Where there is no waste, there is no want. So the Wise told pups more times than any cared to hear or recall.

The old females ordered a blind set in the open field, placed two skilled archers inside, and had several corpses dragged out where the scavengers would think they were safe. When they descended to the feast, the archers picked them off. Pups scampered in with the carcasses. The males let them cool out, then butchered them and added them to the larder.

There was a labor to occupy, but not to preoccupy. One by one, some with an almost furtive step, the Degnan went to the top of the palisade to gaze eastward, worrying.

Skiljan returned long after dark, traveling by Biter light, burdened with trophies and captured weapons. "No more than five escaped," she announced with pride. "We chased them all the way to Toerne Creek, taking them one by one. We could have gotten them all, had we dared go farther. But the smoke of cookfires was heavy in the air."

Again there was an assembly in Skiljan's loghouse. Again the huntresses and old females, and now even a few males deemed sufficiently steady, debated what should be done. Marika was amazed to see Horvat speak before the assembly, though he said little but that the males of the loghouse were prepared to stand to arms with the rest of the pack. As though they had any choice.

Pobuda rose to observe, "There are weapons enough now with those that have been taken, so that even pups may be given a good knife. Let not what happened today occur again. Let none of the Degnan meet a spear with a hoe. Let this plunder be distributed, the best to those who will use it best, and be so held till this crisis has passed."

Pobuda was Skiljan's second. Marika knew she spoke words Skiljan had put into her mouth, for, though fierce, Pobuda never had a thought in her life. Skiljan was disarming a potential squabble over plunder before it began-or at least putting it off. Let the bickering and dickering be delayed till the nomad was safely gone from the upper Ponath.

None of the heads of loghouse demurred. Not even Logusz, who bore Skiljan no love at all, and crossed her often for the sheer pleasure of contrariness.

Skiljan said, "Pobuda speaks wisely. Let it be so. I saw that several shields were taken. And a dozen swords. Let those be given huntresses on the outer stockade." A snarl of amusement stretched her lips. "They will make life difficult and death easy for the climbers of ladders." She held up a sword, did a brief battle dance in which she pretended to strike down a nomad coming at her from below.

Marika stared at the sword and was amazed. She had not seen the long knife during the fighting. It flickered in the light from the firepit, scattering shards of red light. She shivered.

It was the first weapon she ever saw which had no purpose other than the killing of members of her own species. Every other had as its primary function use in the hunt.

"But these new weapons will not be enough," Skiljan said. "Not nearly enough. There is much blood in this thing now. We have dared destroy those sent to destroy us. This wehrlen of the nomads, this ruler over many packs, if he is as mad as they say, will not let this lie. He cannot, for even a small defeat must reflect upon his power. He cannot have that firm a grip upon the huntresses who follow him. He cannot fail and survive. So we will see nomads again, tomorrow or the day after. He will come himself. And he will come in great strength, perhaps with his whole horde."

A mutter of anger and of fear rippled through the assembly. Skiljan stood aside so the Wise might speak their minds.

"I wish we knew about this wehrlen," Kublin whispered to Marika. "I wish we did not have to be enemies. It would be interesting to discover who he is, what he is trying to do really, why he is not content, like huntresses, just to take what he needs and go."

Marika gave him a baffled look. What was this?

Rechtern was first of the Wise to speak. She said, "I have little to tell. But a question to ask. Where did Zhotak nomads acquire swords? Eh? Twelve swords were taken, all were borne by huntresses in their prime. They were swords of quality, too. Yet we here, between the north and the cities where such things are made, have never seen such blades. In fact, we know of swords only from hero stories told us by such as Saettle. The question again: Where did nomads acquire weapons of such quality, meant only for the slaying of meth?"

The entire performance was rhetorical, Marika realized. No one could answer knowledgeably, or even speculatively. The old female merely wished to raise an issue, to plant a seed against the return of summer.

There were no smiths among the meth of the upper Ponath. Nor were there any known to be among the nomads. All things of metal came from the cities of the south, and were sold by tradermales.

There would be hard questions asked when the tradermales appeared again.

After Rechtern almost all the Wise rose to speak in turn, including many who had nothing to say. That was the way of the old females. They talked long and long, harkening to ancient times to find something to compare with what had happened that day. Looking to precedent for action and response was second nature to the Wise.

The normal raid went nothing like what had happened. Seldom was a packstead destroyed, and then only in blood-feud, after a surprise attack. The last such in the upper Ponath had occurred in Zertan's time. Meth just did not go in for wholesale slaughter.

The pack were awed by the scale of the killing, but not sickened. Death was. Killing was. Their confusion arose from enemy behavior, which was, it seemed, based on reasoning entirely outside their ken. Though hunger drove them, the nomads now lying dead outside the stockade had not come to the packstead simply to take food by force.

There were lessons. Saettle, even wounded, allowed no respite from the lessons. Marika asked for a reading about something similar to what had happened.

"Nothing resembles what happened here, pup. It is unprecedented in our books. Perhaps in the chronicles of the silth, who practice darkwar and whose written memories stretch back ten thousand years. But you are not here to talk over what has been talked over for so many hours. You are here to learn. Let us get on with our ciphers."

"What is darkwar? What are the silth?" Marika asked. But her questions fell on deaf ears. The Wise could not be moved once their minds were set. She would be neither seen nor heard while she persisted. She abandoned the effort quickly.

Behind the students, arguments over tactics continued. Before them, and on the male side, weapons passed from paw to paw, being sharpened, being painted with poison once more. Both activities went on till well after Marika went to her furs and fell asleep despite all her curiosities and fears.

Once she wakened to what she felt might be a touch, panicky. But it did not come again. Restless, she reached toward the packfast, searching for the Degnan messengers. They were not in the place of stone.

She found them on the path homeward, hurrying by moonlight. Hope surged, but soon fell into the grasp of despair. Drawing closer to Grauel's thoughts, she saw that only three from the packfast accompanied them. Aching, frightened, she reached for Kublin and snuggled. He murmured in his sleep, but did not waken.

II

The stir below caused a stir above. The gouge of elbows and toes and paws as pups clambered over her wakened Marika. Kublin was gone from her side.

It was the middle of the night still. Other slow pups were rubbing their eyes and asking what was happening. Marika crawled to the head of the ladder, where Kublin had gotten himself a good vantage point. Marika squeezed in beside him, oblivious to the growls of those she pushed aside. "What is it?" she asked.