The Wolfriders Divide

The most notorious Wolfrider chief of all split the tribe asunder forever.

A tribe of humans live in the same forest where the Wolfriders make their home. Chief Swift-Spear’s obsession with warring against humans begins when Swift-Spear’s wolf is slain by humans, who are angry that the wolves are stealing from their traps. In revenge, Swift-Spear drives the humans away from the forest after killing the humans’ chief, and he takes the name of Two-Spear because he now carries two spears: his own and the human chief's (BOTC 3). There is much internal conflict within the tribe between Two-Spear and his half-sister Huntress Skyfire, as well as between the high ones and the ‘wilder’ more wolfish elves (BOTC 4).

One bitterly cold winter, Skyfire finds a clever way to scare off a new group of humans who have settled too near the elves for comfort but aren’t yet aware of them: by creating a fake ‘snowbeast’. She prefers to avoid killing humans (BOTC 6).

The divide in the Wolfriders tribe under Two-Spear gets worse over the next 60-odd years. Two-Spear goes off on his own to look for solutions to his tribe’s conflict and discovers an old cave which was shaped by High Ones. He has a vision of the High Ones’ landing on Abode, of the humans’ attack on them, and of the palace. He concludes that humans are incapable of living in peace with elves and therefore the elves must wipe out all humans or be wiped out themselves, and also must look for the palace and claim their true heritage.
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One part of the tribe supports Two-Spear’s desire to aggressively seek out and kill all humans in order to allow elves to have dominance on Abode. The other part, including his sister Skyfire, believes this to be an abandonment of “The Way” (the conscious act of living in the ‘now’ of wolf-thought) as well as being dishonorable; they also fear that Two-Spear is not completely sane. For their own reasons, the High Ones in the tribe also disapprove of Two-Spear’s chieftainship.

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Unwilling to join or condone Two-Spear's quest to wipe out the human race, Skyfire challenges Two-Spear to the chieftainship. Skyfire loses the challenge and is grievously wounded, but Two-Spear, perhaps feeling his grip on the tribe slipping away, spares her life and exiles himself along with about half the tribe members. He leads his group of elves back to the High Ones’ cave, which becomes their new home. After Two-Spear’s departure, Skyfire becomes the fifth chief of those Wolfriders who stay with her in the Everwood forest and try to live by The Way and avoid humans (TS 1-5).

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