Chief's Brother
“Here’s a pupil worthy of Trueflight’s bow,” Grayling said when he presented his niece with the old longbow.
“Why don’t you use it, Uncle?” the cub asked.
He tried to shrug as nonchalantly as possible. “I don’t use a bow. I use a spear.”
**A fishing spear!** Strongbow snorted.
“I want to learn how to fish,” Crescent squeaked. “Teach me how?”
Grayling blinked. It was the first time anyone had wanted to learn from him. “Of course.”
“Did you see Crescent bring down that buck with one shot?” Moonshade gloated as they all shared the meat from fifteen-year-old Crescent’s first big kill.
“I’d hunt a long better if I had a wolf-friend,” Crescent sighed.
“You’ve have one soon enough,” Grayling said. “It always happens in its own time.”
“No one has to wait this long!” Crescent pouted.
“Shh, daughter,” Moonshade soothed. “This is a proud day for you. Every Wolfrider knows the joy of a wolf-friend, in time. But not every Wolfrider can feed the entire tribe with one kill.”
“I’m a joke of a Wolfrider,” Crescent confessed to Grayling as they relaxed in the dreamberry patch that night. “A Wolfrider without a wolf. And don’t tell me it happens in its own time. That worked when I was eight... and eight-and-four – but I’ll be two eights old next new-green, and I refuse to believe it’s natural for an elf of two eights to have no wolf-friend.”
Grayling could say nothing to cheer her. So he plucked a dreamberry off the bush and bounced it off her nose. Crescent giggled, her cares forgotten. And Grayling encircled her waist in a tight embrace. It seemed the sorrows of the past were over.
Crescent got her wolf-friend when she turned eighteen. But not before the cub’s mother was killed and the pup itself brutalized by the human filth. They had thought the humans simple beasts, no different from a rival wolfpack. Rivals beasts that needed to be driven out. But they were wrong.
“We have to make them leave us alone,” Grayling begged Bearclaw.
“I told them to leave,” Bearclaw growled. “And if they don’t listen... then we’ll have to ride in their camp and drive them out.”
“You told them to leave before! Three turns have passed, and they still haven’t left. They’re growing bolder, Father! First they threw spears at us. Now they’ve killed our wolves. How long before one of their spears hit home?”
“And what would you have me do, little fish?” Bearclaw chuckled.
Grayling’s eyes darkened. “My mother used to call me that.”
Bearclaw remembered, grew uncomfortable. “Don’t trouble me, Grayling. We’ll send those humans running soon enough. I gave them their warning. If they refuse to hear it... well then,” he chuckled. “I’ll find a stronger way of reasoning with them.”
He found his way of reasoning. He stole human cubs, some infants, others lanky children almost as tall as elves. Sometimes he left them hanging from tree branches near game trails. Other times he dropped them deep in the woods to find their own way home. Each time Grayling’s fears grew.
“We can’t keep doing this!” he snapped at Bearclaw.
“You fuss as much as Joyleaf!” Bearclaw snorted. “Never have I seen a lad squawk and cackle like an old hen.”
“I’m sure Bearclaw has it all in hand,” Crescent said later. “He’s a good chief. He’s your father, after all.”
A month later the humans showed how well Bearclaw had matters in hand. Woodhue was carried into camp by a sympathetic wolf. His right eye was gone.
Crescent leaned back against her lovemate as she craned her neck to bite the sprig of dreamberry Pike dangled over her head. Grayling sat down next to the two and snatched the dreamberries for himself.
“Not fair,” Crescent pouted. “You cheat, Uncle.”
“There’s more dreamberries in the bushes to be found,” Pike teased. “Why don’t the three of us go have a look...”
The girl giggled as she got to her feet. “You two can look yourselves. I’ve got my eye on an old fern-fish just beyond Goodtree’s Glen. You know the one, Uncle.”
“Aye, I know him. You’ll never spear him.”
Crescent grinned. “Even with all the lessons you’ve given me? I bet you your best fishing spear that we’ll feast on fern-fish tonight!”
“Deal,” Grayling held out his hands, and they clasped palms on it. Crescent got up from the dreamberry bush. “And be careful,” Grayling called to her retreating back. “The humans are still restless! Don’t chase that fish beyond our boundaries.”
Crescent laughed back. “The Glen’s well inside our borders. You worry too much, Grayling!”
Crescent was dead. They found her leathers and her broken fishing spear alongside a still patch of water in the meandering stream.
Leathers... and blood... and the scent of human musk heavy in the air.
They had taken her from the water where she had speared the old fern-fish. Grayling had found the dead fish at the bottom of the pool. Crescent had won the bet just before her death.
He took his best fishing spear and buried it in the soft mud of the riverbed. It was a poor howl, but it was all he could give her.
Strongbow wanted to make war on the humans. Not even the head of the human chief appeased his wrath. **It won’t be done ‘til they’ve all be slaughtered! Every last one!**
“Is this your answer?” Joyleaf demanded of Bearclaw. “Bring more hatred and rage down on us? Did it bring Crescent back? You’ve only made things worse!”
Bearclaw wheeled around at her. “You question me? Even YOU?! If this is the thanks I get, I’ll take my company elsewhere!”
“Go!” Joyleaf screamed at his retreating back. “Go and don’t come back! This tribe is better off without you!”
They heard the wails from the human camp come sundown. Grayling feared Joyleaf was right; the humans would want revenge.
Was Joyleaf right about Bearclaw?
It was foolish to kill the human chief.
Bearclaw had committed much foolishness lately. Deadly foolishness...
**They must pay!** Strongbow continued to rage.
“Killing solves nothing, Strongbow,” Grayling said gently. “Killing won’t bring Crescent back. We must concentrate on what’s to come. We must... we must make sure this never happens again, ever!”
**What does it matter now? My daughter is gone! And I will have my vengeance!**
“Strongbow–”
**Coward! Where were you, anyway? Playing with Pike while my daughter was being stalked by humans?**
The accusation stung him. He should have been with Crescent. “Strongbow,” Grayling touched his shoulder. Strongbow slapped his hand away.
**Prattling songbird! Useless fisher with your useless words! Would that you had died instead of my girl!**
Grayling flinched. “I know you don’t mean that, and I forgive you... this one time.”
Enraged at his composure, Strongbow slapped him across the face. Grayling flinched again, but did not retreat. “I will forgive that too, but I will not forget as swiftly.”
**I don’t care!** Strongbow snapped.
“He does not mean that, you know,” Joyleaf told Grayling when she caught up with him later.
Grayling smiled bitterly. “In sending there is only truth. He may not mean it tomorrow, but he meant it then.”
Joyleaf stroked his hair softly. “My poor Grayling. I worry for you, sometime. You have all your father’s passions, and your mother’s too. You feel everything... so intensely. Sorrow and joy alike. I remember how overjoyed you were when Shale was born. And I remember how you wept when you watched Crescent take her first steps. But when grief comes... I fear some days you’ll be swallowed up whole by it. Like your father.”
**It’s his fault Crescent is dead!** Grayling vowed. **He didn’t do enough to save her! He didn’t do enough to save Mother either! He runs and hides in the Now of Wolf-thought and the rest of us be cursed!**
Joyleaf flinched. “You can’t expect a chief to be without fault... without mistakes.”
“I can! I can expect everything from a chief!”
“A chief... or a father you wish you had?”
“You know Bearclaw is not fit to lead. You said so.”
“That was anger talking. I only wish... I wish I could make him understand! He will endanger us all if he cannot rise above his own grief and anger. I wish... I wish I could make him see!”
* * *
Three years after Crescent’s death Joyleaf made Bearclaw see his folly. The whole holt knew she had challenged him. Now the whole holt waited impatiently for what would happen next. At last Joyleaf returned to Father Tree alone.
**Where is Bearclaw?** Strongbow demanded. **What have you done with h–**
Joyleaf was carrying New Moon in her right hand. And her ivy headband had been twisted up to hold a lock of hair above the crown of her head. She and Bearclaw had been feuding alone in the forest for hours, it seemed. And now she had returned, bearing the chief’s lock.
Grayling sucked in a breath. She seemed transformed. She held her chin higher. She walked with shoulders straighter. Her eyes were cold... sad.
“What have you done?” Moonshade gasped.
“I challenged him. He lost. It’s over now.”
**No!** Strongbow leapt up. **How dare you overthrow our chief?**
“Is it my right, archer. Or have you forgotten that? We’ve lived too long under the rule of one elf. And his time is over now. I am chieftess now. Bearclaw is gone.”
“How could you?” Moonshade demanded. “He is our chief.”
“Wolves will challenge for leadership when the chief wolf is too weak, or is mad with the foaming sickness.”
**How dare you?** Strongbow thundered.
Joyleaf turned her eyes on him. **No! How dare you, Strongbow? I am your chief now, not Bearclaw. Do you challenge me? Do you? If so then step forward. If not then keep quiet. Or go and join Bearclaw.**
Strongbow recoiled. So did Grayling. The transformation was unsettling.
“I did it so we could all survive,” Joyleaf said. “Bearclaw would have run headlong into the human camp and brought their wrath down on us. Fear, fighting, blood and fire – that is not the Way. Do you not all remember? Two-Spear would have taken us into a deadly battle with the humans – and that’s why Huntress Skyfire challenged him. But Bearclaw kept to the Now too blindly. He forgot that even wolves remember their past wounds and grow beyond them. He was trapped in a cycle – he still is! Don’t think I didn’t try to ease him free. I tried kindness, I tried reason, and I tried patience. But I refused to stand by and let him destroy us.”
Joyleaf laid down her rules for the tribe bluntly. No one was allowed to leave the Holt’s borders without her permission. Those who were granted permission had to travel in a party of no less than three elves and wolves. No one was to ever initiate contact with humans. No more tricks. No more cut snares. No more stolen food.
“I refuse to believe the humans will never forget a grudge. Humans die. They re-seed their lands. And gradually they forget. We will not lose another elf to their Pillar of Sacrifice. This I promise you. And I also promise you this – the moment another one of us falls to the humans, I will step down as chief.”
Strongbow scowled. But Grayling felt emboldened with hope.
“We will stand by you, Blood of Nine Chiefs,” he said.
“I am making you my heir,” Joyleaf told him that night when she took him aside. “You are Blood of Chiefs. And if need be, I will step down and tie your lock myself.”
“No, please, Joyleaf. I haven’t the heart to be chief. I’ve never wanted the chief’s lock.”
“This is why you will surely make a good one. I may never have another child – my first and only daughter perished long before you were born. You are my choice to succeed me. And it is your right.”
“I don’t care about my rights.”
“I know. And I do not care for the heavy hand of leadership. And I wish – oh... how I wish I could bolt into the woods and bring Bearclaw back, cleanse him of his darkness and hold him close again. But... it cannot be.”
Grayling nodded. “Wisdom is learning to accept what is here and now.”
“You remember.”
He smiled, but there was sadness in his eyes. “I remember all you’ve taught me, my mother in all but blood.”
But Joyleaf did have another cub. With Bearclaw’s departure from the tribe Recognition visited the elves twice in eight years. First Eyes High and Shale – once simply occasional lovemates – Recognized. And when their little son Skywise was six years old, Joyleaf crossed paths with Bearclaw one last time.
Strongbow told them all about the encounter in the forest: the bear hunt gone wrong, Bearclaw’s appearance at the last moment, the strange looks that passed between the outcast and the chieftess. Recognition! Surely Joyleaf would welcome Bearclaw back into the tribe now.
But she did not. And Bearclaw disappeared into the woods once more. Grayling heard his mournful howls in the early morning, after Joyleaf returned to the Holt.
**How could she refuse him?** Strongbow brooded. **Recognition is Recognition! How could she spurn him after what they shared?**
“You would ask me that?” Grayling looked at him askance.
Strongbow shot him a withering look. **Well, you have what you’ve always wanted. Bearclaw and Joyleaf will have a cub that will take the chief’s lock. You will sunder all responsibility to the tribe and continue in blissful indolence. But I will not pledge myself until I see what manner of cub that she-wolf bears.**
Ten years after Bearclaw’s exile from the tribe, his daughter – the child he had long hoped Joyleaf would bear him – was born. The humans had abandoned the forest the year before, and now even in daylight the Holt rang with joyful noise. Joyleaf presented her to the tribe as was a chief’s right, then retired to sleep away the exhaustion of labour. The infant, however, was less inclined to sleep. Rain lay the newborn child in Grayling’s arms. “Maybe you can lull your sister to sleep.”
“My sister...” Grayling murmured. “Little Swift.”
Joyleaf was right. He did feel everything too strongly, both sorrow and joy.
But now there was only joy, for the little baby had banished his lingering sadness.
He cradled Swift in his arms as he paced alongside the riverbank. The other elves were slowly retiring to their dens as well, and brother and sister had a quiet moment to themselves.
The baby fussed and shook her tiny fists.
“Shh, shh,” Grayling soothed. “Go to sleep, little cub.”
Swift blinked up at him with huge blue eyes.
“Just like your mother,” Grayling smiled. “You know... you’ve a very lucky little wolf to have her. You’ll never want for anything with her watching over you.”
A mournful howl drifted down from the nearby hills. Grayling recognized it instantly. Swift stiffened in her swaddling bundle as though she did too.
“That’s your father,” Grayling told her gently. “My father too. He... he can’t be here. It’s just as well. He has a goodness deep inside his heart... but there is much anger in it too... and a wildness that cannot be tempered. And... well, he only sees what he wants to, and that’s not wisdom. But you needn’t worry that he’s so far away from us. Because I’ll always be here to look after you.”
Swift squirmed inside her leather blanket, then settled quietly into the crook of his arm and drifted off to sleep. Grayling gingerly sat down on the ground, careful not to jostle her awake.
This was how it should be. Not a chief, but a chief’s brother. An elder brother to guide her through the dangers of life... the way he wished he had been guided as a cub.
He heard Bearclaw howl one more time. He ignored him.
“Grayling?” the little cub looked at him as they lay alongside the riverbank, watching the fish swim lazily below.
“Hmm?”
“Why aren’t you and Strongbow friends?”
“Oh... well... I suppose we are... sometimes...”
“But you’re not. You’re not close. Not like you and me.”
He gave the five-year-old a hug. “No. Never like you and me.”
“Why not?”
Grayling shrugged. “It... it’s complicated. I was different when I was younger. Angrier. Sadder. I wanted Strongbow to be something he wasn’t. And he wanted me to be something I wasn’t. And it wasn’t good for either of us. But it’s better now, with your mother as chief.”
“Why not when Father was chief?”
“It’s complicated,” Grayling said again. “Our father... he made things difficult... more difficult than they should have been.”
“Why did he leave?”
“I told you. Because your mother challenged him to be chief and she won.”
“But when Greystripe took over the pack Fernfoot didn’t leave. He just became second chief wolf.”
“True. But sometimes it’s better if the former chief leaves. Father never could have stayed, having lost his chief’s lock.”
Swift wrinkled her nose. “So he goes off into the forest? All alone? And he’s happy?”
“I imagine... he’s content. If he still lives...”
“I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t imagine being all alone like that.”
Again he hugged her. “Well, you don’t have to worry about that, do you?”
“Come on, Grayling!” the seven-year-old Swift called over her shoulder. “Catch up!”
Grayling chased her with feigned clumsiness, tripping over creepers and roots every few steps. Swift laughed and ran faster down the game trail. As soon as she turned her back to him, Grayling accelerated and swept out his arms to catch her. Swift turned on her heel and ably dodged her brother’s grasp. She abandoned the game trail and broke through a thick cluster of ferns, hoping to lose him in the underbrush.
Too quickly the underbrush vanished and Swift found herself in a clearing. But it was no natural clearing. To Swift’s keen eyes it seemed the trees had all been knocked down by some unseen force.
“Gotcha!” Grayling swept up her up in bear hug. Then he too noticed where they stood, and he tried to draw her back into the forest.
“Come on. Joyleaf will have our hides if she finds out how far we strayed.”
“Wait,” Swift drew away. “Is this where the five-fingered creatures used to live?”
“The humans. Yes. This was their Holt. Their ‘camp.’” Grayling shuddered. “Now come on.”
“Why? There’s nothing scary here, just an old rock.” Swift walked over to the spire of limestone and sniffed at it. “It smells... strange... musky. Is that what humans smell like?”
“Yes. Now come on, cub.”
She sniffed again. “And an older smell... almost... almost like us. What is it, Grayling? Why does it smell of us? Why does it smell... almost like you?”
Grayling shuddered again. Yes... he had a poor sense of smell compared to some of the others, but even he could scent that elusive trace of an elf-girl, taken in the prime of youth.
“You’ll learn later. Not now.”
Five years passed before Swift caught the distinctive smell of humans again. This time she found a far fresher trail.
“Guess what?!” she exclaimed as she rode into the Holt on Nightrunner’s back. “Guess what I saw! A human!”
Her outburst did not have the expected reactions
“All these seasons of peace... gone,” Redmark swore.
“NO!” Moonshade wailed. “They can’t be back! Not again!”
**Where?** Strongbow demanded. **How close? How many?**
“Why are humans so dangerous?” Swift asked Grayling later that evening. “That cub I saw didn’t seem very scary.”
“A cub, no. But a full-grown human male...”
“A full-grown male bear is dangerous too. But I’ve never seen that kind of fear in their eyes before.”
“Bears don’t kill for the pleasure of it... torture animals just to delight in their pain.”
Swift sucked in a sharp breath.
“I was too blunt.” Grayling hung his head. “I should have been gentler.”
“No, no, Grayling. You... you never try to feed me cub-tales like Skywise does. You always tell me the straight truth. Be blunt. Tell me everything.”
“Humans used to hunt us. Because they thought... I don’t know what they thought. They used to pray to something called ‘Gotara.’ An ancestor, perhaps. A long-dead chief. Perhaps they pray to him even now. And they killed our wolves and hunted us to please their Gotara. They caught One-Eye one day in the woods and tortured him. They put out his eye with a burning stake, and would have killed him if a wolf hadn’t saved him. They learned their lesson when it came to Crescent. They killed her swiftly.
“They hated us, but Bearclaw helped them in their hatred,” Grayling continued. “He kidnapped human cubs and left them in the forest to howl for their mothers. He cut their snares, poisoned their kills with berries designed to leave them running for the nearest bush. Your mother begged him to stop taunting them, but he wouldn’t. And when Crescent died he killed the human chief. It only made things worse. They started leaving a deadly poison for our wolves. They killed Bearclaw’s wolf. That was what sent him down his final path to madness, and what prompted your mother to challenge him for the chief’s lock.”
“So... our father is to blame for One-Eye’s blinding... and Crescent’s death.”
“I used to think so. But he doesn’t bear all the blame.” Grayling hung his head. “Had I gone with Crescent that day... I might have–”
“But Bearclaw made the humans hate us. He taunted them and baiting them until they couldn’t bear it anymore.”
“He didn’t know... he couldn’t understand. Something in his head... just couldn’t see how wrong he was. It’s so easy to say ‘The humans stole our kill, so we should steal theirs.’ From there... ‘They killed our wolf, so we should strike at their camp. They killed one of us... we should kill one of them. They want to destroy us all... we should destroy them.’”
“That’s no answer!”
“No, it isn’t. And that’s why Joyleaf took the chief’s lock from him. And that’s why... in the end, Bearclaw knew he couldn’t win against her.”
“I hate him! And I hate that he’s my sire. To think... he’s a part of me.”
“You shouldn’t hate him. Pity him instead.”
“I do hate him! High Ones, what if he’s still alive, out there somewhere? What if he ever comes back? What if he tries to take the chief’s lock back from Mother?”
Grayling hugged her tightly. “He won’t.”
“What if he does?”
“Your mother won’t let him. I won’t let him.” He thought of the blows Bearclaw used to deal out to tribemates and the thoughtless cruelty he used to enforce his will. “Don’t you worry about him. He can’t hurt us – he can’t hurt you. I swear, I’ll never let him hurt you.”
He thought about it later, and fear gripped him as he imagined Bearclaw coming back to the tribe to claim the cub he had always wanted. No, he’d kill the old badger before he’s let him lay a hand on Swift. Suddenly fear bred sudden hatred, and Grayling fought back the dark thoughts that came over him.
No, he did not hate Bearclaw anymore. How could he hate a ghost?
The human wardrums echoed in the distance. They had become a constant refrain the last month.
Seventeen-year-old Swift moaned softly. “They give me a headache. Brr... I don’t like it. They’ve been pretty quiet since they came back. Now... the attack on Brownberry and Foxfur... and less than two moons later the drumbeats. It means something bad, doesn’t it, brother?”
Grayling could only shrug. “I never claimed to understand humans.”
“It’s that darkness I’ve sensed in the forest... the eerie silence that follows that great night of skyfire.”
“You might be right.”
“Strongbow and Moonshade are nervous. Moonshade holds baby Dart like she’d smother him.”
“Can you blame them?”
“No.”
“We should leave this part of the forest... wait for their tempers to fade.”
“We seem to the be the only ones who think so,” Swift leaned against his shoulder. “Even Skywise looks at me like I’m mad when I say we ought to make a second Holt somewhere away from the human camp.”
“Skywise...” Grayling flashed her a grin. “So tell me... are you two... yet?
Swift wrinkled her nose. “He’s my brother, Grayling, not my lovemate! I... I couldn’t imagine ever... joining with him.”
“Couldn’t?” Grayling considered a moment. “I could... if I didn’t know how... devoted he is to maidens.”
Swift giggled.
“So he’s just your brother, eh?”
Swift straightened to look at him better. “You’re not jealous, are you? That... that Skywise and I are as close as brother and sister? I would hate to think you fear he’s taken something from you.”
Grayling smiled gently. “Of course not.”
She gave him a bear hug. “I know you always liked being the only lad in my life, when I was a baby.”
“That’s certainly not the case now, is it?” he teased. “Skywise... and Pike...”
“You’re sure you don’t mind sharing him?” she asked. “I’d hate to think I’ve stolen my own brother’s lovemate.”
“Pike was made to be shared.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” she murmured under her breath.
Grayling laughed and caught her in a hug again. “Ah, where’s the little girl who couldn’t even said ‘join’ without giggling and turning red? My little lass is growing up.”
“You’re the only one who sees it. Even Skywise still calls me ‘cub’ now and then.”
“You’ll thump him a few more times and he’ll remember.”
A sending star touched them both, interrupting their quiet evening. Chieftess Joyleaf was calling a tribal council.
Grayling waited at the Holt restlessly. He wished he could have gone on the hunting party with Swift and Joyleaf.
The elusive darkness was encroaching upon the forest. None of the elves could deny it.
“We must learn what this is,” Joyleaf had told them all. “We will form a hunting party and scour the limits of our territory. There is something that threatens us... perhaps in a way that the humans cannot. And who knows... perhaps this time the humans are united with us – however unknowingly – in a desire to live free of this danger.”
They had left when the moons were high. Still they had not returned.
Moonshade sat on a knoll of Father Tree, nursing little Dart. Rainsong stretched out against an old log, letting her lifemate Woodlock massage her swollen ankles. Dewshine and Scouter chased each other through the trees, their laughing drifting down from the branches overhead. Soon their play would be turning to that of lovemates, Grayling decided.
**Swift?** Grayling called idly. No answer. She must be beyond sending range.
“You’re too tense, fisher,” Pike teased.
“She’s a little young to be going on a hunt... especially when they hunt such... dangerous quarry.”
“Do we know it’s dangerous? And besides, Swift’s no cub.” Pike chuckled. “Oh... I could tell you stories.”
“Don’t, please. I don’t enjoy sharing that much.”
“And what makes you think I meant that?” Pike nudged him in the ribs. “You have joining on the brain, my friend.”
“I think you’re too willing to see your faults in others, Pike. You–”
And then Grayling felt the sending scream again. Instantly he was transported back in time thirty years, to the morning when Crescent cried out for help.
“Swift!” he cried. “Oh, High Ones!”
He wasn’t the only one who heard the scream. The entire tribe felt the pain of their loved ones.
All too swiftly the cries stopped. The Wolfriders staggered about the Holt madly, trying to decide what to do.
“We must go find them!” Shale cried.
**We must defend the Holt!** Strongbow insisted.
“You only say that because your kin did not ride with the chieftess!” Clearbrook said. “My lifemate is out there, perhaps dying!”
“The elders are all gone,” Dewshine said. “Who do we look to? Strongbow?”
“Grayling!” Pike turned to him. “You’re Blood of Chiefs. You’re the heir after Swift. What do you say?”
Grayling shuddered. He looked up at Strongbow, expecting a challenge. But Strongbow was looking to him too. It seemed his ever-ambitious brother had no heart to lead now that the crisis had arrived.
“We... we wait,” Grayling said at length. “Were they dead, the lifemates and parents would have felt something. We will give them until... until the morning. Then we will ride in search of them.”
They did not have to wait until dawn. Within an hour of the mind scream they heard a distant howl. It was not their tribemates’ voices, but those of friendly wolves. But the message was clear to any Wolfrider. “We live.”
“It is them,” Grayling said. “They’ve called to the nearest wolves, who have passed the message on to us.”
And sure enough, the hunting party limped back into camp in the early pre-dawn light.
But they were not all there. The hunters’ numbers had been nearly halved.
Where was Longbranch? Where were the sisters Foxfur and Brownberry?
Where was Joyleaf?
“Rain!” Moonsbreath cried as she rushed across the clearing to embrace her lifemate. Clearbrook ran to One-Eye, tears in her eyes. Nightfall searched the faces for her parents, and when she found only mournful stares, she screamed.
Grayling ran to his sister. He flung his arms about her and hugged her tightly, and she returned the embrace as strongly as her weakened limbs could manage.
**Oh, High Ones... brother,** she wept. **To hold you again...**
**Swift... is Joyleaf?**
Swift’s head dropped to his shoulder as she sobbed. Grayling needed no further answer.
Swift’s mother – the one who had been more mother to him than Trueflight – was gone.
**How?**
**Monster... creature of such... horrors... Grenn... his name... his name! Oh High Ones, it’s him! He’s come back for me!**
Her sending was disjointed. He could make little sense of him. Her sobs convulsed through her body, and her legs gave out beneath her. Grayling held her tight against his chest.
At length he asked. **Did she die alone?**
**No...** Swift seemed to recover herself. **I was there. I was holding her... I felt... felt the life leave her.**
Grayling swallowed hard. **Then it was a good death.**
At length Swift found the courage to continue the tale aloud for all to hear.
“It’s called Madcoil...” Swift concluded. “And it has elfin magic in it. It knew my soulname,” she admitted. “It knew Mother’s.”
Grayling moved behind her, a little leather thong in his hands. When he reached for her hair, Swift flinched. “No...” she whispered. Her eyes met his imploringly. “Not yet.” **Please, brother.**
“You are our chief now,” Grayling said simply. Swift closed her eyes and let the tears flow down her cheeks as her half-brother gathered up a lock of blond hair and tied it at the crown of her head.
**You are our chief,** Grayling repeated. His sending gave her strength.
Swift drew in a shaky breath. “Madcoil can be killed! Joyleaf wounded it before she died. I promised I would finish what she began, but we must work as one to destroy it. All of us. Will you help me?”
They all nodded gravely.
**We’re with you,** Grayling took her hand in his. **What must we do, chieftess?**
Swift swallowed hard, but Grayling could see a plan already forming in her eyes. Already she was pushing the sorrow aside, forcing herself to rise above the pain.
Oh, sister, you’re a far better chief than I’d be, he thought.
Madcoil was dead. Swift had killed it, with the help of the tribe. The rotting head was dragged to the human encampment, and left with a gift from the elves. Perhaps the humans would understand. Perhaps not. It did not matter now.
Swift told Grayling the secret of Madcoil’s birth, but they did not share it with the rest of the tribe. There was no need to cause further pain.
“It’s not your fault,” Grayling whispered to her.
“He’s a part of me. Just as he was a part of that... thing.”
“Shh. His madness is no part of either of us. And he’s gone now.”
“Not before taking her... one final cruelty.”
“Bearclaw would have taken his own life long ago had he known what creature he would spawn. Not even in his deepest madness would he ever seek to hurt you, or Joyleaf.”
The howl for the dead lasted all night as each fallen tribe member was remembered in song and story. Foxfur, Brownberry, Longbranch... Joyleaf. They howled the longest for Joyleaf. Even long-outspoken Strongbow wept as he sent his fondest memories of his former chieftess.
Swift rubbed at her chief’s lock many times through the howl. She looked to her tribemates with fearful gazes. But her strength never failed her once, even though it was clear she was exhausted.
Come morning – the second morning since Joyleaf’s death, Grayling retired to his little den. Swift was still up conferring with Strongbow and One-Eye, and once again Grayling was thankful that he did not have to bear the burden of the chief’s lock.
He was just beginning to drift off asleep when he heard a little cough and clearing of the throat in the doorway of his den. He looked up from his furs. Swift hovered at the door, her fur blanket in her arms.
“Grayling?” her voice was close to breaking. “My den is so empty now. Can I tree with you... at least for a little while?”
“Of course. For as long you wish.”
Swift crawled into the den with a grateful smile and snuggled up against his fur-wrapped body. Grayling wrapped his arm about her shoulders.
“Why am I going to do, Grayling?” she begged. “I know nothing about being chief. Someone else should lead. Someone older, more experienced. Strongbow... or Rain... or you, Grayling! You’re the elder Blood of Chiefs. The tribe will follow you!”
“I am the son of Bearclaw, yes, but you’re the daughter of Bearclaw and Joyleaf. That birthright cannot be denied.”
“I would deny it. I know nothing, Grayling! I’m young... untried!”
“A leader is always untried at the beginning. And you weren’t too young to find a way to get rid of Madcoil.”
Tears welled in her eyes again. “I miss Mother. I feel so... alone. I can’t do this alone, Grayling.”
He kissed the crown of her head, as he had when she was still a cub. “You don’t have to. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”
She hugged him tightly. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“I’m right here, little sister,” he repeated softly. “I’ll always be right here.”
Elfquest copyright 2014 Warp Graphics, Inc. Elfquest, its logos, characters, situations, all related indicia, and their distinctive likenesses are trademarks of Warp Graphics, Inc. All rights reserved. Some dialogue taken from Elfquest comics. All such dialogue copyright 2014 Warp Graphics, Inc. All rights reserved. Alternaverse characters and insanity copyright 2014 Jane Senese and Erin Roberts