There would be the tribe's own dead and wounded. And though he had avenged Blackmane, it didn't really seem to matter all that much.
The elves came to the village at midday, Swift-Spear leading them, the mad No-name pacing quietly by his side. The humans closed the gates against them, but they knew it would do no good. Kerthan had taken all the hunters with him. There were only old men and boys to defend the village now. The elves stood outside the front gate, and the humans looked over the barrier, staring in' fear at their demonic conquerors.
Then a tall one, tall as a man, walked out from the fierce band.
'Humans of this village,' Talen said-for he alone of the elves knew the human tongue. 'Your men are dead.'
A few sobs answered this, but none were really shocked. After all, many of them had expected this outcome. The bravest just wanted to die with some dignity.
'Our chief'-Talen waved a hand at Swift-Spear-'has decreed that your village is an evil place, and it must be destroyed.' Now crying could be heard from inside the walls. 'However,' Talen continued, 'you will be allowed to leave in peace.'
The people within the walls stood shocked, a few whispering among themselves. Could this be? Was this a trap? They moved closer to the wall to hear the tall demon's words.
'On one condition,' Talen concluded.
So here it comes. Many of the villagers nodded their heads in perverse satisfaction.
'He does not know if you have honor, but some things must be sacred to you. He says if you will pledge by these things never to come here again, and to make no more war upon his people, you may go free, with whatever you can carry. Or,' Talen added in a harsh voice, 'you can die. I suggest you waste no time making your decision.'
The humans marched off into the west in a long line, shocking the elves with how many things they wished to take with them. One old male talked quietly with Talen and Swift-Spear beside the front gate as the people of the village filed past, sneaking last looks at their lost homes.
The man bowed once to Talen, then to Swift-Spear. His mouth was tight and his eyes were hard.
'We will keep our pledge. The tribe will never come to these lands again.' He drew himself to his full height. 'I am glad you have explained this to me. I am glad you have given us our lives. But do not expect me to love you for it.' Talen translated this for Swift-Spear, who responded quietly in the faintly musical language of the elves.
'My chief says,' Talen answered the human, 'we 3o not want your love, nor do we want your hate. What is important to you is not important to us. You have painted your destiny
in blood, and you have paid the price. Remember that always. Go in peace.'
The man bowed, but he heard the words that Talen murmured under his breath:
'I would that we could have been friends.' The old human just nodded his shaggy head once and followed his people into exile.
The night was lit by the burning village. Wavering fires made Swift-Spear's shadow dance at his feet as he stood to face the tribe.
'We have done as we had to do. We fought and won, not for love of fighting, but for justice. No longer will we hide from any threat, but we will face it boldly, and in this world to which we have always been strangers, we shall make a true home, and a new life.' He raised his left hand which held his stone-tipped spear. 'I shall carry this spear in the hunt, I shall carry it to remember what has been.' He held out his right hand, which grasped the metal spear of Kerthan. 'And I shall carry this spear, to remind me of what can be, what will be if we have the courage to find it!'
He stood tall and bold, the homes of his enemy burning behind him. He felt the warmth of the flames playing across the muscles of his back. Alive! I am alive!
And he knew his people rejoiced with him.
'No longer shall I be called Swift-Spear.' He shook his weapons at the tribe. 'But Two-Spear!'
'Two-Spear!' they shouted back, and even the high ones joined that cry.
'Two-Spear.' He met their eyes and gloried in what he saw there. 'I shall weld the old and the new ways together, and I shall lead you down a path that no elves before us have dared to dream of!'
And with that he cast both spears into the air, one and the other, as if he really believed that they could pierce the stars.
They came as they always did after the howl had filled their memories with Two-Spear. They came like the first stars at dusk; Longreach saw Scouter arrive at his brookside bower and when he looked up again there were eight Wolfriders silently choosing their places on the rocks and grass. They loved the recklessness that characterized Prey-Pacer's son but, like too much honey, they could not always digest what they'd swallowed.
'He was mad, wasn't he,' Scouter said, more a statement than a question, 'like a sick wolf.'
Longreach shook his head. For all their vividness and detail, the memories and stories of Two-Spear were the hardest to hold in the mind. He knew Timmorn better than he'd known the ill-fated chief.
'But Huntress Skyfire had to drive him away. He moved against the Way so he lost his wolf-friend and his place with the Wolfriders.' That was Clearbrook, but she was speaking her own hope and imagination, not from the treasure of memory. 'He would have destroyed the Wolfriders with his madness.'
The storyteller unslung his pouch of dreamberries. 'No,' he said as he handed the soft leather bag to Scouter. 'Two-Spear was the only chief who ever made the five-fingered ones leave once they'd made their stone-piles. And Huntress Skyfire didn't set the Way until after he'd gone. But he was
mad, and that made him leave the Wolfriders when they would no longer follow him.'
Cutter pushed the wheat-pale hair from his eyes and stared at Longreach. 'Not follow their chief?' His interest was clearly personal.
'It has happened at other times. Zarhan Fastfire left before Prey-Pacer tied his hair in the chief's knot, and that was madness, too. Though his was a grief that could not swallow his Iifemate's death. He left alone, but there have been others, by themselves or in small groups, who have gone and never come back.'
They vanished from the Wolfrider memory, the treasure of which Longreach was the guardian. There had been a few who had not vanished from his own long memory, and there might be more if the feud between Strongbow and Bearclaw flared instead of smoldered.
'But never a chief, excepting Two-Spear?' Bearclaw's son demanded.
'Only Two-Spear and an eight or so of his followers.'
The youth seemed satisfied, but not his slightly older friend. 'It always seemed that he'd gone alone,' Skywise mused, spitting his second dreamberry pit into the brook. 'But now I can feel that some would have gone with him and believed that he, and not Huntress Skyfire, knew the Wolfriders' Way best.'
There was no question that the silver-maned Wolfrider ran deep-too deep to be the guardian of the dreamberry memories, though that truth cut Longreach's heart like one of Bearclaw's cold, metal knives.
'I wonder where they went?' Skywise asked the treetops.
A shiver ran down Longreach's spine. Dreamberries were for remembering and sharing memories-not for asking unanswerable questions. He could see that Skywise had caught the others. Their eyes were glazing over and the youth's mouth was open as if he could answer his own question.
'We are the Wolfriders,' Longreach intoned, wrenching control of the howl away from the unsuspecting dreamer. 'We are Huntress Skyfire's children. She knew the Way, she lived it, and she taught it to us-'
Tale of the Snowbeast
by]anny Wurts
That year, the season of white cold was worse than any elf in the holt could remember. The storage nooks were empty of the last nuts and dried fruit; and still the wind blew screaming through bare branches while snow winnowed deep into drifts in the brush and the hollows between trees. Huddled beneath the weight of a fur-lined tunic, Huntress Skyfire paused and leaned on her bow.
'Hurry up! It's well after daylight, past time we were back to the holt.'
A soft whine answered her.
Chilled, famished, and tired of foraging on game trails that showed no tracks, Skyfire turned and looked back. Her companion wolf, Woodbiter, hunched with his tail to the wind, gnawing at the ice which crusted the fur between his pads.
'Oh, owl pellets, again?' But Skyfire's tone reflected chagrin rather than annoyance. She laid aside her bow,
