Maverick

WhiteTail’s eyes narrowed. “Yes? I’m listening. ”

“Well, more food than you can imagine, anyway. We won’t want for anything. ”

“ And in the meantime we’re just supposed to sit and wait patiently?”

“Don’t worry, daughter. SilverSides will lead and protect us. She promised she would. Just as she promised that she would return. ”

WhiteTail turned around in a tight, nervous circle, glared at her father, and turned around again. Whatever was left of her patience finally gave up the ghost.

“You addled old fool! For twelve days and nights now you’ve kept the hunt here in PackHome and filled their heads with stories of SilverSides! In the meantime, the bellies of the younglings growl with hunger and the pups are crying because their mothers have no milk! “

LifeCrier turned to face her; involuntarily, WhiteTail’s hackles went up and her lips drew back in a snarl, exposing double rows of needle-sharp teeth

“Father, I don’t care if SilverSides is coming back someday. Your pack is starving now! You call yourself the leader of PackHome; when will you get your head out of the sky and lead the hunt?”

LifeCrier sagged back on his haunches and let his ears fall flat. With a sudden start, WhiteTail noticed the pain and confusion in the old kin’s eyes. “My own daughter,” LifeCrier whispered. “My own daughter challenges me. ”

Seeing the pain in her father’s eyes, WhiteTail felt a sudden stab of remorse. Fighting for control over her emotions, she lowered her hackles, crouched down on her belly, and laid her head on her forepaws. “I’m sorry, Father. ” She looked up at him with big, sad, puppy-dog eyes. “I spoke without thinking. I said things I didn’t mean. “

LifeCrier stood up, trotted over, and gave her a friendly little nuzzle behind the ears, as he used to when she was just a pup. “That’s all right, WhiteTail. Every now and then the FirstBeast gets into all of us and makes us say things we didn’t mean. ” She relaxed, and gave him an apologetic lick on the muzzle. LifeCrier returned a paternal smile. “I’m sure SilverSides forgives you for your momentary lapse of faith. ”

With great effort, WhiteTail kept her hackles down.

LifeCrier gave her one more nuzzle behind the ears, and then started poking around in the sleeping furs that lay piled in one corner of the cave. “Now, where did I leave that amulet? Ah, here it is. ” LifeCrier pulled out the badge of his office-a broken circuit board suspended from a braided necklace made of robotic nerve wire-and slipped it over his head. “Well, it’s time to address the faithful. Coming, Daughter?”

At first she was going to demur, but then the germ of an idea occurred to her. Suppressing a wicked smile, she sweetly said, “Of course, Father. I’d love to be with you. ” The old kin got to his feet and trotted out of the cave with WhiteTail beside him.

The barking and yipping started the moment someone in the crowd spotted LifeCrier. A few in the crowd gave themselves up to their excitement and howled in BeastTongue. By the time the old kin had crossed to the rocky knoll that overlooked the clearing, the noise had resolved into a rhythmic chant:” Life Crier, Life-Crier, Life-Crier…. ”

WhiteTail stopped at the base of the knoll and watched her father as he climbed. At the top he paused a moment to look out upon the crowd with a broad, tail-wagging smile on his face. All eyes were on him, he knew, and he basked in the glory. Then he sat down, flattened his ears, closed his eyes, and raised his voice in a long, mournful howl of BeastTongue.

The crowd returned his benediction. The sight and sound astonished WhiteTail; over two hundred kin all packed into a clearing, sitting with their backs arched stiffly, muzzles raised in a deafening unison howl.

LifeCrier dropped his head and switched to the formal cadences of HuntTongue. “Listen!” Abruptly, the howling stopped. “Hear me, O kin! I tell of the time before time, and of a promise made to our mother’s mother’s earliest dam. ”

“Praise the OldMother!” an excitable convert near WhiteTail shouted. She looked him over quickly and found him much like the others: scruffy, underfed, possibly good-looking if he’d just groom his fur. But there was a little too much hunger in his eyes, and he sported a fresh scar on his left rear leg. Another loser, she decided, dismissing him with a sniff.

“Listen!” LifeCrier said again. “In the begi

“Praise the OldMother!” the convert shouted again, this time getting the cue right.

LifeCrier’s face darkened, and his voice took on an ominous tone. “But though they were blessed, those first kin knew it not. Instead, they let the spirit of the FirstBeast move among them, and give them evil counsel. Then brother turned against sister, and father against child, for they all desired to lead the Great Pack. When the OldMother saw this, she was greatly displeased, and she sent her chosen one, GreyMane, to set us back on the scent of righteousness. ”

Several of the other converts had by now picked up on the rhythm of the sermon, and they shouted, “Have mercy on us, OldMother! “

LifeCrier acknowledged the response with a slight nod and resumed. “But hard were the hearts of those first kin, and blind were their eyes to truth. GreyMane’s brother was full of the spirit of the FirstBeast, and the pack stood behind him as he ripped the life from her throat. Then did the OldMother fall on the Great Pack, her hackles as tall as great trees, her fangs gleaming like the sun. With thunder and fire, she drove the kin from the Forest of Dawn and scattered them to the winds, to suffer and die in the world until their children’s children’s children had paid the price of their sins. ” LifeCrier paused for a breath.

The converts yelled their enthusiastic responses.

Slowly, lovingly, LifeCrier looked over the crowd. His ears relaxed; his expression softened. In a gentler tone of voice, he continued. “Thus has it been for a thousand generations. We are born. We suffer. We die. Our pups go hungry, our old ones fall victim to the sharpfangs, and our best and brightest hunters fight tooth and claw for the right to lead, for but a summer or two. While through the ages, the faithful have waited for the sign that we are at last forgiven. Through flood and famine, through the raging fires of autumn and the bitter frosts of winter, even when hope seemed as hard to find as a redwing’s teeth, generations of kin have lived and died in the belief that the OldMother would send the Chosen One again, and we would once again live in harmony in the Forest of Dawn.

“Some have said that the believers were fools. Some have said that we waited in vain. ” LifeCrier paused to look the crowd over one more time, an enigmatic smile playing on his lips. The only sound from the converts was a disorganized mumble.

Then the old kin puffed his chest, raised his ears, and loosed a joyous bark. “Brethren, friends, members of the Great Pack: I am here today to tell you that the wait has not been in vain. For I bring you good news; the Chosen One has been sent among us, and her name is SilverSides!”

The crowd went up in another tumult of yipping and barking. Strained shouts of “Praise the OldMother!” mingled with shouts of “Praise SilverSides!” For a moment, watching the fervor of the crowd, WhiteTail wondered if her father really had any idea of the kind of energy he’d tapped. Then she put the question out of her mind. There were enough little problems to handle without confronting the big one.