The human camp lay spread across a small hill. It was full of straight lines and built-things that confused the two Wolfriders.
"There are so many," Gray wolf hissed between fanged teeth. Swift-Spear did not answer. Even in his pain and rage a clear voice still spoke to him.
Here are things you have never seen before…
The humans all lived close together in their strange stone tents, as no other men ever had, all of them seeming in constant motion, going from one place to another. What did they do? Why did they build such homes? What did they know that he and the other elves did not?
Gray wolf s strong hand grabbed his shoulder and shook him from his wonder.
"Swift-Spear." The elf pointed down at the humans. "That-uh-those trees. They are dead, yet they stand upright. Even wolves could never jump that."
Swift-Spear stared at the high fence for a moment. Why this? Ah. Of course. These men are smart, very smart… **It is a barricade,** he sent to Graywolf,**to keep enemies out, to keep the world out!** Behind them Moonfinder whined at the scent that came up from the village.
"So many. Which one killed Blackmane?" Graywolf's harsh voice hurt the chief's ears, hurt him with its reminder of why he was here, what he had come to do. Swift-Spear searched the details of the distant figures below them. Many of the elves claimed they could not tell one human from another, but Swift-Spear had taught himself on his lone spying missions to see the differences. He looked for the tall, bearded one. The black eyes and scarred body he had seen last through the dying eyes of his wolf-friend.
Swift-Spear's vision blurred and his breath stung him, coming in short gasps. He dug callused palms into his eyes. The memory was too fresh! Red blood, wolf-friend's blood, sound of flesh ripping, scents of fear, of death. Eyes going dim… pain, pain! Cold numbness as strong heart stops, lungs collapse…
Graywolf shuddered at his friend's thoughts. Swift-Spear was reliving Blackmane's death as if it happened now-again. He was the wolf, he was dying… There was something wrong and Graywolf could not understand it. A moment ago his chief had forgotten his anguish, losing it in those bright, strange thoughts that Graywolf knew he could never under- stand. Lost in that why? that always tore the two of them apart.
Moonfinder, belly to the ground, bumped his head into Gray wolf's side, seeking comfort. The elf hugged his wolf- brother to him, biting the wolf's nose to calm him. The thoughts leaking from Swift-Spear affected them both, and Graywolf struggled to find his elf-blood and not to join the wolf in his animal whine of confusion.
"Silence," Swift-Spear said aloud. The two bowed their heads and stared back with yellow eyes. "That one." The chief pointed to one human striding through the village surrounded by other men. "He is their chief." The sun reflected off the man's spearhead. "He will give me Blackmane's ears. He will give me his spear. And"-the Wolfrider stood up-"I will take his life!"
"How?"
"Chief to chief, as it has always been. The challenge. One against one, but this time the loser dies!"
Gray wolf said nothing. It was right, even if the tribe was not here, Neither of them had any conception of warfare. This was their only choice. This was their path to vengeance.
Swift-Spear strode boldly down the hillside, leaving the other two to wait. The stink of the human camp was bitter. Why would they live with their own waste? Even the wolves would not soil their own dens. He could see now that outside the great barrier there were plants in straight rows growing at the same pace. Among them women worked, pulling up the bitter weeds, digging up more ground. Like Willowgreen's herb garden, but he knew enough about humans to know that they grew these not for healing, but for food. And now that he understood the barricade, he knew why. This way they would not have to leave, this way they would not have to follow the trails of the beasts. They could stay and build their things, could do things in their days that elves never had time or thought to do. Not even the high ones…
Kerthan heard cries and reached the front gate as the women streamed through it, all pointing behind them and shouting inarticulately. He and five of the hunters went out to find what the uproar was all about.
Outside the walls he saw, walking across the fields, one of the forest demons. It was taller than most he had seen, and well-muscled. Its hair was light brown and dangled in two side braids. It wore some pelt about its loins and carried a stone-tipped spear. Twenty paces away from Kerthan it stopped.
"Chief," it said in the people's tongue. It shook its spear at him and pointed to the wolfs ears pinned to the top of the outward-opening gate. "My!" It hit its chest. "My!" It pointed at him again. "Chief!" And shook its spear once more.
Kerthan felt the people crowding behind the gate, knew their fear of the demon. He watched the creature for a moment, trying to decipher its strange actions. He looked up at the wolf ears, the flies buzzing about them now, then looked back at the demon, staring at its sharp-pointed ears. "My," it said; it must mean "mine." Those are his ears? No. His wolf. Everyone knew that the demons paired unnaturally with the werewolves. So it was his wolf and he wanted the ears back.
And looking into those strange eyes at this range, Kerthan knew the demon came for more than the trophy. It came for him.
"Leave us, demon!" he cried aloud. "Leave us or die as your cursed monster died-by this!" He lifted up the magic spear he had found so many years before.
The demon's eyes narrowed at the sight of the weapon, its head lowered between hunched, broad shoulders.
"Chief, chief!" it cried, making stabbing motions with its spear.
Then Kerthan knew. It meant to fight him, to take blood vengeance for the death of the werewolf. He looked it over. He had killed the wolf… but a demon! That was different, even with the magic spear.
"Kill it!" he yelled at the others behind him. "Kill it! It means to curse us with its black magic!"
The men turned to one another, some still spotted with the dead wolfs blood. Finally Creth, Kerthan's youngest cousin, took a hesitant step toward the demon. The creature ignored him, staring at Kerthan with hot eyes. Creth took another step, and, lifting his spear, threw it at the monster.
It was badly cast and Swift-Spear saw it coming and dodged easily aside. He cursed himself for not learning more of the human language, but he knew that their chief under- stood him, knew that the man knew why he had come here. Why did the human not fight?
Another man threw a club at him, nearly hitting him. Swift-Spear danced away. Why were the others attacking him? What madness is this?
"Chief! Chief!" he cried as more of the humans moved toward him. Their leader was yelling incomprehensible words at them as he stepped back into the line of the crowd. Now ten human hunters faced Swift-Spear and a thrown club hit him in the chest, knocking him down. As he fell, the humans stopped for a moment and a sigh went through their ranks. Then with a great cry they charged him.
Swift-Spear rolled to his feet and braced himself-earned his name again as he dodged amongst his enemy, every thrust of his stone weapon drawing blood. But he was unused to this kind of fighting, and the humans surrounded and outnumbered him. Even as he killed, he, like Blackmane before him, was being killed.
Graywolf could not understand the men's actions any better than his chief, but now, too late, he recalled the tales of the high ones, about their long-ago first meeting with the humans. He leapt on Moonfinder and the two raced toward the battle.**I am coming, brother,** he sent ahead.
But no answer came back.
"Ayoooooo!" Graywolf and Moonfinder cried together as they charged into the enemy. They flashed through the men, spear and fang taking a dreadful toll. Graywolf leaned down to grasp Swift-Spear, pulling him up and atop the wolfs shoulders as it sped on toward the waiting forest. Swift-Spear was covered with blood, hanging as a heavy weight in Gray wolf's arms, his mind for once closed to his cousin as the pain of his wounds wiped clean any coherent thought.
Swift-Spear spoke in the human language over and over. "Chief… chief…"
The ride was a nightmare for Graywolf. He struggled with all his imagination, trying to decipher exactly what had happened. Had the humans misunderstood Swift-Spear's challenge? Or had they in their guile simply pretended ignorance in order to trap the elf and make sure of a kill?
He urged Moonfinder to greater speed, Swift-Spear's blood hot and wet across his chest.
He sent ahead to the tribe, but his thoughts were so chaotic all they could understand was that in some way their chief was hurt. Graywolf followed their thought-patterns deeper into the woods. His mind and heart were in turmoil, which was worse, the gaping wounds in his friend, a friend and cousin he now realized was more precious to him than any- one or anything; or the lack of direction, the void of comprehension that now haunted him. He needed his curse/gift, needed to feel Swift-Spear's pain-thoughts, needed to hear his chief's inner voice-or how else was he supposed to understand anything? How was he supposed to feel, with Swift-Spear lying in his arms, bleeding, bleeding to death? And why did his own warm tears join the cooling blood of his friend?
They waited for him in a shadowy glade far from the old holt. The elves moved out of Moonfinder's way as he rushed through them and toward the center of the camp where a huge fire burned, where Willowgreen waited for her lover.
Graywolf slid off the wolf with his chief in his arms, and laid the bloodied form in a bower already prepared. And with tears in her eyes Willowgreen the healer started to tend the sorely wounded elf.
Two high ones approached: Talen and Rellah. Graywolf rose and gave them a look of undisguised loathing.
"Humans did this," Graywolf hissed. Aloud. He never mind-sent to the high ones.
"Yes. Humans." Rellah's voice was hard. "Your message was garbled, wolf-boy, but we were able to untangle it enough to understand." She towered over the Wolfrider, her golden hair reaching to the ground. "He was a fool to go there. What do you expect from humans?" Her eyes were filled with scorn. "You wild ones will be the death of all the tribe. Have you learned nothing from our wisdom?"
"Enough, Rellah." Talen's male voice was sharp. "Leave the boy alone!"
Graywolf only snarled. He wished to stay by Swift-Spear's side, but Rellah's contempt, hurled with a high one's force, was too much for him to bear. He walked away from the crowd watching the healing, his mind trying desperately to shut out all the stray thoughts that battered him.
**He will die.**
**He never should have gone.** **The humans will pay!**
**They are evil…**
**What will happen to us?** **The high ones are right. That fool halfling will get us all killed one day.** This last thought from Swift-Spear's sister Skyfire. Graywolf pushed his way through the crowd, Moonfinder padding behind. It was too much, too much… **Forgive me for leaving your side, my brother, but if I stay I will kill one of these tame dogs who have no time for your pain. And surely it would be your own sister my fangs would seek first!**
Swift-Spear struggled to wake up, his mind treading strange paths of nightmare that neither Talen nor Willowgreen could follow or understand. Even as the elf-woman's power knitted the terrible wounds together, she looked for something else, something not found in flesh alone. She searched for his name, his secret name, the one he held from all others. **Concentrate on the healing, girl,** Talen sent to her, breaking off her futile search. Even now, near death, Swift- Spear kept his true self from her.
Tears of exhaustion blinded her. She was so tired, she only wanted to sleep, to curl up somewhere in soft warmth, she had not strength enough Rellah bent and touched her shoulder, only that, and it was like a wash of wind and rain, cold and clear. Strength went through her and a mind went through her mind, sorted through the thoughts, discarded the doubts with a disregard of her weaknesses so thorough that she felt dismissed and insignificant.
But Swift-Spear himself did not accept the high one. It was Willowgreen he reached for with his mind, it was her he would not let go. His powerful spirit, trying to help her heal his battered body, moved within her magic, wild and passionate, like the rolling of thunder before a terrible storm. He was strong, the strongest of all the elves. She shuddered at an unbidden memory of those powerful arms about her. He would not die, but he would-as he seemed destined constantly to do-change; and with him, change all of them.
And he rejected the high one, a rejection so strong it was Talen who retreated; it was Rellah who gave back, frowning, and left Willowgreen clasping Swift-Spear's hand to herself with all her strength.
"It is done," Talen said to the crowd of waiting elves. Willowgreen could feel their relief, a warm current riding the sweet summer air; and Rellah's anger like a cold wind. And another: Skyfire pushed her way to the fore and Willowgreen, still wrapped in her healing magic, perceived her lover's sister as a thick cloud of dank and foul smoke.
"We must go! The humans will come after us now!" Skyfire brandished the spear she always carried even though she was not yet one of the hunters. **Peace,** Talen sent. Aloud, he continued: "The humans will not dare to come so deep into the forest, not for a while, anyway. And your chief must rest."
"When he is better, we must leave, go far away," Skyfire insisted.
"That is for the chief to decide." Willowgreen, still holding Swift-Spear's hand, looked up at the young elf, struggling with exhaustion and with anger. "He has lost his wolf-friend. What have you lost?"
"And what would you know of wolf-friends, healer?" Skyfire shot back.
"I know he loved Blackmane as he loved nothing else." Willowgreen rose to tower over the elf-woman. "And I know if it was you who had been hurt he would be more concerned with your pain than with any fear of the humans."
Skyfire said nothing to that. She just turned her back and walked away.
"She is hot for her womanhood." Talen touched Willow- green with a pale, thin hand. "She is jealous of your stature in the tribe, that is all. She will come around."
"She is hot for the chieftainship," Willowgreen muttered. "She disagrees with everything Swift-Spear does. It is a pretext, an excuse."
"Perhaps this time," said Talen, "it would have been right to disagree. It was so foolish of him to think the humans would fight him fair."
Willowgreen said nothing as she stared at Skyfire's retreating back. She reached up and wiped the tears from her eyes. And from Rellah there was only cold comfort. **Go,** Talen's thought came, soothing and quiet.**Go, my child. There is nothing more you can do here.**
Willowgreen looked down at the sleeping form of Swift- Spear, watching silently as Talen knelt down to take up a gourd of water, a handful of moss, to wash away the dried blood from the Wolfrider's chest. She knelt down too and took Swift-Spear's head in her lap.
"My place is here," she said, "with him."**And I, I will protect him from anything that dares try to hurt him, human or elf…
Graywolf slid down from Moonfinder's shoulders and kept a firm grip on the brindled fur-tugged at it slightly to focus the wolf's attention on the place below them in the twilight.
Now was the wolf-time. Moonfinder lowered his head and turned and nosed Graywolf s arm, quick, anxious gesture. ' And in the way of wolves another of the pack came ghosting through the brush, a loner who disdained the elves; No-name was all he answered to, and he was grudging and suspicious, living on the fringes and showing up unpredictably. Moonfinder bristled up when he came up onto the rocks and slunk into shadow, high-shouldered, flat-eared silhouette in the fading light above the human camp.
No-name was scarred with battles, more than a little crazy. He was a disease in the pack, one that Blackmane had not tolerated-but he would not leave them alone, refusing to leave the pack, refusing to accept the pack's allegiance to unwolves. No-name was a wilder thing, and more than once taunted Blackmane himself, knowing that the pack-leader, being elf-ensorceled, would not execute him. Too much peace. Too much soft living, perhaps. Graywolf knew this one, read his attitude in that surly slink into the fading light as he caught the ghostly, wordless
thoughts of a hostile wolfish mind. Joy that Blackmane was dead. Satisfaction. And Moonfinder, second-leader, supporting the dead pack-leader with a tenuous hold.on the pack as yet unchallenged, felt a fear that no human ever put into him; he bristled, and bared teeth, and growled his uncertain displeasure, so that No-name slunk a little less and let his tongue loll.
He infected the air itself with unreason; and Graywolf licked at his own not-quite-elvish teeth, and the hairs lifted at his nape and his smooth hand knotted on Moonfinder's fur to prevent him from violence.**No.** Now was not the time for challenges, least of all challenge when his own chief lay wounded and diminished in his authority. They were alike, he and Moonfinder, two pack-seconds equally desperate in their attempt on a situation that had defeated their chiefs; and this came, this hateful killer, radiating satisfaction in the prospect of bloodshed. That was what brought the loner: a project to No-name's liking-No-name was eager to help, would take pack-second's orders; that was in the wolf-thoughts.
Moonfinder growled and snapped at No-name's closest approach; and the loner skittered aside and slunk back again, bristled all down his lank shoulders; but when Moonfinder started to go farther, Graywolf clamped his hand down on the wolf's muzzle, hard, dodged teeth and held him a second time till Moonfinder gave him the throat, a little twisting of his head to be free: Peace, that meant, my leader. But not too much humility; and not too much of standing still; that was against the wolf-nature. And the twilight was coming down in which wolves and a halfling elf saw very well indeed. **Come,** Graywolf said, and slid down among the rocks, hardly more conspicuous in taking that line of half-lit shadow than the two wolves which skirted the rocks, one on a side. He did not ride, now. He would not tire his wolf-friend for a retreat which might well be in desperate haste. Now it was stealth he wanted; and he had as lief be without No-name,. but no thrown rock would shake that shadow, Graywolf knew that from experience; not even Moonfinder's teeth might drive him farther than around the hill and a few moments back-he knew No-name's tactics. So he tolerated the loner himself, who trotted along the hillside like a trick of the eye for any human watching from that place below.
Swift-Spear (elfquest) Page 2