So began the hardest task Sapling had known in all her young life. All night long they carved wood and trimmed the skins of their storm-furs and sewed them into the shape of a great beast, which they padded with cut branches. Woodbiter raided another trap, gaining a set of stag horns which they set in the jaws for teeth. Skyfire fashioned eight monster-sized imitations of a beast's clawed pads and, in the hour before dawn, announced that her "snowbeast" was ready for action.

"Strap these paws to your feet," she instructed Sapling. Then, saving two of the clawed appendages for her hands, she called Woodbiter to her side and tied the last four on him, while Sapling experimented by making fearsome trails of beast-prints in the surrounding drifts.

"That looks horrifying," Skyfire observed when she finished, and allowed one very disgruntled wolf to clamber upright. "But now I need you to help with the final touches."

The Huntress mounted the back of the wolf and placed the jaws of the snowbeast over her head. Muffled instructions emerged between the teeth, explaining that Sapling should place herself at Woodbiter's tail and lace the furs around them both, to flesh out the "body" of the beast. After an interval of laughter, and much tangling of elbows, the task was complete. A fearsome apparition snorted and pawed at the snow in the hollow.

"Now we make mischief on humans," the voice of Skyfire proposed from the gullet; and the snowbeast shambled off, with a wolfish whine from its second head, to do just that.

Once the two elves and the wolf coordinated with each other, they found they could run fairly fast; but the clumsy contraptions on their feet made silence impossible. Wherever the snowbeast passed, it made a fearful rattle, and the snapping of sticks and branches, added with the creak of its framework, carried clearly in the frosty air.

"If there was any game in this forest, it's on the run now," muttered Sapling. A giggle followed, half muffled by furs.

**Quiet, now,** sent Skyfire. **We've arrived at the first of the humans' traps.** Now began the dangerous portion of their night's work; for dawn was nigh, and the results of the snowbeast's frolic must not be discovered too soon.

Quiet reigned in the forest until shortly past daybreak, when the humans stirred blearily in their tents. The earliest risers crept out to light fires, and soon thereafter an outcry arose. Two supply tents on the camp perimeter were found ripped to shreds, and the culprit, whose tracks were pressed deeply in the snow, seemed to be a monstrous beast. No one had ever seen the like of such paw prints, but old tales told of a snowbeast which haunted the winter forests during seasons of extreme famine.

Fathers took no chances, but ordered their wives and children and grandfathers not to stray from the protection of the central fires. And the hunters sent to check the traps carried war spears, as well as knives and torches. They moved in bands of ten, for safety; but everywhere they encountered evidence of violence. The snowbeast had ravaged the traps, torn them to slivers, then trampled and clawed the surrounding snow to bare earth. Trees bore deep gashes, and near one trap the skull of a stag lay gnawed by powerful teeth, amid snow stained scarlet with gore. The band of hunters who found that trembled in their boots as they resumed their rounds of the trapline. The rattle of wind in the branches made them start, hands clenched and sweating upon the hafts of their weapons.

For all that, none were prepared for the apparition which lurked in the brush. Crouched like some nightmare forest cat, it fed in the shadows of a thicket, crunching the carcass of the stag with jaws that might have snapped a human in half at one bite.

"Gotara!" breathed the man in the lead. His snowshoe snagged on a twig, which cracked loudly, making him jump.

The snowbeast raised its head, spied the intruders, and raised an ear-splitting scream of rage. The humans saw then that the creature had two heads, the larger one eyeless and crammed with bloody fangs, and emitting a frightful, ululating wail. Below this, between clawed forelimbs, a second, wolflike head snarled and slavered and snapped. Six legs thrust powerfully beneath masses of brindled fur, gathered to bound to the attack.

The human in the lead screamed and cast his war spear. It struck the beast's flank and rebounded; and the beast leapt, plowing a shower of eddying snow.

The hunting party screamed and ran in stark terror. Tree branches whipped their faces. They dared not look back; the ravening snarls of the snowbeast sounded almost upon their heels. The breath burned in their chests, yet they did not slow until they reached the border of their camp. The snarls of the snowbeast sounded ominously through the wood as the men excitedly jabbered their tale. Howls echoed across the marshes, hastening the women who ran to wrap children in blankets and bundle up belongings and tents. Fear gripped the hearts of the humans like cold fingers as they banded together and departed, northward, where the lands were known, and safe.

By sunrise, no intruders remained to watch an elf back butt first from the bowels of the dreaded snowbeast. Tired, trembly, but able to contain herself no longer, she collapsed in a snowdrift, laughing.

Peering through the fangs of the snowbeast mask, Huntress Skyfire regarded her young companion with reproof. "Is that how you're going to greet Two-Spear, when he arrives here with his war party?"

Sapling sat up, snow dusting her eyebrows and her merry, upturned nose. "At least I look like an elf. If you keep standing there in that silly-looking mask, Graywolf will likely spear you for dinner."

At which point the jaws of the snowbeast clicked shut, and a tangle of wolf, and elf, and a mess of jury-rigged storm furs swooped and jumped Sapling in the snowdrift.

**Longreach! Storyteller!**

The summons came from nearby and with the visceral intensity that always marked the chief's bad moods. The old Wolfrider roused from his wolfnap, grabbed his warmest blanket as a cloak, and poked his head into the icy, winter night.

"Bearclaw?" Longreach asked, as if there had been any real doubt in his mind.

"I need your advice."

Longreach nodded and lifted the oiled-skin door of his bower a bare heartbeat before Bearclaw shoved past him. The bower, one of the oldest set into the Father Tree, was cluttered and scarcely large enough for one elf let alone two. That didn't bother Bearclaw; he just pushed his way over to the sleeping furs and thumped down on them. Whatever had inspired this visit did not bode well for Longreach's peace of mind.

The storyteller pinched a wick into his tallow-pot and lit it from the kindle-box. The tiny flame reflected blood-red from the chief's squinted eyes. It boded poorly, indeed. Longreach spread his fur across last autumn's dreamberry crop and settled in for a long night.

"Tell me about it," he urged the seething Bearclaw.

"Fire-stinking Cutter, that's it."

Longreach leaned closer, sincerely puzzled by the chief's apparent rage; young Cloudchaser had never bothered anyone in his short life. "I'm sure the lad—"

"Wants to go hunting alone, he does. Middle of the worst winter we've had here in Timmorn knows how long, and the little shrike wants to go hunting."

"He means to help, I'm sure. The hunters have been ranging farther and bring back less—''

Bearclaw let out a liquid growl that contained every unhappy feeling a Wolfrider could have. "He means to get his soft-toothed self killed. As if I didn't have enough eating at my sleep with the tribe hungry and scrounging ... and the man-pack doing the same ... and now he wants to go hunting branch-horns in the frozen marsh."

The old elf scratched his beard and rubbed the sleepy-seeds from his eyes. "It's never easy to watch them grow up, is it?" he asked, cutting quickly to the heart of Bearclaw's concern.