Lost and Found

Wildstorm found herself caught in the misty half world of dreams again. She knew the dream as she knew reality because this had been one once. The mists grew dark and foreboding, and with no warning, she found herself hearing everyone, remembering everything they had said.

“They’re coming, aren’t they, Spiritwalk?” Sharparrow’s voice and face were grim.

The seer’s crossbow hung slack in his right hand. He leaned on the heavy, troll- forged sword he carried in his left, digging the point into the bark of his tree perch. “Yes, cub, I can very nearly smell them. I have never heard of magic being used in so foul a manner.”

“What do you expect?” Tallowburn lowered dark eyebrows at Spiritwalk. “Loneheart was always mad. It was only a matter of time before he used his powers to hurt someone.”

“And in his case, it was all of us,” Ice muttered, looking up at the branches where the storyteller stood, keeping watch with Charmer, the best scout of the small party of elves had and his best friend, besides.

“Whitetime should have driven him away when she had the chance,” Sharparrow growled. Those on the ground nodded assent.

Wildstorm, who was almost grown, shivered with a cub’s fear as she remembered what had happened to their chieftess at the Coolglades holt. Loneheart, the chieftess’ cousin, had always been a strange elf, one whose mind had never seemed lucid, and most of the rest of the tribe avoided him, though without actual hatred or disgust. The reason for this was not the madness itself, but the fear of his magic, powerful, strange magic which none of them had ever seen before.

All Wolfriders bonded with their wolf-friends, shared a mind and soul-link with the beasts that were their mounts and kindred. Loneheart not only bonded with other animals besides his wolf but could also say their natural wills. Strangest of all, he could do this to packs of creatures at a time. When he simply smiled and made squirrels and birds do tricks, he seemed harmless and amused the cubs. But then he began sending to more fierce things in the woods, bringing a bear into the holt on one occasion, on another, a long-tooth cat. The beasts had been killed, and Whitetime had harshly reprimanded him for both displays of his powers. As Tallowburn had said, such abilities could be dangerous. Spiritwalk and Tallowburn, as magic users themselves, had both offered to train the younger elf, but they had been refused.

None of the Wolfriders were openly hostile towards Loneheart as it went against the Way. Still, he had hatreds of them that ran deep, and in his rage, he called upon his magic to take revenge. A pack of two eights of swordfeet, large reptiles that hunted with sickle-like claws on their hind feet, had attacked the holt at midday, when most of the tribe had been asleep.

The mangled, buzzing sending that had woken a few of the tribe, Spiritwalk and Ice among them, had been Coolglades’ Wolfriders’ only warning. The seer had woken Tallowburn, Snowwolf, Sharparrow and Birdsong, while Ice had roused Charmer, who had no family and so treed with him, and Wildstorm, who was learning to hunt from them both. They gathered together and woke as many of the others as they could before the horror unfolded on the forest floor below them.

Whitetime had been the first to die. The silver-haired chieftess was pulled from her den, still groggy from Birdsong’s sent warning, by the claws of her cousin’s animal servants. A stone from Tallowburn’s sling bounced off one of the beast’s scales, but it held its ground. Sharparrow and Spring, the tribe’s healer, aimed at Loneheart, but a swordfoot stepped between their arrows and the mad elf.

The tribe’s best warriors ran from their tree houses and leapt from branches to edge towards their captive chief. Loneheart held them off with a warning. In the history of the Wolfriders, no elf had ever killed another elf, so most of them couldn’t imagine the blood that was beginning to be shed. Whitetime struggled to reach her sword, held in the beasts’ little grasping hands, while Loneheart plunged his dagger into her chest. Loneheart watched smugly as the other Wolfriders stared at him in absolute shock. With a gesture from their new master, three of the large reptiles ran sidelong into Sharparrow and Spring’s tree, sending a sudden vibration that knocked both elves off balance. The hunter grabbed an underhanging branch, but the healer fell to the forest floor below. She tried to hear her wounds, but a swordfoot kicked the back of her neck, sending its long hindclaw forward through her throat.

Ice drew his axe from the straps that crossed his back, and Charmer stayed at his side, as always, an arrow nocked above his head. Spiritwalk lock sent with the hunter, who, like himself, possessed strong sending powers, preferring mindspeech to physically talking. With their minds working in tandem, Ice and Spiritwalk hoped to drill through Loneheart’s mental defenses in order to shut his power down. The seer also had his troll- sword drawn.

As the three of them edged closer to Loneheart, Charmer suddenly screamed, clutched at his head, and fell. What had been a malevolent buzzing in the mind for Ice had been searing pain for the scout, who was almost always privy to what went on in his friend’s psyche. Without Ice’s skill, the dark sending had laid him low.

The sending became pain in the minds of all the remaining Wolfriders, save the hunter and the seer, who stood their ground and even managed to inch forward a bit. “You cannot do this thing,” Spiritwalk had growled. “We have done nothing to you.” Ice had poised his axe for throwing.

“Nothing for me, you mean,” Loneheart hissed, and Wildstorm would remember the way his face had changed if she lived to be a thousand years. Swordfeet surrounded the holt’s cubs, Whitetime’s young sister Leaffall and Wildstorm’s brother, Woodland, among them. The grim, crazy eyes of the usurper flashed as he informed his people coolly that the cubs were to be kept by his beasts until such a time as they would recognize his birthright to be chieftain.

Ice and Spiritwalk, linked in sending, had tried to force his mind to concede in a staredown. Ice actually locked hands with the mind-sick elf, baring his teeth in a snarl while the other’s face remained calm as a statue’s. As Ice tried to best Loneheart physically, Bracken, the tribe’s best hunter, Snowwolf, Tallowburn and Sharparrow had taken advantage of the master’s confusion to attack the large reptiles. Snowwolf and Tallowburn took one down with sling and arrows while Sharparrow wounded the leg of one guarding the cubs.

Spiritwalk could have been killed during the melee, but he remained untouched, stock-still, green eyes blazing into those of Loneheart. If any of the Wolfriders could have destroyed Loneheart mentally, it was Spiritwalk, whose senses felt and touched and smelled magic as if it were a concrete thing. Spiritwalk, who could send his soul “out” and could delve deep into the energies of the world. But even he was not prepared for what happened next.

Wildstorm felt it with Ice and Charmer. Loneheart linked his mind with the bloody, animal psyches of the whole pack of swordfeet, hurling rage at his challengers. When the sending knocked Ice and Spiritwalk both back, it was as if the force of death itself sunk its claws into the free, fiery tribe and pulled a measure of life from them all.

The swordfeet took random slashes at the surrounding Wolfriders, most of whom dared not fight back because their children were within the ring. The tribal elders, including Wildstorm’s mother, Bonescraper the Tanner, then debated verbally, since sending had become difficult for them in the demented magic-user’s presence. Seeing their cubs in danger broke the deadlock for them. Nothing caused dread for the fierce Wolfriders more than a threat to their children. The mad elf had won his position more due to shock and fear than by actual violence. The killing still seemed like an implausible nightmare to most of them. Death from the outside had always taken many forms, but it had never stemmed from one of their own. Even Two-Spear, progenitor of their tribe, had been driven away for madness, not slain.

Those who could not abide this abomination, eight of them total, had fled the holt, hoping to get beyond Loneheart’s sending range. They were not truly abandoning their people, but trying to gain distance, with their wisest and most disciplined leading the refugees. They planned to return as soon as their method of attacking could be made definite.

Unfortunately, the years of insanity had also hidden Loneheart’s years of practice with his talent. The swordfeet, one for each of the escaped elves, followed them with the single goal of destroying them all. Two swordfeet could present trouble for a Wolfrider hunting band. Eight was a near impossible number to beat. The beasts had pursued the party for miles, only slackening recently, showing moments of confusion interchanged with bursts of bursts of ferocity. So far, the small band counted themselves lucky. Wildstorm and Tallowburn had sustained minor wounds, which had been helped by Snowwolf’s care, but nothing more serious had occurred.

Now, they were taking a needed rest that they could ill afford. The attacks were more sporadic now, but as Loneheart’s anger grew, the six remaining swordfeet fought like demons whenever they found the elves. Strong, fast, and intelligent without magical aid, the large saurians were now difficult for even Charmer and Sharparrow, their quickest fighters, to hit. Worse, with Loneheart controlling them, the swordfeet had no fear of fire, which meant they attacked day or night. Staying to the trees was not an option, at least not for the whole band, for the elves’ wolf-friends could not follow and were left open to attack. The elves could hunt from the branches, sleep and eat there, but they had to stray to the forest floor to retrieve their kills and fill their water skins, and more than one battle with the swordfeet had begun that way. Then, there was the way the swordfeet had knocked Sharparrow and Spring from their tree-perch. Six swordfeet, orchestrated by the mad elf, could shake them all out of even the largest trees.

Even without Loneheart, hunting swordfeet killed any prey they could surround and didn’t stop killing until there was nothing else but their own kind alive. The idea that the elves were prey had been ingrained into their animal psyches. The Coolglades Wolfriders were exhausted, as two of their number always kept watch over the wolves and over those that chose to sleep, not that any of them slept long or well. Growing hedges of brambles around the refugees’ campsites further exhausted Tallowburn, Spiritwalk’s constant use of his magic-sense had him in pain, and Charmer’s sharp eyes were strained to near-uselessness.

“This might be the last of it,” Spiritwalk sighed. “Though they’ll come upon us soon, he’s getting weaker.” It was a futile offering of hope in the desolate dream.

“Aye, and angrier,” Tallowburn contested. “Two Spear’s Madness, but this one might be the worst of them all.”

“Then we need to move, and quickly,” Sharparrow nodded.

Spiritwalk, though nominal leader, agreed with his younger friend. “Charmer, can you take point?” The weary scout nodded, leaping from the crook of the tree where he had stood with his back to Spiritwalk. He leaned on Ice’s shoulder, and the large hunter curled an arm around his companion’s back, offering a silent gesture of friendship and support. Spiritwalk climbed down more carefully, and Snowwolf moved to him, concerned, knowing that his mental fatigue was almost an injury unto itself. Spiritwalk inclined his head in gratitude for her concern, but directed his words to Birdsong. “Birdsong, bring up the tail end, and keep Wildstorm in front of you.”

“I’m sure the cub doesn’t appreciate being babied, Spiritwalk,” the blonde elf protested. For once, Wildstorm was about to agree with her, but the seer cut her words short.

“Wildstorm has great courage, yes, and Charmer and Ice have been teaching her well, but we cannot afford to lose even one of us through lack of experience or rash behavior. Do you agree, Wildstorm?”

In her young life, Wildstorm recalled very few times when an elder had asked her opinion. Spiritwalk knew and respected her well enough not to treat her like a child. She also knew, in return, that he was right and decided not to act with a cub’s rash eagerness. “You’re right, Spiritwalk. If Sharparrow and Ice have trouble with these swordfeet, then I don’t nearly have skill enough to go up against one without help.”

“Puckernuts,” Birdsong muttered tonelessly, not wanting to play “cub’s keeper.”

The elves packed up their meager belongings quickly. Usually, it was “The Way” not to waste any part of a kill, but lately, they carried only what they could and left the rest behind. Ice, Spiritwalk, and Snowwolf, the three oldest, had made the decision to do so in hopes that the swordfoot pack’s hunger instincts would override Loneheart’s control when they saw the food and give the fleeing elves more time. The beasts were growing bolder with the last, desperate shards of magic driving them, and last time had even crashed through Tallowburn’s bramble wall, and there was no reason to believe they wouldn’t do it again. Scant hope was better than nothing, though.

Already the sensation of being pursued more closely was upon them. A few of them mounted their wolves, casting looks back at their broken camp. Spiritwalk’s shoulders twitched, and he ran a hand through his curling hair, the motion violent, as if he was trying to take his mind off the pain in his head. Ice clutched at the cream and grey ruff around his wolf, Patch’s, neck a little too roughly, making her whine softly. The ones with strong sending magic could feel the approach already.

Stay calm, little huntress. The sending came from Charmer, his characteristic warmth wrapped around the mindspeech. He was tensed and afraid, too, but this imitation of his normally light mood attempted to hide that.

Charmer climbed up the nearest tree as soon as the camp was behind them. He walked through the branches silently and carefully, watching everything around him. Occasionally, he would cross back through the boughs and motion his people forward. They slipped through the brush at his guidance. Ice lock sent with their guide in order to keep an eye on his safety and to relay to Charmer whether his senses could pick up any signs of Loneheart.

The night was a soft myriad of noises, comforting for their very presence. Without them, the swordfeet could be very near. All of them knew the signs. The travelers managed several hundred eights of paces before any of them felt it again, that mental darkness that meant their pursuers were near. They had entered a clearing now, which meant it would be harder to get to the trees, and someone would have to keep the wolves safe.

A few of the wolves began to growl and bristle. “Swordfeet,” Snowwolf confirmed grimly, drawing a small throwing dagger from the series of sheathes on her hip. The non- magical healer’s sense of smell was nearly as keen as the creature she’d taken her name from. “They’re gathering on the left, get Charmer back here.”

Wildstorm could not remember what happened between Spiritwalk’s muddled sending to the scout and the moment the swordfeet were upon them. The creatures struck with skyfire intensity, knocking several of the party down, scoring them with their small claws while preparing to attack with their larger foot talons. Wolves leapt for the saurians’ throats, only to be knocked away.

One of the strafing passes knocked Birdsong forward, the reptile scraping its claws across her shoulders. It gave a hard kick to the blonde elf’s back, sending its bladelike claw into her spine. She fell into Wildstorm at the same moment, and both elves went down.

Snowwolf was on her feet in an instant, her healer’s instincts working feverishly. “Birdsong!”

“Wildstorm!” Charmer screamed at the same time, his loud voice almost overtaking the din of the hissing reptiles.

“No . . .” Ice’s protest was more quiet, but his voice was the last distinct thing she heard as Birdsong’s body knocked her down and pushed the air from her lungs. The dream blazed with the dull red of pain.

Barking, snarling and hissing, screams and shouts, all sound melted away like fat in a flame. Wildstorm’s vision faded with an occasional flash showing through: a lurching swordfoot, one of Charmer’s arrows in one eye, one of Spiritwalk’s crossbow bolts in the other; Flamefall, her wolf, pawing at her; Ice driving his axe into a swordfoot’s back. Then the blackness claimed dream, and Wildstorm’s dream-self both, interspersed with pain the color of blood.

The glade was spattered with that red after the swordfeet had left. Wildstorm pushed her way out from under Birdsong, whose chest now was a gaping hole leading through to where the claw had entered. The talon had narrowly missed entering her own back. She backed away in horror and tripped over a dead swordfoot, the one that Charmer and Spiritwalk had killed, her eyes staring dazedly around her.

Snowwolf had fallen reaching for another dagger, her throat gashed by one of the razor claws. Another swordfoot was clasped in the jaws of Shadowtail, Birdsong’s wolf- friend, but the wolf had been gutted by a final slash of the beast’s hind foot. Patches, Ice’s wolf, Milktooth, Snowwolf’s wolf, and Fourtoe, Spiritwalk’s wolf, were little more than bloody clumps of fur. Tallowburn laid dead at the edge of the clearing, his body broken, flung against a tree by one of the swordfeet’s lashing tail. Worst of all, though, were they heavy trails of blood and dirt that pulled off in two separate directions from the battleground. One was dotted with Spiritwalk’s blood, the other with Ice’s and Charmer’s, though there was more of the scout’s.

A horrifying thought filled the young elf’s mind: the swordfeet had dragged them away to feed on them. Wildstorm flung back her head and howled for those who had been lost. A soft whine answered her. Flamefall, her wolf-friend, came to her, battered but standing, and Tallowburn’s wolf, Soulfree, followed suit. She lost her face in their comforting fur and sobbed.

In the throes of the dream, she remembered the others from Coolglades vividly: Spiritwalk, with his gentle manner and silvering hair; Birdsong, with her cool eyes and even cooler smiles; Tallowburn, the temperamental tree-shaper who always smelt of candles; Sharparrow, whose handsome looks belied his fierceness in battle; Snowwolf, skilled at healing though she had no magic to aid her. But most of all, she remembered her beloved protectors, who had been reduced to trails of blood before she could even know if they were dead or not: Ice, with his silver-gold hair and eyes like the sky on a sunny winter day, whose seriousness was often cut by his easy laughter; and Charmer, whose curls were as dark as Ice’s hair was light, and who often was the source of his companion’s laughter. He could sweet-talk jewels from a troll and had unmatched aim with an arrow-whip.

Wildstorm shivered in her sleep, recalling what had come after, smelling the blood trails as if they were puddled before her. Spiritwalk had been hurt, if not killed, and dragged away by the swordfeet. Sharparrow was not wounded or else the trail would have smelled of him, too. She knew that he had pursued those beasts that had killed the seer, for they had always been very close. Ice and Charmer had stayed as long as they could, for their prints and scents were more recent. They’d stayed and protected her body even when they’d thought she was dead.

How could they have thought she was? Even unconscious, she could have answered a sending. Then she thought of how Loneheart’s magic worked, the sending that created an unpleasant, ringing vibration, and worse to all who were privy to it when he was using his powers in anger. That interference would have masked any weak reply that she could have offered her tribemates in answer to their pleas. Now both of them were gone and probably truly dead.

There would be time enough for mourning later, she thought. There was plenty to mourn for now. The last chance for their holt’s freedom had been lost with their magic- users – Spring, Spiritwalk, Tallowburn. Ice. She swallowed hard. She could choose to follow them into death, but her survival instincts were too strong to allow it. She could go back to Coolglades, but the swordfeet might circle back and catch her. And even if she did make it back, she didn’t think Loneheart would be above killing her to make an example of those who’d tried to escape. There was nothing else to do now but howl for the lost, all the lost, and survive.

Ice had taught her to hunt with her spear, and Birdsong’s bow and quiver had been left behind. The wolves were warmth and company to her pained heart. She knew she could evade the swordfeet for a time, and perhaps the wounded had unknowingly sacrificed themselves so she could have that much-needed reprieve. She shivered, thinking that Ice and Charmer would have leapt into the beasts’ waiting jaws to keep her safe. She couldn’t disgrace their spirits by dying now.

With all the gravity of a tribal elder, Wildstorm buried the dead elves, but with the practicality of a tanner’s daughter, she took the pelts of the slain wolves. With the two remaining wolves as her only companions, Wildstorm disappeared into the forest, riding Flamefall as fast as her paws would move, Soulfree following after. The young elf was clawed by fear as well as necessity to make it out of Loneheart’s sending range.

She was the only one of the small party to travel beyond the scope of the deadly magic. After that last horrible battle, there was no sign of the swordfeet, but neither was there evidence of the four missing Wolfriders, alive or dead. Wildstorm held a true howl for the dead ones as soon as she surmised that she was safe and shed few tears for them after that. Still, sometimes, she caught a strong thread of Ice’s scent or the mildest shade of Charmer’s on Patches’ pelt, and it nearly destroyed her again.

Coolglades lay behind her, in the direction of the fixed star, but she had no desire to go back. Soon, she had all but forgotten where her holt had been. There had been too much blood to force herself to remember. The forest became her holt, the directions around here no more than suggestions. Wildstorm spent her days, then four or five turns of the seasons, hunting and howling, taking shelter in caves and hollow trees, nesting little. But for her skill as a tanner, which came almost upon instinct, she all but became a wolf herself. Occasionally, there were quiet whispers of old elfin magic, but she shrank from those places, remembering the price of such powers.

Then the white cold came, a worse, colder winter than those in the previous turns. Storms came in where the snow didn’t stop falling for days. Hard ice encased the trees, and prey animals died from not being able to obtain the nourishing bark. Soulfree and Flamefall survived by routing nests of winter mice from their dens and mud-rats from their holes. Wilstorm, in Patches’ pelt and an ill-fitting pair of boots, had less luck with the hares and mask-eyes. The bowstring cut her numb and clumsy fingers. She wished she was a wolf, then, for her friends were warm at least in their thick winter coats.

Wildstorm sheltered in the corpse of a fallen tree, surrounded by as many pelts as she could skin and halfway-tan. The wolves kept her warm when they weren’t hunting and shared their catches with her as kin would, but there was precious little to sustain the three of them. Eventually, she grew sick, the light shut away from her, denied a full belly, freezing with cold. She saw little point in struggling to stay alive. Living had been easy enough, for a time, but being alive when nearly everything had been lost to her was becoming too hard a strain to bear.

On a night when the cold stung like bone needles, she finally couldn’t endure surviving anymore. The wind shrieked like a dying animal, and the wolves were too cold themselves to leave the makeshift den. Wildstorm walked out into the near- blizzard, her limbs nearly blue with cold, hunger stabbing her stomach.

“High Ones! Let it be over! Let me die and be done with me!”

A noise over the storm and her own raging dragged her attention away from her monologue with the ancestors. She could barely make out the figures on the horizon beyond the flying snow. She saw a snatch of long, pale-brown hair. A black- haired head followed close behind the first. Humans? No, too small. They had to be the spirits of her dead tribefolk calling back to her. The pale brown head was Spiritwalk, the black hair belonged to Tallowburn . . . she caught sight of something rich and blond. “Ice . . .” Wildstorm fell forward, needing the embrace but meeting only snow.

There was nothing but cold, cold and strange, murmuring voices in what she recognized, just barely, as the common elfin tongue. She stretched towards the voices and felt herself being gathered up and lifted. Her face was cradled in fingers so warm they burned.

Warm, warm now and safe. The first time she had felt it, she’d thought she was dead. Fingers folded over her hand, just as they had then. Now, though, another hand ran down the side of her face, caressing until she woke fully, until the world of blood and mist and cold broke away.

“Beloved,” the soft tenor of the Wolfrider chieftain who’d rescued her washed against her pointed ear in a soft puff of breath. “I didn’t know whether to wake you. You were fighting the swordfeet again.”

“I told you, Blackflint,” she replied, a bit more harshly than she intended to, “when it comes, let it run its course.”

The blond head nodded once in acquiescence, the blue eyes reflecting his understanding even in the dim light. Wildstorm ducked her head, shamed. She had no cause to treat him so poorly just because she’d had a bad dream. Strong fingers curved under her chin and gently forced her to look up at her mate. Blackflint touched his lips to her forehead then curled his lithe, golden body up against her

The caring action tinged Wildstorm’s heart with sorrow even as Blackflint’s beauty brought her joy. He reminded her of Ice – his skin, his hair, his dedication to his tribefolk’s safety. She had wanted Ice for her first lovemate when she had reached an adult’s age and knew in her heart of hearts that he would have obliged her. Now, here she was with her first lovemate, who was all she’d ever wanted, despite the pain in his soul, and she couldn’t help but remember the warrior who had taught her how to survive. Then she thought of Charmer, because thoughts of him and Ice were never un- linked, and the tears fell. Charmer had taught her that life might be short, but it never had to be bitter. She was only just beginning to live that truth once more.

As the tears continued to fall, she embraced her lovemate, who’d pulled her to survival, who’d been her hope. She wept for him without knowing the reason why. He stroked the side of her pale face again, wrapped strong, sinewy arms around her, and surrounded her with his warmth.

It had been the same when he’d ridden with her back to where Coolglades had been. Reluctantly, Wildstorm had learned to accept magic again, if not trust it, as Red Rocks’ finder, Mooncat, had led their way through the long-overgrown forest to find the tanner’s home. The three riders had found the holt deserted but for one occupant.

The gibbering creature, whining and rocking in a tangle of lank, black hair, eyes blank, was Loneheart, or had been once. A round scar had shown on his temple when he moved and had looked like an arrow-wound. Someone had aimed at his head from a distance, one moment when there had been no swordfeet to take the blow for him, and the force had been enough to destroy what was left of his mind without killing him. If she hadn’t known they were dead, Wildstorm would have suspected that it was Charmer’s or Sharparrow’s work, and she had almost pictured Ice or Spiritwalk providing the necessary distraction. His wolf-friend had been feeding him, kept him alive, she suspected, for he certainly couldn’t do it himself.

The others were gone, but the scents were so old, that she could not tell whether her mother and brother had died or fled. She’d screamed at Loneheart in her frustration, wept, tore his flesh with her nails, and thrown him against a tree. An empty smile from the slack mouth had been her only explanation, the only answer, given her. She had pulled her spear-point, first on Mooncat for leading them to such desolation, then at Loneheart’s throat. Before she could deliver the final blow, she found her hand stayed by a strong grip.

Even with his skyfire anger and fierce protectiveness of Wildstorm, Blackflint could not bring himself to kill the pathetic shell they’d found. Neither would he allow his lovemate to live with the fact that she’d murdered one of her own. Loneheart’s punishment had come, and harshly, already. The damage had already been done on both sides, and vengeance would have been a hollow victory at best.

Her tribe had avenged itself, and Loneheart would never be a threat again. It should have been a comfort to Wildstorm’s mind, but it wasn’t enough. Things inside her, old places that others of her friends and family had occupied, were empty now. She needed to know whether any of those places could ever be filled again. Wrenching herself out of Blackflint’s grip, she’d spat at the miserable, empty being that had been her tribe’s destroyer, unable to contain her rage, and she would have struck him if she’d hadn’t known that one blow would have lost the battle for her. Then tears wrung like drops of flame from her eyes. She’d flown into a fury, screamed, wept, beat at one of the trees until her palms bled. She’d snarled at Loneheart, who simply rocked and drooled and smiled a grin of mad wisdom. Blackflint had caught her once more, and this time, she accepted his support, sobbing until it hurt.

Mooncat pulled her bow on the former magic-user, trusting him as little as Wildstorm did either of them, watching for danger. Blackflint cradled his lovemate against him, his gruff presence softened. She melted into his strength, weak and dizzy, the fear and anticipation of something she needed to happen but refused to, too much for her. She’d wanted the ordeal to truly be over, but instead had gotten only more questions. Nothing, it seemed, was in this place to calm the storm she was named for.

Blackflint gathered her depleted form up, and he and the finder used his belt and her cloak to strap the young huntress to Flamefall’s back. They’d traveled back to the Red Rocks holt at half pace. When she’d awoken once more, she’d cursed herself for a weak fool. Blackflint sent to her, no words, simply impressions, feelings, assurances. He’d then asked her take comfort in the fact that someone from her holt had to have lived in order to destroy Loneheart’s power. There could yet be a place, far away from that terrifying pocket of bad magic, where Wildstorm’s tribe still lived, hunting, howling, and surviving as all Wolfriders did.

The chieftain’s words were little solace, but the joining he gave her that night did. Blackflint worked at every turn to possess her, lock-sent with her mind, his thoughts a cooling balm for her soul while his skin melted the cold from her body. It went further than simple mating, further even than love. It was a deep, crushing need. When she’d wept again, and he told her it was no weakness as she’d taught herself, she truly lost her heart to him. To have someone she could trust with every facet of herself – wild, mean, hurt and soft – that was all she’d wanted since she’d come to this holt. That night, in the furs that surrounded them in Blackflint’s den, she had found him.

She’d made her peace with the specters of her past after that harrowing trip. Her old home was a memory, hopefully one that had engendered a splinter tribe as hardy and resourceful as she had become before nearly spending the last of her life for loneliness. The Wolfriders at Red Rocks loved her as one of their own and respected her as a warrior, but the elders knew the hurt cub inside needed some gentleness to heal and afforded her that as well. As she learned more about the holt’s magic-users, she grew to understand that none of the evil that had seethed within Loneheart lived in them. Mooncat, their Glider, Smartwing, and the young healer, Mist, became her fast friends and helped her to relearn laughter, more and more often utilizing the very talents she’d at first feared.

Then there was Blackflint, her support, her mate, her warmth and security, who shared his home and his love with her. Blackflint was her home, for he alone knew what it meant to strive alone without a family. He had shut the others out after his first mate had been killed and stubbornly kept to himself with a chief’s independence, allowing only the tribe’s tracker, Sure-Eyes, and his long-time companion, Treehorn, know his pain. Not even his own son, Clearstone, whom he protected with his life, could erase the darkness that hovered over the chieftain for more than a few hours. It always laid in wait for Blackflint like a serpent, coiled inside his soul, choosing its moment to sink its fangs in again and again. He’d left his soul in arrest with mourning until she came, had even stopped Sure-Eye’s best efforts to help him in the darkness of that winter. It was only when he knew another pained soul like his that he’d let himself finish what the others’ kindness had started. Helping her had revived him.

Now, though, she watched him sleeping peacefully, the light from the low candles throwing gold on his hair, giving him back some of the youth he’d lost to pain and worry. Wildstorm curled close to keep the chill out of her skin and bones. Her lovemate’s comforting, rich scent covered her like a blanket.

Beloved, forgive me for wandering so far away. Sometimes, I forget, she sent to the slumbering mind.

He moved, and even in sleep, he knew what she needed. The softness of his kiss took her lips, and he embraced her with body and mind.

You never left.

The End