earliest risers crept out to light fires, and soon thereafter an outcry arose. Two supply tents on the camp perimeter were found ripped to shreds, and the culprit, whose tracks were pressed deeply in the snow, seemed to be a monstrous beast. No one had ever seen the like of such paw prints, but old tales told of a snowbeast which haunted the winter forests during seasons of extreme famine.
Fathers took no chances, but ordered their wives and children and grandfathers not to stray from the protection of the central fires. And the hunters sent to check the traps carried war spears, as well as knives and torches. They moved in bands of ten, for safety; but everywhere they encountered evidence of violence. The snowbeast had ravaged the traps, torn them to slivers, then trampled and clawed the surrounding snow to bare earth. Trees bore deep gashes, and near one trap the skull of a stag lay gnawed by powerful teeth, amid snow stained scarlet with gore. The band of hunters who found that trembled in their boots as they resumed their rounds of the trapline. The rattle of wind in the branches made them start, hands clenched and sweating upon the hafts of their weapons.
For all that, none were prepared for the apparition which lurked in the brush. Crouched like some nightmare forest cat, it fed in the shadows of a thicket, crunching the carcass of the stag with jaws that might have snapped a human in half at one bite.
'Gotara!' breathed the man in the lead. His snowshoe snagged on a twig, which cracked loudly, making him jump.
The snowbeast raised its head, spied the intruders, and raised an ear-splitting scream of rage. The humans saw then that the creature had two heads, the larger one eyeless and crammed with bloody fangs, and emitting a frightful, ululating wail. Below this, between clawed forelimbs, a second, wolflike head snarled and slavered and snapped. Six legs thrust powerfully beneath masses of brindled fur, gathered to bound to the attack.
The human in the lead screamed and cast his war spear. It struck the beast's flank and rebounded; and the beast leapt, plowing a shower of eddying snow.
The hunting party screamed and ran in stark terror. Tree branches whipped their faces. They dared not look back; the ravening snarls of the snowbeast sounded almost upon their heels. The breath burned in their chests, yet they did not slow
until they reached the border of their camp. The snarls of the snowbeast sounded ominously through the wood as the men excitedly jabbered their tale. Howls echoed across the marshes, hastening the women who ran to wrap children in blankets and bundle up belongings and tents. Fear gripped the hearts of the humans like cold fingers as they banded together and departed, northward, where the lands were known, and safe.
By sunrise, no intruders remained to watch an elf back butt first from the bowels of the dreaded snowbeast. Tired, trembly, but able to contain herself no longer, she collapsed in a snowdrift, laughing.
Peering through the fangs of the snowbeast mask, Huntress Skyfire regarded her young companion with reproof. 'Is that how you're going to greet Two-Spear, when he arrives here with his war party?'
Sapling sat up, snow dusting her eyebrows and her merry, upturned nose. 'At least I look like an elf. If you keep standing there in that silly-looking mask, Graywolf will likely spear you for dinner.'
At which point the jaws of the snowbeast clicked shut, and a tangle of wolf, and elf, and a mess of jury-rigged storm furs swooped and jumped Sapling in the snowdrift.
**Longreach! Storyteller!**
The summons came from nearby and with the visceral intensity that always marked the chief's bad moods. The old Wolfrider roused from his wolfnap, grabbed his warmest blanket as a cloak, and poked his head into the icy, winter night.
'Bearclaw?' Longreach asked, as if there had been any real doubt in his mind.
'I need your advice.'
Longreach nodded and lifted the oiled-skin door of his bower a bare heartbeat before Bearclaw shoved past him. The bower, one of the oldest set into the Father Tree, was cluttered and scarcely large enough for one elf let alone two. That didn't bother Bearclaw; he just pushed his way over to the sleeping furs and thumped down on them. Whatever had inspired this visit did not bode well for Longreach's peace of mind.
The storyteller pinched a wick into his tallow-pot and lit it from the kindle-box. The tiny flame reflected blood- red from the chief's squinted eyes. It boded poorly, indeed. Longreach spread his fur across last autumn's dreamberry crop and settled in for a long night.
'Tell me about it,' he urged the seething Bearclaw.
'Fire-stinking Cutter, that's it.'
Longreach leaned closer, sincerely puzzled by the chief's
apparent rage; young Cloudchaser had never bothered anyone in his short life. 'I'm sure the lad-'
'Wants to go hunting alone, he does. Middle of the worst winter we've had here in Timmorn knows how long, and the little shrike wants to go hunting.'
'He means to help, I'm sure. The hunters have been ranging farther and bring back less-''
Bearclaw let out a liquid growl that contained every unhappy feeling a Wolfrider could have. 'He means to get his soft-toothed self killed. As if I didn't have enough eating at my sleep with the tribe hungry and scrounging… and the man-pack doing the same… and now he wants to go hunting branch-horns in the frozen marsh.'
The old elf scratched his beard and rubbed the sleepy-seeds from his eyes. 'It's never easy to watch them grow up, is it?' he asked, cutting quickly to the heart of Bearclaw's concern.
Bearclaw tangled his fingers through his hair and looked away from the flame. 'I'd forgotten the marsh. I shouldn't be watching my cub-son go there for his first hunt; I should be sending a hand of hunters and all the wolves-'
'Forgotten-well, my chief, we all forget. Why not blame me that I didn't use the dreamberries to help us remember? Or is the forgetting not what's really bothering you?'
'Puckernuts, Longreach, sour puckernuts-you know me too well for my own good. Cutter's solid-Timmorn knows he's more careful than I was on my first hunt. If he could only wait until spring. What's a few blinks of the moon when the rest of your life is waiting?'
'You have to let them go, my friend. They'll surprise you in ways you can't imagine-as I well remember-but you have to let them go-'
The Deer Hunters
by Allen L. Wold
It was a summer day at Halfhill. Four elves sat in the afternoon sun in the treeless space between the wide, nearly vertical cliff that gave Freefoot's holt its name, and the broad, gurgling, gravel-bottomed stream.
Suretrail, his back to the clay cliff-more than twice as high as an elf-was carefully weaving a plait of fibers and feathers with which to decorate his spear. The two javelins beside him had already been painted with red ochre and blue berry-juice. Rainbow, on Suretrail's left, showed him some tricks with the white, green, and black feathers. Her own spear was stained and carved with elaborate patterns.
On Suretrail's right was Graywing. She took off the rawhide thongs that bound the flint point to her spear- shaft. It had become dull with use, and needed to be replaced. Fangslayer, across from Suretrail, was carving a new handle for his white quartz ax. From somewhere across the stream behind him came the occasional sounds of the four children laughing.
In the face of the cliff behind Suretrail were the dens of the elves, dug back into the hard clay among the supporting roots of the large, overhanging trees that grew above it and down its gently sloping back side. In the deep shadows at the top of the cliff sat five other elves in a line. Four of them were no longer children, but not yet adults in the eyes of their elders. Shadowflash, the fifth, as old as Suretrail, sat at one end.
Brightmist, beside him, was not thinking about Shadowflash at the moment, though for several seasons now they had been a little more than playmates, a little less than lovemates.
Rather, she was trying to figure out how to make Suretrail give in to their wishes.
Deerstorm, on Brightmist's other side, plucked a frond of fern and set it in her brown hair. Beyond her, Greentwig sat with crossed legs, staring down into his hands folded in his lap. At the far end of the line was Crystalmoss. She was quite a bit younger than the other three, but already showed tremendous promise.
Somewhere off to the north a wolf howled. Shadowflash left off his thoughts and turned toward the forest behind him. The cublings across the stream became silent. The four elders on the bank below him put down their work and looked up toward the sound. The howl came again.
'Freefoot's back,' Shadowflash said. He started to rise but his companions did not move. After a moment's
