The Blood of Ten Chiefs (28 page)

"Goodtree?" came a whisper in her ear. "Are you awake?''

Scent identified Lionleaper, but then who was behind her? Goodtree forced open her eyes and met his anxious smile. She blinked in confusion, shifted in his arms to look around and met Acorn's brown gaze, deep as a forest pool. It was their body heat that was warming her, and a warmth of the spirit came to her from them as well that welcomed her back to consciousness. She gazed from one to the other in wonder. Back at the hurst they had been unacknowledged rivals, but now she sensed only harmony.

The faces of the two elves had a radiance that came only partly from joy. The light was golden; Goodtree looked beyond them and saw sunlight filtered through fluttering green-gold leaves.

The Golden Grove! Abruptly she remembered her journey, and the storm, and her name. She stiffened in their arms.

"The tribe—" Talking was painful, and she switched to the speech of the mind. **Are the Wolfriders safe? Did the dam stop the flood in time?**

**That was your work then! Yes, they're all safe, and thanking the high ones for a miracle!** sent Lionleaper, but from Acorn came another question, **Goodtree, why did you come here? What have you become?**

She closed her eyes in relief, wondering how to answer them. She seemed to be a treeshaper, she thought, remembering how the vines and pine trees had obeyed her, and perhaps in time she would discover other masteries. But that was not what she needed to say.

Goodtree turned over so that she could slip an arm about the songshaper and the warrior as well and hold them as they had held her. She swallowed, meeting their eyes, and made her voice obey her will.

"I'm the chieftain of the Wolfriders now. ..."

"Must we always fight with the humans?" Woodlock asked as he braided flower stems together for Rainsong's hair.

"It's fight or run, isn't it? And we've done enough of both since the high ones came here," Rainsong replied sadly.

They were the quietest and gentlest of the Wolfriders. It was fortunate they'd been born near the same time and found each other. It would have been more fortunate, Longreach considered, if they'd been born when Prey-Pacer was chief or Freefoot or one of the other rare times when Wolfriders and humans did not intrude on each other's hunting grounds.

"I wish they'd just tie their bundles on their backs and go someplace else. We were here first." Her voice held both the hopes and the angers of the innocent. "The Father Tree is the Wolfriders' home—why can't they understand that?"

And wasn't that the problem? Never before had the Wolfriders stayed in one place so long, but since Goodtree had worked her magics on this grove it had been home to the tribe and none of them could imagine leaving it. The humans had changed too, put down their own sort of roots and made their own Father Tree, not with living magic but with piles of stone and little bowers where everything grew in straight, unnatural lines.

"Wouldn't they ask the same of us?" Longreach asked softly. "They have been by the caves a long time themselves."

Woodlock shook his head, his eyes growing uncommonly fierce. "It's ours—everything we can see from the highest branches of the Father Tree. It belongs to our wolves and it belongs to us."

Longreach shook his head. Such belligerence, such a sense of possessing—was this truly Goodtree's legacy through the Father Tree?

Rainsong took the finished flower-wreath and placed in on her hair, but the hard look did not fade from her eyes. "Someday," she whispered, forcing the thought deep into her mind where she'd find it no matter how wildly the wolf-song sang. "Someday we'll frighten them away."

The storyteller gathered his legs under him and pushed himself to his feet. There were stories—sad stories—that had an answer for her bitterness. But Bearclaw's Wolfriders could no longer hear them or learn from them. Strange—because they were almost all about Bearclaw's father—

The child was not far from the village center, playing in the sun as his mother worked in front of their hut. Suddenly, a movement as small as a butterfly's wing turning on a flower caught his eye. One of the forest demons was standing at the edge of the woods watching him with a half-bemused smile.

He had heard of them, of course, and even glimpsed one once when the tribe had surprised a few of them at the river. His parents warned him of them when they said they loved him, and threatened him with them when he was bad. Once, when he was still a baby, he had dared to tell his mother he thought they were beautiful and had been thrashed for his honesty: once by his mother, and again by his father after his mother told him of the indiscretion. Now he knew better and kept his thoughts to himself.

Child and forest demon examined each other with open curiosity.

The demon didn't look dangerous. If anything, being closer to the child's size, he seemed less threatening than the adults who ruled his existence. True, his hair was wild and unkempt, but that made him seem even less like an adult and added to his mysterious allure.

The forest demon smiled fully now and beckoned to the child before disappearing into the brush.

The child started to follow reflexively, then hesitated. If he was caught playing with a forest demon ...

He shot a guilty glance at his mother, but she was engrossed in her work, oblivious to her son's temptation.

Maybe just for a little while. She would never know...

The forest demon appeared again; this time his summoning gesture was a bit more impatient. His grin expanded to show mischievous eyes and teeth before he vanished.

The lure was too great. The child headed into the brush after his new playmate, unmindful of the brief stretch of almost-dry mud which lay, as if by accident, across his path.

The mother finished her task of preparing the ingredients for their evening meal and glanced around for her son. As was her practice, she had saved something for him—a small handful of berries this time—as a reward for not bothering her while she worked.

The fact he was not immediately in sight did not alarm her, as he was inclined to wander. When a casual search in and around their hut failed to disclose him, however, her concern grew.

Her husband had a notoriously poor temper, and she was reluctant to call attention to her negligence if, indeed, the child had simply wandered. On the other hand, if their only son was truly endangered ...

Caught in indecision, she wandered closer to the edge of the woods, peering anxiously into the shadows, hoping to find her youngster curled up asleep in the shade. Almost by chance, her eyes fell on the stretch of mud, and her heart faltered in her chest.

A moment later she was running back into the village, shrieking her panic as she went. She had no thoughts for the berries still clenched in her fist, their juice streaking her arm as her tears streaked her face. Also gone were any worries about her husband's temper. Such fears now meant no more to her than the berries.

There were two sets of tracks in the mud: one the barefoot trail of her child, and the other ...

The forest demons had their son—and only swift action from her husband and the other hunters could save him!

The forest demon smiled at the child as he led him deeper into the forest. His name was Mantricker, and he had earned it many times over through his antics with the humans.

Through his early life, he had lived with the rest of the Wolfriders in blissful ignorance of the tall, five-fingered hunters and their ways—save what was recounted by the storytellers. The tribe's move to the holt had removed the humans to the realm of legend; their importance grew or diminished depending on the story.

Then the humans arrived again, drawn to the area by the same plentiful game and water that had first attracted the elves. As soon as their appearance was noted, all the old arguments among the Wolfriders of how to deal with the humans erupted again, as if they had never stopped. With the death of his mother, Goodtree, the chieftainship had fallen to Mantricker, and with it the arguments.

Some of the tribe favored moving again rather than having to deal with the intruders. Others were ready to take arms and drive the humans from the area. The territoriality of their wolf-blood boiled at the idea of surrendering their hunting ground to another group, particularly a group as inept in the woods as the humans. The majority of the elves, however, listened to the arguments in confusion, then turned to their chief for leadership.

Mantricker himself could see no clear path in the matter. On the one hand, he strongly resisted the idea of leaving the holt Goodtree had labored so long to build. It was the tribe's home and to be defended at all costs. Unfortunately, he was equally repelled by the idea of open combat with the humans. Even if the tribe could win, they would lose. That is to say, they would lose their way of life; the idyllic existence that made them different from the humans. He argued hotly with the advocates of war saying that to fight the humans, they would have to become like the humans: killing what was feared or could not be understood.

So the arguments continued. Though they might lie dormant for turns on end, eventually some comment or incident would spark the debates anew. In the meantime, the situation remained unchanged, with humans and elves dwelling in dangerous proximity.

Finally, Mantricker had hit on a solution that was uniquely his own. Since open combat wouldn't work for a variety of reasons, the humans would have to be convinced that this area was not desirable for them. Mantricker, along with the rest of the elves, believed that humans were always at war with their environment. All he would have to do was convince the human tribes that their wars were going badly.

So began the campaign that confirmed Mantricker's name many times over. He became a self-appointed nemesis of the five-fingered invaders. He spooked game away from the human hunters and sprang their traps so that often their village went hungry. He spent two eights-of-days building a hidden dam that dried the humans water creek overnight. Spying on their village, he heard them whispering about angry forest demons. Rather than anger their invisible tormentors the humans hauled their water from a different, distant creek, but they stayed in their village and continued their blundering ways in the forest.

Mantricker adopted new strategies: slipping into their village at night, stealing weapons or food, openly confounding their efforts to live a comfortable or secure life. In response, the humans began leaving stacks of weapons and food outside their village, trying to appease the forest devils who sought their treasures invisibly by night—but still they stayed.

Throughout his efforts, Mantricker had to deal with growing resistance within his own tribe. While most agreed that his solution was worth trying, without exception they protested his decision to take all the risks himself. It was too dangerous, they argued. More than that, it was the tribe's right to share the risk, and the fun, of the campaign.

Mantricker stood firm. Surprising many who had seen weakness in the young chief's earlier indecision, he gave precise orders and demanded strict obedience so long as he was their acknowledged chief. True, the task was dangerous, but bringing all the Wolfriders to the human village would multiply rather than reduce the risk. He had decided on this action to preserve the elfin way of life and shield the tribe from danger ... not increase the contacts between humans and elves. The idea was his, and so too would be the danger.

Unwilling to challenge their chief, the tribe respected his orders though they didn't like what was happening. They liked even less the next tactic their chief tried after his earlier efforts proved fruitless.

Frustrated by the humans' dogged determination to stay, Mantricker tried an even bolder approach. He now showed himself to an occasional hunting party, warning them to leave the lands. If they pursued, he would lead them far afield, then double back, obscuring their tracks and signs so that they became lost in the forest. After a few terrifying rounds of this, the humans learned to signal to each other by beating on hollow logs, but they ignored the meaning behind his warnings and stayed.

Today, Mantricker was embarked on yet another attempt to convince the humans to leave. This trick was one that the chief did not like himself, but he was growing desperate. If the humans would not leave to save themselves, perhaps they would move to protect their children.

Studying the child anew, he hoped the humans cared as much for their cubs as the elves did for their own. Everything he had seen so far while watching the village seemed to indicate that they did. If not, today's lesson on vulnerability would fall once again on deaf ears.

The young human was fearless as he blundered along in playful pursuit. More than once the chief found himself laughing at the child's antics as he would at cubs of his own tribe. If only humans could be frozen at this age, like wildcat kittens, then maybe elves and humans could live together in peace. Unfortunately kittens became wildcats, and little humans became big humans all too fast. In the adult form, both were deadly and unpredictable.

In midlaugh, Mantricker's thoughts leaped unbidden to his own cub, and his smile faded.

He was worried about his cub... No, his son really couldn't be called a cub anymore. Bearclaw had already gained his physical maturity, and his performance in the hunt that won him his name left no doubt as to his ability to take his place beside the other hunters of the tribe. Still, Mantricker had difficulty thinking of him as an adult.

The chief had told his lifemate and his son of his new plan, though he had not confided in the tribe as a whole. His lifemate had been fearful, but supportive, as she was in all his plans. Whether she took this position because she believed in his thinking or because she knew she could not dissuade him he didn't know, nor did he want to. The unpopularity of his scheme was already making him feel isolated and alone, and he was afraid of losing one of his few remaining confidants.

Bearclaw, on the other hand, crowed enthusiastic over the plot and renewed his pleas to be included in his father's activities. His eagerness to pursue a plan Mantricker himself judged dangerous distressed him both as a father and as the Wolfriders' chief. His son had a wild streak in him, a recklessness he did not recall from his own youth. Tales of Rahnee and Two-Spear flashed across his mind, and he found himself wondering, not for the first time, if Bearclaw was one of those throwbacks that occurred from time to time in the tribe: one who was more wolf than elf. The youth's enthusiasm over his father's schemes always seemed more centered on the thrill and glory of the moment than on any adherence to a goal or long-term plan. Still, Mantricker loved his son deeply and hoped he would have time to complete his growth before the burdens of chiefhood were thrust upon him.

Unbidden, a new thought thrust itself into Mantricker's head. How similar were the feelings of humans and elves toward their offspring? A threat to the Wolfriders' cubs wouldn't scare them away, but rather kindle a flame of anger and resentment that would never die.

For a moment, the elf faltered in his resolve, but then the calls of the pursuers reached the child's ears. Mantricker had been listening for some time, but now the child had heard and was looking around, confused, there was little choice but to see the plan through.

"Call to them," he said, smiling at the child. "Your hunters need all the help they can get."

The child hesitated.

"Don't worry. They'll blame me, not you. Call to them." As the child raised its voice in answer to the hunters, Mantricker tried unsuccessfully to convince himself that there was no need for bloodletting. No. His verbal warnings had always been ignored. He had decided at the conception of this plan that blood would be necessary to drive the lesson home.

The hunting party was noisier than usual, and the child's father was painfully aware of that fact. By including nearly every man of the village who could carry a weapon, he had also brought along many whose inability to keep quiet had long since barred them from the better hunting groups. Even the skilled hunters were making a racket, complaining loudly that they were being led into trouble. Never before had a forest demon left such an obvious trail. There was no doubt in their mind that they were being tricked again, baited into doing exactly what the forest demon wanted.

The child's father was aware of the danger, but he didn't care as he pressed the party for even greater speed. Whatever threats the hunters might be exposed to were nothing compared to those same threats directed toward his son, alone and unarmed. His only fear was that the noise of their passage might scare the forest demon into disappearing and taking his child with it.

Finally, abandoning all hope of silence, the father raised his voice and called to his son, hoping against hope that speed would do what stealth could not. The other hunters took up the cry and soon the father had a new fear: that their adult voices would drown out any response his child might make. He was about to command them into silence once more when he heard the plaintive warble. His son's voice ... or at least the voice of a young human child and there could only be one this far out in the woods. The call came again, prodding the father into swift action as he called back to the hunters then plunged recklessly in the direction of the sound. The boy didn't sound scared. Perhaps he had somehow escaped the clutches of the forest demon and was now wandering free. If so, they had to reach him before the forest demon found him again by following the same call.

Bursting through the brush into a clearing, the father froze at the sight before him. He barely had the presence of mind to throw his arms wide, restraining the hunters behind him from a headlong rush into the catastrophe.

His son was there at the far side of the clearing, but so was the forest demon, standing just behind the boy with one hand resting lightly on the child's shoulder.