The Blood of Ten Chiefs (25 page)

The first release of energy carried Goodtree and Leafchaser a half-day's journey across the plain. Leapers soared out of their way as they approached, but the little beasts sensed that they were not hunting, and would settle to cropping the rich grass again before they had quite passed. The first scattered bands of branch-horns did not even bother to do that much, knowing well that they were in no danger from a solitary hunter, whether it went on four legs or two. Goodtree stared admiringly at the play of muscle in their shaggy flanks and the immense sweep of horns that gave them the appearance of ambulant trees.

A walking forest ... she thought then, wondering if elves could ever find the same sense of kinship with creatures like this as they did with the Everwood's trees. As the thought came to her she was aware of an odd sense of dislocation, as if she had lost something important. But she could not remember what it had been.

A few hours later they came over a rise, and Goodtree nearly fell off as Leafchaser halted suddenly. She felt the hair rising along the wolf's spine and sniffed at the wavering wind, questioning silently.

**Longtooth hunting,** came the wolf's answer.

The land fell away before them in a series of gentle ridges covered by a varicolored carpet of green and tawny grasses where the new growth was pushing through the old. The occasional small patches of brush made it hard to judge size or distance, and except for a rippling in the grass as the wind touched it, nothing moved.

Leafchaser started to circle around, but Goodtree stopped her, gripped by an unexpected sense of anticipation. The wolf snorted then and sat down, and Goodtree slid off her back and moved to the rim of the hill, where she squatted, becoming as still as the rest of the scene.

Then she felt a vibration in the earth beneath her. An outraged trumpeting split the air, and suddenly a hairy brown shape that even at this distance seemed the size of a moving mountain, heaved over the next rise. For something that big it moved astonishingly quickly, and Goodtree half rose, ready to run if it neared her, for one step of that flat-bottomed foot could have turned her into a stain on the soil. As it approached she saw the gleam of huge tusks and the sinuous upflung trunk and recognized a beast that she had half-believed a legend.

But the dun-colored shape that flashed after it was faster still, coiling and uncoiling in great bounds across the grass. And at the moment when the serpent-nose slowed and started to swing those murderous tusks toward its pursuer, a second longtooth exploded suddenly out of invisibility in the dead grasses, leaped to the great beast's shaggy shoulders, and clung, snarling furiously as it sought for a killing grip on the spine.

The first cat leaped for the huge haunches and fell back again as the serpent-nose spun. But now two more lions magically appeared, leaping and slashing with claws sharper than the Wolfriders' knives. But this prey was not to be taken easily. The serpent-nose bucked and stamped, flexible trunk seeking to capture one of its tormentors.

As Goodtree forced herself to take a breath, one of the lions missed its leap, and as it rebounded the huge head swung and caught the cat on its tusks, lifted and flung it in a squalling arc to land with a sick thud a good distance away. But the movement had opened the way to the first longtooth's savaging jaws, and in that moment the sword teeth pierced through muscle and sinew and snapped the spine.

The serpent-nose reared upward, blasting its agony, looming against the sky. For a moment it seemed impossible that something that big could ever fall. And then, with the ponderous inevitably of some great tree uprooted by a winter storm, the giant beast swayed and toppled to the ground.

Goodtree felt the ground shake beneath her as it fell. Dying, the serpent-nose continued to struggle, but with its spinal cord cut, its movements were purposeless. Ignoring them, the big cats pounced upon the twitching carcass and began to feed. She sensed from Leaf chaser a rather wistful approval, for even the full wolf-pack with riders would have hesitated to tackle something that size.

Goodtree herself was admiring the perfect teamwork and discipline with which the longtooth pride had caught enough meat to feed them all for several days. Her stomach rumbled as the hot blood smell came to her on the shifting wind. She only wished the tribe could do so well. The wolves' way was to run down their prey, but she wondered if perhaps the Wolfriders could learn something from the big cats she had just seen. Riderless, the wolves could chase their chosen prey until it was exhausted, then herd it into the elves' ambush where a well-placed arrow or lucky cast of a spear might reach a vulnerable throat or eye. She would have to ask Joygleam if that had ever been tried—

—And at the thought, Goodtree remembered why she was here, alone. Tasting bitterness, she stood up. The longtooth male lifted his head from the kill to look at her, decided that something so puny was no competition, and returned to his meal.

He was probably right, Goodtree thought unhappily.

Lionleaper had fought one once, an old cat weakened by the winter snows, and taken one of its great fangs for a hunting knife. But he had been badly wounded in the battle, and roundly scolded by Tanner as well. Foolish feats of individual valor were not the Wolfriders' Way—elf lives were too valuable to be wasted. Elves did not kill each other, but far too many died defending the tribe from other enemies.

Only together did they have the strength to survive, and as a result the Wolfriders were rarely out of sensing range of other members of the tribe. No wonder she felt incomplete, alone out here beneath the empty sky. If she had not had the comfort of Leafchaser's calm presence, Goodtree thought she would have sat down again right where she was and howled.

As it was, she felt a suspicious ache in her throat as she climbed onto the wolf's bony back and directed her to continue her steady trot toward the distant hills.

Together, the Wolfriders wound through the Everwood more slowly than a single rider, but they were still following Good-tree's trail. Lionleaper led them, but Acorn was close behind.

The warrior had never had much use for the song maker, especially when he saw how Goodtree favored him, but there would have been no honor in challenging someone who was obviously so much weaker. Even to himself he did not admit that what he won with blows he might have lost with words.

Now, however, Lionleaper found the other elf's presence oddly comforting. The rest of the tribe loved Goodtree too, because she was Tanner's daughter, because she was part of them, their chosen chieftain. But the warrior sensed that of them all, perhaps only he and Acorn loved her because she was herself, sometimes merry as the morning sun, warming all she smiled on, and sometimes distant as some glittering star, lost in some inner realm to which neither of them could follow her. But at least she had still been there, and they had known that eventually she would come back to them.

But where was she now, and why? There had always been something unfathomable in Goodtree, even in the moments of greatest intimacy. Joy and sorrow he could understand, but not flight, if that was what it was, for her trail was not the erratic wandering of a lost cub, but a purposeful movement toward some goal that only Goodtree knew.

If she was killed, or she never returned to them, what would they do? Timmorn's blood flowed in all the Wolfriders, but additional generations of leadership had given the chiefly line a special quality that made it impossible for Lionleaper to imagine anyone else as head of the tribe, even—despite the times he had chafed at Tanner's caution—himself.

**We will find her—we have to—** he thought, and only realized that in his intensity he had been sending when he sensed Acorn answering him.

**She's still all right. I had an impression of her a little while ago, as if she wished she could tell us about something she had seen.**

"Where?" Lionleaper said aloud. "Where is she now?"

"On the plains somewhere—there was a feeling of space around her," Acorn replied, urging his wolf alongside Fang.

Lionleaper nodded. "That's where we're headed. Another day's travel and we'll be there."

But will Goodtree be waiting for us? anxiety added, and will she be happy to see us when we catch up with her?

The plain rose almost imperceptibly, but steadily, and that night Goodtree and Leafchaser slept curled together in the grass at the base of the foothills. The mountains that had been an irregular gray wall when she fell asleep were revealed in luminous precision in the clear light of dawn, tree-clad folds and ridges rising to jagged peaks sharp against the translucent sky. But the light showed also a glacier carven cleft as if the mountains themselves were welcoming her. Eagerly they began to climb.

As is the way of mountains, the path that had looked so easy from a distance proved less open than it had seemed. Very soon Goodtree dismounted so that she could use all four limbs to climb, and there were times when Leafchaser's paws could find no purchase and she had to help haul the wolf up the scree. But although the climb was in places difficult, it was nowhere impossible.

Gradually the stands of budding hardwoods and the rocky moraine of the lower slopes were left behind, and they came to groves of conifers and little mountain meadows where scatterings of purple and white flowers jeweled the new grass. By this time the sun was sinking once more, and Goodtree saw the peaks suffused with mauve and rose. Too tired to hunt, elf and wolf-friend found a sheltered place at the edge of a meadow and were asleep almost before the last light was gone.

A cold poke in the armpit brought Goodtree suddenly awake when the mists of morning still hung heavy in the trees. Pulse pounding, she struggled to unwind herself from the furry folds of the lion pelt and sit up, sending a frantic query to Leafchaser.

**No danger,** came the silent reply. **Deer in meadow ... hungry!**

Goodtree grimaced, realizing, now that she was upright, that she ached in every limb. All her senses counseled a return to sleep's oblivion, but Leafchaser's steady amber stare would not release her.

**Oh all right, I'll try,** she agreed finally, **but if you think I'm going to hit anything you're in worse shape than I feel!**

**Hungry ...** repeated Leafchaser, and Goodtree realized that she was hungry too. The wolf was right. They were only going to feel worse if they went much longer without food.

The deer were in the meadow, dappled as the forest floor with legs so slender they almost seemed to float above the grass. The wolf scent made them uneasy, so Goodtree sent Leafchaser to circle around upwind. But even when a shift in the breeze carried her own scent directly toward them they did no more than lift their delicate heads, long ears swiveling in curiosity. They had never encountered elf before, she decided, and had no way of knowing that this new scent they were ignoring heralded a predator more dangerous than the wolves they rightly feared.

For several minutes she watched them, forgetting her sore muscles as she identified two does with their new fawns, and the guardian stag. Then another deer moved out onto the meadow—a split-horn buck, his red hide ragged where his winter coat was coming away. She lifted her bow and nocked an arrow, holding it half-drawn, waiting. The young buck moved this way and that, as if he was trying to hide behind the other deer.

**Move downwind for just an instant, then away,** she sent to Leafchaser. In a few moments she saw all four dainty heads lift questioningly and caught a hint of wolf-scent on the breeze. The does nudged their fawns nervously toward the edge of the wood as the stag started forward. But the young buck stood with one foreleg half-lifted, poised on the edge of flight.

And in his moment of indecision, Goodtree's own choice was made. With a single smooth motion she drew the bowstring back and released it, and the arrow flew flawlessly toward the paler fur behind the buck's elbow; flew, and struck, boring between the fragile ribs to penetrate the pumping heart behind them.

The buck gave one convulsive leap and fell, dead before he hit the grass. The other deer, finally realizing their danger, disappeared into the trees in a few frantic bounds. Now that the hunt was over, Goodtree felt her aching muscles once more. Stiffly she moved toward her kill, leaving a wavering trail across the dew-pearled grass.

The deer's eyes were already dulling as she knelt beside it, but she could sense the startled spirit near.

"Thy spirit for my spirit, thy blood for my body, brother—as mine shall feed others, a circle of life without end!" she said softly, and stretching the neck taut, drew her knife carefully across the buck's throat to release its blood into the soil.

She felt Leafchaser's familiar presence at her shoulder. Her nostrils flared at the sharp tang of blood and her stomach grumbled sharply. Cutting carefully down from the gash in the throat, she tugged slippery hide away from the red flesh it had protected, and together, elf and wolf began to feed.

Sustained by that nourishment, the pair made good time during the morning's climbing, and just as the sun reached the summit of the sky, Goodtree found herself suddenly looking downward. Rocky slopes fell away before her, less steeply but otherwise much the same as the ones she had climbed. But beyond them stretched a green plain to which spring had come sooner than her own, and at the edge of sight the misty blur of a forest.

With an odd throb almost like Recognition she identified it, seeing in her mind's eye green, leafy spaces friendlier than the woods of home. She took a deep breath, scenting the sweetness of sun-warmed grasses mingled with the crisp mountain wind.

I will go there—someday I will go see, she promised herself, but memory of the Wolfriders tethered her. Whether she had been running toward something, or only running away, she understood now that she could not leave them behind. For the first time it occurred to her to wonder what the tribe was doing now.

With a sigh Goodtree turned away from the tantalizing vista ahead and looked around her. She was standing in a cleft in the hills. To one side gray stone sheered upward to a jagged crown barely softened by a straggle of stunted pines. In the other direction, two ridges met and plunged downward in a jumble of rock and trees cut by the silver ribbon of a mountain stream. As it neared the pass, the canyon opened out into a small meadow, but the stream turned southward, toward the distant forest she had seen.