Again an angry stir, and much snarling about stupid savages fool enough to give males weapons. Marika sensed a strong current of fear. Several hundred huntresses? It was hard to imagine such numbers.

"What became of the other nomads?" she wanted to ask. But she knew, really. Her dam was a cautious huntress. She would have scouted Stapen Rock well before doing anything. She would have made no move till she knew exactly what the situation was. Then she would have had her companions fill the shelter with arrows and javelins. That three Degnan huntresses had not returned said the nomads, male or no, had been alert and ready for trouble.

"I wonder if any nomads got away," she whispered. Then, "No. Dam would still be tracking them."

Kublin shook beside her. She could have shaken herself. This was bad, bad news. Too much blood. The nomads might appease their consciences with claims of blood feud now, and never mind that they were guilty of a dozen savage crimes. Meth from the Zhotak did not think like normal meth.

Near chaos reigned below. Each of the heads of loghouse had her own notion of what should be done now. Hotheads wanted to go out in the morning, in force, and hunt nomads before nomads came to the packstead. More cautious heads argued for buttoning up the stockade now, and forget the customary search for deadwood and small game. Some vacillated, swinging back and forth between extremes. Because Gerrien took no firm position, but simply listened, there was no swift decision.

Dorlaque shouted a proposal for arming the males within the stockade, a course never before taken except in utmost extremity. Males could not be trusted with weapons. They were emotionally unstable and prone to cowardice. They might flee from their own shadows and cost the packstead precious iron tools. Or in their panic they might turn upon the huntresses. Dorlaque was shouted down.

It went on till Marika grew sleepy. Beside her, Kublin kept drifting off. Many of the younger pups had gone to their pallets. Skiljan entered nothing into the debate but an occasional point of order, refereeing.

After all the arguments had gone around repeatedly, unto exhaustion, Gerrien looked up from her paws. She surveyed the gathering. Silence fell as she rose. "We will question the prisoner." But that went without saying. Why else would Skiljan have brought him in? "And we will send a messenger to the silth packfast."

Marika came alert immediately. A low growl circulated among the Wise. Pohsit tried to rise, but her infirmities betrayed her. Marika heard her snarl, "Damned silth witches." Several voices repeated the words. Huntresses protested.

Marika did not understand.

Gerrien persisted. "Each year they take tribute. Some years they take our young. In return they are pledged to protect us. We have paid for a long time. We will call in their side of the debt."

Some began to snarl now. Many snapped their jaws unconsciously. There was a lot of emotion loose down there, and Marika could not begin to fathom it. They must be treading the edge of an adult mystery.

Skiljan shouted for silence. Such was her presence at that moment that she won it. She said, "Though I am loath to admit it, Gerrien is right. Against several hundred huntresses, with their males armed, no packstead is secure. Our stockade will not shield us, even if we arm our own males and older pups. This is no vengeance raid, no counting of coup, not even blood feud between packs. Old ways of handling attackers will not suffice. We cannot just seal the gate and wait them out. Hundreds are too many."

"Question the male first," Dorlaque demanded. "Let us not be made fools. Perhaps what the Greve huntresses heard was a lie by rogue males."

Several others joined her in arguing for that much restraint. Skiljan and Gerrien exchanged glances, Gerrien nodding slightly. Skiljan gave Dorlaque what she wanted. "We will send no messenger until we have questioned the captive."

Dorlaque carried on like she had won a major battle. Marika, though, watched Pohsit, who was plotting with her cronies among the Wise.

Skiljan said, "Two courses could be followed. We could scatter messengers to all the packsteads of the upper Ponath and gather the packs in one holdfast, after the fashion of those days when our foredams were moving into the territory. Or we can bring in outside help to turn away outside danger. Any fool will realize we cannot gather the packs at this time of year. The Wise and the pups would perish during the journey. Whole packs might be lost if a blizzard came down during the time of travel. Not to mention that there is no place to rally. The old packfast at Morvain Rocks has been a ruin since my granddam's granddam's time. It would be impossible to rebuild it in this weather, with Zhotak huntresses nipping around our heels. The reconstruction is a task that would take years anyway, as it did in the long ago. So the only possible choice is to petition the silth."

Now Pohsit came forward, speaking for her faction among the Wise. She denounced the silth bitterly, and castigated Skiljan and Gerrien for even suggesting having unnecessary contact with them. Her opposition weakened Skiljan in the eyes of her neighbors.

But the sagan did not speak for a unanimous body of the Wise. Saettle, the teacher of Skiljan's loghouse, represented another faction arguing against Pohsit. She and the sagan squared off. They were no friends anyway. Marika was afraid fur would fly, and it might have had the prisoner not been there to remind everyone of a very real external threat. Fear of the nomads kept emotions from running wild.

Who were these silth creatures? The meth of the packfast down at the joining of rivers. But what was so terrible about them? Why did some of the Wise hate them so? Pohsit seemed as irrational about them as she was about Marika herself.

Was it because they feared the silth would displace them? There seemed an undercurrent of that.

Unexpectedly, old Zertan shrieked, "Trapped between grauken and the All! I warned you. I warned you all. Do not stint the rituals, I said. But you would not listen."

After the first instant of surprise, Granddam was talking to air. Even her contemporaries ignored her. For a moment Marika pitied her. To this end an entire life. To become old and ignored in the loghouse one once ruled.

Marika firmed her emotions. Zertan had had her day. Her mind and strength were gone. It was best she stepped aside. Only, among the meth, one never stepped. One was pushed. All life long, one pushed and was pushed, and the strong survived.

And where did that leave the Kublins, brilliant but physically weak? Kublin, Marika knew, would not be alive now had he not been blessed with a mind that overshadowed those of the other pups. He was able to think his way around many of his weaknesses and talk his way out of much of the trouble that found him.

Below, the policy discussion raged on, but the real decisions had been made. The prisoner would be questioned, then a runner would be sent to the packfast. Everyone would remain inside the stockade till she returned. Food and firewood rationing would begin immediately, though there was plenty of both in storage. The loghouses would bring out their hidden stores of iron weapons and prepare them. The pack would outwait the nomads if possible, hoping that either hunger would move them toward easier prey or the packfast would send help. Hard decisions would await developments.

Hard decisions. Like winnowing the pack by pushing the old and weak and youngest male pups outside the stockade. Marika shuddered.

And then she fell asleep, though she had been determined to stay awake till the last outsider left.

IIIWith their interest thoroughly piqued, Marika and Kublin visited Machen Cave often. Each time they took advantage of their youth to shake Pohsit, running long circles, often dashing all the way down to the bank of the Hainlin before turning back to cross the hills and woods to where the cavern lay. The sagan could have tracked them by scent, had she the will, but after five miles of ups and downs old muscles gave out. Pohsit would limp back to the packstead, jaw grimly set. There she would grumble and mutter to the Wise, but dared not indict the pups before their dam. Not just for running her to exhaustion. That would be viewed as common youthful insolence.