A stir swept through the crowd as Elson shouldered his way forward. He was at the upper limit of the eligible ageframe. What he said surprised me. I even saw the Wolf raise an eyebrow.
"I support the challenge of Maeve. I withdraw."
Voices roared in agreement.
Tolling his bell for silence, the Loremaster called for other competitors. MechWarrior Jovell stepped forward and shouted, "I withdraw from the challenge." Lydia came forward and said the same, then Harold, his broad Elemental shoulders square, withdrew as well. One by one all the contestants advanced up the steps, announced their withdrawal and retreated back to the crowd.
For a long minute, the Loremaster waited. The word spread through the amazed crowd. Never had an Hon-orname gone uncontested.
"You must finish the ritual," the Loremaster said to Maeve.
"I call to challenge!" she shouted. Her expression was in turmoil. I knew how much she wanted the name, and I knew she was prepared to fight for it. She wantedto fight for it.
But no voice rose in challenge.
Maeve shouted for a third time. "I call to challenge!"
And again no one spoke.
"Let it be known that none stand to contest Maeve," the Loremaster said. He called her to the podium. Once she was at his side, he addressed her, "Maeve, you are the sole contender in the ageframe of Alpin Wolf. None are willing to oppose you for the name. You are Wolf."
The cheers and chants of "Wolf! Wolf!" boomed and echoed across Harlech. Maeve stood stunned by the roar of approval. I stood silent as well. Only I and one other knew how truly she had been named.
* * *
Under Commander Jaime Wolf and General Maeve Wolf, the Dragoons have been reorganized in both lifestyle and military force, taking full advantage of what we learned from the infighting that almost destroyed us. Our units are well under-strength for our new table of organization because we lost many who could not accept the new order. Their departure weakened us, but the effect is only temporary. We have new recruits in training and new sibkos on the way up. All will be carefully, and fully, made to understand that we are something new. The Dragoons are not just mercenaries, not just warriors, we are a family. The Wolf Pack nickname has become popular with astonishing rapidity, sticking even as Maeve had predicted it would.
Until we reach full complement, we'll make do. And why not? We're all veterans now. The Dragoons are tougher and stronger than ever. We started as the best the Inner Sphere had ever seen, and we have become better. To my thinking, we're hardier and more skilful than any of the Clans. What can we do now except keep on getting better?
The Hiring Hall is open again, friends.
The Wolf Pack is on the prowl.
Glossary
CULTURAL/POLITICAL TERMS
After the fall of the Star League General Aleksandr Kerensky, commander of the Regular Star League army, led his forces out of the Inner Sphere in what is known as the first Exodus. After making their way beyond the Periphery, more than 1,300 light years away from Terra, Kerensky and his followers settled in a group of marginally habitable star systems near a large globular cluster that hid them from the Inner Sphere. Within fifteen years, Civil War erupted among these exiles, threatening to destroy everything they had worked so hard to build. In a second Exodus, Nicholas Kerensky, son of Aleksandr, led his followers to one of the worlds of the globular cluster to escape the new war. It was there on Strana Mechty that Kerensky first conceived and organized the system that would one day become known as the Clans.
Though Wolf's Dragoons originated among the Clans, they have repudiated their allegiance to the Wolf Clan. Nevertheless many Clan traditions, concepts, and customs still prevail among the Dragoons, as described below.
BLOODNAME
The Clans have approximately 760 Bloodnames. These are the surnames of the 800 warriors who stood with Nicholas Kerensky during the Exodus Civil War. These warriors were the first contributors to the elaborate eugenics program by which the Clans create their elite warrior caste in each generation. A warrior earns the right to bear one of these surnames only if he succeeds in a series of grueling competitions known as the Trial of Bloodright; only twenty-five warriors are permitted to bear any one Bloodname at a given time.
When one of the twenty-five Bloodnamed warriors dies, a Trial is held to determine who will assume that Bloodname. A contender must prove his Bloodname lineage, then win the Trial of Bloodright against the other contenders. Only Bloodnamed warriors may sit on the Clan Councils or are eligible to become a Khan or ilKhan. Clan Bloodnames are determined matrilin-eally, at least after the original generation. Because a warrior can only inherit from his or her female parent, he or she has a claim to only one Bloodname. Forty of the original 800 Bloodnames were eliminated after one of the Clans was annihilated for committing a grievous crime against the Clans as a whole.
BONDSMAN
Clans can keep prisoners taken during combat. These are called bondsmen, and are considered members of the laborer caste, unless and until the capturing Clan releases them or promotes them back to warrior status. A bondsman is bound by honor, not by shackles. Custom dictates that even Bloodnamed warriors captured in combat be held for a time as bondsmen. All bondsmen wear a woven bracelet called a bond-cord. The base color of the -bondcord indicates to which Clan the individual is now bound, and the striping indicates which unit captured him.
CASTES
Clan society is rigidly divided into five castes: warrior, scientist, merchant, technician, and laborer. Each caste has many subcastes, which are based on specialties within a professional field. The warrior caste is based on a systematic eugenics program that uses the genes of prestigious current and past warriors to produce new members of the caste (see Sibko). These products of genetic engineering are known as true-borns. Other castes maintain a quality gene pool by strategic marriages within each caste.
CODEX
The codex is each Clan warrior's personal record. It includes the names of the original Bloodnamed warriors from which a warrior is descended. It also records background information such as the warrior's generation number, Blood House, and codex ID, an alphanumeric code noting the unique aspects of that person's DNA. The codex also contains a record of the warrior's military career. Many Clan warriors wear their codex as a kind of bracelet; Wolf's Dragoons members wear their codex as tags around the neck.
COMSTAR
ComStar, the interstellar communications network, was the brainchild of Jerome Blake, Minister of Communications during the latter years of the Star League. After the League's fall, Blake seized Terra and reorganized what was left of the communications network into a private organization that sold its services to the five Successor Houses for a profit. Since that time, ComStar has also developed into a powerful secret society steeped in mysticism and ritual. Initiates to the quasi-religious ComStar Order commit themselves to lifelong service.
ELEMENTALS
Elementals are the elite, battle-armored infantry of the Clans. These men and women are giants, bred specifically to handle Clan-developed battle armor. The Inner Sphere military has recently captured samples of these battle suits and have developed their own versions, but they do not breed 2.4-meter-tall Elementals to wear and fight in the battle suits.