"I saw smoke," he announced proudly. "A lot of smoke, far away."

Skiljan questioned him vigorously-"What direction? How far? How high did it rise? What color was it?"-till he became confused and frustrated.

His answers caused a stir.

Marika had less experience of the far countryside than did her elders. It took her longer to understand.

Smoke in that direction, east, at that distance, in that color, could mean only one thing. The packstead of their nearest neighbors, the Laspe, was burning. And packsteads did not burn unless intentionally set ablaze.

The Degnan packstead frothed with argument again. The central question was: to send scouts or not. Skiljan and Gerrien wanted to know exactly what had happened. Many of those who only hours earlier had demanded the gate be opened now wanted it kept closed. Even a large portion of the Wise did not want to risk huntresses if the nomads were that close.

Skiljan settled the question by fiat. She gathered a dozen huntresses of like mind and marched out. She had her companions arm as huntresses seldom did, with an assortment of missile weapons, hatchets and axes, knives, and even a few shields. Shields normally were used only in mock combats fought during the celebrations held at the turning of each season.

Marika crowded into the watchtower with the sentry on duty. She watched her dam's party slip and slide across the ice-encrusted snowfields till they vanished into the woods east of the packstead.

When she returned to her loghouse, they gave her the iron axe her dam had been sharpening, and showed her what to do. Skiljan had taken it from the nomads she had slain. It had not been cared for properly. Many hours would be required to give it a proper edge.

Not far away, Pobuda and several others-Wise, males, and huntresses who pretended to some skill in metalworking-were etching the blades of arrowheads and spears. Bhlase sat in the center of their circle with his pot of poison, carefully painting a brown, gummy substance into the etchings with a tiny brush. Marika noted that he wore gloves. The young huntress who carried the finished weapons away also wore gloves, and racked them out of the reach of the younger pups.

Marika soon grew bored with grinding the axe's edge. She had too much energy to sit still all the time. Too many strange thoughts fled through her mind while she ran the whetstone over that knicked piece of iron. She tried to banish the thoughts, to touch her dam.

There were distractions. The touch came and went. She followed the scouting party peripatetically. Mostly, she tasted their fear. Kublin kept coming to her with questions in his eyes. She kept shaking her head till his curiosity frayed her temper. "Get away!" she snarled. "Leave me alone! I'll tell you when there's something to tell."

Sometimes she tried to touch Grauel, who carried the Degnan's message to the packfast. She could not find Grauel. But she did not worry. Grauel was the best of the pack in field and forest. If she did not get through, none could, and there was no hope from that direction.

The scouts returned at dusk, unharmed but grim. Again Skiljan's loghouse filled with the adult female population of the packstead. This evening they were more subdued, for they sensed that the news was bad. Skiljan's report was terse.

"Nomads attacked the Laspe packstead. They managed to breach the palisade. They took the stores and weapons and tools, fired the loghouses, and ran away. They did not kill everyone, nor did they take many of the pups. Survivors we talked to said the nomads have taken the Brust packstead and are using it as their base."

End of report. What was not said was as frightening as what was. The Laspe, without stores or tools or weapons, would not survive. The Brust, of course, would all be dead already.

Someone suggested the Laspe pack's huntresses be brought into the Degnan packstead. "Extra paws to bear arms when the nomads come here. And thus the pack name would not die. Come summer they could take new males and rebuild."

Skiljan shook her head. "The nomads are barbarians but not fools. They did slay every female of pupbearing age. The huntresses forced them." She looked at the huntress who had spoken as though she were a fool.

That was the meth way-savagery to the last in defense of the pack. Only those too young or too old to lift a weapon would have been spared. The Laspe could be stricken from the roll of upper Ponath packs.

Marika was amazed everyone took the news with such calm. Two packs known obliterated. It had been several generations since even one had been overrun completely. It was a huge disaster, and portended far worse to come.

"What about the nomads?" someone asked. Despite tension, the gathering continued subdued, without snarling or jostling. "How heavy a price did they pay?"

"Not a price dear enough. The Laspe survivors claimed there were ten tens of tens of attackers."

A disbelieving murmur ran through the gathering.

"It does sound impossible. But they left their dead behind. We examined dozens of bodies. Most were armed males." This assertion caused another stir, heavy with distress. "They wore fetishes identifiable as belonging to more than twenty different packs. We questioned a young male left for dead, that the Laspe had not yet tortured. His will was less strong than that of our recent guest. He had much to say before he died."

Another stir. Then everyone waited expectantly.

Skiljan said, "He claimed the spring saw the rise of a powerful wehrlen among the nomads. A rogue male of no apparent pack, who came out of nowhere and who made his presence felt throughout the north in a very short time."

A further and greater stir, and now some mutters of fear.

A wehrlen? Marika thought. What was that? It was a word she did not know. There was so much she did not know.

At the far end of the loghouse, the males had ceased working and were paying close attention. They were startled and frightened. Their fur bristled. They knew, whatever a wehrlen was.

Murmurs of "rogue" and "male silth" fluttered through the gathering. It seemed Marika was not alone in not recognizing the word.

"He began by overwhelming the females of an especially strong and famous pack. Instead of gathering supplies for the winter, he marched that pack into the territory of a neighbor. He used the awe of his fighters and his powers to overcome its huntresses. He added it to the force he had already, and so on, expanding till he controlled scores of packs. The prisoner said the news of him began to run before him. He fired the north with a vision of conquest. He has entered the upper Ponath, not just because it is winter and the game has migrated out of the north, but to recapture the Ponath from us, whose foredams took the land from the ancestors of the nomads. The prisoner even suggested that the wehrlen one day wants to unite all the packs of the world. Under his paw."

The Wise muttered among themselves. Those who had opposed the sending of Grauel to the packfast put their heads together. After a time one rose to announce, "We withdraw our former objections to petitioning the silth. This is an abomination of the filthiest sort. There is no option but to respond with the power of the older abomination."

Only crazy old Zertan remained adamantly against having any intercourse with the packfast.

Skiljan said, "Gerrien and I talked while returning from the Laspe packstead. It is our feeling that another message must be sent. The silth must know what we have learned today. It might encourage them to send help. If not that, they must know for their own sakes."

The motion carried. One of Gerrien's huntresses, Barlog, was selected for the task and sent out immediately. Meth did not enjoy traveling by night, but that was the safer time. By dawn Barlog should be miles ahead of any nomad who might cross her trail.