this sending and confusion, but he was sure of himself and kept the arrow leveled over Bearclaw's shoulder.
'I feel pain,' Bearclaw said, hushed, 'but not body-pain.'
'Heart-pain.'
Strongbow resisted the cold shiver that ran down his arms.**Didn't know you had a heart.**
Even in the midst of 'heart-pain,' Bearclaw smiled his wicked smile.
They stopped abruptly as a faint glow of torch flame washed across the vines before them. The humans were coming closer. Time was sifting away.
The elves froze still and remained still until the torch glow passed. Each of them felt the new urgency-having passed them, the humans were now between them and the holt. If anything was to be done, it must be done soon.
Too soon for Strongbow.
He nudged Bearclaw out of the way and approached the vine hedge quickly, before Bearclaw could shake off the numbness of the beast's sending.
The chief blinked, his concentration broken. To his horror, Bearclaw watched his archer shove through the vines and take aim at a looming shape that rose before them there. He heard the twang of the bowstring and a distinct thud as the arrow struck not flesh, but the hard ground. Incredible! Strongbow had missedSounds of struggle flashed at him, both into his ears and into his mind through sending. Strongbow was sucked into the vines. The leaves closed up.
'Strongbow!' Bearclaw rushed forward, eyes so wide they burned. He grated to a stop at the vine hedge, gripped by a notion no Wolfrider had had before; the beast sent whole-thought into his mind!
Reversing the course, he sent,**Don't hurt! We can help!**
He barely understood why he would send such a message. Only now did he realize that the rabid sendings had been messages of desperation, not of intention. Help what? Why had he told the beast they would help it? What could Wolfriders do for a longtooth?
The vines rustled violently, and there was a great gush of breath as Strongbow's form catapulted over the root plate and crashed through dense foliage. Bearclaw drew back his sending star instantly. 'Hairballs-!' he swore, and rushed through the leaves, thrashing around until he found Strongbow crumpled beside a stump. Bearclaw shuddered as he lifted the archer to his feet. If Strongbow had fallen a pace farther, the stump's jagged spires would have impaled him.
Strongbow's eyes were squeezed shut in pain. His arms coiled around his ribs. Bearclaw got a good hold of him and dragged him deeper into the woods, away from the fallen tree. He leaned Strongbow against an outcropping of rock and checked for bleeding.
'Look at me,' the chief demanded when he could find no cuts-only red tooth marks scoring the archer's rib cage. Bearclaw tore a leaf from a nearby frond and pressed it to Strongbow's ribs. 'You all right?'
Strongbow struggled through a brief nod. He leaned heavily against the rock wall and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, still breathing heavily.
'That was stupid,' Bearclaw said.
**No stupider… than doing nothing…**
'You don't know what you're talking about,' Bearclaw
told him. 'The longtooth doesn't want to kill us or the humans. I thought it was sending me dreams of killing, but it wasn't.'
**They were dreams of flowers, then.**
'They were dreams,' the chief said firmly, 'of fear. There's a difference. They're images of what it thinks the humans will do to it.'
Strongbow straightened up with effort, still holding his sore ribs.**And what the humans will do when they reach the holt. Don't forget that. We have to kill the longtooth and put it in front of the humans. They'll find it and leave us alone. It's the only way.**
'There's more than one way!' Bearclaw bellowed. 'If the longtooth has killed, then it's entitled to its kill.'
**Then, what do we do, great chief? Offer them our home, wolves, and cubs instead?**
'Idiot! You're impossible to talk to!'
**And you're perfect proof that the blood of chiefs carries no chief's wisdom. You'll never be half the chief your father was.**
Bearclaw prepared to rip away Strongbow's thoughts, lips peeling back from white teeth; but something stopped the flood of accusations and tirades that gurgled in his throat. He looked at Strongbow's battered form, saw the concern as well as the challenge in the archer's half-hidden eyes beneath the headband, and shook with the effort of pulling the anger back within himself. He raged so in his mind that even the beast's sending was crowded out.
In a low kind of firmness, he intoned, 'You'll say the same thing to my son some day.' With a gesture that ended the argument, he stomped a cake of mud from the bottom of his boot and scraped the sole with the long metal knife he called New Moon. He hadn't even realized the blade was drawn. Drawn… on Strongbow?
'Come on,' he said, and turned back toward the fallen
tree, already thinking about how he would deal with the beast within it.
He was halfway back to the fallen tree before he realized Strongbow was not following. Bearclaw turned to look.
A different being stood there against the rocks. The harshness was gone from the angular face. The archer's arm hung limp at his side now. His eyes were fastened unseeing on the ground.
Bearclaw came slowly back to him. Strongbow didn't move, not even when Bearclaw's eyes, squinting with suspicious concern, peeked into the corner of his vision. The silent question was neither spoken or sent. Bearclaw waited for it to be answered.
Like a brush leaving delicate swipes on a cave wall, the mild sending came-very unlike the usual terse snaps of Strongbow's mind.
**I hope I die before I must see your son become chief.**
He might as well have shot an arrow into Bearclaw's chest. Bearclaw hated new territory, especially inner ground. He shifted his weight and licked his lips. 'What kind of talk is that?'
A tinge of sarcasm mellowed the words.
Strongbow's mouth twitched. No other response.
Bearclaw reached out uncomfortably and took hold of the muscular bow arm, welding the bond. 'Come on, soul brother. Let's get back to business before I give you my soulname and embarrass us both.'
**You know, you could lose your hand.**
'I know.'
Bearclaw stood flush against the vine hedge. His arm sank deep into the leaves. True-he expected to feel the keen cut of fangs in his flesh, but he steadied himself to the bond between his mind and the beast's, and endured the chance of dismemberment.
Strongbow stood close beside him now, cooperating. The way of violence hadn't worked. He had seen new facets in. his chief this night. He would deal with them cleanly and head-on, for he knew nothing else. Bearclaw was still chief.
Strongbow flinched when Bearclaw did-something had rustled deep within the leaves.
**Yes… fur. Moist flesh. He's sniffing me.**
