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When he found the little punk that bloodied his son, Galning was going to kill him. It made absolutely no difference to the reaver that he would, essentially, be attacking and killing a cub. The little b*****d had attacked his son and beaten him badly, humiliating him in front of all the reavers training that day. The ******** definitely had to die.

Part of the problem was that Galning had only a vague idea of the identity of his son's assailant. He knew he was one of the Warlord's b*****d sons' sons and that he had pale fur. But he didn't know the cub's name or how many cubs in his litter matched that description or anything else.

It had occurred to him from the distant edge of his incipient berserker fury that it would be very bad to smash the wrong cub. But he decided to risk it. Family honor was at stake.

Burzum had no idea that there was a reaver out for his blood. It was not a possibility that had ever crossed his mind as he strode through the pride with a confidence that did not match his diminutive size. He was on the hunt for his grandfather, who he intended to ask to train him to fight.

He probably could have followed his Uncle Calder to his training session, but he didn't know when or where those took place. He also wasn't sure he would be welcome if he just showed up like that. It wasn't his grandfather he was worried about, though. It was his uncle, who had not even bothered to meet him or his siblings since they'd been born. Even his grandfather had come down to do that.

So basically Burz was walking around the pride without direction, trying to avoid the thought that he would probably have to go up to his grandfather's den if he really wanted to talk to the Warlord. He wasn't afraid or intimidated, he told himself. He was just trying to be polite and considerate of the fact that his grandfather's mate supposedly didn't much care for his family. Yeah. That was it.

Gambling that perhaps the cub would have returned to the scene of the crime, Galning first took himself to the arena where reavers and would-be reavers sparred and fought and trained. He did not see any cubs there at all, but he did learn a little bit more about the cub who had hurt Yolla. He had black markings on his face, black eyes, and a strange voice.

As he was leaving the sandy grounds he saw a small white figure moving at a gait that looked entirely too arrogant for someone of his age and inexperience. Galning guessed that it was the guilty culprit and bounded after him with a growl that emanated from deep in his chest.

"You!" he snarled to get the cub's attention. At the moment he was walking a very fine line between sanity and berserking. "Turn around, pismire."

Burz's spine prickled as if someone was watching him or talking about him. He'd been feeling like that all morning. Someone must be thinking about him very hard, or with very strong emotions. He would have given good odds it was that pathetic splotchy cub he'd whipped the day before. The thought made his insides sort of burble with pride.

It was not until a voice very obviously belonging to an adult lion called after him that Burz considered there might be someone else giving him any serious thought. In that moment his mind split into two camps. One suggested that he ignore the older lion and pretend not to realize he was being addressed. The other told him to turn around spitting. A third camp tried to form, and that one reminded him that pismire meant ant, and maybe mentioning that might somehow diffuse the situation a little.

"What do you want?" Burz hissed as he turned around and bared his teeth. The fur along his spine was beginning to stand up.

It came as no surprise to Galning that the little punk seemed to be completely without manners. Probably it came from living in the forest like a savage. In order to think this, Galning had conveniently forgotten that he, himself, was an outlander whose family in the pride may be extensive, but almost entirely first or second generation and might just as easily be considered savage.

He snarled once more at the cub, wordlessly this time and checked the impulse just to leap and begin the evisceration process. Barely. In case the savage was incapable of making the connection between Galning's markings and Yolla's, Galning wanted to be sure he knew why he was about to be killed. He also wanted to make sure that he was about to kill the correct cub.

The odds were good that this was the correct cub though. When he turned around all puffed up and indignant Galning got a good look at his facial markings and black eyes. And his voice certainly was unusual.

"Your voice sounds absurd." The observation was startled out of him. It was like someone with a very high voice trying to lower it by growling. He was going to ruin his voice if he kept doing that. But maybe that was the point. It couldn't be any worse than the squeaky voice Galning suspected was his natural pitch.

Of course Burzum recognized the family resemblance between the lion accosting him and the cub he had beaten up the day before. Having no idea how extensive that family actually was, he.quite innocently thought there couldn't be that many lions with markings in those patterns and colors in the pride.

It still hadn't occurred to him to be afraid, despite the growling display. He was secure in the belief that he was a cub and the worst that could happen to him would be a sound beating which would ultimately only make him tougher. He didn't consider that he was dealing with a lion to whom reason was not all that common. Really, though, he didn't think he was in for anything worse than a scolding.

"The last person to say something like that to me got the stuffing beaten out of him," Burz growled with a good deal of arrogance. "Stupidity must run in the family."

"That...was...my...son!" Galning growled, roaring the last word and lunging toward Burzum with one paw extended to either knock his head off his body or else give him some very nasty scars and possibly damage his voice even further. The idea was most pleasing

It was definitely fortunate that he was already snarling, leaping, and roaring before Burzum finished insulting his family, because despite the evidence to support the cub's supposition, it wasn't really the sort of thing Galning would have been thrilled to hear. It probably would have provoked him to attempt greater feats of violence.

After all, there were somethings which just could not be borne. Insults to oneself and one's family were chief among them, second only to actual injuries. This cub had both insulted and injured his family and had also managed to insult him, even if he hadn't heard it. It was obvious that the brat had to die.

The brat, of course, had other plans. Dying was not on his list of things to do that day, and he certainly had no intention of doing so to please the idiot father of the imbecile he'd trounced so thoroughly yesterday. So, naturally, he scrambled out of the way when the larger lion leapt in his direction. Even so, it was pure luck that saved him from death.

"Like I said. Stupid," he rasped disdainfully, even though his heart was hammering in his chest and white showed around the edge of his black eyes. "Do you really think you can afford the weregeld for killing me? Or did you mean to begin a feud between our families?"

It took cojones like an elephant to say those things to an adult trying to murder him, but Burzum still didn't really believe that his life was in danger. Not consciously, anyway. Unconsciously, his entire body was on alert and every hair he had stood on end in a vain attempt to make himself look larger and more intimidating.

It stunned Galning how quickly the cub had moved to evade his attack. Literally, he was stunned into stillness for a moment. In a real fight that moment would have cost him, but since he was attacking someone who seemed not to realize what was at stake and thus had no interest in fighting back physically, lest the fight turn real, he was in no particular danger. Luckily.

This moment of stunned stillness also allowed the cub's taunting to enter into his infuriated mind. He couldn't believe that after being attacked the creature still had the audacity to insult him. Maybe he thought that because he'd dodged a single blow he was in some way superior. Or maybe...maybe he raised a very valid point about the possibility of starting a blood feud by killing him. He didn't know what a weregeld was, but it didn't sound good any better than a blood ******** class="clear">