It made her look younger and even more forlorn. Longreach would have made up a name and given it to her right then if that would have made a difference. "You'll be seeking more than a name. Cutter was born knowing who he was and he'll know who he is all his life, I suspect. And the ones who find their names here, it's as if they're truly a part of the holt. But some of the Wolfriders have had to search to find their true selves."

**And some of them never come back.** Sent, not spoken, because the fear lay tight around the thought.

"Some," the storyteller honestly agreed, "but I can see by their eyes when they won't find a soulname, and I can see when they will. And what I see in your eyes, I've seen before—''

The Spirit Quest by Diana L. Paxson

In the moist darkness of the soil, a point of life waited for its slow transition into form. Goodtree stilled, focusing her awareness upon it, trying to understand its essence, wondering if she could touch the power that would make it grow.

**Goodtree—**

Questing for the magic at the heart of things, consciousness registered the call, but noted no meaning. It was only sound-symbols, not a true name.

"Goodtree, where are you?"

Audible this time, the calling stirred memory, and awareness detached itself unwillingly from the essence of the flower. One pointed ear cupped instinctively to catch the whisper of skin-booted feet on grass.

**Lionleaper?**

Goodtree straightened, grimacing as stiffened muscles in slender limbs sent their own pained messages, and with a sigh remembered why she had wanted to be a tree. Her father, Tanner, chief of the Wolfriders, was gone.

The stiff foliage of the bearberry bushes that edged the clearing shivered, and a lithe figure, smooth-muscled and tawny as the beast from which he'd got his name, slipped past.

"Oh—this is pretty!" Lionleaper hunkered down beside her, patting the vivid moss beneath the trees.

Scent stimulated Goodtree's awareness of his physical nearness—the mixed smells of wolf on his tawny leggings, mint from the banks of the stream on his brown boots, and from the lightly tanned skin of his bare torso, the scent of his own pungent maleness. Instinctively she reached out to touch him, and he pulled her close and rubbed his cheek against hers.

"Nobody knew where you'd gone," Lionleaper said then, "but I thought I might find you here."

Abruptly Goodtree was separate again, green eyes widening in suspicion. "Did the others send you after me?"

"I don't take orders from anybody." His gaze went determinedly back to the moss. "But they're worried, Goodtree— they don't understand why you won't let them call you chieftain. I wish your mother was still alive—maybe she could talk sense into you!"

Goodtree shook her head, grinning crookedly. "You can't remember her very well if you think so! Considering how she fought against being chieftess to my father I don't think she would have dared to press the responsibility on me!"

"Are you trying to be like her?" asked Lionleaper. "Or are you still grieving for Tanner? We all loved him, but he's gone now—that's the Way—and it's no dishonor to his memory to tie up your hair in a chief's lock and carry on."

Defensively, Goodtree smoothed back her curls, golden as the sunlight that bathed the moss. The strand of ivy with which she had bound her hair came loose and she cast it angrily away.

"Is that what you want, Lionleaper?"

"You know what I want, my golden one!" he turned to her suddenly and she shrank from the glow in his amber eyes. Lovemates they had been, lifemates they might be, but she could not afford the closeness, could not take the chance that one night he might offer her his soulname and find out that she had none to give him in return.

"I say what I have said only for the good of the tribe," he added then. "Come back with me now. We have howled for your father; it's time to let him go."

For the good of the tribe! Goodtree thought as she followed Lionleaper back through the forest. How can I lead the Wolfriders without knowing my true name? I wish it were not my father we were mourning, but me!

It was the beginning of the green, growing time, and on the sandy slopes of the hurst the beech trees were already in delicate leaf against the somber dark green of the conifers. Soon the grass would be high on the plains that stretched between the forest and the southern mountains, and the great herds would move northward again. Time then for the elves to leave the protection of the Everwood for the good hunting of the grasslands, but for now it was enough to set the heavy furs of winter aside, and rejoice in the rebirth of the world.

When Goodtree and Lionleaper came into the clearing on the crest of the hill, those who had slept the day away were beginning to waken, wolves and elves emerging together from hollows beneath the great roots of the beech trees, or thickets where they had fashioned rough shelters. Goodtree staggered as a warm weight struck her from behind, and with a quick twist of her slender body, turned her fall into a grab for the brindled pelt of the great she-wolf who was pressing against her.

"Leafchaser! If you're too sleepy to walk straight, go back to your den!" Her words were harsh, but her arms were around the wolf's neck, her face buried in thick fur. From the wolf came a wordless amusement, and Goodtree had a momentary impression of herself as a cub to be knocked over in play until it had the wit to avoid or the strength to withstand it.

"Oh all right!" she answered, sitting back on her heels to stare into the wolf's yellow eyes. "I suppose it's my own fault for not sensing you were there." Leafchaser's eyes slanted as her jaws opened in an answering grin, then two pairs of pointed ears pricked at a long-drawn, distant howl.

**Good hunt, much meat,** came the wolf's images.

**Hunters coming back.** All around them wolves were answering in sweet harmony, and several of the elves had leaped to their friends' backs and sped down the slope to help the hunters bring home their kill. Goodtree could just remember a time when, for fear of the humans who roamed the plain, the elves had hunted only during the hours of darkness. But when the humans were not fighting elves, they fought each other, and for many seasons now their numbers had been too few for them to threaten the Wolfriders.

Goodtree stood up, tugging her close-fitting doeskin tunic back down over her leggings. She had eaten nothing since early that morning, and her belly was already rumbling in anticipation. Her anguish of the afternoon was forgotten. Joyously she cut a length of the clingsilver that twined up the trunk of the great beech tree and twisted it into a new wreath for her hair so that the little bell-shaped blossoms hung trembling over her cheeks and brow.

Soon new sounds heralded the hunters' arrival—Joygleam first, as befitted the senior huntress of the tribe, sitting her wolf-friend proudly despite her evident weariness, and then Brightlance and the others, each bearing a portion of what must have been a mighty beast indeed.

"The branch-horns are coming!" cried Brightlance. "Their forerunners are moving into the grasslands, and the main herd will be here soon. This bull was the first of them, but we were too clever for him. How I wish we could have brought his head too—his horns were like the limbs of this tree!" He gestured broadly, and the haunch he was carrying slipped to the grass.

Elves seized it eagerly and carried it into the clearing in the center of the hurst, and soon knives of flint and bone were stripping skin from flesh and carving the dripping muscle-meat into pieces so that everyone could share. They sat in a circle on the grass, and for a time the only sounds were of those strong jaws moving and an occasional growl as a wolf worried at a particularly resistant piece of flesh, followed by sighs of repletion as one by one, both wolves and elves were filled. Goodtree leaned back against a friendly trunk, at peace with the world. The sun had sought its den and the first stars were pricking holes in the mantle that evening had drawn across the sky. Elfin eyes grew larger and more luminous as the darkness deepened. Then the child moon lifted above the trees, and one of the wolves lifted his pointed muzzle and sang out in greeting. One by one the others echoed him, and the elves joined them, their howling shifting imperceptibly into song.