Blah-blah-blah. Please, tell me more about shapeshifters, Grandpa Hugh, because I just have no idea how they think. It’s not like I live with five hundred of them and end up sorting through their personal problems every Wednesday at the Pack court hearings.

“For a moment I thought you might be a real human being, but you proved me wrong. Thanks. It will make it so much easier to kill you.”

Hugh leaned forward. A strange light danced in his eyes. “Want to give it a shot?”

Anytime. “Why, you want to show me what you’ve learned?”

“Ooo.” Hugh sucked the air in, narrowing his eyes. “Mean. I like mean.”

A strange low roar cascaded through the mountains, dying down to an odd note, almost like bleating if the goat making it were predatory and the size of a tiger.

“Damn it.” Hugh stood up on his throne. “I told them to stay the hell out of the ravine.”

I stood up. To the left the trees shook. Something galloped up the mountain slope straight for us.

“What is it?”

“Ochokochi. Big, vicious, carnivorous, long claws. They like to impale people with their chests.”

“They what?”

“They grab you and impale you on their chest. The shapeshifters spooked the herd. Stupid sonsabitches. I asked one thing—one damn thing—and they couldn’t do it right. The herd is heading for us. Normally I’d move out of their way.”

“But we have the horses.” Then I remembered—the path up to the meeting place was narrow and steep. We had seven horses, and getting them out and down the path in time to escape was impossible.

“Exactly. When the ochokochi go mad like this, they slaughter everything with a pulse.”

A dull thudding came from below, the sound of many feet stomping in unison. How many of them were there?

Hugh jumped off the throne to the ground. “They’re coming straight for us.”

I moved left, putting myself between the woods and the corral with the horses. The sound of thudding feet grew, like the roar of a distant waterfall. The horses neighed and paced in the enclosure, testing their tethers.

The trees shuddered.

“Don’t let them grab you.” Hugh grinned at me. “Ready?”

“No time like the present.” I unbuckled the spare saber at my waist, unsheathed it, and dropped the sheath on the grass.

The blackberry bushes at the edge of the clearing tore, and the woods spat a beast into the open. It stood about five feet tall, half-upright like a gorilla or a kangaroo, resting the full weight of its body on two massive hind legs. Long reddish fur reminiscent of chamois dripped from its flanks. Its front limbs, muscular and almost simian in shape, bore long black claws. Its head was goatlike, with a wide forehead and small eyes, but instead of the narrow muzzle, its face ended in powerful predatory jaws designed to shear rather than grind.