Dark One.

3. Trouble.

A flock of birds took to the skies from across the spur, joining the sparrowhawk's cry with their own, numerous voices:

"Trouble, trouble."

At least the birds were certain that the winged ones people were missing them, and would come seeking their women as soon as the snows melted and the blizzards were no more. With this hot wind, the snow would soon go, even all this snow. Wurring looked at the hill-tops opposite, and they glittered white-gold in the sunlight.

Kulali now tried charm and blandishments, but when he went to pull the redhead away, all the others pulled her back. He would have to wait for nightfall, Wurring thought. Anyway, it wasn't like the silver warrior had anything better to do, besides, they were all pretty to the eye in their own way.

Kulali must have felt that waiting was a bad idea. He tried to push the others back, but after all it was not possible really, to be nasty to four pretty girls... And the five stuck close together, so he only succeeded in pushing them all away. That was no good. Kulali stormed out of the tent mouth, the sunlight glittering on his hair much like it glittered across the snow. He stopped and called, not an imperious call, but a gentle one.

The angry murmurings silenced. He called again, pleadingly. One, dark of hair went to the tent mouth, her hands clutching at the hood about her head and dashed into the sunlight. The others gasped, and seemed to wait, as though expecting some evil force to smite the girl down. Nothing happened. The redhead went into the light next, followed by the rest.

"They are his!" thought Wurring. "All of them. Those women have stuck out the winter together, and their not going to be parted!" The black wolf's eyes were gleaming with amusement as he went down off the hill and headed back for his own little group. What would his uncle's kinsfolk think of the winged ones joining their pack? It seemed to go against every untold law he knew most of his kind had been brought up by. Would it result in challenges? Had his uncle finally bitten off more than he could chew? Would he be defeated in battle by someone else, saving him, Wurring, from a future challenge?

So the black furred wolf headed back to his pack, which contained some of the most beautiful, and deadly female warriors in the mountains - Azlyn, whom Kulali had wanted the moment he had seen her swinging blow after blow with her sword in the swirling mist, felling fae after fae as dawn approached, nearly six summers ago, and Mika, her half-sister, still more of a dream then a reality to Kulali because he had seen her only once, fighting at Azlyn's side, with silver hair - so much like his. And Keita, the tree elf, who's skill with a bow as unparalleled to any that had been seen.

A warrior who leads some of the most talented kinsfolk in the mountain, who follows and abides by the law of fang and claw, must either keep them hidden, or be so splendid and strong himself that none can take them. Wurring knew this. He could hide them still, in his canyon, below the High Plateau, but the time had come for him to roam wide and free, to allow his people to live without fear of the consequences of the very law they lived by, and there was only one thought stopping them. Kulali - Kulali whom he must not fight, Kulali for whom he still felt great affection, for he was his uncle - he was kin.

The snow had become even softer, and the shine had gone from it. The heat was oppressive. For one breath Wurring wondered what was going to happen, but he was to taken up with his thoughts of the future and also of all he had just seen. He ploughed on through the deep slush. If the silver wolf saw his tracks they would not be recognizable. Perhaps he might get a fright thinking it was made by the winged women's people coming to find them!

The sparrowhawk flew above him again. "Trouble! Trouble!" sounded its cry: "For theft there is trouble."