not, until he had limped home. Only their fear of him had kept them at their posts. Only sure knowledge of his retribution when he recovered completely kept them there once he returned.
Fortunately, obedience was a habit with them. He was at a reasonable fraction of his strength once fear and habit weakened, and someone thought they might try for freedom.
Since he had neither the strength nor the time for finesse, he simply killed the offenders.
Fear of what he was now continued to keep them here.
He reinforced that fear, periodically, by killing one of the slaves. Reminding them what he had done; what he could do. Reminding them all that their lives rested in his hands.
It was a diversion, anyway.
There was an ache inside him that no herb and no rest could touch-a hunger for retribution. That was what drove him to killing the slaves.
The deaths themselves did nothing to ease the pent-up rage that smoldered in his soul. There were only three things that would slake his thirst for blood.
Nyara.
He flexed his claws into the leather of his couch, and considered what he would do to her once he found her. She would die, of course, but not for a very long time. First he would ease his lust in her, repeatedly.
He might share her; it depended on his own strength and how deeply he wished to wound her spirit. Then he would flay her mind with the whip of his power until she was nothing more than a quivering, weeping heap of nothingness-until the person that had dared to defy him was utterly destroyed. Then, only then, would he carefully, delicately, flay the physical skin from her body-leaving her still alive. Then he would see that what was left was placed in a cage and hung over his towers for the carrion crows to pick at. An example for those who considered treachery. His magic would see to it that she lived for a very long time.
Perhaps he would make a rug of that skin, or wear it.
K'Sheyna.
That was the second cause for his anger and hate. Only the destruction of the entire Clan would do. He had held back his power until now, enjoying the challenge, but now he would take them, one by one. First the scouts. Then the mages. Then, last of all, Starblade and his sons, plucking them from the heart of the Vale and bringing them to grovel at his feet before they died. The others he would kill however he could, but those three-those three he would deliver to the same fate as his treacherous daughter. Then, when the Vale was empty of all but the hangers-on, he would suck the power from the Heartstone and blast it back again, turning the Vale into an inferno of melting stone and boiling water.
Then the last-and greatest-cause for rage. the gryphons.
Oh, the gryphons. Creatures that he had thought long gone. Returning to these lands, after all these many centuries. Returning to live here once again. Returning to the home of Skandranon...The gryphons. My hated ancient adversaries. Something very... special for them.
He brooded in the hot darkness of his study, and never quite knew the moment when his brooding slipped over the edge into dreaming.
He watched himself through other eyes and knew that he was An'desha shena Jorethan, Shin'a'in of the Clan of the Bear, an offshoot of Wolfclan.
A young almost-man, in his early teens. He stood on the edge of all that he had known, and shivered.
He was not yet a warrior, this youngling of the Plains. Only-he was Shin'a'in no more. He could no longer hold place in the Clans, for he had the power of magic, and yet he had not joined the shamans. The Goddess had declared that no one but Her shamans could work magics within the bowl of the Plains, for the task of the Shin'a'in was to keep magic from their homeland.
He had felt no calling for such a life-task, and no liking for it, either.
For such a one, one with the gift of magery, yet unwilling to go to Her hands, there was only one choice. Exile, to the Kin-Cousins, the Tale'edras, the Hawkbrothers. They had magic; they were permitted-nay, encouraged-by the Goddess to use it. They would freely adopt any of their magic-bearing Kindred into their ranks, so it was said, to teach the use of such a gift.
So he had come, to the edge of Hawkbrother lands. Yet he had come without the knowledge of the rest of his kin, nor the guidance of the shaman, for no one else in his Clan knew of this secret power. He had feared to disclose it, for he was not a strong-willed young man, and he knew only too well what such a disclosure would bring to his lot.
And now, as he stood in the silent forest, he wondered. Should he have confided in Vorkela, the shaman? Should he have confessed his fatal gift before the rest of the Clan? Should he not have claimed his rights, and been given guidance to the nearest of the Tale'edras?
Yet even as he wondered, he knew that he could not have born the weight of Vorkela's insistence that he take up the shaman's staff and drum. No one in all of the Clan would have been willing to let him go to the Kin- Cousins without great outcry and argument. There would have been those who said that his gift was unclean, and the result of his father's liaison with the Outlands woman at Kata'shin'a'in, even as he was the result of that liaison.
