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The Named: The Complete Series

Clare Bell

The Named

The Complete Series

Ratha’s Creature

The Named Series: Book One

TO ANDRE NORTON,

who loves furred folk

TO M. COLEMAN EASTON,

who has been my critic, my friend, and more

CHAPTER ONE

Ratha leaped over a fern thicket and dug her paws into the spongy ground as she dodged sharp horns. One prong sifted through her fur and she skittered away from the beast. She turned and stood her ground with hunched shoulders and twitching tail. Her quarry advanced. A two-pronged horn on the stag’s nose joined the crown of points on the head and it lowered the entire array, charging at Ratha. She launched herself at the deer, both front paws spread. She landed on her rear paws and bounced sideways as the multi-horn pivoted heavily, trying to catch her on its spikes and pin her to the ground.

Each time the horns came near her, Ratha jumped sideways, forcing the stag to turn in a tight circle, unable to build up any speed or momentum. After several such circles, the beast’s knees were trembling and Ratha smelled the sweat that was darkening the coarse, gray-tipped coat. At last the animal stopped and lifted its head. Wary brown eyes studied Ratha from behind the forked nose horn as she planted all four feet in the mossy soil beneath the trees, still but tensed, ready to spring if the deer lunged again.

The beast danced uneasily on its slender legs, sweating and snorting, turning one eye and then the other on Ratha. She knew that it had no experience with those of the clan. Most meat-eaters the three-horn encountered would tuck their tails between their legs when that fierce spiked crown turned their way. The fanged ones would run, not bounce around in circles. The stag’s eyes were angry and the beast lowered its crown and pawed the soil, but the rage in its eyes was dulled by fear.

Ratha fixed her eyes on those of the deer. Slowly, deliberately, she walked toward it. Still tossing its head, the stag backed away from her. Ratha felt the intensity of her stare as she watched the beast retreat, and a feeling of triumph began to grow as she placed one paw after another on the multi-horn’s reversed tracks and smelled the creature’s bewilderment. She moved from one side to the other, blocking any attempts it might make to get past her. At last, she told herself, she had mastered the skill. At last the weeks of practice would yield results. Thakur’s whiskers would bristle withpride.

A dragonfly buzzed across Ratha’s nose, its iridescence stealing her attention from her quarry. The stag bellowed. Ratha jerked her head around, but she had barely time to realize she had lost control before the beast was on top of her, striking out with sharp hooves and goring the dirt with its horns.

Ratha fled, tucking her tail and squalling. The stag chased her and they ran a frantic race through the trees. Ratha glanced back as her paws slipped and skidded on pine needles and saw the points just behind her tail.

“Up a tree, yearling!” a voice yowled on her left, and with one bound, Ratha was halfway up a young pine, beyond reach of the tossing horns. She climbed higher, showering her opponent with bark and stinging wood ants. “Thakur!” she wailed.

A copper-brown head appeared through a clump of curled ferns. Thakur looked up at Ratha and down at the stag. He gathered himself and sprang onto the animal’s back. He flung his powerful forelegs around the three-horn’s neck and dug his rear claws into its back as it plunged and screamed. As Ratha watched from above, he twisted his head sideways and drove his fangs into the stag’s nape behind the head. Ratha saw his jaw muscles bunch in his cheeks and temples as blood streamed down the stag’s neck, and she heard the sound of teeth grinding on bone. His jaws strained and closed. The stag toppled over, its neck broken.

Thakur paced around his prey as it kicked and twitched. Then he stopped, his sides still heaving, and looked up at Ratha.

“Are you any better at climbing down from trees than you are at stalking three-horns?”

Ratha felt her hackles rising.“Yarrr! That buzz-fly flew in front of my nose! Didn’t you see?” She turned herself around and started to back down the tree.

“The last time, you were startled by a mud-croaker. If you can’t keep your mind on what you are doing, yearling, go back to Fessran and her dapplebacks.”

The cub dropped the rest of the way and landed beside him. She turned her head and nosed along her back. That prong had come close to her skin.

“Never mind a few tufts of fur,” Thakur said crossly.

“I don’t mind losing cub fur.” Ratha smoothed her coat, now turning fawn but still faintly spotted. She lifted her head and stared defiantly at Thakur. “I was close, wasn’t I? If I hadn’t looked away, he would have been on his way to the herd.”

“Yes, you were close,” Thakur admitted. “Your stare is good; I see you have worked on it. Now you must learn to let nothing distract you. Once you have the animal’s eye, don’t lose it. Make them fear you and make that fear paralyze them until they cannot disobey you.” He looked at the fallen stag, lying still in a patch of sunlight. His whiskers twitched with what Ratha knew was annoyance. “I didn’t want to kill that one. He would have given the does many strong young.”

“Why did you kill him? The clan has meat.”

“It wasn’t for meat.” Thakur stared at Ratha and she noticed a slight acrid tang in his smell, telling her he was irritated. “Nor was it to spare you. I could have chased him to the herd. He broke your stare, Ratha. He learned that he did not need to fear you and that you feared him. Beaststhat know that kill herders.”

“Why must we have three-horns in the herd?” Ratha grumbled. “They’re hard to manage. They fight among themselves and bully the other animals.”

“They are larger and yield more meat. They have more young. And,” Thakur added, “they are harder for the raiders to kill and drag away.”

Ratha trotted over and sniffed the stag, filling her nose with its musky aroma. Her belly growled. She felt a firm paw pushing her away.“No, yearling. Meoran will be displeased enough that I killed the beast. He will be further angered if any fangs touch it before his.”

Ratha helped Thakur drag the carcass out of the sun and brushed away the flies. Her belly rumbled again. Thakur heard it and grinned at her.“Patience, yearling. You’ll eat tonight.”

“If Meoran and the others leave anything but hide and bones,” Ratha complained. “There is never enough meat at the clan kill, and I have to wait until those even younger than I have filled their bellies.”

“How do you know they are younger?” Thakur said as Ratha took one last hungry look at the kill. “Cherfan’s spots are no darker than yours.”

“Arr. Cherfan ate before I did last night and I know his litter came after mine, Thakur Torn-Claw. I am older, yet he eats first.”

Thakur soothed her.“Your spots are just taking a long time to fade. You are too impatient, yearling. Two seasons ago, I ate last and often went hungry. It was hard for me then and I know it is hard for you now, but it will change.”

Ratha twitched one ear.“Shall I try the three-horn again? Maybe a doe would be easier than a stag.”

Thakur squinted up through the trees.“The sun is starting to fall. By the time we find one, Yaran will be looking for you.”

Her whiskers went back.“Arr, the old roarer. Hasn’t he enough cubs to look after that he must worry about me?” She snorted, thinking about her lair-father. Yaran had a harsh, gravelly voice and no inhibitions about speaking his mind. She knew that had his brother Meoran not been the firstborn, Yaran would have been clan leader and, she admitted, perhaps a better one than Meoran. He was kind to her in his rough way, but he would stand no nonsense from cubs.

“We have time left for some practice, Ratha,” Thakur said, regaining her attention. “I noticed that your spring was too high and that midair twist needs improving.”

He started her practicing dodges, turns and springs. After watching and commenting on her technique, he assumed the part of a wayward herdbeast while Ratha used her training to capture him and force him to the herd.

As Thakur watched the lithe muscled form darting and turning in front of him, he remembered how hard he had argued with her lair-father about training her in the art of herding.

“She is quick, she is strong, she can outsmart most of the cubs born before her,” he’d told Yaran as the two stood together in almost the same place as he was now, watching Yaran’s small daughter chase a young dappleback. “Look how she runs that little animal and has no fear of it. Not totrain her, Yaran, would be a waste and the clan can’t waste ability like hers.”

“True, three-year-old,” Yaran rumbled, swishing his gray tail. “She is strong and she is strong of mind. It is already difficult to make her obey, and I fear that training her as you suggest would make her less tractable than she is now. And less easy for me to find her a mate.”

Thakur remembered arguing until his tongue was tired and then going to old Baire, who was then leader, taking Ratha along. Baire saw the cub’s talent and overruled Yaran. Thakur was allowed to teach her his skill. He and Yaran exchanged few words these days, but that loss was small in comparison to Ratha’s gain.

The cub sprinted back and forth in the grass, the afternoon sun turning her fawn coat to gold. Soon her spots would be gone and she would no longer be a cub. Her spirit challenged him and sometimes frustrated him, but he never tried to break it as he knew Yaran had. And, although he would scarcely admit it to himself, in the back of his mind was the hope that when she grew old enough for a mate, she might take him, even though his family and age placed him low in comparison to the clan status of other males Yaran might choose for her.

Thakur raised his chin and scratched at a flea behind his ear.“Despite what I say sometimes, yearling, I have no regrets about choosing you to train. You are good, Ratha, in spite of your mistakes. When I have finished training you, you will be the best herder in the clan.” He paused. “I don’t often praise you, yearling. Perhaps I should.” He routedthe flea and lay down again. “Here is something that will please you more than words. I want you to stand guard with me and the other herders tonight.”

Ratha sat up, her whiskers quivering.“Can I? Will Meoran let me? He needs the best herders of the clan.”

“I told him that you are good enough. Meoran may think little of me in other ways, but when I speak about herding, he listens. Do you want to come?”

Ratha swallowed.“Will there be fighting?”

“If there is, you will keep out of it. Do you want to come with me tonight?”

“Yes!”

“Good.” Thakur got up and stretched, spreading his pads against the ground. “Help me drag this kill to the dens and I will see that you get enough to eat this evening. The clan cannot let those who guard the herds against the Un-Named grow weak from hunger.”

“Will the raid come tonight?” Ratha asked, pacing alongside her teacher.

“Meoran thinks it will. He has scouts watching the Un-Named.”

“I’ve seen them a few times. They hide behind trees or crouch in the shadows. They watch us just as we watch them.” Ratha trotted to match Thakur’s longer stride. “I’ve often wondered who they are and why they are without names.”

“Perhaps you will learn tonight, yearling,” he answered.

They reached the stag’s carcass. Thakur pushed one stiff foreleg aside and seized the neck while Ratha grabbed the rear leg by the hock. Together they lifted the kill and carried it away through the trees.

CHAPTER TWO

Ratha followed the white spot bobbing in the darkness ahead of her. She smelled resin, heard needles rustle and ducked beneath a branch that overhung the trail. She had seen the moon through the trees as she left her den, but here the dense forest hid its light. The white spot grew smaller and Thakur’s footsteps fainter. She hurried to catch up. She didn’t need to follow Thakur’s tail tip; she could guide herself well enough at night even though she was used to living by day. But the white spot drew her on and she followed without thinking, as she had followed the white of her mother’stail through the tall grass of the meadow. Ratha remembered the one time she had dared to disobey. Panic had tightened her belly and sent her scampering back to Narir. She was beyond her cubhood now, but the night to her was a very large and awesome creature and the flickering spot ahead promised protection.

She followed, looking about as she ran, and wondered at how her vision changed at night. She had run night trails before, but they were short paths from one den to another, short enough that the thoughts filling her head as her feet trod the path never let her notice what she was seeing. Now the trail was longer and she was beginning to shed her cub-thoughts with her spotted fur. Now, as if it knew she was using her mind with her eyes, night crept out of its murky den and showed itself to her. The crystal light of the moon cut through the trees and gave every knobbled root, scaled patch of bark or curled fern a harsh presence, a clarity that was too sharp. She looked at night-lit trees and stones and felt she could cut her paw pads on their edges.

Ratha smelled mossy stone and damp fur. She heard Thakur’s pads slap on mud as he paced the streambank. He hunched himself, a compact shadow against the moonlit stream, and leaped across. On the other side she saw him wave his tail.

“Cross, yearling,” he said. “You have jumped it before.”

She crouched on a flat stone at the water’s edge, trying to judge the distance to the other shore. The beating in her throat made her thirsty and she lowered her muzzle to drink. In the faint light she saw her own face. Her eyes, green in daylight, were now swallowed up in black. She had seen her own reflection many times before and, when young, had drenched herself trying to swat it. Ratha looked at her night face, the broad nose, small fangs and strange expanded eyes. She turned away from it and jumped over the stream.

Thakur’s tail was flicking back and forth and he smelled uneasy. There was another smell in his scent, one Ratha didn’t know. She trotted toward him, shaking the mud from her paws.

“Hurry, yearling. The others have gone ahead and I don’t want them to wait for us.” His eyes reflected moonlight as he turned once more to the trail.

He set a faster pace than before. Ratha had to gallop to keep up and she felt the weight of her dinner drag at her belly as she ran. She lifted her head, gulping the coolness of the night air to soothe the pulsing in her throat. Smells of the meadow were mixed with the smells of the forest, telling her they would soon be there. The forest began to open. A few stars and then the half-disk of the moon appeared through the canopy.

A branch cracked. The sound was close and sharp, making Ratha start. Thakur, ahead, glanced back but didn’t slow down. The trail ran up a small rise and veered around at the crest. Here the canopy opened and the moon lit the trail. The light silvered Thakur’s coat as he galloped around the curve toward the hollow beyond. Ratha panted up the grade after him, wishing her legs were longer and she hadeaten less. As she approached the top, there was a dry scratchy sound. Bark fell from a tree trunk. She looked toward a gnarled oak near the top of the rise. One of its large lower branches paralleled the trail for some distance, making it a short alternate route. As Thakur disappeared over the crest of the little hill, a form dropped from the oak’s branches and ran along the lower limb. For an instant the stranger paused, crouched, one forepaw lifted, staring back at Ratha. Then he was gone.

She leaped off the trail, cutting through the brush. Tucking her tail between her legs, she fled down into the hollow.

Thakur was nowhere to be seen and Ratha stopped, when she regained the trail, her heart pounding.“Ssss, yearling,” came a voice close by. “Here.” Thakur lifted his head from a clump of ferns. “Has Narir taught you no better trail-running than that? I thought a shambleclaw was coming through the bushes.”

“I saw him, Thakur,” Ratha interrupted, her whiskers quivering with excitement.

“What did you see?”

“The Un-Named One. He was there on the branch after you passed. He looked back at me.”

“Yarrr. The Un-Named never allow themselves to be seen. You saw some clan litterling who imagines himself to be a night hunter.” Thakur snorted.

Ratha’s jaw dropped in dismay, then her ears flattened. “No. I saw him. He was there on the branch as if he wanted me to see him. And I have seen him before.”

“When?” Thakur asked.

“Many clan kills ago. I had a fight with Cherfan and he chased me into a thicket at the end of the meadow. He was in there asleep and I ran right over him. He snarled at me.”

Thakur left the ferns and came to her. His steps were quick, his eyes sudden and intense. Ratha smelled the same odor about him she had noticed before.

“Did you tell anyone else?”

“Only Cherfan,” Ratha said hesitantly, “and he never listens to me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice had a harshness to it Ratha seldom heard, even when he was scolding her during training.

“I didn’t know enough then. Why, Thakur? Are you afraid of the Un-Named One?”

“No.”

Ratha turned toward the trail again, but he nudged her and she stopped.

“Wait, Ratha. The Un-Named One … did he say anything to you?”

She blinked.“You mean, did he … speak?”

The strange smell about Thakur was stronger and suddenly frightening. She sensed he wanted something that he also feared and that he wanted it very much. Ratha felt her tail creeping between her legs and her hackles rise.

“Yes, cub. Did he use words?”

She felt her eyes grow wide as she crouched and he stood over her. Was it the night’s touch that made him seem almost menacing?

“Ratha.”

She backed away from him. A hanging frond touched her back and she jumped. She whined miserably.“Thakur, I don’t understand. Everyone knows that the Un-Named Ones don’t speak. They can’t. They aren’t clever enough.”

Thakur drew back his whiskers and Ratha heard him snarl to himself,“Yes, Meoran. You believe the clanless ones are witless as well. Teach it to the cubs and see how the clan fares.”

“Thakur, the Un-Named can’t speak any more than a herdbeast can,” Ratha said hunching her shoulders stubbornly.

He sighed. His voice grew calm, changing him back into her teacher again. He paced beside her, licking her behind the ears.“I’m sorry, small one. I did not mean to frighten you. Perhaps I should take you back to Narir’s den.” He lifted his head. “This night is strange. I smell things that make me uneasy. This night is not for a cub.”

Ratha sat up and groomed some of the dried leaves out of her fur. Then they went on.

At first, Ratha could think only of the stranger whose eyes had glowed at her from the old oak. Was he one of the Un-Named? And why had Thakur asked her such strange things? There were no answers to her questions. Not yet.

Things moved abruptly at night, making Ratha turn her head and flatten her ears. She was much more aware of motion at night than during the day. Movement she seldom noticed in daylight, such as a grass blade swaying or a leaf falling, brought her head around and made her whiskers bristle. It was not fear, although night was fearsome. The pulse in her throat was excitement. She felt alive this night. All her senses were extended and her skin tingled as if the sensitive whiskers on her face were growing all over her body.

There was a rustle in the bushes ahead on the trail. Thakur skidded to a stop and Ratha nearly ran into him. Over his back, she could see a dark form fleet away.

“There he is again,” she whispered. “I did see him!”

“Arr! Fool, to show yourself!” Thakur hissed into the darkness.

“He is a bad hunter, Thakur,” Ratha said. “He is noisy, like me. He is stupid,” she added, wagging her tail arrogantly. “All of the Un-Named are stupid and I am not afraid of any of them.Ptahh.” She spat.

“Hurry then, yearling,” Thakur said dryly. “We will need your courage in the meadow tonight.”

He took up the trail again and she followed.

* * *

Teeth ground together, a drawn-out groaning sound. The herdbeast belched and made wet mushy noises as it began chewing its cud. Ratha crept near, shaking her paws every few steps. The air was moist and the grass dewy. A light mist made the moonlight hazy and muffled the crickets’ song. The animal shifted on its belly. It snuffled and grunted as it watched her with small suspicious eyes set forward in a long block-shaped skull. It flicked large ears, like those of a three-horn, and swallowed the food it was chewing.

Ratha drew her whiskers back. The idea of eating grass disgusted her and the idea of bringing it up again and re-chewing it was even worse. Meat was much better, she thought. It was chewed once and when it went down, it stayed down, unless it had been eaten too fast.

The animal clamped its jaws together and eyed the cub ill-temperedly. Although it lacked horns, the creature used its big head like a battering ram. The barrel body and short legs made it look vulnerable and clumsy. Several of the herders had earned broken ribs by assuming it was.

The animal belched again. Ratha wrinkled her nose and padded away.

She glanced up and down the meadow at other herders who stood in a ring around the flock, their faces to the forest. She yawned and stretched until her tail quivered and saw an answering gape from another shadow in the mist. Nothing was going to happen tonight, she thought. The fright on the trail was all the excitement she was going to get. And perhaps Thakur was right and her Un-Named apparition was just a clan-cub.

She ambled past a fern thicket and heard a pair of dapplebacks snorting and pushing at each other in the dark. Dapplebacks usually climbed on top of each other in the spring season, but these two were starting early. Ratha smelled the rich lure-scent of the mare, the sweat and rut of the little stallion. The odor repelled her and fascinated her, making her think of the scents on trees that clan males had sprayed.

The odor also made her think of Thakur and the way he had licked her behind the ears on the trail. She listened to the dapplebacks bumping together and the little stallion’s rhythmic grunts, her tail twitching. These thoughts were new, not cub-thoughts at all, and she approached them as warily in her mind as she had approached the belching herdbeast.

Her feet were getting damp from standing in one place. She shook them. The mist was growing thicker. She decided to find Thakur.

His scent was mixed in with herdbeast smells, forest smells and the smells of other herders. Ratha separated it from all the others and followed it to him. He was crouched on top of the sunning stone, his tail curled across his feet, speaking to Fessran who stood nearby.

Ratha trotted quickly toward them and skidded to a stop, feeling the wet grass pull between her pads. Thakur cocked his head at her. She walked to Fessran and touched noses.

“Clan herder, two of your dapplebacks are hiding in the fern thicket,” she said. “I can chase them back to the herd for you.”

“No, Ratha. Leave them be. I’ll look after them,” Fessran answered in her soft voice.

“That little stallion doesn’t stop, does he? You’ll have enough dappleback colts to feed the clan well.”

“Yarrr. Thakur, you think only of your belly.” Fessran launched a disgusted swipe in his direction and Thakur ducked.

“I am pleased that she has done so well,” Fessran said seriously, looking at Ratha.

“Yes, I am also pleased. There are not many of the female cubs who have the ability, but she does and she has worked hard.”

Ratha was startled to see Fessran bristle.

“Have you grown as short-whiskered as Meoran?” she snarled. “The female cubs have no lack of ability. Our fleabag of a clan leader won’t let me train them! Drani’s daughter, Singra, has the same talent as Ratha. But her father forbade it and Meoran said he would chew my ears if I taught my art to any cubs except the ones he selected.” Fessran lowered her head and lashed her tail. “And Singra was not among the ones chosen last season or this season. Now it is too late and she grows soft and fat.Yarrr!”

“Gently, Fessran,” Thakur soothed. “You know how hard I fought for Ratha.”

“You only succeeded because Baire still lived. Now Meoran stands as clan leader and no she-cubs train as herders.Ptahh! He would mate me to a gray-coat and put one of his whelps in my place. How I hate him, Thakur!”

“Ssss, there are other ears in the meadow tonight. Be wary of your words, Fessran.”

“Wise Thakur. You always were more cautious than I.” Fessran smoothed her fur. “Those two dapplebacks should be finished. I’ll run them back to the herd.”

“Fessran.” She stopped and looked back at Thakur. “I’ll do my best for Ratha. You are the one I can’t protect. Choose your words with care and you may be safe.”

“My temper often chooses my words for me.” Fessran’s whiskers twitched ruefully and she trotted away.

Thakur sighed and settled himself on the damp stone, fluffing his fur. Ratha lifted a hind foot and scratched herself.

Across the meadow a herdbeast bawled. Thakur sat up. Another animal bellowed. Hooves beat, rushing through the grass. A harsh yowl began. It rose to a shriek and another answered. Ratha jumped up, her fur on end. Thakur leaped off his perch.

“That wasn’t a clan voice,” he said grimly as Ratha bounded to join him. She saw other herders running; heard wailing calls and snapping branches.

“Yearling, stay here,” Thakur said sharply.

A form appeared in the mist and galloped toward them. It was Fessran again.

“Thakur, the raiders have broken in at the end of the meadow. They’ve already pulled down two deer. Hurry!”

Thakur turned to Ratha.“Watch the dapplebacks, yearling. Keep them together.”

“What if the raiders come?”

“They won’t.” Fessran showed her teeth. “Not this far.”

“If anyone attacks my herd, I’ll fight.” Ratha lashed her tail eagerly.

“You will not.” Thakur glared at her. “You will climb the nearest tree and stay there until I call you. The clan can lose a few dapplebacks. Not you.”

“Arrr. I want to go with you, Thakur.”

“This is not cub-tussling, Ratha. I told you that before we left. You are not to fight. Is that understood?”

“Yes-s-s.” Ratha sighed.

A herdbeast cried out and then choked as it fell. Muffled yowling came through the ground mist.

“Hurry, Thakur,” Fessran hissed and the two sprang up and galloped away, leaving Ratha alone.

She shivered and looked up at the sky. The moon was a hazy smear of white, the stars were gone. She jogged toward the scattered herd of dapplebacks and began circling it, driving the little horses into a tighter bunch. They sensed the danger and were restive, squealing and milling. The little stallion shepherded his flock of mares together and tried to separate them from the other dapplebacks. Ratha drove them all back, nipping at their flanks. Once she had the herd packed together, she kept circling it, staying far enough away not to panic the animals, but close enough to catch any strays.

She stopped, panting, flicking dewdrops off her whiskers. She listened to drumming hooves and shrill cries from the other end of the meadow. A body fell.Another herdbeast down, she thought. She flattened her ears. None of the Un-Named dung-eaters would touch Fessran’s dapplebacks, she promised herself. The little horses stood together, their heads raised, their stiff manes quivering. Ratha gained her breath and began circling the herd again. Running kept her from thinking; kept her from being frightened.

On the opposite side of the herd, she caught a glimpse of something moving in the fog. A low, slender form; not a herdbeast. Ratha bared her teeth and dashed around the outside of the flock. She stopped and sniffed. She knew that smell. She nosed the ground. The smell was fading in the dampness, but footprints were there. Her tail began to flick as she peered through the mist in all directions. Where had he gone?

A sudden shrill scream told her. Ratha plunged into the middle of the herd, sending animals scattering in every direction. The killer was there, dragging his thrashing prey through the grass. Ratha opened her jaws in a full-throated roar as she charged at him. The raider jerked his head up, pulling his teeth from the dappleback’s neck before Ratha barreled into him, knocking him sprawling.

She scrambled to her feet. She had barely time to see his hate-filled yellow eyes before he leaped at her.

Ratha flipped onto her back and pedaled furiously, raking her adversary’s belly with her hind claws. She felt her front paw strike his chin as he snapped at her flailing feet. He missed, but his head continued down and before she could knock him away, his teeth raked the skin over her breastbone. She seized his ear and felt her teeth meet through the skin. As he dragged her along, she twisted her head and tasted oily fur when she scored his cheek with her small fangs. He dived for her belly and got a mouthful of her claws. His rough tongue rasped her pads; his teeth sliced the top of her foot. One claw caught and then tore free.

He seized her ruff. Her head snapped back as he threw her to one side. Her chest burned and throbbed. Warm blood crawled like fleas through her fur. Ratha writhed and wriggled, but she only felt the teeth sink deeper into her ruff as he lifted her and threw her down again. One heavy paw crushed her ribs and a triumphant growl rumbled above her. The teeth loosened from her ruff and the paw turned her over. When everything stopped spinning, she saw two glittering eyes and fangs bared for a last strike at her throat.

In one motion, Ratha curled over and lunged. Her teeth clashed against his and she felt something break. She grabbed his lower jaw and bit hard until her cheek muscles ached. His saliva wet her whiskers and was sour in her mouth. Blood welled around her teeth, tasting rich and salty as bone marrow.

He screamed and shook her off.

Ratha rolled away, staggered to her feet, spitting blood. He was crouched opposite her. She felt her chest burning and her ribs heaved. If he caught her again, he would kill her. Why hadn’t she listened to Thakur?

He pounced. She jumped aside. He whirled, lunged, and again she dodged him, making her shaking legs obey her. An idea began to form in her mind as she sprang away from him again. Thakur had trained her to trick the herdbeasts. The three-horn stag had been as intent on killing her as this Un-Named enemy. The Un-Named, Meoran had said to all the cubs, were no smarter than herdbeasts. Could she use her training to trick this killer?

She watched him carefully as he gathered for another attack. She waited until he was almost on top of her and jumped straight up, coming down behind him. She spun around and watched him shake his head in confusion until he sniffed, looked back over his shoulder, whirled and pounced. Ratha saw him land on empty grass, a tail-length away from her. She grinned at him, her tongue lolling.

The Un-Named One snarled, showing a broken lower fang. Ratha waggled her whiskers at him from a safe distance. He rushed her again and she bounced away. She started to lead him in circles until she had him almost chasing his own tail. She danced around exuberantly, taunting him.

“Dung-eater! Scavenger!” she hissed as he staggered dizzily. He glared at her, his eyes burning. “Cub-catcher! Bone-chewer!” Ratha paused and caught her breath. “Poor stupid bone-chewer,” she hissed. “You can’t even understand what I’m saying, can you?” The Un-Named One stood panting as Ratha danced around him.“Yarrr, you couldn’t pounce on your mother’s tail,” she said, showing her teeth at him. “When Thakur gets back, he’ll chew your other ear off, you eater of mud-croakers and chewer of bones!”

“Clan cub, you have lots of words. Say them now before I tear out your throat.”

Ratha froze. Her eyes went wide.

“What are you staring at?” the other said.

“Y … you.” she faltered. “I never thought…. I never thought.”

“That the clanless ones could speak?”

Ratha stared at him, her mouth open.

“‘Poor bone-chewer,’” he mimicked, “‘you can’t even understand what I’m saying, can you?’” Before she had time to answer, he leaped at her. She saw his paw coming and ducked, but she wasn’t quick enough. He clouted her on the side of the head, knocking her down into the wet grass. By the time she staggered to her feet and her vision cleared, he was dragging his prey toward the forest. She lurched after him, tripped over her paws and fell on her face.

“I don’t care if you can speak,” she yelled after him, “you are still a scavenger and bone-chewer!” The only answer was the muffled sound of a body being dragged across soggy ground. Ratha tried to get up, but her paws wouldn’t stay underneath her. She sprawled miserably on her front. The dapplebacks were scattered all over the meadow, easy prey for other raiders. There was no way she could get them rounded up before Fessran and Thakur got back. She put her chin down on her front paws, wondering if Fessran was going to leave enough of her in one piece for Thakur to punish.

CHAPTER THREE

Ratha woke shivering. The heavy moisture on her coat was soaking through to her skin. Droplets from her brow whiskers dripped onto her nose. She blinked and shook her head. Fearing that she had dozed away the rest of the night, she peered into the mist for signs of dawn or of Thakur’s return. She saw neither. The sky was still murky overhead and the half-moon a faint wash of light above the dark mass of the trees.

Ratha drew her front paws underneath her and pushed herself up. Pain lanced across her chest and into her forelegs. She felt one of the bite-wounds on her neck pull open as she bent her head down to lick her front. She coaxed her hindquarters up and stood, hanging her head. Everything ached, from her teeth to her tail. Neither Thakur nor Fessran had returned.

The wind blew past her ears with a hollow early-morning wail. It had no effect on the mist, which only grew thicker. Ratha could barely see the grass a tail-length ahead. She tried a step and winced as the motion jarred the pain from her jaws into her head, where it sat throbbing behind her eyes. Why hadn’t she listened to Thakur and climbed a tree when the raider came?

Ratha felt something wedged in her teeth, behind one upper fang. With her tongue, she worked it loose and felt it. A scrap of skin with slimy fur on one side and bitter-tasting wax on the other. A piece of the raider’s ear. She grimaced, spat the ear-scrap out and pawed it aside, feeling a certain grim pleasure.

She tried a few more limping steps, clamping her jaws together to keep her head from ringing. As she walked, the burning knot in her chest loosened, freeing her stride. She spotted something solid in the fog and broke into a shaky trot toward it, hoping it was one of her escaped dapplebacks. She drew her whiskers back in disgust when she realized that she’d been stalking the sunning rock. Well, at least she knew where she was. She hopped on top of the stone and sniffed, knowing that the moist, still air captured and held scent-trails. There. A faint trace, but growing stronger. She inhaled the musky odor of the little horses and climbed down off the sunning rock after them.

Ratha found the dappleback stallion and his mares huddled together, the mist swirling around their legs, their stiff manes and coats flecked with sweat and dew. The faint trace of moonlight made the dapplebacks’ eyes phosphorescent as they watched her. The stallion reared and whinnied, showing his short, pointed canine teeth. Carefully she cut in behind the herd and, as the horses retreated from her, guided them to the sunning rock. She circled the flock, driving the dapplebacks together into a tight bunch. Some of the stragglers returned to the herd, but Ratha knew from the individual scents missing from the herd-smell that many more of the animals were lost or slain.

Ratha stopped her nervous pacing. She stood still and listened, but she could only hear the dapplebacks shuffling behind her. The fog muffled all sounds except those close by. She could neither see nor hear anything from the other end of the meadow. Only smells reached her and they made her fur stand on end. The tang of sweat was acrid in her nose; the odor of blood rich and metallic. The strongest smell was fear, and it seemed to spread over the meadow mixed in with the mist, paralyzing everything it touched.

Another shadow, dim, then definite. A familiar smell, then a familiar figure.

“Ratha?” Thakur’s voice was cautious.

“Here, Thakur,” she answered.

Ratha touched noses with Thakur. He was panting; she felt his warm breath and wet whiskers on her face.“Yearling, this is much worse than I thought it would be. Meoran has badly underestimated the raiders this time.”

Ratha felt fear shoot through her like the pain in her chest.“Have we lost the herd?”

“No, by our teeth and claws we’ve held the raiders back, and if we can hold them until dawn, the fight will be over, for the Un-Named Ones do not attack by day.” Thakur paused and sniffed at her ruff. “You bleed, yearling.”

“I fought, Thakur. I know you told me to climb a tree, but when he killed one of Fessran’s dapplebacks, I ran at him.”

Thakur sighed.“I have trained you too well. Your lair-mother is going to chew my ears for bringing you back wounded.”

“I chewed his ears, Thakur,” Ratha said fiercely. “He got the dappleback, but he left some skin between my teeth.”

“Huh,” Thakur grunted, circling her and nosing her. He licked the bites on her throat, rasping away the fragile clots. He squeezed the wounds with his jaws, forcing the blood to run freely. Ratha squirmed and whimpered.

“Quiet, yearling. Do you want to get an abscess? You will if these heal too quickly. There. I’m finished.”

“Thakur,” Ratha said quickly. “I know who that raider is.”

He blinked and stared at her, an odd stare that made her feel uncomfortable.

“The one on the trail.”

“Yearling, that was—” Thakur began.

“No, he wasn’t a clan whelp! Would a clan-cub have killed one of Fessran’s dapplebacks? Thakur, I saw him and I fought with him.” Ratha paused, watching him carefully. “You asked me, on the trail, if he had spoken to me when I ran over him that time in the thicket, when I was a cub. It frightened me. I saw him again tonight and I think you are going to ask me the same thing again.”

“No! I wish you would forget what I said on the trail. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“But I’m not frightened any more. I want to know why! Why did you ask me if the Un-Named One spoke?”

“Ratha, I can’t …” Thakur began. A muffled swish of grass interrupted him and Fessran limped out of the fog. She sniffed once and glared at Ratha.

“Ptah! I fight raiders and she can’t even keep a mangy herd of dapplebacks together without losing half of them. Has it been so long since I trained you, cub?”

Ratha opened her mouth to retort, but a glance from Thakur stopped her.

“I’ll help you find the rest of them, Fessran, when I’ve taken Ratha back to Narir,” he said soothingly.

“If the Un-Named will let you through,” Fessran snarled. “They are thicker in the forest tonight than the fleas on Meoran’s belly.”

“Can you take care of the horses by yourself until I get back?”

“Yes. Take the cub and go, Thakur. She’ll be safer in Narir’s den.” Fessran limped away, leaving Thakur and Ratha alone.

“I fought raiders too!” Ratha hissed angrily. “Why didn’t you let me tell her?”

“There wasn’t time. Yearling, we’ve got to hurry. I don’t want you here if the raiders break through.”

“Do I have to go back to the den?” Ratha asked, padding shakily alongside him.

“Yearling, haven’t you had enough for tonight? You’re barely able to stand up and you think you’re ready for another scrap with the Un-Named? No, I think I’d better take you back.”

She yawned.“All right, Thakur. I am tired.”

They had not gone far when several forms emerged out of the mist and jogged toward them. Ratha’s heart jumped, then she recognized them as clan herdfolk.

“Thakur Torn-Claw,” said the first one.

“Srass of Salarfang Den,” Thakur answered. “How is the trail tonight?”

Srass lowered his head and Ratha saw his whiskers twitch.“The Un-Named grow bolder. They attacked another party of herders who were trying to join us. Our people made it through, but two were badly bitten.” The herder turned his eyes on Ratha. “I would not run this trail tonight, young one.”

“She would be safer in a den,” Thakur argued.

“Then dig one here in the meadow.” Srass shrugged as Thakur glared at him. “Do as you wish, Torn-Claw, but if you take the trail before dawn, neither of you will reach clan ground.”

“I thought the Un-Named only killed herdbeasts.” Ratha’s voice was thin.

“They kill anyone who is of the clan. They hate us.”

“Yarr, Srass,” snarled one of the herder’s companions, an older male with scars and broken teeth. “You speak as if the Un-Named had wit enough to hate us. Has Meoran not said that those who are Un-Named and clanless are beasts no less so than the ones we herd?”

“Beasts can also hate,” Srass muttered, but his tail was low and Ratha smelt the sudden change in his scent. He was afraid. “All right, Tevran,” he said hastily, not looking at the other. “I am not questioning our leader’s words, so you need not listen so closely.”

“You had better stay in the meadow, Torn-Claw,” said Gare. “I hear the cub is a promising herder and the clan should not lose her.”

Thakur turned away, his whiskers quivering. Ratha cocked her head at him.“May you eat of the haunch and sleep in the driest den, clan herders,” she said politely to Srass and Tevran.

As Thakur passed her, she heard him growl under his breath,“May your tail be chewed off and all your fur fall our, Tevran.”

With one last glance at the two herders, Ratha lowered her head and padded after him.

“Are we going back?” she asked, catching up.

“No, Srass is right. The trail is too dangerous.”

“Now I want to go home. My underfur is wet.” Her voice was petulant.

“We can‘t, yearling. Not until dawn.”

“What if the raiders break through?”

“Then both of us go up the nearest tree.”

Ratha shivered and shook herself, sending dewdrops flying. She sneezed.

“Come back with me to the sunning rock,” Thakur suggested. “You can curl up beside me and Fessran. We’ll warm you up.”

“Fessran is angry with me,” Ratha grumbled.

“I’ll tell her to sharpen her claws on someone else. Come on, yearling,” he said as Ratha yawned, a gape that stretched her mouth and made her jaw muscles ache again. Thakur waved his tail imperiously, but Ratha was in no mood to follow. She flattened her ears and turned away from him.

“Ratha!”

She ignored Thakur’s call as she trotted away into the fog.

There was a drumming of feet behind her and the sound of wet grass swishing. She stopped and glared back at Thakur.

“You idiot cub, you can’t go back by yourself!” Ratha turned her head aside and trotted off in a different direction. Again Thakur blocked her.

“Go away. I don’t want you as teacher any more,” she snarled. “Fessran may be hard, but she listens to me and answers my questions. And I am not a cub. You wouldn’t have brought me here with you if you thought I was.”

“The way you are acting tells me I may have made a mistake.Yarr! Yearling, come back here!” he called as Ratha galloped away. She ran as hard as she could, twisting and turning so that Thakur would lose her trail. Soon the fog muffled his footsteps and they died away behind her. She ran on, aching and shivering, not sure where she was going and not really caring. There was a feeling in her throat as if a piece of meat were stuck there, and swallow as she might, she couldn’t get it down.

At last Ratha jogged into a patch of frosty grass and stopped to rest. The cold was pulling the fog out of the air, laying it on the ground in crystals of ice. She fluffed her fur. Running had warmed her, but as she stood, the chill began to creep back again. She lifted her nose. Some stars were showing through the mist overhead. Everything was quiet now.

Ratha peered between two white-covered stalks and ducked back. She didn’t want to be found by anyone, whether it was her teacher or the Un-Named raider. Her whiskers trembled. She whimpered softly and closed her eyes.

She was afraid of the night, of the raiders, of Thakur, but what frightened her most was the change in herself. A cub wasn’t supposed to get angry with her teacher. A cub wasn’t supposed to question, to doubt, or to sense that things were wrong. When had the awareness come?

She hung her head miserably. Had she imagined that the Un-Named One had spoken during the fight? It was easy to believe that she hadn’t heard his words and less frightening to believe so. Less frightening for her and Thakur. But why? Why should Thakur even care whether the scavenger had talked?

Because he knows they can, something in her mind answered, and, for a moment, she was startled by the realization.

Everyone thinks the clanless ones are stupid, Ratha thought. Meoran tells us to think that way. But if Thakur thinks they can talk, as we do, perhaps he thinks they aren’t stupid, either.

“The Un-Named One spoke to me,” Ratha said aloud to herself. “I know he did.”

She sat down and stared at nothing for a long time. None of it made any sense.

“Thakur is wrong,” she muttered. “I am not a cub anymore.”

She stared at the faint form on the grass beside her for a long time before she realized that it was the first trace of her shadow. As the milky light began to spread over the horizon behind the trees, Ratha blinked and shook her head, not sure whether she had been awake.

The sun rose, chasing the fog away into the trees. The hoarfrost melted back into dew and the drops hung from grassblades and the leaves glittered. Sounds reached Ratha’s ears and she turned her head.

She had run so far across the meadow that she couldn’t see the sunning rock and she wasn’t quite sure where she was. As the fog slid away, it uncovered the carnage of the night’s battle. Bodies of slain herdbeasts, both three-horns and dapplebacks, lay still and stiff. Nearby were smaller forms, the torn remains of both the herd’s defenders and attackers. From where she hid, Ratha couldn’t tell whether the slain were clan folk or raiders. The clan believed the Un-Named Ones were different, yet they all looked alike in death, Ratha thought, as she crept from her hiding place.

She shook her head, trying to get rid of such thoughts. It was day. There were tasks to be done: herdbeasts to graze and water, cubs to teach and feed. The clan would gather itself together, bury its dead and go on. There was no other way. Things didn’t change. After all, day still came. Ratha grinned sourly to herself. Thakur would probably even expect her for a lesson, once she had taken a nap and had her wounds attended to. Thakur would treat her as if this night hadn’t happened and expect her to be the same cub he had led out on the trail one evening very long ago.

But I am not the same, Ratha thought as she wandered back across the meadow.I have changed in a way I don’t understand.

CHAPTER FOUR

Blue wings fluttered in the boughs above the trail. A volley of squawks broke lose and the two quarreling jays chased each other in and out among the branches. Startled, Ratha glanced up, catching only the flash of white tail feathers as the two combatants disappeared. She had forgotten that birds could be so noisy. The owls and nightjars she saw floating over the meadow at night were utterly silent.

The warm tongue of sunlight washed her back as she emerged from beneath the trees. She felt the heat sink through her fur to her skin and she yawned, feeling lazy. How long had it been since she had seen the full sun of day and heard birds singing? Ever since the first raid, it seemed. Other clan herdfolk had also learned to live by night, guarding their animals from sudden attacks by raiders.

Even their best efforts could only slow the loss of herdbeasts to the enemy. This season was the first time that the number of animals killed exceeded the number of young born, and the clan knew that unbalance could not continue for long. The need for more herders was so great that cubs who had only partially completed their training were taken to guard the herds. Among them was Ratha. She was eager to leave Thakur’s tutelage, for ever since the night of the first raid, she had made little progress and knew that it was because she no longer trusted him. He had refused to answer her questions about the clanless ones and denied that the Un-Named could speak. Later he said he had never hinted that they could.Ratha knew this lie was intended for Meoran’s ears and did not fault Thakur for that. Even when they were alone, he refused her the truth, even as his eyes betrayed his words.

She sensed that there was another fear keeping him silent. When she pressed him to explain, he lost his temper and mocked her. What she had heard, he said, was her own imagination or the sound of the wind in the grass. Only a cub could believe that the Un-Named One spoke. Only a cub.

She knew it was Thakur who had encouraged her, fought for her and had even stood up against her father and the clan leader so that he could train her. At times, her resentment weakened in the face of this knowledge, but she was a clan herder now, with many responsibilities and little time, and Thakur had many new cubs to train. They seldom saw or spoke to each other.

Ratha ambled along the path, her tail swinging, enjoying the morning.

She had already worked the previous night, but when one of the herders who took the day watch fell ill, she had asked to take his place for the sake of a ramble in the sunshine. And, although she wouldn’t admit it to herself, for the chance of seeing Thakur.

She hopped over the stream at the meadow’s edge. The dapplebacks grazed in the shade on the far side. Fessran was there too, showing three fat spotted cubs how to dodge kicks from the feisty little horses. Ratha waved her tail at Fessran and the other herder paused in her lesson.

“Ho, Fessran? Where’s your randy little stallion? I don’t see him.”

“In the thicket, with a mare, as usual,” Fessran answered. “If it weren’t for him, the Un-Named would have eaten all of my flock long ago.”

“What’s he doing?” one of the cubs piped up.

“Making more dapplebacks,” said Fessran.

“Oh.” The youngster looked thoughtful. “Will we see them when he comes out?”

The cub’s teacher grimaced. Ratha gave Fessran a wide-mouthed grin and lolled her tongue out.

“That isn’t the way it happens, Mondir,” said a voice next to the question-asker. Stung, Mondir shoved his muzzle against the other’s nose. “Since you know everything, Bira, you tell me how it happens.”

“I don’t know everything,” the female cub said, wrinkling her nose and sitting down on her tail. “But my lair-mother did tell me it’s something I will do when I am big. And you will too.”

“What? Make dapplebacks?” Mondir protested loudly and then wilted when he saw four tongues lolling at him.

“Yarr! Don’t the lair-mothers teach you litterlings anything?” Fessran grumbled. “Away with you, Ratha!” she growled. “I have cubs to train.”

Ratha grinned at her and jogged away. As she left, she heard Fessran soothing Mondir, who had begun to whimper.

“No, litterling. You won’t make dapplebacks when you grow up. I’ll explain it to you when the lesson is over….”

Ratha trotted toward a flock of three-horned deer and cud-chewers, her charges for the day. It was going to be a lazy morning and an even lazier afternoon. None of the raiders would show their whiskers before dusk. Perhaps she could even cajole one of Fessran’s students into watching the herd while she took a short nap in the sun.

Ratha found the group she had been assigned, circled them once and flopped down on her side, her eyes half-closed, listening to the three-horns tearing up grass. The sounds of grazing were punctuated every once in a while by a rumble or a belch from one of the cud-chewers. Ratha’s whiskers twitched. Those animals were disgusting, but they were also very tasty. One always had to make compromises.

The day’s warmth faded briefly and she opened one eye to see the sun slip behind a cloud. She waited for the cloud to pass and soon felt the warm rays on her coat again. She flicked an ear and glanced up at the shadowed cloudbank gathering on the opposite side of the sky. The rainy season had ended early and spring had been dry. The forest floor had lost its dampness and dried sticks cracked underfoot wherever one went. A little rain might be welcome, if rain was all these clouds would bring, Ratha thought, not particularly liking the look of them.

The clouds began to mass and march across the sky. The air grew still and tense. Ratha stood up. The herdbeasts smelled the oncoming storm and crowded together, jostling each other.

Across the meadow, Ratha could see other herders raising their muzzles to the sky as they stood among the beasts they guarded. Even Fessran had stopped teaching and was shooing her young students back to their mothers’ dens.

The day darkened as the low clouds scudded over the sun. Heat lightning cracked the sky. Thunder grumbled.

Ratha trotted around her charges, glancing from time to time at the other herders and their animals. The herdbeasts milled together, their trotting legs and barrel bodies eclipsing the low, slender forms of their guardians.

Several more clan herders appeared at the trail head and galloped into the meadow. With a twinge of pain, Ratha recognized a familiar coppery coat. She had little time to think about Thakur. The deer and cud-chewers broke into short, nervous runs, and Ratha galloped back and forth, trying to keep the herd together. She loped around with her tongue hanging out, flattening her ears and flinching whenever lightning flashed and thunder boomed above the animals’ bawling.

An old pine had poked its top through the forest canopy near the meadow. Ratha caught a glimpse of the tree before she was blinded by a burst of light; deafened and knocked over by the shock. Ratha rolled to her feet. Nearby, several three-horns had fallen and were staggering up, their eyes wild. Ratha’s gaze swept the meadow. Beasts were running in front of her. Above the thunder came another sound, the sharp crackle of flames. The old pine was burning.

The herders stood with raised hackles as their animals ran past them.

The old tree shot sparks and dropped burning branches, setting the forest alight. The flames rushed and roared, leaping from tree to tree until the fire reached the meadow and the grass began to burn.

“To the creek!” a voice cried, jarring Ratha out of her stupor. Thakur galloped past her, snarling and snapping at the panicked three-horns. “Keep them together, Ratha! Drive them to the creek!”

Other herders bounded to join them. With their help, Ratha and Thakur turned the flock and drove the deer toward the stream at the trail head.

“It isn’t deep enough, Thakur!” Ratha panted, alongside him as they raced after the deer.

“I know, but we can follow it to the river. String them out!” he called to the other herders as the lead animals splashed into the creek. “Keep them in the water!” Herders on both sides of the stream forced the three-horns to wade at the center. Soon there was a line of deer bounding and splashing down the creek. Thakur braked to a stop, balancing himself with his tail. “Next, the dapplebacks,” he said to Ratha. “Come on.”

Together they galloped back to Fessran. The herder was hissing at the horses. Ratha could see that she was terrified by the fire and enraged by her charges’ stupidity.

“They don’t have the sense to run away,” Fessran gasped, coughing. “They run toward it!”

The fire reached into the meadow. It swept after the fleeing creatures, driven and fed by a fitful wind. It blinded them with smoke, choked them with ash and threw cinders on their coats. Ratha joined Fessran and Thakur, helping to drive the dapplebacks into the stream after the deer. The little stallion, maddened by the flames, fought the herders for control of his mares.

Ratha leaped over a low swath of orange fire, nearly singeing her belly. The dappleback stallion broke away from the herd and raced around her. She darted after him, then skidded to a stop, afraid that the rest of the herd would scatter.

“Get him!” Fessran appeared, her eyes watering, her cheek fur smoke-blackened. “I’ll keep the rest of them moving.”

Ratha bounded after the dappleback, now visible only as a shadow in the acrid haze hanging over the grass. A gust of wind cleared the air for a moment and she sighted her quarry. The little stallion reared, squealing and striking out with its four-toed feet. Ratha saw Thakur duck and spring, catching the dappleback’s foreleg in his jaws. He hung on as the horse jerked and wiggled, raking its leg to ribbons against his teeth. Ratha saw him plant his paws in the smoldering ash and drag the crying stallion forward. Thakur’s fur was bristling and his eyes large and wild, but his jaws were locked around the dappleback’s foreleg and he wouldn’t let go. The horse jumped and bucked, pawing at him with its free foot. Behind them, the fire surged, boiling black smoke.

The wind shifted, turning Thakur and the dappleback into shadows in the smoke. Ratha grabbed a breath of clear air and plunged through the haze. The stallion backed, pulling its leg through Thakur’s teeth until its foot was in his mouth. Tongues of flame leaped out. Ratha’s sight blurred, her eyes watering. She heard a high ringing scream from the dappleback’s throat. The horse broke free and toppled backwards into the flames. Ratha saw it rear up again, its back covered with fire. Itshrieked once more and fell writhing on its side. Again Thakur darted at it, seized a foreleg and dragged the burning animal through the grass.

“Thakur, leave him!” Ratha called, the hot air searing her throat so that she could barely croak out the words. She galloped after him. He had abandoned the carcass; it lay, its skin curling beneath the flames. She looked for Thakur again, but she couldn’t see anything through the haze. The fire sounded close. Dancing orange surrounded her in all directions and the roar deafened her.

“Cub! This way.”

Ratha wheeled and leaped at the voice, almost landing on top of Fessran. The other herder butted Ratha ahead. The ground dropped away beneath her paws. Water rushed against her chest and dragged at her legs as she floundered in the stream. A splash and Fessran landed beside her.

“Where’s Thakur?”

“I don’t know.”

Ratha’s feet touched the bottom as the downstream current pulled at her sides. The water reflected flame colors from the fire dancing on the shoreline. Cinders shot into the water and died with a hiss.

Ratha slid over a little fall into a pool, bruising her flank on a stone. Fessran slithered down after her and they began to swim, holding their heads above the water. Ahead was the flock of dapplebacks, their wet coats gleaming as they waded in the graveled shallows. A burning twig fell into the stream near Fessran and she veered to one side as it sputtered and sank.

Ratha swam ahead of Fessran, paddling fiercely to keep her head above the water. Her toes scraped gravel and she grounded in the shallows. She pulled herself out, caught up with the wading dapplebacks and wove her way through them. Fessran stayed with the horses and Ratha saw the other herder lift a dripping tail in farewell as she left her behind.

Past the shallows, the stream narrowed and coursed over rocks and boulders. Ratha clambered across the water-worn stones, her pads slipping on algae and moss. As she worked her way downstream, she passed other clan members who hadn’t been in the meadow when the lightning struck. Gray patriarchs, frightened yearlings and mothers with squalling cubs in their jaws swam and waded beside the grim herdfolk as the fire devoured the forest behind them. Rags of flame fluttered on the pines that lined the stream bank and crawled along branches overhead.

Soot filled the air and the fire’s wind seared throats already raw from running. Ratha drew her paws up to her body and submerged herself except for the top half of her head. She tasted muddy water running past her lips and dragging at her whiskers. She let the current carry her, only using her aching legs to pull herself over stones or to claw at the muddy bottom as the stream spilled through rapids.

The creek deepened and quickened, carrying the weary swimmers and their beasts beyond the fire. The air grew cooler above the water and Ratha sucked it into her burning lungs. She could no longer see the herd of three-horns ahead. Some of the forms that drifted past her were moving limply wherever the current pushed them. Frightened, Ratha struck out for shore, but the current was strong and the banks had become muddy cliffs.

The sun glowed red through the gray pall that hung among the trees, staining the stream with blood-color. Ratha felt herself sinking. Water filled her mouth. She strained her head upright, coughing and spitting. The current swept her over a rocky weir and plunged her into a cauldron that spun her around. A new and stronger flow snatched her away from the stream current. Dimly she felt teeth seize her tail and then her ruff, dragging her back against the river’s pull. She floated weakly on her side, her tongue trailing and river water filling her mouth. Her flank bumped something and she felt her wet coat grate on sand as she was hauled onto the beach. Paws and noses nudged her onto her stomach. Her whole body convulsed as she vomited muddy water. Shesank back onto her side again, feeling her senses slip away into the darkness.

CHAPTER FIVE

Sand grains tickled Ratha’s nose. She woke up sneezing, blowing up a small sandstorm in the den, which made her sneeze some more. She bumped her head on the low ceiling and peered up to the entrance. Framed in the opening, with a background of clear sky and hanging fronds, was a four-toed foot. A dappleback foot. The hoofed toes shifted, dislodging more sand into the hole. It landed on Ratha’s face. She blinked and grimaced. A narrow muzzle dipped into the picture and one black eye regarded Ratha. The eye blinked and its owner snorted.

Outside, Ratha heard running and yowling. Thakur’s voice rose above the others. “Fessran, get your dapplebacks off the beach! They’re walking all over the dens!” The dappleback’s muzzle disappeared, and the foot vanished with a last spray of dirt.

She crawled out of her burrow and shook her head, her ears flapping. The sand felt warm and gritty on her pads as she blinked in the morning sunlight. Birds made a cheerful racket overhead and the river sang with them as it ran past the beach. She nosed her back and licked her coat. Her tongue scraped coarse matted fur. She dug with her fangs at filth caked in her undercoat, moving her tongue quickly to avoid the sour tang of old dirt. She drew back her lips fastidiously and tried to use only the points of her fangs, but she couldn’t help tasting herself and wished that someone had dragged her out of the den and given her a bath.

She attacked the hair mats until they yielded and her tongue probed deeper into her fur, feeling the arch of each rib beneath her skin. She paused in her grooming, took a breath and coughed. Her chest still ached a little, deep inside. She decided to leave the rest of the grooming task until later. She ambled down the narrow beach, feeling the loose sand grow firm beneath her paws as she approached the water’s edge. She stood there, listening to the wavelets lapping, and watching fish dart through the shadows on the bottom.

Ratha squinted across the river to the opposite shore. Most of the trees were still standing, although shorn of their leaves and needles. The ground beneath them lay bare and ashy, stripped of brush and forest litter. At first, the scene across the river looked bare and desolate, but as Ratha stared harder, she saw that it was not. New patches of pale green showed amid the fire-scarred trunks.

Ratha’s whiskers twitched. How long, she wondered, had she lain in the burrow dug for her in the sand? Long enough for her to stink like an unwashed litterling. Long enough for the burning thing to pass and new foliage to show. The thought frightened her and she shivered despite the sun’s warmth on her back. Her stomach felt hollow and there was grit between her teeth. She peered at her rippled reflection and saw that she looked as thin and bedraggled as she felt. Her tongue ached at the thought of more grooming. She yawned and stretched: stiffly, cautiously. She crouched, curling her tail around her feet, letting the sound of the river lull her.

Her eyes were almost closed when she heard pads grinding on sand behind her.

“So this is the cub,” said a heavy voice, not Thakur’s.

Ratha turned, squinting against the glare.

“Come here, Ratha, and give proper greeting to our clan leader,” Thakur called.

She spun around, sliding in the loose sand. She gulped, blinked and stared at Thakur’s companion. What had she done, she wondered frantically, that she was being singled out for Meoran’s attention? He never spoke to any of those low in the clan unless they had displeased him or broken clan law. Her heart beat fast.Is it because I heard the clanless one speak? Did Thakur tell Meoran what happened that night?

Thakur stamped silently on the sand, warning Ratha not to delay. She loped clumsily up the beach, halted and walked up to Meoran. She lifted her chin and bared her throat to him as she stood in his shadow. Meoran lowered his heavy head and nosed her at the vulnerable point beneath her ruff, where the pulse lay just under the skin. She stood still, knowing that if he wished, he could take her life, without need or explanation. Even those high in the clan bared their throats to him, and there were whispers among the clan folk that his teeth had been bloodied in what was supposed to be only a gesture. Ratha remembered others saying that old Baire had never abused this ritual right.

Ratha felt her ears starting to flatten and pricked them forward until the ear muscles ached.

“May you eat of the haunch and sleep in the driest den, clan leader,” she said.

Meoran’s ruff slid past Ratha’s nose as he withdrew his muzzle from beneath her chin. His odor was like his voice, dull and heavy, with a threatening undertone. His ruff was coarse and thick — almost a mane. He stepped back from her, leaving large pawprints in the sand. Ratha stared at his tracks, knowing that her whole foot wouldn’t fill the imprint made by his center pad.

“Will she be able to swim the river and drive the herd tomorrow?” Meoran turned to Thakur.

“She almost drowned. When Yaran and I pulled her out of the river, he thought she was dead.”

“I lead the clan back across the river, Torn-Claw. Either she swims or she stays here.” Meoran looked at Ratha, his eyes glinting yellow in his wide face. His jaws looked massive enough to crush a three-horn’s skull with one bite. “Old Baire thought you were strong enough to be a herder, cub. I might not have made that choice, but Thakur tells me your training hasn’t been wasted.”

Ratha glanced at Thakur and saw that the muscles at the base of both ears were quivering as he tried to keep his ears erect.

“Will one day make such a difference, clan leader?”

“The longer we leave our dens and our land, the less we shall have when we return.”

“To what? Look across the river. The Red Tongue has eaten the grass and the leaves. Where will our beasts graze?”

“There is new growth.” Meoran yawned, snapping his jaws shut.

“Not enough to feed an entire herd.”

Meoran’s eyes darkened to cold amber and he showed his fangs as he spoke. “Torn-Claw, if you are wise, you will not mention this to me again. I let you speak once before the clan gathering. I even restrained myself from excusing you for your cowardice. Is that not enough?”

Thakur flinched and glared down at the ground so that Meoran couldn’t see his eyes.

“If you have no stomach to walk amid the Red Tongue’s leavings,” Meoran added, “stay here with the she-cub until the forest grows again.”

“I will swim, clan leader,” Ratha blurted, stung at being thought a weakling. “I will help drive the herd.”

“See, Torn-Claw?” Meoran grinned, showing most of his teeth. “The small one is not afraid. She shames you, herder.” Thakur kicked at a log of driftwood, half-buried in the sand. His eyes met Meoran’s. “We will both be ready.”

“Good. I want no delays.” Meoran turned and left.

Ratha sat down and began digging at her coat again as Thakur stared after Meoran and drove his front claws into the sand. Ratha stole a glance at him as he shook both feet free of sand and cleaned them, biting fiercely between the pads.

“Fessran’s dapplebacks woke you,” he said. “I may go and chew her ears.”

“You’re angry at Meoran, not Fessran,” Ratha said cautiously, her nose in her fur. Thakur gave a low growl. “Why? What did he mean, saying you weren’t brave? I saw you catch the dappleback. You would have saved him.”

His tail twitched, making snake-patterns in the sand. He lowered his head and started to pad away.

“Thakur.”

“Yearling, more words will do me no good and may do me harm. Wait here. I’ll be back soon.” He wheeled and galloped away down the beach.

When Thakur returned, he was carrying several odd objects in his jaws. He dipped his head and dropped them in front of Ratha. Their legs waved. She sniffed, wrinkled her nose.“I don’t eat bugs.”

“They aren’t bugs. Try one. I’ll show you how to bite the shell off.”

Thakur selected one of the crayfish, held it down with one paw and bit the head off. He worked it to the side of his mouth, got his jaws around the arched carapace and cracked it. He pried it open with his claws, peeled the shell away and stripped out the meat with his front teeth. He dangled the morsel in front of Ratha. The aroma teased her nose. Delicately she licked and then nibbled at it. The meat was chewy but light and sweet. She snapped, gulped and waited eagerly for another. When Thakur had fed her twice, he nosed the rest of the crayfish toward Ratha.

“I thought I’d better feed you up if you’re going to swim tomorrow,” he said, choosing another multi-legged morsel from the pile. It tried to scuttle away from him but he seized it by the tail and dragged it back. The flailing legs and antennae threw sand grains. This one was smaller and Thakur didn’t even bother to peel the shell off. He took the crayfish into his mouth, crunched it and sorted out bits of meat and shell with his tongue.

Ratha spat out a shell and eyed Thakur.“Why is Meoran so impatient to return to clan ground?”

“I don’t know, yearling. Perhaps he dislikes the thought of any other animal in his den.”

“Or the Un-Named Ones on clan territory.”

Thakur drew back his whiskers.“I doubt it. He thinks so little of them that ground squirrels in his den would bother him more. Even the recent raids haven’t taught him that they are more dangerous than he thinks.”

“You know a lot about the clanless ones, don’t you, Thakur?” Ratha said cautiously. She watched his eyes. Thakur lowered his muzzle, ostensibly searching for another crayfish.

“Yes, yearling, I do.”

“Why don’t you tell Meoran what you know?”

“He would listen to me as well as he did today. Yearling, don’t ask me any more.”

Ratha bit down on a stubborn carapace and felt it bend in her mouth.

“Forget about the Un-Named, Ratha. The Red Tongue has driven them far away. They won’t come back for a while.”

There was silence, broken only by the sound of the river flowing and Thakur’s crunching shells.

“I know why you don’t want to go back,” Ratha teased.

Thakur stared at her, eyes narrowed, whiskers back.“You do?”

“You’re so fond of these river-crawlers you can’t give them up.”

Thakur relaxed. His sigh of relief puzzled Ratha, his odor told her she wouldn’t get an answer if she asked him why.

“You are clever, yearling. I see I can’t fool you. Yes, I have grown fond of the river-crawlers and I’ll take some with me on the way back.”

Ratha watched him as he ate. His odor, his eyes and everything else about him told her that the reason he didn’t want to return to clan ground had nothing to do with river-crawlers.

* * *

Ratha trotted over the beach, her pads obliterating for a moment the maze of tracks in the sand. She stepped in a pile of dung and hopped on three legs, shaking her foot in disgust, while the dapplebacks covered her tracks with sharp-edged toe prints. The beach wasn’t big enough for this many animals at once, she thought, wiping her pad clean in a patch of scrubby dune grass.

The three-horned deer stood together in a tight bunch eyeing the clan herders. The stags pawed and thrust their spikes into the sand, their musky scent sharp with ill temper. Herdfolk rushed at them, singly and together, trying to shy the males away and split the herd in half. Ratha, knowing she was still too weak for this task, watched as Thakur and Fessran sparred with two big males guarding the center of the herd. Skillfully the two herders drew the stags aside and Meoran led a drive into the center of the herd. The mass of animals shuddered and then broke apart. Herders on both sides of the split kept the milling animals separated.

Ratha jumped up. Her task was to join with the other herdfolk in driving the dapplebacks, cud-chewers and other animals between the three-horns.

“Keep the deer on the outside!”

Ratha glanced back and saw Meoran yowling orders down the beach. Herdfolk snarled and nipped at the deer, driving them into the river. Over the backs and heads of the little horses, Ratha saw the deer plunging and tossing their heads, throwing spray from hooves and antlers. The sound of the river was lost in the clamor of splashing and bawling. The water boiled and darkened with mud, churned up from the bottom. Ratha saw flashes of white in the water, as silt-blinded fish thrashed and jumped to escape the animals’ hooves. The dapplebacks followed the deer into the river and the herders followed them.

Ratha ran down the beach, leaped and bellyflopped into the water. She opened her eyes, gasped at the cold and started paddling. Ahead of her, the short-legged dapplebacks swam beside the wading deer, bouncing in the brown current that swirled past the three-horns’ legs. Ratha’s feet left the bottom and she began to swim after the little horses, feeling the water pull through her pads at each stroke. She angled up against the current, which buffeted her chest.

Now the deer were swimming, only their necks above water, their crowns forming a moving thorny forest around the dapplebacks. Ratha felt the water churn beside her and saw Thakur’s slick head and dripping whiskers. She grinned at him over her shoulder and got a mouthful of muddy water as a wave slapped her in the face.

“Can you swim it, yearling?” he called as she sneezed and spluttered.

“I’ll swim it, Thakur,” she answered, water running out of the corners of her mouth. “Don’t stay beside me,” she protested as he bobbed alongside, his tail dragging downstream in the current.

Ratha settled down to the business of swimming, keeping her paws going in a steady rhythm and her nose above water. She fixed her eyes on the herd, moving in the water ahead of her. The three-horn deer formed an open ring around the dapplebacks and other animals, breaking the force of the current so that the smaller animals didn’t have to fight it. Even so, the flow was sweeping the little horses to one side of the ring, piling them up, flank to flank, against the deer. The three-horns kicked and poked the dapplebacks away, but the current pushed them back again. Trapped against their irritated neighbors, the dapplebacks squealed and bit.

Ratha swam in their wake, tasting blood in the water. Her stroke was slowing, her paws so heavy she could hardly move them. The ache in her lungs had begun before she had swum a few tail-lengths, but now it was a grinding pain, radiating from her breastbone into her chest. Her wet fur dragged her down. The water lapped along her cheek and the base of her ears. The shore seemed no closer and the herd farther away.

Thakur was swimming alongside her on the upstream side, staying close enough to grab her if she went under, but otherwise offering no help except an encouraging“ Halfway, yearling.”

“Halfway, Thakur,” she bubbled and kept on stroking.

Ratha’s breastbone felt as though it would split and she was sobbing from exhaustion by the time her claws scraped bottom on the other side.

There was a tug at her ruff and the wet warmth of a body at her side. Thakur steadied her, while she found footing on the loose gravel. Slowly she waded to shore beside him and hauled herself out.

Weary as she was, she lifted her head and squinted up and down the beach. The tracks were there, but the herd had gone. The beach was quiet except for wavelets lapping along shore and her soaked pelt still draining onto the sand. Ratha ground her teeth together, crunching gritty sand between them. Meoran hadn’t bothered to wait. Yaran might have, but he was too afraid to cross Meoran. For all they knew, she had drowned in the crossing. She felt a nudge; a voice in her ear.

“It doesn’t matter, yearling. Lie down and rest.”

She turned and flattened her ears.“Meoran thinks he is rid of me, the weakling, the she-cub. When he sees me it will be like rubbing his face in dung.” She grinned, still panting. She turned and staggered up the beach, knowing Thakur could do nothing except follow.

He did. She heard his paws crunch on the sand as she made her way over the rippling dunes on the high part of the beach. She saw that he looked at the ground as he walked and not ahead to the forest, whose fire-scarred trees spoke of the Red Tongue’s passing. The burn smell hung in the air, and though it was mixed with the fresh scent of new growth, the odor brought with it the memory of the fire. Thakur began to lag and the ends of his whiskers trembled.

Ratha had gone several paces beyond him before she knew he’d stopped.

“Thakur?” She looked back. His shaking was worse than hers. “Thakur, are you sick?”

He stood, frozen, staring at the sand a few tail-lengths ahead of him. His fear-smell wafted to Ratha. Hesitantly, she came to him and nosed him.

“Now you see why Meoran called me coward,” he said, hanging his head.

“Why? What are you afraid of? The Red Tongue is gone.”

“For me it hasn’t gone.” Thakur said in a low voice. “Ratha, I can’t walk across there now. Stay here with me for a few days. We can eat river-crawlers.”

Ratha glared at him.“I want to make Meoran eat dung. The longer we wait the further away he gets.” She turned away.

“Idiot cub!” she heard Thakur yell at her back. “Ratha, you can’t go back by yourself. You couldn’t fight off a weanling cub let alone a pack of Un-Named raiders.”

“Then come with me.” Ratha stopped and looked back at him, flicking her tail.

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“I saw that dappleback die, yearling. You weren’t close enough to see it, but I did.”

“Thakur, the smell isn’t that bad. The ash will be soft beneath our feet. We’ll travel fast.”

He hung his head.“I can’t.”

Ratha yawned in frustration. She felt a sudden fury rising like acid in her throat.

“I don’t care about your burned dappleback! I want to go back to the clan. Maybe Meoran was right when he said your father was an Un-Named bone-eater!”

She was down in the sand before the last word was out of her mouth. Thakur stood over her, almost on top of her while her head rang from his blow. She shrank into a miserable ball and wished she could melt between the sand grains. She could feel his shadow on her, feel his pain, feel him waiting….

“I thought Meoran was just spreading lies about you,” she faltered.

Thakur gave her a smoldering look.“No. He was spreading the truth about me, which, it seems, is far worse. Where did you hear it?”

“At the clan kill. I overheard Meoran talking to Yaran. I was busy eating, but I heard enough.”

Thakur took a breath.“All right, yearling. Yes, what you heard is true. The one who sired me had no name, even though he was more worthy of it than many in the clan. My mother Reshara chose unwisely.”

“I thought our law said that both the lair-mother and lair-father must be named in order for the cubs to be named,” Ratha said.

“So why do I bear a name?” Thakur grinned ruefully. “Old Baire took pity on Reshara even though she sought outside the clan for a mate. He let her stay until her two cubs were born and then she was driven out. He let me live and gave me my name. He had that much mercy.”

Ratha lifted her nose from the sand.“Cubs? You have no littermates in the clan.”

Thakur looked uncomfortable and she knew he had not meant to say as much as he had. At last he sighed.“My brother runs with the Un-Named. Reshara took him with her when she left the clan.”

“Why didn’t she take you?”

“Old Baire asked that she leave both of us with the clan. Although our father was Un-Named, Baire knew we were far from being witless.”

“Then why did she take your brother?”

“She disobeyed Baire. She took my brother and fled. My father came to get me, but Baire’s son, Meoran, was lying in wait for him.”

“Meoran caught you,” Ratha breathed.

“Meoran killed my father and caught me. I fought, but I was only a litterling. He put a paw on me and tore out some of my front claws with his teeth.”

Ratha looked down at Thakur’s right front foot and shivered. She had once asked him how he lost his claws, but he had distracted her with something else. The foot did not look very different from the other but Ratha guessed that scars lay beneath the fur.

“Did you ever see Reshara or your brother again?” she asked.

“Reshara is dead now, Ratha,” he said, in a tone that discouraged her from asking anything more.

She tested her legs and clambered to her feet. Thakur looked beyond her to the burn.

“Go, yearling. I’ll follow,” he said.

Ratha went ahead until she reached the border of the beach where the sand was streaked with charcoal.

Beyond the upper beach the forest floor was ash and charred stubble, with a few green blades poking through. Ratha sniffed, grimaced at the smell and passed onto the burn. She walked carefully, for the ground was still dew-damp and the ash slippery beneath her pads. Once or twice she looked back. Thakur was following. His tail bristled and his whiskers trembled and she could see the fear in his eyes, yet he said nothing as he walked behind her across the burn.

The farther they traveled, the harsher the landscape grew and the more acrid the burn smell. Here the fire had burned recently and more intensely. Saplings stood, charred forlorn sticks that would never put forth another leaf. Trunks of gutted pines lay in their path, blocking the way. Ratha leaped over them easily, but coaxing Thakur across them was another matter and more than once she had to force him up and over a still-smoking log.

Thakur followed Ratha across the burn until they were blocked by a tangle of downed trees and brush. In among the charred twigs was one still burning. The flame flickered against the pale sky and danced between blackened twists of bark.

To Ratha, the Red Tongue was an animal and its life should end with its death. To find the Red Tongue alive here, even this faint and flickering part of it, was contrary to all she knew of life or death. Behind her, Thakur whimpered, the sounds escaping from his throat despite his wish to hold them back. She butted him, trying to make him go forward, but he balked, unwilling to pass the Red Tongue in the downed tree.

Ratha stared at the flame. To go around the fallen trees meant a weary trek out of the way. But she knew she couldn’t get Thakur through the tangle, even though there was room to crawl beneath the interwoven branches. He stood frozen behind her, eyes closed, panting, unable now to overcome the terror that held him prisoner.

Ratha grew angry and spat at the fire-animal. Lashing her tail, she walked toward the burning twig. A sharp gust made the flame flutter back as she approached, and she grew bolder. Around the Red Tongue, the air shimmered as if it were flowing water. The smoke was thick and resinous.

Anger and a growing fascination drew Ratha to the Red Tongue, and she stared into the blue-gold heart of the flame. It was, she thought, a thing that danced, ate and grew like a creature, but unlike a creature, once killed it wouldn’t stay dead.

With flattened ears and streaming eyes, Ratha lunged at the Red Tongue’s black throat. Her teeth sank into charred wood and she twisted her head sharply. The branch broke off. She held it in her mouth for several seconds, watching the flame curl and hiss near the end of her nose. The charcoal tasted bitter and Ratha flung the branch away. It rolled over and over inthe dirt. The fire flickered, hissed and went out.

Ratha pawed the branch. She scratched the burned bark, trying to find the elusive fire-creature, but the wood was cold. When she lifted her head from the branch, Thakur’s eyes were on her. Carefully he padded forward and sniffed at the branch where the Red Tongue had been. Ratha stood to one side, panting a little from excitement.

“Can you crawl through the thicket now, Thakur?” she asked.

“Yes, yearling, I can,” he said quietly. “Lead the way.”

There were other places where the Red Tongue still guttered weakly on twigs or bark and Ratha broke the branches off and smothered the flame. Each time Thakur would sniff the charred wood to convince himself that the Red Tongue had vanished. Ratha offered to teach him her newly acquired skill, but Thakur hastily declined.

The sun stood at midpoint in the hazy sky and Thakur and Ratha were approaching another stand of gutted pines when they heard the sound of approaching feet.

Thakur lifted his muzzle and pricked his ears.

“Fessran?” he called.

“Ho, herder.” Fessran jogged around the far end of the smoking brush, keeping her distance from it.

“How far is the dan?” asked Ratha, coming alongside Thakur.

“Less than half a day’s run, if one could go straight through. Having to go around all the brush tangles and fallen trees makes the journey longer.” Fessran sat down and licked soot from her coat. “I’m surprised that you have come this far.”

“We went through,” Thakur said. “Ask Ratha.”

“You can crawl through, yes,” Fessran said doubtfully, “if you don’t mind the Red Tongue’s cubs licking at your coat.”

“I don’t worry about the Red Tongue’s cubs.” Ratha grinned. “Watch.”

Fessran came alongside Thakur and stood. Ratha trotted past them to the pile of downed trees, hopped up on a log and seized a branch with fire dancing at the tip. She bounced down with the twig in her mouth, threw it on the ground and kicked dirt on it. She grabbed the end and rubbed the glowing coals in the ash, which billowed up around her, making her sneeze. When the cloud settled, Ratha swaggered toward Fessran and Thakur, the burned stick still in her mouth. Fessran hunched her shoulders and retreated. Ratha stopped where she was.

“Come and sniff it, Fessran,” she coaxed. With a glance at Thakur, who hadn’t moved, Fessran approached Ratha, extended her neck and brushed the charcoaled bark with her whiskers. She grimaced at the smell and shied away as if she expected the fire-creature to revive and leap off the branch at her. Eyes fixed on the spot where the Red Tongue had been, Fessran crouched. Thakur nosed the branch.

“Yarr!” Fessran’s tail swept back and forth in the ash. “It is gone. You killed it!”

“I can only kill little ones,” Ratha said, still grinning around the branch end in her mouth.

“No one can do that,” Fessran said, straightening from her crouch, her belly smeared with ash. “Not even Meoran.”

Ratha strutted, her ruff and whiskers bristling.“Clan leader,ptah! Who is he compared to the slayer of the Red Tongue?”

“One who would rip you from throat to belly if he heard your words,” Thakur said, stopping her swagger with a penetrating look. Ratha wrinkled her nose at him, tossed the stick away and began scrambling across the fallen trees.

The three of them didn’t see the Red Tongue again until the sun had fallen halfway down the sky. Two saplings had fallen together, their sparse crowns interwoven. The Red Tongue crouched inside a nest of branches that sheltered it from the wind. Ratha stopped, shook the soot from between her pads and stared.

“That one isn’t in our way,” she heard Thakur say. “You don’t need to kill it.”

Ratha took a step forward. Thakur was right. She should go on and let the creature be. She lifted her muzzle and smelled. The odor was acrid, stinging her nose, burning her throat. The hated smell.

“Leave it, Ratha.”

She glanced at Thakur. He and Fessran were turning away. Another step toward the trees. Another. The fire’s rush and crackle filled her ears. The flames’ mocking dance drew her to the base of the trees and she stared up, awe and hatred mingling in a strange hunger.

She climbed onto one leaning tree, which shook and threatened to break under her weight. She balanced herself and crawled up the slender trunk, digging her claws into fire-brittled wood. She crept up until she reached the Red Tongue’s nest and began to snap away the dry twigs that guarded the flame. The creature seemed to shrink back as Ratha destroyed its nest. It withdrew to a single limb and clung there, as if daring her to reach in and pull it out. She shifted her weight and glanced down.

Fessran and Thakur stood near the tree, alternately staring up at her then at each other, brows wrinkled in dismay.

She cleared an opening large enough for her head, gulped a breath of air, tensed and lunged at the Red Tongue’s branch. Her teeth ground on wood. A branch broke beneath one of her paws, and she flailed wildly, bouncing in the treetop. The branch in her mouth splintered, with a crack that jarred her teeth. Her claws hooked, held, tore loose, and she slid. Her ears were bombarded by a volley of snapping limbs, and everything blurred, as the tree’s crown disintegrated. Black twigs, blue sky and the fire’s mocking orange tumbled together, whirled madly and crashed to a stop.

Ratha lay in the ash, her body one large ache. She opened one eye. Things were still moving. She sighed and shut it again.

Voices. Thakur’s. Fessran’s. A scuffing sound, someone kicking dirt. Ratha jumped up, shaking her ringing head. She staggered, squinting. Something moved. She planted all four paws and forced her eyes to focus on Thakur’s image, still blurred. Something was flickering between his legs as he jumped back andforth. Smoke boiled up behind him. Ratha heard the scuffing sound again and a thin, frightened yowl.

She pitched toward him, barely supporting herself on wobbly legs.

“Grab the end!” she heard Fessran call as Thakur made short useless rushes at the burning branch. “Take the end and rub it in the dirt as she did!”

But Thakur was too timid. Ratha saw him shy away again, his eyes wild with fright. Fessran blocked Ratha’s view as she charged the fire and frantically pawed dirt and ash into it. The Red Tongue paled under the gray cloud. It sputtered, choking. Ratha saw the muscles bunch in Fessran’s shoulders. The fire grew smaller; started to fade under her frenzied strokes.

Yet the fire-creature still lived and Ratha didn’t know what it might be able to do. Fessran was too close to the hail of sparks leaping from the flame.

“Fessran!” Ratha called and the other female paused in her stroking and glanced over her shoulder as Ratha stumbled toward her.

“So you live, young one. I thought you’d killed yourself with your foolishness.”

“Fessran, get away! You’re too close to it!”

Another shower of sparks went up and Fessran coughed in the thick smoke swirling around her. She sneezed and backed away.“Slay the creature, Ratha!” she hissed, squeezing her eyes shut.

Ratha jumped at the guttering fire and seized the end of the branch in her jaws. She threw it down, but the Red Tongue was stubborn and clung to the wood. She pawed the branch, rolling it over, yet still the creature peeked from between patches of curling bark. She crouched, watching, growing too fascinated with the creature to kill it. The fire crept out of its hiding place, as if it sensed that the initial assault was over. It burned cautiously along the top of the log. Ratha circled it.

“Look how it changes shape, Fessran,” she said.

“Don’t play with it,” Fessran snarled, her ears back. “Kill it.”

“Why? If we stay far enough away, it won’t hurt us. It is only a cub, Fessran.”

“It grows fast. Kill it.”

Ratha raised one paw, dipped it into the ash, stared at the fire curling around the branch.“No.” She put the paw down.

“Ratha, kill it!” Thakur cried. Fessran showed her teeth and crept toward the fire. Ratha blocked her. She tried to push past, but Ratha shoved her back. Fessran skidded in the ash and fell on her side. Ratha stood between her and the Red Tongue, her hackles up, her tail fluffed. Two pairs of slitted eyes met.

“This is my creature.”

“The Red Tongue is no one’s creature. Kill it.” Fessran scrambled in the ash, pulling her paws underneath her. Ratha tensed, feeling her eyes burn. “I will kill it or I will let it live, but it is my creature.” She leaned toward Fessran. The other’s eyes widened in dismay. She got up, shook the flaky ash from her coat.

“You don’t want to fight me,” Ratha said as Fessran sidestepped around her. The other female glared at her one more time and lowered her head. “The Named do not bare fangs against the Named,” she said harshly, “and I do not bare fangs against one I trained. Very well. The creature is yours. Keep it or kill it as you wish.”

There was the sound of feet padding away. Fessran turned her head.“Thakur has gone,” she said and took a step after him.

“Are you going with him?” Ratha asked. Her anger was gone. A hollow, empty feeling crept into her belly as she watched Fessran turn, her eyes following Thakur’s pawprints in the ash.

“I should. He is my herd-brother. You don’t need either one of us. You have your creature.”

Ratha felt herself start to tremble.“Fessran …”

The other female stood, her tail twitching, something shifting around in the depths of her eyes. Ratha’s tongue felt numb and heavy in her mouth.

“Find Thakur, then,” she said. “Tell him I didn’t mean to frighten him. After you have found him, come back to me.”

“I doubt he will come back here, Ratha.”

“Then send him on ahead and come back by yourself.” Ratha tried to keep her voice steady, but she knew her eyes were pleading. Fessran stared beyond her to the fire. Ratha followed her gaze and said, “The creature is dying. It does not matter whether I kill it or not; when you return it will be dead.”

Fessran snorted.“You were ready to fight me to protect a creature already dying? You make no sense, Ratha.”

Ratha opened her mouth to speak, found no words and hung her head. She didn’t know why she had tried to protect the Red Tongue; why her sudden anger had made her threaten Fessran and scorn Thakur.

Ratha saw Fessran’s eyes soften. “Wait here while I track Thakur. I will return for you then.” She padded away, leaving her footprints on top of Thakur’s. Ratha watched her for a while before turning back to the fire. The flame had shrunk to a pale orange fringe that huddled on the branch.

Ratha crouched beside it, curled her tail around her feet and watched it.

What are you? she asked it silently.

The flame crackled back.

Do you speak like me, or do you only growl like the Un-Named Ones? Ratha crept closer, laying her chin on the ground.You are so tiny now that you couldn’t hurt me. Whose cub are you, little Red Tongue? Her breath teased up small clouds of ashes and made the fire flutter.Don’t die, little Red Tongue, she thought.

The flame jumped, doubled its size for a moment, then shrank again.

Ratha lifted her chin, stared at the creature, extended her neck and breathed gently on it. Again the fire gained strength as it fed on her breath. Ratha jerked her whiskers back, opened her mouth and exhaled.

After a while, however, the flame began to flicker and die down into glowing coals. Ratha had to blow hard to coax the creature up again and it wouldn’t stay. Her breath wasn’t enough. It was dying. It needed something else. Ratha watched it, feeling helpless.

The charred branch broke; crumbled. Embers glowed orange and the warmth beat on Ratha’s face as she leaned over the fire. Again, she blew, raising a fountain of sparks. One landed on some dry needles and flashed into flame. For several moments, the second fire outdid the first one; then as it consumed the needles, it fell and died.

Ratha trotted to the scorched spot, sniffed it; turned back to her creature. She felt she was on the edge of an answer.

It needs…it needs… I know what it needs!

Ratha almost stumbled over her own paws as she ran to seize a twig covered with brown needles. She dropped it on the embers and jumped back as the fire spurted up again.

My creature needs to eat, she thought, whisking her tail about in her excitement.It won’t die if I feed it.

She scurried about, collecting food. She found that the fire wouldn’t eat rocks or dirt and balked when fed green stems, but would leap and crackle happily over dry needles and twigs. It also displayed a disconcerting relish for fur and whiskers. Ratha was careful to keep hers well out of its reach.

The fire burned fast and grew large. The waves of heat made Ratha’s eyes water. She stopped feeding it and soon it grew small again.

The song of a bird far across the burn made Ratha lift her head. She saw that it was evening. The sun’s edge was slipping below the horizon and the red-streaked sky was fading to violet. A single cricket began chirping; then the chorus joined in. Ratha listened to the noises, muted by the night and the soft hiss of the dying Red Tongue.

The burn lay open beneath the star-filled sky. With no trees to hold the day’s heat and break the wind, the air grew cold. Ratha, prowling in the shadows beyond the firelight, fluffed her fur and shivered, despite the summer stars overhead.

When she came back and lay down by the flame, it spread its warmth over her; her shivering stopped. She yawned and stretched her pads toward the flame. She hadn’t felt so warm and comfortable since she was a nursling curled up in the den with her mother. She rolled onto her front, tucked her forepaws under her breast and fell into a light doze, waking now and then to feed her fire.

The night grew colder. A harsh wind hissed in the trees. Ratha crept closer to the fire. She gathered a bundle of twigs and moved it nearby so that she need not leave her creature’s warmth to search for the food it needed. The fire’s sound became friendlier to her ears and she thought, sleepily, that her creature was purring. The sound lulled her and she dozed.

* * *

Ratha woke, not knowing what had disturbed her. She lay still, peering through half-closed eyes, her chin on the ground, trying not to sneeze despite the flaky ash that stung and teased her nose. A slight tremor in the ground beneath her chin told her someone was coming.

Thakur? Fessran? The intruder moved downwind of her and she could catch no scent.

She heard two sets of footsteps; one in counterpoint to the other. Two pairs of eyes glinted, green stars in the dark. She saw two forms; one hung back; the other approached. Firelight painted the newcomer’s coat with dancing shadows as it crept out of the night into the Red Tongue’s circle. The intruder raised a wary head, squinting into the flame, and Ratha saw that it was Fessran.

She crouched, limbs tensed, muscles bunched, her belly fur brushing the ground. She took a few quick steps and stopped, her flanks quivering. Ratha watched her pupils dwindle to points as she looked past the flame.

“You are still strong, wretched creature,” Ratha heard her hiss. “Did you kill the one who tamed you and eat her to gain your strength?”

Ratha sat up. Fessran’s head turned sharply, her neck fur bristling in spikes. “Ratha?”

“Here, Fessran. Behind the Red Tongue.”

“So the thing hasn’t eaten you even though it is stronger than before. You told me it was dying.”

“It was.” Ratha skirted the fire, came to Fessran, extended her neck to touch noses, but there was no answering nudge. Ratha drew her head back, wary of the other’s raised hackles and narrowed eyes. “It needed to eat,” she said, feeling awkward, yet slightly proud. “I found what it wanted. I fed it and kept it alive.”

“Ptah! Thakur and I have journeyed here for nothing. Keep your creature. Feed it and play with it all night if you want. My summer coat isn’t thick enough for this wind. I go.”

“Fessran.” Ratha pawed her flank.

Fessran said, her ears back,“I have run far in the cold this night. You begged me to return. You told me the Red Tongue would be dead by then.Ptah!”

Ratha retreated as Fessran spat. The two eyed each other. Fessran lowered her head and turned away.“Are you cold now?” Ratha asked.

“Yarr?” Fessran halted and looked back.

“You are cross because you were cold,” Ratha said patiently. “Are you cold now?”

“What a question! How can I not be with the wind blowing through….”

Ratha waited. Fessran stopped, blinked and fluffed her fur.“Your creature warms us,” she said in surprise. “I remember now; when we ran from the Red Tongue, I felt its hot breath on me and I ran faster.”

“There is no need to run from it now. My creature is only bad when it grows too large. I know how to keep it small,” Ratha said, a touch of pride in her voice. Fessran’s hackles smoothed, but she gave no indication of staying. She padded out past the rim of the firelit circle and melded with the darkness until only her eyes and teeth showed. Ratha followed to the brown-shadowed edge and shook herself as a sharp gust tore through her thin summer coat. She heard Fessran shiver.

“Come back to me and my creature,” Ratha called. She waited, then turned around in disgust and walked back to her Red Tongue. Something made her look into the dark. The eyes hadn’t gone. They still stared out at her.

Ratha ignored them. She flopped down, her belly to the fire, spreading her pads and feeling the heat flow around them. She heard hesitant footsteps behind her and began to grin.

“Be a good cub, my little Red Tongue,” she said softly to the dancing flame. “She may soon be your friend if she sees no reason to fear you.”

The footsteps grew quicker then and stopped. There was the soft brush of a tail being curled across feet. Ratha rolled her head back. Fessran sat behind her as if she were a wall protecting Fessran from the Red Tongue’s capricious play.

“You like it, don’t you?” Ratha said.

Fessran’s whiskers twitched. Her expression was still guarded, but her eyes, as she stared at the flame, were full of wonder rather than fear.

Ratha lifted her chin for a nuzzle and this time received an answering touch.

“Was I such a foolish cub to keep the creature alive?”

Fessran’s face softened. “Perhaps not, Ratha.”

Ratha yawned, arched her back and stretched until her toes and tail quivered.“Thakur told me once that the clanfolk thought old Baire was foolish when he tried to tame three-horns and add them to our herds,” she said.

“Those who spoke so had reason to be afraid,” Fessran answered. “I saw many herders die on those horns. We learned much and now we can keep the creatures, but we lost many clan folk.”

“Three-horns are good for the clan,” Ratha argued. “Baire wasn’t foolish to herd them. Maybe I’m not foolish to herd the Red Tongue. I already know much about it, and I can teach. Clan folk won’t have to die to learn.”

“May it be so, Ratha,” Fessran said cautiously. “You speak of Thakur. I have left him waiting in the cold.” She got up, shaking ash from her hindquarters.

“Call him here to warm himself beside my creature,” Ratha said.

“I’ll try, but don’t forget that he fears the Red Tongue.”

Fessran turned her back to the fire and called into the darkness where Thakur was still waiting.

Ratha saw him slink to the edge of the light where orange turned to brown and shadows grew long and wavering. There he crouched and would come no further despite Fessran’s coaxing. He wrinkled his brows and squinted away from the fire with frightened, watery eyes.

“Herd-brother, Ratha’s creature won’t harm us. Come and lie down with me. The Red Tongue makes the night as warm as your den.”

“My fur is warm enough,” Thakur growled. “The Red Tongue’s light bites my eyes. I would rather see by starlight.” He fluffed his fur against the wind. “The herdbeasts fear this thing and their fear is wise. Not to fear it is foolish.” He looked at Ratha.

“I know about it. I don’t have to fear it.” She flattened her ears.

“I know about it too.” Thakur’s lips drew back and his fangs gleamed as he spoke. “Have you forgotten how it ate the forest? Have you forgotten the dappleback I dragged away? Fessran, that was your little stallion I tried to save. I dragged the beast away from the Red Tongue, but like the snake’s tongue it struck.” He huddled, trembling, terror shimmering with the firelight in his eyes. “The Red Tongue licked at the stallion until the skin was black and falling off. It licked until the entrails burst and the bones showed white beneath.Aayowrr!”

Ratha glared at Thakur, hating him for making her remember the time when the thing she now called her creature had run wild, destroying the forests. The ashy stubble she stood on was reminder enough. She grew angrier as her own fear, the fear she had subdued to tame the Red Tongue, now rose again.

“Meoran must think you drowned in the river crossing since you haven’t yet returned to clan ground. If you don’t return soon, he’ll find a young male to take your place as herder.”

“Don’t taunt her, Thakur,” Fessran warned as Ratha felt her nape start to bristle.

“I don’t care what Meoran thinks!” Ratha snarled. Her belly churned as she remembered the clan leader’s cold eyes and scornful voice. Meoran thought her a weakling, unfit for the task of clan herder. Despite her words to Thakur, the thought stabbed into her, driving as deep as fangs into her flesh.

She quivered, wishing she could blaze out like the Red Tongue, to engulf Thakur, Meoran and all those who doubted her, to burn until nothing was left.

Thakur lifted his muzzle.“You cared what Meoran thought when you swam the river. And if you didn’t why, why, by the Law that named you, did you have to drag me across this place?” He scuffed a foot in the charred stubble. “The smell sickens me. The ash stings my feet. And you, Fessran,” he said, turning to her, “why do you encourage this foolish cub? Would you lead one of your dapplebacks onto a cliff and hope it didn’t fall off? I thought you had some sense.”

“I do,” Fessran said quietly, “and fear doesn’t keep me from using it.”

Thakur’s eyes went back to Ratha. The green in them was pale. She hated him for his weakness and she saw him flinch as he felt the depth of her hatred.

His next words were measured and careful. He stared right at Ratha as he said,“I made a mistake when I chose you to train. I should have obeyed Meoran. Teaching you to herd was a waste. I will think hard before I accept another female to train.”

“Go then!” Ratha spat, every hair on her body on end. “I’m tired of hearing you whine and tired of smelling your fear-scent. Go lie in the dark and cold, frightened one!”

Fessran’s jaw opened, but before she could say anything, Ratha sprang at Thakur.

“If what Meoran said about me was true, then what he said about you was even more so; your lair-father was an Un-Named chewer of bones, and you are unworthy of the name Baire gave you!”

She landed in front of him. He didn’t flinch or strike out. He looked at her steadily. Ratha lifted one paw to claw him, found she couldn’t and stamped in frustration, more furious at herself than at him. Thakur kept his eyes on her and the pain in them made her throat burn with shame. She wished she could dig a hole and bury her words deeper than she ever buried her dung.

“I will see you on clan ground,” he said very softly and was gone.

For a moment, Ratha stood staring at his pawprints in the flickering light and smelling the sour traces of his smell. Behind her she could hear Fessran licking her coat. She listened to the tongue strokes and the muted guttural sounds as Fessran routed fleas and combed out snarls and mats. At last her voice came from behind Ratha’s back. “He is a good herder. You did wrong to shame him.”

Ratha spun around, all patience gone.“Go with him then. I can herd the Red Tongue by myself.”

“You would do better, Ratha, if you herded your own tongue behind your teeth and kept it there for a while.” Fessran finished grooming herself, shook her pelt and got up. “Now show me how you feed this creature of yours so I may keep it alive while you sleep.”

Ratha swallowed the rest of her anger. Fessran was going to stay. That was enough. She showed Fessran her bundle of twigs and how to poke them one at a time into the Red Tongue’s lair. When Fessran had mastered the task to her satisfaction, Ratha curled up in the ash, buried her nose in her tail and slept. The last sound she heard before she fell asleep was the soft crackle-purr of the fire burning.

CHAPTER SIX

When Ratha woke in her nest in the ash, morning had cleared the haze from the sky and deep blue arched over the burn. Slivers of green dotted the grounds; new shoots had come up overnight from fire-ripened seeds; each one so fragile that it bent beneath the weight of a single drop of dew.

Ratha sat up, yawned and brushed ash from her fur. She looked for Thakur before she remembered why he wasn’t there. Half the night spent tending the Red Tongue had made her peevish, and the hungry rumbles in her belly didn’t help her temper. A haunch of dappleback or some of those river-crawlers might be nice, she thought, feeling warm saliva filling her mouth. She swallowed and tried to turn her mind away from food. There was nothing to eat here. She would have to wait until she returned to clan ground.

“This place has food only for the Red Tongue.” Fessran’s voice came from behind her and the tang of smoke stung her nose. “And not enough, either. Your creature is a greedy thing; I grow weary of feeding it.”

Ratha stretched one leg at a time and arched her back to get the stiffness out of it. She groomed her belly, glancing now and then at Fessran, who was poking the last few sticks into the Red Tongue’s nest.

The morning breeze shifted, sending smoke into Fessran’s face and she shook her head, blinking, her eyes tearing. She backed away, grimacing.“Arr, you ungrateful creature!” she growled. “I feed you and feed you and then you make my eyes sting!”

“Stand on the other side.” Ratha yawned. “And you’re feeding it too much. Keep it small.”

“I will feed it no more; there is nothing left to feed it.” Fessran rubbed her face on the inside of her foreleg, leaving the fur damp and spiky. She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again. “There. I can see again.”

“I can get food for it.” Ratha pointed her nose at the tree. “Up there.”

“Unless you can knock down the whole tree, you won’t get very much,” Fessran said, eyeing the stunted saplings dubiously. “Even if you can feed your creature for a while, we can’t stay here.”

“And if we go, what happens to my creature?”

“We’ll have to leave it, Ratha.”

“No!” Ratha planted her paws in the ash. “It kept me warm last night. It kept you warm too. It is a cub; it must be looked after and fed. If we go, it will die.”

“We can’t stay here,” Fessran repeated.

“Why did you keep it alive last night if now you say it must die?” Ratha wailed.

“I was cold last night and I’m not now. I don’t want your creature to die either, Ratha, but staying here isn’t going to fill our bellies.”

Ratha circled the fire, pacing frantically. An idea struck her.“I want the clan herders to see my creature,” she said, turning to Fessran who stood waiting, flicking her tail from side to side. “I can stay here with the Red Tongue while you bring them. Can you bring them, Fessran? I can stay.”

“And be meat for the first hungry beast that comes along?” Fessran snorted. “If I left you here, I’d find only your bones when I got back, even if the clan herders would believe my words.Arr! What are you doing?” she cried in alarm as Ratha tried to snap at the flame and was driven back by heat and pain.

“I can’t catch it. There is nothing to catch. I see it, but my teeth can’t feel it.”

“Do you think you can carry the Red Tongue by the scruff?” Fessran wrinkled her nose. “I may not know much about it, but I know it is notthat kind of creature.”

Ratha glared at Fessran, winced and licked smarting jowls. She turned once again to the enigmatic thing still dancing over its breakfast of twigs. Fessran had placed several small branches awkwardly, leaving broken ends sticking out. Gingerly, Ratha took one of these into her mouth and drew the branch from the fire. It was shorter than she expected and she shifted it in her jaws, fighting the urge to fling the thing away as it burned close to her face. Out of the corner of one eye she saw Fessran raise a paw to bat the branch out of her mouth. Ratha held her torch as long as she could before having to drop it back in the fire.

“There!” she panted. “I can carry my creature.”

Fessran lowered her foot.“You wouldn’t go very far before you dropped it. The sun is high, Ratha. We don’t need the Red Tongue.”

“No! You are just like Thakur, telling me to leave my creature. I found it, I fed it, and I’m going to take it back with me.” Ratha flopped on her belly and stared into the fire.

There must be a way… there must … yes, there is.

Ratha caught Fessran peering into her face. She sat up abruptly, almost bumping the other’s chin. “I know, Fessran! Look at the Red Tongue. See how the creature crawls along the branch? Do you see how the Red Tongue’s passing turns the wood gray and feathery?” Ratha leaned over Fessran’s shoulder as she snagged a charred stick with one claw and pulled it out of the fire. “Once the wood turns to feathers, the Red Tongue won’t eat it. If I pick my branch up by this end,” she said, tapping the blackened bark, impatient for it to cool, “I can carry it.”

When the wood stopped glowing and smoking, Ratha got her jaws around it and lifted the branch out of the fire. She raised her head, holding the torch triumphantly. An instant later, the charcoaled end collapsed between her teeth and the lighted end fell on the ground. It flickered out. Ratha spat out a mouthful of embers, gagged and drooled on the ground, trying to cool the burning bitterness with saliva. Through pain-blurred eyes she glared at the Red Tongue, retching as fluid ran down her chin.

She panted rapidly and stuck her sore tongue out into the morning wind.

“Arr! I thought it would work,” she said when she could speak.

“You did better the first time,” Fessran answered. “Perhaps a longer branch not yet touched by the Red Tongue would serve you. Wait. I’ll climb up and break one off.”

Ratha stared, open-mouthed, as Fessran hitched herself up the sapling’s slanted trunk. “You’re helping me?”

“I prefer that to leaving you here.” Fessran’s head appeared in a crotch between two limbs. The tree’s crown swayed as she balanced herself. She seized a nearby branch in her jaws, cracked it loose and tossed it down to Ratha. Several more followed, the dry wood snapping cleanly away from the trunk.

“My teeth weren’t made for that.” Fessran landed beside Ratha, sending up a cloud of flaky ash.

“Why did you knock down all those?” Ratha asked. “I can carry only one with the Red Tongue at the end.”

“Yes, butI can carry the others. And when the Red Tongue creeps to the end of your branch, I will coax it into one of mine and give that one to you.”

“Ah, but you are clever, Fessran,” Ratha said.

“Not clever. Just hungry. Take the large branch for your creature.” Fessran waited as Ratha lit the stick. “What about the rest of your creature?” she asked, her voice indistinct through the stick she had picked up.

“We will leave it and it will die,” Ratha said. “But my creature has given birth and its nursling dances at the end of my branch. So will it always be with the Red Tongue.” She paused. “Are you ready, Fessran?”

The other flicked her tail in answer and the two set off across the burn, Fessran in the lead, Ratha following, bearing the torch.

As the two traveled, the grass grew thicker underfoot, hiding the burn beneath a new carpet of green. Wild wheat stems stroked their bellies and flanks as they passed through, and Ratha had to hold her torch aloft to avoid setting the new growth alight. A sea of waving grasses covered what had been forest floor, swirling around the fire-blighted stands of pine and fir. Only the great red-woods still shaded the land, their heartwood still living, their fibrous bark only scarred by the Red Tongue’s passing. The wild grasses grew thin in their shadow and the torch seemed to burn brighter in the cool, still air beneath their boughs.

But the trees were few and the grass triumphant as it spread far in the open sunlight. Ratha walked behind Fessran, watching her tail swing back and forth in time to her pace, listening to the fire snap and hiss. The only other sounds were of grass swishing past legs and the muted hammer of a woodpecker from its faraway perch.

The sun reached its zenith and began to fall again. Fessran had replaced Ratha’s torch as many times as there were blackened stubs left along the trail. Ratha could hear Fessran’s stomach growl and her own, she was sure, would meet her backbone by the time they arrived on clan ground.

Ratha slowly became aware that the continuous low gurgle in the background was not coming from her stomach or Fessran’s. It was the sound of running water. She tried to scent the stream, but the acrid tang of torch smoke made her nose useless. She could only follow Fessran’s lead.

Soon they were walking along a grassy stream bank. Fessran found a ford where the stream ran shallow over gravel. They began to wade across, Fessran still leading, Ratha behind.

Fessran reached the other side and scrambled up the steep bank, shaking mud and pebbles from her feet.“Here is where we swam with the deer away from the Red Tongue,” she called back to Ratha, who still stood in midstream.

Ratha remained where she was, letting the water flow over her paws. The creek looked different in the open sun with grass instead of trees on its banks. But there, upstream, were the potholes she’d swum across and above them the waterfall she’d tumbled down. Her flank ached momentarily at the memory.

“I know your feet are weary, Ratha”—Fessran’s voice cut into her thoughts—“but we have only a little farther to go.”

Ratha’s jaws loosened in dismay and she almost dropped the torch in the water. Only at little farther to go? She wished that she was back on the burn, still traveling; the goal of her journey too far ahead to have to worry or think about. Now, suddenly, she had arrived. Ratha looked up the bank to where her companion was standing. Clan ground. And she wasn’t ready.

“Are you going to let your tail drag in the water all day?” Fessran sounded annoyed.

Ratha glanced down at her reflection.Herder of the Red Tongue, she thought wryly. A thin forlorn face stared back at her, holding the torch in its jaws. An echo of her own voice rang in her ears.Clan leader, hah! Who is he compared to….

“Ratha, hurry.” Fessran leaned down the bank. Ratha jerked her head up and sprang, dripping, onto the slope. Her paws slid on the muddy bank but Fessran seized her ruff and hauled her up.

Ratha paced back and forth on the stream bank while Fessran shook herself off. This was home ground, but very much changed. The forest no longer reached the stream and the meadow had altered shape and grown larger. The grass felt new and crisp underfoot. Ratha looked across the open land and remembered the cool dimness of the old forest.

The meadow stood empty. No beasts grazed; no herdfolk stood guard. Ratha shivered.Where are they…?

“Fessran, could the clan have gone somewhere else?” she asked, turning to her companion and speaking awkwardly around the branch.

“The meadow grass is not thick enough for beasts to graze,” Fessran said. “And the dapplebacks like to browse in thickets. Our folk may have taken the animals further away to graze, but I am sure they will return to the dens at sunfall.”

Fessran found the overgrown trail that led to the clan dens.

“The grass is bent here,” she said, nosing about, “and here are the marks of large pads. Meoran and the others came this way not long before.”

Ratha stood on the stream bank, her soggy coat still dripping. She stared across the meadow. She thought it was empty, but what had caused that patch of weeds to wave when the rest was still? The motion died out and though Ratha searched intently she could see nothing else. Her wet coat made her shiver again.

“Someone is stalking us,” she muttered in response to Fessran’s questioning look.

“Some clan cub out hunting grasshoppers.” Fessran wrinkled her nose. “Come out of the weeds, weanling, and give greeting to your betters,” she called. The meadow remained still.

“That isn’t a cub,” Ratha said.

“How do you know? I thought you couldn’t smell anything with the Red Tongue’s breath in your face.”

“My nose isn’t telling me. I just know,” she growled.

Fessran lifted her tail and waved the white spot at the end of it. No cub in the clan, Ratha knew, would disobey that signal. No one came, however, and Fessran lowered her tail.“Shake yourself dry,” she said irritably to Ratha, “and leave whoever it is to their games.”

Ratha shook her pelt and followed Fessran onto the trail. It wound among the few trees that had been spared by the Red Tongue and forest giants that had fallen across the path. Fessran seemed unsettled, even though this was a trail she had once known well.

She stopped, one paw lifted. Ratha halted behind her.

“They watch,” Fessran hissed. “All along the trail they watch and they hide themselves. If you be of the clan, come forward and give greeting!” she called, but again no one came out, although Ratha sensed motion between the trees and caught the phosphorescent gleam of eyes.

“Are they the Un-Named?” Ratha asked, shivering again although her coat was almost dry.

“No.” Fessran’s muzzle was lifted. “I smell scents I know well.”

“Then why do they not come out and offer greeting?”

“I don’t know.” Fessran walked ahead a short distance and called again. “I am Fessran of Salarfang Den, a herder of the clan. I walk by right on this ground. Do you hear me, those of you out there? Srass, that rank odor can only belong to you. And, Cherfan, I smell you along with Peshur andMondir. Come and show yourselves!”

Her roar rang in the air, but once it died, the afternoon continued to slip into twilight in silence. Her ears and whiskers drooped. She crouched and picked up the branch she had dropped.

“Wait, Fessran,” Ratha said. “My creature grows weak. It wants food. Give it the branch you carry.”

Fessran laid her stick across Ratha’s until it caught. She held it while Ratha kicked dirt on the dying old one and then gave the new torch to Ratha. The fire snapped and roared, gaining hold in the wood. Ratha carried it high as she trotted down the trail after Fessran.

Again there were rustling sounds in the forest near the path and again sudden glimmers of eyes in the growing darkness. Faraway calls told Ratha and Fessran that the news of their coming was spreading far ahead of them. Fessran paced on, her head lowered, her tail stiff.

“I smell a kill,” she hissed back to Ratha. “The clan will meet us before we reach it; of that I am sure.”

Ratha felt her saliva dampen the wood between her teeth. The hunger had become a dull pain in her belly, drawing the strength from her limbs so that she trembled as she walked and she could see that her companion too was betraying her hunger. Only the Red Tongue was strong.

They went up the grassy rise and over the knoll, past the ancient oak with limbs low to the ground, where, Ratha remembered, she had first seen the Un-Named raider.

Fessran’s gait slowed. Her footsteps became quieter, then ceased. Ratha crept alongside her. “There. Up ahead.” Fessran’s whiskers brushed her face. “Do you see? There they are.” Ratha felt the whiskers twitch and slide away. “Stay here, Ratha,” Fessran said. “I will have words with them.”

Ratha dug her claws into the ground to anchor her shaky legs. She stared back at the eyes watching her. They had come out of hiding and were assembled together in mute challenge. Ratha smelled the scents drifting to her on the night breeze. She searched for the remembered scent of the clan, of kinfolk, of herdfolk who had taught her their skills and those she had run beside in the meadow when the Un-Named, their enemy, were attacking. The scents were there, but not as she remembered them. The smell of the clan had become the smell of the pack.

As soon as Fessran had taken a few steps downtrail, a single hoarse voice rose from the front of the group.“Come no further unless you wish to feel our teeth in your unworthy throats!”

“Are you growing blind with age, Srass?” Ratha heard Fessran yowl. “You know me and you know Ratha, who stands behind me. Let us pass and eat at the kill.”

There was only silence and burning eyes.

“The clan knows you, Fessran,” said a deeper voice, and Ratha’s hackles rose, for she knew that voice and hated it. “But the one who follows we do not know. Turn that one away and you may come and eat.”

“The one behind me, clan herder, is one you know and know well,” Fessran said. Her voice was strained and Ratha knew she was trying not to anger Meoran. “The smell that is mingled with mine is of the herder Ratha, the she-cub that Thakur and I taught.”

“She-cub? We smell no she-cub,” Srass howled, and Ratha could imagine that Meoran stood next to Srass muttering the words into the old herder’s tattered ear. “We smell no she-cub. We smell only that which burns, that which we hate.”

“Yaran!” Fessran called, startling Ratha by naming her lair-father. “If you stand among these mangy fleabags, answer me! Do you turn away your own, the she-cub that you and Narir bore?”

“I smell no she-cub,” Yaran’s gravely voice answered, and Ratha’s belly twisted in a sharper pain than hunger.

“Have you all got dung up your noses? Ratha, come forward and show yourself so we may end this nursling’s play.”

Shaking, Ratha crept forward, her torch casting orange light on the path. As the torchlight fell on the pack, they cowered. Ratha saw Meoran blink and narrow his eyes to agate slits in his broad face.

“We smell no she-cub!” Srass’s cry rose again. “We smell only the thing we hate. Drive it away! Drive it from clan ground.” He showed his broken teeth at Ratha.

She tried to speak above the pack’s howling, but the torch in her mouth kept her mute. “Let her speak!” Fessran cried, lashing her tail. “She is Named. Let her speak.”

“Fessran, take my creature,” Ratha hissed through her teeth. As soon as her jaws were free she faced the pack.

“Look! Fessran holds it. She doesn’t fear it,” Ratha said as Fessran stood beside her, the torch between her jaws. “This is my creature. I have brought it to the clan. I am Ratha, who once herded three-horn deer. Now I herd the Red Tongue.”

Ratha heard a muffled cry and Meoran shouldered Srass aside and came to the front.

Ratha felt the ground grow damp with sweat from her paw pads. Meoran’s odor surrounded her and seemed to crush her as he would with his great weight. His eyes were enough to still a challenge in any throat. If the eyes failed, the massive jaws would succeed. Ratha caught the glint of teeth like tusks behind his lips and remembered a time when the scent of freshlydrawn blood mingled with his odor and those in the clan went about with lowered heads and eyes dull with fright.

“There will be no herder of the Red Tongue on ground I rule,” Meoran said, his gaze steady on Ratha.

“I have not come to offer challenge, clan leader. I bring my creature to serve you, to keep you warm while you guard the animals at night.”

“We do not know you, clanless and nameless one. Take the hateful thing and go.”

Cold seeped through Ratha and horror crawled across her skin like a flea seeking somewhere to bite. In those few words he had stripped her of her name, her kin and all that she knew and valued. Only one thing remained now and it blazed in the jaws of the one who stood beside her.

“Give me my creature,” she said to Fessran, who gave her a startled look at the change in her voice. Ratha took the torch from her companion.

She turned, playing the firelight across the front of the pack. They all squinted in pain and ducked their heads. Even Meoran lowered his jowled muzzle.

“Kill it!” someone screamed and the rest took up the cry. “Kill her and the thing she bears!” The pack glared at her with hateful eyes, but not one of them approached her as she swung the flame in a sweeping arc.

“Yes, kill it,” Ratha snarled through her teeth. “Come then. Tear out its throat. Spring and break its back. Here it is. What? You shy away?” She grinned around the branch. “You don’t know how to kill it, do you? Hah! Such sharp teeth the clan has. Surely you can kill a little creature like this? Or am I the only one who knows?”

“Sss, Ratha!” Fessran’s whiskers were in her ears. “You run too fast on a trail you don’t know. Thakur is in the pack. I smell him.”

“What do I care for …” Ratha growled back.

“You will care very much if he speaks what he knows,” Fessran hissed, stamping her foot near Ratha’s.

“Kill the Red Tongue!” Meoran roared.

“How? We don’t know how,” the pack wailed.

“None of you know!” Ratha brandished the torch, swinging it viciously. “The Red Tongue is my creature. It can’t be killed.”

The howls died down into a low moaning. Some of those in the front were lifting their chins and baring their throats. Baring their throats to her and the Red Tongue, Ratha realized with a shock. Not to Meoran. Again she met the clan leader’s eyes and saw kindling in them a rage that would never burn out as long as her blood ran warm and the Red Tongue danced on the end of her branch. There was no returning along the trail she had chosen to take.

Meoran glared at the nearest herder whose chin was lifted. He raised a heavy paw and struck the supplicant, driving the lifted muzzle into the dirt. Other heads turned in fear of him, but Ratha could see that their terror of the fire was greater and the sudden fear in his eyes told her he also knew.

Ratha lifted the torch, casting its light further across the huddled bodies, seeking Thakur. She heard his voice before she saw him.

“Hear me, you of the clan. The Red Tonguecan be killed. I saw her do it.”

Beside her, Ratha felt Fessran start. She saw Meoran spring over the backs of the crouching pack and land among them again, ignoring the squalls of those crushed by his bulk. He seized Thakur by the scruff and dragged him out of the crowd. He flipped Thakur on his back and spread a massive paw on his chest.

“You would speak, herder. Tell what you know.” Meoran seized and shook him.

Thakur twisted his head to look at Ratha.“He will kill you, yearling,” he said calmly, bright blood running down his neck. “Take your creature and run away now.”

Ratha’s lower jaw was trembling so that her teeth vibrated against the torch shaft and she could barely hold it aloft.

“Speak, herder!” said Meoran between his teeth. Ratha swung the torch at him, but Thakur was closer and in the way. However much Ratha hated Thakur for betraying her, she could not use the fire against him. She knew Meoran sensed her reluctance, for as he moved, he thrust Thakur in front of him, a shield between himself and the vengeful thing that fluttered on Ratha’s branch. He clawed at Ratha from behind Thakur’s head and over Thakur’s shoulder. Fessran danced around them, trying to distract Meoran enough so that she could snatch Thakur from the clan leader’s jaws.

Ratha caught glimpses of the pack, standing together behind Meoran. None of them moved to help him. They watched and waited to see who would be the victor.

“Run, Ratha!” Thakur called as Meoran threw him from side to side.

“Let him go, Meoran!” she snarled and lunged with the torch. Meoran jerked Thakur up so that he hung like a cub from the leader’s jaws, rear legs dragging on the ground, front legs stiff and splayed apart. Ratha skittered to a stop before she drove the torch into Thakur’s chest. She recoiled and staggered back. Thakur averted his face, shut his eyes and went rigid, his body tight and trembling.

“Why, Thakur?” Ratha cried and felt her insides churning in agony. “Why did you tell them?”

“It was not hatred, Ratha,” Thakur answered as he sagged in Meoran’s jaws. He grunted in pain as the clan leader gave him another savage jerk.

“If I run, he will kill you,” Ratha said. “If I free you, will you come with me?”

Slowly Thakur opened his eyes.“I can’t go with you. He won’t kill me. He needs what I know.”

Ratha stood paralyzed, staring at him, trying to find an answer in his eyes. Once he had been a teacher, a friend — and even something more. What had he become now?

She raised her head and met Meoran’s slitted gaze. Beyond him, the pack eyed her. Her power was waning as the Red Tongue crept down its branch. There was still enough to hold them from her throat, but soon they would sweep forward and engulf her.

“Go, yearling,” Thakur said again, his voice thin.

She felt Fessran give her a quick nudge. She turned, starting in fright at the shadows that seemed to jump from the trees as the flame’s light passed across them. She broke into a trot and heard Fessran following.

Several paces down the trail she stopped, lifted the torch aloft and looked back. Meoran and the pack were still there, black forms against the night. Ratha turned and galloped away, the fire lighting the trail before her. They weren’t following … yet.

She plunged ahead, ignoring her shaking legs and the gnawing aching pain in her belly. The worst pain she could not ignore. It came from her own words that hammered in her brain as her heart hammered behind her breastbone.

Thakur…why?

Ratha sprinted uphill toward the knoll and the old oak. Orange light gleamed on its leaves and an owl, startled from its perch, hooted mournfully and floated away.

“They come, Ratha,” Fessran panted beside her. “I hear branches breaking on the trail behind us.”

Ratha glanced to the side and saw a spare fire-lit form running alongside. Her breath hissed between teeth tightly clamped on the torch shaft.“Thakur … Fessran, what will happen to Thakur?”

“What he knows about the Red Tongue may save him from Meoran’s teeth. It will not save him from mine if you are caught and killed.”

“No!” Ratha nearly stumbled. She lost ground, falling behind Fessran. “He did not do it out of hate. Take no revenge on him; promise me that.”

Fessran slowed, letting Ratha catch up.“My promise means nothing. Meoran will have my blood too, if he catches us. We will talk later, across the creek. Run!”

Ratha’s torch still flamed, but half of the wood was charred. The brand was nearly exhausted, although the wind whipped it and forced it to burn brightly, devouring the branch.

We can break branches from the trees on the far side of the creek, Ratha thought.If we reach them. If Meoran catches us before then, my creature will have no strength left to keep him from our throats.

Ratha and Fessran topped the hill and ran down the other side. Ratha gained speed from the long downslope and the Red Tongue burned fiercely near her whiskers. Somewhere ahead was the creek. Beyond that, clan ground ended.

Shadowed grass flew by beneath Ratha’s feet, and she stretched her body into the run. She saw only the swath of light the torch threw ahead of her, letting everything else slip by in a blur. She passed Fessran and left her far behind. Her speed and the rush of the Red Tongue gave her a wild exhilaration, as if she, not the clan, had been the victor.

She was too far ahead of Fessran to hear the other’s warning cry.

The grass beneath her paws changed to mud and she was skidding, unable to stop. Whirling her tail, she back-pedalled, trying to keep her hindquarters beneath her. Mud piled up between her toes. Pebbles raked her pads. The bank became steeper and dropped away. She gave one despairing kick that shot her out over the water. She lost control and tumbled. The torch sailed out into the darkness. For an instant, she saw two fires flash; one above the surface; one below. They met and died as the torch fell and sank.

Ratha hit the water and came up flailing wildly. She dug her feet into the stream bed and reared up, beating at the water with her paws. The fire was gone.

The stream rippled in cold moonlight as she searched for her creature. She splashed in the stream; sweeping her forepaw through the water; clawing at the bottom; even plunging her head beneath the water to search with her whiskers. Nothing.

She felt something bump her flank. She whirled and seized it. A familiar taste and charred smell told her it was her torch, but now, with the Red Tongue gone, worthless as any other stick. She let it drift away.

Ratha threw back her head and screamed in rage and terror. Now nothing could hold Meoran from her throat. And it had all been for nothing. The Red Tongue was gone.

She reared up again, slashing and tearing at the stream, as if it had flesh and could yield some retribution for killing her creature. She heard footsteps on the bank above her. A splash beside her nearly knocked her over. Sharp teeth fastened in her nape.

“Ratha!” Fessran’s voice hissed behind her head. Fessran’s breath was hot and moist on her skin beneath the fur.

“My creature! My creature is dead!” Ratha howled, her throat raw from her cry.

“The clan comes,” Fessran said between her fangs. “Your noise will guide them to us. Be still!”

“They seek me. Run, Fessran. If they find me, they won’t follow you.”

“Speak again and I’ll push your nose beneath the water. I too held the Red Tongue between my jaws and Meoran will not forget that.”

The teeth fastened on Ratha’s nape again and she was hauled through the water, dragged out and pushed ashore. She shook so badly she could hardly stay on her feet and the wind on her wet pelt made her feel as though she had no fur at all.

Fessran’s slick coat gleamed faintly as she passed Ratha and moved up the far bank.

“Wait.”

Fessran looked back, her eyes phosphorescent.“Clan ground ends here,” she said, “but the clan’s wrath doesn’t.”

“We can’t outrun them. It has been too long since we’ve eaten,” Ratha said.

Fessran lowered her muzzle and hunched her shoulders.

“Fessran, there is no hope they will spare me. But you may be able to turn their hatred away from you.”

“How?” The eyes narrowed.

“The Red Tongue is dead. Meoran need not know that it was my foolishness that killed it. It was you, Fessran. You killed it and drove me off. He must have heard my cry.”

“Yarr… and I hear him,” Fessran muttered. “Quickly, Ratha.”

“He’ll believe it. Here,” Ratha said, swiping at her belly and extending her fur-covered claws to Fessran. “A tuft of fur. Put it between your teeth.” She lifted a paw and smeared Fessran’s coat with the blood and dirt from her cut pads before Fessran could stop her. “There. I turned on you with the Red Tongue, but you struck it down and killed it. Can he doubt my blood on your fur? And the stick has come ashore downstream. Show him that when he arrives.”

“Enough!” Fessran hissed. “He will never…”

“You don’t have time to wash yourself off before he gets here.” Ratha pawed Fessran’s face, leaving a smear along her jaw. She jumped back at Fessran’s strike. The eyes were blazing.

“Get away from here before I make it real!” Fessran snarled.

Ratha ducked her head and scuttled away. She paused, lifted her head and looked back.“May you eat of the haunch and sleep in the driest den, Fessran,” she said softly. “You are of the clan. You cannot leave them. I am the one whose way lies apart from the rest.”

The other’s eyes cooled. The tail gave one last twitch. “May the trail you run lead you back to us.”

“See to Thakur,” Ratha said.

“I will. Go now.” Fessran’s whiskers drew back. “I don’t want you to see me fawning on Meoran.”

Ratha leaped up the bank, leaving her behind. The howls of the clan sounded not far across the creek. Ratha trotted downstream for a short distance and angled off into the brush. Making sure that she was downwind from the stream bank, Ratha crouched in a thicket, listening. Her heartbeat threatened to choke her. Would her plan work? Would the clan leader believe Fessran’s story and spare her? They needed good herders too badly to kill one needlessly.

If Fessran dies, Ratha thought, kneading the earth beneath her forepaws,I will go and bare my throat to Meoran.

The howling swelled, then fell silent. Voices spoke. Ratha was too far away to hear the words, but she caught tones. Meoran’s deep growl, Srass’s whine. Fessran’s voice, rising and falling. Then, silence. Ratha tensed, grinding her teeth together, waiting for the outcry from the pack that would signal Fessran’s death. Nothing.

She lifted her chin, swiveling her ears all the way forward, hardly daring to think that such a simple trick had saved her companion. She peered through the interwoven branches. The moon was silver on the stream bank. Forms paced up and down on the far side. Fessran was seated, speaking to Meoran. She extended a paw. Meoran leaned forward to sniff it while the clan gathered about them. Fessran got up, joined the others, and Ratha lost her among them.

She dropped down behind her thicket, dizzy with relief and weariness. She laid her chin on the damp ground and felt her heart gradually slow. The ache in her belly came back and the cuts on her pads began to throb. There was mud in the wounds, but she didn’t have time to clean them. The wind might soon shift, carrying her scent to the clan and revealing her hiding place. Exhausted and hungry as she was, she had far to run before she would be beyond the clan’s reach.

She yawned.This would be a good place to sleep, she thought, pushing herself up on her front paws.If I did, Meoran would soon be standing over me, ready to give the killing bite. She coaxed her reluctant hindquarters up and peered out of the thicket. The voices were silent. The clan folk had gone. Fessran was probably sending them on all sorts of false trails, looking for her.

She stepped out of the thicket and looked up at the stars. The trees here were fewer and she could see a greater stretch of sky. So many stars, she thought. Each seemed to burn like a tiny piece of her lost creature. The night wind touched her wet coat, making her prickle and shiver.

She was clanless; outcast and outlaw. Her training as a herder was worthless now, for she had no beasts to keep. There would be no more gatherings; no sharing of the clan kill. From now on she would have to provide for herself, and that no one had taught her.

Miserably, she crept away. She stayed in shadow beneath brush and trees, avoiding open ground where newly sprouting grass was bathed in moonlight beside the charred lengths of fallen pines. For a while, she chose stealth over speed, but at last her desperation drove her from cover. She ran from an enemy neither seen nor smelled, whose dark presence loomed up in every tree shadow, sending her fleeing from the path. She ran like a cub on her first night trail, fearful of anything that moved.

The wind grew bitter, hissing and rattling branches. The new ache in Ratha’s chest did not distract her from the old ache in her belly, and she endured them both, until the hunger pain became a weakness that seeped into her legs. She stumbled from tree to tree, resting against them until she gained breath to go on. The trail faded away, or she lost it, for now she fought her way through thorns and ropy vines. She panted harder. Her pads grew slippery with sweat, stinging the gravel cuts. She was almost grateful for the pain; it kept her alive and angry when she was tempted to fall and lie amid the brambles that snared her. It was the anger that made her tear loose from them and stagger on, leaving tufts of fur behind.

The earth itself seemed to betray her, for it grew mushy underfoot and she sank at every step. The soft ground sucked at her feet, dragging her down, while the tangle thorns chewed at her ruff and flanks. She was caught and held by spikes growing from the vines, and struggle as she would, she could not break free. For a while she was still, regaining her strength. With a final effort, she wrenched herself loose, the thorns scoring her sides.

She overbalanced, toppled and started to roll down a steep grade. Limp and exhausted, she let herself go, dragging a claw now and then to slow her descent. She landed against something, heard a soft crunch and smelled the odor of woody decay. She tried to rise, but could only lift her head; the rest of her body was too weary to obey.

Ratha let her head loll, feeling damp moss against her cheek. Was this to be her deathplace? Would the clan find her here, a rotting lump of fur beside an equally rotten log?

No! She ground her teeth; she would not lie still, not yet. If Meoran and the others came she would meet them on her feet, with fangs bared.

If only she could have a little time to rest. That would be all she needed. Just time enough for the strength to flow back into her limbs and the ache in her chest to lessen. Then she would be able to fight if she had to, or to journey on, seeking water to soothe her throat and something to fill her belly.

The ground seemed to rock beneath her when she closed her eyes, letting her rise and fall as though she were a cub crawling on her mother’s ribs. She opened one eye at the shadowed ferns hanging above her. The leaves were still, and she knew that it was not the ground that rocked her, but the depths of her own weariness. She let the imagined motion lull her into a daze, then into sleep.

Ratha woke abruptly, itching all over. Had all her fleas gone mad? They were all dancing beneath her coat, tickling her skin until the urge to be rid of them overcame her exhaustion. She twitched a paw and saw something white and wriggling fall on the ground. Whatever was crawling through her fur, it wasn’t fleas.

With one bound she was on her feet, shaking hard until she thought she would jerk her pelt loose. Some of the invaders fell on the ground beneath her, but others remained as moving lumps in her underfur. Her tail bristled with horror. Was she so close to death that worms were seeking her body? She remembered seeing the carcass of a dappleback mare felled by sickness. The clan would not touch the tainted meat and the body was left for other scavengers. She remembered the sound that welled up from the carcass; a soft humming and whispering. It was the song of the death-eaters; the sound of dissolution. It was the sound of millions of tiny jaws chewing through cold flesh. Ratha remembered the song and shuddered. She shook herself again. She saw pale carapaces and waving legs on the moonlit ground beside her paws. Some of her horror faded into curiosity. These weren’t worms, she thought, pawing at one scuttling insect.

She looked back to where she had lain against the fallen log. The leathery wood was crushed inward, revealing a channeled interior. More pale termites swarmed and milled within the hollow, spilling out like a thick liquid around the edges.

She had landed right in a nest of them. No wonder she had awakened with the creatures in her fur! She nosed her back and trapped one moving lump between her fangs. She pulled it loose from her coat, feeling the hair thread between her teeth. The flailing legs touched her tongue and made her gag. She bit down on the insect and felt the carapace break.

She spat the mangled thing out, but not before a trace of its flavor escaped onto her tongue. She had been prepared for a bitter or nauseating taste, but instead found it bland and sweet, reminding her of the river-crawlers she had eaten with Thakur. Her hunger came back in a rush. She let saliva wash over her tongue, testing the flavor again. Not as good as river-crawlers, but definitely palatable.

She licked up several termites that were crawling by her feet, crunched and swallowed them.

Ha, eaters of death, she thought.I will eat you!

She cleaned up the others that had fallen from her fur and began grooming herself, eating the ones she found in her pelt. Not satisfied with those, she pawed at the nest, breaking more of the rotten wood. A seething mass poured out on the ground. She stepped on them and then ate them.

By dawn she was almost full. Daylight chased the termites into the depths of their battered nest, but Ratha no longer cared. With the cramp in her belly eased, she was ready to journey on.

For several days, Ratha traveled through thick woods of broadleaf and pine. Here the fire’s touch had not been felt and the air beneath the trees was cool and dim, reminding her of her own forest before the Red Tongue’s coming. She thought, as she prowled on needles, that she could make a new home among these silent trees. There were plenty of rotting logs that would yield their inhabitants to her claws, at least until she found some other source of food. Even as she thought about staying, her feet carried her on until the forest thinned and gave way to scrub and tangle. Only when she was clear of the trees did she stop to look back. The forest beckoned to her from within itsgray-green depths, promising her quiet and safety. The horizon also beckoned, promising her nothing except challenge.

She turned from the forest and galloped toward the horizon.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Ratha sniffed at the trail of tiny prints that ran over the flat and into the rushes. The stink of marsh mud rose to her nostrils, overwhelming the smell of her quarry. Her hindquarters trembled and she sat down. A wave of nausea swept through her, and her stomach threatened to disgorge the lake water she’d drunk early that morning, trying to still the hunger cramps in her belly.

The tracks led on further into the marsh. She coaxed herself up and followed them. The marsh shrew had run before her only a short time ago; the tracks cut sharply into the black mud. Ratha knew about tracks. Thakur had taught her to find straying three-horns and dapplebacks by their prints and how to tell if a trail was worth following.

She stopped and studied the ground. Here, the prey had been running. The tracks were deeper and farther apart. Tiny bits of caked mud, a lighter gray than the ooze, littered the trail as if flung from scurrying paws. Ratha’s excitement rose as she padded alongside the trail. Saliva filled her mouth. Soon her teeth would crunch on bone and she would suck warm salty blood. The gnawing pain in her belly would cease….

Ratha stopped. The tracks ended. One last footprint in the mud and beyond, nothing. She whined in dismay, nosing about around the trail. Could the shrew have leaped away onto a log or branch? She looked around, frantically. Nothing but mud on either side. Where had the prey vanished?

Again, she circled, trying to find the track. She stepped on something smooth and slender that bent underneath her pad. She drew back her foot and looked. Embedded in her pawprint was a feather; a long slim quill. Shrill cries overhead made her look up. Several birds wheeled high above her. From the shape of their wings she knew that they also ate flesh. Her whiskers drooped. Her prey was probably squirming in their talons or being torn apart by hooked beaks. This hunt was ended. She would have to begin again.

Ratha caught motion at the edge of her vision. She whirled around. A heavy beak clamped shut in the air where the nape of her neck had been.

For an instant, she flattened on the ground, staring up at her opponent.

The great bird cawed and raised its crest, staring at her with unblinking lizard eyes. Its weight sunk its talons deep into the ooze. Massive legs with scaled horny skin supported a body that was all bulk and neck, the tiny wings buried in hairy feathers. This one had not dropped from the skies. Atop the serpentine neck, the great head swayed and the beak gaped once again. A talon lifted. The inside of the beak was yellow; the narrow tongue a glistening pink.

For another instant, Ratha crouched, paralyzed, watching the talon and the open maw descend. Then she remembered her legs. The beak stabbed into black ooze. Terrified, she scurried away through the rushes as the hunter’s hoarse cry of rage echoed over the marshland. She fled, turning and twisting, to throw her pursuer off the trail. She ran until her legs would no longer carry her and then she fell and slept in exhaustion until her belly woke her with the reminder that it had yet to be filled.

Afternoon found her tracking again. The prey was wounded or ill; she could tell by the irregular footsteps and wandering trail. Sometimes the prints were smudged by the impression of a dragging tail. Again, she followed, but this time she did not let the intensity of her hunt make her forget that she too might be prey.

The trail grew fresher and the smell stronger. She crouched as she approached a fallen log in her path. On the far side of it she could hear soft rustling sounds, and the crack and crunch of seeds being eaten. Again she trembled and her belly grew tight. She slunk along the side of the rotting timber and looked around the edge. There it was. A little marsh-shrew with a dull striped pelt and flanks almost as shrunken as hers. One rear leg was wounded and dragging. The blunt snout turned, the nostrils twitched. Ratha ducked back. Then, as the creature turned once more to its meal, she peered past the ragged spongy ends of the fallen timber. At last something she could catch.

She gathered herself, bunched and sprang over the log. She landed short, slipped in the mud, leaped again and landed on her prey with her front paws.

Her tail swung wildly to keep her balance as the animal squirmed beneath her pads. She felt herself toppling, struck one forepaw out to catch herself and felt her prey slip out from beneath the other. Furious, she lunged and snapped, but the creature, despite its injury, was far away from her, scooting across the flat toward the reeds. Ratha flung herself after it, howling in anguish. She chased the animal up and down through the high grass, desperation keeping her only a few tail-lengths behind. The marsh grass opened into a meadow of ferns and she was gaining on her quarry when a flurry of black and brown erupted from nowhere and something charged into her, knocking her aside from her prey. There was a shrill scream from the animal, a deep growl and then silence.

Ratha scrambled out of the clump of ferns and staggered to her feet. A young male of her own kind stood a short distance away, staring back at her. Her marsh-shrew, now lifeless, dangled from his jaws. He dropped it in among the ferns and began to play with it, glancing from time to time at Ratha. Driven by hunger, she moved closer. He lashed his tail, growled, picked the carcass up and pranced a short distance through the ferns. There he laid it down, ambled a few tail-lengths away and began grooming himself.

Ratha flattened and crawled through the ferns, freezing whenever he looked her way. His smell was oddly familiar, she realized, between the waves of hunger that were sweeping over her. She slunk forward again, raising her whiskers above the fronds. He turned, yawned in her face and ducked his head among the ferns. A loud crunch of teeth on bone told her he was eating her prey.

With an outraged scream, Ratha flung herself at him but exhaustion made her fall short. She pushed herself up on wobbly legs, fluffed her tail and spat. He flicked one ear and went on eating. Only half the carcass was left.

“Scavenger!” Ratha hissed. “Un-Named dung-eater! Flea-ridden chewer of bones!Arrr, you can’t understand my words, bone-chewer, but you’ll understand my teeth!”

The other gazed at her, a scrap of fur and flesh hanging from his jowls. It disappeared into his mouth in several swift bites and his lips drew back from his teeth as he chewed, revealing a broken lower fang. Ratha looked at his ears. One had a piece bitten out of it and the ragged edge bore the marks of teeth. Hers. It was the raider who had attacked Fessran’s dapplebacks in Ratha’s first encounter with the Un-Named raiders.

“The same words again, clan cat?” he said, looking straight at her. “Do they teach you no others?”

Ratha’s nape bristled and she felt the fur rising all the way down her spine to her tail. Her nostrils flared. She was unsure of whether to attack or retreat and did neither. She could only stare at the mangled carcass between his forepaws and swallow the warm saliva flooding her mouth.

He tore another strip from the prey. The smell from the glistening flesh brought Ratha forward. Saliva slipped between her teeth and ran over her lips into her fur.

“You are far from home ground, clan cat.” He gulped the meat. “And far from the herdbeasts that keep you fed.”

Ratha took another step forward. She could see the ends of her whiskers quivering.“I chased the marsh-shrew, broken-fanged one. Let me have what is left of it.”

“Yes, you chased it,” he agreed. His tone was light, but his eyes were wary. “You didn’t catch it. I caught it.”

“I caught it. My paws were on it before yours. I drew first blood.”

“Is that a new clan law? I thought they had enough laws and leaders to bare their throats to.” He grinned, exposing the jagged edge of his fang.

“Give me my prey!” Ratha howled and flung herself at him. Her trembling legs turned her lunge into a stumble.

He snatched up the remains of the prey and trotted beyond her reach. He sat down among the ferns and gave her a mocking look.“You are a bad hunter, clan cat. Only good hunters eat,” he said between his teeth, lifting his head to let the rest of the carcass slide into his open gullet.

“Raider! Bone-chewer! I broke your fang and tore your ear. Come near me or steal my prey again and I will chew your tail off and stuff it down your gluttonous throat!”

He lolled his tongue out at her, turned, and, tail in the air, sauntered away.

Ratha went to where the shrew’s carcass had lain, hoping to find a few neglected morsels. She found only moss, stained with blood and spittle. She bent her head and licked the green carpet, but only got the faintest taste. She closed her eyes and felt her belly twist in despair.

Only good hunters eat, she thought.

She lifted her head and bared her fangs. She shredded the moss with her claws.

She had lost her world and everything in it. The herder’s knowledge that served her in the clan was worthless here. She had left her people far behind. Now, she realized, as she felt the grinding pain of hunger fade into a frightening numbness inside her, she must leave their ways behind as well.

I was raised to be a herder, part of her mind cried. That life is gone. What else is there? Nothing, the same part of her mind answered. In choosing to leave the clan, you chose to die.

Despair paralyzed Ratha. She wanted to sink down onto the moss and lie still forever. To become dry bones, scattered by the feet of those who would pass this way. Crumbling bones, crawling with insects.

Another part of her mind began speaking. She quieted the turmoil inside and listened. This part spoke in images and feelings rather than words. It told of scents followed along star-lit trails, of stalking and waiting in shadow, of branches breaking close by and the sudden fever at the smell of the prey. It told of a life far older than that of the clan, a life far deeper and, in a strange way, far wiser. The old part of her mind told Ratha she had that wisdom. She woke from the telling as she would from a dream and she trembled, for it was far stronger than the clan-taught knowledge. The way of the clan, she knew, went back many seasons and many lifetimes. She knew the names of those who led the clan, from the first ones all the way to Baire and Meoran. The way of the herder was old, but there was another way, ancient beyond memory. It went back to the time before the beginning. The way of the hunter.

* * *

Whiskers poked out of a burrow. A timorous nose followed. Earth and small stones tumbled as the occupant emerged and peered around. Hiding in a patch of weeds, Ratha tensed. She could see the black stripes along the animal’s cheeks; the blunt snout. Delicate five-toed paws joined the whiskers in exploring the ground outside the burrow.

This hunt, Ratha thought, would be different. She knew hunger had robbed her of the speed and agility a hunter needed. She still had something that might make the difference if she used it properly: her cleverness. If she could outwit three-horns and Un-Named raiders, surely she could catch a shrew.

The marsh-shrew looked toward Ratha’s hiding place, lifted its chin and showed long chisel teeth, as if it knew she was there.

The animal’s forequarters were already out of the hole and the hindquarters soon followed. The striped shrew began wandering away from its burrow, stopping every few paces to raise its muzzle and sniff the air. Ratha’s excitement grew with every step the animal took away from its den. She quivered and bunched herself together, treading softly with her forepaws, waiting until the shrew was far from the burrow. She jerked sharply, fighting the impulse to pounce. There was something else that had to be done first.

She remained still until the shrew reached a stand of marsh grass and began to gnaw on the tuberous roots. Ratha gave it one last glance, left her hiding place and crept, not toward the shrew, but toward the empty burrow. A mound of dried mud stood to one side of the entrance, a product of the shrew’s excavations. With one swipe, she pushed the fill into the burrow and added a few pawfuls of surface mud. She pressed hard to pack it solid, then, with another glance over her shoulder, slunk back to her place in the rushes. As she settled in her nest, she purred softly to herself, pleased withher cleverness. This hunting business wasn’t so hard if one gave it some thought, she decided.

The hard part was staying still until the shrew had finished its meal of roots, and even after it had left the marsh grass, it still wasn’t ready to return to the den. Ratha watched, her impatience mixed with grudging admiration as her prey turned hunter, attacking and devouring flies and beetles. She saw the shrew leap at a dragonfly droning low over the marsh and when the little hunter fell back on the mud, she saw that it bore a broken jeweled body in its jaws. Her keen ears caught muffled snaps as the shrew bit off the insect’s legs and then continuous frantic crunching until only the lacy wings were left, scattered on the mud beside the still-twitching legs.

The shrew sniffed among the remains, turned its head up and looked at the sky, as if wishing for more and, finally sated, waddled back toward its lair. Halfway there, it stopped and its careless amble turned into a wary creep. Hidden in the grass, Ratha shivered, trying to still the clamor in her brain. The promise of food had awakened her stomach and it growled its impatience at her. Spring now. Now. NOW!

Ratha’s hind legs shot back, throwing her through the rushes. She stayed flat, hugging the ground. The shrew bolted for its den, launched itself at the entrance and bounced off the packed mud. It scurried back and forth, dodging her wildly slapping paws. She chased it away from the burrow, across the mudflat between the rushes, around a rotting log and back again. Reeds slapped her face as she dashed through them, trying to keep her prey in sight.

The shrew tried again for its burrow. It flung itself onto the packed earth and dug in a wild frenzy. By the time Ratha reached the den, the shrew had bored halfway in. She skidded to a stop; scooped the shrew out of its hole. It nipped her pad and she dropped it, squalling in pain. Squeaking shrilly, the animal reared up on its hind paws and showed its teeth. Ratha circled the shrew as it squealed and danced. She lifted one paw and slapped down hard, trying to squash the shrew into the mud. It bounced high into the air and shot off in a different direction. Ratha whirled and caught a glimpse of another tunnel opening in a mudbank beneath a tangle of swamp grass roots. The shrew was heading straight for it.

With a yowl of rage, Ratha scrambled after her prey. Despair gave her speed, but her shaky legs failed to stop her in time. The shrew reached the second tunnel before she did. She made one last snap at the vanishing hindquarters before she overshot and plowed headfirst into the bank.

The impact ground her teeth against gravel and filled her mouth and nose with mud.

Ratha recoiled, rearing back and clawing the air. The ooze clung inside her mouth, blocked her nose and she fell on her back, retching, trying to push the vile-tasting muck out with frantic thrusts of her tongue. Her maltreated stomach cramped and convulsed, sending its meager contents up her throat. She stretched her mouth wide, letting the bitter fluid stream over her tongue and through her nose, turning the ooze to sizzling froth that dripped from her jaws. Her stomach was empty, but the spasms continued, wrenching her belly and thrusting her hind legs out stiff until they quivered and cramped.

For a moment she thought she was going to heave her insides up onto the marsh mud, but the sickness soon subsided, leaving her a limp and panting heap of fur, drooling brown saliva.

She wished then that she could die and that the clan could know how she died. Meoran would howl until he farted if he knew that the proud bearer of the Red Tongue had choked on swamp mud trying to catch a wretched shrew! She squeezed her eyes shut and felt fluid run from them to join the stuff dribbling from her eyes and nose. The Red Tongue? Why think of that now? It was gone. Finding the fire once was a fluke. She would never find it again. This was the life she would have to lead, if she could.

Slowly Ratha rolled from her side onto her stomach and dragged herself through a clump of rushes to the shore on the other side. Her belly ached; her nose and throat burned. Her lips and tongue were raw. Her fangs had lost their usual smooth slickness against her tongue and felt etched and gritty.

Scum edged the bank and clung to the half-drowned rushes. A rainbow film on the water’s surface shimmered in translucent colors. Ratha closed her eyes and put out her tongue to drink.

A paw slid under her neck, shoving her muzzle away from the water. Ratha gave a weak cry and pushed stupidly against it, feeling a strong foreleg against her jaw. She opened her eyes. At seeing her companion’s tinted reflection, she cried again and turned her head away, hating the taste of bile in her mouth and hating the intruder for not letting her drink. Again she tried and again he thrust her back. She lay panting, her chin in the mud. He walked in front of her, flicking a ragged ear.

“Clan cat, doesn’t your nose tell you this is bad water?”

“I’m thirsty. My mouth burns. Let me drink.” Ratha whimpered.

“I know. I saw you being sick. You’ll be much sicker if you drink here. There’s a stream further up. You’ll be able to find it.”

“Bone-chewer, keep to your own trail! I’ll decide for myself where to drink.” She glared at him with all the hate she could muster. She narrowed her eyes, feeling them go to slits. “Why do you care if I get sick? You took my prey; you want me to starve. Go away.” Ratha rolled away from him onto her side and curled into a ball. She heard his footsteps squelch on the marshy ground. They stopped. She cracked one eyelid, hoping the silence meant he was gone. No. He was still there, sitting a short distance away, watching her with yellow eyes. Yellow eyes, in a face that seemed strangelyfamiliar, as if it echoed the face of another.

Ratha groaned and slid her chin across her forepaws, as she looked up at him.“Bone-chewer, why do you stay?”

“I’m full. I have nothing else to do. And you are interesting. I’ve never seen such a poor hunter in my life.”

“Leave me alone!” Ratha snarled weakly. “Why should I hunt if you take everything I catch?”

“You flatter yourself, clan cat. You have yet to catch anything.”

Ratha jerked her head up and glared at him again, wishing she had the strength left to tear him into small scraps. Her head shook with anger and weariness.“I caughtyou, raider. Let your ear and your broken fang remind you of that.”

She let her head sink back to her forepaws. The weeds rustled and she felt feet pad beside her. She stiffened.“What are you going to do now, raider? Kill and eat me?”

From somewhere above her head came a low rumble that sounded more amused than threatening.“No. There’s not enough flesh on you to be worth the killing.” He cocked his head at her. His coat gleamed with red-gold highlights in the hazy afternoon sun. “Despite what you may have been told about the Un-Named, we do not eat our own kind.”

Ratha hitched herself away from him, but his tail still brushed her ribs as he curled it across his feet.“You are not of my kind, bone-chewer,” she growled.

“There are differences,” he agreed. “I am not nearly as foolish. Now that we know each other, clan cat, shall I show you where the stream lies?”

Ratha only grunted and ignored him. Her thirst was fading, along with everything else. All she wanted now was sleep. There was something still stirring in her mind, though, that would not leave her alone.

I fought the raider in the meadow but that’s not why I know his smell and his face. It is as if I know him, and yet I don’t. Why?

She opened one eye and peered past the brush of her tail at him. Her eyelid felt heavy. She let it fall shut, blotting him out. His smell grew stronger and teeth seized her ruff. Ratha’s eyes flew open as he hauled her up off the mud, shoving her forepaws underneath her with one swipe of his foot. When he let her go, she sagged, her legs buckled and she flopped down.

He backed off and gave her a puzzled look, faintly tinged with sadness.“Are you of the clan so weak that you can only lie down and die when you meet hardship? I thought you had more spirit when you mauled me in the meadow.”

“Fine words from one who stole my prey!” Ratha hissed bitterly. “Had I eaten, I could follow you.”

He circled her, his tail twitching.

“Too late, bone-chewer,” she said hoarsely.

“Lie with your whiskers in the mud, then, clan cat” he said scornfully, his own bristling. Ratha closed her eyes and buried her nose in her forepaws. When she opened them again he was gone. She listened to the wind threshing the swamp grass and the cries of birds high overhead.

Who is he? she wondered, but then, as she drifted off to sleep, decided that now it really didn’t matter.

A smell woke her. Musky, rich, intoxicating, the odor filled her nose and her whole hungry being. It lured her back out of a sleep that was letting her slip closer and closer to death. She plunged her fangs into the furry body lying beside her. Not until she felt the warm flesh between her jaws did she realize she was awake. She sank her teeth in to their full depth but she was too weak to manage a shearing bite. She squeezed the meat between her jaws, sucking the salty juices. Her stomach jumped in astonishment and began to churn greedily.

Where the kill had come from, she didn’t know and didn’t care. It was here, it was hers, and to her hunger-sharpened senses, it was the best thing she had ever tasted. Once she gained enough strength to start eating in earnest, she started at the head and had devoured half of the carcass when a now-familiar smell and familiar step made her freeze.

She hunched over the prey. She began to eat rapidly, with both paws guarding the carcass, gulping chunks that still had fur attached. He sat down and watched her. She shot wary glances at him between bites.

“Eat slowly, clan cat, or it will do you no good.”

Ratha’s ears started to flatten, but they pricked up again as she thought of something.

The prey… she hadn’t caught it. Had be? She stopped eating, turned the remains over with her paw and inspected it for the marks that might be left by a broken fang.

“Don’t bother, clan cat. I caught it,” he said.

Ratha raised her chin and eyed him.“Why?”

“For the same reason I pushed you away from that tainted water.”

Ratha lowered her head and slowly finished her meal.“The Un-Named do not give help without a reason. What is it you wish from me, raider?”

“The Un-Named do not speak either, according to the great wisdom of the clan,” he replied with a grin, but the yellow in his eyes had turned slightly bitter. Ratha pushed herself up on her forepaws and stretched, feeling the fullness of her belly and the returning strength in her legs. The fur on her face felt stiff and tight, caked with filth and dried fluid. With mild dismay, she realized she was mud-spattered from nose to tail. She licked one paw and began to scrub at her muzzle. After several strokes she stopped, dissatisfied with the results.

“You, clan cat, are a mess.” The young male stood up and arched his back, showing off sleek copper-gold fur. “I’ll show you the stream. You’ll never get all that mud off with your tongue.” With a wave of his tail, he trotted off. Ratha heaved herself to her feet, growling irritably.

The stranger led the way along a narrow trail, marked with deer and dappleback prints, edged with moss and mushrooms. Gradually the marshy ground gave way to a drier track, leading them uphill to a brook emerging from a cleft in the grassy slope. Ratha went to the spring and lapped the upwelling water. It was cold and clear, and she dipped her chin in and drank until her teeth ached. Once her thirst was slaked, she let the water flow over her tongue, from one side of her jaw to the other, cooling and rinsing her mouth until the last taste of sickness was gone.

She waded downstream and crouched in the shallows, letting the bubbling current ruffle her fur backwards. With chattering teeth she leaped out of the brook, wriggled on the grass and shook herself dry, sending a small shower in her companion’s direction. He sneezed and trotted uphill beyond range. There he sat, on the slope above the spring, something unreadable in his eyes.

Ratha turned her tail to him and walked away.

“Where do you go now, clan cat?” His voice came from behind her. She stopped, lowered her tail and looked back at him. It was nearly sunset and the slanting red light set fire to his coat as he glanced over his shoulder at the sinking sun. Ratha caught herself thinking that he was very beautiful and immediately squelched the idea.

“To hunt, raider. My belly is full now and I am strong.”

“What do you know of hunting?” he asked scornfully. “You’ve never hunted anything except grasshoppers and wayward herdbeasts.”

“I know how to stalk and pounce. I know how to wait until the prey has left its hole and then fill the hole with dirt. I almost got that shrew.”

“No matter how good you were at stalking and pouncing, and no matter how clever you were, you would never have caught that shrew. And you won’t catch any other animals either,” he said.

Ratha dug her foreclaws into the ground. He was still waiting, still wearing that maddening grin that showed his broken fang. She wanted to knock out the other one.“All right, raider,” she said, taking a breath, “tell me why I won’t catch anything.”

“You don’t know your prey. That striped shrew. What do you know about it?” he asked.

“I know what it smells like. I know what its prints look like. I know where it hides and what it eats. Isn’t that enough?”

“You didn’t know the one thing that might have saved you from eating mud instead of shrew. That shrew has many holes and they are all connected.”

Ratha eyed him suspiciously.“What would a shrew want with so many holes? It can’t sleep in more than one at a time. I would only want one. Everyone at home has only a single den. Some have to share.”

The stranger sighed.“You are thinking like the clan herder you are. To catch a shrew, you must think as the shrew does.”

Ratha wrinkled her nose.“Shrews can’t think, can they? Not as we do.”

“Oh yes, they can. They can be quite clever, as you will learn.”

“But they don’t have names … or clans either,” Ratha spluttered.

“Must all who are clever have names and clans?” he asked, looking at her intently.

Ratha felt uncomfortable under his stare.“No,” she said at last. “You have neither clan nor name, but you are quite clever. And that shrew was also clever.”

“Not all animals have tunnels,” he said, continuing. “Many hide in other ways. What you know now may let you hunt marsh shrews, but you’ll get pretty sick of them.” Ratha flicked her tail irritably as he paused. “There’s a lot you need to know,” he said and added, as if to himself, “I almost think I should teach you.”

“You?” Ratha backed away, her tail fluffed. “I’d rather go back to the clan than have you as a teacher!”

He stared at her intently. His eyes held hers. He walked up to her and thrust his muzzle into her face. She tried to break the intensity of his stare, but could not and sat down nervously on her tail.“You can’t go back to them, clan cat,” he said. She sensed, as she looked past her reflection into the yellow depths of his eyes, that he knew much more about her than one of the Un-Named should know.

“You can’t go back,” he said again, softly. “And you can’t live here without my help. No other among the Un-Named will aid you.” He withdrew his face and she pulled her tail out from underneath herself and glared at him defiantly.

“I can find another clan. They’ll take me in.”

“There are no clans among our kind.”

Ratha started to spit back a reply, but she knew deep inside that he spoke truth. However far she might wander, she would never find another herding community such as the one she had left. It had never been a real hope and it died as soon as it arose.

“Why? Why will you do this for me?” she demanded, knowing that she had no choice but to take his help if he offered to give it.

“Because of what I am, I suppose.”

“You?” Ratha’s spirit came back. “You are a raider and a bone-chewer!”

He ducked his head and grinned ruefully.“I am indeed, clan cat. But you may find I am something more.”

“Hah! If you are the only one of all the other bone-chewers who will help me, why did I meet you instead of one of the others?”

“You didn’t find me,” he said, yawning. “I found you.”

“Found me?” Ratha’s jaw dropped. “You were looking for me? Why would an Un-Named bone-chewer be looking for me?”

“Perhaps to teach you some manners, young one,” he snapped, giving her an irritated cuff. Ratha jumped away and shook her head. Her eyes narrowed.

“I don’t think you are an Un-Named One. You are far too clever. You remind me of someone in the clan, although I can’t remember who.” Ratha felt the fur rise on her nape. “Did Meoran send you to find me and kill me?”

“If he had, the marsh birds would be picking at your dirty pelt. No, clan cat. I bear no name and I obey no one.” He grinned again. “Except my stomach.”

“That I can believe,” she said sourly, letting her prickling fur soften.He must be telling the truth, she thought.Meoran would never have anyone like him in the clan.

“Time to hunt, clan cat,” he said, turning his face toward her. “We’ll start with marsh-shrews. Later I’ll teach you how to catch bush-tails and diggers. Are you ready?”

“Yes …” she said, and her voice trailed off.

“Mmm?” He crooked his tail.

“What do I call you?”

“Don’t call me anything. I don’t have a name.”

“I have to call you something if I’m going to talk to you. If you can call me ‘clan cat,’ I should be able to call you something,” she said stubbornly.

He flicked an ear.“Very well.”

She hesitated.“What do you want me to call you?”

“You want the name. You choose it.”

“Arrr, it isn’t really a name,” Ratha haid doubtfully. “Only the clan can give someone areal name, such as mine.”

He looked irritated.“All that means is that it was bestowed upon you by some fat whelp that everybody bares their throat to. For no good reason I can think of,” he added scornfully.

Ratha began sorting through possibilities. None of the names of those in the clan fitted him at all. The only one that even came close was one she had invented. The more she thought about it, the more she liked it. And there was nothing wrong with it.After all, shethought, it isn’t a real name.

She saw him peer into her face and knew he had caught the glint in her eye.“I’ve got one,” she said.

He drew back his whiskers.“I should have known better. Very well, clan cat. What am I to be called?”

“Bonechewer!”

“Arrr,” he grumbled.“I suppose it suits me. Very well then. Follow me to the marsh and I’ll see if I can make you into a hunter.”

Ratha followed him, cheered by her minor revenge. Bonechewer. It really wasn’t bad.

* * *

That evening he and Ratha caught more striped shrews and she managed to trap and kill one by herself. By nightfall, she was full and drowsy. She wanted a den where she could sleep. Instead, Bonechewer took her to a moonlit glade beneath the slope where the spring ran and told her to hide amid the ferns.

“We aren’t going to hunt,” he said in response to her grumble that she was stuffed right down to her tail. “Just stay here with me and watch.”

He crouched beside her and they watched as the glade began to stir. Ratha had run trails and herded animals by night, but she had never stopped to notice how the darkness brought so many small creatures out of their dens. Even though Ratha’s hunger was sated, she quivered with excitement and felt Bonechewer’s paw descend on her to keep her from wreaking havoc among the night denizens of the meadow.

Tiny feet pattered back and forth through the underbrush, rustling last season’s brittle leaves. Bonechewer listened and told her what creatures made which sounds. Some of them she knew, from her nights of guarding clan herds. Most, however, she didn’t and had difficulty telling one animal’s noises from those of another. Her ears were tuned to the calls of lost or straying herdbeasts or to the sounds of raiders lying in wait in the brush.

She started when a little blacksnake emerged from its hole almost between her forepaws and slithered away, its scales edged with silver. She watched it crawl through the grass and onto a rock still warm with the day’s heat. As the blacksnake coiled itself with a soft scrape of scales, an animal with dingy gray fur, a pointed nose and a long bare tail ambled by the base of the rock. The blacksnake raised its head, tongue darting and scanned the bare-tail as it went by. The snake sank down again, loosening its coils. Ratha wrinkled her nose at the bare-tail’s rank odor and agreed with the blacksnake that there were better meals to be had. A second bare-tail followed the first, the tail arched over its back. Several gray bundles dangled upside down by their own small tails wrapped around the larger one. The smelly bare-tail, Bonechewer said, often carried her young that way.

Bonechewer didn’t take Ratha back to his den until sunrise and she slept until midday. Again they hunted marsh-shrews, and when both had killed and eaten their fill, he took Ratha to another place where she could hide and watch. They spent several evenings hidden together. Each evening Bonechewer showed her thecreatures that made up his hunter’s world. He told her about their lives and habits and drilled her until she knew them. Not until she understood every quirk and characteristic of a prey animal did he let her hunt. She complained bitterly at first, for her instincts told her to pounce.

As she learned more, however, she complained less, for she began to see the wisdom in his method. Once she turned seriously to the task, she became so absorbed that it threatened to distract her from the business of filling her belly. Bonechewer varied things by showing her other hunters who shared his territory. One of Bonechewer’s neighbors was the flightless bird that had attacked her on her first hunt. From afar, she watched it stride across the marshland, the furred carcass of its catch dangling from its hooked beak. That limp pelt could have easily been hers, she thought, shivering. When the great head lifted and the lizard eyes stared her way as if they knew exactly where she was hiding, Ratha broke cover and fled, ending the lesson for that day.

Once Bonechewer took her out of the marsh along the lakeshore and turned inland until they came to a small plateau dotted with trees and wildflowers.

There they saw a huge beast with the body, neck and head of an oversized dappleback. The creature’s forelegs were longer than the rear legs, its back sloping down from shoulders to withers. Shaggy orange fur covered back and belly. Instead of hoofed toes, the feet bore sickle claws that forced the creature to walk with an awkward shuffle. Ratha hid among the flowers and watched the shambleclaw as it reared up to strip tender leaves from the trees or grub for roots with its claws.

It seemed to Ratha, as she followed Bonechewer on hunts and expeditions, that she was seeing every kind of animal there was. How narrow the herder’s life seemed to her now as she began to relish the variety of forms and the variety of flavors. Bonechewer also taught her to fish in the lake and she found that the finny denizens of the water were as varied as creatures on land and sometimes even queerer. He showed her a fish with four eyes, two above and two below the surface of the water. He said it tasted dreadful, but was fun to watch on lazy summer afternoons as it shot down dragonflies with a stream of water and gobbled the drowning insects as they thrashed on the surface.

The only creature they had not seen was another of their own kind. Bonechewer prowled his territory alone except for her and they saw no other Un-Named hunters. To Ratha, accustomed to eating or working alongside many others, this solitary existence seemed strange and unsettling.

They were stalking meadow mice on the hillside below the spring when Ratha asked him why he never saw the other raiders.

“They don’t come here,” he answered, after finishing his kill.

“Why?”

“Why should they? They have their territories and I have mine. They stay on their ground and I stay on mine. I like it that way.”

“If you like hunting alone,” Ratha asked, puzzled, “why did you take me in?”

He grinned at her and she grinned back at the sight of the limp tail still hanging out of his mouth. He swallowed and the tail disappeared.“You’re different,” he said.

“I’m Named, if that’s what you mean,” Ratha answered tartly, not quite sure what she was getting into.

“Ptahh! That silly custom? It means nothing to me.”

“If my name doesn’t make me different, then what does?” Ratha demanded.

“You’ll see, clan cat.” He turned his head sharply and pointed with a paw. “There’s a fat one over there.” Ratha followed his gaze and saw the grass rippling. She wanted an answer to her question more than she wanted another mouse, but she sensed she wouldn’t get it. At least not fromhim. She put away her annoyance and began to stalk, but she couldn’t help wondering what he meant.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Summer’s golden grass and lazy sun faded into wind and blowing leaves. The rushes beside the shore withered, turning brittle. Their crisp green odor turned dry and nutty. The mornings became cold and drizzly; the afternoons gray. Only once in a while did the sun seep through the clouds hanging above the lake. Everything smelled dank and rotten.

Ratha shed her summer coat and with it the last faint tracings of her spots. Her fur grew back thickly in gold and cream. She was pleased with her new beauty, but, to her dismay, it didn’t last. The autumn rain turned all the trails to mud and she returned from hunting soggy and spattered from nose to tail. Bonechewer also shed his copper fur for a somber brown, which looked black in the rain.

The weather kept small creatures in their burrows. Both Ratha and Bonechewer worked hard to keep their bellies full. There were times when they returned empty to their den and could only lie and listen to each other’s stomachs growl until hunger forced them to hunt again.

Ratha learned to eat lizards and earthworms and to chew on tubers she dug from the ground. She developed a taste for the noxious bare-tails, for they were often the only thing she could catch.

Autumn yielded to winter. The rain fell hard and often turned to sleet. Ratha and Bonechewer hunted by day and spent the bitter nights curled up with each other in a nest of leaves in a hollow pine. It got so cold that the one who slept closer to the entrance would wake shivering, his or her whiskers rimed with frost.

The morning was still and pale as Ratha poked her whiskers out of the den. She was alone, as Bonechewer had risen earlier to forage. She crawled out and shook herself. She felt itchy and irritable. There was a strange fragile feeling in the air, an uneasy lull between last night’s storm and the mass of heavy clouds crawling down the ridge above the lake.

Better hunt now, she thought, knowing that she and Bonechewer would spend most of the short day huddled together in their den while the new storm lashed the lake to churning froth and flattened the rushes.

She circled the old pine until she picked up Bonechewer’s scent. Soon she saw his tracks and followed them up along the lakeshore.

There she found him, up to his chest in muddy water. He was trying to drag something ashore. As Ratha came closer, she could see that his prize was the drowned carcass of a young deer. She waded in, despite the freezing water, and helped him haul it ashore.

“It hasn’t been dead long,” said Bonechewer, nosing the body. “For carrion, it is fresh. See? The eyes are still firm and clear.”

“A three-horn fawn,” Ratha said, noticing a bony swelling on the animal’s nose that matched the two horn-buds on its head. She placed a paw on the fawn’s ribs and rocked the carcass. It seemed oddly limp and the head rolled on the ground.

“Are you sure it’s fresh?” she asked Bonechewer. “Put your paw on the back. Here, between the shoulders.”

He did.“The back is broken,” he said, cocking his head. “So is the neck. And here are the marks of teeth. This beast didn’t drown. I think this is a kill.”

“Who would throw their kill into the lake?”

Bonechewer twitched his tail.“Someone may have lost it in the storm last night. He may have been dragging it along the ledges that overhang the lake on the far side. We may find the hunter’s body washed up further along the shore.”

Ratha sat down and stared at the carcass. The prickly sensation she had been feeling all morning had soured her temper.“Bonechewer, I haven’t seen any three-horns around the lake, or anywhere else here.”

“I haven’t either,” he answered, shaking his pelt dry. “There aren’t any. I’ve lived here long enough to know.”

“Then where did this one come from?”

He grinned.“Perhaps Meoran sent you a gift.”

“Bonechewer!” Ratha stamped, sending mud up her leg, spattering her chest. Again she stared at the carcass, feeling waves of heat wash over her. She was in no mood for mysteries. She should just eat and be done with it. Something kept her back. This animal had to belong to the clan herds. Therewas no other place it could have come from, for it was fat and well taken care of, not scrawny and wild.

Bonechewer yawned,“I don’t care where it came from. It’s fresh and both of us could use a good meal.”

“Yarrr,” Ratha agreed, although the sight of the slain clan animal disturbed her more than she would admit. She was sure Bonechewer was teasing, but she sensed truth behind his words, even if it was twisted. She glanced at her companion, who was already tearing at the fawn’s belly. The sound of him eating and the smell of flesh in the damp air made her stomach cramp with hunger. She joined him and ate.

When Ratha thought she couldn’t force another bite down her throat, she felt Bonechewer start and stiffen beside her. She wiped her muzzle on the inside of her foreleg and stared over the barrel of the kill. In a patch of weeds several tail lengths away, sat two intruders, one gray, one spotted. Ratha bristled and started togrowl.

“Sss, no!” Bonechewer commanded and her challenge died into a puzzled whimper. She watched as he stepped, stiff-legged, in front of the carcass and faced the two.

These were the Un-Named, Ratha realized, her heart thudding in her chest. One was a half-grown cub and the other an elder, but they looked rough and wild. Their faces were wary, their eyes hunters’ eyes. Their smell, drifting to her through the drizzle, was a scent she had never smelled before. The Un-Named had a strong odor, both sour and musky at once. It was laced with a mixture of prey blood-scents, some old, some fresh. It held the stale scent of age and the smell of mud carried far between weary pawpads. And along with the scents of the Un-Named and the creatures they hunted came the wild scents of unknown valleys, plains and forests where a hunter might roam in freedom or die miserably of starvation.

Ratha stared at the Un-Named Ones and saw that what their smell told her was also written in their eyes. Would such a life allow them to learn anything more than survival? She had been taught that the clanless ones knew nothing but the urge to fill their bellies. She knew better now. Bonechewer bore no name, yet he spoke as well as any in the clan. But she realized, as she glanced at him and then at the two Un-Named, he was as different from them as he was from those in the clan. She waited, watching Bonechewer. She saw his eyes narrow and his mouth open.

She waited for him to attack or to roar a challenge at the witless ones. He did neither. He spoke to the Un-Named cub as he would have spoken to her.“Do you travel alone with the gray, spotted-coat? Or do more follow?”

The strange cub got up and walked forward. The gray female remained seated, following the cub with eyes that seemed strangely unfocused and diffuse. Ratha thought at first that the gray was blind, but she saw the grizzled head turn and the slitted pupils move as the cub walked past.

She sought the cub’s gaze, thinking she would see the same dull stare. As his eyes met hers, she felt her fur rise. His gaze was as sharp and clear as Bonechewer’s. Yet he was Un-Named. Would he speak?

He waited, holding Ratha’s eyes as if he knew the question burning behind them. Then he turned to Bonechewer. “More follow, dweller-by-the-water. Hunting grows hard. We turn to other ways.”

The sound of his voice sent another shock through Ratha. She let out her breath slowly. She had been as wrong about the Un-Named cub as she had been about Bonechewer. The clan knows nothing about the Un-Named, she thought.Nothing.

The spotted coat spoke again.“There will be many tracks across your ground before this season is done.” The cub’s gaze strayed to the gutted carcass. “Ho, dweller-by-the-water,” he said. “The lake has brought you a good kill.”

“A good kill. Are these the marks of your teeth on its neck, little spotted-coat?” Bonechewer asked.

“No, dweller-by-the-water.”

“Then make your tracks across my ground and leave me alone.”

The cub stepped forward, head lowered, tail stiff.“You have not been long among us if you have forgotten the wanderer’s claim, dweller-by-the-water. The old one and I are far from home ground and we are hungry.”

“I had not forgotten, spotted-coat.” Bonechewer grinned, showing all of his fangs. “I hoped you were too young to know about it. Ah well. Come then, and bring the gray.”

“Bonechewer!” Ratha’s jaw dropped. “Why are you doing this? They have no right to the kill!”

Both the cub and the gray turned green eyes on her.“She speaks for you, dweller-by-the-water?” the cub asked Bonechewer, who had stepped quickly to Ratha’s side.

“Ratha,” Bonechewer hissed in her flattened ear, “if you want yourself in one piece, shut your jaws and let me speak to them.”

“You fear them? A spotted-coat and a gray half your size? They have no right to this kill,” Ratha spat back. “It was taken from clan herds. I’ll fight for it even if you won‘t!”

“The clan?Ptahh! You would fight for them? Meoran would kill you if you returned to them. Fight to fill your own belly, if you must, but speak no more of the clan.”

Ratha’s ears drooped. “If we kept the deer, we wouldn’t have to hunt tomorrow. They are only a spotted coat and a gray.”

“A spotted coat and a gray, yesss, but others follow.” Bonechewer’s whiskers poked Ratha’s cheek. “I don’t want to fight all the Un-Named. Be still, I tell you, and let them eat.” He shoved Ratha aside from the kill, opening the way for the two intruders. Hatred and outrage burned in her, and for a moment her fangs were bared against Bonechewer’s coat.

“You know better than that, clan cat,” he said very softly. “Your belly is full. Let them fill theirs.”

Ratha’s anger settled. She watched as the cub went and nudged the gray. He pointed to the carcass with one outstretched paw. The elder lifted her head, stared at the meat and licked her chops.

“Food,” Ratha heard the cub say. “Come. Eat.” The grizzled one peered past him to Ratha and Bonechewer. She whimpered, raised her hackles and showed her teeth, yellowed and worn. “No,” the cub said, pawing her. “No fight. No hurt. Gray one can eat.”

Bonechewer walked off a distance and sat down, his back turned. Ratha, however, stayed close, watching. Something about the gray female repelled yet fascinated her. The cub, slavering, trotted to the carcass and began ripping at the flank. The gray followed him and the two ate until their bellies were swollen.

At last, the two were finished. Ratha noticed, with dismay, that not much remained of the deer except the skull and shanks. The rest was eaten or scattered. The gray-coat coughed, shook off the rain pattering on her fur and swung around. Not knowing quite why she did so, Ratha set herself in front of the gray, blocking the old one’s path.

“Old one, if you eat of our kill,” Ratha said, “you must give us answers in return. Who are you? Where is your home ground? Where do you journey in such bad weather?”

The gray’s answer was a swipe at her face. Ratha ducked.

“Save your words, muddy one,” came the cub’s voice from behind her. Ratha turned to see him licking his whiskers. “The old one can’t speak. She barely understands what I say to her.”

“Why?” Ratha demanded. “Has she lost her wits to age?”

“She never had any. That’s the way she’s always been.” The cub yawned and stretched until his tail quivered.

Ratha backed away from the gray-coat. The rheumy eyes followed her and she felt imprisoned by their dull stare. Her stomach tightened with anger and revulsion. The cub lifted his brows at her.

“I’m sorry for her,” Ratha stammered, wishing she had never come near the gray.

“Why be sorry?” the cub asked. “She doesn’t care. She doesn’t know anything else. She’s a better hunter than most of the others. I like her because she doesn’t talk.”

Ratha opened her mouth again, but couldn’t think of anything to say. Despite her words, she was feeling sorrier for herself than for the gray-coat. Again she had been wrong. The answer had seemed simple and easy to catch between her teeth. Now it wiggled loose like a marsh-shrew and escaped down a hole of contradictions. She felt upsetand uncomfortable, as if she had been caught doing something shameful. But all she had done was to ask a few questions. No. It was those eyes that chilled her, those ancient eyes that should have been full of life’s wisdom and instead were empty.

Thunder rumbled overhead and the rain sheeted down, stinging Ratha’s skin beneath her coat. The cub and the gray looked at her one last time. She ducked her head to avoid the old one’s gaze. The two jogged away through the weeds, lifting their feet high to avoid puddles. Ratha stood still, watching them disappear into the rain. She felt someone come up behindher. She gave a violent start before she realized it was Bonechewer.

“They bother you, don’t they,” he said.

“Not the cub. The gray … she doesn’t have anything in her eyes, Bonechewer. I don’t know how else to explain it.”

“Your clan teaches that the Un-Named are witless,” Bonechewer said, a harsh edge to his voice. ”Why should you be upset to find that some of them are?”

“I thought Meoran was wrong …” Ratha faltered. “What I was taught; it was just words. I said them, I learned them; I even questioned them, but I never knew what those words meant. Not until I looked into the gray-coat’s eyes and found nothing there.”

Bonechewer heaved a sigh.“You thought you had caught the truth, didn’t you. Again, you were wrong. Each time you try you will be wrong. The only truth is that the Un-Named are of many kinds. Some are like you and me. Some are like the gray-coat. Some are different from either. You will have to learn not to be bothered by what you see.”

“And I will see more of them?” Ratha asked.

“Yes, you will.”

“Does seeing ones like the gray-coat bother you?”

“It used to,” Bonechewer said. “It doesn’t any more.” He paused. “I learned never to look too deeply into anyone’s eyes.”

“Except mine,” Ratha said boldly, remembering his intense stare that seemed to pierce into her depths.

“True, clan cat,” he admitted, wrinkling his nose. “I do make mistakes sometimes. Is there anything left on that deer?”

Ratha inspected the stripped carcass. The other two had devoured what she and Bonechewer had left of the viscera and the meat. Rain crawled along the bare white ribs and dripped through. The fawn’s head and shanks still bore coarse fur. The rest had been torn off. The only part worth taking was the head. Ratha stared moodily at the carcass. She wanted to get rid of the deer, to forget they had found it.

“Do you want the head?” Bonechewer asked. He came up behind her and nudged her, making her flinch. His touch sent a wave of heat rushing through her body with a violence that made her gasp. The cold rushed in and she shivered hard. Unable to keep still, she began to pace back and forth. “No,” she growled. “There isn’t enough there to risk breaking a tooth cracking it.”

“Then help me drag it back into the lake. I don’t want these bones on my ground.”

Ratha made an angry turn, lost her balance and toppled.

Bonechewer nosed her as she clambered to her feet.“You’re hot.”

“I’ve been running,” she snapped, but inwardly she was alarmed. Had she caught a fever? She felt so hot and wild that she wanted to run up the hill and howl or plunge herself in the lake.

Bonechewer was still nosing her, digging his muzzle into her flank. Her irritation flared.“Stop sniffing at me as if I was a putrid kill!”

He ducked her swipe and backed off. She saw a hungry glow rise in his eyes. Yet he had eaten. What else did he want?

She sat down and scratched herself. Besides being hot, she was itchy. Had she caught some illness? If so, it was a strange one. She had never felt anything quite like this before.

Bonechewer began to tug at the carcass. Grudgingly Ratha joined him and helped him haul the remains through the rushes to the lakeside. Try as she would, she could not help bumping against him and each touch sent another heat shock through her, starting at her middle and rippling out in both directions to her head and tail.

Ratha and Bonechewer reached the shore and threw the carcass in. She watched it sink beneath the gray water until only the faintest glimmer of white bone showed on the bottom.

Her belly was full and she wanted to curl up in the den and sleep. She wanted time to think, to try and make sense of what she had learned. Perhaps, as Bonechewer had said, she would always be wrong. Perhaps there was no sense to be made of it.

Bonechewer brushed against her as he passed. His scent and his closeness drove the questions from her mind. She shook her head, trying to throw off the fuzziness that was creeping over her thoughts. She only made herself dizzy.

Bonechewer, far down the path, lifted his tail and waved the white spot at the end. Ratha lowered her head and trotted after him, leaving only the rain pattering on the lakeshore.

The next morning, Ratha woke, nestled in brittle leaves inside the ancient pine, once hollowed by fire. Age and weather had softened the sharp smell of charred timber. Resin seeped through the cracked wood and mixed its smell with the fragrance of the dry leaves.

Ratha blinked sleepily, rolled over and rested her chin on the bark sill at the entrance. She was still lightheaded, although the sensation wasn’t as unpleasant as it had been. She snuggled into the leaves and watched the winter sun rise. Last night’s fever had fallen, leaving her comfortably warm and lazy.

Something worried at her mind, trying to catch her attention. She sensed that it was important or had been important. Odd that she couldn’t remember what it was. She sighed, feeling the cold wind on her nose in contrast to the snug heat of her body.

Bonechewer lay curled up near her, feeling warm and smelling musky. The sunlight fell on his coat, turning it from shadowed brown to burnished copper. Ratha rolled over next to him and leaned over him, fascinated by the pattern of hair on his chest and foreleg. Each hair was gleaming and haloed; so perfectly placed in the pattern that flowed down his leg until it ended in a whorl on the back of his foot.

His smell hypnotized her; drew her closer. A wild dark scent, tinged with bitterness. A scent powerful enough to send shivers down her spine to the tip of her tail.

Bonechewer stirred as the sun warmed him. Ratha retreated, frightened by the motion and astonished at her feelings. He settled and his scent drew her back. One paw flexed, showing ivory claws, and he yawned, rubbing his cheek in the leaves. One eye opened. The one-eyed golden stare made Ratha feel confused and abashed. She ducked her head.

“Hmm,” he said and yawned until the back of his tongue showed. “You’re feeling better, aren’t you.”

Ratha gave him a puzzled stare.

“You spent half the night trying to push me out of the den. I suppose you don’t remember.”

He rolled over on his back, the motion sending waves of his scent toward Ratha. They rocked her, sweeping over her and through her until she could barely stand. Bonechewer had never smelled quite like this before. Had his odor changed? No. It was her. Her nose, her eyes. Everything was so much stronger, so much more intense that she could scarcely bear it. What was wrong with her?

Bonechewer wiggled on his back, his paws open, his eyes inviting. It was too much. Ratha jumped out of the den and trotted away a short distance. The day was clear and the wind nippy. Overhead, the sky was cloudless and blue. Ratha fluffed her fur and began licking herself, letting the task calm her mind. She began to enjoy it much more than she ever had. The feeling of fur gliding beneath her tongue, the warmth and roughness of her tongue pressing the fur against her skin; all of these sensations kept her licking even though she had groomed herself thoroughly. It felt nice, especially on that itchy place at the base of her tail.

She was suddenly aware that another tongue had joined hers, licking the nape of her neck while she was grooming her belly. She snapped her head up, catching Bonechewer beneath the chin. He shook his head ruefully and backed away, leaving her swimming in his scent. She tucked her tail between her legs and scuttled away. She crouched, watching him from a distance. He cocked his head and grinned at her, then took several steps toward her.

Ratha felt her lips slide back from her teeth.

“Stay away,” she growled.

“All right,” he said good-naturedly. “You’re not ready yet. Are you hungry?”

“Go stalk your own kill,” she snapped. “I can feed myself.” The comfortable lazy feeling was gone. She felt prickly and hot. Bonechewer turned tail and sauntered off.

Wrathfully yet regretfully, she watched him go.

Ratha didn’t feel hungry, but she knew she should eat. She trotted back and forth until she found a likely looking hole and settled down beside it, waiting for the occupant to emerge. But she could not keep still. She itched and prickled and burned until she could no longer stand it. She gave up after several tries and scratched herself furiously. She began licking, dragging her tongue over her chest and belly. That was good, but it still wasn’t enough. She flopped on her back and began rolling back and forth in the grass. That still wasn’t enough. She lay and pedaled her rear paws in sheer frustration. I want something and I don’t know what it is. How can I want it if I don’t know what it is?

She stopped wriggling. Bonechewer was back, two lizards dangling from his jaws. He dropped one, went away and began eating the other. Ratha scrambled to her feet and shook off the dirt and pine needles clinging to her coat. She didn’t want to be caught acting like a cub. Soon the urge to roll and rub overwhelmed her embarrassment. She flung herself on her back and writhed and wriggled until she thought her coat would be worn off.

A shadow blocked the sky and something hit her face. The something was limp, scaly and smelled delicious. Ratha’s hunger came back in a rush and she seized the lizard Bonechewer had dropped on her face. She devoured the prey, savoring every bite and crunch of bone until the morsel was gone. She looked up, licking her whiskers.

Bonechewer’s eyes seemed to glow amber in his dark face. He nosed her and this time she did not leap away. He began licking her and, although she shivered, she stayed put, sensing that his tongue was the answer to all her itches and prickles. He was warm, and his scent so rich….

A strange cry bubbled up inside her throat, wild and plaintive. Ratha could scarcely believe that this was her own voice. She lay with her head and chest against the ground, her heart threatening to burst her ribs. Teeth seized her ruff. She cried out again and again, unable to stop calling, even though the sound of her own voice frightened her. She felt his belly fur against her back and she felt him shift, slowly, repositioning his feet. His scent washed over her, taking her, spinning her until the hunger, the fright and the astonishment all blended together. She rubbed her head against the ground, calling until her voice was raw.

His weight bore her down and she felt his paws press into her back, alternating in a deliberate rhythm. He loosened his grip on her ruff and seized her further back, between the shoulders. His tail swept hers aside. Ratha arched her back to meet him, and a new note came into her call. His voice joined hers and they were together, stiff and trembling.

With a violent motion, he pulled away. The sudden pain was so sharp and deep Ratha screamed and flung herself around to face her tormentor. Her claws dragged through his fur and the skin beneath, opening a bright wound on his shoulder. He staggered back, and Ratha could see from his eyes that he had not expected such a vicious assault. She lunged at him again. He fled, not out of sight, but beyond her reach, crouching beneath a bush and watching her, measuring her…. She turned away from those glowing amber eyes and began to smooth her coat. She licked angrily, trying to wash away the traces of his odor that remained on her, but his smell kept wafting to her from where he crouched, still watching. She flattened her ears and snarled.

“Come near me again, raider and I’ll tear you into pieces too small to be worth eating!”

“I imagine you would,” Bonechewer replied, keeping his distance. “I’ll wait. You’ll feel differently about me in a little while.”

Ratha turned her back on him, stalked back to the hollow tree and climbed inside. She was still sore and throbbing, but she felt much more like herself again. She resolved to have nothing more to do with him. She curled up and went to sleep.

To her dismay, she woke up as hot and itchy as she had the first time. This time she stayed inside the tree, licking herself, rolling on her back, wondering again what was the matter with her.

“You smell good, clan cat,” came Bonechewer’s voice from just outside. “Shall I come in?”

Ratha stuck her paw out, bared her claws, swiped back and forth several times, hoping his nose would get in the way.

She waited, listening. Nothing. He had gone. Good, she thought vehemently.

Her frustration, however, remained and grew until she could hardly endure it. She thrashed around, sending up a storm of dry leaves and needles inside the hollow tree. At last she collapsed in a disgruntled heap, letting the leaves settle on her. She lolled her head out the entrance. What am I going to do, she wondered. Am I always going to feel like this? I won’t be able to hunt. I’ll starve to death.

Ratha let her head sag, closing her eyes against the midday sun. She felt someone’s breath against her face and then a tongue, tentatively licking her cheek. Bonechewer again. She grunted, letting her head sag further. The tongue stopped.

“Are you going to claw me again?” his voice said in her ear.

Ratha growled, but she knew there was no menace in her voice. He knew too. The tongue laved her ear and went under her jaw. Defeated, she let herself slide back inside the tree. His tongue followed her. She felt him step inside and lie down beside her.

They mated several more times that day and the next. Each time Ratha’s memory of the pain that came at the end of their coupling made her vow she would never join with him again, but the fever of her heat drove her to him. Her appetite was magnified and she devoured the morsels he brought her with savage bites. The self she had once known seemed very remote and far away. Would this feeling pass or would she be forever enslaved to her body’s demands?

Bonechewer tried to comfort her in the intervals between matings. Some of his harshness and indifference seemed to fall away, revealing a gentler nature than Ratha had thought him capable of.

The sun rose and set several times before her fever finally began to cool. Bonechewer’s smell became pleasant rather than intoxicating. Her senses lost their heightened sensitivity. Other thoughts crept back into her mind as the urgency of mating faded. Her mind became clear enough to think about the future and survival. For those few days, she thought, it had been as though the future no longer existed, so strongly did her needs focus her mind on each moment as it passed.

Although Ratha rejoiced in the return of stability to her body and mind, there was a lingering regret. The few days of her heat, detached as they were from the rest of her life, had brought her new sensations, new thoughts and new feelings. Now that she had experienced it once, she knew what to expect if and when it came again. There might come a time, she thought, when she would welcome the changes in her body; she would willingly enter the waking dream that swung her between madness and delight.

Ratha thought at first that she would be exactly as she was before her heat. Some of her new feelings lingered, however, telling her that not everything was the same. Certain places on her belly remained tender. Deep in her loins was a heaviness that did not change whether she ate much or little.

During the next few days Ratha hunted with Bonechewer. They saw no more of the Un-Named. She thought less and less about them, although the encounter with the gray-coat returned to her mind. As days passed and no other intruders appeared, Ratha decided that the strange cub and the gray had indeed been traveling alone. When she said as much to Bonechewer he drew back his whiskers, took her out in the downpour and showed her tracks filling up with muddy water. The marks were neither hers nor Bonechewer’s.

Ratha stared at the tracks, then at Bonechewer.

“Why don’t I challenge them, clan cat? Is that what you are asking with your eyes?”

“There are too many of them, you said …” Ratha answered cautiously.

He grunted and said,“This is the only way the wanderers can go. On one side of my ground lies the lake. On the other lie the mountains. They must cross my ground. I can’t stop them. I do not want to.” He circled the tracks and then began to paw mud over them. “I make sure that as they pass, they catch no sightof me.”

“Why?” Ratha asked. “Do you fear them?”

He patted the mud down.“No. But I don’t want to share my prey with everyone that passes, as I did the cub and gray-coat.”

“The wanderer’s claim,” Ratha remembered. “Is that a law among the Un-Named?”

“As close as we come to a law, I suppose.” Bonechewer sounded annoyed. “But we have work enough to fill our own bellies so I let the strangers hunt for themselves.” He turned away, flicking his tail. Beneath the sharp tang of irritation in his scent, Ratha detected a trace of worry.

He turned away to hunt. Ratha gazed at the smeared pawprints. She dipped her muzzle and smelled the edge of one track, but the rain had washed its scent away. She lifted her head and jogged after Bonechewer.

The next day Ratha returned to the same spot and saw fresh tracks. Bonechewer did not come with her and she decided to say nothing to him about it. He knew and, it seemed, he didn’t particularly care. Ratha began leaving the den earlier, hoping she might see the ones who made the tracks. Once she hid before sunrise and caught a glimpse of shadows moving far away in the misty drizzle.

Where were the travelers coming from, she wondered, and where were they going? Why would Bonechewer retreat each day to the far reaches of his territory and not venture near the trail? Part of it, she knew, was selfishness, but his odor and his manner suggested something more.

Once or twice, Ratha, hunting mice on the hillside, saw him stop on the trail the Un-Named Ones had taken. He looked down the path after their tracks and there was a longing in his eyes as if he wanted to join them on their journey. Then, as Ratha watched, his expression changed to disgust. He rubbed out the remaining pawmarks and leaped away through the bushes.

She noticed that his prowling was not random. Each day he spent in a certain section of his territory, inspecting it, marking it and making sure everything was as it should be before….

Before he leaves, Ratha thought to herself and felt cold and lonely as she shadowed him in the early morning drizzle. He had said nothing to her about such a journey, yet he appeared to be making preparations, catching more than he could eat and storing the rest in the crotch of a tree or under a flat stone. Often he would break away from these activities, as if he did them against his will, but if Ratha watched long enough, she would see him renew his efforts. She should go, she thought miserably. She had learned enough from him that she might survive the rest of the winter if she worked hard. He seemed caught up in some inner struggle that she could not understand, yet she sensed that it involved her in some way, as well as the Un-Named she had seen on the trail. The deer carcass they had fished from the lake was part of it too. She had a few of the pieces, but not enough to fit together.

She slunk through the wet grass and peered between the stems. She caught a glimpse of a rain-slick copper coat. There he was. Checking the trail as he usually did. Should she follow? He never found anything except pawmarks. Why should she waste her time?

She lifted her head and saw birds wheeling and dipping beneath the gray mass of clouds. A breeze tickled her whiskers, bringing with it the smell of the marshlands and the hills. She sensed, as she stood still and let the wind ruffle her fur, that this might be the last day she spent here.

Bonechewer had come out into the opening and was pacing toward the trail. Ratha saw him stop and stare up the path. The curve of a hill cut off her view, but she knew from Bonechewer’s reaction that he had seen more than pawmarks. She scampered down the hill, keeping herself hidden. She made a wide circuit behind Bonechewer and followed him, creeping low on her belly, scuttling from one weed patch to the next until she was quite close to Bonechewer.

As she approached the trail, she saw that it wasn’t empty. There were three of the Un-Named there. She dropped down behind a rise and hid, stretching out in the long grass, her chin resting on the top of the knoll. Now she could see and hear everything.

She watched Bonechewer approach the three on the trail. Two were tawny, the other black. The tawny ones were heavy and each bore a ruff. Their scent, drifting to Ratha through the damp air, told her they were males. They had the same eyes as the witless gray female and Ratha knew they wouldn’t speak. The two males crouched and curled their tails across their feet. The black sat upright, green eyes luminous in a narrow ebony face. The eyes fixed on Bonechewer.

Ratha crawled further over the crest of the knoll, feeling her heart thump against the ground. Would the black one speak or be as dumb as the two others?

The black rose onto all four feet as the copper-coat approached.

“I wondered when you would come, nightling,” Ratha heard Bonechewer say.

“The gathering place calls, dweller-by-the-water,” the stranger replied. The black’s odor and voice were female. “I and my companions are the last.”

“They who gather will wait for you,” Bonechewer said.

The black came a few steps down the trail, keeping her eyes on him.“We need you, dweller-by-the-water. Few among us have your gifts.”

The green eyes were intense, half pleading, half-threatening. Ratha saw Bonechewer’s hackles rise.

“That I know, nightling. How I will use them is for me to decide.”

The black lowered her whiskers and walked down the trail past Bonechewer. The two tawny males followed her. She paused and looked over one silken shoulder at Bonechewer.“I could make use of their teeth, dweller-by-the-water.”

Ratha tensed, gathering herself for a possible charge up the hill to Bonechewer’s aid.

“You could, nightling,” Bonechewer answered pleasantly, but Ratha saw the muscles bunch beneath his fur.

“No, dweller-by-the-water,” the black said, showing the pointed tips of her fangs. “I am not so foolish as that. You are right, the decision is yours to make. If we are your people, then come. If not, then return to those of the clan from which you came and leave this territory to the Un-Named.”

Ratha crept closer. If the black was right, Bonechewer was not one of the Un-Named. Clan-born? Could he be? That might explain many things.

The black waved her tail and trotted down the path, followed by her two companions. Bonechewer stared at the ground until their footsteps faded. Only then did he raise his head. He swung his muzzle back and forth, flicking his tail. Then he turned and gazed downhill to where Ratha was hiding.

“Clever, clan cat,” he said loudly, “but the wind has shifted and I can smell you.”

Disgruntled, Ratha trotted uphill to the path. As she approached, he laid his ears back until he looked as if he didn’t have any.

“So, dweller-by-the-water,” she said mockingly, staying beyond reach of his claws, “do you take the trail with your people? And will you raid those who were also your people?”

“Yarr. So you know my little secret,” he said, slightly taken aback. “No matter. You would have found out fairly soon. One wouldn’t know it from your hunting ability, but you are quite clever. Too clever, I think.”

She eyed him.“You bear no love for the Un-Named. That I know from watching you rub out their tracks.”

“I have no love of growing thin, either. The weather is already harsh and growing worse. Were I to stay here alone, my land would barely feed me. It will not feed the two of us. You are eating more every day, clan cat.” He looked pointedly at her belly. Her pregnancy was becoming noticeable even as her appetite was growing more voracious.

“Then we go,” Ratha said, taking a step down the trail.

Bonechewer’s whiskers twitched and he looked uncomfortable. “The journey will not be easy and there will be things you won’t like.”

“Do I have a choice? If I am to bear your cubs, I must eat. As for the things I won’t like, I’ll deal with them as they come. When I think about what I’ve lived through, I know I can survive anything.”

At least, I hope I can, she thought as she jogged along the trail beside Bonechewer.

* * *

Despite Bonechewer’s warning, Ratha found the journey to be pleasant at first. The hills were open, clothed only in waving grasses, and the trail rose and dipped among them. Every once in a while the sun escaped the clouds and made the rain-washed earth seem bright and new.

When night came, or when the day grew cold and the rain turned to sleet, Ratha would crouch with Bonechewer in a burrow or beneath a bush until they could resume their journey.

At first, the two of them were the only ones on the trail, but soon they saw and passed others, including the black and her companions. Bonechewer traveled fast, and Ratha had to push herself to keep up with him. He caught most of what they ate, for he could flush prey from the weeds along the trail and bring the animal down before Ratha had gone very far ahead of him. Sometimes the two shared what they caught with the Un-Named Ones they passed. When their bellies and jaws were empty, their fellow travelers would share with them.

As the days passed like the ground underfoot, Ratha noticed more of the Un-Named emerging from the underbrush or from side trails to join. The path, once dotted with individuals moving far apart, became a river of furry pelts stretching away in both directions. Bonechewer could no longer hunt beside the trail, for the prey animals had either been killed or frightened away by the travelers who preceded him.

While he was gone on hunting excursions, Ratha sometimes sat by the side of the path and watched as the Un-Named went by. Grizzled patriarchs, scruffy half-growns, females shepherding cubs, fight-scarred males, all of the kinds she had seen in the clan and others besides. Some were strong while others were half-starved and barely able to totter along at the rear. Some were sleek and as well-groomed as Ratha had seen in the clan. Others were rough, tattered and mangy.

But there was no way to tell, before she looked in each pair of eyes, whether or not the mind behind them had the spark of intelligence. In some it barely flickered, while in others it burned and lit their whole being from the inside out. The gift often showed itself in those in whom Ratha least expected to find it, and, perversely, was absent from those she assumed would have it. Shaggy, sullen hunters, who at first glance seemed capable only of brutality would surprise her by the depth of their gaze. Elders, whose gray fur betokened wisdom, startled her out of her assumptions when she saw the emptiness behind their faces.

Why? The question beat in her mind as her paws beat the trail. Why some and not others?

She also noticed that most eyes were dull; that ones such as she and Bonechewer had were rarities among the Un-Named. Few could understand speech and fewer still could speak at all, let alone with any sophistication.

Why? Why among these folk was the gift so rare? It was not so in the clan.

Ratha thought about these questions, but she could get no answers that satisfied her. Only her own study of the Un-Named would tell her, she decided. Somehow she sensed that the answer would come soon and part of it might come from her own self, although how she did not know. The thought, instead of reassuring her, made her feel uneasy. She said nothing of this to Bonechewer. She knew he wasn’t interested in either the questions or the answers.

The path grew steeper, the trail windy and narrow as the hills became mountains. It rained continuously and all the travelers acquired the same color, the dull brown of mud. Each day, Ratha woke chilled and sodden to plod along in the line, staring at the trail or at the curtain of rain in front of her whiskers. Bonechewer was quiet, almost sullen, showing little of his former energy.

Something began to bother Ratha, and at first she could not tell what it was. It was a feeling of familiarity, as though this country was not entirely new to her. The smells, the way the wind blew, the shape of the leaves and the rocks on the path told Ratha that she had passed through these mountains once before. Not on the same trail; she knew that. Perhaps not even across the same spur that the group was crossing now. Her memory could only provide her with vague images, for she had run most of the way, driven by rage and terror and the terrible pain of betrayal.

She found herself trembling as she put each foot in front of the other and she left the trail and stood aside, watching the others pass, blurred shadows behind the rain. She stood there, telling herself that it happened long ago and not to her. The Ratha that slogged along this muddy trail with the ragged Un-Named could scarcely be the Ratha who had brandished the Red Tongue before the clan. That part of her life was gone now and she cursed the things that woke her memory.

“Are you tired, Ratha?” a voice said. Bonechewer had left the line to join her by the side of the trail. She looked up, trying to hide her misery, but she was sure Bonechewer caught it, for there was a flicker in his eyes and for a moment he looked guilty.

“Come,” Bonechewer said gruffly, glancing back toward the trail. “I don’t want to be the last to get there.”

“How far?” Ratha asked.

“Less than a day’s travel. We should be there by sunset.”

Ratha wiped her pads on the grass and shook out the mud between them. There was no sense in doing so, for she knew she would pick up more as soon as she stepped back on the path. She intended it to annoy Bonechewer, and it did, for he drew back his whiskers and plunged into the stream, leaving her alone by the side of the trail.

The rest of the day she walked by herself, despite the others jostling around her. The rain slackened and then stopped. The clouds lightened and a little sunlight filtered through, edging the wet grass with silver. The drops clinging to her whiskers caught the light and startled her with their sparkle. She shook her head and tossed them all away.

The grass became scrubby and then sparse as Ratha climbed the mountain along with the others. The sun fell low, sending shadows among the peaks, and she knew that the Un-Named and she were almost at the end of their journey.

The line now was long and straggling. Some of the travelers Ratha had seen at the beginning were no longer in their places, having fallen out by the side. They reached the top of the ridge and wound along its spine as the clouds turned from gray to rose and gold.

Ratha saw an outcropping of rock rising from the flank of the hill. As she and the others at the end of the line approached, the river of the Un-Named ended, breaking up into streamlets that poured around and over the great mass of stone. This was the gathering place.

The sun flared over the edge of the rock, blinding her for an instant. Dazed and weary, she let the flow carry her to the base, and she washed up against it, caught in her own little eddy, while the others surged by her.

“Sss, up here,” came Bonechewer’s voice from above her. Ratha stretched her neck back and saw the outline of his head against the dusk. Ratha gathered herself and leaped up to the ledge where he was sitting.

“Look,” he said and Ratha did. Up and down the steep rock face, eyes glowed and damp pelts gleamed faintly in the sun’s last light. Bonechewer rose and walked along the ledge, Ratha followed, placing her feet carefully, for the stone was weathered and broken. Pieces skittered out from under her pads and went clattering down the rock face until their echo died. The ledge led into a cleft and then they were through to the other side. Here the stone had split and fallen apart in several sections, creating a sheltered hollow where many more of the Un-Named were gathered. Out of the stiff wind that blew on the rock face, Ratha was warmer. She followed Bonechewer as he picked his way over talus and fallen boulders, giving greeting to the Un-Named perched on top of them or clustered around them. No one spoke to Ratha, although she felt their eyes follow her as she moved among them.

“Bone—” Ratha started. His tail slapped her across the muzzle before she could say his name. Hurt and outraged, Ratha snapped at the tail and caught a mouthful of fur before he whisked it away.

“Why did you—” she demanded, but he cut her off before she could finish.

“To keep you from making a fool of yourself and of me as well,” he said softly. “There is no use of names here. Do not forget.”

“How am I to speak to you if I can’t use your name?” Ratha asked, feeling bewildered.

“Call me dweller-by-the-water, as they do. Or, better still, be quiet and listen.”

“Yarrr.” Ratha flattened her ears but she knew he was right. He had stopped calling her“ clan cat” as well. Although the nickname had begun as an insult, he used it now in an affectionate sense. To have this stripped from her left her feeling empty and desolate, as if she were becoming one of those who had nothing behind their eyes. She hung her head and swallowed hard.

“What is the matter, young one?” The voice was not Bonechewer’s, although he still stood nearby. Ratha looked up into a pair of glowing green eyes in a face so black it seemed to her that the eyes floated by themselves in the dark.

“She is just tired, nightling,” Bonechewer said before Ratha could gather her wits to speak.

“I haven’t seen or smelled her before,” the black remarked, “yet she is too old to be of the last litters. Did she come with you, dweller-by-the-water?”

“She joined me on the trail,” Bonechewer said shortly. Ratha sensed a certain tension between him and the black one.

“We meet at the same place, among the stones-with-fangs.”

“I will be there, nightling.”

“Good.” The black turned and snarled at the two dull-eyed shadows standing behind her. “Away, cubs! I have no need of you until sunrise.” With guttural growls, the two males lowered their heads and padded away.

“Why do you keep them, nightling?” Bonechewer asked. “You are worthy of better companions.”

“If I wanted companions, I would choose others. The witless ones obey me and that is all I ask.”

“All you ask, nightling?” Bonechewer said.

The black opened her eyes all the way, revealing their full depth.“There are certain things that wit or lack of wit does not affect, dweller-by-the-water. And you seem to have made a similar choice, for I have not heard your little female speak.”

“I can speak,” Ratha spluttered, sending a burning glance at Bonechewer.

The other yawned and arched her back.“Ah. Perhaps, then, he will bring you to council.”

“I think not, nightling.”

“Very well, dweller-by-the-water,” the black said and trotted away.

“Your little female!” Ratha spat in disgust and pawed in the dirt as if she were burying dung. “If there are many like her among the Un-Named, I want nothing more to do with them. Where are you going?” she asked, for she felt Bonechewer start to move away from her.

“To the stones-with-fangs.”

“Are you taking me?”

“No. You stay here. Curl up and sleep. You won’t get much sleep later.”

“Sleep! How can I—” Ratha stopped. He was already gone, his shadow disappearing among the rocks.

She lashed her tail and dug her claws into the gravel.

What was this gathering for? What was this council the black spoke of and why hadn’t Bonechewer taken her? Was he afraid she would embarrass him by speaking his name? Ratha snorted. He was just being silly. Who other than she and he would know that “Bonechewer” was even a name? There had to be another reason.

She sniffed the ground. Bonechewer’s track was still fresh. She could follow him to the place he spoke of, the stones-with-fangs. Perhaps she could hide and attend the meeting in secret. Perhaps she would even get a chance to maul that slinky black before she could summon her body-guards. Nowthat was an appealing idea.

CHAPTER NINE

Ratha peered between rows of jagged stones that rose from the cavern floor. Those who had come to meet were settling, and she watched them form a circle under the phosphorescent light that shone from the roof of the cave. Bonechewer sat next to two huge gray hunters, the odd blue-green glow turning his copper coat inky and his eyes emerald. Beside him on the other side sat the black. A grizzled elder who limped on three legs, a silver-coat, and a young male barely out of his spots made up the rest of the gathering.

They spoke quietly among themselves for a while and Ratha could hear nothing but water dripping from overhead into puddles on the floor. A particularly cold drop landed on her and she jumped, shivering. Then she huddled and fluffed her fur, trying to keep warm. It was like being in the mouth of a huge beast, she thought, looking up at the stone fangs that also hung down from the ceiling. Perhaps this was the maw of some great unknown animal who lay buried in the mountain. Ratha imagined the jaws closing, the spikes overhead driving down to mesh with those rising from the floor.

No, she thought, trying to still her racing heart. Even if this is the mouth of a great beast, the jaws will never move again.It has died, she thought.I am in the mouth of a dead, cold beast.

The voices grew louder, drawing Ratha’s attention back to the Un-Named in their circle. Now she could hear what they were saying. She crept forward on her belly, laying her nose between two of the stone teeth.

One of the gray hunters was talking to the black.

“For you and your people, it is easy to wait,” the shaggy speaker was grumbling. “My people have come far and empty bellies have no patience. How am I to answer them?”

“In the language you have always used, gray hunter,” the black said, laying her tail across her delicate feet. “Claws and, if needed, teeth.” She looked at him through slitted eyes. “Do you doubt your strength?”

“It is talk I doubt. Let there be less of it. I and my people came to kill, not talk. When does the hunt begin?”

“Whenall are here, gray one,” interrupted the grizzled male in a scratchy voice.

“Don’t misunderstand me, gray hunter,” the black said, opening her green eyes wide. Her voice took on a silky tone. “I do understand your difficulty. I, at least, can talk to the ones I lead and many of them will listen to reason.”

“Enough!” snapped the grizzled cripple. “We have come here to plan, not to quarrel.” He turned to Bonechewer. “I see you decided to come after all, dweller-by-the-water. Your absence last season cost us, as you well know.”

“I will do what I can,” Bonechewer said.

Ratha was starting to get stiff and drops of water were soaking her ruff, but she dared not move. She had heard enough to whet her curiosity, not enough to answer her questions, although she sensed she was getting close.

“I am curious, dweller-by-the-water, why you came this time.” Scratchy-voice was speaking again. Ratha pricked her ears to catch Bonechewer’s answer.

“Old one, I hoped that you would listen to me, even though you have heard my words before.”

The gray hunter jumped to his feet.“Don’t listen to him! He would keep us hungry and save the herds of the hated ones. He is not one of us. He is clan-born filth!”

“Gray one, when you have finished howling and are ready to listen,” Bonechewer said, his voice acid, “I will tell you why I think as I do.”

The big silver-coat glared at Bonechewer and then around the circle, seeking support. Many of the eyes on Bonechewer were hostile.

“You gray idiot! Do you think I care anything for those who cast me out, who would have slain me as a cub?”

He lunged at the silver-coat as he spoke and the other shrank away. Bonechewer stood, letting his fur flatten as he turned to the others.

“Take from the herds, yes. Let the hated ones work for you. I say nothing against that. But I hear voices that speak of turning this into a vengeance hunt, of slaughtering the herds and those who keep them.” He stopped and gazed around the cavern. “You will be pulling the fur from your own tails if you do that. The clan keeps us alive. Not many of you great hunters will admit that, but it is raiding and scavenging that feeds us during this season.”

“Ptahh! We should kill the hated ones and take their ground. Game is richer there than in our territories. That will keep us. Spare them?” The silver-coat curled his lip, showing heavy fangs. “No!”

Ratha could see from the circle of eyes that Bonechewer had little sympathy in the group.

The only one who didn’t look openly hostile was the black female, but the sight of her only disgusted Ratha.

He’s right, she thought frantically as Bonechewer returned to his place.He’s right. Why won’t they listen?

“Very well,” Bonechewer said. “I see that few of you share my concern. I can say no more. If you wish to keep me on this council, I will serve as you ask. Let me say only that I have warned you.”

There was silence, broken by the echoes of water dripping in the recesses of the cavern. The group began talking among themselves again in low voices and Ratha could no longer hear what they said. She didn’t care. She had heard enough.

She eased herself up, shaking as much from fear as from cold. Her legs, stiff and numb, moved awkwardly. As she turned, she kicked a piece of broken stone. It clicked as it bounced and the echo reverberated across the cavern.

Ratha froze. She glanced back at the group. All of them were on their feet, ears pricked, hackles raised. She gave a soft moan of despair. They would find her, tear her, and fling her remains down the rockface.

“Wait, all of you,” she heard Bonechewer’s voice say. “Stay here. I know who that is.”

Ratha gave a start and felt her stomach sink even further. She could not bear to let him find her. She turned tail and fled out of the cavern, across a flooded gallery and into the tunnel she had come in by. In the tunnel she paused for a moment, the pulsebeat in her throat almost choking her. She heard the sound of splashing and leaped into a gallop. He was after her. What he would do when he caught her, she didn’t know.

Now she was running in total darkness, trusting only her whiskers to keep her away from the rock walls.

“Ratha!” Bonechewer’s voice came from behind her, hollow and hissing. “Ratha!”

Cold fresh air tickled her nose, and as she ran, she breathed great gulps of it. She was almost out, she thought, scrabbling up a graveled incline. She thrust her head out and glanced around. No one was here. She was free! Soon she would be racing down the mountainside, leaving the Un-Named far behind. She would go back to the clan and warn them. Someone there would listen even if Meoran didn’t. Her excitement almost choked her. At last, at last, she would be going home.

She was barely out of the hole when she felt jaws clamp on her tail. Something jerked her back, snapping her head and knocking the wind out of her. She struggled, but Bonechewer kept a tight grip on her tail. She pulled until it was raw, then collapsed in a heap, worn out and terrified.

She felt the jaws loosen and peered along her flank. Bonechewer’s eyes glowed back at her. She shut hers tight again, waiting for his teeth.

“Sit up, Ratha.” He cuffed her, but the blow was mild. She only went into a tighter huddle. “I’m not going to hurt you. Sit up and listen.”

Gradually Ratha uncurled and looked up at him doubtfully.

Bonechewer grinned; not a friendly expression. The moonlight gleamed on his teeth, and Ratha remembered how, long ago, she had fought him in the meadow.

“You’re no danger to us, despite your heroics,” he said. “Go and warn the clan. What good will it do them? How many of the clan are there? How many of the Un-Named? Think about that for a while.”

Ratha sat, feeling the cold seep back inside her.“They would be ready to fight,” she said, but her words sounded uncertain, even to herself.

“Do you think that would make any difference?” Bonechewer leaned over her. “The marsh-shrew is ready to fight, but it is I who eat the marsh-shrew. Your warning might prolong the fight a little and cause a few more of the Un-Named to die, but it won’t make any difference.”

“No …” Ratha faltered, feeling despair creeping back along with the cold.

“You can’t change it, Ratha. I can’t either. You heard me try.”

Ratha got up, feeling the night wind cut through her. The stars overhead were hard, with a steely glitter.“The clan has lived with Un-Named raids,” she said in a low voice, turning her back on the wind and Bonechewer. “They will survive. They always have.”

He walked around and faced her.“You must have heard enough in the cavern to know the Un-Named will no longer kill just for food.”

“Why?” Ratha asked, and hated the pleading sound of her voice. “Why have things changed?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps because Meoran grazes his flocks on territory once held by the Un-Named. Perhaps because the winter has been hard and hunger listens readily to hate. Or because there are so many of us now that our land can no longer feed us.”

Ratha shut her eyes, but blocking out sight could not block out truth. His voice went on.

“I saw this starting to happen the season before last,” he said. “That is why I stayed away. I nearly starved, but I knew that without me, they would fail in their plan to kill the herders and take the beasts. They did fail.” Bonechewer paused. “Do you remember how frequent and fierce theraids were that season? There were quite a few of the Un-Named who sought to destroy the clan. Now, most of them agree with the silver-coat.”

Ratha looked at him scornfully.“They failed because you didn’t come with them? Hah! One more set of teeth wouldn’t have helped them.”

“One more mind would have. I am clan-born, Ratha. I lived long enough among our people to know how they think and what they will do. The raiders needed that knowledge.”

Our people, Ratha thought, staring at Bonechewer. Hecalls them our people…

She whirled on Bonechewer, her misery turning her savage.“Why do you care?” she hissed.

“I don’t.” His gaze was cool. “I have no love for the clan. To me, they exist to feed us and that alone is my reason. If they die, we die. That is the truth, but the other Un-Named are too stupid to see it.” His eyes narrowed.“You are the one who cares, Ratha. Too bad Meoran threw away his one chance when he drove you out.”

“What do you mean?” Ratha demanded.

“I’ll let you find the answer to that.”

Ratha flattened her ears and bowed her head. Her heart jumped as she heard cries far up the slope.They’re looking for us, she thought. Bonechewer touched her, making her flinch.“Ratha,” he said and she turned fierce eyes on him. “The clan won’t survive. Nothing you can do will change that, so stop thinking about it. You will survive.”

“How? By turning raider and helping to slay herdfolk I once knew?”

Bonechewer waited for Ratha to calm herself before he went on.“You can’t afford to think about them, Ratha. Think only of yourself. Life with the Un-Named is not pleasant, but you keep your belly full.”

Bonechewer’s voice was in her ear again, soft and relentless. “The clan drove you out, as they drove me. They would have killed you. Do you remember? Were those faces any less savage than the Un-Named Ones around you?”

Ratha listened. His words brought the memories back and fanned them until they burned in her mind as the torch had in her mouth. She stood before the clan again, seeing the hate in their eyes. One voice rose from the pack to betray her and she shuddered. That one voice… Thakur.

She ground her teeth together, feeling her rage grow. The memory of Thakur’s face as he hung from Meoran’s jaws would never leave her mind. If Meoran had only killed him then…. All in the clan deserved to die and Thakur most of all.

A growl bubbled in her throat.

“Ah, you do remember,” said Bonechewer.

She narrowed her eyes at him.“Where will I go now?”

“Wherever you please. If you come with me, I will hide you for the night.”

“What about the council? Didn’t you tell them you knew who was hiding in the cavern?”

“I’ll tell them something they’ll believe. You let me worry about that.”

“When I come back, I will go to the council,” Ratha said. “They need those who can speak and think. Perhaps I too will be a leader.”

“A leader? You?Ptahh! You crept among them and listened to what you should not have heard. If you go before them, I will tell them it was you who hid among the stones-with-fangs.”

Ratha waited, glaring at him. He was right; he had the power to turn the council against her. It would not be difficult, for she was a stranger among the Un-Named.

“You may hunt with us,” Bonechewer said, “but not as a leader. You will be among the lowest of the Un-Named. You will not speak of the clan. You will not speak at all so that you keep from revealing who you are and where you come from. Only then will you be safe.”

“Shall I also rub mud on my face to dull my eyes?” Ratha cried bitterly. “Or make myself believe I am one of the witless ones I walk among?”

Bonechewer looked at her steadily.“Your belly will be full. That is all I promised you.”

Ratha followed him up the slope, her steps heavy, her throat burning. She remembered again the she-cub who had brandished the Red Tongue before the clan. She wished to the depths of her being that she had her creature once again. The soft mist around her turned all things gray and formless, mocking her memory of the bright flame. She would never find her creature again. Ratha hung her head and walked on.

CHAPTER TEN

As the sun set many days later, the forest sent shadows creeping across the meadow. The shapes of trees elongated into talons, reaching out toward the herd and its guardians huddled together at the center.

Ratha lay hidden, along with others of the Un-Named. From the forest they watched and waited for night. The sun’s glow faded over the treetops and the light filtering through became weak and pale. Soon would come the order to attack.

She shifted, trying to move away from the bony flank that pressed too close to hers. She wrinkled her nose at the sour smell of dirty fur and decaying teeth. She glared at the gray-coat. The old mouth grinned, an ugly grin, lacking mirth or understanding. When the Un-Named left the gathering rock the gray had attached herself to Ratha, abandoning the young cub who had been her trail companion. No threats or cuffs could discourage her.

The aged one’s rheumy eyes glowed dimly with pleasure each time Ratha repressed a shudder or withdrew from her touch.

The sight and smell of her makes me miserable, Ratha thought.She knows it and she delights in it.

She turned away from the malicious old eyes and watched the herders prowling around their animals, but she could not ignore the gray, whose presence hung about her, turning the air stagnant and choking.

It isn’t age or dirt or rotting teeth that sickens me so, Ratha thought.There were aged, dirty ones in the clan. Old and smelly as they were, the wisdom in their eyes made me respect them. There is no wisdom in hers, and she has lived her life with this terrible emptiness. She knows only enough to taunt me for my fear of it.

In the meadow, a three-horn bawled. Ratha watched the clan herdfolk draw into a tighter circle about their animals. They knew the raid was coming.

Leaves brushed her nose as she peered out of the thicket. She was afraid to let her gaze linger on any one form for fear it would become someone she knew.

I am one of the Un-Named, she told herself fiercely.I am enemy.

But she could not help thinking about Fessran and Thakur… although it was not easy to think about him. She didn’t want to think about Bonechewer either. She had come with him as companion and equal. Now he was with the elite of the council while she was left among the lowest of the Un-Named, forbidden to reveal she was anything more than they. It was bitter meat for her, and it was worse to know her own foolishness had placed her here. She ground her teeth together, remembering those gold eyes and the mocking broken-fanged grin.

It would be easier to hate him, she thought, had she not heard the words he spoke in the council. What he said then was wise and right. And he believed it. He had thrown himself at the silver-coat because he believed it.

Maybe it is better to be like the Un-Named, she thought bitterly.Not to think, not to remember… would make it easier.

A hoarse scream cut through the dusk; the signal to attack. A young cub leader leaped out of the thicket. Ratha ran after him, followed by two dun-colored males and the ancient gray. Another fawn-colored female streaked by Ratha as the cub leader shouted things that were lost in the pounding of feet and the wild cries that came from every throat. Ratha found herself howling along with them and the savage joy of the pack swept her with it.

The Un-Named spilled from the forest into the meadow, rising like a great wave against the herders, who stood together in a tight determined circle about their beasts. Yet the raiders did not become an amorphous mass; instead they held together in their groups and struck at the weak points in the clan’s defenses.

Another pack led by a young silver-coat raced past Ratha’s group and clashed with the herders. It broke apart into individual fights. Out of the corner of her eye, Ratha saw old Srass rear up to meet the young silver-coat. The two went down in a writhing, slashing blur. The cub led his group through the herders’ broken line toward the three-horns, now unguarded. The animals wheeled and began to stampede across the meadow. Ratha could hear the herders shrieking orders back and forth to each other as the three-horns split apart from the dapplebacks and thundered across the grass. Both raiders and herders went down beneath those trampling feet, and the torn earth was stained with blood. Ratha, wild with the intoxication of the chase, launched herself after the biggest stag she could see. He was on the outside edge of the herd, galloping easily, his horns held high.

She forgot the Named, the clan or anything except the magnificent animal. It would take all her skill to bring this one down. This kill would show she was indeed a hunter. She sped after the three-horn stag. She dived in among the pounding legs, dodging, turning, barely escaping flashing hooves and tossing horns. She reached her quarry and cut him out of the herd, leaping up to nip at his flanks and withers. An ecstatic bound carried her right onto his back and she rode him for several wild seconds, her claws digging deep into the coarse fur. He bucked, throwing her off, but she landed running and the chase began again.

She ran the three-horn as she had never run any of the herdbeasts when she had served the clan. She ran him, reveling in her strength and her skill as a hunter and herder. She turned and twisted, countering every lunge and thrust, dancing around him, leading him in circles until at last, eyes rolling and exhausted, the stag began to slow and Ratha closed in for the kill.

She did not realize her skill had given her away until an angry cry rose from behind her.

“She is clan!” the voice bellowed. “A clan herder kills with the raiders! Tear her tail off! Trample her guts into the ground!”

Ratha looked back to see Srass chasing her, bleeding from the wounds the silver-coat had given him. She was young and still unwounded, but Srass’s rage lent him speed. Suddenly he was beside her flank and then at her shoulder. She heard his heavy panting and felt his breath behind her ears. Frightened now, she tried to pull ahead, but before she could gain any distance, his teeth locked in her ruff and the two rolled over and over in thegrass.

Ratha flailed and kicked, gouging Srass’s belly as he snapped at her throat. She ripped off the rest of one ragged ear. He clawed her chest and gashed the inside of her foreleg. Then, abruptly, the fight ended. Ratha tumbled free. She leaped to her feet, completely bewildered. She shook her head and stared.

Srass was struggling beneath the two dun-colored raiders and the old gray. The silver-coat seized the old herder’s nape in his jaws. Srass tried to wrench free, but the four together overpowered him and at last he ceased fighting. He lifted his chin and bared his throat in submission. Ratha thought then that they would let him go, for he was thoroughly beaten. The silver-coat loosened his grip only to seize Srass again at the back of his head behind the ears. The old herder stiffened and fear dulled his eyes.

“Take the herdbeasts,” Ratha said. “Leave him. He isn’t worth the killing.” Her voice died in her throat as she saw that none of the four had moved away from Srass.

“He bared his throat to you. He will not fight again. Leave him!” Ratha said.

“I came to taste clan blood,” snarled the silver-coat between his teeth.

With a malicious glance at Ratha, the old gray seized the flesh of Srass’s flank and tore it open. The duns, both mute, showed their teeth at Ratha. They were going to kill, she thought with growing horror. Srass had bared his throat. All knew that sign, even the Un-Named. It was a law older than any other, and rarely disobeyed.

Ratha saw the muscles bunch in the silver’s cheeks.

“At least do him the honor of tearing out his throat!” she shrieked at them.

The silver-coat gave her one brief glance. His jaws sheared shut. Srass screamed and Ratha heard the hollow crunch of bone. The herder’s body convulsed, the spasming muscles pulling his limbs in ways they were not meant to go. The scream continued from Srass’s open mouth even after his head had been crushed. With a last shudder, the body fell limp and the terror-filled eyes went blank.

The silver-coat opened his jaws and Srass fell to the ground with a heavy thud. Blood seeped from his ruined head and neck.

“Is this how you kill?” Ratha faced the silver-coat. “You slay those of the clan as you kill prey.Ptahh!”

“To us they are prey,” the silver answered, licking his red-stained jaws. He narrowed his eyes at Ratha. “I heard this one cry out that you, female, are also of the clan even though you run with the Un-Named.” He left Srass and took a step toward her. “Your head would be easier to crush. Perhaps your feet had better take it away before my jaws open again.”

She spat, whirled around and galloped away from them. The night rang with howls and shrieks and the bawling of terrified animals. As she ran, Ratha could see the shapes of raiders dragging slain dapplebacks toward the trees. The moon had risen and the flattened grass showed black stains where the raiders had made their kills.

The sounds of fighting grew and faded as the battle raged back and forth across the meadow. The herders were losing, their circle shrinking as they bunched together to protect the remaining three-horns and dapplebacks.

Ratha stopped and licked the wound on her foreleg. It was starting to crust and stiffen, making her limp. She closed her eyes, seeing again Srass’s face as he died. He had been killed like a herdbeast and his eyes had rolled like a herdbeast’s when the silver-coat’s teeth crushed his skull. Ratha shuddered. None of the Named had died such a death until now. It seemed as though all of the laws that governed her kind, Un-Named or clan, were breaking. If one whose throat was bared could be killed like a herdbeast, then there were no laws and nothing made sense any more.

She knew that whatever was happening to her people, she was a part of it; however much she feared and hated the changes, she was helping to bring them about. Srass had died because he spotted a herder among the raiders. He had not come close enough to see her face or smell her odor, but he saw how she had run the three-horn and cut him out from the herd. Her skill and her recklessness betrayed her. Her mouth felt as bloody as the silver-coat’s, as if it had been her teeth that crushed the old herder’s skull.

No, she thought, trying to give herself some small comfort.Srass’s skull would have been too thick for my jaws. But she knew as she ran that she shared equally with the Un-Named in his death.

Again she stopped. The fighting was now distant. All she could see were raiders dragging thrashing animals across the grass, leaving black stains between their pawprints. They were still working in packs, as they had in the initial assault. One group looked familiar, and Ratha recognized the two dun-coats and the gray who had helped to kill Srass. The gray’s jaws were dark with blood. The old one raised her ugly head and stared at Ratha. The pack leader dropped the neck of the dappleback he was dragging. Ratha was suddenly afraid he might be the silver-coat, but she saw the face of the young cub who had been leading the group when the raid started. He stared at her over the body of his prey. He bounded over the animal and, before Ratha could react, clawed her across the face.

“The council is not pleased with me for failing to keep my pack together. I pass their displeasure on to you.” She fell back, shaking her head. Warm wetness seeped from the new cut on her muzzle and dripped onto her lower lip into her mouth. She was so relieved he wasn’t the silver-coat that the blow only startled her. She got up tasting the metallic tang of her own blood.

“There are more beasts to drag away,” the pack leader snarled. “The gray lags. Help her to carry her prey. Then you are to return with the others and bring the remaining kills.” He looked hard at Ratha. “If you leave the pack again, you will be killed.”

She lowered her head and walked toward the watery green eyes glinting in the dark above the indistinct bulk of the herdbeast. The gray’s smell washed over her again, surrounding her and making her feel even more of a prisoner. The old female growled and seized the beast’s neck. Ratha took the hock and followed the pull of her companion.

The packs dumped the kills in a moonlit clearing and were sent back to retrieve more. The rest of the night Ratha spent hauling the Un-Named kills from the meadow to the clearing deep in the forest. By the time the first sunlight filtered through the trees, Ratha’s teeth were aching, her neck was stiff and her pads sore. She grew to hate the taste of coarse oily fur and the limp weight of the kill in her jaws. She resented having to drag beasts that others had slain.

It was midmorning when the pack carried the last of the carcasses into the clearing. Ratha pried her teeth loose from a dappleback’s neck and let the horse’s head drop. She staggered into the shade beneath a gnarled pine and collapsed. To her disgust, the gray female came and sat beside her, but she was too tired to drive the old one away. With her head on her paws, smelling the pungent needles that littered the earth beneath the tree, Ratha watched the raiders gather to feast on their prizes. Some had already come and had begun eating when the first carcasses were dragged in. Now the rest, ravenous and still savage from the battle, swarmed over the kills, spitting and squabbling with each other over who was to get the choicest pieces. She smelled the rich flesh as the carcasses were torn open and the entrails eaten. The odor only disgusted her and destroyed what little appetite she had. After hauling the dead creatures all night, smelling and tasting them, she could hardly bear the idea of eating from them. She thought with longing of the stringy marsh-shrews she had caught on Bonechewer’s land.

A new group appeared among the gorging raiders and pushed aside a scruffy pack from a dappleback mare. These were the council leaders and the planners, Ratha realized, as she glanced at them, recognizing the black female and the old cripple she had seen in the cavern beneath the gathering rock. Among them, she saw Bonechewer.

The Un-Named council leaders began to eat. Ratha saw the black place a paw on the mare’s flank and ribs. The black’s shoulders hunched as she dived into the dappleback’s belly. All the others attacked the carcass with equal relish except for Bonechewer. He hung back until the crippled one had finished, then took his place. He ate then, but Ratha could see from his eyes that hehad as little appetite as she. She remembered his words to the council in the cavern, and she knew he was disgusted by the reckless slaughter. The Un-Named could ill-afford waste, he had said, even in the midst of plenty.

She raised her head from her paws, hoping to catch his eye. Her heart beat in her throat, her feelings a violent mix of hope and anger. Once or twice he lifted his muzzle, still chewing, as if he sensed someone was watching. Each time Ratha longed to call out, but caution stilled her. And then he did raise his chin and stared at her over the mare’s flank. She leaped to her feet, panting in her excitement, but he looked away, as if ashamed. For a moment, she stood still. Then slowly she lay down again and rested her chin on her paws, staring at the dried needles tumbled together on the ground. When she looked up again, Bonechewer was gone.

For many days, the Un-Named stayed in the clearing, lazing in the pale winter sun and gorging themselves on their kills. Ratha, along with others of her pack, were posted as sentries to guard against attacks by the clan herders. None ever came, telling her that the clan was too weakened and dispirited to try for revenge.

She ate little and tried to stay far from the sounds of feasting. She felt odd sensations in her belly, vague aches, heaviness and strange rippling motions, as if something was moving inside her. She was also enlarged and her teats were tender. At first the feelings were mild and she hardly noticed. As the Un-Named alternately raided and feasted and the days grew colder, her pregnancy became obvious, earning her questioning looks from the others. This was not the season to bear cubs. If the Un-Named females were like the clan, they would mate in early spring and have their young in summer. She had done everything wrong, she thought miserably, as she stood in the rain watching for an attack that never came. She couldn’t even bear cubs at the right time of year. They would be born too soon, before she could get away from the Un-Named. And even if she did, hunting in winter would be poor. She would starve and her cubs would die.

Ratha took no part in the raids following the first one. She, along with the gray-coat, was held back to drag away beasts that others had killed. She spent many nights wrestling carcasses through the undergrowth, collapsing at dawn to watch the raiders feast until they were bloated. After each raid she saw Bonechewer eating with the council leaders as before. She caught him giving her anxious glances but this time it was she who turned away.

One rainy morning between raids, she stood guard near the edge of the meadow where the fighting had been. Her partner hissed, taking her mind from her troubles. Ratha tensed, driving her claws into the spongy ground. Had the clan reclaimed enough strength to attack? The gray lurched to her feet, growling as the bushes rustled several tail-lengths away. Her ears went back, making her look uglier than ever.

“Ho, ancient one,” came a voice from behind the bushes. “Still your noise. You know my smell.” A coppery head poked through, framed by wet leaves. It disappeared for a moment, then Bonechewer pushed his way through the undergrowth, carrying meat in his mouth.

“Not for you,” he said through his teeth as he pushed the slavering gray-coat aside. She whined and showed her teeth, but under his gaze, she backed off.

“There you are,” Bonechewer said, and without further words, he laid the meat down in front of Ratha. She stared at it dully, then at him.

“Eat. You need it. That young fool of a pack leader is letting you starve.”

She said nothing. She sniffed the aroma of the meat. It was fresh, taken from the latest kill. She still could not eat.

“Ratha,” he said, growing exasperated. “I bring you something better than the rotten leavings you pick from old bones, yet you eat nothing and stare at me like that witless gray-coat. Have you forgotten how to speak?”

For a moment, she stared at him, able to answer only with her eyes. She had not spoken for so long that the words came slowly. His words shocked her and her own awkwardness frightened her. She fought down panic; the fear that she, in pretending to be mute and stupid, had actually become so. It lasted only an instant; then the words came.

“You said I was to be among the lowest of the Un-Named,” she said, her voice hoarse from disuse.

“Even the lowest should have enough to eat,” Bonechewer answered. He nudged her. “Every rib shows. If you get any thinner, you’ll lose the cubs.”

Ratha flattened her ears.“So that is why you watch me and bring me meat. You care nothing for me; only for what I carry in my belly.Ptahh!”

“Does it matter why I am here?” Bonechewer snarled back. “I could leave you to your pack leader’s mercies; think about that.”

Ratha kicked mud on the meat and walked away.“Give it to the gray-coat.”

“I saved your ragged pelt, and believe me, it has cost me to do even that. Few on the council listen to me now, and the foolish killing goes on. I can do nothing about it, just as I can do nothing for you except bring you extra food.” Bonechewer pawed the meat. “Yes, I care about the cubs,”he said, his eyes seeming to glow even in daylight. “But I want you just as much. The others want you killed, and if you do anything that brings you to their attention, you will not live long and I may not either.”

Ratha lowered her muzzle and nosed the slab of flesh. As she took a first bite, she felt him gently licking her ears. Startled, she jumped back and stared at him in astonishment.

“All right,” he said. “Eat. I’ll leave you alone.”

Ratha devoured half of the meat, all her stomach could hold. As she ate, she could hear the gray-coat whining softly.

“If I eat it all, I’ll be sick,” she said to Bonechewer. “Take some to the gray. She works as hard as I do.”

“I thought you didn’t like her.”

“I don’t,” Ratha said, gaining back some of her spirit now that she had eaten. “I hate her, especially the look in her eyes. But you said that even the lowest should have enough to eat.”

Bonechewer grinned at her and, with a toss of his head, threw the rest of the morsel to the old gray. She caught it in midair and began demolishing it in noisy gulps.

“I will come back,” Bonechewer said, as he turned to go. “I’ll bring you food as often as I can. I wish I had come sooner; I hate to see you so thin.”

Ratha did not expect him to keep his word, but a day later, he appeared through the bushes with another piece of meat. This too, she shared with the gray, and the old one’s eyes widened in astonishment. Every few days he came, bringing something he had taken from the freshest kill. Ratha began to anticipate his visits, not only for the food, but for the conversation. To all the others, she remained dumb. They thought her witless and she encouraged them to think so, hoping to dull certain memories of her performance in the meadow during the first raid.

As the weather grew harsher, the Un-Named began to raid once more. Ratha expected to have no part of the fighting. Again, she and the others of her pack were made to carry the spoils from the meadow. Her job was easier this time, for the slain beasts were few and small. Her only contact with the fighting was through Bonechewer, when he brought her food. She also hungered for news of the clan and that, too, Bonechewer brought, although none of it was cheerful.

He told her that plans were being made for a final raid in which the Un-Named would drive the clan from their dens, slaughter them and take their land. Ratha listened in silence. There was nothing she could do to change the fate of her people. She could only look out for herself and try to survive along with her cubs. She sought refuge in the old anger. Why should she mourn for those who had made her renegade and outcast because they did not understand the new power she had brought them? Whatever death Meoran died he would have earned. The only ones who tried to defend her, she remembered, had been Thakur and Fessran. And even Thakur had turned betrayer.I will mourn for none of them except Fessran,she thought bitterly.

That evening, she watched the packs assemble for the last attack on the clan. Her group was among them, since all were needed to fight and none to drag away kills. The only carcasses this time would be those of the enemy. Even so, Ratha was held back from the fighting, along with others too old, too young or otherwise unsuitable. Her pregnancy did not make her awkward, and she suspected the real reason was distrust.

She lay with her chin on her paws, glancing from time to time at the guards who had been assigned to keep watch on her and her companions. The night was quiet except for a breeze rustling the dry leaves and a last lonely cricket chirping. Once in a while, faraway shrieks and cries broke the stillness, and Ratha lifted her head. She thought of Srass’s death in the first raid and shivered. That scene would be repeated again and again before dawn. The cries died out and she could hear only the wind and the cricket.

I hope Fessran escaped, she thought.

Toward dawn, she heard the raiders returning. They came, roaring their victory, and broke through the forest with a great crashing of branches. Many were wounded and some missing. Ratha lay and watched the Un-Named strut past in the dawn light. The clan, she guessed, had fought hard in its final battle.

An argument started between several of the pack leaders. Ratha ignored it at first, letting their angry words blend into the rest of the noise. Then she realized what the disputants were arguing about and she swivelled her ears to listen.

“What does it matter that a few of them still live?” asked the youngster who had led Ratha’s pack. “We have their dens and their herds.”

They walked beyond Ratha’s hearing, still snarling at each other. She went a few steps after them and nearly bumped into Bonechewer.

“Yarrr! Watch yourself. I hurt enough already,” he growled, dodging awkwardly to avoid her. He limped away, fresh blood oozing from his flank. His face was a nest of scratches. Both ears were torn.

“It is over,” he said flatly, looking at Ratha. He glanced at the boisterous raiders milling about. “They go to the dens. Come with me.”

The path they took across the meadow was overgrown. The bodies on both sides looked half-eaten. Some were not only slain: they looked half-eaten and the insects had not been there long enough to consume them. Ratha remembered the gray-coat stripping flesh from Srass’s flank even before he was dead. Numb as she was, she shuddered and shut her eyes, following Bonechewer by the sound of his footsteps and the grass brushing past his legs. The smell, however, she couldn’t shut out, and it was with her all the way along the path until they reached the clan dens.

Bodies had lain there too, for there were sticky stains at the entrances to many of the lairs. Ratha could see the trails in the mud where the remains had been dragged away. Had one of them been Fessran or Thakur? Or perhaps her father, Yaran, or her mother Narir? From each den came faint familiar odors, and for a moment, she was a cub again, romping by the lairs, seeing the faces framed in the entrances. One face showed a touch of annoyance for being wakened by her noise. Another’s eyes were indulgent, knowing she was only a cub and would learn soon enough. The memory left Ratha and she stared into the abandoned dens, empty except for the faint smell of those who had lived there.

Bonechewer walked back to her and together they wandered among the lairs, neither one saying anything. They watched the other Un-Named ones crawling in and out of the dens, claiming them, enlarging them and starting to dig new ones nearby. The clan’s territory was now theirs, and here they would stay for the rest of the winter. New faces grinned from entrance holes, and one new owner called out to Ratha and Bonechewer, “Find one for yourselves! These are fine lairs indeed; too fine to belong to clan filth.” The big silver-coat had taken possession of Meoran’s den. The lair Ratha knew as Fessran’s was now occupied by the young pack leader. She followed Bonechewer until he stopped at a small den in an earthen bank. He ducked and crawled inside. Ratha started to follow, then stopped. The smell wafting back to her was Bonechewer’s, yet it wasn’t. She sniffed the sill and sides of the hole, and she knew suddenly who the den had belonged to. Bonechewer, by accident or design, had found Thakur’s den. Bonechewer’s smell was oddly similar to the odor lingering on the sides of the lair.

Ratha backed away as if the smell had stung her nose. Her memories of Thakur were still too fresh, and the smell of him made them stronger.

“It isn’t large,” came Bonechewer’s voice from inside, “but it will hold the two of us. Come in and see.”

“No, I don’t like it,” Ratha snapped. “Find another.”

Bonechewer gave her a puzzled glance and crawled out of the den.

He led her to other dens, but each time she found a familiar smell and a face came up in her memory. However much she tried to wipe it away with hatred, the image persisted and seemed to haunt the cool earthen walls. She could escape it only by retreating outside into the sunshine. Only there could she stop trembling.

When Ratha had calmed herself, she wandered among the lairs, looking for Bonechewer. She spotted him standing near a den that lay apart from the rest. This lair had been deserted long before the coming of the Un-Named. Ratha remembered it being empty from her early cubhood.

She watched Bonechewer sniff the ruined entrance. He reached up and pawed more dirt down. The roof of the old den collapsed.

Ratha moved closer. What could he want with an old clan den? No one ever used it or went near it. Even cubs at play stayed away from it, not only because it was dark and crumbling, but because, the older cubs said, someone had been killed there. They claimed that the ground still smelled of old blood.

As Ratha thought about the abandoned lair, she remembered that she had once seen someone there, and with a shock, she recalled who it was.

Thakur. I saw Thakur there.

She dropped into the grass and crept downwind, trying not to disturb Bonechewer. He gazed at the old den with an expression Ratha had seen on another face, a face whose eyes were green instead of amber.

Then everything fell together and Ratha nearly jumped out of the grass. Now she knew. Reshara had birthed twin males, alike except for eye color.

Seek out old memories and bury them, Ratha thought as Bonechewer pawed more dirt into the lair. Is that the place where Reshara had her cubs?

She scuttled away so that Bonechewer would not see her. She stood up and shook the grass from her fur. Should she ask him? No. She had the truth now. Whether he would accept it or deny it made no difference.

Her pack leader found her and tried to put her in a lair with the gray and the two dun-coats, but Ratha escaped him and clambered up a tree. She sat up in the crotch, watching those down below and decided she would rather sleep out in the open or in this tree than in the dens that had once belonged to her people.

Despite harassment and threats from the others, Ratha stayed in her tree, only coming down to eat or serve as a sentry, guarding the Un-Named settlement from attacks by any of the previous owners who had survived. Some of the clan had survived, but who they were and where they were, she had no idea.

The weather grew colder. The rain turned to sleet and frost covered the ground, turning the soil hard. One morning Ratha woke in her tree with a carpet of snow on her back. Below her, everything was a soft, unbroken white. She climbed down from her tree. Nearby was a three-horn carcass that had been almost stripped. She found it and uncovered it, eating the frozen rags of meat still remaining on the bones. She thought longingly of the entrails and haunch meat the Un-Named leaders had dragged into their dens. Perhaps Bonechewer would bring her something today.

She found the old gray who always stood sentry with her. She had grown used to the ancient one with her wordless muttering and malicious eyes. She knew too that the gray served only to guard her, for the old one would be nearly useless in an attack.

Once she had resented it bitterly; now she thought no more about it and even welcomed her companion’s company, dull and surly as it was. She watched the old female mark a tree, then went and left her own mark beside it. It was almost a ritual they performed before starting each watch. The gray then took up a position several tail-lengths from Ratha and turned her face outward. Ratha did the same.

Morning passed and then midday. The crisp winter breeze brought no new smells and the forest was muffled and silent. Shadows began creeping across the snow crust. Ratha decided Bonechewer was not going to come that day. She swallowed and ate some snow to ease the tight burning feeling in her throat. He hadn’t come for several days. Perhaps he had grown tired of her, her prickliness and her swelling belly. Perhaps he had picked someone else whose coat wasn’t rough and dull and whose temper was less unpredictable.

She told herself fiercely that her burning throat was hunger rather than hurt. She was dipping her muzzle into the snow again when she heard the gray snarl. The snarl turned into a whine and there was a soft thump.

Ratha turned. The gray-coat crouched, chewing on a chunk of flesh that spread red stains on the crystalline snow. Behind the gray, Bonechewer stood. Ratha waited for her morsel, but nothing appeared and Bonechewer’s jaws were empty. Pangs of disappointment cramped her stomach.

“Do I get nothing this time?” she asked.

“I have more meat for you,” he answered. “First, come with me. I want to show you something.”

“I can’t. I have to stand guard. And the old one will raise a fuss if I leave my place. My pack leader—”

“Will answer to me for the way he has treated you.” Bonechewer showed his teeth as he spoke. “And as for the old gray, she will think of nothing but her meat. Come.” He bounded away.

With a cautious glance toward her partner, Ratha padded after him. She saw that his pawprints were stained with tiny flecks of brown and red. She frowned and tried to catch up with him to ask why. She broke into a canter, showering snow over the bushes. Again she frowned, wrinkling her brows. He hadn’t been that far ahead, had he? His prints led over a white-covered rise and down the other side. On top of a little cliff, they ended and Ratha could see no other tracks. For a moment, she felt panic. Had he tricked her? Had he enticed her away from her guard duty only to leave her? If she was found away from her post, she would be fair game for anyone, for they would assume she was escaping.

“Bonechewer!” she called, her voice sharp and raw with fear.

“In here,” came his muffled reply from somewhere beneath her feet. She craned her neck over the bank and saw the top of his head and his ears above the snow. He twisted his head around and grinned at her.

“Where are you?” she demanded, wondering if he had buried himself in the snow just to tease her.

His head disappeared again. Ratha leaned over the bank, walking her forepaws down the steep slope. She was afraid to jump into the hollow beneath, fearing jagged rocks or stumps might be concealed under the snow. Without warning, her forepaws slipped and she plunged into an unexpected hole in the bank. She lost her footing completely, flipped and came down hard on her back. She lay in the snow, her head spinning, all four paws waving in the air. Bonechewer’s face appeared upside down, framed between her own front paws. “What are you trying to do? Cave it in?”

Ratha gazed up at him.“Cave what in?”

“The den.”

She rolled over slowly, shedding snow from her pelt.“Den? Is that what you wanted to show me?” She peered past him at the bank. Now she could see the low entrance and the dirt tracked onto the snow. “I don’t want any of those clan dens. I told you that.” She heaved herself to her feet.

“This isn’t a clan lair,” he answered.

“I don’t believe you. It’s too big for any other creature. Who dug it if the clan didn’t?”

“I did,” said Bonechewer.

“When?”

“I finished last night, before the snowfall. Just in time.”

“The ground is too hard for digging,” Ratha protested. Bonechewer gave her an exasperated look and turned over a front paw. The pad was torn and ragged; the toes raw and muddy. Ratha remembered the red and brown stains in his tracks. She walked past him and sniffed the hole. It smelled of freshly dug earth.

“You dug it,” she admitted grudgingly. “Why?”

“Why do you think?” he snapped.

“For your cubs.”

“Yarrr! They won’t be born here. You’re not that big yet. No. We’ll be back on my land when they come.”

“Then why did you dig it?”

“Because I know you don’t freeze in that tree because you want to. The smells in those other lairs raise old memories you would rather keep buried. I know, Ratha,” he said, his voice and his eyes growing soft. “I could not sleep in Reshara’s den either.”

She eyed him, wondering whether this was a challenge to reveal what she knew or an offer to let her share more of his life.

“You didn’t see your lair-father die,” she said slowly.

Bonechewer showed his teeth as he answered,“You grow bold, clan cat. Thakur must have told you, for it was he who saw Meoran’s work.” His eyes narrowed. “My brother herded his animals but let his tongue run free, it seems.”

Ratha felt the fur rise on her nape.“You would speak that way of him?Ptahh! I know the Un-Named do not honor those they slay, but I thought you were different.”

She thought he would strike her, but instead he licked a paw and said.“He is not slain. I did not see him among the clan dead.”

Ratha’s hope leaped ahead of her anger. “You didn’t? Could he have escaped?”

“I’m sure he escaped, but searching for him would be useless,” he added as Ratha started to open her mouth again. “If I know my brother, he will be far away by now.”

She stared down at the trampled snow around her feet. Far away, she thought. Perhaps it is best. I will think no more of Thakur.

She peered into the new den Bonechewer had dug for her, but she did not go in. She dipped her muzzle and gently nipped the top of his forepaw.

“What are you doing now?” he demanded.

“Lift your foot.”

He grunted and presented his paw to her, balancing on three legs. She began to lick the sore pads, cleaning mud from between his toes and from beneath his claws. The claws were blunted and dull, telling her that the soil had not yielded easily. No wonder he had been gone for several days! Once the paw was clean, she gave it several soothing licks and asked for the other.

After she finished, she crawled into the lair, turned around in the friendly darkness several times and lay with her forepaws hanging out the entrance.

“It is small, but well dug,” she said critically. She could see he was waiting for more of a reaction. When she said nothing else, his whiskers drooped slightly in disappointment.

She wiggled on her belly and lolled her tongue out at him.“I like it. I couldn’t have dug a better one.”

“Good!” His whiskers sprang back to their usual exuberant bristle. “I dug it far enough away from the others so no one will try to take it. And if they are so stupid as to try, they will answer to me.”

“Did you mean what you said about the cubs being born on your ground?” Ratha asked, growing serious again.

“Yes. As soon as the weather lets us travel, we’ll go. I have had enough of the Un-Named and seen enough of their foolishness. They no longer need me, nor I them. I will run with them no more. You and I, Ratha, will run together.”

He went with her back to her sentry post. There, they saw the old gray asleep in the snow, her chin on her paws.

“She’ll wake soon. I should go, Ratha,” he said, looking into her eyes. “This has been hard for you, strong as you are. I am sorry for the part I played. Things won’t get easier; not very soon. But I promise you that when this season ends, we will leave this place and never return.” Ratha looked around at the white-covered landscape.

“Snowfall has just started.” She sighed. “It will seem like a long time. At least I don’t have to sleep in a tree.”

“I know. The days may seem endless. When things get difficult, think of spring. And me,” he added, with a glint of mischief in his eyes.

She watched him trot away over the snow. The gray-coat was starting to wake up, but despite that, Ratha was happy.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Spring was slower in coming to the heights than to the lowlands. As Ratha and Bonechewer wound their way out of the hills, the sparse grass and scrub bush gave way to new growth, green and springy underfoot. They did not take the old trail, still rutted and worn by the passage of the Un-Named. As if in unspoken agreement, neither one ventured toward it, preferring to find their own way across the endless meadow that covered the hills.

Bonechewer walked ahead of Ratha, keeping his pace slow. The long scar on his flank was only starting to fade. Clan fangs had driven deep, and he would limp for the rest of his life. Ratha followed his waving tail through the grass, feeling the new life moving inside her. She was so big now that even the low grass tips brushed her underneath and her graceful walk had become awkward, her swollen belly swinging from side to side at each step.

As she and Bonechewer left the hills and came onto the plain, tiny flowers appeared among the grasses, sending their scents up into the warm spring wind.

Ratha lifted her head and watched a bird drift in lazy circles overhead. The grief was still there in the back of her throat and the memories in the back of her mind. The clan was no more, broken and scattered by the attack of the Un-Named. She, and perhaps some other ragged band of survivors, were all that was left of those who had once followed the herder’s way. Many others had left their blood where the three-horns and dapplebacks had once grazed. The Un-Named, too, had paid. Ratha remembered how the vultures circled and the picked bones grew gray and moldy.

The sun warmed her back, reminding her that those times were past. The unborn cubs moved again, and she felt little kicks inside, as if the young ones were impatient to be born.

Bonechewer stopped and came back,“Are you tired?” he asked.

“No, hungry.”

Bonechewer grunted.“Those cubs eat more than you do. They’ll be strong and healthy.”

“I can hunt for a few more days,” Ratha said, as Bonechewer took the weight off his injured leg.

“Hunt? You can’t even crouch,” he said, but his tone was gentle rather than mocking. “No, even with my bad leg the marsh-shrews will know me. You may get sick of marsh-shrews, but I swear there will be plenty of them.”

“I will eat marsh-shrews,” Ratha said as he nuzzled her bulging flank.

“Yarrr!” Bonechewer shook his head and winced.“He kicked me! Hard enough to make my nose sting. Is that any way to treat your lair-father?” He glared at Ratha’s belly in mock anger.

“She kicked you.” Ratha grinned. “That one’s going to be a female.”

“I’m glad they’re not inside me,” Bonechewer said vehemently.

“They’ll be out soon.” Ratha began walking.

“How soon?” Bonechewer looked alarmed.

“I don’t know. They’ll tell me. Come on, Three-Legs,” she said, strutting ahead. “We still have a long way to go.”

They saw several more sunsets before they reached the marsh where Bonechewer’s territory lay. He was glad to be home, and he trotted all over it, from the lakeshore to the hillside meadow where the spring ran. Ratha tagged after him, eager for the tang of the marshland and the glitter of the morning sun on the lake. She even followed him into the water when he plunged into wash dust from his coat. She bobbed and rolled like a sap-heavy log while Bonechewer chased fish. By sheer exuberance rather than skill, he managed to catch one. He swam back to her, holding his shiny prize aloft in his jaws. They paddled their way back to shore and feasted on the catch.

The next task was to dig a new den for the cubs. Ratha chose a site on the hillside near the spring where dirt was soft and the digging went fast. They took turns at hunting and digging and soon the excavation was finished. Ratha inspected it, cleared out the remaining loose dirt, stamped down the rest and began to line the den with dry grass, pine needles and tufts of her own fur pulled from her belly. Bonechewer helped her, trying to find the softest leaves and the most fragrant grasses with which to make the nest.

They were making their last trip with grass in their mouths when Ratha felt a sharp cramp begin high in her belly and ripple down both sides of her flank. She had felt such pangs before, but they were mild and soon ceased. This time it grew until it became painful. She moaned and dropped her mouthful of grass.

Bonechewer waited with her until the spasm had passed. Ratha leaned against him, feeling his strength and his warmth. The pain frightened her and she was grateful for his presence. Once the cramp ceased, she was able to walk on. Before they reached the den, it happened again and the contraction was stronger. Ratha felt something break deep inside and a gush of fluid which wet the fur beneath her tail.

“They’re telling me,” she gasped, her head low.

She felt Bonechewer seize her nape and pull her up. She staggered with him to the den. He pushed her inside, settled her on her bed and stood back, looking anxiously at her.

Ratha ground her teeth together as the next spasm seized her. She thrust back with her hind legs and pushed against the wall of the den. Again the pain went away, leaving her panting and shivering. She looked for Bonechewer, but he had gone.

Panic washed through Ratha as she shifted restlessly from side to side. The nest, so carefully dug and lined, seemed terribly uncomfortable, and the dark, rather than being cozy, made her feel as though she were suffocating.

I didn’t know it would be like this, she thought, laying her head on the earthen floor and feeling the frantic pulse in her throat.I thought mothers just went to sleep for a while,andwhen they woke, the cubs were there.

The teats on her belly began to itch and she rolled on her side and licked them. She felt a surge beneath her tongue as another contraction started and traveled in waves along her flank. She gave a muffled cry and strained, pushing her rear paws against the den wall again. The pushing helped.

Her rapid panting was making her throat dry. She thought about going to the stream for a drink, but as she raised herself on her front paws, something seemed to twist inside her, grinding through her guts. She squeezed her eyes shut, flopped on her side and shoved her feet against the earthen wall.

Again, fear shot through her. How long would it take? Was it happening as it should? She didn’t know. She was alone with her body and the strange and awesome thing that was happening to her.

She let the fear free and it hovered around her, a cold mist that chilled her no matter how deep she burrowed into the leaves or how hard she shivered. It took hold and raged through her body, making her muscles work against each other, driving her heartbeat up until she was panting with exhaustion and turning each contraction into a crushing pain. Ratha whimpered and rubbed her cheek in the dirt. She couldn’t go any farther this way. If she let the fear possess her, she would die of terror, the cubs still unborn.

Every female since the first has gone through this,she thought furiously.If they can, I can. The clan couldn’t kill me; neither could the Un-Named. I am a herder of three-horns, the bearer of the Red Tongue and I am going to have these cubs.

“Do you hear me, litterlings?” she growled at her belly. “If you give me any more trouble, I’ll nip your wretched little tails when you come out!”

Ratha was startled to feel an answering kick from inside her. She grinned to herself. That one had to be the little female; the one that had kicked Bonechewer. The contractions began again and the fear rose, but Ratha fought it away.

“All right, little marsh-shrew,” she said as she braced herself against the wall. “You’re … coming … out!”

She grunted, strained until she thought she would burst and felt the cub slip backwards. She drew a breath and pushed against the wall until she thought she would make the den cave in. The pain gave way to exhilaration as she felt the cub inch downward through her. There was pressure between her loins and below her tail. One more push, she thought, feeling the skin bulge and stretch beneath her tail. The cub was coming headfirst, butting its way out into the world. Ratha’s heart raced as she curled herself backwards to look. Something tore, something slipped and there was a wet wiggling body in the leaves beside her.

Ratha bent her head and began to wash the cub, licking fast and hard. The tiny creature squealed as she tumbled it back and forth with her tongue. Tiny claws raked her chin and the tiny tail lashed her nose. The odor of birth clung to it, warm, rich and dark; her own scent from deep inside her body. The cub had its own smell too, a smell that told Ratha that she had been right; her firstborn was the little female. She licked until her daughter was dry and fluffy and then swept the cub to a full teat. There was a tentative nuzzle and then the little mouth took the nipple and began to suck.

Ratha ate the afterbirth and lay back, waiting for the contractions that would bring the next cub. They did not come for a while and during this time she dozed, grateful for the interlude. Another cramp woke her. This time she was ready and the second cub was soon nursing beside the first. The third slid out with hardly any effort at all. The last seemed reluctant to enter the world and, after some struggling, came out tail first. Ratha licked and massaged him as she had all the others. Soon the little female and her three brothers were lying in a row, suckling and kneading her belly.

Worn and weary, but content, she stretched as she lay on her side.

A shadow blocked the sunlight at the mouth of the den. She raised her head. Bonechewer’s scent drifted into the den. It was no longer the odor of her mate and her companion, but the scent of the male, sharp and threatening. Ratha’s hackles rose.

“Ratha?” Bonechewer called. She could see his eyes glowing at the entrance to the den.

To her those eyes seemed savage and hungry. Her cubs, she thought, starting to growl. He was coming to kill and eat her cubs. She got up, shaking herself free of the clinging mouths and claws. Even as she rose to defend her litter, she was startled by her sudden rage. She knew Bonechewer only wanted to see his cubs, not to kill them. Her feelings were no longer just hers, but those of all lair-mothers before her. She trembled as the image of a dead cub dangling from bloodstained jaws seized her mind and would not let go.

“Ratha?” The voice was louder; the eyes closer.

“Stay out!” she hissed.

“I want to see them,” Bonechewer said, shouldering his way in. “What’s the matter with you?”

Ratha bared her teeth.“Get out!” She clawed at him. He flinched and backed away. He looked so lost and bewildered that Ratha wanted to go and soothe him. Yet she couldn’t leave her cubs, and if he came toward her again she knew the ancient rage would force her to attack him.

“I’m not ready,” she said, trying to take the harshness out of her voice.

“I want to see them,” he said again.

Ratha swallowed.“Bonechewer …” she said trying to see him as her mate rather than a marauding male. Behind her the cubs squealed their impatience. She circled them nervously and lay down again.

Bonechewer retreated, but she could still see his face at the entrance to the den.

“Are you hungry, Ratha?” he asked softly. “Shall I hunt for you?”

“Yes,” Ratha said gratefully. “When you come back, perhaps you can see them.”

She heard him pad away and laid her chin in the leaves, remembering the hurt and misery in his eyes. There was no way she could explain it to him. A fear with no reason… once there had been a reason. Never had a clan male attacked and eaten his young. Perhaps it still happened among the Un-Named. Ratha felt the cubs clambering over her belly, hunting for milk. They butted their heads against her, their cries shrill and demanding. She gathered them together withher forepaws and gave them her teats. How strong they were already, she thought. What fierce hunters they would be when they grew!

Again she lay back and was drifting into sleep when another idea struck her. Hunting was not the only thing she could teach her cubs.The clan is no more, she thought, lifting her head and opening her eyes in the darkness.Butthe way of the herder has not been lost, for I remember what I was taught and I can teach that way. Did Thakur not say that I could have been the best herder in the clan?

The memory brought pain as well as pride. She nosed the cubs. She and her children could capture beasts from the forest as clan ancestors had and graze them here on the lowland meadows. As the cubs nursed, she dreamed of founding a new clan to take the place of the old. She could also teach the Un-Named as well, so that they could keep herds of their own and no longer live by raiding. Ratha listened to the soft sucking sounds and began to purr herself. She had seen too many old things die and been a part of the dying. Was change always deaths and endings? Her memory, in a bitter voice, seemed to agree, but another voice, softer but stronger, answered no. That voice was the breathing of her young beside her.

A beginning, she thought, feeling hope rise. Perhaps this time… a beginning.

Ratha nursed her dream along with her cubs and both flourished and grew. She tried to speak of her idea to Bonechewer, but he was more interested in his young themselves than as founding members of a future clan. Once she allowed him near the cubs, he proved to be an affectionate father as well as a determined provider. At first he approached them carefully and tenderly, dispelling Ratha’s lingering fear. Soon the litter was crawling all over their father as well as their mother. They butted their heads into his belly, sucked on his fur and wrestled with his tail.

Once the cubs’ eyes opened. Ratha could leave them while she went to hunt. Bonechewer stayed in the den with his children while Ratha ran across the marshland, stretching the cramp out of her legs and refreshing herself with the feel of sun and wind. On these expeditions, she planned how she would teach the youngsters how to herd. First, she would find a lone dappleback, perhaps too old or injured to stay with the herd. She would show the cubs how to take care of the little horse; how to keep it from straying; how to graze and water it. Then, perhaps, a dappleback mare with young. Those could be the start of a small herd. Such clever cubs as hers, she thought proudly, would learn the art in no time. They would far surpass their mother and then, when they had cubs of their own….

Each day, Ratha watched the cubs, eager for signs of their abilities. She was especially attentive to her firstborn, a sturdy little female whose aggressiveness toward any moving object within a tail-length of her, including prickly ones, had earned her the name of Thistle-chaser. Bonechewer had bestowed the name upon his rambunctious daughter after repeatedly pulling out the spines that invariably embedded themselves in that tender little nose.

“She doesn’t seem to learn,” Ratha growled, watching Bonechewer soothe the crying cub.

“She will,” he answered, letting his daughter wriggle free and flicking his tail beyond her reach. Defeated, Thistle-chaser scampered off to join her brothers.

Ratha watched the cubs stalk each other and leap into the air after low-flying insects. They were strong, fierce and quick. From the first day they had ventured outside the maternal lair, they had practiced the motions of stalking and pouncing. They seemed to be born hunters. Ratha felt dismay creep in beneath the feeling of pride. Hunting was important, but there were other things equally so, and those things the cubs seemed to ignore. Ratha pushed the uncomfortable feeling away.They’re young yet. Give them time. Her inner voice echoed Bonechewer’s words.You can’t make them grow any faster. Ratha sighed. What should she expect? She didn’t know. She could only draw upon the memories of her own cubhood. Even those, hazy as they were, seemed at variance with what she saw in her children.

When did I become aware of the world? she often wondered. When did I start to speak? I talk to Thistle-chaser and the others, but not one of them has answered, or has even tried to repeat the sounds I make.

Bonechewer could only counsel patience.“Ratha, you’re too impatient. You’re looking for things that aren’t there yet,” he said, looking at her worried face.

Ratha gazed at Thistle-chaser, cuddling up to her father, licking her nose after another encounter with her namesake.“How old were you when you began to speak?” she asked Bonechewer.

“Older than she is, I’m sure.”

“Don’t you remember?”

“No.” He nuzzled his daughter and looked up at Ratha. “You’ll lose her soon enough, Ratha. Enjoy her as she is now.”

He is right, she thought, but she couldn’t rid herself of the nagging doubt. Ratha watched the two, almost envious of their happiness. Bonechewer didn’t care what Thistle-chaser would do or be. He was content to play with her, cuddle her and make no demands on her until she was older.

Ratha tried to be patient, but her dream made her anxious. Each day, as spring yielded to summer, she looked for signs that the cubs would do more than hunt. She was cheered when Thistle-chaser and the others began to imitate her words and gestures. The first flush of pride faded when Ratha realized that the cubs had no idea what they were doing or that the sounds they made could bring anything more than praise. Ratha was now sure that the cubs’ development was lagging and the knowledge festered like a tick in her skin. To her the summer wind was cold and the gold sunshine pale.

One evening Ratha and Bonechewer went to sit on the crest of the hill above the den. Bonechewer dozed between the long shadows in the last warmth from the setting sun. Ratha lay beside him and tried to sleep, but her misery kept her awake. Far down the hill she could hear lusty yowls as the cubs chased each other through the marsh grass. A piercing howl rose above the clamor. It wavered and broke into a forlorn wail. Bonechewer woke and shook his head sleepily.“I’ll go,” he said as Ratha started to heave herself to her feet. “She’s probably pounced on another thorn ball.”

“Leave her.” Ratha stared at the ground between her paws. An insect crawled up onto a swaying grass blade and clung there waving its antennae. The carapace flashed and shimmered in the rosy sunlight. There was a soft rushing sound; grass brushing past legs.

Ratha snapped her head up.“I said, leave her!”

Puzzled, Bonechewer sat down, curling his tail over his feet. The light turned his fur to burnished copper, which caught highlights as his muscles rippled beneath his coat. Shadow hid the scar on his flank. He looked almost as he had when Ratha had first seen him, but now, seeing his beauty only brought bitterness into her throat.

Thistle-chaser too is beautiful, Ratha thought. Her coat will turn copper when the spots fade… and her eyes are green like mine. Large bright green eyes … and nothing behind them.

“Ratha,” Bonechewer said.

“No! Maybe the pain will teach her to think before she jumps. Nothing else will.”

He came back and nuzzled Ratha, but she would not be comforted. The wailing continued far down the hill and there was rage as well as pain in Thistle-chaser’s cry.

“I’ll get her. Wait here.”

Ratha drove her foreclaws into the soil and watched him go. Soon he was back, the cub dangling from his mouth. Ratha could see the strain in his neck muscles; Thistle-chaser was getting too heavy to carry by the scruff. He draped her across his forepaws and turned her pads up one by one until he found the thorn and worked it loose with his teeth. The cub lay on her back, cradled between her father’s paws. She rolled her head back and stared at Ratha. Ratha looked back, trying to find something of herself in those eyes, but what was there reminded her more of the eyes of the Un-Named

Despair washed over her as she realized the full truth. The cubs she had birthed, tended and tried so hard to teach shared nothing of hers except the form of her body. Behind the pert little faces and mischievous eyes lay only the hunter’s instincts.

Ratha ground her teeth together. It was so obvious as to be painful. Couldn’t Bonechewer see?

Her mate had his nose buried in Thistle-chaser’s belly. Four paws flailed around his muzzle as the body wriggled.“Arr, you’re a wild one, cub!” he crooned, nuzzling and teasing his daughter. “You’ll be as rude as your mother when you start to talk.”

Ratha suspected his words were meant for her rather than Thistle-chaser. Bonechewer peeked up at her from between Thistle-chaser’s paws, pretending to flinch under the expected cuff. His manner wilted slightly when he met Ratha’s eyes.

“Stop lying to yourself and to me.” Ratha’s voice came from a strange place inside her, cold and remote. “She’ll never talk.” She shot out a paw, caught the back of Thistle-chaser’s head and turned the cub’s face to Bonechewer. For a moment he looked into the beautiful empty eyes. Then he squeezed his own eyes shut and laid his head against Thistle-chaser. Ratha withdrew her paw. She had seen enough.

Gently he soothed the cub, who had begun to whimper.“I was trying to make myself believe …” he said, not looking at Ratha.

“Why?” Ratha asked, barely able to speak through the misery burning her throat. “Why do our cubs have no light in their eyes? Why won’t their tongues form words? The birth was hard. Did I injure them? Or was it something in me that is not there?” She walked back and forth in front of Bonechewer. Thistle-chaser lay between her father’s paws, looking bewildered.

“No,” Bonechewer said at last. “You are clanborn, Ratha. Had you mated with a male of your own kind, your cubs would have the light in their eyes.”

“But you are of my kind,” she faltered.

“Your cubs’ eyes tell me that I am not.”

“What does it matter that Reshara took an Un-Named male? You eyes are as bright as any in the clan and you have more wit than they. Why would our cubs lack what you have?”

“Such a thing does not make sense,” Bonechewer admitted, looking down at Thistle-chaser. “Even so, I feared that it might be true. I did not listen to my fear.”

Ratha stood stiff-legged, trying to understand what he had told her. Then her rage broke.

“You knew? You knew our cubs might be like this?” she cried. “Did you sire other witless ones as well?”

He cringed, burying his muzzle in Thistle-chaser’s flank. “You were different … the other female was Un-Named.”

Ratha felt her eyes go to slits.“Well, you have your cubs. I only wish they had been born dead!”

She flung back her head and screamed at the sky. Her dream was shattered. The one she had begun to love she could now only hate with a deep, burning bitterness like the Red Tongue in her belly.

“Ratha!”

She flung herself at him, slashing with teeth and claws.“Why? Why did you do this to me?”

Bonechewer dodged her attack, trying to shield Thistle-chaser and defend himself without hurting Ratha.

She raked his face, shrieking at him,“Why didn’t you kill me in the raid that night? Give me some kindness now. Tear my throat out and leave me for the insects!”

Thistle-chaser scampered around Bonechewer’s legs, delighted with this new game.

“Fight, Un-Named One!” Ratha howled as he backed away from her. His retreat only fed her rage. Hate and bitterness poured into her, filling her until that was all she knew. She struck at Bonechewer again and again, ripping his shoulder and laying his cheek open to the bone. He cowered in the dusk, dripping blood in his tracks. Ratha could hear the breath hissing in his throat. Thistle-chaser stumbled and rolled out from between her father’s legs. Ratha pounced on the cub, biting hard and deep. Thistle-chaser shrieked, red welling onto the spotted fur beneath Ratha’s nose.

A blow knocked her loose from the cub and sent her sprawling down the hillside. Bonechewer was on top of her, eyes blazing, fangs driving toward her throat.

Then he was gone and she was alone with the coming night and her pounding heart. Still dizzy with rage, she leaped up. She shut away the horrified part of her that recoiled at the taste of Thistle-chaser’s blood in her mouth. As if from a great distance, she saw Bonechewer licking the wounded cub. She waited as he sensed her and turned around.

“Kill me,” she said very softly. “I want no more of life.”

His eyes were two coals from the fire of the setting sun, but he stood where he was. Ratha looked past him to Thistle-chaser.

“Why don’t you leave them to starve and mate with someone else,” she taunted. “Perhaps the next time …”

A sharp cuff flung her head to one side. She felt a muscle tear in her neck.

“Enough, Ratha.” Bonechewer panted.

Ratha took one step toward him, her eyes on Thistle-chaser. The wounded cub cowered, shaking, ugly black stains spreading across her shoulder and chest. Again a part of Ratha’s mind recoiled from the sight, but she forced that part away.

“Don’t try,” Bonechewer said. “You won’t earn your death that way.”

Ratha curled her lips back from her fangs as she watched Thistle-chaser.

“Do you really want her? She’s witless!” Her voice was thick with scorn.

“I want her. And the others,” Bonechewer said quietly. “You are right. They will never know themselves as you and I do. They will never share our gift of words. But they are mine and I will keep them, for I will have no others.” He lowered his head. “I will not mate again, Ratha.”

Her whiskers drooped as her rage fell, allowing her to see the terror in Thistle-chaser’s eyes. She sought her anger and used it to blur her sight. Soon enough, she knew, she would see all too clearly.

The cries of the other cubs drifted up the hill beneath the violet sky. The night wind touched Ratha’s fur. Thistle-chaser’s brothers were still at play. She turned to go downhill but Bonechewer blocked her way. “Stay away from them. I’m warning you.”

He raised one paw, claws extended.“I won’t kill you, but if you come near my cubs, you will leave blinded and limping.”

Ratha drew back, trembling. Now she had truly lost everything. Bonechewer would never accept her again, and there would only be fear and hatred in Thistle-chaser’s eyes. There was no returning along the trail she had chosen to take.

Again she fanned her anger into a blazing flame, burning away all regret or remorse.

“Take the cubs, Un-Named One,” she snarled. “Feed them well so they do not slay you and gorge themselves on your carcass. I go.”

She turned and trotted away, taking the path along the crest of the little hill above the marsh. The damp night wind brought her the many smells she had come to know. Never would she run here again.

She stopped and listened. Bonechewer was following her, making sure she was leaving his territory. Her anger failed her and despair seeped in. How she wanted to go to him, bury her head in his flank and beg his forgiveness, saying she would learn to love the cubs as they were, not as she wanted them to be.

He stopped at the edge of his territory. She ran on, leaving him behind. Her paws beat the ground as she galloped, filling her mind with the rhythm.

Now she was outcast to the Un-Named as well as the clan. All fangs would be bared against her wherever she went, for she would be known as a killer and a renegade. She ran, not looking or caring where she was going.

Behind her in the night a voice rose. Ratha tried to shut her ears to it, but the voice continued and grew louder. She stopped at a stream to drink and rinse the metallic taste of blood from her mouth. She ran on until at last Bonechewer’s farewell faded and died, leaving her alone with the night as her only companion.

CHAPTER TWELVE

For the rest of the summer Ratha wandered, drifting across the land as if she were a leaf blown by a fitful wind. She often stood atop a sharp cliff, wondering whether to throw herself down, or lay in the dark of a cave, wishing starvation would take her quickly. But she always turned away from the cliff or dragged herself out of the cave to hunt. Something forced her to survive almost against her will.

Ratha lived each day, trying not to think about the past or the future. Her eyes were always fixed on her prey or searching for those who would prey on her. When she looked at her reflection in the ponds and streams where she drank, she could barely answer the gaze of that thin face looking at her from beneath the water. Her belly twisted when she saw how the bitterness showed like the fresh scars not yet hidden beneath new fur. One who saw her in the days when Thakur called her yearling would never know her now, she thought. She walked with her head low and her fur was dull and rough.

She meant her wandering to be aimless, but she knew she was drifting back toward clan land. Something was calling her home, and she answered, even though she knew there was no home. Only gray bones remained in the meadow where the three-horns used to run and old dens filled with moldy leaves.

Why she was drawn to the old clan holdings she didn’t know. There would be nothing waiting for her at the end of this trail. She often fought the pull, turning onto a new path each time her feet carried her toward the old. Many times before she had been able to leave worn trails behind and run on fresh paths, but this time she had no will or wishto challenge the new. She felt used up and worn out; as if the wounds Bonechewer had given her would never stop bleeding. Each day she cursed her body for living when the pain inside made her want to lie down and never rise again. The taste of Thistle-chaser’s blood clung inside her mouth no matter how much water she drank trying to rinse it away.

At last, on a hot day in midsummer, Ratha stood on a stream bank, looking across. The meadow beyond spread far in every direction, the grass high and thick. Charred spikes that had once been trees stood against the sky, their trunks washed with waving grass, the space between blackened branches empty of leaves. Insects droned about Ratha’s ears as she stood with the sun on her back, wondering whether to cross.

She turned and walked along the shaded stream bank, the mud cool beneath her feet. She emerged into an open patch and narrowed her eyes at the glitter of the sun on the water. A slight thinning of the grass on the far bank was all that marked the trail that had run across the stream and the meadow. Soon it would be entirely hidden.

Ratha remembered how she had run that trail, Fessran panting at her side as the clan-pack howled behind her Those howls still seemed to echo through the hot, still air. Her ears trembled. She started, swiveling her ears forward. It hadn’t all been memory. She had heard something, although it was faint and far away. She lifted her head and listened again, wondering if the sun on her head was making her dizzy. She looked across the meadow. No one was there, yet it seemed that the sound had come from that direction. Not howls of rage, but the echo of a high ringing cry she had heard before. She plunged into the tall grass and trotted toward the sound.

It was much further than she thought. The grass, un-cropped, grew higher than she could raise her nose with all four feet on the ground. She seemed to run forever in a lush green cage whose walls moved with her as she ran. Stalks whipped her flanks and broke beneath her feet.

She froze, one paw lifted, yet the swishing sound of grass brushing past legs continued briefly and stopped. Ratha sniffed, trying to catch a scent, but she could only smell the sugary juices of the crushed grass. Hair bristled on her nape. She waited. No one appeared. The air was quiet. The cry she heard before came again, muffled by the hot, still air. It was the imperious call of a dappleback stallion gathering his flock of mares. Dappleback! Ratha’s stomach rumbled. If she killed a mare, she could gorge herself, drag the rest up a tree and not have to hunt again for days. She bounded on through the grass, the ripe seed-heads lashing her back.

She slowed to a trot. Again she froze and the other sound that was not the stallion’s cry continued on for an instant. Ratha sat up on her hind legs, peering back over the grass. There. A circle of stalks behind her was still waving. Ratha dropped down again, whirled and faced the green curtain behind her. Again, no one appeared.

Disgruntled, she made her way forward again, no longer trotting but gliding quietly between the stems, leaving as little evidence of her passage as possible.

Her tracker was staying downwind of her so the slight breeze that fanned her face bore none of the intruder’s scent. The odor of dappleback was growing rich in her nostrils, making her wild with hunger. She could see them now, their backs brown and sweat-slicked above the wild wheat. Once she had tended and guarded such a herd. Now she was the raider and there was no one to defend this herd except thelittle stallion. Ratha crept close to the dapplebacks, crouched in the grass and picked out her quarry. An older mare, shaggy and ridgebacked. The little horse moved stiffly and lagged behind the others.

Ratha crawled, her belly to the ground, until she was sure that one short dash would bring down the prey. There was no sign of her shadower. Perhaps the intruder had gone or had never been there at all, an illusion made by capricious breezes playing through the grass.

Ratha gathered herself, tensed and sprang. A sharp yowl tore through the air behind her, almost before her paws left the ground. Nostrils flaring, the dapplebacks threw back their heads, wheeled and scattered. Ratha lost her prey in the confusion of bodies racing past her. She broke off her charge and veered away, retreating in the direction she had come.

She bounded high and saw the grass rippling as someone streaked toward her. The sunlight flashed on a dark copper coat and Ratha’s throat went tight with fear. Had Bonechewer tracked her here? Had Thistle-chaser died of her wounds and her father come to take revenge? Ratha clamped her teeth together and dove through the grass, ignoring the knife-edged leaves that lashed her face.

However fast she ran or however she dodged and turned, her pursuer was there before her, cutting off her escape. She used all the tricks she knew from her days of herding three-horns, yet she couldn’t shake this pursuer. Even Bonechewer wasn’t as quick or agile. Every time she turned, she heard the grass break and caught a glimpse of gleaming copper. Bewildered and dizzy, she stood still, hunching her shoulders. This time he was coming. As soon as he appeared, she would leap and sink her fangs into his throat….

The grass parted. Ratha sprang, tried to stop herself and tumbled. She scrambled to her feet, her tail creeping between her legs.

The face before her was Bonechewer’s but the eyes were green, not yellow. Both fangs stood intact in his lower jaw. As he lowered his head to peer at her, she saw the puckered scars on his neck. She remembered how Meoran had seized him and thrust him forward against the fury of the Red Tongue. The memory reflected back at her from his eyes with a quality of uncertainty, as if he could not yet believe who she was.

“I was ready to track and slay a raider,” Thakur said. “Instead I find you.”

Ratha waited.

“And I have found a raider.” Thakur’s voice became hard. “You didn’t come here just to watch the herd. Do you run with the Un-Named ones who still prey on my beasts? Were you among those I chased away last night?”

“I came to kill,” Ratha answered, “but I run with no one except myself.”

“My teeth seek a raider’s throat,” Thakur growled, lashing his tail against the grass. “Our animals are few and scrawny, yet still the Un-Named Ones prey. I would rip you open and hang you from a tree to tell them to seek other hunting grounds.”

Ratha drew back her whiskers and gave him a bitter grin.“You would better please Meoran rather than the Un-Named if you hung my pelt from a tree. It would be more useful there than where it is now.”

“Run, then,” Thakur snarled at her. “I will do Meoran no service.” He paused. “You look too much like her, yet you cannot be. You have the eyes of a hunter, not of the cub I taught.”

“Then, if I am not Ratha, kill me,” she said, looking at him steadily.

Thakur flattened his ears and bared his teeth as he approached. She smelled the sweat on his coat and his breath, heavy and acrid. He stopped, panting. He hung his head.

“Thakur, I am Ratha,” she said.

“Then you know where I got these wounds on my neck,” he said between his teeth. “They took too long to heal. There is another wound, not made by Meoran’s fangs.”

Ratha glared back at him.“Whose voice lifted above the clan yowling that night? Whose voice told them that my creature could be killed? Had you not spoken, Thakur, the clan would have listened to me, not Meoran!”

“I told you then it was not hatred that made me speak.”

“Why?” Ratha cried, searching his eyes.

“I saw too many throats bared to the Red Tongue,” Thakur said softly.

“And was that worse than throats bared to Meoran?” Ratha demanded.

“Meoran may be stupid and cruel, but he is of our kind. His power is the power of teeth and claws and that we understand even as we fear it. The Red Tongue’s power we fear because we do not understand it. It is a fear that makes the strongest among us into crying cubs. Except for you, Ratha.”

He stared at her long and hard.

“You thought I would use the Red Tongue’s power to rule the clan? No! I wanted only to share my creature, to teach my people how to use it and care for it. Meoran was blind not to see.”

“He was not blind,” Thakur answered. “He saw what I saw, throats bared to the one who carried the Red Tongue. You would have ruled whether or not you chose.”

Ratha’s ears drooped in dismay as Thakur continued. “I did not want that for my people, or for you either.”

“So that is why you spoke,” Ratha said.

“It was not the Red Tongue’s touch on my fur that I feared the most, Ratha. Meoran thinks that is why I spoke, but the truth is what I have told you. Do you believe me?”

Ratha looked down at her toes.“Does it matter whether or not I believe you? The Red Tongue is gone and the people we once called ours have been slain by the Un-Named.”

“Not all of them,” Thakur said. “The beasts I guard are not only mine.”

Ratha’s eyes widened. “The clan still lives? Where? How many?”

“Fewer than I have claws on all my feet. As to where, I can’t tell you yet.”

Ratha looked up at him, long-dead hopes starting to rise again.

“Yearling,” Thakur said softly, startling her by using the old name, “I know you have run a long and bitter trail. I also know I helped set you on it. I am not sorry for what happened, for I had no other choice, but I wish I was not the cause of the pain I see behind your eyes.”

Before she could speak again, the sharp yowl of a herder’s call sounded over the meadow. Thakur sat up on his hind legs and peered through the grass.

“Cherfan’s helping me,” he said as he dropped down. “He’s wondering where I am.”

“Cherfan?” Ratha asked. “The greedy one who always ate before I did? He survived?”

Thakur looked amused.“You would remember that. He became a good herder, although he was late in learning. He fought beside me in the raids and he has fathered the two new cubs we have in our little group.” He paused, watching Ratha’s face darken. “What is it, yearling?”

She glanced at him, aware she had betrayed herself.“Something I will tell you later. Go now, if you don’t want Cherfan to find me.”

“Wait here,” Thakur said. A moment later he was gone, leaving only swaying grass to mark where he had been.

Ratha waited. Far above her a bird looped and dipped. Insects chirped monotonously and droned back and forth overhead, making her feel sleepy. The light slanted between the grass stems and a late afternoon breeze rustled the leaves. A worried tittle voice inside Ratha’s head kept asking her why she trusted Thakur. He could easily bring Meoran or a hate-filled pack that would fall upon her and tear her to pieces. Or he could circle behind her and attack her through the grass curtain, she thought, feeling very vulnerable.He trusts me to wait for him and not run away, even though I could. I think he is asking me what I choose.

She lifted her muzzle, hearing him coming through the grass. He poked his head out, saw her and looked pleased.“Good, you stayed. I told Cherfan I chased the raider away. He’s looking after the dapplebacks. I told him I was going to make sure the raider is gone.” He grinned at her. “Is the raider gone, Ratha?”

She looked back at him, feeling very empty.“I could give you a better answer if I could fill my belly.”

“There will be meat tonight,” Thakur said. “Not much, for our kills have to last many days.”

Ratha sat up.“The raider isn’t gone,” she teased, feeling some of her old spirit coming back. “The raider is Thakur. It will be good to eat from Meoran’s herd. Bring me a good piece, Thakur. Steal the liver if no one else has eaten it. I’ll wait for you by the stream.”

“No, yearling. What you want, you may take yourself. I want you to come back with me.”

“Come back to the clan?” Ratha was aghast. “If Meoran is there, he’ll rip me in half!”

“He is there, but I have reason to believe he will keep his claws sheathed.If you keep your mouth shut,” Thakur added meaningfully and continued, “You speak of us as the clan, but we are only the remains of it; scarcely enough to fill a well-dug lair. The Un-Named took many lives, Ratha.”

She swallowed. She was not yet ready to tell him that she had been there and watched her people die.

“Every one that remains is precious to us,” Thakur said. “Meoran knows that now.”

Ratha only wrinkled her nose. Thakur saw it and said,“You will find him much changed. Even I, who bear the scars of his teeth on my neck, can say that about him. It was he who saved those of us who did survive.”

“It was he whose stupidity gave you to the jaws of the Un-Named,” Ratha spat back.

“Yes. That too, he knows,” said Thakur. “It is bitter meat to him.”

“And you still keep him as leader?Ptah!”

“What has died is dead, Ratha. He is strong. We need his strength. We need yours as well. Come back to us.”

She looked at him, seeing in his eyes what he had not been able to say.It has been lonely without you, Ratha. Come back… come back to me.

She lowered her head, seeing too much of Bonechewer in the face before her. Could she put the bitterness behind? Here, again, was a new trail before her, one she never hoped she’d find. She thought she had nothing left to give anyone, but now….

“You say there are new cubs,” she said slowly. “How old are they?”

“Old enough to train as herders, but I haven’t had time to teach them.”

He looked at Ratha and she could see the hope rising in his face.

“It will be hard for me to see cubs again, knowing they are someone else’s.”

As Ratha watched him, she knew she had betrayed herself. Before she finished speaking, she wished that she could bite off her treacherous tongue and be mute for the rest of her days.

Thakur spoke.“I am wrong to call you ‘yearling.’ I see that you have grown older. You have been gone from us long enough to have birthed a family.”

“To have birthed them and lost them.”

He looked at her keenly.“I see that you have ended a trail. One too painful to set foot upon even in memory. I will not ask what happened.”

“When I can, I’ll tell you, Thakur,” she said, and she was thankful it had been he who found her in the meadow. “If I help you with the herding, will you have enough time to teach?”

His eyes brightened. He raised his head and yowled at the sky.“Arrowoo!”

“Thakur! You’ll bring the others!”

“I don’t care. Now they can see you.”

Ratha swallowed again. His happiness was starting to infect her, and she wanted to let it in, but she was still afraid.

“Are you sure Meoran will listen?” she asked.

“If he has any wits at all, he will,” Thakur said. “Just don’t say anything to anger him.”

He turned and pranced away through the grass, his tail high. Ratha followed.

Ratha climbed over water-smoothed stone, the sound of the stream below beating in her ears. Or perhaps it was her own heartbeat she heard, seeming to echo back and forth between the rocks. She looked up at the cliff face overhead, painted in streaks by the sun’s last rays. In seasons past, when she was a cub, the stream had run much higher, undercutting the cliff, sculpturing and polishing the rock that now lay far above its banks.

Thakur’s tail disappeared around a worn boulder and she hurried to catch up. She could smell the odor of a well-aged kill.

She emerged to find him standing on a sloping gray table of rock looking up into a water-carved cavern. There were shapes in the cave, and they stirred as she approached behind Thakur. Eyes fixed on her. The meat smell came from the rear of the cavern. At the front, a husky dun-colored male stood over a fragile-looking female and her two spotted cubs. The dun coat came forward as the female nudged the cubs further into the cavern.

“Hold, Thakur,” he said. “Who is that one with you?” As he finished, Ratha caught a flurry of motion inside the cavern. A face appeared between two seated forms. The dazed eyes grew wide with joy and the ears pricked up. It was Fessran. Ratha saw her give a wary glance to one side, calm herself and begin sidling toward the entrance.

“Come smell her and tell me yourself, Cherfan,” Thakur answered, nosing Ratha ahead of him. She approached Cherfan. Another movement brought her eyes back to the cavern and the large gray-coat standing beneath the center of the arch. Ratha froze. Cherfan looked back over his shoulder.

“I can tell you who she is,” said a harsh voice, and amber eyes were fixed on Ratha. “Cherfan, stay back.” The dun coat obeyed and retreated. Meoran turned to Thakur. “You know I have little patience with you these days, herder, yet you dare to push me further. Where did you find her and why do you bring her?” He sat, waiting for Thakur’s answer.

“I found her in the high grass of the meadow. I thought she was a raider stalking our dapplebacks.”

“Then do with her what is done to raiders,” Meoran snapped.

“Wait, Meoran,” Thakur’s voice was stronger and louder, rising above the muted roar of the stream below.

“Hear me. She has not returned to us as an enemy even though you stripped her of her name and made her outcast. She wants to join again with her people.”

Meoran curled back his lips, showing fangs like tusks.

“She wants to come back. Accept her. We of the Named are so few that to cast one aside is foolish. Once you would not have listened to words such as these, but I know you have changed.”

“So it is your new knowledge of me that makes you bring her drooling to my den.” Meoran sneered. “I would use that knowledge in a wiser way, herder.”

Ratha swallowed and tried to hide her hunger. Thakur’s front claws scraped on stone.

“I hear your words, Thakur,” Meoran answered at last. “The wisdom I have learned from the Un-Named makes me admit what you say is true. Every one of our people we can gather in will help us to survive.”

“Then may we accept her?” Thakur’s eyes were bright, eager. He leaned forward.

“Hold, herder,” Meoran growled, narrowing his eyes to amber slits. “There are more things to say.”

Thakur lowered his muzzle, slightly abashed.

“You, Ratha, stand before me.”

Slowly Ratha walked toward Meoran. The gray-coat seemed as massive as the stone he sat on. Cherfan and his mate came and stood beside him. More survivors from the broken clan peered out from behind him. They were sons and daughters of clanfolk Ratha had known. Here was a young male with the crooked tail of Srass, the grizzled herder. Of the older clan members, the only one that remained was Meoran. He sat upright beside Cherfan, towering over the young father.

Thakur had told her on the trail that Meoran’s rule was no less harsh than before, yet the harshness now was of necessity, not the petty tyranny it had been. His errors had cost him all of his sons and nearly all of his people; knowledge was imprinted as deeply on him as the gashes that Un-Named claws had made across his face. Cherfan looked at him as a son might look at a father and Ratha sensed he had earned that devotion.

The amber slits opened suddenly.“I do not forget the night when a cub carried the Red Tongue among us. And I see by your eyes that you have not forgotten either.”

“It is gone, Meoran,” Ratha answered. “It perished in the creek. By my foolishness.”

“And not by the claws of the herder Fessran, as I was told.” Meoran turned his head. Ratha followed his gaze to Fessran, crouching nervously in the shadow near the inside cavern wall. Meoran eyed her and yawned, showing the back of his tongue and all his teeth. “Sit up, herder, and don’t cower like a cub. Ratha’s tracks betrayed her. After I spared you I went back and saw where she slid and fell into the stream.”

Fessran shot Ratha a fierce glance that stabbed her with joy and fear.

Meoran grinned.“Did it amuse you to think you fooled me? I spared you, Fessran, because I needed you. With the Red Tongue gone and the she-cub driven out, you were no threat to me. So you lived.” He turned to Ratha. “So you wish to return. To be a herder once again. To eat at the clan kill and obey clan law.”

“Yes, Meoran.” Ratha looked down at her paws.

“You ask me to forget the night you and your creature shamed me before my people. That is asking much.”

Ratha lifted her head and stared into the glowing orange eyes as she had stared into the heart of the Red Tongue.“Most of those who remember that night are dead now,” she said softly. Everyone was still, listening. “There is no shame left in dead memories, Meoran. Now it is only between you and me.”

“Ratha, be careful!” hissed Thakur behind her.

“Quiet, herder!” Meoran roared, startling everyone. In the rear of the cavern, a cub began to wail. “You come to me asking to share my meat and my den, yet you speak to me as an equal,” Meoran said to Ratha.

“What I ask is to serve again as a herder and work for my meat.” She felt her whiskers bristling. “I will obey clan law.”

“Obeying clan law means obeying me,” Meoran said in his deep voice. “That you must do without question.”

“I will obey.” Ratha clamped her teeth together, feeling her hatred build again.

“Look at me as you speak and let me see what your words really mean.”

Ratha brought her gaze up to his.

The orange eyes semed to blaze out and devour her. She fought back, quietly, deep inside, hoping he couldn’t see.

After a long moment, he looked away.

“You will obey me in words, perhaps, and in deeds, but not in heart. Every time I look at you, I will see challenge in your eyes.”

“No!” Ratha cried miserably, knowing he saw what she could not hide. She would never forget that he too had bowed his great head before the power of the Red Tongue.

“Listen, you who were once of the clan,” he said to those assembled around him. “I will hear other words. Shall she come back among us?”

“Shall we invite a tick into our fur? Or maggots into our meat,” cried the young male with Srass’s tail and ears.

“Yet, she is young and strong and could bear cubs,” Cherfan argued, turning to Meoran. Mutterings grew and spread. Ratha listened and heard with dismay that most were against her. Fessran got up from her crouch against the wall and came toward Ratha. Her joy at seeing Ratha again was so obviousshe could not hide it, and it was no further risk of Meoran’s wrath to run to Ratha’s side and welcome her openly.

Fessran sat close beside her and she felt her warmth and her fast breathing.

“Meoran!” Thakur cried. “Hate begets hate. Let old trails be covered with grass. If you turn her away, you will regret it. I need another herder. Cherfan’s cubs need a teacher. The Un-Named are enemy enough. Why make another?”

Meoran raised his paw and pointed at Ratha.“The hate is not mine. She chooses the trail she will run. Look at her!”

Ratha stood, quivering, trying to quench the rage boiling inside her, trying to be the humble herder she was asking him to believe she was. She knew that the voice that had so often lied for once spoke truth.

It was something in her, something that burned deeper than the Red Tongue. It was something she did not want, for it betrayed all her wishes; all her hopes to be united once more with her people.

“Meoran is right,” she said in a low voice. “I have chosen the path I run. He has not made me outcast, it is I who have made myself.” She raised her head. “I say it in words now so that it will not be said in blood tomorrow. Take care of your people, Meoran.”

She turned, choking on her last few words, and the hunger that twisted her belly. For a moment she saw the pain in the faces of her two friends; then she was beyond them and running down the stone slab. She heard Fessran leap up and run after her and she redoubled her speed. She heard panting just behind her and a voice.“Ratha, if you don’t stop, I’m going to pull you down like a dappleback!”

Ratha slowed, jogged to a stop.

“Go back, Fessran. He needs all of you,” she said.

“He’s wrong!” Fessran cried, her face wild with agony. “We need you. For what he has done, I swear I’ll seek his blood!”

“No!” Ratha hissed. “He’s right, Fessran. Didn’t you listen? Your people can only survive if they stay together, under one leader. The Red Tongue has tainted me, made me want something I was never meant for and should never have. You are still free of the taint, Fessran. Go back to Meoran, obey him and your people will live.”

“Ratha!”

“Go back, Fessran,” she said softly, touching the other with a paw. “And tell Thakur he is forgiven.”

Then, before Fessran could speak again, Ratha bounded down the trail, leaving her friend behind. Darkness closed about her, seeming even to block out the stars overhead, and as she ran she felt as though she were plunging down the maw of some hideous thing that had risen up to swallow her.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Ratha fled to the edge of clan ground. There, by the stream bank amid the trees, she dug a den and lived by herself. Often, as she hunted shrews and bare-tails, she heard the sound of fighting in the meadow and the shrill cries of herders and raiders. She would turn her back on the noise and hunt elsewhere, for she hated both sides equally.

She thought that all the clan would shun her, for her friends would face Meoran’s wrath if they came to search for her. That Thakur or Fessran might find their way to her den was too dangerous a hope to allow herself. She thought often of leaving again and becoming a wanderer, without people or territory. There was much to see beyond clan ground and even beyond the land held by the Un-Named. Once she had climbed up a peak and seen a sparkling line of blue where the hazy sky met the land. Wild new smells in the wind blowing into her face made her long to journey that way.

Soon, she knew, she would be gone. There was nothing holding her to this place and its pain. She would run free across new plains and valleys; see beasts that even Bonechewer had never showed her, and if she ran far and fast enough, she might even escape her memories.

One morning Ratha returned from a night’s prowl to find someone waiting at her den. Thakur.

Ratha’s throat tightened. She had been longing to see him, but now that he was here and looking into her eyes, there was nothing for her to say.

Thakur lowered his head and nudged something on the ground near his foot. His nose had a smudge of red as he lifted his muzzle. Ratha sniffed and almost drowned in her own saliva, for her hunt had been unsuccessful. He had brought half a liver, fresh enough so that it was still dripping. Ratha dared not ask how much it cost him to take it.

“Meoran will know,” he said in response to her look. “I may pay for it later, but that is my choice, yearling.”

Ratha ate rapidly, shearing the juicy flesh between her teeth.

“I cannot stay long. Cherfan has taken my place; he does that much for me,” Thakur’s voice said beside her. “I will come and see you when I can, for as long as you stay near clan ground.”

Ratha eyed what was left of the liver, wondering whether to eat it all or save some for later. Something made her glance at Thakur. His eyes and his smell told her he was hungry. There was not much food for the clan these days, yet he shared what there was with her.

“My belly is full,” she said, nosing him toward the meat. “Eat.”

He snapped at the liver. She listened to him chew and tear the food. When he was finished, she said,“I won’t stay past this season.”

Thakur’s whiskers drooped. “I know, yearling. There is nothing for you here. I was wondering when your paws would seek a new trail now that this one is done.”

“This one is done,” said Ratha softly. She lifted her eyes to his. “And you, Thakur. Do your paws seek a new trail?”

She could see him retreat before her hopefulness.

“No, yearling. I am where I must be. If you and I were the only ones left, I would run beside you. If there were more of us to herd dapplebacks and fight off raiders, then too I would come. For our people, for Cherfan’s cubs, I must stay.”

Ratha licked him gently, above the scars on his neck where Meoran had torn him.“I will be here a little longer. Go to the ones who need you. Will you bring Fessran the next time?”

She felt him stiffen and he looked at the ground. Ratha clamped her teeth together, angry at herself for being so stupid.

“She is bitter enough toward Meoran,” Thakur said. “I am afraid for her. If she sees you again it may feed her anger.”

“And you do not want her to take the same path as I did,” Ratha finished for him.

“Yearling, it is bad enough that you must be apart from us.”

“Then hide the way to my den and scuff out my tracks in the mud so she may not find them,” Ratha said wryly. “And tell her when I go.”

“I will.”

Thakur lifted his tail and trotted away along the stream bank.

As summer passed into fall, Ratha stayed by herself, alone except for Thakur’s visits. Each time he would bring something, and she was grateful even for small rancid scraps, for her catches would not always fill her belly. He would bring news of the clan and how they were faring against the Un-Named. At first Ratha grunted and turned away when he spoke of the others, butshe began to listen. She was lonely, and her hatred could not keep her as isolated as she wished.

She knew that Thakur was worried. The Un-Named pressed the herdfolk hard. Many days and nights the clan spent fighting. She also knew that winter would make the raiders hungrier and fiercer. Ratha could see in Thakur’s eyes a gnawing fear that his little group, the last of the Named, might not survive.

With fall came winds that lashed the pines and swirled dust and leaves into the air. It ruffled Ratha’s coat as if it wanted to seize her and fling her into the sky with the dust and dried leaves. Its moan in her ear made her wild, and the tug at her fur made her want to run until her paws blistered and her breath tore her throat.

She stayed still, watching the clouds build over the mountains. Everything told her it was time to go, yet she stayed, held by an old memory and a forbidden hope.

Thakur continued his visits, glad that she was staying, although puzzled as to why. The news he brought was sometimes joyful and often sad. Another female in the clan had given birth late in the year and the cubs were healthy. But one of Cherfan’s youngsters had died trying to help his father defend the herd.

Ratha listened and mourned with Thakur over the loss. But his voice turned into a drone in her ear and her gaze strayed up between the swaying branches to the sky. Why did she even dare to hope that the Red Tongue might return?

Ratha’s last hunt had worn her out. She didn’t hear the first few droplets pattering down or the thunder’s faraway rumble. She slept, nestled deep in her den.

She woke to a flash of light so brilliant she saw it through closed eyes. The noise was more a shock than a sound. The earth seemed to shiver beneath her feet and she flung herself to the rear of the den. Another flash from outside turned the brown soil white and left spots dancing in front of her eyes. There came another sound, a loud cracking and splintering, the sound of a great tree falling.

Ratha crept to the den mouth and peered out. She saw orange flame dive to earth, riding the crown of the toppling giant. The burning tree crashed among its neighbors, setting their branches afire. Smoke boiled up, meeting the rain.

She peered down. The stream below her ran black and glistening.

Ratha crouched at the mouth of her den, her heartbeat rocking her. The fire’s fury made her want to run, yet a deeper longing drew her toward it. The line of trees was soon a wall of flame. Ratha could see shadows bounding and leaping; other creatures fleeing the fire.

The Red Tongue, she thought, looking at it.The Red Tongue has come again.

She saw deer running, silhouetted against the flames. Small creatures scampered past her, almost between her legs, their fear of the wildfire so great, they took no notice of her. A small snake slithered by, the firelight jeweling its scales. The rain had stopped, and Ratha could hear the crackle and sputter of the fire.

She heard something else and jerked her head around in fright. Coming toward her along the stream bank was a slender shadow.

“Thakur?” Ratha whispered, but her voice stuck in her throat. The stranger’s gait told her it wasn’t Thakur. Ratha huddled at the entrance, her head low, her ears back. Who else had found her den?

The smoke-blurred form halted.“Ratha?” The voice was Fessran’s.

For a moment Ratha was silent, remembering why Thakur had not brought Fessran to see her.

“Ratha!” The voice came again, husky, and trembling. “I followed Thakur the last time he came. I waited until tonight.”

“Why did you come, herder?” Ratha heard her own voice say. Fessran was suddenly before her, blocking out the shadowed orange light, replacing it with two burning eyes.

She paced before Ratha, lashing her tail.“A cub has died,” she said.

“Thakur told me Cherfan’s son was killed by raiders,” Ratha said, looking up.

“By Meoran’s stupidity! To ask a cub that young to guard the herd, without training! Meoran said there was no time for training.Ptahh! I saw the young one pulled down. Meoran was too late to save him. Now Cherfan’s son lies with maggots crawling across his bones.” Fessran’s voice was low and harsh. “All of us will die, one by one. There is no hope for the Named as long as Meoran leads us.” She turned and stared at the fire.

Ratha waited, knowing and dreading what Fessran would say next.

“Meoran’s power is ended. You and the Red Tongue are all we have against the Un-Named,” Fessran hissed. “Take up your creature, Ratha. I will follow you again.”

“No. That trail is closed to me,” Ratha answered, but she too could not help staring beyond Fessran into the wall of writhing flame. Waves of heat beat in her face.

“No trail is closed to you if you bear the Red Tongue,” Fessran’s voice hissed in her ear.

“Go back to your den, herder,” Ratha said between her teeth. “Leave the Red Tongue to burn and die.”

The other’s eyes widened. “Are you afraid to take up your creature again?”

“It never was my creature. Do you understand?It never was my creature. Fessran!” she cried as the other spat and leaped away.

“I do not fear the Red Tongue!” Fessran’s howl came back.

It is not the Red Tongue I fear. Ratha stared after Fessran.

The bounding figure grew smaller and blacker against the rippling orange flame, curling around the lower branches of the trees, flowing up them like a river into the night sky.

For an instant Ratha could only watch. Then she too was running, stretching her muscles in a half-mad attempt to catch her friend. Fessran plunged toward the fire like a falling stone.

The sound of the fire grew in Ratha’s ears until it was a continuous pounding roar. The wind whipped across her back, feeding the rising flame. A cracking, groaning sound made her look up. Another tree started its majestic fall, fire streaming from its crown. It toppled forward into the meadow, igniting the dried grass. It fell across Fessran’s track and Ratha could no longer see her.

She galloped toward the fallen tree, getting as close as she could before the thick smoke drove her back. She retreated, racing along the burning length of the fallen pine. Smoke rolled over her in searing clouds, choking her. As she skirted the tip of the pine, another tree crashed down in front of her, spitting sparks into the grass.

Ratha reared up on her hind legs, trying to see across the fiery barrier. There, deep in the inferno, was a figure whose image shimmered in the waves of heat rising from the flames.

“Fessran!” Ratha screamed and thought she heard an answer. The two trees had fallen toward each other so that they lay with their tips together, their trunks still hidden in the fire that engulfed the trees still standing. The two blazing trunks formed a barrier that trapped Fessran inside. Theonly way in or out between the two crowns, whose interlocked branches formed a menacing lattice, would be to break them away in order to get through.

Ratha leaped into the air, trying to catch a glimpse of Fessran. She saw her friend on the other side of the barrier, crouching in a patch of grass that had not yet caught. Ratha could hear her coughing.

She flung herself at the maze of burning branches, using her rage to drive away her fear. She sank her teeth into bark, feeling hot resin sting her tongue. She bit through small branches and broke away large ones, ignoring the flames leaping around her. Her mouth was soon bleeding, her paws scorched and blistered, but she attacked the blazing mass again and again as if she had gone mad. Then, suddenly, with a final flurry, she broke through.

For a moment she stared in disbelief. Fessran was there, encircled by flames, yet she carried a burning branch in her mouth. She swung her torch at the fire, trying to drive it away.

Fool! thought Ratha.The creature does not fear itself.

“Fessran!” she called and the head bearing the torch came up. Fessran gathered herself and leaped toward Ratha. The fire licked at them from both sides, burning their fur and searing their skin.

“Fool! Mad one!” spat Ratha even before they were out of the flames. “Leave it here with the rest!”

Fessran only curled her lips back, showing Ratha her teeth clamped on the shaft of the branch. Ratha tried to swat it out of her mouth, but Fessran dodged and galloped away. She stood, looking back at Ratha.“Take one for yourself and run with me,” she said between her teeth.

Ratha stared at her. The power of the Red Tongue was rising again. There was nothing Ratha could do now to stop it. The night would only end in death, for Meoran would know by now where Fessran had gone and on what errand.

As if in defeat, Ratha lowered her head. With eyes still on Fessran, she seized a flaming branch and broke it off at the base. Despite herself, her heart beat faster. To have her creature once again was a triumph, even though a bitter one. Fessran trotted away, her torch held high. Ratha followed.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The storm moved on, leaving the trees burning. Ratha and Fessran stood together on the far side of the stream, sensing that water would check the wildfire’s advance. Ratha stuck her torch into the soft mudbank. Fessran still held hers between her jaws. The crackle of their two torches echoed the groaning roar of the wildfire. A touch of gray showed beyond the sparks shooting into the sky.

Ratha gathered a pile of branches, for she knew the torches would soon burn low. Fessran snapped her head around as the wet grass seemed to move in the firelight. Ratha nudged her friend, feeling Fessran shiver. She felt curiously calm.

“Meoran will not come,” Fessran hissed. “We will have to seek him out. I grow weary of waiting here and the Red Tongue in the trees burns too close.”

“He will be here, herder,” Ratha answered. “Once he knows you have come seeking me, he will be on your track.”

“I wish him speed,” Fessran snarled, her teeth clenched on the torch shaft.

The grass waved again and Ratha heard footsteps. Fessran lunged with the torch as a shadow streaked out of the grass. A scent, made alien by a blast of acrid fear-smell, washed back over Ratha.

“Thakur!” she cried as Fessran froze where she was standing. Thakur crouched in the shadows, glaring at both of them.

“Put that torch down or I’ll take it away from you,” Ratha snarled at Fessran. “It would have made more sense to give the Red Tongue to a dappleback. Put it down!”

Fessran obeyed, driving the splintered branch end deep into the mud beside Ratha’s. Thakur crept into the circle of torchlight, his head lifted, his belly close to the ground. His ears flattened and his teeth flashed as he spoke.

“I feared you would find your creature again,” he said to Ratha. “Meoran comes and the clan is with him. When he heard the sky-fire strike and found Fessran gone, he knew.” He stopped, panting. “Run, both of you! Throw down your torches and flee! You escaped him once, you can again. Run!”

“No, Thakur. He will not be turned away as easily as he was the last time. He will hunt us until he has our blood,” Ratha said in a low voice.

Thakur almost threw himself at Ratha, his eyes shimmering with rage and agony.“How many will die in this madness? Shall this be the death of my people; the Named killing the Named? Have they earned such a death? If so, tell me how.”

Ratha’s belly twisted as she watched him.

“Enough, Thakur,” Fessran interrupted. “You have no stomach for this. Run away so that at least one will survive as the last of the Named.”

Thakur turned from Fessran to Ratha.

“Do as she bids you. Or pick up a torch and stand with us,” Ratha said softly.

He cast a look back over his shoulder.“He comes; I hear him now,” Thakur moaned. His voice rose to a hiss. “For the sake of your people, throw the cursed thing down and run!”

Ratha’s head turned at the sound of footsteps. Smoke hung beneath the trees, boiling along the ground. There were shadows behind the haze. Amber eyes stared out from a massive shape as gray as the rolling smoke. It became large and solid as Meoran approached.

“Wise words, Thakur Torn-Claw.” Meoran thrust his massive head through the haze. One bite from those jaws could crush the skull of a three-horn stag, Ratha knew. He was not one to provoke lightly.

For an instant the three of them stood still facing Meoran and the clan. Then, with a sudden shriek of rage, Fessran snatched up her torch and flung herself at Meoran. He reared, hauling his gray bulk into the air. He struck out with slashing foreclaws as Cherfan and the other young males rushed from behind to guard his flanks. Fessran tumbled away, bleeding. Her torch fell and guttered out.

“So this is the power of the Red Tongue.” He sneered and kicked the smoldering branch away from her groping forepaws.

“Meoran, wait!” cried Thakur. “You have destroyed Fessran’s creature. There is no need to take her life. Let me talk to her.”

Fessran lay on her side, her neck and chest red and ragged. She lifted her head and glared hate at Meoran.

“Talk will do nothing,” Meoran snarled. “Her eyes are like the eyes of the other, the she-cub.”

Ratha watched Fessran quivering on the ground. She raised her head and met the gray-coat’s stare. “The she-cub speaks,” she said quietly. “Leave Fessran. She is not the one you seek. I told you before; it is between you and me, Meoran.”

The clan leader took one heavy step forward.“Stay back,” Ratha heard him growl to Cherfan and the other young males who flanked him. “This one is my meat.”

He took another step and then jerked his head back in astonishment. Thakur stood in front of him, blocking his way to Ratha.

“The Named do not bare fangs against the Named,” she heard Thakur say. “Do you forget the old laws?”

“I make the laws for the clan, Thakur Torn-Claw. Move aside!” Meoran spat at Thakur and struck him in the face. He bowed his head and Ratha saw him lick blood from his nose.

“The Named do not bare fangs against the Named,” he said again, so softly that Ratha could barely hear him.

“I don’t bother with fangs for such as you. Claws do well enough.” Again Meoran lashed out at Thakur, laying the other’s cheek open to the bone. Ratha flinched as if she had been the one struck. Something inside her began beating against the walls of its prison. She wanted to shriek at Thakur to stand aside and let her face Meoran alone. She began to tremble, fighting her rage. She knew if Meoran struck Thakur again, that her rage would win.

The two stood apart, stiff-legged and bristling, Thakur still blocking Meoran’s way. The wild thing beating inside Ratha’s chest was as angry at Thakur as Meoran. What right had he to interfere? Had he not betrayed her the night the Red Tongue died? Meoran’s power would have fallen then. And what did he think he was doing now? Did he think that seeing him bleed would calm her? No! Blood would bring blood.

Meoran raised a paw. Thakur looked at him, his face blank, expressionless. The blow came, with all of Meoran’s weight behind it. Thakur reeled and his head snapped around spraying red onto Ratha’s coat. He sank down in front of the gray coat.

Fessran shrieked and the cry tore through Ratha. She wrenched her torch from the ground. Meoran was approaching Thakur slowly, almost leisurely, his jaws opening for the killing bite. Flame barred his way. Again he reared striking out with his forelegs to knock Ratha’s torch from her jaws as he had Fessran’s but Ratha was too quick. The brand scorched his chest and he skittered back, howling.

“Ratha, no!” cried a hoarse voice and she caught a blurred glimpse of Thakur staggering to his feet, his mouth open in pain as the gleaming blood ran from his eye and cheek, dripping along his jaw.

Ratha walked toward Meoran with the torch in her teeth. All those that had clustered around the clan leader melted away. And Meoran cowered, terrified, mouth gaping, sides heaving.

“Close your jaw or your tongue shall meet the Red Tongue,” Ratha snarled. He gulped and shut his mouth.

“On your side and offer your throat,” Ratha ordered lifting her head with the torch. “Look well, you of the clan. The Law of the Named is now the Law of the Red Tongue.”

They crouched together, their bellies to the ground. Cherfan, his mate, Srass’s young son and the others all stared helplessly at the scene before them.

In her pride, Ratha answered their gaze and took her eyes from Meoran.

He exploded up at her, fangs seeking her throat. With a violent twist of her head, she swung the torch in a vicious arc and drove it down into those gaping jaws. The impact almost jarred her teeth loose from the shaft. Then, with a strange tearing sound, it gave, throwing Ratha off-balance. The shaft was torn out of her mouth and she was knocked aside.

She had lost, she thought dizzily as she fought to keep her footing. She whirled, ready to meet Meoran in a final desperate attack with teeth and claws. For a moment, she stood, stupefied.

Meoran spun in a circle like a cub chasing its tail. He was a blur of gray with a dancing patch of orange. And he was screaming.

When he paused, exhausted and spent, Ratha could see him and her rage froze into horror. The shaft of the torch protruded from his mouth, jamming it open. The blackened end, streaked with red showed beneath his chin and the Red Tongue curled up around his lower jaw on both sides. With a shock, Ratha realized she had driven the jagged end of the firebrand through the bottom of his mouth. Blood and froth bubbled up around the shaft and sizzled in the flame.

Meoran cried again, a half-choked scream. He pawed at the hated thing, now so terribly embedded in his own flesh. The Red Tongue blazed up wrathfully and Meoran flung himself back and forth as it licked at his face, blistering his jowls.

From the corner of her eye, Ratha saw Thakur lurch through the swirling haze toward Meoran.

“The stream!” he cried. “It dies in water! Seek the stream.”

Ratha stood frozen as Meoran staggered toward the creek. She did nothing to help or to hinder him. She no longer wished to be the one to decide how he would die.

Meoran shrieked and reeled back from the bank. Fessran leaped at him from the rushes, blood-spattered, vengeance-hunger hot in her eyes. She struck at the torch shaft penetrating his lower jaw, using the pain to drive him back from the water.

“Eat well, night creature,” she crooned to the flame. “He is a feast worthy of your hunger. Dance on his bones, sear his entrails and make him sing as he dies!”

Each time Meoran tried to gain the stream, Fessran was before him, singing a soft song to the flame and striking at Meoran’s face. The fur was black on his muzzle and ruff. The skin beneath was starting to swell.

Ratha leaped toward Fessran, but Thakur reached Fessran first. He caught her by the hindquarters and rolled away, dragging her with him. Meoran plunged past Ratha, the fire wreathing his head and neck. He did not reach the stream. He fell, writhing, into the grass. The wind whipped the Red Tongue.

Ratha saw Thakur approach, but the spreading fire drove him back. With a last spasm, Meoran’s body became still and started burning.

Thakur stood before the gray-coat’s pyre, Fessran’s limp form at his feet. Ratha could see him shuddering.

He turned and walked to the pile of branches she had gathered. He took one in his mouth and lit the end in the fire engulfing Meoran.

Ratha waited, trembling, as he approached her. She could see only one of his eyes and she feared the light there was the glow of madness. The fire was before her now, speaking with a savage voice. She stared into it. She would burn with Meoran.

“Ratha!” came Thakur’s voice and she looked into the ravaged face. “Are you ready?”

“To die by the Red Tongue? Yes. It is right. I am glad you will do it.” She lifted her chin, baring her throat. She closed her eyes.

“No! Not to die,” Thakur hissed. “To live as you told us. By the Law of the Red Tongue.”

Her eyes flew open. He was extending the torch shaft to her.“Take it, Giver of the New Law,” he said between his teeth.

Ratha bowed her head.“May my teeth rot if I ever take it into my mouth again! Fling it away, Thakur. The way of the Red Tongue is madness.”

“Madness it may be,” said Thakur, “but it is also life. Look to your people, Giver of the New Law.”

Ratha looked past him to the others of the Named who still crouched before her. She saw Cherfan huddling beside his mate, his eyes bright with terror. As Ratha’s gaze met his, he lifted his throat and bared it to her. His mate, crouching beside him, did the same.

“No!” Ratha whispered. “I never wished to rule. Meoran!”

“He lies burning in the grass. He will soon be ash and bones. His law is ended. The New Law must rule.”

“Then you or Fessran….” Ratha faltered.

“They do not bare their throats to me or to Fessran,” Thakur said. “Take the torch and lead your people.”

Again Ratha searched the eyes of those crouching before her. More chins were lifted. More throats bared. There were still those with eyes that waited and doubted.

Slowly she opened her jaws and felt Thakur place the branch between her teeth. His grip loosened and she felt the weight in her mouth and saw the Red Tongue dancing before her face. She watched Thakur back away, half of his face crusted and swollen. He too crouched and lifted his chin. She looked to the clan and saw that all throats were bared. She still had a choice. She could fling down the torch and throw herself into Meoran’s pyre. Or she could seek the trail that ran back to the mountains, abandoning her people to the ravages of the clanless ones.

The Red Tongue is madness. Thakur’s words came back to her again.It is also life. He had left one thing unspoken.

Now it is the only life we have.

She seized the branch, tasting the bitter bark. The wildfire still ate the trees and Meoran’s pyre was spreading through the grass.

“This is my creature,” Ratha said, holding the flame aloft. “It shall be yours as well. I will teach you to keep it and feed it, for it must never be allowed to die. You shall be called the Named no longer. Now you are the People of the Red Tongue.

She swung the torch around.“Follow me to the dens!” she cried. “Tonight we will give the raiders something new to taste. Do you hear me?”

The answer came back in a roar that deafened her. Her heart beating wildly, she sprang ahead, carrying the Red Tongue, and heard the sound of her people following.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Ratha stared into the depths of the fire, curling up from its nest of branches into the night sky. It burned loudly, crackling and spitting. The Red Tongue lived both by day and by night, but to Ratha it seemed strongest when it burned against the darkness. It was a creature of the night, yet it obeyed none of the laws of stealth and silence that governed other animals.

Her people gathered around the fire. She could see their green and yellow eyes through the shimmering air and the smoky haze. She took her gaze from the fire’s heart, looking away into cool blackness. The Red Tongue’s image still danced before her eyes in ghostly form and she shut them. She could not delay long. Her people were waiting. So were the Un-Named who hid in the forest beyond the meadow’s edge.

Ratha seized a branch from the pile beside her. It was a good one, she thought, smelling the sharp tang of pitch. She thrust one end into the flame, pulled it out and watched the Red Tongue blossom around the end.

“Fessran,” she said between her teeth. Fessran limped to her and took the torch.

“May the Red Tongue be strong tonight,” she said before her jaws closed on the shaft.

“Guard the animals well, herder,” Ratha answered when her jaws were free. “If my creature holds the Un-Named from our throats tonight, then you shall share the power I hold. I do not forget who fought with me when the Red Tongue’s light first shone in the eyes of the clan.”

Fessran dipped her torch and carried it away.

I would also have called you friend, for you have been to me like a lair-sister, Ratha thought. But I dare not do more than acknowledge your loyalty.

She said another name and lit another torch, watching as the next herder came forward from the circle. He took his brand and followed Fessran.

Again, Ratha plunged a branch into the Red Tongue and passed it to a pair of waiting jaws. One herder after another took their torches and trotted away to take up their station between the herdbeasts and the Un-Named. The orange stars of the firebrands shone up and down the meadow, sending dancing shadows across the grass into the trees. Screams broke from the forest, as if the firelight had reached in and clawed those hiding there. She had heard those screams before. They had risen from her own throat when she hid where the Un-Named were hiding now. But as each herder took his or her place, the cries changed. The screams of hate and triumph faltered as uncertainty crept in. The voices wavered, and Ratha could hear wrath fighting with fear. A new creature stalked the meadow this night and the Un-Named were afraid.

She thought of her old pack, of the young leader, the witless old gray and the others. They would be crouching together beneath the trees and turning to each other with eyes filled with bewilderment. What was this terrible blazing thing that chased the night away and stole the courage from the strongest among them? Where and why did it come? Only one among the Un-Named would know. Ratha stared beyond the fire, trying not to remember Bonechewer. He might be out there along with the cubs she had birthed with him.

She bared her fangs as if Bonechewer were standing before her, wearing that mocking grin that showed his broken fang. She grabbed a branch, biting so hard that it cracked. She threw it aside, seized another and thrust it into the fire. When she turned, the face before her was Bonechewer’s. She felt her tail flare into a brush and all the hairs along her back stiffened.

The eyes were green, not amber and the muzzle bore a long jagged wound, still swollen and crusted.

“Thakur,” she said and let all her hairs lie flat. “Are you the last?”

He approached, his eyes puzzled and wary.

No wonder, she thought.I must have looked ready to attack him.

“All the others have taken their torches, Giver of the New Law,” he said, but he did not open his mouth for the fire-brand as the others had.

“You may go without one if you wish,” Ratha said. She placed the branch back in the fire. “It must hurt you to open your mouth.”

“It will take much time to heal,” said Thakur. “Meoran did not keep his claws clean.”

“Once you feared my creature,” Ratha said softly.

“I still fear it. I fear it more now than I ever did.”

He looked steadily at Ratha, and there was something in his eyes and his smell that chilled her.

“I mocked you for your fear,” she said. “I will not mock you again.”

“I will take a torch,” Thakur answered. “I will need it when the raiders strike. But first, Giver of the New Law, I will show you your people.”

She wrinkled her brows at him, dismayed and puzzled by his words. Now was the time to prepare for the attack that might break from the forest at any instant. It was not the time to follow Thakur about the meadow to see whatever he might have to show her. She was about to refuse and send him back to the herd when the thought came almost unbidden into her mind.

He is the wisest among us. I turned his wisdom away when I should have listened. Now, perhaps, it is too late, but I will listen this time.

She let the fire burn by itself and followed Thakur. He did not lead her directly to the nearest torchbearer. Instead he walked toward a flame flickering at the far end of the meadow. He approached from behind and downwind so that the torchbearer could neither see nor smell him. He was almost within reach of the herder’s tail when the other leaped up and whirled around, swinging the firebrand. The flame roared and Thakur flattened in the grass. He rolled away, leaving Ratha facing the torchbearer. A paralyzing fear shot through her as she saw her own creature in the jaws of another. She who had tamed the Red Tongue could only cower before it in the instant before the torchbearer stopped his assault.

Beneath the fear was anger. Thakur had deliberately startled the young herder and then scuttled aside, letting her be the one to face the attack. He knew there would be no real danger once the torchbearer recognized her.

The young face was one she knew well; even too well. The torchbearer was the son of Srass, the old herder she had seen killed in the meadow. She remembered the old herder’s face at the last moment of his life; as the gray-coat ripped flesh from his quivering flank and the silver’s teeth crushed his skull. Pain and rage distorted the ugly muzzle but it was still Srass’s face until he died. Now she looked at the herder who was Srass’s son and saw nothing she knew. The red light that shone from the torchbearer’s eyes came from a fire that burned within as well as without. It was a new kind of wildness and a new kind of savagery she had never seen in those who used only teeth and claws.

She would have whimpered and backed away, but pride and anger held her where she stood. The torchbearer lowered his brand and his face became again the face of Srass’s son with all its lop-eared homeliness. But Ratha knew she would never be able to look at him again without remembering the change the fire had cast over him.

Is this how I looked when I stood before the clan with the Red Tongue in my jaws?

“Keep your guard, herder,” she said at last. “We should not have startled you.”

At the corner of her eye, she saw Thakur rise from his crouch and shake dry grass from his fur. Howls echoed across the meadow from the forest, and she saw the young herder turn to challenge the hidden enemy, the fire’s glow leaping in his eyes.

“Come, Giver of the New Law,” said a voice very near her. “I am still without a torch.”

Ratha’s fury rose and spilled over. “Thakur, I could feed you the Red Tongue as I did Meoran or have you gutted like a herdbeast!”

He looked back at her and the green of his eyes seemed to swallow her.“You could, Giver of the New Law. You may.”

The reply enraged her further, but she could do nothing except fume and bristle. She knew she could not strike him.“Why do you show me this?” she burst out at last. “You know as well as I that we must keep the Red Tongue if we are to live.”

“Look inside yourself for the answer,” he said. He paused. “I see you are angry, so I know you have found it.” He trotted back toward the fire she had left burning at the center of the meadow.

She ground her teeth together as if she were slicing meat. He knew as well as she that they could not turn aside from this new trail. What was he trying to do then?

One must know the path one runs even if the ground underfoot is not as one chooses, she thought and the answer almost came in Thakur’s voice. Her ears flattened. She was not grateful. Sometimes it was easier to take a path not knowing what lay underfoot or ahead.

The cries from the forest rose in pitch and intensity. Soon the Un-Named would begin their attack. The hair rose on Ratha’s neck, letting the cold of the night onto her skin. Would the Red Tongue save her people? They were still few and the Un-Named many. Only when morning came would she know, if she herself were still alive.

Another thought rose from beneath her anger and it too seemed to speak in Thakur’s voice. Even if the Red Tongue saved her people, they would never be the same. Once they were the Named, under Baire and then Meoran. Now they would be what she called them, a new name given without realizing what it truly meant. The People of the Red Tongue. And now she had seen the first of her new breed and now she knew.

As she returned to her fire, she passed other herdfolk. She approached them openly, letting herself be seen and smelled. Perhaps what she had seen in the young herder’s eyes was only anger at being startled. Perhaps it was only the brief intensity of fear that changed him and not the stamp of the Red Tongue. It was a new hope, but it did not live long enough to grow. Each of the torchbearers, even though unprovoked, held traces of the same look she had seen in the face of Srass’s son. Violent and gentle alike were all transformed by the blazing power they held between their jaws.

This is what we are, Ratha thought as she went from one to the other.This is what we are now.

Thakur was standing beside the fire when she returned. She lit a branch for him and gave it to him without words, feeling as though she were kicking mud into a clear pool even though she must drink from it later. He lowered his brand and trotted away, becoming one more of the flickering orange dots scattered about the meadow.

Again the raider’s cries swelled from the meadow. Ratha lifted her muzzle, her ears quivering. She saw the circle of herders about her tighten, bunching their beasts in the center. The torches swung outward.

She seized a branch of her own, lit it and left the fire to burn in its dirt clearing. As she reached the outer edge of the circle, the attack began.

She had hoped that the Red Tongue in the forest would have frightened the raiders away, but she knew that hate and hunger were as strong as fear. Her worries were confirmed when a scout reported that the Un-Named were circling around the areas that were still burning. He had spotted one group of the raiders making their way along a stream bank, making her suspect that there was at least one among the Un-Named who had some knowledge of the Red Tongue. She did not admit to herself that she knew who that one might be.

Shadows that had been as still as rocks or bushes against the trees crept swiftly into the meadow. They streamed from the forest, eyes and teeth glinting as they emerged into the open.

Ratha planted her torch and looked about her in all directions. There are too many, she thought, feeling her heartbeat shake her.Even with the Red Tongue, we are too few. The herders about her seemed to share her dismay, for she heard whimpers and saw bodies huddling together. And the raiders seemed to sense it too. They came faster, their hissing grew more vicious. And then they were no longer creeping but charging; black forms bore down on the herders from all sides. Ratha seized her torch again and thrust it outward with the rest. The attack gathered speed. The torchbearers waited.

Trembling, Ratha tried to peer beyond the circle of orange light. The raiders were still coming but the attack was faltering, its edges growing ragged as many of the Un-Named hesitated before the firelight. Ratha could hear individual voices rise above the yowling as the Un-Named leaders tried to drive their packs to fight. There was fear in those cries as well as rage. Fights began in the Un-Named ranks. Those who sought to flee the new power battled with those who forced them to attack. The mass of the enemy became a churning moonlit sea, turning in on itself.

It quieted. The howls of those who had fled faded into the forest. The torchbearer’s brands shone into fewer eyes, but in those faces hate ruled over fear. The first attack had failed. The second was about to begin.

The herders faced the Un-Named across an open swath of meadow. With a howl that rose to a shriek, a shape flew from the Un-Named ranks. Firelight flashed on a silvery pelt and Ratha recognized the jaws that had crushed Srass’s skull. The silvercoat drew the others after him and the Un-Named surged forward to meet the herders.

Torches fluttered and roared. Bared fangs were met with fire. The attackers reeled back howling from the touch of the flames and some carried the terrible creature away with them, smoldering as hot coals and ash in their fur ate into their flesh. Some went mad with fear and lay thrashing and frothing while their companions trampled them.

Ratha whirled to face the snarling silver. She dodged as he flung himself at her and dragged her torch across his face over his eye. The charred wood snapped, the end falling onto his foreleg. Blind and fear-crazed, the silver lurched away.

Ratha saw two other herders beating him across the back with their brands as he fled. She lost sight of him.

The branch in her mouth was now only glowing coals, creeping toward her whiskers. She dropped it and scuffed dirt on it. Other brands were also burning down or had broken against Un-Named ribs. She saw torchbearers slashing with fangs and claws and blood gleaming red in the firelight. She ducked a raider’s strike and ran to the bonfire. She lit a new torch and passed it to a wounded herder who carried only a broken stub, too dazed to throw the useless thing away. His eyes brightened; he snatched the new light and plunged back into the fray. As she stood panting, Fessran came alongside.

“Giver of the New Law, let me carry new torches to the ones who need them,” she said. “That is not your duty.”

“It shall be yours, Fessran. You are now the keeper of the Red Tongue and its cubs. If it still burns when dawn comes, its tending shall be your honor and your duty.”

Fessran passed her a lighted branch.“Go and drive the Un-Named back. The Red Tongue will eat their bodies when the sun rises.”

Ratha charged back into the fighting, her roar spilling from between her teeth. She leaped at the nearest enemy, raking him and searing him. Cries of rage and triumph broke from the weary herders, and they flung themselves on the raiders with renewed fury.

The Un-Named began to fall back. Slowly they gave way. They fought only to save themselves, and no longer tried to break through the herder’s circle to attack the milling herdbeasts. The mass of the enemy began to thin and Ratha saw more moonlit forms streak away into the trees.

She drove her torch into the ground beside a stiffening body and let out a mocking yowl.“They run!” she cried. “They are as cubs before the power of the Red Tongue. Let them taste it once again before the forest shelters them. To me, my people!”

The enemy’s ranks wavered and broke. The herders bore down on them and many cried their death scream before they reached the forest.

And then, all at once, it was over and the night fell quiet except for the soft screams of the wounded and dying.

Ratha stood with the torch guttering in her mouth, staring across the emptied meadow. Her heart gradually stopped its pounding. She had won. After such a beating as they had taken tonight, the Un-Named would not come again. The little flock of herdbeasts would grow large and cubs would play in the high grass, well-fed and free of fear.

She plodded back across the meadow, her feet dragging from weariness. Now there was no need to run fast. When she reached the bonfire, Fessran took the burning stick from her jaws and returned it to the flames. Others followed in Ratha’s wake and gave their brands back to Fessran. There was one more thing to be done and for that they needed their jaws free.

Among the Un-Named dead were the wounded, writhing in pain or trying to drag their shattered bodies from the meadow. Ratha watched her people walk among them. The herders vented their still-smoldering anger on the bleeding ones, clawing and slashing at them until they were torn lumps of flesh in which the breath trembled one last time and left. Ratha watched grimly. She had not given the order to mutilate the wounded, but she had not forbidden it either. She remembered how the raiders had eaten from Srass while he still lived. She watched, but took no part for the taste of blood mixed with the bitterness of charred bark was still thick in her mouth.

“Giver of the New Law,” a voice said, and she looked up into Thakur’s eyes. They were lit not by the firebrand, but by the faint glow of dawn over the forest.

“I am weary,” she said crossly. “If you wish to show me more of the change in my people, you will wait until I have slept.”

“It is not your people I wish to show you,” Thakur answered.

Ratha’s eyes narrowed. “One of the Un-Named?”

“One of the wounded raiders. He lives. He asks for you. He knows your name.”

She felt a sudden chill in her belly. It spread along her back, down the insides of her legs. Only one among the raiders knew her by her name. She had thought he was far away and safe on his own land.

“Lead me to where he lies,” she said roughly.

Thakur took her to the edge of the forest, to the long faint shadow of a small pine standing apart from the rest. The shadow grew darker and the grass lighter as the sky turned from violet to rose and then to gold. Two herders sat together, eyeing the wounded raider who lay beneath the pine. At her approach they uncurled their tails from about their feet and bared their fangs at the raider.

“No,” Ratha said sharply. “There will be no killing until I command it.”

She and Thakur approached the Un-Named one. A muscle jerked beneath the red-smeared copper pelt. Ratha heard a voice, hoarse and weak.

“Does she come, brother? I grow too weary to lift my head.”

“She comes,” Thakur answered and Ratha felt him nudge her ahead while he stayed behind. She stepped into the coolness beneath the trees. The raider’s muzzle pulled back scorched and swollen lips in a mocking grin. There was the broken lower fang.

“Come here, Ratha,” Bonechewer said, bloody froth dribbling from his mouth.” “Let me see the one who now leads the clan. Ah, yes,” he said as she neared him. ”You have grown strong and fierce. You will be a better leader than Meoran. What a fool he was to drive you out! What a fool!”

Ratha nearly pounced on him. She jumped and landed with her forepaws almost touching his face. She glared down at him.“Why did you come? Why?”

“To see you,” he answered, gazing up at her. “Perhaps to die at your fangs.”

“Bonechewer, stop mocking me, or I swear by the Red Tongue, you will have your wish! You told me you would no longer run with the Un-Named. Did your land yield too little to feed you this season?”

“No.” He coughed and his chest heaved. Ratha could see why the blood seeped from his mouth. The lower part of his chest was crushed and caved in. Blood welled there too and the flat, jagged end of a broken bone showed in the wound.

“I’m a mess, aren’t I, clan cat? That’s what I get for leading a pack of cowards. They fought me to escape the Red Tongue and when I went down, they trampled me.” He grinned again, grimacing with pain. “Then your herders came along and played with me for a while. Not the death I would have chosen.”

“Why did you come?” Ratha’s voice grew soft and trembled, despite her wish to hate him.

“After I drove you away and the cubs left, there was nothing to hold me to my land. When the Un-Named came through again, I went with them.”

“The cubs left?”

“Yes. You were right about them. I could not believe I fathered such a litter. I could scarcely keep them from each other’s throats or from mine either. They are out there, the savage little killers.”

“Did Thistle-chaser live?”

“Yes, she lives, half-mad as she is. You may see her in the packs if the Un-Named are foolish enough to venture here again.” He coughed and shuddered. “I have seen you again, Ratha. That is all I dared ask for and all I wish.”

“Is that all you want from me, Bonechewer?” she asked, trying to suppress the sudden grief that welled up inside her.

“If your fangs would help me toward the dark trail, I would not resent it,” he answered. “Or if you cannot kill me, tell another to do it.”

Ratha swallowed, barely able to speak. She looked toward Thakur. He rose and came toward Bonechewer. Her flank brushed his as the two passed.

“Away, herders!” she cried at the two still sitting and staring. “There is no need for you here.” They whirled about and dashed away. She followed at a trot then slowed to a walk, watching her people dragging the Un-Named corpses into the dirt clearing where the fire burned. Fessran and theothers who helped her were piling fuel on the flames, making them bright and hot, eager to consume the bodies. At the other end of the meadow, the dapplebacks grazed peacefully, showing no sign of the night’s terrors. Ratha let her eyes rest on that scene and turned her back on the fire.

Grass rustled behind her and a familiar smell was with her. Not until Thakur was beside her did she turn her head.

“I held my brother’s throat until he was still,” he said softly.

“Did he say anything more?”

“Only that clan leaders are not forbidden to grieve.”

Ratha’s jaw dropped. “That arrogant mangy son of a scavenger! He thought I would cry for him? He thought … I would … cry … for….” Her voice broke into a keening wail as her sorrow escaped at last. She stamped, lashed her tail and flung her head back and forth. All the rage, hate and sorrowshe had felt and kept hidden now took her and shook her until she was left panting and exhausted. She stumbled to Thakur and laid her head against his chest. “I am even more a fool,” she muttered, her sides still heaving. “A clan leader should not bawl like a cub.”

“No one was watching,” Thakur chided gently.

At last she lifted her head and gazed across the meadow. There the dapplebacks grazed, with the herders around them. Soon there would be three-horns and other kinds of beasts, for Thakur and others in the group were good at catching and taming them.

My people will survive,Ratha thought. They have changed, even as I have, but they will survive. That is what matters.

“I left my brother under the pine,” Thakur said. “Is that what you wished?”

“It is. His bones shall lie there and those who pass shall honor them.” Ratha drew a breath. “Once I hated him. Now there is nothing left to hate. He was my mate, Thakur, with everything that it meant. I will not soon forget him.”

“Nor I, Ratha.”

She turned to Thakur, to the green-eyed face that echoed the one whose amber eyes were closed in death. No. He was not Bonechewer, and he too evoked memories that, if anything, were more painful. She would take no mate until the raw memories were soothed and healed by time. But, she sensed, he would be a wise and comforting friend and would run beside her on the rough new trail that lay ahead of her and her people.

It would not be an easy path, and the dangers that lay there might be beyond her capability to face. Yet ragged and weary as she was, she lifted her muzzle in voiceless challenge to those things still unknown.

She was Ratha, she-cub, herder of three-horns, tamer of the Red Tongue and leader of her people.

Whatever came, she would meet it with all the strength and wit she could command. One thing she knew; as long as she and the Red Tongue lived, her people would survive.

Triumph overcame her weariness. She lifted her tail and trotted after Thakur as he walked across the meadow toward the rising sun.

Clan Ground

The Named Series: Book Two

To my friends, Dorothy and Donya,

who were there at the beginning.

Chapter One

The gathering was to take place in the older part of the meadow, about the flat-topped stone the herders called the sunning rock. Thakur, the herding teacher for the clan, arrived first. With a glance over the meadow to see if anyone else was coming, he bunched his hindquarters and leaped up on the gray stone, then stretched out to catch the sun’s last warmth. Insects droned about his ears and a rock lizard hissed at him for taking the best spot. He flicked his tail at the lizard once, then ignored it.

Thakur shifted himself in the slight hollow worn by the many who had lain there before him and felt the sun-gathered heat of the stone through the fur of his belly. He folded his forepaws beneath him and let a soft purr flutter in his throat as the evening breeze ruffled the fur on his back. Then the breeze died away and only the twilight stillness and the scent of the sunning rock rose up about him.

The stone he lay on had its own scent. One couldn’t smell it when there were other, stronger odors in the air or a wind blowing, but at other times, one could catch the faint scent of ancient rock baked by sun and beaten by rain.

Thakur’s purr grew softer until it faded. He felt slightly ill-at-ease sitting here where Ratha, the clan leader, would be when the clan assembled. He thought of the Firekeepers and the dance-hunt that was soon to come. The sunning rock seemed to cool beneath him and he shivered.

The dance-hunt had begun as a story, a retelling of the clan’s battle against the Un-Named Ones who preyed on the herd and drove the clan to the edge of destruction. Bearing a strange new creature called the Red Tongue, a young female led the fight, striking such fear into the raiders that they trampled their own wounded as they fled. Few of the Un-Named had been seen near clan ground since the final battle. By her courage and wit, Ratha had gained clan leadership and the tale was begun to honor her.

The herding teacher was old enough to carry the scars from that fight and to recall how the story had been first told. He also remembered how it changed in the telling. Those who told it added movements to their words and the words themselves became a chant to which the tale-tellers swayed.

In the first cycle of seasons after Ratha’s victory, anyone could be chosen to tell and act the story. Later, the Firekeepers, who had been given the duty of keeping Ratha’s creature, claimed the honor as theirs. They enlarged it, adding more individuals to play the parts of enemies and defenders. They added more motion, until it changed from an acted tale to a dance.

Much less to Thakur’s liking was the way the story changed from triumphant to vengeful and the dancer’s motions from joyous to frenzied. Somehow Ratha didn’t seem to notice, or, if she did, she thought the change was unimportant. Each season Thakur disliked the dance-hunt ritual more, for it kindled in him a strange fear, one he couldn’t put a name to.

Perhaps he felt the fear because his own ties to the Un-Named were too close. Though born of a clan female, Thakur and his brother Bonechewer were sired by an Un-Named male. Clan law forbade such matings and for good reason: they often produced young who lacked the intelligence and self-awareness necessary to a people who called themselves Named. Though Thakur’s mother had been exiled for violating that law, the old clan leader had seen the light of the Named in the cubs’ eyes and had tried to keep them within the clan. In the end, Thakur had stayed behind, while Bonechewer was taken by his mother to join the Un-Named. Because of his parentage, Thakur had never been fully accepted in the clan until Ratha’s ascendancy gave him the status to which his abilities entitled him.

The high grass parted far across the meadow and he heard the noise of other herders and the sound of herdbeast carcasses being carried and dragged. The clan would feast well before the dance-hunt. They had chosen a three-horn doe and a big stag, one almost too heavy for the jaws that held it.

He watched the herders come across the meadow, their fawn and golden brown pelts melding into the colors of the dry grasses. His own coat was a dark coppery shade not common among those of the clan.

Thakur’s task of teaching clan cubs to manage dapplebacks and three-horns didn’t include helping to cull the animals. Sometimes he did help, for the younger herders often needed skill and experience as well as raw strength. But Thakur was willing to let the others do the killing.Many herdbeasts have felt my teeth and there will be more, he thought. I have grown old enough to know each animal I take and to sorrow as much as rejoice in its death.

When the herders drew near, they waved their tails at him to come and help drag the carcasses the last distance to the sunning rock. The rich smell of meat coaxed Thakur down off his perch. He hurried to seize a dragging hock, for he knew that those who helped to carry the culled beasts would be among the first to eat. Of course Ratha came before any of them, but she always left plenty.

The order in which the clan ate would change tonight, for the Firekeepers needed to keep their bellies empty to meet the exertion of the dance-hunt. The second animal the herders had culled would be saved to feed the dancers.

By the time all the clan herders had their turn at the first kill, twilight was past and the stars shone overhead. Despite his uneasiness, Thakur had eaten well and carried a rib bone away with him to crack and lick while he waited for the dance-hunt to assemble. Hunger was not so strong in his mind now as it had been earlier, and, as he savored the salty marrow, he remembered the Un-Named raider that he and the other herders had chased away that morning. Near clan ground the Un-Named were few and widely scattered, but every once in a while one or two would come on their land, driven by drought and poor hunting.

Thakur didn’t know why this Un-Named One had come. The stranger had lacked the strength to try for even the weakest dappleback. He was so starved that he looked like a yearling, although the length of his teeth and his ragged silver-gray coat told Thakur he was older. The herding teacher remembered the stranger’s face, a face so drawn that bones of cheek and jaw showed under the sparse pelt.I hope these three-horns were slain downwind of the Un-Named One. It would be cruel of us to make him smell what he may not eat.

Several Firekeepers passed Thakur, carrying kindling in their jaws. They threaded a path through the clanfolk, leaving the scent of pitch pine on the evening breeze. He watched them arrange the wood in a pile and depart to fetch more. Thakur’s teeth ached at the thought of their task and he felt glad he taught herding.

He listened to the sound of grunting and crunching nearby as powerful jaws cracked a stag’s thighbone. He worked his own piece of rib around to the side of his mouth and chewed it absently. The herder next to him, who had broken the thighbone, sat up stiffly, his nose raised and his whiskers back.

“What’s in the wind, Cherfan?” Thakur asked, knowing his neighbor by the latter’s scent. Cherfan stiffened again and lay down. “I thought I caught a whiff of that raider we chased away.”

The herding teacher tested the breeze and found only the familiar smells of clanfolk.“Your nose must be playing tricks on you. That Un-Named One barely escaped us. He wouldn’t be able to drag himself this far. If he isn’t dead yet, he will be in a few days.”

“And I’ll be the one who has to carry him away. Phew! I get all the smelly jobs,” Cherfan grumbled and then added, “Look, there’s Ratha.”

A slim shape padded across the starlit meadow and leaped to the top of the sunning rock. At her arrival, the gathering grew quiet. Mothers hushed restless cubs and those chewing on bones put them aside. Several Firekeepers left bearing branches in their mouths, and Thakur knew they had gone to light their brands at the dens where the fire-creature was kept.

Across the dark grass, Thakur saw the flickering light of torches. Far away as they were, the approaching firebrands seemed to challenge the cold light of the stars. In the gathering circle, heads turned and eyes glowed red at their centers. A soft wail started up from many throats. It grew louder and gained rhythm as the firebearers drew nearer. The wails and howls joined into a wordless song that praised the Red Tongue. Thakur felt the cry welling in his own throat and clamped his jaws together to stop it.

Now the gathered faces were lit; shadows fled across the pale grass as if they were live creatures that dreaded the coming of the power the clan called the Red Tongue. As the shadows of tree and bush escaped into the lair of night, other forms, hidden beyond the approaching firelight, crept toward the torchbearers.

Two odors came to Thakur from two different directions. From the Firekeepers came a sharp, excited smell, an aggressive scent that stung his nose as much as the smoke from their brands. From the others, the mock enemy in the dance, came a bitter smell that brought acid into the back of his throat and dried his tongue.

The dance-hunt began. The torchbearers leaped into the center of the circle and the fire seemed to fly with them. Their faces were visible now, their muzzles outlined against the fierce light of their brands. At the opposite side of the circle, those who had no fire froze and flattened in the grass.

Thakur felt his neck fur prickle.Every time I see this, I have to remind myself it is not a real fight. I wish they didn’t do it so well.

One of the torchbearers crossed the open ground before the sunning rock and swung his brand down to light the brush pile at its base. From the“ Un-Named” side came snarls and someone leaped with forepaws flung apart, mouth open and red.

The torchbearer started and shied, pulling back his brand. Another“ enemy” sprang onto him, dragging him down by his hindquarters. His firebrand fell and smoked. The clan’s wail died to a hiss. The Firekeepers charged, routing the raiders, pushing them into the darkness. But soon their opponents crept back and attacked once more.

The clan’s song rose and fell, becoming a wordless chant that followed the pace of the battle. As the torchbearers stalked their night-hidden opponents, the voices hushed to a murmur. At each run and clash, they rose to a shriek.

The battle followed the chant as well, for the Firekeepers’ steps came to that rhythm and those who played the Un-Named crept and flattened to the pulse of the cry. About Thakur, tails swished and paws struck the ground together. He felt himself drawn into the rhythm with every breath he took and every movement he made. He clenched his teeth and drove his claws into the ground.

I saw no harm in this dance when it began as a joyful celebration. But season by season, it has changed into something fierce and cruel.

The fight grew wilder. Some of the Un-Named fell and rolled as if dead. Burns and scratches showed along their sides, beading blood. A new smell tainted the air and Thakur knew that some torchbearers had forgotten that this fight wasn’t real. He shifted, flattening his ears.Ratha, can’t you see what the Red Tongue has done to our people?

He sought the eyes that glowed green from the sunning rock, but she, like the others, was too mesmerized by the dance-hunt to look back at him.

Despite the smell and feel of bodies close about him, Thakur felt isolated. He watched the limp forms that he knew were living, and sweated through his pawpads. He felt as though his fear made a change in his scent that would betray him as half-clan and vulnerable to the hate being howled at the enemy. Beside him, Cherfan sniffed, turning his nose toward Thakur even though his eyes remained fixed on the scene before him. Thakur tried to calm himself, knowing that his neighbors might detect his uneasiness.

In the circle, the battle split apart into individual fights as the Firekeepers stalked the remaining enemy. The combatants whirled, lunged and struck with claws and firebrands. The song and the fight grew fiercer, until the last of the enemy was driven away into the darkness. A panting torchbearer came forward to light the brush pile and Thakur could see it was the Firekeeper leader, Fessran. She tossed her torch into the tinder and flame leaped up.

He heard her voice above the roar and crackle.“Is it well, Tamer of the Red Tongue and Giver of the New Law?”

“It is well, Firekeeper,” came Ratha’s reply from the sunning rock. “My creature is still strong. It will defend us against the Un-Named as it did when we drove them from clan ground.”

Her voice was strong, but it sounded to Thakur as though she had pulled herself from a daze. He wondered if she understood at last the dangers of the ritual that she had created. But whatever thoughts she had then were interrupted as Fessran drew back her whiskers as if smelling some new and threatening scent. She peered intently into the night, suddenly rose from her place at the front of the gathering and left the bonfire.

Ratha sprang to her feet. For an instant, she looked puzzled, then her gaze followed Fessran’s and her tail began to wag angrily, challenging the intrusion. “Hold, Firekeeper!” Ratha cried, staring into the darkness beyond the circle. “The hunt is not finished.”

Silence swept across the clan as all eyes followed her gaze. Another smell filled the air, pungent and sour. It spoke of desperation mixed with fear in the form of a stranger who still lurked outside the circle. All Thakur’s hairs stood on end, for he knew by the scent who the intruder was. Around him other herders bristled in response to the invasion.

Quietly the herding teacher left his place, circling around the outside of the group. He saw Cherfan and Shoman plunge into the night after the intruder. When Thakur had almost caught up with them, Cherfan reappeared tailfirst, his teeth fastened in a bony leg. With one heave the big herder yanked the stranger into the circle of firelight.

The captive made a frantic series of jerks as if he could tear the leg off and leave it between Cherfan’s jaws. Then with a hoarse cry, the silvercoat twisted and lunged, his fangs seeking the herder’s cheek. Thakur leaped, seized the silver’s scruff and pulled his head back. The teeth clicked together in front of Cherfan’s face.

Thakur wrinkled his nose at the pungent taste of an ill-kept pelt. He could see Cherfan grimace as fleas jumped from the captive’s hindquarters onto the herder’s nose. More of the Named sprang on the stranger and a howl went up. The Firekeepers ran to help and were halfway across open ground when Ratha’s snarl halted them. “Stop the fight,” she ordered. “Bring this stranger to me.”

The clan was so fevered from the dance-hunt that the scuffle continued for a few more moments before it finally stopped. Thakur lost his hold on the stranger’s ruff and backed out of the fight. The herders Shoman and Cherfan emerged from the fray dragging the tattered form of the Un-Named One. There was more red than gray on his fur now. Shoman wrenched him back and forth, tearing his ruff. With an angry grunt, Cherfan pulled the Un-Named One from Shoman’s jaws and dragged him to the sunning rock. The torchbearers surrounded him with their brands so that Ratha could see him. The captive squinted and shut his eyes against the fierce light.

Thakur shook his head and smoothed the fur ruffled by the fight.This morning he was too weak to be a danger to the herdbeasts. Now he has asked for death by coming here.

The torchbearers pulled back their brands and the captive’s eyes opened. Thakur looked into them, expecting to see a dull green or yellow stare clouded by panic, and the inability to understand. He had seen it before: the gaze of animals who resembled the Named in every way except for the lack of light in their eyes.

The herding teacher flinched in surprise at what he saw. The Un-Named One’s eyes shone orange. Not amber, but a deep, glowing orange, the color at the center of the Red Tongue. In the depths of those eyes, almost masked by rage and fear, was a clarity and intensity Thakur hadn’t expected.

Others of the Named had seen it too. Suddenly the invader had become more than a scavenging animal.

Thakur saw Ratha lean so far down from the rock he thought she might tumble off. Slowly the Un-Named One lifted his muzzle to meet her stare. The silvercoat opened his mouth and Thakur tensed, ready to spring to Ratha’s aid if the Un-Named One attacked her.

What came from the stranger’s jaws was not a roar of challenge nor a whimper of fear, but words in clan speech.

“Not bite. Not claw,” he said in a hoarse voice. “Came to clan. Not to kill.”

The words were awkward and ill-spoken, but understandable. This time Ratha did slip and had to scramble to regain her seat. The other clanfolk stared at each other in disbelief.

“No kills.” The silvercoat put out a stiff forefoot. “Sniff paw. No deer-smell. No horse-smell. No blood.” He kept the leg extended, although it trembled from weariness.

No one else moved. Thakur saw Ratha look toward him.“Herding teacher, you know the scents of our animals better than anyone else. Tell me if what he says is so.”

As Thakur approached the crouching silvercoat, she added,“If there is even a trace of a herdbeast’s scent on him, he will die now by my fangs.”

The herding teacher circled the Un-Named One, smelling him carefully from all sides and trying to ignore the stench from filth and festering sores. He pawed dirt away from between the toes so he could smell the soil without the other’s odor intruding. When he finished, he stood back and said, “He has eaten only roots and grubs. There is no herdbeast smell on him.”

Ratha peered down at the orange-eyed silvercoat.“So Thakur says you have made no kills on clan ground. Why have you come here?”

“Clan is fierce and strong. Clan eats while Un-Named grow thin and die. This one, Orange-Eyes, not ready to die.”

The hostile muttering faded. The Un-Named One glanced about.“Orange-Eyes is clever, like clan. Not afraid. Should be with clan.” Boldly he added, “Clan needs Orange-Eyes.”

Ratha recoiled and spat.“We have no need for a mange-ridden scavenger who thinks too much of himself.”

“Orange-eyes has sores because no food. Eating will make better.”

“I told you we don’t want you. Now go.”

The Firekeepers drew their brands aside to let the Un-Named One slink away, but he turned instead to Ratha.“Now this one wants only to die by clan fangs. Let ugly herder with kinked tail come forward and kill Orange-Eyes.”

“Gladly,” Shoman growled from the back. Thakur felt Shoman push past him roughly, leaving his fur rumpled.

“Shoman, keep your place!” Ratha narrowed her eyes at him, then at the Un-Named One. “So you think you are clever and brave enough to join us.” She raised her head. “Fessran, the dance-hunt is unfinished. Let the Firekeepers take their place.”

Again the ritual started, the quarry now a single enemy. At Ratha’s order, not a claw touched Orange-Eyes, but the torchbearers’ steps took them close to him, and they thrust their brands at him, flaunting the Red Tongue’s power. Each time a flaming torch came near the Un-Named One, he jumped and shuddered, but he held his ground. The Firekeepers’ lungescame closer until fire licked silver fur. Orange-Eyes fell on his side, no longer able to keep his balance, but he refused to either flee or cower.

Fessran, sitting next to Thakur, never took her eyes from the stranger. Her tail curled and twitched with suppressed excitement.

“Enough!” Ratha cried.

The torchbearers fell back. The silvercoat crept to the base of the sunning rock. Thakur heard the murmurs around him and knew that the stranger’s courage had impressed even those who bore the greatest hatred for the Un-Named.

The silver lifted his streaked and smeared muzzle to Ratha and stared directly into her eyes.“Orange-Eyes is worthy. Orange-Eyes stays.”

She crouched on the edge of the rock, her lips drawn back to show the tips of her fangs. For a moment Thakur thought she would pounce on the Un-Named One and shred the rest of his face for his impudence. As green and fire-colored eyes met, Thakur saw in Ratha’s gaze a reluctant and surprised admission of respect. There was a further moment of tension between them; then she wrinkled her nose at the stranger and relaxed.

“All right, Orange-Eyes is worthy,” she said. “He stays, at least for now.” She got to her feet, cutting off the mutters and growls of astonishment and outrage. “The gathering is ended. The Firekeepers may eat now. To your dens, the rest of you. There are still beasts to herd and day willcome soon.”

She waited until the group had begun to disperse before calling,“Thakur, come to the sunning rock.”

His tail curled in surprise. Ratha jumped down and stood beside Orange-Eyes. The Un-Named One had regained his feet, but only by leaning heavily against the base of the rock.

“Clan teacher,” Ratha began, “since you have the most patience of any of us, I ask you to take charge of him for the night. Give him some meat from the Firekeepers’ kill and show him the stream where he may wash the blood away. If he is still alive tomorrow, bring him to my den.”

Chapter Two

Ratha drifted up out of deep slumber. She became aware of the damp, chilly ground under her chin. She squirmed further back into her den, into the warmth still held by dry leaves and grass, leaving only her nose poking out into the early morning wind. When the breeze died, the sun bathed her muzzle and dried the dew on her whiskers. She was slipping back into sleep again when a cold shadow fell across her face.

She came awake instantly, jerking her head up and pulling her paws beneath her. She squinted at the two figures who stood against the sunrise. One she recognized as Thakur, but the other she couldn’t place. Who was this skeleton with such a ragged pelt and strange long fangs? Then she caught the stranger’s pungent stink and winced.

“Last night,” said Thakur’s voice softly. Ratha didn’t need his words to remember.

“You’re early,” she grumbled, crawling from the den and trying to smooth her rumpled fur with her tongue. She was further disconcerted when neither of her visitors said anything. They waited while she stretched and groomed. She found herself taking longer than she usually did, for the stranger’s direct gaze irritated her.

“I see he survived the night despite the Firekeepers’ games,” she said to Thakur, allowing her tail one irritable wag. She saw his ears swivel back slightly and she imagined what he must be thinking.The Firekeepers’ game? No, Ratha, the dance-hunt is yours and you gave the order for it to continue.

At least he had the tact not to speak the thought aloud. She shook her head, making her ears flap. Had she really turned her victory celebration into a test of courage for the Un-Named One? And had she promised him he could stay with the clan as a reward for enduring the Red Tongue’s terror? She groaned softly to herself.I was half-mad last night. I think we all were.

She sat up, curling her tail over her feet.“Bring him here and let me look at him.” She immediately regretted her request when Thakur led his charge in front of her. The full sunlight did nothing to disguise his appearance and seemed to intensify his smell. New blisters overlay old mange and along his ridged back and sunken flanks ulcers showed from festering fly bites. Where parasites and fire hadn’t ravaged him, there were the bites and scratches from the frenzied Firekeepers.

Ratha felt sick and ashamed. Driving him away or giving him an honorable death would have been better than unleashing the torchbearers on him.He would have died last night had I not seen the light in his eyes.Why didn’t you die, she thought at him sulkily.Then I wouldn’t have to bother with you.

She caught the scent of medicinal herbs and knew that Thakur had applied a chewed-leaf poultice to the Un-Named One’s burns. They probably looked and smelled better than they would have otherwise.Thank you for showing him some kindness, Thakur. She looked at the herding teacher and felt her gaze soften.

“Lie down if you want,” she said to the Un-Named One. He dropped his hindquarters, but the rest of him remained upright. Ratha felt irritation creeping up on her again. She pressed her tail under one hind foot to keep it from wagging. Every look and move the stranger made seemed softly defiant.Inside that starvation-ravaged carcass, she could see the build of a powerful young male, and she found herself wondering what sort of opponent he would be at his full strength.

“Do you still wish to join us?” she asked.

“Orange-Eyes came to join clan. Is all Orange-Eyes wants, leader.”

“Here in the clan we use names when we speak to each other. You know Thakur. I am Ratha. You will also be given a clan name if you stay with us.”

“Will take clan name and learn clan ways, Ratha-leader.” The silvercoat flinched at his mistake and added, “Is not ‘Ratha-leader’ but ‘Ratha,’ yes?”

She relaxed. He was trying to please. Perhaps his defiance was all in her own mind.

“Yes.” She took her foot off her tail.

“I’ll take him to the meadow with me and he can watch while I teach the cubs,” Thakur offered. He turned to the Un-Named One. “Do you feel strong enough?”

“Legs still …,” the other said, groping for a word. He raised a paw and flailed it, giving Ratha a rueful grin.

“Shaky,” Thakur supplied.

“Legs still shaky, but belly much better. Not learning bad for Un-Named One, yes?”

“Yes, you do seem to be learning quickly,” Ratha agreed. “All right, Thakur. Take him with you. If you want more leaves for his burns, I found a new patch by the stream near the meadow trail.”

“Good. I’ve nearly stripped my old one bare.”

Something small and active jumped from the Un-Named One’s pelt and landed near Ratha’s foot. She hopped away as he scratched himself.

“I suggest, Thakur, that you make him roll in the fleabane before you do anything else, or we’ll all be scratching.”

During the next few days, curiosity nagged at Ratha despite her trust in the herding teacher. It was too soon to tell how Orange-Eyes would take to life among the Named. Thakur did say that his strength was coming back and he displayed a sharp interest in the teaching sessions, but as the days went by, she itched to see for herself.

Meetings with the Firekeepers and minor disputes over whose den was dug too close to whose kept Ratha busy. This morning she decided to creep away before anyone else could find her.

The day was bright and hot. Sun and shade dappled the trail through the broken forest to the meadow. Birds flew from oak to scrub thorn, dipping so low over the trail they nearly brushed her back. When she reached the meadow, she made her way through the dry grass, craning her neck to peer above the waving stems and spot the herd. There it was; a small flock of three-horns and dapplebacks that the herding teacher had taken from the larger herd in order to exercise his students.

Thakur and the yearling cubs stood together on one side of the flock. The youngsters gathered around him, their ears cocked, their spotted rumps squashed together, their short tails lifted. He was explaining something; she could hear the rise and fall of his voice, but couldn’t understand what he was saying. The cubs seemed attentive. No. Wait. Wasn’t one missing? Where was Drani’s son Bundi?

Ratha scanned the meadow for a glimpse of spotted fur. There he was, the foolish litterling! Making feints at a three-horn fawn while he should have been listening to his teacher.

And who was that lying in the shade of a scrub oak? The Un-Named One, watching Bundi through slitted eyes. Ratha saw him tense and scramble to his feet.

His motion thrust her gaze back to the misbehaving cub, but she could only see a cloud of dust where he had been. She leaped up, straining to catch sight of the cub. A three-horn doe marched out of the rolling haze, her nose-horn lowered and ready.

Ratha’s tail and whiskers went stiff as she sought for a trace of the youngster, fearing she would see him down in the grass with a smashed foreleg or jaw. His shrill squeal drew her gaze to the cub, now flattened in the dirt. He backed away from the deer, his nape bristling, his ears flat.

She drew back her lips and caught the sour taste of fear-scent in the wind. Her hindquarters bunched and she launched herself through fibrous grass, feeling it rake her on legs and chest.

No, Bundi! she thought, remembering her own training.Never show the animals you are afraid…

The deer stalked after Bundi, her head low, fawns bleating at her sides. Even as Ratha begged her body for more speed, she felt she was too far away to help.

Had he been one of the other students, he might have escaped without her aid. She knew Bundi couldn’t. He had neither the speed nor agility to evade the three-horn.Never again will I give Thakur a weakling cub to train!

She saw the herding teacher stop talking to his students and stare intently at the far edge of the herd, his ears straining forward. Cubs scattered in all directions as he plunged through their midst and dashed toward his threatened student.

The three-horn gathered herself for the savage rush that would leave Bundi writhing in the dirt… before Thakur could reach him.

I won’t reach him either, Ratha thought with sudden despair. She filled her lungs and roared,“Use your eyes, Bundi! Stare her down! Use your eyes!”

The cub only cowered, too frightened to obey. The grass rippled between the young herder and the deer. A silver-gray head popped up, ears and whiskers back, orange eyes intense. The deer halted and tossed her head, trying to avoid the interloper’s gaze. Then, with a whistling snort, the three-horn charged.

Ratha saw only a gray blur as the Un-Named One streaked toward the deer. He threw himself high in the air before the three-horn, his paws spread and his tail flared. The deer skidded and fell back on her haunches. She reared, striking out with cloven forefeet and bellowing her anger. One foot grazed the Un-Named One as he landed. He yowled and scurried a short distance away.

Ratha sprinted toward Bundi. In an instant his terrified squall met her ears and his spotted pelt appeared before her in the rolling dust. Without breaking stride, she snatched him up by the scruff and galloped away with him bouncing in her jaws. He was too heavy to carry any distance, so she dropped him when they were out of range of the three-horn’s charge. She looked back for the Un-Named One.

No new wounds showed on his coat although his ribs were still painfully evident and his flanks drawn. The three-horn swung around, now intent on him. He planted his feet wide apart and stared at the deer, forcing her to meet his gaze. She pawed the ground, trying to start a new charge. Now the orange eyes had trapped her. No matter how the herdbeast might throw her head about, she couldn’t escape that fiery gaze.

The Un-Named One took one deliberate step toward the deer. Ratha watched carefully. An animal who learned it could defy the herders was too dangerous to keep. If the three-horn doe charged again, she would be clan meat that day. If the Un-Named One could stare her down and break her will, she would live to nurse her fawns.

She saw Thakur come to a halt. He, too, was watching. The deer lifted a hind leg and placed it nervously behind the other. The Un-Named One took another step. The three-horn’s defiance broke and she backed away.

“Enough,” Thakur said, nudging the silvercoat aside. He took over and soon had the deer in full retreat. With a disgusted bray, the three-horn wheeled and galloped back into the herd. The fawns followed on spindly legs.

Ratha let out her breath. She heard a smaller sound beside her. Bundi flinched when she looked down on him, and she imagined how he must be feeling. Not only had his foolishness gotten him in danger; he had to be rescued by the clan leader.No, not really, Ratha thought.I wasn’t the one who stopped the deer in mid-charge.

“Thakur will chew your ears for your foolishness,” she said roughly to the cub, “but at least you’re alive.”

The herding teacher had taken the Un-Named into a patch of shade. Ratha trotted across to Thakur with Bundi trailing behind.“Is the Un-Named One hurt?” she asked.

“No, just tired.” He turned to Bundi. “Cub, you know what you did. Go over to the side of the meadow and think about it. I’ll speak to you later.”

Chapter Three

A fitful wind blew against Thakur’s whiskers. He caught a scent he hadn’t smelled all summer: the scent of rain. It was only midday, but the sky above the meadow had started to darken. Thakur lifted his muzzle to the clouds and saw other herders raising their heads.

The herders circled the restless deer and dapplebacks. Thakur joined them in driving the animals together. Dust rose from beneath many trotting hooves and caught in his throat. There was dust in his eyes, between his toes and on his whiskers. His pelt felt dirty and gritty right down to the roots of his hairs. He had given up trying to lick all of it out, for the taste of it on his tongue made him gag and the next day’s work would only add more. Everyone in the clan was beginning to look the same dusty color. Even the Un-Named One’s silver fur had turned mousy, giving his fire-colored eyes a startling brightness.

The dapplebacks whinnied and bucked as the herders drove them under the old oak, but Thakur knew that, if the storm brought thunder, they would be less likely to bolt if they were sheltered. The three-horns spread out under other scattered trees, whose few dried leaves offered them little of either food or shelter.

Pale sunlight faded as clouds massed overhead. The herders and their animals lost their shadows and the sky’s gray deepened. More torchbearers appeared at the trailhead, carrying the Red Tongue and wood to feed it. Thakur saw the Un-Named One trailing behind them, carrying a small bundle of twigs in his jaws. Although Ratha hadn’t yet assigned him a task, he had chosen to help the Firekeepers.

The Un-Named One, who was still called Orange-Eyes for lack of a clan name, delivered his mouthful of wood to the nearest Firekeeper who needed it and joined Thakur near the oak.

“They bring the Red Tongue today early,” Orange-Eyes said in answer to Thakur’s glance. “Fessran said the herders see bristlemanes and there may be attack before dark.” He still spoke awkwardly, but his mastery of clan speech had improved in a surprisingly short time.

They watched the Firekeepers build small piles of kindling at equal intervals around the edge of the herd and set them alight. The torchbearers tried to locate the guard-fires beneath overhanging pine boughs or thorn-bushes that were high enough not to catch and would give some shelter, but several had to be built out in the open.

Soon a wide ring of small flames, each guarded by a Firekeeper, surrounded the deer and dapplebacks. The sharp scent of woodsmoke mixed with the blowing dust and the smell of the coming storm.

Something struck the ground at Thakur’s feet, kicking up a puff of dust. A drop hit his nose. Thunder grumbled and the three-horns bleated. A gust of wind came, tearing at the grass and whipping the guard-fires. Firekeepers pawed at the ground around each flame, scraping away the dried weeds and litter so the fire-creature couldn’t escape. They know how hungry the Red Tongue can be,he thought.

Again he lifted his nose to the sky. It was a smoky gray, with streaks and ripples that moved like the water in a wide, slow river. Rain would be a welcome gift after the parching heat that had lasted past the summer season, but a downpour might kill some of the fire-creatures, opening up a vulnerable place in the ring of defense around the herd. Thakur felt more heavy drops on his head and his ears. This would be no light shower.

The rain fell faster, beating on his pelt. He didn’t usually enjoy getting wet but the rain was warm enough to be pleasant and he was dirty enough to welcome a bath. He stretched himself and fluffed his fur letting the rain trickle through to his skin.

Thakur found himself watching the streaks made by the rain on his companion’s dusty flank. Orange-Eyes had recovered rapidly from his bout with starvation. His wounds had healed and his mange was receding, leaving a few sparse areas that already bore the fuzz of new fur.

Thakur noticed other things about him as well. The silvercoat’s chest was deeper and his forelegs longer than those of the clan, giving his back a slight slope downwards to his tail. His forequarters looked more powerful than those of the Named; his shoulders and neck more heavily muscled. Even the shape of his head was subtly different. He had an odd archin his skull that began at the crown of his head and flowed down through his broad nose to meet and blend with the backward curve of his fangs.

It was clear to Thakur that part of the stranger’s parentage was neither that of the clan nor that of the Un-Named, but a line unknown. Yet, at least one of his parents had given him the gift of self-knowledge that lit his eyes. Would he be able to pass it on to his young?

The rain grew heavier, soaking their coats and turning the dust to mud. Thakur saw several Firekeepers gathered about one of the guard-fires in the open. Some ducked beneath the sheltering pine bough and breathed on the Red Tongue while others piled kindling.

“Have to go bring more wood,” the silvercoat said and loped away. He had barely gone when Thakur heard a strange howl. He turned his whiskers outward from the herd in the direction of the sound. At first the cry was faint and lost in the constant beat of the rain, but it continued rising, gaining strength until it filled the meadow. The eerie, wavering howl broke into barks and yips that seemed to taunt the herders and the Firekeepers as they worked to protect their animals.

The howl faded, leaving only the hiss of the rain. Thakur retreated beneath the boughs of the old oak, water streaming from his tail and ears. The air under the tree was dank and heavy with the noise and smell of wet dapplebacks. In a while Orange-Eyes reappeared at the trailhead into the meadow, delivered his mouthful of sticks and joined Thakur. Many of the other herders also sought shelter from the downpour, although some aided the Firekeepers in trying to protect the guard-fires.

“Dung-eating bristlemanes!” growled the herder Cherfan, spraying his companions as he shook his heavy pelt. “It’s not the rain that makes me shiver; it’s those howls.”

“How many of them did you see?” asked Thakur.

“A pair, but I smelled more. There may be a whole pack. How I hate the stink of those belly-biters!”

As if the enemy had heard Cherfan’s words, the howls started again. They were louder this time and wilder, breaking into bursts of short, frantic cries that were unlike any other sound made by animals the Named knew. To Thakur, they had the sound of madness. He felt as though he could no longer stand and listen. “I’m going to help the Firekeepers,” he told Orange-Eyes, and dashed out from beneath the oak.

He narrowed his eyes against the sheeting rain and headed for the farthest guard-fire, which had begun to gutter and smoke beneath the canopy of branches held over it by the Firekeepers. He saw Fessran there, fighting to keep the flame alight. She started and shivered as another burst of wild howling broke across the meadow.

“No!” she snarled, slapping a branch from the mouth of a Firekeeper. “That won’t do. It’s much too green and too wet.” She turned to another Firekeeper, a young female with a red-brown coat. “Bira, get a pinewood torch from the nearest fire-lair.” She glanced over her shoulder at Thakur. He heard Orange-Eyes canter up behind him as Fessran said, “Herding teacher, you could help by bringing more dry kindling. Take Orange-Eyes with you; he knows where the woodpiles are.”

Bira dashed off toward the den where the master fire was kept, and Thakur turned to Orange-Eyes. Before he could repeat Fessran’s request, the silvercoat said, “I know what she needs. Follow me, herding teacher.”

As Orange-Eyes sprang away, Thakur saw Fessran lay back her ears at another luckless Firekeeper.“Can’t you hold that branch so that it doesn’t drip right on the Red Tongue? No wonder the creature is dying!”

Thakur peered through the rain, made out the form of Orange-Eyes, ducked his head and galloped after him. When they reached the woodpile, a heap of broken branches thrown against the base of a large fir, Orange-Eyes began to pull the top ones off.

“The sticks underneath are dry,” he said quickly. Thakur forced his muzzle in among the piled branches, ignoring thorns that raked his face. He smelled the warm resinous aroma of wood that had been drying all summer. He fastened his jaws on a branch sticking out from the bottom of the pile and pulled until he thought his fangs would break.

With a sudden snap, the branch came free and he tumbled backwards into a puddle. He felt the clammy ooze soak through his fur to his skin as he scrambled to his feet, but he managed to keep the wood from getting soaked.

To keep the rest of the wood covered, Orange-Eyes replaced the sticks he had taken from the top of the pile. He wrapped his bundle of sticks in a large dock leaf before taking it into his mouth, and showed Thakur how to do the same. When the herding teacher was ready, they galloped back through the rain toward the dying guard-fire.

Thakur saw the blurred forms of Bira and another Firekeeper pacing alongside her with a pine bough held above the torch she carried. But it was already too late. He heard a despairing yowl above the rain and caught sight of Fessran deserting her fire-creature’s nest. For an instant he was puzzled; then he knew that the guard-fire had died and they were trying to save the next one.

He and Orange-Eyes changed direction and galloped to Fessran with their loads of thornwood. Ratha was there, helping the Firekeepers, but despite the new torch Bira had brought the guard-fire began to smoke and faded quickly to embers. They retreated to another blaze that was still alive.

Thakur passed the wood he had brought to the jaws of a Firekeeper and rubbed his muzzle against his foreleg to ease the sting of a scratch on his jowls.

“Go tell Cherfan to drive the three-horns under the oak with the other animals,” Ratha said to him. The rain ran down her face, streaking the soot on her muzzle. Behind him he heard Fessran roar in alarm, “The dapplebacks! They’re attacking the dapplebacks!”

As Thakur backed out of the choking haze, he saw a line of hunched forms lope from beneath the trees at the meadow’s far side. They galloped past the ashes of the dead guard-fires and toward the herd of horses. He could hear their shrill, excited yips.

Ratha bunched her hindquarters and sprang away, followed by Fessran and several Firekeepers. Thakur wheeled and sprinted after them. He felt mud spray his legs and found Orange-Eyes running alongside of him. Ahead were the bristlemanes, a full pack of them. He caught the flicker of Ratha’s fawn coat through the rain as she dashed to cut them off.

Her attack split the pack of marauders. Half of them ran past her, heading for the dappleback herd. She and the Firekeepers gave chase and disappeared into the rain. Fessran plunged after her, only to slide to a sudden stop. There were shadows in front of her, shadows turned gray by the rain. Thakur saw the Firekeeper lunge and slash with her foreclaws. The bristlemanes retreated, but not far. They started to close about her again with hungry whines.

Together Thakur and Orange-Eyes charged them. The animals loped away, their tongues hanging and their short, ragged tails tucked between their legs. Instead of scattering, the bristlemanes circled back. Thakur spun to seek a retreat only to find himself blocked in every direction. He, Fessran and Orange-Eyes were completely surrounded.

He backed up against the two others, smelling their fear and feeling them shake. The downpour grew heavier, until he could barely see a tail-length ahead or hear the faraway cries of the other herders. He felt the fur on his neck rise in fright. The three of them would get no help from the other herders, who must be busy chasing the other raiders from the herd.

The bristlemanes closed in. Now he could see the black and yellow mottling on their pelts and the stiff, coarse manes along their necks. Their eyes shone cold and eager. The flesh of the Named could fill those bellies as well as herdbeast meat, Thakur knew. Their nostrils widened and their large ears trembled, swiveling forward.

The bristlemanes approached cautiously, their black muzzles lowered, their heavy jaws slavering. Their smell reached him, making him think of flies crawling over white bones. The Un-Named One’s growl sounded on one side of him, Fessran’s snarl on the other. Her snarl turned to a screech as a bristlemane dived for her flank. Thakur saw her twist away and fasten her teeth in the thick mane, but the fur was so stiff and heavy that, however she worked her jaws, she couldn’t bite deeply enough. Blood began to run, but the creature stayed on its feet, dragging Fessran with it.

Thakur had to guard himself as another bristlemane rushed him and snapped at his belly. He sprang onto the creature’s back, sinking his teeth into its neck. The bristlemane strained its head back, shoving against his jaws until they ached. Teeth clamped on his tail and a savage jerk nearly dragged him off.

He fell to the side, his forelegs wrapped around the creature’s neck as he sought frantically for a throat hold. The pull on his tail dragged his hindquarters loose and he heard the shrill cries of the other bristlemanes as they danced around him. He lost his grip and fell heavily on his side. Paws stepped on his flank and noses snuffled at him.

For a moment he could see only legs and bellies. The nearest set of legs shuddered and then staggered. The bristlemane went down with Orange-Eyes on top of it.

Thakur was near enough to see every detail. The silvercoat flung his head back and his lower jaw dropped close to the underside of his throat freeing the full length of his fangs. His head drove down, the teeth descending with the full weight of the Un-Named One’s forequarters behind them.

There was a tearing and grinding as teeth sheared through fur and hide to meet bone. The bristlemane screamed once.

Orange-Eyes lifted his muzzle from the ruin of the animal’s nape. Thakur stared at him, caught in a sudden cold fright stronger than his fear of the bristlemanes. He knew that the stabbing bite he’d seen was like nothing the Named had ever used.

He pulled himself from his daze as he regained his feet, becoming aware that the other bristlemanes had retreated, whimpering uneasily. A short distance away, Fessran worried the limp body of another. She gave it one last shake and left it. Thakur did not have to approach to see the mark of Orange-Eyes’s bite.

Fessran rubbed against Thakur, still shivering with rage. She spat and showed her fangs at the marauders. She turned to Orange-Eyes, who was wiping his muzzle on the soaked pelt of his kill, and said,“Thanks, youngster. Those teeth of yours are good in a fight.”

The Un-Named One looked at Fessran. His eyes were oddly wary. She didn’t seem to notice.

She knows he killed the bristlemanes, Thakur thought to himself. She didn’t see how he killed them.

“Are you injured, herding teacher?”

It took Thakur an instant to respond to Orange-Eyes’s question. “They chewed my tail, but nothing else.”

Hoarse brays and shrill barks came through the sound of the rain.“There are more of those belly-biters after the dapplebacks,” Fessran growled. “Come on!”

Together, the three of them bounded toward the noise.

The rain lightened, and Thakur could see further ahead. The rest of the bristlemanes had cut into the dappleback herd, trying to separate out an old mare and her late-birthed colt. Her coat was grizzled and her feet worn. Thakur knew the herders had marked the pair for culling, for the colt was sickly. So had the bristlemanes.

They ringed the mare and her offspring, forcing them away from the flock. She fought fiercely to regain it, lashing out with her hind feet. One marauder staggered away with its jaw broken and flopping loose. The others dodged her kicks and began to drive the colt down the meadow, nipping at its hocks. They broke into a fast lope, forcing the young dappleback to canter.

From the opposite direction came Ratha and the Firekeepers with newly lit torches in their jaws, but they were too far away and the pack was gathering speed.

Thakur lengthened his stride until he was alongside the bristlemanes. He saw Orange-Eyes and Fessran pacing him on the other side, across the backs of the bristlemanes. Encircled by the pack, the dappleback mare and her colt veered from side to side, trying to break through the ring of their captors. The mare’s sides heaved and her breath came in heavy grunts. Lather flew from her neck and her eyes rolled.

Thakur felt the breath burn in his chest as he panted. He knew he could outrun the bristlemanes over short distances, but they could travel far keeping this pace. They had already settled into a ground-eating lope that would soon weary the pursuing Firekeepers. If the pack got away with these dapplebacks, they would run the pair until they were exhausted, then harass and nip at the horses until they pulled them down.

He clamped his teeth together and put all his remaining strength into one last sprint. He glanced back to see an ugly muzzle open its jaws behind his tail. He raced ahead, lengthening his lead, knowing he would need every bit of the distance.

He bounced to a stop, kicked himself into the air, spun around and hurled himself broadside into the chest of the pack leader. The impact drove the breath from his lungs. With a choked howl, the bristlemane tumbled, and Thakur felt the animal shudder repeatedly as more of the pack piled into it. He clawed his way up through a confused mass of thrashing bodies and snapping muzzles. He heard shrill cries as the rest of the animals scattered in confusion.

With a triumphant whinny, the old mare sailed over his head and galloped away from the writhing heap of bristlemanes. The colt followed. From the corner of his eye Thakur saw the Un-Named One yank a bristlemane away by its tail and seize another. He didn’t bother to kill them but just thrust them aside as he and Fessran opened a path for Thakur. The herding teacher dragged his forepaw loose and thrust it at Fessran. He yelped in pain as she fastened her jaws on his leg and hauled him out of the fray.

Thakur caught the gleam of fire on wet pelts and knew the Firekeepers had encircled the bristlemane pack. Now that the rain was stopping, the torches remained lit. The bristlemanes huddled together in the center, their ears flattened, their howls turning to whines. Several Firekeepers brought unlit sticks that had been chewed to a point and sharpened in the flame.

The bristlemanes climbed over and around each other to escape the vengeful creature that surrounded them. A Firekeeper thrust a brand at a trapped animal and it retreated until it backed into the others and could go no further. Its cries became faster and shriller until they became a terrified wail. It crouched and shuddered, trying to bury its face in its flank.

Something made Thakur glance at Orange-Eyes, who stood just outside the circle of torchbearers. The silvercoat’s eyes narrowed and his lips drew back in a half-snarl. It was not the same expression as the Firekeepers wore. Their eyes blazed with vengeance-hunger and a sudden, eager cruelty. Orange-Eyes was looking, not at the frightened bristlemanes, but at those of the clan who brandished fire at them.

Thakur remembered that the Un-Named One had also faced the Red Tongue’s wrath. He came alongside the silvercoat and softly said, “The mare and colt are still loose. We should help the herders find them.”

Orange-Eyes’s gaze remained fixed on the scene. A change came over his eyes. Their color grew more intense, and it was not just the firelight on his face.

“The Red Tongue is powerful creature,” he said softly to himself.

“The mare,” said Thakur, nudging the Un-Named One’s shoulder.

“Yes, herding teacher.” Orange-Eyes blinked, lowered his head and followed.

They found the mare’s scent trail, still strong in the wet grass. Thakur looked back once to see the flames rise and fall. Firekeepers lunged with pointed sticks in their jaws. Yapping and snarling, the frenzied animals charged the ring of torchbearers. One Firekeeper lost his brand and fell back. The cornered bristlemanes attacked again. Yowls mingled with shrill yelps as they broke through the circle, throwing their tormentors aside.

Before either Thakur or Orange-Eyes could whirl around, the pack had fled away into the night. Recovering themselves, the torchbearers gave chase, the flames tossing on their brands. Orange-Eyes leaped to join them, but they had gone and their cries had already begun to fade.

Thakur let his muscles relax.“Come back,” he called to the silvercoat. “Let the Firekeepers chase them.”

Orange-Eyes hesitated, looking after the disappearing glow of the torches. He muttered something to himself that the herding teacher couldn’t hear.

“Are you going to help me track those dapplebacks or not?” Thakur felt his patience going. Orange-Eyes started and swung around, the strange expression still in his eyes. It was half resentment and half something else … Thakur didn’t know what. A hunger, perhaps. A hunger that would not be sated by meat.

Chapter Four

Ratha halted the pursuit at the far end of the meadow. She slowed, panting, the cries of the escaping bristlemanes still in her ears. Behind her, the torchbearers’ growls mingled with the angry snap of the Red Tongue. She shared their fever; the urge to hunt the enemy down with fang and fire.

Terror had given the bristlemanes the speed to outrun the Firekeepers. Their pack-mates lay dead in the meadow and Ratha knew that those who lived bore scars on their memories as well as their hides that would forbid them from again setting foot on clan ground.

She heard a muffled snarl and the sound of a body being dragged and shaken. She turned to see one of the Firekeepers mauling another dead bristlemane. The long tongue hung out of the stiff black jaws and flopped around with each angry jerk he gave the body.

Ratha watched, letting the sight feed her hunger for vengeance.“Enough!” she cried suddenly. The Firekeeper released the corpse and backed away. She waited, studying the eyes that shone back at her with reflected torchlight, their glow softened only by a fine mist of rain. “Enough,” she said again in a low voice. “The herd is safe and the enemy gone.Firekeepers, return with me and rekindle the dead fires.”

The torchbearers did as she bid them and soon new flames were burning in the ashes of the old. But they too were small and uncertain. Ratha knew that if the rain fell harder it would quench them as easily as it had the others.

“Give the creature more wood,” she told the fire-tenders as she paced from one outlying guard-flame to the next. “Make it strong and fierce.”

She stopped, watching two Firekeepers struggling to comply. One brought more wood while the other fed the flame. He crouched a safe distance away from the fire’s nest, tossing in twigs with a quick turn of his head. The fire flared briefly as it consumed each twig and then died down.

“No,” Ratha said impatiently. “Use larger pieces and place them; don’t throw them.”

With an uneasy glance at her, the Firekeeper seized a thick branch in his jaws, approached the flame as close as he dared and flipped the wood in. It crashed into the fire, destroying the nest of carefully laid kindling and sending up a shower of sparks.

Ratha shouldered the Firekeeper aside and dragged the branch out. Carefully she coaxed the flattened remains of her creature back to life and, once it was burning steadily on fresh kindling, she gave it thicker wood.

Each time she placed a branch in its nest, the fire-creature’s breath blasted her face and stung her eyes with heat and cinders. It roared its rage in her ears, licked at her jowls and threatened to consume her whiskers. She had to force herself to lay the wood in position, however much her jowls hurt or her instincts screamed at her to leap away.

When she finished, she backed away thankfully and rubbed her sooty muzzle against her foreleg. The two torchbearers were watching her with mingled awe and resentment.“That is how it must be done,” she said. “If you are quick and sure, you will keep your whiskers.”

The Firekeeper who had nearly destroyed the Red Tongue’s nest stalked over to the leaping flame with more wood in his jaws. He faced the fire-creature, hesitated and lunged forward. He dropped the branch in and scrambled back, his belly white with wet ash, his eyes frightened and defiant.

“Feeding your creature is not easy when it grows so large and wild,” he said with a shudder.

“If you seek to tame the Red Tongue by keeping it small, it will die in the rain,” Ratha said, trying to be patient.

“When it is fierce, it eats my whiskers,” retorted the Firekeeper. “Look how short they are. I can no longer find my way in the dark.”

“If you are thinking only of your whiskers and not of your duty, you will burn yourself. Try doing it the way I have showed you.”

“I will, clan leader,” he said, but Ratha could see in his eyes and his barely controlled trembling that his wish to obey had to fight his terror of the fire. This fear was not an easy thing to put aside as Ratha knew well.

“The more you practice, the better you will become and then you need not be afraid,” she said, trying to smooth the harshness from her voice. The Firekeeper looked back at her as if he knew her words were half a lie, but he said only, “Yes, clan leader.”

Ratha jogged away from his guard-fire and went past others, stopping to see how other torchbearers were faring. What she saw was nothing new, but it still filled her with dismay. Despite their training and experience, many of the fire-tenders were timid, approaching their fire with tightly shut eyes and flattened ears. They poked wood into the flame with tentative thrusts and snatched their paws back. The torchbearers’ smells told Ratha, in a way that their appearance could not, how little they trusted the capricious creature they had to guard.

The moon shone through a break in the clouds, glimmering on the wet grass in front of Ratha. Ahead, under the oak, the Red Tongue danced and crackled, offering its warmth to several of the Named who had gathered around it. She crept in under the tree, shook herself and found a place near the fire. The lop-eared herder Shoman was there, along with Cherfan and some other weary clan members. Fessran basked on the far side of the fire. Ratha looked for Thakur and Orange-Eyes, but found neither. She settled herself and listened to the conversation between Fessran and Shoman.

“Killing those bristlemanes may save us from having to cull a dappleback,” Shoman was saying.

Fessran drew back her whiskers.“You may be able to eat bristlemane meat. If so, you may have it.”

“You’re too fussy. Meat is meat,” Cherfan said and yawned, showing the ribbed roof of his mouth and the back of his tongue.

“To you, perhaps.” Fessran lolled her tongue at him. “You can eat anything, you big shambleclaw.”

Ratha stretched out her pads to the fire’s warmth and let the banter flow over her. This wasn’t the first time Fessran had teased Cherfan about his indiscriminate appetite. He seemed to take her teasing with patient humor, as he did everything else.

“Have you seen Thakur and Orange-Eyes?” Ratha asked.

“They’re on their way,” Cherfan answered. “Thakur said he’d find the mare so I could go and get warm.”

“He may be awhile. That old mare has more spirit than I thought. Maybe you shouldn’t cull her, Cherfan,” Fessran remarked and began washing a muddy paw.

“Ptahh! You only want younger meat, Firekeeper,” Cherfan teased in return. “She’d be as tough as a bristlemane and you know it.”

Shoman looked sourly at Fessran.“You think you deserve better meat than bristlemane, don’t you, torchbearer. Well, I don’t. You and the other singed-whiskers let too many of the guard-fires die. That’s why the bristlemanes got through.”

“Bury it, Shoman,” Cherfan growled as the Firekeeper stiffened and glared. “You’re about as helpful as a tick in the skin. Don’t pay any attention to him, Fessran. His tail’s been in a kink ever since Orange-Eyes came.”

Ratha twitched her ears at the mention of the Un-Named One. She lifted her muzzle from her forepaws and said,“You seem to think well of him now, herder.”

“I’ll admit I had my doubts about him, but he’s a hard worker and not easily frightened. He chewed up several of those belly-biters. I wish I’d seen that!” Cherfan looked at Ratha directly. “I think you made a good decision when you decided not to kill him at the dance-hunt, clan leader.”

“I don’t—” Shoman began, but he was interrupted by a swat from Cherfan that knocked him over. “Oh, go fill your belly, flop-ears. Maybe your temper will improve.”

Shoman retreated, his fur and his dignity visibly ruffled. Ratha heard him pad away and felt herself relaxing. Fessran, however, was sitting up, looking solemn. Presently Cherfan got up and stretched.“One last look at the herdbeasts and I’m off to my den. Too wet a night to sleep out. Remind flop-ears that he has the next watch.”

Some of the herders left with him; others went back out to the meadow. One by one the Firekeepers also left until Ratha and Fessran were alone by the fire.

“Firekeeper, if Shoman’s words are troubling you, don’t worry,” Ratha said. “I never listen to him.”

“Maybe you should.” Fessran’s voice was flat.

Ratha looked at her sharply.“What else could you have taught the fire-tenders? The Red Tongue is not an easy creature to care for. I don’t want to punish any Firekeeper for failing.”

“Punishment would be useless,” said Fessran. “I scold them if they forget their training, but punishment is no cure for fear.”

“I can see how difficult it is for them. The Red Tongue is often a vengeful creature.”

“There is a difference between being careful and being timid. Your creature demands much from us who tend it.” Fessran gazed at the flame. “Sometimes I think it has senses, like ours, and it knows when someone is afraid of it. That is when it jumps out and burns our whiskers.”

In the flickering light, Ratha could see the white scars on Fessran’s muzzle. There were more on the Firekeeper’s front pads. She bore a few scars herself and she knew that the Red Tongue’s lessons were taught harshly.

“Clan leader,” Fessran said and Ratha lifted her gaze from the Firekeeper’s scarred forepaws to her face. “I know you have given me as many as can be spared from the duties of herding to train as torchbearers. But the fires died in the rain tonight and they will continue to die if they are kept by those who treat them timidly. I can teach knowledge, but courage is something a cub is born with.”

“So you want more of the stronger cubs to train as Firekeepers.”

“Yes, and not just cubs. There are those who are grown who have the strength of will the Red Tongue demands,” said Fessran softly.

The tone of her voice made Ratha’s eyes narrow slightly, although she wasn’t sure why.

“Who among the Named would you choose?” she asked.

“Besides you and me, there are few. Thakur is one, but he has chosen not to serve the Red Tongue and I understand his reasons.” Fessran paused, and Ratha felt herself being studied. “I would choose the young orange-eyed one whose strength and bravery have shown me that he is well fit for the task. He proved himself a worthy opponent when he stood his ground in the dance-hunt. He has proved it again tonight by the bodies of two bristlemanes that lie in the meadow.”

Ratha paused.“He is not of the Named, Fessran.”

The Firekeeper’s amber eyes widened. “I thought you were going to accept him.”

“Not before I call a clan gathering. I want to hear from others before I decide.”

“Everyone knows who killed those bristlemanes,” said Fessran. “If you called us all together tomorrow, you’d have any agreement you need.”

And I haven’t forgotten that it was he who stopped a charging three-horn to save a clan cub’s life, Ratha thought, but she didn’t want to say anything that would encourage Fessran to press her further.

The Firekeeper eyed her.“You know that he has already begun to carry wood for us.”

“I don’t mind that; it keeps him busy. But I don’t want you to teach him anything more until I have made my decision. And tomorrow is too early to call another gathering,” she added pointedly.

“The mating season will be here soon,” said Fessran. “If you wait too long, I won’t be good for doing anything except waving my tail at him. And you won’t be in much better shape.”

Ratha had to grin at Fessran’s succinct appraisal of her own behavior during the period of heat. Her tension eased a little as she retorted, “He’s probably too young for courting, you randy queen! All the same, you’re right. I will make my decision soon.”

Fessran curled a paw up to her muzzle and began washing it. She halted, swiveled her ears forward and got up to feed more wood to the fire. Ratha turned her face outward into the cool of the night to catch the scents of whoever was approaching.

Thakur and Orange-Eyes padded under the oak and settled themselves wearily in the Red Tongue’s glow. “That mare must have led you a chase,” said Fessran as Thakur licked his paw and scrubbed at the mud on his face. “Cherfan could have gone after her. You both have done your work for tonight.”

“And you have too, Fessran,” Thakur said, with a brief glance at Orange-Eyes. Ratha detected a faint trace of anxiety in his smell and wondered if it were only the mare that had delayed him. “You dug me out of that pile of bristlemanes.”

“And Orange-Eyes!” Fessran burst out. “Ratha, you should have seen what he did to those belly-biters. They thought they had me, and I thought so too, but when he charged in and sank his teeth into that one …”

Orange-Eyes shifted, looking uncomfortable.“Firekeeper, Thakur was with me ”

“Both of you have earned my praise and more,” Ratha answered. “When we cull a herdbeast tomorrow, you, Thakur, will eat after me and then Orange-Eyes will fill his belly. Fessran, you will follow.”

Thakur gave Fessran a questioning look.

“You’ve earned it, herding teacher,” she said. “And so has he.” She got up and stretched. “I suppose I have too.”

“Fessran, get some sleep. And Orange-Eyes,” Ratha said. “Thakur, please stay.”

After the Firekeeper and the silvercoat had gone, Thakur leaned toward Ratha and asked softly,“Will you tell me what troubles you?”

Ratha turned her head and stared at Thakur, wrinkling the fur on her brow.

“Fessran was asking you to accept Orange-Eyes and make him a Firekeeper, wasn’t she?”

In spite of herself, her jaw dropped.“How did you know? Your ears must be keener than I thought. Or I spoke louder than I meant to.”

“No, I didn’t hear you. I’ve been around Fessran long enough to know that when she wants something, she chases after it.”

“I told her that I haven’t decided. If he does stay with us, I don’t know whether he should be trained as a Firekeeper. It’s true, Fessran does need some more torchbearers.”

“And you are willing to give her what she wants?” said Thakur with surprise and more than a trace of annoyance. “I thought that if he stayed, he would be trained as a herder.”

Ratha fought the feeling of guilt that crept over her at the sound of disappointment in his voice. She felt drained by the bristlemane attack and knew she had not chosen her words as carefully as she should have. She hoped Thakur could sense her weariness and not press her further, but this time, his usual selflessness had been pushed aside by anger. He waited, a subdued glitter in his eyes.

Ratha looked at her toes, the ground, the fire; anything but the questioning green eyes.“Thakur, what else can I do?” she burst out at last. “Fessran says she must have torchbearers who have the strength of will to master the fire they guard. If the fires die, then we of the clan have no hope against the Un-Named or the bristlemanes.”

“Has Fessran persuaded you that Orange-Eyes alone would make such a difference?”

“He would teach; he would inspire others to try harder. If any torchbearer would make a difference, I agree with Fessran that he would be the one.”

“I have no doubt that he would,” said Thakur. “I also have no doubt that Fessran is thinking not only of him but of the cubs he might sire. Perhaps he might father a whole family of cubs strong and brave enough to guard the Red Tongue, if they have wit enough to remember which end of a torch to take in their jaws!”

Ratha couldn’t help ducking her head and drawing back her whiskers. She felt lost and uncertain. Where was the patient teacher and friend she thought she knew?

“Thakur, why are you so upset about this?”

Thakur took a long breath.“Before tonight, I would have said it was only because I feared his young would be witless. That is worry enough, but now I have seen something else. I find this hard to explain, but I have seen him looking at the fire and I don’t like what I see. Ratha, he is not one of the Named, even though he has enough light in his eyes for a whole litter of cubs.”

“I thought you liked him.” Ratha was puzzled.

“I can like him and still fear him.”

“Fear him! A half-grown cub!”

“One who can rip the nape out of a full-sized bristlemane?” Thakur said, spacing his words. “No, Orange-Eyes is not a cub. I have seen him looking at the fire, and I sense that in some way he may understand it better than we do.”

“Well, then, if he does, maybe he can help us find other ways to manage it.” She lifted her chin, trying to recapture her confidence.

“No, Ratha. It’s not that kind of understanding. He knows what the Red Tongue has done and can do to us. I have a feeling in my belly that his sort of knowledge may be dangerous.”

Ratha felt hot and cold. She wondered whether it was just the fire’s breath on one side of her and the night’s chill on the other or whether Thakur’s words angered and frightened her.

“How? Are you afraid he would seize my creature and use it against me?”

“No. I’m not saying he would do that, or even want to. I am only saying that my belly tells me there is risk in making him a Firekeeper. What the risk is, I don’t know.”

“That’s all you can tell me?” Ratha stared at him in dismay.

“Yes.”

“And what if I choose to take the dangerous trail?”

He looked at her for a long time.“Then nothing I can do or say can help you bear the load you may carry along that trail. I do not envy you the journey.”

“You can’t even offer a little comfort?” she said as he turned away.

“No. I don’t seem to be able to do the things I used to,” he said bitterly. “The coming of the Red Tongue has changed all of us, even me.”

She was silent until he had gone a few paces away from the fire. Swallowing hard, she said,“You still may eat after me at the kill tomorrow.”

“If you wish me to,” he answered and was gone.

It wasn’t just the night’s cold that made Ratha creep closer to the fire.

Chapter Five

At the clan gathering, Ratha looked down from her place atop the sunning rock to the Named settling themselves below. Again they had fed and again they had come together, but this time there would be talk rather than celebration.

She smelled the rich odor of three-horn flesh. It lingered on the twilight breeze even though the herdbeast was now bones and rags of hide. She had eaten half the liver and left the rest to the others. Usually she gorged herself, but too much meat made her sleepy and muddled her thoughts. She went away from the carcass with her belly half-filled; she knew she needed to think clearly tonight.

She watched Fessran lead in the torchbearers. They looked black against the setting sun. The flame that leaped and danced on their brands seemed born of the sky’s red and orange light. The Firekeepers who bore no torches carried wood in their mouths. Under Fessran’s direction, they arranged the kindling to the side of the sunning rock and lit the meeting fire.

The firelight grew as the sun’s glow faded. Wavering shadows stretched out behind the clanfolk. The eyes that turned up to Ratha held their own fires of green and amber. One color was missing among them; the hue closest to that of the flame itself.

The Firekeepers lay together near the blaze. Fessran remained on her feet, searching the gathering. Ratha saw the Firekeeper leader sit down again with a puzzled expression in her eyes. From Fessran, Ratha looked across to Thakur, who was sitting on the opposite side with the herders. The closed, remote look on his face told her why the Un-Named One wasn’t there.

The group quieted, leaving the evening to the snap and hiss of the Red Tongue. Ratha stood up, waving her tail to indicate the meeting was to begin. She sat and curled her tail about her feet.

“We of the Named,” she said, “have seen many changes. Once we were ruled by the Law of the Named and the power of teeth and claws. Now we follow a new law and a new way.” She turned her head toward the meeting fire and the Firekeepers beside it. “Change begets change as do cubs that grow up and have their own young. Now another change has come upon us, and again we must choose whether to accept it or turn it back.

“We have always grown from within,” she continued. “In Baire’s day and Meoran’s too, that was the law. There was no mingling with the clanless ones. But we were different then. We are fewer now. The number of cubs born each season is less. We never dared to seek outside the clan for others, but now one of them has come seeking us. He is Un-Named, but he has the same light in his eyes that we do. The question I must decide is this: shall the Un-Named One be taken among us?”

Fessran raised her soot-stained muzzle.“Tamer of the Red Tongue, I would speak in support of the Un-Named One. I would like him to hear my words. Why is he not here?”

Ratha’s gaze darted to Thakur. He seemed to wilt a bit as other stares followed hers. He sighed and sat up. “He is not here, Fessran, because I told him to stay with the yearlings. I thought it best that we make our decision without him.” Thakur paused. “Remember what happened during the dance-hunt.”

Fessran walked to the base of the sunning rock and looked up at Ratha.“Giver of the New Law, I do recall what happened then and that is why I speak in praise of him. Never have I seen such courage, even among my own torchbearers.”

“Firekeeper leader,” said Thakur, “you forget that he is neither Named nor of the clan. Our own yearlings may not come to this meeting until they have proven themselves worthy.”

But the Un-Named One has proven himself,Ratha thought suddenly.When he turned back the herdbeast so I could save Bundi, he showed his worth.

“He can’t be treated as a yearling, Thakur,” said Fessran. “He isn’t one. Ratha said his coming is something new to the clan. It can’t be dealt with in old ways.”

The Firekeeper leader turned again to the sunning rock.“Clan leader, I and the Firekeepers ask that he be allowed into this gathering so he may hear our words.”

A surprised murmur rippled through the group and Ratha caught an undercurrent of growls from the herders. Shoman leaped to his feet, his tail lashing.

“I have no praise for the Un-Named One,” the lop-eared herder sneered, glaring at Thakur. “But I join with the Firekeepers and ask that he be brought before us.”

Thakur’s jaw dropped. His eyes narrowed at Shoman. He looked to Ratha. “Is it the will of the Named?” he asked, his voice sounding harsh.

“Yes, Thakur,” she said and saw his eyes frost. “The meeting will wait while you fetch him.”

Clanfolk parted to let the herding teacher through. When he was gone, Ratha studied the two others who had spoken: Shoman, with his lip curled and his whiskers drawn back in a malicious grin, and Fessran, with her eyes eager, but not entirely innocent.

Ratha suddenly wished she could be down among them, waiting for someone else on the sunning rock to make the decisions and find the answers.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Thakur returning with Orange-Eyes. The Un-Named One looked guarded and wary as he followed Thakur to a place among the herders. He sought to catch Thakur’s gaze, but the herding teacher, who had led him in without looking at him, turned his face away. The silvercoat lowered his head and whisked his tail away from Thakur’s.

On the other side of the meeting circle, the Firekeepers stirred. Fessran rose again.“Now that the Un-Named One is among us, as he deserves to be, I may speak. I am not one to praise the clanless ones. I have seen too many of us fall to them. But, as Ratha has said, some of them hold the same light in their eyes as we do and want more than the lives of raiders and scavengers.”

A hard voice broke from the growls of the herders.“Ptahh! What he wants is to fill his belly with the flesh of our herdbeasts!”

Heads turned to Shoman. Fessran tried to answer, but her words were drowned in the sudden uproar. Ratha slapped the sunning rock with her paw to quiet the gathering.“Let Fessran speak.” She directed a meaningful glance at Shoman.

Fessran also eyed Shoman and said,“If that’s all you think he wants, why did you ask that he be brought to the meeting?”

“So that all of you may see him for what he is.” Shoman’s gaze darted over the group. “You, Cherfan,” he said to a herder in the back, “you, who lost a lair-son to the Un-Named. You, Mondir, who buried the body of your littermate after a raid. All of you who bear scars on your coats. Look at him. Those eyes. Are they like ours? Those teeth. They could easily slash our throats.” He turned back to Fessran. “You don’t think of that, Firekeeper.”

Fessran only yawned.“You bear no scars on your pelt,” she said dryly. Some of the Firekeepers lolled their tongues in derisive grins.

Shoman’s eyes blazed. “Wounds may be deep but unseen. I know my lair-father died at the jaws of the Un-Named. That is enough.”

Several of the herders who were Shoman’s friends flattened their ears at the Un-Named One. The silvercoat ignored them, drawing himself in and sitting stiffly.

“No, it is not enough,” Fessran snapped. “What you want, Shoman, is revenge, not what is best for the rest of us. As for teeth, we all have them and we could all bite each other’s throats if we were savage enough.” She stamped impatiently. “You of the clan, don’t you know what you sawthat night of the dance-hunt? You saw someone with the strength of will to fight his fear of the Red Tongue, someone who stood his ground against my Firekeepers even when he was sick and starving.”

Fessran began to circle, twitching her tail.“Yes, he wants to fill his belly. All of us do. And he will earn that right by using his courage to defend our herds.”

She reared up on her hind legs, her belly fur showing golden-white in the flame’s glow.

“Cherfan!” she called to him. “You lost a litterling in the Un-Named raids. What was his name?”

Cherfan reacted slowly, blinking in surprise.“He was called Shongshar.”

“Good. What the Un-Named have taken, they will give back. Had Cherfan’s cub lived, he would have been a brave herder and sired strong young. I have seen that this one”—she wagged her whiskers toward the silvercoat—“shows much courage in guarding the animals. As for young, we will have to wait a little while, but not too long, I think.” Fessran cast a sly glance at the young females among the Firekeepers.

Trust Fessran to provide a little humor,Ratha thought, but the Firekeeper’s words made her uneasy and the shadow of an old memory fell across her mind. She looked for Thakur and found him sitting stiffly. She had never seen him look so solemn.

“Shongshar is a good name,” Fessran was saying. “It shouldn’t be lost. Let the newcomer join and give him that name. Let the clan have a new Shongshar!”

Again there was an uproar. Ratha noticed that the silvercoat was saying the name to himself; trying it to see how it fit. Fessran, obviously enjoying the attention she was getting, swaggered over to Thakur. For an instant he didn’t seem to know she was there, then he jerked his head around and faced her.

The Firekeeper’s intent wasn’t malicious as Shoman’s had been. She did have a tendency to poke fun at those who took themselves too seriously. Ratha herself had received a few sharp digs from the claws of Fessran’s wit.

“Herder, you spoke against the Un-Named One at the start of this meeting,” Fessran said, still looking amused. “Why are you quiet now?” The sudden misery on his face made the Firekeeper lose her grin. Her brows drew together and she said something to Thakur in a softer tone that Ratha couldn’t hear.

She caught Thakur’s reply as he got to his feet.

“No, Fessran. The clan needs to hear this.” He surveyed the group, looking into the eyes of all who were assembled… except those of the newcomer. “I wish to cast no doubt on the truth of Fessran’s words. I only remind you that there are many trails to one place and each one shows us different sights. Fessran has taken you along one trail; I must show another.” Thakur paused. “First I must tell you that the one who sits beside me is worthy to bear the dead cub’s name. He saved a yearling from death on a herdbeast’s horns. Ratha can tell you that story better than I.”

“If you mean to support him,” Fessran interrupted, her eyes wide, “why did you want to leave him out of the meeting?”

“I have other words besides those of praise,” Thakur snapped back. “Firekeeper leader, like everyone else here, I try to make things easy for myself. What I have to say would be easier if he weren’t listening to it.”

Ratha caught the silvercoat peering at Thakur with complete bewilderment in his orange eyes. One ear was cocked forward, the other back, as though he didn’t know whether to be jubilant or outraged. Other clan members exchanged puzzled looks. Shoman looked completely taken aback and Ratha didn’t blame him.

“We have made many mistakes about the clanless ones,” said Thakur. “We thought them all witless and we found a few were not. We thought them too scattered and incapable of a major attack on the clan. We were wrong. Now we think we know enough about them to accept them into the clan. I warn you that we may be wrong again.” Thakur took a breath. “Ratha, you said there have been many changes. That is so, but not all things can or should change. The old law that forbade Named from mingling with Un-Named had a reason for being. It kept the light in the cubs’ eyes. If we forget it now, we risk losing what we have struggled to be.”

He looked up at Ratha as he spoke, and she felt her old memory rise and wash over her like a river flood. The faces of her own cubs, with their blank animal eyes…

The seasons had covered that pain slowly; the days falling on it like leaves to the forest floor. Now it was back again and the pain as fresh as ever. Thakur’s face seemed to change in her vision; his green eyes turning amber with a hint of bitter yellow; his scarred muzzle turning to one that was unblemished except for a broken left lower fang. Even his odor changed, becoming stronger and wilder: the scent of one who had lived alone and hunted for himself until he had taken her as his mate.

She thrust the memory away and saw the face that was really before her.Why does Thakur have to look and smell so much like his dead brother?

A sense of shame rose up as Bonechewer’s memory receded. She had been so caught up in Fessran’s idea that she had nearly forgotten the harsh lesson the past had taught her. Now she wanted to bury her head between her paws and cry aloud.

Thakur spoke again and she focused once more on his voice.“I think it is better for the Un-Named One and for ourselves that we not accept him and that he leave clan ground.” For the first time since he had returned to the group, he looked the silvercoat in the face. His whiskers started to droop. “I am sorry. I wish we had thought about it sooner.”

From her perch, Ratha studied the Un-Named One. The firelight played over him, making him seem to move abruptly, even though he stayed still and gazed at the clan with unreadable eyes.

Below her, arguments flew back and forth. Anger and disappointment showed on some faces, puzzlement on others. Fessran looked especially disgruntled and Ratha guessed she would not easily forgive Thakur if he destroyed her vision of a replacement for the dead Shongshar.

She caught fragments of conversations.

“… we can let him eat from the kill, but forbid him to mate …”

“… our flock is getting too large. Another herder would be helpful …”

“… the way those female Firekeepers look at him? They won’t be thinking of anything else once the heat has come on them …”

Eyes turned to her for answers, but she had none. Either choice might wreck the clan. She felt paralyzed, lost, and wished she were running free in the night, with only herself to think about. Then, out of the confusion and despair came the beginnings of an idea. It wasn’t an easy one, but something told her it might work.

She jumped up and lashed her tail for silence.“I have listened to all who would speak. Now hear what I say. Fessran, you are right about our need. And Thakur, you speak wisely of the dangers. I also heard someone say we might accept the Un-Named One if he were forbidden to mate. That won’t work; no one thinks of that sort of thing when thetime comes.

“What I suggest is this,” she continued, beginning to pace back and forth on the edge of the sunning rock. “If we allow him to take a mate from among us, he must present the cubs he sires to the rest of us so we can see whether they have the light of the Named in their eyes.”

“I will be glad if they do,” Thakur said. “What will happen if they don’t?”

Ratha took a breath and halted her pacing.“If we judge them fit to raise in the clan, he and his mate will keep them. If not, the young ones must be taken far from clan ground and abandoned.”

She crouched on the edge of the rock and stared down at the silvercoat.“You, who would be Named, do you understand?”

“Orange-eyes must show his cubs to the clan and do what the leader says.”

“Yes. If you agree to that and bare your throat to the Red Tongue, I will accept you.”

The meeting erupted again as those who favored and opposed the silvercoat both made their opinions known. Triumphant roars and angry hisses filled the air. The emotions battered at Ratha, throwing her back. She leaped up, adding her voice to the tumult.“Be silent, all of you! The decision is mine and I have made it.”

The meeting quieted, but an undercurrent of muttering continued. She leaped down and stood before the gathering.“Are you ready?” Ratha asked the Un-Named One. “Then come to the sunning rock.”

She ordered two torchbearers to stand on either side while Fessran lighted another brand and brought it to her. Before she took it between her jaws she lifted her muzzle.“Crouch and bare your throat.” A sudden fear jumped in his eyes and she knew he remembered the dance-hunt. The clan watched, waiting. If his will failed him now, both he and she would lose.

She lifted the torch high. He took his place as she bid and lifted his chin, turning his head so that she could see the pulse beat in his throat beneath the fur.

“Now to them,” she said, around the branch in her teeth. Obediently he turned and bared his throat to the clan. The sight of his submission seemed to calm the group. He prolonged his awkward crouch with his head strained up until Ratha told him to rise. She flung her torch back into the fire.

“Stand before the clan … Shongshar!” she cried. “Let the Named greet their new lair-brother.”

At first the newly named Shongshar stood alone, but gradually the clanfolk began to surround him, touching noses and exchanging cheek rubs. When Fessran and the Firekeepers joined in, things became more enthusiastic. Their friendly assault nearly knocked Shongshar over, but Ratha saw that he bore it in good humor, especially since they all left their torches behind.

The herders were less excited, but even Shoman grudgingly brushed whiskers. Thakur gave his pupil a formal nose-touch and came to sit by Ratha. Neither one of them spoke as they watched the crowd of well-wishers wash over and around Shongshar.

She couldn’t help feeling a small glow of pride. “You’re making a mistake,” said Thakur softly, his whiskers in her ear.

“Arr, don’t spoil it, Thakur.”

“All right. I am happy for him, but I hope you know the trail you’re running.”

“I have to. There is no other.”

He fell silent again. She felt deflated and couldn’t help but remember her uncertainty about the newcomer and the subtle defiance she had once sensed in him. Surely she was wrong about that … or was she?

Suddenly, she was disgusted by her own ambivalence and told herself to stop fretting.I’ve done what is best for us. I can’t ask myself for more. Only the passing days will tell me whether I was right. I won’t think about it any more. I don’t need to hunt trouble.

Chapter Six

Thakur sat in the dry leaves underneath the oak and watched the yearlings manage the dapplebacks and three-horns by themselves. He hoped his training had prepared the young herders well enough for the work ahead of them. It was fall now, and the clan’s mating season had begun. During this time, the yearlings took charge of the animals, for the cubs had not reached the age to heed the meaning of new scents carried across the meadow on the autumn wind.

Thakur smelled the odors of females in heat. He prickled and quivered as each smell tantalized his nose. He jerked his tail restlessly, wishing the mating season hadn’t come so soon.

He would leave clan ground, he promised himself. His work preparing the youthful herders was done. Now he and the other clan adults would have to trust the skill and courage of the youngsters. Judging from the smells and the yowling courtship songs that filled the air, he doubted that any of the other clan members were thinking about the herd. Perhaps the cries of the courting males would have irritated him less if he hadn’t recognized Shongshar’s voice among them.

Thakur had hoped that the silvercoat’s youth would delay his mating for a year, postponing difficulties that might arise over the cubs he would sire. But Shongshar was older than he looked, and his rapid development into a fully mature male surprised many in the clan. A few days earlier, he had begun courting the young Firekeeper Bira, edging out Cherfan, who was also seeking her attention. The herder retreated with good grace, but admitted to Thakur that he had underestimated Shongshar as a rival. “That young rake has a louder voice than I do, if you can believe it,” Cherfan had said, lolling his tongue in a rueful grimace.

Thakur tried to tell himself that his reaction to Shongshar’s success was only jealousy, but there was a part of his mind that refused to accept such an easy answer. He had spoken to Shongshar about the possible consequences of his mating and the silvercoat’s answers had disturbed him.

“Shongshar, have you thought about Ratha’s words to you when you joined the clan?” Thakur had asked him one rainy evening not long after the ceremony that made him one of the Named. He remembered how the silvercoat turned his head, blinking as rain dripped from his eyebrow whiskers onto his nose. “She make me say when I mate and cubs are born I must bring them before her. Only if they have light in their eyes can my mate and me raise them.”

“And if your cubs don’t have the light of the Named in their eyes, they must be left to die. Have you thought about that?” Thakur persisted.

“I think it will be harder for female I mate with than for me,” Shongshar answered. “I won’t bear the cubs and nurse them. If eyes are empty, cubs will mean little to me.”

“You wouldn’t regret having to give them up?”

“No, herding teacher. Why you ask this?” Shongshar stopped, then cocked his head at Thakur.

“You seem to like being with the litterlings. I’ve seen you working with them. You almost got into a fight with Shoman when he bullied Bundi.”

“Is that bad?”

“No,” Thakur answered, “but it isn’t something I expected from you. Are you sure your fondness for the litterlings might not make you want to keep the cubs you sire?”

Shongshar looked thoughtful.“Herding teacher, not to worry. There is big difference between litterlings that are stupid as herdbeasts and those whose eyes shine bright. Even if they are mine.”

I wonder, thought Thakur.

“It won’t be hard for me. Don’t worry,” said Shongshar lightly, and he had walked away, leaving the herding teacher full of doubt.

More yowls from the forest interrupted Thakur’s thoughts. He got up and shook the leaf litter from his fur. The yearlings were busy with the herd and no one was watching him. He should go.

He left the oak and paced away as a deep roar answered one of the calls.What a fuss everybody made about the mating season! he thought crossly.Why couldn’t one choose not to be involved without being thought peculiar? He had never been very successful with the females; they drove him off in favor of stronger, louder or more odoriferous males. Even when Ratha’s leadership had raised his status from one who was barely tolerated to one who was eagerly accepted and respected, habit had still made him shy away.

Habit and something else, he admitted to himself as he jogged across the meadow. He, too, could share in the joys that this time brought if it weren’t for the uncertainty of his half Un-Named parentage. There was a small chance that cubs he sired would bear the gift of the Named, but he knew that his brother Bonechewer’s mating with Ratha had produced witless young. Any cubs that Thakur sired were likely to turn out the same.

If he went to her now, as her smell, wafting on the breeze, tempted him to do, she would accept him eagerly without thinking of the consequences. In that she would be like any Named female caught in the fever of her heat. Yet if she did, and her cubs were born as he feared, he would have wounded her in a way that might never heal.

He knew that she took a partner each season, but the male left only a lingering odor on her fur, for there were never any cubs. He had once asked Ratha if she understood why. He never asked her again, however, for the look of pain on her face had tightened his own throat as she answered.“I mated after Bonechewer and I lost the cubs. Again I took a mate, but my belly never swelled. Why, I don’t know. Somehow my body won’t let me bear another litter. Perhaps I can’t forget what happened to the first.”

“Your cubs wouldn’t be witless this time,” Thakur had said. “Not if you take a clan male. Why don’t you try again?”

“I will. I can’t help but try again. When the heat draws me I don’t think of such things, but afterward …”

There would be nothing to regret. Still, he would not risk siring empty-eyed cubs on her. It was better that he stay away and so he had done each year, wandering the forests and grasslands beyond clan territory. This self-imposed exile was a lonely and bitter time for him. Without a companion, the journey became a weary one, and his mind often strayed back to those he had left behind. Had Shongshar not reached adulthood this season, he might have joined Thakur on the trail, but now he was back there in the midst of all the growls and tail-wavings. Thakur would go alone, returning only when his belly called him, to eat of the yearling herders’ cull and slip away again before he could be drawn into the fever of courtship.

With these thoughts burdening his mind, Thakur jogged heavily toward the stream that marked the edge of clan territory. It was just beginning to swell with the first winter rains. The water buffeted his legs as he waded in the shallows. It was only deep enough to splash his belly, but if more rain came he might have to swim back across. That thought and his wet paws did nothing to ease his temper. Mournful cries in the sky made him lift his head to see birds circling high over the tree-covered hills in the direction he was going. The cries made him think of hooked beaks and quick, sharp talons; he wondered what carrion they had found.

The wind that stole the warmth from the wet fur on his belly seemed to chill his mind as well. A good run would warm him up and stretch his muscles, he decided.

On the other side of the creek, Thakur swung into a fluid canter, watching the foliage race past as a blur on either side of him. He was proud of his speed and often ran for the sheer joy of feeling the ground slip away beneath his flying paws. He was galloping down a long grade on a deer trail beneath overhanging boughs when something darted onto the path between his legs.

One of his front paws struck it. There was a sharp screech as the object flew into the air. Whirling his tail to keep his balance, Thakur bounced to a stop, then retraced his steps to see what had tripped him.

The object moved slowly and unevenly. The culprit was a small furball dragging itself crabwise through the fallen leaves. It was the same size as a nursing cub, although not at all the same shape. He cocked his head, torn between caution and curiosity. Carefully he sidled up to it and reached out with an inquisitive paw. The creature showed tiny teeth and a pink tongue. It tried to hitch itself across the trail again but soon stopped. One rear leg was limp and dragging.

Thakur circled the animal as it squatted in the trail, following him with frightened eyes. It had a short banded muzzle, paws that bore nails instead of claws and a ringed furry tail. It was one of the tree-dwellers who had often pestered him when he tried to nap in the shade of their trees.

Here was a chance for revenge, if he wanted it, or an opportunity to find out how these creatures might taste. At least it would extend his time away from the clan by sating his belly a little.

The young treeling hunched itself in the dead leaves, giving him quick nervous glances. He could see its small sides heave and the way its racing heartbeat rocked it. He smelled the fear that seeped from the small animal. Sensing that it was helpless, the creature curled its tail around itself and clung to it as if clinging to its mother. It began to stroke and pick nervously at the fur, never taking its eyes from him.

His attention was oddly drawn to the movements of the creature’s paws. As he watched the small fingers twine in the hair, he felt something like an itch in his mind, a thought that almost came forward but then disappeared.

Thakur nosed the treeling. It tried to curl up into a ball, but the injured leg got in the way. He turned the creature over with his paw, his belly still warring with the strange itch in his mind.

The treeling, after sitting rigidly for a long time, made a sudden scramble for safety. Thakur stepped firmly on its tail. It twisted back and tried to bite his foot. He fastened his jaws loosely around its neck and picked it up. The animal went limp, but Thakur could feel its heart beating against his lips. For a moment, he felt ridiculous and his instinct was to snap it up into his mouth or fling it into the bushes with a sharp toss of his head.

I’m taking it with me, he decided at last.If it dies, I’ll eat it and if it doesn’t … well, it might be amusing.

For the rest of the day he carried the treeling, grateful that no one of the clan was there to see him or to ask why. He shifted his grip from its neck to its scruff, which seemed to make it a little less frightened. When at last he let the creature down, it shook its soaked fur, spraying him with his own saliva.

He washed his face, made a comfortable nest and settled into it, then reached out a paw for the treeling. The animal tried to hitch itself away, but he swept it up, dragged it into the nest and crossed his paws over it. It made one little peep of protest and was still.

The next morning, Thakur was mildly surprised to find the treeling still alive and sleeping under his paw. As soon as he moved, it woke, hissed and nipped his pad. Despite its injured leg, the creature was quite lively, and it was all he could do to keep it from escaping through the grass, or fastening its small teeth in him. At last he managed to grab the animal by the scruff and shake it a few times to reduce it to a state of grudging acceptance.

At midday, Thakur stopped beside a little brook trickling between the gnarled roots of two fire-scarred pines. He was grateful to come into the shade, for the autumn sun on his back had warmed him during the journey and, with the treeling in his mouth, he couldn’t pant to cool himself off.

He put his soggy passenger down and dipped his muzzle in the stream, washing away the taste of treeling fur. With one paw on the animal’s tail, he surveyed the grove into which he’d come. The place felt peaceful and quiet without being gloomy. He could stay here awhile, perhaps dig a shallow den near the stream. First, though, he’d have to figure out what to do with his treeling.

Thakur found a soft spot under a young fir and, holding the treeling in his mouth, started scraping pine needles and litter away. Soon he had excavated a deep treeling refuge in the red clay beneath the tree. He lowered the animal gently into the hole, arranged branches and needles over it, then piled dirt on the covering before the creature could claw its way out. He stamped the soil down and waited to see if the creature would unbury itself. When he saw no sign that it was escaping, he turned to the task of digging himself a temporary den and forgot about the treeling.

In the morning, he slept late, enjoying his solitude. Here there were no tail-waving females or yowling males. No one of the clan was there to press him with their needs or fears. He heard only the quiet trickle of the brook and felt the pine-scented breeze teasing his whiskers. Until he remembered the treeling.

Thakur jumped up and ran to the little fir, only to find that he had packed the dirt down harder than he’d thought. It took determined digging to reopen the burrow. When at last he broke through, he almost dug the treeling up along with the dirt. The little creature made no attempt to escape, for it was nearly suffocated.

He pawed some clay from the brindled pelt. The treeling closed its eyes and made no protest. At first he felt relieved and then alarmed. Its passivity was probably due to hunger, he thought, and he decided he’d better feed it. But what would it eat? Well, if treelings lived in trees, they probably ate leaves, he concluded, and went off to find some.

He brought one type of leaf after another, without success. The treeling would eat none of them. At last, by accident he brought a branch that had several beetles on it. When he placed his offering outside the treeling’s hole, it poked its head out, spied a bug, snatched it up and crammed the morsel into its mouth. It continued to pick insects off the branch until all of them were gone. It looked up at Thakur with inquisitive eyes, cocked its head slightly and said“ Aree?”

Later that morning found Thakur in a nearby stretch of grassland, hunting grasshoppers. He had been quite adept at this when he was a cub, although now he found lack of practice had robbed him of some skill. Finally he managed to catch one in his mouth and carry it back to the treeling, feeling the struggling insect kicking his tongue. He spat it out in front of the treeling’s burrow. A small arm emerged, caught the insect by the leg and dragged it inside. Thakur could hear more crunching sounds.

After the grasshopper hunt, Thakur stretched out for a nap in the autumn sun. He was almost asleep when he felt something climb up his back and nestle in the fur on his flank. Startled, he shook the treeling off and nosed it back into the burrow. He returned to his nap.

When he woke, he found that the treeling had climbed up on him again and was clinging to his pelt. He craned his head back, seized the creature by the scruff and pulled, but it had woven fingers and toes into his fur. Realizing that he would pull the treeling apart before he got it off, he sighed and let it stay.

After a while, he found he enjoyed having the treeling on his back. It murmured contentedly as he jogged along and made small wordless comments whenever anything happened. At first Thakur was afraid he might lose his new companion and he chose his way carefully, avoiding low branches, lest his passenger be swept off or scramble into the trees beyond his reach. He made wide detours and looked over his shoulder at every step to assure himself that the creature was still there. The treeling stared back at him, the expression on its short-muzzled face saying,“I’m still here. What are you so worried about?”

Soon Thakur ceased worrying about losing the animal. It seemed to like riding on him and sleeping in his fur at night. During the following days, he roamed far from the grove, carrying the treeling with him and feeding it on beetles and the big grasshoppers that lived in the nearby meadowlands.

He doubted that this was the food the creature had been accustomed to, but it seemed to be flourishing on its new diet. Thakur also ate a few of the insects himself, to ward off the hunger that threatened to drive him back to the clan. Eventually, he knew, he would have to go, and what was he going to do with the treeling then?

Well, it was the mating season. None of the adults in the clan would pay any attention to him. He would have to show himself to the yearlings who were guarding the herd and the fires; otherwise he might be attacked as an enemy by the over-eager youngsters. He would receive some curious stares from his pupils, but his previous authority over them would keep them from asking too many questions or trying to eat his new friend.

Friend? He was startled by the thought. Never had he supposed he could think about any other kind of animal as more than food, yet he had to admit that the treeling’s presence often brought him a quiet sort of contentment.

Thakur couldn’t help grinning as he ambled along with the creature on his back. “You funny little treeling-cub,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at it. “Sometimes I wonder if you know what I’m thinking. Perhaps I should give you a name if I’m going to talk to you as I talk to the ones in the clan.”

The treeling looked at him with wide solemn eyes.“Aree,”it said, as if it were agreeing with him.

“I probably shouldn’t. You don’t know what a name means. It means you know what you are. Treeling-cub, do you know what you are?”

It cocked its head at him.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter. I think you’re a ‘he’ and I have to call you something besides ‘treeling.’ What should I call you? Fur-Puller? Bug-Cruncher?”

“Aree!”

“Well, all right. Since that’s the only word you know, I’ll call you Aree.”

A little later the same day, Thakur was passing under a curtain of leaves when the treeling jumped from his back into the branches. By the time Thakur realized that Aree was gone, he had climbed beyond sight. The tree was too slight for Thakur to climb any farther than to the first crotch and there he perched, looking anxiously up into the branches and yowling helplessly, hoping Aree would come back.

Soon there was a rustle and Aree plopped down on him, making him lose his balance and topple out of the tree. A wild swing of his tail enabled him to land on his feet with the tree-ling still attached. When he peered back over his shoulder, he noticed that Aree was carrying something smooth and round. He had seen similar objects hanging on some trees, but since he never ate any part of a tree, he never paid attention to these things unless he stepped on one that was rotten.

Aree was fascinated. The treeling turned his prize over in his paws, looking at it and smelling it. The little creature had to stretch his jaws wide before he was able to bite into the skin, but once he did, he began munching away as if he had never tasted anything so delicious in his short life.

The fruit the treeling picked was overripe and the syrupy juice dribbled onto Thakur’s back. It ran down his side and matted his fur, making him itch. Irritated, he nudged Aree aside and cleaned his coat, but as fast as he licked himself, the treeling dribbled more juice on him.

The taste of the stuff was sweet and the only sweet flavor Thakur knew was the taste of spoiled meat. That was enough to make him stop licking. He tried to ignore the smears on his coat, but as the afternoon passed, the sun warmed his back, turning the dribbles into sticky patches and dry, crusty spots. Once Aree had discovered this new treat, he sought more and couldn’t be persuaded to dismount while eating. Thakur’s back and neck fur were soon stiff with dried dribbles and his skin itched unbearably.

There were a few flies still left from summer and they all began to swarm around him. The treeling, unconcerned, continued to stuff himself. Unable to stand the torment any longer, Thakur finally dislodged Aree by threatening to roll over on him. While the treeling sulked, he licked his back and sides, digging out sticky mats of hair in which entrapped flies buzzed angrily.

Sometimes the treeling picked more than he could eat and became fussy, taking one bite and throwing the rest away. Thakur often retrieved the discards, licking the juice from them. The first time he tried to eat one, he gagged on the pulpy texture. Once he had grown used to that, he tried to crack the pit as he would a bone. He found no marrow inside, only evil-tasting seeds. He spat everything out and opened his mouth wide, drooling saliva on the ground. He ran for the stream, almost leaving Aree behind, and lapped until the bitter taste was gone.

Thakur also discovered an interesting property of this new food. Many of the fruits still hanging had begun to ferment; eating those made his tongue tingle. Afterwards he felt warm and happy, often chasing his tail and bouncing around like a cub. Eating too many made him clumsy, and he couldn’t keep his paws from sliding out from under him. His head also ached a little. The treeling chirped happily and wobbled on his back.

The treeling once became so drunk that he fell out of a tree. A clump of ferns cushioned his landing, but he couldn’t ride without toppling off. Thakur had to carry Aree back to the den in his mouth. Thakur suffered also from the treeling’s overindulgence, for he had been eating Aree’s leavings. He was stricken with a severe digestive upset that made him forget the mild pain in his head. The two spent therest of the day in the makeshift den, sleeping much of the time and ill-tempered when they were awake. As he lay groaning, Thakur swore he would never touch his tongue to the cursed stuff again.

Aree recovered first, but the illness laid Thakur low for several days. During that time Aree stayed with him, gently grooming his fur or snuggling against him, making soft reassuring sounds. At last his stomach started to behave itself again and he was able to stagger out of the den, shaky and thin.

He knew he needed meat and he would have to return to the clan for it. He guessed the mating season was almost over, judging by how long he’d been away. Of course now he must worry about what to do with his treeling, but at least he’d have some time to think about it on the trail.

Chapter Seven

Thakur felt the treeling dig his paws deeper into his fur and crouch low on his back. He peered through the gray drizzle that sifted between the trees and looked toward the meadow where the herd grazed. Smoke billowed above the grass and he saw the amber flicker of fire. The treeling shook himself and fluffed his fur. Thakur could feel how uneasy Aree was by the way he shivered and clung. A gust of wind blew the smoke toward them. The herding teacher had almost forgotten how smoke stung his nose. He sneezed and glanced at Aree as the treeling drew back his whiskers and rubbed his muzzle with the back of his paw.

Thakur circled along the edge of the meadow and approached upwind of the guard-fire, allowing his scent to drift ahead of him to announce his presence to the young Firekeeper. The yearling might be nervous, and a mistaken attack could frighten Aree away. Soon Thakur could see the ring of guard flames that surrounded the clan’s animals.

He jogged toward a point midway between the closest outlying guard-fires. A Firekeeper came out to meet him. At the sight of Thakur, the youngster’s tail went up and a look of relief came over his face. Thakur guessed that he was anxious for the clan adults to return from mating and take over their duties once again.

“Welcome back, herding teacher!” the Firekeeper called. He stopped, stared and cocked his head. Thakur knew the yearling had seen something odd about him, but he wasn’t about to stop to answer questions. He quickened his pace.

As he crossed the meadow, he glanced toward the oak where several clan members had taken shelter from the misty rain. Among them he saw the gleam of a silver pelt. He hadn’t thought of Shongshar in a while. Having Aree as a companion had distracted him from his old doubts, but now they came back in a rush. Shongshar’s head lifted and he trotted out to meet Thakur.

Thakur felt ashamed of his worries. Shongshar had already proven himself a worthy and valued member of the group, the herding teacher reminded himself. It seemed that only he, Thakur, continued to doubt him. And that doubt was not based on Shongshar’s character but on the things he couldn’t control, such as the length of his fangs, the manner of his bite and the uncertainty of his parentage. Was it really fair to hold such things against him?

As Shongshar approached, Thakur could see that he had grown heavier; the powerful muscling in his shoulders and neck was even more evident. Now he was almost full-grown, and there was an air of maturity and a new sense of assurance about him. When the silvercoat drew closer, Thakur could see why. Shongshar’s muzzle was marked with claw scratches. The herding teacher had seen those marks on other young males after the mating season. The older males had enough experience to jump away before the female could claw them, but younger ones often caught their partner’s sudden change of mood too late to prevent a strike across the face.

For many of the young males, this was a badge of maturity and they wore their wounds proudly, as Shongshar did now. He slowed from a jog into an easy walk, his tail swinging. Again Thakur felt Aree tense as Shongshar’s scent reached them. The silvercoat, however, seemed to know the need to keep his distance.

“Herding teacher, if you’re hungry, there is a fresh kill,” said Shongshar at last, after eyeing the treeling. “You are among the first to return, and the yearlings have left plenty.”

His words reminded Thakur that his stomach hadn’t been filled with fresh meat in many days. He was seized by a strong hunger that cramped his belly and made him weak.

“Over here, herding teacher.” Shongshar led the way under the oak. At the sight of the kill, Thakur forgot everything else and ate until the pangs in his stomach had eased. When he felt sated, he scrubbed his muzzle and washed behind his ears, bumping the treeling with his forepaw.

He yawned, feeling the satisfying weight of a full belly.“Ah, that is so much better!” he said, stretching out and not minding the damp grass.

Shongshar ate a few bites and then washed himself as Thakur had done, stopping now and then to study the tree-ling.“What does it eat?” he asked.

“Bugs. And those soft things that hang on trees.”

Shongshar wrinkled his nose.“Oh.” He sat up, his nose in the air and then listened attentively. “I think some of the others are coming.”

Unwillingly, Thakur got up. All he wanted was to lie down and digest his dinner, but he had to do something with Aree before the other clanfolk arrived.

They got there much sooner than he expected. He had only reached the path that led to the dens when a whole group of long-absent clan members spilled out of the underbrush and greeted him with enthusiastic rubs and nuzzles. With a terrified squeal, Aree dived underneath him and clung to the long fur on his belly. Everyone retreated in surprise and Thakur was able to sort them all out. He saw Shoman, Cherfan and Fessran on one side of him, Ratha and Bira on the other. They looked tired and thin, but happy. They also looked and smelled hungry.

Their voices tumbled together in his ears.

“Is that a tree-creature, Thakur?”

“Where did you get it?”

“Are you going to eat it?”

“I’ve never had one of those before. Can I have a taste?”

“It smells good. Come on, aren’t you going to share?”

Thakur looked frantically for a way out of the ring of hungry friends. He could feel Aree trembling and pulling his belly fur so hard that it hurt. They all crowded around him again, except for the clan leader, who stood back watching, with an annoying look of amusement on her face.

“Ratha!” Thakur bellowed, trying to guard Aree from inquisitive muzzles and paws.

She waded in among the group, butting, shoving and dealing out cuffs to those who didn’t get out of her way. “All right, leave Thakur alone, you greedy bunch. I smell a kill over by the oak; the yearlings are welcoming us back.”

Cherfan lifted his head and tail. His eyes brightened and he galloped away, followed by Shoman, Fessran and Bira.

“Leave enough for me!” Ratha roared after them before she turned back to Thakur.

Aree had stopped shaking, but he still clung tightly to Thakur’s underside. Ratha paced around the herding teacher, trying to peek under his belly at the treeling. He could hear her stomach growl, and he wasn’t sure whether her interest was just curiosity.

“Are you really going to keep this creature?” she asked at last.

“Shouldn’t I?”

“Well, I don’t know. No one in the clan has ever kept one. I’m not sure why anyone would want to. Are you waiting for it to grow fatter so it will make more of a mouthful?”

“The meat is over there,” Thakur said icily, flicking his whiskers in the direction of the old oak. “If you can’t think of anything except your belly, go and eat.”

Ratha reassured him that she wouldn’t eat his treeling but there was still a spark of mischief in her eyes. She admitted one could keep a creature for reasons other than eating it. After all, she had tamed and kept the Red Tongue.

“I don’t think this treeling is quite the same as the creature I brought to the clan,” she said critically as Aree grew bold enough to leave his refuge under Thakur’s belly and clamber up onto his back. With a suspicious look at her, the treeling began grooming himself again; once he had finished, he started to part Thakur’s fur, sifting through his pelt.

Ratha grimaced.“Yarr! He’s putting his paws into your coat. Doesn’t that feel terrible?”

“At first it did, but now I don’t mind,” Thakur answered. Ratha sat down and scratched herself briefly.

“What’s he doing?” She stared harder at the treeling.

“Aree is eating my ticks. He’s cleaned me off pretty well and I don’t have many fleas either. You probably have more than I do now.”

“I probably do. When the fleabane plant dies in the winter, we scratch until spring.” Ratha added the action to the word. When she stood up again, Thakur bumped up against her and tried to nudge the treeling onto her back.

“Oh no.” She sidled away. “I don’t want that thing pawing through my fur.”

“Are you afraid of a treeling after you’ve tamed the Red Tongue?” Thakur lolled his tongue at her.

“Of course not!” Ratha’s whiskers bristled.

“You want to get rid of all those itchy fleas, don’t you?”

“I don’t think he will climb on me,” Ratha said, but Thakur could see her resistance was weakening.

“He will if you don’t try to eat him.”

Still looking doubtful, Ratha edged against Thakur. He nosed the reluctant treeling off his back. Aree hissed at him and gave his whiskers a pull before he scrambled onto her and began to groom her ruff. Aree buried his muzzle in her pelt and bit at something. Alarmed, Thakur tried to take the treeling off, unsure whether he was trying to bite Ratha or something in her fur.

“No, leave him,” she said suddenly. She winced, then looked relieved. “Ooh, that hurt. Your treeling just pulled out the wretched tick I’ve been carrying around for days. I couldn’t reach it with my teeth. What a relief!”

She let the treeling clean the rest of her back. When Aree was done, he jumped back onto Thakur and nestled between his shoulders, murmuring softly.

“Well?” Thakur looked at Ratha.

“Your creature felt like all the fleas in the forest were on my back, but I am glad to be rid of that tick.” Ratha shook herself. “Keep your treeling, then. I will tell the others not to eat the creature. He isn’t like the Red Tongue, but he seems to be useful. Will he groom others in the clan besides you and me?”

“If they are gentle and don’t frighten him.”

“What are you going to do with him now?” she asked.

“Take him to my den. I think he wants to sleep.” Ratha gave the treeling one more look. “I’m going to ask the yearlings if anything happened while I was gone,” she said and jogged away, swinging her tail. Thakur gazed after her, then turned up the path that led to his den. With his full stomach, he agreed with the treeling that a nap would be a good idea.

Chapter Eight

Most of the mated females became pregnant, carrying their cubs through the winter and giving birth in early spring. When the rainy season ended, the clan mothers brought their litterlings from the birth-dens to a secluded place amid an outcropping of stone. In this sheltered nursery, guarded by one or two females, the small cubs could sleep in the sun or crawl about on unsteady legs.

The nursery would have been too hot at midday if it hadn’t been for the shade of a sapling that leaned over the rocks. A gap in the lichen-dotted scones allowed a light breeze to cool the litterlings, but the nursery’s shelter kept out the chill of the early spring wind.

Ratha lay, half-asleep, with a heap of dozing cubs warming her belly. As in previous years, she had had no cubs of her own; she took nursery duty to allow the mothers a rest. She opened one eye and watched the sapling’s new leaves flutter in the breeze.

A fuzzy, chubby body blocked her view and little paws stepped on her face. The cub was too tiny to hurt her and she let him clamber across her muzzle, only objecting when he stopped halfway to chew on her whiskers. With a grunt, she shook him off, caught him by the scruff and swung him into the pile of his fellows who were still asleep.

“Hmph. Your mother had better teach you that my whiskers aren’t blades of grass, even though they may look that way when I’m lying down,” she grumbled, giving him a nudge with her nose.

She lay back to enjoy the quiet, but soon other litterlings woke and began climbing all over her, butting her with their heads and digging in the fur of her belly to find her nipples. They would have to stay hungry until one of the mothers came to feed them, she thought, regretting she had no milk.

“Sleep until Fessran comes and she will feed you,” she said.

Ratha flicked her tail away from a cub that had started gnawing on it, surprised that such tiny teeth could be so sharp. She tried to nap again, but the litterlings wouldn’t leave her alone. She was starting to lose some of her patience when Fessran slithered through the opening in the rocks and flopped down to feed the hungry young. There were tiny squeals and growls as the small cubs fought for places at her teats. Ratha sat and watched, smelling the rich scent of flowing milk as the cubs nursed.

“Well, has our clan leader had enough of tending nurslings?” Fessran teased.

“They don’t squabble as much as the grown cubs I have to look after,” Ratha said.

Fessran grunted.“Give them time. They will. Especially mine.” She leaned over to nudge her little male and left a sooty smudge on him. “The black stuff won’t hurt,” said Fessran. “It’s just another spot. I’ll clean him up when I’m through nursing the rest.”

“Being a Firekeeper’s cub may have its problems,” Ratha teased. “If he keeps gaining spots, how will he ever lose them as he should when he grows up?”

Fessran yawned.“Speaking of Firekeepers’ cubs, has Bira brought hers out yet?”

“No. She had a late litter. They’re still too young.”

“Ptahh! She had them not long after I had mine. She’s just afraid that hers aren’t going to be the best. They’re not, of course, but I’m sure they’ll be acceptable. I think you should have a talk with her. She should be helping the rest of us mothers with the nursery.”

“She’s young; this is her first litter,” Ratha protested. “I don’t want to bother her yet. But I am curious about Shongshar. Does he take an interest in the litter?”

“Yes. He is more concerned with his cubs than any male I’ve known.”

“He seems to be good with youngsters,” Ratha said reflectively, getting up. The prospect of Shongshar having a strong attachment to his cubs made her uneasy, but she did not voice her concerns to the Firekeeper. Instead, she asked, “Is Shongshar as good a Firekeeper as you had hoped he’d be? I know the guard-fires have stayed strong and we haven’t recently lost any animals to raiders.”

Fessran’s eyes lit with pride as she answered, “Shongshar is as good as I’d hoped and even better. Not only is he brave and quick, but he sets a good example for the younger Firekeepers and encourages them to work harder.”

“Good.” Ratha let her uneasiness fade.

The cubs who hadn’t found a place to nurse crawled all over Fessran, their mewing shrill and insistent.

“Is someone coming to help you feed the litterlings?” Ratha asked.

“Drani is coming and her teats are full.” Fessran grimaced and shoved a cub away from her belly. “Ouch, you little son of a mare! You’re supposed to suck, not chew.”

With that, Ratha took her leave.

During the next few days, she found herself watching both Shongshar and Bira. Shongshar was immensely proud of his new offspring and it showed in every step he took. Bira, however, seemed subdued. She was pleased at having her first cubs. But the happiness Ratha saw in the eyes of other mothers was marred in hers by uncertainty. Bira still did not bring her litterlings to the nursery and Ratha decided, reluctantly, that it was time to speak to her about it.

It was just after sunset and she was resting in her den trying to think of the best way to approach the young mother about her secrecy. She heard the tread of someone approaching and smelled Fessran. She raised her head, catching the sharp scent of anger in the Firekeeper’s odor.

“What is it?” she asked as Fessran came to the mouth of the den, her tail wagging and her fur bristling.

“That little idiot Bira!” Fessran hissed. “She’s abandoned her cubs. Shongshar came to me when he found them cold and hungry. She must have gone mad. I’ve never heard of anyone doing such a thing.”

A prickling apprehension began to creep over Ratha.“Is Shongshar with you?”

“No. He’s with the cubs, trying to keep them warm. I’ll go to Bira’s den and nurse them if you’ll try to find her.”

Ratha hesitated. Invading a new mother’s lair was not something that clan females usually did. Each of them knew how fiercely they guarded their own privacy and the right to decide whether they would show their cubs. Only the clan leader could violate that privacy and only when there was need. Fessran hadn’t said it directly, but Ratha knew she was asking for permission to enter Bira’s den.

“All right. Go feed them.” Ratha crawled out of the den and shook herself, trying to get rid of the cold chill that seemed to crawl through her fur. It was a worry she had long suppressed and had almost forgotten about. Now it came back in Thakur’s words and his voice.

“No,” she growled to herself. Fessran gave her a puzzled look.

“Nothing. Go on. I’ll find Bira. Where did you see her last?”

“At one of the guard-fires around the meadow. Her partner left, but she may have stayed,” Fessran said and bounded away.

Ratha took the trail that led to the meadow. Bira’s scent was present, but faint, telling Ratha that the Firekeeper had gone to the meadow but had not returned. When Ratha arrived, she looked into the night, narrowing her eyes so she could see farther. At the most distant flame she made out the form of a single fire-tender.

As Ratha neared the fire, Bira charged out, her ears flattened and her teeth bared.“Go away! I told everyone I don’t need any help.”

Ratha held her ground. Bira’s pace slowed and her lashing tail went stiff. “I appreciate your diligence, Firekeeper,” Ratha said dryly. “But there are others who are waiting to serve their turn at duty.”

Bira’s eyes widened in dismay. “Clan leader! I didn’t mean …”

“I know you didn’t,” Ratha said, trying to make her voice sound kind. “Come back to the fire and tell me why you abandoned your cubs.”

Bira followed her back to the circle of warm light thrown by the guard-fire. Ratha saw that Bira’s red-brown coat was rough and her tail ungroomed and matted. The young mother’s nipples bulged with too much milk and she admitted that they hurt.

“Why don’t you go and feed your litterlings?” Ratha asked again. Bira flinched and ducked her head, saying nothing.

“Is there something the matter with them?”

Bira trembled and then gave a little jerk as if she wanted to jump up and flee. She turned her head away and gazed with longing into the night. This was not like Bira at all, Ratha thought. She had always been calm and level-headed, even as a cub. Her only fault was vanity; she was overly proud of her long bushy tail. That she had ceased to groom herself told how troubled she was.

As Ratha watched her, she grew more certain that she knew the cause of Bira’s distress.

“Bira,” she said softly. “Are you afraid your cubs have no light in their eyes?”

The young mother shuddered and suddenly the words burst out of her.“Shongshar thinks there’s nothing wrong with them, but he doesn’t know. I’m the one who sees the lack of something in their eyes. I’m the one who tries to get them to say their first word, afraid that they will never speak …”

“Bira, it’s too early to tell,” Ratha said, trying to make herself believe her own words. “Have any of the cubs in other litters begun to talk?”

“No … but they try. Fessran said that her little female is starting to imitate her and makes noises that are almost words.”

“Ptahh! Fessran brags about her young. All the mothers do,” Ratha said, trying to comfort her. “And you should know better than to listen to them.”

But Bira didn’t seem convinced. “No,” she said stubbornly, looking at the ground. “There is something wrong. Maybe I carried them too long or my milk is bad.”

“There’s nothing wrong with your milk,” Ratha insisted. Bira said nothing. She sat and shivered even in the warmth of the fire. For a long time she stared at nothing.

“Fessran asked to nurse your cubs,” Ratha said at last. “I told her to feed them. I can’t let litterlings starve just because you think there is something wrong with them. We need every cub we can raise. I want you to take them back and care for them until we know if they can be named. Willyou go and nurse them?”

Bira shut her eyes.“No, clan leader.”

Ratha sighed.“Well, I can’t drag you to your den and force you to nurse. Since Fessran is willing to feed your young, would you be willing to care for hers?”

“If my milk made my litterlings sick, wouldn’t it hurt hers?” Bira asked.

“I don’t think so,” said Ratha patiently.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause all this trouble … yes, I will feed Fessran’s cubs.”

Bira gave the guard-fire some more wood and then followed Ratha back across the meadow. The clan leader waved her tail at two other Firekeepers, who promptly took Bira’s place.

The young mother wasn’t sure that Fessran’s cubs would accept her, but soon Bira was lying on her side in the maternal lair with three cubs sucking and kneading her belly. Once she had been made comfortable, Ratha went to the other den to tell Fessran that her young were being cared for. Then she returned to her own den and fell into an uneasy sleep.

The next morning Ratha came by to see how Bira’s cubs were faring. When she arrived at the den, Fessran had finished feeding them and was gone. Shongshar was taking them out of the den to play. This was the first time she had seen his young in full daylight and she studied the cubs carefully.

Even though his litterlings were slightly younger than most of the clan cubs, they seemed older. They were larger, stronger and steadier on their legs than cubs in other litters. Although their heads had the same round baby form as other cubs’, there was a subtle hint that they would develop the same arched skull as their father. The color of the fur between their spots was a fawn so light it looked ashy, with touches of silver-gray. Their infant chubbiness couldn’t quite hide the heavier forequarters and longer forelegs. Their paws were large, showing that they would someday equal their father in size. The smell on them was more Shongshar’s than Bira’s.

She watched him too and saw that, unlike most of the clan males, who wouldn’t tolerate their cubs until they reached a sensible age, Shongshar was delighted with his. He abandoned his usual reserve and played with them as if he were just another cub in the same litter. He let them attack his tail, chew on his ears and climb all over him. Ratha had never heard Shongshar purr, but the continuous rumble that came from his throat as he rubbed his cheek against the little male was the sound of absolute contentment.

Yet, the longer she watched, the more she felt a growing uneasiness about the cubs. They played much as the litterlings in the nursery did: they stalked, pounced and wrestled; but there was something strangely lacking. Their movements were quick and their eyes keen; they seemed to notice everything that moved. But once the object, such as a swaying flower or their father’s tail, had been attacked and subdued, it held no further interest unless it moved again.

The litterlings in the nursery also were attracted by things that moved, but after the first clumsy pounce, the cub’s expression would change from the excitement of the hunter to the intent curiosity of one who hungered to understand its world. The litterlings’ eyes always held questions, even if their tongues were not yet ready to ask them.

Being careful not to disturb the three, Ratha edged closer so she could see more clearly. Shongshar’s eyes were glowing with affection and happiness as he tumbled the cubs about with his big paws. Their eyes were alive with momentary excitement, but there was nothing more. Trying to fight the chill creeping over her, Ratha stared hard until her own eyes ached, but she could see nothing. No questions, no hunger … no light. As much as she desperately wished to deny it, she knew Bira’s instincts had been right.

She felt as though she were looking at cubs who had been stricken with sickness and were soon to die. The sight of them suddenly made her belly churn as it did when she smelled rotten meat; she hated herself for her feeling. Now she knew why Bira couldn’t nurse them. If she had forced the young mother to care for these cubs, she would certainly have killed them and then run from the clan in shame and despair.

“Clan leader!” Shongshar had caught sight of her. Ratha gathered her feelings together and put them away. She forced herself to approach him.

“I see that they’re thriving on Fessran’s milk,” she said, unable to think of anything else.

“I’m grateful to her for nursing them.” Shongshar stopped and looked troubled. “I don’t understand what’s wrong with Bira. How could she leave such fine cubs as these? Look how quick and strong they are.”

Ratha knew she didn’t have to answer him. As clan leader, she didn’t have to answer anyone if she didn’t want to. She could just mumble something vague and walk away. She looked up into his eyes. The happiness had gone, replaced by the shadow of the same pain she had seen in Bira’s. Inwardly she hesitated, knowing that what she must say next would only add to his hurt.

“Shongshar, do you remember the promise you made to me the night you were given your name?”

His ears twitched as if he wanted to lay them back and hiss at her.“Yes,” he said harshly. His eyes widened, becoming frightened, almost pleading. “Clan leader, isn’t it too soon to tell? I’m sure my cubs will have the light in their eyes when they are older. You can’t judge them now. Please, give them some time. I know what Bira thinks, and she’s wrong; I know she is.”

Ratha wanted to turn away from him, but she forced herself to stay where she was and show no expression.“Do you regret that promise to me?” she asked him.

“No. There was no other choice. If I hadn’t come to you, I would have died,” he said simply. “But I thought it would be easy to give up my cubs. I never knew how I would feel about them.”

Thakur knew, she thought.That was the reason he was worried.

“I won’t judge them now,” she said, looking directly at him. “You are right; it is not yet time. But the time will come when I must judge them and you must accept my decision.”

His tail drooped and he looked at the ground.“I understand, clan leader.”

He said no more and went back to playing with the cubs, but his movements seemed slower and less spirited. Ratha found it easier not to watch as she went away.

The following day, Ratha visited the nursery. The weather seemed to share her stormy mood. Spring had retreated back into winter, with gusty winds that blew her fur backward and stole the warmth from her coat. Despite the weather, the mothers had brought their cubs out; two females were looking after a large collection of active youngsters.

Most of the cubs had mastered the skill of walking and were now attempting to run. The nursery enclosure was full of spotted bodies hurtling from one side to the other. Ratha watched their antics until she heard someone coming toward her from the opposite direction. It was Fessran, carrying one of Bira’s cubs in her mouth. She had a meaningful look in her eyes that said she was not just bringing the cub out to play. Ratha had almost been expecting something like this. Although Fessran had continued to care for Bira’s cubs, she missed her own and the strain of worrying about two litters, in addition to her duties as Firekeeper leader, was making her curt and short-tempered.

Behind Fessran, Ratha saw Shongshar with the other.“Drani,” Ratha heard Fessran say to one of the two other females who were there, “you have so many litterlings that a few more shouldn’t trouble you. I’ll make sure Bira takes her turn here since these are hers.”

Fessran backed out, allowing Shongshar to slither through the narrow cleft between the rocks and deposit the second cub. Drani hissed at the unexpected entry of a male and Shongshar hastily retreated, tailfirst.

“If you see Bira,” said Fessran irritably, “tell her she can feed her own wretched cubs. I want mine back.” Then she was gone.

Ratha settled down to watch Bira’s youngsters as they made their first attempts to enter the group. Unexpectedly, Shongshar hopped up beside her. Drani looked at him and growled.

“Oh, stop it. He isn’t going to hurt them,” Ratha snapped.

Shongshar sent Ratha a grateful look as he found a seat on the boulder. The wind teased his silver fur and spread the hairs of his tail against the rock. He leaned down, picked up his little female cub by the scruff and began washing her. When he was finished, he put the litterling back in the nursery.

Another cub pattered up to her and tried to touch noses. She shook herself and walked away. The other youngster followed, trying to sniff her tail. With a silent snarl and laid-back ears, she jumped on him and seized his ear. With a squeal, the other cub backed away dragging her with him.

“No, no, no!” the clan-cub cried shrilly, using the only word he knew. Finally he managed to shake her off and retreated, looking totally bewildered.

“Come here,” Shongshar growled at his daughter. She gave him one glance and then bounced away beyond reach of his paw. Drani had to catch her and deliver her back to her father. He took her by the scruff and set her between his paws while Ratha watched. “No,” he said sternly. “No. You shouldn’t do that to the other cubs.”

She looked at him blankly and struggled to get free. When Shongshar put her back in the nursery, she promptly attacked another litterling and paid no attention to his scolding. It took a sharp cuff from Drani to free the victim, and the culprit was again delivered to her father.

“She’s not used to other cubs,” Shongshar said, with a faintly embarrassed look at Ratha. This time, he kept the cub in front of him, giving Ratha a good chance to study her closely. Her eyes were a gray-blue, with odd orange flecks. She was definitely larger and stronger than the other litterlings, but her stare was as flat and unfocused as that of a newborn whose eyes had just opened.

Ratha suspected that Shongshar couldn’t control her because she couldn’t understand his words. The only language she knew was that of growls and cuffs. She wasn’t surprised when Shongshar took his daughter by the nape and left the nursery. He reappeared a short time later and picked up the young male.

Chapter Nine

Ratha waited before she decided to go after Shongshar. He must know by now that his cubs will never bear names,she thought.Bira knows and she has cut herself off from them. He must do the same or leave clan ground.

The late afternoon sun had slipped behind a cloud and the rocks beneath her were starting to chill. Wearily she rose and left the nursery, seeking the path to Shongshar’s den, a trail her feet were coming to know too well.

He was there, lying across the entrance to the lair as if guarding the way in. Two spotted faces peered out over his back. He lifted his head, showing his profile, and his lip drew back to expose the length of his fangs. He did not look at her.

Ratha sat down, keeping her distance. She waited as the shadows of trees and bushes lengthened, spreading across the ground to the mouth of the den. Her own shadow crept with the others until it touched him.

The wind shifted, blowing his scent to her. She smelled the pungent odor of anger and the bitter acrid scent of despair. She rose and took one pace toward him. The orange glow in his eyes deepened and his nape lifted. Fear struck at her and she fought it aside.

“You have long fangs, Shongshar,” she said. “They could easily find my throat. Killing me would not change the truth about your litterlings.”

“It is not you I would kill, clan leader,” Shongshar answered in a low growl.

Ratha’s gaze hardened. “If you seek revenge on Bira, you are wrong. She is clan born. Had she taken someone other than you—”

“It is not Bira’s fault. I know that.”

Her fear eased, but she remained wary.“Bira will not return to these cubs. Now that you know what they are, you must abandon them and never think of them again.”

The little female started to climb over Shongshar’s back. He took her by the scruff, laid her down between his paws and began licking her, even though she smelled as though she had already been washed. Ratha sensed this was his answer.

At last he looked up at her and said,“I didn’t know how I would feel about my cubs when I made you the promise that gave me my name. I didn’t know how hard it would be.” His eyes added the accusation,You can’t know how hard it is, clan leader.

Her belly ached for him in his sorrow.“You think I ask you to give up your cubs without knowing the bitterness of it?” she asked. He had begun licking the female cub again, but he stopped and laid a paw over her.

“I will tell you something,” Ratha said to him. “I have told it to only one other among the Named. I bore a litter of cubs like yours. I took a male who came from outside the clan, like you. When I realized that my young were witless, I nearly went mad.” The words poured out of her as the memory came flooding back. “I attacked my mate and tried to kill one of the cubs. He drove me away. Later, he died. I don’t know what happened to the cubs; they are probably dead now.”

Shongshar lay, looking at her in silence while the shadows crept over his coat. His daughter squeaked and he hushed her.“So you know what this is like.” He nudged the cub, who gave Ratha a wide-eyed stare, then blinked and yawned.

Ratha found it difficult to keep her gaze steady.“Yes, I do,” she answered finally. “I’m … sorry.”

He looked away.“What must I do now if I choose to obey you?”

“Take the cubs far away from clan ground and leave them. Or, if you choose not to obey me, you may leave the clan tonight and take them with you.” She paused, letting him absorb her words. “I will return to your den tomorrow morning. Either way, if you stay or leave, the cubs must be gone.”

“And if I choose to go?”

Ratha swallowed.“Then we will lose the best fire-tender we have ever trained. Your name will be given to the eldest male in the next litter that is born and you will again be the orange-eyed one among the Un-Named.”

She got up. The shadows were fading with the coming twilight.“Despite everything, I wish you well, Shongshar,” she said and hoped he couldn’t see how she had begun to tremble.

She suddenly wanted to be with someone who could give her comfort, or at least some understanding and companionship.Thakur,she thought,I need you. I know we have disagreed, but don’t turn away from me now … please don’t turn away …

The desire to see the herding teacher became an overwhelming hunger that sent her flying down the darkened trail in search of him.

“Watch out, clan leader!” came a familiar voice out of the dusk; she saw a pair of green eyes ahead on the trail. Ratha stopped so fast to avoid a collision that she skidded on wet leaves and fell on her side. Her breath burning in her throat, she hauled herself to her feet.

She forgot her embarrassment and her soggy flank as Thakur’s voice and scent reached her. The green eyes blinked. Another, smaller pair glowed momentarily and Ratha made out the shape of the treeling’s face between the outline of Thakur’s ears.

The herding teacher came forward to touch noses with her.“Where were you going in such a hurry?”

“To find you,” Ratha gulped. “You were right about Shongshar. Bira’s cubs are witless. You were right and I didn’t listen,” she cried. “Oh, I wish I had!”

Thakur was quiet for a while and his silence tore at her in a way worse than angry words could. When she thought she couldn’t bear it any longer, he said, “Come with me to my den. We’ll talk there.”

Gratefully she padded after him until they reached his lair. He stood aside to let her in and then followed.

“I knew Bira had abandoned her litter,” he said as she curled up with the earthen wall of the den against her back. The rich smell of soil and leaf-mold mixed with his scent made her feel better.

“Their eyes are empty,” she said, feeling her voice growing steadier. “I know. I looked at them.”

“There is no chance that you are mistaken?”

“How could I be wrong, when my own cubs were like that? I’ll never forget my daughter’s eyes. I imagine Bira won’t forget hers either.” Her voice was heavy with self-accusation.

“She’ll get over it, in time. You did.”

Ratha laid her head on her paws.“I did until seeing Shongshar’s cubs brought it all back.”

“What have you told Shongshar?”

“I reminded him of his promise to me and gave him the choice of abandoning his cubs in order to stay, or taking them with him and leaving the clan.”

“Can he take them?” Thakur asked.

“I think so. They were still nursing, but Fessran was starting to feed them chewed meat. He can’t give them milk, but he can chew meat for them.”

She heard the soft sound of the herding teacher’s tail brushing the ground as he curled it around himself. “When does Shongshar have to make the choice?”

“I said I would come to his den tomorrow. If the cubs are still there, I suppose I will have to take charge of them myself.” She sighed unhappily at the thought of that possibility.

She heard an odd shuffling noise and then Thakur saying softly,“Go on, little friend. She knows you. She won’t hurt you.”

She felt the treeling’s paws on her hind foot and held still as Aree hopped up onto her leg and walked up her flank to her back, where he began grooming her fur. Aree’s touch was so gentle and careful that she wondered if the treeling knew she was upset.

“The longer I have Aree, the more I think he knows what I’m feeling,” said Thakur, and his voice was warm with affection for the treeling. “He doesn’t speak, but he seems to say things with his paws.”

“He is very gentle. I hope he doesn’t mind that I’m a bit wet.” Ratha felt her tenseness seeping away and stretched her mouth wide in a great yawn. “I just had a funny thought.”

“What?”

“Aree grooms me the way you would if you had his clever little paws. Maybe he’s got some of you in him.”

“Perhaps,” said Thakur softly. “Do you feel better?”

“A little. I wish he could groom out all my bad feelings along with the ticks and the fleas.”

“Not even a treeling can do that.”

Ratha drew in her breath and let it out in a huge sigh, lifting the treeling up on her ribs and letting him sink down again.

“Are you thinking about tomorrow?” Thakur asked, after he had been quiet awhile.

“Yes. I hope Shongshar’s cubs are gone when I reach the den. I’ll still have to face Fessran and tell her what has happened, but I’d much rather do that than have to take them out and abandon them myself.”

“I’ll come with you, if you want.”

“I thought you were angry with me,” she said, surprised.

“Not any more.” He paused. “If you do have to take the cubs, you can’t carry both of them at once.”

“Thakur, you don’t have to,” Ratha answered, ashamed and grateful at the same time. “This is my responsibility.”

“The responsibility belongs to all of us,” he said as Aree finished cleaning Ratha’s fur and climbed down from her back. She felt warmed, comforted and ready to sleep. Perhaps she would be able to face the coming day after all, she thought.

She woke early, unsure of what had roused her. It might have been a bird trilling outside or the faint morning light filtering into the den. She buried her nose in her tail and tried to shut her eyes again, but it was useless. Thoughts of the task that lay ahead stole sleep away. All she could do was watch and wait while the gray light outside grew stronger and Thakur’s ribs rose and fell with his slow breathing. Aree, curled up against his belly, looked like a small cub with dusky brown fur.

The treeling began to stir. Thakur twitched and moved in his slumber. She hoped he would wake soon; it was nearly time to depart for Shongshar’s den. When he settled down again and began to snore, she reached out a hind foot and poked him. He grumbled a sleepy protest, but his eyes opened and, when she stepped over him on her way out of the den, he quickly came to life.

A ragged fog lay along the ground and patches of mist hung around the few stands of trees. Thakur crawled out of the den with Aree wobbling and yawning on his back. The treeling eyed the weather with distaste and fluffed his fur.

The moist air held scents well and before Ratha reached Shongshar’s den she knew he and the cubs would still be there. Someone else would also be with them. Fessran’s odor and footprints were fresh, telling Ratha that the Firekeeper leader had taken the same path earlier in the morning.

“I think Shongshar came to get her,” Thakur said, from behind Ratha. “His scent is alone on one side of the trail and mingled with hers on the other.” Aree contributed a sneeze to the conversation and then shook itself.

Ratha glanced back and wondered whether Thakur should bring his treeling on an errand such as this. She was so grateful for his presence that she decided not to say anything. No one would notice anyway; the creature had become so much a part of him. If Shongshar became angry and forced a fight, Thakur would send his companion up into the nearest tree.

“Even so,” she said to him as they approached, “you let me go first.”

She saw Shongshar waiting outside the den. His feet and legs were lost in the white swirl of ground fog and the silver in his coat blended into the gray mist. His eyes were the only part of him she could see clearly and they burned at her with a mixture of pain and defiance.

“I couldn’t abandon them,” he said in a low growl “I tried, but I just couldn’t do it.”

Ratha faced him directly.“Do you wish to stay with us?”

“I came to the clan because it was the only way I could survive. There is nothing for me outside.”

“You have disobeyed me,” Ratha said. “The cubs are still here and so are you. However, if you stand aside and let me take them you may keep your name and your place among us.”

He moved away from the mouth of the lair and stared away as she passed him.“I’m sorry, Shongshar,” she said but he gave no indication that he had heard.

She bent her head and crawled inside the den. A warm, milky scent met her nose. Enough light entered the lair so that she could see Fessran stretched out with Shongshar’s young at her teats.

“They won’t be nursing much longer,” she said. “I’ve begun to feed them chewed meat, but they still need a little milk.”

“I thought you weren’t going to care for them any more.”

“I wasn’t.” Fessran replied. “But when Shongshar came and asked me again, I couldn’t refuse him. Why aren’t you doing something about getting Bira to nurse them?”

Ratha braced herself and said in a flat voice,“Bira is not coming back to them, Fessran. Hasn’t Shongshar told you what I said to him last night?”

The Firekeeper narrowed her eyes and curled closer about the litterlings.“So you are going to take them to die. I didn’t believe you could do such a thing.”

Ratha lost her temper.“Oh, stop trying to fool yourself! You’ve looked at those cubs and you know as well as I do that there is nothing in their eyes.” She stopped, trying to calm herself. “Didn’t Drani tell you about the trouble in the nursery?”

“Yes,” Fessran admitted, looking down at the floor between her paws. She sat up as the restless cubs continued to paw at her belly.

Ratha leaned forward and opened her jaws to take the little male by the scruff. Fessran blocked her, snarling.“No! I have given these cubs my milk. I don’t want them to die.”

Ratha crouched, her own nape raised, lips pulling back from her teeth.

“I … I just think you should give them a little more time, that’s all …,” Fessran faltered, embarrassed by her sudden flare of anger.

“And you think that it will be easier then? When you have nursed them longer and begun to think of them as yours?” Ratha hissed.

“No. I know they are Bira’s.”

“But you will still want to see them kept and raised, for Shongshar’s sake.”

The Firekeeper stared back, her eyes reflecting the light from the lair’s entrance.

“Fessran, I would do you no kindness by allowing you to keep them. What will happen when these cubs grow up and you have to face the truth about them? What will happen when the mating season comes? We won’t be able to keep them from mating, any more than we could keep Shongshar from it. Do you want to see more litters like this? Do you want to birth cubs like this?”

“No!” Fessran cried. “No, not if you are right about them. But you could be wrong.”

Ratha snatched the little male and placed him so that the light from outside the lair fell across his face.“Go on, look at him,” she hissed. “Look at him and tell me if you really think I’m wrong.” She seized him by the scruff and held him up before Fessran.

The cub hung in her jaws, making no effort to struggle. Fessran peered into his face, studying him intently. Something like pity and revulsion came into her eyes and she turned her head away.

“All right, take him,” she said harshly. “Take the female, too; she’s the same.”

Ratha put the cub down long enough to say,“Go back to your family, Fessran. Go back to your little daughter who is starting to talk. Think how proud you will be when you bring your cubs before the clan to be given names.”

She picked the litterling up and carried him from the den.

Outside, she paused in front of Shongshar and put the cub on the ground to free her jaws.“These cubs are yours,” she said. “If you still want to take them and abandon them yourself, I will trust you.”

“No, clan leader,” he answered. “You were the one who asked for that promise. You have said my cubs must die. I can’t fight you, but I won’t help you either.”

She took a breath.“All right. They are my responsibility now. I accept that.”

She picked up the cub again, but Shongshar stood, blocking her way. His orange eyes burned with grief, but what frightened Ratha was the sudden hate that flared in their depths. It was as if she were looking into the eyes of an old bitter enemy. Ratha felt her nape and back itch as the hair lifted; she narrowed her eyes and growled, sweeping her tail from side to side. Shongshar moved out of her way, but as Ratha passed him she sensed that she had not won the confrontation, she had only delayed it.

Fessran crawled out of the den, her coat rumpled. Without looking at the clan leader, she said,“Come with me, Shongshar. I am having trouble being a Firekeeper leader and raising a family at the same time. Cherfan isn’t interested in my cubs. If I share my family with you, it will help both of us.”

Shongshar lowered his head and paced to Fessran’s side. Neither of them looked back at Ratha as they left.

When Shongshar and Fessran had gone, Thakur came out of the brush and fetched the female cub from the lair.

Carrying the cubs in their mouths, the two left clan ground and trotted toward the hazy shapes of the mountains beneath the rising sun. Ratha’s jaw was soon aching from straining against the male cub’s weight, but she forced herself to go on carrying him, without stopping to rest. Something told her to get these litterlings as far from clan territory as possible.

Part of her started to go numb as she traveled, and it wasn’t just her jaw. Her legs seemed to go on by themselves while her mind functioned only enough to choose the path. The litterlings, seemingly dazed, never cried or struggled, which made them seem more like lifeless burdens than living creatures.

For the rest of the day Ratha and Thakur traveled over plains and foothills until they reached the mountains. Among the pine forests that covered the lower slopes, they found a stream leading up through a shallow canyon until it entered a sheltered meadow. The surrounding canyon walls protected the meadow from wind and the stream lay close by. When the two saw the enclosed pasture, they knew they had come far enough.

As soon as Thakur let the female cub down, she began stalking a large beetle that clung to a swaying stem. She wriggled, pounced, and then Ratha heard her jaws crunch on the insect. The litterling grimaced in disgust at the taste but she gulped it down.

Ratha stared at her, then at Thakur as he said,“Hmm. If she can eat insects, there is a chance that she and her brother may survive here.”

“Maybe. Fessran said they had begun to eat chewed meat.”

She watched the cubs as they romped around their new home. When they reached the far end of the meadow, she felt Thakur nudge her.“We should go now,” he said softly.

He trotted away downstream and, after one last look at Shongshar’s cubs, Ratha followed.

She said little on the journey back to clan ground. Although there was some hope that the abandoned young might survive, she knew she couldn’t risk telling Shongshar where they had been left. Thakur led the way back and she paced after him, wondering if she would ever lose the weariness of body and spirit that had crept over her, numbing her feelings.

Chapter Ten

For a while after Thakur and Ratha returned to clan ground, he noticed that she was unusually subdued and did not appear among the Named any more often than she had to. She spent much time in her den, her head resting on her paws, her eyes staring ahead at nothing.

“It would have been no easier for me if Shongshar had taken his cubs out and abandoned them,” she muttered in response to Thakur’s gentle questioning. “It was I who allowed him into the clan to sire those cubs and it was I who decided he must lose them. I wish I could forget that they were ever born, but I keep seeing those little faces before me.”

“You didn’t kill the cubs,” Thakur pointed out. “We chose a place for them where there is food and they will be safe.”

“Until the next hungry beast comes along. It doesn’t really matter. Shongshar thinks they are dead and so does everyone else who knew about them. Only you and I know that they may survive, at least for a little while.”

She sighed, laid her head back on her paws and stared away again, not noticing when Aree hopped up on her and began to groom her pelt. Thakur called the treeling back again, knowing that Ratha’s distress was something she would have to come to terms with by herself; he couldn’t help her. He wondered if the faces she saw in her waking dreams were those of Shongshar’s cubs or of her own lost young.

Gradually she came out of her lassitude, but whether she had resolved her feelings or just buried them, Thakur couldn’t tell. As much as he wanted to stay with her and comfort her, he had other duties that called him. The cubs in the spring litters were now old enough so that he would soon have to begin training some of them as herders.

“It’s too early to wake up,” Thakur grumbled, opening one eye at his treeling. Aree cocked his head at him and evaded his sleepy paw. For some reason the creature was unusually frisky. On all fours he galloped to the threshold of the den, poked his nose out, galloped back and leaped on Thakur. The creature pawed his fur and told him, with various treeling noises, what he thought of those who snored in their dens while there was such a beautiful morning outside.

The scolding, plus the impact Aree had made when he landed on him, brought Thakur fully awake.“I’m feeding you too much,” he growled at the treeling. “You’re getting heavy.” The treeling had grown rapidly, reaching his adult size. Now when Aree stood beside Thakur on all fours, his back reached the level of the herding teacher’s belly. With his legs and tail outstretched, he could extend himself from Thakur’s shoulder to withers.

Aree looked at Thakur with such wide soulful eyes that he knew he must feed his creature. The herding teacher crawled wearily out of his den and found a dead tree that was covered with bark-beetles. Aree climbed up and munched on the insects until he was sated.

Thakur’s belly was still comfortably full from the previous day’s herdbeast kill, so he would not have to eat for a few days. He shivered as the cold in the early morning air crept into his coat. The mothers would eventually bring their cubs to the meadow and the first day’s teaching would begin, but it was still much too early.

He considered returning to his den, but the treeling was still lively. Aree would never let him go back to sleep. He decided instead to take a walk out to the meadow. Some Firekeepers might still be on duty and he could warm himself at the guard-fires.

Only a single fire was still going when he got there, and he could see that the Firekeeper was getting ready to put it out. During winter, the guard-fires burned night and day, but in summer they were only needed in darkness, or when an attack threatened the herds.

He quickened his pace and called to the Firekeeper. He had not expected that it would be Bira.

She greeted him with a nose-touch and asked when he was to start teaching.

“This morning, but not for a while,” he answered. “My treeling got me up.”

“Could Aree groom my tail?” asked Bira, glancing at the treeling. “I didn’t take care of myself for a while and now I’ve got some wretched burrs that I can’t get out with my teeth.”

“I think Aree wouldn’t mind.” Thakur nosed Aree off his back and Bira spread her tail along the ground. She still looked a bit thin and worn, but the fact she had begun to care about how she looked told Thakur that she was recovering from the shock of learning that her young were witless.

“Are the cubs gone?” she asked suddenly.

Thakur hesitated.“Yes. I helped Ratha take them away.”

“Don’t tell me where. I don’t want to know.” Her tail twitched beneath Aree’s paws. “I’ll have another litter next spring. Shongshar will have to go away when the mating season comes again, won’t he?”

“I suppose he will,” the herding teacher answered. Perhaps Shongshar would accompany him on his annual journey away from the clan. The prospect of having a partner during his yearly exile was something he might welcome to help ease the loneliness of being away. However, he reminded himself, hisown retreat was self-imposed. Shongshar’s might not be. Ratha certainly didn’t want any more empty-eyed litters born on clan ground.

Bira dug her claws into the dirt and grimaced as Aree pulled hard at a tangle in her tail. The treeling wrapped his own tail around hers, to steady himself. He gave a tremendous yank and the burr came free. Aree held the hair-covered thing up in his paws and Bira sighed with relief.

When the treeling had finished grooming Bira, he climbed back on Thakur and cleaned his own coat. She yawned and then began scuffing dirt on the flickering fire.

“Wait,” said Thakur. “It’s early and I’m still cold. Why don’t you let me keep the Red Tongue for a while?”

Bira looked doubtful.“The ashes should be buried. Fessran said that was important.”

“I’ll bury them when I’ve warmed myself. Look at Aree. He’s shivering too. After all, he did get that burr out of your tail.” He nudged the treeling and Aree responded by giving Bira a mournful look.

“All right. Since the other Firekeepers are gone, I’ll let you have it. But … don’t let Fessran know. She’s becoming strict with us about the proper care of the fire-creature. She wasn’t that hard on us before, but she is now. I think she’s been listening to Shongshar a lot lately.”Bira wrinkled her nose. “Too much if you ask me.”

Mildly surprised at this, Thakur promised and Bira trotted off, swinging her tail and yawning. He curled up near the fire, which had fallen into embers with a few ragged flames licking charred branches. Aree sat on Thakur’s flank, gazing at the fire. He noticed that the treeling had stopped fidgeting and grown unusually quiet.

All creatures except the Named feared fire and would not come close to it. Even Aree had huddled in Thakur’s fur when he had first brought his new companion near the Red Tongue. Now Thakur wondered if his treeling might have gained some of the same understanding that allowed the Named to tame their fear of the fire. It was ridiculous to suggest that treelings could think as well as the Named did, butAree had shown surprising cleverness and interest in things other than food and grooming. The treeling also seemed to be aware of Thakur’s feelings; something the herding teacher did not expect from a creature he thought of as an animal Dapplebacks and three-horns were animals too, but they were kept to be eaten. Aree was different.

There was no fear in the treeling’s eyes as he gazed at the fire. Even before Aree moved, Thakur sensed that he was about to do something he had never done before. The herding teacher held himself still, but not stiff as Aree climbed down from him. The treeling crouched in the ash-flecked dirt in front of the fire, staring into the flames with a curious intensity. He lowered his muzzle and blinked against the heat. He reached toward the flame with a paw.

Thakur thought at first that Aree was about to make the same mistake that young cubs often did when they encountered the Red Tongue for the first time. They would try to touch the flame itself, not realizing that the most visible part of the fire-creature was the most insubstantial. He readied himself to snatch Aree away if he should try to grasp the dancing flame. But the treeling’s paw stopped and descended to a stick that was lying with one end in the coals.

Thakur felt his heart jump and begin to race. Now he understood what he had sensed upon finding the injured creature on the trail: the possibility that those clever little paws might serve the Named in the most difficult task the clan had attempted, the mastery of the Red Tongue. He held in his breath as the paw touched the unburned shaft of the stick and closed around it.

Embers broke open, showing their glowing centers as Aree dragged the stick from the fire. As he lifted the branch to his eyes, the tiny flame on the end sank down and died, leaving only the red and orange coals amid the black scale that had been bark. The treeling brought the end to his face and studied it intently. He reached up with its other paw as if to touch the glowing wood, but the heat warned his fingers away.

Softly, carefully, Thakur began to purr. He didn’t know why the treeling had taken the stick from the fire and, at this point, he didn’t care. He only wanted Aree to know that this act had pleased him so that the treeling might be encouraged to do it again. Aree’s eyes brightened when he heard the purr and he ambled over to Thakur on threelegs, still holding the stick. The coals had faded to ash.

“Aree?” the treeling said, as if still unsure of whether he had done anything worthy of praise. With licks and nuzzles, Thakur assured his companion that he was very pleased indeed. He made such a fuss over Aree that the treeling tossed his branch aside and rubbed himself against him, curling and uncurling his tail with delight. When some of Aree’s exuberance had worn off, Thakur retrieved the stick and offered it to the treeling.

Aree quickly discovered that accepting the stick earned him more licks and nuzzles. For a while, Thakur played a simple game with his companion, passing the charred branch back and forth between them: from teeth to paws and then back again. When Aree began to tire of that, Thakur decided he was ready to try a simple test to see if the treeling would repeat his previous action.

He took the stick and placed it on the fire, in the same position it had originally been in. He moved slowly, letting Aree follow everything he did. When the stick was in place, he picked it up in his jaws, took it out and replaced it carefully. He did this several times as Aree watched. Once he was sure the treeling understood, he put the stick back in the fire again, but instead of grasping it with his teeth, he used his pawpad.

The wood only rolled under his clumsy swipes. With an impatient chirp, the treeling reached underneath Thakur’s foreleg, seized the stick and pulled it out. With a gesture almost like a flourish, Aree presented him with the stick as if to say, “This isn’t so hard if you have paws like mine. See?”

Thakur licked the treeling until he was damp and rubbed against him until Aree’s coat was thoroughly rumpled. The creature’s ability had surpassed his hopes. The treeling had grown large and strong enough to handle all but the heaviest branches. Thakur knew that with enough time and patience, Aree could be trained to handle the Red Tongue with greater safety and skill than the best Firekeeper among the Named.

Thakur felt the sun’s warmth on his back and realized the mist had burned off. Soon the mothers would be bringing their cubs to the first training session for young herders. Quickly he nosed Aree onto his back and scuffed dirt on the remains of the Red Tongue. He still had to get the teaching herd ready before the cubs arrived.

He kicked a last spray of dirt on the embers and galloped away. Tomorrow he wouldn’t be angry if Aree woke him up early. In fact, he would be the one to wake the treeling. He would probably be able to talk Bira into letting him have the fire again and then he would see what else Aree could do.

Once Aree’s training had begun, Thakur was eager to continue. He thought that, after the first surge of enthusiasm, the treeling might become balky and unwilling to brave the morning chill, but that never happened. Perhaps Aree had caught the sense of forbidden adventure that Thakur felt each time he leftthe den in the half-light before dawn.

Aree learned rapidly and was soon responding correctly to Thakur’s directions. He found that the sharp sound he made by clicking his teeth together would command the treeling’s attention faster than would spoken words.

Soon Aree could extract a branch from the fire and walk around on three legs, holding the lighted torch. Once or twice the treeling tried to transfer the branch from his hands to his prehensile tail, but Thakur quickly discouraged that. Aree tended to pay less attention to things he held with his tail than what was in his hands. Once he had nearly scorched his back by letting the torch droop.

Thakur took great care to be sure that Aree didn’t burn or injure himself during the lessons. He didn’t want to wake the fear of the Red Tongue that seemed to lie deep in every creature. The treeling sensed that the fire-creature could hurt if it got too close and Thakur reinforced Aree’s caution with further training.

By early summer, the treeling could ignite a pile of tinder with a torch taken from the guard-fire. That morning Thakur was elated and praised the treeling endlessly. He caught grasshoppers for Aree until the treeling was stuffed and nuzzled his paws, whose dexterity seemed amazing in comparison to Thakur’s clumsy forefeet.

He remembered what Ratha had said to him while Aree was cleaning her fur.“He grooms me the way you would if you had his clever paws.” She had only been half-awake when she spoke those words and hadn’t really known what they meant. He hadn’t either, but now her words brought a half-seen vision of the possibilities of his partnership with the treeling. He stared at Aree as if he had never seen the creature before. A strange feeling prickled up his back from the root of his tail. He suddenly felt afraid, but it wasn’t the kind of fear he knew when facing an enemy, even one unknown. It was a fear closer to the one he got when he looked up into the night sky with its burning stars and felt awe and a strange undefined hunger. It was this hunger, rising from somewhere deep within him, that frightened him.

He gazed down at the treeling, who was crouching between his forepaws, looking up at him with inquisitive eyes.“Teaching you to care for the Red Tongue is only the beginning,” he said softly, and he listened to himself as if someone else was speaking. “There is much more we can do together.”

He watched the black paws deftly combing the fur on the treeling’s tail and sensed the beginning of a freedom he never knew he had been denied. Ratha was right. The skill of those fingers had started to become his own and it was a gift with far more power than he ever expected.

The sun was hot on his back and the sound of cubs squabbling and chasing each other far down the meadow reminded him that he had students to teach. Quickly he quenched the guttering fire and buried the ashes.

The teaching session with the young cubs began and ended late. It was almost dusk when the mothers came to take their litterlings back to their dens. Thakur stayed to care for his small teaching flock until another herder arrived.

“Could you keep my animals separated from the rest?” Thakur asked Cherfan. “It would save me from having to retrieve them from the main herd tomorrow morning.” Absently the big herder agreed, but his attention was on something else. A new fire flickered across the pasture near the sunning rock.

Cherfan stared and wrinkled his forehead.“Looks like the Firekeepers are having a gathering,” he said finally “Oh, don’t worry about your teaching herd. I’ll make sure your animals are grazed apart from the others.”

Thakur felt annoyed with the Firekeepers. He often liked to climb onto the sunning rock at dusk to catch the last warmth of the sun and watch the moon rise from behind the trees. Well, he would have to find another place tonight, or go and rest in his den. Despite his irritation he was curious about the gathering and decided to wander over and investigate.

The fire was large and cast its light far into the twilight spreading across the meadow. Smoke poured over the grass and billowed up into the sky. On his back, Aree sneezed and shook his head. Thakur’s throat stung as he circled upwind, away from the smoke haze.The Firekeepers have built a fire far bigger than they need,he thought crossly.

As he approached, he saw someone pacing back and forth in front of the bonfire, while others sat in a group facing it. Thakur swung back downwind, willing to brave the acrid smoke in order to catch the smells of those assembled in the gathering. He recognized most of the adult Firekeepers, including Fessran, Shongshar and Bira. He also caught the odors of some of the cubs. By now, he knew most of their individual scents. Thakur was not surprised to smell Fessran’s cubs, Chika and Nyang, among others, but he was surprised that her son Khushi’s scent was among them.

Khushi was to be trained as a herder, he thought. The cub had been among the students he taught earlier in the day, although Shongshar had come and fetched him early, saying that Fessran needed him. Thakur was sure it had not been Khushi’s own idea to come to the Firekeeper’s gathering. He did not smell happy.

The herding teacher caught another scent, so mixed with smoke that it only hinted at who it belonged to. Was Ratha here? Thakur wasn’t sure. The darkness, which had now fallen, and the fire’s glare made it hard to recognize anyone by sight. Smoke filled his throat again, making him cough, but the roar of the fire overwhelmed any sound he made. Carefully he made his way to the back of the group and sat close enough to see who was standing in front of the bonfire.

It was Fessran and she had stopped pacing. She faced the group and sat down. Shongshar sat off to the side, with Fessran’s three cubs. He was watching her intently as she began to speak.

“My first words are for the young ones who seek training as Firekeepers. You are at this gathering tonight because you are the best. You have been chosen to come here because you are the strongest and the cleverest of the cubs born in the spring season. You are here because we who serve the Red Tongue will not accept anything less.”

Aree moved restlessly on Thakur’s shoulder. Thakur gave him a nudge to quiet him, and then crept further into the gathering, trying to see the faces of those listening. The Firekeepers sat straight, with bristling whiskers and self-satisfied expressions. Most of the cubs looked awed and excited, their eyes glowing in the firelight. Khushi, sitting between his two siblings, lowered his head and nervously licked a front paw.

“You look at the Red Tongue and it frightens you,” Fessran continued. “Why? Because it is stronger than you are and fiercer and wilder? Yes! It is a creature far greater than any of us. It can live forever if it is kept fed and it can grow larger than any animal. The fire-creature takes, as its prey, not only the beasts of the forest, but the forest itself, and, when it is angered, nothing between ground and sky escapes its rage.”

Fessran’s eyes seemed to have a glint to them that was not her own yellow-amber, but a deeper shade … almost orange. Something made Thakur look off to the side at Shongshar. He was leaning forward over the cubs, his gaze intent, his eyes narrowed. His jaw moved as if he were speaking the same words tohimself and the fire’s glare flashed on his sabers.

Fessran continued,“We may warm ourselves before the Red Tongue and see by its light, but we may do so only as long as we are worthy. And how may we prove our worth? By striving to be as strong and fierce as we can. By thinking not of our paws or our whiskers, but of our duty to the Red Tongue. By refusing to show fear even when it claws at our throats and our bellies. That is what the Red Tongue demands of us.”

Fessran paused and surveyed the group. Khushi looked more miserable than ever.“Not all of you will be chosen to train as Firekeepers,” she said. “I must know which of you are worthy.” Her tail twitched restlessly as she curled it over her feet. “Those cubs who think they are brave enough to carry the Red Tongue, come and stand before me.”

Some youngsters strutted forward, their tails high and their whiskers bristling with confidence. Others, like Khushi, crept forward nervously, unwilling to be shamed by their littermates. They arranged themselves in an uneven row in front of Fessran. The harsh light of the bonfire made them squint and blink. She paced before the cubs, studying each one in turn.

“Good,” she said finally and looked toward Shongshar. “Bring me a torch,” she commanded. He lit a dry branch and brought it to her. The cubs’ eyes widened and they sat still, their gaze fixed on the Firekeeper.

Thakur tensed. What was Fessran doing?

The Firekeeper swung around, the torch clenched in her jaws. The flame fluttered and roared as she swept it across in front of the cubs’ faces.

Several youngsters squealed in terror and fled with their tails between their legs. Others, like Chika, skittered away, turned and faced the flame with ears laid back. A few cubs flinched and crouched, holding their ground. The fur rose along their backs and bristled on their short tails.

Fessran also looked startled, as if she hadn’t expected so many of them to flee. Thakur saw her glance toward Shongshar as if seeking reassurance. Again she passed the torch in front of the remaining youngsters, trying to rout them. All but Nyang backed away, hissing.

It was all Thakur could do not to jump into the midst of the gathering and snatch the brand away from Fessran. He only held back by telling himself that she must have a reason for this, however harsh and cruel it seemed.

She gave the brand back to Shongshar, who replaced it in the fire.“So,” she said, looking out over the Firekeepers and the shaken cubs. “You see that being chosen to serve the Red Tongue isn’t as easy as you thought. Those of you who stayed within the gathering circle have shown you can fight the fear. Return to your places.”

“Firekeeper leader,” said one cub in a high quavering voice. “The ones who ran away haven’t come back yet. Someone should look for them.”

Fessran turned to Bira.“Find the litterlings who fled and take them back to their mothers. None of them are worth training.”

Bira left. Thakur felt disbelief hit him and drain through him. He had disciplined cubs himself and treated them harshly, but never had he seen youngsters so deliberately terrified and humiliated. Did it matter to Fessran that her son Khushi had been among those who fled?

He looked again at the cubs who remained in the gathering and saw the fright and rage on their faces turn into fierce determination. Perhaps this was Fessran’s way of inspiring them, by making them angry enough to fight back and demonstrate that they were worthy to become Firekeepers. Even so, her tactics seemed cruel and unnecessary.

Then he realized that some of the crowd had noticed his presence and other heads were starting to turn. Hastily he ducked down and backed out from among them. He flattened in the grass in the darkness, suddenly aware of his racing heartbeat. Fessran had begun to speak again, distracting attention from him. Quickly he wriggled away on his belly until he was far enough from them to run. As he paused and his eyes grew accustomed to the night again, he saw a form flee from behind the sunning rock.

The figure was slender and lithe, with a long tail. It was gone before Thakur was sure that he had seen it.“Ratha?” he muttered to himself in the darkness, but he wasn’t sure. His first impulse was to follow, but the smoky haze that now filled the air made it impossible to track by scent. He decided it would be best to return to his den to rest and think.

On the way to his lair, he visited Ratha’s on the chance she might be there. He found it empty. Feeling uneasy, he sought his own den and the refuge of sleep.

Chapter Eleven

The night winds had blown away the smoky haze and the morning was clear. Ratha lay atop the sunning rock and watched the dawn. She thought about the previous evening and the Firekeepers’ gathering. Her ears swiveled back and the tip of her tail twitched as she remembered what Fessran had done to the cubs.

There was no need to frighten them like that,she thought, nor to build such a large fire. A smaller one would have kept everyone warm. Her tailtip twitched again.But warmth wasn’t what Fessran wanted from the Red Tongue last night,she reminded herself.

Ratha hadn’t really meant to hide and watch in secret. She had been late and by the time she arrived, the flames of the gathering fire were leaping into the night sky. The Red Tongue’s roar concealed her footsteps and its acrid smoke hid her smell. She could hear Fessran speaking, however, and the Firekeeper’s words weren’t what she expected to hear. The mood of the group was unusually grim and tense, as if they were readying themselves to fight some enemy instead of welcoming the youngsters who were to be trained as Firekeepers. Even the small cubs had serious expressions on their faces, although a few just looked miserable.

She had stopped her approach, sensing that her presence would disrupt what was happening. For a while, she stood still, listening, torn between her wish to approach openly and her need to know more about this gathering. At last, with a pang of regret for her choice, she circled downwind, through the billowing smoke, and found a place behind the sunning rock where she could watch and listen without being noticed.

The sunning rock. She had been there last night and she was here again. If she leaned over the edge and looked down, she knew she would see her own pugmarks in the dirt where she had crouched beside the base of the stone. If she looked the other way, she would see the freshly turned soil mixed with ash where the Firekeepers had buried the remains of the bonfire. This morning, she had squatted there and watered the place before climbing onto the sunning rock, taking some satisfaction in that small act of possession. She turned her back on the site, preferring to look out over the pasture to where the dapplebacks and three-horns grazed, with the herders tending them.

One thought remained in her mind, however, and it kept irritating her like a bone splinter between her teeth. The harshness of the Firekeepers’ test had startled her. Although she knew it was necessary to eliminate timid cubs from those who were to be trained, Ratha found herself disliking Fessran’s method. The idea was so uncharacteristic of her friend that she wondered if someone else, such as Shongshar, had suggested it.

“Ptahh!” Ratha spat, disgusted with herself.“You know better than that. If anyone has her own ideas about things, Fessran does.” Yet, as she thought about the Firekeeper leader, she felt uneasy. Fessran had been a staunch friend and her only ally when she had first taken the Red Tongue before the clan. She had rewarded her by giving her the keeping of this new and awesome creature. It was an honor, but it was also a burden, and Ratha had hesitated before she placed it on her friend.

Often Ratha had watched a fly land on the fresh meat of a kill, knowing that one small insect could lay enough eggs to fill the carcass with maggots and taint the meat. Last night she had admitted to herself that the Red Tongue had its own taint, and she was beginning to think that even the stubborn herder who had been made Firekeeper leader was not immune to it.

As she lay there with her thoughts, she heard a rustle in the grass. She pulled her feet underneath her, crouched and faced out in the direction of the sound. Soon she saw Thakur trotting toward the sunning rock with his treeling on his back. He didn’t look up and he kept his steady pace, as if he meant to pass by on his way to the meadow’s far side.

As he drew near, he swung away from his path and made a small detour that took him near the buried ashes of the bonfire. Again, Ratha could tell that he meant only to glance at the site and trot on, but suddenly he stopped, sniffed and wrinkled his nose. He paced across the ash-flecked soil until he smelled her mark, where she had watered the buried ashes. He grimaced and looked up at the sunning rock.

She felt uncomfortable at having given in to that earlier impulse. Now she had told Thakur, in a way that no words could, how she felt about the Firekeepers’ gathering.

“So you were there and you didn’t like it either,” he said at last.

Either? Ratha narrowed her eyes at him. She flicked her tail, indicating that he should jump up beside her. When he was there and settled, she said,“I see I wasn’t the only one who hid and watched.”

“I didn’t think a herder would be welcome in that group, and I was right,” Thakur answered. “You, clan leader?”

“I might have been welcomed, but my presence would have made Fessran think again about frightening those cubs the way she did.”

She could see that Thakur’s next words were chosen carefully. In a quiet voice, he said, “You can forbid another gathering like that.”

She stared at him in disbelief.“Forbid it? Just because Fessran built the fire too large and scared some of the cubs? They were too young for such a thing anyway.”

“Ratha, I know you well enough to tell how you feel about something. Your words may not tell me, but your mark on those buried ashes does.”

“Arr,” she said, feeling foolish.“I was in a bad mood when I did that.”

“And Fessran had nothing to do with your bad mood?”

“All right,” Ratha snapped. “She did. But let me tell you this: I may not like how she does things, but what she does works. She told me to make Shongshar a Firekeeper and she was right. We are no longer losing guard-fires because the Firekeepers are too timid. The herdbeasts are safer than they have ever been. That is what is important to me. Fessran has done well and I am not going to interfere with her, so you can dig a hole and bury that idea.”

She thought Thakur would lose patience with her, but he only twitched his ears back and then let them come forward again. His eyes held suppressed excitement, as if he had something to tell her but hadn’t found the opportunity until now. “Suppose I were to show you another way to master the Red Tongue, a way that doesn’t require that cubs have their whiskers singed in order to prove themselves.”

She looked at Thakur as he sat there with the treeling on his back. Aree added his gaze to Thakur’s and the combination of the two stares made her feel uncomfortable.

“You haven’t found such a way … or have you?”

“Just follow me, clan leader,” he said and jumped down from the sunning rock.

Ratha didn’t catch up with him until he was halfway to the farthest guard-fire. She heard him mutter, “Good. Bira hasn’t given up on me yet,” and he sprinted ahead, leaving her behind once again.

By the time she arrived, he was speaking with Bira. The young Firekeeper gave a start when she saw Ratha and looked back at Thakur as if asking for reassurance.

“You can go,” he said. “Don’t worry. It’s all right.”

Ratha watched the yawning Firekeeper trot away, her tail swinging. She noticed that Bira had left Thakur plenty of wood, although the guard-fire was starting to burn low. The wood was in two piles: a large one, carelessly stacked, and a small one that looked like kindling laid for a new fire.

“She shouldn’t leave without kicking dirt on the guard-fire and burying the ashes,” Ratha said, with a disapproving glance after Bira.

“She knows her duty. I asked her to leave the fire for me. She does that for me every morning. Fessran doesn’t know,” he added.

“Hmph,” Ratha growled. “You should have asked her.”

Thakur ignored her.“All right, Aree,” he said to his tree-ling, “let’s show Ratha what you’ve been learning.”

She heard several clicking sounds and had no idea where they had come from until she saw Thakur’s jaw move slightly. Aree hopped down from the herding teacher’s shoulder and bounded over to the large woodpile. He selected a slender branch that he could hold in one paw and returned to Thakur.

He gave Ratha a grin. She glowered back at him, unimpressed.“All right. He can get wood. That will save the Firekeepers some work.”

Thakur clicked his teeth again and gave a soft hiss. Aree held up the branch and curled his ringed tail as if asking a question. The herding teacher snapped his jaws together again and Aree, to Ratha’s horror and amazement, scampered directly toward the fire.

Her legs acted as fast as her mind did. She was halfway to the treeling when she was suddenly flattened by someone pouncing on top of her. Only the knowledge that it was Thakur kept her from flipping onto her back and raking his belly, and even so she was tempted.

She tried to get up again, but he held her down. He was looking not at her, but at the treeling.“Go on, Aree. It’s all right. She didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“What are you trying to do? Make Aree jump into the Red Tongue?” she hissed.

“No. Watch,” said Thakur’s voice in her ear. When she stayed still, he got off her and stood alongside.

Aree approached the fire carefully and laid the stick among the coals. When the branch caught, the treeling pulled it out and held it up with the Red Tongue blossoming at the end. Gripping the branch with both paws, Aree shuffled over to Thakur and placed it between his open jaws. Gently Thakur closed his mouth, being careful of the little fingers near his teeth.

Ratha watched in amazement. It was not so much the act itself that drew her attention but the ease with which Aree performed it. It was evident to her at once that the treeling’s paws were much better suited to this task than the clumsy jowls of even the bravest Firekeeper.

Thakur growled deep in his throat and opened his jaws. Aree took the lighted brand and placed it back in the fire. Ratha began to get up.

“Wait. He’s not finished yet,” said Thakur. Again he clicked his teeth and again Aree scampered away to the woodpile. This time the treeling came bounding back on all fours, his ringed tail wound around another stick. He looked up and cocked his head at Thakur with solemn black eyes on each side of his banded muzzle.

“All right, you can do it that way if you want,” said Thakur good-naturedly, as if the treeling understood him. He clicked his teeth and made the same hiss as Ratha had heard before. The treeling went to the fire, took the stick from his tail into its paws, and lit the end as he had done before. He held up the small torch to Thakur. The herding teacher left his place and sat beside the pile of kindling.

The treeling inclined his head at him again.“Come on, Aree. I showed you how to do it,” he said, leaning forward to coax his companion. After some hesitation, Aree held the torch firmly and shuffled to the pile of kindling. He seemed a little confused about what to do next and Thakur bent down, nudging the treeling’s elbow with his nose.

Aree crouched in front of the kindling and poked the lighted brand between carefully laid sticks. The treeling took care not to disturb the arrangement and soon a second small fire was crackling happily beside the first.

Thakur made a purring sound. Aree’s eyes brightened and he dashed over to his teacher to receive a reward of licks and nuzzles. He scrambled up Thakur’s back and perched there happily, winding his long ringed tail around Thakur’s neck.

Ratha’s jaw hung open until the wind began to dry her tongue. At last she recovered her voice. “How did you teach him to do that?” she asked.

“The same way I have always taught the cubs herding. When they do something right, I praise them. When they don’t, I correct them, and when they are confused, I show them what to do by doing it myself. Aree was already curious about the Red Tongue and I encouraged him.”

“And you were careful to make sure he didn’t hurt himself. Even so, I didn’t know treelings could be so clever. You know that most of the Firekeepers can’t light a pile of kindling without knocking it flat. The Red Tongue dies and then they have to set the wood up all over again.”

Thakur began kicking dirt on the guard-fire and Ratha helped him bury the ashes. The second fire they knocked apart with their paws and scattered the smoking tinder.

“Well, clan leader?” he asked when they were done.

“Yes!” Ratha said eagerly. “Keep training him. I’ll tell Fessran to make you a nest for the fire-creature near your den.”

She thought that would please him, but instead a shadow passed across his face, darkening his green eyes.“I’d rather use Bira’s guard-fire,” he said.

“You don’t want to show Fessran what Aree can do?”

“No. Not yet,” Thakur said and quickly added, “Aree needs more teaching. You saw how I had to help him. He should be able to do it all himself.”

She suspected that he had another reason for wishing to delay, but she decided not to press him. Soon he left to teach his herding pupils and she went back to the sunning rock, feeling more at ease than she had all morning.

Ratha didn’t see Thakur again for several days, letting him have time to work with the treeling. She knew that the Firekeepers were planning another gathering and Fessran might repeat what she had done at the previous one.

She made sure she was atop the sunning rock early the next day when Thakur came trotting by with Aree on his back. This time she jumped down and went to him.

“Herding teacher, the Firekeepers are having another gathering soon. I want Fessran to see your treeling before she speaks to the cubs.”

She could sense his reluctance, but he finally answered,“Yes, you’re right. We should try it. Perhaps I’m wrong about her.”

Ratha wanted to ask more questions, but Thakur looked slightly impatient and Aree began to scratch himself.

“Meet me here tomorrow, after your herding pupils are gone,” she called after him. “I’ll bring Fessran and we’ll have the fire ready.”

He waved his tail in answer, but the look on his face told her he didn’t think they would have much success.

Arrr, he’s just being cautious as he often is, she told herself. I think Fessran will be pleased with Aree.

The Firekeeper leader arrived in the late afternoon. She brought some others with her, including Shongshar and her eldest son Nyang. Fessran was eager to learn what Ratha had to show them, but even her insistent questions couldn’t pry Ratha’s secret loose. After the Firekeepers had built the Red Tongue’s nest and set the tinder alight, she told them to sit and wait until Thakur came.

At last he padded into the long shadow of the sunning rock, tired, dusty and smelling strongly of herdbeasts. Some of the Firekeepers eyed the treeling and drew back their whiskers. It was not a promising start.

Despite the bad beginning, Ratha grew more hopeful as the demonstration progressed. She could see that the additional days of training had been well used. Aree performed better than he had when she’d seen him the first time. She could tell that the Firekeepers were impressed, but she also sensed hostility, as if they resented the treeling’s skill.

Shongshar sat next to Fessran, muttering things in her ear. Each time he spoke to her, the interested expression that had been on her face when Thakur began to show Aree’s skills faded a little more, until her expression was as wooden as the others’.

Ratha knew Thakur had anticipated this. He gave her a meaningful glance as he set Aree to laying out kindling for another fire. This task was not something she had seen before and she watched in fascination as the little paws placed each stick carefully against the others, making a perfect nest for the Red Tongue. Not once did the treeling drop a stick or knock the pile over. With Thakur’s careful guidance, Aree took a torch from the original fire and lit the new pile.

The Firekeepers’ eyes widened despite themselves. Even Shongshar looked impressed, although Ratha was sure he didn’t want to be.

Perhaps Aree also felt the challenge from the Firekeepers, for the next thing the treeling did was unexpected. Seizing a stick small enough to carry in one paw, Aree plunged one end in the fire, drew it out and galloped around the Firekeepers on three legs, carrying the Red Tongue. Thakur’s whiskers drooped in dismay and he chased after the treeling. That was exactly what Aree wanted. He scampered toward Thakur, leaped up on his back and rode him with the firebrand lifted high in both paws.

As soon as Thakur stopped, Aree bounced down from his back, tossed the firebrand back into the flames and swaggered back, his tail curled high, expecting the usual reward of licks and nuzzles. Ratha could see that Thakur had no choice but to praise the creature. The treeling’s antics were not what he had planned, but they were equally astonishing. The Firekeepers’ jaws hung open in amazement.

Shongshar, not Fessran, was the first to speak.“Your tree-ling is skilled, herding teacher,” he said, studying Aree closely. The treeling fluffed his fur at him and wound his tail tighter around Thakur’s neck. “Did you spend much time teaching him?” Shongshar asked.

“Yes, I did. Aree is clever and learns fast, but he took a lot of work.”

“Why did you choose to teach a treeling instead of teaching clubs?”

Ratha saw Thakur hesitate.“I teach cubs herding. I am not a Firekeeper,” he said. “I taught Aree because he has a special ability that the cubs do not have. His paws are different from ours: they are made to grasp the limbs of trees as he climbs. He is not as clumsy as the cubs. He doesn’t knock things over.”

“The cubs understand what they do when they serve the Red Tongue,” said Shongshar softly. “Does your treeling?”

“No,” Thakur admitted. “He understands only the actions necessary to care for it.”

“He does not share the feelings that we have for the fire-creature. He does not know its strength and its power.”

“No,” the herding teacher replied, his green eyes glowing angrily. “How can you expect a treeling to understand such things? There is no need for him to understand. He just does what you tell him.”

“Then he is an animal, like the dapplebacks and three-horns,” said Shongshar with a hiss in his voice and a gold glitter in his eyes. “He is witless, like my cubs that you and Ratha took from clan ground. Is an animal to serve the Red Tongue?”

Ratha felt her own eyes narrow and her nape rise.“Enough, Shongshar! It is Fessran I would hear, not you.”

The Firekeeper leader lifted her chin and eyed Ratha coolly.“Clan leader, I share many of Shongshar’s feelings. You know better than I how fiercely we fought for the Red Tongue in the days when Meoran ruled the Named.”

“Yes, you ran with me then and your feelings were your own,” growled Ratha. She regretted her words as they left her tongue, for Fessran flinched visibly and her amber eyes took on some of the same hard glitter as Shongshar’s.

“The treeling’s skill is impressive,” she said. “However, I do have some questions. You have only one treeling and there are many Firekeepers. Do you intend to catch more treelings and train them in the same way?”

Thakur looked at Ratha.“I hadn’t thought about that. I got Aree by accident. He was injured when I found him. It may be difficult to catch others.”

“If we accepted Aree and let him do the difficult tasks for us, we would no longer try to do them for ourselves,” Fessran pointed out. “What would happen then if the treeling were to run away or get killed?”

Thakur had come to sit beside Ratha and she felt him tense at Fessran’s words. “I don’t think Aree is going to run away and I am certainly not going to let anyone kill him.” He glared back at the Firekeepers.

Ratha decided it was time to interrupt.“There will be no talk of killing,” she snapped. “Thakur has offered to share his treeling’s ability and you should be grateful.”

“Clan leader, we did not mean to offend either you or Thakur,” said Fessran. “We think that the treeling’s skill is valuable, but there are some problems. After all, Thakur did not know what the creature would do when he snatched up a torch and began running around us. I think you would agree that more training is needed before the treeling can really be trusted.”

Ratha tried to control her temper. Fessran might be irritating, but she had made some points. Aree’s last display showed that the treeling was still unpredictable, and there remained the problem that there was only one of the creatures. Nonetheless, Ratha was pleased with Thakur for trying to jolt the Firekeepers out of their complacency.

“All right,” she said at last. “Thakur, you are to continue teaching Aree. To make things easier for you, Fessran will assign a Firekeeper to build and tend a fire near your den. Do you both agree?”

Fessran glanced at Shongshar and looked uncomfortable.“Is there anyone you would like?” she asked Thakur.

“If you could spare Bira, I wouldn’t mind working with her,” Thakur answered.

He stayed beside Ratha as the Firekeepers put out their fire and left. He smoothed his ruffled fur with short angry strokes of his tongue.

“Fessran will let you have Bira,” Ratha said as the dusk closed around them.

“She may. I wonder what else she’ll do.”

Ratha looked at him sharply, but he was only an outline and two eyes in the growing darkness.“She will do as I tell her as long as I am clan leader.”

He sighed.“I wish you hadn’t put it that way,” he said softly and padded away with his treeling on his back.

During the next few mornings Ratha visited Thakur at his den to be sure Fessran was doing what had been promised. Each time she went, she found Bira there along with a well-made little fire and a stack of wood that was always kept full. The young Firekeeper seemed to enjoy watching Thakur teach Aree. Ratha watched her carefully for signs of the same hostility that other Firekeepers had shown, but there were none.

Aree’s instruction was progressing well. The treeling seemed to understand that capricious actions, such as those he had performed in front of the Firekeepers, were not acceptable and would result in a scolding. Thakur reported that Aree had become more obedient, and she could see for herself that the herding teacher had managed to accomplish this without breaking the creature’s spirit. Every once in a while Aree looked at Thakur with a mischievous glint in his eyes, but the treeling took his task seriously and never deliberately disobeyed.

Ratha watched and felt encouraged. Soon Thakur would be able to show Aree to the Firekeepers again, and they would be unable to find any fault with the treeling’s performance. Perhaps she and Thakur could also devise a way to capture more treelings. Aree might be able to lure another one down from the branches. If the captured treeling was a female, she might bear young. Or Thakur might climb one of the fruit trees with Aree and look for a treeling nestthat might shelter young ones. If they could find and train more of the creatures, Fessran might be willing to accept the idea.

She made her plans carefully as she rested in her den or lay atop the sunning rock. Each morning she asked Thakur whether Aree was ready. The last time, instead of saying no, he had told her to assemble the entire clan on the following day. This was something for everyone to see, he said. Not just Firekeepers.

On the evening before the assembly was to take place, Ratha visited him to be sure he was prepared. She came just before sunset and was only halfway to his den when she heard someone running toward her on the path. Thakur galloped up to her, his whiskers trembling and his fur on end.

“Aree’s gone, Ratha!” he gasped.

Disbelief shot through her.“What? He can’t be. You never leave him alone.”

“I did. Just for a little while. I left him curled up in my den. I had to get some wood; Bira let the woodpile get low. Thornwood is best, but I can’t get into a thicket with Aree on my back, so I left him.”

“How long ago?” She began to pace beside him.

“I had just come back from teaching my herding pupils. I left Aree in my den, went to get wood, and when I came back I couldn’t find him. I looked everywhere,” he added mournfully.

“Did you try to track him?”

“Yes, but there was such a smoky smell in the air that I couldn’t follow his scent.”

They reached his den. Ratha trotted over to the ashy bed where the teaching fire usually burned. She lifted her nose and sniffed. Thakur certainly was right: the air was too acrid to detect the treeling’s scent. Carefully she pawed the dirt and cinders. If the fire had been burning recently, they would still be hot. They weren’t.

Then why did the whole place smell like someone had been throwing ashes around, she wondered.

“Where’s Bira?” she asked, suddenly.

“She’s not here. She only helps me in the mornings. I thought I’d build a fire myself and then get a Firekeeper to light it.”

Ratha glanced up at the few trees that stood about the den. Their branches were outlined against the red and gray sunset, but she saw nothing on them that looked like the hunched form of a treeling. She helped Thakur look through the bushes, but neither one of them found anything.

The wind had begun to stir, blowing away the acrid smell in the air, but Aree’s scent had faded too. The treeling was gone and there was nothing either one of them could do about it.

Thakur crawled into his den and laid his head on his paws.“It’s my fault,” he moaned. “I shouldn’t have left him alone. Aree, wherever you are, please come back. I miss you.”

“Thakur,” Ratha said softly, “I have to go and tell everyone that the gathering won’t happen tomorrow.”

“Tell the mothers they can keep their cubs for the day,” Thakur growled. “I don’t feel like teaching. I may be doing some other things, such as asking a lot of questions. Maybe I should start now.” He raised himself up and started to crawl out of the den, but Ratha put a paw on his back.

“No,” she said. “You stay here. If there are any questions to ask, I will ask them and I will bring you the answers.”

“I suppose you can get better ones than I can.” Thakur laid his head on his paws again.

His dejection and the misery in his voice made Ratha hot with indignant anger. Whoever had taken the treeling or driven it away had done more than deprive Thakur of a companion. They had stolen his hope and wounded him badly.

She licked him gently on the forehead, trying to comfort him in his grief and anger. At last he fell into a troubled sleep and she left, resolving that she would either find Aree or have her revenge on whoever had stolen the treeling.

Chapter Twelve

The face of the sunning rock was lit with orange as Ratha emerged into the night meadow. Against it, she could see the forms of the assembled Firekeepers, and in front of it, someone paced back and forth. Ratha could hear the drone of a voice mixed in with the hiss and roar of the bonfire.

Irritation stung her and quickly turned to anger. The Firekeepers were meeting again without her permission and without her knowledge. Again they had built the nest for their overfed fire right at the base of her sunning rock.

Too angry to feel unwelcome, Ratha galloped across the meadow and pushed her way through the gathered torchbearers until she faced the firelit form in front. She felt the warning touch of fear when she realized that it was Shongshar, not Fessran.

She looked for the Firekeeper leader and found her sitting off to the side. Her eyes were narrowed and cold, but suddenly they opened and a false welcoming expression forced itself onto Fessran’s face. That look on the face of one who had been a friend made Ratha’s belly twist and she looked away.

She turned instead toward the others and saw Bira sitting behind Khushi, crouching as if she wanted to hide. Nyang was in front of the crowd, gazing at Shongshar with a rapt expression and adoration glowing in his eyes. Someone else also sat in front, someone she had not expected to see.

The herder Shoman turned and stared at her, his eyes filled with uncertainty. Slowly he lowered his head and began to lick his foreleg. The motion drew Ratha’s gaze to his leg. She saw an ugly red streak that oozed and glistened in the orange light.

“Clan leader.” Fessran rose to break the tension that Ratha’s arrival had brought. “I am glad you have come. I was going to send Nyang to fetch you.”

Ratha ignored her.“Why is Shoman here? What happened to his leg?”

“Ask him,” said Shongshar and looked toward Shoman.

The herder answered,“I … was warming myself by the herders’ fire. There were no Firekeepers there. I tried to give the Red Tongue more wood, but it grew angry and hurt me.”

“You have done wrong, Shoman,” said Fessran severely. “Only the Firekeepers may tend the Red Tongue. You should have gone and fetched one of us.”

“Why is he here?” Ratha demanded. “If he has done wrong, let Cherfan punish him since he is a herder, not a Firekeeper.”

“He has come to make amends,” answered Fessran. “He agreed to come and show the cubs what can happen if the fire-creature is angered by carelessness.”

Ratha looked again at Shoman. He crouched, huddled, nursing his leg and grimacing in pain. His glance was furtive and resentful. Fear flitted across his face as he caught Shongshar’s gaze; she knew he hadn’t come here by choice.

“All right!” she cried, suddenly sickened. “The cubs have seen enough. Shoman, go to Thakur and have your wound tended.”

Shoman slunk off into the darkness, limping. The look he gave Ratha was still heavy with resentment, but there was a strange tinge of relief in his eyes.

“We are glad you have come, clan leader,” said Fessran. “You have seen with your own eyes the danger the Red Tongue presents to herders, who are not trained to care for it properly.”

Ratha waited, trying not to twitch her tail. Fessran eyed her and continued,“As leader of the Firekeepers, I am asking you to forbid anyone to approach the Red Tongue unless one of us gives permission. This would prevent any of the herders from injuring themselves as Shoman did.”

“I am glad you are concerned about those who provide meat for the clan,” she answered, letting a little sarcasm creep into her voice. “However, I don’t think the herders would like it if they had to ask a Firekeeper for permission to warm themselves or see by the Red Tongue’s light.”

“Cubs do not like being forbidden to do dangerous things, but we must restrict them to keep them safe. Those who do not understand the fire-creature’s ways should not meddle with it,” said Fessran.

Ratha gathered her temper as she faced the Firekeeper leader.“Fessran, I understand your worry and I agree that there is some danger, but I wish to hear from the herders themselves before I make any decisions.”

“That is reasonable, clan leader,” Fessran answered.

Those who do not understand the fire-creature’s ways should not meddle with it.Ratha turned to the group, repeating Fessran’s words silently in her mind. Did that include Thakur and his treeling as well as ignorant herders?

She surveyed the gathering, looking briefly into each face, as if she could find an answer there. Some of the Firekeepers answered her gaze directly, some held hidden defiance and others were uncertain or afraid.

“All of you know the herding teacher Thakur and the treeling he carries on his back,” said Ratha. “Some of you were at the gathering where he showed us how Aree could tend the fire-creature.” She looked meaningfully at each one of them. “I have just spoken with Thakur. The treeling is gone. We can find no trace of him. I came here to ask if anyone has seen him or knows where he might be.”

“When did this happen?” Fessran said, and Ratha heard honest concern in her voice.

“This evening. He had to leave Aree in his den while he went to get thornwood. He says he wasn’t gone long and when he came back, Aree had vanished. Does anyone know where the treeling is?”

The Firekeepers looked at each other and muttered negatives. Ratha waited.

“Perhaps the tree-creature ran away and returned to his own kind,” said Shongshar, after a long silence.

“That is possible, but Thakur and I don’t think so.”

Fessran crossed in front of the fire and sat down beside Shongshar.“Poor Thakur. He really liked that queer little animal. I didn’t think that he should have taught the creature how to play with the Red Tongue, but I didn’t want Thakur to lose him.” She thought for a moment. “I suppose you are wondering why he disappeared this evening, since we were to see him perform again tomorrow.”

Fessran’s gaze softened and Ratha felt less irritated with her, although she could not allow her suspicion to relax. Either Fessran knew nothing about Aree’s disappearance or she was good at deceit.

“Yes, I was wondering about that,” Ratha admitted.

“I tell you honestly that I knew nothing about it until you came to this gathering. I don’t think Shongshar knew either.” She turned to her companion. “You were with me all day, so there was no way you could have known until Ratha told us.”

“I did not know, clan leader,” Shongshar said, but Ratha found it difficult to tell whether truth was hiding behind his orange gaze. Fessran had begun to pace back and forth, her tail shaking with indignant anger.

Ratha wondered if she was outraged because Thakur’s treeling had been taken or because her Firekeepers were under suspicion.

“Hear me, torchbearers!” Fessran cried. “What has been done to Thakur is a shameful thing. I have disagreed with him, but he is my friend. If any of you have had a part in this or have knowledge that you are concealing, come forward now.”

She strode up and down in front of them, glowering at them. No one moved, except Bira, who shivered.

“Then you are all innocent,” said Fessran in a low voice. “If I am wrong and someone is hiding his guilt, then may the Red Tongue burn in his throat until his tongue falls from his mouth in cinders!”

Ratha felt her breath catch in her own throat. For a moment the Firekeeper leader looked like the old Fessran, the friend who had fought beside her against the old clan leader and whose fierce love and loyalty had sustained her during the chaotic days after Meoran’s death.

I have no right to judge you, Fessran, she thought suddenly.We have both changed more than we wished.

Fessran came to Ratha and looked her directly in the face.“Neither I nor any of the Firekeepers have done such a shameful thing,” she said. “You must accept that as truth, clan leader.”

“If I can,” Ratha answered softly as she turned to go.

Sadly she returned to Thakur and told him that she had learned nothing. Even her suspicions were difficult to justify; for now she felt she had best keep them to herself. It was possible that the treeling had run off to find a mate among his own kind, she suggested.

The next day, she helped him search for the treeling again, but they only saw wild ones who scrambled up to the tops of their trees and clung there in the swaying branches. There was a cull in the meadow that day and Ratha ate as if her belly would never be filled, but she saw that Thakur had no appetite and quickly gave up his place to the one behind him.

He went back to teaching the cubs, but his step was heavy and his scolding harsher than it had been. He closed himself off to all, even Ratha, and he rarely spoke or looked anyone in the face. He seemed to have lost his spirit along with the treeling and he faded day by day until he became like a shadow among the shadows of trees and bushes that fell across clan ground.

Ratha spent much of her time with the Firekeepers. Her major reason for doing so was to prevent gatherings of the sort that frightened cubs, but she also felt she had failed to give the Firekeepers proper guidance in their attitude toward the fire-creature. She did admit to herself that she was a little uncertain about what that attitude should be.

Fessran seemed to welcome this new attention, although Shongshar clearly did not like it. The Firekeeper leader often invited Ratha to come with her at night when she patrolled the ring of guard-fires around the meadow. They frequently had time to talk, and Ratha realized that her position as clan leader had distanced her from the one who had been her most loyal friend.

Summer had come and the warmth of the day stayed into late evening. Only in the hours before dawn did the night grow cold and dew settle on the grass. This was the time when the Firekeepers were weary, when the fires could sink low and the threat of attack was the greatest. Fessran chose this time to patrol, walking from one outpost to the next, seeing that each fire was properly tended and that there was enough wood. She offered encouragement and good spirits to those who stood the early morning guard. Ratha was heartened to see the weary Firekeepers grin at Fessran’s teasing. She noticed that her own presence also seemed to cheer some of them.

She was following Fessran across the moonlit grass and had stopped to shake the dew from her feet when a scream tore through the night’s silence. She knew in an instant that the cry had not come from any of the herd animals nor from raiders lurking nearby. It was a scream of pain and terror and it had come from the center of the meadow.

Ahead of her, she saw Fessran start and freeze as the cry began again. Then both of them were racing across the grass.

“The herders’ fire,” panted Fessran as Ratha caught up with her. “Over there by the old oak.”

The herders had begun to cluster about the fire that they used to warm themselves. In their midst lay an orange-lit form that jerked and writhed. The head stretched back, the mouth snarled open, and Ratha heard another terrible cry.

She sped past Fessran and skidded to a stop in the middle of the herders. Her belly gave a painful twist when she saw that the distorted face was Bundi’s. Cherfan pawed the shuddering young herder, looking frightened and lost.

“Turn him over,” Ratha ordered. “Quickly.”

As carefully as she could, she helped Cherfan roll Bundi over. As the side of his face and neck came into view, Ratha felt her lips draw back from her teeth. From his cheek to his neck and shoulder, his flesh was hlistered and glistening, with ash clinging to charred fur. Even as she watched, the skin of his face began to pucker, drawing the corner of his mouth back.

His eye was swollen shut and both his nose and eyebrow whiskers on that side were gone.

“Take him to the stream,” said Fessran, pushing her way through the crowd of herders. “Water can ease the Red Tongue’s hurt. Hurry!”

Half-dragging and half-carrying Bundi, Ratha and Cherfan lugged him to the little creek near the trailhead.

“Lay him here, where there is no mud on the bottom,” Fessran directed, wading in. “Easy. Hold his nose out of the water.”

Ratha bent her head down, trying to see Bundi’s face. She felt his breath on her whiskers as he panted rapidly and arched his back in a convulsive shudder. He opened his mouth for another scream, but could only gurgle and cough as water filled his throat.

Ratha caught his nape on the uninjured side and lifted him enough for the water to drain out. Cherfan helped her move him so that he was lying in the shallows with his muzzle on the bank. After a while his breathing became steadier and he managed to whisper that the pain was less.

“Can you take care of him?” she asked Cherfan and Fessran. “I want to go back and look at the fire.”

“Poor clumsy cub,” she heard Cherfan moan as she climbed out of the stream and shook herself hard. “You shouldn’t have gone near the Red Tongue when there was no one there to protect you.”

Ratha laid back her ears as she trotted toward the fire. Bundi was awkward, but he wasn’t that clumsy, was he? She circled the firebed, examining the ground carefully. It was no use; the herder’s tracks and her own obliterated Bundi’s and those of anyone else who might have been there. Likewise, the scents of everyone who had been there were too thick for her to detect any suspicious smells.

She could see that the fire had definitely been disturbed. It was lopsided and there was a large imprint in the ash and crushed coals where a body had fallen. Now the question remained: had Bundi tripped over his own paws, or had someone pushed him?

Again, she circled, looking for tracks where the dirt met the grass. She found half of one pugmark and decided that it had been there before the herders had all crowded around Bundi. The print was too large to be Bundi’s. It would only belong to one of two males in the clan: Cherfan or Shongshar.

Cherfan had been there when she arrived, she reminded herself.But Bundi is his own son! I know Cherfan and he could never do such a thing to a cub he sired. That left only Shongshar.

But even if the print was his mark, when had he left it? He could have been one of those who helped build the herders’ fire earlier that evening. Or he could have pushed Bundi. But he seemed even fonder of Bundi than Cherfan was. Neither possibility made much sense.

Was the Red Tongue itself the malignant force? Could Fessran have been right when she suggested the fire-creature could lash out against those who displeased it? Could it have sensed the presence of an ignorant herder, lured him close and then pulled him in?

For a moment Ratha stared at the fire, which was burning steadily as if nothing had happened.This is a creature we do not understand, she said to herself, and the thought sent her tail creeping between her legs. Fear crawled through her fur and she suddenly wanted to flee from this alien thing before it reached out and took her in its fierce embrace.

She made her legs stop shaking and swallowed the lump in her throat. There were questions she had to ask and the answers to those would tell her whether to believe that the fire had needed any help to burn poor Bundi.

When she returned to the stream, Fessran was coaxing Bundi out of the water; she even got him to shake himself off a little. He crouched on the bank with Cherfan close against him on one side and Fessran on the other, trying to warm him. Fessran spoke softly, trying to cheer and reassure him. She was so honest in her concern and her eagerness to help that Ratha knew, whatever had happened, Fessran had taken no part in it. Now and then, Bundi burst into shivers, but he seemed to be in less pain. The three of them looked like an odd moonlit lump on the streambank.

Ratha shivered herself as the night wind touched the dampness in her fur.“Can you walk, Bundi?” she asked him. “You should be sheltered in a den. Fessran, will you take him to your lair?”

“Yes, I will, but there is something I want to do first.”

“What?”

“Post some Firekeepers at the herders’ fire.”

Ratha felt surprise and then a touch of annoyance, but she was too drained and a little too frightened to argue. If the Red Tongue was malevolent, she had a duty to guard her people from it.

“All right,” she agreed at last.

She knew Fessran sensed her reluctance, for the Firekeeper said,“I’ll give Bira that duty. She gets along well with most of the herders. She can choose whom she wants to work with her.”

This cheered Ratha. Bira wasn’t likely to think herself above the herders or make arbitrary decisions about who could come near the fire and who couldn’t.

The young Firekeeper was summoned and soon took up her new post. Several herders eyed her suspiciously, for they were not accustomed to having a Firekeeper in constant attendance. But when the news of Bundi’s injury spread, they changed their minds and welcomed her protection.

Fessran took Bundi to her den and made him comfortable there. Ratha looked in on them just before weariness sent her to her own lair. She crawled into it just as dawn was beginning to color the sky, and she quickly fell into a deep and exhausted sleep.

She was not often troubled by dreams, but the events of the night seemed to replay themselves in her mind in a way strangely altered from what she had seen. In her dream, she stood again before the Red Tongue and, as she watched, the fire-creature changed. The flames that licked up toward the sky seemed to bend down and separate, as if they were becoming legs, and their tips became rounded and solid as if they were turning into paws. The heart of the fire elongated into a body. Part of it drew into a ball and made a head with flame-licked ears and red coals for eyes.

She watched in terror as the rear legs formed and a plume of fire swept itself out into a long tail. The creature opened its mouth, showing teeth that had the impossible sharpness of a reaching flame. In its fur were streaks of blue, violet and yellow against a background of searing orange.

Slowly it began to move, and its flame-substance rippled as if it had muscles. It fixed its glowing eyes on her and she shook until her teeth chattered as she felt its endless devouring hunger. Her mind begged her legs to run, but she stayed, paralyzed by fright and a kind of horrified fascination.

The fire-creature lowered its head and placed one foot before the other. It was leaving the den of coals where it had grown and was coming toward her. Now it spoke and its voice had the soft hiss of the burning flame.“Bare your throat to me, clan leader,” it said. “Bare your throat to me, for I am the one who rules.”

She crouched, drawn and repelled by its terrible beauty. As if in worship, she lifted her chin, showing her throat. The creature that had sprung from the fire’s heart approached her and opened its mouth for the killing bite. She felt its breath on her and its whiskers, made of slender tongues of fire, touched her and left searing streaks on her skin beneath the fur. She felt the points of its fangs draw across her throat.

“No!” she screamed and lashed out with all her strength against it.

She awoke with her claws fastened in the wall of her den and her teeth bared. With a grateful sigh of deliverance, she sank down and lay limp until she was sure the horror of the dream had really passed. Her coat was rough and filled with dirt and she could see where she had writhed on the floor of her lair.

Unsteadily she got up and left the den, shaking the earth out of her fur and smoothing her pelt with her tongue. The early afternoon sun shone down through the scattered trees, comforting her with its warmth and golden light.

But she couldn’t forget those coal-red eyes that glowed with a hunger that would never be sated. She knew the creature was a dream, but she also knew that dreams often spoke truth. Although she had set herself to master the Red Tongue, she understood that a part of her mind would always look upon the fire-creature with a terror that could not be answered with reason.

When Fessran came to her that evening and asked that Bira be assigned to guard the herders’ fire again, it was easy for Ratha to agree. Soon the Firekeeper had that duty regularly. At Fessran’s urging, she forbade any of the herders to go near an unguarded flame.

Bundi recovered slowly. His wounds were less serious than Ratha had thought and she credited Fessran’s idea of bathing him in the stream. The swelling on his face diminished; the eye that had been forced shut opened again. He could walk, but he limped because the burn extended from his face down his neck to his shoulder and it hurt him to stretch the blistered skin.

He was soon back with the herders, doing what he could and trying to do more. Soon he had recovered full use of his shoulder, but he and everyone around him knew that he would always be disfigured.

Ratha continued to seek an answer to the mystery of Bundi’s accident. She questioned him carefully, but shock had driven the memory from his mind and he couldn’t recall exactly what had happened. He knew only that he had flung himself out of the firebed and rolled on the ground until someone came.

Shongshar remained politely evasive and Ratha did not want to alienate Fessran by pressing him harder. She was sure Fessran herself had nothing to do with it and if she suspected Shongshar at all, she would have spoken.

Chapter Thirteen

Ferns stroked Ratha’s side as she padded through them and along the mossy bed beside the streambank. She startled a frog and heard it plunk into the clear water. Above her, scattered trees spread their branches toward each other across the creek. When the breeze died, she could hear the soft splash of a waterfall that lay farther up the trail.

She was following the little creek up from the meadow to its source in the hills, something she often did when she wandered alone with no destination and a wish for only her own company. She thought wistfully that she would like to have taken Thakur along, but he was busy teaching this morning. His unhappiness over the loss of his treeling would have made him a poor companion anyhow. There was not much she could do to cheer him up; she had already tried. Eventually he would forget his grief, but it would take time.

She felt a little angry with him for retreating into sorrow when she was most in need of his help and support. There was no one she could talk to now. She thought briefly of unburdening herself to Fessran, but their friendship had grown too uncertain. The Firekeeper leader had found a new loyalty, one that was pulling her away from her old ties.

Since the accident, the herders had shunned Bundi, for they viewed his scars as a mark of the Red Tongue’s displeasure. The cub, whose awkwardness had made him shy, was becoming bitter and lonely, and the look in his eyes was that of someone much older. The only herder who would work with him now was Shoman, whose leg also bore marks of the Red Tongue’s wrath and who suffered the same hostility as Bundi.

There was little Ratha could do about the herders’ rejection of the injured pair except to demand that it not be shown in her presence.

The trail began to slope upward and Ratha followed it, listening to the sound of the waterfall as it echoed through the trees. Something made her stop and look upward, and she felt suddenly as if she were being watched.

She looked back down the trail and sniffed the breeze that ruffled her fur. No one was behind her. After waiting for a moment, she lowered her head and went on.

A rustle in the branches overhead stopped her again and she peered suspiciously up into the canopy. A small brown head with a banded muzzle appeared through the leaves a short distance above her head. It stared at her with round black eyes.

“Aree?” it said.

Ratha stared back. Her mouth opened and her jaw sagged until she was gaping.“Aree? Have I really found you?”

The treeling yawned at her and scratched himself. He leaned down to peer at Ratha, extending his long ringed tail for balance. Then, as if satisfied, he ambled along the branch and climbed down into the crotch of the tree.

At first Ratha thought she had made a mistake. This creature was a bit larger and considerably rounder than Thakur’s treeling. Then she saw the crooked rear leg. Unless another treeling had also managed to break its leg in exactly the same place, this one had to be Aree.

Ratha talked softly to the treeling, trying to coax him down, but Aree seemed shy and unsure. He would start to climb down, then hesitate and scramble back up to his perch.

“Come on, Aree. You know who I am. You used to groom my fur. It needs grooming now,” she said and started to purr.

Aree was never afraid of me once he got used to me. He used to jump all over me. I wonder what has made him so shy.

The treeling started to groom himself, nuzzling the bulge of his belly.His? Aree was obviously a female and had found a mate.

“Thakur will have to get used to thinking of you as a she,” Ratha said, grinning. “He’ll also have to get used to all your little cubs, when you have them.”

Aree cocked her head and curled her tail at Ratha, but wouldn’t budge from the tree no matter how loud she purred. Ratha was starting to worry when she remembered the command Thakur had used to call the treeling to him.

She drew in her breath, gave a short hiss and clicked her teeth twice. Aree’s eyes brightened. The treeling launched herself from the tree, bounced to the ground and then up onto Ratha’s back. She rubbed her cheek against Ratha and was answered with nuzzles and licks. The creature took her place on Ratha’s shoulder and wound her tail around Ratha’s neck.

When she was sure Aree would stay on her back, she turned around and trotted down the trail to the meadow, eager to find Thakur.

As she drew close and heard the sound of cubs’ voices, she hesitated. Carrying Aree out into the open sun of the meadow might not be the best idea. If Thakur’s young pupils saw her with the treeling on her back, they would crowd around her with eager curiosity and might frighten Aree. If the treeling panicked and ran away, she would neverbe able to get her back again.

She left the trail before it led into the meadow and circled through the brush at the edge of the grass until she reached a leafy thicket. Here she was close enough to see and hear everything. The wind blew toward her and she caught the sweaty smell of dapplebacks and the eager nervous scents of the youngsters.

The cubs were watching as Thakur chased two dapplebacks across the meadow. The horses pounded in front of him, their manes flying. He raced after them, lithe and slim, yet powerful. With a sudden burst of speed, he caught up with the dapplebacks and dashed between them. It seemed as though he drove right under those flying heels, and Ratha forgot to breathe until she saw the horses separate with Thakur running between them.

The cubs also stood transfixed and Ratha imagined they were doubting whether they would ever be able to cut and drive dapplebacks the way he did. As a herder in training, she had practiced endlessly before she could attempt what he had just done. An instant of indecision or a false step could bring the herder down to be trampled beneath those sharp-toed feet.

Ratha saw Thakur jog to a stop. Ahead of him, the two horses slowed, grunting and snorting. These dapplebacks were more lively than the old mare he had been using; she guessed the cubs had reached a stage in their training where they could work a beast with more spirit.

Aree shifted on her back, reminding her why she had come here. She looked for the nearest cub and recognized Fessran’s younger son who was standing in the sparse shade near the edge of the grass.

“Sst! Khushi!” Ratha called, leaning out of her hiding place. The cub jumped and turned his head back over his shoulder.

“Sst! Over here. Quickly.”

Khushi blinked as he caught sight of her. With a quick look to either side, he galloped over to her thicket.

“Clan leader!” he said, his eyes large with surprise. “What are you doing, hiding in the bushes?”

“Never mind that,” she said, trying to keep enough leaves over her head to conceal the treeling. “Go get your teacher. Tell him that I have something for him.”

Khushi eyed her doubtfully.“Clan leader, he’s really grumpy today. If I interrupt him, he’ll chew my ears and they’re already pretty ragged.”

“I have something for him that will help his temper,” she answered. At that instant Aree chose to poke her head through the leaves and Khushi’s eyes got bigger than ever. “Oooh!”

Ratha ducked farther back in the thicket.“I’ve got Thakur’s lost friend. Hurry up and get him, or I’ll chew your ears!”

With a gasp, Khushi took off and scampered across the grass to where Thakur was supervising the other cubs as they rounded up the two dapplebacks. Khushi had to tug at Thakur’s tail to get the herding teacher’s attention and Ratha saw him duck an irritated swipe. But the cub was persistent and at last Thakur left his pupils with the dapplebacks and crossed the grass to Ratha’s hiding place.

“Ratha?” he called crossly. “Khushi said you were here. Where …?”

She was lifting her foot over a low branch when Aree gave a joyful squeal and sprang over her head. She had forgotten to unwind her tail completely from around Ratha’s neck. Suddenly unbalanced, Ratha spilled out onto the grass and landed on her front.

She looked up, dazed and half-choked. Aree hung between the two of them, suspended by the tail, with her arms around Thakur’s neck. She was rubbing her cheek against his and cooing as if she would never stop. Thakur looked as taken aback as Ratha was. His jaw sagged open against the tree-ling’s arm and he stared at Ratha in complete bewilderment for an instant.

Then his drooping whiskers sprang up and his ears perked. His disbelief quickly gave way to delight.

“Aree!” he cried as the treeling loosed her tail from Ratha’s neck and hugged him with her legs and arms. “Aree, you’re really back! Oh how I’ve missed you, you little flea-picker! You can eat fruit on my back all day long and dribble and I’ll never complain, just as long as you stay.”

Ratha picked herself up and smoothed the rumpled fur on her breast.“And not a word of thanks to the brave clan leader who risked paws and tail to bring this unpredictable creature back to you?” she said hoarsely, adding a cough for effect.

“He didn’t hurt you badly, did he?” Thakur asked, wrinkling the fur on his brow. She sat up stiffly.“She”—Ratha paused—“nearly choked me to death. The next time you lose your treeling, the clan may need another leader.”

Thakur eyed Aree with astonishment.“You’re right. He’s a she and soon there will be more of them.”

“If Aree’s cubs prove to be as clever as she is, then we’ve solved Fessran’s problem, haven’t we?” Ratha grinned at Thakur.

“If I can train all her young ones. I don’t know how I’m going to teach herding and cope with a whole treeling family at the same time,” he added with mild dismay.

“When the time comes, I’ll help you,” Ratha offered. Then she explained how she had found the treeling, and how the creature had stayed in the tree until she hissed and clicked her teeth. “I don’t know why Aree was so afraid of me. She used to enjoy grooming my fur,” she said, puzzled.

Thakur had been nosing the treeling and licking her coat. He paused, went back over a spot he had licked before and carefully spread the treeling’s fur with his tongue and teeth.

“Look,” he said, his voice indistinct. Ratha peered at Aree’s back. On the treeling’s skin she saw two bright pink lines side by side. They were half-healed claw marks.

“Now we know that she didn’t just run off on her own,” Ratha said at last. “Someone chased her.”

“And nearly caught her,” Thakur added, his voice grim. Aree shook herself and smoothed her fur. “You were too fast for Shongshar, weren’t you, little tree-climber?”

“So you think it was Shongshar,” she said in a low voice.

“Yes. There is no one else who had as good a reason for getting rid of Aree. He’s convinced that the only way to master the Red Tongue is by strength and fierceness. My Aree proved that there is another way. If the Firekeepers listen to me, they will no longer believe Fessran and Shongshar. Fessran might be willing to change, but not Shongshar.”

“What about Bundi’s accident?” Ratha asked.

Thakur’s eyes narrowed. “That is harder to explain. Shongshar and Bundi were like lair-brothers. Even now, I find it difficult to believe that he could deliberately hurt Bundi.”

“I found his pawprints at the edge of the firebed,” Ratha told him.

“That doesn’t prove anything. Shongshar could have been there earlier, helping to light the fire. No. I think it was Nyang who pushed Bundi.”

“Fessran’s son?” Ratha was startled by this suggestion, but the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. “Yes. Nyang would do anything to please Shongshar. I have seen how that cub looks at him.”

“Yes, but we don’t have any evidence,” Thakur reminded her.

“You know me too well, herding teacher,” Ratha said, somewhat ruefully. “Until I can prove to myself that Shongshar and Nyang are guilty, I can’t punish them. If they are, they have covered their tracks well.”

“And you may not be able to unbury those tracks. I think we should look ahead on this trail, not back,” said Thakur. “Now that Aree has returned, we can continue training her with the fire.”

Ratha felt a slight twinge of uncertainty.“Do you think that’s really a good idea? I mean …” She faltered as he stared at her in surprise. “We aren’t sure what happened to Bundi, are we? It might have been the fire-creature itself that burned him.”

“Don’t tell me that you’ve been listening to that dappleback dung! It may be fit for frightening litterlings, but you have more sense.”

She hesitated, thinking about her dream.“I know, but sometimes I’m not sure. What happened to Bundi scared me.”

“It frightened others too. If Fessran had posted a Firekeeper to guard the herders’ fire before Bundi’s accident, the yowls would have set her fur on end. Now no one complains.”

“They’re glad,” said Ratha. “That also frightens me a little. I’m not sure what to do.”

“Help me work with the treelings,” Thakur suggested. “We can continue teaching Aree, and after her little ones are born, we can train them too.”

“Then Fessran won’t worry about having only one tree-ling,” said Ratha excitedly. “She may even decide to help us.”

“Maybe later, but for now we should keep this as secret as we can,” Thakur cautioned.

“Bring Aree to my den this evening, then. I’ll have a fire there. If we keep the Red Tongue small, it won’t be able to hurt her.”

“I will. I have to get back to my pupils now,” he added, glancing over to where several cubs stood watching him with their tails raised in curiosity.

Ratha stayed hidden long enough to be sure that Thakur could manage both Aree and the rambunctious cubs. When she was satisfied that he was in no danger of losing the creature again, she slipped away.

She decided to go and inspect the ground near Thakur’s den for any traces of footprints. The old ashes from the last fire Bira had built for him were still there and the site had been left alone. She might find some faint prints she had overlooked before.

On her way along the path that wound through scattered trees, she heard far-off splintering sounds and cracks. Soon a Firekeeper came hurrying along the trail, with kindling in his mouth. The sounds of breaking wood continued and another Firekeeper followed with a jagged piece of a dead log that he could barely get his jaws around.

Ratha looked after him with mild curiosity. Her interest became stronger when a third wood-carrier followed. As he disappeared, she heard the footsteps of yet another. Bira appeared with a mouthful of fragrant pine twigs. As she approached she ducked her head respectfully to Ratha, which made her drop several sticks. When she tried to retrieve them, she only lost more. She attempted to snag them with her claws and push them into her mouth with her pads, but finally she lost patience and unloaded the whole mouthfuL“ I shouldn’t try to carry so many at once,” she said, spitting out pieces of gray bark, “but Fessran wanted us to hurry.”

“Where are you taking it?” asked Ratha. She gathered up some of the scattered twigs and placed them beside Bira’s pile of sticks.

“Oh, the wood isn’t for a gathering fire,” Bira said quickly. “Fessran’s found a cave beside the waterfall and we’re putting wood in there so it will stay dry during the rainy season.”

Ratha helped Bira get all the twigs secured between her teeth and the young Firekeeper trotted away with a grateful wave of her tail.

Ratha stared up the path, thinking. Fessran hadn’t told her about a cave for storing wood. It sounded sensible enough, although there was no need to hurry; the rainy season wouldn’t start for a long time.I think I’ll just follow Bira up there and look around.

She took the same trail she had taken that morning and soon passed the place where she had found Aree. She saw that her pugmarks had been wiped away under the feet of the Firekeepers who had passed this way. A stray pine twig told her that Bira hadn’t managed to hold onto all her load.

She wondered how long they had been doing this and whether they had stopped when she took the path earlier. She had noticed that the trail beside the creek looked a little more worn than usual, and there were more smells about.

The creek trail ran between great trees whose charred rough bark spoke of the Red Tongue’s passing. Farther on, the path wound around outcroppings of coarse-grained stone that had weathered and crumbled to form a white gravel that crunched beneath her pads. The grade became steep, and by the time she reached the huge granite slab that lay at the base of the waterfall, she was panting slightly.

Ratha stood, letting the wind-blown spray cool her as she studied the tumbled boulders near the foot of the cliff. She tensed as something moved in the shadows. It took form, becoming a head and forelegs. A Firekeeper emerged from a cleft between the rocks. He was so intent on his work that he did not see her, and he soon disappeared out of sight down the trail she had just climbed up.

She threaded her way through the scattered rockfalls until she reached the cleft. She was about to enter when she heard voices echoing inside. Quickly she backed off. One of the voices was Fessran’s. The other, louder one was Shongshar’s.

“I really think we should have told her before we started.” Fessran sounded querulous. “It’s obvious that this will benefit the rest of the clan, not just our Firekeepers.”

“And suppose she doesn’t see it that way,” Shongshar hissed, and the echo from the rock walls added menace to the voice that carried to Ratha. “Suppose she treats this as she has treated our gatherings, showing little respect for us and the fire-creature we serve.”

“She won’t, Shongshar. I …”

Fessran’s voice faltered and Ratha knew a stray breeze had wafted her scent into the cavern. When the Firekeeper leader came out her face had an odd, tight look as if she were angry but was afraid to lose her temper. Shongshar followed her and fixed Ratha with his strange unreadable gaze. He had changedso much in the time since he had given up his witless young that she no longer knew what to expect from him.

“I was told you were storing wood up here,” she said briskly, not looking at either one of them. “That is a good idea. I would like to see how much you have gathered.”

“Not very much. Why don’t you come back later when we have sorted and stacked it?” Fessran said, with a glance at Shongshar.

“Then show me the cave,” Ratha said flatly, making sure they knew this was no longer a request.

Silently Shongshar turned his gray bulk around and led the way in. Ratha went after him and heard Fessran following. She expected to have to use her whiskers while her eyes adapted to the gloom, but she found that the low tunnel was lit by a faint wavering light.

Her ears caught a soft, steady roar that grew louder as they traveled farther into the cavern. The light grew stronger, making Shongshar into a gray-brown shadow ahead of her and tinting Fessran’s eyes with a ruddy glow.

The sound grew louder still. Ratha, following Shongshar, found herself in a larger cave whose roof arched away into shadow. Crystal-flecked pillars reflected the fierce orange light from the fire that burned in the center of the cavern.

Ratha felt her fur rise. She had been in caves before, but they had been lighted only by the soft phosphorescence of slimy plants that grew on their walls. She had sensed the vastness and emptiness of those underground caverns only by the echoes that reached her ears or by the clammy breeze that seemed to come from the depths of the earth. Now, with the fire’s light, she could examine an entire chamber.

Pillars of rough limestone reared up until they were lost in the shadows that played on the roof of the cave. Fang-shaped stones rose from the floor to guard the entrances to other chambers deeper in the rock, whose ageless emptiness seemed to seep into the cave in which she stood.

She looked around in awe, feeling small and fearful amid the ominous majesty of the great cavern. Against the base of a pillar, the Firekeepers had begun piling kindling. The wood looked untidy and out of place against the fire-jeweled pillar. There were a few Firekeepers in the rear of the chamber; Ratha had not noticed them at first, sincethey blended into the moving shadows cast by the Red Tongue.

The cave itself was not the only awesome thing. Ratha felt her gaze drawn almost unwillingly to the fire. Its sound filled the chamber and its light danced on the pillars and the walls. Here, its presence was overwhelming and shadowed everything else. Here, its power was contained and strengthened. Here was a place where the Red Tongue ruled.

Again Ratha remembered her dream, and she could almost see the coal-red eyes of the dream creature forming in the fire’s heart. She fought fear with anger, turning suddenly on Fessran.

“Why have you brought the fire in here?” she demanded. “I thought this was to serve only as a place for keeping wood.”

It was not Fessran but Shongshar who answered.“Our Firekeepers find it difficult to see when they come in from daylight. We have lighted the cave so they can see where to place their wood. Surely you see the sense in doing so, clan leader.”

Despite herself, Ratha had to agree that his reason was valid. She felt frustrated at being unable to find an explanation for the sense of uneasiness that clawed at her belly. She asked more questions, but the answers all made sense, even though they didn’t satisfy her. Why had they picked such a large cavern? The smaller ones were above the falls and more difficult to reach. Why hadn’t they built the fire in the less spacious gallery that led to the cave? It was too damp and the wood must be kept dry.

At last Ratha said,“When you are finished gathering wood, you will no longer need the fire-creature in the cave. I want it taken out.”

“We will need it here when the rainy season comes,” Fessran protested.

“I will decide what to do when the rainy season comes. When you are finished stacking wood, you will take the Red Tongue out of here.”

“As you wish, clan leader,” Shongshar said in a low growl. Fessran looked as if she wanted to say something else, but remained silent.

Ratha found her way out of the cave. The bright day hurt her eyes, but she was suddenly grateful for the sunlight and blue sky. She breathed air made crisp by spray from the falls, shook herself and went back down the trail.

The task of wood gathering took much more time than Ratha expected. Once or twice she nearly lost her temper, but Fessran pointed out that if she wanted the herds to be safely guarded, the Firekeepers had to have dry fodder for the guard-fires. Ratha remembered the bristlemane attack and reluctantly agreed to let the Firekeepers finish their task.

Although she disliked being in the cave, she went up to it every once in a while to see how the Firekeepers were doing. On her most recent trip, she noticed that Fessran had set someone outside to guard the cavern entrance.

This made her more uneasy than ever. As soon as enough wood was stockpiled for the rainy season, she was going to put a stop to the activity in the cave.

Chapter Fourteen

The task of gathering wood continued to go slowly and Ratha’s impatience grew. Each day that the fire burned in the cave seemed to add to the strength and influence of the Firekeepers. Every day that she was in the meadow, she would hear the herders talking about the cave-den of the Red Tongue. Some were bold enough to speak about visiting it, although none of them had, as far as she knew.

Midsummer passed and the green of the meadow grass turned to pale gold. The herdbeasts coughed in the dust raised by the dry wind. The little stream that flowed through the meadow shrank to a trickle and the herders began taking the animals to the river to water. The Firekeepers took great care in clearing the places where the guard-fires were lit, for a single spark could set the meadow aflame.

The Firekeepers’ task began drawing to an end at last. Even Fessran agreed with Ratha that enough dry wood had been stored to last through the longest rainy season. She was less agreeable about taking the Red Tongue out of the cave, and Ratha found, to her dismay, that not only the Firekeepers, but many of the herders wanted it kept there. Why protect only the Red Tongue’s food from the wind and rain? Did it make sense to do that while the fires that were the main source for lighting all the others were left ill-protected in shallow dens dug for them in the meadow? In a bad storm, the fire-lairs could flood. Why not keep a source-fire safe in the deep cave? Then the clan would never have to worry about losing the Red Tongue even in the fiercest of storms.

What angered Ratha most about this idea was that she had no good reason to reject it. The bristlemane attack during a rainstorm had showed her how vulnerable the herds could be if the Red Tongue failed. The argument was simple and obvious. At times she could almost convince herself to think about it that way.

But the shadow of her dream remained in her mind. She still saw the hunger of those coal-red eyes and heard the voice that was the rush of the flames.“Bare your throat to me, for I am the one who rules,” it had said and her terror had made her crouch and tremble, lifting her chin. Others of the Named would do so more willingly and knowing that frightened her in a way she could not understand.

Her belly knew the truth of her fear, but her tongue had no words to shape it. How could she hold the image of her dream-creature up before the clan as a reason to reject something that might be essential to the clan’s survival? She wondered if the danger she saw was only an illusion; that she was growing fainthearted and unwilling to take risks.

The heat of the afternoon lay heavily on her as she padded along the trail that led to Thakur’s den. She smelled the scent of summer leaves and of faded flowers whose centers were swelling into fruit. Once she would have stopped to let the smells fill her nose with the richness of the season, but now her cares pushed aside any enjoyment.

She found Thakur lying in the shade outside his lair. Aree was not perched in her usual place on his shoulder She sat huddled up against him. As Ratha approached, the treeling tried to curl herself up, but her pregnant belly kept her from doing much more than looping her long tail over her shoulder. She seemed restless and unable to get comfortable.

Ratha was so used to seeing Aree on Thakur’s back or the nape of his neck that the treeling looked odd sitting beside him.

Thakur caught her look. He raised his head and grinned at her.“Poor flea-picker is getting too bulgy to stay on my shoulder. She wobbled a lot this morning and I thought she was going to tumble off.”

“When will she have her cubs?”

“Tonight, I think. She’s been gathering fern leaves for a nest in the back of my lair and her smell has changed.”

Aree reached up on Thakur’s flank, grasped two handfuls of fur and heaved herself up onto him. She reached for his tail, which he obligingly curled across his leg where she could reach it. She began pulling out tufts of hair and bundled them together in her fingers.

“She found out I was still shedding a little and she likes the fur to line her nest,” Thakur explained.

“I hope she leaves you enough to cover your tail,” Ratha observed, as the treeling pulled out a large tuft of his fur.

“Ouch!” Thakur flicked his tail out of Aree’s reach. “All right, you’ve got plenty. You’d better go build your nest before you decide to have your cubs on top of me.”

“Aree!” agreed the treeling as she clambered off him and shuffled into the den, holding the wad of fur.

Thakur looked after her anxiously for a minute.“I’m glad you came,” he said to Ratha. “You know more about this than I do.”

“Me? I don’t know anything about treelings,” she protested.

“Yes, but you do know about having cubs.”

Ratha cocked her head at him.“I did it once. I don’t see how that is going to help.”

“Well, maybe not,” Thakur conceded. “At least you can tell me what she’s doing.”

Ratha expected that Aree would soon emerge from the den to gather more leaves or steal more fur. As the afternoon shadows lengthened and the treeling didn’t appear, Thakur began to get nervous.

“Maybe I should go and see if she’s all right,” he said, rolling to his feet. He crept inside until only his tail hung out. “She’s in the nest, on her side,” he called, his voice muffled. “She’s moving a little and making funny noises.”

Ratha poked her head in alongside his flank and listened. She could hear Aree breathing and every few breaths the treeling gave a soft grunt. Satisfied that everything sounded all right, Ratha withdrew from the lair and gave a tug on Thakur’s tail.

“Come out, herding teacher. You’re worse than a curious yearling at birthing time. The best thing you can do now is leave her alone.”

Thakur backed out of the den, his fur rumpled.“Anyone would think you had sired Aree’s cubs,” Ratha teased.

“Don’t hold it against me, clan leader,” he said wryly. “After all, this may be as close as I get to having a family of my own.”

She winced.“I’m sorry, Thakur. I didn’t mean to remind you.”

“Don’t be. I’ve become used to living with it,” he said. “I decided not to take the chance and, after seeing what happened to Shongshar’s cubs, I’m more convinced than ever.” He paused. “I don’t think you would want to have to abandon another litter, especially if I was their father.”

She stretched out with her hindquarters in the sun and the rest of her in the dappled shade. She laid her head on her paws and felt grateful to Thakur that he had the sensitivity to make himself absent during the time the females were in heat. By doing so, he freed her from having to make the painful decision: whether to exile him during the mating season or allow him to take a partner. She sighed. If only Shongshar had done the same!

“Thakur,” she said suddenly. “Do you think Shongshar’s cubs are still alive?”

It was a while before he answered.“I don’t think so. Why?”

“I wonder if I should have told him we didn’t kill them. If I had let him know where we left them, he might have been able to go and see them.” She lifted her head. “I didn’t tell him because I thought he might try to bring them back. Perhaps it would have been better had I trusted him.” She fell silent awhile and then asked softly, “Do you think it would do any good to tell him now?”

“No,” Thakur answered. “If there was a time that it would have done any good, that time is past. His grief has set him on a new trail and he has been on it too long.”

She sighed.“I wish I knew why Fessran listens to him.”

“She listens to him for the same reason you find it difficult to disbelieve his words: he understands the power of the Red Tongue and he knows how to use it.”

“I don’t know whether they are his words or Fessran’s. All I know is that they give me a feeling in my belly that I don’t like and I can’t do anything about it.”

He leaned closer, listening, and she felt her despair rising up again.“He is so clever! Everything he says or tells Fessran to say makes sense. He is right about sheltering the Red Tongue in the cave during the winter rains. He seems to think only of the safety of my people, but my belly tells me he has other reasons for what he does.”

“Your belly has been right before,” said Thakur.

“Yes, but my belly only had to persuade the rest of me that it was right. Persuading others is harder,” Ratha grumbled.

Thakur shifted so that he was farther into the sun and half-closed his eyes. Ratha was afraid he was going to drift off to sleep, but he opened his eyes and said,“The important thing is to show Fessran what treelings can do. She will see that there is another way to make use of the Red Tongue’s power. I think she listens to Shongshar because she thinks there is no way other than his.”

“Now that we will soon have more treelings, there is another way. I know we still have to train them and there may still be problems, but I think it will work.” She was about to say more when Thakur sat up and looked intently toward the lair.

“I hear Aree,” he said. “I think she wants me.”

Despite Ratha’s admonitions, he entered the den. She could only sigh and follow. When her eyes became accustomed to the dimness, she saw Thakur curled around the treeling’s nest. How he had done so without disturbing her, Ratha didn’t know, but Aree seemed to be pleased that he was there. The treeling wriggled herself close to him. He began to purr and she crooned softly to herself.

The blend of sounds soothed Ratha and made her drowsy. She laid her cheek against the hard-packed soil of the den floor and let herself drift. She was within the earth, as she had been in the Red Tongue’s cave, but here she felt sheltered and safe rather than afraid.

Daylight faded outside, but the moon rose, and she could see by the faint silvery light that filtered into the den. Aree grew restless again and Ratha heard her turning about inside her nest. Thakur’s half-closed eyes opened wide. Aree halted, crouched and seemed to shudder. She gave a deep grunt, a noise Ratha had never heard from a treeling before. She grunted again and began to pant.

“She’s pushing at me with her feet,” Thakur said. “Do you think she’s all right?”

“Yes. I made all sorts of strange noises when I was birthing my cubs. Let her push against you if she needs to.”

Ratha’s curiosity was suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of joyous excitement. This was the way she had felt when she knew that her first cub was pushing its way out from within her. Even the later knowledge that her litterlings were no more than animals couldn’t mar this first memory, and it came flooding back to her so that she began to pant eagerly along with Aree. It did not matter that these were treeling cubs rather than those of the Named; the wonder was still the same.

“Anyone would think you were birthing these litterlings,” Thakur teased gently.

Too excited to feel abashed, she peered into the nest, trying to see as much as she could. Aree gave an odd sort of heave and made a long grunt that was almost a growl.

“The first one’s coming, Thakur!” Ratha hissed. She heard Aree take a deep breath and growl again, and then there was something else in the nest, a shiny wriggling bundle that made tiny noises of its own. She saw the treeling’s eyes glint as the little mother curled around to lick her firstborn and free it from the birth-cord that still bound it to her body.

Ratha remembered the taste and feel of salty wet fur on her own tongue and the way the tiny thing mewed and writhed beneath her muzzle. She heard a surprisingly strong cry and then fast snuffling sounds as the newborn creature began to breathe.

Aree gathered her litterling to her and nursed it. She ate the afterbirth that soon followed and began to grunt again. The second treeling cub quickly followed its elder sibling and Aree lay against Thakur, cradling both little ones in her arms.

Several more arrived in the nest and Aree had to lie on her side to nurse them.

“I think she’s finished,” said Thakur after they had waited a long time for more treeling cubs to appear.

“I’m not surprised. Her litter is larger than any of ours.”

“How many are there?” asked Thakur. “I can’t see them all.”

“She has as many litterlings as you have paws,” said Ratha.

“That’s a clever way to think about it,” said Thakur, admiringly. “Whenever I want to know if I have all my herdbeasts together, I just smell them and I know which smells are missing. But we don’t know the treelings’ smells very well yet.”

“Until we do, just match them up with your paws. If you have a paw left over, then you know a little treeling is missing.”

She saw Thakur’s outline against the faintly moonlit wall of the den as he leaned over to nose his treeling. “Aree certainly doesn’t care how many there are. She’s happy.”

The sound of the treeling’s crooning filled the den. Soon Thakur joined in with a deep purr and Ratha found herself adding her own note. She wasn’t sure when his purr faded, for soon afterward, her own voice fell silent and she joined him in sleep.

It seemed that she had just closed her eyes when she was awakened by a nudge in the ribs. She rolled onto her back and blinked sleepily at Thakur. Brilliant morning sunlight lit the floor of the den near the entrance and the growing warmth promised a hot day.

“I have to go and teach my pupils, Ratha,” he said as he stepped over her, trailing his shadow. “Can you watch Aree and her litterlings until I get back?”

She yawned and shook her pelt, trying to rid herself of the sleepiness that still clung to her. She remembered the previous night’s events and came fully awake.

“How is Aree doing?” she asked.

“She just fed her litterlings again and they’re all asleep. They’re so tiny, but they already look fat.”

Ratha peered into the nest at the four balls of damp-fluffed fur curled up against the larger lump that was their mother. For a while, she lay with her chin resting on her crossed forepaws and watched the treelings sleep.

Later, she went outside to stretch her legs and keep watch. When she went in again to escape the full strength of the noon sun, she found Aree was awake and nursing two of her young while the others slept. She alternately dozed and watched the treeling family. Sometimes Aree would lie on her side and feed her little ones in the same manner as did the females of the Named. But often she nursed them in a different way, cradling them in her arms and holding them to her teats.

Ratha found this strange and endlessly fascinating. Aree seemed to know how to exchange her youngsters so that all got an equal share of milk, rather than having to fight their littermates for it as did the cubs of the Named. She became so absorbed that she didn’t notice the afternoon was passing until she smelled Thakur and heard his footsteps outside the den.

She was almost reluctant to give him back the duty of watching the treelings, but she also felt slightly guilty for hiding away where no one could find her.

Promising to return and look after the treelings the following morning, she gave Thakur a farewell nuzzle and trotted away. She took the trail leading back to the meadow and soon heard footsteps coming from the other direction. Ratha saw one of the herders approaching her. His steps were quick and purposeful, his eyes strangely intent, as if he were looking at something that always floated ahead of him.

A look of startled surprise came over his face. He ducked his head as he passed Ratha, but he did not slow his pace. She stopped and watched his hindquarters disappear around a bush.

He certainly didn’t expect to see me, thought Ratha. His astonishment had been tinged with a look of shame, as if she had caught him doing something forbidden and she knew at once he was on his way to the Red Tongue’s cave.

She wanted to race down the path after him and order him back to the meadow. That thought quickly gave way to a feeling of frustration. He knew exactly what he was doing. The look on his face told her that. Even if she caught him and scolded him, he would probably do it again.

She decided instead to follow him at a distance and watch what happened when he arrived at the cave. His scent was fresh and his trail easy to follow. She thought he might already be within the cave as she crept up the last stretch of the trail, but she heard his voice over the sound of the waterfall.

She hid herself in the scattered boulders to the side of the path and peered over, pricking her ears as far forward as they would go. The herder had his back to her so that she could see only his tail, which had begun to curl and wag. The cool breeze from the falls carried the scent of his dismay and another, less pleasant smell, the smug self-satisfaction of the two Firekeepers who barred his way.

“This is the Red Tongue’s den, not a place to amuse idle dappleback-keepers,” one of them growled.

“Just let me in for a little while. You speak so much of the strength and beauty of the fire-creature within this cave that I want to see it for myself.”

“Perhaps you think yourself worthy to serve it, young herder.” The other Firekeeper grinned. “I see you bothered to groom the manure out of your fur before you came, so the Red Tongue won’t be too displeased.”

The herder’s tail sprang upright and he took an eager step toward the cleft in the rocks. Again the Firekeepers blocked him.

“Not so quickly, dung-wearer,” the larger one snapped. “First we must tell you what you may or may not do when you are inside.”

“All right, tell me.” The herder turned his ears slightly back.

“Keep your ears up and your tail down. No scratching or licking.”

“I scratch myself near the guard-fires,” said the herder, mystified.

“Well, you shouldn’t. And this is different. This is the Red Tongue’s den and you should be respectful. Are you ready?”

The herder answered that he was. One Firekeeper led him in while the other stayed beside the entrance. He wasn’t gone long before he was led out again, but Ratha could tell he was dazed and awestruck. He blinked and, as he looked at the Firekeepers, a new, envious hunger came into his eyes.

“You must have been judged most worthy to serve such a wondrous creature,” he said, and Ratha could see that his words inflated their pride even further. She was tempted to jump out from her hiding place and snarl at them for being so supercilious and overbearing, but she held herself back. Sheneeded to learn more before she could confront Fessran and Shongshar with any real proof of wrongdoing among the Firekeepers.

She decided to come back and hide herself again the following day to gather more evidence. If the behavior of these two Firekeepers was any indication, she thought sourly, she would soon have all she needed. Perhaps she could even persuade Fessran to hide and listen, for she sensed that the Firekeeper leader was growing uneasy about her dependence on Shongshar and her toleration of his methods.

During the next few days, Ratha fell into a regular routine of watching Thakur’s treelings while he was gone in the morning and then hiding out near the fire-cave and observing what went on there. More herders came to visit. Some, like Cherfan, she liked and respected, and it dismayed her that they were drawn here. At first the herders came to satisfy their curiosity, but their interest soon became fascination and they returned again and again to enter the cave.

Ratha noticed that the Firekeepers became more selective about whom they would admit. Herders who were eager to crouch before the fire-creature had to obey rules that seemed to grow harsher and more arbitrary each time Ratha listened to them. She ground her teeth and growled — promising herself that once Fessran understood what was happening she would end these abuses.

Yet, the more she watched, the more uncertain she became. Those who came to the cave begged to enter with such unabashed eagerness that Ratha felt shame for them. They were blind to the pettiness of the Firekeepers’ rules, accepting these restrictions as part of the ritual that seemed to be growing up around the cave.

As she watched, she gained a new and disconcerting knowledge of her people. There was something in the nature of the Named that drove them to crouch in obedience to this new power. Ratha sensed in them a confusion of loyalties. Never before had she thought her position as clan leader might be seriously threatened. She was the one who had brought this new power to the clan. She had tamed the Red Tongue and driven the Un-Named back in terror before its power. All the Named were grateful to her and all bared their throats to her.

But, she realized, they did not look upon her with the same awe and passion as they gave to the thing she had once called her creature. Without the blazing presence of a firebrand in her jaws, she had only the power of claws and teeth — and loyalty based on fading memories. Yes, she had tamed the Red Tongue, but she had given its keeping to others and been blind to how it changed them.

She began to see the real truth behind her dream. Her mind had built an image of a Named One made of fire to show her how deep its power reached within her people and even within herself.

“We are all crying cubs before it,” Thakur had said once long ago. Ratha remembered his words and thought,Once, I alone could stand before it without fear. Now I know I am no better than the others.

One day in late summer, she lay in her hiding place with the sun on her back and her chin on the rock, far enough from the Firekeeper guards so they wouldn’t smell her. The air was still and even the sound of the fall seemed to be muffled by the heat. No one had come all afternoon and the two Firekeepers were dozing where they sat. Ratha was thinking about leaving her refuge to drink from the stream above the falls when she heard claws scraping on rock. She ducked down and peered through a cleft between two boulders. For a moment, the crack framed an ugly face with lop ears and bile-yellow eyes.

Shoman! What was he doing there?

Ratha saw his grizzled brown coat and his kinked tail as he passed her hiding place. Someone followed him, and she caught a glimpse of a burn-scarred muzzle and the faded spots of a yearling.

“Bundi?” she whispered to herself, but she didn’t need his smell to know the injured herder. She felt a sense of betrayal, although she was not quite sure why. Perhaps she had assumed that one who had been wounded by the Red Tongue would never seek its presence again.

She saw Shoman and Bundi approach the Firekeeper guards. One of them was Fessran’s son Nyang and he came forward to challenge the two herders who sought entry.

“Take yourselves back down the trail,” Nyang said, flattening his ears at them. “The Red Tongue has marked you as unfit to enter its lair.”

“Unfit because I bear this scar, or unfit because I see only what is there and not what others would have me see?” growled Shoman.

Nyang’s eyes narrowed. “The fire-creature can make you see whatever it wishes you to see. If you do not believe, why are you here?”

“Because of this!” Shoman thrust his scarred foreleg at Nyang. “Because the other herders see this and shun me. I have never been liked and I never expected to be, but to have them wrinkle their noses and look at me as if I were a diseased carcass full of blowflies … that I can’t bear.”

“And you are not afraid that one who angered the fire-creature once may anger it again?” asked Nyang.

“If it is clumsiness that angers it, then it may have me,” Shoman spat. “I did nothing wrong, but the other herders won’t believe it. I would rather risk its anger than to go back down to the meadow and be hissed at with contempt.” He paused. Ratha could not see his face, but she knew he was glaring at Nyang. At last he said, “If you won’t let both of us in, then take Bundi. He suffered much more from the Red Tongue’s touch than I did, and he is too young to be spurned and made one apart.”

Shoman’s rough sympathy with Bundi startled Ratha, who had thought that he was too bitter and selfish to care much about anyone else. His words were wasted on Nyang, who looked at him coldly.

“I need a better reason than that,” he said and then leered at Shoman.

The herder gave a deep growl that ended in a sigh.“I thought you might. Bundi”—he turned to the youngster behind him—“bring the meat I gave you.”

It was a small piece and Bundi had hidden it in his mouth, concealing the sight and smell from anyone else. He came forward and disgorged it in front of Nyang.

The sight of the chunk of torn flesh lying on the stone before the Firekeeper enraged Ratha and she had to fight to keep herself concealed. No one had the right to take meat from a herdbeast carcass unless they were feeding a nursing mother. All in the clan ate together and shared equally until their bellies were filled. Stealing or hoarding was a shameful act, and by the old laws of the Named, a clan leader could demand that the culprit bare his throat for a killing bite.

Nyang smelled the meat, looked to either side to be sure no one else was watching and then fastened his jaws in it. Ratha let him eat half before she left her hiding place and stepped out onto the trail. At the sound of her footsteps, Nyang started and the other two whirled around.

“That meat is forbidden, Firekeeper,” Ratha said, lowering her head as the hair rose on the nape of her neck. Nyang tried to gulp down the rest of it, but he choked and dropped it as she showed her fangs at him. She turned to Bundi, who could not answer her accusing stare.

“The meat is mine,” Shoman said in a harsh voice. “It is from my share.”

“You know as well as I do that we eat from the carcass where it lies,” said Ratha fiercely. “Your share or not, it is stolen, and I will not tolerate such a shameful thing among my people.”

He looked back at her, half-ashamed, half-defiant.“Do you allow a good herder to be shunned and spat on just because he bears the scars from an accident that was not his fault? I am speaking of Bundi, clan leader, not myself.”

“What good would it do him to enter this cave?” Ratha asked. “The Red Tongue does not heal its own wounds.”

“It can heal the wounds that are made by malicious words. If Bundi and I enter the cave as if to seek forgiveness and emerge unharmed, and if this news is spread among the other herders, then we will not be treated as outcasts.”

Ratha wanted to ask why they had not come to Cherfan or to her, but another thought stilled her question. If Shoman had come to her, she could have ordered that all who were shunning him and Bundi stop doing so, but while she might have put an end to their acts, she could not have changed the feelings that showed in their eyes. Shoman had taken the only action he could, despite the risk. He had done it for Bundi as well as himself, and that made Ratha respect him.

“All right,” she said at last. “Nyang, take them into the cave.” With a last hungry look at the meat, the Firekeeper led the two herders in.

She picked up the remains of the meat, holding it with the tips of her fangs as if the taste was rancid. She pushed past the other Firekeeper guard, who had been watching in astonishment, and entered the low gallery that led into the cave.

She halted in the flickering shadows to watch Shoman and Bundi approach the fire. Shoman stood still, but Bundi crouched before the flame, ducking his head so low that his whiskers swept the ground.

Beyond them, on a ledge in the darkness at the rear of the cave, sat Shongshar and behind him Fessran. Their eyes were fixed on Bundi and they seemed to brighten as the young herder raised his chin as if to bare his throat.

Ratha leaped over a row of stone fangs and began to walk purposefully toward the ledge at the rear of the cave. Bundi halted in his supplication and crept away from the fire. If he had ignored her and bared his throat to the fire-creature, she knew she would have filled the cave with her roar, but she stayed silent and set her feet quietly.

Her path took her past the two herders. She stopped briefly, narrowing her eyes against the firelight and said,“Go now. I will make sure the others learn that you are no longer to be shunned.”

When the two were gone, Ratha continued her walk toward the rear of the cave.

“Why do you enter the Red Tongue’s den without permission from the ones who guard it?” Fessran’s voice came from the ledge, sounding hollow and threatening, yet there was also an edge of fear in her words.

“Because I am the one who tamed the creature for you, Firekeeper,” Ratha answered, looking up at the two on the ledge. “And I am growing tired of these cub-games. Call Nyang here.”

“My son? What has he done to offend the clan leader?”

Ratha had dropped the meat she carried in order to speak clearly. Now she picked it up and tossed it in front of the ledge. Both Fessran and Shongshar came to the edge of their perch and peered down, smelling the raw flesh. Shongshar fixed his eyes on Ratha.

“Your son accepted that meat from the two herders who wished to enter the cave. It was stolen from a clan kill,” she said.

“Then punish the herders,” Shongshar growled. “It is they who have done wrong.” Fessran’s eyes grew wide.

“It is also wrong to accept meat that has been stolen or to demand it in return for allowing in herders who would otherwise be unwelcome,” Ratha hissed.

“I think you misunderstand the intent of the herders, clan leader,” said Shongshar easily as he draped himself along the edge. The gesture was casual, but she could read the intent in his half-veiled eyes. He was larger and more powerful than she remembered and the shadows gave his orange eyes a strange hidden malevolence. She knew he saw how her eyes traveled along his body, registering his bulk and the powerful muscles of his neck and forelegs.

He shifted himself again and continued,“It is a long way down to the meadow, and some of us do not get the chance to eat as much as those who stay near the kills. If the herders try to even things out by bringing us some meat, I see nothing wrong with it.”

“Nyang is always hungry,” said Fessran, trying to sound motherly and indulgent. “He’ll eat anything without thinking about where it came from.”

“It is my responsibility to see that everyone has an equal share of a kill. Nyang gets no less than his share and frequently tries to take from others. There is no need for the herders to bring you meat. If you think this cave is too far from the meadow, move your wood somewhere else.”

Fessran glanced at Shongshar, but although he was aware of her gaze, Ratha noticed he did not look back at her.“I’ll talk to Nyang,” Fessran said at last.

“You should talk to all your Firekeepers. Before I leave, let me remind you that I will not permit anyone to steal from a carcass or accept meat that has been stolen.” She turned to leave and then looked back over her shoulder. “If I find that this has happened again, I will have this fire killed and the wood moved somewhere else. Do you understand me? Good.”

She whirled around, trotted across the cave floor, down the gallery and out into the sunlight. She felt cleansed by her anger and pleased that she had finally confronted this thing that had been festering in her mind like the canker made by a tick burrowing into her flesh. She felt as though she had found it and nipped it out. But she knew as she traveled down the trail in the hazy sunlight of late afternoon that she hadn’t yet gotten all of it.

Chapter Fifteen

The herders continued to visit the Red Tongue’s cave. Some did so openly; others were ashamed and furtive, sneaking up the trail through the shadows. Ratha knew she could do nothing to stop them, but she kept a careful watch to see that no meat was taken. Once or twice, she had read that intention in someone’s eyes as they sank their teeth into a haunch of three-horn, but her look and the slight lift of her lip as she growled quickly dissuaded them.

Her suspicion and the growing ascendancy of the Firekeepers over the herders poisoned the rough-and-tumble yet good-natured competition for places about a culled herdbeast. Ratha made sure that everyone received an adequate share, and there was in fact less inequality than there had been before. But everyone ate in a tense silence, punctuated only by the sound of tearing flesh. Ratha found herself eating less, for the atmosphere around a kill made the meat seem to taste rancid and stick in her throat. Even the cubs were subdued; they rarely dived in to snatch a piece of meat as they had done before. Perhaps they had learned that such antics could result in a fierce bite or scratch rather than an easygoing cuff.

No more food was stolen, and Ratha became less obvious about her watchfulness, hoping that the event would be forgotten and the clan would go back to its old ways. This helped a little. There was more conversation at meal-times and even some humor, but the unspoken distrust between the Firekeepers and the herders was an undercurrent of ill-feeling that kept everyone on edge.

A few days after the last cull, Ratha noticed that one of the three-horn fawns that had been born that spring was missing. She questioned the herders closely and had them search, but no sign of the animal was found. To lose a herdbeast without explanation was a dangerous precedent and she made it clear to the herders that it was not to happen again.

Sometimes she felt as if she was no longer walking among her own people, but among strangers whose puzzled, resentful glances made her feel strangely lost. She looked for the animal herself and did no better than the herders.

At last Cherfan told her that the fawn had been diseased. It died when the herd was driven to the river and the carcass had been buried there as it was unfit for food. She suspected this was told to placate her; she knew Cherfan and the others were growing tired of her suspicions. She gave up the search, finally deciding that trying to discover the animal’s fate would cost too much resentment and further divide the clan.

She found herself turning more and more to Thakur and his family of treelings as a relief from the burden of her leadership. Each morning, when the herding teacher went off to instruct his pupils, she stayed at his den and watched over Aree and her young ones until he returned.

At first, when the youngsters were too small to leave the nest, Ratha found her task easy and pleasant. They would nurse and sleep, although sometimes Aree would take them out into the morning sun to creep about and stare at the world with wide eyes. Like cubs, they were intensely curious and aware of everything around them. Ratha knew, however, that their awareness was not like that of the Named.

As the treelings grew older, the differences between them began to show. The larger of the two males was placid and even-tempered, while his brother made up for his small size with a bullying aggressive nature. Both the little females of the litter were lively and inquisitive, although one sister was reckless, tending to shred the objects of her curiosity, while the other would gaze at flowers or insects without touching them. She seemed to know how to be gentle without needing to be taught.

At first, Ratha was attracted to the larger and bolder of the two sisters. The young treeling shared qualities she had herself and which she thought she might want in a companion. She was stronger and had a beautifully marked pelt and distinctive masking around her muzzle. She was also adventurous, having been the first to come out of the nest. Aree was forever having to seize her tail and yank her out of trouble.

Although Ratha enjoyed the bigger female’s rough-and-tumble play, she often felt her gaze wandering to the smaller sister. The little female’s fur was less rich in color and her markings more subdued, but her gentle nature seemed to feed Ratha’s hunger for affection in a way that even Thakur’s companionship could not. The little treeling could sense when Ratha was troubled and would come to cuddle against her before settling down to groom her fur.

She wasn’t sure when she decided that the little treeling was to be her companion. Perhaps it was when Thakur noticed the growing friendship and in a teasing way began to call the youngster “Ratha’s Aree.” Since Ratha could think of nothing better, she finally accepted the name. It was easier for her to blend the two words into one, so after a while, she began to call the little treeling “Ratharee.”

The ripening season soon started, and Aree climbed trees eagerly to gather fruit. At first, the young treelings disdained this new food, but they were growing too big to nurse and the sweet smell began to tempt them. It was not long before they were eating fruit with as much gusto as their mother.

From birth, the young treelings knew fire. Its glow flickered on the wall of the den above their nest, and they became as used to the smell and sound as they were to their own mother. When the litter was old enough for Aree to leave them for long periods, Thakur again began to teach her how to care for the Red Tongue. Soon they had an audience of youngsters, who attended each teaching session and watched their mother’s training with eager curiosity.

Both Thakur and Ratha welcomed this interest and began to test the little creatures for evidence of Aree’s ability. They did this carefully and gradually, using the same methods that Thakur had used with Aree. Like their mother, the youngsters quickly discovered that the Red Tongue’s warmth could be strong enough to hurt, but if they were careful, they would not be injured.

Ratha feared that her little treeling, Ratharee, might be too timid to train as a fire-bearer. She was indeed more cautious than the others, but underneath her shyness was a certain streak of determination. Like her siblings, she wanted to imitate her mother’s prowess, and Ratha nuzzled her and praised her each time she made an effort to overcome her reticence.

Once it was evident that Aree’s youngsters could be taught the same skills as their mother, Thakur and Ratha began to devote more teaching time to them. She found that he was a much better teacher than she, for he had the experience and the patience to repeat commands and actions endlessly until the pupil finally accepted and understood. Her own impatience often made her blunder, and she struggled hard to control it. Gradually she found herself more able to master her temper, especially with her own treeling Ratharee. The affection she felt for her little companion helped to keep her sense of urgency in check.

Urgency? Yes. Neither Ratha nor Thakur said it aloud, but both shared a feeling that training the treelings was important. How quickly it was done might affect what happened in the days to come. Fessran’s old objection to depending on Aree alone was valid, but now that they had five treelings, the risk was much less. Thakur’s continued training had made Aree herself much more dependable and less likely to do something unexpected, such as the antics she had performed around the Firekeepers. But Ratha did have to grin when she remembered the expressions on the faces of the torchbearers.

Surely when Fessran saw that Aree and her youngsters could do, she would accept their services. Perhaps she would choose a treeling for herself, although Thakur might be reluctant to give one to Shongshar.

Aree was ready. Now all that remained was to get Fessran to bring the Firekeepers down for another demonstration, Ratha thought, but she found that doing so was harder than she had anticipated. The Firekeeper leader spent most of her time in the cave by the falls, watching those who came to pay homage to the Red Tongue. Shongshar was always with her, and in his presence she seemed to change, becoming haughty and imperious. Yet Ratha often caught a sudden look of misery on her face, as if she sensed the effect he had on her.

He never seemed to let her out of his sight, accompanying her down to the meadow to eat or going with her to give orders to those who built the guard-fires. Recently, he had begun to interrupt her or answer for her when she spoke to anyone else, although he still treated her with a deference that seemed exaggerated and sometimes strangely sinister. It was difficult to get Fessran alone and, even then, she seemed ill-at-ease and unwilling to talk.

Ratha finally bullied her away from Shongshar long enough to get her to agree to see Aree’s new skills. But Fessran was deliberately vague about when the meeting would take place. At last, Ratha could wait no longer. She sent word by the Firekeeper Bira that Thakur would set up a demonstration for the evening of the following day. She built a fire near his den at sunset and selected the best pine sticks for the treelings to use as torches. Thakur drilled Aree one more time and then they settled down to wait.

The night had grown cold and the fire fallen low before Ratha admitted to herself that Fessran wasn’t going to come. She stopped her angry pacing and let Ratharee climb down from her back.

“I’m going up to the cave,” she said, staring out of the circle of firelight to where the path led away from Thakur’s lair.

“I don’t think that would be wise, Ratha,” he said softly.

“Fessran will not disobey me when she looks into my eyes. I am tired of sidelong looks and all this sneaking around.”

“Then let me come with you. The trail can be treacherous at night.”

“The only treachery is within that den of belly-crawlers,” Ratha growled. “No, you stay here with Aree and her little ones. Keep the fire going until I return with Fessran. I won’t be gone long.”

She heard him sigh and turn away, but she was too angry for his words to hold her back, or even to think that her hasty actions might place him in danger.

She leaped away into the night, her rage giving her speed. There was no moon that night and the trees that overhung the creek trail made the path so black that she followed it by smell and by feel, rather than by sight. The dark made the way seem steeper, with far more turns and twists than in daylight. She brushed against dew-dampened ferns whose touch, once gentle, now seemed ominous and threatening.

Exhaustion took away some of her anger, and she began to think whether Thakur had been right after all. She also began to wonder if she should have left him without anyone else to help guard the treelings.

She climbed the last part of the trail, with her paws slipping on gravel made slick by spray and the booming of the fall in her ears. There was another sound, which grew louder as she approached the cave: the harsh roar of the Red Tongue.

Shadowy orange light spilling from the cave backlit the forms of the two Firekeepers who stood guard before the entrance. They rose, growling, but their challenge died to a mutter as they caught her smell.“You have come to crouch before the Red Tongue, clan leader?”

“No. I have come to see Fessran.”

The speaker glanced at his companion, who looked doubtfully back.“Before you enter, clan leader, there are some things you must not do …” He faltered under Ratha’s glare and his ears twitched back.

“You dare tell me what I may do before the creature that I brought to the clan?Ptaah!” She lunged at them, striking out with teeth and claws.

Before either of the guards could recover, she was past them and into the gallery leading to the cave. She could tell at once that the fire was much larger than it had been. She could see her shadow on the rock floor of the gallery. A steady wind from outside blew past her, drawn to feed the hunger of the fire-creature.

Despite her anger, she hesitated. The light ahead dazzled her, and the heat swept over her in parching waves. For a moment, the fire seemed to hold her back; then her anger flared, forcing the fear aside.

She was in the cave itself. The Red Tongue’s harsh and constant song filled the cavern and echoed back from the other chambers. The great fire reared up as if it was the central pillar that supported the cave, a writhing column of yellow and gold seeming to reach from floor to vaulted ceiling.

It lit the stone fangs that hung from the ceiling, turning them to a gleaming yellow that made them look even more like teeth in the mouth of a great and terrible creature.

Ratha was so awed by the Red Tongue itself that she almost didn’t see the shapes that gathered around it. Their shadows stretched out toward her, wavering and dancing over the rubble-strewn floor until they passed over her. At first she thought the figures were Firekeepers stoking the great flame, but as she crept closer and her eyes grew accustomed to the fierce light, she saw that they were moving together in a circle around the fire. Their movements were slow and rhythmic, as if they were beginning a dance.

The longer Ratha watched, the more she was convinced that this was a dance, but one such as she had never seen. She remembered the dance-hunts she had used to celebrate the victory of the clan over the Un-Named. Those had been fierce and wild, but even the intensity of the dance-hunt didn’t have the frenzy and fierceness of this.

The dancers leaped, lashed their flanks with their tails and struck out with their claws as if against some unseen but hated enemy. They reared up on their hind paws and reached toward the ceiling, twisting and writhing in the heat as if they themselves were the branches that were being consumed by the fire-creature in its endless hunger.

They shrieked aloud, and whether it was joy or terror in those cries, Ratha did not know. Their faces bore a look that none of the Named had ever held before, a look that was nearly madness. It was the wish to join themselves with the power of something far greater than themselves, even if it meant the sacrifice of their own wills.

The pounding rush and roar formed a rhythm for the dance, and even Ratha felt the strange tug of wild ecstasy that filled the eyes and bodies of the dancers. Amid the leaping figures, Ratha saw Fessran herself, her mouth stretched open in a cry of celebration to the power of the Red Tongue. She bounded higher than Ratha had ever seen her leap before, twisted herself in impossible ways and came so near the fire that Ratha trembled for fear she would fall in.

Ratha was so absorbed by the fire-dance that she didn’t hear someone creep up behind her until his voice was in her ear.

“Yesss,” he hissed. “Watch. Watch how it draws them, how it makes them dance. Look how it inspires them, clan leader, in a way that you cannot.”

Ratha flinched away from Shongshar, but she was too dazed by the scene to do more than take a swipe at him. When her attention swung back to the dancers, he sidled up to her and began to speak again, his words blending in some strange way into the cries of the dancers and the harsh song of the fire. Hypnotized, she listened, unable to break the trance that had fallen across her.

“What is the skill of treelings compared to this?” Shongshar whispered. “Ah, clan leader, you never understood the real power of the creature you tamed. You left that understanding to me.”

Ratha shuddered, but she could not take her eyes from the frenzied circle around the Red Tongue, nor could she block his voice from her ears.

“See what it does to your people. See how it pushes them beyond themselves. See how it takes them and fills them with strength and joy so that they have to leap and cry out. Join them, clan leader. Join them in their dance to the Red Tongue.”

Angrily, Ratha spat at him and her slash drew blood, but he didn’t strike back. She could see in his eyes that he knew she trembled. Her smell betrayed everything: rage, helplessness, fear, disgust and horrified fascination. She could see in his half-closed eyes that he knew she was close to the edge and that he would only have to wait for her to fall.

“Your mistake, clan leader,” he said softly, “is in thinking that the fire-creature is just something to be used to protect us against the Un-Named Ones and to warm us by night. It is that, but it is something much more.”

“It is the egg of a fly that turns a carcass rotten. It is the wound that starts an abscess under the skin,” she hissed, desperately seeking the strength of her anger and trying not to see how high the Firekeepers leaped in the terrifying beauty of the dance.

“If that is how you choose to think of it, clan leader,” Shongshar said placidly.

“Why aren’t you part of the dance?” Ratha demanded, but even as she spoke, she knew the answer. One who understood the Red Tongue’s power as well as he did would not be easily controlled by it.

“I am part of it in my own way,” he said and as he spoke the firelight flashed on his sabers, reminding her that he did not need any power other than his own to be dangerous. He eyed her and grinned at her discomfort. “Perhaps you shouldn’t wait for the dance to finish, clan leader. You’ve left Thakur alone with the treeling creatures. Since you seem to value them for reasons I don’t quite understand, you wouldn’t want anything to happen to them, would you?”

Ratha stiffened, her rage paralyzing her tongue.“You wouldn’t dare!” she finally spat.

“Me? Certainly not. But there are others who dislike the idea of the clan leader dirtying herself with those animals.”

“And you wouldn’t raise a paw to stop anyone from doing such a thing. Let me tell you this, Shongshar. If any one of the Firekeepers even makes a threat against Thakur or his tree-lings, this cave will be closed down and the Red Tongue will die. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, I do,” he said in a silky voice that was almost a purr. “But to be sure, I would also ask them.” He flicked his whiskers at the dancers. His voice hardened. “And then I would ask them who they obey. It might surprise you, clan leader.”

His eyes still held their same orange glint, but now a cold ruthlessness came into them. Their hate struck into Ratha as if he had slashed her with his fangs, and she backed away from him, trembling with fear and the cold certainty that she had left Thakur and the treelings open to attack.

She whirled and sprinted away from him, across the shadows that still danced and flickered on the cave floor, through the gallery and out into the darkness. The fire-creature’s fading roar became a mocking howl as she slipped and skidded on the graveled trail and fought to find her way with eyes that had been made night-blind by the angry light.

Thakur, you told me not to go and again you were right. I was too angry to listen, but anger does me no good now.There was a bright spot before her eyes where she had looked at the heart of the cave-fire, and she could only see in front of her by turning her head from side to side as she ran. By the time she reached the path to Thakur’s den, her sight had recovered, but she could not find the welcoming flicker of the little fire she had left with him.

She thought at first that her panic might have led her down the wrong trail, but the scents about her and the feel of the ground were right. She peered ahead, her growing apprehension choking her throat and tightening her chest. The smell of smoldering ashes drew her to the remains of the fire she had left. It had been broken and scattered.

The ashy acrid smell was strong, and mixed in with it were traces of other scents that she could detect but not recognize. There were pugmarks faintly visible in the starlight, but they were smeared, as if whoever made them had slipped while running.

“Thakur …,” she moaned softly, her whiskers trembling. “Aree … Ratharee …” She approached a shape on the ground and touched it tentatively with her paw, fearing it might be the torn body of a treeling. It was only a broken branch from the scattered fire, and she sighed with relief as it rolled under her paw.

She made her way to the den itself and crawled inside, thinking a treeling might have taken shelter there, but the den was cold and empty except for the same ashy smell that filled the air outside.

When Ratha left the den she froze at the sight of two amber eyes staring at her from the night-shadow of a tree. The eyes blinked and moved forward. Ratha arched her back and flared her tail, unable to catch the newcomer’s scent in the wind that blew away from her.

“Clan leader?” The voice was female and quavery with uncertainty.

“Who is that?” Ratha snarled. “Are you a Firekeeper?”

“I’m Bira. Clan leader, come with me. I know where Thakur is.”

Her first impulse was to follow Bira eagerly, but caution held her back. Young and friendly as Bira was, she belonged with those who tended the Red Tongue.

“How do I know that Shongshar hasn’t sent you?”

“He sent me down with those who were to kill the tree-lings. but I turned on them and fought beside Thakur,” Bira answered. “If you want proof, here is the ash that I rubbed into my pelt to disguise myself like them, and here is the bite on my foreleg from Nyang’s teeth.”

Bira came forward, letting Ratha smell her fur. As she approached, Ratha saw a small shape crouched on Bira’s neck. “Thakur told me to bring your treeling, and she came with me, even though she was still frightened,” said the young Firekeeper. “Here.” She came alongside and Ratha felt treeling paws grasp her fur as Ratharee climbed from Bira’s back to hers. The treeling wound its tail aroundher neck and hugged her fiercely, its trembling telling her how lost and frightened it had been.

Ratha suddenly felt steadier. Bira wouldn’t have brought Ratharee in order to lead her into a trap. If Shongshar wanted to have her killed, there were other, easier ways. The young female’s story sounded true and there was no taint of deceit in either her words or her smell.

“Hurry, clan leader! Once Shongshar knows I have betrayed him, he will send others after me.”

“All right, Bira. Take me to Thakur.”

She followed Bira down the path until it met the main trail. As soon as Bira took the turn that led to the creek trail, Ratha’s suspicion flared again, and she followed warily, testing the air for scents of hidden attackers. Soon, however, Bira cut off the creek trail and began to climb the steep bank above it. Before long they were in the deeper darkness amid the great trees, and Ratha’s paws fell on crumbled bark and pine needles.

Ratha sensed they were making a wide circle to avoid the base of the falls and the cave that sheltered the Red Tongue. She wondered if Fessran and the others were still at their wild dance. The thought made her shiver.

“We’re going to some little caves above the falls. I found them one day when I was exploring, and no one else knows about them,” Bira explained as Ratha padded beside her. “I brought Thakur up this far, told him where to find the place and then went back down to look for you.”

“Did you save all the treelings?”

“Yes. One of the little ones got a scratch and Aree’s a bit bruised, but they’re all right.”

Some of the tension seeped out of Ratha and she concentrated on climbing. At last they found an old trail that had many rises and drops as well as endless switchbacks. Ratha was sure they must be far beyond clan ground when Bira turned off the path and disappeared down a brush-covered slope. The way led into a little vale with the sound of a brook chuckling over rocks and the glint of starlight on foaming water. Bira ran along the near bank and ducked under a great gray slab of broken rock.

Now Ratha could throw her fear aside, for Thakur’s scent was strong in the air about the streambank. Beneath the overhang were small recesses that barely qualified as caves. She found Thakur and the treelings nestled together in the largest one.

“Shh, Aree. It’s only Ratha,” he soothed as the largest of the treeling shapes lifted its muzzle in alarm. He shifted over to make room for Ratha on the soft sandy floor. Her relief at seeing him safe overwhelmed her, and for a while she could only crouch beside him, licking his ears, and saying, “Thakur, I should have listened. I should have listened,” over and over.

“Well, I was lucky,” he said when she finally calmed down. “The Firekeepers weren’t really after me, just the tree-lings. And when Bira turned and started helping me fight, that really confused them. That gave us time to gather up the tree-lings and run.”

“We nearly lost Aree,” added the young Firekeeper. “When Nyang scratched one of her cubs, she flew at him and bit him hard. You should have heard him yell.”

“Nyang again,” Ratha said with distaste. “He will do anything for Shongshar, won’t he? I imagine he was the one who pushed Bundi into the fire.”

“He led us,” said Bira. “He showed us how to rub ashes into our pelts so that no one could smell who we were. I hate the taste and feel of it; I’m going to wash myself in the stream tomorrow.”

“Bira,” Ratha said slowly, “I’m grateful to you for what you did. You had no reason to want to help me. You wouldn’t have had a witless litter if I hadn’t let Shongshar into the clan.”

“You took your chance, clan leader, and I took mine,” Bira answered. “I grieved for that litter, but now they are gone I don’t think of them any more. As for Thakur, I was the one who built the fire for him when he was teaching Aree. I liked him and I liked the treelings too much to let Shongshar kill them, so I tried to make Nyang think I was fierce and nasty enough for his group of killers. It wasn’t easy,” she added with a grimace that narrowed the glow of her eyes.

“I think,” said Thakur firmly, “that we should get some sleep. Whatever is happening has just begun, and we are going to need all our strength and cleverness tomorrow.”

Although his words sounded somber, Ratha was too tired to worry. Bira offered to stand guard through the first part of the night and Thakur said he would take the following watch. He hadn’t finished speaking when his voice became a drone that faded in Ratha’s ears as she slid into sleep.

She woke suddenly, shaking away the dream-image of a huge fire with grotesque black figures leaping through the flames. She opened her eyes and gratefully breathed the air of a quiet morning. Somewhere a bird trilled a high sweet note over the merry noise of the stream. Bira slept alongside, her head on her paws, her flanks rising and falling slowly. Ratharee was curled between them, the treeling’s brown-black fur contrasting with Bira’s ash-streaked red and Ratha’s own fawn color.

She lifted her muzzle and focused on Thakur, who was sitting just outside the little cave. Ratha yawned and then crept out, trying not to disturb either Bira or the treelings. She stretched, gathering herself together for the new day.

“No one knows what happened last night except Shongshar, Nyang’s group of Firekeepers and ourselves,” she said thoughtfully. “None of them are going to tell anyone, especially since their attempt was a failure, thanks to Bira.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Thakur. “Talk to Fessran?”

Ratha fell silent. After seeing the Firekeeper leader in her frenzied dance before the Red Tongue, she doubted that Fessran would listen to anything about treelings or even about Shongshar’s misdeeds.

“No,” she said. “I’m going to talk to the herders and tell them what Shongshar is up to. Then I’m going to lead them up the creek trail and take all the wood out of the cave. Without wood, the cave-fire will die and so will Shongshar’s power. We’ll see who obeys him then!”

“It may not be so easy.” The herding teacher looked at her, his eyes full of doubt.

“It won’t be, but if I can hold the loyalty of the herders, I can do it. Come with me, Thakur. Cherfan and the other herders will be more likely to listen to me if you are there.”

“And I am less likely to get pounced upon by Nyang and his pack of Firekeepers,” said Thakur dryly and added, “I didn’t think I would do much teaching today.”

“Can we trust Bira to stay with the treelings?”

“Yes. She’s no longer a Firekeeper. They wouldn’t take her back after she turned on them to help me. Nyang’s probably looking for her, and she knows she’s safe here.”

Ratha stared into the cave, taking one last look at Ratharee.“I hope Bira can keep the treelings safe.” She turned to face Thakur and felt a shiver at the solemn look on his face.

“You aren’t sure about this either, are you.”

“No,” he admitted.

There was nothing else to be said. She led the way out from under the overhang, and they waded in the stream for a distance so that their scents and prints wouldn’t lead anyone to Bira. Then they cut back to the trail and set off downhill for the meadow.

Chapter Sixteen

Ratha and Thakur didn’t meet anyone on the trails they took. Even the path to the meadow was deserted and, when Ratha reached the trailhead and gazed out across the grass, she sensed a tense stillness in the morning air.

She saw the dapplebacks and three-horns gathered in a tight flock instead of being scattered across the pasture as they usually were in the morning. Around the edge of the meadow, several guard-fires still burned. That was strange, she thought. Usually the Firekeepers put them out after sunrise.

The herdbeasts didn’t like being confined to such a small area of meadow. Ratha could hear the three-horns bray and paw the ground, while the dapplebacks snorted and whinnied. A few herders circled the animals, trotting around the flock to keep it together. The others were nowhere in sight.

“Ratha!” A deep voice drew her attention away from the animals. Cherfan bounded toward her over the grass. She could tell from the urgency in the big herder’s stride and the way his whiskers trembled that he was worried.

“Where is everyone, Cherfan?” Thakur asked calmly.

“Behind the big thorn thicket near the far end of the meadow. Someone killed a dappleback early this morning,” he said, turning to Ratha.

“Un-Named raiders? Bristlemanes?”

“I don’t think so. Nothing broke through the line of guard-fires.”

Ratha began pacing beside him with Thakur at her Bank.“Have you found the carcass?”

“No, but we found the place where the animal was brought down.” Cherfan broke into a fast lope and Ratha galloped beside him until they reached the thornbush. Behind it was a hidden stretch of meadow and she could tell by the torn and flattened grass that the herdbeast had died here.

Gathered around the spot were the rest of the herders, sniffing the ground and exchanging puzzled looks. Cherfan stepped into their midst, waving his tail. He stopped and looked them over carefully.“That’s strange,” he growled. “We’re missing someone. Where’s Shoman?”

The herders muttered among themselves and soon confirmed that Shoman was not helping to guard the remaining animals, nor was he anywhere else in the meadow. In fact, no one remembered having seen him since the middle of the night.

“And Bundi’s not here either,” said Thakur abruptly.

“There’s something else I don’t understand.” Cherfan narrowed his eyes. “We keep the dapplebacks out in the center of the meadow during the night. We don’t let them go behind these bushes; it’s too easy for them to wander away. If someone killed a mare here, he would have had to driveit away from the flock and the beast would have fought and made enough noise to bring all of us running.”

“Unless it was lured here by someone it knew,” said Ratha.

“All right. The dappleback may have been lured here and then killed, but none of us heard it scream. A dappleback will cry out when it feels the touch of fangs.”

“Not if there are a pair of attackers,” Thakur said quickly. “One lures the beast while the other hides. When the beast is distracted, the other leaps out and bites behind the head. The creature dies quickly and quietly. I’ve used the same method in culling.”

Cherfan wrinkled the fur on his brow.“Shoman … and Bundi? Perhaps Shoman would do such a thing. I’ve never trusted him. But Bundi?”

“I caught Shoman with a piece of meat he was using to bribe a Firekeeper,” Ratha reminded him. “Bundi was with him. He said they were both being shunned by the rest of you because of their injuries from the Red Tongue.”

“Shoman killed that dappleback to revenge himself on us?” Cherfan’s puzzlement began to give way to anger.

“Not for revenge,” said Ratha. “I think he was forced to lure it here and kill it.”

“Forced? By whom? And where is the meat? He and Bundi couldn’t have eaten it by themselves.”

Ratha glanced at Thakur, then turned her gaze back to Cherfan.“You will find the carcass in the cave where the Red Tongue is kept.”

A wave of mutters and growls spread through the herders. Some looked uncertain while others raised the fur on their napes and showed their fangs. Cherfan flattened his ears.“You’re saying that Shoman killed the beast for Shongshar and Fessran? Why?”

“Because he and Bundi were made outcasts by the Red Tongue’s mark and sought to placate the Firekeepers by any way possible. Shongshar knew his desperation and used him,” Ratha hissed.

A wave of muttering and growling spread among the herders. Cherfan flattened his ears.“No one is allowed to kill herdbeasts without your order.”

“And I did not order anyone to take that animal,” said Ratha, staring meaningfully at the other herders. “Shongshar and Fessran have disobeyed me and clan law. The carcass is stolen meat and they have no right to it. If the Firekeepers are left unpunished, they will steal again and the rest of us will go hungry.” She paused and then growled, “Do you want to hear your bellies rumble because of the Firekeepers’ greed?”

“No!” came the answer in many voices. “Lead us to the cave and we will take back the stolen meat.”

“Listen to me,” cried Ratha. “It is the Red Tongue in the cave that gives the Firekeepers their strength. They have stored wood there to feed it. If we take back the wood as well as the meat, the cave-fire will starve and die.”

“We will take back what they have stolen!”

“You do not fear the Firekeepers?”

A chorus of roars and howls rose from the group.“There are more of us than there are of them. To the cave!”

With Thakur and Cherfan flanking her, Ratha led the outraged herders up the creek trail. At first the group was boisterous and noisy, but as they drew close enough to hear the song of the Red Tongue, they became quiet. Uncertain looks passed back and forth among the herders and Ratha knew that the sense of awe that subdued those who came before the fire-creature was creeping over them again.

Thakur could sense it too, for he put his muzzle to her ear and whispered,“Don’t hesitate, Ratha, or these brave herders will desert us.”

She was grateful for the smell of dappleback meat that lingered in the air along the path. The scent fanned the herders’ anger anew and kept them pacing steadily behind her. When they reached the last stretch of the trail, Ratha whispered her final instructions.

With a roar as loud as the booming of the falls, her pack charged the cave entrance and the two Firekeeper guards. The guards tried to fight, but only managed to avoid being trampled as the herders knocked them aside and surged into the cave.

Again the fire-creature rose up before her, writhing and hissing like a live thing, but this time, Ratha was too angry to be cowed by the sight. She looked beyond the fire to where a group of Firekeepers pulled and tore at a half-stripped carcass. Nyang lifted his head, his muzzle ash-streaked and bloody. Fessran dropped the haunch she was chewing and stood up while the others glared back at Ratha over the bared ribs of the kill.

Only Shongshar continued to eat, holding a chunk of liver between his paws and slicing it with his side teeth. Ratha could hear muffled growls among the herders, but none of them came forward to challenge the Firekeepers at their feast. Many of them glanced uneasily at the Red Tongue in the center of the cave, as if expecting it to leap out and sear the first herder who made a move.

Ratha turned her gaze to Fessran. Fessran stared back haughtily, but a flicker of guilt crossed her face.“This meat is forbidden,” Ratha said in a voice that echoed around the walls of the cavern. “Leave it.”

Some of the Firekeepers exchanged glances and a few backed away from the kill.

“No!” Fessran leaped over the carcass and stood before it, lashing her tail. “We who serve the Red Tongue have taken what is rightfully ours. Eat without shame, Firekeepers, for it is the creature that we tend that guards the herd from raiders.”

“Yes, Fessran. Tell them to eat without shame from a beast killed wrongly and dragged to a cave in secret,” Ratha snarled.

“When those who keep the herdbeasts hold back meat from us who watch the guard-fires, then we have a right to such a kill,” cried Nyang, from behind Fessran.

“Ptahh! All in the clan have an equal chance to fill their bellies when the kill is eaten where it falls. Anything else is greed or arrogance, litterling.” Ratha glared at Nyang, but he ducked behind Fessran.

“What you think is equal, clan leader, is not enough for us,” Fessran said. “Serving the Red Tongue is difficult work, and it is a long way to the meadow.”

Ratha spat again.“You shame yourself by speaking lies you don’t even believe, Firekeeper leader. You know as well as I that to steal and hoard meat from a kill is an act that strikes out against the clan and my leadership.” She met their stares one by one until she fixed her eyes on Fessran. “Who ordered that herdbeast to be taken without my knowledge. Was it you, Fessran?”

“The beast was killed by herders.” The Firekeeper leader spoke sullenly.

“Yes, by a pair of herders who were told that they had to lure the beast and slaughter it in return for being allowed to enter this cave. In return for being allowed to crouch before the creature that I brought to serve the Named, but which now has birthed a litter that feeds from us like cubs from their mother.”

“You dare!” Fessran’s eyes were blazing. “You dare to speak of us that way. We serve the power of the Red Tongue, clan leader, and that power answers to none except itself!”

Ratha waited until the echoes of Fessran’s voice had faded into the hollow roar of the cave-fire. “Are those words your own, Firekeeper?” she asked with bitter sorrow thick in her throat. “Did you force Shoman and Bundi to make that kill?”

Fessran tried to answer, but the word would not leave her tongue. She stood, shaking, staring down at the floor between her feet.

“I did. I did!” screamed Nyang, lunging over the kill to face Ratha. His face, stained with blood and distorted by hate, was no longer that of an older cub but of someone filled with menace and malevolence.

“No, you wretched cub!” Fessran seized his scruff as he crouched to spring at Ratha and wrenched him off his feet. She threw him aside with a powerful toss of her head and flattened her ears at him. He crawled away, his eyes smoldering.

Ratha’s stare was suddenly drawn to Shongshar, who had finished the dappleback’s liver and now sat up. He began to clean his paws, but he interrupted this task to lift his head and fix his gaze on Ratha.

She felt as though she could fall into those eyes and be consumed by the flame that burned behind them, without leaving so much as a charred bone. The orange in them shimmered and writhed as if she saw into them through waves of terrible heat. Now she knew where the true power of the Red Tongue lay. Not in the fire burning within the cave, but in the depths of those eyes.

She knew that she had helped to lay the kindling for this fire of the spirit that had taken grief into its fierce heart and blackened it into hate. The herders saw it too and many turned their faces away from him.

“Shongshar,” she said softly, yet her voice seemed to ring about her in the cavern.

“The order to kill the dappleback was mine, clan leader,” he answered and continued to lick his paw.

“Why?”

“So that the Firekeepers might feast. The herding teacher beside you knows that cubs learn well if they have had enough to eat, and they are more willing to listen to the one who has fed them.”

Ratha waited. Shongshar paced forward and took Fessran’s place without even looking at her. She melted away from him with a frightened glance that left no doubt who was the real leader of the Firekeepers.

Shongshar spoke again.“The beast was not killed just for food, clan leader. There is another kind of hunger in your people, and it is one that a full belly will not satisfy. You do not understand this hunger, and you have done nothing to feed it. But it is a hunger that I know well.”

Ratha shivered, held against her will by the spell of his voice and the depths of his eyes.

“Look around you, and you will see it in the eyes of your herders as well as the Firekeepers,” said Shongshar, with a strange compelling rhythm in his speech. “Look within you and you will see it there.”

Despite herself, Ratha found her gaze traveling over the faces of the herders. They were silent, held as she was by the sibilant sound of Shongshar’s voice. And yes, he was right. In their faces, in their eyes and even in the changing scents of their smells, she felt a longing that perhaps had always been there, or perhaps had just been conjured out of them by the power of his words. She didn’t know which it was, and that knowledge made her afraid.

Within herself she sensed the same hunger, a feeling that she had never been able to put words to. It was a strange hunger that crept up inside her when she was alone looking up at the stars. It had come upon her when she had first sought a mate; in the closeness with him, it had nearly been filled. And it was the same hunger that drew her to the dance she had seen around the Red Tongue even as she had feared it.

And she knew that the search to satisfy this strange need could lead to things that were good, such as seeing the fluffy beauty of a newborn cub or the sheen of a dappleback stallion’s coat as he pranced about the meadow. Yet the same hunger could be twisted into something that could flourish in the depths of a cave, feeding on hatred amidst bones and tainted flesh.

Shongshar knew how to feed it; she had no doubt of that. It was as if he had fathered a litter that suckled not milk, but blood. Her horror and her anger gave her the strength to tear her gaze away from his and turn his words aside.

“Herders! Listen to me!” she cried. “The need he speaks of is really his own. If you give yourselves and your beasts to the will of the creature he serves, you will be the meat that feeds him.”

“No!” the herders cried, but many voices were missing, and those she heard sounded thin and ragged with doubt. It was too late to command them to attack the Firekeepers. She didn’t know how many of the herders who had spoken so bravely down in the meadow would stand by her if it came to an open battle. Even as they stood beside her, she sensed their courage being stolen from them by the raging creature in the center of the cave from which Shongshar drew his power. It was there that she would have to strike.

“The wood,” whispered Thakur softly behind her. “They have forgotten about it”

She glanced at the side of the cave, to where stacks of branches and kindling lay. Then she looked at the herders and hoped they would follow her. With Thakur at her flank, she leaped up and galloped toward the woodpile.

For an instant she thought she and Thakur would have to face the Firekeepers alone. Then Cherfan plunged after her and the herders followed. They reached the woodpile before the other side could rally and cut them off. Ratha saw that the Firekeepers had mistaken the herders’ charge for an attack on the carcass and had massed together to defend their kill.

“Form a line so none of them can get through,” Ratha said and her pack spread themselves out, guarding the woodpile. Nyang and several other Firekeepers approached, but they soon retreated from the menacing growls and bared fangs of the defenders.

She paced across in front of her own line and faced Shongshar. He looked at her and said nothing as she sat and curled her tail across her feet.

“You may eat, Firekeepers,” she said, turning her gaze toward them, “but this will be your last meal in this cave by the Red Tongue’s light.”

Her words were met with snarls and jeers. Soon, however, the Firekeepers grew tired of taunting her pack and turned their attention to the kill, dragging it around on the cave floor as they wrenched chunks of flesh loose and gulped them down. They did not seem to notice that the fire had already begun to fall and that their shadows were growing longer. Only Shongshar did not eat with them. He sat and watched the herders through slitted eyes.

When the carcass was stripped, the Firekeepers again amused themselves by throwing insults at the herders and trying to break through their line, but Ratha could see that the effort was half-hearted. The grim response the herders gave them quickly discouraged any idea that this was fun.

Shongshar continued to watch, and Ratha sensed that he was waiting. For what, she didn’t know, and she grew uneasy. His strength was waning with the falling fire, yet he made no attempt to launch an attack. He only sat and studied the herders’ faces with an acuteness that made them show their fangs and then try to look away from him.

The Firekeepers groomed themselves, or lay and slept as if the herders weren’t there. Shadows crept in from the sides of the cave and the dying fire’s light turned ruddy. The fire began to smoke and flicker. The flame no longer drew the wind from outside, and the cave started to fill with smoky haze.

Ratha was stiff from sitting and was about to get up and move to ease her legs when she heard Shongshar’s voice. It had grown so dim in the cave that she could see only his eyes, which now burned brighter than the fire.

“Let it die, then, clan leader,” he hissed. “Let it die and give this den back to darkness. It is better that we have nothing to crouch down before or nothing to dance to in wild joy. It is better that we of the Named turn our backs on something as great as this, for we are too weak to hold it within our jaws.”

Ratha heard whispered mutters behind her and the looks she received were shadowed by doubt. Even Cherfan seemed lost and gazed at Shongshar as if he might find a refuge in his words.

She had no answer for Shongshar except stern silence, and soon his voice came again.

“Watch this creature die, you of the clan, and see the death of all you could be. The Named could rule far beyond clan ground and be so fierce and terrible that all who once preyed on us would either flee or throw themselves at our feet. That is the power you are throwing away if you obey her.”

Again voices buzzed behind her, and eyes grew bright with visions of such a future.

“Be silent!” she hissed, as much at them as at Shongshar. The flame sank into its bed of ashes and tumbled coals. Slowly the fierce red glow faded.

Ratha felt herself start to tremble with the triumph of her victory. The cave-fire was dead and Shongshar’s power crippled. She waited, feeling the air around her grow cool.

“It is over,” she said, rising. “Firekeepers, leave the cave.”

One by one, they passed in front of her, with lowered heads and dragging tails until only one was left. Shongshar.

“Do you come, or do I have you dragged out?” she growled.

The two orange slits glared at her from the blackness. His form was a deeper darkness than that of the cave and she tensed, fearing that he would use the instant that he passed her to strike out at her.

Suddenly the eyes were gone. She saw them again as she heard coals break under the slap of his paw.

“You of the clan!” he roared. “Look! It lives!”

A tiny flame burst from the broken embers and grew as he breathed on it. Then she heard the sound of running feet, and before she could fling herself toward the fire to scatter it and beat out the remaining life, she saw that someone had broken from the herders’ ranks, bringing Shongshar wood and tinder.

Her roar of rage filled the cave and she charged him, but several more herders had already joined him and they threw her back She struck hard, rolled over, and when she staggered to her feet again, the flame was rekindled, surging up with new strength.

Shongshar’s roar called the Firekeepers back into the cave. They mingled with the deserting herders until Ratha could no longer tell them apart. Even those herders that tried to stay with her were seized and dragged away from their positions by the woodpile. She saw Cherfan’s despairing look as he was surrounded by Firekeepers and forced to the back of the cave.

The fire crackled with malicious energy as it consumed the new offerings of wood that were laid upon it. Ratha saw by the harsh light that only Thakur stood beside her, his nape and tail flared, his lips drawn back from his fangs.

“Take the herding teacher,” Shongshar commanded, standing near the flames. “He is the one who would mock us by giving the keeping of the Red Tongue to treelings. Bring him here and have him bare his throat.”

Nyang led the eager pack that fell on Thakur. Ratha leaped on them, raking their backs and their ears, but again she was flung aside and could only look on as Thakur fought with savage desperation. He bloodied several pelts before they subdued him. Teeth fastened on his scruff, his forelegs, his tail; someone got their jaws around his muzzle to keep him from biting.

Slowly they dragged him, writhing and kicking, toward the fire. His claws, dragging on the rock, made a sound like the death shriek of a herdbeast. There was a gasp that made Ratha glance toward Fessran and she saw the Firekeeper’s eyes grow wide with horror and helplessness.

Once more she flung herself at Thakur’s captors, but another pack pulled her off and held her. They brought her close and forced her to watch.

“Now, herding teacher,” said Shongshar, leering at Thakur. “Bare your throat to the Red Tongue.”

Again Thakur fought, but again he was stilled. His captors pulled him closer to the flames and forced his head back so his throat lay open and exposed.

“I bare it, but it is to you I bare it, Shongshar,” he growled between his teeth. “This talk of serving the Red Tongue’s power is nothing but a lie.”

They shook him to silence him. Ratha thought then that Shongshar would slash Thakur’s throat with his long fangs, but he stepped back from the herding teacher with satisfaction on his face.

“Good. He has begun to show his loyalty. Hold him. We will need him to guide us to the renegade Firekeeper Bira and the treelings.”

He turned, fixing his eyes on Ratha, filling her with an icy fear that she could not overcome with anger. He began to pace toward her, seeming to grow with each step.

The Firekeepers that held Ratha drew back, leaving her alone facing him.

“You are worthy of my fangs, clan leader,” he said softly. “You know I can’t leave you alive. If you lie still, I will be quick.”

Ratha dodged his first strike. They circled each other, ears flat, tails lashing. She forced her trembling legs to tighten for a spring and she leaped onto his back, driving her teeth into the side of his neck. He shuddered, but did not fall, even as she threw her weight out to drag him off balance. His blood welled into her mouth, but she knew her strike was not a killing wound.

He shook her to the side and rolled on her, but she kept her jaws locked, despite his crushing weight. Her teeth sank deeper, and she flung her forelegs around his neck, adding their pull to the strength of her straining jaws. He wrenched his head back and forth, but he could not break free, and she thought for an instant that she might be able to keep her hold until loss of blood weakened him.

He shoved a paw between her chest and his and began to pry her away. She could not sustain her grip against his powerful forelegs. She twisted her head, trying to bite deeper, but her teeth tore from the wound. The great pressure of his massive paw against her chest threatened to crush her ribs, and she drew short painful breaths.

She lost her hold and he forced her to the cave floor, one paw on her neck, the other on her chest. She writhed and wriggled, but only exhausted herself.

Above her, his teeth gleamed and his eyes burned. His jaw dropped far down, exposing the full and terrible length of his fangs. He lowered his head, and she felt the hard curve against the pulsing of her throat. His claws drove into her to hold her still as he reared his head back for the killing downslash.

“Ratha!” The scream filled the cave. From the corner of her eye, she saw the circle of herders give way as someone burst through. She grunted at the sudden impact of a body hurtling on top of her own and felt scrabbling claws as Fessran’s smell washed over her.

Ratha caught a glimpse of Shongshar’s fangs driving down toward her; then Fessran heaved and jerked. She felt the shock as Shongshar struck and heard the shriek of teeth against bone. She wrenched herself out from beneath them as a dismayed hiss welled up from those watching.

In her blurred sight, Shongshar lifted his reddened fangs from the body of the Firekeeper who had once been her friend.

“I bare my throat to you again, Ratha,” Fessran whispered, rolling her head to look up at her. “Forgive my foolishness.”

A sudden commotion broke out near the fire. One of the Firekeepers guarding Thakur recoiled from his slash. Using the moment of confusion to break free, he streaked across the cave floor to Ratha.

“Run!” he cried. She gave Fessran one last, despairing look and plunged after Thakur as he passed her. They dashed out of the cavern, down the gallery, and were out in the sunlight before roars and howls broke from the cave behind them.

Thakur rushed to the stream that spilled from the base of the falls, leaping from rock to rock until he was nearly lost in the spray. She followed, fighting to keep her footing on slick stones. He ran downstream and leaped onto the bole of a tree that leaned out from the steep slope rising before them. She sprang up behind him and together they bounded through the brush until they reached the crest of the hill.

“That should confuse them,” Thakur panted, looking back. “They’ll think we took the trail.”

Ratha was too numb to hear his words. She still seemed to feel the shock and shudder as Fessran took the strike meant for her. Softly she moaned her friend’s name aloud.

“Ratha,” Thakur said. “Ratha, there’s no hope for her. Even if he hasn’t killed her, she will die soon. Those fangs went deep.”

“I should go back and take my revenge on him. I should fight for my place as clan leader,” she hissed, rage and despair choking her throat.

“And there will be another of the Named to lie bleeding on the floor in the Red Tongue’s den. Without you, neither Bira nor I have any hope. The time is past when you can listen to anger,” he said, and Ratha knew he was right.

The sound of angry calls below sent them running up the slope of the next hill.

“Soon the Firekeepers will find our track,” said Thakur. “We should split up and draw them away from where Bira and the treelings are hiding.”

“I’ll draw them. You circle back, find Bira and tell her what has happened. Don’t worry,” she said, at his doubtful look. “I won’t try to turn and fight them. I’ll meet you at the little cave by the stream.”

“All right.” He flicked his tail and trotted uphill. After he was gone, she went back along his path, smearing out his pugmarks and covering his smell with hers. Satisfied that she had concealed his trail, she glanced at the sun and galloped down the slope, away from the cries that told her that Shongshar and the Firekeepers had found her tracks.

Chapter Seventeen

Resting briefly, Ratha leaned on a dew-dampened rock, laying her cheek against its coolness. She heard the Firekeepers crashing through brush and dead leaves. She could see the approaching flicker of their firebrands through the trees and sensed that once again they were picking up her trail. A shiver that was half fear and half excitement ran through her.

She was glad, however, that the Firekeepers had chosen to track her by torchlight. A scent trail, which they might have followed easily in the damp night air, became difficult and elusive in the smoky haze from the torches. No. Shongshar knew better than to think he would catch her this way. He had brought out the torchbearers to show the Red Tongue’s wrath and let her own fear drive her like a renegade from clan ground.

She grinned bitterly as she ran across a patch of hair-ferns that made no rustle to give her away. She had already seen the worst that the fire-creature could do. It could burn flesh and bone and even forest, but it could also possess the minds and twist the wills of her people as if they were pieces of bark glowing and curling in the heart of the flame.

The sky above the treetops showed deep violet and the glittering stars were dimming. Ratha realized, looking up, that she had been leading the Firekeepers astray all night. Thakur would have had plenty of time to reach Bira. It was time to put an end to this cub’s play before daylight gave the searchers additional advantage.

She crept away a little farther and listened. Again they had come to a halt and were casting about for signs of her. She spat quietly to herself, disgusted with the noise they were making, and then slipped away through the underbrush.

She kept to the edge of clan ground to avoid being seen by accident. To conceal her trail, she frequently backtracked, waded in streams and rolled in the dung of other animals to disguise her smell.

The sun was just showing over the treetops when she reached the sandy path that led beneath the overhang to the cave where she, Bira, Thakur and the treelings had spent the previous night. She had a bad moment when she discovered that particular hollow empty. She was nervously searching the other caves when the sound of Thakur’s voice came from the shadows beneath the overhang.

“Over here,” he said. “We’ve moved our hiding place.” Her relief made her nearly collapse on the sand, but she only lolled her tongue out and padded after him.

Thakur led her farther upstream, to a smaller fall where the water cascaded down onto split stones that turned it into many tumbling rivulets. Ratha turned for a moment to watch the morning light dance and run down the falling water. Then she glimpsed Thakur’s tail disappearing between two slabs of rock that leaned against each other.

She followed him, reluctant to leave the cheerful morning and go into the dimness of a cave. When she was inside, however, she found the tilted stone floor dappled with sunlight and shadow and felt a breeze that carried the fresh smell and sound of the little fall. It was sufficient shelter to keep anyone who hid within from being seen, yet it was open enough not to feel confining.

Bira lay in a sun-washed hollow with the treelings gathered around her and on top of her. Ratha looked for Ratharee and saw the young one’s black eyes gleam as Ratharee spotted her. With a squeal of joy, the treeling scampered up the sloping rock and launched herself at her companion.

“Ooof. She’s getting heavy, Thakur,” Ratha groaned, but she couldn’t quite make her voice sound convincingly plaintive. Once the treeling had taken her usual place on Ratha’s shoulder with her tail curled around her neck, Ratha stretched out in a pool of sun near Thakur and Bira.

For a while, they lay there, quietly relaxed, and Ratha felt herself drifting into a light doze. Then Thakur sat up, with Aree perched on his shoulder, and said,“We must talk.”

Ratha yawned and shook away her drowsiness.“Does Bira know what happened last night?”

“Yes, Thakur told me,” Bira answered. “I’m not surprised that the herders deserted you. Shongshar seems able to persuade anyone to do anything.”

“There were some things I should have said,” Ratha growled, laying her head on her paws and feeling the helplessness and rage sweep over her again. “I should have told them that his talk about the Named ruling beyond clan ground was a mad cub’s dream. I should have torn apart the herder whobrought Shongshar the kindling. And I should have known that trying to kill the Red Tongue by starving it was exactly what Shongshar wanted me to do.”

“Extending his rule may not be a mad cub’s dream for him,” said Thakur thoughtfully. “If he can make the Firekeepers fierce and arrogant, they can hold more territory and the herders can graze more animals. This may be difficult to face, but we have to admit that Shongshar has offered the Named a way not only to survive, but to flourish.”

“Ptahh!They will be meat for his belly.” Ratha spat. “They will grovel before the fire-creature in the cave and forget they once had wills of their own.”

“Many of our people would rather follow the commands of a voice stronger than their own, even if it is cruel and harsh. We of the Named have a strange hate and an even stranger love for those who are powerful,” Thakur said softly and added, “as you found when you first brought us this creature we call the Red Tongue.”

Ratha sighed.“If I had known then what my creature would become to them, I never would have—” She caught herself. “No. Once it was done, there was no way I could go back.”

“And we can’t go back now. Shongshar holds the minds of our people just as surely as he holds the Red Tongue.”

“He is only one and one can die,” she snarled fiercely, making Ratharee start in alarm.

Thakur looked sadly back at her as she soothed her tree-ling.“That is not the answer, Ratha. Even if you succeeded in killing him, others would carry on his ideas. To regain your place as clan leader, you would have to destroy the cave and everything in it. I do not know how that could be done with only you, Bira and me.”

“Are you going to give up and leave our people to become meat in Shongshar’s jaws?” Angry indignation swept over her.

“Listen to me. Whatever prompted the choice of our people, they have made it. If you take Shongshar from them now, you will only earn your own death. Later, when his ways have made him hated, you may have a chance. You must wait and watch.”

Bira shifted herself as a young treeling climbed down from her and went to its mother, who started to groom it.“I don’t think we can stay here,” she said. “We are still on clan ground and, although this place is hidden, Shongshar will eventually find it.”

“I agree,” said Thakur. “We must leave clan territory and live somewhere else for a while. There is a place I often go when I leave during the mating season. It isn’t that far, and it has fruit trees, which will feed the treelings.”

Reluctantly Ratha agreed with him. Her first thought had been to make this place their temporary home and use it to launch forays against the Firekeepers or try to undermine Shongshar’s support among the herders. But she had to admit that Thakur was right. There wasn’t much that their small group could do with the rest of the clan against them. It was time now to think not of revenge but of survival.

“How will we live without the herdbeasts and the Red Tongue?” asked Bira fearfully.

“There are other animals that we can eat,” Thakur answered.

“But there are no herders to cull them for us or to keep them from running away.” Bira turned her worried face to him.

“You can take them yourself. Haven’t you ever stalked grasshoppers?”

“Yes, but that was a long time ago.” The young Firekeeper cocked her head at him. “You mean, you can catch other animals that way? I never thought of that. I’m so used to eating from the clan kills.”

Ratha quelled the scorn that started rising inside her at Bira’s words. Once she too had been just as alarmed at the prospect of life outside the clan. She had been equally helpless until an Un-Named male taught her how to hunt and provide for herself. Hunger had made her an eager student, and she never forgot those lessons with Bonechewer, even though the thought of him still brought pain.

She knew that her life as clan leader had dulled her hunting skills, but practice could hone them again. Perhaps she could teach the rudiments to Thakur and Bira. The thought cheered her a little. At least she would have something else to think about other than her hatred of Shongshar.

“I lived apart from the clan for several seasons, Bira,” she said slowly. “I learned how to hunt and take care of myself. I think I can teach you how to do the same.”

Bira stared at her with respectful admiration, and Ratha suddenly felt warmed by the Firekeeper’s gaze. She had almost forgotten what it meant to be looked up to for her own abilities rather than the fact she was clan leader. A life in exile, she thought, might have its compensations.

The little group set out later that same morning, with most of the treelings riding on Bira and Ratha while Thakur and Aree took the lead. They left the pleasant shelter they had found by the fall and followed the stream farther up until they reached the spring that was its source. This was the end of clan territory in the direction of the setting sun. Shongshar would not seek them beyond this boundary.

At least not for a while,Ratha thought to herself.

They wound along the top of a forested ridge for the rest of the day and spent the night curled up together in dry leaves beneath a thicket. By midmorning of the following day, Thakur announced they had come far enough to avoid clan territory; he turned back downhill on the same side he had brought them up.

On the downgrade, their pace was much faster than it had been climbing, and by evening they were back on the plain with the setting sun behind them. On open land, the three could travel through the night. Morning found them approaching the redwood grove that Thakur had made his home during the mating season.

Once they reached it, Thakur showed Ratha and Bira the stream that flowed nearby and the den he had dug in the red clay beneath the roots of an old tree. The next task was to feed the treelings, who were growing cranky with hunger, having had only a few insects during the journey from clan territory. Aree led her brood up into the branches of the nearest laden tree while Thakur napped in the shade beneath and waited.

Ratha took Bira out into the open meadow and began to show her how to stalk quietly. They practiced on the big grasshoppers that clung to swaying fronds, and by the time the afternoon was over, Bira had caught several of the insects by herself. She couldn’t quite bring herself to eat them, however, and Ratha ended up disposing of most of their catch.

When the two returned to Thakur, they found him covered with surfeited treelings and surrounded by fruit pits and gnawed cores. Some of the discards bore his toothmarks, and Ratha guessed that the treelings had shared their harvest. Neither she nor Bira wanted to try such strange food, so she set herself to hunting, leaving Bira behind with Thakur.

Her first attempts were unsuccessful, but on her next try, she caught a wounded ground-bird that had escaped another hunter and brought it back to her companions. The feathers made Bira sneeze, but she was too hungry to be fussy. The bird wasn’t enough to fill their bellies, but Thakur had gnawed fruit while she had eaten all the grasshoppers. Bira ended up with most of the carcass and it was enough to satisfy her.

In the next few days, Ratha found herself assuming the role of major provider for the group. She caught small animals and birds for the others, and once managed to bring down a wild three-horn doe with some help from Thakur. The tree-lings flourished on the ripening fruit. The herding teacher, who admitted he was not much of a hunter, tried his skill at fishing in a nearby creek.

At first the task of providing for the group and feeding the treelings took up all of Ratha’s time and attention. As practice rapidly sharpened her skills and strengthened unused muscles, she found her thoughts turning back to the clan. She would often wonder, as she followed the track of her prey through the grass, what was happening to the Named under Shongshar’s leadership. If those thoughts distracted her and made her miss her kill, she snarled at herself and resolved to pay attention to what she was doing.

Despite herself, her curiosity grew, until she finally admitted that she could not turn her back on her people despite their betrayal of her. Bira, too, confessed that she hungered for the feel of familiar ground and the smells of those she knew.

Thakur was the most adamant about their need to leave the old life behind and not be tempted by any rash hopes of overthrowing Shongshar. Ratha finally gave up her attempts to convince him to come with her, to hide and watch the Named. Bira, however, was willing to come.

Together, they found a tree at the edge of clan land that was tall enough to overlook the meadow where the herdbeasts grazed. From this far height, the two could watch the activities of the herders without fear of being discovered. What they could see from their perch, however, only frustrated Ratha. The smells that the wind brought hinted that the herders were tense and uneasy, but whether they were worried about a lack of rain or the harshness of Shongshar’s rule, she didn’t know.

Ratha and Bira climbed down from their spying tree and started back to their own land. They hadn’t gone far from the edge of clan teritory when Ratha heard a faint buzzing that grew louder and more ominous as they approached the sound.

A cloud of black flies hovered about a bush that stood to the side of the trail and beneath, in the shadows, something lay.

“A dead herdbeast, I think,” said Bira, wrinkling her nose. “I can’t smell it; the wind’s not right.”

Ratha peered at the still form. It didn’t look the right shape for a dappleback or a three-horn, but she couldn’t really tell. She normally didn’t eat carrion, but she knew she shouldn’t waste this opportunity. “The meat may still be good,” she said to Bira and padded toward the bush.

“Don’t taint your belly with this carcass, scavenger,” said a hoarse voice, and a pair of dull yellow eyes opened in the shadowed darkness. “It’s already begun to stink.”

Ratha started at the well-remembered sarcasm in the voice and her jaw dropped in disbelief.“Fessran?”

The eyes gazed back at her, their brightness filmed over by fever and pain. She could hear harsh breathing above the drone of the flies.“Fessran?” she said again, coming closer.

Now she could see there was no fly-ridden dead herdbeast beneath the leaves, with Fessran crouched over it, as she had first thought. The limp form was Fessran herself and the flies were thick around her.

Ratha felt revulsion and sudden pity tighten her throat as she said,“You took the strike that was meant for me and I thought it killed you.”

“It did. I’m just taking a long time to die.” She gave Ratha an exhausted grin. “Remember, I guarded dapplebacks before I held the Red Tongue between my jaws. You and I both know that clan herders are hard to kill.” She coughed and shuddered. “There was a carrion bird here before you came. I thought he’d be at me before I was dead. I’m glad you scared him away for a while.” The eyes closed.

“We left you in the cavern …”

“I stayed there until Shongshar got tired of looking at me and had me dragged off clan ground,” she said weakly and coughed again. “He made Cherfan do it. Poor herder, he gets all the nasty jobs. He tried to give me some meat, but I couldn’t eat it and he looked so sad that I finally had totell him to go.” She paused and caught her breath. “You had better go too, Ratha.”

Ratha wasn’t listening. “Bira, hold the branches aside so I can see her wound,” she told the young Firekeeper and the shadows slid back. She peered closer and swallowed to keep herself from gagging at the stench that rose from torn and ulcerated flesh. Shongshar’s fangs had struck into Fessran’s upper foreleg at the shoulder, driving through the leg itself and into her chest. Having her leg in the way was the only thing that saved her from an immediately fatal wound, but that death might have been better, Ratha thought, looking at Fessran’s shrunken flanks and pain-wracked face.

Yet there was something in that face that told her Fessran wasn’t ready to die, that if she had a chance, she would fight for her life with the same ferocity that had saved Ratha’s. The wound itself wasn’t that bad. What had weakened her was infection and starvation. If they could get her back to Thakur, his knowledge of healing might save her.

She knew that her friend read her intent, for Fessran shook her head slowly.“No, Ratha. Leave me here for the carrion birds. You have yourself and Bira to care for.”

Ratha only laid back her ears at these words.“Ptahh! You were the one who said clan herders were hard to kill.” She bent her head, seized Fessran’s other forepaw, and dragged her out from beneath the bush. The flies swarmed about her in an angry cloud. “Crouch down, Bira,” Ratha said before Fessran could pull away.

Trembling with pity, the little Firekeeper flattened herself near Fessran. Ratha gave the paw another tug.

“Ratha, you can’t. I’m too heavy for her,” Fessran protested as Bira wiggled herself underneath.

“You, Firekeeper leader?” Bira said over her shoulder and grinned at Ratha. “You’re no heavier than the sticks I carry in my mouth or the fleas in my coat.”

When Ratha had Fessran arranged so that she would not fall off, Bira stood up. Fessran gasped and hissed softly in pain.“All right?” Bira asked.

“No, but it’s better than lying there with flies all over me,” Fessran retorted.

Weakened as Fessran was, Ratha could see she seemed more herself than she had when they first discovered her. She felt a surge of hope that her friend would live.

Bira took a few cautious steps while Ratha walked beside her and steadied Fessran. When it became evident that Bira could carry her burden at a reasonable pace, she set off, with Ratha beside her. Fessran laid her head along Bira’s neck and closed her eyes, letting her legs and tail dangle.

The journey was more painful for her than she would admit and, by the time they reached the redwood grove, she was moaning aloud and rolling her head back and forth. Blood and fluid from her wound trickled down Bira’s side and seeped into the young Firekeeper’s coat.

They put Fessran in Thakur’s den beneath the redwoods and Ratha stayed with her while Bira ran to get Thakur. His astonishment at seeing her was only slightly less than his shock at seeing the ugliness of her wound. Immediately he set about gathering medicinal leaves, which Bira shredded and soaked in the stream before laying on the wound. He also took Aree with him to look for a type of fruit with a thick skin that had gone rotten and fuzzy. When he returned with these, he removed the skin. To Ratha’s astonishment, he forced Fessran to swallow some of the moldy fuzz while he mixed the rest into the shredded poultice.

While he tended the wound, Ratha fed her friend with meat that she had chewed until it was almost liquid. Bira brought damp leaves from the stream to drip water onto Fessran’s dry tongue.

For several days, she lay in the den like a lifeless thing, barely able to swallow or open her eyes. The food and water they gave her only seemed to be prolonging her end, and Ratha felt her hope slipping into desperation. The wound stank and oozed despite Thakur’s poultices, and fever melted her away until she was little more than a skeleton.

Night after night, Ratha stayed beside Fessran, struggling not to fall into a doze for fear she would wake to look into her eyes and find the stare of death. With a fierce devotion, she fed her friend, even though the food often came back up.

And, finally, as they were at the point of giving up, Fessran began to rally. The swelling in the wound went down. It ceased oozing and crusted over. She was able to keep down the food that Ratha gave her and could suck on a wet leaf placed in her mouth.

She no longer lay limply on her side, but was able to roll onto her front, although she often grimaced with pain. She soon was able to take bits of meat and, with Ratha’s aid, could stagger to the nearby stream to lap water.

As Fessran improved, Ratha was able to leave her and resume her task of hunting for the group. She continued teaching Bira her skill and before long the young female was making small kills of her own. Bira also accompanied Ratha on forays to the spying tree, where they would hide and watch what went on in the meadow.

The clan culled more herdbeasts, but few of these were left to the herders. Most of the meat was taken by the Firekeepers and often dragged up the trail out of sight. Ratha strained for the sight or smell of Shongshar, but he never appeared in the meadow, even when the guard-fires were lit at dusk. She itched to know what was going on in the cave, and her anger conjured up images of him lolling before the Red Tongue, bloated with meat taken from the herders. Such thoughts made her growl between her teeth and shred the bark on the branch where she crouched.

Summer wore into autumn and the leaves began to turn and fall. One afternoon, after Ratha had helped Fessran back from the stream, the Firekeeper stretched herself out in the den and carefully licked the fur around the edge of her wound.

“Not too many of the Named have taken a bite like that and survived,” Ratha observed.

“It was worth the pain. You and Thakur got away.” Fessran fell silent for a while. “When I saw Shongshar about to kill you, I realized what he was. Before then, I lived in a daze. He used my fear of the fire-creature to lead me like a dappleback. He was so clever! Everything he said sounded right and even everything he did, until he bared his fangs to take your life.”

“And almost took yours instead. I wanted to go back and rip Shongshar’s throat out, but Thakur persuaded me not to try. Sometimes I think Thakur is the only one of us that has any sense.”

“Yes,” Fessran agreed and added, “Thank goodness.”

They lolled their tongues at each other, and Ratha felt warmed by the quiet joy of renewed friendship. Yet not all of what Fessran had to say was pleasant. When Ratha asked her for her story, her eyes darkened and she told of the Firekeepers’ arrogance, Shongshar’s increasing gluttony and the fevered dances about the cave-fire. Already, she said, Shongshar had begun to use the terror of fire to expand clan holdings. More cubs were being trained as Firekeepers and the herders were being worked hard to provide enough meat for those who feasted in the Red Tongue’s den.

As Ratha listened, her rage grew and she racked her mind for a way to wrest her power back from Shongshar. She knew that she was the one responsible for this change in her people. She had brought the gift of fire to the Named and with it had not only slain the old leader but ended the old laws and traditions that had governed the clan. Her rule had led them to triumph against the Un-Named, but she had failed to provide for the spiritual wants of her people, a hunger that grew and fostered Shongshar’s rise.

Fessran began to speak of banding together to kill Shongshar. Once, Ratha would have been eager for such fierce talk, but time alone to think had shown her the truth of Thakur’s words.

“No,” she answered as Fessran stared at her with puzzled eyes. “Killing him would do no good. The Named want to crouch down before the Red Tongue and serve a leader who bears that power. If he were to die, his way would not end, for they would find another like him to rule in his place.”

Her friend’s eyes narrowed. “Suppose he were to die and the cave-fire along with him. Then if the Named had nothing to crouch down before, they would turn back to you.”

“What good would my leadership do the clan without the Red Tongue to protect the herd? The Named have become too dependent on the fire-creature to survive without it.”

“All of the Red Tongue need not die,” answered Fessran. “The fire-creature in the cave is what gives him his power. Herders don’t crouch down to guard-flames kept in the meadow or those kept in fire-lairs. They go to the cave. We must strike there.”

The longer Ratha thought about Fessran’s argument, the more convincing it sounded. If Shongshar lost the cave-fire, his influence would be severely crippled. “Some Firekeepers would also have to die, Fessran,” said Ratha slowly. “The young ones, the cubs who know no way other than his. Your son, Nyang, would be one.”

“He is more Shongshar’s than mine,” said Fessran bitterly. “It is my fault; I let Shongshar influence him and turn him into the little killer that he is. Even if he lived, he couldn’t be trusted. No. I wouldn’t let that turn me aside.”

Ratha stared at her, looking deep into her eyes.“Are you saying you know of a way to destroy the fire-creature in the cave?”

“There is a big crack in the roof,” said Fessran. “It draws the smoke up and out so that it doesn’t fill the cavern. That’s one reason we chose that cave for the Red Tongue’s den.” She paused. “The smoke comes out of several cracks above the falls. I’ve seen it when I’ve been upthere.”

“Are any of them wide enough to crawl through?”

“No, I don’t think so,” said Fessran.

“Then I don’t see what good they are.”

“Think,” Fessran prodded her. “What is the greatest enemy of the Red Tongue? What was our reason for bringing the fire into the cavern?”

“The rain?” asked Ratha. “But how are you going to make it rain inside that cave?”

“Well, I’m not sure exactly how to do it, but the crack is close to the stream, and if smoke can come up, water can go down.”

“How would you get the water from the stream into the crack?” Ratha cocked her head at Fessran.

“That’s the part I don’t know.”

Ratha thought for a while.“Thakur might be able to help us. He often plays with mud and water when he’s fishing.”

When Thakur returned from the creek with his catch in his jaws, Ratha told him about Fessran’s idea. At first, he seemed doubtful, but the longer he thought about it, the more he became convinced that the scheme might work. As for moving water from stream to cave, that could be done by digging a long trench in the earth from the stream to the cleft, making a path for the water to follow. He had dug such water-paths in the creekbank to trap fish.

“Do the cracks that lead into the cave lie above or below the stream?” he asked Fessran.

“In a little hollow where the stream bends before it reaches the falls,” was her answer.

“Is the stream bank rocky or muddy there?”

Fessran thought it was muddy, but she wasn’t sure. The only way to tell was to go and look.

Ratha turned to Thakur, who had begun to look doubtful again.“Herding teacher, this would give us a way to strike down the fire-creature and free our people from Shongshar. Will you work with us?”

Thakur agreed, and they began to plan a small expedition to the site to judge whether the idea would work. This time only Thakur and Ratha would go, along with Aree and Ratharee, leaving Bira to take care of Fessran and the rest of the treelings. If the plan was feasible, one of them would start digging while the other went back to the redwood grove to fetch Bira and Fessran, too, if she was well enough to travel.

Before Ratha left, she caught enough game so that Bira wouldn’t have to hunt. When that was done, she and Thakur bid their companions farewell and set off.

To avoid trouble, they decided to return to clan ground by the same route they had come, skirting Shongshar’s territory until they reached the spring that marked the border in the direction of the setting sun. They crossed over by night and hid until they were sure Shongshar wasn’t patrolling this remote part of his ground. When daylight came, the two made their way downstream and Ratha soon recognized the bend that Fessran had described. They found the hollow by following the scent of smoke and discovered the maze of cracks from which it issued.

As Fessran had said, the stream lay slightly above the hollow, separated only by the grassy rise of its bank. If a deep enough channel could be dug, the stream could be turned from its course and rerouted down the hollow. The fissures that vented the cave lay near the bottom, so that the water filling the hollow would not have to rise far before it drained through them.

Thakur dug a hole at the top of the rise and found sandy clay as far down as he could reach. Ratha made another test excavation near the stream and came up with only a few stubborn rocks.

“This looks better than I’d thought,” Thakur said after examining the results of her digging. “I had my doubts, but now I know that we can do it. I’ll start while you fetch Fessran and Bira.”

Within a few days, Ratha returned with the two others and the treelings. She sheltered them in small caves farther upstream they had previously used. Leaving Fessran and Bira to rest, she sought Thakur.

When she could find no trace of him or his work, she began to grow worried, but before long he appeared and pushed back some fallen branches and brush to show her the extent of the trench he had already dug.

“Whenever I leave, I hide it by laying branches across the top,” he explained. “Then, even if any of the Firekeepers comes along, they won’t notice what we’re doing.”

“You’ve done a lot,” said Ratha, impressed by the length and the depth of his excavation.

“There’s much more to do and we’ll have to hurry to finish before the rainy season starts,” he replied and added almost mischievously, “Start digging, clan leader.”

Despite her weariness from the journey, she got into the trench and began scraping away at the dirt in front of her. She dug all that day and late into the evening. She dug until her claws ached, scarcely noticing when Bira joined her. When she crawled out of the trench she staggered beneath a bush and collapsed into sleep.

The next day she dug and the day after that, and, when she was not digging, she hunted to feed the others who were devoting themselves even more to the task. Her life seemed to narrow, focusing only on the digging: guarding it, hiding it and extending it laboriously, day by day.

Thakur guided the work, making a pilot trench that Bira and Ratha deepened and widened. Fessran joined in, and, although her injury prevented her from attacking the hard-packed clay along with the other two, she could push aside the soil they threw between their legs, clear away brush and pull roots.

Even the treelings helped. Their clever paws could often dig a way around an embedded rock or break away a stubborn root. Aree sometimes acted as lookout, sitting in a tree that overhung the trench and screeching to warn of approaching intruders. The treelings groomed the dirt out of the diggers’ fur, pulled caked clay from between aching pads and provided comfort and affection that was badly needed.

Ratha felt herself growing closer to Ratharee, who seemed to stay on her shoulder all the time, whether she was laboring in the trench or stalking game. The treeling knew to keep quiet during the hunt and to crouch and cling when Ratha sprang. Often Ratha would forget that Ratharee was there until a little voice murmured in her ear or small fingers began to clean her fur.

Fessran and Bira also chose treeling companions. The injured Firekeeper had become friendly with Ratharee’s older sibling. At first she had viewed the treelings with mixed emotions and had been reluctant to take one, but once the relationship had begun, it grew with amazing rapidity until Fessran couldn’t be separated from her new companion. Bira chose the younger male of Aree’s brood, leaving Thakur with only Aree herself and her elder son. Bira called her treeling Biaree, imitating Ratha’s way of naming them.

Days passed, and the trench was gradually extended from the hollow where it had begun over the rise to the stream. It became deep enough so that someone could walk in it with only the tips of their ears showing above the edge, and wide enough to turn around in. Ratha and her companions interrupted their work only to eat, sleep and relieve themselves. Each section of the spillway was covered over with branches and brush as it was completed, so that if intruders threatened, the diggers only had to conceal the open trench they were working in.

Sunset came a little earlier each day, giving them less light to work by. Falling leaves drifted into the trench and had to be cleared out. Ratha sensed that it was nearly time for the clan’s mating season to begin, but neither she nor her female companions showed signs of going into heat. She vowed to herself that even if she did, she was going to stay at the bottom of the trench and use her restlessness to dig. Fessran and Bira agreed with her, saying that, if any of them felt the onset of the mating urge, they could send Thakur away to fish and provide food while they continued to work. The layout of the spillway was now complete, with two pilot trenches running side by side to mark the width of the remaining section to be dug.

One morning Ratha and Bira were widening the side of the channel when Ratha felt something sting her nose. She looked up to see gray clouds rolling above the trees; another drop struck her between the eyes.

“The rains are coming early,” said Thakur, leaning into the trench and alternately glancing down at her and up at the sky.

“How far are we from the stream bank?” she asked, lifting her nose above the piles of dirt on the edge.

“A few tail-lengths. We’re going to have to dig deeper, though, to cut through the bank and make the water run this way.”

She sighed and went back to work.

Overhead, the clouds grumbled and the rain began. At first it was light and helped by softening the ground so that the work went faster. As it grew into a pelting downpour, the bottom of the trench became a bog. The diggers fought to keep their footing on the slick clay and frequently fell into puddles or accidentally spattered each other with the pawfuls of mud they flung aside. Their small companions began to look less like treelings and more like soggy mudballs.

At the end of the day, Ratha would crawl shivering from the trench, her coat soaked, her underside and flanks grimy with clay and gravel. Once she was under shelter, Ratharee made a determined attempt to groom her, but the treeling was often so exhausted that she fell asleep when she had barely begun. Ratha was so tired, she didn’t care.

The work grew more difficult and the task seemed endless. Sometimes Ratha, in her haze of fatigue, couldn’t remember what the purpose of it was. She felt as though she had spent her life scraping away at this wretched hole and would do so for the rest of her existence. When at last Thakur leaned down into the trench again and cried, “Stop!” she paid no attention to him and kept on digging mechanically until water began seeping through the gravel and soil at her feet.

She felt Thakur drop into the ditch beside her, seize her scruff and shake her.“Ratha, stop! We’re finished. If you go any farther, the water-path will flood before we’re ready.”

She blinked, trying to pull herself out of her daze. She scrambled out of the trench after Thakur and saw that he was right. Only the remaining thin wall of earth held back the stream. When the time came, they would dig at the embankment to weaken it until it broke, sending the flow down the spillway, into the hollow and down the cracks that vented the cave below. The cave-fire would perish in a rush of water, and those who tended it would be swept away.

Despite her exhaustion, Ratha felt a surge of triumph. She was ready. Now all the remained was to wait.

Chapter Eighteen

The sun hid for days behind a heavy bank of clouds, and the rain fell without ceasing. The stream began to swell, surging and cutting away at its banks until Ratha feared the wall of earth at the high end of the spillway would not hold it back. Now she crouched on the rise above the stream bank, watching the swirling water with anxious eyes.

The break had to be controlled, Thakur had said. If the packed earth gave way too soon or in the wrong place, the rushing water could destroy the channel and race down the hillside, missing the hollow. All their work would be useless if that happened.

Ratharee huddled on the ground beneath her, seeking shelter from the rain in the warmth between her forepaws and her breast. Ratha could feel the little body shiver.

“It won’t be long now, Ratharee,” she said softly, feeling the treeling’s paws on her forefeet. “Bira’s gone down to spy on the cave. She’ll be back soon.”

As she waited for Bira, she found herself thinking about Shongshar, as she had often done during the past days. At first her mind had been clouded with hate. Once the cave-fire was destroyed and his rule ended, she vowed to force the Firekeepers to change their arrogant ways. No one in the clan would speak Shongshar’s name without a hiss. Both his memory and his ways would be buried.

Yet she now realized that as ruthless and cruel as he had become, Shongshar had greater vision than she had. He was right: she had left the true understanding of the Red Tongue’s power to him, and thereby forfeited her leadership. The veneration of fire had thrust her people into debasement and a savagery previously unknown among their kind, but it also fed a hunger of the spirit, a need that could neither be ignored nor denied.

He was also right that the Named were pushed beyond themselves by the awesome presence of the Red Tongue. Not only did gazing into the fire inspire them to greater strength and courage, it gave them the vision to seek beyond the limits of their everyday life for a sense of meaning. Even Shongshar’s dream of extending his rule beyond clan ground was as inspired as it was arrogant, she admitted grudgingly.

As much as she hoped to obliterate all traces of his rule from among her people, she knew some of the things he had done could not be changed. This realization had forced her to put aside her hate long enough to see that not everything the Firekeepers had done under his rule was wrong. Storing wood and sheltering the source-fire in the cave were sound ideas, even though they had been turned to self-serving purposes.

If a large shelter such as the cave had been located in the meadow instead of far up the creek trail, it would have been more difficult to misuse. Had the Firekeepers been made to understand that the Red Tongue’s power was a gift for all to share, perhaps it might have been more difficult for Shongshar to lead them astray. And if she had understood the need of her people to belong to a power greater than themselves and used it for good instead of turning it aside, then Shongshar might not have been able to turn the clan against her.

Ratha heard the slap of wet pads and caught the smell of Bira’s soggy pelt. The shapes of the young female and her tree-ling appeared through the rain.

“Most of the Firekeepers are inside,” she panted as she crouched beside Ratha. “Shongshar is having a great feast in the cave. Where are Thakur and Fessran?”

“They’re coming.” Ratha shivered with cold and impatience.

When the other two arrived, Bira told them the news. They looked at each other with rising excitement and then all eyes turned to Ratha.

“Take Ratharee, Fessran,” she said and sprang onto the top earth dike holding back the stream. Dirt flew into the foaming water. She attacked the soil as if it were Shongshar’s throat; rage made her paw strokes more powerful.

“They’ll be starting … to dance … around the Red Tongue… soon,” she growled as she redoubled her efforts. Brown water began to trickle through the channel between her feet. She was turning to Thakur with a grin when she felt the earth give way beneath her.

Her triumph quickly turned to terror as the earth wall broke and toppled. She threw herself to one side, twisting and scrabbling for a clawhold. She landed on her belly, her hindquarters and tail in the surging flood that spilled through the break. As the wall crumbled the current grew stronger, tugging at her hindquarters. She splashed and kicked with frantic strength, knowing that if she fell beneath the pouring water, she would never fight her way to the surface. She would be carried like a leaf down into the frothing cauldron that would fill the hollow. The Red Tongue would have its revenge even before it died.

That thought gave her the added strength to stretch farther up the bank and drive her claws into harder ground. Her shoulder muscles cramped with the effort of dragging her body from the hungry current. Part of the bank broke away beneath one forepaw and she dangled, held by the claws of the other. She felt teeth seize her flailing paw and grunted as she was yanked up until her chest and then her belly lay on the edge.

Someone caught her scruff, someone else grabbed a hind paw, and treeling hands were on her tail. She was hauled, dragged and rolled away as the rest of the bank caved in, threatening to sweep away both her and her rescuers. When they finally reached safe ground, she could only lie and pant while the others looked anxiously at her.

“I’m all right,” she gasped, struggling to her feet. “See what’s happened.” She shook herself, though it was useless in the heavy rain, and staggered to where the others stood.

Water from the rain-swollen stream coursed into the channel, washing away the remains of the earthen wall. The flood widened and deepened its new course, eating farther into the original streambed and diverting more and more water into the spillway. Ratha and Bira ran along the edge of their ditch, following the foaming wave down to the bottom of the hollow. The strength of the current was enough to send the muddy water fountaining up onto the slope of the hollow and right into the cracks venting the cave.

“We’ve done it!” Ratha roared to Bira as they galloped back to the top where Fessran and Thakur waited.

“We certainly have,” said Thakur as she reached him. “Look. The stream’s left its old path entirely.” He pointed with his paw toward the streambed below the spillway opening. Only a small trickle of water ran between puddles in the sand.

Above the roar of water surging into the channel, Ratha caught the sound of shrieks and cries drifting up from far below.

“The cave-fire must be dead!” she cried, leaping up. “Now we strike against Shongshar!”

She led the four of them down past the new lake that was filling the hollow, to the trail that led to the bottom of the waterfall. She noticed that the sound of the fall was gone. Instead, the noise of falling water came from the cave that had once been the Red Tongue’s den. A torrent gushed from the entrance, washing away a portion of the trail that ran beside the stream and cutting its way back to fill the now-empty streambed.

Even as they watched, a body rode out on the flow, tumbling over rocks and boulders until it was finally pushed to one side and left. Ratha could see others, some lying limp and still in the rain, some trying to crawl away from the growing cataract.

Charred logs that hurtled out on the flood about the entrance gave evidence that the cave-fire had been drowned and washed away. The conspirators gazed at each other, awed by the destruction.

Ratha’s imagination gave her an image of what the inside of the cave had been like when the water came pouring in. First, a small dribble that hissed into steam when it struck the Red Tongue and startled the dancers. Then more rivulets falling from the ceiling, glinting in the firelight. The dancers would have stopped, laying back their ears and snarling at this strange invasion. And when the full force of the flood hit the great fire and plunged the cave into sudden darkness, she could almost hear the howls and screams above the echoing roar that grew louder and louder …

Some would have tried to flee the cave in a panic near madness, guessing that the earth itself had turned against them for their wickedness in worshiping the Red Tongue. She could imagine that terror in the eyes of the half-drowned Firekeepers.

“It must have been terrible,” said Bira softly, saying what Ratha saw in the eyes of the two others.

“Let’s find Shongshar,” she said roughly and turned away.

They found him farther downstream, in a small gorge beside the trail. The rush of water had carried him with it, tumbling and turning him until at last it flung him aside. Now he lay, a sodden mass of silver fur, among the boulders at the bottom.

Carefully Ratha made her way down into the gorge, followed by the others. If Shongshar was dead, he shouldn’t be left to rot in the stream and taint the water. He should be taken elsewhere and buried. And if he wasn’t dead, she should know.

He remained so still as she approached that she was convinced life had gone from him. She was about to tell Thakur to take Shongshar’s tail in his jaws when Shongshar’s eyes suddenly cracked open. With a gasp, Bira skittered back, bumping into Fessran.

Shongshar’s eyes widened and focused on Ratha. She felt a sudden chill that was not just the wind on her wet pelt.

“Your rule is ended, Shongshar,” she said, trying to keep the tremor from her voice. “The Red Tongue in the cave has been destroyed and the Firekeepers are too frightened to listen to you again.”

“Then it was you who sent the angry water into the cave,” he hissed and drew a shuddering breath.

“Yes.”

“You have grown great indeed if water moves itself to do your will,” he said hoarsely. “The weaker power must yield to the stronger. That is the law of all things, clan leader. I offer you my throat for your fangs.” He rolled his head back as he spoke.

“Be careful!” Thakur hissed beside her. Behind her she could hear Fessran growl, “Kill him for me, Ratha.”

But Ratha stepped back from him.“No. There has been enough death among us. I offer you this, Shongshar. You may leave clan ground with your life, if you never return.”

“You offer me nothing then,” he snarled weakly.

“You say there is nothing for you outside the clan. What about your cubs?”

His eyes narrowed, and orange blazed between the lids. His lips drew back from his fangs as he spat.“You are crueler than I am, Ratha. You killed them. The thought of their deaths only left me when I gazed into the heart of the Red Tongue, and now that is gone, you torment me again with their memory.”

“Would you believe me if I told you I didn’t kill your cubs? Thakur and I took them off clan ground and left them in a place where they could find food and water. They might still be alive.”

Shongshar looked at her and she saw a faint hope warring with rage in his eyes. He sought Thakur.“Does she speak truth, herding teacher?”

“Yes,” Thakur replied.

“You couldn’t have told me, could you?” Shongshar said bitterly, turning his gaze back to Ratha.

“I couldn’t trust you. Listen, when you are ready to leave clan ground, I’ll tell you where we left them.”

Shongshar sank back, a strange glaze over his eyes.“You should have trusted me then, clan leader … it’s too late now.”

Ratha barely heard Thakur’s warning cry before a fierce blow struck the side of her head, sending her reeling. Shongshar was suddenly on top of her, raking her sides with his claws. She writhed underneath him, heaving and bucking, trying to dodge the plunging teeth. A fang scored her side and she lashed up, dragging her claws across his cheek.

“I offered to let you go … to find your lost cubs,” she gasped. She twisted underneath him, ignoring the rocks that bruised her back.

“What good would it do me to search for them now?” he hissed. “If they were as witless as you believed, they wouldn’t care who fathered them. And if they weren’t, they have been gone from me too long to know me.”

She understood then that hate had worked inside him too long for anything to turn it aside. The fierce glow of his eyes was the fire of madness.“No, Ratha,” he hissed, baring his fangs in front of her face. “All I want from you now is your death or mine.”

Again he strained his head back for a killing downslash. At the instant his throat lay exposed, Thakur struck. The momentum of the herding teacher’s attack thrust Shongshar aside from Ratha. She scrambled to her feet as Fessran and Bira leaped to Thakur’s aid.

Fessran made up for the handicap of her injury by the intensity of her rage. Shongshar was bleeding from many wounds by the time the three bore him down, but their combined strength could scarcely hold him.

“All right, Shongshar,” Ratha panted. “You have a choice. Either you leave clan ground now, or your life ends here.”

His only answer was a lunge at Ratha. Thakur cast her a look of despair that told her Shongshar had made his decision, and there was nothing the herding teacher could do about it.

“You are going to kill me,” Shongshar said, narrowing his eyes at Thakur. “That is a bitter thing, to have to kill one who was a friend. If you don’t, I will bury my teeth in her. Choose which one of us you will grieve for, herding teacher.”

Again he lunged for Ratha, nearly throwing off his captors. They seized him, throwing him back. Thakur opened his jaws for the killing bite.

“No,” Ratha said. “I brought him among us. I will take him to the dark trail.”

She felt the herding teacher tremble as he moved aside for her. He looked at her, his eyes dark with grief.“Be quick,” he said and stared away.

When it was done and Shongshar lay still, Ratha lifted her head with a deep weariness that seemed to fill her. She stared down at the blood oozing onto the silver fur, as the others backed away from the body.

“We will carry him into the meadow and place him beneath the tree where Bonechewer died,” she said softly. “He deserves at least that much.”

“Ratha!” The harshness in Thakur’s voice jerked her gaze from Shongshar. Fessran was looking up at the rim of the gorge, her tail starting to wag. Angry eyes glared down. The Named were all about them, descending the steep slope of the gorge on both sides. It was too late to run or to hide Shongshar’s body. Ratha knew she would either have to win the clan over or fight.

She felt Thakur edge against her, protecting Bira between himself and Fessran. The bitter smell of vengeance-hunger filled the stream as the Named crept down into the gorge.

“It’s a bad place for a fight,” Thakur growled softly.

“Stay together,” Fessran hissed. “To reach any of us, they’ll have to kill us all.”

Ratha narrowed her eyes at the pack. She sensed that the herders among them did not seem as vengeful as the Firekeepers; in fact the latter had to bully the herders into sullen complacency.

“There is the one who murdered our leader and teacher! Tear out her throat!” cried a Firekeeper and he clawed a herder, who flinched and growled, “Yes, tear out her throat!”

“Let her taste the same meat she gives to others!” cried someone else among the herders.

“Ptahh!” Ratha spat back. “You herders know the meat he gave you. He dragged away your beasts to glut himself and those who served him while leaving you nothing. Why do you howl for him?”

“He gave us power and strength,” roared one. “He gave us the dance in the cave,” howled another.

“The dance,” said Ratha. “And was that dance ever for herders? Were the ones who worked to feed the Firekeepers ever allowed to come before the cave-fire to feast and share in the celebration?”

The herders exchanged looks with each other, despite the Firekeepers’ prodding. “No,” muttered one. “They said our coats were too dirty and that we must watch from a distance and be grateful that the Red Tongue would even permit us in the cave.”

Other mutterings broke out, and Ratha could hear more complaints being spoken against Shongshar’s attitude toward those who tended the clan’s animals.

“I’m glad Shongshar’s dead,” roared someone else, and with a start Ratha recognized Cherfan’s voice. “I’m tired of crouching to those singe-whiskered fools and hearing that we herders aren’t worthy to approach the Red Tongue.”

Heads turned among the herders and more voices joined Cherfan’s until they broke from the rest of the clan and crowded around Ratha. Cherfan faced the Firekeepers and bellowed, “All right, now we’ll see how brave you are in a fair fight!”

But Ratha could see that the Firekeepers still held the advantage. Although there were more herders in the meadow, Cherfan had no way of summoning their help without forcing a confrontation. And whether the sides were matched or not did not matter to Ratha. This battle would cost the clan heavily in lives no matter who won.

“If she wins, she will forbid us to crouch before the fire creature or offer ourselves in the dance,” she heard one Firekeeper growl to another. Muttering spread among them and one yowled, “Attack now! She has killed the fire-creature in the cave. She will keep the Red Tongue from rising again.”

“No!” cried Ratha, turning to face him. “You are wrong!”

Even Thakur and Fessran stared at her in astonishment as she waved her tail for silence.“Hear me, Firekeepers,” she said. “I understand your wish to crouch and dance before the Red Tongue. I once thought that was wrong and should be stopped, but I know better now. I killed the cave-fire because it was being misused.” She paused, looking into their eyes. “Tell me yourselves. Was it right to look down upon the herders and take their beasts when your bellies were already bloated? Or to keep them from the cave unless they brought you meat?”

Several Firekeepers lowered their heads and stared down at their paws.“No,” Ratha continued. “Shongshar did wrong by making you believe that serving the fire-creature made you more deserving than the rest. He used your belief to make you do fierce and cruel things you would not have done. That is why he died.”

A Firekeeper raised his head.“Then you will allow us to honor the Red Tongue as well as use it to guard the herds?”

“Yes. I have said nothing against honoring the fire-creature itself. Listen. This is what I will do. We will enlarge one of the old fire-lairs to make an earth-cave in the meadow where the source-fire may be kept. There dry wood can be stored and the fire will be safe from rain. It will be guarded, but anyone, Firekeeper or herder, may enter for warmth, and they may crouch and lower their whiskers before the fire, if they wish.”

“I don’t think that’s enough,” growled another Firekeeper, glaring at Ratha. “Shongshar allowed only us to approach Red Tongue and crouch before it. The herders should tend their dapplebacks.”

Yowls and hisses rose from the herders and the fur on their napes began to lift. Ratha feared that she might not be able to avert a fight.

“Listen to me, both of you. I brought the Red Tongue to the clan for all to share. The Firekeepers were created so that their skills could benefit the rest of us. Herders, the Firekeepers need you as much as you need them. Neither of you can survive without the skill of the others. If you follow me, I will see that both herders and Firekeepers share the fire-creature in a way that is good for both.”

Again mutters broke out from the Firekeepers. The one who had challenged Ratha tried to speak again, but was silenced by his companions. She waited until the Firekeepers had stopped scuffling and speaking among themselves.“Clan leader,” the first one said, “most of us think that what you have suggested is wise. But we need our own leader. We would like Fessran to return to us.”

“I think that can be done,” said Ratha as she turned to her friend and said in a lower voice, “Now that you know the pitfalls along this path, I can trust you to tread it with care.”

A few Firekeepers separated themselves from their companions and glared at Ratha.“I still don’t like it,” complained the same one who had objected before. “You think that Shongshar was wrong to take meat from the herders and give it to us? We need more than they do. We have to be strong. What’s wrong with that?”

With a roar Fessran sprang forward.“I’ll tell you what’s wrong with that, you greedy wretch!” He skittered away as she glared at the others in his group. “What Ratha offers is fair to all, and I intend to support her. Either you obey my orders, or you leave the Firekeepers. Is that clear?”

With sullen growls they reluctantly agreed.

To pull Shongshar’s body up out of the gorge took the efforts of Ratha and her companions. When that was done, she sent Thakur and Fessran to search for other survivors of the disaster who might have fled and were now in hiding. Gradually they began to come back, their coats soaked and their eyes haunted. Some coughed and wheezed from the water in their lungs, while others walked stiffly, pained by sprains and bruises. When they were all assembled, Ratha led them down to the meadow.

Fessran and Bira took care of the half-drowned Firekeepers, treating them like a large litter of disobedient but still-loved cubs. Fessran made them dry themselves by the fire, a new blaze that had been lit from the fire-lairs. Bira soothed those who still trembled from their memories.

Ratha found the bodies of those who had died in the flood and helped to bring them to be laid under grave-trees at the edge of clan ground. Among the dead was the herder Shoman. Another, as she had feared, was Fessran’s son, Nyang.

Some of the more wrathful herders wanted to tear Shongshar’s body and scatter his bones, but Ratha sternly forbade them from approaching him. Carefully and respectfully, she and Thakur carried the body through the meadow and laid it beneath Bonchewer’s grave-tree.

In the following days, she and Fessran reorganized the Firekeepers, reducing their number and sending some to be retrained as herders. Now that she had control of the Red Tongue again, she could encourage Thakur and the others who had treelings to resume training them in the art of caring for fire. She was pleased to learn that Aree had not forgotten her careful lessons and the young treelings still retained much of what they had learned. She and Ratharee joined in with the others and soon were spending many of their evenings learning what treeling paws could do.

They had many spectators, for those in the clan who did not have treelings were drawn by curiosity. There was still some uneasiness about having such creatures tend the Red Tongue, but Ratha sensed that it was diffuse and no longer the threat it had been during Shongshar’s rise to power. She shared Ratharee with those who wished to try working with a treeling and encouraged Thakur, Bira and Fessran to do the same.

As Ratha lifted the first pawful of earth from the threshold of the old fire-lair, she hesitated before throwing it aside. Despite her words to the Firekeepers, she felt she had set her feet in Shongshar’s pawprints and hoped she would have the strength not to take the trail he had followed.

She felt Ratharee on her shoulder, turned her head to nuzzle the treeling and felt calmer. The creature’s gentle touch eased the loneliness that sometimes came over her even when she was close to her own kind. Ratharee couldn’t speak, but she seemed to say as much with her nimble hands and bright, wise eyes as the Named did with words.

The treeling shared much more than the skill of her hands. She was a companion who never questioned or judged. Her presence seemed to lessen Ratha’s fierce need to prove herself to others, and she felt herself gaining a stability of mind that she had not known before.

When she was directing Ratharee in a task such as laying out kindling, she often felt that the treeling knew what she wanted before she nudged her arms or gave the clicking sounds that she followed. The understanding between them grew less that of one creature serving another and became a partnership. In concentrating on a task, the bond between them grew so strong that she and Ratharee were one being with shared abilities beyond those of either partner.

She also realized that the relationship was more equal than she had first thought. While she experienced the tree-ling’s dexterity as if it were her own, she sensed that her companion was gaining knowledge treelings had never had. She gave Ratharee her strength and her speed as well as her ability to see at night. Her intelligence too she shared, although she often wondered, when she looked into the startling depths of Ratharee’s eyes, whether treelings might have a cleverness of their own that was equal to that of the Named, even though it was different.

When she ventured to ask her companions how they felt about their treelings, she found she was not alone in her discovery. Even those of the Named who had only watched or worked with them for brief periods seemed to benefit from the contact.

Now she scraped away another pawful of dirt as others of the clan began to dig with her. She glanced at Thakur, alongside her, and noticed that Aree was looking a bit bulgier than she had been.

“She’s pregnant again,” said Thakur with a grin. “Don’t ask me how she did it.”

Ratha continued her task, feeling happy. Soon there would be more treelings for those of the clan who wanted them. And nearly everybody did.

She sensed this was a coming change for her people, a change more subtle but no less powerful than the bringing of the Red Tongue to the clan. But unlike the use and worship of fire, which raised savage instincts, the growing partnership of the Named with treelings seemed to waken the gentler part of their nature, giving it strength.

It gave her a strange feeling of hope, though she almost doubted it herself as she continued to dig, but it refused to leave her mind. She found herself watching her friends to see whether the change she imagined was real, and she found that it was. Even Fessran, the one who had resisted the treelings and only taken a companion after her illness, admitted she felt the effect. She was no less irascible and her comments were as pointed as ever, but her sudden flares of temper, which made others wary of her, were gone.

Perhaps it was this that gave Ratha a true hope that she could lead her people along a new path. The treelings would serve the Named not only by caring for fire with the skill of their fingers, but by lessening the feelings of loneliness and hunger for those things of the spirit that had driven the Named to frenzied obedience to the Red Tongue.

The flicker of firelight lit the earthen walls and cast a glow over the wet grass of the meadow. A light rain fell in the dusk, but the source-fire was safe in its shelter. The den had been dug deep and well, with holes to vent the smoke and allow the flame to draw. A raised floor of packed earth had been made to hold the fire above any water that might seep in, and an adjacent chamber had been dug in which to stack and dry wood. It was now half-filled with remains of the cave woodpile, pieces of which had been recovered and dried before the watch-fires.

A little while before, Ratharee had ridden on Ratha’s back, bearing the brand to kindle this new source-fire. Now as the flame grew and crackled, it lit the faces of the herders and Firekeepers who gathered before the den.

“Now the Red Tongue’s protection will never fail!” cried Fessran, and to Ratha’s surprise, she gave a joyous leap into the air with her treeling on her back. She landed a little awkwardly, for her injured foreleg was still weak, but she gave Ratha a grin and jumped up again.

The sense of celebration was contagious, and everyone began circling the glowing mouth of the fire-shelter, their coats gleaming in the rain. They sprang and whirled. Even Thakur joined in, with Aree bouncing between his shoulders. It was all the treeling could do to hold on, but the shine in her eyes was excitement, not fear.

Only Ratha held herself back. The circle of dancers seemed to be overlaid by another image that floated before her eyes. That too was a dance, the terrifying frenzy of those who threw themselves into the heated air in the cave, whose eyes shimmered with cruelty and the worship of the fierce light in their center. It was all before her again, the sound, the smell and the racing of her heart until she wanted to cry aloud to end it.

The fire-creature of her dream was there too, rising out of the flame’s center with a shape that was and was not the form of the Named. But as it reared up to claw at the roof of the cave, it seemed to falter and sink back down as the roar of the fire grew muted and the flame itself dwindled … until it was just a glow from the mouth of an earthen den and the dancers about her were her people and her friends. The shimmer in their eyes was joy, and the firelight shone on their power and grace.

Yes, they could dance before the Red Tongue, giving thanks for the light, the warmth and the protection it gave. And they could see the beauty in its strength and rejoice in that without seeking to make it a weapon for others to fear.

And suddenly the dance changed. The treelings had joined in, leaping in a counter-circle from one dancer to the next as if weaving them together.

In a moment, Ratharee sprang from Ratha’s back into the ring of dancers. Rain sparkled on her pelt as she scampered along Thakur’s back and launched herself onto Fessran’s withers.

“The only way you’ll get her back is to join in,” yowled Bira as Ratharee bounced onto the young Firekeeper as she danced around the circle.

And Ratha did.

Later, when exhaustion laid the Named and treelings together in a sprawl amid the soggy grass, Ratha lifted her head wearily to see happy lolling tongues all around her.

“You’ve got the longest one,” she teased, swatting Fessran playfully. “Stuff it back in your mouth.” The treelings scampered out of the way as the two wrestled like cubs and then broke away, panting at each other.

The rain stopped. Those of the clan picked themselves up and went back to their duties or their dens. Fessran and Thakur rose together and he offered to walk back with Ratha to her lair.

“No, I want to stay here awhile,” she said. She watched them leave and listened to the far-off lowing of herdbeasts and the muted crackle of the source-fire in its shelter. Soon she would have to call someone to watch over it while she went to her den, but for now she could be alone.

She felt Ratharee climb onto her and curl up on her flank. She yawned and sensed a quiet contentment creeping over her. Although she and her people had suffered much, they were still alive and together. They would mourn the ones who died, Shoman, Nyang and the Firekeepers. And Shongshar? Perhaps only she would visit his bones beneath the pine.

Yes, I will mourn him, she thought.It was grief that made him seek such a dark trail. And he has taught me a lesson that I will not forget, even though it is bitter, I must learn to feed the hunger of my people that does not ask for food, for I know now that a leader does not rule only by strength and will.

And she lay thinking, with the orange glow casting her shadow on the grass until it was nearly dawn. Again she had found a new way for herself and her people, and this time she would lead them not only with strength and persistence, but the care of her newly found wisdom. She lifted her head and narrowed her eyes at the sun as it rose over the trees and spilled its first light on clan ground.

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Ratha and Thistle-Chaser

The Named Series: Book Three

Dedication

TO THE DREAMBITERS

AND

THE DREAMBITTEN

may they find healing

and

TO MARGARET K. McELDERRY

with love and admiration

Chapter One

On matted, shadow-laced grass in a forest clearing, two wild cats quarreled over prey. They made threat-growls as each circled the other. One was the size and weight of a panther, with a faded dun coat and a ribby, rickety look that spoke his age. The other, a female, was a strange mix of rust brown mottled with orange. A black mask across her face gave emphasis to her chalk-green eyes. Her youth might have given her the advantage despite her smallness, but her left foreleg was withered and drawn up against her chest.

With her pelt of rusty black and orange and her slow uncertain manner, she resembled a newt, an eel-like creature with legs. Once those of her own kind had cruelly kicked a dead one at her, as if to show her what she was. Perhaps they were right. Often she felt as dazed and bewildered as a newt that had crawled from its clammy hole into bright sun.

She remembered the dead thing — cold, limp, and coated with slime that made it too noxious for even her to eat. It was then that the image wormed itself into her mind. From that time, she thought of herself as Newt.

Her gaze fastened on the dusty feathered bundle pinned beneath the old dun-coat’s claws. It wasn’t a fresh catch; her nose told her that the bird had been dead for days. The paw claiming it trembled with age and weakness. The grizzled head bent to strip away feathers.

She gathered her three good legs beneath her, preparing for a rush that would bowl the ancient male over. Carrion rank as this had repulsed her in better days. Now her belly was shrunken, and the odor of any kind of food made her drool.

The dun-coat lifted his head, fixing watery yellow eyes on her. He made sounds that were more than just growls or whines. The sounds and the way he lashed his tail created feelings inside Newt that she didn’t want. She knew the old male despised her.

His noises made her feel just what she was: Ugly. Dull.

The old dun-coat tore at the rotten bird. Newt’s other feelings gave way to her fierce hunger. She lunged, driving into him and knocking him to the ground. He collapsed like the bundle of sticks he resembled. She sank her teeth into the prize and lifted it. He was struggling to his feet again, making mewling sounds.

He faced her so that she looked him full in the eyes. She met there the things she had seen in the gaze of others, but somehow his outraged stare was stronger. It asked questions — questions she could not answer.

What are you that you would take the last scrap of meat from a dying old one? Have you no respect for the ending of life…?

The message came not in sounds but in the fierce look from those watery yellow-green eyes. She wanted to flee with the ragged carcass, but the elder’s stare held her. And, as she was imprisoned by his gaze and her growing shame and confusion, his eyes seemed to change before her, becoming those of one she knew well and hated.

From somewhere behind her own eyes, inside her own skull, a familiar nightmare swept down on her. She heard rushing, pounding, and an echoing growl that rose to a shriek. In her fevered vision, a cat-shaped apparition rose up before her with gleaming fangs. The flame-colored demon stabbed its teeth into her crippled shoulder and foreleg, waking the old pain. She struggled, but in the vision she was always smaller, weaker, unable to defend herself. The dream-creature seized her, tore her, and then threw her aside into an abyss, where she lay until the blackness lightened.

Newt woke on her side, bleakly aware that she had fallen once again into the grip of her strange sickness. Now the Dreambiter was gone. Episodes like this were half seizure, half nightmare, and totally bewildering. She found herself still moving her legs weakly. Taking deep breaths, she quieted her movements.

As her heartbeat slowed, she pulled her feet beneath her and rolled onto her chest. She waited, dreading the light-headedness that might herald another attack. Often the dream and the illness would return, savaging her a second or third time before releasing her.

This time there was no sudden relapse. She stumbled to her feet, the contracted muscles in her crippled limb pulling as she mistakenly tried to use the leg. Her nightmare was gone. So was the old male and his feathered carrion. Newt sighed, knowing he had been able to stagger a safe distance away while she thrashed helplessly. Yet the memory of him shamed her a little less, perhaps because she knew he would have at least one more meal.

But why care about the old dun-coat? Usually she wouldn’t. It was too hard to think about anything except scratching up something to eat when she could no longer bear the pain of hunger. But sometimes other thoughts and feelings thrust themselves into her narrow world, like those the old one had roused in her, making her care or shaming her because she didn’t.

Newt hung her head, not wanting this hateful clarity of mind that came to her briefly on these occasions and added to her wretchedness. Yet, perhaps she was capable of thoughts beyond the bare needs of survival. She already knew the difference between kindness and cruelty, for she had felt both at some time in her dim past.

She shook her head to drive out some of the lingering dizziness. Sometimes it seemed as though the mist that always fogged her mind might lift, letting her think clearly. There had been a time… once… before the Dreambiter…

No. She wasn’t going to think about her nightmare. It might rise again, battering her from within.

Slowly, awkwardly, Newt turned. With her useless foreleg tucked up beneath her chest, she limped downhill.

A fresh wind blew from beyond the trees, bringing a sea smell to Newt’s nose and a fresh pang of hunger to her belly. She rarely went that way, for she was reluctant to leave the shelter of the forest. But now, frustration and self-pity made her reckless.

The smell teased her, hinting that she might find something washed ashore that she could gnaw on. It sparked a memory, flickering, but strong enough to draw her. A memory of feathers scattered on sand, bleached to brittleness by the salt wind. Of fragile bones splintering between her teeth, releasing crumbled marrow. Shards of flesh, salt encrusted and hard as the bones that softened in her mouth and released an echo of flavor before they slipped down her throat and were gone.

The trees thinned to scrub, and the soil became stony beneath her feet as Newt left the forest for the coast. She hesitated, leaning forward on her good forepaw and switching her tail. Cries and wingbeats overhead made her shoulders hunch. Birds with tapered wings, gray backs, and plump white bellies soared above her. She slunk through sedge grass to low, broken cliffs that overlooked the beach.

There she crouched, feeling the wind lift the fur on the back of her neck and tease the tips of her ears. Lifting her muzzle, she tested the wind. There were queer smells of animals and other things, but no scents of her own kind. She was alone on the clifftop.

She listened to the crash and roll of the surf below. Then she threaded her way down across crumbling bluffs until her paws broke the sand-crust at the top of the beach. For a moment, she retreated, puzzled by the way the sand gave beneath her when she tried to walk on it.

She ventured out once again, feeling the loose sand grind between her pads and drag at her legs, making her limping pace more awkward than ever. For a moment, she looked back up the tumbled slope, wondering if she should turn around. Retreating was the easy thing to do. She had done it most of her life.

Perhaps something in the brisk wind challenged Newt this time. Drawing her whiskers back, she lowered her head and slogged through the crusted sand. She passed a line of sea wrack and nosed among the drying kelp and gull feathers for carrion but found nothing. Hordes of sand fleas scattered in front of her as she made her way down onto the hard-packed sand near the surf line.

The endless march of waves breaking on shore drew and held her gaze. The roar and boom of the surf and the salt spray blowing into her face seemed to dash away some of the confusion that lay like a gray mist over her mind. Frothy water slithered up the beach and spilled onto her toes, drawing the sand from under her pads as it retreated.

She wasn’t sure if the wind blowing in her face or the water stroking her toes bothered her or not. At least this place of water and sand did not demand anything of her.

Swinging her tail, Newt hobbled along the damp sand just beyond the surf line. She squinted against sunglare and the spray that stiffened the fur on her face. Looking back, she saw the wandering trail of her footprints. In the forest she would have scuffed them out, but here it didn’t seem to matter. The slow crash and hiss of the sea lulled her, and she walked as if in a trance, feeling the sun on her back and the wind in her ears.

Newt’s good forepaw struck a rock and she stumbled, falling onto her chest. Irritated and impatient with her clumsiness, she scrambled up and looked around. She had to turn her head to take in her surroundings, for her vision had tunneled, as it often did when she became frightened or angry. She hated that, for it felt as if the world had shrunk to only the small space in front of her, leaving the rest to be engulfed by blackness. And sometimes that small space would retreat far away, and then the Dreambiter would come.

She shook herself fiercely, as if she could free herself of the hateful vision the way she did the sand in her coat. The cool freshness of the wind in her face helped. Gradually her vision opened once again, and the warning throb in the back of her head faded. Now she could see that she had come to a low shelf of gray mudstone, dotted with embedded shells and filled with shallow potholes. She hopped up and sniffed at a shallow tidepool. Several flowerlike objects beneath the surface startled her by withdrawing their narrow petals and huddling into gray-green lumps.

Intrigued, she poked at them with her good forepaw while she lay on her side, trying to get them to emerge and wave about again, but they remained sullenly closed. She got up and went on.

Newt had come to a terraced area beneath a low cliff where slabs of mudstone formed a series of shelves stepping down to the sea. The tidepools on the higher shelves held only more reclusive water flowers and a few empty shells. The lower pools lay near enough to the waves to fill as the surf rushed in and drain when the water retreated.

The brine swirled high around her legs and splashed her belly as she investigated these pools, and she found them filled with swimming, scuttling, and crawling creatures. Spiny sculpins eyed her from niches between rocks. Little crabs danced away sideways when her shadow fell on them. Pearl-shelled snails, waving their horns, glided over mats of purple algae.

She waded from one tidepool to another, her sudden fascination with the inhabitants not just the result of curiosity. The rockfish looked as if they could provide a few bites of food. The seasnails were much easier to catch, but their shells were tough and weren’t as easily cracked as the more fragile shells of land snails. She nearly broke a back tooth trying to crack one and at last spat it out in disgust.

Newt noticed that each wave seemed to roll in farther than before, slowly submerging the lower tidepools. She wasn’t ready to leave yet; she had spied a big sculpin lurking at the bottom of a brine-filled crevice. Settling herself on her side, she plunged her good forepaw into the water after the fish. It scooted away much faster than its large head and clumsy fins had suggested it could. She made another swipe. The fish evaded her, slipping tail first into the deepest part of the crevice and making pop eyes at her. An attempt to claw the sculpin out ended when its spines pierced her pawpad.

With a dismayed yowl, Newt pulled her paw out and floundered away, leaving the tidepools to the rising water. She scrambled over the mudstone terraces back to the beach, her stomach still grumbling and her pricked forepaw stinging.

Feeling vulnerable, she sought shelter in a cave beneath an outcrop of sandstone. She collapsed on her side, brought her bleeding pad to her face, and licked it. A vague sense of dread came over her. With one foreleg crippled, even a minor injury to the other could keep her immobilized, unable to hunt for food or fresh water.

A dull sense of outrage made her bare her teeth and flatten her ears. She whimpered — and trembled at the sound of despair in her own voice. Laying her cheek down on her throbbing forepaw, she sought sleep but found only a fitful doze.

The Dreambiter came, not in a rush and hiss as it had before, but quietly, stealing up behind misted half-dreams. It was huge, and Newt was tiny. Sometimes the Dreambiter wore a pelt of flames, but this time it was a shadow, lit from behind by the colors of sunset. Only the eyes shimmered green, and the look in them was not hatred but anguish.

Newt knew a moment of pity for the Dreambiter, but that instant fled as blood-red light caught and stained the apparition’s fangs. The teeth plunged into her flesh and kept going, striking deep into the center of her soul, ripping a shriek from her throat. Pain bloomed like an ugly flower, grew and grew until she thought even in her dream that this was the end and that the Dreambiter would take her.

But it was a dream, and although the vision could give pain, it could not give death. The final injustice was that she did wake, only to find the bleak landscape of her life before her once again. Ghost-pain danced through her neck and shoulder, through the scars of the old bite, and out into her contracted foreleg, making the stiff muscles spasm. She rolled on the leg to ease the cramping.

Lying on the sand in her shallow little cave beneath the overhang, she tried not to think of anything at all. Often her mind would oblige her by going completely blank, but this time it dwelled on her nightmare. There was something about her memory of the moment before the Dreambiter’s attack that tormented her. In the vision she turned into someone smaller, weaker, yet more agile and not burdened by a lamed foreleg. And there was a difference in her mind too, for she sensed, though only fleetingly, that her thoughts at that time were not as blurred or misted by confusion asthey were now. She had been whole; now she was broken. The Dreambiter had destroyed more than just her front leg.

Newt woke from a sleep she had no memory of entering. The pain in her leg had faded, to be replaced by restlessness. She tried out her spine-pricked paw and found that the fire had gone down to a dull ache. Slowly she limped northward up the beach.

High tide covered mudflats and shell beds in the cliff shadow near a river mouth. As she wandered, skirting waves that broke high on the flats, she heard a grinding sound followed by snuffles and snorts. She halted, swiveling her ears. A fishy sea-animal odor teased her nose. Then another scent came, mixed in with the wind. Newt couldn’t identify it, but there was a meaty odor that hinted at food.

Her reflexive swallow started her stomach churning and cramping. She had been about to withdraw, but now, driven by hunger, she had to go on. She limped toward the noise.

In the frothing shallow water covering the flats, Newt caught sight of an animal that was totally strange to her. It looked immense, whiskered and blubbery. Creases formed in the rolls of fat around its neck as it swung its head from side to side. Its muzzle was wide and pushed in. Short but massive tusks protruded from beneath a loose, slobbery upper lip.

As she watched, taking in the details of the animal’s appearance, she wished she could capture the impression in a way that would keep the images in her mind from fading. She sensed that such a way existed, though she didn’t know what it was. Another of her kind had once tried to teach her.

A memory came to her, a picture of a copper-furred face with amber eyes. She remembered a warm tongue that washed her, a male scent, and a deep purring voice. And then the face in her mind started to move, the mouth opening and making sounds. The same sounds came repeatedly until the thought had risen in her mind that the sounds were supposed to mean something. And she had been on the verge of understanding them just as the Dreambiter had attacked, driving the kind one away and burying her dawning awareness under an avalanche of pain.

Yet that memory remained of a gentle voice trying to encourage, to teach. She opened her own mouth, startling herself by making a noise between a growl and a whimper.

The strangeness in her voice frightened her. The edges of her vision started to close in. The Dreambiter stirred but did not rise. Newt’s fear gradually faded.

She became aware of the sea-creature staring at her. It humped itself farther inshore and began raking a submerged shell bed with its tusks. Each time the water receded, exposing shellfish, more of the fleshy food-smell drifted downwind, drawing Newt closer. At first the blubbery, tusked beast seemed to have no legs at all, but then she caught sight of a stumpy, flippered forelimb. The creature itself had an oily stink that caught in Newt’s throat and made her grimace, but the aroma coming from the crushed shellfish enticed her.

With a startled grunt, the blubber-tusker heaved itself upright and stared at her with eyes spaced so far apart they seemed about to fall off the sides of its pug-nosed face. She could see its nostrils twitch as it caught her scent. The hair rose on her nape.

The blubber-tusker lowered its head, lumbering a few paces back. Emboldened by the animal’s retreat, Newt started forward. One step at a time, she limped down the sloping flats, trembling with hunger. She had almost reached the shell bed when the creature bellowed and wriggled toward her, its heaving motion sending ripples through its blubber.

On three legs, Newt scampered shoreward, terrified that her pursuer was about to catch her. Instead the beast had come to a stop, puffing and blowing. It slapped the water with a stumpy hind flipper, roaring at her. Newt’s first reaction was surprise. Here was a creature that she could actually outrun, even at her limping pace.

The realization gave her courage, and instead of hobbling away, she stayed, watching the blubber-tusker shake its fat neck at her. Again she ventured nearer, ignoring the animal’s deafening roars. She nosed the edge of a broken clamshell, tasting what was inside. A shock of delight went through her when the meaty flavor spread over her tongue. In a sudden frenzy, she attacked the shell bed, clawing open damaged shells and swallowing the rubbery meat inside, nearly breaking her fangs in the rush.

A splashing, roaring commotion sent her scooting away, a clamshell still wedged in her jaws. In her urge to eat as much as she could, she had forgotten the blubber-tusker. Again she kept well away from the creature’s lumbering charge, and it halted, quivering, blowing out through its whiskers in frustration.

Newt waited until it had gone back to raking the shell bed before she mounted her next raid. The fact that the huge beast was slower than she was gave her a mischievous joy. She spent the afternoon scavenging from the plundered shell beds and dodging the walrus. At last it lumbered seaward, dived into a wave, and was gone.

As sunset streaked the beach in silver and gold, Newt padded back to the cave where she had napped. Her belly was full enough to ease hunger cramps, though this food was different from anything she had eaten before, and her stomach gurgled.

When she reached her cave, it looked much friendlier. With food in her belly and less pain in her foot, her mind felt clearer. She decided that she disliked the beach less than other places. For the present, this part of it was hers. She limped backward until her tail lay against a block of sandstone and sprayed the rock with her scent.

Newt flattened her ears and snaked her head back and forth, suddenly fearing that someone would come and take this place from her. She waited, stiff and tense. Nothing happened. Waves rolled in and washed out. Birds drifted down the sky with distant calls.

She crawled into the cave, making a nest for herself in the warm sand. She wondered if the tusked sea-animal would return to the shell beds, and while she was wondering, drowsiness crept over her, drew her head down on her paw, and coaxed her into sleep.

Chapter Two

Ratha, the leader of the Named, squinted through the trees to a sun paled by blowing dust. She had grit in her fawn-colored pelt, in the fur of her tail, and between the toes of all four paws. Her tongue felt dry and sticky against her fangs. On the riverbank where she stood, three-horn deer and small dapplebacked horses milled in groups, guarded by her people. The Named had long ago given up the risky life of huters for the more stable existence of herders, living on the meat of the beasts they kept.

Many of the Named carried a small companion called a treeling on their backs: a lemurlike creature with large eyes, a pointed muzzle, a ringed tail, and hands instead of paws. The treelings were the descendants of a single female who had been adopted by one of the Named as a pet. Her hands had proved useful for tasks too difficult for claws or teeth.

Ratha had her own treeling, a female called Ratharee, who sat on her back and groomed her. She felt deft treeling fingers comb the fur along her spine. Ratharee seemed to know exactly where the fleas tickled and would groom there before Ratha twitched or scratched. Sometimes Ratha felt needle-sharp teeth as the treeling nibbled to dislodge a stubborn tick, but Ratharee never nipped her.

Ratha turned her attention to the animals. The dapplebacks stood with their three-toed forefeet in the sluggish flow, nuzzling the water and sucking it up with thirsty gulps. Ratha badly wanted a bath, but she knew she’d have to settle for licking herself with her tongue. The river was too shallow to do more than wet her belly.

At least it had some water. The brook that ran from the river through the home pastures had become a dry channel, forcing the Named to move their drinking site.

Every day the water supply dwindled as the river fell. It was so low now that the three-horns and dapplebacks could not be watered together, or their hooves would churn mud into the water, making it undrinkable. Ratha watched as Named herders held the animals together by circling them, snarling and showing teeth. Firekeepers took up outlying positions, some carrying torches bearing the fire-creature called the Red Tongue. In good times, when the meadow brook ran full and clear and the pasturage was lush, herders rarely displayed more than an irritated grimace to control the animals, and the Red Tongue was needed only to defend themselves against outside raids. Now thirst made the herdbeasts restive, irritable, likely to rebel or stampede. The herders needed the Firekeepers close by, backing up the threat of claws and teeth with the threat of fire.

The dapplebacks grunted and squealed, laying back their ears, shaking their stiff, short manes, and lashing out with hoofed toes at any herder not quick enough to evade their ill temper. Ratha’s flank still stung from an unexpected kick.

She gave a softprrrup that brought Ratharee from her back onto the nape of her neck. The treeling chirred and draped herself so that her forelegs and muzzle lay along the slant of one feline shoulder, while rear legs and tail extended along the other. The treeling angled her nose out, watching the commotion. Perhaps, Ratha thought, Ratharee was looking at her own treeling offspring, who now rode the backs of young herders.

Ratha paced the bank as the clan rounded up the dapplebacks that had already drunk, clearing the way for a group of three-horn does and fawns. She saw Thakur, the herding teacher, dodge a charge from a thirsty doe who threatened him with its forked nose-horn. His treeling, Aree, leaped from his scruff into the air in front of the deer, screeching and flailing her ringed tail. The startled herdbeast jumped sideways, its charge broken. Thakur and the others moved the does in to drink.

A grunting bellow rose above the tumult of lowing and bawling herdbeasts. Ratharee, startled, clung tightly to Ratha’s neck as the largest three-horn stag broke loose from the herd and headed for the river.

Snarling, Ratha leaped to join other herders dashing to cut the beast off. She found Thakur galloping alongside her through the scattered trees that edged the river. His copper coat flashed as he ran through patches of sun and shade with Aree riding on his nape.

“Turn the stag!” the herding teacher yowled. “Don’t try to block him!” Ratha saw Fessran, the Firekeeper leader, join the fray. A torch flame roared at the end of the branch in Fessran’s jaws. Close behind ran Bira, a red-gold shadow to Fessran’s sand-colored pelt.

Ratha skidded to a stop to let Ratharee scramble off. The treeling bounced on her hind legs over to Bira and jumped on alongside Bira’s own companion.

“Stay behind, Firekeepers,” Ratha called as she raced between saplings. The fire-creature she called the Red Tongue could cow aggressive animals, but the Named used it only if they had no other way.

She and Thakur turned the three-horn stag in tighter circles until it danced and bucked, pivoting on its hind feet to meet the herders with head horns and jabbing at them with both prongs of the forked nose-horn. The stag paused in its flurry, snorting and panting. Ratha saw her chance.

She lunged toward the three-horn stag, stamping with both forepaws together. She caught its gaze, locked her own with the animal’s. The three-horn bellowed, shook its heavy neck, but could not look away. Ratha took another step toward the beast, intensifying her stare. She put all her will into it, menacing and hypnotizing the beast.

She took another slow step, holding her body low, bowing her back, hunching her shoulders. Memories of a similar incident edged into her mind, threatening to distract her. Once, when she had been Thakur’s student, she had confronted a defiant three-horn. That time she allowed her gaze to break, and the animal nearly trampled her.

From behind her came the soft hiss of the Red Tongue as it fluttered on Fessran’s torch. The power was there, if she wanted or needed it. But the Red Tongue was too savage a thing to be used lightly when dealing with herdbeasts. Brought too close, it could madden them, and the only choice then was a quick, killing bite. She didn’t want to sacrifice the stag now, even though the Named needed the meat. It was a bad time and place; the other animals were too restive.

Even so, the instinct to attack rose up in her, almost overwhelming her need to approach slowly, eyes fixed on the quarry. She fought down an urge to spring that tightened her muscles like a cramp. She knew that to return the stag safely to the herd, she must master it by the strength of her gaze. Her stare never faltered or wavered, holding the beast until its proud head dropped in defeat.

Ratha let out her breath as Ratharee came scampering back to her and clambered on. Other herders led the stag back to the herd. She shook herself, sneezed dust from her nose.

Thakur trotted up, his green eyes glowing in his copper-furred face. His treeling, Aree, was Ratharee’s mother. He had originally brought Aree to the clan as a pet.

“Well, yearling,” Thakur said, using his old teasing name for Ratha, “that was one of the best stare-downs I’ve seen.”

“We need every skilled herder we have,” Ratha answered, warmed by his praise. “Even me.” Her tail twitched. “And Shongshar’s rise taught me what can happen if I forget that I am also one of the clan and must work among our people to understand our needs.”

She paced back between the trees with Ratharee on her shoulder, thinking about Shongshar, the orange-eyed stranger she had admitted into the clan. His mating with Bira had produced cubs lacking the intelligence and self-awareness that the Named valued, and Ratha had been forced to exile those youngsters so that they would not grow up in the clan. Embittered by the loss, Shongshar had turned against her, using the Red Tongue to create a worshipful following among the Firekeepers that was strong enough to cast her down from leadership and out of the clan.

It had been two summers since Ratha had fought to gain back her position, but the Named had been long in recovering. Some, like the Firekeeper leader, Fessran, still bore scars on their pelts from Shongshar’s long fangs. Fessran had sided with the Firekeepers and Shongshar in the struggle two summers ago. But when Shongshar held Ratha down for the killing bite, Fessran flung herself between the two, taking the wound. Ratha had escaped his saber-teeth, but her memory of him would never fade from hermind and only gradually from those of her people. And now, too soon after that wrenching time, the drought had come.

The Named watered their herdbeasts with no more major incidents and drove them to a nearby clearing that still had scattered grass and a few thickets with green leaves. Ratha lay down in the shade, missing the sunning rock that stood in the middle of clan ground. She liked to lie on the sunning rock, looking out over the beasts and herders. But now, though spring had not yet yielded to summer, the brook running through the old pasture had dried up, and the green faded into gold and brown.

And how long would the river itself last? Each day it shrank, and the net of cracks in the muddy banks grew and deepened. Ratha remembered tales told by elders of seasons when the Named had left clan ground in a search for pasturage and water. But it had been so long ago that no one could recall where they went or how they managed.

As the animals straggled past, she watched dappleback foals capering about their mothers. Fewer had been born this dry spring. Among the three-horns, several fawns butted and nuzzled at the dams’ flanks. Three-horns often had twins, but this season none of the does had dropped more than one fawn, as if their bodies sensed that they would have food and milk to rear only a single youngster.

Ratha tipped her head back to eye the sun’s white-gold fire against a bleached sky. If rain came again, even a little, the forage might recover enough to last through the summer. But nothing could be done to recover from the disappointment of spring breeding. The herds would decrease instead of expanding this year. Still, if the Named limited the number of their own new cubs, perhaps they could live on what they had.

Ratha gave a soft snort at her own presumption. If there was anything she couldn’t control, it was the fertility of Named females. Though the clan’s mating season had been delayed by the hardships of a dry winter and spring, it would still come. And, if things went as they had the last breeding time, she herself wouldn’t be adding to the number of new cubs.

In a way she felt relieved. Watching mothers cope with their litters of squalling, scrambling youngsters made her feel tired, and the occasional times she did nursery duty, her patience was gone long before someone rescued her. It was clear she was not fit for motherly duties. Still…

Stop dreaming, she told herself crossly.You had your chance, and look what happened. She sighed. Every once in a while thoughts of her lost litter by the Un-Named male, whom she called Bonechewer, still entered her mind. The Un-Named were those of Ratha’s kind who lived outside the clan. Though they resembled her people so closely that they could mate with the Named, they lacked the spark of self-awareness that made thought and language possible. Or so Ratha had believed until her banishment for daring to challenge clan leadership with the Red Tongue, the fire-creature she had found. Her exile forced her to live among the Un-Named, and there she met Bonechewer, an intelligent male with the ability to speak. He and Ratha had mated.

By now she should have forgotten, but images of the cubs, especially of her daughter, Thistle-chaser, still haunted her. She remembered Thisde-chaser’s beautiful empty eyes, which spoke of a mind too stunted to know the world in the way the Named did.

I wonder where she is now. I remember Bonechewer said she lived to run with the Un-Named. Ratha sighed, blowing the breath out between her front fangs and startling Ratharee. Long ago she had dismissed any thought of trying to find the cubs. What good would it do her, or them either? She would look at their eyes and the old rage would rekindle, the fury of knowing that her flesh and blood were nothing more than animals like the herdbeasts on which she fed or the marauders she fought, or the treeling she carried on her back. Even Ratharee’s eyes held more flickerings of the mind’s light than her sons’ and daughter’s ever would.

She tore herself away from the bleak landscape of her memory and gazed out at the herders, their beasts, and their treelings. They were her sons and daughters now — all those who made up the clan, all those who knew names and their worth. She sighted along her nose to a distant point where a fire burned with a Firekeeper standing watch nearby. This too was her progeny, this flame-creature called the Red Tongue, with its power to twist and sear those who bore it. If she had known of this when she first found the Red Tongue, would she have brought it back as a gift to her people? She shivered again with the memory of Shongshar and the struggle between herders and Firekeepers that nearly destroyed the Named.

Now she was wiser. One like Shongshar would never again rise within the clan, not while she had wit and strength to prevent it.

Ratharee rubbed her small head against Ratha’s cheek, as if reminding her of the unexpected gift those events had brought: the coming of Ratharee and her kind. If Thakur hadn’t found that injured treeling cub, or if he had found it and decided to eat it…

She glanced to one side, catching a flicker of motion in the corner of one eye. Thakur, the clan herding teacher, was trotting toward her with Aree bouncing on his shoulder.

“Are the beasts settled?” she called to him.

“Yes, now that they’ve drunk. I’m glad you decided to stay near the river.” He lay down beside her and licked dust from his copper fur.

“I’m worried, herding teacher,” Ratha said. “You know how few young herdbeasts were born this season. We will have to limit the number we use for meat.”

“There won’t be enough,” Thakur said, looking at her steadily.

“I know. We can’t depend on the herdbeasts entirely for food. Later there may be other food, such as those soggy fruit-things the treelings eat. I know you like fruits, but my stomach won’t stand them.” She paused. “The Named used to hunt all kinds of animals. Perhaps some of those that we used to hunt we can learn to herd. It wasn’t that long ago that old Baire brought three-horns to us.”

“I remember when a certain three-horn stag chased a young herding student up a tree.” Thakur’s eyes glowed with amusement at this memory of Ratha. “But you are right, clan leader. We have overlooked other animals. We should keep creatures that can do well in dry seasons, as well as those that flourish in good times.”

“This is what I will do,” said Ratha finally. “I will call all the strong, young herders and Firekeepers to the sunning rock. Those I need to guard the animals and the Red Tongue on our lands I will send back to their posts. Those who remain will stand in pairs in a circle with their backs tome and their noses pointed outward. Each pair will travel in the direction they face, seeking a place with water and forage for our herds, as well as new beasts we can learn to keep.”

“You know that the mating season will soon come, even if it is short,” said Thakur. “I heard Fessran yowling last night. I don’t think she was just singing.”

“With fewer of the Named on clan land during the mating season, fewer cubs will be born, I hope.”

“Perhaps that is sad, clan leader, but it is wise,” answered Thakur. “And I will also take my place among those you send.”

Ratha was unsure how to respond to Thakur’s offer. She found herself starting to lick a paw and scrub her face to avoid answering him.

“Yearling,” he said, using his old teasing name for her again, “I leave the clan every mating season. You know why, and I thought my going no longer bothered you.”

She licked her pad and gave her cheek a harder swipe than she meant to.“You won’t sire empty-eyed cubs on me, if that’s what you fear. I have not birthed cubs by anyone since Bonechewer. The matings don’t take.”

Thakur looked at the ground.“It is not just you I worry about, Ratha. The others too — Bira, Fessran. They don’t think about such things when the mating fever takes them. If I stay, the risk of siring witless cubs remains.”

Ratha knew what he said was true, and a part of her cried out in sorrow for him. He would never take a mate from among the Named and risk fathering young on a clan female.

Thakur, along with Bonechewer, who was his brother and had lived with the Un-Named, had been born from a mating between a clan female called Reshara and an Un-Named male. Both brothers possessed gifts, showing that such pairings could produce cubs with the light of intelligence in their eyes. But the results were too erratic to trust and too tragic to risk.

Though Thakur knew only that Ratha had birthed Bonechewer’s cubs and lost them, he did not know why. But he had witnessed the results of another mating between one of the Named and an Un-Named outsider.

Shongshar’s cubs by Bira had lacked the ability to speak and think that the Named so valued. Thakur knew that well, for he had helped Ratha carry both litterlings from clan ground.

Thakur nosed Ratha gently, mistaking the reason for her mood.“Don’t mourn because you have no young, clan leader. We, the Named, are your cubs. And I also have sons and daughters in the young ones who learn the ways of herding from me.”

The treeling on his shoulder chirred, as if to remind him that she too was part of his adopted kin. Ratha’s small companion, Ratharee, trilled back at her mother.

“When those who are to journey take their places, let me choose where I will stand,” Thakur asked. “And let me go by myself, as I always do.”

“Do you know where you want to go?”

“Yes. I will stand and lift my head to place the setting sun at my whisker-tips. It will lead me to a place I have seen only once, from a distance, to a body of water greater than any lake.”

“Then I will have the gathering at sunset, and you will choose your place,” Ratha answered, her head full of the pictures Thakur’s words conjured. She felt a prick of envy, wishing she could travel with him, leaving behind the burden of leadership. But he would return and perhaps take her with him to see what he had found, though not for a while. She watched him pad away with Aree on his back, his tail swinging. She wished he didn’t remind her so much of Bonechewer, the father of her own lost cubs.

In the midafternoon heat Ratha ambled instead of trotted as she made her rounds among the scattered beasts, herders, and Firekeepers. At the nearest guard-fire, she saw Fessran. A tickle of worry about her friend crept along her back. The Firekeeper leader had seemed subdued lately.

Ratha touched noses and rubbed the full length of her body against her friend, crooking her tail over Fessran’s back. She could tell by the warm tone in Fessran’s scent that the Firekeeper welcomed such open affection. But underneath, Fessran’s smell told Ratha her friend was troubled.

“Thakur says he heard you singing last night,” Ratha said, trying to tease. “It is known among the Named that when Fessran is in full voice, the mating season is not far behind.”

Fessran’s reply was flat. “Thakur must have his ears stuffed with herdbeast hair. That was Bira, not me.”

Ratha’s ears swiveled forward, and she tried to look into Fessran’s eyes as the Firekeeper asked, “No one’s been complaining about me, have they? I mean, I haven’t shirked my duties even while I’ve been looking for my treeling.”

“No,” Ratha answered. She felt her own companion on her shoulder. Fessran looked a bit scruffy. Ever since her Fessree had disappeared, she had to depend on her own tongue for grooming.

“Do you want to borrow Ratharee?” Ratha asked.

“No. I appreciate the offer, but grooming isn’t the same if another treeling does it.” Fessran let her forepaws slide out until her creamy belly fur flattened the grass. “Funny. I never thought I’d really get attached to the little flea-picker. You and Thakur are as soft as dung when it comes to treelings, but I thought I was being more practical about it. It’s not Fessree’s little hands I miss. It’s her sitting on my shoulder and making noises in my ear. I got used to it.”

Ratha saw her shift some of the weight off her left foreleg, rolling half onto her side.

“How is your leg?”

“Thanks to Shongshar, it’ll never be the same again, even though it’s had this long to heal. I should be grateful that it works at all. Shoulder’s just a bit stiff. Bites heal better when you’re younger.” She licked the two puckered scars on her upper foreleg. There was another set of scars on her ribs where Shongshar’s saber-teeth had emerged through the leg and into her chest. It was a near-fatal wound, and Ratha was amazed and grateful Fessran had healed this well. Although Bira was coming along as Fessran’s backup for Firekeeper leader, Ratha needed Fessran in that role.

“You know, I wouldn’t feel so bad about Fessree,” Ratha said in an attempt to sound comforting. “Treelings sometimes wander off, but they come back. Aree did that to Thakur.”

“Well, I thought it might be because of the mating season. Everybody’s smell changing and all that. I notice it makes treelings nervous.” Fessran fell silent for a minute, but her scent told Ratha that she wasn’t in heat and probably wouldn’t be this season. After her wound and the long recovery that followed, she wasn’t yet in condition to bear a litter.

“You know why I’m so caught up with that miserable flea-picker?” Fessran asked suddenly, after a long silence. “It’s because of Nyang.”

Nyang. For a moment Ratha switched her tail, lost. Nyang was dead. He had been Fessran’s eldest cub from her last litter, one of those who went over to Shongshar when the clan split into two factions. He had been drowned when Ratha and Thakur managed to flood out the cave where Shongshar had hidden his worship-fire. In helping Ratha to dig the trench that diverted the stream from its banks, Fessran had helped in her son’s death.

“I don’t know why it’s bothering me. I still have Khushi and Chita, though they both are grown. I never felt I knew Nyang as well as I did the others. And then he was gone, and I lost my chance. Well, it’s foolish to mourn now.”

“No, it isn’t foolish at all,” said Ratha, thinking of her own daughter, Thistle-chaser.

Fessran stared at her paws.“After his death I kept thinking of Nyang until it hurt too much. And then Fessree started grooming me very gently and saying treeling nonsense in my ear, and it helped.”

“I know.”

Fessran lifted her muzzle abruptly, startling Ratha.“Do you really know, Ratha? Or would you like me to believe you know? Even though you are clan leader, you still seem so young to me. Have you ever felt the pain of losing a cub you birthed?”

Ratha closed her eyes, trying to keep Thistle-chaser’s story from rushing onto her tongue. No one knew about her lost litter except Thakur, and it was something best kept to herself. Besides, what good would it do to tell except to raise her own old pain again? Fessran didn’t need that. What she wanted was strength from her clan leader, not weakness.

Instead Ratha said,“If it will help, Thakur and I will search for Fessree.”

Fessran hauled herself to her feet, trying not to favor her shoulder.“I’ve been everywhere. It’s easier to see into the treetops now that the leaves are shriveling in the drought. No. You’re both busy. I’ll just leave Fessree to herself, the ungrateful bug-eater.”

She got up and walked off, swinging her tail. Ratha sat at the foot of the sunning rock, looking after her and wondering what else she could have said. Fessran’s change in mood had caught her by surprise, thrown her off balance. The accusation against her of immaturity and lack of understanding stung like a scratch. And even more so because it wasn’t true.

As she had promised, Ratha called the gathering on the following day just before sunset. The Named came to sit before the sunning rock in the old pasture, while the Firekeepers and their leader kindled the meeting fire from torches brought from the fire-den. Ratha noticed that the blaze was made large enough to serve as a beacon to those still coming in from distant corners of clan territory, but not so fierce as to serve as a hypnotic center for the gathering. That way lay danger, as she and Fessran had both learned. Their experience with Shongshar and his fire-worship had taught them caution.

From the sunning rock, she looked down at her friend. Fessran stood to one side, sitting stiffly with a torch in her jaws, shadows dancing across her sand-colored fur. Though at first Fessran had been reluctant, she now allowed and encouraged her Firekeepers to make use of treeling skills. And the treelings had proven more useful to the Firekeepers than anyone could have foreseen. Only this morning, Fessran’s assistant, Bira, had showed Ratha a young student who had taught his treeling to twist grass and bark into a long tail strong enough to wrap about a bundle of sticks. With twigs bound together, a Firekeeper could drag much heavier loads.

Ratha had been intending to send the youngster and his treeling out on the search, but now, she decided, she would keep him here and have him teach his new art to others who might use it. The young male would be disappointed at being denied the adventure, but he would be proud to know he had developed a skill worth keeping.

She sat up and spoke of the purpose for this gathering and of the searchers she was sending out to seek new sources of game, pasturage, and water. She was careful to say she would choose only those who could be spared from their duties, so as not to leave the herds vulnerable or the fires unguarded. And when she had finished, she called Thakur and let him take the place of his choosing, facing into the setting sun.

The other searchers, chosen from among both herders and Firekeepers, stood in pairs with their whiskers facing outward. Thakur stood alone. He was used to being by himself with just Aree for company, and he was experienced in fending for himself away from the clan.

“You who will journey have been first to eat from the kill,” said Ratha. “Your bellies are full, your legs strong, and the hope of the Named goes with you.”

At her word, the scouts started on their search. Thakur glanced back as he took his first steps from the sunning rock. The glow in his eyes and the sheen on his fur told her of his eagerness. The treeling on his back fluffed her fur petulantly, as if saying she was getting too settled for traveling, but she gave her tail a jaunty wave in parting.

Ratha watched the scouts as they left, but her gaze lingered longest on one copper coat.

Though you are not taking the Red Tongue itself, Thakur, she thought,may the power of its spirit guard you.

Chapter Three

Newt’s ears swiveled forward as she woke, crawled from her sandstone cave, and limped onto the beach. Her pricked foot was tender but no longer painful, and she soon forgot about it. She tested the wind, finding the smells of creatures she had already encountered, such as the short-tusked walrus, butthere was an unfamiliar scent among them. Through the background of wind and waves, she heard a distant clamor with odd hooting sounds breaking through.

Warily she hunched down in the sand, all senses extended for danger. She wondered if she should retreat from the beach and was surprised by a possessive anger that welled up inside her. No. This was her place. She had claimed it, left her footprints here, laid down her scent.

She circled downwind, guided by the strange smell. It had a strong seaweed-and-fish tang, resembling the scent of the blubber-tusker, but it differed enough from that animal’s smell for her to identify it as new. Peering up the beach, she saw a natural jetty of gray sandstone thrusting out to sea beneath a cliff. On the promontory, gray and black shapes sprawled in the sun.

At first she thought these animals resembled the blubber-tusker, but their broad bodies were less blubbery and more compact, slate colored on top and cream below. Chunky fore- and hindlimbs folded back against sleek sides as the creatures lay on their bellies. Their heads were long and tapered, reminding Newt of the muzzle of a forest dappleback rather than the snout of a blubber-tusker. They also had leaf-shaped ears that swiveled and twitched.

Newt narrowed her eyes against the morning sea glare. She felt the sun heat her back while her shadow inched along the sand. The wind gusted, bringing her the briny food-scent of shellfish. She remembered how she had plundered the blubber-tusker’s leavings.

As she came around the foot of the steep bluff, she saw a small cove that was sheltered from the wind by sandstone cliffs jutting up on either side. Within that refuge she saw another sea-beast and two smaller companions that resembled it. The large beast wallowed in the surf, while the small ones lay higher on the beach. Newt hid behind the rocks and crept closer for a better look.

The animal lifted its head and pricked its ears, then settled back complacently, chin resting on a short, fat neck. It grunted to itself as the waves washed its sides. Again Newt saw the elongated muzzle, resembling that of a dappleback, but instead of a rounded nose and chin, the creature had a tapered snout with a pronounced overbite. It yawned, revealing downward-pointing incisors in the upper jaw and a cluster of tusks thrusting from the lower.

The sight made Newt uneasy and she hid, but soon the sound of splashing coaxed her to peer out again from her hiding place. The glistening form of the sea-beast slapped against wet sand. With splay-toed webbed forefeet, the creature hauled itself onto the beach, jaws wedged wide open by a huge, muck-covered shell.

The beast seemed to ignore its hind legs, letting them drag behind while it humped and heaved along on belly and stout forelegs. As it crushed the clamshell in its jaws, seawater spurted from the clam’s leathery siphon.

Waves of tantalizing scent reached Newt. She licked her chops but forced herself to remain still, waiting. She listened to the scraping and grinding sounds while the shellfish smell made her drool.

The small sea-beasts wiggled on their bellies in the sand. They lurched up on thick legs and bumbled around until they fell against each other or the big one. From the forbearance the large beast showed the two, Newt sensed she was looking at a female and her young.

Newt marked the youngsters as prey, for they were small enough to kill easily. She would have to wait until their parent wasn’t paying attention. For the present she would settle for clam scraps.

Her hunger was no longer strong enough to blunt her curiosity, for she had eaten from the blubber-tusker’s leavings, and she was intrigued with this new creature. Though this beast ate shellfish, lived on the beach, and had tusks, its face, neck, and ears reminded her of a dappleback, and it was those attributes that made the strongest impression on her. Once she had seen a small mare with two spindly foals, and now this memory emerged as an image, coloring her feelings about the sea-beast family. She stared at the strange mare that swam in the sea.

This creature, whom Newt now thought of as a“ seamare,” continued to wrench apart a huge shell with forefeet and tusks. The seamare’s black forepaws, with their wide tapering toes and the webbing between, were nothing like the flippers of the blubber-tusker or the hoofed toes of a dappleback.

The longer she watched the seamare, the more Newt focused on those odd, splay-toed feet. As she had once identified with an image of herself as the newt, so she identified the seamare with the image of those strange feet. To her, the creature became Splayfoot.

Newt stayed hidden until the seamare finished gorging on clams and fell asleep on a low sandstone shelf, with both seafoals sprawled nearby. Newt smelled a few savory bits remaining from the seamare’s feast of shellfish. Carefully she hobbled from her hideaway down through the rocks to the terrace where Splayfoot lay. She got so close she could smell the salty beast-scent and hear the seamare’s rumbling snore. Quickly she snatched up the nearest morsel and went for the next.

Suddenly the seamare’s neck muscles tightened as the beast lifted her head, her tapered muzzle pointing at Newt. With an ungainly heave, the beast swept both chunky forelegs around and heaved up her forequarters. From her open mouth came a booming roar that echoed between the rocks of the cove and made Newt skitter back with flattened ears.

For an instant the two confronted each other. With surprising speed, Splayfoot humped herself toward Newt, swinging her tusks. The seamare’s anger propelled her up onto her rear legs, and Newt discovered that they weren’t as useless as they had first appeared.

Newt hadn’t expected the seamare’s sudden transformation from belly-dragger to walker. Splayfoot had a clumsy gait, with out-thrust elbows and turned-in feet, but it served well enough. Now the seamare was a four-footed behemoth lumbering toward the enemy that threatened herself and her young.

With a mouth full of sandy clamshells and meat, Newt couldn’t use her teeth, but she wasn’t about to drop her takings. Gathering her hind feet beneath her, she leaped as high as she could, clinging and scrabbling at the rocks above.

Once she had gained a secure perch, she started to eat, looking down at the seamare. Unable to hold the shell down with both forepaws, she wedged one side of it under a boulder and held it there with her good leg while she worried the meat away with her side teeth.

Splayfoot strained her head back as far as her thick neck would allow and gave a bellow that almost made Newt choke on the rubbery clam flesh she was gulping. The agile youngsters scrambled back to their mother’s side as the seamare pointed her muzzle in the air and sniffed suspiciously. Splayfoot lumbered along on her belly, probing the way ahead with the long bristles on her muzzle and stabbing the sand with her tusks, as if she thought the menace might still be lurking there.

She snuffled among the scattered shells, putting back her ears and rolling her eyes. But instead of retreating from the place, as prey animals would when they caught the smell of meat eaters, the seamare gave a bubbling roar and knocked all the remaining shell fragments away with a powerful sweep of her foreleg. She opened her jaws and waggled her head, giving the lurking meat eater a good look at her tusks and teeth.

Newt decided that she’d had her fill of clam scraps. She smelled other things that might be edible, such as carrion and seabird eggs. But first she wanted to rest. She retreated as fast as she could limp back to her refuge at the foot of the weathered sandstone cliff.

Several days later, Newt was picking her way back down through the rocks after a successful egg-hunting expedition. As she licked yolk from her muzzle and turned toward her cave, she heard barks and growls, followed by the seamare’s bellow.

On the beach in the cove below, she saw Splayfoot with her two seafoals huddling at her sides. Five small animals with sleek, wet pelts and sinuous shapes surrounded and menaced the family. These small sea lions reminded Newt of the otters she had seen in the ocean, lolling in wave troughs. The otters swam with webbed toes and long, powerful tails, whereas these animals had clawed flippers and much shorter tails. Their ears were small and lay close to their heads, and their eyes bulged. Their muzzles were tapered, with powerful jaws and teeth.

Their bark was hoarse and throaty, unlike the cry of any creature she knew. Both forelimbs were short, the forefeet joining almost directly to the shoulder to form front flippers. The two rear feet lay so far back on the body that they suggested a fishlike tail, but the creatures could bound along at surprising speed by arching their backs. Newt wrinkled her nose at the fishy undertone in their smell.

Splayfoot heaved herself up on her hind legs with bubbling roars and honks, swinging her head with its armament of forward-thrusting tusks. The attackers answered with barks and yelps while they wove about their prey.

Newt felt a growl rumbling in her own throat. She had prowled among these rocks and terraces enough to think of them as her territory. For an instant the growling and barking made her hesitate. A creature bold enough to attack Splayfoot might well prove a threat to her. This made her snarl and put back her ears, rage washing away fear.

Newt sprang down from the terrace and skidded onto the beach in a spray of wet sand. A sleek form slithered at her and struck like a snake, driving its teeth into a rear foot. Yowling, she leaped, twisting herself to pounce backward. One paw landed on the beast, but one wasn’t enough. Newt’s opponent bared its teeth and barked at her with a blast of fishy breath, then scooted free to bite her on the tail.

Another barking raider grew bold and rushed Splayfoot in a series of bounding jumps. The seamare swung one leg in a clumsy blow that knocked the beast over. As the animal rolled, its forelimbs flapped in the air. In a bound, Newt was among the pack, lunging on one forefoot and challenging gaping jaws with a snarl.

She found out quickly that the enemies looked clumsier than they were. They dodged her raking kicks and worried her hocks, writhing around and underneath her. She seized one attacker by its thick scruff and threw it aside. Another, trying to tear her crippled foreleg, was met with a hind-foot kick full of open claws that left it squealing and bleeding, but still willing to fight. Newt found herself close to Splayfoot as the seamare clubbed the sleek forms that darted at her from under and around the rocks.

The larger seafoal jabbed out with its small, sharp tusks, while the smaller one clung to its mother’s flank. Splayfoot wheeled abruptly to fend off attack from the side, leaving the smaller seafoal unguarded. Bullet heads with large, bulging eyes turned toward it. Three sets of jaws seized its legs. The raiders hopped and scampered backward, dragging the bawling seafoal.

Splayfoot clumped after them, honking her rage as the creatures yanked the seafoal over the jagged rocks, battering its body as they went. By the time they dragged it into the surf, the foal no longer struggled or cried out. Newt saw the seamare halt, show her tusks at the killers, and then swing around to defend her remaining youngster.

Two raiders now remained, the one Newt had tossed aside and another. Newt cut off their charge toward the seamare and seafoal, driving them back. One raider hesitated; the other recklessly attacked Newt’s flank. In the heat of the fight, it had forgotten Splayfoot.

The seamare was on it like an angry, rolling boulder, gouging and trampling. With a powerful clout from a forelimb, she belted the raider into the jagged rocks and broke its back. Still twitching, the body slid until it was caught by a spike of rock, where it hung like a stranded mass of sea kelp.

The last raider’s barks turned into frenzied yelps. It bounded toward the surf with Newt and Splayfoot after it. In a few steps Newt had outdistanced the seamare, and the chase was all hers.

Too angry to stop herself, Newt galloped into the ocean after the escaping enemy. She slapped and swatted at the sleek, brown form as it bobbed before her on the back of a rolling breaker. She tried to lunge but was thrown off balance by the current and the sand drawing away from beneath her feet. With a wriggle of its glistening body, the enemy disappeared.

Scrambling wildly to keep her footing, Newt fell face first into the next wave. The swirling water pulled her down and spun her around in a gritty whirlpool of brine mixed with sand. It banged her against rocks on the bottom and spewed her up again. Choking on seawater and panic, she paddled on the back of another wave as it lifted her up, dropped her, and sucked her under once again.

She had no idea that moving water possessed such power. River and stream currents tugged at her belly and limbs when she crossed, but these waves tossed her around, playing with her as she would toy with small prey.

Panic ran through her, drumming loudly in her ears. It became the sound of the Dreambiter’s feet behind her, compressing her vision to a narrow tunnel, through which she saw the swirling water as if from a distance. Now the image of the Dreambiter mixed with the surging ocean, but the bite, when it came, was as painful as ever, and the shock made her stop struggling. The currents became claws, pulling her under, and the sound of the waves a triumphant hissing, saying that the Dreambiter had won.

Rage suddenly punched through her growing stupor. She coughed explosively with the air remaining in her lungs, then thrashed with legs and tail against the undertow until her head broke the surface. Gulping air, she felt the frenzy of panic die away and with it the Dreambiter. Her vision opened again; the drumming in her head faded.

With a savage twist, she righted herself, pointed her nose toward the beach, and paddled. In the short intervals between fighting breakers, she noticed something that she hadn’t had time to realize: She was stroking with her crippled foreleg. She could feel the unused muscles pull painfully as her limb strove to answer the demands made of it.

Abruptly, a downward stroke of her good forepaw scraped sand. She swung her hind feet down, gained purchase, and pushed hard to climb ashore. The drop-off was steeper than she had expected, but soon the surging water had fallen to her breast, then below her belly. She staggered up the beach, out of the surf, trembling with exhaustion. Her bad foreleg throbbed, but from the ache she gained understanding. If she were forced to use the leg, it would respond. Though its motion was crabbed and constricted by shrunken muscles, the leg would move.

With brine streaming from her coat, Newt limped up the beach, the crippled foreleg tucked against her chest. She was so accustomed to getting around on three legs that the discovery that it would move slipped from her mind.

The episode with the flipper-footed enemies disgruntled her. They escaped her so easily by diving into the ocean. She wanted to master this powerful, surging, rolling water that seemed so much like a living creature. And once she had learned to swim in it, what a surprise she would give those raiders if they attacked again!

A soft thump drew her attention to the body of the one that Splayfoot had killed. It had fallen in a tumbled heap from the rock that had caught it to the sand below. She went to the carcass and nosed it until the body lay on its side.

A grunt made her look up. Splayfoot hunkered a short distance from the carcass, with her seafoal at her flank. Turning her head from side to side, she eyed the dead animal. Newt started to withdraw, afraid that Splayfoot might claim the kill, since she had made it. If the seamares ate clams, they might eat flesh as well. But the seamare satisfied herself with only a few half-hearted pokes, then turned away.

Newt needed no further encouragement. Growling possessively, she seized the prey, sank her teeth deep into its neck, and scuttled off to her cave.

During the next few days, Newt stayed near Splayfoot and her foal. The seamare chased her off only when she ventured too close to the youngster and gradually allowed her to come closer. Splayfoot dredged shellfish from the shoals and brought her catch back to the terrace, where she ate in her usual messy fashion, leaving scraps for Newt to filch.

Splayfoot often left her isolated beach to join with others of her kind, who formed a loosely associated herd. Gradually Newt began to follow her. At first her presence made the herd restless, but soon they became used to her.

After loss of her smaller foal, the seamare lavished all her attention on the larger one. Some of this seemed to spill over toward Newt, who wondered if the seamare was deliberately leaving scraps within easy reach, as if to encourage her.

She made the most of the opportunities Splayfoot gave her, but without thought of gratitude. As she limped back to her cave with a mouthful of clam scraps, she even considered how to distract the seamare and take the surviving seafoal. But that idea soon faded from her mind. Splayfoot and her seafoal became neighbors rather than prey. Without competition from a sibling, the large seafoal could nurse as much as he wanted. Whenever Newt thought of him, she remembered how greedily he guzzled his mother’s milk. As the seamare had become Splayfoot to her, so the seafoal became Guzzler.

Having nearly drowned in the rough surf, Newt was fearful of venturing into it again. But she hungered for revenge against the barking raiders who had attacked Splayfoot and then escaped into the ocean.

Several days after the incident, Newt’s fear had faded enough to let her try wading in the sea. She chose a long, shallow slope where the waves broke before they rolled in. With her tail flipping apprehensively, she limped into the ocean until the surge came up to her belly. But even gentled surf had currents that tugged at her legsand threatened to unbalance her. The undertow stole the sand from beneath her pawpads, making her feet slide and twist.

As if to demonstrate that there was nothing to make a fuss about, Splayfoot humped herself to the waterline, slipped in, and stood up, the sea helping to buoy her and take the weight off her rear legs. Her stout forelimbs, however, remained firmly planted, unaffected by the strong currents that threatened to wrench Newt’s legs out from under her. Newt had already noticed that the seamare’s front legs were rigid from elbow to foot, allowing no twisting of the lower leg. This resulted in her clumsy land gait. In the surging currents of the shallows inshore, it became an advantage, for Splayfoot’s stout forepaws could not turn beneath her.

Newt staggered on three legs, struggling to keep herself upright. At last she gave up and hobbled up the cove beach above the surf line. The water was too rough. Her ears twitched back with irritation as she watched the seamare cavorting in the breakers. She turned her back on the sea and went foraging.

After satisfying her hunger on seabird eggs, she did not return to her usual sleeping place for a nap but wandered south. Her way led onto the large crescent beach that lay between the seamare’s natural jetty and another point to the south. She paced through the crusty sand of the backshore, guided by a dim recollection of the territory she had crossed to come here. Though she did not know what she was looking for, she kept on until she stood atop a low bluff, looking down onto a wide, shallow lagoon.

Unlike the green foamy surf of the jetty, the water here was so clear that she could see tiny wave ripples in the sand at the bottom. It lapped gently against the shore, sheltered from the wind that lashed the open ocean. She came to the water’s edge and let it wash the toes of her good forefoot while the intricate lacing of sunlight on the wavelets dazzled her. She waded in, feeling the water seep through her fur. Here in the shallows, it was warmed by the sun and felt tepid instead of cold.

Enjoying the silken stroking of the water against her skin as she moved, Newt waded deeper, letting herself be floated off her feet. She started to paddle, but the splashing was awkward and she stopped. It felt so easy and relaxing to just hang in the water with legs extended, letting herself be teased along by vagrant currents. She wasn’t afraid. It was so shallow that she could put her feet down and stop drifting any time she wanted. The noon sun above cast her shadow along the bottom, surrounding it with bright, shimmering rings.

So fascinated was she by this that she ducked her head under to get a better look and got a noseful of brine. A spark of alarm and the memory of her near drowning almost made her panic, but she remembered how a blast of exhaled breath had blown the water out and kept her from choking.

She’d done enough, at least for one day. She hauled herself out, dripping, shook off, and went about her business. She had found what she wanted: a place where she could immerse herself in this strange new element and teach herself to master it.

She began to look forward to her daily jaunts to the lagoon for a swim. This way of moving in water allowed her to use her crippled foreleg much more than when walking. As she stroked with the good forepaw, the backwash swirled around the other, gently tugging and stretching stiffened joints and muscles. Often the leg ached when she limped ashore, but she sensed it was a good hurt and one that might lead to healing.

Her fascination with the patterns of light and shadow cast by the sun on the lagoon bottom led her to try ducking her head under again and opening her eyes. Finding that she could keep water out of her nose and mouth by holding air in her lungs, she could soon submerge her head without feeling suffocated. Her sight underwater was blurry but good enough to let her make out objects on the sandy bottom.

Before long, she abandoned her instinctive but ineffective paddling with her head held above water. Now she stretched out her entire body and immersed her head. She discovered that she could pull herself through the water with sweeping strokes of her good forepaw. Though this worked, she had a tendency to veer off to one side, which she countered by using her bad leg as much as she could.

Though she worked hard to gain skill, she often let herself relax by gliding around in the lagoon, feeling the water caress her belly fur and watching sandy shoals pass beneath. It brought a soothing escape from the demands of her life and the painful memories that still lay like a cloud over her mind. Drifting in liquid silence, she was not reminded of her limitations, either of mind or body. Here the water gave only its gentlest challenge, rewarding her with something rare in her life: pleasure.

Though Newt remained wary of the tailed sea lions that had attacked the seamare’s young, she had no idea that a bird might try to take a seafoal. At first she didn’t look up from her early morning prowling when the raptor’s shadow crossed her path. She often saw sea eagles among the birds overhead, but they had never proved a threat.

The whistling of air through feathers made her stare skyward as a huge black-and-white-crested sea eagle dived at the seamare. It dropped swiftly toward Splayfoot’s surviving seafoal, Guzzler, who was sleeping apart from his mother in a sun-warmed hollow of rock. A feeling of guardianship and responsibility as well as the urge to defend her territory sent Newt sprinting to meet the diving bird. The power of her hindquarters drove her so hard and fast thather good foreleg nearly collapsed under the strain.

She charged straight into the mass of feathers and flapping pinions that filled her vision. Talons struck down at Guzzler, but Newt hit first. Leaping high with her good foreleg stiffly extended, she punched the big bird out of the air. The crested eagle flopped to one side, beating its great wings and screaming its wrath. It righted itself on its curved talons and mantled its wings at Newt, turning its head quickly from side to side as if assessing this new threat.

With a defiant scream, it hopped toward the squirming seafoal. Newt dug her nose under Guzzler, shoved him up and over a lip of rock to get him quickly out of the way.

Lowering her head and hunching her shoulders, she stalked toward the raptor, feeling her frustrations bubble up into a gleeful rage.

With a flap that sounded like a crack, the sea eagle spread its huge, white-tipped wings, startling Newt. Behind her, Splayfoot trumpeted indignantly, but the noise faltered, as if the seamare were having second thoughts about tackling such an unfamiliar enemy as this. Newt couldn’t spare a glance at the seamare; the bird flattened its feathered crest and hopped at her, beak open and hissing.

Without a free forepaw to clout the bird, Newt was at a disadvantage. As if it sensed this, the eagle sidled toward its foe. Newt remembered how she had knocked it from the air, centered her weight on her rear legs, and launched herself. Again she hit the big bird, raking loose a cluster of black feathers from its breast. Its beak sliced down, grazing the side of Newt’s head. Dancing on her hind legs, Newt made a wide slap with her good paw that connected with the sea eagle’s neck. It returned a bruising blow with one wing, then lurched around and tumbled into a flopping, flapping run that finally lifted it off the beach. Gaining altitude over the heads of the seamares, the beaten raptor made one last overhead circle, raining excrement on Newt.

She shook herself, snarled at the retreating bird, then turned, panting, to face Splayfoot. There was a certain spark in the seamare’s eyes that made Newt fear the seamare’s protective anger over the threat to Guzzler might spill over onto her. She saw Splayfoot make a sudden movement, as if she were about to charge, but something in her eyes changed, and she only grunted and tilted her head to one side, uncertain. Then sheswung around and left with Guzzler.

So intent was Newt on Splayfoot that she neither saw nor smelled the stranger who had crept up on the bluff above and crouched, watching.

Chapter Four

Thakur’s way of reckoning direction by the sun held true and brought him to the shore he’d seen only from a distant peak. Taking Aree on the journey slowed him down, but he wasn’t going to part with his treeling, even for this. Although he had eaten enough at the clan kill to sustain him for several days, he made stops to hone his hunting skills, long left unused by his life in the clan. He also halted to sleep, relieve himself, or let Aree forage for berries and beetles.

They reached the sea coast just before sunset several days after departing from the sunning rock. Thakur had begun to think he had gone astray, for the way led him through a forest of great pines whose fibrous red bark and enormous girth were new to him. But when he kept to the deer trail that wound through these hills and brush canyons, the redwood forest gave way to a lighter growth of strong-smelling bay laurel. It ended abruptly at a meadow.

The grass was high and whipped by a salty breeze. Walking slowly, Thakur left the trees, turning his head to catch the sights, smells, and sounds of this new country. Ahead he heard the muffled crash and sigh of breaking waves. The sound reminded him of some great creature breathing. A bird sailed above him, its underside a dazzling white against the dark-blue sky, its wings constantly shifting to ride the wind that sent it slipping sideways. As the gull winged overhead, Thakur felt Aree flatten against his neck. With a quick nuzzle, he reassured the treeling.

He walked until the wind was strong in his face and the grass thinning beneath his feet. The meadow ended, tumbling away into sheer cliffs with waves pounding at their base. At first, Thakur thought he should taste the water, but night was coming and he could see no way to climb down. Thakur looked down into the frothing surf until he grew dizzy, then gazed outward.

Before him lay a shimmering expanse of silver, where the setting sun’s light danced in colors like light from the Red Tongue. At first it appeared to be another land, a vast plain spreading toward the horizon with sunlight painting new trails to lead him onward. The shimmer became the ripple of water, of traveling wave crests that swept toward him.

The first time he’d seen this great water from a distance, he had thought it must be an enormous lake. But now, standing on the cliff and sweeping the horizon for some glimpse of a distant shore, he sensed that even if he journeyed for a lifetime, he would never be able to travel around it. Many a closed circle of pawprints had he left about the lakes near his home ground, but a circle of pawprints about this expanse of water would always remain open.

He gazed out over the water, watching its hues and texture change with the sinking sun. He felt the same awe that touched him when he sat gazing into the heart of a flame. Both were things he knew he would never understand, but he sensed they came from the same source and had the same underlying power. It was a feeling that made him want to stay quiet while evening came to this new and almost sacred place. Even Aree remained still, containing her usual tendency to fidget.

At last the feeling faded into simple loneliness, and the wind began to bite. Thakur got up from the place where he had settled and stretched himself. He padded back through the grass to the edge of the forest and found shelter in a niche between two logs that had fallen across each other. There he and the treeling passed the night.

When Thakur awoke at dawn, the sound of breakers was fresh in his ears and the sunlight brilliant. The shoreline country now had an exuberant quality that infected both travelers. Frolicking and scratching with energy, Aree pounced aboard Thakur’s back, and they set off.

With a flick of his tail, he turned from the westward path he’d been on to a northward course that led him up the coast. He hoped to find a way down to the water’s edge, but the cliffs remained too forbidding. He trotted along windblown scarps with Aree munching berries and dribbling the juice on his fur. He crossed wild clifftop meadows and paced over the flanks of hills whose slopes were cut off by the sheer drop of the sea cliffs. He paused to rest in groves of coast pine where the trees leaned the way of the prevailing wind, their shapes stunted and twisted by spray and storm.

The variety and abundance of birds amazed him. They wheeled about him in raucous flocks or glided silently overhead. Fork-tails hovered in midair by beating their pointed wings into a blur and shifting their tails to balance the wind. Sea gulls swooped so low over him that he had to fight his instinct to spring up and bat one out of the air. Though he forced himself to ignore the birds, his tail twitched, and he could not keep his teeth from chattering in excitement as he trotted along.

By midday the stark cliffs had given way to friendlier country that hosted river valleys and winding estuaries. As Thakur descended with Aree from the clifftops, he saw sandy shores and mudflats. Droves of stilt-legged shorebirds rested or waded there, probing the bottom with their bills.

Some of these birds were so odd that he halted to gaze at them. He knew the long, sharp bills of herons and the broad ones of ducks, but here he saw beaks that curved up, down, or even sideways.

The shorebirds looked so clumsy and gawky that he was tempted to stalk one. But Aree would be in the way, and there was no convenient tree where she could wait safely until he had finished his hunt.

At one estuary, there was a place that looked shallow enough to ford. There he tried the water, but gagged at the briny taste. Disappointed, he waded across, the current tugging at his legs, while Aree made wordless treeling noises as to what she would do if he got her wet. Shaking his paws dry on the far side, he found himself behind a line of scrub-covered dunes. He climbed them and stood looking out on a crescent beach that reached to a rocky headland.

He had set one paw into the crusted sand when a swell of noise rose above the soft wailing of the wind. Abruptly he froze, ears swiveling to catch and identify the sound. It was a mixture of animal cries: grunts, bellows, screeches. What made him turn from his intended path was a faint but unmistakable caterwaul that sounded like one of the Named in a squabble.

He listened, his ears strained far forward, his muzzle pointing toward the rocky terraces that formed the promontory north of the beach.

There it was again. Could one of Ratha’s scouts have gone astray and ended up here? He doubted it, but he had to make sure. Rather than follow the sweep of the beach, he decided to circle back behind and climb up the bluff, where he could peer down at the rocks and ledges below.

Soon he was trotting through the short grass and scrub brush of the headlands, heading for the point. He could hear more clearly the commotion of the fight going on among the rocks below. Screeching, yowling, and a powerful roar made him quicken his pace, but it was the female voice rising in a battle cry that made his whiskers stand on end.

He broke into a canter, jolting Aree along. Behind an outcropping of sandstone, he slithered to a stop and peered down onto the wave-cut terraces and tumbled rocks that spilled out from the point in a natural jetty. In a cove along the spit, he saw a female of his own kind facing a huge black-and-white-crested eagle. Nearby was a large web-footed creature. Close to the bird lay a smaller animal that looked like a youngster.

At first he thought the strange female was fighting for her own life against the eagle and readied himself to charge down into the fray. But he saw that the bird hopped toward the small creature every chance it could get, while the female beat it away. When she abruptly turned and nosed the clumsy young animal over a lip of rock and out of the bird’s reach, Thakur realized this was no simple conflict of hunter and hunted. This stranger, whoever she was, fought to defend the young of the sea-beast just as Named herders protected dappleback foals and three-horn fawns.

Abruptly the fight ended. With a great clapping of wings, the bird lifted and flapped away. Thakur peered hard at the stranger, trying to see if she were clan-born or one of the more intelligent among the Un-Named, but he failed.

Her rust-black and orange coloration was unlike anything he had seen before. She seemed to be limping. He thought at first that the bird had wounded her, but as he studied her closely, he realized her three-legged walk was habitual, and he guessed that the drawn-up foreleg must be permanently lame.

Thakur wondered if what he’d seen was only his imagination. Could it be that his training as a herder and his work as a teacher made him misinterpret the stranger’s behavior? Was he seeing only what he expected to see? Well, he could hardly have expected this! He watched the stranger wend her way among the odd, lumpy sea-creatures, their calmness convincing him that they knew her and had grown accustomed to her presence.

The stranger’s smell was faint at this distance, but the trace of it he could catch was not clan scent. Curious now, he cast about until he found a scent-mark she had made on the bluff and inhaled the odor. No, she wasn’t from the clan, nor was she of the Un-Named, who left their traces on hunting trails.

Thakur toyed with the idea of going down to meet this intriguing stranger, but something made him hesitate.

She must be from the fringes of the Un-Named, he decided, a product of a mating between a clan member and one of the Un-Named, just as he and his brother, Bonechewer, were. If so, she might be friendly, but she also might be dangerous. Though crippled, she had managed to beat off a bird bigger than she was. Thakur wasn’t sure he wanted to confront her directly and certainly not with Aree on his back.

Instead, he watched her, being careful to keep downwind so she wouldn’t smell him. He noted the trails she took through the terraces and rocks. If he scent-marked a shrub or boulder along her way, then he could announce himself in a casual fashion and see from a distance what her response would be.

He put his plan into action the following day. After spraying several shrubs and rubbing his chin on a boulder, he sent Aree to safety in the branches of a wind-gnarled cypress and hid himself above the path.

Soon he heard footfalls in the rhythm of his quarry’s three-legged gait. He peered from his hideaway for the first close-up view of the stranger. He was not prepared for the odd little face that appeared around the edge of a boulder. None of the Named had anything like her markings in orange and rusty black. An inky band across the lower part of her face emphasized the lightness of her eyes.

Thakur had never seen such eyes. An iris of milky green swirled about each slit pupil, giving the stranger a gaze that seemed distracted and diffuse. Yet her stare had an unsettling quality. The cloudiness at first made him think she might be blind, but the sharp definition of her pupils and the way she made her way without using her whiskers to touch things convinced him she could see.

The stranger’s ears flicked back, and her neck extended as she caught his scent. He saw her upper lip curl back, revealing short, sharp fangs without signs of wear. She took one limping step toward the bush he had sprayed and then went rigid. A look of terror and rage shot through her eyes. Reeling backward as if she’d been struck, she crumpled into a whimpering heap, her good forepaw shielding her face. Shudders racked her, throwing her on her side, where she fought and thrashed against some unseen enemy.

Thoroughly bewildered, Thakur crept from his hideaway. He had seen and smelled many reactions to his scent-marking, but none as dramatic or frightening as this! An irrational sting of guilt hit him for daring to place his mark in her path.

The young female lay on her side, pedaling weakly with three feet as she stared ahead. Her head arched back and she stared without seeing. As the paroxysm spent itself, her limbs stilled and her eyes closed. She lay limply. When Thakur pawed her, she wobbled like a freshly killed carcass.

Numbed by astonishment and disbelief, he went to her head and stared down at her. Part of him insisted that it was coincidence; she had sniffed his mark just as the fit struck her. No. He had seen too clearly the shock and fright that had flashed through the cloudiness of her eyes in that instant before she fell.

She took quick, struggling breaths that jerked her rib cage. Thakur himself took a sharp breath of relief. As her breathing steadied, he felt his panic drain away. Whatever the cause of this attack, it would run its course. Unable to sit still, he paced around her.

The stranger’s face resembled those of the Named. She had a delicate muzzle and a well-defined break from the line of nose to forehead that Thakur found attractive. But what made him start when he saw it was a line of reddish-tan flame that licked up her forehead from the top line of her eyes to the crown ofher head. Against the background color of rusty black, the strange marking stood out. It seemed to waver and flicker in his gaze, as if he were looking once again at a windblown line of fire. In his memory, the Red Tongue made its march through the forest.

Suddenly Thakur felt angry with himself. Yes, she had strange markings, but there was nothing that should disturb him about the patterns on her face. There were little touches of white at the corners of her lips and a narrow cream blaze on her nose. In a Named female, the effect would have been one of disturbing ugliness, or perhaps beauty….

If her smell had matched the unsettling attractiveness of her face, Thakur might have found it harder to break off his close examination of the stranger. But his nose continued to remind him that she was ungroomed, filthy, and so full of the pungent stink of the sea-creatures that he couldn’t make out her underlying scent.

She swallowed. The abrupt movement of her throat startled him. Soon she would wake. Should he stay or go? Was it his scent that had thrown her into this fit, and would it happen again if he stayed?

He looked down at her crippled foreleg. Along her shoulder from nape to breast ran a half-collar of rumpled fur that, he guessed, might hide a ridge of scar tissue. The foreleg itself, though shrunken, didn’t appear deformed. He had seen a similar injury in a herdbeast, caused when one creature kicked another in the breast. Whatever made the leg move gradually died, until the creature could no longer use its limb. He remembered that herders had soon chosen the animal for culling.

He saw the stranger’s eartip tremble. Her lips drew back, exposing her fangs as she swallowed again. He noted the shade of her gums to check if she had lost blood or had the paling sickness. No.

He drew back, then changed his mind. If the fit left her weak or ill, she would need help. But his reason for staying was more than that. What he had seen her doing with the sea-creatures might be valuable to the Named.

At last, after many preliminary stirrings and twitchings, she blinked and moved her head. Thakur sat down where he was, letting her gaze find him. Her nape fur rose, and the pupils of her milky-green eyes shrank. Despite her lame foreleg, she moved so fast that she was a rust-and-black blur in his eyes. In the next instant, she faced him, body displayed broadside, head twisted, fangs bared. The upturned tips of her flattened ears signaled fear as well as anger.

Thakur slowly got to his feet, lifting his tail in the greeting gesture common among the Named. He gave a rising purr.

The other stiffened her defensive posture, her back legs doing an angry little dance of their own that tended to swing her hindquarters toward him. He watched her tail. If it relaxed and curved into a hook, that meant he might have some chance of reaching her.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said slowly. “Please. I want to talk to you. My name is Thakur.”

He faltered on the last word. There was no understanding in those milky-green eyes, not even curiosity. He might as well have tried to speak to a herdbeast! She spat at him and made a pitiful wrenching motion with her stunted foreleg, as if hoping to use it to claw him. He lowered his head and tail. How could this be? How could she have established that unusual relationship with the sea-creatures if she was as dull as this? Herding wasn’t a simple task; that he knew well. You had to outthink the creatures you wanted to control; you had to plan ahead.

He stared at her in dismay, his tail sagging. She backed away in a three-legged crab walk, growling deep in her throat.

“Go then,” he said sadly, more to himself than to her. Deliberately he broke eye contact, looking away. When he looked back again, she was gone.

Once Thakur had recovered Aree, the treeling cheered him, but he still remained puzzled about his encounter. He walked along the low bluff above the beach with Aree on his back, airing his thoughts aloud to his small companion as he often did.

“She doesn’t speak. I’m sure of that,” he said over his shoulder to the treeling. “And her eyes are those of a witless Un-Named one.” He stopped, remembering the swirling milky-green irises. Were those eyes indeed empty, or did the opacity hide the spark of intelligence that the Named valued? What about her led him to brood this way?Her companionship with the sea-beasts, part of him answered, but another, more honest part saidno, that is not all.

He needed to find forage and a steady supply of good, fresh water for the clan and its herds. He had already noticed several estuaries and inlets that cut into the coast-line, but most that he sampled were too salty or brackish, even when he moved upstream. Sparse rainfall had dried up the rivers that fed the bays and inlets, allowing seawater to intrude.

Finally he found a creek that fed a lagoon. Though the lagoon water was briny and mixed with the sea, the stream itself, when he tasted it, was fresh. He followed the creek inland until he came to its source. At the base of a second tier of cliffs set far back from the ocean, a spring ran steadily from a cleft in blue-gray stone, collecting in a pool beneath. Shaded by the rock walls and watered by the spring, trees grew at the base of the cliffs with an open meadow beyond. Seepage from the spring moistened the ground, and fresh grass sprouted amid the dappled patterns of sun and shade.

Here, near the sea coast, morning and evening fogs muted the heat that blistered areas farther inland. Thakur drank from the pool, then stood on its margin, letting the feel of the place seep into him.

Several small pawprints in the moist earth near the pool told him that the stranger too knew of this spring. And seeing her prints made Thakur wonder what would happen if the Named did choose to come. She could always drink from the creek that spilled out of the overflow from the spring-fed pool instead of from the pool itself.

His belly gave a twinge: not true hunger, but a warning that he should eat within the next day or so. His time here was drawing to an end; the other scouts that Ratha had sent out would be returning with descriptions of their discoveries. He too would tell his story to those assembled before the sunning rock. This place, with its oasis of fresh growth and unfailing water, appeared ideal for the clan and their herd animals. In addition, the sea-beasts might be the answer to Ratha’s quest for another source of meat. If a lame Un-Named one had formed a protective relationship with one of them, surely the herders of the Named could do more.

Yet even as he thought this he had misgivings. He sensed that the relationship of the stranger to the sea-beasts was different from that of the clan herders to their animals. The creatures’ reactions as she walked among them told Thakur that she had blended herself into their community. She lived with them rather than managing them to serve her needs, as the Named did with their animals.

But she was alone and weak as well. This was the only way she could live, by disturbing the sea-beasts as little as possible. Perhaps she was only a scavenger after all, he thought, but the idea saddened him.

Could she perhaps find a place among the Named? And if the clan came, with their herds and their ways, could she live a better life than one of scratching and scrounging among middens left by these wave-wallowers?

No. She was not like his people. He doubted if she could accept clan ways even if the Named chose to share them. A promise lay behind her shuttered eyes, but not one the Named could easily trust. Could it be that hers was a different sort of intelligence, one that might show not in mastery of words or brightness of eyes, but in another way?

Thakur knew that he could determine whether that intelligence — that light — would be given a chance to develop or not. If he returned and stood before the sunning rock to say that nothing here would be of value to the Named, this stranger could continue to live her life among the seamares without interference.

He sighed deeply, knowing this path was not open to him. He could not lie to his clan leader or betray his people for the sake of some odd castoff. He would speak, and herders from the clan would come, for the spring-watered trees and meadow offered the Named refuge from the worsening drought. And the wave-wallowing animals might well become an unusual, though successful, addition to the beasts the Named now tended. Their meat might taste a bit odd, but in times of need, the Named couldn’t be particular about taste.

He knew where his loyalties lay, and it saddened him. The stranger would be pushed out, tossed aside, and no one would think anything of it because she had no light in her eyes.But that would be wrong, because we can learn from her. Even if she can’t speak, she teaches us by what she does. Ratha must be made to understand.

With that thought, Thakur got to his feet, coaxed Aree to his shoulder, and set off on his return journey.

Newt spent the rest of that day, after the confrontation with Thakur, hiding in the deepest sandstone hollow she could find. Panic closed around her, making her want to run blindly away from this place and the stranger whose sudden arrival and smell woke the old terrors.

His smell. Her nose had not lied to her. Yes, he had his own scent, but mixed in with it she had caught the hated stink of the Dreambiter. But the Dreambiter was not real, could not leave a true scent except in memory. Newt had thought the Dreambiter’s scent was as unreal as the apparition itself, until the newcomer’s odor-mark sent its shock through her and brought the nightmare down to rend her. Now she shuddered at the recollection and thought only of fleeing.

But a part of her fought against deserting the beach and the seamares. That she might be forced to abandon this new life she had built for herself was a bitterness she couldn’t swallow. Why had he come? What did he want?

She remembered other encounters with those of her kind, of snarls and sneers and the coldness of hate. She had left all that behind. Would she have to return to it once again?

But worst of all was knowing that the newcomer could wake the Dreambiter. Was he the source of the apparition in her dreams that slashed and crippled her? She bared her teeth at the thought but knew that he was not. Though his smell carried enough traces of the Dreambiter’s to trigger the onrush of the hallucination, his scent itself was not the cause.

Newt’s smell-memories of that maiming attack were stronger than the sight-images. The odor of the one whose teeth had torn her flesh was seared into the center of her being. The smell betrayed one thing: that the Dreambiter was female. Whatever dangers this invading male brought were his own. He might wake her apparition, but he wasn’t the source of it.

If she ever found the one who was, she promised herself there would blood and fur scattered until she took the hated one’s life in payment for her pain or gave up her own.

She crouched in her cave, thinking about the strange male and shivering. Slowly she realized that he himself had done nothing to threaten or harm her. His voice and his tail gestures were not those of one who wished her ill. His manner was careful, gentle, with a quality she was slowly starting to recognize, for she had known it once long ago.

A picture formed in her mind of the copper-furred, amber-eyed face of the one who had loved her and tried so hard to teach her. And then came an image of the intruder, who also seemed to want her to respond. The two faces were strangely alike, even though one had green eyes and the other amber.

A forgotten part of Newt cried out for more of what she had once known. She wanted kindness and the friendly sound of a purr, the sight of a tail lifted in greeting. When had she heard, felt, and seen those things? So long ago that she could barely remember… or was it the mist drifting through her mind that made it all seem so distant?

The Dreambiter had taken it all away.

As Newt lay in her cave, she felt her anger and confusion harden into stubbornness. She would stay here. If she had to face the strange male, she would. The life she was starting to build among the seamares was too precious to yield. No one would drive her away. Not even the Dreambiter.

Chapter Five

In the late-afternoon shade of a thicket on the meadow’s edge, Ratha watched a young Firekeeper and his treeling tangle two cords made from twisted bark. Fessran sat nearby, still without her treeling.

“Tell me again why this would be useful,” Ratha said, trying to understand what Fessran’s student was to show her.

“Well, you know that we wrap wood with those lengths of twisted bark so that we can drag more of it. The trouble is that our wrapping often doesn’t hold, so the bundle comes apart, the sticks get scattered, and we have to gather them again. When this student showed me a way to prevent that, I decided you should know.”

Looking nervously at the clan leader, the young Firekeeper pawed apart the two cords, then began again.

“I don’t see any wood, and he’s using separate pieces,” Ratha objected.

“It’s easier to see what he’s doing without twigs in the way. And think of the separate bark-twists as the ends of a single one,” Fessran soothed.

Ratha gave up arguing and watched. She saw how well the youngster and his small companion worked together, as if each knew what the other needed and expected. He had been born after treelings had become a part of clan life, and the two had been raised together.

She listened to the young Firekeeper and his treeling as the two purred and chirred back and forth, exchanging gestures and nudges. The two strings of bark came together under treeling hands, but both wills worked the change.

Ratha asked them to stop so she could see how the cords wound about each other.

“Think of it this way, clan leader,” said the Firekeeper student. “Two snakes have crossed over each other, then the one underneath has looped back and crawled over the top one.”

Ratha stared hard. She was beginning to get the idea.

Do you see what he’s doing, Ratharee? she thought at her treeling, who perched on her head, peering down between her ears.I think I do. Perhaps we can try it together.

The student pulled his tangled cords apart. Ratharee didn’t need any nudging to scramble down from Ratha’s back to get her paws on this intriguing new toy, but she had no idea how to repeat what the Firekeeper’s treeling had done. With soft prrrups and nudges, Ratha directed Ratharee’s hands until the bark cords wound once about each other on theground.

“Now the wrapped snakes rise up and face each other,” said the young Firekeeper, warming to his task, “and they wind again, but they must go in the opposite direction, or the tangle won’t hold. We pull both tails, and the snakes tighten about each other,” he said as his treeling completedtying the knot.

Ratha had the idea, but getting Ratharee to translate that understanding into action was difficult. She could wind the cords, but she wanted to continue wrapping them about each other until she’d turned them into a tangled mess. However much Ratha nudged, purred, and pawed, she couldn’t get past that.

“It isn’t easy, clan leader,” the student said apologetically. “I had to work a lot with my treeling before we could even do the first part.”

“Yes, and I thought you were just fooling around. I cuffed you for not attending to your duties, as you remember well.” Fessran grinned as her prot?g? looked slightly dismayed. She sniffed the treeling-made knot.

“All right, youngster,” Fessran announced to the young Firekeeper. “Enough for now. Go back to your work. Since the clan leader likes what you’ve done, you may continue it, but don’t use that as an excuse to be lazy. ”

Ratha called Ratharee to her and watched the student lope away with his ring-tailed companion on his back.

“He’s clever, isn’t he? Makes me feel old and stupid.” Fessran sighed.

“If you got yourself another treeling, my Firekeeper friend, you could do the same things.”

“No. If I can’t have Fessree, I’d prefer to burn my whiskers myself. And have smart young students to think up easier ways to bundle wood.”

“It may go beyond just wood bundling. You know that, since you’re encouraging him,” Ratha pointed out.

“It may, but nothing will ever top what a certain young herder did with the Red Tongue.” Fessran lay down beside Ratha, pawing her playfully.

“Flatterer! No one will ever accuse you of being old and stupid, not while you have a voice to tease me with. What power has the Red Tongue compared to Fessran’s?” With that, Ratha rolled over and play-wrestled with the Firekeeper, while Ratharee scolded both.

The sound of rustling brush and trotting feet brought both heads up. The sun flashed on a dark copper coat as Thakur jogged toward them and slowed to touch noses. With a rising purr, he rubbed past Ratha.

“It is good to smell you again, Thakur,” she said softly. “I’ve thought often of you.”

“And I have missed you, yearling. I have much to tell, but first let me rest.”

He touched noses with Fessran, then flopped himself down in the shade with Aree on his shoulder.

“I thought everyone would still be off yowling in the bushes,” he said, grinning at both of them. “Did you hear any good courting songs this year, Fess?”

The Firekeeper hissed scornfully.“None of this year’s crop of suitors has any voice at all.”

“So we make cubs by singing? That is something new among the Named.” Thakur lolled his tongue at her.

Hearing Thakur’s teasing was like old times, but it also served to remind Ratha that the delayed mating season had been short, with few of the Named taking part. Her own heat had lasted only a few days, then tapered off.

Thakur turned to Ratha.“Have the other scouts returned yet?”

“They’ve been coming in during the past few days. You’re the last. Everyone’s hungry. I’ll have a herdbeast culled.”

Thakur’s brow furrowed slightly. “The last cull took all the unfit animals. Have the herders choose carefully. We need good stock for breeding.”

Ratha felt slightly irritated at him for telling her something she knew well. But he was right; they had to be careful.

“Those who have journeyed far for the sake of their clan shall not sleep tonight with empty bellies,” she answered. “We will take what is needed, no more. Fessran, I’d like to speak with Thakur alone. Would you go and look to the culling?”

The Firekeeper sprang to her feet and padded away. Ratha turned to Thakur.“So then, herding teacher. What tales do you bring?”

He paused, then answered.“I have news, but first tell me what the other scouts have reported.”

Ratha wondered why he was being evasive, but she said only,“The scouts found many new beasts, but none appear to be as well suited to our needs as the creatures we now keep.”

“Oh?” Thakur cocked his head. “That surprises me.”

“Young Khushi came back with a wild tale about huge, shaggy creatures who bear tusks and wear their tails on their faces. Although he didn’t think we could kill the big ones, he thought we might take the young.”

“While their mothers’ backs are turned, of course,” said Thakur with a grin, for he knew how fiercely protective herdbeast mothers could be.

Ratha glanced at him and went on.“I may go with him to see these face-tails, since we might be able to use them. After all, my grandfather brought us three-horns, and everyone told him they were too dangerous. We just need to learn new ways of managing certain animals.”

“Did any other scout find something worthwhile?”

She sighed.“I suppose you didn’t find anything either, since you’re so eager to know if others did. There were some reports that I considered as possibilities. One scout said he saw many prong-horns. He also spoke of lowing beasts with widespread horns and great humps on their shoulders. He thought the prong-horns too small and fleet for our keeping and the others too ugly tempered. Again, I said I might go with him to judge the creatures for myself.” After a pause she noticed he wasn’t listening but seemed to be turned inward as if thinking hard. “What’s the matter, Thakur?”

Slowly he answered,“Ratha, I did find some creatures on the sea coast that we might herd. They are strange, but they can be managed, and I think I know how.”

Carefully he described the seamares, including their shore-dwelling existence.“These water-beasts are larger than our dapplebacks and will provide more meat per cull. They have tusks, but they are clumsy on land.”

“These creatures do sound strange, Thakur,” Ratha said doubtfully after he had finished. “Fat, tusked dapplebacks with short legs and duck’s feet? And you say they swim in this great, wave-filled lake you found? How would we keep one from just swimming away if it didn’t want to be our meat?”

“How do we keep our herdbeasts from running away when we cull them? There are ways, especially when we work together.”

Ratha stared at her paws.“I suppose. But it sounds as if herding these creatures would cause a big change in the way our herders do things. And it might not work out.”

With a sharpness in his voice that betrayed a flicker of injured pride, he said,“Clan leader, I know we can live off these seamares because I have seen another doing it.”

Ratha’s whiskers bristled and her pupils expanded. She turned her head to stare at him. He looked uncomfortable, as if he had said more than he meant to. “One of our kind?”

“I don’t know who she is,” Thakur confessed. “She may come from among the fringes of the Un-Named who have bred with the clan. I tried to speak with her, but she doesn’t talk. At least not in the way that we do.”

He went on to describe the way the young stranger had blended into the seamare colony.

“A small number of us may be able to do the same thing,” he said. “Perhaps by watching her, we can learn.”

“She actually herds these duck-footed dapplebacks?” Ratha asked. “Are you sure you didn’t just see what you wanted to see, herding teacher? She could have been an Un-Named one passing among them. From what you say, she doesn’t sound as though she has the light in her eyes or the wit to understand herding.”

“I watched her fight off a crested sea eagle from a duck-footed foal. I also saw her swimming with the creatures and sharing their food. Whatever she is doing has a purpose. What’s more, the fact she has done it amazes me even more because she’s lame.” He described how the odd stranger got about on three legs, keeping one forepaw tucked against her chest.

Ratha eyed him.“You seem to have been taken with this bit of an Un-Named one.”

“Do you think I missed the mating season so much that I would consider taking an outside female?” Thakur flashed his teeth at her in irritation. “You and I, of any among the Named, should know the dangers of that!”

“I don’t seem to have to worry,” Ratha said, her voice turning bitter. “I know I won’t have cubs this year, even though the courting fever took me as it did the others. Perhaps it is better that I don’t, since I have all of the clan to look after.” She laid her nose on her paw for a minute and stared ahead into nothing. “I’m sorry, herding teacher. I didn’t mean that. Words can hurt more than claws sometimes.”

“Well, in any case, I wasn’t tempted,” Thakur said, still ruffled. “She wasn’t in heat. She also stank of wave-wallower dung and fish.”

Ratha pensively licked the back of a forepaw. She glanced at him from the corner of one eye.“I will come with you to the lake-of-waves, and you can show me these animals. But you’ll have to wait for a few days. We’re driving the beasts to another river tomorrow.”

“I was afraid you’d have to do that soon,” Thakur said. “So the nearby one has gone dry.”

“And I don’t know how long this new one can supply us.”

“Well, another good reason for going to see those duck-footed dapplebacks is that I found a spring near their beach.” He went on to describe the gush of water from the face of a shaded cliff so well that Ratha became uncomfortably aware of her dry tongue. The drought was progressing so rapidly that a reliable water source had become more important than new game animals.

“I’m interested in the spring,” Ratha said. “I’m thinking of moving our animals permanently to another place until this drought ends.”

Abruptly Thakur asked,“Will you need me on the next drive? If you would allow me to get a head start on the journey back to the lake-of-waves, I could take another look at the spring. It would also help me learn more about the creatures there.”

“And the odd one who lives among them.”

Thakur rolled onto his chest, his front paws spread out before him.“She has much to teach me, I think. Suppose you lead the first drive until the herders can manage alone. Then you and Fessran join me on the shore.”

“By ourselves?”

“Yes.”

“Why not bring others who are not needed to manage our own animals?”

“I’m afraid too many of us would scare our little sea-dappleback herder away. Let me go first, then the two of you. She might get used to me. Perhaps she can talk but was just too frightened.”

“Are you thinking of trying to bring her into the clan if she can speak?” Ratha asked. She knew Thakur could hear the wary edge in her voice. He too remembered what had happened when she had admitted an unknown stranger to the ranks of the Named.

“Let us run that trail when we find it,” said Thakur smoothly. “First I want to learn from her. If the question of clan admittance arises, you, as leader, will have to decide. I don’t think it’s going to be a problem. If she can’t speak, how is she going to ask?” He crossed one paw over the other, the gesture ending his words.

“Well, she doesn’t sound as though she will be too clever for her own good, as Shongshar was,” Ratha growled. “All right, herding teacher. Your plan sounds like a good one.”

“Then I will leave again after I’ve eaten and rested,” he answered. “When you are ready, follow me.” He then told her the way to the shore and said he would leave scent-marks to guide her. He asked her to leave her own signs, once she got there, to tell him she’d arrived. She listened carefully, remembering his words.

Ratha got up as she spotted Fessran’s tan form jogging back toward her.

She turned to Thakur.“Hungry?”

She didn’t need an answer as the herding teacher scrambled to his feet, his belly growling.

Several days later, the Named and their herds were treading the way to another river that lay farther from clan ground. Dust swirled, kicked up by the feet of the lead three-horns. Ratha kept her eye on the gray-coated stag and the two herders to either side of him. If the Named could keep him moving steadily, the others would follow. They had gotten him away from the trickling remains of the first river after several attempts that nearly became fights. She thought she might have to order the stag culled, but that would cause the loss of a good sire and throw the herd into disarray.

She had delayed the decision to move their watering site as long as possible, but when the sluggish trickle in the river became stagnant and she found three-horns pawing the streambed to find water that wasn’t scummy or thick with mud, she knew they had to make the trek. It hadn’t been easy to get the animals organized and the herders ready. She glanced at the lead stag again.

Though the beast was cooperating now, a certain look in his eye, and the way he tossed his head, made Ratha wary. The two herders looked nervous, switching their tails with every step. They were strong but still young. How she wished she had brought Thakur after all, but he was far away on his journey to the coast.

Ratha decided to bring another herder up, just in case the three-horn became obstinate. Khushi. He was a good one. From a timid cub, he had grown into a steady, patient young herder who understood three-horns, although lately he had been showing a tendency to disappear when someone wasn’t with him. Ratha decided she needed to give him a reminder about clan responsibilities. Odd, though — he wasn’t one she would describe as lazy.

She trotted back along the line of beasts and herders, sneezing dust from her nose. Her tongue felt leathery against her teeth, and she couldn’t help thinking of the rainy season, when the brook ran full and lively through the pastures.

Firekeepers flanked the main three-horn herd. They walked in guard positions, some carrying torches bearing the Red Tongue. Bright sun and blowing dust diminished the fire’s light, making it look pale against the sky.

Ratha searched for Khushi, calling out his name against the bawling and rumbling of the herd. She searched the throng of animals and herders without finding him, gave up, and sent another herder. Irritated, she jogged past the outskirts of the flock, intending to scold the errant youngster.

She caught sight of the Firekeeper leader walking near a torchbearer. Khushi was Fessran’s son, although the Named tended to forget such things once a cub was grown.

“Where’s Khushi?”

The Firekeeper’s tail came up in surprise. “How should I know? I don’t keep track of him anymore.”

“Maybe you should. This isn’t the first time I’ve caught him shirking.”

A crackle of brush made Ratha turn her head. Khushi came bounding out from between two low hills. His ears sagged as he slowed his pace.

“Are you still a litterling that I have to insult Fessran by asking where you are?” she said sharply to him. “You should have been in the lead. The old stag is planning trouble again.”

Khushi gulped, lowered his head, and wheeled toward the front, but Ratha stopped him.“You’re too late. I’ve already sent someone. If you don’t want to work with three-horns, I’ll place you in the rear, with the dappleback herd.”

“No, clan leader, it’s not that… ”

“Well, what is it, then? I’m fed up with looking for you and finding you gone. I’m tempted to put you back with the herding students for some lessons about laziness.”

“Wait, Ratha,” the Firekeeper interrupted. “He’s not usually lazy. There must be some reason.”

Khushi sat up and gave his ruff a few strokes with his tongue. He still looked and smelled ashamed, but there was a certain sense of relief, as if he had been carrying a burden and could now let it down.

“Clan leader, you remember that you sent me as a scout to look for game,” he began.

“Yes, and you told us about the face-tailed animals,” Ratha said.

Khushi took a breath.“After I saw the face-tails, the Firekeeper I was with stumbled across an Un-Named one. It was a female with cubs, and she must have been moving them when we found her.”

Ratha waited, wondering what this had to do with his periodic desertion of the herd.

“She was odd looking,” Khushi said. “The same gray color as old Shongshar, the same eyes, and the same long teeth.”

Ratha felt the hair prickle along her back at the mention of Shongshar’s name. She remembered how she and Thakur had left the cubs Shongshar had sired far beyond clan ground. The place she’d chosen offered some limited chances for them to find food. Could it be that one or both cubs had managed to survive and even to have their own young? The gray female Khushi described would be about the right age.

“Shongshar’s cubs by Bira?” Fessran was staring at Ratha in open amazement. “But you said they were witless and killed them.”

Ratha flinched at Fessran’s words. “I didn’t kill them; I abandoned them. In a place where they could eat insects and other things.”

Fessran took a long breath.“By the Red Tongue’s ashes, Ratha, if you’d told me what happened to them, things might have turned out differently with Shongshar.”

“Yes, you would have gone out to find the empty-eyed cubs you fostered after Bira left them. That wouldn’t have done us much good either,” Ratha snapped. “Let Khushi tell the rest of his story.”

With a curious glance at Fessran, Khushi went on.“The Un-Named female looked at me in a way that made me shiver and then ran off with a cub in her mouth. But she left one behind and didn’t come back for him.” Khushi halted, swallowed. “He’s over there, beneath the bushes. ”

Ratha sagged back on her haunches, staring at Khushi in disbelief.“You mean you brought the cub back with you?”

He hung his head.“I’m sorry. It was a stupid thing to do. But once I’d been near him, his mother wouldn’t take him back. I put him out and waited as long as I could, but we’d scared her off for good.”

“How did you feed him?” Fessran wanted to know.

“The same way you fed me when you were weaning us from milk to meat. You burped up soft food from your stomach. I had eaten enough from the clan kill before I went scouting that I could do the same.”

Ratha started to pace. If the drought and the herd weren’t enough to cope with, now she had to deal with a young herder with motherly delusions and an orphaned cub that might well be Shongshar’s grandson. She stopped, turned to Khushi.

“If this wild tale is true and not just an elaborate excuse to make me sheath my claws, all I can ask is why didn’t you tell me about him?”

Khushi shuffled his paws in the dust.“Well, you were gone just after that, and when you came back, you were busy, and the longer I waited, the harder it got to tell you. ”

“So you’ve been sneaking away to feed this Un-Named litterling with food from your own belly.”

“And to move him too,” Khushi added. “When these river drives started, I thought I’d have to leave him behind, but I found that if I ran really fast with him in my mouth and got ahead of the herd, then I could hide him and then work until the herd passed the hiding place and—”

“All right,” Ratha interrupted. “Show me.” Khushi led them away from the line of animals, up over the crest of a hill and down the other side. He jogged to a low bush with peeling red bark and thorny leaves, pulled a dead branch aside, and peered in. A weak mew came from inside. Lying in a hollow between gnarled roots was a tiny, thin, spotted shape. Carefully, Khushi drew the cub out with his paw.

Every bone showed on the little body. The coat was dull and rough over prominent ribs, and the litterling staggered badly as he wobbled to Khushi and lay against the herder’s forepaws.

Ratha stared down at the cub, feeling totally at a loss. Even if he had come from one of the clan’s own females, she knew the drought was already straining the clan’s resources.

Yet she couldn’t help a twinge of pity for the cub’s condition and awe for his tenacity. Having been taken from his mother at an early age and bumped around by a young herder who didn’t know how to treat him, he should, by all rights, have been dead.

Fessran came alongside and peered at him.“Ratha, watch how he moves, tries to look at things. He reminds me of our own cubs.”

Ratha felt that things were galloping ahead of her.“Firekeeper, he’s too young and starved for us to make any judgment. And if there is one to be made, you are not the one to make it.” She turned to Khushi once again. “Herder, you should have left him where he was. Take him back.”

Fessran gave a derisive yowl.“You think his mother would accept him after Khushi’s had him this long? We’d be lucky to even find her. And she may not want him back, especially now. The dry weather is also pressing the Un-Named.”

Ratha eyed the Firekeeper. Fessran crouched down to nuzzle and lick the orphan. She wouldn’t have a family this year, and Ratha knew she wanted to raise cubs. That, plus the memory of Nyang’s death and the loss of her treeling…

“If you get your scent on him too, we’ll never get him back where he belongs,” Ratha said.

“I think you’re fooling yourself about that, clan leader,” Fessran answered softly.

Ratha became aware that Khushi was watching the interchange between her and Fessran with unabashed curiosity.“Herder,” she said, “go back to the three-horns. Fessran and I have some thinking to do. And if you are tempted to nurse any more Un-Named litterlings, tell me first.”

When she looked back at Fessran, the Firekeeper lay on her side, the cub curled up against her belly.“I wish I could feed him,” she said wistfully.

“I wish Khushi had never found him,” Ratha growled. “Soft as dung indeed! Fessran, if you must play mother, ask Bira if you will be able to help with her litter. She came into heat early, and I can tell by her scent that the mating’s taken.”

“At least you’re sure Bira’s will have that cursed light in the eyes you’re always looking for.” Fessran looked up, her paw resting lightly on the orphan. “You bullied me into giving up Shongshar’s cubs. Were you really that convinced that they were witless? If the Un-Named one that Khushi saw is the female I fostered, maybe she has more wits about her than you think. Perhaps we should trail her and find out.”

Ratha said nothing, wondering if she should make Fessran remember the blank stare of Shongshar’s daughter on the morning she had taken both young ones from Fessran’s fostering.

“We can’t get distracted by this,” she said. “At least until the drought breaks. I’m not going to waste effort trailing an Un-Named female.” Ratha paused. “And even if I was mistaken and her eyes show the gift we value, she is of Shongshar’s blood and breed. Khushi said she had the long teeth. Would you want another like Shongshar to rise again in the clan?”

She saw the Firekeeper close her eyes and then lick the scars on her chest and upper foreleg. Fessran trembled for a minute, remembering. Then she withdrew herself from around the cub.

“What are you going to do with him?” she said gruffly.

“Khushi is to return him to the place he was found. If we leave him alone, his mother might reclaim him.”

Mournfully Fessran said,“If I could just give him a good bellyful of milk…

Ratha sighed.“All right. I’ll let Khushi feed him the way he did before.” She sent Fessran to get Khushi. When the young herder arrived, she told him to bring the litterling to her once it was fed. She and Fessran went back to the herd and waited until Khushi returned with the orphan.

Ratha looked at the cub and wished that the young of the clan and of the Un-Named didn’t look so much alike.It is not only that their cubs resemble ours. They are so close to us, it makes me tremble. The only difference is behind the eyes. I have asked so many times why it is so, but no one can answer.

Khushi put the youngster down, stretched his jaws, and complained.“He already feels heavy. And I’ll be traveling with a dry tongue and a half-empty belly.”

“Which is small punishment for sharing clan meat with one outside the clan and not telling me,” said Ratha firmly. “Even if the meat came from your own belly and if the other is a cub.”

Khushi sighed and agreed. He picked up the cub, started to trot away.

“Wait.” The voice was Fessran’s. Ratha narrowed her eyes at the Firekeeper.

“Let me go with him, clan leader,” Fessran said. “You can spare me from tending the Red Tongue for a few days. I want to be sure we do the best we can for this cub. When Khushi’s jaws start aching, he’ll be tempted to leave the litterling anywhere.”

Ratha was tempted to argue. In truth, she did need Fessran at her post, especially if there was an attack or an emergency. Other Firekeepers were good, but Fessran had the most experience with the Red Tongue.

“There’s something else, clan leader,” Fessran added. “I hate the thought of leaving my lost treeling behind. Maybe I can take one last look before we get too far from clan ground.”

Ratha considered this. If Fessran did by chance find her treeling, that might cheer her up and take her mind off Un-Named cubs. But letting Fessran go with Khushi might not be the best idea. The Firekeeper clearly wanted to adopt the foundling, and letting her stay near the cub would only encourage her to disobey.

She knew Fessran had caught the look in her eyes, for the other’s tail shivered, and she stared away. Ratha felt ashamed for doubting her friend. Her gaze rested on the fading scars that parted the Firekeeper’s sandy coat. Shongshar’s slash had been intended for Ratha. Fessran had taken it.

Yet Ratha knew she would be faltering in her role as clan leader if she didn’t admit her suspicions. What was it in the wretched litterling that touched Fessran so? She couldn’t see anything promising about him, and the thought of his possible parentage made her shudder.

“Go look for your treeling, Fessran,” she said. “Help Khushi if he needs it, but remember, this is his responsibility, not yours.”

She knew from the slight twitch that narrowed one of Fessran’s eyes that her words had done no good. She could feel the rift between them deepening. She wanted to reach across, somehow draw Fessran back, but it was not the right moment or place. The animals waited, dusty and stamping. The herders started to stare.

“Both of you go before the day gets too hot,” Ratha said roughly, and turned back to the herd, not wanting to look as Khushi trotted away carrying the cub and Fessran followed.

Chapter Six

Thakur’s return journey to the coast went more quickly because he knew the trail. Again he emerged from the coastal forest onto meadows crowning high cliffs and traveled north along bluffs and ridges until late one evening, when he came to the beach and the jetty. In the scrub behind a bluff overlooking the ocean, he discovered a hollow between two boulders, made himself a nest, and slept.

In the morning, he awoke and took Aree up to a wooded area in the foothills behind the bluff, where the treeling could forage for leaves and insects. When she had eaten her fill, he started back to the beach, intending to seek out the young stranger who lived among the seamares.

The late morning sun warmed his back, making him feel loose limbed and lazy. Aree was snoozing in the hollow behind his shoulders; he could hear her gentle snoring and feel her wobble as he padded along. He grinned to himself, enjoying the feeling of her fingers gripping his fur and her small but comforting weight on his back.

Then the treeling tensed. He felt her fingers clench just as a warning rattle of brush made him flatten his ears. In the next instant a rust-and-black form sprang at him from the side, landing half across his back. He heard teeth click as jaws snapped at Aree. The treeling scrambled onto his head, her hindquarters hanging over his muzzle, blinding him. But the strong tang of seamare mixed with female cat-scent told him who the attacker was.

With a shake of his head, he jolted Aree sideways so he could see again and at the same time flung himself onto his back, bringing his rear claws into play against his opponent’s belly. He felt her scrabble on top of him, lunging for the treeling. With a screech, Aree bounded away and up the nearest sapling, where she clung, swaying as the slender tree bent.

Now Thakur could concentrate on subduing his attacker. She leaped over him, but just as she landed he rolled over and snagged her hindquarters with his foreclaws, knocking her to the ground. He grabbed her around the middle, hauling himself onto her. Angrily she twisted herself back on him, but she had only one front paw to strike out with. He caught the flailing foreleg in his jaws, biting only hard enough to hold it still.

Tangled up and twisted around as she was, she could only wriggle and heave beneath him. He loosed one front paw to fend off her attempt to bite him, catching her under the jaw and shoving her head to the side.

Her jerks grew frantic, and the swirling sea green in her eyes grew stormy. Abruptly her pupils, expanded in rage, contracted to needle size. She fought him with a new and terrifying strength, but her efforts were unfocused, as if she no longer struggled against a flesh-and-blood enemy but against something within herself.

Thakur could only hold on as tightly as possible, keeping her rear legs pressed to the ground and her foreleg trapped in his mouth. He feared that if she did get free, she would attack him in a savage frenzy. Whatever he had wakened within her, he would have to contain it until the paroxysm passed.

At last her heaving became sporadic, and her struggles weakened. He loosened his grip, feeling her sag onto her side. He let her forepaw go and watched it flop. Panting, he sat and looked down at her. Once again she lay at his feet, defeated by the strange fit he had caused. This time, however, he didn’t feel as guilty, although he was surprised. He had never thought she would dare attack him, even with the temptation of the treeling on his back. Perhaps Aree’s smell proved too strong a lure. But the stranger was the one who had been caught.

Her lip twitched back, showing her upper fang. Her jaw trembled and her tongue moved. And then Thakur heard her voice.

“Stay away… from them….”

As she spoke the first few syllables, he leaned closer, wondering if he was imagining words in her inarticulate moans. Her voice was harsh and breathy.

“I won’t hurt you,” Thakur answered, puzzled as to whom she meant. “I held you off from my treeling, but I mean you no harm.”

She hadn’t heard him. She stared ahead, her gaze milky, shrouded, hissing words in strange disconnected clumps.

“… hwish they had been born dead… do you want her… she’s witless… why did you do this to me… why… ”

The sounds were indeed words in the speech of the Named, and he heard in them a pain and an eloquence that made him shiver. Yet the voice that said them was hollow and remote, as if she spoke without knowing what she said.

Her lips fell back over her fangs and she was silent, but her words still echoed in Thakur’s mind. He paced back and forth beside her in confusion. Who were those she warned him to stay away from? Cubs? He looked at her belly. No, she wasn’t nursing a litter. And what had she said about wishing “they” had been born dead? It made no sense to him.

But the agony had come through all too clearly. She whimpered deep in her throat, like a cub needing comfort. He lay down beside her, letting her feel his body warmth. Instinctively, she squirmed toward him. Though he wanted to move away because she was ungroomed and smelly, compassion overcame his disgust. He nuzzled her behind the ears. It soothed her, and she sank from confusion into sleep.

He wasn’t sure how long the stranger lay curled up with her back against him. Aree had gotten over her fright and was starting to descend from the sapling when the lame female stirred, this time into full wakefulness. Again he nuzzled her behind the ears, purring to calm her. She gave a startled jerk but did not scramble away.

She lifted her head to look at him.

“You’re all right,” Thakur said softly. “I promise I won’t let anyone hurt you. Do you have a name?”

The swirling green in her eyes seemed to surround and engulf him with intensity. The fur on her brow rumpled, and he could see that his words only baffled her.

He repeated his soothing litany, seeing that the sound of his voice did calm her, but the words themselves meant nothing.

“You don’t understand me,” he said, dismayed. “You must. I heard you speak.” But the veil of muteness had dropped upon her once again, and only cloudiness moved in those eyes. “It doesn’t matter,” he said softly, feeling her start to tremble. “Just rest here with me.”

After a little while, she got up and shook herself, but she did not scamper away. She sat watching him while he indulged in a good stretch. Achirr overhead reminded him he still had a treeling to look after. Aree hung by her tail from a branch of the willowy sapling, looking doubtfully at Thakur’s new acquaintance.

“She’s not going to eat you,” Thakur said, cajoling the treeling, but as Aree started to climb down, the lame female took several eager steps toward the sapling. Gently, but firmly, Thakur blocked her with his body. “Oh no, my hungry friend. Aree’s not going to be your dinner.”

When the stranger was stubborn and persisted, Thakur put a paw against her breast and pushed her away.“No,” he hissed sharply, emphasizing it with a flash of teeth. She backed away, letting Aree climb nervously onto Thakur’s nape, lying so flat that it felt as though she were trying to bury herself in his fur.

Again the stranger sidled toward him, but another emphatic negative halted her.

He knew she didn’t understand him, but the sound of his voice seemed to calm her, so he rambled on. “Look, I came here to learn about you, but since you can’t or won’t talk, why don’t you just prowl around while I watch?”

She cocked her head at him, then limped a few steps away. He saw how she kept the crippled foreleg tucked underneath her chest.

“You should try to use that foot,” he said, speaking his thought aloud. He came alongside her and pawed at her foreleg, trying to get her to extend the shrunken limb. Gently he took her foot in his mouth and pulled, testing how far he could stretch the contracted muscles.

She gave a sharp yowl of pain, wrenched her paw away from him.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’ll be careful.” He coaxed her into offering her foot again, although she gave a warning growl. Again he took it, pulled gently.

She tugged back with surprising strength in the wasted limb.

Stubbornly but gently, Thakur held on, purring to reassure her.“Easy,” he said, talking around a mouthful of furred toes. “I just wanted to see how this has healed.”

He turned the limb from side to side, also studying the collar of roughened fur that overlay scars from the injury that had crippled her. The scarring ran right down her neck to her breast. It looked like a bad bite, perhaps done to her when she was small. If fangs had penetrated a young cub’s chest near the foreleg, they might have caused such a paralyzing injury.

But in her case, the part that gave the limb life and motion had somehow begun to heal. He could tell that by the way the leg jerked back against his jaws. The real problem was that her muscles had thinned and contracted while the leg was immobile.

The healer in Thakur wanted to tell the stranger that she might not have to spend the rest of her life hobbling about on three legs. The practical part of him knew he couldn’t get this across to her without the use of words. Maybe if he could just show her — get her to stretch the leg and try using it.

But she had already grown impatient. She tugged her paw from his jaws and stalked away.

Thakur waited before he went after her, fearing she might hiss or try to drive him away, but she didn’t. Considering the start of this encounter, it hadn’t turned out all that badly, he concluded as he followed her. Perhaps she might accept him enough to show him the sea-beasts she guarded.

Winding his way down through the thorny, scrubby brush of the slopes behind the bluff, Thakur kept to the lame female’s track. He could hear her moving ahead of him, stopping and starting nervously. When she halted, he stayed back, not wanting to alarm her by moving too close. He paced himself by the uneven rhythm of her three-legged gait, slowing his own.

When they emerged onto the beach, she seemed less certain about wanting him to follow. He hung back, showing that he was willing to respect her privacy. After several stops, tail flicks, and doubtful stares in his direction, she let him trail her to a terrace near the seamares’ jetty. She grimaced at him to stay there.

Obediently, he dropped down on his belly as she disappeared behind an outcrop of sandstone. He feared Aree might grow restive, but the treeling made herself a nest in the hollow between his nape and shoulder blades and was soon snoring lightly. Thoughts of the stranger chased themselves about in his mind. He remembered how her jaws had moved and her tongue formed speech while she lay in the grip of the fit that had seized her. Yet when she recovered, she was as mute as ever.

Thakur thought too of Ratha’s swift pace and the trails she would be traveling. She and Fessran would soon arrive on the coast, and then others would come, creating a further disruption to the fragile balance of the life his strange friend had made for herself.

While he was still puzzling over it, he heard her footsteps approaching. He stayed down until she approached, then rose slowly. Again that sea-green stare held him until she swung around and went ahead, letting him follow. He could catch the odor of seamare in the wind, teasing his whiskers, and wondered if the stranger would allow him near the wave-wallowers. To gain the trust he wanted, he had to show her that he would do nothing threatening.

As he trotted down onto the beach, he saw her rolling on her back in dung that smelled overwhelmingly of seamare. She wriggled around in the mess until she had worked it well into her coat, gave herself a shake, and stood up. He noticed that she had thoughtfully left a pile for him. Obviously this was a requirement for approaching her charges.

He could see at once that this made sense. The odoriferous stuff would obliterate any trace of his smell, making him seem harmless to the seamares. Some of Thakur’s own herders made a practice of rolling in the manure of animals they kept, claiming that made the creatures less difficult to manage. Thakur himself had never cared for the idea.

He didn’t much like the idea of it now either. The lame female gave an impatient flip of her tail. When he tried to walk around the dung, she showed her teeth. It was either roll or give up. Thakur decided to roll. But Aree certainly wouldn’t tolerate being smeared with the stuff. Treelings liked to keep themselves clean.

“If you don’t mind, I’d better find a safe place for my treeling first,” he said, hoping she might understand his intent if not his words. He nosed Aree, then flicked a whisker in the direction they had just come. Quickly he left the beach and backtracked up the trail until he found a gnarled cypress high enough to keep the treeling safe from any ground-prowling meat eaters. Aree clambered up, grumbling a little, and hid in a hollow several tail lengths overhead.

Thakur found the lame female waiting where he had left her. Though she cast a hungry look down the trail, he was relieved to see that she did not go after his hidden treeling. The seamare dung was as pungent as ever, lying in a heap at his feet. He hoped she might have forgotten, but she hadn’t. He rolled.

He had assumed that the seamares ate sea grass or other plant fodder, like the herdbeasts he knew. The smell of the manure told him that the creatures had a much more varied diet, possibly including flesh or fish. Herdbeast dung was not repellent to him, but that of meat eaters other than his own kind carried a disgusting tang. He had to force himself to cover his coat with the seamare smell, wondering how he was ever going to clean up before he recovered Aree. And if he met any of the Named while wearing such a wretched odor… well, he decided not to think about that.

The female took one sniff and then led him to a group of seamares. He kept as close to her as he dared and tried to put his feet down silently. The seamares lay looking like logs washed ashore, but as he approached, ears twitched and heads lifted. The small eyes seemed to grow colder, and the tusks Thakur had glimpsed from a distance seemed larger. He told himself that one who challenged three-horns should have no fear of these clumsy wave-wallowers. But he was grateful for the odor that hung about him and disguised his smell.

The change in odor seemed to put the lame female more at ease, and he remembered how his scent-mark had triggered her first fit.

Thakur followed his companion as she limped close to one seamare, who lay at the edge of the herd with a half-grown youngster. With his odd friend standing nearby, he could walk close to the pair and examine them.

Ratha’s description of these animals as “duck-footed dapplebacks” wasn’t that far off, he decided. Their stout, black toes had scaled skin and a fold of webbing between them. Their bodies looked much the same as those of dapplebacks’, although broader and chunkier. The seamares’ coats were dense and velvety.

Thakur was startled to see the mother seamare take a large clam from a heap she had gathered, crack the shell, and deliberately lay it aside. With a glance at Thakur, the lame female set about prying the meat out of the mollusk with her good forepaw and her teeth. He thought she would eat it all, but halfway through she lifted her head and stared at him, then brought him a fragment of shell with meat still attached.

He did his best to rasp off the rubbery clam flesh and gulp it down, though it made a wad in his throat that threatened to choke him. He felt he could tolerate it, though he was grateful she didn’t offer him any more. She watched him while he ate, and he in turn tried to read those odd opaque eyes.

As he trailed her among the seamares for the rest of the day, he became more and more convinced that the dullness she showed was only on the surface. Beneath lay a sharp and perceptive intelligence, though one that worked in a very different way than his own.

The question of her apparent muteness rose again in his mind. It wasn’t that she could not make sounds, for he heard her use a wide variety of vocalizations. And her tongue could form words; he had heard her speak as clearly as one of the Named.

And when he spoke, as he did once in a while to himself, her reaction was more than just irritation or annoyance. Even as she turned her back on his words, he caught a look of longing in her eyes and a movement of her jaws that halted abruptly, as if she had caught herself trying to imitate him. Thakur noticed this but did nothing about it. He was unsure what he could do and was too taken up with studying the seamares to devote much thought to it.

After he had been on the beach for several days and had satisfied much of his curiosity about the wave-wallowers themselves, he turned his attention to the one who guarded them.

He spoke, as if muttering to himself, but this time he watched his strange friend, not letting her see his scrutiny. A fleeting look of something akin to despair passed through her eyes.

“You want to speak,” said Thakur, talking to her directly. “Why don’t you try?”

He said his name, trying to get her to repeat it, but she only ducked her head and would not meet his gaze.

“When you fell on your side that day I came, you spoke. Don’t you remember? Or were you just making sounds that had no meaning for you?”

She crouched, looking away, but he could tell by the way her ears swiveled that she was listening. Her tail tip trembled and began to wag in confusion.

“You are Named. I know you are.” The fierce conviction in his voice frightened Newt. Her ears twitched back, and the green in her eyes became turbulent, cutting off any sight he might have glimpsed of their depths. He softened his tone, knowing it was useless to force her.

She stared up at him from her crouch, and a pleading look came into her eyes. Again her mouth opened, her tongue writhed, but no sound emerged. Her eyes grew shuttered as she closed her mouth, but there was a spark of pain in them sharp enough to penetrate the dullness of her gaze. Thakur wondered if his efforts were adding to her inner torment.

He could only fall silent once again, wondering if he would ever reach her.

Chapter Seven

To lessen the disturbance that arose in his new friend whenever he spoke in the tongue of his people, Thakur tried to use only the instinctive cat-noises and body language of his kind. In gesture he had to be careful too, for the Named had overlaid their natural movements and signals with ones that had added meaning. If he strayed over the boundary, he confused his new companion. Clan language in all its forms had obviously been denied to her, yet he could see she hungered for some means of expression. She was not so much mute as she was trapped, caught between a desperate desire to have language and something that frightened her away from it.

His intuition urged him to speak to her and coax her to respond, as if she were one whose speech had been halted by sickness or the forgetfulness of age. When he saw the panic that started up in her eyes whenever he spoke, he knew it wouldn’t work; she was too frightened.

And so for her sake, he too became mute, suppressing his impulses to talk whenever he was with her. It was a strange and difficult thing for him to do. The unsaid words seemed to lie in his breast with a leaden weight, pulling him down. After a day or so of self-enforced silence, his mind rebelled, harassing him with arguments against his choice. When his jaw remained shut, it punished him with a strange weariness that left him feeling dull and draggy. The sound of the wind was muffled and distant, as if his ears were stuffed with fur. He fought to keep himself from falling into a trancelike state.

His only respite was when he retreated from the beach to find Aree in whatever tree he had perched her and take her on his back to forage. Her chirrs and chattering removed the barrier his will had set up, and he talked to her in a gush of words like a dammed stream suddenly freed to flow again. But once she had been installed for the day in her refuge, Thakur resumed his silence.

Just when he felt he wouldhave to say something aloud, the muffled, distanced feeling retreated and he found himself hearing, seeing, and smelling the world about him with a new sharpness and clarity. The pressure to speak his thoughts was no longer so overwhelming. He felt more“ outside” himself than he had ever done, more a part of the world and aware of it.

He began to sense that the gift of language was not entirely a gift, that it took something in return as payment. Words and thoughts controlled the way he saw things, coloring his actions and feelings at the price of raw clarity and the intensity of the moment. Was this the way those whom the clan called the Un-Named saw and felt? And the lame female? Did those eyes that looked so dull at times actually look out upon the world with a perception perhaps narrowed, but much keener than his own?

And then something odd happened that upset all his preconceptions. He was lying on his side on one of the upper terraces above the crowded mass of seamares. The lame female lay with him, stretched out in the warm sun. Thakur felt tired but tranquil. He had gained her trust and her friendship.

Gently his companion reached out with her good forepaw and patted his jowls. He thought for a moment that she was just playing, but she touched him again in the same place with a stroking motion of her paw. Her lower jaw trembled, opened.

The realization broke on him like a cold wave, leaving him trembling with chill and excitement. She didn’t want him to be silent. She wanted him to talk! And she was asking him to pull her from her own silence, even though it might force her to face something she greatly feared.

It took him a little while to find his voice again, and it felt creaky from disuse.“Thank you,” he said softly in the words of gratitude used among the Named.

Her ears flicked back, but she wiggled herself a little closer to him on her side, her eyes expectant.

“Where do I start?” he asked her. Again she patted his jowls. “Anything?”

Anything. He talked to her, watching her ears. They would prick forward, then flatten abruptly, but then start to swivel forward once again. He told her stories about his life with the clan, his work teaching cubs, his adventures, how he had found his treeling. It didn’t matter that the words had no meaning to her; she just wanted to hear them. Thakur was reminded that clan cubs heard their parents speaking from the moment they were born.

And so from muteness he went to a flood of talk. There was an almost terrified eagerness in the young female’s face as she began trying to imitate him. But nothing came out. Thakur encouraged her attempts, but it did not increase their success. Nothing worked — simple words, phrases, his name: They elicited only a frenzied struggle and then a strange, sad subsidence.

Had those words that had come from her tongue during her fit been a product of his own imagination? Again he heard the hollow, breathy voice in his mind.Stay away from them,she had said.Why did you do this to me? Why? I wish they had been born dead…. She’s witless.

Strange, disjointed phrases — yet they might hide a chilling history. And she had spoken them once. Perhaps she could speak the same words again. An uneasy feeling made him hesitate, but he could see no other way. He chose the most innocuous of her utterances. Settling close beside her, he caught her gaze and then slowly said,“Stay away from them. Stay away.” He repeated the phrase, making it rhythmic. She followed the pattern, bobbing her head slightly to the beat of his speech, as clan cubs did when trying to learn something difficult.

And then the first word came from her mouth.“Stay,” she blurted, and then, softer but clearer, “Stay.”

Thakur was lavish in his praise, trying to overcome the uncertainty that showed in her eyes at the sound of her own voice.“Stay,” he said, then got up and moved away. When she moved to follow, he pushed her back, making her sit where she was, hoping she would get the idea of what the word meant. It was an odd combination of teaching a clan cub, who could understand that words had meaning, and training a treeling, who understood them only as commands. After many repetitions, he could get her to remain in place with the one word and, after more work, could keep her from approaching him with the phrase “Stay away.”

The afternoon shadows grew longer across the rocks as Thakur drilled his new student. Abruptly, after he had given her the command one last time and she had obeyed it, she sat down with her brow furrowed.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, forgetting himself.

She looked at him blankly.“Away. Stay away. Stay away from them.” Panic rose like a storm in her eyes, and the words came quickly, hammered out as fast as she could say them. “Stay away from them, why did you do this to me, do you really want them, she’s witless… she’s witless… I wish they had been born dead… born dead… born dead…”

Pupils enlarging, she backed away from Thakur, who was already regretting his choice of teaching methods. Somehow he had set her off again; she had gone into the terrifying world that only she could see.

He expected her to stiffen and topple as she had done in the first two incidents, but this time she lunged, screaming and swiping at an invisible enemy. Then she turned tail and fled, diving among the rocks, scrabbling as fast as she could go.

Thakur pursued her, grateful that she had chosen a path uphill instead of down into the midst of the seamares. But terror gave her speed, despite her three-legged run, and he caught up with her only when lack of breath slowed her headlong dash. Trying to be as gentle as he could, he knocked her sideways with his shoulder, then followed as she tumbled into a clump of weeds.

She lay on her side, her legs stiff, shuddering and trembling. He lay down with her, licking her behind the ears until she grew still. At last she lifted her head and stared at him, looking bewildered and lost. Her mouth opened.

“No,” he said softly. “Don’t try any more. It hurts you too much.”

A stubborn glint appeared behind the swirling fear and forced its way through into the colors of her eyes. She jerked her mouth open and almost in defiance said,“Stay!” She flinched as if someone might strike her and for an instant went rigid, making Thakur afraid she had fallen back into her illness. She drove her claws into the ground and bared her teeth.

Abruptly her eyes cleared. She turned to Thakur, who was starting to rise.“Stay,” she begged, convincing him now that she understood the meaning of the word.

“All right.” He sighed, flopped down, and offered her a shoulder on which to rest her drooping head. He felt her go limp, as if exhausted. He felt weary and emotionally battered himself. Was it worth trying to teach her speech if everything was going to be such a struggle?

As if in reply, her good forepaw came up and patted his jowls, as if to sayI will fight what scares me. I want to learn.

The barrier within her against learning to speak had weakened. Thakur used only the words in those few phrases she had spoken. Once she understood those, he was uncertain what to try next. Among the first things that clan cubs learned were their names. She didn’t have a name, as far as he knew. Or did she? Having proved herself much more self-aware than he had assumed, she might well have some image of herself or some sound that served the same purpose. But how to get it out of her?

He began the obvious way: by teaching her his own name. But here he ran into trouble. It was difficult to get across to her the idea that the soundThakur meant himself. She didn’t understand any of the paw or tail gestures the Named would use to emphasize the idea of someone speaking about himself. And then the notion hit him. There were certain times when the Named felt most individual and personal. One of these was during mating, but Thakur decided that such an approach would have problems that he didn’t want to deal with. The other time was when someone was grooming, cleaning and smoothing their fur.

Despite the tang of seamare in his coat, he set about licking himself, trying not to be too thorough, for fear of having to roll in the creatures’ dung once again. She wandered up, sat down, and watched. Every few strokes, he paused and said his name. Her head cocked to one side. He smelled the fur along his back, taking a deep, noisy breath, and then said his name again. She sniffed him, then began to wash herself, but he quickly put a paw out to stop her. He didn’t want her to get the idea thatThakur meant the action of grooming oneself.

It took a little time, but gradually she understood what he was trying to get across.

“Thakur,” she said shyly, then sniffed his coat and touched him with a paw. Again he praised her, then sniffed her coat and stroked her with his pad.

“What is your name?” he asked.

She opened her mouth, closed it again, looked down in confusion. The fur between her eyes furrowed. He could see she knew what he wanted but was at a loss to express it.

“Stay,” she said, and then bounded away. He checked his impulse to go after her. This departure was different from the last. She wasn’t fleeing in terror; she had some purpose, though what, he had no idea. After she had been gone for what seemed a long while, he decided to go after her.

But no sooner had he gotten to his feet than she reappeared, carrying something limp in her mouth. When she put the thing down, it wriggled, throwing its body into sinuous curves. Thakur blinked and stared. She’d brought him a live newt.

He sat down, baffled, wondering what this action had to do with the lesson he’d been trying to teach. Was this supposed to be a reward because he’d done something that pleased her? He leaned over, sniffing the moist creature and grimacing with disgust. He wondered if he would offend her if he didn’t eat it. Perhaps he should at least try.

Her good forepaw batted him away. He sat up, cocking his head to one side. If the newt wasn’t meant as food, why did she bring it?

She pawed herself, then poked the creature with her toe, making it thrash. It writhed on the dry rock, covering itself with sand, but not before Thakur saw that the rust-black and orange markings on its moist skin approximated the color of his friend’s fur. He thought about her eagerness for words, for names. And that was what he had asked her.

By showing him the newt, she was telling him her name in the only way she knew.

“Newt?” he said, touching her with his forefoot. She pawed her evident namesake once again and danced around so excitedly that he had to intercede to keep her from accidentally squashing the it. Newt. She certainly hadn’t flattered herself by the choice.

She imitated the sound of her name, attached it to the creature. Again Thakur praised her, which resulted in more repetitions, more dancing, and the near trampling of the poor newt.

“All right. Why don’t you take that animal back where you found it, since I’m not hungry right now.” Thakur jerked his muzzle in the direction from which she had brought it.

She looked at him wide eyed.“Thakur stay,” she said, then scooped the sand-covered newt up in her jaws and dashed off on three legs.

Grinning, he sat where he was until she returned. He hoped the creature had survived the teaching session. He didn’t like to see things killed unless he was ready to eat them.

It was midmorning on the next day, and the two sat together near her cave. Thakur cocked his head at Newt and switched his tail in bafflement. He had risen feeling self-satisfied by what he had taught her the previous day, but now he was reconsidering.

“Thakur, stay,” Newt said. When he did as she asked, a mournful look came into her eyes, and she stamped a rear foot on the ground. Clearly, she wanted him to follow, but she was stuck with only one phrase.

“No, it’sThakur come,” he corrected.

“Thakur stay,” Newt said again, with a stamp and an impatient grimace.

“I’m not coming until you figure out what the difference is and use the right word.”

“Yarrr,” was Newt’s response. “Yarrr, yourself. The word iscome. I’ve told you that more times than I have hairs.”

She turned her back on him and stalked off, but she didn’t stay away for long. He could see by the little flickers in her eyes that she had something she wanted to show him.

She came back and tried,“Come stay.”

Thakur grinned.“Can’t do both.”

“Thakur… Thakur… ” Newt faltered, lost. Her ears twitched back. With a quick pounce, she seized his tail, pulled it, then made a three-legged pirouette in front of him, swatted him across the muzzle with her tail, and took off.

Thakur was several steps after her before he realized he’d been tricked. “You won’t learn to talk if you keep distracting me!” he yowled after her, but she was beyond earshot. He sighed and kept trotting.

Coming over a dune, he spotted her on the shore of the shallow lagoon that lay south of the beach. The early morning fog had lifted, letting sunlight spill onto the sand and across the wavelets.

As he came down the sandy slope, Newt bounded over to him.“Thakur, come,” she said triumphantly, then limped vigorously into the water. Welcoming a chance to cool himself, he followed, wading into the shallows until the wavelets lapped his belly. His casual glance at Newt sharpened as he realized that she was not just playing cub-games in the lagoon, as he had first thought.

He watched with growing interest as she spread herself out in the water. Using her hind feet and tail in a sculling motion that reminded him of how river otters swam, she glided forward, the waves forming a V-shaped wake in front of her ears. Her waterborne grace and agility surprised him. And then he saw that she no longer held her crippled foreleg tightly against her chest. The push and swell of the water drew the limb gently outward, and she moved it slightly to counteract each stroke of her good forepaw.

Thakur felt his eyes opening wider. He knew that water could be healing, for he had learned that the best treatment for bruises and sprains was to lie and let the limb dangle in the cold, running flow of a stream. The pain and swelling would fade much faster. If it could heal small hurts, he thought, perhaps it might give strength back to a withered forelimb.

Newt made a few lazy turns, then surfaced near him, her whiskers dripping.“Thakur come,” she chirped, then swam away. He followed, suddenly self-conscious about his clumsy paddling as compared to her elegant glide. Again she slid by in front of his nose like a fish. Her tail tip lifted, flipped a sprinkle of water into his face, and he spluttered, putting his feet down on the bottom.

“I swim about as well as you talk,” he said, as her head lifted again. “How do you do that?” He tried to float with his head down but immediately got a noseful of brackish seawater. He grimaced, coughing and drawing back his whiskers. Newt floated near him, swishing her tail lazily, her head up. She blew at him through her mouth and nose with a breathy, hissing sound. Still blowing, she ducked under again. A welter of bubbles boiled around her muzzle and ears.

Thakur watched. When she surfaced, he blew back at her. She grinned, slapped her good forepaw on top of his head, dunked him under, and held him. For one confused moment, he struggled, wondering why she was trying to drown him. Then he knew that she had decided to teach him in her own fashion. With a strong breath, he blew out the water flooding his mouth and nose. She let him up.

He dunked Newt in turn, watching her breath surface as bubbles. Moving away from her, he tried putting his face in the water. The first few times he ended up with brine in his throat, but he began to master the trick of controlling his breathing to overcome the feeling of suffocation and keep water out of his mouth and nose.

Thakur opened his eyes in the clear water of the lagoon. He could see somewhat blurrily, but he could make out objects. There was Newt, hanging in the water nearby, her fur forming a soft halo about her as currents teased it away from her body. He felt the water push against his face, tug unpleasantly at his sensitive nose and brow whiskers, and seep over his jowls into his mouth. Lifting his head, he shook the water out of his ears. This was interesting, but it would take some getting used to.

Newt drifted into the shallows near him. She looked up at him, then pawed the water with her forefeet in imitation of his paddling. Both forefeet. He stared at her two paws, the good one splashing vigorously, the other feeble but moving. It hadn’t been just his imagination or wishful thinking. Her leg wasn’t as useless as it appeared.

“Newt,” he said softly, nudging her. “Look.” She stared down, following the odd jerks of her crippled forelimb through the water. With a self-conscious grimace, she tugged the leg to her chest and held it there.

“No. What you were doing before; that was good.” Gently, Thakur pawed her foot away from her chest, coaxing her to let the forelimb drift free. He batted her limb back and forth in a small arc beneath the water, then took her foot in his mouth, trying to see how far the tightened muscles would stretch. This time she did not jerk away.

With his nose underwater, Thakur moved the shrunken limb back and forth until Newt caught on to the idea.“Good,” he said, sneezing brine out of his whiskers. “You do it now.”

She managed several short, jerky sweeps. He saw it was harder for her to move the leg intentionally than it had been when she was just swimming. She persisted, even when the leg began trembling. He made her stop, then encouraged her to swim again by making a few clumsy paddle-strokes. She glided around him, then looked up. Again she pawed the water.“Newt…?”

Thakur grinned. She was so good at this water play that of course she would want to know the word for it.“Swim,” Thakur told her.

“Newt swim,” she said. “Thakur swim.” She glided around him, twisting and turning.

“Good.” He purred and gave her a soggy nuzzle.

“Good,” Newt echoed.

He licked her behind the ears, then ducked to avoid another splash.

Later he had her do more exercise with the leg, sweeping it back and forth as far as it would go against the resistance of the water. He felt he had found something important, although he was not exactly sure how it might work.

Chapter Eight

Fessran and Khushi were gone from clan ground for many days. For Ratha, those days dragged like the weary herders’ feet, as the weather grew hotter and the trails dustier.

She lay in late-afternoon shade that felt as hot as open sun. She panted, feeling worn out and worried. She wished she had delayed Thakur from returning to the lake-of-waves and its odd inhabitant. The task of controlling herdbeasts made restive by thirst and flies was a wearying one, in addition to her other duties as leader. And the new water source she thought would last had begun to fail.

Both Thakur and Fessran were gone. She let her jaw sag as she panted. Letting them both go had been a bad decision. But how was she to know that Khushi would turn up with a stolen cub from the ranks of the Un-Named, who might well have sprung from the loins of her bitterest enemy? Could anyone blame her if she wanted that litterling off clan ground as fast as possible and shred the consequences!

Letting Fessran go with Khushi was only a quicker way to speed him off with his unwanted burden. Ratha sighed. Not a good decision. Even if all Fessran wanted was her lost treeling — but Ratha couldn’t bring herself to believe that.

She lay with her tail flicking, thinking about the good and bad parts of what Thakur had told her before he left. The good part was the spring. Thakur had described how underground water flowed from a series of cracks in a cliff that lay just behind the beach where he had found the duck-footed dapplebacks. With its source deep in the earth, the spring would run even when everything else went dry. The spring watered thickets where three-horns could browse and patches of meadow that would do for the dapplebacks.

The bad part was that the Named would have to leave clan ground for as long as the drought lasted. Ratha laid her chin down on grass that once would have cooled but now crackled. The journey there would be exhausting. She thought of the river drives and the prospect of increasing the tumult, dust, and weariness over days of traveling.

Before she uprooted the clan, she must see the spring for herself, to be absolutely sure it would support the needs of the Named and their herds through the drought. She wanted to study the wave-wallowers themselves, along with the Un-Named one who lived among them.

Soon she would follow Thakur’s tracks to this great, brine-filled lake. She itched to be gone. But she meant to take Fessran with her, and the Firekeeper had not yet returned. She sighed and laid her nose on her paws instead of the scratchy grass.

Though the clan would be losing its leader and chief Firekeeper for a short time, Ratha felt that this journey was essential, and she needed Fessran’s opinion as much as her own. She had already spoken to the older herder, Cherfan, about taking over clan leadership while she was gone. And Bira, Fessran’s second-in-command among the Firekeepers, had overcome much of her shyness and had grown skilled in the management of the Red Tongue and those who kept it.

Fessran’s absence would give Bira a chance to emerge from the chief Firekeeper’s shadow and show her abilities. Cherfan was a strong, experienced herder and respected by all. Ratha did not think her own and Fessran’s absence would be long enough to cause difficulty; at the slow rate the river was dropping, things would remain stable enough until she had found a place for the clan.

Fessran and Khushi surprised her by arriving later that same afternoon. A herder ran ahead, bringing the news to her and waking her from her sleep in the shade. As soon as the two travelers came into sight, Ratha saw Fessran was still missing her treeling. Khushi’s jaws, thankfully, were empty. With a rising purr, she invited them to stretch out beside her.

When both had rested and groomed, Ratha asked how they had fared on the journey. She noticed that Fessran let Khushi do most of the talking.

“We didn’t find the cub’s mother. I didn’t expect that we would,” Khushi said matter-of-factly. “We left him in a safe place. If she’s still in the area, she’ll find him.”

Ratha glanced at Fessran in surprise.“You agreed to let Khushi do that?”

Fessran seemed preoccupied. She was slow to respond, and her voice sounded distant.

“We couldn’t think of anything else,” she said. “The mother was gone, and we couldn’t find her. We would only have frightened her more if we had. And you would have chewed our ears to scraps if you saw us bringing the cub back.” Fessran stretched out in the shade and began grooming her belly. “Anyway, I did some thinking while I was on the trail and decided you were right. There was no use in making a fuss about this Un-Named cub when we will have our own.”

But you won’t be having cubs this season, Ratha thought.

She tongued her own fur, wondering where her feeling of uneasiness had suddenly come from. Nothing in Fessran’s smell or manner alarmed her, yet she had the sense that something wasn’t right. Well, it wasn’t like Fessran to give up fighting for something she cared about. Not so abruptly.

What are you complaining about? she asked herself crossly.I made Fessran obey me, which is something I’ve had trouble doing ever since I became leader.

Yet this time Fessran’s willfulness had seemed to echo her own conscience. She might just be wrong about this litterling. Her judgment might have been too hasty and too harsh. And not just with him…

She felt slightly dismayed, as if her conscience had given in too easily, just as Fessran had. As if the stronger and not so likable part of her had won out.

I don’t like it, but that’s what made me clan leader.

She decided to forget about the cub. There were other things to think about; new journeys to plan. Fessran would come with her, and perhaps the time together would allow her to mend the rift in their friendship. Warming to the idea, she laid out the prospect of the coastward journey to the Firekeeper.

Fessran, however, was curiously unenthusiastic, and when Ratha said she wanted to leave the following day, the look in Fessran’s eyes was one of reluctance.

“Are you sure you want to leave so soon?” Fessran asked.

“I have to see Thakur’s spring for myself, and that must be done quickly.”

“That makes sense,” Fessran agreed, though her voice sounded flat. “Why do you want me, though? I’m not a herder. You and Thakur are more skilled at judging if a place is fit for keeping three-horns.”

“You were a herder before I gave you Firekeeper leadership. Fessran, I can’t make this judgment alone. You and Thakur are the ones I trust the most. If I must tear the Named from clan ground, let me have some hope that I am doing what is right.”

“You haven’t had doubts about other things, clan leader,” Fessran replied, and the way she said it told Ratha she had not forgotten the Un-Named cub. Before Ratha’s ears could flatten, Fessran yawned widely. “All right, I’ll come. But give me at least a day to rest. My shoulder aches and my pads feel like I’ve walked across every rock in the world. I just want to be left alone to sleep.”

Fessran got what she wanted, and Khushi soon joined her in the dense shade beneath a pine that stood apart from the other trees in and around the meadow. It was Bonechewer’s grave-tree. Ratha wondered if Fessran had chosen the spot deliberately, so that the clan leader would not come near.

She was surprised by the strength of anger and sadness that weighted her steps as she padded away. She remembered her dead mate too well: the gleaming copper coat, the amber eyes, and the voice that was sardonic yet caring. And she remembered the faces of their cubs and especially the face of their daughter, Thistle-chaser. The blank, bewildered stare of her own litterling suddenly became the equally empty gaze of the Un-Named orphan she had ordered Khushi to abandon.

Toward sunset something drew her to the pine again. If Fessran was as weary as she had sounded, she would still be asleep, and Ratha planned not to wake her. But when she arrived near the grave-tree, she heard only one set of rumbling snores, and they were Khushi’s. Fessran had gone.

Ratha sniffed the ground around the pine. Her first instinct was to track the Firekeeper, but suddenly she grew disgusted with herself. Being clan leader was turning her suspicious and sour, ruining an old and valued friendship. Did she really have a good reason not to trust Fessran? Did she have to know where everyone was and what he was doing at every moment?

She shook herself, grimaced, and trotted away.

Fessran returned, in good time to supervise the lighting of watchfires for the night. Ratha watched the slim, sandy form trotting from one Firekeeper to the next, giving advice, instructions, and seeing that the fires were kept properly fed yet contained. Ratha let her suspicions drop with a sigh of relief. Wherever Fessran went was her own business. She worked hard and well for the clan. There might be mutterings about what she had done in the past, but she had done more than enough to redeem herself, and no one could fault her now.

In the morning, Ratha woke Fessran and met with Cherfan and Bira. If this journey yielded the refuge the Named sought, she said to the older herder, then Fessran would return with instructions to guide the clan, and Cherfan was to bring them under her direction. After the Firekeeper leader gave some brief advice to Bira, Fessran and Ratha set out on their journey to the coast.

Days later, Thakur approached the lone tree at the clearing that lay inland from the beach. He smelled places where two of the Named had chin-rubbed against rough bark. Ratha’s scent he knew well, and Fessran’s had an acrid, smoky undertone that told of her place as Firekeeper leader. They had both passed this way not long ago.

He also sniffed an odor that surprised him and reawakened his belly-rumbles: fresh meat. Either the two females had just eaten or they were carrying prey. His ears cocked forward. He knew Ratha had learned to hunt during her exile from the clan, but the smell told him that this was no wild prey. The meat came from a herdbeast. How could they have dragged it all that way and kept it from turning rank? Perhaps one of them was just carrying a small piece for him in her mouth. His own watered at the thought.

Thakur circled back to follow their trail, then hesitated. Ratha and Fessran’s arrival meant company and perhaps food, but it also meant that the time the clan leader had allotted him to study Newt and her sea-creatures was gone. He felt now that he might have enough knowledge to try herding the seamares. Ratha would be eager to test his suggestion. But this would mean more intrusion into Newt’s life. Thakur sensed that the place she had made for herself was precarious and could easily be destroyed.

The smell of the two Named females and the tantalizing odor of food teased him onward, and he trotted after them with Aree riding on his nape. Soon after he broke out of thinning forest into coastal meadow, he caught sight of two tawny backs moving ahead of him through the grass. He didn’t need to call, for the wind had carried his smell ahead of him. He saw both figures turn, their ears and whiskers lifting at the sight of him. But although he smelled food, neither Ratha nor Fessran carried anything in their mouths. His belly gave a disappointed grumble as he jogged to a stop in front of them.

Fessran took one sniff at him, then retreated, grimacing.“Herding teacher, you are wearing the most disgusting stink I have ever smelled on anyone.”

“You’d better get used to smelling me this way.” Thakur grinned. “Those duck-footed dapplebacks won’t let me near them unless I roll in their dung. I’m sure there is plenty for you.”

Fessran gave her ruff a disdainful lick, as if the noxious stuff was already on her.“I don’t mind herdbeast dung, but I can tell these beasts don’t eat grass. Ugh!”

“May you eat of the liver and sleep in the driest den,” Ratha said, touching noses with him, but her whiskers twitched back. She rubbed her forehead against his cheek and started to slide along him, her tail crooked over, but she broke off midway, saying, “Fessran may be rude, but she’s right. Phew, that’s strong!”

Feeling like a pariah, he took a position downwind from both and asked them stiffly if that was better. Now that his own aroma was carried away by the breeze, he caught the maddening meat-smell and wondered where it was coming from.

Ratha had only her treeling on her back, but Fessran was festooned with something odd. It looked like she had rolled in some vines and had ended up tangled in strands and bundles of leaves.

Fessran turned abruptly to Ratha and said,“Well, we’ve carried the food long enough. Get your treeling to undo these leaves, and we’ll feed Thakur before his tongue hangs out so far he steps on it.”

At a nudge and purr from Ratha, Ratharee hopped onto Fessran’s back and started pulling a leafy bundle apart. From the covering, Ratha drew a chunk of meat with her fangs and offered it to the herding teacher. Thakur didn’t think about where it had come from; he just plopped down with the food between his paws and began slicing it with his side teeth. It was liver.

The richness of it soon sated him enough so his curiosity arose once again. He got to his feet, licking his chops, and asked how the two females had carried it. Ratha showed him cords of twisted bark fiber that bound large leaves still covering the remaining bundles of food. He saw how the cords were wrapped about the Firekeeper’s body to lash the packets to her sides.

“The leaves keep flies off,” Ratha explained. “The meat isn’t as good as we’d get from a cull, but it isn’t carrion either.”

Thakur sniffed a packet then turned to Ratha.“Did you think of this?”

“A Firekeeper student and his treeling came up with these twisted bark vines. You saw them being used to bind wood. Fessran figured out that we could use them to lash things onto ourselves, and since we knew you’d be hungry… ”

“And we thought we’d be hungry too, after a while,” Fessran reminded her. “Although I’m beginning to wonder if the idea was so clever. I’m not sure I’m ever going to get myself untangled from this mess.”

Thakur stretched, enjoying his full stomach. One thing good about liver was that it was so rich that one didn’t have to gorge oneself to feel sated.

“You can have more, Thakur,” Fessran offered, evidently wanting to be rid of the sticky bundles against her sides. “After all, we did come to see your duck-footed dapplebacks, and the best way to start is to see how they taste. I imagine we’ll have plenty of fresh meat, so there’s no use saving this.”

“I would save it anyway,” Thakur answered carefully, trying not to show the sudden dismay he felt when he heard her words.

Ratha glanced at him curiously, and he knew she sensed his change in mood. He might be able to conceal his feelings from Fessran, since she often paid little attention to such things, but not Ratha.

She took him aside and said,“Thakur, have you found that these animals are not suited to our purpose after all? If that is true, I won’t be angry. You did say you needed to study them before we arrived, and you have done so.”

Thakur looked back at her, knowing she had grown well into her role as leader.“No, that is not what troubles me.” With a wary glance at Fessran, he explained his concern that a Named invasion of the seamare herd might frighten away the young cripple who lived among the creatures. And too much disruption might cause the herd itself to flee from the jetty.

“It would be better for us to learn with just a few animals,” he said. “There is a smaller group of duck-foots who make their homes in the rocks north of the jetty itself. If we work with those, we will do better.”

Ratha agreed that his plan sounded wise and asked him to take her and Fessran to see the creatures. But first, she said, she wanted to see the spring. If the Named were to bring their herds here, she must be sure that there was forage and water to sustain them.

Slightly inland from the beach lay a scarp whose face was cut in a sheer cliff. A forest of mixed broadleaf and small pine grew in the cooling shadow thrown by the cliff. From cracks in slate and blue bands of rock, the water came, bearing the scent and taste of earthen caverns. It did not gush but ran in a steady, even stream without faltering.

“The smell of this water tells me it will never dry up,” Ratha said, squinting up through the rich, slanting light between the trees. Thakur watched her crouch on a stone and dip her chin into the pool that collected beneath the spring. “The gravel bottom won’t muddy when the herdbeasts drink. You have done well to find such a place.”

Then she and Fessran began inspecting low-hanging boughs to be sure none of the new foliage could harm herdbeasts. Nosing through brush and grass, Thakur helped them search for poisonous weeds or plants with white berries. He also kept a lookout for an annoying herb with leaves that grew in clusters of three, which could cause the Named to itch if it got through to the skin beneath their fur or on their noses.

He walked with Ratha between thickets, looking at the quantity and freshness of the leaves, then wandered through the scattered clearings where grass grew, watered by seepage from the spring.

At last she gave a satisfied grunt.“This will be the clan’s ground until the drought passes,” she said finally. “Now, show me the animals.”

Thakur led the two females behind the bluff overlooking the seamare terraces. He deliberately circled inland, giving the cliffs a wide berth so that the scents of his two companions would not betray their presence to Newt, who patrolled the rocks below.

He brought Ratha and Fessran to another, smaller headland area that overlooked a steep graveled beach. From an overlook above, he stretched out a paw toward the seamares.

Fessran wrinkled her nose at the sight of the creatures sprawled out all over the beach.“They don’t look like much to me. Such lazy lumps. I like a creature with some spirit. And that smell is worse on them than on you.”

“I think you will find they have spirit, especially when you try to taste their flesh,” Thakur retorted.

Fessran wrinkled her nose again, but he ignored her. She wasn’t the one who would decide.

“How would you keep these creatures?” Ratha asked.

“I would do as I saw the young stranger doing. I would gain their trust by defending their young from other meat eaters and take only those who have died.”

“That will take much work and many days and provide only scraps while we do it. I think we should begin the way the first ones of the clan did with herdbeasts: catch and gather them in a place we can keep them.”

“They must live in water,” Thakur argued. “They will die if we drive them onto land and don’t let them swim.”

“Well, we certainly can’t herd them on this beach. One sniff of us and splash — off they’d go.” Ratha turned, scanning the landscape. “Look,” she said, pointing with her muzzle. “There’s another river emptying into this salty lake, and its waters look shallow. Perhaps we could keep the animals there.”

They investigated the river mouth. Thakur judged the water salty enough for seamares, and holes on the muddy shore indicated the presence of the heavy-shelled clams on which the creatures fed. One channel in the river delta had made a deep meander into the side of a cliff, creating a crescent-shaped beach surrounded by sandstone walls on one side and the river on the other. The shallow and slowly flowing water allowed Ratha, Thakur, and Fessran to wade close to the center of the channel before their bellies even got wet.

“This is far enough from the waves so that the creatures couldn’t escape us,” said Ratha. “And the cliffs trap them on all sides but one. It won’t be easy, but we can keep them here.”

Thakur agreed, although the thought of forcing the creatures to move from their graveled sea-beach bothered him a little.

The next task was to capture some seamares and move them. Thakur knew that the Named couldn’t just go down on the beach, surround the creatures, and drive them alongshore to the river mouth. The beach was too narrow for the herders to maneuver, and the seamares could easily escape by diving into the breakers. But if one animal might be lured apart from the rest, the three could surround it.

The problem was how to lure the beasts. Thakur knew they ate large clams, but his efforts to dig one up and open it had so far failed. It was Fessran who pointed out that if the seamares ate such smelly things as fish, clams, and seaweed, they might be tempted by the meat she carried, which by now was also taking on an unmistakable odor.

To everyone’s surprise, the idea worked. Using her treeling’s dextrous paws, Ratha scattered a trail of meat fragments to lure a seamare into ambush. The first creature they captured was small and didn’t put up much of a struggle. With three of the Named surrounding the beast, it humped and heaved itself from the graveled beach upriver to the site Ratha had chosen. The creature arrived, ruffled and blown, but in good enough shape to immediately start rooting in the mud for clams. Leaving Fessran to guard the first captive, Thakur and Ratha went back to bait the trail for another.

Soon a second, larger seamare started the trek to the river beach. This one gave the two herders more trouble.

“By the ticks on my belly, these duck-foots can move fast if they want to,” Thakur yowled as he lunged to block the beast from wheeling and taking off back down the path.

“Watch the tusks,” Ratha called over the seamare’s outraged bellowing. An irritated jab just missed his hindquarters as he skittered away.

“Yes, they’re not as long as herdbeast horns, but they’re down lower, where they can cause more trouble. Yarr, you stinking wave-wallower — go this way, not that!”

Soon there were more seamares than herders on the river beach. Thakur wanted to call a halt, but Ratha and Fessran had gotten excited. The bait was working well, and plenty remained. Both females had long since stopped complaining about the animals’ fishy reek and were stalking and tricking the beasts with eager mischievousness.

Finally Thakur pointed out that if the Named collected too many more, they’d be spending too much effort chasing the creatures out of the river and trying to keep them from escaping back downstream. Reluctantly, Ratha agreed, for it was getting toward sunset. Thankfully, the sea-beasts slept by night, letting one of the three take each watch while the others slept.

The next day, Thakur found Ratha gone, while Fessran watched the seamare herd through sleep-reddened eyes.“How do I know where she’s gone?” the Firekeeper growled irritably. “She said she was going to find some prickly bushes, and no, I don’t have any idea why.”

He found out when Ratha returned, her back laden with thornbrush, with Ratharee holding the branches on her. She also carried several rather gingerly in her mouth. Thakur could see the scratches on her muzzle.

“This may solve the problem of straying wave-wallowers,” she said, dumping the brush and arranging it in a narrow heap as the Named did with firewood. Thakur could see that the prickly branches formed a low but effective barrier.

With his help, she fetched more brush and started to build a low wall. Thakur was dubious at first, but when he saw a seamare lumber up to the construction then retreat from the sharp thorns, he became convinced. They added thorny vines of wild blackberry, extending the barrier out toward the river.

Following Ratha’s confident lead, he helped her build the wall into the lapping shallows. Then he saw her stop and stare in dismay as the gentle current stole every branch she had placed in the water, wafting them away.

She sat down, scratched herself in puzzlement. On her shoulder, Ratharee lifted her ringed tail in a questioning curve.

“Well, the branches need to be held down, somehow,” Thakur began, but he was interrupted by a call from Fessran, who needed help to keep several seamares from humping themselves past her into the river.

Barrier building had to be abandoned for the moment, while the recalcitrant beasts were rounded up and driven back, but Thakur knew Ratha hadn’t given up on the idea.

As soon as she could, she was back at it again. Fessran offered the suggestion that sticks pushed into the river bottom might serve to keep the thornbrush in place, and, after several tries, it worked. Not without cost, however. Thakur had splinters in his pads and thornbark between his teeth by the time the two quit for the day.

Now that Ratha was assured that the spring Thakur found would serve the Named throughout the dry season, she decided to move the herds. She had considered the river where the seamares were kept as another possibility, but the outflow was so sparse that salt water had intruded, turning the river into a narrow arm of the sea. It was ideal for seamares but not other herdbeasts. The three-horns and dapplebacks would be moved to the area about the spring.

As soon as she told Fessran of her decision, the Firekeeper wanted to leave, bearing the good news back to Cherfan and the others. After hearing Fessran grumble about“ walking across all the rocks in the world,” Ratha was surprised to see her so eager to make the journey once again.

Perhaps Fessran was starting to get restless, chafing at having to spend a good part of the day watching the captive seamares while Thakur and Ratha extended their brush wall into a corral that opened onto the river. Ratha had no doubt that Fessran would perform her task well and would take no nonsense from anyone. But she knew Fessran well enough to see that clan duty was not the only thing on the Firekeeper’s mind.

After Fessran left, Ratha tackled the task of building a brush wall that would stand in the river’s current. By ramming sticks into the mud-and-gravel bottom and having the treelings weave supple boughs between them, she and Thakur found that they could make a structure that held the seamares in while allowing water to pass through. Ratha tried to adapt the method of lashing sticks together that the Firekeeper student had shown her, although it was difficult to get Ratharee to stop twisting bark strips into tangles once she had started.

As the wall slowly grew, with Thakur’s help, Ratha wanted more seamares within the enclosure. When enough of the corral had been completed so that the beasts would not stray, she talked Thakur into another expedition to capture the beasts.

He was willing as long as they stayed north of the area where the Un-Named one prowled and did not take any that seemed to belong in that area. Another condition was that she disguise her smell by rolling in seamare dung. She grumbled, but she knew Thakur was right. She rolled.

They used the last of the smelly bait to lure more seamares and soon had as many as they could handle. The creatures milled about on the beach and sloshed in the water. Ratha and Thakur were kept busy reinforcing and raising the thornbrush walls.

When they weren’t working on the seamare corral, Thakur showed her how to find things to eat in tidepools and how to glean the seamares’ leavings. She did not like being a scavenger, even for a short while, and she was relieved when Fessran finally showed up at dawn one morning, along with Cherfan and Bira. She looked thin, dusty, but triumphant, leading a string of thirsty dapplebacks and three-horns, along with their equally thirsty herders.

Firekeepers arrived with the herders, bearing the Red Tongue in embers and on torches. Many of the Named looked tired and disgruntled at having to make the move, but no one growled or blamed Ratha, for they knew it was the drought that had forced them from their home ground.

Eagerly Ratha led them all to Thakur’s spring, and she saw that the watering place would serve as well as she had hoped. Even with three-horns and dapplebacks milling and trampling, the flow stayed clear, and the animals drank until they were sated. Then the herders let them scatter to browse, and the rest of the Named sought dens or sleeping places nearby.

At last, when the confusion died down, she sought out Fessran. The Firekeeper was sitting on a rock ledge near the pool, grooming her belly and purring softly to herself. As Ratha approached, she caught something unusual in Fessran’s smell, something sweet and almost milky. But the powerful seamare odor in her own coat interfered with her nose, and she couldn’t tell if the odd scent was just her imagination. She consoled herself by thinking that Fessran would soon be wearing the odoriferous stuff and would smell as bad as she did now.

As she approached, Fessran stopped grooming and lay down. The elusive scent teasing Ratha’s nose vanished as if it had never been. Fessran yawned, looking weary but happy. The strained look on her face seemed to have gone.

“Well, I did it.” She grinned at Ratha. “I helped Cherfan whip that lazy bunch into shape and get them here.”

“No one gave you trouble?”

Fessran licked some new scratches on her muzzle.“Oh, there were a few malcontents — there always are. I had to use a little persuasion, but not much. The sight of the dry streambeds helped change their minds.” She shifted, grimacing and sneezing. “Would you mind sitting a bit farther away, clan leader? I mean no disrespect, but until I getused to that smell… ”

Ratha moved herself, sitting a little apart, while Fessran told her how they had made the journey without losing a single fawn or foal. It suddenly struck her that the Firekeeper was preoccupied by something that had nothing to do with herdbeasts. She could tell by the absent tone in Fessran’s voice and the way she groomed herself.

“Are you still thinking about your treeling?” she asked suddenly.

“What? Oh, Fessree? No. I’m sure she’s surviving without me. No point in fretting, and I have other things to think about.”

A little later Ratha paced away, swinging her tail. When she returned later to ask the Firekeeper something, she found Fessran gone.

She did not have much time to wonder where her friend had disappeared. No sooner had she turned away from the pool below the falls than she saw Thakur trotting up to her. She could tell by the way his whiskers bristled that this wasn’t just a friendly call.

He jogged to a stop, Aree rocking on his back. Ratha lifted her chin, raised her whiskers.

“Ratha, I thought you told the herders not to take any wave-wallowers from the southern beach.”

“I did,” she said mildly.

“Well, they aren’t obeying you,” Thakur said. “I saw several young herders bringing an animal over the rocks that separate our beach from the one Newt stalks.”

Ratha’s tail twitched with irritation. She did not like her instructions to be flouted, even though she had given them to appease Thakur. Privately, she didn’t think that the Un-Named female Thakur called Newt would really miss a few wave-wallowers.

By the time the two backtracked to where Thakur had seen the stolen seamare and then made their way to the corral, the herding students were driving the beast past the brush wall. The herders, all yearlings, looked inordinately proud of themselves. Ratha thought sourly that the creature they had pirated was small and not really worth all the effort. She lost sight of the seamare as it lumbered past the thornbrush wall and mingled with the honking, hooting mass of its fellows.

She was about to tongue-lash the overenthusiastic youngsters when Thakur interrupted, asking if she had tracked the seamare through the brush gate and knew which one it was.

“No,” she admitted, staring across the thornbrush at slick, mud-smeared flanks and swinging tusks. “I lost sight of the creature as soon as it got in.”

Thakur sighed.“Newt isn’t going to like this. I should have stopped those yearlings and returned the beast myself. I also don’t know which others they may have taken.”

“Does it really matter?” Ratha asked. “There are more on her beach than on ours. Surely she won’t miss a few.”

Thakur’s ears twitched back. “Don’t tell me you agree with what the herders did, Ratha!”

“I don’t, and I was going to let them know that when you stuck your whiskers in,” she snapped. “Why is your nape all up about this anyway? Your lame friend has got more of the wave-wallowers than she needs.”

“She knows them all, and she’ll know if one is missing. She has favorites among them.”

At this Ratha grimaced disdainfully.“You may think it’s silly, but she does,” Thakur insisted. “She may tolerate us stealing a few, especially if she thinks they have wandered over from her beach, but if we take the wrong animal, we will have trouble. And I’m afraid we may have already done that.”

“All right,” Ratha said, seeing that he really was worried. “I’ll tell everyone they’d better keep to our territory, or they’ll have more than an Un-Named cripple to worry about.”

She saw Thakur grimace at that and knew she should have chosen her words less recklessly.“I’m sorry, Thakur. She deserves more respect than that. I’ll be sure the herders leave her alone.”

She didn’t like it when Thakur held her gaze with his own, his copper-furred face serious. “Don’t underestimate Newt, Ratha.”

Her tail did an irritated flip. Why was he getting so touchy about Newt, or whoever she was? Abruptly she decided to change the subject and asked him if he’d seen Fessran.

“I caught a glimpse of her going somewhere with Khushi,” Thakur answered.

Ratha padded away. It seemed odd that Fessran was spending so much time with her son. None of the other Named females bothered much with their cubs once they were grown. She often had to scratch in her mind to remember who had birthed whom, on the rare occasions when it mattered. She shook herself and went on her way.

The following day, when she saw that the herdbeasts and the Named had settled after the journey, she gathered up those herders and Firekeepers who could be spared. After teaching them and their treelings how to work sticks and brush together to form a section of wall, she put them to work building the seamare pen.

Although Fessran still lacked a treeling, she made up for it by diligently bringing pieces of driftwood up from the beach and piling them near the wall.

Ratha had the pole-setters place additional sticks alongside the ones she and Thakur had laid. Once more poles were in place she worked alongside them with Ratharee on her back. The treeling held crossmembers where Ratha wanted them and helped to lash these in place. It was wearing work, hard on both Named jaws and treeling hands.

“Don’t you think it’s strong enough?” Fessran asked Ratha. “Watching you grunt and tussle in that miserable river is making me squirm.”

From the shallow water where she was standing, Ratha eyed the wall and the seamares inside.“It needs more brush on top. I want to be sure those duck-footed bellydraggers can’t escape.”

“If you put more on top, it will fall over,” Fessran argued, but Ratha wasn’t in a mood to listen. She slogged her way out to midriver, where the construction crew and their treelings were reinforcing the barrier by shoving sticks and thornbrush into the crude latticework. Not satisfied with how the others were building the wall, she took a tangle of brush in her own mouth and clambered atop the construction.

“Here’s where it should go,” she said, and shoved the mass in the fork of a driftwood branch. As she stretched down to take more thornbrush that was being passed up to her, she felt the whole wall shift alarmingly under her weight. With squalls of dismay, the workers scattered as a section ofthe barrier toppled over, carrying Ratha and her treeling with it.

With a terrific splash, it fell into the river. Ratha expected a dunking but to her surprise, the woven mass of driftwood and brush held together, acting as a floating platform beneath her. Only her toes got soggy from water seeping through.

After getting over her initial shock, Ratha realized she was drifting downriver. She saw Fessran trotting along the bank, accompanied by several irritated pole-setters yowling insults at their reckless leader for knocking the wall down.

The current wasn’t very strong, and soon Ratha’s make-shift raft grounded on a sandbar. Everyone who wasn’t occupied with keeping seamares from escaping waded in to steady the strange craft and rescue a frightened Ratharee, but Fessran and a few others took the opportunity to make sure Ratha got well splashed, dunked, and pummeled by the time she reached solid ground.

“Wait!” she yowled just as the Named were about to tear the raft apart to use in an attempt to repair the seamare pen. The group drew back, letting her through to examine the thing. She pushed on the craft with a paw, watching how it bobbed and floated. Again she clambered on, scrambling from one end to the other. Yes, it made her feet soggy and had a disconcerting tendency to sink under her weight in certain places, but it had carried her quite a distance.

She hopped off, her whiskers bristling excitedly.

“I know that look,” said Fessran. “Don’t tell me you think we can use that broken piece of the wave-wallower pen.”

“Didn’t you see what happened? It carried me and Ratharee over the water. We didn’t have to swim. I think it could carry more than one of us. Come on, Firekeeper. Let’s both try.”

Gingerly, Fessran made her way aboard, grimacing when Ratha joined her in a gleeful bound, making the raft bounce.“You, clan leader, are still a cub sometimes. Yarr, this thing makes my stomach feel queer.”

“We can ride down the river on it,” Ratha argued.

“You can ride down the river on it. I’ll stick to burning my whiskers with the Red Tongue.” Fessran disembarked, waded to the bank, and shook her feet. “Anyway, we need the sticks to fix the hole you made.”

Reluctantly, Ratha gave up her new discovery, but as she watched the other Firekeepers pull it apart, she fixed the idea in her mind, resolving to build another raft once the pen was finished.

Chapter Nine

Thakur’s worry about Newt’s reaction to the taking of her seamares by the Named soon proved true. Shortly after the incident with the two yearling herders, he learned that other herders had laid out bait trails to lure more seamares. But they had been scattered or trampled into the sand. There were reports that someone seemed to be hiding in the rocks, watching the herders, even if they stayed on their own beach. And one of the young herders who had been involved in the seamare stealing had been attacked by night. Though he was able to drive his assailant off, the ferocity of the attack frightened him. Thakur decided he had better find Newt.

He discovered her in the lagoon where she swam. When she saw him, her ears pricked forward, and she bounded out of the water. He saw, to his mixed delight and dismay, that her foreleg looked stronger and that she made attempts to use it, even on land. He felt a pang of guilt, wondering if his attempt to help her regain the use of her leg had led to her retaliation against the Named.

As soon as she had limped up to him and touched noses, he found she had worked on her speech as well as her leg. She greeted him with the words he had taught her.“Thakur come. Good. Newt swim with him?”

“No,” he said carefully, “talk.” In simple language he explained that the Named herders had been told to leave her and her seamares alone. In return, she was to keep to her territory. Any further ambushes would be looked upon with great disfavor by the leader of the Named.

“If there is another fight, and our clan leader knows I helped you heal your leg, there will be a bit of my fur flying as well,” Thakur said.

“Fur fly,” Newt echoed.

“I promise that no one will take any more of your seamares. If you do see Named herders on your ground, come and get me instead of fighting. You could get hurt.”

Newt looked at the ground, growling. She made a noise like a seamare.

“No fights,” Thakur said, “or we’re both in trouble. My clan leader will stop me from helping you. Understand?”

She looked up at him and hissed a soft yes.

“Good. Now that’s settled, what do you want to do?”

She hopped around him.“Teach. Words.” Thakur grinned, unable to refuse her eagerness. She made a scrubbing motion with her good paw against her face. “Word,” she said again.

“Wash,” he said, licking a forepaw and performing the action. “I wash my face. You wash your face.”

“Splash, wash, face place,” Newt crowed.

Thakur flicked his tail. He didn’t know what to make of her playful rhyming with sounds. He tried to recall if clan cubs did it. If so, they went through such a phase with their mothers before he got them to train.

“Stop being a pest and pay attention,” he said severely. “I’m washing my chest, see, like this.” He tongued his ruff.

“Wash chest, best for pest,” was her response.

He wondered where she had picked up some of the new words. Perhaps she had learned them from shadowing the Named herders, although not all the rhyming sounds she made had meaning. The fact that she had been able to pick up words and figure out their meanings indicated that her intelligence might be higher then he had first thought.

Even so, he wondered if anyone other than himself would understand her singsong garble. There was something oddly lyrical about the way she put sounds together.

He sighed.“You are strange.”

“Strange, change, mange. Thakur talk, stalk. Newt swim,” she said, and with an impatient toss of her head, she trotted back into the lagoon.

This time he did not join her but sat on a low dune overlooking the water and watched while she swam. Something had been plaguing him, and he decided that now was the time to sort it out. Ever since she had first spoken, the question had arisen within Thakur’s mind: Had she come from the lineage of the Named?

Herding animals wasn’t easy. Thakur knew how many of his own students, whose eyes were far brighter than Newt’s, had struggled to learn how to judge a creature’s mood or behavior. How could Newt think fast enough to outwit a beast?

She can plan, thought the herding teacher to himself.She can think ahead and plan. I’m convinced of that.

And the more he became convinced, the more a new certainty began to arise in his mind.She has done this because she was born with the talent, ability, and need to manage other animals,he decided. That conclusion could only lead to another: Somehow, this castoff from the ranks of the Un-Named had clan blood in her.

But how? Thakur thought of his own parentage, of his mother, Reshara, who took a male from outside. Such pairings were forbidden, and his mother was driven out. Hers was the last such mating until Shongshar’s coming showed what a tragedy they could be.

No, Reshara was not the last clan female to dare an outside mating. Thakur sat up suddenly, his ears swiveling forward. Ratha and Bonechewer. She hadn’t spoken much about it, but he remembered she had said something about having had cubs and having lost them. He’d assumed by her words that they had all died, but perhaps not.

Suppose one had survived, had somehow managed to scratch a living from the unfriendly world outside the clan. Without any of her own people to learn from, of course such a cub would be mute. But Newt looked too small to be a product of a mating several seasons past. Perhaps it was struggle and privation rather than age that had stunted her. And that crippling injury.

Everything was falling into place in Thakur’s mind, but he knew that one piece of the picture still needed to be found, and that piece was in Ratha’s keeping. His ears flattened slightly as he thought about asking her. Raising painful memories like that would not earn him favor. But if the outcast was indeed her daughter, the cub might well have talents needed by the clan. Especially now, when it appeared that Ratha would bear no cubs by any clan male.

He tried to argue himself into putting off questioning Ratha. But the more he pondered it, the more inevitable a confrontation seemed, and he knew it would grow larger and more intimidating the longer he waited.

With a sigh, he got up and went in search of Ratha.

He found Ratha on a high dune overlooking the river bend where the Named kept their seamares. She faced into the wind, her whiskers blown back along her muzzle. In her profile, etched against the sky, Thakur saw the same break in the line of forehead to nose that he had noticed in the outcast. A worry line creased the fur between her eyes as she stared down at the herders and their new charges.

Instead of questioning her about her cubs by Bonechewer, he asked what was troubling her.

“Our duck-footed dapplebacks aren’t doing as well as I expected. They just lie around in the mud all day or slosh in the river. We dig clams for them, but they won’t eat very much.”

“Perhaps this isn’t the best place to keep them,” Thakur answered.

“Maybe.” Ratha looked away. “I keep a watch on that bunch of seamares on the jetty where your odd little friend stays. You know, you may be right about the way she manages them. Hers are doing better than ours.” Her ears flicked back. “She may just have better stock.”

“I don’t think that makes much difference.” Thakur chose his words carefully, not wanting Ratha to go back on her promise to leave Newt’s seamares alone. “She doesn’t so much manage the creatures as live with them. If we had patience, we could do the same.”

Ratha’s tail tip gave an annoyed twitch, then she yawned and stretched herself. “Dear herding teacher, you speak the truth even when you don’t mean to,” she said. “What you really meant is, if I had patience. And I don’t, do I?”

Thakur decided not to make things more awkward by agreeing that patience was not one of her strengths. Instead he said,“I know that soon new cubs will be coming and you have to be sure there is food for the mothers.” He paused. “This is one way.” He indicated the penned seamares below with a downward jerk of his head.

“It will do for this season, but I’m not sure about the next,” Ratha said moodily. “You know, Thakur, I keep thinking about that outcast. Where could she have come from? How can she do what she does if she is one of the witless Un-Named?”

Thakur said quietly,“Remember that not all those outside the clan lack the light in their eyes or the need to give themselves worth.”

He could see that he had stirred some old memories. Her eyes went opaque for a few instants, as if she were turning inward. Their green became murky, turbid, reminding Thakur of the colors in Newt’s. Perhaps the lame female’s gaze was turned permanently inward, causing the cloudiness in her eyes.

“Ratha,” he began, “I need to ask you something. You told me once that you had a litter by Bonechewer. I didn’t ask you anything more about it, but now I must. Did any of those cubs live? Were any given names?”

Her upper lip quivered, jerked back, baring a fang. He saw a shiver pass along her sides.“I don’t know,” she said tonelessly. “He said… he said… ”

Suddenly she whirled, almost pouncing on Thakur, her eyes bright with pain.“Why are you making me remember this? Wasn’t it you who said let dead things be buried?”

“Are they dead, Ratha?”

She answered distantly,“I don’t know. I fought with Bonechewer. He struck back. I told him he could keep the empty-eyed cubs he sired on me. Thistle-chaser got in the way….”

Her voice grew faint as she began speaking not to him but to herself. Thakur’s ears swiveled forward, straining to hear her better. “Who?” he asked.

Ratha was still off in the past.“It wasn’t a real name,” she said softly. “Not like the names we give ourselves in the clan. But I needed something to call her by. I hoped that she was something more than just a little beast wearing the skin of our kind.” Her belly heaved as she tried to swallow her grief. “She was always jumping at thistles and getting thorns in her nose. She would never learn. Bonechewer didn’t like it when I called her a thistle-chaser, but he never liked what I called him either.”

“So that was her name? Thistle-chaser?”

“What does it matter?” Ratha’s fangs flashed again in anger as she spoke. “Names are for those who know what names mean. My cubs didn’t and never will.” She was trembling now.

Thakur rubbed his cheek against her.“I’m sorry, Ratha. I didn’t know how much it would hurt you to remember. Leave it behind.”

“I didn’t claw Bonechewer because he lied to me,” she said. “He just didn’t tell me the truth. And in the fight… she got in the way….”

Thakur put more firmness into his voice.“Leave it behind, clan leader. You have other things to think of now. ”

She gave a weak grin.“Such as lazy lumps in the mud and other people’s cubs, I suppose. All right, herding teacher, you don’t have to look so worried. I’m all right now. ”

Thakur caught himself. He had been thinking hard, but not about Ratha as she stood here before him now. His mind was on the story she had told him. When she realized the truth about her cubs, she must have turned on Bonechewer in a savage, bitter fight.

And the words she had said repeated themselves in his own mind:“She got in the way.” Then what had happened? Was the cub struck or bitten, perhaps more severely than Ratha intended? Enough to cripple and stunt the young body?

Ratha was staring at him with an odd look on her face.“I can also put footprints together into a trail, Thakur. You are thinking that odd outcast who lives with the seamares might be my cub. Well, that’s impossible, because she’s clearly a cub born in the last birthing season. If Thistle… if my daughter had lived, she would be several seasons old by now.”

The herding teacher knew better than to try arguing. Ratha had a stubborn set to her jaw and a tang to her smell that told him she had made her decision, reasonable or not, and would not be budged.

This bothered him a little. When Ratha was this obstinate, she usually had a good reason. But this felt more as if she were fighting because she was afraid, because she feared the outcast might be the daughter she had abused and abandoned.

He suppressed his impulse to ask her more questions and turned away, leaving her staring out over the beach. He had gotten what he came for. Not only did he know more about Ratha’s split from Bonechewer, but he now knew the name of the female cub. Though, as Ratha said, it wasn’t a real name, perhaps it had been used enough so that the cub might remember what the word sounded like, if not its meaning.

He said the name softly to himself when he was far enough away to be beyond Ratha’s hearing. Thistle-chaser.

Chapter Ten

Ratha tried to bury the feelings that Thakur had raised by indulging in something she had wanted to do ever since the section of wall had fallen into the river and transformed itself into a raft. The following day she turned over the seamare-watching duties to other herders and went off by herself with Ratharee on her shoulder.

Again she gathered sticks, bark, and brush. The task was easier this time, for she didn’t need to use thorn-wood. Ratharee was eager to show her skills once again, and soon the two were well launched on their project.

At the end of the day, Ratha hid her materials and the beginnings of her raft and returned to her clan-leader duties. But things seemed well enough settled that she could afford some time to herself, and she took advantage of the lull.

The following afternoon, Ratha crouched with her head bent over Ratharee’s back as the treeling wove the sticks and brush together with twisted bark cord. The raft was half-finished when she caught the scent of seamare mixed with that of the clan’s herding teacher.

She stood up as Thakur came forward with Aree on his back. Half-embarrassed, half-proud, she showed him what she and Ratharee had made. She couldn’t help a backward flick of her ears and hoped he wasn’t going to question her again about her lost cubs.

He said nothing about them. Instead, he circled the half-built raft, eying it judiciously.

“You might try adding some bundles of dry reeds near the water,” he suggested, and offered to go collect them. Ratha, suspecting that the offer was an apology of sorts for upsetting her, readily agreed, and after that the two spent all the time they could spare at the task. Sometimes, Ratha noticed, Thakur didn’t come, or he would arrive late from an unexpected direction, reeking of seamare. Not wanting to ask or answer any questions, she made him work downwind of her until finally the raft was finished.

Triumphantly she dragged it from the construction site to the brackish estuary. With Thakur and the treelings helping, she got the raft floating. As he steadied it, with Aree riding nervously on his shoulder just above the waterline, Ratha and her treeling clambered aboard.

The craft floated, but it rocked alarmingly, and she found herself shifting her feet continually to keep from tipping. When Thakur released the raft, it did tip, spilling both her and Ratharee off into the shallow water.

“It’s too narrow,” she said mournfully, after enduring an excited scolding from Ratharee. She licked herself and the treeling, trying to press the water from both soggy coats.

Widening the raft and giving it more support in the form of bundled-reed outriggers helped solve the tipping problem, but Ratha soon found there was something else she had overlooked: She had no way to control the thing, to make it go where she wanted.

After riding weak but malicious currents to disaster several times in a row, she hauled her drenched self and her recalcitrant boat ashore and glared at it. Ratharee, who had abandoned her for Thakur in the interests of staying dry, made an insincere attempt to comfort her and backed away from the water streaming from her coat.

Irritably, she shook herself, growling that she should have known better than to waste effort on such a useless thing.

“It isn’t that useless,” Thakur observed. “It does keep you out of the water when you walk on it.” He added that if she tethered her raft to shore at both ends in a narrow part of the river, the Named wouldn’t have to wade or swim to get across.

That idea mollified Ratha somewhat. Instead of wrathfully shredding her treacherous construction, she followed Thakur’s advice, tethering her raft among the reeds at a narrow spot, where it served as a floating footbridge.

Having satisfied her urge for raft building, Ratha devoted her attention once more to things that had begun to worry her. One of these was the Firekeeper leader.

Ratha thought at first that Fessran was keeping away from her and Thakur because of the seamare smell they wore. Fessran balked at taking on the same scent. She pointed out that her work ruined her odor enough with the harsh stink of ash. And, as Firekeeper, she didn’t have much to do with seamares once the herders had settled into their duties.

Ratha accepted that. Those of the Named who had adopted the practice of disguising their scents had done so willingly. They saw the advantage when Thakur showed that it made the wave-wallowers less restive. But she didn’t want to force anyone into it; scents were strongly personal issues among the Named, and some had more sensitive noses than others.

So Fessran remained free of the seamare stink and avoided those who had it. But Ratha noticed that she seemed to sit at a greater distance from her than from Thakur. And that whenever Ratha approached, she would stop grooming her belly and immediately switch to washing her face.

Ratha knew that not all of the Firekeeper’s coolness to her was due to her smell. The forced abandonment of the Un-Named litterling still rankled; there was resentment in Fessran’s eyes, even though the Firekeeper had said she didn’t care.

It was late in the summer and a hot day, even on the sea coast. The herdbeasts sought shade in the forest, and the seamares wallowed in the shallows enclosed by part of their corral. With heat making the animals lazy, the herders too could relax. Ratha decided to take a break from overseeing the seamare herders and went to drink from the pool beneath the spring.

Coolness from the spring seemed to blow away the heavy, hot air surrounding her as she came down the deeply shaded path. Spray-moistened moss cushioned her feet when she crouched to drink. She lapped her fill, then laid first one side of her face, then the other, in the pool, letting the chill seep through her fur. As she dangled a forepaw in the water, she glanced up to the rock ledges above, wondering which one would be best for a nap.

One ledge was already taken. Sandy fur showed against blue-tinted stone. Fessran was there, relaxing and starting to groom herself. One rear leg stuck stiffly over her head as she began licking the creamy fur on her belly.

The soft chuckle of the stream had covered Ratha’s footsteps, and the wind blew her scent away. Fessran didn’t know she was here. The idea of spying on the Firekeeper made Ratha uncomfortable, and she was about to announce herself when something disquieting about Fessran’s grooming caught her attention.

Slowly she backed under a hanging bunch of ferns, shielding herself from Fessran’s view. Absently she licked the back of her own forepaw and began to scrub her cheek, wondering what it was about Fessran’s grooming that disturbed her. And then, aware of the motion of her own forepaw over her face, she froze, knowing she had found her answer.

When Ratha groomed, she always started by scrubbing her cheek with the side of her forepaw. So did the others of the Named. Only if a Named female was pregnant or nursing did she break the inborn pattern and start by grooming her stomach. Ratha peeked out from beneath the ferns. Fessran wasn’t carrying cubs. She hadn’t come into heat this year. But she could be nursing.

A Named female could give milk without birthing a litter. If a female took in a motherless orphan, the cub’s suckling could make her produce milk in a matter of days — even sooner if she badly wanted to feed the litterling. And Fessran had wanted to.

Ratha watched Fessran lick and nibble, taking great care over her belly. She felt a slow anger start to burn away the refreshing coolness from the pool. Yes, Fessran must be nursing. She had kept the cub, despite the orders to Khushi that the litterling be returned. Ratha crouched beneath the ferns, feeling hot-and-cold surges of anger and betrayal. What a fool she had been!

Her first mistake had been letting Fessran go with Khushi. She imagined how the Firekeeper must have persuaded the young herder not to obey the clan leader’s orders and instead to turn the cub over to her. And then the two had stayed away to make it look as though they had made the journey. It must have been then that Fessran found she could suckle the orphan.

Ratha ground her back teeth. She could see them now in her imagination, Fessran lying in the shade, nursing the Un-Named cub. Such a sweet maternal scene it must have been! And Khushi, sitting by, looking torn and bewildered because he had not wanted to disobey Ratha’s orders.

But well-chosen words from his mother about the value of a cub’s life and the sorry blindness of a clan leader might well have swayed him. Fessran, she remembered, was very good at choosing words.

So they had kept the Un-Named orphan, the two conspirators, and even brought him along when the herds moved from the old clan territory to the coast. No wonder Fessran had been so itchy to return from the first expedition.

And I saw all of that, but I chose to look the other way. Now they’re shoving my nose in it.

She repressed an urge to bound up from ledge to ledge until she reached the one where Fessran sat. That would do no good and might lead to embarrassment or worse, should her sense of balance be overwhelmed by her sense of outrage. Instead she came out from beneath the ferns and called Fessran down. After a few grumbles, the Firekeeper came.

Ratha sat, looking at the ripples that spread from the cascading of the falls into the pool. Fessran sat down a short distance away from her. Deliberately, Ratha said nothing until the Firekeeper started to fidget.

“Am I keeping you from your grooming?” Ratha asked. “Please continue. I’m just nursing my thoughts.”

With a sidelong look at her, Fessran wet a paw and slowly started massaging her cheek.

“Shouldn’t you start with the fur on your belly?” Ratha made her tone more pointed.

“Ratha, what are you talking about? If you have something to tell me, just say it and quit chasing your tail.” Fessran’s own tail switched irritably.

Ratha got up and paced toward her, keeping her eyes fixed on Fessran’s. “You know what I’m talking about: keeping your teats clean to nurse a cub. That Un-Named litterling I made Khushi return never was taken back to the place he was found, was he?” She felt the hackles on her neck rising. “You may be keeping your teats clean, Firekeeper, but the rest of you stinks, and the smell is worse than the seamare dung on me.”

Fessran’s face grew tight as her ears flattened. “All right. Yes, I kept Mishanti.”

“Mishanti? By the Red Tongue’s ashes, you’ve already given him a name?”

“Yes, because he deserves one. You are wrong about him, Ratha. As soon as Khushi stopped for a rest, I looked at that cub, and I knew that if we took him out and abandoned him, I would hate myself for the rest of my life. It would be like killing one of my own litter.”

Ratha closed her eyes.“We’ve trodden this path already, Fessran. You know where it leads. I thought when you turned from me to support Shongshar and his fire-dance, it was something that would happen only once. Now you have disobeyed me again, tricked me, lied to me. ”

Fessran swallowed and her laid-back ears began to droop, but the determined glitter stayed in her eyes.“The part of you I disobeyed and tricked and lied to,” she said slowly, “is not the part of Ratha that I know. The part I know would not have me kill or abandon this cub out of a fear of what he might become.”

Ratha gritted her teeth.“You forget too easily. Shongshar… ”

“Stop holding Shongshar over my head,” Fessran hissed. “This isn’t the same at all. A cub’s life is what I seek, not power over the Named.”

“What is the same is a headstrong Firekeeper who does what her belly tells her without regard for what anyone thinks, even me.”

This stung. Ratha could see Fessran flinch.“You don’t think I didn’t worry about your feelings? I’ll tell you, I spent a lot of time thinking.”

“With that misbegotten Un-Named suckling curled up next to you, kneading your belly,” Ratha sneered.

Fessran’s voice and eyes went cold, stabbing Ratha deeper than she expected. “You are wrong about Mishanti, clan leader. You don’t know how wrong.”

Ratha turned away from her, began to pace the banks of the pool. She stopped to look at herself, saw the bared teeth, the angry eyes that did not look quite like hers. Was Fessran right? What part of her was saying these ugly things? And was there something blinding her to what Fessran saw?

She made an angry turn, tore up moss with her claws as she pivoted. When she came back to Fessran, she had trodden down her doubts and felt as cold and determined as the Firekeeper looked.

“Fessran, I won’t exile you from the clan, as I have the right to. I need you too badly. I also know that you don’t have the skills to survive outside.”

At this, Fessran bridled, but Ratha could see she knew the truth of those words. Fessran had managed her own stays away from the clan only by depending on the hunting and fishing skills of others.

“I will, however, break you down in rank to the lowest wood-stacker and give you a few good swipes into the bargain if you don’t get rid of that cub. And if I come and find him in your den, I’m taking him. Is that clear?”

Fessran’s sides heaved. She looked at the ground. “It is, clan leader. And I am very sorry for you.”

“If you’re sorry for me, don’t hurt me any more. Do what I told you to in the first place.” Ratha turned and left, without waiting to see what Fessran’s reaction would be.

Thakur watched Newt’s foreleg sweep back and forth beneath the water of the lagoon. She could move it fast enough now to make a little wave curl over her paw.

“Stronger?” Newt asked.

“Much stronger,” Thakur answered. “Good. You’ve been working.”

“Swim. Out there.” Newt jerked her muzzle toward the ocean. “Helps.”

“Now let’s try stretching again,” Thakur said, wading out of the pool toward a heavy driftwood log. “See if you can keep your claws fastened in the wood and then pull so your muscles stretch.” He watched as Newt emerged, still limping, but no longer holding her foreleg against her chest. Now her foot brushed the ground, and Thakur hoped she might soon be able to put some weight on it.

She did the exercise as he directed, getting a clawhold in the gray driftwood and pulling back with all her weight to limber and stretch the contracted muscles. He saw Newt grimace as she pulled hard, straightening her leg.

“Hurts,” she said between grunts of effort. “But good for leg.”

Then Thakur saw her abruptly freeze, her claws still embedded in the log, her stare fixed at a point beyond. Even as his gaze followed, his nose caught the smoke-tinged scent of the Firekeeper leader. Beside him, he felt Newt tense, jerk her claws from the driftwood, and start to growl.

Fessran sat in a hollow between two dunes, cocking her head to one side.“Phew, herding teacher,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “I had to force myself to follow your trail. You don’t have to roll in seamare dung now that we’ve got the creatures penned.” She got to her feet, her eyes roving over Newt. “And who is that? She stinks as much as you do.”

Thakur didn’t know whether Newt understood Fessran or not, but he heard her growl deepen. “No,” he said sharply, pushing Newt back with his shoulder.

“So I’m not the only one who has dealings with the Un-Named.” Fessran grinned. “What does our clan leader have to say about this?”

“If Ratha has anything to say about it, you can be sure she will,” he said irritably.

Fessran fixed her gaze on Newt, who bristled.“When did she turn up?”

“She’s the one who gave me the idea about herding seamares.” Thakur turned to Newt. “Put your fur down,” he told her. “That is Fessran. She’s often rude, but she won’t harm you.” He halted. Newt’s eyes had gone glassy and started to swirl.

“The smell,” he heard her hiss. “In her coat. The Dreambiter’s smell.”

Before Thakur could stop Newt, she was over the log in a bound and charging at Fessran. The puzzled stare on the Firekeeper’s face turned to an angry snarl. Thakur sprinted after Newt, trying to launch himself between the two, but he wasn’t fast enough. Newt and Fessran met in an angry flurry, then broke apart. Newt suddenly withdrew, muttering to herself. Fessran stood, her head lowered, her nape erect, ready to fight off another attack, but Newt had gone into a strange trance in which she circled aimlessly for several minutes, looking confused, then toppled over onto her side.

“What, by the Red Tongue’s ashes, is the matter withher?” Fessran demanded.

Thakur lost his temper.“What is the matter withyou, Firekeeper? I told the others I didn’t want to be disturbed, but you obviously didn’t listen.”

“I’m sorry, Thakur,” Fessran said contritely. She flattened her fur, came a few steps closer. “Is she all right?”

“Her name is Newt, and she’s not going to die, if that’s what you mean. But she’s not all right. She gets these fits. Her foreleg is injured, and I was trying to help her when you stuck your whiskers in.”

“What was she saying about my smell?”

“I don’t know. I think your scent had something to do with the fit. Maybe you’d better back off.” Thakur nosed the fallen Newt, who had started to twitch and stir. Fessran retreated downwind as Newt slowly rolled onto her front and shakily got up. “Just because I don’t cover myself withduck-footed dappleback dung. ” Thakur heard the Firekeeper mutter. Newt shook her head in confusion then peered at Fessran. For an instant, he thought she was going to attack again. Then she took a breath and spoke.

“You,” she said hoarsely to Fessran. “You carry smell. You not biting one, but you carry smell.”

“What’s she yowling about?” Fessran asked.

“I don’t know. Fess, just go away, please.”

Newt startled him with a roar.“No! Stay. Tell about smell.” She turned almost desperately to Thakur, stumbling badly on her words. “The one who bites. In my head. Smell is real. Newt didn’t make up.” She lunged away from Thakur, facing Fessran. Then she seemed to catch sight of the scars on Fessran’s leg and chest. She looked up, searching Fessran’s eyes.

“Not only smell, but scars,” she breathed. “Like me.”

Caught in the intensity of Newt’s gaze, Fessran twitched back her ears and narrowed her eyes.

“You know Dreambiter,” Newt insisted stubbornly, unwilling to release Fessran from her stare.

“I have many scents on me, from all those in the clan,” Fessran answered cautiously. “Who do you mean by Dreambiter?”

“She comes. From behind, in darkness. I hear her feet, then she leaps on me and wounds me with teeth. I remember taste of milk, sound of purring, but then came pain and this.” Newt thrust her lame forepaw at Fessran.

Thakur tried again to ease himself into the conversation, but the two were intent upon each other and took no notice of him.

“Newt, who was your mother?” Fessran asked.

She got only a blank stare.

“Mother. You know, the one who birthed you, gave you milk.”

“The Dreambiter gave me milk.” Newt’s voice was flat. “I don’t know mother. Does mother bite?”

“A little nip once in a while, if cubs are being rowdy. But mostly she feeds them, keeps them warm, gives them nuzzles and licks. I’ve had young ones myself, so I know.” Fessran gave her a quizzical look.

Thakur saw that Newt was retreating into her memories, muttering to herself. He saw the link she was forging between Fessran’s description of a mother and the Dreambiter image that plagued and terrified her.

“The one who bit me is the one you call mother, and she is in your clan.” Newt’s ears flattened slightly, and her pupils widened with fear then narrowed with rage. Thakur felt a stab of alarm.

“Who in the clan could… ” Fessran broke off. Thakur saw her mouth a name to herself and felt it tremble on his own tongue: Ratha.

“Enough, Fessran,” he said sharply, wishing he’d stepped in before things got this far. Newt was starting to shiver and growl.

The Firekeeper bristled.“Why shouldn’t I tell her the truth? If this cub is from the loins of our clan leader, then Ratha has no right to judge others.”

“I don’t think it will help us or her to dig up old and rotted dung,” Thakur snapped. “Firekeeper, if you are going to cause trouble, do it somewhere else.”

Fessran left, her tail low and switching. Thakur didn’t like the way Newt’s gaze followed her.

Newt extended her patrol range and hobbled along her new trails with raised nape and bristling tail. Now that she had gone beyond her own beach, she caught the scents of the intruders in the wind and found a trace of the Dreambiter’s among them. It made her shudder — and fight off rising panic that threatened to tip her over into an attack of her strange illness.

The gentle one who called himself Thakur had not come since that meeting with the other female, the one who carried the scent of the Dreambiter. After that encounter, he refused to answer Newt’s questions and at last had turned away, saying he should no longer visit her.

She found herself missing Thakur with a keenness that added to her misery. Why had he come if he meant only to go away again? Why had he tempted her to speak if there was no one to hear her and answer?

She thought of becoming silent once again, but she found that she couldn’t. It seemed as if the words were jammed up behind her tongue, pushing to get out, yet she didn’t know how to say them. Something had changed in her. He had done it.

Her rage made her reckless, and she followed the scents of the Named until she found herself crouched in the lee side of a dune, looking down at a strange sight.

She had come to another river resembling the one that formed her lagoon. This stream meandered its way across sand flats that lay at the base of a sandstone cliff. At one point the cliff was gouged inward, forming a pocket, and there, on the narrow mud-beach beneath the cliff, Newt saw a cluster of seamares.

She stifled her impulse to go and herd them back to the rookery, for the Named invaders on both sides of the river guarded the captives. From this distance, she couldn’t tell if any of the sentries was the Dreambiter.

When she crept closer for a better view, she saw something going on that she didn’t understand. The intruders were doing something she had never seen any animal do: carrying long sticks in their jaws and poking them upright into the mud on the seamares’ beach.

A line of poles already extended down the beach into the water, and as she watched, two of the Named waded out with saplings from which the branches had been stripped and shoved them into the sandy bottom, continuing the line of upright sticks in the river itself.

As the pole-setters worked, forcing the sticks into place with their jaws, another group followed them. This bunch carried odd little animals on their backs. Newt remembered the creature Thakur always carried with him. The ringed tails, strange paws, and sharp little muzzles were the same.

She watched as the intruders brought shorter sticks in their jaws and held them crossways against the uprights. The other animals reared up and did something with their paws and long pieces of vine that then held the crossmembers in place. When they finished each section, Newt saw what they had built. It was like a tree, but not a tree, or like a bush that had been wrenched and bent to serve some unknown purpose. Bewildered and frightened, she crept away.

The next day found her back behind the dunes, spying on the strangers. She could see that the mysterious thing had grown, now extending from the mud-beach to midriver, then bending at an angle to follow the current flow downstream.

She still didn’t know what it was, but as the strangers and their small helpers continued to put poles in place and lash them together, she gained a dim sense of what this thing might be. Then, when the builders brought tangles of thornbrush and added those to the construction (not without grimaces of pain andyowls when tender noses got pricked), she began to understand. She watched a seamare lumber up to the construction, hoping the creature might butt it down. Instead the animal nosed it, then bellowed as the thorns stung its muzzle. It retreated, beaten and bewildered, and made no other attempt to escape.

Now Newt understood. This thing was a barrier, an obstruction, like a wall of rock or tangled, thorny growth. It shocked and dismayed her that anyone would make something like this. She growled deep in her throat as she watched the barrier grow, encircling the apprehensive seamares.

She thought of Thakur and her promise that she would come to him instead of launching an attack on the Named. But the thought of Thakur only made her angrier. He was one of those invading strangers who had captured the seamares; he would do nothing to help.

She was weary from all the thinking she had done. As the afternoon shadows lengthened, she tried and failed to come up with a way to free the seamares. At last she sank into the wordless, dull anger of defeat.

The barrier was nearly completed. The seamares huddled in the center, bewildered and miserable. From her vantage point, Newt could see that the barrier enclosed most of the mud-beach and ran out into the river, giving the creatures only limited room to swim. She remembered swimming with Splayfoot and seeing the seamare fly through the twilight under the ocean. These strangers had no understanding of the seamares, and they didn’t care. She sniffed the scents coming to her on the wind. There was already the taint of sickness in the odors of the trapped creatures.

Shifting restlessly, she raked the dune. Sand ground under her claws. And then she watched again, this time fixing her gaze on the intruders themselves as they worked to set the last stakes in place before bundling them with thorns. She saw how the cats struggled, often getting splinters in their jaws and blunting their fangs while bringing heavy sticks to midriver and setting them in place. Sometimes they set a pole wrong, or a surge of current from the stream pushed the stake over.

Often she saw two or three of the strangers, coats muddy and soggy, hanging on to a pole with their claws and trying to sink the end deep into the mud bottom by their combined weight. Half the time the stake sagged when they released it, then came loose and was carried downstream. Growling with frustration, the workers retrieved it and fought to anchor it in place again.

It was not a task for which they were well suited, and that became more obvious the longer Newt watched them work. Yet, although she disliked what they were doing, she could not help seeing how hard they tried. It reminded her of her own struggles, and she saw a tiny bit of herself in the strangers. She could also see that, despite the difficulty, they were succeeding.

She stayed until evening, hoping to creep closer by dark. When she approached the seamares’ pen, she found that the night she hoped would shield her had been pushed back. On the banks of the river were strange bright spots she had never seen before. They flickered and danced, like reflections of the sun on the surface of her lagoon, and they cast a fierce light. Newt’s nape prickledin terror. Were the invaders so powerful that they could capture pieces of the sun and hold them, as they did the seamares?

Though she trembled and wished she could retreat to the beach, with its soft darkness and swish of waves, she forced herself on. When she drew closer, the bright points took on form. To her they were a nest of yellow and orange snakes writhing together toward the night sky, hissing and snapping their jaws as if the stars were prey.

Beside the fires, outlined by the fierce light, she saw the forms of sentinels. In their eyes, even at a distance, the orange light shone in glints of amber and green.

The smell was harsh and choking, as irritating to her nose as the light was to her night-widened eyes. She shuddered. Here was a foe she could not face down, for the fear it struck in her lay too deep. She took flight back into the darkness and crouched on cold sand, watching and hating those glowing, writhing nests of snakes.

The acrid smell of smoke could not drown out the scents of the seamares behind the barrier. They still reached her and somehow reproached her for turning back. She kneaded the sand fiercely with her claws, drawn on by the seamare odor and pushed back by the ashes and smoke. At last she crept forward again. The snake-nests lay on both banks of the river, but there were no dismaying lights in the river itself. It lay open to her, a dark, safe path.

Wet sand felt clammy against her pads as she limped across the flats toward the river. She waded into the shallows, the night-chilled water seeping through the fur of her legs, her belly, and her flanks. Feeling ahead with her good forepaw, she sought the bottom drop-off that would show her the channel. The only way to conceal her approach was to swim underwater in the deepest part of the river.

After poking her nose up to take a breath, Newt slipped beneath the surface and down into the main channel. Here it was deep and wide enough for her to swim. The incoming tide overcame the downstream current, helping her to glide upriver, near the channel bottom. And the strange lights unexpectedly aided her by casting a glow into the murky gloom, so she could see her way ahead.

Each time she surfaced to breathe, she made herself inhale slowly and quietly rather than gulping air. The sentries stood with their faces turned outward, away from her. No one had seen or smelled… yet.

Gradually she worked her way upriver toward the mud-beach where the seamare pen had been built. Lifting her dripping head, she stared at the barrier of poles and thorns that now rose out of the water only a few tail lengths away. Those who had made it had unwittingly aided her by extending it into midriver, where the water was deep enough to conceal her.

She floated at an angle, with only her nose above the ripples, gathering breath and strength. Then she dived and shot toward the barrier, her good foreleg stretched out with claws extended. She hit the barrier hard underwater, ignoring the thorns that sank into her paw. Pulling thorn-tangles aside, she ripped away lashed crosspieces, using her jaws to aid her good foreleg.

Sounds from the beach made her halt her destructive flurry and duck back into the depths of the channel. She hid there until her lungs were nearly bursting, expecting to hear angry roars and the noise of running feet, but nothing happened. Perhaps the noise she had made sounded loud only to her. Gasping, she surfaced, approached the barrier, and saw a horselike head rise from the water on the other side. Another followed, blowing quietly. The seamares knew what she was doing.

Feeling a sudden surge of triumph, she attacked the thorns and stakes again. One pole tipped sideways under her weight. She wrenched the lashings off another and pulled prickly branches aside, even though they stung her mouth and scraped her teeth.

She worked until she had cleared a narrow opening, then fought to widen it. Abruptly she heard a grunt and was nearly ploughed underwater when a heavy body rammed itself through the break. Another followed, and then another, as the seamares poured through. They churned the water into froth, bumped and banged her, but in her delight at having freed them, she didn’t care.

Abruptly, yowls and sounds of galloping feet began from the shore. Newt saw sentinels running along the bank, some bearing branches with the writhing snakes of light curling about their ends. Fear quickly chilled her triumph. She sought the channel depths once more, stroking and kicking hard to keep up with the escaping seamares, whose wake helped to carry her along.

It seemed to take the Named intruders a long time to realize that the attack had come from the water. They were still dashing up and down the riverbanks by the time Newt and the seamares passed the last of their beacons and had swum far enough downstream so that night could shield their escape.

Gradually the noise and confusion died into the distance, as Newt and the seamares made their way back down the loops and meanders of the river toward the sea. The honks and grunts of her big companions blended into the wash of surf in a boisterous song of freedom.

The escapees hauled themselves out onto the night-silvered gravel of the beach, with Newt doing a three-limbed frolic around them. And when they reached the jetty and were gathered once more into the herd, Newt gamboled off to her sleeping place, wet and weary but happy.

Chapter Eleven

Though Thakur could see well enough in the early-morning dark to tell that the seamare pen was damaged, he had to wait until dawn to tell how badly. As the sun cast its first light over the salt fens near the estuary where the pen had been built, Thakur saw Ratha striding toward him, her shadow thrown far ahead of her and her form backlit by the dawn.

At first she stepped daintily, avoiding soggy patches or stopping to shake mud off her feet. But as the ooze deepened, she gave up and slogged through it to meet him. Wading into the chill water of the estuary, he showed her how one wall of the pen had been ripped open to free the seamares. Newt had not been content with just tearing an exit but had vented her wrath on the stick-and-lash construction, wrecking an entire section of wall where it stood in the deepest water.

Ratha sniffed a pole that had been knocked askew. Thakur could tell by her expression that she couldn’t smell anything; the briny water had washed away any remaining odor. But he didn’t need the odor to know who had done this and why. He also felt the sharp jabs of his conscience. He had helped and encouraged Newt to regain some use of her leg and with it increased mobility and a greater capacity to destroy what the Named had built. Still, the healer in Thakur argued, he had done the right thing.

“This was done by someone who could swim well, since the water was high last night,” Ratha said. “Also someone who has plagued our efforts with the seamares ever since we arrived. And we both know who that is, herding teacher.”

Thakur felt his ears and whiskers sag as water dribbled off them.“I didn’t think she was strong enough to wreck the pen.”

“That was a lot of work for us and the treelings,” Ratha said. “And we are going to have to catch all the seamares again, which will be twice as hard. We may not be able to find them again.” She paused. “Thakur, I’ve tried to be nice to you about this, but this three-legged renegade of yours has caused more trouble than we can afford right now. If I catch sight of her, I am going to give her a good cuffing to drive her away, and I’m ordering everyone else to do the same. Including you.”

Thakur looked away.“You don’t have to make that an order, clan leader,” he growled between his teeth. “I know where my duty lies.” Though he was furious with Newt, the thought of chasing her off only made him feel worse. He hung his head. “Ratha, the way we were keeping the seamares penned here wasn’t agood thing. She tried to tell us in the best way she knew, and we didn’t listen.”

“By the Red Tongue’s ashes, how are we supposed to keep the beasts where we want them, then? If we didn’t pen them, they’d use those duck-feet of theirs to swim away, and then where would we be?” Ratha’s teeth clicked as she shivered, and Thakur knew the chilly water wasn’t doing her temper any good.

“The ones she keeps don’t swim away,” he retorted.

“But we can’t live among them and just scavenge off dead young ones, as she does. Even in this small group, there are too many of us.”

“Newt doesn’t just scavenge. It’s something more than that. She knows the beasts, and they know her. They accept her, and they trust her.”

Ratha only snorted.

“No, it is true. Our herdbeasts may tolerate us and accept the protection we give them from other meat eaters, but we do not have the kind of bond that she seems to have developed with these seamares. That is what I want to learn from her.”

“Is that worth a wrecked pen and so much work gone to waste?” she retorted.

Thakur was prepared to snap back at her when he realized how silly it must seem to anyone watching. Here stood the clan leader and the herding teacher, up to their bellies in clammy seawater, shivering and arguing.

“Come on, Ratha. Let’s get out and fluff our coats dry, then we can talk sense,” he suggested. He turned and splashed toward shore.

She followed, complaining that this soggy existence was going to ruin her coat. The salt crystals, she said, were already making her skin itch.

“Well, maybe the water will drown your fleas,” he answered.

“That may be true. I don’t have as many now,” she admitted, her mood lightening as the morning sun warmed both of them. “Herding teacher, I understand that you think this outcast has something we should learn. I won’t disagree with you, but”—and here she pointed her nose toward the pen—“I can’t let something like this happen again. Keep her away from our herd of seamares once we get them back. I don’t care how you do it, but keep her away.”

Thakur looked her in the eye and answered,“Yes, clan leader. ”

It took Thakur most of the rest of the day to find Newt, and when he did, he could see she was angry. But the longer she glared at him, the more her flattened ears began to droop. Savagely she turned her head away then looked at the ground between her paws.

Thakur sat down. She glared at him again, then hissed, lifting her lame foreleg with claws bared.“Paw can scratch,” she said. His eyes followed the motion of her foreleg. She was right; she had gained enough flexibility and strength in the limb that she could strike out with that forepaw.

“Thakur go now,” said Newt sullenly, lapsing into her rhyming, “or will say yow.” She waved the paw at him, swishing her tail.

“Thakur hurt Newt,” she said accusingly.

“Newt hurt Thakur too,” he answered, not letting her break his gaze. “You wrecked the pen we built.”

“Thakur and… others took… ” Newt faltered, stumbling on her lack of words for what she wanted to say. She tried again. “Big one, little one, they swim.” She made an odd paddling motion, spreading the toes of her foot to suggest the webbed, splayed feet of the seamares.

Thakur felt a sting of guilt, even though he had tried to dissuade Ratha from taking more seamares.“Why didn’t you come to me?”

“Me,” Newt said echoing him. “Seamares free because of me. Thakur see?”

“I asked you to stay away from that pen. Now I’m in trouble for helping you, and you are in more trouble if any of the Named catch you there again. Why didn’t you come to me instead?”

She jerked her head up and stared at him with a strange new bitterness.“Come to you. Come to Dreambiter as well. She walks with you. Her smell. Her track. Newt knows.”

Thakur felt himself on uncertain ground.

Newt’s eyes narrowed. “Thakur knows too. And doesn’t speak.”

“I haven’t said anything because I don’t know enough yet about what happened to you. And if you think you have the right to attack one of the Named because you smell her in your dreams, I’m sorry, but I won’t let you do that.”

“Named.” Newt wrinkled her nose. “Named, lamed.”

Her derisiveness and her accusations were starting to get under his skin.“You’re only describing yourself, Thistle-chaser,” he retorted, letting his temper get the better of him. Then he froze and snapped his jaw shut, but it was too late. She had heard that last utterance.

“Thistle-chaser?” Newt said the word slowly, as if tasting it. Thakur could see feelings fleeting through her eyes like clouds being whipped across the sky by a harsh wind. For an instant her eyes were brighter and clearer than he had ever seen them, then a shroud of pain wiped away the brightness.

He swore inwardly at himself. The last thing he had intended to do was use the name as a weapon, but she had goaded him into flinging it at her. And why had he used it? Because he knew from the feeling in his belly that this was Ratha’s daughter.

Newt stayed still, turned far inward. Slowly her legs gave way beneath her, and she sagged until her chin lay on the ground. Her chin moved slightly as she muttered the name again.

Thakur began to think she had gone into a gentler form of her usual fit, when she suddenly bounced up and limped around him in circles, whimpering and rubbing her nose with a forepaw.

“Newt, what’s wrong?”

“Thistle. Hurts. Jumped on. Hurts.”

He caught her long enough to pry her paw away from her nose and look to see if there was a thorn embedded but found nothing. Her circling became more frenzied and then degenerated into a series of short jumps back and forth, as if she was dodging something only she could see.

“Go to him. He will help. Not to the Dreambiter. Says she’ll never learn… eyes are empty,” she babbled. Now she was bounding around on her three legs like a cub at play, but at every other step a shudder went through her as if she had collided with something unseen. Thakur felt chilled. This was unlike any of her other fits, and it seemed to have complete possession of her. Afraid she was gone for good, he caught up with her and laid a paw on her, trying to halt her mad dance.

“Thistle. Hurts. Go to him. No, Dreambiter!” Newt cried, her voice rising. She leaped in the air, writhing, twisting, slashing out with claws and teeth at the ghost in her memory. One wild swipe caught Thakur on the side of the jaw. He pounced on her, trying to hold her down until the fit loosed its grip, but she wiggled free and shot off down the path toward the cliff edge. To his horror she did not slow or turn aside but ran right over. He heard a faint scrabbling, a yowl, several soft bumps, and then a terrifying silence.

Legs and tail trembling, Thakur forced himself to walk to the edge and peer over. He was afraid he would see nothing except the sea washing back and forth over the rocks, or perhaps a limp form, broken by the fall. When he looked down, he saw at once that the cliff was not as high or sheer as he had feared. It fell away in a series of ledges. On the lowest one, he caught sight of Newt, lying with one paw dangling and her head turned to one side. A tail length below her, the waves surged against the sandstone shelf.

Anger and guilt clawed at him. This wasn’t his fault, he growled to himself. Newt had provoked him into using the name he had learned from Ratha. She had run down the path and blindly over the edge. If anything had killed her, it was her craziness and unpredictability. Thakur argued with himself, but he could not turn away. Something held him frozen at the clifftop, staring down at Newt.

She lay still, but she was breathing. He could see there was no blood. Nor were there contorted limbs or other indications of serious injury. It was likely that she had slid down the steep slope, bounced over the upper ledges, and knocked herself out before coming to rest at the bottom.

Quickly Thakur began searching for a safe path down to the ledge where she lay.

A network of narrow shelves and ledges wove down the sloping face. Thakur found that he could keep his balance by leaning against the rock wall and placing one foot directly ahead of the next. He kept his eyes on the path, not letting them stray to the surf crashing below. Slowly he crept down each downsloping ledge until it intersected the next or gave out. Those were the worst moments — when he had to back himself over the edge, hind feet searching for the shelf below while he hung by his foreclaws. On one such drop he nearly unbalanced and toppled over but managed to catch himself.

Slowly he worked his way back and forth across the cliff face until he was a few tail lengths above Newt. He saw her stir, draw the dangling paw up, turn her head, swallow. He went a few more steps along the narrowing ledge then saw something else. The seawater beneath Newt’s ledge churned, and then the shape of a seamare loomed underneath. The creature lifted its head above the waves and pointed its muzzle at the shelf where Newt lay. Another shape surfaced beside the first — smaller, more agile.

Thakur halted and watched the seamare and seacolt. Were these the two Newt had befriended? Now both muzzles pointed upward at the rock, as if the pair could sense Newt was there and needed help. Splayfoot reached up with her black paws, but she could only scrabble uselessly at the sandstone base. A wave lifted Guzzler, and he tried to reach the ledge, but the retreating swells dropped him back before he managed a hold.

Thakur lowered his head and crept on down the path. The seamares couldn’t get to Newt. She would need his help. Two startled bellows from below made him stare at the beasts, who glared back at him and showed their tusks. He wondered how long he would last if he fell into the water with them.

He went another few steps. Splayfoot started to roar, throwing herself as high against the cliff as she could. Though unnerved by the noise and by the seamare’s frenzied efforts, Thakur did everything he could not to threaten her. He kept his teeth covered and his ears forward. He talked to her in the same tone he used when dealing with restive herdbeasts.

“Easy, easy. I’m Newt’s friend, just as you are, you duck-footed dappleback. You just stay down there and keep quiet.”

An indignant roar nearly blew him off the shelf as soon as he laid a paw on Newt. Again he fought to keep his balance and not to look down into the long, cavernous vault of the seamare’s open jaws. He ignored her long enough to give Newt a quick going-over. She had a few bruises and a lump on her head but nothing worse. He looked back the way he had come. Could he take her back up that steep path? He had barely made it down himself, and she was both shaky and lame. No. He knewif he tried, they would both fall.

Splayfoot roared at him again, accompanied by honks from Guzzler.

“You know, both you and I are after the same thing,” Thakur said reasonably. “We’ve got to get Newt off this cliff. Perhaps we can come to an understanding of sorts.”

The seamare clamped her jaws shut, eyeing Thakur as she bobbed in the water. It became clearer and clearer to him that the only way to get Newt off the ledge was by sea. And he’d have to do it soon. He could see that the tide was retreating, pulling the water level down and increasing the drop from the ledge into the breakers below.

A rumble came from the seamare, warning him of another indignant blast, but at the last minute Splayfoot seemed to change her mind. With a snort that blew spray from her nostrils, the seamare reared up. He could see her snuffle the wind that blew across his coat, and he was suddenly thankful he still bore the pungent stink of seamare dung.

Splayfoot bobbed in the surf, turning her head from side to side as if she didn’t know what to make of this strange intruder.

Thakur tried to wake Newt. She responded, but she was still groggy. Gently he turned her head so she looked down into the ocean.

“There are your friends,” Thakur said softly. “They will help you.”

“Newt go,” she whimpered, peering over the edge. Splayfoot heaved herself up again, lifted by a wave, but this time she didn’t roar, only stretched her neck to touch noses with Newt. Thakur watched as Newt tried to climb down. She was too shaky and frightened to do much more than lean down off the shelf.

“Here. Turn around. Lower yourself feet first, like I did,” he said, nudging her. Taking her scruff in his jaws as she backed over, he dug in his rear claws to hold himself and braced his forepaws to keep from sliding. Carefully he lowered her, stretching until his neck ached so that she would have as short a drop as possible.

Just before he let her go, he lost his clawhold. Reflexively his jaws opened, but he couldn’t save himself and fell into the surf between the two seamares. The surging water caught him, tumbled him over and around until he no longer could find the surface and thought he would drown. A blunt nose underneath the belly pushed him roughly, and somehow his head rose above the water. He gasped. Then a broad back rose beneath him until he lay on top of it, his paws clasping the sides of the big sea-beast.

Splayfoot rolled her eyes and gave a disapproving grunt, as if she wasn’t sure she should be helping him. Nearby Newt paddled weakly, buoyed up by Guzzler. She still looked dazed, but she had recovered enough to recognize Thakur. Slowly the odd party swam away from the cliff base, around a small point, and landed at Splayfoot’s cove near the jetty.

Shivering, Thakur waded to shore. Newt hobbled up the beach, shaking herself as she went. She disappeared between two rocks, and Thakur guessed she was heading for her hideaway.

He turned to look at the two seamares, who were lying half-submerged in the lapping waves, staring back at him.

“I don’t know if you did that for Newt’s sake or mine,” he said aloud, watching their ears swivel, “but I’m grateful.” He thought then about leaving Newt to herself, for he was wet and tired, but he knew he should go after her.

He was halfway up the beach before he realized that Newt’s fear and headlong flight had proved something he could not have learned in any other way. There was no doubt now. Though he swore he would never say that name to her again, he knew Newt was Ratha’s daughter, Thistle-chaser.

Newt huddled against the sandstone wall of her cave, trying to isolate herself from the one who had crept in after her. Part of her knew it was Thakur, but the frenzied, frightened part of her knew him only as a shadow who walked with the Dreambiter. He had tried to curl up next to her and speak to her, but his words were only a dim buzzing in her ears, and his presence drove the cold fear deeper. She struck out at him, clawing and biting, trying to drive him out. But though he withdrew, he stayed close, and she could only huddle by herself.

She remembered when she had been able to see Thakur as warm and real, not just as a shade allied with the enemy of her dreams. She knew she could lay her head against his flank and gain comfort from him. Sometimes she had been able to let herself slide into the fantasy that he was the kind one with the dark-copper face and amber eyes, who had loved her without judging.

But now all she could see were Thakur’s eyes, and they burned green, like the Dreambiter’s.

Newt curled up tightly, shuddering. She knew Thakur was there, but she could not let him come near. Not after he had spoken the word that broke through the barriers around her memories. Not after he had let the Dreambiter loose.

Her head throbbed and buzzed. She buried her muzzle between her paws, trying to fend off the rising panic. She could feel the Dreambiter prowling the caves of her mind, pacing deliberately toward the hole Thakur had made with that terrible word… that was somehow her name. She trembled, knowing the demon was real and could come down on her at any time, no longer held back or confined by her will.

Newt cried her misery to the cave wall, wishing it could somehow move or answer. The cave only seemed to close in around her, becoming a trap instead of a shelter. If the Dreambiter rose again, where would she flee? Would the terror chase her blindly over a cliff again or just make her run until she died from exhaustion?

A strange calmness settled over her, though she knew it was just a lull. It gave her strength to remember the other times when the Dreambiter had attacked, wounded, and then fled. She knew those skirmishes were over. The Dreambiter had grown strong. Now it would attack to kill.

Thakur crouched at the mouth of Newt’s cave, alarm making the fur rise all over his body as he watched her. He desperately wanted to comfort her, but each time he tried to curl up beside her, he had been met with a blind, slashing attack that drove him away. And then she writhed and muttered or drew up in a pitiful huddle.

That he could only watch and do nothing made him feel trapped and helpless. The scratches she had given him stung and bled, but because her swipes were wild and uncontrolled they were only annoying. Pity and anger wrenched at him, making him creep closer once again.

Her smell alone made him flatten his ears, for rage and despair poured from her like a thick, choking fluid. But it was her words that held him close, that made him risk another flurry of claws and teeth.

“… kill you, Dreambiter, find you kill you… smell is real, you are real, no more hurting ever ever ever… ”

“Newt!” Thakur hissed, but she only jerked and started to writhe in a way that made him wonder if she was dying.

He felt cold and exhausted. Closing his eyes, he confessed to himself that he did not have the strength to endure any more or the skill to soothe her pain. He had to have help. He could feel himself shaking and knew he would be useless both to himself and Newt if he kept struggling. Perhaps one of the females: Bira could be gentle and comforting.

He grimaced in irony. No. The one who really held the key was the Dreambiter herself: Ratha. He had allowed her to evade responsibility for what she had done to her daughter. Not just Ratha alone, but perhaps all of the Named together could do something to help. And if Thistle-chaser was dying, Ratha should know.

“Newt,” he hissed softly. “I can’t do this alone. I need help. Stay here. I won’t be gone long.”

Thakur turned away from the cave, but he could not help hearing the tortured voice saying over and over again that the price of this pain would be the Dreambiter’s life.

Chapter Twelve

Ratha paced toward Fessran’s new lair, hating the tightness that grew between her shoulders with every step she took. Fear stole the fluidity from her stride, the suppleness from her muscles, until she felt wooden.

She wished that Fessran had taken Mishanti and gone beyond her reach. But no. Instead, the Firekeeper had chosen to den nearby and, even worse, to walk on Named ground, leaving footprints whose mixed odors said that the Firekeeper had fostered the witless cub and openly defied the orders of the clan leader.

Sand and salt grass lay under Ratha’s feet now, but the path she trod was the same in bitterness as the trail she had taken before to Fessran’s den when the Named had lived on clan ground.

Last time, Thakur had made the journey with her. This time she would make it alone. There was only one cub to carry from the lair, but that would not lessen the difficulty of the task. The ache in her jaw from the litterling’s weight would be the least of the pains she would know.

And Fessran had already named the cub and kept the name, in defiance of Ratha’s order: Mishanti. The word beat in Ratha’s mind, whispered like the salt grass tearing past her legs. A name worthy of a cub who could bear it and know what it meant to be set apart by the gift of a word — a name — that carried the essence of selfhood. Ratha drew back her lip in scorn at Fessran’s foolishness. A name was worse than useless to a cub who could not use it.

She clung to one hope: that the remaining rags of the friendship she and Fessran had known might make Fessran surrender the cub without a fight. That hope dwindled when she topped a rise that led to the den and looked down to see a sand-colored form pacing the ground. A fire burned beside the lair.

Now the tightness crept from between Ratha’s shoulders to a place in her chest, between her front legs. Would Fessran use the Red Tongue against her? The Firekeeper looked rough, wild, her belly drawn except for the swollen teats she used to nurse the cub. Her face was taut.

She stopped pacing and stood, her gaze fixed. Ratha slowed but did not stop.

“The trails we take turn back on themselves, clan leader,” Fessran hissed, reminding Ratha that she too remembered how they had stood facing each other when Ratha had come to take Shongshar’s cubs. That time, Fessran had seen the truth and backed down. Perhaps now…

“No, Ratha.” The Firekeeper’s voice was low and shaking. “I wasn’t sure then. I know now. You are wrong about Mishanti. The light in his eyes is hard to see, but it is there.”

“Has he spoken? Has he done anything to show he has the gift we seek?”

“Not yet. But that doesn’t matter. Not to me.”

Ratha ground her back teeth in frustration over Fessran’s willing blindness. She knew the depth of loss and loneliness that could twist things and make an impossibility into a forlorn hope.

“Let me see him again,” she said wearily. Fessran went into the den and brought Mishanti out. She lay beside him, guarding him with a forepaw, gazing down at him and licking the top of his head.

“I don’t know why I love him,” she said softly, “but I do.” She gathered him in with both forepaws. He fell against her breast, snuggled up against her with his paws waving. “Why do we love cubs?” she asked Ratha, looking up with eyes that were angry and pleading. “Why, when they cause so much fuss and trouble, when they grow up and forget who you are, or when they die and you have nothing left?”

Ratha found herself unable to answer. At last she said,“Fessran, this season has been difficult for all of us. And I didn’t realize… ”

“Do you know why I’m so sure about him, Ratha?” Fessran interrupted suddenly. “Because at night, when I’m lying in the den with him, smelling his scent, I can see what he will be. In the dark I can see him running along a hill crest with a torch in his mouth, his fur silver and his eyes flame. And that fire will burn for the Named, if you give it a chance.”

Ratha stared at Fessran, not knowing what to say. She wondered if the strain of the drought and the move had somehow pushed Fessran onto trails that led beyond reality.

She tried to steer Fessran away from her vision and her strange conviction. Softening her voice, she said,“I know you can’t help loving cubs. It’s part of what you are. Most of the clan sees the Fessran who is the Firekeeper leader, who calls others soft as dung about treelings, who chews the ears of anyone who gives her any nonsense. I have seen the one who ran beside me with the Red Tongue, andI also see the one who loves cubs. But this cub is a mistake. He won’t be able to give back what you are giving him. Please understand. I’m not trying to be cruel either to you or to him.”

Fessran’s gaze pierced her. “Do you really know by looking at a cub’s eyes what he will be like? Do you have some infallible gift that says this one can be Named and this one cannot? I don’t think so. It isn’t as easy as that. And I don’t think you are as sure as you pretend to be.”

“I’m not,” Ratha admitted. “But what my eyes and my nose and my belly tell me is that this cub is worthless to the clan. Khushi never should have brought him, and you never should have kept him.”

“Is that how you think of him?” Fessran’s gaze and voice had a raw edge. “As something that just happened? A creature that died and must now be buried?”

“An Un-Named one whose grandsire probably left those scars in your shoulder,” Ratha said, hardening her voice.

Fessran flattened her ears.“You think you’ll frighten me with that again? Oh no. Just because Shongshar’s blood may run in this cub is no reason to say he will have to grow up that way. It was not just Shongshar’s long teeth that led him to take the trail he did.”

Ratha broke off and stared at the cub, trying to find some indication that she was wrong after all. But Mishanti was diffident, refusing to answer her gaze and turning his head away in the shy way of the Un-Named. What Ratha could see of his eyes held little promise. She swallowed hard, wishing for Fessran’s sake that there wassomething. But she couldn’t lie to herself or to Fessran.

“I cannot accept him in the clan, Firekeeper.”

The dregs of Fessran’s hope seemed to run out of her, making her shrink down. To Ratha’s eyes she seemed to grow thinner, harder. Only her eyes held a trace of softness, and that was for the cub she guarded. Mishanti arched his back, rubbing his little spike of a tail under her chin.

Ratha saw doubt flicker at the edge of her eyes like a snake’s tongue and seized it.

“Fessran, this is a blind trail you run, an empty husk, a dried bone. Next birthing season, you will have your own cubs. Save your love for them.” Ratha paused. “I promise I will not kill this cub. I will take him to the same place as I took the others. At least one of those survived. Perhapshe will too.”

“But I will never know him,” Fessran said in a dried-up, desperate voice. “Don’t you understand that? I will never know him.”

“There is nothing there to know,” Ratha said in a low voice that started to turn into a growl.

“How can you be so sure?” Fessran cried. “You’re not, are you? You are afraid. Afraid of something I don’t understand. You are more frightened by this than you were of Shongshar. What is it, then, that stalks you, and makes you turn and strike out, even if the one before you is only a litterling?”

Fessran’s words struck deep, as if into the heart of a flame, and the sparks they threw coalesced into Thistle-chaser’s face. Ratha shuddered, squeezed her eyes shut, and thrust the memory aside. No, she could not face that, not even now.

“All right. I’ll tell you what I fear. You know that there is something in our kind that sets us apart from the others around us. There are very few of us and many of the Un-Named. Why we have come to be, I don’t know. Why we have the gift that lights our eyes, I don’t know either.”

“We are more clever than the Un-Named,” Fessran grumbled. “Is that such a big difference?”

“No, it is not just cleverness. It is something else that we don’t have a word for. It is what makes us Named and the others not.” Ratha drew a breath. “And what frightens me is I know we can lose this gift. When I was exiled from the clan after I brought the Red Tongue before Meoran, I walked trails with the Un-Named. Some were as clever as we, others no better than herdbeasts, but many stood somewhere between. It was they who frightened me most of all, for what I saw in their eyes was that gift fading away….”

But it was what I saw in Thistle-chaser’s that tore me most of all.

Fessran looked away.“So those who do not have this gift taint us if they come near?” She snorted. “Sometimes I wonder if we aren’t the ones who are tainted. What has this gift you speak of really brought us? The sharper the fang, the deeper wound it can give and the worse pain.” She looked down at Mishanti. “The Un-Named do not have to judge their own and cast them aside. And when the judgment comes from fear, clan leader?”

“Then blame me and leave the marks of blame on my coat. But I have to do what is right for our people,” Ratha said. “The cub must be taken from clan territory so that he does not mate with females of the Named. And he must go now, so that the pain of his going is less.”

Fessran lowered her chin over the cub and raised her hackles.“Mishanti is mine.”

“I won’t fight you, Fessran,” Ratha said quietly. “You may deny the power of Shongshar’s teeth, but the wound they gave you will tell.”

Pain whipped the Firekeeper’s face into a mask of slitted eyes and bared teeth. The eyes were wild with the knowledge that Ratha’s words were bitterly true; that if it came to a fight, Fessran would lose.

“Give him to me. Now.”

Suddenly the eyes were gone from in front of her, and Fessran became a sand-colored streak that blurred the ground near the fire. The Red Tongue spit sparks as Fessran dug a torch into its heart and lifted the flame aloft. Her jaw trembled so that her teeth shuddered against the torch shaft, but she swung the flame around so that it blocked Ratha from Mishanti.

The shock of seeing the Red Tongue raised against her in Fessran’s jaws seemed to wrench the ground from beneath Ratha’s feet. She staggered, squeezed her eyes shut. She opened them again to find the one who had been her friend standing before her with a flaming torch.

“Will you burn me with my own creature?” she hissed. “Maybe you would be right to do so. The two gifts of the Named burn too brightly and leave only ashes.”

A wordless, agonized howl broke from the Firekeeper. The firebrand swung, but it went past Ratha and soared free back into the fire-nest. Fessran faced Ratha, her sides heaving.“Take him then, because I can’t kill you. Because my cursed memory still lets me see the times when you and I ran the trails together, carrying the Red Tongue in our jaws.” She took a shuddering breath. “But before you go, you should know something else: You drove your own daughter away forthe same reason you are tearing Mishanti from me.”

Ratha felt a shock go through her body, almost paralyzing her.“How do you know this? I never told anyone. You’re good at lying, Firekeeper. I almost believed you.”

“Thakur told me some of the truth, and the rest I found myself,” Fessran said. “She has nightmares about you, falls into fits when she catches your smell. She calls you the Dreambiter and would kill you if she could. Newt is yours, Ratha. Half-witted, crippled — she is your daughter.”

“No,” Ratha growled.

“And I’ll tell you something else. I think she’s out there, watching, listening to your words.”

Again Thistle-chaser’s spotted face was before Ratha, distorted, crying out in pain. Then Newt’s face overlaid it, but the eyes were still the same. They swirled, taunting her. Could Fessran be right? Was the one who had been Thistle-chaser out there listening?

Ratha shook herself. She could not be distracted. Not now.

She lunged at Fessran, driving her back from the bewildered Mishanti.

“Take him!” the Firekeeper howled. “Take him and then, maybe, I will be able to hate you enough to feed you your own creature and make you live by your own law. ”

Another cry broke from her, a cry that seemed to tear Ratha from inside. She shook with the pain of it and ached to offer the Firekeeper some scraps of comfort, but all she could do was take the cub by the scruff and go.

Thakur had heard Fessran howl before, but rarely had there been such raw grief and rage in the Firekeeper’s voice. The sound drew him to the vale behind Newt’s lagoon, and he went quickly, with Aree crouching on his shoulder. As he was starting up the path, Fessran appeared, galloping past an outcropping. She nearly ran into him.

He dodged to the side while she skidded, raising a plume of fine dust and sand that set her coughing. Her ribs lifted in sobbing breaths.

“Did you see Ratha?” she managed to ask.

“No. What happened?”

“She came and took Mishanti. The cub I kept and wanted to adopt.”

“That’s what set you off running and yowling? Fessran, I can’t stop Ratha from doing what she thinks is best for the clan,” he argued.

“Then why are you here?”

“I need help. Something’s happened to Newt. She went wild, ran off a cliff. She wasn’t killed, but she went into one of her fits, and she can’t or won’t come out of it.”

Fessran stared at him.“What, by the Red Tongue’s ashes, did you do to set that off?”

“I lost my temper and I called Newt by her name. Her real name. Thistle-chaser. I think hearing it brought back all sorts of things.”

“So that proves it. She is Ratha’s daughter. I told Ratha that. I told her she had no right to take Mishanti, but I couldn’t stop her. If we both go after her?”

“I can’t leave Newt. Something’s really gone wrong with her. Please, Fessran,” he pleaded as he saw the Firekeeper stare angrily down the trail in the direction that Ratha had probably gone. “Come with me. At least help me find Bira or someone.”

“If I help, will you come with me to talk some sense into Ratha?”

Wearily Thakur agreed, then led the way back to the cave where he’d left Newt. Apprehensively he approached, listening for muttering or other sounds. He heard only silence and his own footsteps. Crouching down, he peered into the cave, feeling a lump come into his throat when he found everything quiet and still. But when his eyes grew used to the darkness, he saw Newt had gone.

For an instant he stayed there, feeling numb and puzzled. Where could she have gone? Why would she have left? And then the answer came, for he remembered her last words as he’d left the cave: She had gone to hunt the Dreambiter.

He scrambled out, ruffling his fur backward in his haste. Nearby he saw Fessran nosing a set of pawprints in the wet sand.

“These certainly aren’t yours,” the Firekeeper said. “Well, Newt can’t be dying if she’s up and wandering around.” She stared at Thakur. “What’s the matter now?”

He tried to halt the fear racing through him.“Fessran, she was raving about killing the Dreambiter. I think she’s gone after Ratha.”

“Newt?” Fessran howled derisively, but her voice shook. “She couldn’t take a newborn herdbeast! If she tries to fight Ratha, she’ll get ripped in so many pieces we’ll never find them all.”

Thakur heard her fall silent under his stare. She looked away from him, then back again.

“Don’t tell me you think that lame little half-wit could… ”

“Newt is not a half-wit, Fessran. Far from it.” Thakur kept his voice and his gaze even. “I warned Ratha not to underestimate her, and she didn’t listen. It may cost the Named dearly.”

The Firekeeper raked the ground, glared at Thakur.“I want Mishanti back. I want Ratha to see she is wrong. But I don’t want her to have to die for it!”

“Then you and I will have to find her before Newt does,” Thakur said, his voice icy.

“Can Newt really… ” Fessran faltered.

“She can,” Thakur answered grimly. “I’m the one to blame for that. I helped her heal her leg.” He remembered how wildly Newt had fought when in the grip of her fit, how he had to hold her down with all his strength. And he knew how brightly her rage burned against the Dreambiter.

“All right. I’m coming,” said Fessran. “For Mishanti’s sake, if not Ratha’s.”

“And for your own, though you’d never admit it,” Thakur snapped back. “Hurry!”

He heard Fessran’s feet behind him as they galloped off together down the path. Thakur had a good idea of where Ratha might be headed. If she’d taken Mishanti, she probably intended to make the journey to the same place where she’d abandoned Shongshar’s cubs several seasons ago. She would have to use the same trail back up to the coast range that he had used on his first journey to the beach. The way was a little different now. Instead of having to ford the inlet of the estuary that lay across the trail, she would cross on the floating bridge moored to the bank. It occurred to Thakur that such a crossing would be a good place for an ambush.

He begged more speed from his paws as he headed toward the raft-bridge, planning to catch Ratha there or at least find her footprints. It wouldn’t be easy. Newt had a head start. He could only hope that her healing foreleg would not stand the strain and that she would falter despite her revenge-madness. But he knew hoping wasn’t enough to save Ratha. He ran faster.

Chapter Thirteen

As Ratha padded through the salt grass with Mishanti in her jaws, she eyed the floating bridge with mixed feelings. She was glad she would not have to make the trip around the inlet. Her jaws already ached from carrying the cub by the scruff, and her conscience hurt her almost as badly. The bridge would save her some travel, but she didn’t like the way it shifted and strained against the cords that anchored it to stumps on the bank. Currents riffled water against the upstream side as the retreating tide drew water from the inlet.

The Named had crossed the floating bridge enough times to prove its worthiness. It was her own bad luck that she had to cross on an outgoing tide, but the bridge would bear her.

Lifting her chin to hold Mishanti high, she took several steps down the bank. Was that a splash in the water upstream, she wondered, and what was that eddy? She cocked her head to one side so she could see past the cub in her jaws. A shadow seemed to cross the bottom, but it went swiftly and was chopped up by the small whitecaps. She stared hard but could see nothing.

Clouds scudded by overhead, casting fleeting shadows along the ground and over the water. The cub sagged in Ratha’s jaws. With a toss of her head, she heaved him up again and strode onto the floating bridge.

With the first step, the raft-bridge rocked, as she had expected it to. The next few steps were staggers; the mass of bound driftwood and rushes heaved as if it had been struck from beneath. Ratha nearly lost her hold on the cub in her mad scramble to keep on her feet on the plunging raft. But she lost her balance, flopping on her side and clawing wildly to keep atop the mass of thatch and sticks. Mishanti squealed in pain from the pressure of her teeth in his scruff, and her neck muscles strained with the effort of keeping him from tumbling off.

Angrily she vowed never again to use this flimsy crossing during an outgoing tide. Her anger turned to alarm as she felt one end of the raft-bridge swing downstream. She snapped her head around, causing a squall from her small charge. Surely the other tether would hold. But she saw to her horror that the cord lay loose on the surface of the water. The raft surged beneath her and floated away free, carrying her with it.

She crouched, digging her claws into the thatch and holding the cub in her mouth. Her muscles tensed for a jump to the bank, but the shore retreated. She faced the green-gray water, ready to plunge in and stroke for shore. But she knew she could not keep her head above water with Mishanti in her jaws. All she could do was cling to the raft as it headed seaward, bucking and bounding as if it were alive and rejoicing in its escape.

Seeing the tether from the front end streaming alongside her, Ratha extended a claw and snagged the twisted bark-cord. It looked stout, but it must have frayed. Then she looked more closely at the soggy end draped across her paw. Yes, the fiber looked worn, but the final cut was clean, as if someone had chewed on the rope to weaken it and then, at the final moment, bitten through.

She guessed that the other tether would look the same. Crouching, she ground her back teeth while her fangs held Mishanti’s scruff. He was a mute, wet little ball of fur by now, hanging limp in her jaws, too terrified to struggle or mewl.

The raft gave an odd lurch that wasn’t part of the rhythm of the water bearing it. Ratha loosed her mouth-grip on Mishanti, pressing him down with her chest and hoping he would have enough sense to dig in his claws. She risked a glance over her shoulder at the back of the raft.

Two paws stuck up out of the frothing water, with claws driven deep into sodden thatch and driftwood. One paw was smaller than the other, the leg shrunken. Soaked fur revealed the bony outlines of the leg and the corded tendons in each foot.

From the instant she had recognized that the raft’s tethers had been bitten through, Ratha had known her opponent was Newt. Now the knowledge hit her again, this time with such bitter force that it threatened to jolt her off the raft. To Newt, she was a nightmare, a tormentor. And Newt was Thistle-chaser, the daughter she had bitten, then deserted. She could no longer deny to herself that this vengeful enemy was her own flesh and Bonechewer’s legacy. How could there be anything between them except hate?

Ratha felt ice freeze in her belly. She was no stranger to hate. Many had opposed her and tried to thwart her rise to clan leader or topple her from leadership. She had faced Meoran, the old clan leader, and then Shongshar, but neither could claw as deeply to her heart as this water-soaked, green-eyed revenge that fought to hang on to the raft.

She will give her own life if she thinks she can take mine,Ratha thought, and knowing that sent the ice creeping out along her limbs.Thakur and Fessran, why did you meddle? You did her no favor by finding a mother who should have stayed lost.

The raft slid with the tidewater toward the sea. Ratha stared numbly at the white surf line ahead and flattened her ears against the increasing rumble and crash of the waves. A roller crested ahead of the raft then broke, drenching her. The sea’s churning whitecaps took the raft and spun it around so rapidly that Ratha closed her eyes from dizziness. One whirl took the craft so close to shore that she tensed to jump, but before she could get her feet beneath her, a strong seaward current swept the raft away again.

Though Newt might be smaller and lame, she had maneuvered Ratha into alien and treacherous surroundings, where she held the advantage. Ratha, the proud bearer of fire on land, was but a ragged wretch clinging to a few sticks in the sea.

The current weakened, giving the raft less forward motion, but the chop and roll tossed it about more than ever. Ratha clung to the slithering mass of thatch and driftwood. Drenched and cold to the point of numbness, she nestled Mishanti between her forelegs, holding his nape in her jaws and trying to shield him from the spray. Even now she was wondering if she could manage to swim ashore without drowning him.

The fierceness of the attack told Ratha that Newt was ruthless and remorseless enough to kill her. Was her daughter mad, like one taken with the foaming sickness? No, Newt’s illness was not the foaming sickness, for that killed rapidly. It was something slower, more subtle, and even more destructive. Newt’s attack was more than purposeless madness. It had been planned with a cold cunning that had outdone the best of the Named.

Knowing that there was a deep and painful reason for Newt’s hatred drew Ratha’s strength from her. She closed her eyes again, not from dizziness but from despair.I sought the light in Thistle-chaser’s eyes. I have found it now, but it is a light that sears me more than the touch of the Red Tongue.

Her fear hardened despair into harsh resolution. This ex-cub might have good reason to vent revenge on her. That didn’t matter anymore. If Newt attacked, she must fight back, not only for her sake but for the sake of the Named, who would be left without a leader. Perhaps, she thought, she might be able to somehow talk to Newt, and if the chance came, she would take it. But if it came down to teeth and claws, the fact that Newt was Thistle-chaser, her own daughter, would no longer matter.

It was that decision that made her sidle backward, trying to gauge whether she could lash out with her rear claws and break Newt’s grip on the raft. If she could do it without wounding her, then Newt could swim to shore. That might make managing the runaway raft and Fessran’s adopted cub a little easier.

Ratha’s impulse was to strike quickly and get Newt off the raft. Her hind paws trembled but didn’t move. She was certain that Newt meant to seek her life, yet something in Ratha still held to the hope that it was only a threat.

She couldn’t attack. Not without knowing.

She secured Mishanti once again and craned her head back over her shoulder. The raft had slowed now. Newt was still in the water, hanging on with her claws, but the surging current no longer buried her. As Ratha peered back at her, Newt lifted her chin above the water, her ears flat, her gaze the color of serpentine.

She may understand words. I have to try.

“Thistle-chaser,” Ratha said. The ears twitched and flattened more against the brine-slicked head. The chill in the eyes went beyond the cold of the sea. They looked like marble or green-frosted ice.

“Dreambiter,” Newt answered, never taking her gaze from Ratha’s. Ratha could not control her flinch.

“We can tear each other apart well enough with words. Let it stop there.”

“You tear me with teeth, Dreambiter. I answer.”

“Leave the raft and swim to shore. I promise none of the Named will hunt you or seek you out,” Ratha said.

Newt slitted her eyes.“I hunt you, cub-slayer.”

“You have given me to this angry water. I will never reach shore. Isn’t that enough? Or will you force me to stain myself with your blood…?”

“Again,” Newt hissed, ending the sentence with the word Ratha could not say.

Newt loosed her grip and slid back into the sea. For one hopeful instant Ratha thought she had persuaded her to go. Then she saw a shape glide alongside the raft. Newt lifted her head, bared her teeth, then ducked under. Again Ratha hoped she had gone. She felt the raft lurch once more and sag beneath her. Newt surfaced, her jaws tangled in bark-cord lashing from the bottom of the raft. Ratha watched, feeling numb. Newt was tearing her floating refuge apart.

With slow, deliberate malice, Newt continued to destroy the raft-bridge. She slashed reed bundles, chewed off bindings, and pried driftwood sticks apart. Now Ratha fought back, striking out with bared claws from the narrow and increasingly cramped area that remained to her. But Newt could easily duck into the sea to escape and rise on the raft’s far side to plague her again.

Ratha knew that Newt could mount a sharp, quick attack, tearing her throat or pulling her into the sea and dragging her under. Newt wanted more than just her death: She had discovered the savage pleasure of tormenting an enemy.

The sea behind the raft was soon littered with shreds of driftwood, rushes, and bark-cord. Gray water welled up through the floor, soaking Ratha’s feet and half covering Mishanti. She tried to hold the fraying mass together with her claws, but Newt relentlessly pulled away one piece after another.

Ratha found herself clinging to the last fragment of the raft, holding the cub in her mouth and staring at the foam-streaked back of a wave. As the swell lifted her, she caught sight of white surf in the distance. Waves breaking meant land of some sort, even if it was no more than a few rocks. She held to the raft as long as she could, then launched herself over Newt’s head into the sea.

The shock of cold water punched the breath from her. The weight of the struggling cub dragged at her jaws as she fought to get her nose above water. For one panicky instant, she almost let him go in order to get a precious breath.

She suddenly wondered why she was fighting so hard to save the youngster. Hadn’t she taken him from Fessran’s den to exile him from the clan?To abandon him, not kill him, a hurt part of her cried. The irony of that claim made Ratha cringe with shame as she shivered and struggled in the ocean. Had she really fooled herself into thinking that young cubs taken from their mothers and abandoned far beyond clan ground would survive?Quit fooling yourself. You were going to kill him. And now you probably will whether you intend to or not.

With an angry sideways toss of her head, Ratha flung the youngster back over her shoulder, still holding on to his scruff. He slid off, dangling in her jaws and threatening to drown both of them. Once more she tried, giving a fierce kick and a wrench of her neck. He fell across the back of her shoulders and she felt cub-claws drive in deeply, making her snarl with pain.

She wallowed in a trough between waves, searching for some sign of the breakers she had seen from the raft. Disoriented by the swells, she picked one direction and struck out with Mishanti clinging to her neck. A roller lifted her, showing her the distant surf line once again, and she changed her course.

It was slow, hard paddling, with bouts of exhaustion, disorientation, and panic. Several times she lost sight of the breakers and ended up swimming aimlessly. Her breath seared her lungs and the back of her throat. Her limbs felt heavy and the cub on her back even heavier.

And then she saw a shape circling her, and she thought about all the creatures of the sea, especially those who ate meat. Her heart sank further when she recognized the sleek form gliding around her. The thought came to her that without Mishanti, she would have a better chance against Newt and the ocean.

His eyes are empty. I should let the sea take him.

Ratha growled deep in her throat, angered by the suggestion and at the part of her that made it. She knew that if she sacrificed the youngster, she would be much closer to Newt’s image of her. But why did it matter, a part of her cried out, despairing. The cub would die out here anyway.

The stinging pain of claws in her nape told her he wasn’t dead yet. She forced herself to stroke with limbs that throbbed with weariness and lungs that burned with ashy dryness, despite all the water around her. And all the time, Newt circled her like a shark, coming in to rake her flank.

Newt’s attack was strangely languid, as if she were only sporting. Perhaps she was playing with her quarry as a hunter would toy with prey. Or perhaps she was surprised to see that Ratha had come this far and wondered how much farther she would go before the sea overwhelmed her.

Ratha only fixed her eyes on the tossing surf and struggled toward it.

It seemed to Ratha that she had been swimming forever in a gray, heaving landscape of waves, foam, and sky. Her limbs slowed of their own accord, and she hung in the water, utterly bewildered as to where she was or how she had gotten out here. She was tempted to just lie in the trough between swells and let the waves roll her around until she sank.

Then she felt the soggy weight of the cub on her neck, remembered, and paddled onward. The sting from his claws faded. Either she was growing too numb to feel anything, or he was weakening. That thought stabbed her with alarm, and she redoubled her efforts.

The sight of Newt cruising around helped to wake her cold-muddled wits with a surge of anger and sent her thrashing through the whitecaps.

She panted and gasped, her throat raw from salt and hard breathing, her chest seared with pain. A spume of spray fountained into the air ahead of her, raining down onto her head. The boom of waves breaking against rocks penetrated her dulled hearing.

A little surge of triumph fought its way through the layers of exhaustion and fear, but before she could really feel it, Mishanti started to slide from her neck, too weak to keep his claws fastened in her nape any longer. Again she grabbed him, slung him back into place, hoping the jolt would revive him long enough for her feet to find some purchase on the rocky bottom.

But the rocks where the waves broke seemed to plunge right down into deep water, with no way to scale their sheer faces. With leaden paws and a growing fear weighting her down, Ratha swam behind the surf line, searching for some shoal or shallows where she could drag her weary self ashore.

At last she came to a place where sea-battered stones had split and tumbled, forming a field of islets. Here she might have a chance of getting through before the breakers dashed her against the rocks. She splashed and scrabbled, tearing her pads on mussel shells that encrusted the islets. She floundered on her belly, nearly lost the cub again. Dragging him by his scruff, for she was too weary to lift her head, she clambered up through tidepools, slipping and falling on slick strands of seaweed, while backwash from the surf dragged at her legs.

Her vision, already blurred from exhaustion, threatened to fade completely. Desperately she sought a shelf or slab of rock far enough above the spray to offer some refuge. Just when she thought she would have to collapse atop the jagged crest of the wave-beaten rock, she caught sight of a low, sloping band of sandstone. It was steep and tilted down toward the surf, but it was better than lying on sharp-edged coral and shells. She struggled across the mussel beds, her pads bleeding and throbbing.

At last she found herself crouching on a tiny, worn table of rock that barely rose above the sea. At least her refuge was flat enough so that she wouldn’t slip off, but it offered no protection against wind or wave. With no room to stretch out on her side, she huddled up with Mishanti against her chest and fell into an uneasy drowse.

The flapping of wet fur woke Ratha from a sleep that had been too short and often interrupted by spray blown in her face by the wind. Groggily coming awake, she had to blink and stare before her eyes would focus. She felt her skin prickle, but her fur was too wet to bristle and her limbs too weary to respond, even to a surge of anger. Ratha could only watch Newt clamber onto a boulder that stood next to her own refuge.

Newt stopped to shake more brine out of her coat. Ratha endured a long silence with only the sound of the sea and her daughter’s harsh breathing. The gray-green eyes stared at her, never wavering. Their color shifted like the hues on an incoming breaker.

Then Newt came slowly down off her rock and onto Ratha’s. Though Ratha’s limbs screamed in protest, she gathered up the cub and scuttled away as far as she could go. Head low, eyes fixed, Newt limped after her.

Ratha let Mishanti down long enough to speak.“I can’t fight you with him in my jaws.”

Newt ignored her words. When Ratha held her ground with the cub between her forelegs, Newt stalked up and stood facing her. Uncertainly, Ratha watched as Newt balanced on her good foreleg, her other one drawn up against her chest. She readied herself to fend off a biting attack, thinking the cripple could not attack with her foreclaws.

Newt’s raised paw shot out. A claw dug into Ratha’s cheek fur, dragged across her face. Angrily she lashed out with both forepaws, but Newt was too quick. The two faced each other, tails flicking with rage. Quickly Ratha grabbed Mishanti and shoved him to one side. Newt took advantage of the distraction to attack. Again the two met in a brief flurry, scattering fur and droplets of blood before breaking apart.

“Can use this paw now,” Newt snarled.

“Thakur told me that he worked with you… healed you…,” Ratha panted.

“He understood, Dreambiter. He knew.”

“But he did stop. After you wrecked the pen… ”

“Too late. This leg better. Soon Newt will run on all legs, Dreambiter.”

Again she launched herself at Ratha, striking in whirl-wind slashes of claws and teeth. Enraged, Ratha fought back. She hated the instinct that made her want to seize Newt’s throat and twist until her enemy’s neck broke, yet she knew that was the instinct that would save her own life. The battle raging inside her was more savage than the frenzied bursts of combat as the two fought back and forth across the islet.

“Dreambiter,” Newt hissed, closing her teeth around the word as she stalked Ratha. “Soon I will be free of you.”

Ratha jumped sideways, letting Newt slice empty air. She hadn’t missed by much, and Ratha knew exhaustion was slowing her. “Your nightmares,” she panted.

“No, yours. You run in them. You tear me. Not once, but again and again and each time the pain comes.”

“You think you’ll end the nightmares by killing me?” Ratha spat back. “This thing that strikes at you out of your dreams is not me. It is something you have made. Killing me won’t put an end to it.” Her words were lost in the rising yowl of Newt’s battle cry and the wailing of the seawind.

The wind’s moan grew shriller, and the waves rolled higher around the islet, warning Ratha that a squall was nearing. To spring and dodge as she did on land earned her only hard, bruising falls on spray-slicked rocks, with Newt gouging at her belly.

A big wave broke across the islet, drenching them both and slithering away in a foaming cascade of gray-green water. A trembling cry struck through the tumult of the noise and fighting. Ratha saw Mishanti, engulfed by the retreating water, being dragged away. She leaped, landed badly on the craggy rocks. One forepaw slipped into a crevice, throwing her hard on her shoulder.

Ignoring the bruising, she tried to pull free but found her foot wedged into the crack. Irritated, she wiggled and jerked fruitlessly. She was stuck, her paw jammed and the cub sliding away beyond her reach.

She lunged, straining the caught leg with her frantic swipes to reach Mishanti with her free paw. As a last, wild effort, she threw herself over, stretching and scrabbling with her rear paws to catch the cub. Her trapped foreleg twisted, sending shooting pain into her breast. For a terrible moment she felt only water against her hind toes, then a wet, sliding body. She caught the cub between her two rear pads and tried to claw him up to where she could grab him. His teeth fastened in her hock in angry protest. Then she could only hang onto him while another wave spilled across the islet.

Even before the water rushed away, she felt him hitching himself up her leg as she lay on the rocks. She looked down and saw his eyes open and burning like amber flames while his needlesharp talons dug into her leg. Something had jolted him out of his numbed terror. Now he was angry, with a fierce rage to live.

Hate me, hate the world, hate everything, but stay alive,Ratha thought at him as he struggled up her wet flank, over her belly, and up her ribs. With a surge of relief, she grabbed him.

A sharp blow bashed her head against jagged rock and nearly stole her consciousness. Against her will, her jaws slackened. The cub slid from her mouth. She cursed herself for having forgotten Newt.

“You can’t use your leg, Dreambiter,” came the bitter voice. “How does it feel?”

Ratha ignored Newt, lunged groggily to reach the cub, who had tumbled into a tidepool. Her trapped leg sent fiery pains in protest. Again she had almost reached him when Newt caught the flailing paw.

Ratha stared at her daughter as Newt’s teeth came down on her leg. Though Newt could not speak now, Ratha read her eyes and seemed to hear words spoken in that flat, cold voice.

You crippled me, Dreambiter. Now you will know how it feels.

“I am not your Dreambiter,” Ratha said hoarsely. “I was once, but not now. Listen to me, Thistle-chaser. My death won’t kill the creature that torments you. It will make it even stronger.”

She curled herself up, kicking out at Newt with rear claws bared, but Newt swung herself aside, yanking Ratha into an even more painful position. Ratha yowled as Newt’s teeth sawed against her foreleg. She saw Newt grimace in frustration. A new look, closer to despair than madness, came into Newt’s eyes, but the blow to Ratha’s head, combined with the grinding pain in her trapped foreleg, had driven her close to oblivion. Newt’s face became a blur, along with everything else.

The pain abruptly grew muted. Ratha felt her paw flop free from Newt’s jaws. Through the waves of dizziness that washed over her, she heard an angry squall. Struggling to focus her vision, she saw a double image of Newt spinning around to face Mishanti.

“Yow! You bit my tail!” Newt snarled and dealt the bristling cub a slap that sent him tumbling. Shivering and snarling, he launched himself to the attack once again, leaping between Ratha and Newt. He stood astride Ratha’s extended foreleg, his head lowered, short tail lashing. With a growl, he leaped at Newt, making her draw back.

“Get him out of the way,” she hissed at Ratha. “Get rid of him, or I’ll kill him.”

Ratha could only lie still, fighting waves of gray nausea and weariness. Hopelessly she jerked at her trapped foreleg.“Do you think I can?”

Her words only enraged Newt. The sea-green eyes shrank to slits, and the ears flattened against the spray-slicked head. She bared her claws and aimed another blow at Ratha, but again Mishanti flung himself between the two. Ratha struggled to raise her head enough to grab the little warrior in her jaws and yank him aside, but she was too cold and weak. She could only croak out,“No, Thistle-chaser… ” as Newt struck the youngster.

The cub spun away with two red gashes along his flank, but he rebounded, hurling himself between Ratha and Newt. Again Newt tried to wound Ratha, tore the cub instead. He rolled aside, shuddering, his mouth wide. For one horrible instant, Ratha thought Newt had gutted him; then another gray-green surge of seawater spilled through the rocks. Ratha could feel the wave tug at her, but it wasn’t as powerful as the last few.

The cub clung to the jagged rock with his claws as the water streamed around him. It washed the blood away, letting Ratha see the new wound, a long diagonal slash across the lower ribs. When the water retreated, he fought his way back to Ratha, his soaked fur making him look almost skeletal. The welling blood and the too-bright eyes made her feel that he had become something more dangerous than just a litterling.

Again he put himself in front of Ratha, facing Newt. Ratha saw Newt’s lips writhe back, baring her teeth. She struggled to make some part of her body move, but she could get only uncoordinated jerks. Newt snapped at the cub, who wobbled aside at the last moment. Again Ratha tried to reach him and failed. Newt was preparing to lunge for the killing bite.

Ratha had only her voice and her wits.

“Dreambiter. Cub-slayer,” she snarled, throwing Newt’s words back at her.

Slowly Newt’s ice-green stare moved from the cub to Ratha. “You are… ” she began.

“His blood is on your claws now, daughter.”

Newt froze, one paw still raised. A tremor crept over her, turning into shivering.

Ratha hitched herself up, trying to hold her daughter’s gaze. “You may hate me now, and you may hate me more after I’ve said this. You will never slay the Dreambiter, because you have become the Dreambiter.”

“No.”

“You would kill or cripple that cub if it meant you could take out your hate on me. It is the same thing. It was the same thing then.”

“No. He in the way,” Newt spluttered.

“You got in the way when I attacked Bonechewer,” Ratha said, her voice hard. “We are both Dreambiters and cub-maulers. We are both fighting for ourselves so hard that it is easy for us to wound others who get in the way.” She paused. “That is the truth, Thistle-chaser.”

Now Newt was taking hard, deep breaths. Ratha could see her daughter’s rib cage heave. Was it realization or rage that lit the depths of her eyes? Ratha couldn’t tell and braced herself for another blow.

With a despairing howl, Newt flung herself around. She seemed to go into a wild fit, slashing at empty air, raking her claws across rocks and opening her jaws in a raw-edged scream. Then she turned her wrath on herself, ripping her own fur with her claws and trying to stab herself with her teeth.

“Thistle-chaser!” Ratha howled, then shut her eyes, unable to bear the sight.

A deep roar drowned out Newt’s cries and then there was a booming crash as a storm-lashed breaker surged over the islet. Ratha was caught in a river of icy water that pulled her painfully against her trapped paw. Newt was a mass of soggy fur tumbling between wave crests. And Mishanti was nowhere in sight. Ratha strained as high as she could, trying to spot him. She saw Newt recover, fight her way to a boulder that rose above the water, and cling there, looking dazed.

There was a growing tightness in Ratha’s throat. Mishanti, the little warrior who had fought to protect her, had been swept away by the sea. Anxiously she scanned as much of the islet as she could see and then the heaving ocean. Rain began pelting down. Lightning jumped and flickered overhead, and thunder mixed with the roar of beating surf.

And then Ratha saw a tiny, dark shape on the outlying rocks at the far end of the islet. It moved.

“Thistle-chaser!” she called. Newt only stared back at her dumbly.

“The cub — he’s down on those rocks. I’m stuck. Please… ”

Newt seemed lost in a trance. Ratha turned her gaze back to the small form nearly lost against the foaming surf, wondering if he was really still there or whether her hope had deceived her. A movement at the edge of her vision startled her. It was Newt, leaving her refuge and half swimming, half sloshing through the water. She moved slowly, as if still dazed, but she was going in the right direction. Toward Mishanti.

She halted, stared at Ratha, her eyes smoky, unreadable.

“Get him,” Ratha said. “Not for my sake. For yours.”

Newt seemed to wake up. She took several splashing bounds across the nearly swamped islet, scrambling across the rocks. She had nearly reached Mishanti when another wave broke, sending torrents of water over the rocks. This time the cascade almost drowned Ratha. She fought to keep her nose above the water, pulling as hard as she could on her trapped forepaw. Fear stabbed when she saw foam covering the place where Newt and the cub had been. Neither one was visible.

Now Ratha was alone. Numbly she hoped the next wave would engulf her, filling her lungs with water and giving her a quick choking death. Otherwise she would hang here on the rocks, battered and soaked, until the cold killed her. Or grief.

To lose both her daughter and Fessran’s foster son to a single furious sweep of the sea, yet to be left living and conscious enough to know and feel the loss was cruelty beyond bearing. Ratha felt herself starting to retreat, to close down, turning inward to find shelter from the world around her. Her body was numbed past feeling. She hoped her mind would soon be the same.

A thin wail threaded itself through her dulled hearing. Not until it came again did she even think about lifting her head. It seemed too heavy, not worth the bother. Why the interruption now, when she was starting to feel comfortable? She no longer felt the wind. It was as if she were lying, warm and lazy, in a pool of sun near the entrance to her den.

And then more noises came. Splashes. Panting. Ragged grunts. Ratha forced her eyes open.

Newt struggled in the surf at the islet’s edge, holding the cub in her jaws. He looked like a limp fur mat, and when Newt hauled him out, brine streamed from him. Ratha could see that Newt too was nearly at the end of her strength. She shuddered and staggered. Her weak foreleg had taken more of a battering than it could stand and she was limping again.

She had to set the cub down to get her breath. He sprawled on his front, his rapid breathing the only indication to Ratha that he still lived.

“Bring him here,” she said to Newt, who gave one final deep breath and took the cub once again in her jaws. She made a quick feint toward Ratha, dropped Mishanti near her, and backed off, as if fearing retaliation. With her free paw, Ratha gathered the bedraggled little bundle to her chest, trying to press some of the seawater out of his coat. She curled around him to warm him with her body and her breath, but she knew she had barely enough warmth to stay alive.

Convulsive shudders went through him, and his eyes began to dull. Ratha knew he was dying of cold. However close she held him, he shuddered harder, and her own clammy coat wasn’t helping. She licked the top of his head, full of despair.

Then someone was standing over her. It was Newt. Newt’s gaze was uncertain, but there was something new flickering in her eyes that had never been there before.

“My coat thicker,” she said. With a clumsiness generated by self-consciousness, she took the shivering youngster from Ratha, shook herself as dry as she could, then curled around him. Ratha watched as Newt ruffed her fur and nestled him into it. After a while he stopped shivering.

“If we can wait out the storm and I can free my paw, we might be able to get to the next islet. I think there is a string of these islets that connects with the jetty where your seamares are.” Ratha lifted her head and peered at the sky. Thunder still rumbled overhead, but the rain had lightened to a drizzle, and waves no longer broke so high over their refuge.

She still felt cold outside, but the stabbing despair that was worse than ice around her heart had gone. She dared to hope that they might all get out of this alive and, even more, that things might change between herself and Thistle-chaser.

Waiting for the storm to abate and the seas to calm grew wearying, and Ratha felt the cold creep deeper into her. She had ceased to feel the pain in her trapped paw or the wound on her leg made by Thistle-chaser’s teeth. Gradually she slipped into a daze and thought she was again lying in a pool of sun by her den, the sun’s rays warm on her coat, sliding through drowsiness into deep sleep.

Chapter Fourteen

Thistle-chaser lay near Ratha, trying not to think of anything at all. The events just past were too painful to recall. Bite-and-scratch wounds throbbed and burned all over her body. Some had come from Ratha, others she had inflicted with her own teeth during the fit. She had a scratch on her nose from Mishanti. Though it hurt, she was glad she had saved him, although she still didn’t know why. She felt confused, but it was a new kind of confusion: one that promised rather than one that denied.

She wriggled closer to the cub, nestling him in the longer fur covering her belly. Ratha’s fur was starting to dry in the fitful wind. Mishanti might be warmer, Thistle-chaser thought, if she sheltered him between herself and Ratha. To get herself and the cub into the right position, she had to lay a paw over Ratha. She didn’t want to. It was still frightening to be near this stranger who had somehow given birth to her. She kept her paw in the air above Ratha until it ached with weariness. Gradually she let it sink until her pawpad rested on the fawn-colored fur over Ratha’s ribs.

I am touching my Dreambiter, she thought.

To her touch, Ratha felt cold, even colder than Mishanti. She lay stretched out by the pull on her imprisoned forepaw, her head lolled to one side, her mouth half open, her tongue flopping out. It frightened Thistle-chaser.

She it so cold and she doesn’t shiver. Dreambiter, wake up. She pawed Ratha gently, then a little more roughly. There was no response.

Dreambiter, why am I afraid you will die? I wanted you to die.

Feeling as though someone else were using her body, she wriggled closer to Ratha, pulling her mother against her chest.

It hurt to hear what you said, but you are right: We are both the same.

Slowly, because she was so frightened, Thistle-chaser spread herself across Ratha as well as Mishanti, trying to warm both of them. She too was shivering, and she wondered if she would die out on this lonely rock. She felt a strange and painful mixture of hope and despair. Perhaps this one who had cast her into such a gray world would be the one to lead her out of it.

But not if you die, Dreambiter. For my sake, please live.

And at last, Thistle-chaser stopped shivering and fell asleep.

Dripping and winded, Thakur scrambled up the crest of an island near the end of the chain that extended from the jetty. Fessran was right behind him, though she faltered, and he had to grab her scruff and haul her up. They had swum and scrabbled from island to island after spotting Ratha adrift on the escaped raft. During one channel crossing, Fessran had encountered a vicious fish with skin that grated like sand and an inclination to take a bite out of anything furry that swam its way.

“I’m sorry,” she growled. “You would think that losing my tail tip wouldn’t make any difference, but I feel as shaky as a newborn cub.” She swung her tail around, licked the torn end. “At least it’s stopped bleeding.”

“I don’t blame you for shaking. I’m a bit unsteady myself. That was just too close.”

“Well, I’ll remember that cursed fish the next time I’m tempted to dunk myself. It had more teeth than I do. Brrr!”

The two scrambled down over the rocks as seabirds swirled in flocks around them.“This is the last islet, Fessran,” Thakur said, not adding that if Ratha and Mishanti weren’t on this one, they had been taken by the sea.

They climbed over and around tumbled boulders that had sheared from the cliffs above. Thakur put Fessran in the lead, hoping that would help steady her. He saw her leap atop a flat-topped rock and then freeze where she stood.“They’re here,” she hissed.

Thakur hopped up beside her and looked out. There, on the last few rocks that met the sea, he saw a rust-and-black pelt sprawled atop a fawn one. His first glance sent a cold wash of dismay through him. Both looked still and stiff enough to be dead. Then he saw the twitch of a rust-and-black tail. Newt still lived. There wasn’t enough of Ratha visible to tell.

Beside him, he heard Fessran moan softly and then felt her tense to jump down.

“No, stay here.” Thakur put a paw on the Firekeeper’s flank.

“Ratha… and Mishanti,” Fessran choked out.

“I know. But Newt is there too. If she sees you, she may attack us. If I go alone, it will be easier.”

“You know my part in this, Thakur,” Fessran said in a low voice. “If I hadn’t been so angry at Ratha, you might have had a chance to bring the two together.”

“We’ll talk about that later,” Thakur said, his eyes on the two bedraggled forms lying together on the rocks below.

“Mishanti.” Fessran tried to keep her voice from shaking. Thakur knew how hard it was for her to wait here, not knowing. Quickly he leaped down off the boulder and scrambled over the rocks. As he approached, he saw Newt stir.

He came alongside her as quietly as he could, then nudged her. Her nose twitched in response to his scent. Her head lifted, wobbly and bleary eyed. As she raised herself, Thakur saw Mishanti curled up between Newt’s belly and Ratha’s back. His flank rose and fell in a comforting rhythm.

What Thakur could see of Ratha, however, did not look encouraging. Her salt-encrusted fur stood up in spikes, stiffened by bloodstains. Her head lolled to one side, her tongue spilling from slack jaws. Unsteadily Newt half rolled, half crawled to one side, still weak and groggy from exhaustion.“Dreambiter,” she hissed softly, stretching out a paw to touch the ragged fawn pelt. “Her foot… stuck… down between rocks… ”

Thakur could not see any movement in Ratha’s rib cage. His heart sinking, he licked the end of his muzzle and crouched at her head, trying to detect any breath on his dampened nose. He held his own breath until he was nearly dizzy, then let it out in a rush as he felt a tickle of air against his nose-leather.

Quickly he nuzzled Ratha, checking for injuries. He found one forepaw stuck directly down into a crevice, where jagged rock clamped the foot. Gently he nudged her all over, looking for broken bones, but found nothing. She was still breathing, but she was so cold, Thakur thought to himself.

“Tried… tried to warm her,” Newt said in a thin voice. “She said we both Dreambiters, and she is right, so want her to live.”

Thakur began to rub himself against Ratha to warm her and get her alert enough to start moving. He used his tongue on her face and ears, cleaning away salt crystals from the fur around her eyes.

“Come on, yearling,” he muttered as he scrubbed. “It would take more than a dunking to kill you. Fessran!” he called over his shoulder to the Firekeeper, who came flying out from behind the rocks. At the sight of Fessran, Newt flattened and retreated.

“She won’t hurt you, I promise,” said Thakur to Newt. He sent a warning look toward Fessran, but the Firekeeper was taken up with nuzzling Mishanti to make sure he was all right. Then she began licking and rubbing Ratha.

A sneeze was the first indication that Ratha was reviving, then a series of shivers and a moan. Thakur saw her gulp, blink, and open her eyes. Fessran was rubbing her so enthusiastically that the motion pulled Ratha against her trapped foreleg, and she winced with pain.

“Arr! Firekeeper, you always overdo things,” she growled. Her gaze turned to Thakur. “I don’t know how you got here, herding teacher, but I’m glad you did.” She tried to lift her head. strained, and sagged back.

Then her gaze traveled to Newt and rested on her daughter.“I wouldn’t have lasted this long if someone hadn’t given me some warmth. I thought you hated me, Thistle-chaser. Why did you save me?”

Newt hung her head, as if what she had done was shameful.“I don’t know, Dreambiter.”

Thakur interrupted.“Don’t question her now, Ratha. Save the questions for later. We have to get you off this rock.” He slid his foreleg under Ratha’s chest and tried to pry upward. Ratha clamped her teeth together and made no sound, but he could hear her breathing hard in pain. Her leg was locked fast.

He called Fessran over and both tugged, but with no greater success. Newt stood to one side, watching, then started forward to help.

Thakur stopped her.“No good,” he said. “All we’ll do is pull her leg off.”

He hopped down onto a lower rock, peered sideways through the crevice where Ratha’s paw was stuck. The cleft widened toward the front, where he was looking in.

“Ratha, if you could pull your leg sideways instead of straight up, you might have a chance.”

She tried, failed. Thakur and Fessran got their jaws around the upper part of her leg near her chest and tried to shove her forelimb toward the wider part of the crevice.

They strained and grunted while Newt watched.“No good,” Thakur groaned after several tries. “We’ll either snap our teeth or break her foreleg.”

Ratha lay back down. He could see by her panting and her glazing eyes that she was losing strength rapidly.“Maybe the leg will have to stay,” she whispered softly. “Thistle-chaser has shown me that you can get along without one paw.”

Thakur went cold at the idea of having to cripple Ratha to free her. He shot a glance toward Newt. What was she thinking? It would be suitable revenge on Ratha. And Newt’s foreleg was much stronger than it had been; she was no longer severely hampered by the old injury. It would be as if the two had changed places.

He studied Ratha’s position, how deeply her foreleg extended into the crack and how much room there would be for the horrible task, if they were forced to do it.

“No,” he said roughly. “Your leg is in too far. We’d have to work above your elbow, near your chest.” He faltered. “You would bleed to death before… ” He broke off. “There must be another way. There must!”

Jumping down beside the crevice, he peered in once again. If he could somehow snag her stuck foot and yank it sideways, she might be able to get free. He tried to fit his paw in through the opening, but his toes were too large.

“Mishanti,” Ratha said, watching him. “A cub’s paws are smaller.”

“But his leg isn’t long enough,” Thakur said, still crouched down by the crevice, peering in from the side.

Fessran’s yowl interrupted him. “There’s a big wave coming. Get up high or hang on!” He saw the Firekeeper grab Mishanti by the scruff. Thakur leaped up beside Ratha, jerked and tugged at her furiously.

“Get the cub and Thistle-chaser to high ground,” Ratha growled. “Now!”

With grief tearing at him, Thakur made himself obey, shepherding a stunned Newt after Fessran, who had already climbed to the highest point on the tiny island. He was still scrabbling for a hold when gray water spilled across the islet. He strained to look back at Ratha. The frothing sea lashed her, robbing her of the last vestiges of warmth she had gained from her daughter and the others. Thakur knew that if they did not get her off the island soon, with or without her foreleg, she would die.

Even before the water drained away, the three were back beside Ratha. Mishanti was left clinging to his perch.

“Newt’s got small paws,” Fessran said. “And her lame leg is narrower than her good one.”

Thakur turned to Newt, but she was already peering into the crack. The thoughts raced in his head. Would she do it? Could she, even if she had the wish to try? Why was she hesitating? Was she judging the situation, or was she just stalling, hoping to force him to cripple Ratha? It would be a suitable revenge, he thought. If she wants it.

Newt lifted her lame foreleg and slowly threaded her paw into the crevice. She gave Thakur an unreadable look.“For my Dreambiter,” she hissed.

“For you,” he answered softly. Ratha lay, coat still streaming, eyes closed. He wondered if she could hear them.

With grunts of effort, Newt wiggled her lame forepaw deep into the crack.

“She’s close,” said Fessran, peering down from the top. “Just a little bit more, Thistle.”

Thakur saw Newt’s lips draw back from her clamped teeth as she forced more of her leg in.

“You’re touching now,” came Fessran’s voice from the top. “Spread your pad. Get your claws out.”

Newt snarled and strained. She shot an agonized glance at Thakur.“Not strong enough. Claws won’t go far enough.”

Thakur swallowed, not knowing what to say. It wasn’t her fault if her leg had not completely come back to normal. If it hadn’t, she would never have been able to get in this far. But will could overcome weakness, if she wanted to free Ratha badly enough.

I can’t condemn her if she fails, he thought.But I won’t be able to keep away the doubt.

Newt gave a grunt, then a startled gasp.

“She’s got a clawhold,” Fessran said from the top. “Come up here and look.”

Thakur bounded up beside the unconscious Ratha and peered down at Newt’s rust-colored forepaw, lit by a stray beam of sunlight. She had one claw hooked into the side of Ratha’s leathery pad. Thakur saw the tendons in Newt’s foot stand out as she strained to spread her forepaw and extend the claws. She got another claw into Ratha’s pad and then another.

“Pull slowly,” Thakur called down to her. “Don’t jerk, or you’ll lose your hold.” He heard her panting shallowly and knew her leg was cramping. Then he saw her foot starting to inch back, Ratha’s paw moving with it. He suppressed his impulse to yowl at the sky. Instead he joined Fessran in trying to lick the salt water from Ratha’s coat and lie across her to provide what warmth they could.

From his position atop the rock, he peeked down in the crack. Ratha’s foot had stuck at a cluster of mussel shells in the crevice. Newt wriggled and panted but couldn’t get past the obstacle. Slowly she unhooked her claws from Ratha’s foot and began to scrape and pry at the shellfish, breaking away one fragment at a time. It was an agonizing effort for the weakened forepaw, but Newt kept doggedly at her task. Thakur started to call down instructions then stopped. No. He trusted Newt to do everything that was needed. He and Fessran should concentrate on reviving Ratha, getting her ready to move should Newt’s efforts be effective.

They lay one on each side of her, warming her, trying to wring the water from her fur. Fessran scanned the sea anxiously for any sign that another wave was about to break over them.

Then Newt gave a yowl that was both triumph and pain as she snagged Ratha’s foot again and pulled it free. Carefully Thakur got his jaws around the bruised and cut limb, gently drawing it out of the crevice.

“Thakur, another wave’s coming,” Fessran warned.

He wormed himself under Ratha’s belly, heaved her up on his nape and shoulders, and half dragged, half carried her while yowling at Fessran to get Mishanti. He felt his load lighten slightly as Newt came up beside him and grabbed Ratha with her jaws. She was limping again, her leg drawn up and folded over in a fierce cramp. She grimaced with pain but said nothing as she helped Thakur carry Ratha away from the surging water.

The two hauled her to the highest spot on the island and then, when the water receded, wrestled her across the wave-washed boulders connecting this outermost islet with the chain leading back to the jetty. Fessran helped them as much as she could while carrying the cub.

Ratha, after being warmed and shaken around by her short journey on top of Thakur, began to show some signs of life. Thakur took her a short distance to a hollow that screened out the wind. He laid her down on a slab that slanted at an angle, allowing water to drain from her fur instead of puddling around her.

Thakur and Newt began to lick her again, helped in their task by weak sunlight that grew stronger as the clouds parted. Her eyes remained closed, but her whiskers twitched and she whispered,“Thakur, I’m so numb I can’t feel anything in my legs. Is my forepaw… ”

He answered her unspoken question by pushing her limp foreleg toward her nose.“You’ve still got all your paws, thanks to your daughter.”

He saw her rib cage rise then fall in a huge sigh of relief.

“Where’s Thistle-chaser?” she asked, her eyes still shut. Thakur’s gaze went to Newt, and he watched her ears flick nervously.

“Here,” she answered, her voice thin with exhaustion and uncertainty.

Ratha’s teeth chattered but she managed to say, “Lie down with me. I need you.”

With another uncertain glance at Thakur, Newt arranged herself with her belly against Ratha’s back. Thakur saw her grimace as her lame foreleg cramped. “Here,” he said, taking her paw in his mouth and pulling it to ease the tight, knotted muscles. He massaged it gently with his tongue.

“Well this is certainly a cozy group,” said Fessran as soon as she had dried Mishanti as well as she could. “I’m starting to feel left out.”

“Well, join us,” said Thakur. “Ratha needs all the warmth she can get.”

“After what I did, I’m not sure… ”

“She doesn’t need apologies or arguments,” Thakur replied. “Just a warm pelt against her.”

“Mine’s pretty damp, but I’ll do what I can.” Fessran shook herself off and fluffed her fur.

Together they rubbed against Ratha and wrung as much water out of her fur as they could by pressing against her. The sunlight brightened, helping to dry her pelt, while the sheltering rocks kept the wind from blowing away the heat.

Yet as Thakur worked alongside the others, he felt that there were many things yet to be resolved. As Ratha started to recover, Newt began inching away from her, as if she could only dare to touch Ratha when she was too sick or weak to really notice.

And as Ratha became more like her old self in the warmth and dryness of the sun and those around her, she seemed ill at ease with Newt. She let her daughter gradually retreat without calling her back. Perhaps, Thakur thought, everything that had happened on the island was just a feverish dream to her, unsure, unreal. And perhaps to Newt the intimacy that crisis allowed was gone.

He looked at Ratha and then at her daughter and felt angry. Both were strong, stubborn, and adamant about denying the tie that bound them together, yet both were clearly driven by it.

He shook himself, bristled his whiskers, and said,“Ratha, Thistle-chaser, there is someone I would like you to meet.”

Both stared at him as if he had gone mad.

“What, by the Red Tongue’s ashes, are you talking about?” asked Fessran. “There’s no one else on this wave-washed rock but us.”

He ignored the Firekeeper. Instead he went to Thistle-chaser, nudged her back toward Ratha.“This is your mother,” he said, looking into the sea-green eyes. “She birthed you, fed you, and desperately wanted to love you.”

He turned next to Ratha, still lying on her side, looking up at him.“And this is your daughter. She came from your belly, suckled at your teats, and never had the chance to be what you wanted her to be.”

Pausing, he surveyed both of them.“That is the simple truth between you. You may deny it at the top of your voices, but everything you have done shows that it is still at work.”

There was a very long silence.

Ratha lowered her muzzle, looking at the ground, then gave a sideways glance at Newt.“Thakur has the most sense of any of us, doesn’t he? Do you think he’s right?”

“He is right,” said Newt softly, choosing her words carefully and slowly. “But want to know. Why you bite me bad when I was small?”

Ratha closed her eyes, and for an instant Thakur thought she couldn’t answer the question.

“I think the best answer to that,” Ratha said, “is to have Fessran bring Mishanti over here.”

When the Firekeeper had placed the cub between Ratha and Thistle-chaser, Ratha said,“Look at him. If there is light in his eyes, it is hard to see, isn’t it?” As the Firekeeper started to bristle, she added, “No, Fessran. I’m not making a judgment of him now. For one thing, I’m hardly in a condition to do that. I just want to show Thistle-chaser something she needs to know.” Ratha nudged Mishanti so that he faced Thistle-chaser.

“That is what you looked like to me,” Ratha said. “I looked in your eyes and could not see what I wanted the most; the promise that you would grow up as one of the Named, be able to speak, think, and know what names mean.” She looked up at her daughter, half-angry, half-pleading. “Can youunderstand? I had seen the empty faces of the Un-Named and to think that you would be like them… I couldn’t bear it. I clawed Bonechewer. I bit you. I didn’t realize it would wound you so badly. I didn’t know.”

Thistle-chaser bent her head and thoughtfully licked the collar of rough fur that hid her scar. Then she gave Ratha a searching look.“Am I what you… are afraid of?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” Ratha admitted.

“Am I what you wanted?”

“I’m not sure about that either,” Ratha confessed. She looked away. “You lived so long without me, do you really care what I think?”

Newt looked as if she were struggling to put the right words together. At last she said,“I did not live without you. We both made Dreambiter.”

Ratha’s jaw trembled. “There is no way I can take back what I did. And I know you can’t pretend it didn’t happen. That trail is not an easy one.”

“You do one thing for me,” Newt said. “Help me let Dreambiter go.”

“How?” Ratha’s gaze went to Thakur. He could see the lostness in her eyes.

He answered,“The Dreambiter is everything in you that she dreads and fears.”

“But I am not just that,” Ratha said, pleading. “Thakur, tell her. I’m not.”

“You will have to show her yourself. By not judging, not pushing, and learning patience.”

Ratha looked away from him toward Newt. Nervously licking the tip of her nose, she gave a soft come-here purr. Newt crouched then crept to her, putting her head beneath Ratha’s chin. Slowly, tentatively, Thakur saw Ratha lick the top of Newt’s head. She gave a startled grimace. Obviously the sea had not rinsed away all of the sea-beast tang from Newt’s fur. But she did not let the rhythm of her licking falter. She sent a defiant glance toward Thakur.

Then Newt withdrew her head and settled nearby, laying her head on her forepaws.

“I think this gives us a lesson about judging cubs,” Thakur observed. “If we could be so wrong about Thistle-chaser, what about others? The thing we call the light in our eyes is more than just that. I think it shows itself in many ways and we must learn to see it in whatever form it takes.”

He saw Newt twitch her tail impatiently.“What about him?” she said, pointing her nose at Mishanti.

“Well, I guess we should let him grow a little more; give him the chance that we didn’t give you,” Ratha answered.

“No,” Newt said abruptly, startling everyone. She rushed on, her anger making her strangely eloquent. “It won’t work. He is like I was. Different. None of you will have the patience to teach him. You will always be thinking that he should be this or should be that. Even if you try not to, you will. And someone will get impatient and bite him.”

Fessran narrowed her eyes at Newt.“Then what do you suggest?”

“Let me take Mishanti, teach him what I know.”

The Firekeeper grumbled to herself, but Thakur heard Ratha say,“She’s right. We would get impatient with him. Even you, Fessran.”

“I’m not sure that she’s the best… ” Fessran started.

“Well, she may not be, but we certainly didn’t do any better,” Ratha argued. Then she turned to Newt. “I’d like you to come into the clan and help Fessran with Mishanti.”

Thakur saw Fessran sit up, startled.“You mean you’re not going to throw me out? Even after what I did?”

“No, singe-whiskers.” Ratha grinned at her. “Who else can I depend on to tell me when I’m running the wrong trail? Thakur often knows, but his voice is sometimes too soft. Fessran’s yowl I can’t help but hear. Even if I do disagree.”

“You may not have been entirely wrong,” Fessran said softly, looking at Mishanti, who was frisking about with his tail. “He hasn’t shown any ability to speak.”

“Perhaps he doesn’t need to.” The interruption was Newt’s. “I didn’t. Not for long time. Perhaps he the same way.”

“But words are important to us in the clan,” Ratha said. “And they are important to you now. I thought you wanted to come into the clan. There is no reason why we can’t accept you.”

Newt gathered herself together.“I don’t want your clan. My seamares give me what I need. I want to be with you,” she said, turning to her mother, “but as… friend, not leader.”

Ratha’s whiskers sagged a little. Thakur imagined that she thought Newt would be eager to end her long isolation and be welcomed back among the Named. But Newt’s adversity had fostered a sense of independence that could not be given up easily.

“Let me take Mishanti,” she said, looking at Ratha and Fessran. “Let me teach him to live with seamares. Let me keep my own ground and my own way and make my own choice to be with the Named or not. That is what I ask.”

Thakur turned to the two, who were staring at each other with disgruntled looks.

“I hate to mention this,” said Fessran, pointing toward the cub with her nose. The wound over his ribs had stopped bleeding and was crusted with dried blood. “You were the one who ripped up his side. Can I trust you?”

Newt looked down at her paws.“He is hurt. I was hurt. We both share that.”

“I know, but is it… ” Fessran began.

“This is part of letting the Dreambiter go,” Newt answered.

“I think I understand what she means,” Ratha said softly to Fessran. “I think she’s right. It is the best way, though not the easiest.” She addressed Newt again. “Since we have enough grazing and water for the herdbeasts to breed well, we can concentrate on the three-horns and dapplebacks, while you and Mishanti herd the seamares. Is that what you want?”

“Knock down the pen and let your seamares out,” Newt said. “They can’t live behind thorns and sticks. They need the beaches.”

“She’s right, Ratha,” Thakur added. “The beasts aren’t eating, and they’ll soon get sick.”

He could see that she disliked the idea of abandoning the pen after all the effort that had gone into making it.“Perhaps the seamares aren’t the best animals for our purposes, and trying to pen them was a mistake,” Ratha admitted. “We have what we need to survive. Yes, I will let them go, and you can live among them with Mishanti. I haven’t been able to give you much, but at least I can give you that. Is it enough?”

“Yes.” Newt bent down and touched noses with Ratha. “I am glad that my Dreambiter has become my mother,” Thakur heard her hiss softly. She turned to Thakur. “Will you help me give the gift of words to Mishanti when the time comes?”

He felt himself grinning.“If you’ll teach me to swim.”

“Thistle, what about me?” Fessran asked, sounding forlorn. “I’d like to see him sometimes.”

“You love Mishanti,” Thistle-chaser said, facing the Firekeeper. “I turn to you if I feeling mad with him. Is enough?”

“I’ll hold you to it,” Fessran promised.

“Well, now that we’ve got all this sorted out,” Thakur put in, “perhaps we should think about finding our way back before the tide comes in again. Ratha, can you walk?”

He watched her get shakily to her feet. She took a few steps, winced, and drew up her battered forepaw.“I’ll limp, but I’ll get there.”

Newt came alongside her.“Use your hind legs more and bring them under you. Then you can take bigger steps.”

Thakur saw Ratha give Newt an exasperated look, but she took the offered advice.

“Well, you can’t deny she knows what she’s talking about,” he observed.

“Now you’ve got two of us,” Ratha retorted, hobbling beside her daughter.

“Not for long. You’ve just got a sprain, and Newt’s leg needs only a rest and a little more strengthening.” He led the way, looking back as Ratha and Newt followed.

“If I see that wretched fish, I’ll bite his tail off,” Fessran growled through her mouthful of Mishanti’s scruff fur. Then she padded after, starting the long up and down scramble and swim that would bring them back to the jetty.

The four made their way across the islands and at last regained the jetty by the time twilight was starting to fall. Above, clouds were gathering, and startled seamares honked at the bedraggled party, as Thakur, Ratha, Newt, and Fessran climbed along the spine of rock that led back to the beach. Ratha found herself lagging behind the others, even though they tried to slow down to her tired pace.

Newt did not want to return with them to the forested area where the Named had settled. Instead, she asked Fessran for Mishanti, and when the Firekeeper reluctantly let him down, she picked him up by the scruff and padded away with him.

“That poor cub is going to be so confused by all of this,” Fessran said.

“Stop worrying. She said you can visit him,” Thakur answered.

The sky had been clouding over again. Ratha looked up as a heavy raindrop splashed down on her nose. Billowing gray clouds stretched across the sea and were rolling inland. Another raindrop struck her back. Soon the rain pattered down all around Ratha and her two companions as they crossed the beach, climbed the bluff, and made their way back to the forested pool beneath the cliff.

While Ratha soothed her bruised and aching foreleg in the pool, Thakur went off to collect Aree and Ratharee from the trees where they had been placed for safekeeping. Fessran yawned then climbed up to a slate-colored ledge, where she curled up out of the rain and fell asleep.

Ratha let her leg dangle in the pool, overhanging ferns and branches sheltering her. She smelled the storm, the cool, wet air, and the rain. This looked like a big storm: one that might move far enough inland to break the drought.

Before long Thakur arrived, bringing both treelings. Ratharee chirred with delight and took up her customary place on Ratha’s shoulder.

“Listen,” Ratha said, pricking her ears to the soft hiss of rain falling through the trees.

Thakur sat in the open, letting the downpour rinse sea salt from his coat. At last he shook himself off and lay down near Ratha.“If that keeps up, the streams will soon be running again on our old home ground,” he said. “Are you thinking we might be able to return?”

“Not for a while. And I don’t want to leave Thistlechaser chaser all alone again.” Ratha laid her nose on one paw, extending the other to Thakur to have it skillfully licked and massaged.

“You were disappointed when she said she didn’t want to join the clan.”

Ratha grunted.“I was surprised. I thought she’d jump at the chance. Instead she turned her tail on it.”

“She’s impetuous, stubborn, and wants to do things her way. I’d be surprised if she wasn’t. After all, she is your daughter.” Thakur nibbled a toe-claw.

She is your daughter. The phrase whispered gently in her mind, blending with the sigh of the falling rain.My daughter. One who is stubborn, willful, strong, self-reliant, and resourceful — and one to take pride in.

It occurred to her that Thistle-chaser had changed something else as well. Bonechewer, her Un-Named father, had been Thakur’s brother. If, as Thakur said, cubs from such matings had the same potential as those whose parents both came from the clan, even if their development was not as rapid, then perhaps such pairings might not be as risky as Ratha had once thought. She had already learned that there were individualswith worthy qualities among the Un-Named.

She closed her eyes, feeling Thakur’s tongue soothe the ache from her leg. “Herding teacher, perhaps you won’t need to go away when the next mating season comes.”

He lay down next to her.“Would you be willing to accept another cub like Thistle-chaser?”

“What she might have been like if I hadn’t turned on Bonechewer and bitten her… ” Ratha sighed.

“She still has that chance,” Thakur answered. “You know, Ratha, I sensed something about her that I don’t understand. To us she seems slow, but I think she understands certain things in a way we don’t. It’s not just cleverness; it’s something else. You know that our cubs take longer to grow up than the young of those creatures who don’t think or speak. If Thistle-chaser and cubs like her grow even more slowly, perhaps it is not because they are less than we, but more.”

Ratha rolled on her back, letting Ratharee scramble onto her chest.“That is an uncomfortable thought, Thakur.”

“That seems to be the way of the Named, to think uncomfortable thoughts, to do uncomfortable things,” said Thakur slowly. “But our feet are set on this path, and we can’t turn aside. Nor would I want to.” He stretched himself, groomed his back.

Ratha lay with her treeling on her chest between her raised forepaws. There had been two other cubs in the same litter that produced Thistle-chaser. Could either one of the siblings have survived? If so, what would they be like? Perhaps one day she would search for them and find out. It would be, as Thakur said, a difficult thing to do. But such an effort could bring its own reward, such as the quiet joy she felt now.

At last the old memories and pains could gradually be put to rest. The Dreambiter would fade away, for both Thistle-chaser and herself. A part of her life was passing behind now. She felt as though she had finished shedding an old coat and now wore clean, new fur. The weight of guilt from her past had slipped from her, making her feel airy and light.

The Named now had two homes: their old territory and this new place by the sea. And though their efforts to keep and tend the seamares had not turned out as well as they’d hoped, still the experience had enlarged their skills, allowing more choices. When the drought broke, some of the Named might return to clan ground, others might stay.

She thought about the future, what might happen with Thistle-chaser and Mishanti. Would the cub grow up as Fessran’s vision had foreseen, to carry a torch burning brightly in his jaws and be a leader of the Named? Or would it be Thistle-chaser, scarred, but strangely gifted, who took over leadership when Ratha grew too feeble to guide the clan’s way?

All this didn’t matter now. What mattered was that she had found both a daughter and a wiser, better part of herself. The times to come might not be certain, but neither would they be shadowed with pain and guilt. She lay on her side, listening to the promise in the pattering rain. It was enough.

Clare Bell says:

“Thistle-chaser. Stubborn, scrappy, mentally and physically crippled, sullen, prickly, can barely speak, not pretty, hot tempered, yet she rivals Ratha in the affections of readers. Thistle originated inRatha’s Creature, as the cub Ratha rejected and injured. Her appearance came from a portrait of my mother’s calico cat, Jenny. Into crippled and abandoned Newt, I poured feelings from a time when despair tore my life. The cloud around her mind comes from the slowed thinking of clinical depression. Her rage at the Dreambiter is my rage at the “blaming the victim’ attitude before people recognizeddepression as a treatable illness.

“Throughout the series, Thistle’s limitations and suffering bring her unexpected gifts of insight and empathy. Her fits and visions of the Dreambiter prepare her to understand the strange mental ‘Song’ of the menacing face-tail (mammoth) hunting tribe inRatha’s Challenge. Reconciling with Thistle may be the real‘Challenge’ for Ratha, but in that book Thistle also becomes Ratha’s conscience, asking the Named to look beyond the harm done to them by others: to reach out in friendship rather than strike back in fear.”

[Картинка: _7.jpg]

Ratha’s Challenge

The Named Series: Book Four

To Donald V. Steward

former Mississippi Freedom Rider

believer in nonviolence

computer scientist and mathematician

peace activist and conflict-resolution researcher

father of my ideals

and

To Edna Kathleen Steward

voyager into a strange new world

singer and survivor

believer in the power of the human soul

and the beauty of the written word

who asked the Named to reach out

mother of my heart

Both have made the dream real.

Chapter One

Stones flew over Thakur’s head and rattled against the bark of a tree behind him. The steep-sided gully in which he and his companions were trying to capture a shaggy young mammoth had become a trap for them instead of for the mammoth. Thakur crouched, flattening his fur and ears. The beast before him raised its trunk in a trumpeting blast.

Thakur drove his claws into the ground and bared his fangs in a feline hiss before he could stop himself. As herding teacher to his people, the Named, Thakur knew and taught the young ones all the skills that had been developed to manage dapplebacked horses and three-horn deer. He told his cub-students never to show fear to a herdbeast. Now he had broken his own rule, though this woolly tusker wasn’t one of the clan’s herdbeasts. Not yet.

The ground vibrated beneath Thakur’s paws as the mammoth stamped its massive front feet and bellowed. The gully resounded with the brassy roar. His head ringing from the noise, Thakur glanced at his young fellow stalkers, Khushi and Bira.

Khushi, a herder, and Bira, a Firekeeper, had come with him on this scouting expedition far from the clan’s seacoast settlement. Khushi was a seasoned herder and not easily intimidated. This creature had him bristling all over. The usually calm Bira had a line of raised red-gold fur down her back.

This was their second attempt to catch a mammoth. And this one wasn’t even fully grown — that was why they had chosen it.

Thakur and Khushi made another sharp rush at the beast, trying to back it into a narrow corner of the gully. Bira joined in. The quarry tossed its head, flailing its trunk and spearing the air with its tusks. Thakur’s nose was filled with its heavy smell and the faint but sharp odor that told him that his two companions were fighting fear of their own. The beast’s red-rimmed eyes glared from behind a thicket of orange hair. Its trunk swung down and coiled like a snake in the loose gravel. When the trunk whisked up again, another barrage of rocks hurtled at Bira.

She dodged, but several struck her ribs and back. Thakur heard her grunt in surprise and pain. Herdbeasts weren’t supposed to throw rocks.

“You said this would be easier than herding three-horns!” Bira yowled at Khushi.

“I … thought … it would be since … these face-tail things … don’t have horns!” Khushi puffed.

“They don’t need them!”

Thakur glanced at Khushi. Every hair of the young herder’s dun-colored fur was standing on end. Still, Khushi advanced on the quarry, trying to trap its gaze with his own. The stare-down worked on deer and dapplebacks, but this mountain of hide and flesh was having none of it.

With an enraged roar, the beast charged Khushi. Thakur and Bira both leaped at the same instant, snarling, to turn it back before it trampled him. They broke the face-tail’s attack, but it would not be deprived of its quarry. Again the trunk swept down, but instead of gathering and flinging stones, it curled around Khushi’s middle.

In an instant the squalling herder was lifted high over Thakur’s head. Then he was shooting through the air. With a loud crash he landed in a thicket.

“Enough!” Thakur yowled to Bira, who was vainly trying to force the beast back to its corner with short rushes and feints. “Let the thing go!”

Bira dived to one side while Thakur galloped to the bush where Khushi had landed. He whirled, fearing for an instant that the beast would charge into the thicket and tear it apart trying to find Khushi. Even in his short experience with these animals, Thakur had found them to be very single-minded, especially when they wanted to trample an enemy.

With a ground-shaking trot, the orange-haired young mammoth headed for the thicket, then swerved aside. It lumbered away down the gully, ears flapping, short tail stuck stiffly upright.

Bira’s ribs lifted in a sigh of combined exhaustion and relief. The red-gold fur on her back flattened, but worry remained in her green eyes. Thakur shared it. The face-tail had thrown Khushi hard.

“He’s young and tough,” Thakur said before Bira could speak, but he could not keep anxiety out of his own voice as he pawed at the thicket, calling to Khushi.

At last he heard the herder’s low moan. “Oooh, why did we try to catch that creature? I wish we had never seen it!”

Thakur’s ears and whiskers lifted. Khushi couldn’t be badly hurt if he chose to complain about the face-tail instead of about his own injuries.

Thakur and Bira turned to the task of extricating the herder. Only one of his feet was visible, hanging forlornly from a tangle of thorn scrub. Using claws and teeth, Thakur and Bira attacked the bush.

“Let me get Biaree,” Bira offered as Thakur grimaced at the sharp twigs and thorns that lodged painfully between his teeth. He agreed. Bira ran off to fetch her treeling companion. Treelings were much better than the Named at untangling or clearing away things. Their clever fingers could do what paws and teeth could not.

Thakur thought longingly of his own treeling, Aree. His neck still felt bare without her small arms about it and her fingers twining in his fur. He’d left her behind in the clan’s care, for she was bulging with babies. A mammoth-capturing expedition was no place for a pregnant treeling.

Soon Bira galloped back with her male treeling, Biaree, perched on the nape of her neck. The treeling’s slender ringed tail stuck up, and a pointed light-brow muzzle with a black mask showed between Bira’s cars. A few purrs of encouragement and a nudge from Bira’s nose soon had the treeling pulling apart branches and breaking off dead twigs. With his aid, they cleared a way in to Khushi and gently pulled him out.

Khushi was more shaken than hurt. While Bira and Biaree groomed thorns and twigs from the young herder’s hide and tail, Thakur used his paws and his sensitive nose to check Khushi for injuries.

“Why did I ever tell the clan leader about these animals that wear their tails on their faces?” Khushi asked him plaintively. “And why did I ever think we could add them to our herds?”

“I think we will be able to, when we find ways to manage them,” Thakur answered.

“If we ever do.” Khushi groaned.

Thakur didn’t contradict him. Despite his words, he wasn’t sure that these beasts the Named called face-tails would work out as herd animals. There was certainly a lot of meat on one, but Khushi’s unexpected trip through the air had shown that there were certain hazards involved in taming them.

“Well,” said Bira, “if they aren’t suitable, it won’t be the first time we’ve chosen the wrong kind of animal. Thistle’s seamares didn’t work out either.”

As he watched Bira and Biarce finish grooming Khushi, Thakur licked his own dark-copper fur and thought of their previous attempt to bring a new kind of animal into the herd. Last season’s drought and its effects on the three-horn deer and dapplebacked horses had made Ratha, the clan leader, start the search. If the clan herds had animals that could survive under different kinds of conditions, the Named would have a more stable supply of meat.

Ratha’s idea was a good one, but putting it into practice was difficult. It had also yielded one very unexpected result. While scouting the seacoast for possible herdbeasts, Thakur had found a crippled young female of his own kind. She turned out to be Thistle-chaser, Ratha’s lost daughter.

Thakur had also found the seamares, chunky water creatures with horselike heads and webbed feet — and tusks that they used to dig up and tear apart heavy-shelled clams on the shore. Thistle had formed a strange but real friendship with them. When the clan tried to capture and keep seamares, she angrily interfered. Then she turned her wrath against her mother.

Thakur still remembered finding the two on the wave-washed rocks, both bleeding from their fight and nearly dead from exposure. Since then Ratha and her daughter had become partially reconciled, but Thistle had not accepted Ratha’s offer to join the clan. She remained apart, living among the seamares.

With a twitch of his whiskers, Thakur turned his attention back to Khushi, who had recovered enough to shake the last leaves and twigs out of his coat.

“Maybe you should have used a lighted torch,” he heard Khushi say to Bira. “I haven’t seen a beast yet who didn’t fear the Red Tongue.”

Except us and our treelings,Thakur thought.And I have seen that we do fear it, although in a different way than the herdbeasts.

“Thakur doesn’t like using the Red Tongue to frighten herdbeasts,” Bira said, looking to him. “I agree. It’s cruel and often useless. Once a herdbeast is maddened by fear, you can’t do anything except kill it. That is a waste.”

“And imagine what would have happened if that face-tail had grabbed the torch and flung it,” Thakur said, entering the conversation. “If it hadn’t hit one of us, it would have spread the Red Tongue all over the grass.”

“That wretched beast deserved to get burned up,” Khushi growled.

“Yes, and we’d have burned up with it,” Bira reproved. “You know how fast the Red Tongue can run.”

Khushi admitted that they were right, but he wouldn’t have minded if Bira had singed the obnoxious mammoth in a tender spot.

“I need to see that the embers in the fire-den haven’t gone out,” Bira announced, lifting her plumed tail. “Are we going back to the knoll? Good, I’ll meet you there.”

As she loped off down the gully, Thakur climbed up the side, followed by Khushi. He found the hill that they had used as a vantage point to locate the face-tails. It had a single oak that gave shade from the sun. The prevailing breeze carried their own scent away from the face-tail herd.

It brought him the odors of many other kinds of animals. Among these were feline scents that might belong to the Un-Named outsiders who outwardly resembled his own people but had only the minds and ways of beasts. Everything was so overlaid with the pungent smell of mammoth that Thakur could not be sure. He was not going to worry. The Red Tongue that Bira carried would protect him and his party.

He sat down in the litter of last season’s leaves and acorns, letting his gaze travel over the rolling plain below. It was still filled with the face-tailed beasts, some wallowing in a marshy sink between two hills, some drifting back and forth in a large group as they tore up grass with their trunks and stuffed it into their mouths.

The young ones showed up as blotches of orange against the more somber black and brown wool of their elders.

One of those orange splotches was probably the animal that had just escaped them. Despite their bulk the face-tails could move fast. Thakur eyed the beasts, trying to pick one that was young enough to be vulnerable and old enough not to need the protection of its mother. It wasn’t easy. Yesterday he had chosen a young calf and ended up fleeing from the enraged mother. Today’s quarry had proved to be old enough to defend itself.

His cars pricked forward as a line of smaller shapes emerged from a copse of trees near the wallow. They were not face-tails, nor any other kind of herdbeast. Beside him he felt Khushi stiffen as the wind brought a stronger version of a familiar scent to their noses.

“Un-Named ones, Thakur!” Khushi hissed.

The herding teacher hesitated in his reply. Yes, the forms were the cat shapes that resembled those of his own kind, but never had he seen the Un-Named do what these newcomers were doing.

The line broke up as its members dispersed and melted into the high grass about the wallow. Thakur narrowed his eyes. At one end of the marshy area stood a face-tail whose patchy orange-and-black coat showed that it was older than the one the Named had tried to capture.

“They are hunting it,” Bira said. She had arrived so quietly that Thakur had hardly noticed.

Yes, they were. He caught a glimpse of a circle of hidden stalkers creeping toward the face-tail. There were more hunters than he had first thought, and they seemed to move with a deadly purpose. Unconsciously he cased himself down, peering through the high grass. Bira and Khushi followed his example.

The face-tail, unconcerned, was sloshing in the wallow, squirting water over itself with its trunk. The circle of hunters paused, as if making the final decision to attack. The scent wafting to Thakur’s nose carried more than a sense of hunger or the usual blind ferocity of the Un-Named. He sensed a certain unified purpose in their behavior that surprised him.

If these ones are truly Un-Named, they are different than any I know, he thought.

He did not see which individual triggered the attack. At one instant they were all crouched together in the grass; the next they were swarming onto the startled face-tail. Muddy water turned pink as the attackers clawed their way up the beast’s flanks and laid open its flesh with deep slashes.

The rest of the face-tails, alarmed, lumbered away with raised trunks, abandoning the victim.

The struggle did not last long. Despite the face-tail’s trumpeting and plunging, it soon toppled under the savagery of the assault. For a while it flailed in the shallow water as the hunters gathered atop it and began to feed. Then it grew still.

Beside him, Thakur felt Bira shivering.“I have never seen Un-Named ones like these before,” she hissed. “And I don’t like them!”

Khushi was struck silent.“They made it look … easy!” he blurted at last.

“Sh. We don’t want to attract their attention,” Thakur cautioned.

Bira began to creep slowly backward, deeper into the shade cast by the oak. Khushi followed. Thakur, torn between curiosity and fear, was the last to come away.

“Let’s go,” said Bira as Biaree huddled nervously on her shoulders.

Thakur agreed, but would only let his companions retreat as far as the small fire-den Bira had dug to store the coals of the Red Tongue.

He was thinking hard. The speed and efficiency of the unknown hunters told him that they were not a ragtag group of Un-Named ones such as those that had raided the clan’s herds in previous seasons. Even the organized attacks that had nearly decimated the Named had not been as complex or as smoothly carried out as this hunt. His sense of danger told him to leave these hunters far behind, but there was another sense that told him to stay.

Who were they? Where had they come from? How had they learned to hunt such formidable prey as the face-tails? The questions whirled through Thakur’s mind.

“You saw the hunt,” he argued, when his two companions protested against the idea of remaining. “Something like that takes more than strength and fierceness. They were working together.”

Bira gave him a questioning look.“The Un-Named can work together. They did when they attacked us several seasons ago.”

“Yes, but those attacks were not as well planned as the hunt we just saw. I was in those fights. I remember.” Thakur turned to Khushi. “This kill looked easy because everything was arranged in advance. Each hunter knew exactly what she or he was supposed to do and did it.” He continued, growing more excited. “Don’t you see? Not only must they be able to think and speak, they must be able to make detailed plans and describe them to each other. They must be like us!”

The other two stared at him, their jaws hanging open. As long as the Named had existed, they had thought their clan was the only one of its kind and that they alone had the gifts of awareness, forethought, and speech. A few individuals with such gifts existed among the Un-Named, but they had come from fringe matings with the clan.

Perhaps the Named were not unique after all.

Thakur and his two companions returned to the scene of the kill, hid, and watched patiently. The face-tail hunters were joined by others: elders, half-grown cubs, and nursing or pregnant females. The group all gorged themselves until late in the day. They then scattered to chew on bones they had taken from the carcass, or to lie in the sun.

Now was the best time to approach, Thakur decided. The Un-Named would be sated and sleepy. Carefully he and the others crept to a small stand of brush that was closer to the hunters and safely downwind.

“Are you sure this is a good idea, herding teacher?” Bira asked when he told her what he planned and asked her to stay behind with a small flame of the Red Tongue and pine branches to light for torches.

“They won’t attack. They’ve eaten too much. And if they chase us, they can’t run far with heavy stomachs.”

Bira was still doubtful. She also questioned Thakur’s conviction that he would be able to talk to the face-tail hunters. “We did not hear them speak to each other,” she argued quietly. “And they did not seem to be following a leader’s directions. That tells me that they are not like us. Perhaps we should wait and keep watching from a distance.”

Thakur answered that those objections had occurred to him, but that this chance was one worth taking. The hunters would only be sated and lazy for a short time. Afterward it would be too dangerous to approach.

Khushi, listening to them both, offered to go by himself. Thakur’s skills were too valuable to risk losing, he said. Who else would instruct the clan’s young if the herding teacher were killed?

“You and all the other herders I have trained,” Thakur answered. “Together you have enough knowledge. What you do not have is my experience in dealing with strangers outside the clan. I don’t plan to let myself be killed. You and I look enough like the hunters to fool them, at least from a distance.”

“What about our smell?”

“Rolling in face-tail dung should disguise it; the stuff is strong enough.”

Khushi only made a grimace.

Thakur gazed out over the open plain where the hunters sprawled in scattered groups.“Bira, watch us and keep a torch ready. I hope we will not need it….”

“But if you do, the Red Tongue will be there,” Bira said fiercely, taking up her post.

With Khushi pacing beside him, Thakur left the sheltering brush and walked out onto the open plain. The sun sat low behind him and the sky was starting to pale into the colors of dusk. After rolling thoroughly in a fresh pile of face-tail manure, he and Khushi took a wandering course toward the hunters. Sometimes the two lay down or even flopped over on their backs for a little while, imitating the bloated lassitude of the others.

The smell of the carcass was rich in Thakur’s nose. Next to him, Khushi swallowed, and the aroma of hunger tinged his smell. Thakur could not blame the young herder. His own mouth was watering. They had eaten yesterday, a few ground-birds caught by Bira, but it was not enough to fill their bellies.

“Don’t think about eating,” he said when he saw the thought in Khushi’s eyes. “We won’t get close to the kill. The chances are that they will smell something strange about us, despite the dung, and chase us away.”

To Thakur’s astonishment, his deception worked. In the fading light the two managed to pass the outer fringes of the large group without being challenged. To one side, Thakur saw spotted cubs gamboling around their parents. He and Khushi skirted a group of half-grown males all snoring together in a pile.

“They don’t even post sentries?” Khushi whispered to Thakur.

“Why should they? Who is going to attack them? As for the kill, it is too heavy to be stolen, and they have eaten all they want.”

Thakur looked about for someone who might respond to their approach. He chose a group of three who were resting but not asleep. One was toying with a broken piece of rib bone, but none were still eating. As one lifted a muzzle against the sky, Thakur could see that the fangs were long enough to show outside the mouth.

The sight of those teeth reminded him of Shongshar, the orange-eyed stranger that Ratha had once taken into the clan. Could these hunters be his people? Feeling a chill, Thakur hoped not. Shongshar had turned into a tyrant, overthrowing Ratha and ruling the clan with his savage ways and long saber-teeth. One of his kind was enough.

But the fangs of these hunters were not as long as Shongshar’s, although their teeth were longer than Thakur’s own. The length seemed to vary in different individuals. It also did among the Named, although not to such extremes.

He realized that he was delaying, fearful of making the first try at speaking to these people. Was he more afraid of provoking an attack or of losing his hope that this group might be a clan like the Named? He did not know.

“Khushi, stay close behind me and don’t say anything,” he warned. His mouth, wetted by appetite, went dry with apprehension. His usually eloquent tail felt stiff and clumsy. Swallowing to moisten his tongue, he deliberately approached the other group. Eyes — green, gold, and amber — shone in the fading dusk.

He feared that his heart was booming loud enough for everyone to hear. His pelt felt as though it would jump right off his body — every hair was standing so much on end. Would the face-tail hunters know him for a stranger and attack, or would they welcome him as a brother?

Not trusting the manure scent to conceal his smell entirely, he and Khushi positioned themselves downwind of the three they were approaching. He lifted his tail in a friendly arch.

One, a tawny female with heavy shoulders, got up. He was afraid she would snarl, but instead she extended her muzzle for a nose-touch. His hopes leaped up. This was the same greeting the Named knew and used. Eagerly he answered in kind, breathing in her scent. It was much like that of his own people, though overlaid with the powerful aroma of face-tail.

The two others in the group roused themselves and also greeted him with the nose-touch. One even rubbed a welcoming chin on Thakur’s shoulder and flopped a tail across his back. Khushi was also accepted.

Yet as soon as the nose-touching and rubbing were finished, the three turned back to lazing or grooming or playing, without a word to the newcomers. Thakur found this disconcerting. They must have recognized that he was a stranger. Why, then, hadn’t they attacked him or chased him away?

Or, if for some reason they had chosen to accept him anyway, why wouldn’t they say something to him?

He rolled over on his side, nudging Khushi to follow suit. He would have to speak first. A dismaying thought seized him. He had not heard any of these hunters talk. Suppose Bira was right and they couldn’t.

No, that can’t be true, he argued to himself. They could not have organized that hunt if they couldn’t tell each other what to do.

Perhaps their language was all gesture and scent. As Thakur considered that possibility, he heard a voice that was not Khushi’s.

“Give the bone,” it said. The heavy-shouldered female was trying to paw the rib fragment from the male who was playing with it.

“No. Go get another. There are plenty left in the carcass,” came the irritable reply.

Thakur’s heart leaped in excitement. Not only did these ones speak, but they used a language so close to that of the Named that he could understand what they said. He waited tensely, hoping someone would speak to him.

The female yawned.“The meat was tender.”

“Salty,” said the other.

“Go drink,” the male advised. “There are places at the water hole.”

Thakur’s ears, which had been sharply pricked, started to sag. Surely they had more interesting things to say than this. He made himself stay quiet and listen, but he heard only more of the same.

Khushi, bored, yawned widely, showing all his teeth. He snapped his mouth shut self-consciously.

“Open it again,” said the male who was playing with the bone. Thakur blinked when he realized the command had been given to Khushi. Khushi was startled, too. Thakur had to nuzzle him before he responded.

The male peered into Khushi’s mouth. “Those fangs are too short. Stop eating bones. They wear teeth down. The song says good teeth are needed for the hunt. Listen to the song.”

“The … song?” asked Khushi, but he spoke so softly that the male didn’t hear him. Thakur listened, but he could hear nothing like the courting yowls the Named called songs.

Puzzled, he asked the hunter,“What are you listening to?”

He thought he spoke clearly, but the male only gave him a baffled look.“Those words are confusing,” the other said. “Speak again.”

Thakur had no idea why his question was not clear.“The song,” he faltered.

“The song is always being sung,” the other stated.

“Why can’t I—”

“Stop speaking!” the male ordered sharply. “Those words make no sense.”

Puzzled and slightly irritated, Thakur closed his mouth. He noticed that the others in the group were eyeing him as if he were something noxious that had walked into their midst. What had he said? He wondered if it had been wise for him to confess he could not hear this“ song” or whatever it was that they were making such a fuss about.

Perhaps if he stayed away from that, he might make some headway. With a sinking heart he realized that it was already too late. His easy acceptance and anonymity in the group were gone. Now he was the subject of attention and discussion.

“The ears don’t work,” said the female, looking at him with a grimace and turning to the male.

“The ears do work. The words are heard.”

“The song is not heard.” The female stared at Thakur with molten-gold eyes.

Without answering her stare directly, Thakur tried to get a good look into her eyes. He expected to meet a gaze that was much like his own. He felt the fur prickle up and down his tail when he could not find what he sought. The look in her eyes was neither the blank, unknowing stare of the animal-like Un-Named, nor the sharp, aware gaze of his own people. It was aware, yes, but the awareness was somehow… different.

“The song is heard,” Thakur put in quickly, imitating the odd style of speech.

He hoped his answer would mollify the hunters, but the suspicion in the female’s face grew deeper as she stared at him. “The form is not known to True-of-voice. The eyes are not known; the voice is not known.”

What did she mean? Thakur could make no sense out of what she was saying. Perhaps True-of-voice was her name.

“True-of-voice,” he repeated. “Is that you? Is True-of-voice your name?”

He did not know if she understood him or not, but he saw he had made a major blunder. She flattened her ears and spat.

The other hunters traded looks, bristled, and growled. Thakur noticed that the misunderstanding was starting to draw attention from groups outside their own.

He decided that the time had come to withdraw and think things out before he got himself and Khushi into more trouble. With a poke he got the young herder on his feet. They both backed away from the now-hostile hunters, turned, and jogged in the direction they had come.

Though no one had noticed their initial approach, heads now lifted and eyes followed as they passed. It was as if word of the intruders had somehow spread instantly throughout the group, even though Thakur had heard no cries of alarm.

“Don’t run,” he warned Khushi, even though the muscles in his own hindquarters were twitching with the impulse to turn tail and flee.

Only when he had put the group at a distance did he and Khushi break into a bounding run. It carried them to the bushes, where Bira met them.

“What happened?” she asked.

Thakur sighed.“I said something wrong. I don’t know what.”

“So they do speak like us?”

“They use words, but not the way we do. Bira, we had better not stay here. We’re too close, and they’re angry. ”

Quickly the Firekeeper packed up the coals in an old bird’s nest filled with sand. Khushi helped, taking the resinous pine branches that served as firebrands.

Once Thakur decided they were a safe distance from the hunters, the Named made camp. Bira lit a fire from the embers she carried, and everyone drew close around it.

“I think we should give up on that bunch,” said Khushi, disgusted. “They may speak, but they are as stupid as the Un-Named. And crazy too. They kept mewling about some song. I couldn’t hear anyone singing. Could you, Thakur?”

“No,” the herding teacher confessed. He was disappointed at his failure. Khushi’s dismissal of the hunters as witless and crazy provided an easy escape from his own responsibility. For an instant he was tempted to take it. Perhaps no one could talk to these people. If so, he could not fault himself for failing.

Yet he knew the answer was not so simple. He had been close enough to look into their eyes. He had seen an alertness there, not the blank unawareness of the Un-Named. But it was directed strangely inward in a way he did not understand.

And it echoed something that he had seen and knew well, though at first he could not think what it was. Then he remembered another pair of eyes, sea-green and once shrouded by pain. Those were Thistle’s eyes when he had first found her.

He remembered how he had coaxed Thistle back outside herself, had given her not only words to speak with, but hope. How those eyes had begun to brighten and clear, showing that she was truly of the Named. Yet even now, her gaze would sometimes become opaque and she would retreat where none of the Named could follow. To Thakur it seemed as though Ratha’s daughter walked two paths, one with the Named and another in a cave world of mist and entrancement, where strange voices echoed.

Voices. The hunters had spoken, in their puzzling way, of a voice, a song that Thakur could not hear. Perhaps only they could hear it. The one name they had said was True-of-voice. In some way speech was vital to them, yet why did their grasp of it seem so limited and stilted?

It was clear that they did not walk the same path as the Named. But there was one among the Named who might be able to follow them. Thakur sensed that he would never be able to speak to these hunters by himself. He needed Thistle.

But she was not a clan member and did not have to obey Ratha or anyone else. If he sent for Thistle, the decision to come or not would be hers alone.

Was this the right thing to do? Thakur wondered. Would such a contact with the group of strange cats bring joy or disaster? The hunters could be a formidable enemy, but what if they were an allied clan who could help the Named survive?

He would send for Ratha as well as Thistle, he decided. Experienced as he was, he could not be alone in decisions that involved the future of the Named. Ratha must see these hunters for herself.

When the herding teacher came out of his reverie, he was slightly chagrined to find that Bira had banked the fire and that both she and Khushi had gone to sleep. Try as he would, Thakur could not close his eyes. He remained awake long into the night, thinking.

Chapter Two

Days later, wind was kicking up sand on a coastal beach, stinging Thistle’s eyes and nose. She felt lonely and cross, for her friend Thakur had been gone too long. The haze that had once clouded her mind came less often now, but today it was here, making her feel remote and withdrawn.

Keeping her claws fixed in the driftwood log, she pulled at her injured foreleg to make the muscles stretch, as Thakur had taught her. From a short distance away came a splintering sound. Ratha was using the same log to sharpen her claws.

Thistle could not help a glance sideways at her mother. Ratha was on top of the log, raking backward with the powerful muscles in her shoulders. Half fascinated, half resentful, Thistle watched. Ratha looked so beautiful and strong. She was all one tawny color that flowed over her head, down the bowed arch of her back, over her hindquarters, and out the long sweep of her tail.

Thistle wondered if anyone would ever watchher sharpening her claws and think that she was strong and beautiful. No. Even if her limp went away, she would still be small and awkward. And ugly, for her pelt was rusty black, mottled with orange.

She looked quickly away before Ratha could notice her gaze. The hard green light in her mother’s eyes burned too brightly today. Only when those eyes were half-closed or dulled by suffering or illness did Thistle dare approach and touch or lick her mother. When Ratha was strong and well, Thistle kept her inside thoughts well hidden.

Thistle gazed down at her outstretched leg. It was much stronger now. She could almost walk without a limp along short paths. Soon she hoped she would be able to walk for short distances without a limp. The leg no longer hurt either. At least most of the time. Only when…

No. Thistle flattened her ears. She wasn’t going to think about the Dreambiter that appeared to her in nightmares. Thinking about it could too easily bring it, as if thoughts were meat laid on a trail that it prowled. But not thinking sometimes brought it, too.

Today, for some reason, it was hard to think and hard not to think. The wind and blowing sand seemed to catch everything in her mind and whirl it away. She sank her claws deeper into the gray driftwood and stretched her leg muscles until she felt the good healing hurt that promised to make that leg, once shrunken and crippled, as sound as her other limbs.

She heard a yawning sound as Ratha opened her jaws and curled her tongue upward in pleasure. Thistle saw the white sharpness of her teeth. She remembered, before she could catch herself, that the nightmare also had such sharp teeth.

And the nightmare, thus summoned, came.

The Dreambiter’s soft tread quickened, echoing along the caverns within Thistle’s mind. Thistle’s eyes and cars filled with blackness, and she felt herself being pulled deep into those caves. However she might struggle and scream and cry out, she could not break free. The sound of the Dreambiter’s feet became louder and faster.

Dimly, a voice cried out from beyond the cave, but she couldn’t understand it, for words had been lost to the rising howl of the Dreambiter. The blackness that was deeper and harder than anything outside pounced on her, green eyes flaming, mouth open, teeth bared. The upper fangs sank into her shoulder, the lower fangs into her chest, for she was suddenly small enough in the nightmare for her forequarters to fit within the Dreambiter’s mouth.

With the shock came the flooding pain that raged from her shoulder and chest to her foreleg, drawing the leg up in a cramped knot. Writhing, screaming, she clawed at the Dreambiter with her good forepaw, but her foe was made of nothingness, and her claws found no hold. Then the jaws released her, but the release was almost worse than the bite, for when the teeth pulled out, it hurt more than ever, and the hurt flamed and seared until the pain burned away everything — herself, the caves, the Dreambiter — until all were ashes.

And the ashes were picked up by the wind and swirled high into the sky. They slowly drifted down.

* * *

Ratha yanked her claws from the driftwood as soon as she saw Thistle stiffen. She was beside her daughter in an instant, seeing the milky sea-green color of her eyes swirl, closing the pupils to points. With a jerk that freed her claws from the log, Thistle staggered backward on her hind legs, overbalanced, and fell on her back.

“Fessran!” Ratha yowled her friend’s name, thanking the impulse that had drawn the Firekeeper leader to come with her on this visit to Thistle’s beach. Fessran was a short distance down the beach, looking after Mishanti, the young cub Thistle had adopted. Ratha wished Thakur were there, buthe was gone on the search for the face-tailed beasts.

Thistle’s tail lashed the sand; her claws raked it. She writhed, hissed, and spat, striking with bared claws at an enemy only she could see. Then she screamed aloud with pain, and the foreleg she had been stretching pulled up against her chest and locked there, as if once again crippled and shrunken.

Ratha found her voice joining Thistle’s wordless cries, as if she could drive the nightmare from her daughter by sheer force of rage. She caught Thistle by the scruff, trying to hold her gently and tenderly as if she were a small cub. When she and her brothers were small, Ratha had carried them that way. She remembered how the wiggling bodies relaxed in her jaws, for the cubs sensed that they were safe.

Thistle only struggled harder, wrenching Ratha’s head back and forth. Ratha tried to soothe and calm her daughter with words, but her mouth was full of Thistle’s fur.

Fessran galloped up, her sandy-colored coat blackened with streaks of soot from the fires she tended. Raising her voice above Thistle’s squalling, Fessran yowled, “Quit the mother stuff, Ratha. It doesn’t work. The only thing to do is get her to the lagoon.” With her jaws she seized Thistle at the root of the tail and began hauling her toward a briny pool that lay behind the upper beach. Ratha, her mouth full of fur and her head swimming from being jerked back and forth, followed Fessran’s tugging.

Together they got Thistle over the sand and into the pool. Fearing that her daughter would drown while in the fit, Ratha held Thistle’s head up, but Fessran told her to let go.

“She’ll lift her nose to breathe. Just leave her alone. The water calms her. I don’t know why, but it works.”

Ratha knew that Fessran was right. As soon as the pool had wetted Thistle’s flank, she relaxed and stopped fighting. Now she drifted, looking like an orange-splotched brown sea otter. Ratha waited to see that she did lift her nose to take breaths and only then did she leave her daughter and wade to shore with Fessran.

She permitted herself one angry swipe at the ripples crossing the lagoon, jealous that its waters could soothe Thistle when she could not. Then she shook herself hard, sending spray flying in all directions.

“Come on,” said Fessran.

Ratha stayed silent, looking at Thistle.

Fessran nudged her.“I know you are angry. Be angry somewhere else.”

Fessran’s suggestion wasn’t the most helpful, but Ratha couldn’t think of an alternative. When they had gone a short distance from the pool, Ratha flopped down on her side. Wanting comfort, she wished she had her treeling, but she had left Ratharee safely hidden, just in case something like this should happen. Fessran sat down, curling her tail about her feet.

“She will be all right?” Ratha asked.

“Every time she gets one of those fits, Thakur drags her over and throws her in. Sometimes Thistle gets herself in when she feels it coming on. This one must have been too sudden.”

Ratha lay, trying not to resent the fact that Fessran and Thakur knew more about Thistle than she did. Her tail flipped irritably.

“Are you angry at me?” Fessran asked.

“No.”

“At her?”

“Yes and no. It isn’t her fault that she has fits. Thakur says that now they don’t come as often, but I hate seeing her in them. And when I come to visit, she seems uneasy.”

“Well,” said Fessran slowly, “it is still hard for her to be near you.”

“If I were her I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near me,” Ratha said bitterly. “I wouldn’t want to be near a mother who had attacked and bitten me for something I could not help. If I hadn’t been so reckless and cruel …”

“Before you pull out more of your own fur,” Fessran said, “let me tell you one thing.”

“What?”

“Young ones can be stupid.”

“That doesn’t justify what I did. She might have been slow-witted, but—”

Fessran interrupted.“I’m not talking about Thistle. I’m talking about you. You had those cubs when you were scarcely more than a cub yourself.” She paused. “You were young. Young ones can be stupid. They haven’t had time to learn or they are too impatient. You bit Thistle because you were young. You are older now. You wouldn’t do it again.”

Ratha opened her mouth to make a retort, then closed it again. Fessran gave her a quizzical look and said, a bit smugly,“These things are all simple when you turn them around the right way. It’s like learning to open a herdbeast carcass. You have to start at the right place.”

“Only you would say it that way,” Ratha grumbled, laying her nose on the sand.

“Only you would need to hear it that way, clan leader,” Fessran answered lightly, nibbling crusted sand from one paw. “Do you feel better?”

“I should say I feel worse, just to spite you.” Ratha eyed her friend. “But I do feel better.”

Fessran stood up and shook herself off again, peering down the beach. Ratha remembered that she had been watching Mishanti while Thistle did her leg stretching.

“I made him sit down and told him to stay there,” Fessran said. “I have no doubt that he is now tearing all over the beach. I am beginning to think that his ears have no connection to the inside of his head.” With a sigh, she added, “I had better go and look for him.”

“Wait,” Ratha said as she saw a puff of dust rise from the cliff where the path ran down to the beach. “He might be up there.” She stared harder. “No. That’s someone else.”

Fessran joined her in squinting at the path.“They’re certainly in a hurry, judging by all the dust being kicked up. Or clumsy. No, both — that’s my son Khushi up on the trail.”

Khushi! Ratha had sent him off many days ago with Bira and Thakur to find the face-tailed beasts. What had happened to bring him back so soon? Her ears swiveled forward as she watched Khushi skitter around one bend after another on the switchbacks of the trail. Soon he was down on the beach, bounding over the dunes.

“Clan leader!” he cried as he slid to a stop. “Thakur sent me with a message.”

“Is he well? Is Bira well?”

“Yes, they are both fine. We found the face-tailed beasts you sent us after. But we also found another tribe of clan-cats. That is why Thakur sent me back.”

“Another clan like us?” Ratha stared at him.

Khushi’s words spilled out in a breathless rush. “Well, Thakur thinks they may turn out to be like us, although they are hunters and not herders. He has been having trouble trying to talk to them, and that is why he wants you to come. He wants Thistle-chaser as well.”

Ratha had him repeat the last part, not sure that she had heard him correctly. Thistle? Was Khushi sure that was who Thakur wanted?

“Yes. He made it very clear and he was very insistent. I don’t know why he wants her, but he does.”

Baffled, she asked Khushi other questions, all the while trying to figure out why Thakur wanted Thistle.

Unless he wants her there just because he is fond of her, Ratha thought. No. Thakur doesn’t do things for those sorts of reasons.

Fessran spotted Mishanti far down the beach and took off after him, leaving Ratha standing beside Khushi.

“My mother,” the young scout said with a grin. “She always complains about how much work it is to raise cubs, but she can’t seem to live without at least one.”

“One Mishanti is all anyone can manage.” Ratha watched Fessran’s efforts to corral the youngster. She began pacing down the beach, Khushi beside her. “How did Thakur find this other clan?”

“They were also hunting the face-tailed beasts.”

“Are these strangers like us?”

“I don’t think so, but they resemble us enough that Thakur and I were able to go in among them. They even have a language like ours. Thakur said he could understand their words.”

“Then why couldn’t he speak to them?” Ratha asked, puzzled.

“I don’t know. They said things that made no sense. His replies only confused them and made them angry.”

This surprised Ratha. Of all the Named, Thakur was the most sensitive and the least likely to commit a blunder that might offend a stranger.

They trotted up to Fessran, who was sitting on a squirming Mishanti. Khushi touched noses with his mother, but seeing that she was preoccupied, kept his greeting short.

Ratha told him to go back up to the cliff dens and get something to eat, for he looked hungry. At her words Khushi brightened and scampered back up the path. He was a good scout, Ratha thought. Even though he must have traveled a long way, he hadn’t eaten before he came down to the beach to find her.

Fessran freed a rather flattened and rumpled Mishanti.

“You keep blaming yourself for Thistle’s fits,” she said to Ratha when Khushi was gone, “but I think this little scamp here is another cause. He must drive Thistle a bit wild. I can handle him, but I’ve had much more experience raising litters than Thistle.”

“Shewanted to adopt him,” Ratha said.

“I know, and she is keeping to the agreement we made, but I know that she has been tempted to do more than sit on him. One thing she definitely has from you is your temper.”

Ratha grimaced at her friend’s bluntness. “She hasn’t bitten him yet.”

“No. She’s the one who gets bitten. By that nightmare of hers.” Fessran put a paw on the cub, who had started to creep away, tempted by some gulls nearby. “I told her that if she felt she was going to lose her temper with him, she should come to me. And she has. Several times. But I can’tcome to the beach as often, especially now in the rainy season. The Firekeepers need my help to keep the fires lit.”

“She’s not a clan member, Fessran,” Ratha said in a low voice. “I can’t order her to do anything, even if I feel it is for her own good.”

“Well, she should get away from this little mischief maker, at least for a while. Tell her that I’ll get someone to look after him so that you can take her to Thakur.”

The tip of Ratha’s tail twitched in annoyance. “I can’t take her anywhere unless she chooses to go. I doubt if she will. She hates to leave the beach.”

“Well, Thakur gave you quite a task, then, didn’t he,” said Fessran.

“Just take care of Mishanti, Singe-whiskers.”

Fessran grinned back.“Go chase a thistle, clan leader.”

Leaving her friend with Mishanti, Ratha paced back along the beach to bring Thakur’s request to her daughter.

* * *

As Ratha approached Thistle’s pool, her steps began to slow. Thistle was not the only one with reasons to deny Thakur’s wish. Ratha herself was reluctant to take Thistle along.

Suppose she falls into a fit and goes wild when Thakur is trying to talk to those new clan-cats. Surely he has thought of that problem. Why, then, does he want Thistle to come?

Thistle also had some deep disagreements with the Named about such things as capturing new animals for the clan’s herds. What if she decided that face-tails as well as seamares should be left alone? Ratha remembered the trouble Thistle caused when she freed the seamares that the Named had captured.

To her chagrin, Ratha had to admit that Thistle was right about seamares. The web-footed, horselike beasts would never have thrived if the Named had tried to treat them the same as their other herdbeasts. Seamares needed the freedom of the open ocean.

Near the lagoon were several low dunes. Thistle was still in the lagoon. Ratha settled on the crest of the nearest dune, waiting for her to come out.

She watched her daughter glide around the pool with easy strokes of paws and tail. All of the Named could swim if they had to, but Thistle appeared more at home in the water than on land. Ratha had seen Thistle follow the seamares when they plunged into the ocean.

At last Thistle waded out of the lagoon and shook herself. She looked worn, as she often did after such episodes. Hesitantly Ratha came to her and touched noses.

“Fessran still is with Mishanti?” Thistle asked.

“Yes. She can keep him for a while yet.”

“Don’t want him now. Later. Still shaky.”

Thistle settled on her belly in the crusty sand. She slitted her eyes and tucked her forepaws under her chest. Afraid that she might go to sleep, Ratha said hurriedly,“While you were in your pool, Khushi came back with a message from Thakur.”

Thistle’s milky-green eyes opened wide. “He came back soon?”

“No, he wants us to join him. Both you and me.”

“Why?”

Ratha repeated what Khushi had told her.

Thistle turned her nose toward the sea.“Home is here. Seamares are here. Mishanti is here. Thakur knows that.”

“I know he does. That he has asked you to come means that it is very important to him.”

“Help him talk to other clan-cats? Not clever at talking.”

“I don’t think that it is cleverness he needs,” Ratha said.

“What, then?”

“I don’t know. We won’t find out until we get there.”

Thistle’s face took on a stubborn expression. “Hard for me to leave. Thakur knows that,” she said again.

Feeling slightly annoyed, Ratha was about to point out how much Thakur had done for Thistle and that she owed him this if nothing else. But she bit back the words. The decision was up to Thistle herself. Trying to sway her would do no good.

“Thakur wants me,” Thistle said abruptly. “Do you want me?”

A quick yes would be an easily detected lie. Ratha decided to take the honest but more difficult route.“I can’t say that there won’t be any problems. Having you along will be difficult in some ways. You know why. All I can say is that I will give you every chance I can.” She paused. “I will ask you to do the same for me.”

“Can’t answer now. Have to talk to sea first,” Thistle said.

“The sea?” This was one of her daughter’s eccentricities that Ratha had not yet run into.

“I swim out with seamares. Waves break over my ears and tell me things.” Thistle got up. Letting her eyes meet Ratha’s briefly, she said, “You come here tomorrow. What waves tell me, I will do.”

Ratha knew she would have to be content with that. With a quick nose-touch, she parted from her daughter and trotted back along the beach to where Fessran was playing tag with Mishanti.

Fessran halted her game.“What did Thistle say?”

“She has to ask the sea first,” Ratha said, a little sourly. She couldn’t help letting Fessran know by her tone that she thought Thistle’s reply was a bit on the strange side.

“Oh, all she means is that she’ll go for a dive with the seamares and think it over. She has a funny way of putting things sometimes. I find it refreshing.”

Ratha sighed as Fessran plunged back into her game with Mishanti.

“Well, I hope the sea tells her what I want to hear,” Ratha grumbled to herself, and headed up the trail to get her treeling.

Chapter Three

Thistle waited until Ratha had left the beach. She got up, shook off the sand crusted on her belly, and paced over the dunes toward the seamares’ cove. On the way, she passed Fessran, who was still playing tag with Mishanti.

“I’ll keep him if you want to nap for a while,” Fessran called to her.

“Sleep enough. Swim again. With seamares. Will get Mishanti later.”

Fessran waved her tail in agreement. Thistle watched her chase Mishanti. The Firekeeper leader had a reputation for being acerbic and hard to approach, but Thistle found her easier to be with than Ratha.

Perhaps it was because Fessran had also been hurt. She had scars in the sandy fur on her upper foreleg. She had said that someone with very long teeth had bitten her there. There were scars on both the inside and outside of the leg. The teeth had gone right through.

Wonder if teeth hurt her the way Dreambiter hurt me.

From the beach, Thistle crossed onto a series of sandstone ledges beneath the cliffs. She made her way down through the tidepools until she reached the seamares’ cove.

There they all were, basking in the sun. Some lay on their bellies with their horselike heads outstretched and their tusks digging into the sand. Others sprawled on their backs or sides, sometimes flipping sand over themselves with a webbed foot.

She lifted her whiskers. She liked seamares. There was something comfortable about their tubby bodies and the way they lumbered and lolled about on land. Their raucous greeting chorus when she walked through the herd and the friendly bumps and swishes she got from their heads and tails made her feel accepted among them.

And she knew a secret about the seamares that nobody else had discovered. On land the creatures were ungainly and clumsy, but in the sea they became beautiful — elegant, streamlined shapes that slipped through the undersea dimness, leaving only a silvery trail of bubbles.

Many creatures of the shore were like that, finding their true beauty in the sea. Perhaps, Thistle mused, she was like that, too. Even though her leg was much better, she could still swim better than she could walk.

She could tell by the dryness of the seamares’ velvety fur that they hadn’t yet gone on their daily foraging expedition in the ocean. Either she had come at just the right moment or they had waited for her.

Joy surged through Thistle as she trotted into the surf in the midst of the herd of lumbering, hooting seamares. She breasted the incoming swells as they did, then ducked under and swam with powerful strokes of her hind feet. Like the seamares, she used her forelimbs to steer.

Sometimes she wondered if she really was a seamare, somehow born into the wrong body.

The only place she could not follow the herd was down to the ocean floor, where they foraged for shellfish. She had learned that neither her chest nor her ears could withstand the pressure, so while the seamares dove to forage, she remained on the surface. She could act as lookout, spotting any enemies that might come. And at the same time she could think out things that were troubling her.

It was easier for Thistle to think while drifting at the top of the ocean, while being rhythmically lifted and lowered by the swells. Everything seemed clearer out here. The mist that often clouded her mind vanished with the brilliance of the sun on the water.

Thakur had asked her to leave the shore and journey inland. How could she leave the seamares and the ocean? They comforted her, sustained her, renewed her.

It was too much to ask, too much to even think of asking. Away from the sea she became small, ugly, withdrawn into herself. The fits happened more often. The white mist descended on her mind too often, not letting her think.

He knows! Why does he ask?

Yet if he does know, a part of her argued, and he asks anyway, it must be important.

Thistle swam back and forth, trying to find her answer in the ocean’s touch. How soothing it felt, washing through her coat, lifting her and rocking her. The others of the Named seldom went into the sea, or, if they did, came out shivering and coughing.

Well, they hadn’t grown a heavy undercoat like hers that kept her body’s warmth trapped against her skin. And they had never learned to swim the way she did.

Except Thakur. He had let her teach him and he had tried to understand. It was he who had coaxed her out of herself, had helped start the healing in her leg and her mind.

Don’t have to help him, even after all he has done. But want to.

And Ratha. Her mother had also asked for her to come. Did that make a difference?

She asked for Thakur’s sake. She is not sure herself if she wants me.

Thistle glided and turned as the waves tumbled her gently about. She could feel the sea’s muted power. Sometimes it seemed that she could draw more than just comfort from the ocean.

She remembered Ratha’s words to her. Her mother had chosen the hard path — the truth. Though stung by those words, Thistle was deeply grateful that Ratha had not tried to conceal her uncertainties.

She asked me to give her a chance. Don’t have to, but want to.

When the seamares surfaced, blowing and snorting, she had her answer. Though the journey would be challenging, she would go.

* * *

On the following day, Ratha went down to the beach. She had left her own treeling, Ratharee, with Thakur’s Aree, to be cared for by others of the clan. Fessran ambled along beside her.

“Stop fretting, clan leader,” the Firekeeper said as they trotted over the rolling dunes, with seabirds crying overhead. “I think Thistle will agree. I wouldn’t have come with you to pick up Mishanti if I thought she was going to be stubborn.”

“I almost hope that she doesn’t want to come. I don’t see how she can help Thakur, and I have no idea how I am going to manage her on the trail.”

“Manage her?” Fessran howled derisively. “Clan leader, what do you think she is, a herdbeast?”

“All right, she isn’t,” Ratha snapped, embarrassed. “But I just keep thinking about those fits….”

“They are her worry, not yours. They aren’t going to kill her, and if one happens, there are plenty of pools and streams along the way.”

Ratha sighed.“I wish you were going, Singe-whiskers.”

“Thakur and Bira are already there, and Khushi will travel with you,” Fessran said firmly. “We’ve already agreed on this. I’ve got enough to do without tagging along to protect you from your daughter.”

Ratha was tempted to give Fessran a good swat for that, but the Firekeeper had already sauntered out of reach.

“I’m not afraid of her!” Ratha yowled.

“Not her claws, at any rate. That tongue of hers is sharp enough, even if a little clumsy.”

“Bury it, Firekeeper. We’re almost there.” Ratha picked up her pace, loping ahead of Fessran.

She found Thistle sitting beside her bathing pool, fluffing her coat in the sun. Ratha and Fessran also sat, waiting for Thistle to dry off.

“What did the sea tell you?” Ratha asked her at last, feeling slightly awkward.

Thistle answered simply.“You and Thakur need me. I will go.”

Ratha felt a confusing mixture of delight and dismay at the reply. Glancing at Fessran, she saw the Firekeeper incline her head and lift her whiskers as if to say“ I told you so. ”

Thistle raised her muzzle and gave a high chirping call. Mishanti appeared, covered with wet sand. He had evidently been digging a den.

“When did you start calling him like that?” Fessran asked Thistle.

“Not long ago. He pays better attention to it.”

“Good thought. I’ll try it out on the little scamp,” Fessran said as she swept the cub to her with one paw. “Come on, you son of a seamare. Come with Fessran.”

Ratha watched the exchange. She envied Fessran’s free and easy manner with Thistle.

Thistle even speaks less awkwardly with Fessran than with me. But as soon as I try to be friendly, she freezes up and I feel bad. I wonder if having her on this trip is really going to work.

As soon as Fessran had gone, carrying Mishanti by the scruff, Ratha turned to Thistle.“Khushi is coming with us. He’ll be waiting at the top of the cliff. Are you ready?”

“Yes,” Thistle replied softly.

Ratha paced ahead, letting her daughter follow.

* * *

Khushi joined Thistle and her mother on the way up the cliff trail. He would lead, for he knew the way back to Thakur’s camp. No more preparation was needed. Thistle knew that Ratha and Khushi had eaten enough to sustain them for several days. She had tried to do the same, although pickings on the beach were a bit sparser than eating from a kill.

“Don’t worry about food,” Ratha said to Thistle. “I asked you to make this trip, so anything Bira or I catch, we’ll share.”

Her words were meant as reassurance, but they also reminded Thistle that leaving the beach meant that she was much more vulnerable and dependent on others — something she hated.

As she followed Khushi, with Ratha bringing up the rear, she thought,Perhaps Thakur wants me because he has found others like me. She felt the loneliness rise up inside her along with a strange aching hope. If the other clan-cats Thakur had found were like her, they could understand the paths she had to take, paths that the Named could not follow. Perhaps the strangers could give her as much as she could give them.

Chapter Four

It was morning of the third day after they’d set out, and a light rain was falling. The three companions kept to a steady trot. Ratha put Khushi in the lead most of the time. Not only did the young scout know the way, but he chose a pace that was easy for Thistle to keep without straining her nearly healed foreleg. Ratha knew that if shewent up front with Khushi, it would be hard for her to keep from leaping ahead, for she was excited and intrigued by Thakur’s message.

Another clan like the Named! Could it be? Had Thakur really discovered a group that might band with their own, providing fresh ideas and new talents?

Ratha felt her hopes soar. If Thakur was sure enough to send for her, he must have found another Named clan. His difficulties in speaking with them would quickly be resolved. They probably have a few different words and customs, that’s all.

Her tail waving in anticipation, she trotted along the trail, eager to speak to the leader of the newly found clan.

* * *

With Khushi as guide, Thistle and Ratha wound their way over the coastal foothills and then down into a river valley, where the soil was marshy.

Thistle watched as Ratha sniffed some huge round footprints in the damp soil.

She listened as Ratha spoke to Khushi about the footprints.“Face-tails,” replied the young scout. “You can’t mistake that stink. Almost as bad as Thistle’s seamares. We do choose smelly animals, don’t we?”

“Well, it makes them easier to find. How far away are Thakur and Bira?” Ratha asked.

“Just up beyond this knoll,” Thistle heard the scout reply as he began pacing through the long, waving grass that covered the hill.

Bira met them at the top. Thistle liked the ruddy-coated Firekeeper, with her long plumed tail and gentle manner. Even the acrid smell of the Red Tongue in Bira’s coat did not put her off.

Bira had a treeling, a male called Biaree. Thistle was intrigued by treelings. She had never had one and she wasn’t sure she wanted one, but they were fun to watch. She saw how they soothed and comforted the Named. Perhaps someday she might like a little companion who could comfort her.

Would a treeling ride on my back when I swim?

Biaree jumped briefly onto Thistle’s back for a quick welcoming groom before scampering back to Bira.

“Welcome, everybody,” Bira said, touching noses with Ratha and then Khushi. Turning to Thistle, she said, “If you are hungry, I caught some grouse this morning.”

Thistle’s mouth watered, but first she wanted to see Thakur. Then she would eat. Bira said she would save the birds. There were plenty for everyone.

Eager to meet her friend again, Thistle scampered after Bira as she trotted down into a little hollow where a campfire burned beneath a sheltering overhang. And there was Thakur, his coppery coat gleaming, his green eyes alight at the sight of her. She was so overjoyed to see him that she broke into a run, dashing ahead of Bira.

“Hello, little seamare herder,” Thakur purred, rubbing his chin along her back and flopping his tail over her in greeting.

“Missed you, missed you, missed you,” Thistle answered, losing her eloquence to a rush of emotion. “So much, Thakur.”

She rubbed her head against him and stood back with a satisfied sigh while the others greeted him and rubbed past him, their tails arching over his back. After the greetings were done, Bira provided the promised repast.

When the meal was finished and the leavings buried, all five relaxed around the small fire and listened to Thakur. As he recounted his experiences with the other cat clan, Thistle listened carefully. He spoke of many things that baffled her. Someone called True-of-voice. Something called“ the song.” The strange way that the newly found clan seemed to speak and the way that the awareness of an outsider seemed to spread instantaneously through their group.

Thistle also cast glances at Ratha during Thakur’s tale. Though her mother’s ears stayed up, her whiskers drooped a bit in puzzlement and disappointment.

“These face-tail hunters sound even stranger than I thought,” Ratha said. “Are you sure they are not just another group of the empty-eyed Un-Named?”

“Not completely,” Thakur admitted. “But I feel that these clan-cats have the same gift as we do. They just use it differently. Their eyes are not empty, but their awareness is turned… inside themselves.” Thistle felt his gaze travel to her and rest there as he spoke softly. “As yours was when I first found you.”

“Do you think you can bring them outside of themselves, the way you did her?” Ratha asked Thakur.

“Perhaps, although I doubt it. The way they think must be right for them, as our way is for us. I don’t think my coaxing will make any of them become like the Named.”

Ratha’s eyes widened. “Then what do you plan?”

“I tried to speak to them once, but Khushi and I were chased away. I intend to try again. This time I’d like Thistle to come with me.”

Thistle’s belly began to flutter with anticipation, but she heard a silence as the other four exchanged glances with one another.

“I am afraid that you are venturing on trails where I have trouble following,” said Ratha at last. Khushi and Bira made sounds of agreement.

“I know. I’m not comfortable with such things either,” said Thakur, and another silence fell.

Thistle ended it.“This song thing. Ears don’t hear it?”

Thakur answered,“No. Mine can’t. Nor Khushi’s. Judging from the way the hunters spoke, they don’t listen with their ears. I think they hear it inside their heads. Thistle, you have said things to me that sound as though you can also hear things inside your head.”

Thistle felt awkward, though grateful that he had not spoken directly of the Dreambiter. She was not sure how much Khushi or Bira knew about the strange fits that fell on her.

“Yes,” she said slowly. “Sometimes I do. Sometimes frightening things, sometimes good things. Not hearing them as much now as I used to. Talking… takes them away. When I change the way I think, sometimes they come back.”

“Can you still do that? Change the way you think?”

“Not easy. Speaking with you and others — that is easier thing now.”

“Would you be able to go back into your old ways if I asked?”

I risk the Dreambiter, Thistle thought, but quickly forced the fear aside.

“Yes,” she said, looking straight at him. The look he gave her in return made her feel brave and proud, despite her fear.

Bira asked Thakur a question.“Are you thinking that Thistle can hear the same ‘song’ as the hunters can? That seems to be expecting a lot.”

“Maybe it is,” Thakur admitted.

Something made Thistle look at her mother, who was grimacing.

“I must be getting stupid,” Ratha growled. “I don’t understand any of this. Like trying to pick up water in your paw — it’s all running through.”

“None of us really understand it,” said Thakur. “We’re just feeling our way with our whiskers.”

And I am, too,thought Thistle,even if I can hear things inside my head.

Ratha got up and stretched.“I may not understand it, but I trust you, Thakur. When do you want to make the attempt?”

“This afternoon. The hunters made a kill this morning. I found it best to approach them after they’ve eaten and are lazing around.”

“All right. I’ll hide and watch. I want to see what happens. Both of you be careful,” she added as Thistle tried to evade her mother’s meaningful glance.

Will try to do what you want. Hard to do things, though. Especially when they are for you.

* * *

The Dreambiter was prowling. Thistle felt it as she followed Thakur. The herding teacher was taking her to the new clan-cats he had found — the ones he hoped would be enough like the Named to perhaps form an allied clan. Her mother hoped so, too, perhaps even more than Thakur. Thistle could almost feel the intensity of Ratha’s longing and the bleakness of a possible disappointment. Her mother didn’t want the Named to be all alone in their world.

The load of hopes was heavy — a hard burden to lay on the back of one who could barely carry her own hopes and griefs, Thistle thought.

Thakur had not asked her to put away her“ I-ness,” her own sense of identity, but it had fled anyway, swept out by the white mist that now seemed to surround her, containing the small clear area that she walked in and the hard beating of her heart.

He seemed to know what state she was in, and guided her carefully. Down the knoll and into the marshy valley, then up toward the head of the valley, where the wind brought the smell of face-tails and the ones who hunted them.

But Thakur had to tell her all this because the mist was so thick that she could not see very far beyond herself. She could not look over the vast expanse of waving grass and the clear sky she knew was above.

She wondered if she had gone deep enough into the mist. But she knew she could go no deeper, for the Dreambiter was prowling, and if she went in farther, she would meet the terror and fall helplessly on her side.

Should I tell Thakur that the Dreambiter stalks?

No. She could not bear to disappoint him. Or Ratha either.

So she walked inside her own circle in the swirl of white until Thakur’s voice told her to stop — they were there.

“Thistle,” she heard him say, as if from a distance, “are you ready?”

Her tongue felt strange in her mouth and she had to twist the words from it.“Can’t see them, Thakur.”

“Over there,” he said softly, and his voice was closer, lifting the haze before her eyes. She felt him nudge her muzzle, pointing her head in the right direction. She fought for command of her tongue and voice, for it was that which made the mist thin. With the struggle, the white opacity fadedslightly and she saw many cat forms, sitting, lying, or pacing across the open ground.

Thakur’s voice was in her ear again. “We will act as though you are one of theirs, lost. I am returning you.” He paused. “I may have to back off, since they may remember me. But don’t be afraid. I won’t leave you. And Bira and Ratha and Khushi are nearby.”

Nearby. With the Red Tongue to sear and punish these strangers should they not understand and try to hurt. Their hopes are on… me… to make the others understand.

Thakur moved forward. She followed. She did as he said and rolled where he told her to. Immersed in the smell of face-tail as well as the swirl of her own confusion, she walked with him to meet the hunters.

In the caverns the Dreambiter prowled.

The cat shapes rose up like shadows in the haze that hung around Thistle. Only the glare of the strangers’ eyes gave color to their forms. These were the hunters, the ones whose trail she was to try to follow.

White on gray; the flash of teeth, the red-pink of a tongue. Thakur alongside, his body against her, trying to control his trembling because the other clan knew him from before and he was frightened. She heard the gruffness of their voices, the resolute yet quavering sound of his in reply, giving the tale he had made up.

“Yours … lost… found and brought back,” she heard him say, but he sounded very distant, as if someone had thrown him across the sky.

“That one,” came a voice, deep with growling suspicion. Thistle tried to quiet the alarm that went through her. They were speaking about Thakur, not to him. Another voice, its tones harsh, joined the first. “That one with ears that don’t work. True-of-voice does not know him.”

“A lost one is found,” she heard Thakur try again. “In the marshes. Take her back.”

The eyes, in all their colors, were turning to Thistle.“A lost one? There are no lost ones if the song is heard.”

The eyes were waiting. Thistle felt lost, for there was no song in her head. Nothing but the hollow whisper of a wind through caverns where the Dreambiter stood, no longer prowling, but waiting.

The words were wrapped on her tongue, struggling to come loose. The song is heard, she wanted to say, but the lie could not get free.

And then, deep inside, she heard the echo of something she had never heard before. Not a Named song, not like the sound clan members made, but a thread of something mystical, lyrical. It was without words, yet it had an eloquence that she knew would overwhelm her if she heard its full power.

This was what they called“ the song.”

She went breathless with the distant beauty of it and longed to rush headlong into the deepest caverns where the source lay. She suddenly wanted, more than anything in the world, to hear the full voice, to bathe herself in it and let it soothe her spirit as the ocean did her body.

A touch on her nose brought her out of herself. It was a male, but not Thakur. The Other One’s whiskers brushed hers; his breath went into her mouth; his eyes shone, waiting.

“It is heard,” he said, his voice rich, deep, rolling like the swells of the sea.

“The song,” she said, knowing that what he meant was that distant, compelling whisper, so faint she feared she might lose it. “So soft, so hard to hear …”

The eyes before her seemed puzzled.“Should not be hard to hear. Do what the song says.”

She was struggling so hard just to keep hold of the elusive thread that she could have cried aloud with the weight and unfairness of the demand. The song wasn’t telling her what to do, except to plunge to the depths of her own being in search of the source.

It was easy to make that headlong dash of the spirit, for something in her was as thirsty for the song as was her throat for fresh water. But another sound, beginning as a hiss and building up to a roar, sent her reeling back. To reach the welling spring of the song, she must meet the Dreambiter.

“No!” she cried, shuddering, dread overwhelming her. Her cry cut the fragile filament of the song, leaving only the wind and the Dreambiter hissing in the caverns.

The Other One knew she was not his kind. The eyes turned away and a growl rose from his throat. Thistle knew she had failed. Sudden agony made her turn and flee, away from the eyes, away from the song, the Dreambiter, and everything.

Chapter Five

Thakur had been watching as Thistle’s nose met the hunter’s muzzle. He had thought for an instant that the other male would attack him, for he clearly had been recognized as an outsider. But the other seemed to have forgotten about him.

He listened. Thistle was speaking, in the same disjointed phrases as the hunter. Her eyes had the same turned-inward look. Was it possible? Could she walk the same trails as these strange, entranced ones?

Thakur admitted he had no real reason to expect that she could. Just a feeling down in his belly. But somehow she was reaching across the boundary, going where he could not, hearing what he could not….

His thoughts were suddenly shattered by a scream from Thistle, a ragged sound that was barely a word.

“No!”

The cry slashed through his hopes, through the slender tie of restraint holding the other clan-cats back from him. Growls and roars exploded from behind him. Instantly he was streaking away beside Thistle, running for his life from the rage of the others who cried out that he was not known to True-of-voice.

Thakur knew that the only thing slowing the hunters was the weight of face-tail meat in their stomachs. Even so, he and Thistle ran far. He could see the strain on her leg, but if he faltered or slowed, they would be overtaken and slain before either Ratha, Khushi, or Bira could catch up and drive the attackers off.

Thistle was limping badly by the time Thakur lost the pursuers. He collapsed together with her in the high grass. The dread that had been making her shudder, even as she ran, now seized her entirely. She went rigid, her eyes blank and glassy.

The spasm tossed her about and then released her, letting her crumple into an exhausted heap of fur. He could not even ask her what had happened, much less tell Khushi, Ratha, and Bira when they galloped up.

“Did the others attack you?” Khushi asked. “I heard Thistle yowl.”

Before answering, Thakur nudged Ratha over to lie down by her daughter. When Thistle came out of the unconsciousness that followed her seizures, she needed warmth and comfort. Only when Ratha and Bira were curled about the sleeping Thistle did Thakur say anything about what had happened. Khushi sat to one side, his ears up, his eyes wide.

“It was her cry that started the attack. Before she screamed, I thought everything was going well,” Thakur said.

“Then why did she …?” Bira asked softly.

“Something happened … inside, I think,” Thakur replied. “Bira, maybe what you said is true. I may be asking far too much of her.”

Ratha licked Thistle’s ruff. “That thing she dreams about. That’s what frightened her. But why did it happen just then?”

“I don’t know,” Thakur admitted.

“What will you do now?”

“Wait until she recovers and try again.”

Ratha fell silent. He watched the expression in her eyes as she stared down at her gifted, troubled daughter.

* * *

Thistle had dived very deep in the sea and now she felt herself drifting up. The water was opaque, as if mud had been stirred into it. High above shone a red-orange glow. Not the sun. Another source of illumination. She felt herself rising, turning slowly, moving closer toward the fierce light.

Then, with an odd, sideways motion, as if someone had stuffed her abruptly back into her body, she was in herself again, feeling the warmth of someone beside her, smelling the mingled scents of Thakur and Khushi, Ratha and Bira. Someone else had been lying beside her before she woke. She thought it might have been her mother, but now it was Thakur.

The red light came from a fire-nest that Bira had built and was tending. She saw the Firekeeper move around the flame, feeding it dry wood. The treeling on Bira’s back helped, doing with its small hands what the Firekeeper could not accomplish with paws and teeth. On the other side of the flame crouched her mother, fawn coat turned orange by the light, green eyes turning to gold.

Thakur was beside Thistle now and she was glad. He was the one she wanted with her when she came up from those strange sea depths.

He seemed to sense that she had come back, for his voice was low and warm in her ears.

“Thistle?”

She lifted her head, swiveling her ears. Her vision swam and she let her chin drop onto her paws.“Still dizzy,” she mumbled, closing her eyes against the firelight. He moved to her other side, blocking out the fire, letting her stare into the cool, soothing velvet of the night. Her mother and Bira were on the far side of the fire. That was good. She wanted them away. What she needed to saynow, she could say only to Thakur.

“What made you scream?” he asked softly.

“Wasn’t the other clan-cats. Not their fault.”

“Could you hear this song they were talking about?”

“Not sure. So faint and far away. Had to go inside. To a scary place. It was there.” She faltered, starting to tremble. Thakur knew what “it” was.

“Did your fear of the hunters bring your fit on?” he asked.

“No. Felt strange even before we started. The thing … It started prowling…. I didn’t tell you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Thakur’s voice was faintly reproving, though still gentle.

“Knew you had waited. So long. Wanted to try. For you. Means a lot to you. Didn’t want to make you wait … anymore.”

She heard and felt the depth of his sigh.

“Oh, Thistle …”

She snuggled closer to him, felt the warm weight of a paw as he draped it over her. He, more than any of the Named, could accept her for what she was. Yet there was coldness inside her because she had disappointed him.

“All ruined, Thakur? No chance to talk to others?” she asked. “Because of me?”

“Without you we would never have been able to try at all. Next time, though, you must tell me.”

“Next time?”

“Yes. If you are willing to try again. If you start feeling strange, though, we will back off and wait.”

“Won’t they fight us? Chase us away again?”

“I don’t know. One time they chased me; another time they let me approach. It is hard to tell what they will do. The only way is to approach them cautiously.”

“Want to help you, Thakur,” Thistle said. “Will try hard as I can. Maybe next time… bad thing… will stay away.”

Feeling his warmth and his tongue licking the back of her neck, Thistle drifted into sleep.

Chapter Six

Three days later, Ratha settled with the other members of her group beside an evening campfire. Thistle crouched beside Thakur, her eyes closed, her whiskers drooping. Ratha’s heart went out to her daughter. She had watched Thistle try again and again to approach the hunters, only to be attacked and overcome by the prowling terror that lived inside of her.

The thing that wears my shape and uses my teeth, Ratha thought bitterly.

And then Thakur had tried, both alone and with Bira. The face-tail hunters refused. Each encounter was more savage and frightening than the last.

Thakur is going to get himself killed. When I watched from the bushes, I saw nothing to suggest these strangers might be like us. There is no reason to try to talk to them now.

The Named had then changed their tactics, leaving the hunters alone and concentrating on the animals. This hadn’t worked either. Any attempt to capture or kill a face-tail sparked retaliation from the other clan. They might not speak, but they certainly thought they owned the face-tail herd, Ratha thought. When the Named even ventured near, they were met with blind ferocity.

Ratha tried to groom her matted and soot-streaked fur, but gave up. Everybody else looked equally bedraggled and out of sorts.

Too many skirmishes in the last few days had taken much out of them. Ratha could see how her people were starting to suffer. It angered her.

She heard Khushi muttering to Bira as the young Firekeeper and her treeling tended the flame.

“Those hunters are greedy,” he growled. “There are plenty of face-tailed beasts for all, yet they keep driving us away.”

Bira agreed, her fur ruffled and her usually calm green eyes fiery with indignation. From the corner of her eye, Ratha caught a glimpse of Thakur and Thistle, who had heard Khushi’s words. She couldn’t help seeing Thakur bristle. Thistle looked tired and defeated. She was also limping slightly — having to run away from the attacks had strained her leg.

Seeing her daughter struggle inflamed Ratha’s anger even more.

“I think we have shown enough patience with these hunters,” she said. “I heard what Khushi said to Bira and I agree. Trying to speak to them is getting us nowhere.”

“I disagree,” Thakur said slowly. “Thistle and I did make some progress when we first tried. I understand them a little better than before.”

“I don’t understand them at all,” Bira said, wrinkling her nose. “There is plenty of meat for everyone. Why don’t they share? As far as I can see, they are no different than the savage Un-Named.”

“Ratha?” The clan leader felt Thakur’s gaze go to her.

She answered, trying to control her own impatience.“I sent Khushi here to scout for face-tails. My intent was to add them to our herds. The hunters are making that impossible.”

“So you would attack the other clan with the Red Tongue,” Thakur said in a low voice.

“Herding teacher, what choice do I have? If we are to survive and grow, we must enlarge our herds. I think these face-tailed beasts can be managed, but we have never really been able to try — the other clan keeps driving us off.”

“Perhaps we would be better to look in other places for other animals,” Thakur said stubbornly.

Khushi yowled scornfully.“And run away with our tails between our legs if someone else claims them? Herding teacher, I mean no disrespect, but we are the Named, after all. Are we going to back down just because this scruffy bunch is being unreasonable?”

“Enough, Khushi,” Ratha said, raising a paw. “Bira? You look like you have something to say.”

“Yes, I do,” said Bira in her soft voice as she curled her plumed tail around her feet. “I am a Firekeeper. I know how cruel the Red Tongue can be. It is not easy for me to think about using it against others. If I thought these strangers might be like us, I would be horrified by the idea.”She paused. “But I have watched them, looking for signs that they are like us. I haven’t seen any.” She glanced at Thakur and then away again. “Herding teacher, I am sorry.”

Despite herself, Ratha was startled. Gentle Bira would give anyone the benefit of the doubt. If even she had hardened her heart, then it must be because the other clan didn’t deserve any sympathy.

“What makes you feel that way, Bira?” Thakur asked.

“All the time I have watched this other clan, I have never seen them show any sign of caring for each other — not the way we do. Each one walks past the others as if they were not even there.”

“They think differently than we do,” Thakur began, but Bira gently, yet firmly, cut him off.

“That should not make a difference. Our treelings think very differently than we do, yet they care for us.” She nuzzled her treeling, Biaree, who was snuggled up against her neck.

Thakur had no answer for that. Ratha saw him staring down at the ground between his paws.“I think,” he said after a long silence, “that they do care for each other, but in a very different way than we do.”

“Herding teacher, is it possible you are seeing something in these people that you only wish was there?” Ratha asked softly.

“I admit I have made that mistake in the past, clan leader. We both have. But this time I think I am right. I only ask for the chance to prove it.”

Ratha felt her ears twitch back.“I’ve given you that chance. I’ve given the other clan that chance. What can I do if they refuse it?” She sighed. “To be frank with you, Thakur, I don’t like these hunters. I like them even less than the witless Un-Named. At least the Un-Named do not enslave themselves willingly to a tyrannical leader, as this True-of-voice seems to be. And they walk around in an endless dream, unable to wake up. It makes me shiver.”

“And because you judge them different, you are willing to drive them with the Red Tongue, like animals?” Thakur’s voice was very low, nearly a growl.

“My duty is not to the other clan,” Ratha snapped. “The Named must come first.”

“I thought there might be room in the world for the Named and others as well,” Thakur said softly.

“It is their choice whether to attack us,” she retorted. “Thakur, the decision is made. We will catch a face-tail tomorrow. If any of the hunters interfere, Bira and I will use the Red Tongue.”

She heard Thistle gasp softly, almost a moan of pain, as if she had been struck. For an instant anger burned away the exhaustion in her eyes, and Ratha braced herself to endure a passionate defense of the hunters.

But the spark died, extinguished by weariness. Her daughter only said,“Doesn’t matter what Thistle feels. No right to speak anyway. Not clan member.” She limped away into the darkness before anyone could stop her.

As much as Ratha wanted to go after her, she knew it would be useless.

She turned instead to Thakur. She thought she had succeeded in becoming hard both inside and outside, but it hurt her to see how Thakur stared at the fire and fell silent.

Chapter Seven

The fire was banked and burning low. Above its crackle Thistle could hear the sounds of breathing — Ratha, Bira, and Khushi were asleep nearby.

Thakur wasn’t asleep. Thistle could tell by the way he moved restlessly beside her. She wasn’t asleep either, and it was not just his squirming that was keeping her awake.

She was angry at Ratha. Khushi and Bira too, but mostly Ratha. Once again her mother had chosen to strike out at those she did not understand.

She did that to me and she is doing it again to this other clan. I thought she would have learned better by now.

Beside her, Thakur rolled over again, sighed, and started to get up.

“Thakur?” she said, not wanting his comforting warmth to be replaced by the cool night air.

“Sh, Thistle. Don’t wake the others. I can’t sleep, so I thought I’d go watch the stars for a while.”

“Can’t sleep either. Go with you?”

“All right, but be quiet.”

They left the campfire and the sleepers behind, Thakur moving noiselessly through the scrub. Thistle glanced back. The fire had become a dim glow in the distance between the trees. When the low boughs and brush overhead opened up to a clear night sky, Thakur sat down and lifted his chin. Thistle did too.

There was no moon that night. Each star was as sharp as the point of a claw. Across part of the sky there was a misty light wafting outward like a plume of smoke from the Red Tongue. To Thistle, the night had a stark, aching beauty.

“It makes me want… something I do not even know about,” she said, wriggling a little closer to Thakur’s warmth.

Thakur said,“It makes me want to lift my paw to the sky, even though I know I cannot reach the stars.”

“Night-flying birds,” Thistle said. “The mice with wings and big ears — could those creatures fly high enough?”

She felt him give a sigh again.“Somehow … I don’t think so.”

After a long silence, she asked,“Thakur, does… she… ever sit like this and look up? My mother, I mean.”

“I think she did when she was a cub. But that was a long time ago. She hasn’t done it for a while.”

“Being clan leader is hard. Too many things to think about,” Thistle said.

“Too many,” Thakur agreed.

Again the silence fell and covered them both. The stars seemed to shimmer against the night sky.

“You were right,” said Thistle abruptly. “What you said — to my mother and the rest — you were right. Don’t let anyone make you back away from what you said.”

“Why do you say that, Thistle?” Thakur asked in a mild voice. The herding teacher sounded slightly puzzled, as he often did when she took off on a different thought trail without letting him know where she was going.

“Because the other Named ones — they will try to make you say you are wrong about the hunters. And my mother — she will try the hardest of all.”

“She is clan leader, Thistle,” she heard him say gently. “She is doing what she thinks is best for all of us. She must, or we will not survive.”

“Not best for me,” she protested. “Not for you either, or for the hunting clan. You said, ‘Can’t there be room for Named and others as well?’ Think there can be.” She paused, feeling her whiskers tremble with the force of passion. “Don’t let them make you give that up, Thakur.”

There was bafflement in the herding teacher’s green eyes. “Thistle, what makes you feel so strongly?”

“Don’t you think you were right?” she asked, afraid that he was going to change his mind.

“Yes, and I’m glad you think so, too, but I’m just surprised. After all, these hunters have repeatedly attacked us.”

Thistle couldn’t answer. She wasn’t sure. When had this conviction come to her — that the strange clan were more than savage killers? She tried to cast her mind back, remembering. Yes, she had screamed and run away, but she was fleeing from the Dreambiter, not from the strangers. And before that had happened, there was something else, dim and weakly sensed, but powerful.

“They gave me something,” she said. “What they call… the song.” She had looked into a hunter’s eyes. She had breathed his breath, touched his whiskers, inhaled his smell. And in all of that was the knowledge of the song; that he heard it and that he knew that she also heard it, however briefly.

She struggled to explain this to Thakur, but the words she found were not the right ones, and her newly made hold on language began to slip.

“Arrr!How can I say it? How?” she blurted in frustration as Thakur tried to soothe her. “Something comes from them. From them into me. And I know that they know… Oh,arrr, that isn’t right either.” Her tail flipped irritably back and forth, but Thakur seemed to have infinite patience.

Finally she said,“I have heard my mother talk about a ‘gift’ that you Named ones have. That it shows in the eyes. These hunters have something like it, but instead of looking out, they look in. Instead of speaking, they listen. Instead of trying to make sense, they make dreams. Do you understand, Thakur?”

“Only a little.”

She stumbled on.“How do I know this? I can’t tell you. What they have … is like the sea when you swim in it. All around you. Moving into you. Making voices in you. Making you feel the same as when you look up to the sky. The fierce red thing …” She fell silent.

“The Red Tongue,” Thakur said.

“It would destroy all of that. Wish my mother would understand.”

“Perhaps you can help her understand.”

“And perhaps you can scratch the stars,” she said wryly.

“Thistle …”

“Oh, Thakur, how can I lead anyone on this path when I am so lost?” she burst out, feeling an anguish that made her want to cry aloud. She leaned her head against the fur on his breast. He was so gentle, so wise, so eloquent….

She sighed.“Wish I could talk better. But sometimes the words — they run away. Because I am not Named?”

“Thistle, youare Named.”

“Only through my mother.”

“Through your father as well. He was not a clan member, but he had the same gifts. Perhaps he was more gifted than any of us.” Thakur paused. “Ratha called him Bonechewer. He was my brother.”

Thistle listened to Thakur’s heart — strong, steady, and comforting. She had always sensed that he resembled her lost father. Now she knew why.

“If he was what you say, why didn’t he pass it to me? Why did my mother think we were all so stupid”—her voice caught—“and drive us away?”

“Thistle, he did pass his gift on to you, but it took a long time to show. I think that is the reason you were slow in growing up. Because you weren’t with us, you didn’t learn to speak as a cub. That is why you find it difficult now.”

“And … the driving us away?”

“Ratha told you once,” Thakur said softly. “Don’t you remember? She couldn’t bear the idea that you couldn’t be like other Named cubs. But it wasn’t your fault, and she told you she was wrong.”

“Yes, she did,” Thistle admitted. “But it is hard to make her words feel real.”

“You may need to hear them again. It may take you many seasons of hearing them.”

She let the silence stay for a little while before chasing it away with a question.“I had a brother, didn’t I?”

“Two. There were three of you in the litter.”

“Are my brothers like me?”

“We don’t know, Thistle. We never found them.”

“Does my mother… want to find them?”

There was a long pause before he answered.“I think you should ask her.”

“Maybe I will. But not here. For my mother — too many things to think about.”

“Too many,” Thakur agreed, yawning. “I feel I can fall asleep now.”

Thistle felt her own mouth stretch in a sleepy gape. She followed Thakur back to the campfire and curled up beside him.

Chapter Eight

It was morning. Thistle no longer slept by Thakur. Instead, she had gone away quietly, without waking anyone. Now she crouched, alone in the brush, spying on a band of hunters as they stalked a face-tail. Her mottled coat might be ugly, she thought, but it made her blend in with the background when she didn’t want to be seen. She watched, quivering with fright and fascination.

This hunting party was a small group. Its members looked young, some of them perhaps just out of cub-hood. They didn’t seem as well organized as the larger hunting band that Thakur had described. Thistle also wondered about their judgment, for they had chosen an older female face-tail with a nursing calf. But perhaps the younger clan-cats did know what they were doing, for they had already managed to separate the pair from the main herd.

A ring of feline hunters now surrounded the beasts. Thistle could see that they were trying to maneuver their prey onto swampy ground, where mother and calf would bog down. But the mother face-tail seemed aware of the danger. Each time two or more of the attackers dashed in to drive her into the trap, the shaggy black-and-brown face-tail gave ground only briefly, then lunged at its tormentors, nearly breaking through their ring.

This is the wrong animal to try for, Thistle thought. This one has been hunted before and knows the tricks.

She watched the young hunters struggle with the wary old face-tail. They seemed unwilling to give up, as if something drove them to try again and again, despite knowing that this creature was the wrong prey.

Even Ratha, for all her stubbornness, would have surely given up by now, Thistle thought. The Named would have recognized they had met their match and chosen another beast.

The old female face-tail was tiring, but so, too, were the hunters. Thistle could see frustration and exhaustion in the rise and fall of their ribs beneath mud-streaked fur. Their feints were becoming slower, and each time one dodged the face-tail’s lunges, the tusks came closer.

Why do they keep choosing this animal? I am not a hunter, but even I can see…

One of the hunters turned, letting Thistle catch a glimpse of his eyes. Even from the distance, she could see that his gaze was still strangely turned inward, as if he was listening intently, even while he stalked.

“It is the song,” Thistle muttered to herself. “It is telling them what to do. And they have to do it.”

As she watched, she realized that the hunters had not only chosen an unsuitable animal, but they were trying the same tactics over and over again, even though the beast was wise to them. There was something strangely pitiful and even horrifying about the scene before her, as if the hunters as well as the prey were caught in the trap.

Why was True-of-voice doing this? Thistle wondered.Thought leader cared about people. Or does care, but somehow gets stuck… can’t understand why hunting didn’t work. Can’t change.

She knew what would happen almost before it did. The attackers’ lunges and feints were slowing, narrowing their escape from the slashing tusks and trampling feet. And then, as one lithe, fawn-colored shadow darted in, the face-tail’s great head dipped down, the tusks thrust, and she heard an anguished yowl.

Thistle did not know what seized her legs, making her leap out of the bushes. Or what seized her will either, sending her in to bite and claw at the pillars of the face-tail’s rear legs. Looking forward beneath the great shaggy belly, she saw the cat-form of the stricken hunter twist and turn, trying desperately to avoid the huge feet slamming down on the ground.

For an instant Thistle feared the face-tail would ignore her attack, as if she were too small to bother with. It was too intent on the wounded hunter, and even the attacks by the other cats could not turn it away. The bright ribbon of blood on his side was a flag that drew the beast to him. The trampling feet were right above him, and his squall of terror filled the air.

Something whiplike yet heavy struck Thistle’s side, sending her tumbling. As she sprang back to her feet she saw that the face-tail had spun away from the wounded hunter and was thundering at her, trunk raised for another blow. She jumped, flattened as it flailed over her back. Her mind was whipping around as fast as the beast’s trunk, seeking an escape.

Pure panic made her run for a bluff and sail off the edge. With a bellowing roar, the face-tail came crashing down behind, and she was sure that it would land right on top of her, crushing her. But she landed clear, splashing into a mud puddle.

She shook herself, casting a wary glance at the face-tail, tensing as if she expected the beast to come charging out of the morass beneath the bluff. But the creature was down on its side, thrashing, beating its great trunk against the ground. A fall that was nothing to her had crippled it.

Her fur still on end, she watched the face-tail struggle to rise. The hunters were already appearing on the bluff. She could see their faces, their hunger. The first one leaped down, landing on the heaving mound of the face-tail’s body. She heard claws start to rip through woolly hide.

Soon all of the hunters were on the creature, swarming over it as if they had downed it themselves. Thistle felt hungry, but she knew she dared not venture among the horde that was already stripping off the face-tail’s flesh.

But one was missing from among them. The young male the face-tail had stabbed with its tusks.

Above the noises of eating, she heard a low moan. It came from up above, where she and the face-tail had gone off the bluff. Her ears flattened.

They leave one of their own to bleed while they feast.

She skirted the great corpse with the hunters tearing at it. Ears still flat, tail low and twitching, she circled back up to the top of the bluff. Where was the wounded one?

There. Under a bush. A trail of blood on the trampled ground told her he had dragged himself there to die hidden. She halted in midstep, one forefoot lifted. Why should she go to him? There was nothing she could do, and he might just attack her.

It was cruel of them to leave him to suffer while all the others filled their bellies. If he died his life would have paid for that meat. Among the Named that act would have been acknowledged.

Thistle tried to turn aside. Every step that might have taken her away instead brought her closer, until she was within nose-touch of him. Crumpled beneath the low branches of the bush, he looked dead, until she caught the fine tremor of his whiskers and the slight movement of dry leaves before his muzzle that told her he was still breathing.

A shudder went through the wounded hunter. He gasped and cried out like a cub. But there were words in the cry, and Thistle understood them.

“Away … from True-of-voice. Dying away … alone …”

She glanced nervously at the bluff, at the sounds of feasting. Hunters of this same tribe had chased her away. If she had any sense, she would be gone by now. But they seemed engrossed in their prey. She could stay beside the wounded one at least for a little while, offer him warmth and words, if they helped. She knew how it felt to be hurt and alone.

As she crouched down beside the wounded hunter, his head lifted and his eyes opened. They were a molten gold and seemed to swirl, like water draining inward through a hole.

Inward, thought Thistle. Always inward. These ones dream as they die, dream as they suffer. Aloud she said,“Don’t be frightened. I will stay with you as long as I can.”

The wounded one’s head jerked. The eyes went to her, yet never seemed to fix on her. Thistle wondered if he was blind.

No. All the hunters have eyes like this. Thakur said that I once had eyes like this.

The young male was in a funny half twist that looked uncomfortable. After nudging him to make sure that he had no other injuries besides the tusk wound, she got him arranged so that he was lying on his belly. She had to put herself beside him to prop him up, for he kept wanting to flop over onto his side.

“No,” she scolded softly. “Better for you to stay on your belly.”

She studied his wound. It was no longer bleeding freely, and it didn’t look too bad. There were no bones showing or guts or anything else that should stay inside a body, except blood. But he was trembling and his nose felt cold against hers. The trembling and the coldness. And the fear. The fear could kill, even if the hurt didn’t.

She made him keep his head down. Thakur had told her some things about how to take care of the injured. He was a skilled healer. How she wished he were here now!

She looked at her charge critically. On his belly, with his head down, the wounded young male seemed to be doing a bit better. His nose wasn’t so cold and his trembling was less violent. Maybe he wouldn’t die after all.

“The song,” he sighed. “It is heard again. True-of-voice comes to Quiet Hunter.”

His words completely baffled her except for his reference to the song. She remembered her own brief experience with it. She had felt from far away the power it had to comfort and soothe.

If the song helped the wounded hunter, she didn’t care what it was. She knew she couldn’t hear it. She was too far into the self-identified, Named way of thinking. Well, she had to be, in order to look out for herself and for him. She couldn’t afford to go stumbling around in a dream-trance. Look what that had gotten him!

The smell of the huge kill made her belly growl. He must be hungry, too, since he was stalking with them. With disgust she noted that none of those now feasting on the downed face-tail had even glanced around for their injured companion.

Thistle remembered what Bira had said at the campfire. She was reluctant to admit that she would agree with one of the Named, but Bira was right. These people seemed to feel no compassion for one another. They could plan and carry out an elaborate hunt, but they were not capable of the feelings that she and the Named both shared.

How could I have thought that they are like us?

This wounded male — he was the same. Even if he lived, he would never be able to look at her with eyes that understood what she was. She had nothing in common with him or his people. She had no business being there at all. She should go.

Chapter Nine

Thistle was giving the wounded male a soft farewell nudge when movement at the corner of her vision made her glance up. One of the hunters, a large, heavy-shouldered male, was climbing a trail up the side of the bluff. He had come from the kill. He had a chunk of meat in his jaws.

Thistle was sure that he would eat it himself, that he would walk right past the two of them. Instead he paced deliberately to the bush where the wounded male lay. Unsure whether to freeze or run, Thistle stayed where she was. The large male ignored her, laid the meat down before his injured clan-mate….

An excited shiver went down Thistle’s back, all the way along her tail.

Bira is wrong! These hunters do care about each other.

Stretching out his neck, the injured male got the tips of his fangs into the meat and dragged it to him. The intoxicating food smell washed over Thistle, forcing her to fight an impulse to snatch some. Instead she crouched slightly apart from the injured male, watching.

When he had eaten, others of his kind brought more.

They also gave him small melons from a vine that grew nearby. Thistle had seen the Named eat these to slake thirst when there was no good water.

Those who brought the meat and melons gazed briefly at her. Their eyes were distant, but Thistle had no doubt they saw her and recognized her. Why didn’t they chase her away?

Perhaps they know that I tried to help.

Her belly rumbled again and she swallowed. Would they mind if she had just a little of the meat and melon? She crept toward the nearest piece, sniffed it, and almost jumped out of her pelt when the wounded male pushed it toward her with his nose.

Thinking that the others might not approve of his act, she glanced at them, tensing to flee if anyone showed raised hackles. But no one did. Soon she was gulping face-tail meat and crunching moist melon, enjoying its juicy coolness on her tongue.

Once the wounded male had eaten, he rested and then tried to groom himself. The bleeding from his tusk wound had dwindled to a slow seepage, but Thistle feared that if he twisted around to lick himself, he might start bleeding again.

“Don’t try,” she said softly. “Will do it for you.”

He looked faintly baffled at her words but seemed to understand her intent. He lay quietly as she worked on him, using her teeth and raspy tongue to clean the fur around the wound. Several of the hunters gathered around, as if to watch, although their odd, dreamy gaze made Thistle feel as though they were looking right through her.

She was startled when one spoke. The voice was light, female.“True-of-voice has learned of the hurt done to Quiet Hunter.”

Thistle, unsure whether the speaker was talking to her or not, glanced at her companion. He was washing his face, but he paused, put his paw down, and lay, eyes closed, ears forward as if listening.

“True-of-voice sings healing,” said someone else.

Thistle itched with curiosity. Who was this True-of-voice? A clan leader, like her mother, Ratha? She realized that she didn’t know if the unknown singer was male or female. He or she might even be right here, watching. Thistle had no way to tell.

These people… so strange. Know why Thakur could not talk to them.

She felt lost and uneasy. What if this True-of-voice found out about her, realized that she was an outsider, ordered the others to attack her?

In her uncertainty she had moved close to the wounded male and was now huddling against him.

“The song’s healing is for all.” She both heard and felt her companion’s voice as it vibrated through his body.

If you can hear it, she thought, her ears twitching crossly. Did hear it once. Had to go deep inside myself.

Dare she try that again? It would leave her open, vulnerable, dream-entranced.

But they are all like that, too.

She glanced around at the cat shapes surrounding her. Their eyes never met hers and they avoided her gaze as if it was too sharp, too direct. She felt left out, as if everyone were speaking a silent language she could not understand.

Her only choice was to go… inside.

Again she pushed away her feeling of identity, of self. There was no one named Thistle-chaser. There was no one with a name. There was nobody and no names….

And she, without self, without name, walked in mist-shrouded caverns, following a haunting, distant call. It had a voice, but no words. It did not need speech. The rise and fall of the voice itself spoke with an eloquence beyond words. It drew her like the scent of one beloved, and she realized that it was not just a sound but a scent as well — distant, tenuous, yet powerful just as the voice was. It resonated not only in her senses, but in her whole being.

The desire in her grew frantic. Her longing to find the singer, to feel surrounded by the strength and sureness of the song, hurtled her headlong through the depths of herself.

There were no questions in the song. There were no doubts. The voice, the smell, the feeling, all promised an end to uncertainty. She would not need to seek. The singer, the song… already knew.

That was why the singer was called True-of-voice.

To one who walked so much on the edge, to one for whom the questions overwhelmed the answers, the song was a lure that could not be escaped. It was the sound in her ears, the intoxicating scent in her nose, the feeling in her skin as if someone she loved was rubbing against her. It was everything she wanted and had never thought she could have.

And she could plunge down the trails of herself forever in search of it….

Until a growling roar shattered the distant music, and her skin prickled and burned.

She had forgotten the guardian of the caverns. Her mind’s eye, seeking the beautiful shape of the singer, flinched away from the apparition of the Dreambiter.

She tried to turn back, but the nightmare was on her, fiery with hate, teeth sinking deep into her shoulder and chest. She sought the outside, the self, the name, but the Dreambiter had her. She knew that it would keep her until it had exacted the price of her daring.

Thistle fled, both within and without, the blackness sweeping over her even as she ran. It took her from the wounded male she had tried to help, from those who had been watching, from the song, and, worst of all, from the unknown singer called True-of-voice.

She might have hurt someone in her panic, even the injured male she had been tending. As her shaking legs gave way and she felt herself begin the slow topple onto her side, she gave one last cry for forgiveness.

* * *

The young male lay by himself on the grass. He had been hurt in the fight by the face-tail’s tusks. The song and his clan-mates called him Quiet Hunter, but he did not identify himself by that name or any other.

The body that moved, the legs that walked, the mouth that ate, the flank that had bled, the tongue that spoke — they were all gathered together in a vague way that the mind recognized only dimly.

When another clan mate spoke the wordsQuiet Hunter, the young male acted or answered, but that was all. He said words that could bring a response from others — Kinked Tail, Bent Whiskers, Nose-to-one-side, and, of course, True-of-voice.

Those words were only used to make a clan-mate say or do something. They were spoken when he wanted something from the others. Except for True-of-voice. There was never any need to ask anything of True-of-voice. The source of the song always knew what was needed.

Except when Quiet Hunter was first stabbed by the face-tail’s tusks in the fight. True-of-voice was too far away then. Terror and cold had made the song fade. The fading brought fear. Fear that there would be a great silence.

The fur on the young male’s brow wrinkled. Somebody else had come. Not True-of-voice, though True-of-voice had helped later. The first helper was an outsider, not a clan mate. A female. Gentle, kind. With words that helped to chase away emptiness and coax the song back. Yet the song did not know her. How could this be? The song did not know her, yet allowed her to stay. The song never accepted those not known to True-of-voice.

The female had made everything better. Now he could eat, groom, and even stretch a bit without harming the wound. The gash was scabbing over. The belly could feel full after eating, and Quiet Hunter could lie in the midnight dark and let the song bring comfort.

There was gladness that the song allowed the female to stay. She made the feelings better. Yet she was… disturbing. Her ears didn’t work; she barely heard True-of-voice. Or so her words said. How could she be so deaf to the song, yet still live?

Perhaps that was why she did strange things. Hopping around on three legs. Saying words that meant nothing. Running away.

She needed to hear the song. There was something inside her that hurt. Even more than a tusk wound.

And the young male that the song knew as Quiet Hunter lay thinking about how strange the world was.

Chapter Ten

Thakur stirred in his sleep. The warm spot that Thistle made against his back had grown cold. Blinking, he lifted his head, thinking that she had just shifted to one side. No. She was gone.

Sleep fled as he jumped to his feet. Ratha, curled up against Bira with her nose buried in her tail, was startled awake.

“What …? Arrr! Where’s Thistle?”

“What we talked about last night upset her,” Thakur said. “No, you stay here,” he added as Ratha started to get up. “I know where she went.”

“Oh, no! She’s trying to talk to the face-tail hunters again.” Ratha groaned. “Thakur, she’ll get herself shredded by that bunch.”

“They’ll shred you if you start running out into their midst. I have some experience with them. You wait. I’ll find out what happened to Thistle.”

Before Ratha had a chance to object, he galloped away into the scrub forest. Soon he reached the open land where the face-tail hunters stalked their quarry. From a distance he saw the exposed bones of their kill at the foot of a small bluff. When he climbed the trail to the top of the bluff and hid in the brush nearby, his gaze turned toward the group of cat figures there. Among them he spotted a familiar mottled red-brown and orange coat.

Thistle’s head was down. She was eating. They were sharing food with her! How …?

Thakur stayed hidden downwind from the group, not wanting to interfere. He stared at the scene, filled with amazement. Somehow Thistle had done what he could not. The other clan had accepted her. An injured young male lay near her. From the look of his wound, he had been gored by a face-tail. Had she been tending him?

Yet something odd was happening in the group. Everyone was sitting, staring at nothing. Even Thistle.

Thakur crept closer, intensely curious. Things were changing. Thistle looked frightened.Arrr!She was starting to jump around in circles on three legs, the way she did when she went into one of her fits.

Not now, Thistle! he wanted to yowl. He knew it would be useless. She couldn’t control what was happening.

Fearing that the others would attack, he tensed, ready to rush in and defend her. They didn’t, although some backed away from her, looking puzzled. As Thistle broke into a panicked run, they moved aside for her.

Silently Thakur stole through the brush and the high grass, trying to guess where her crazy zigzag path would take her. At last he was far enough away from the hunters so that he didn’t worry about being scented or seen. He bounded toward Thistle and intercepted her.

She staggered, fell on her side, and began to thrash. Eyes wide open, but blank, she struggled, trying to speak.“Wanted to help… but couldn’t… ran inside … to hear … song for healing…. Why… does he hear it when I can’t….”

“Thistle, don’t try,” Thakur said.

“He … knows how much… it hurts…. Didn’t want to run from them…. Afraid, couldn’t help… Will hate me… Dreambiter …” She shook violently.

Thakur lay down alongside Thistle, draping his paws and tail over her. The warmth and the weight seemed to help, for she closed her eyes and her limbs became still. He thought that she would fall into a deep sleep, but instead she spoke again.

“I could have reached them,” she hissed, her voice raw. “If I hadn’t let … the badness… have me….”

“You can go back,” Thakur said, trying to soothe her. “You can try again, Thistle.”

“No…. They saw the badness…. Afraid of me now…. Jumped around, clawed somebody… hurt them…. No trust… anymore….”

“You didn’t hurt anyone. There is nothing to be ashamed of,” Thakur soothed.

“Should fight the badness, not run … away….” Thistle’s voice slowed and slid as exhaustion took her. Thakur could feel the wiry little body go limp beneath him.

Gently he pulled his paws out from around her. She would feel nothing for a while.

Why is it so hard for her? he asked silently, and found himself hackling, as if there were a flesh-and-blood enemy that he could fight for her sake.

He sighed, made his fur lie flat, and licked Thistle’s check. He had to think what to do next. She had managed to reach the hunters and get accepted. But she had ruined that tentative bond, or so she thought. What would happen if and when she tried again? The answer lies with that wounded young male. She was caring for him. Perhaps they will allowher back.

He grimaced. There were too many questions, uncertainties, fears. Besides, Ratha and Bira were coming, and he had no idea how to explain what had happened. He decided that he wasn’t even going to try.

* * *

“Come with me. Please,” Thistle said to Thakur above the soft crackle of the fire. It was afternoon, but Ratha had Bira light one just in case the hunters had followed.

Thakur tried to quiet Thistle. He was attempting to listen to Ratha, who was talking to Bira and Khushi about how they might capture a young face-tail. It was hard, because he was sitting away from them in order to tend Thistle. Ratha had been helping him while Thistle was still groggy, but when her eyes and mind cleared, Ratha had retreated to the other side of the fire.

He turned back to Thistle when she tried to get up and wobbled.

“Face-tail hunters. Need to …”

“You’ve done all you can,” Thakur said, trying to soothe her.

“No. Need to show you something. Important.”

All his cajoling could not make her lie down again. With a sigh, he told the others that he and Thistle were going for a short walk and would soon be back.

Her eyes seemed to light from inside, as if they were seawater with the sun pouring through. Despite her shakiness, she bounded ahead. Thakur had to trot to catch up.

“What do you need to show me?” he asked, drawing abreast of her.

“Can’t say. Can only see.”

She led him to a place where they could observe the face-tail hunters without being sighted or smelled.“Watch,” she said, once they were settled.

“What am I looking for?” he asked mildly.

“Remember what Bira said — about hunters not caring for each other?” Thistle turned her head, her eyes large with excitement. “The wounded one. I helped him. There he is. Watch others near him.”

Puzzled, he did as she asked. The wounded male still lay alone, although he seemed to be better. The others went about their business, evidently ignoring him.

“Help him,” said Thistle under her breath, as if she were speaking to them.

“Thistle, I don’t think they will….”

“Did before. Was there.”

“Yes, but things were different because you were there. They might have copied you. And maybe he doesn’t need help any longer.”

“Have to help him,” said Thistle, her voice intense. “To showyou.”

Thakur allowed himself one tail-twitch of annoyance and then relaxed. It would do no good to say that the hunters didn’t know that he and Thistle were there and so would not do anything to “show” their observers.

He was starting to announce that it was about time to return to the others when Thistle went stiff.“Look,” she hissed. “Look now.”

The wounded male was no longer alone. A party of the hunters surrounded him. Two were grooming him while several others were bringing meat from the face-tail carcass and melons from the patch that grew nearby.

Thakur watched carefully to be sure that he wasn’t seeing what he wanted to see. But it was hard to mistake the intent of those who were nursing their injured clan mate. They cared. They understood pain and answered with compassion.

“Didn’t learn it from me,” Thistle said in a low voice.

“You are right, Thistle,” Thakur said, feeling excitement growing in him.

“That big one. Gray with white belly. Coming toward them. Think he is True-of-voice.”

Thakur studied the distant shape. It was definitely male, huge and heavy-shouldered, with a ruff. Deep gold eyes stared out of a wide gray face streaked with black.

“Why do you think he is True-of-voice?” he asked Thistle softly.

“Song said he was. Before, when I heard it…. Hard to explain, Thakur.”

If the figure was not True-of-voice, he was some sort of leader, for everyone drew aside and crouched out of his way. Was it because they feared him?

Thakur remembered the tyrant, Shongshar, who had forced Ratha out of the clan and then ruled it heartlessly. Ratha had had to kill him to free the Named and win back her leadership. Was this True-of-voice another of the same breed?

Perhaps. But the hunters also seemed to need him. At their call, he came and touched noses with each of them. Each one stretched his or her neck forward eagerly, as if the brief nose-touch was a food more nourishing than meat or a drink more thirst-quenching than water.

Thakur thought that the gray-and-white leader would approach the wounded male and groom him, but instead he sat down close by. The others formed a loose circle around the injured hunter and the large male Thistle called True-of-voice.

“True-of-voice singing to wounded one,” said Thistle, with an odd catch in her own voice. Was it longing? Thakur wondered. Did she want to be out there in the circle, “hearing,” in some strange way, a soothing voice that helped and comforted?

“Need more than food or water to heal.” It was Thistle again, speaking softly.

How do you know these things, Thistle? Thakur wanted to ask, but instead he said,“I think Ratha should see this.”

“Bring her,” Thistle said, her eyes never leaving the other clan. She seemed to be drawn to them — an attraction that made Thakur wary.

“You come back with me,” he said.

“No. Stay here. Need to stay here.”

“I’m afraid you won’t stay hidden. You’ll try to join them.”

“Want to,” Thistle admitted. “Now not good, though. Will stay, Thakur. Bring my mother.”

Nothing could sway Thistle when she was being stubborn. But she knew that it would not be an advantageous time to approach the hunters. She might disrupt whatever was going on between the gray-and-white leader and the wounded young hunter. And there was definitely something going on. Thakur could almost feel it.

Quickly he padded away to fetch Ratha.

* * *

Sometime later the clan leader of the Named crouched beside Thakur in a bush that hid them from view. Thistle had obeyed him and had stayed still, even though he knew she had been tempted to join the other clan.

“Wounded hunter and True-of-voice still there,” Thistle said as Ratha settled beside Thakur. “Others too.”

“So that is the one you call True-of-voice,” Ratha hissed after she had been watching awhile. “He’s got a good set of teeth.”

Thakur could tell by the look in Thistle’s eyes that she wanted to tell her mother about the strange “song” that was healing the injured hunter. But Ratha’s first comments had not encouraged her.

The scene with the wounded male and his leader went on for a long time. At last the circle around the two broke up, and its members wandered off to groom or nap.

“See?” Thistle said triumphantly to Ratha. “You and Bira — wrong, wrong, wrong! Hunters do take care of hurt ones!”

Ratha sent an annoyed look toward her, and Thakur groaned inwardly. Neither mother nor daughter was gifted with much in the way of tact.

“All right, I do see it,” Ratha said after a long silence. “Are you sure that the ones feeding the young male aren’t just his parents?”

“Too old to treat like cub,” Thistle said scornfully.

Thakur agreed.

“Bringing food to True-of-voice, too,” Thistle added. “He didn’t ask them.”

Thakur glanced at Ratha, who was studying the scene with narrowed eyes.

“They don’t need to fawn all over him,” she muttered. “All right, I admit I have made a misjudgment. These hunters obviously do share some of our ways. If they would stop driving us away from the face-tails, maybe we could reach some sort of agreement.”

“Have you seen enough?” Thakur asked her.

“Yes. Let’s go back. I want to think.”

Chapter Eleven

At the fire where the Named gathered, Ratha crouched with Bira, Khushi, and Thakur, listening to her daughter speak. Thistle was talking about her experiences with the face-tail hunters and how she had learned more about them.

When Thakur had returned that previous morning, with Thistle at his side, Ratha had been too grateful to ask questions, even though Thistle was subdued and looked as if she had been through another fit. She seemed to have recovered, but listening to her now, Ratha couldn’t help wondering. What she said seemed so nebulous and strange. And she actually seemed comfortable with the nature of the face-tail hunters!

Every word she says about them makes me shiver inside. How can she think that understanding more about this clan will make me accept them?

Ratha tried to keep her nose from wrinkling and her tail from twitching, but she found it hard to hide her repugnance. Thakur evidently spotted her reaction, for after Thistle had finished speaking and curled up near the fire to rest, the herding teacher approached Ratha and took her aside.

“Clan leader, come with me,” he said, and they walked away from the fire together.

“I hope you are not taking me to watch that hunting bunch again,” Ratha said crossly when they were away from the others.

The herding teacher looked at her quizzically.“You really don’t like them, do you?”

“It is worse than that. Thakur, I hate them. I wish they were all gone, or dead.” She surprised herself with the coldness in her voice.

Thakur’s silence told her more eloquently than any words the depth of his shock and surprise.

“You never thought you would hear such things from me, did you?” she said wryly, but her whiskers trembled.

“No.”

She stopped, facing him.“You want to know why those hunters make my belly crawl? It’s that leader of theirs, that True-of-voice character. From what I saw and what Thistle said, he sounds worse than any of the Un-Named, or even Shongshar. Shongshar may have been a tyrant, but he couldn’t take away anyone’s thoughts. This True-of-voice seems to have something slimy oozing out of him that turns his people into infant cubs.”

“Thistle didn’t use those kinds of words,” Thakur said.

“Thistle was so befuddled she couldn’t see the truth. How would you like having someone talking in your ear all the time so that you couldn’t think for yourself?”

“I wouldn’t,” Thakur confessed.

“Well then?”

“Ratha, just because such a thing is wrong for you or me doesn’t mean that it is wrong for the face-tail hunters.”

“How can anything be wrong or right if you don’t even have a choice?” she countered.

“All right. The way these hunters are controlled is hard to accept. I’m not having an easy time either.”

“I can’t even think about accepting it. I can’t believe anyone would want to stumble around in a trance their whole life. If this True-of-voice really forces his will on his people, he is bad,” Ratha said bluntly, and added, “Maybe the best thing we could do for them is to kill him.”

She watched Thakur’s green eyes go wide, and his teeth flashed as he spoke. “You don’t know enough to judge,” he said, his voice hard.

“There are times when I’ve known even less about an enemy, yet I’ve acted. How much did I know about the Un-Named when I first used fire against them?”

“Do you have to think of these hunters as enemies? When you saw them, you said they share some of our ways. ”

“Yes. I also saw how well they worked together and how devoted they are to their leader. They are a threat. I can’t pretend that I’m blind to it. We need to show our strength by wielding the Red Tongue.” She looked away from Thakur, then back. “I’m doing what I did when the Un-Named attacked us. It worked. And I never heard you speak out against it.”

“Perhaps I should have spoken out against it,” Thakur said in a voice that was nearly a growl. “Or maybe I should have spoken louder. Clan leader, we of the Named have already learned that things are not as simple as we once thought. We can no longer divide the world of creatures into those who are like us and those who are not.”

“It is easier to do that when you are clan leader,” Ratha said, feeling both shamed and justified. “Thakur, you know that I have to choose in favor of our people.”

“Does something that helps the Named have to hurt others?”

The green in his eyes seemed to burn into her, making her tongue clumsy.“N-no. But somehow it has happened that way.”

“In past seasons we were struggling so hard to survive that we couldn’t afford to worry about who we hurt. But now — and I credit your leadership, Ratha — things are better. We are not so much on the edge. Maybe we can afford to be more understanding. It may have unexpected rewards.”

Ratha eyed him.“You are thinking about Thistle, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

She switched her tail.“Sometimes I wish you didn’t think so much, herding teacher. You’d be easier to live with.”

“I probably would be,” Thakur agreed.

“So you want me to postpone any face-tail hunts. How long?”

“Long enough for Thistle and me to convince you that True-of-voice’s people are not enemies.”

Ratha sighed.“All right. I’ll delay the hunt I’d planned and I’ll explain why to Bira and Khushi. If I have any rash impulses to go shred True-of-voice, I’ll sit on them. ”

“Or talk to me about them,” Thakur suggested.

She grimaced.“I don’t think that even you can make me feel differently about True-of-voice. My belly really doesn’t like him. I’m being patient for your sake, not his.”

“I appreciate that you are being patient. The reason doesn’t matter.”

And I’m doing this for your sake too, Thistle, Ratha thought as she jogged back to the campfire beside Thakur.

Chapter Twelve

For the third time in less than a day, Thakur watched Thistle’s eyes begin to swirl as her body went rigid and started to tremble.

He felt his own heart pound in his chest. He hated seeing this happen to her. He hated it even more when there were others around to witness her helplessness. Luckily, this time, no one was. He had taken her to a little hollow where they could be alone, where she could practice slipping into the dreaming state of mind that was so like that of the hunters.

Instead she was battling a nightmare.

“Come out of it, Thistle,” Thakur yowled as her pupils shrank to black slits in the stormy green sea of her eyes. “You’ve had enough.I’ve had enough.”

Twice before she had managed to pull herself out of the trance before it took her. But this time she was gone where only she could go.

Thakur had chosen this place for another reason. It had a pool. A marshy little wallow of a pool that was more mud than water.

She was starting to jump around, muttering nervously to herself. Thakur grabbed her by the scruff before she could dash off on a mad run, and swung her with a splash into the pool.

“There,” he said. “Now come back to me.”

Her pupils expanded with surprise as she started to thrash in the pool. The water was colder here than in the beach lagoon where she swam. He grabbed her scruff again until he felt her relax.

“Thistle?”

“Y-y-yes?”

She was shivering. He hauled her out and made her shake dry, then spread himself beside her to warm her up.

“Bad again,” she said, looking disconsolately at the ground between her paws. “Every time I go … inside … it … is there.”

Thakur didn’t have to ask what “it” was. He groomed the nape of her neck with his tongue.

“Have to try again,” she said stubbornly.

“Not today,” he answered.

“Yes, today. Have to talk to hunters.”

Thakur groaned.“Thistle, you’re tired.”

“Know. Talking getting not easy. Words running and hiding.”

“Then give it up for now.”

Thistle closed her eyes and let her head sink onto her paws.“Give it up for now,” she muttered. “Try and fail again tomorrow too? Can’t. Others. Him. The hurt one. Means too much.”

“Sh,” he said softly.

“Can’t … sleep… have to … talk….” But by the time the last word had fallen from her tongue, she was deep in slumber.

* * *

The next day was a repeat of the first. The following was the same. Thakur spent all his waking time with Thistle as she sought the pathways inside herself and was driven out by the apparition she called the Dreambiter.

Thakur had lost count of how many times he had watched the sea-green in her eyes swallow her pupils as she struggled in the grip of each fit. He also lost count of how many times he had thrown her into the pool and hauled her out. It was the only way to keep the seizures from claiming her completely.

His legs and belly were encrusted with mud. He was starting to sneeze from the repeated chill. His teeth ached and his mood had soured.

Thistle lay in a sodden puddle on the ground. She was so exhausted after the last attempt that she hadn’t even been able to shake off before collapsing. Thakur was almost glad that she was unconscious again. It meant that she couldn’t try to brave the Dreambiter.

He ran a paw along her side, trying to squeeze the muddy water out of her coat. At least the sun was warm today. It would dry her quickly.

He stared at her funny pointed little face, the eyes now shut, muddy smears on her nose and whiskers. His heart ached for her.Why is it so hard? Why does this wretched Dreambiter have to bar her way?

He watched the water dry on her coat, feeling helpless.This is beyond her. It is beyond me. Perhaps it is beyond all of us.

“Thakur?” said a voice. He lifted his head and stared at — the Dreambiter? His fur bristled before he could flatten it. Then he shook himself. It was just Ratha.Yarr!He was getting so involved in Thistle’s struggle that sometimes he felt as though he, too, could see the nightmare image. It took a shape he knew well.

Ratha crouched by Thistle, gave her a tentative nudge.

“Don’t worry, she won’t wake up. After that last fit, she’s going to be out for a while. You can show her a little affection if you like. She won’t feel it.”

Ratha shot him such a hurt look that he instantly regretted the words.

“I’m sorry,” he said curtly. “Three days of struggling with this hasn’t helped my patience. I shouldn’t take it out on you.”

Ratha put a paw on her daughter and tried to squeeze more water out of her fur.“She’s a mess. You’re a mess. What are you attempting to do?”

“I thought I explained it.” Thakur, trying to groom himself, sneezed into his fur.

“Here, sit down and let me clean you up,” Ratha said. She spat and grimaced after her first lick. “Ugh. That mud tastes awful.”

“I know,” Thakur answered.

“So she’s trying to get herself into that sleepwalking state to talk to the hunters?” she asked. “Is it working?”

“No. Every time she tries, something kicks off another one of her fits.”

“Something?”

“The Dreambiter.”

He saw Ratha shift her gaze, felt an angry twist in his stomach. She was going to back off again, retreat into her clan-leader role.She’s leaving me with the responsibility that should be hers.

“You don’t like to hear that word, do you?” Thakur said, his voice flat.

Ratha yanked a piece of dried clay from his belly. It took some fur with it. She spat it out, then backed away.“I think I’ll come back when you are in a better mood.”

“Are you going to run away again, clan leader?”

“Thakur, I don’t know what kind of burr you’ve got in your coat this time, but—”

“I don’t have a burr. I’ve got your daughter. Your daughter,” he said again. “And I’m fed up with seeing you run away from her.”

He watched Ratha’s eyes narrow. “I gave you what you asked for. I gave you both a chance to talk to the hunters.”

“Yes, you did. I need more than that, Ratha. I need your help.”

He could almost see her closing down inside, becoming remote.“There is nothing I can do,” she said. “If Thistle can’t overcome this …”

“She can’t. Not alone. Not with me either. She needs you.”

“Why? I can’t do anything for her. She doesn’t need a mother. She’s responsible for herself.”

“I want you to face your part in her life,” Thakur snapped. “Who is the Dreambiter, Ratha?”

Again she looked away, and when she looked back, her green eyes were blazing.“Don’t blame that on me, herding teacher. That thing isn’t me. It’s part of her sickness. She dreamed it up. Why, I don’t know. But she made it.”

“Yes, she made it,” Thakur said, his voice steady. “It looks like you.”

Ratha flinched.“I bit her when she was a cub. I know I did. I was impatient. I wanted her to talk, to be like other Named cubs. I couldn’t accept that she wasn’t. I can’t go back and undo everything.” He heard her voice start to tremble. “It is all in the past. You can’t change the past.”

“For Thistle it is not the past. Ratha, I am not trying to blame you. I am only saying that both of you created the Dreambiter. It will take both of you to put it to rest.”

A sudden look came over Ratha’s face, one Thakur had never seen before. He found himself staring at her in fascination and frustration. He had seen her triumphant, angry, grieving, even scared. But never had he witnessed this expression of utter dread that seemed to steal the life from her face and drain the color from her eyes.

Her voice sank to a whisper.“I can’t, Thakur. I’ve given you what I can. A chance. I can’t give any more.”

She was backing, turning tail. A part of her had already fled far away.

“Ratha, please don’t run,” he said softly.

She glanced back at him, a glance so filled with torment that it seemed to hit him like a blow.

“Tell her I was here,” she said, and before Thakur could speak or move, she was gone.

Chapter Thirteen

With Bira and Khushi, Ratha made her way along the outskirts of the face-tail herd. The animals spread over the river plain, and there were some small groups that had broken off from the main herd.

It was the morning of the day following her talk with Thakur. She wasn’t ready to face him again. Nor did she want to see Thistle.

“Surely the hunters won’t bother us here,” said Bira, when the three found several face-tails and their young in a small side valley between two hills.

“We’ve just come to watch the animals,” Khushi reminded her. “Ratha said that we need to learn more before we try to catch one again.”

The clan leader listened to them, feeling slightly guilty. She wasn’t going to break her promise to Thakur, but he had said nothing about scouting the beasts. Well, watching was all they would do, no matter how the creatures tempted her. Anyhow, Thakur wasn’t with them and he was the best at dealing with face-tails.

He was also the only one who could cope effectively with Thistle. He had said he would keep her from trying again to make herself ready to talk with the hunters. There was no reason to, at least for now.

No sooner had she, Bira, and Khushi settled down in the grass to watch the face-tails than Bira’s sharp eyes caught movement in a bush nearby.

“That is definitely not a face-tail,” Bira said. “I think the hunters are spying on us.”

Ratha considered a hasty retreat, but the idea made her hackles rise. Khushi and Bira both agreed with her. They weren’t going to be frightened off by one spy.

“They don’t own the whole face-tail herd,” Khushi said indignantly.

“Perhaps the watcher will just stay hidden and report later,” the more even-tempered Bira suggested. “But I could go and light a torch from the fire-den I dug.”

“No,” Ratha said. She wanted to keep her promise to Thakur. She had disappointed him — and Thistle — in so many ways already. She wasn’t going to add another, although Bira’s offer was tempting. She would like to feed these arrogant hunters a small taste of the Red Tongue.

She turned her attention to watching the face-tails, but it was hard to keep her mind on the big animals.

Maybe Thakur is right. Maybe we should just move on and leave these animals to the hunters. Then we could forget about them, and Thakur wouldn’t need me to help him with Thistle.

“The spy just left,” said Bira, who had been keeping an eye on the suspicious bush. “I think he’s gone to get the others.”

“Let them come,” growled Khushi.

As much as Ratha shared his feelings, she realized that they were at a big disadvantage. And without the Red Tongue…

Bira wanted to bring a torch. I should have let her. But I promised Thakur.

“No,” she said again. “We’re going back to the fire-den. I doubt if they will follow us there, but just in case …”

Quickly she got the two others moving through the long grass. Having to retreat stuck in her throat, and she could tell by the looks on the others’ faces that it stuck in theirs, too.

We are the Named. We shouldn’t let ourselves be chased off by a bunch of sleepwalking hunters. I almost hope they do chase us to the fire-den so we can feed them the Red Tongue!

Khushi, scouting briefly from the top of a hill, reported that the spy from the hunters had indeed gone to fetch some reinforcements. However, they seemed to be content just to make sure the Named had left the face-tail herd.

“We could make another try at a different place in the herd,” he suggested when he got back.

“No, they’ll find us and chase us off again,” Ratha said, disgusted.

“How can they watch the whole herd?” Bira wondered.

“I don’t know. They seem to be very well organized.” Ratha paused, her tail twitching with annoyance. “I think we’re going to have to make a choice. The only way we are going to get near those face-tails is by using the Red Tongue to scare off the hunters.”

“I think we should,” Khushi argued. “I’m fed up with playing hide-in-the-grass.”

“But you said that you made a promise to Thakur not to,” Bira said gently to Ratha, coming alongside her.

“I may have to rethink it. I will talk to him when we get back.”

As Ratha paced toward the camp with the others, she argued with herself.

Most of the Named would say I am justified in using the Red Tongue against True-of-voice and his bunch. We used it against the Un-Named in order to survive. This is the same situation.

She shook herself as she ran. She didn’t need justification. Her rage was enough. True-of-voice was a filthy tyrant and his subjects mindless fools. The world would be better without them. She should set the Red Tongue against them, burn them out.

She drew her lips back from her fangs as she imagined the grass afire on the plain, the hunters and their prey fleeing in terror, or falling, exhausted, and burning to death in the flames.

And then, suddenly, one of those frightened shapes fleeing from the fire in her mind was her daughter. The flames caught up with Thistle, surrounded her, consumed her, leaving her body black and charred….

No! Ratha recoiled from the imagined scene in horror. Not Thistle. Why was she thinking like this?

“Clan leader? Are you … all right?”

The voice beside her was Bira’s. Ratha realized that she had slowed to a stop and was staring straight ahead at nothing.

“I’m all right,” she said, her voice feeling rough in her throat. “Bira, Khushi, go on ahead. I’ll follow.”

Both of them gave her a backward glance as they left. Then she was alone. She checked briefly for any sign of enemies or ambush before she went on slowly, immersed once more in her thoughts.

Again she seemed to look upon the fire-swept ground where the hunters had once been. It was swept clean of them.

Instead of triumph, she felt only horror.

Not only because her daughter had been among those seared by the fire’s touch. The high, waving grass was burned to stubble. The blue sky had gone gray. The whole landscape before her was ashen, hellish with cruelty and the terrible knowledge of what she had done in the name of survival.

Ratha closed her eyes, bent her head in pain. No, no, no… I would never… But she knew that a part of her would.

There was something in her that was as ruthless and relentless as the Red Tongue itself, that burned with hatred and consumed those around her.

There were many who had felt its searing touch. The old clan leader, who had died with a flaming brand jammed through his lower jaw. Thakur’s brother Bonechewer. The Un-Named ones who had fallen in the first battle with fire as a weapon. The cubs she had borne in the litter that included Thistle. The usurper Shongshar, whom she had thrown down in a bitter fight that had nearly cost the life of her friend Fessran. Thistle, who had known the terrible shock and pain of her own mother’s teeth sinking deep into her chest and foreleg.

She had nearly destroyed the Named themselves and she had certainly changed them.

And now the victims would include True-of-voice and his people.

Thistle had a name for the fiery wildness that struck out, not caring who it hurt: the Dreambiter.

The Dreambiter.

No, I am not…. She made it…. I am not….

In the midst of her denial, she heard Thakur’s voice, speaking in her memory.

Ratha, don’t run.

Don’t run from your daughter. Don’t run from yourself.

How can I not run? This part of me hurts, kills, hates…. The Dreambiter. It consumes everything. Soon it will swallow the rest of me.

No. Ratha clamped her jaws together.I don’t have to let it take over. I can fight it. Iwill fight it. I will drive it out of my daughter’s life and out of mine.

Yet it was hard to take those steps along the trail that would lead her back to Thakur; hard to say,Yes, I will help you with Thistle.

She stopped, caught in indecision. The hatred was still there. She still hated the hunters, wanted to burn them. She still dreaded the Dreambiter and dreaded even more the look on Thakur’s face when he realized that she reallywas the Dreambiter.

Thakur, I don’t want you to turn away from me. Please don’t hate me, despite what I am, despite what I’ve done….

She forced herself to take a step, even though her legs felt as though they were sheathed in ice. She shut down all the thoughts in her mind except one as she walked stiffly back toward the camp.

I have to kill the Dreambiter.

Chapter Fourteen

Thakur looked dumbfounded when Ratha stood before him and said the words that she had been practicing all the way along the trail.

“You’ve changed your mind?” he said. “You’ll work with Thistle and me?”

“Yes. Anything to help her get rid of this nightmare.”

Thakur gave her an odd look, and she realized that she had spoken as if the nightmare were also hers. Well, it was.

“Do you mind if I ask you why?”

“Because of what you said to me. I have been running away. Now I’m ready to fight.”

Thakur gave her another strange look, but he seemed to be satisfied. After all, it was he who was asking for her help, not the other way around. Or was it?

Quietly he led her to Thistle, who was having a nap by the dunking pond. Ratha could see that her daughter had obeyed Thakur by not attempting to go into any trances and thus risk the apparition again. Instead, she had rested, and eaten to gain strength. She looked good, her coat better groomed and dry.

When Thistle woke up and saw that Ratha had joined them, she looked a little nervous.

“Must have been hard deciding,” she said, glancing shyly at her mother.

“Yes.”

“Hope you don’t mind… getting wet. Thakur throws me in pond…. Chases the …” She faltered, then went on. “Chases the bad away.”

“Perhaps I won’t have to do that anymore,” Thakur said, with a glance at the pond. “Thistle, Ratha, are you ready?”

Thistle sat up straighter, her whiskers bristling. Ratha realized that she couldn’t tell which of her daughter’s forelegs had been the crippled one. She seemed to use both equally well now.

“I’m ready, although I don’t know exactly what to do,” Ratha said.

In answer, Thakur lay down, forming himself into a half circle around Thistle, his tail lying across hers, his head lifted so that he could look into her eyes.You make the rest of the circle, his eyes seemed to tell Ratha. She arranged herself on the other side of Thistle, draping her tail across Thakur’s and bringing up her forepaws to touch his. Her belly lay against her daughter’s rear foot and flank.

“All right, Thistle. Go … inside,” Thakur said.

The clear green in Thistle’s eyes seemed to shift, as if a cloud were moving across sunlit water. Her breathing grew fast and shallow and her jaw opened as she panted.

Thakur’s voice was soft yet strong. “Don’t be afraid. We’re here. We’re both here.”

Thistle swallowed, but her panting cased. Ratha’s own heart was pounding so hard she thought that Thakur might be able to hear it. Mingled dread and excitement swept through her. At last she was going to meet and battle the enemy.

“Dreaming,” Thistle said in a distant voice. “Caves. Walking. Speaking not easy.”

“Say what you can,” Thakur coaxed.

“Oh!” Thistle gave a sharp indrawn breath.

“What?” Ratha asked, her voice tight with anxiety and eagerness.

“Easy, Ratha,” Thakur said softly, pushing his forefeet against hers.

“Even here. Far away. It comes.”

“The badness?” Thakur asked.

“Oh, no!” Thistle’s face was rapt. “Good. Sweet. Want to follow.”

Thakur looked surprised.“The song? You can hear True-of-voice’s song?”

“Yes. So faint. Want to be closer.”

Thakur leaned closer to Ratha, who was bursting with impatience.“She’s picking up the song, the thing True-of-voice sends out to his people. I’m surprised. They’re pretty far away from us.”

“It won’t hurt her, will it? It won’t take her over?” Ratha’s worry made her whisper harsh. She felt intensely uncomfortable with the idea that the strange leader of the hunters could somehow reach from a distance and lure her daughter. She had thought she would have to fight only one threat. Not two.

“Want to go closer,” Thistle begged.

“Go,” Thakur answered.

A look crept across Thistle’s face that Ratha had rarely, if ever, seen. It was happiness. Pure delight.

“Not walking anymore,” Thistle said. “Swimming. Like… in the sea. But warmer. Softer.” Again she gave a sharp gasp. “Oh! Ahead brightness, shape, color, beauty… sweetness in the ears, the nose, the eyes, the skin, everywhere. No words good enough to say.”

“To say what, Thistle?” Thakur asked gently.

“What it is. What he is. What she is.”

“True-of-voice?”

“More than True-of-voice. Wise ones sing through him. Wise ones now dead sing through him. Fathers, mothers, all sing through him.”

Ratha felt her fur prickle as she listened. Wonder and dread fought inside her. This was stranger than anything she had ever encountered before. And it was in her own daughter! What was Thistle-chaser? More than Named. More than Un-Named. Something else, working through both, had shaped her.

“I’m lost, Thistle,” Ratha heard Thakur say.

“Not lost. Never be lost again.” Her daughter’s voice was breathy. The black of her pupils had gone to tiny slits in swirls of sea-green.

“I mean that I don’t understand.”

“Will tell you. When I come back.”

Come back! She might never come back. Ratha gave Thakur’s forefoot a sharp push to get his attention. “Where’s she going? What is this?”

“I don’t know. She’s never gone this far before,” Thakur admitted. “Having you here has done something.”

“It’s scaring me. Take her out of it.”

“It’s not frightening her. Let her go, Ratha. She knows this path better than you.”

“I don’t want to lose her! Seeing her sitting there, staring at nothing, makes me feel as though I have a million fleas in my fur. She might… just… stay… like that for the rest of her life.”

Thakur started to say something, but Thistle interrupted. Her voice was strangely light and she turned her head to gaze at Ratha, although the remoteness was still in her eyes.

“Do not be afraid, my mother. Can come back if I want. Help me to go on. Need you to help me go on.”

“Thistle, I care too much. I’m frightened. This is too strange. Come back. Please. I–I love you.”

“Must reach where the hunters are to speak to them.”

“I-is it that important to you?”

“Yes. If you give love, give trust too.”

Ratha closed her eyes, pressed her feet against Thakur’s, feeling the answering warmth. “Then I trust you. Go where you must.”

“Not sure about doing. But must try.”

Ratha opened her eyes, fixing her gaze on her daughter as Thistle continued her inward flight. Who had given her this ability? The one called Bonechewer who was her father, the brash and gifted outsider, Thakur’s brother?

Or was the ability from Ratha’s own lineage, a trait that had hidden among her parents and grandparents to emerge now in her daughter?

“Where are you now, Thistle?” Ratha asked, feeling her voice trembling.

“Swimming, but no closer. Sea is getting thick, heavy. Brightness ahead hard to see. Something… coming between.”

Ratha tensed.

Thistle’s voice rose in pitch. “Down deep. Getting cold. Swimming too hard. Have to walk. In the distance, hear footsteps.”

This was it. The long-dreaded enemy was at last making an approach. Ratha saw Thakur squirm closer to Thistle, guarding her, protecting her.

What good will it do when the enemy is inside? Ratha thought in despair, but she also wriggled closer to Thistle.

“Can’t block the way!” Thistle cried out in sudden rage. “Fight you, fire-eyes. Tear you before you can tear me!”

She sank to a crouch, her forepaws sliding out in front of her. She was starting to shake. Ratha could feel it.

And then Thistle began to draw one foot up against her chest, as if the leg that had been healed was being crippled again, right before Ratha’s eyes.

“No, you aren’t going to take her again!” Ratha cried, as if the nightmare could hear her. “Fight it, Thistle. Drive it off!”

But Thistle only seemed to crumple under a terrible weight of pain, her leg pulled tightly against her chest. Ratha felt a storm of rage building inside her against the thing that tortured her daughter.

In her mind she flung herself at the enemy, ripped it with her claws, savaged it with her teeth, and then set it aflame with a torch. In a low, hissing voice, she spoke her battle aloud, and the depth of her hatred. She would kill the Dreambiter a thousand times if she had to, rip out its throat and its guts so that it bled.

But it was Thistle who bled. From an invisible wound. And each time Ratha screamed her rage at the Dreambiter, Thistle drew a little further into a tight ball of pain.

And at last, though Ratha was far from emptied of rage, the sight, the feel, the smell of her daughter’s suffering made her voice break as she cried, “Thistle, I am with you. I hate this thing as much as you do. Fight it … Please fight it.”

But Thistle only huddled and shuddered. Thakur put a paw on Ratha’s nose to quiet her. She jerked her head back, baring her teeth, the wildness and the anger focusing on him, wanting to attack him.

Everything was fierce, wild, flaming. She would hurt, she would kill if she did not get away. It was out of control. She had to run or the fire inside her would destroy Thakur, Thistle, everything.

She was already on her feet, running, not caring where she went. She would charge into the midst of the hunters and go down in a last frenzied battle. She would tear her way through them until she found True-of-voice and locked her teeth in his throat.

And then something heavy landed on her back, squashing her flat. Rage, astonishment, and fear combined in a murderous frenzy and she squirmed wildly, trying to get at her assailant with claws and teeth.

But somehow he managed to pin her down and grab her scruff, pulling her head so far back that all she could do was claw the air. She spat, screeched, and struggled until her throat was raw and she was panting with exhaustion.

“Enough, Ratha?” said a muffled voice above and behind her head.

Hearing Thakur sent her into another wild flurry, but she was too spent to sustain it.

“Can I let your scruff go, or will I get shredded?”

“You’ll get shredded,” she growled, but she was too tired to make the threat real. Thakur released his grip, but stayed on her back.

“Go to Thistle,” Ratha growled.

“Bira’s looking after her. Am I too heavy?”

“Go to Thistle!” she yowled, trying to throw him off. “She’s the one who deserves you. She’s the one who’s hurt.”

“Is she the only one, Ratha?”

His soft voice, his warm weight, the very strength of his presence seemed to enfold her. Yet somehow it could not penetrate the hard center of misery deep in her chest.

“You can heal,” she gasped. “You can help. All I can do is … hate.”

Instead of saying anything, he began licking the fur on her neck.

“Don’t, Thakur,” she said, starting to shake.

“Why not?”

“If you knew what I really am, you wouldn’t.”

She felt his tongue caress her nape again.“I know what you are.”

“The Dreambiter. That’s what I am,” she said bitterly. “I hate the Dreambiter. I want to kill the Dreambiter … yet I am the Dreambiter.”

“Ratha,” Thakur began.

“I think that finding the Red Tongue poisoned me. All I can do is hurt and burn. The Red Tongue is in me. It is getting stronger. Soon it will take the whole of me. It will be all hate and biting and burning.”

“Not all, Ratha.”

“Keep sitting on me, Thakur. I want to rip everything to pieces and I will, if you let me go.” She struggled again, but was almost thankful when he kept her down. “That’s good. Keep sitting on the Dreambiter. Maybe a quick bite to the throat will get rid of her for good.”

“That is only another way to escape.”

“Let me escape, then. Why do you want me? Why would you keep something so dangerous in your midst?”

“Ratha, we are all dangerous. To ourselves and each other. Not just because we have claws and teeth. The Un-Named have those as well. Not even because we have the Red Tongue.”

“Then … why?” Ratha whimpered.

“Because we can hurt and be hurt in new and deeper ways. We are all Dreambiters. And Dreambitten as well. ”

“If that is so, we should all be dead. Maybe the world was never meant for the Named. Or the Named for the world.”

“I don’t think so, Ratha. And you don’t either. You were the one who fought hardest of all to see us live.”

“Maybe I was wrong. If all we can do is birth cubs who have to struggle, like Thistle …”

“And you,” Thakur added softly.

“All right, maybe me,” she said grudgingly. “What difference does it make? It doesn’t help Thistle. I can’t do anything to help Thistle. That’s what drives me so wild. I can’t go near her. I’m afraid I’ll hurt her. Thakur, maybe I’m going to have to go away….”

“No. If you choose escape, no matter what way, she will always have the Dreambiter.”

“But if all I can do is hate the Dreambiter and that doesn’t work, what else is there?”

“I think you have to remember who the Dreambiter is,” said Thakur.

Feeling the bleakness in her belly, she said,“I know who it is.”

“No, you don’t.”

She craned her head around and stared at him, lost.

“You think that it’s all of you. It is only a part of you. And not even the strongest part.”

“No,” she cried, despairing. “You say that because you think I am like you. I’m not, Thakur. You are patient and wise and good and caring. I’m not.”

“Well, I’ll admit you aren’t very patient and you are still learning. But you do care.”

“The Dreambiter doesn’t care. The Dreambiter just … bites.”

“You are like me, Ratha. And because I know you are like me, I can say this. We all have a part that bites. Even me. You’ve seen it. You saw it just a while ago. But the other part, the part you call good and caring, is stronger.”

“In you, maybe,” Ratha muttered.

“No, in you. You have it. It won’t let the Dreambiter take over.”

Ratha was silent, taking long breaths.

“You have it,” Thakur said again. “Trust in it.”

Somehow his words made her tight knot of misery ease.“Maybe…,” she said in a low voice.

“Maybe what?”

“Maybe you can get off me now. I don’t feel so much like ripping up things.”

He eased himself off and let her groom her rumpled fur.“See? I trust your better self,” he said. “You should, too.”

“Just for that, I should give you a swipe across the nose,” Ratha said, shaking herself. “But you’re bigger than I am. Is that what you call my better part?”

“Somewhat. It’s also your common sense.”

Ratha paused.“I need to think. Hard.”

“Do you want me to leave you alone for a while?”

“No, I want you to stay. Don’t say anything. Just sit by me.”

And Thakur did.

Chapter Fifteen

“You will guide me?” Thistle stared at Ratha. The doubt in her eyes made Ratha want to squirm. Or change the decision she had made after thinking a long time. “You, not Thakur?”

“He will help,” Ratha said, “but this time it has to be me.”

Thistle looked away.

“Please, Thistle. I think I understand more now.”

“About you or me?”

“Both,” said Ratha.

“Then lie down around me,” Thistle answered, her voice trembling with a strange mixture of fear and anticipation.

Ratha could not watch her daughter withdraw into herself. Instead she fixed her gaze on Thakur. He pressed one of his forefeet against hers in silent support.

She waited, and at last it came — she heard the footsteps of the Dreambiter, echoing in Thistle’s voice. Again Ratha found herself bristling with anger against the unseen enemy, but she knew now that rage could not drive off the apparition.

She knew that for Thistle, she existed in two parts: the flesh-and-blood mother with a tawny coat and an uncertain temperament, and the fire-eyed punisher that lurked in the caverns to ambush the wandering self. She was both and neither.

As she wriggled close to her daughter, she could feel Thistle’s pounding heartbeat shaking her small frame. Thakur, on the other side, moved closer, too, helping to encase Thistle in a shield of warm fur and life. Yet the deadly thing — the deathly thing — was inside, beyond reach.

Tell Thistle to flee? To fight? Ratha suddenly didn’t know. Her decision, her plans — all somehow crumbled when faced with the small figure who trembled and whose foreleg was starting to draw up against her chest.

“Where are you, Thistle?”

“In the caves. Hearing the footsteps. Want to run.”

“No,” Ratha said. “Stay.”

“Wait for attack.” Thistle’s voice was leaden with the inevitability of pain.

Hearing it, Ratha rebelled. She would not let the drama end as it had already a hundred times before. But she had no plan. Just the feelings that twisted her belly and a stubbornness that refused to let her daughter suffer more.

“No,” Ratha said, and then added softly, “Call the Dreambiter.”

“Call … But then it comes faster. Pain… sooner …”

“Call it,” Ratha said again. “Call … her.”

“Too frightened. Don’t want it.” Thistle’s voice was starting to become high and panicky.

“What happens when the Dreambiter comes?” Ratha asked gently.

“Hurts. Has to hurt.”

“What if it didn’t hurt?”

“Has to hurt. Is what Dreambiter is for. Has to hurt. If not me, then …”

“Then what, Thistle?”

“Then … others.”

“Who?”

“Mishanti. Thakur. Fessran.” Thistle paused. “You,” she whispered in a tight voice.

“If the Dreambiter is inside, how can it come out and hurt others?” Ratha asked.

“Takes my claws, my teeth. My … cleverness too. Could kill,” Thistle added.

The cold flatness of her voice made Ratha shiver. The implied threat was not empty. Ratha remembered her struggle with a maddened Thistle-chaser on the wave-washed rocks. Her daughter had come frighteningly close to killing her.

Thistle moaned, and the green swirling in her eyes expanded.“It … coming.” Her limbs started to jerk and twitch as if she were trying to run away.

“Call to the Dreambiter,” Ratha urged, following an impulse she didn’t understand.

“Coming anyway; why call?”

“Call it to you. Call … her.”

“Might come out… try to hurt.”

Ratha suppressed a shiver.“Call her anyway.”

Thistle closed her eyes, lifted her muzzle, spoke in a quaver.“Dreambiter, come. Tired of waiting, tired of fearing.”

“Good. More,” Ratha coaxed.

“Come to me, fire-eyes. No more hiding. Biting… not the worst part.”

“What is the worst part, Thistle?”

“Knowing who you are, Dreambiter.”

The answer startled Ratha. For an instant she thought her daughter was deliberately provoking her, then she realized that she had somehow become the apparition’s voice. Again she rebelled, angered and grieved that Thistle could not get beyond that image. But this time she refused to give in to the anger.

Knowing who you are. Wandering alone in the caverns, fire blazing in my eyes. Oh, how I wanted to love you when you were young, Thistle, but I thought you would never speak, would never know me, would never be able to love in the way the Named do.

“Call me, Thistle,” she whispered, her throat dry.

“Call hurting part? Part that would bite and burn?”

“Call me,” Ratha said. “And tame me.”

“Can’t.”

“Yes, you can. Tell me you are not afraid. Tell me you are stronger than I am.”

Thistle had been starting to crumple again, curling inward. Now she shoved both forepaws ahead of her, as if propping herself up.

“Am stronger than you, Dreambiter.”

“You won’t let me out. You won’t let me hurt.”

“No. Come, Dreambiter.”

“I am coming,” Ratha said softly, watching Thistle. She could almost imagine herself in the shape and form of the dream image, pacing through the caverns toward a distant shape.

I want… so much. That is why it hurts.

Come to me, terrifying one, beloved one. I hear Thistle call. Come even if you rend me. You are a part of me even as I am of you. One flesh, one lineage… one pain.

The Dreambiter hurts, too.

“I need you,” Thistle said.

“I am coming. But I do not know what I will do when I reach you.”

In a dreamy but intense voice, Thistle spoke, her face rapt.“See you now. Your coat… black, eyes orange. You… more powerful than ever but now you are beautiful. You leap….”

Thistle broke off with a gasp and a violent jerk. Ratha feared she was going into one of her fits, but she seemed to recover herself and went on.

“Leaped right at me as if … going to attack. Landed on me, but did not weigh me down. Instead… soaking into me … like drop of water falling on my coat.”

Thistle shook her head. She had lost the entranced look and had come outside herself. And she stared at Ratha in perplexity.

“What happened?” Ratha asked.

“Not know, exactly. Except that it … wasn’t bad. Was afraid, then … everything changed.”

“You didn’t go into a fit this time. Does that mean that the Dreambiter is … gone?” Ratha asked hopefully.

“No, not gone,” Thistle said, looking thoughtful. “But somehow… changed.” Her jaws gaped in a sudden yawn.

“Well, I think we’ve gotten somewhere,” said Thakur. “I’m not sure exactly where, but perhaps things will sort themselves out.” He got up, stretched until his tail quivered.

“So sleepy,” Thistle mumbled. “Don’t know why.”

Ratha nudged Thistle so that her drooping head lay against Ratha’s belly. The rest of her curled up in the circle of Ratha’s limbs, and soon her sides began rising and falling in a long, regular rhythm.

“I was going to ask you if you wanted to take a walk, clan leader,” Thakur said, “but I guess you won’t be able to.”

“No,” said Ratha, gazing down at the sleeping Thistle and thinking of what she had looked like as a nursling. “I won’t be able to go. But I don’t mind. Even if she snores a little. Isn’t that funny?”

“Dreambiters can be comfortable to sleep on,” said Thakur, and walked off, swinging his tail.

* * *

Ratha was surprised when Thakur told her later the same day that Thistle’s struggles with the Dreambiter were far from ended. Yes, they had made a beginning, and a good one, but nightmares that had been building for a lifetime would not be banished by a single healing encounter.

She began to see the truth of his warning that evening as she watched Thistle make her strange inward journeys, her eyes lit by firelight, seeking a trancelike state that would let her“ speak” to the hunters and hear their guiding song.

Sometimes the inward path was clear; more often the Dreambiter lurked and Thistle had to fight her way past. The only evidence of the struggle was the language of Thistle’s body and the words she spoke. At times her speech was more eloquent than Ratha thought her capable of. At other times the words were so broken and tumbled that even Thakur, with all his patience and insight, could make little of them.

Yet something had changed. No longer was Thistle a helpless victim, fleeing from the apparition every time it struck. Now the contest was more even, and an attempted trance did not have to end in a fit.

Even so, Ratha did not expect to hear Thistle say that she was ready to try again to speak to the hunters. It was the following evening, and the Named crouched around the fire that Bira tended.

“It has only been two days,” Ratha said, startled herself at how short the time had been. To try to talk to the hunters before the Dreambiter had been completely mastered seemed to be inviting disaster. “I know I am the impatient one,” she admitted. “But maybe it would be better to give yourself a few more days, Thistle. ”

“Won’t help,” Thistle said bluntly. “Have gone as far as possible alone or with you and Thakur. Need the hunters. Before they and the face-tailed animals go away. ”

“Go away?” Ratha asked, puzzled.

“Sense a stirring. Hunters and prey. Moving. Long ways.”

“How do you know?”

“Feel it. In the song.”

“I think she’s right, Ratha,” said Thakur, who was lying on the other side of her. He looked to Khushi. “You’ve been keeping watch on the face-tail herd. Didn’t you tell me that the beasts might be preparing to migrate?”

“Yes. They seem restless,” the scout replied.

“Hunters will follow,” Thistle added.

“You are sure that it is not just the hunters who plan to go?” Ratha said, thinking that if the other group would disappear and leave the face-tail herd, the Named could take an animal without interference.

“Would be happy thing for you if hunters just went away,” Thistle said, a little bitterly. “No. Both will go. Soon. Need to speak before then.”

“All right.” Ratha sighed. “When?”

“Morning. Tomorrow.”

“Thakur?” Ratha looked to the herding teacher.

“Thistle thinks she is ready. I agree,” he said softly.

“Will you be going with her? Or do you want me?”

“Neither.” It was Thistle who answered, not Thakur.

Immediately Ratha began to bristle.“Now wait. No one said anything about you going by yourself.”

“Have to,” Thistle replied calmly. “You and Thakur can’t think like hunters. Get chased away. Not me. Did it once before,” she added, with a trace of smugness that irritated Ratha.

“Yes, you did. And if I’d known about it, I would have stopped you. It was just luck that you didn’t get killed the first time.”

“Not luck,” retorted Thistle. “Quiet Hunter. Helped him. They knew.”

“Thakur,” Ratha began, appealing to the herding teacher, but he only put his nose down on his paws, pointing toward Thistle.

She stared again at her daughter, wondering how that scrawny, scruffy-coated little body could contain such a determined spirit.

She knows full well that she doesn’t have to obey me since she isn’t a member of the clan.

“Will be careful,” Thistle said. “Don’t want to get hurt.”

“All right,” Ratha said at last. “But Bira and I are going to back you up with torches. We’ll stay out of sight, but if anything happens, you get your tail out of there and let us handle the fighting.”

“Won’t be fighting,” Thistle said, sounding exasperated. She turned her intense gaze on Ratha, and the words she had spoken earlier seemed to sound again in Ratha’s mind.If you love, give trust too.

The problem is, Ratha thought as she studied the expression on that stubborn little face, can I trustthem?

Chapter Sixteen

Thistle wrinkled her nose as she stood by Thakur in the shelter of some low brush. Her mother and the Firekeeper Bira had insisted on bringing the smoke-breathing thing they called the Red Tongue. Luckily the wind was blowing the acrid scent away from the plain where the face-tails grazed.

The hunters had taken and feasted on another animal. The meat smell was heavy in the wind.

“There,” said Thakur quietly, staring toward a lone male who was walking stiffly across the open grass. “That’s Quiet Hunter, isn’t it?”

Thistle looked eagerly in the same direction. She liked Quiet Hunter and had missed him, perhaps more than she’d realized. She wanted to bound out to meet him, but decided that a cautious approach was probably better.

Glancing back she saw Bira tending a small fire in a cleared area while Khushi laid out sticks to serve as torches if the need arose. Ratha was overseeing the preparations.

Thistle took in the scene with mixed feelings. It was good that her mother and the others wanted to protect her. But they could ruin everything if they ran out into the midst of Quiet Hunter’s people with torches.

“Make sure… fire carriers stay here,” she said to Thakur. “Don’t want them… unless fighting happens. And it shouldn’t.”

He promised that he would, and Thistle left the sheltering thicket and walked toward Quiet Hunter.

Her heart felt as though it were slamming around inside her ribs, like a trapped creature seeking a way out. Would the others accept her again? Or would they remember that she had behaved strangely the first time, falling into a fit and then fleeing. Would Quiet Hunter remember that she had cared for him, tried to heal him? Or would he sense her difference and turn on her, or worse yet, summon the others to drive her away?

As she approached the young male, she saw others take notice. Heads turned and muzzles pointed in her direction, but no one rose to challenge. Without turning his gaze toward her, Quiet Hunter seemed to know she was there. He stopped walking and stood still, as if waiting.

Almost shyly, she came up and touched noses with him. The coolness of his nose leather, the brush of his whiskers, the scent of his fur seemed to draw Thistle inward, away from her outside self. She did not have to initiate the journey into trance. It just seemed to happen.

She knew an instant of fear, for she sensed that she was back in the depths where the Dreambiter prowled. But something coming from Quiet Hunter seemed to hold the apparition away, letting her move forward on the path toward a distant voice and a haunting song.

At last he spoke to her.“There is rejoicing. One who gave care and healing has come back.”

An upsurge of affection made Thistle rub her head against his, words spilling from her.“Didn’t want to run away. Fond of Quiet Hunter. Wanted to stay and help. Got afraid. Of things inside.”

“Things inside can frighten and hurt most of all,” said Quiet Hunter. “But the song heals. Quiet Hunter likes …” He faltered, puzzled. “The words that belong. They are not known.”

“Thistle-chaser,” she said, knowing that in his strange way, he was asking for her name. “Easier to say just Thistle.”

“Quiet Hunter likes Thistle,” he answered, his eyes glowing.

“And Thistle likes Quiet Hunter,” she said, rubbing herself alongside him, her eyes closed in happiness. When she opened them again, she was startled to see that others had come up and were standing in a circle around her and Quiet Hunter.

Again she felt a flash of panic and the distant thread of the song was interrupted by the echoing roar of the Dreambiter.

“Do not be afraid,” said Quiet Hunter. “All know of the help and the healing. All wish to touch noses and share the song. Bent Whiskers wishes to be first.”

Hesitantly Thistle turned to the old female whose kinked whiskers had earned her the name. She brought her muzzle up to the other’s, breathed her scent. And as she did, she thought the song that was singing deep inside grew stronger.

Next was Tooth-broke-on-a-bone. As Thistle touched his nose and breathed his scent, the song increased again, not only in power, but in clarity and beauty.

With each greeting, each recognition, the strength of the internal melody grew, but never became unbearable. Thistle’s spirit leaped in wild joy. Quiet Hunter and his people were her brothers and sisters. These ones knew her in a way that the Named never could. And they had a gift that all of the cleverness and eloquence of the Named could not equal — a wordless acceptance that wrapped her in warmth and liftedher spirit to dizzying heights.

The song soared within her, joining her with those who also heard and were seized by its power. Fright, doubt, uncertainty were all swept away by the golden voice.

Nearly breathless with awe and joy, she turned to the last of those in the circle. Quiet Hunter did not have to say the words that belonged to this one. Thistle already knew who he was.

True-of-voice.

Trembling, she touched her nose to the leader’s and felt the song surge within her. No longer was it one voice, but many. The image of True-of-voice became overlapped by others — an even grayer male, a pure-white female, and more, who faded into the distance.

See those who came before, said the song. Those who were once True-of-voice — the grandsire, the granddam, the ones in whom the song flowed. They still sing in the one who is now True-of-voice, carrying their wisdom beyond death.

She listened to the song and learned the nature of Quiet Hunter’s people.

True-of-voice did not rule the hunters. He did not need to. There was no requirement for obedience. Every act was obedience, because nothing else was possible. The song guided, shaped, and healed. There was nothing else but the song. It filled, it soothed, it brought peace, it brought rapture. One didn’t have to want; one didn’t even have to have a self to want, for everything needed was given in abundance.

She offered herself gladly in return and rejoiced.

Chapter Seventeen

Thistle had eventually fallen asleep by Quiet Hunter, and the others had wandered off to nap or groom. But Quiet Hunter lay awake, full of questions that would not go away, even when the song was well heard.

What was behind Thistle’s eyes? Sometimes it seemed the same as what lay behind the eyes of his own people. Sometimes it seemed so different.

What makes her give healing and comfort? Quiet Hunter wondered. True-of-voice and the song had no answers for this.

He wanted to give Thistle something in return. So much that it hurt like a bone chip in the belly.

Behind Thistle’s eyes lay something that cared for Quiet Hunter. Something more than her voice, the color of her fur, the way she moved, the depth of her gaze.

If she were killed and torn apart to find this thing, he thought, it would not be found.

Sweat came to his paw pads, and prickles woke beneath his fur at the thought that what was behind Thistle’s eyes might cease to be if she were killed.

These thoughts were all new, all disturbing. There were no words in the song for them. There never had been.

Thistle stirred and woke up.“Quiet Hunter?” she asked after a while. “Feel I have done something … bad to you.”

A surge of impatience kept Quiet Hunter silent.

I,I… What is thisI? I’s and ifs and me’s. Meaningless!

It was all tangled up. Words, thoughts, everything. No sense was left. The only sense lay in the song.

Go back to it, Quiet Hunter scolded himself. Forget everything else.

“You … looking at me in … funny way. Why?” Thistle asked, but Quiet Hunter couldn’t answer.

Me. Looking… at… me, he thought. You looking at me.You is Quiet Hunter. Looking at is done with the eyes.Me — the mystery at the center.

And then, with a quiet shattering, the mystery fell away. It was Thistle. But not just Thistle.Me was what was looking out through her eyes. That was what Quiet Hunter wanted in her.

First, he sensed, he had to find it in himself.

He said the word softly. It was dry in his mouth.“Me.”

Thistle wanted to stop. This was not the right way for Quiet Hunter. The way of the song was the right way.

But once a hunt like this is begun, it cannot be abandoned, thought Quiet Hunter. He was looking out through his own eyes and speaking new words.

She said,“Your eyes are changing, Quiet Hunter.” Thistle sounded regretful, almost fearful. He knew what she was thinking.

I don’t want your eyes to change. Go back to where you were meant to be. With True-of-voice. With the song.

But even if you did not want Quiet Hunter’s eyes to change, Thistle, you caused it anyway. Just by being what you are, saying the words you say.

Quiet Hunter knew that his eyes had been opened. Even he could not close them again.

Chapter Eighteen

In the Named camp, Ratha watched Bira kindle a morning fire.We don’t really need it, Ratha thought,but Bira likes to keep to her routine. Besides, it was good to renew the Red Tongue’s embers each day so that they stayed hot.

She turned her thoughts to the face-tails. If the Named wanted one, they would have to capture it before the herd departed, as Thistle said it would. The hunters still would not allow the Named to approach the beasts. Thistle had tried her best, Ratha had to admit, but the differences in understanding between those who followed True-of-voice and those who followed her were too great even for Thistle to cross.

What was the next step? Should the Named take what they needed by means of fire?

Ratha stared at the flames, remembering how she had found the Red Tongue and used it against threats to her people. The choice to use fire had never been easy. This time it was much more difficult.

She wanted to delay, yet she couldn’t. All too soon, Thistle had told her, the face-tail herd would start its migration. The hunters would go with it.

If Thistle chose to stay with them, she might go as well. Ratha could not bear to think about that.

As she sat watching the fire, Khushi trotted up with a grouse in his jaws. She stared at him and lifted her tail in a wordless question. When had Khushi learned to hunt?

“Thakur caught it,” the scout confessed. “But he’s teaching me how. He thought you might like a meal, clan leader.”

The growling in Ratha’s stomach came more from uneasiness and worry about her daughter than from hunger, but to show her appreciation, she took the grouse and shared it with Bira.

While she was eating, Khushi relayed a report from Thakur.“He thinks that True-of-voice’s people will hunt once more before the herd starts to migrate,” the scout said. “In fact, he thinks the hunt will happen today.”

Ratha sneezed out a mouthful of feathers before she could reply. She left the rest of the grouse to Bira, who was better at dealing with feathered prey.

“We’ll join Thakur,” she said. “This is a good opportunity.”

“To do what, clan leader? We can’t catch a face-tail.”

“No. I promised Thistle that we wouldn’t and I will keep that promise. But the other clan hasn’t forbidden us to watch.”

Khushi groaned.“That’s all I have been doing.”

“Well, I want to see how True-of-voice’s people hunt. Thakur says they might have picked up some ideas from Thistle.”

“Unless they are hunting seamares, I don’t know what good her ideas would do them,” grumbled Khushi.

Bira raised her muzzle from her feathery meal and spoke quietly.“Thistle knows about more than seamares. She survived by herself for a long time.”

“All right, so I’m wrong again,” said Khushi. “If we are going to watch, clan leader, let’s hurry.”

“Sorry to rain on your fur, scout,” Ratha said, “but you and Bira are staying here. I only want two of us watching the hunters. They are already wary of us, and I don’t want to endanger Thistle. If they get irritated with us, they could turn on her. I may not agree with everything Thistle does, but I realize that she has risked a lot to be accepted by the hunters. Any mistake on our part could ruin everything she’s done.”

“Then I’ll help Bira with the fire,” said Khushi, who was never in a bad mood for long.

“If you need help, send for us,” said Bira quietly.

Ratha noticed that the Firekeeper and her treeling had laid out resin-filled branches so that firebrands would be quickly available if needed. Bira was probably the most reliable one among the Named, Ratha thought. She rarely made a fuss and she had developed an effective partnership with her treeling, Biaree. They worked so efficiently together that they seemed to be done with tasks before they even started.

I hope I won’t need you, Bira, but thank you anyway, Ratha thought as she left.

She met Thakur on the knoll near their camp. At a ground-eating pace he led her up one of the little valleys that opened onto the plain, down a rugged gully, then up and over the top of a ridge of wooded hills. From a viewpoint just below the crest, where the trees thinned out, Ratha saw some face-tails bunched together in a tight group. Behind the great beasts, in a bow-shaped line, were the hunters.

“I’ve never seen True-of-voice’s people do that before,” Ratha said, puzzled.

“I haven’t either.”

They both moved closer, paralleling the hunters and the driven band of prey. Soon Ratha could see that the land was a tilted plateau. The beasts were being driven up-slope.

“There are cliffs ahead,” said Thakur. “If the hunters do what I think they are planning, they will drive the herd over the edge.”

“The whole herd? That sounds wasteful.” The idea of seeing so many of the great beasts crashing down from the drop-off disturbed Ratha. “Are you sure they picked this up from Thistle?”

“The hunters saw what happened when she was being chased by a face-tail. I did, too. She jumped off a bluff and the face-tail followed. The fall wasn’t far. Thistle wasn’t hurt, but the face-tail was so big and heavy that the fall crippled it. Then it was easy for them to make the kill.”

Ratha cantered alongside Thakur, increasing her speed to compensate for his long legs and greater stride.“Thistle said that they didn’t learn from outsiders. The only thing they follow is this ‘song,’ and only True-of-voice can make it.”

“Although the song itself comes from True-of-voice, it can include things from any of the others,” Thakur said. “Thistle has become part of their group. True-of-voice may walk around in a trance most of his life, but he is not stupid. If he senses something of value in one of his people, he will use it.”

“Or misuse it,” Ratha added. “I don’t like the idea of killing more than you can eat. I wish we’d thought about that before we let Thistle in among them.”

Even if we had, would it have made any difference?she wondered.Once I made the decision not to let these hunters alone, I had to find some way of dealing with them. The Red Tongue was one possible way, and Thistle was another. The trouble is, these ways have effects that I can’t control.

Ratha and Thakur angled in toward the driven face-tails, staying downwind in the high grass to keep themselves hidden from the hunters. The musty, rank odor of the face-tails was sharp in Ratha’s nose. The beasts could not gallop, but their lumbering trot made a rumble that filled the air and shook the ground beneath her paw pads.

The noise grew and swelled, rising like the cloud of rolling dust sent up by the herd. Shrill, brassy trumpeting broke through the thudding rumble, giving voice to the beasts’ terror. They were being hunted in a way they had never been hunted before and they knew it.

“Faster,” Thakur yowled beside her. “The hunters have got the herd in a stampede.” He seemed to sail over the grass as if he were a swift, low-flying bird.

The bawling, the stamping, the thunderous commotion seemed to surround Ratha. For an instant she panicked, thinking that she and Thakur had somehow blundered into the midst of the rampaging animals.

And then Thakur yowled at her again, and she bounded to one side and saw that they were out of the herd’s path.

“Ahead … the cliff,” he panted. “Back there … the hunters.”

Ratha reared up on her hind legs for a quick look. The bow of hunters around the mass of face-tails was deepening, closing, forcing the animals toward the drop-off. True-of-voice’s people might not think and learn in the same way as the Named, but in some ways they were even more effective. Ratha had no doubt that they would kill every face-tail in the group. The thought chilled her spine as she dropped down again beside Thakur.

And it was my Thistle who showed them how.

The dusty haze turned the hunters into a grim line of shadows. She did not want to think that one of them might be her own daughter.

No, Thistle would not be a part of such wasteful killing… unless she has been so completely overwhelmed by True-of-voice that she has forgotten herself.

She heard the angry trumpeting of a face-tail turn into an anguished scream. With a rattle of rocks the first animal to reach the cliff plunged over. Another followed, unable to stop. And another and another in a cataract of shaggy fur and flesh, tumbling down with terrible cries and the sounds of heavy flesh meeting stone.

Though the first animals ran over blindly, the ones behind realized their danger and fought to stop. But others collided with them, pushing them over the cliff.

Only the face-tails at the rear of the herd had any chance to veer away or halt their maddened rush.

But the hunters would not allow any to escape. With cold ferocity, they lunged and slashed at the face-tails’ legs. Blood mixed with the roiling dust. Some animals tried to use their tusks, but they were too tightly crowded against the bodies of their fellows to do more than toss their heads and flail their trunks.

“Ratha, watch the edge!” Thakur cried. She bounded away with sweaty paw pads, realizing how close she had come to the brink. She crouched with him behind a pile of boulders to one side of the drop-off. Pressed close against him, she felt his sides rise and fall while the smell of carnage drifted up from below the cliff.

Now only three face-tails fought for their lives against the closing ring of hunters: an old bull, a female, and her calf. Relentlessly the hunters pressed them closer to the edge.

Ratha felt herself shiver. True-of-voice’s people were already frighteningly effective under his guidance. With the new knowledge gained from Thistle, they were now deadly. She felt a crazy impulse to run between the hunters and their doomed prey. The contest had become too unbalanced, too cruel….

The face-tail bull, his hide gashed by many claws and teeth, backed too close to the cliff edge. The rock and soil crumbled beneath his weight. With a brassy scream he, too, was gone, leaving only the female and her calf to face the hunters.

Her jaws opening in dismay, Ratha stared at True-of-voice, who was at the center of the hunters’ line.

Do you have to kill all of them?

But what had been set in motion could not be stopped, even by the one who had created it. The song possessed them all and it was filled with the need to attack and slaughter, even after there was enough meat to fill their bellies many times over.

Thistle had said it. The hunters repeated what they had already done, unable to stop or change. Perhaps that had served them well in the past, but if they continued to hunt like this, they would destroy the prey that sustained them.

But the song would not allow any questions, any doubts.

The face-tail calf screeched in terror as the hunters flanking True-of-voice engulfed it and dragged it away from the enraged mother. The female’s roar of anger turned to a roar of grief as the calf’s shrilling was abruptly cut off. The shaggy animal charged the hunters twice and was repelled easily, for they were prepared for her desperate attempt to rescue her calf.

What they were not prepared for was the face-tail’s attack on True-of-voice. As if the great beast sensed that he was the source of the will that drove the hunters, she turned on him.

Ratha, hidden, saw instantly that True-of-voice had been left dangerously unprotected by the others in their eagerness to bring down the face-tail calf. Now, with yowls of dismay, they sprang to his defense, but too late. The face-tail shook off their attacks. True-of-voice sought to escape, but the flailing, beating trunk found him and wound about his leg.

It flipped the gray leader on his back and dragged him to the edge of the abyss. Raking the face-tail’s forehead with his back claws and twisting around to drive his foreclaws into the rocks and dirt, True-of-voice mounted a frenzied battle.

From behind the hunters’ line, Ratha saw two figures charge through — the male called Quiet Hunter and her own Thistle. With a roar, she leaped from cover to her daughter’s side. She heard Thakur follow. Flattening her ears, she snaked her head around, ready to launch an attack on anyone who threatened Thistle. No one did. All gazes were locked on the cliff edge, the female face-tail, and True-of-voice.

Slowly, relentlessly, the leader of the hunters was being dragged backward, his claws leaving trails in the dirt. Quiet Hunter and others grabbed him by the scruff and the paws, but the vengeful face-tail was stronger. Her eyes reddened by rage, her black, shaggy pelt stained with blood, the beast wrenched True-of-voice from his rescuers. With a jerk she pulled him to the brink and flung him over.

The face-tail unleashed the rest of her wrath against the ones who had tried to save their leader. Ratha heard Thistle screech in dismay as a vicious downswing of the face-tail’s trunk clubbed Quiet Hunter in the ribs and sent him tumbling to one side.

And then, as if she had made her choice, the red-eyed, shaggy-pelted animal pivoted on the brink and let herself topple to join her slaughtered companions below. With a hail of rocks, she was gone, and the dust was already settling on the bloodied and torn ground where True-of-voice had fought for his life.

* * *

To Thistle, the song screamed in a blending of voices high and low. It was True-of-voice himself and all those that sang through him. The fierce hunting sound of the song turned into the sound of terror, a fang thrust through the mind. Then all was bleak and quiet.

She had been in the center of the song, rushing with Quiet Hunter to defend the beloved singer. Now she was snatched away, thrust back into the caverns inside herself. They were no longer jeweled and shimmering with the light of the song. As if a vaulted arch had fallen in, blocking the sun rays from above, all went dark. The shadows took possession. And shadows were where the Dreambiter prowled.

What had been a haven for her was now a threat. She fled outward, as if the rumble behind her were the sound of a cave-in. Yet the paths to the outside, once well-known, had become little-used and forgotten. Like the hunters, she, too, was trapped, and though she ran to the side of the beloved one who had fallen under the face-tail’s strike, she could not break through to him. She could only fling herself against the inward walls that would not yield to either panic or rage. And soon, close behind her, she heard the echoing growl of the Dreambiter.

* * *

The battle was over. Finished. Ratha let out the breath she was holding, moved legs that felt as though they had been frozen. Thakur was already urging her away silently, with pressure from his body. She resisted, looking frantically for Thistle. Her daughter was there, crouching beside a breathless and dazed Quiet Hunter.

The other hunters looked dazed, too, even though they hadn’t been struck by the face-tail. They milled in confusion at the edge of the drop-off, as if unable to comprehend what had happened.

In an instant everything had changed. True-of-voice was gone. Had the song gone with him?

Ratha saw the answer in the shocked and stricken look in Thistle’s eyes, in the way Quiet Hunter, who had been the bravest of the hunters in his attempt to free True-of-voice, now lay shaking and helpless on the ground.

True-of-voice was gone. Without him as the source of the song that moved and shaped their actions, the hunters were as helpless as newborn cubs.

Ratha felt a bleakness within her and a sense of horror as she watched the hunters turn to one another, lost and frightened, perhaps for the first time in their lives. And Thistle… her Thistle … shared their loss, their agony. Thistle’s agony was overwhelming her as well. Ratha knew how deeply her daughter cared for Quiet Hunter.

But isn’t this what you wanted; isn’t this what you worked for? a voice spoke inside her.You said you wanted the hunters dead. Without True-of-voice, they essentially are. There is no opposition now. The Named will prevail.

She suddenly wished that things had not happened this way. True-of-voice did not deserve this. Nor did his people. Nor her daughter.

Thakur moved closer to her, silently communicating his presence, his support. He was the one who knew Thistle best. She wanted to ask him to go to her daughter and offer the comfort that she could not.

Let him comfort her so that I can back away… again, she thought miserably. But then suddenly something flamed up inside her, as hot and strong as the Red Tongue itself.No. I’m not going to shy away from her any longer. I care too much about her.

Ratha glanced warily at the hunters, wondering if she should avoid them, but they were all so preoccupied with the loss of their leader that they could only sit and stare or walk in dazed circles. All she got was a puzzled look or a halfhearted growl as she made her way through them toward her daughter.

Thistle, who had been crouching beside Quiet Hunter, raised her muzzle and stared directly at Ratha. It was hard for Ratha to keep walking toward her, to keep gazing into her eyes. Her overwhelming urge was to veer off, to drop her gaze, to run.

But Ratha met the sea-green stare and felt the grief deep within it. Forgetting everything else, she bounded to her daughter. With a wild flurry of her heart, she saw Thistle leap toward her — not to attack in protest or anger, but to bury her head against Ratha’s chest.

Flinging her paws about her daughter, the leader of the Named gathered Thistle to her, holding her fiercely.

Thistle, my cub, my walker on strange trails. Come to me. Whatever harms you, I will fight it; whatever hurts you, I will heal it. I am the one who birthed you and wounded you. Now let me help you.

The thickness in her throat made her half purr, half growl as she said softly,“Tell me.”

Thistle’s voice was ragged, broken. Her ribs heaved as she gasped, “True-of-voice. The song. Ended. Everything. Gone. Lost. Left only … hurt.”

“Not everything has ended for you,” Ratha said. “I know you care about Quiet Hunter and his people. I know the song was important, even if I didn’t understand it.”

“Can’t live if song ends!” Thistle cried, barely able to speak. Her eyes were swirling, her pupils remote. She began to shake, with the same sort of shuddering that was racking Quiet Hunter. Thakur was crouched down beside the young male, trying all his healing skills to soothe and calm him.

“Yes you can,” Ratha said, gently but firmly. “You can walk both their trails and ours. Come back from the strange trails, my Named one.”

“Not Named,” Thistle said in a low moan. “Inside, no names, no knowing.” Her voice faltered, faded.

Ratha sensed that her daughter was slipping into the same abyss of helpless despair that was claiming the hunters. With a rising despair of her own, she knew she would lose Thistle. Unless…

“Thistle-chaser. That is your name. I gave it to you. I’ll be meat for maggots if I let you refuse it! As Named and leader of the Named, I command you to come back to me, my Thistle-chaser.”

But the only answer was in the strangely swirling eyes with their shifting green sea.

In the endless dark, where dread sent her fleeing toward madness, something suddenly loomed ahead. Not so much seen, but heard and felt. Her name, spoken in her mother’s voice.

Her name shone ahead. Thistle. Thistle-chaser. Named and spoken and known.

She who could run on many paths remembered the ones she had run among the Named. She launched herself toward the inside cavern wall that had once been unyielding and suddenly she was through, from inside herself to outside, from ocean into air, from entrancement to awareness. She gasped, taking a huge breath as if she had risen from beneath a murky sea into sharp, clear air.

She blinked as if she had indeed been swimming in the salt ocean instead of a sea of the mind. But what stung her like ocean brine and made her eyes run was not salt, but mixed joy and grief.

Joy because she felt her mother’s caring, the power in the forelegs that embraced her, the fire of body and spirit that surrounded her, the raw devotion in a voice that said she was Named and known and deeply loved….

Grief as well, because outside the protective circle that Ratha and Thakur formed about her, she saw True-of-voice’s people. Some were pacing in circles, others huddled and shuddering like Quiet Hunter. Some were in mindless fights, as if what they had just lost had been stolen and could be wrestled back.

She could run on paths inside and outside. The dream-walking hunters could not. They were trapped inside, in caverns that had once echoed with the beauty of the song, but now held only emptiness.

They who were fearless killers were now parentless cubs. For them the world had become a wilderness, the wind keening with unanswered questions.

And among them, trapped in emptiness, was Quiet Hunter.

When she pushed gently against her mother’s clasp, Ratha let her go and, apparently understanding, gave her a gentle nudge toward Quiet Hunter. Thakur gave her a brief welcoming lick, then moved aside to let her get close to the stricken young male.

Thistle tried to reach out to Quiet Hunter in the way she had done before, in the way she knew that True-of-voice had once done. She sensed a wounded bleakness in him, as if something had reached cruelly inside and torn out the core of his being.

She crouched beside Quiet Hunter, rubbing against him, licking him, trying to warm him with her body, move him with her voice. Trying to bring him outside to where there was life, even if it was bare and no longer enfolded by the rapture of the song. To where there was light, even if it was clear, sharp, and cold.

But there was no path for Quiet Hunter to the outside, she sensed sadly. The only trail was one she herself had showed him. He had ventured along it only a short way before turning back.

She knew, in the bareness and clearness and coldness of life, that the end of the song meant the end of being for Quiet Hunter and his kind. Not for her. With her mother’s gift of name and knowing, she could jump the abyss of loss and despair, or bridge it with her two states of being. Quiet Hunter had only one. His approach to the chasm would be a plunge into death.

Chapter Nineteen

In the settling dust, Thakur stood over Quiet Hunter, nosing him gently. With a grunt of surprise, he said,“I thought he was dead, Ratha, but he’s not. Maybe I can help him.”

Ratha, with one paw around her daughter, said,“Thistle came back. Maybe he can, too.”

“No,” Thistle cried, her voice muffled because her nose was once more buried against Ratha’s chest. “Maybe I can come back, but Quiet Hunter can’t. He knows no trails other than the ways of the song. For him … everything is ended.”

And you cry out in agony because you want to help him just as I want to help you,Ratha thought.

Ratha was not sure whether she felt stunned, shocked, saddened, or relieved by what had happened. She was, for the moment, thankful that the hunters were too stricken and confused to cause trouble for the Named, although she knew that might end soon. Right now it was Thistle who needed her badly.

Her daughter’s eyes were filled with agony as she gazed at Quiet Hunter. “Their pain … his pain … my fault,” Thistle moaned. “Showed his people … bad way to kill face-tails. Didn’t mean to. But couldn’t hide from True-of-voice. Became part of the song, but learning not complete enough.”

The words were jumbled, but Ratha understood them. Firmly she answered, though her voice was threatening to shake as much as Thistle’s, “It wasn’t your fault. I won’t let you blame yourself.”

“Happened … because I became one of them.”

“It happened because of what you are and what they are. I was the one who said you could try. And it worked, Thistle. You became one who could walk on both trails, theirs and ours. So we could speak instead of fighting.”

“Cared much … for Quiet Hunter. Didn’t want to hurt him.”

“I know,” Ratha said softly. “Thakur is trying to heal him. ”

Thistle’s voice broke in a sob as she watched Thakur crouching over Quiet Hunter. “Kindness … caring … from the Named, even Thakur … not enough. Only the song can heal Quiet Hunter. Song died with True-of voice.”

Again Ratha drew Thistle to her.

Suddenly Thistle gave a strange gasp, and her pupils widened. She pulled away from Ratha.“No … Can’t be. Thought it came again … an instant. No. Imagining because I want it. Not real. Only hope.”

“What is it?”

“The song. Thought I … heard…. No. Can’t be. Can’t be. Not if True-of-voice is dead.”

Looking at the intense expression on her daughter’s face, Ratha wondered if Thistle’s longing was responsible for what she now sensed. That would be one way to face the situation. Yet she had learned enough about her daughter to know that Thistle would not delude herself.

Thistle gave an odd little twitch, as if something had touched her. She looked to her mother, a question forming in the depths of her eyes.

Ratha looked back, her gaze steady.“You are all assuming that True-of-voice is dead. Maybe he isn’t.”

A tangle of conflicting thoughts made Ratha’s belly churn as she followed Thistle to the edge of the cliff where True-of-voice had fallen. Things were happening too fast. She felt as though she were being jerked one way and then another.

It had been easy to find sympathy for Quiet Hunter’s people when she thought that the source of their power and direction was gone. In the instant that they had become vulnerable, they were no longer alien, no longer enemy. The Named, too, had experienced loss. At least they had that much in common.

Now, with the chance that True-of-voice still lived, Ratha felt that she was on much more treacherous ground. She could no longer return to her previous stance of viewing Quiet Hunter’s people as completely alien and easy to hate. Now things were more complex. Thistle and Quiet Hunter had shown that there was shared ground with her own people. Ratha could not and would not deny that.

Yet if True-of-voice lived, the leader of the Named would have to be on her guard. She had to keep the interests of her own clan foremost. The hunters had already shown that they could be frighteningly powerful. And if there was a chance that they could regain True-of-voice…

This is not going to be easy. I want to help Thistle and Quiet Hunter without betraying the Named.

She looked ahead to where Thistle crouched, peering down over the cliff edge. Near Thistle the ground and the scrub bushes were trampled or torn up. There were dark blood spatters drying in the dust.

“Here. This is where he fell,” Thistle said, her voice flat.

Ratha felt a shiver as she passed between blank-eyed hunters who could only stare at her dully. She felt a surge of scorn mixed with revulsion. They had all given up. Just like that. Take away their powerful leader, and their initiative died.

In that way, they were very different from the Named.If my people lost me, they would grieve, but they would choose someone else and go on.

And even before the other clan had confirmed that their leader was really dead, they had fallen apart. Thistle was right. These people seemed to get stuck or paralyzed in the strangest ways. Didn’t anyone even look to see if True-of voice might have landed on a ledge or something below?

She found herself curling one side of her lip up over her fangs. How could she respect these people? They really could not think for themselves. They had to be told what to do. Even trivial things. Everything was ruled by True-of-voice, through the strange, unifying bond of something Thistle could only call“ the song. ”

I hate it. I hate even the idea of it.

Ratha crouched beside Thistle and peered over, studying the rock face that dropped away from the edge beneath her feet. It looked pretty sheer… yet there were some ledges. And some bushes growing right out of the rocks, which someone might catch and cling to in desperation. And halfway down there was a shelf and something dark on the shelf….

Ratha’s heart began to pound. Could it be? Or was her imagination painting that sprawled cat-form on the rocks below?

The shape lay still. It would do the hunters no good to recover True-of-voice if he was dead.

But Thistle had felt… something. A brief echo of the song? Was it just self-delusion or was it real? Ratha knew her kind were tough. She herself had survived wounds and falls. Thistle had once run right off a cliff during one of her strange fits and had not even been badly hurt.

There was only one way to find out whether True-of-voice still clung to life.

Ratha herself could not run the paths to where the answer lay.

Her eyes met her daughter’s. She did not have to ask Thistle to leave the trails of the Named for those of Quiet Hunter’s people. She could see that Thistle was already journeying inward, seeking the source of the song.

And at last, when she came back, her eyes were wide with astonishment.“It is there,” she whispered. “Oh, so faint. But it is there. True-of-voice lives.”

* * *

Thistle was not the only one who could sense the flickering flame of life on the ledge below, although she was the most sensitive, Ratha noted. Only after she had led Ratha to the cliff edge did some of the hunters start to drift in the same direction. True-of-voice’s feeble call had reached them too — Ratha could tell by the startled expressions of hope that broke through the dull resignation.

But his touch was weak and sporadic. Ratha could almost read the resurgence and waning of his strength in the eyes of his people. And in her daughter’s eyes as well.

Gradually the hunters at the top of the cliff gathered in a cluster, as if they were moving as close as they could to True-of-voice. Those at the bottom, who had begun halfheartedly eating the carcasses of the slaughtered face-tails, abandoned their kills and crowded to the base of the cliff, staring up at their marooned and dying leader.

To Ratha’s surprise, Thakur’s skill, or the tenuous return of the song, or both, had revived Quiet Hunter enough so that the young male could stagger to the cliff edge. Ratha had an instant of alarm when she thought he was going to stumble right over, but both Thistle and Thakur blocked Quiet Hunter and pushed him firmly back.

True-of-voice’s people gazed down at their leader with forlorn expressions and drooping whiskers. Even those whose age should have given them some wisdom looked as lost as the yearlings. And at the bottom of the rock face, more of the grieving clan looked up in hopeful and hopeless longing.

They know they can’t reach him, Ratha thought. They know he is dying. They can feel it.

For Ratha it was a heartbreaking yet eerie scene as more and more of the hunters gathered, as if to hold vigil for their lost leader.

No. He is more than their leader, Ratha thought.He is their life.

To command such devotion… Ratha felt a strange flash of envy toward the distant True-of-voice. To be so loved … without hesitation or question.

She glanced at her daughter, who was sitting beside the crouching Quiet Hunter. Thistle had laid her paw gently on his back, as if to make sure that he would not lean too far over the cliff in his attempt to get closer to True-of-voice.

Thistle was trembling, her eyes closed. She who could be safe“ outside” had chosen to go within, to share the grief and suffering of Quiet Hunter’s people. Yet she was not totally entranced, for she pressed down harder on her paw each time a surge of grief made Quiet Hunter try to crawl dangerously close to the drop-off.

Ratha found herself wishing that she had even a tiny part of Thistle’s strange gift … so that she, too, could share in the powerful emotion that was binding the other clan even closer to their leader. Yet she knew she would always be watching from outside. Even if she had the ability, she would not use it.

The gift of the Named, the one that had so shaped her people, was wakeful awareness. Ratha knew it was so precious to her that she would fight and kill to preserve it. She already had.

We who are Named will never walk in dreams, she thought, with a strange mixture of pride and sorrow.Except for Thistle.

She felt someone coming alongside her. Familiar fur rubbed against her own and a wonderfully familiar smell replaced the odors of mourning strangers. Thakur. Wonderfully Named, sensible, wide-awake Thakur.

She leaned against him with a grateful sigh. For a while he seemed to be content to provide quiet companionship, but then he spoke in a calm, yet serious voice.“Clan leader, we probably should take Thistle and back off a bit. I’m starting to get some resentful looks.”

“I don’t think she’ll come. Not while Quiet Hunter—” Ratha broke off. Yes, some of the hunters were sending distinctly black looks in their direction. She knew how easily grief could flare into rage. And it could be argued that the Named had indirectly caused the tragedy.

“All right,” she heard Thakur say. “Thistle should be safe, but it would be better if we retreated.”

Ratha did not want the reminder that as long as True-of-voice remained alive, the hunters were a threat.

She agreed to back off, but insisted on staying near enough to keep an eye on her daughter. They took cover in some brush that had not been trampled.

“How long do you think they will stay?” she asked Thakur.

“Until True-of-voice dies,” he replied softly.

“It may take days!”

“I know. He was strong.”

After those words Thakur was quiet for so long that Ratha was startled when he spoke again.

“Clan leader, how do you feel about this?”

She found it very difficult to answer him. On the one side, the Named would benefit if True-of-voice’s death destroyed the hunters. No one would stand in the way and the Named could take all the face-tails they wanted. On the other, she understood too well the wrenching impact of the tragedy.

“It helps us,” she said at last. “If only Thistle weren’t caught up in it.”

Thakur looked toward the other clan.“Thistle told me that their leaders are usually older and have cubs that can succeed them. True-of-voice had a mate, but she was killed before she had her first litter.”

“This must have happened before,” Ratha protested. “They can’t be so ridiculously vulnerable or they wouldn’t have survived.”

“Maybe things are changing for them, clan leader.”Perhaps things are. And perhaps we are part of the change. The idea was not comforting.

She had a sudden odd thought.Would I help them if I could?

She stared out at True-of-voice’s people. They were drawn so strongly by the need for their leader that they risked falling from the cliff. And her daughter was sitting among them, one paw still on the male called Quiet Hunter.

I don’t know.

* * *

The vigil for True-of-voice continued. Weariness at last made Ratha and Thakur withdraw to their own camp, but the following day, she moved the base so that she could be closer to Thistle. She and Bira were careful to site it downwind of the mourning clan so that the smoke of the Red Tongue would not alarm them.

Although they are so wrapped up in True-of-voice that they wouldn’t notice, she thought as she helped Bira gather tinder for the fire.

The next question Ratha thought of was one she had trouble answering. How long would the group remain there? Certainly until True-of-voice died; but what would happen once they were leaderless?

She suspected that they would continue with the vigil, even after it had become pointless. Without direction, they might stay there indefinitely. And Thistle — how long would Thistle stay with them?

Probably as long as Quiet Hunter survives, she thought, feeling her throat tighten. She had learned how painful it was to lose someone beloved. Ratha’s chosen mate, and Thistle’s father, Bonechewer, had died in the struggle between the Named and their enemies. Now her daughter would soon know the same loss.

She tried to shake herself free of the impending tragedy. She had to look ahead, into the future. The Named had come to capture face-tails. The hunters had blocked them. Now, with the other clan paralyzed and distracted, there would be no more interference.

At an evening gathering around the Named campfire, everyone talked about what to do next. Khushi felt that the Named should make another try to capture a face-tail. The five of them had already been here far longer than intended. Fessran and the others would be starting to worry. Bira agreed. She was also getting restless.

Thakur, however, urged caution. The hunters, he said, might not be as paralyzed as they seemed. Grief and frustration could easily ignite into rage. If the bereaved group did not lash out against the Named directly, they might well take out their anger on the Named one who remained among them — Thistle.

Ratha, torn, agreed on a compromise. On the following day the Named would prepare for another attempt to capture a face-tail, but the hunt itself would not take place until the day after.

She needed to find a way to either get Thistle back from the hunters or minimize the threat to her daughter. Given Thistle’s determination, she wouldn’t return until True-of-voice died. Or Quiet Hunter.

If she even comes back at all. She may hate me for letting this happen to the hunters and then not doing anything to help. But I have no choice. Or do I?

* * *

Before Ratha could make any definite plans or carry them out, however, the hunters showed that they might be grief-stricken, but not rendered completely helpless.

The morning after the campfire meeting, Ratha woke to find Khushi and Thakur gone. Sounds of yowling and spitting from the bottom of the cliff told her that the situation had erupted into a fight.

Telling Bira to take a torch and follow, she galloped toward the foot of the cliff, where the second group of hunters was gathered, waiting for the death of their leader. Remembering Thakur’s warning, she feared the worst.

Before she and Bira were even halfway there, a brown streak shot past her and down the trail. It was Khushi, running as if all the hunters were after him. An instant later, there was the flash of a copper coat, and Thakur dashed into view.

Bira, her torch burning fiercely in her jaws, leaped forward to attack any enemy that might be pursuing him.

“No!” Ratha heard Thakur yowl. “Run. Don’t fight. They won’t go far from True-of-voice.”

Although Ratha felt ready for a good scrap, she turned around, and Bira followed.

As the three fled together down the trail, Ratha cantered abreast of Thakur, asking what had happened.

“It was that idiot Khushi,” Thakur panted. “He tried to take some meat from a face-tail carcass.”

They caught up with Khushi near the camp. The scout was abashed, yet defiant.

“I was hungry,” he confessed. “And I was tired of eating grouse. The face-tail meat was just lying there, attracting vultures. I didn’t think they would care. They weren’t eating it.”

“So you sneaked in there and got the hunters all stirred up,” Ratha snarled. “I should shred your ears and maybe a few more parts!”

Khushi looked sheepish.“I–I didn’t think they cared. They didn’t seem to notice me. At least at first. Then,yarr! They were all over me!”

“And you would have been another piece of meat for the vultures if Thakur hadn’t gone in after you.”

“I guess I would have,” the young scout said shakily. Turning almost shyly to Thakur, he said, “I’m grateful, herding teacher. I don’t know why I thought I could get away with it. Perhaps it was because they didn’t seem to notice me, even when I was right at the kill. Then all of a sudden …” He trailed off.

“They don’t give warning signals,” said Thakur shortly, licking a deep scratch on his foreleg. “That is why what you did was so dangerous.”

Ratha interrupted.“We can’t stay here talking. I want to make sure your stupid blunder didn’t make the hunters turn on Thistle.”

Khushi’s eyes opened wide. “Oh no! I didn’t realize … Well, she’s in the other group at the top of the cliff, isn’t she?”

“Scout, next time try thinking with your brain, not your guts. Guts are for stuffing with food and making dung. Not for thinking with,” Ratha said brusquely. “Remember that the next time.”

Khushi gulped.“I–I’m sorry, clan leader. I hope Thistle is safe.”

“So do I,” Ratha said curtly.

With Khushi, Bira, and Thakur close behind, she headed for the trail to the cliff top.

* * *

Sitting among True-of-voice’s people, her paw still on Quiet Hunter, Thistle felt her exhaustion and desperation grow as True-of-voice’s song faded.

It had changed several times during the night. First it had spoken of suffering, then of fear for the fate of those it was abandoning. Early in the morning there had also been a strong flash of rage at the doings of the strangers, and Thistle feared that her mother had led the Named across some forbidden boundary.

Now the song had changed for the final time. Now it was saying farewell.

It had grown so weak that many could not hear it. Quiet Hunter was among them. He still lay, like many others, with his nose at the cliff edge. He was no longer trying to crawl over. The call that drew him had faded from his mind. Thistle kept her paw on his back, to keep him beside her and to tell him wordlessly that she still heard the waning thread of the song.

As long as he understood, he would fight to stay alive. As long as he knew that the song continued, even in someone else’s mind, he would not bury himself in the lost blackness of his own.

Thistle wondered how much longer he would struggle if she kept her paw on him after the song had faded out completely. Would it be worth having him beside her for a little more time if she had to lie to him?

No, she thought, and the paw on Quiet Hunter’s back trembled, for the song was getting harder to hear.

She caught glances from some of the others around her. She knew they were watching her, waiting for the moment she would take her paw from Quiet Hunter’s back. The looks were starting to get resentful, and unspoken questions seemed to gather in the air around her.

Why can she still hear True-of-voice when we cannot? We are his people — why do we have to listen to an outsider?

Don’t know where I got this gift. Never wanted it, she answered back silently. She did not speak aloud lest it distract her. Even thinking the words loosened her grip on the last fading vestiges of the song, and she had to scramble wildly to keep hold of it.

And now the mutters were starting.

“The song is not heard. True-of-voice is dead.”

“That one says he is not dead. The paw is on Quiet Hunter.”

“The paw does not work. The tongue does not work. They say things are so when they are not. That is a bad thing.”

“That one made the first face-tail fall off a cliff. The face-tail died. True-of-voice saw. Then the song commanded that other face-tails be killed that way.”

“The song changed because of what that one did. It caused hurt. True-of-voice is lost.”

“That one” felt her fur start to prickle in apprehension. Her ears twitched back. She wished she could speak her feelings as clearly as she thought them.Was all a mistake. Never meant to show True-of-voice anything. Was all an accident. When I jumped off the bluff, the face-tail followed.

“The song would not cause hurt. Those who hear would not cause hurt. Outsiders do. That one has caused hurt. That one is an outsider, a stranger.”

Thistle felt her eyes starting to flame with rage. Whose fault was it that the tragedy happened? Who chose to copy her, even though the face-tail’s death was an accident? True-of-voice himself. He made all the decisions for the group. He laid his will on his people. He had created his own downfall.

She struggled to put away the anger and the urge to protest aloud. It would do no good. And distractions would only hasten the moment when she lost the last tenuous filament of the song and had to lift her paw from Quiet Hunter’s back.

“Those who stay with harmful ones also cause hurt. Quiet Hunter stays with the stranger.”

This time Thistle could not help turning her head to give the speaker a hard stare. She could accept the slights against herself, but not against Quiet Hunter. He had done nothing wrong. And he was, perhaps, enduring more than any of them, for he refused to take refuge in rage and hatred.

Oh, gentle one, beloved one. Wish you would get angry. Even anger against me, I could bear. Would know then that you choose to struggle rather than suffer.

She heard more mutters. Those who were sitting near her drew away.

“She killed True-of-voice. Drive her out.”

“Drive Quiet Hunter out, too. He is with her.”

Tension and fear snapped Thistle’s concentration. She felt the song slip away. It was no good to pretend.

Quickly she bent to whisper in Quiet Hunter’s ear. “Can’t hear song anymore. Leader isn’t dead. Just can’t reach him. Everyone so angry, noisy. Understand?”

Dully he replied,“It is understood.”

She took her paw from his back just as one of the others took an aggressive step toward her. The low background mutter grew into a rumble, then a roar.

“Drive her out! Drive him out!”

Drive us out from what? she thought, wishing she could speak to them as eloquently as she did to herself.You have nothing left. All you had was True-of-voice, and he will soon be gone.

She suddenly felt a deep pity for the hunters. Forlorn, lost, they were reaching for anything that might comfort them. Even hate.

Calmly she said,“Leader still lives. But you so noisy, angry. Makes him hard to hear.”

“Hear her speak!” someone yowled. “The song does not know those words. Stranger! Stranger! Slayer of the song!”

Thistle had seen how the creature the Named called the Red Tongue could spread swiftly through dry wood. With equal speed rage flared up in the group as they yowled and chanted the same words over and over.“Stranger, stranger, slayer of the song. Bleed for True-of-voice. Die for True-of-voice.”

Feeling her fur rising all over, Thistle backed away from those closing in on her.“Will go,” she snarled. “But leave Quiet Hunter alone.”

“No. He has been made a stranger.”

“He is mated to the slayer of the song.” The voices were ugly. Teeth were starting to show.

Before Thistle could say anything else, claws flashed in a stroke across Quiet Hunter’s side. Her own rage leaped up and it was all she could do to keep from flinging herself at the attacker.

If I fight, I’ll die. If I leave him, he’ll die. With her jaws, she grabbed Quiet Hunter’s scruff. Startled by the sudden pain of the claw slash, he was fighting his way out of his trance. Someone else raked his flank. He screamed and shuddered, but whirled to face them, jerking away from Thistle’s hold.

“No, run!” she hissed at him. “With me. Away.”

The look of horror that he gave her told her that the idea of leaving his people was so shattering that he was paralyzed.

“Hunters will kill you,” she cried, and rammed her body into him, forcing him to stagger a few steps away.

Her heart cried out for him. He had done nothing wrong except allow her to care for him.

The look in Quiet Hunter’s eyes told Thistle that he knew he had no choice and, unfairly or not, he was being cast out. On top of the pain of losing the song, he was losing everything else he knew.

Fending off flurries of slashes and bites, he backed away until he was alongside Thistle. She could barely meet his stricken glance.

“So wrong. Because of me,” she whispered.

“Life here is ended,” Quiet Hunter said, his voice dead. “Lead, Thistle.”

And when she bounded away, he followed.

* * *

As Ratha galloped along the upper reaches of the cliff trail, she heard the sound of someone descending. The noises of fighting had already drifted to her from above, making her belly jump with fear for her daughter.

She was about to leave the trail and leap into the bushes when she recognized the pattern of the approaching footsteps.

“Thistle,” she said.

Thakur, running beside her, cocked his ears.“Somebody’s with her.”

“Or chasing her.” Ratha felt a growl creep into her voice. She readied herself to defend her daughter if necessary.

Rocks broke loose on the switchback above, and Ratha saw a pair of sea-green eyes glow. Another pair, golden yellow, shone from the face of the form behind her.

“Who is that?” Khushi hissed in surprise.

“I can guess,” Ratha heard Thakur answer. “Quiet Hunter.”

But Ratha was looking only at the sea-green eyes and smelling the scent of her daughter as Thistle came down the last stretch of trail. Then a familiar set of whiskers brushed hers; a small, sinewy body rubbed briefly alongside; and a voice breathed a single word:“Mother.”

Ratha felt a warm tingling sweep over her as she rubbed her head against Thistle’s flank, eyes closed in happiness. “My cub. My strong, brave, clever daughter.”

“Is anyone following you two?” Thakur asked.

“No,” Thistle replied. “Hunters don’t go far from True-of-voice.”

“So he is still alive?” Ratha said, surprised.

“Think so. Everyone around me noisy, angry. Couldn’t hear him anymore. Chased me away. Chased Quiet Hunter too. Wasn’t right.”

Ratha saw Thistle turn to her companion. The male with the yellow-gold eyes had been silent, but the look in those eyes told Ratha more than any words.

He has been torn out of his world and thrown into ours. I have never seen anyone look so lost.

“Resting place not far,” she heard Thistle say to him in a gentle tone of voice her daughter rarely used. “Can keep going?”

“Can. Have to,” he answered.

Thistle gave him an encouraging lick.“Know how hard for Quiet Hunter. Care. Very much.”

“The pace can be kept slow,” Ratha offered, trying to omit any words that would jar Quiet Hunter. “No one is following.”

“Weariness is not in the paws. Weariness is in the place behind the eyes.” Quiet Hunter’s voice was remote.

His last words completely baffled Ratha. She decided that it would be better to let Thistle talk to him, at least for now.

At a slow trot, she set off toward the camp.

Chapter Twenty

Later that evening, Thistle, dozing beside Quiet Hunter, raised her chin from her paws. She saw the glow of the Red Tongue through the trees. All of the Named were curled up near the fire, except for Khushi, who had volunteered for sentry duty. She and Quiet Hunter slept at a distance from the campfire. She had told Ratha that Quiet Hunter had already been jolted enough without having to cope with seeing and smelling the Red Tongue close up. The flame might be her mother’s creature, but to Thistle it was still a threat.

Even away from the campfire, Quiet Hunter remained too tense to sleep. Every time he started to drop off, something seemed to jerk him awake again.

“This is the first time that Quiet Hunter has tried to fall asleep without hearing the song,” he confessed, his voice miserable. “Quiet Hunter forgets, drowses, drifts inside, seeking the warm, comfortable place where the song used to be. But there is only bleakness, coldness. As if Quiet Hunter has fallen into icy water.” He paused.

Thistle felt herself shivering. She knew in part how he was feeling. The song that had come from True-of-voice had given her so much. To have it suddenly yanked away had been painful even to her. How much more agonizing it must be to someone who had known and depended on it his entire life!

“It will never come again,” Quiet Hunter said, and Thistle ached at the heavy resignation in his voice.

“Don’t know,” she answered, feeling helpless.

“Quiet Hunter cannot live in icy water. Quiet Hunter cannot sleep in icy water.”

“Quiet Hunter,” Thistle said, and paused to lick him gently. She would do anything for him and she wanted to be with him. She had never felt this way about anybody else, neither her mother nor Thakur.

Yet Quiet Hunter could be beside her now only because he had been torn from his own people and from a way of being that was his life. He knew nothing else.

“Is everything … icy water?” she asked, hoping for and dreading the answer.

But the one she cared for only lay and stared ahead without speaking.

* * *

Now that Ratha had Thistle back, she felt she could start to capture face-tails for the Named herds. But the Named could not even get near the face-tails. Each time they tried, they were driven back with such ferocity that they could only tuck under their tails and run. Soon everyone bore wounds from the repeated attempts.

Each retreat made Ratha angrier. And each new gash, bite, or scratch on one of her people seemed to hurt her just as much. Khushi and Bira urged her to fight back using the Red Tongue. At first she refused, but seeing the frustration and suffering among those in her band, she began to reconsider.

“All I am doing is prolonging this,” she answered impatiently when Thakur asked her to think again before she acted. “The hunters have no right to keep us from taking face-tails. I have no more patience with them. If we can end their interference by using the Red Tongue, then we should.”

The herding teacher answered,“I would still move carefully, clan leader. And do not make the mistake of underestimating them. They could take the Red Tongue and use it against us.”

Ratha disagreed.“They can barely get themselves organized enough to drive us away. Without True-of-voice, they are falling apart. It’s not a pretty thing to watch, but nothing we can do will change what happens to them.”

“So if they sit and rot, it is no doing of ours.” Thakur’s voice had an edge to it. “And you think there is nothing wrong with hastening things a little with the Red Tongue.”

“I am doing what is necessary to protect my own people,” Ratha snapped. “If the hunters would leave us alone, I wouldn’t have to.”

“If we had leftthem alone, this wouldn’t have happened.”

Ratha felt her ears twitch back.“Thakur, I can’t deal withwhat ifs. I have to cope with what has actually happened.”

“That is what I am trying to say,” said Thakur, but Ratha was too irritated to answer him, and at last he sighed and went away.

* * *

For Quiet Hunter, Thistle and daylight arrived together. The eyes had opened on a new world.

No. The words were not right, he thought.My eyes have opened on a new world. Thistle’s face and everything that surrounds it.

He blinked.

So this is the world outside the song. It is the same as I have always known, but now bathed in a hard, aching light.

Here, there is only one behind the eyes. One looking out. In the song, there were many — beyond counting. All, alive and dead, sang through True-of-voice.

Now there is only one. That is what makes the light hard and aching.

He knew that Thistle could get close, but however much she rubbed or lay against him, she could not get inside.

His throat caught with a strange new pain.

The pain came from feeling stripped bare of fur and even of skin. So tender that even a soft paw stroke hurt. It was never that way within the song. It enfolded all of us. But the song ended. The choice was either death or this.

He wanted to cry aloud,Thistle, how do you bear it? What is your word for being only one behind the eyes?

Awake? No.

Alone.

* * *

Ratha was still brooding over Thakur’s words when she saw Thistle approach her. She watched her daughter with mixed feelings. The events of the previous days had drawn them closer together than Ratha had thought possible, but she knew Thistle would oppose any decision to defend the interests of the Named with fire.

With a heavy feeling in her stomach, Ratha wished she were not clan leader. Or that Thistle could separate the Ratha who was her mother from the one who fought to preserve her people at any cost.

“How is Quiet Hunter?” Ratha asked.

“Hurting. Tired. For him to follow our trails … he has to fight his own nature.”

Ratha knew that she meant much more than the trails that led to the Named camp.

“He is welcome to live among us if he wants,” she offered.

“Don’t know if he can. Needs True-of-voice. The song. Thought that me caring for him would be enough. May not be, though.” Thistle sighed.

I want to ask if there is anything I can do to help Quiet Hunter. But what Thistle would say would oppose the decision I have to make.

“Quiet Hunter is not a weakling,” Thistle said abruptly. “Not a coward.”

Ratha cocked her head.“Did anyone say he was?”

“No, but can see it in Khushi’s eyes. Even in Bira’s. Even in yours, a little bit.”

“I’m sorry,” Ratha said, startled by the accusation. “I have been trying not to judge him. It isn’t easy.”

“None of you could do what he has done,” Thistle said passionately. “Everything is new trails to him. Has to change ways of speaking, ways of thinking. Even way of being, right down to the core. Not something a weakling or coward could do. Would go screaming crazy at the confusion.”

Ratha tried to speak calmly, yet she felt herself bracing for a confrontation.“Thistle. You want something from me. Is it the same thing that Thakur wants?”

Her daughter looked back at her.

“No. Thakur wants that you not use Red Tongue against Quiet Hunter’s people. I want more. Want you to help them.”

Thistle’s voice was quiet, yet determined. Ratha felt her own start to rise in frustration.

“Help them? How?”

“Save True-of-voice.”

“Thistle, it is too late. He’s dead. And even if he wasn’t—”

The small yet powerful voice interrupted Ratha’s stream of objections. “Not dead. Have felt things like little flutters. Heard things like cries in the distance. They say he is not dead.”

“But it has been several days since he fell. How could he possibly be alive?”

She was startled again at Thistle’s eloquence as her daughter said, “If you are … center and soul of your people; if you are … source of everything they need … if you know that when you die they will have nothing, then you fight to the last against death.” Thistle paused. “You are leader. You would do same for Named ones if they needed you so much.”

Again Ratha stared at her daughter, floored by the mixture of bluntness and desperation in Thistle’s words.

She is right. I would do it for the Named. I would do it for her, too, but she finds it hard to believe that.

“So you think that … concern … for his people … is keeping True-of-voice alive?”

“Do not think. Know.”

“Thistle, even if he is still alive and what you feel is not in your own imagination, what can we do?”

“Save him.”

“How?”

“Do not know,” Thistle admitted. She lifted her head and stared deep into Ratha’s eyes. “Only know that when you Named ones decide to do something, you figure out a way.”

Ratha let her hindquarters drop and sat down, feeling overwhelmed by the demand. But was it so unfair after all? Thistle was right in her observations — the Named were resourceful. The hard part was the decision.

“Why are you asking for this? Is it for Quiet Hunter’s sake?”

“He is some of the reason. Not biggest part.”

“Then for your sake?”

“Not biggest part either.”

“Then what is the biggest part?”

She watched Thistle take a deep breath.“The Dreambiter, Mother.”

Puzzled to the point of irritation, Ratha tried to get Thistle to explain what she meant.

“Can’t say it any different way,” Thistle retorted. “That’s how it comes out.”

Ratha tried a different approach.“What does your nightmare have to do with saving True-of-voice?”

Thistle’s tone sharpened. “Dreambiter is not just mine. Yours too. Don’t know what joining part is. Have to dig for it. But there is one. Feel it.”

What you mean is that the Dreambiter will soon claim True-of-voice and his people as victims. But I don’t have any alternative, Thistle. How can I make you understand?

* * *

After Thistle had finished speaking, she left. Ratha thought for a while and then called her people together. She told them what Thistle had asked her to do.

Everybody gave her incredulous looks. Except Thakur. He just looked amazed.

“Are you asking for help in deciding this, clan leader?” Bira asked in her gentle voice.

“I must make the choice,” Ratha said. “But hearing what all of you have to say will help me.”

“I like Thistle a lot,” Bira said, curling her plumed tail about her feet, “so this is hard for me to say. I do not think that her suggestion is a wise one. Perhaps it would be, if she were the only one involved. For us, it is not.”

Khushi agreed with Bira. If anything, he was more vehement.“When this enemy leader dies, the hunter tribe will fall apart. There’s nothing wrong in letting that happen. Maybe it’ll stop them from hurting us. If it doesn’t, I’m all for using the Red Tongue.” He paused and added, “Why make a weak enemy strong again? It is stupid.”

Well-spoken, Fessran’s son, thought Ratha, but she felt a twinge of sadness.

And why does Thakur have this strange expression on his face, as if he’s been eating rotted fruit?

“Herding teacher, have you thought of something interesting?” she asked mildly.

“Thistle,” he said, his voice almost dreamy. “I thought I knew her all the way through. But she’s surprised me. She’s followed trails that even I have not dared to run.”

“None of us can followyou, respected Thakur,” said Bira. “Please, can you tell us what you mean?”

Thakur sat up a bit straighter and gathered himself together.“I have asked us not to harm these people. But Thistle has gone far beyond me. She has asked us to help them!”

Khushi grimaced.“You think it’s wonderful? I think it’s crazy! I like her, too, but sometimes I get the feeling that not everything is working between her ears.”

“I wouldn’t say it quite that strongly,” Bira interjected, “but I have to point out that Thistle is asking us to take this risk, not her. She is not a clan member; she chose not to be. By that choice, she gave away any right to influence what we do.”

“Everything Bira says is true,” Thakur said after the Firekeeper had finished speaking. “Remember, though, Thistle came because I asked for her help.”

“We can be grateful without doing something that would not be good for us,” Bira argued.

Ratha held up a paw for silence.“So it is clear how you all feel. Khushi, you are in favor of using the Red Tongue and not helping the hunters. Bira agrees?”

“Yes, clan leader,” said the young Firekeeper. “My loyalty is to you and the rest of us.”

“I know how Thakur feels,” Ratha said. “All right. I appreciate what you all had to say.”

“What about you, Ratha?” Thakur asked.

“I can only tell you how I feel, which won’t help. I can’t tell you what I will decide.”

And the Named left their leader alone, knowing that she needed time to think.

Chapter Twenty-One

Thistle went back to Quiet Hunter, wishing she could do something more for him. He was in a dazed, half-awake state since he had not been able to sleep.

When he lifted his head to touch noses with her, his nose leather was cold, even though he lay in a patch of sun.

For him, everything is icy water, she thought.

She curled around him, trying to drive away the frozen despair.

“Any better?” she asked. “Or everything still cold?”

“Thistle is warm,” he said, and his whiskers lifted a little. “But Quiet Hunter is too weary to come out to where Thistle is.”

She gave an unhappy sigh. There had to be a way to help him. Therehad to.

But the only thing that could help him was True-of-voice’s song. She wished she could become like True-of-voice so that she could help Quiet Hunter.

She grimaced scornfully at herself. She could not begin to do what True-of-voice had done. Wishing was useless. But she still desperately wanted to help Quiet Hunter.

If she tried hard, she could remember how True-of-voice’s song sounded and felt, but she couldn’t give it to Quiet Hunter. She couldn’t reach his “inside ears.” Not the way True-of-voice had.

But you have outside ears too, and I have a voice, even if it is a small one, she thought.

“Listen, Quiet Hunter,” she said, and let her memory lift her voice as she began to sing softly to him.

* * *

Ratha did not stay by herself for long. Hard thinking had dug up a possible solution. It was crazy, but it might work. It might accomplish both objectives without harm to anyone except True-of-voice, and nothing would save him anyway.

To try her idea, she would have to convince Thistle. She felt as though her heart would hammer right through her ribs as she went looking for her daughter.

She didn’t find Thistle until she went to the place where she had last seen Quiet Hunter. Her daughter was there. And she was doing something that raised Ratha’s hopes even further. Thistle was singing to Quiet Hunter. As she said that True-of-voice had done. Except that Thistle was using her real voice. And the song was no longer without words.

Ratha saw the tortured look in Quiet Hunter’s eyes fade. They closed, his head sank down onto his paws, and his sides rose and fell in the rhythm of sleep.

She listened, entranced. Thistle sang more eloquently than she could speak, of the pain and struggle and grief and then of the greening of hope, a slender thread that could bind back together the most broken of spirits. Or lives.

She sang as none of the Named had sung before, blending gifts from both peoples whose trails she had run. Ratha heard it with a shiver that ran down her back and an ache in her belly that could have been grief or joy.

The song was not the strong, certain river that Thistle had described as flowing from True-of-voice. It keened with questions. It wavered with fear. It was the trickle of the spring, not the flow of the river. It was at the same time uplifting and heartbreaking.

And as Ratha watched and listened, she felt that something sacred was happening that she dare not disturb.

Who is she, this one who came from my blood, from my belly? My daughter, chaser of thistles, wayfarer on strange trails.

Who is she?

I know, and yet I do not.

As if sensing the presence of her mother, Thistle, without looking up, brought her song to an end. She crouched down, licked the sleeping Quiet Hunter, and walked forward to greet her mother.

Ratha felt the distance, almost the remoteness of the nose-touch, the whisker-brush. She found it hard to begin speaking, feeling that her words were crude and clumsy after the soaring beauty of Thistle’s song.

Yet she had to.

She let Thistle lead her away so that their voices would not wake Quiet Hunter.

“Thistle, I–I think there may be a way out of this. A way to not hurt anyone. A way to help everyone. Will you listen?”

“Will hear.”

“It needs you.”

Thistle only cocked her head and widened her eyes in the same way as Ratha knew that she herself did. It was unsettling to see herself reflected in her daughter.

Never had Ratha struggled so to speak, and she felt for an instant a deeper sympathy for Thistle’s struggle with language than she had ever felt before.

Finally she said,“It needs you to sing to the hunters. The same way you did to your friend. To keep them from going wild and attacking us.”

Thistle’s eyes only grew a little wider.

“Thistle, I’m asking you to go back to the hunters. Make it easier for them to accept True-of-voice’s death. I know that it is dangerous, but if you give them what they need, they won’t hurt you.”

Her daughter’s words came slowly. “Asking me … to replace True-of-voice?”

Ratha was about to protest that the two things were not the same, but the look in her daughter’s eyes kept her silent. “Yes,” she admitted. “I guess that is what I am asking.”

“You want … me … to lead the hunters. To keep them happy so that you Named … can take face-tails … without fighting.”

“Yes.” Ratha watched for the first sign of outrage or anger, but Thistle remained calm. “It is the only way to keep either side from suffering. Can’t you see?”

Thistle gave a strange snort and then started shaking all over, her mouth open, as if yawning.“You Named ones. You are so arrogant … that it’s … funny. You really think … me being a True-of-voice … makes all problems go away?”

“Why shouldn’t it work?” Ratha felt herself bristling.

Thistle only opened her mouth in another strange, soundless gape.

“If you only understood….”

“Then make me understand,” Ratha challenged. “Why can’t you sing to the hunters, keep them from despairing, going wild, dying …? You care about Quiet Hunter’s people. Isn’t it up to you to save them?”

Thistle stopped shaking and gaping. Ratha felt a sudden chill at the despairing look that came into Thistle’s sea-colored eyes. “Cannot do what True-of-voice does. Not even enough to save Quiet Hunter.”

“I thought …”

“He is dying. Sing to make it less frightening. Is all I can do.”

“Then …” Ratha stumbled.

“Only way to save them is to save True-of-voice. Brook dries up without a spring to feed it. Same for them.” Thistle paused. “Not up to me to save Quiet Hunter and his people, Mother. Is up to you.”

* * *

Questions. All she can give me is questions. I have to find my own answers.

Ratha walked alone. No one could help her with the challenge she faced now. Not Thakur. Not Bira. Not even Thistle herself.

The Dreambiter. Why is she still talking about the Dreambiter? I thought she had come to terms with it.

And then Ratha knew why Thistle had spoken earlier about the Dreambiter.

It is still here. It is still prowling. Wearing my skin, my whiskers, my fur.

No, all I want is for my people to survive. That is all I have ever wanted.

Is that the truth, Ratha?

What is it that raised the torch against the Un-Named, killed the old clan leader Meoran, brought down Shongshar, caused Bonechewer’s death?I cared for him more deeply than anyone I had ever known. I nearly killed Thistle. I certainly changed her.

Who is the Dreambiter, Ratha?

The part that hates. That fears. That wants to kill.

No. All I wanted was to see my people survive.

And then, as if from a distance, she seemed to hear Thakur’s voice saying, “Why can’t there be room in the world for the Named and others too? Why must things that help the Named harm others?”

The hunters aren’t like us. They are alien. They are wrong. It is too hard to understand them. Easier to push them out of the way. Save True-of-voice? A tyrant worse than Meoran or Shongshar? Who not only commands their bodies, but their every thought?

Rescue True-of-voice. Make his people what they were. The Named would think I was no longer fit to be leader. They’d throw me out. Can’t you understand that, Thistle?

She should understand. She’s been hurt enough.

Is she crazy? Is she right?

I am shaking. I am afraid. Of what?

The shadows that run through my mind. The shadows that bite and tear, that kill and maim what I love. I put words on them.“Un-Named ones.” “Enemies.” “Not like us.” “Wrong.” “Alien.” “Deserve to die.”

Many shadows, and they are all Dreambiters, Dreamkillers. They all blend into one. It prowls, hurting.

No one deserves to die except the Dreambiter. No one deserves to be cast out except the Dreambiter. No one deserves to lie bleeding, in pain. Even if they are different. Even if you do not understand how they think. Even if you think they might hurt you.

The question comes again.

Who is the Dreambiter, Ratha?

I know now, Thistle. I know.

* * *

Quiet Hunter was asleep. Thistle did not need to sing to him any longer. Yet she stayed by him, knowing that if he did wake, he would need her.

She thought about Ratha. What her mother had suggested was ridiculous. It showed that Ratha had only a very shallow idea of what was going on. No one could replace True-of-voice among the hunters. The idea that she, Thistle, who was in some ways marginal even among the Named, could take the place of the wellspring of the song, had gone beyond the ridiculous to the tragic.

No one could replace True-of-voice except another of his blood and breed. For various reasons, that other had not yet been birthed.

Yes, that was a fault in the society of the hunters. But it would not have been so fatal had not the Named intervened.

Was part of that as well. Did not mean to be, Thistle thought, looking down at Quiet Hunter.

Asleep, the young male looked like any of the Named. He looked a bit like Thakur, in some ways, though his eyes and coat were a different color. A certain gentleness, a certain curiosity about life, a certain willingness to explore, had perhaps not only shaped his character, but sculpted the lines of his face.

No. See traces of Thakur in Quiet Hunter because I want them to be there.

She wondered if perhaps her thoughts had been drawn to Thakur because she was getting the herding teacher’s scent on the breeze. As it grew stronger, her hopes leaped up. Perhaps Thakur was coming.

She lifted her muzzle as a familiar pattern of footfalls added itself to the herding teacher’s scent. And then Thakur padded forward and lay down with Thistle and Quiet Hunter.

He said little, but his presence, his solid warmth, and, above all, the sense of his wisdom helped ease Thistle’s tension.

“Can talk, Thakur. Quiet Hunter is so asleep … won’t hear.” She paused. “Don’t think he is really sleeping anymore. Has gone down deeper than that. To escape the world both inside and outside.”

“I am sorry, Thistle,” Thakur said. “I tried to help him, but my skills are not enough.”

“Tried to help, too. Tried to bring him into my world. But he said things were too clear, too sharp. Knowing there was only one behind the eyes … too lonely.” She paused. “Know what he feels. Hurt me, too, when song went away. But being one behind the eyes. have always known it. And all of you Named ones know it, too.”

She felt Thakur’s tongue on the ragged ruff that was starting to grow around her neck.

“Sometimes being one behind the eyes hurts us, Thistle,” he said softly. “Maybe we are closer to Quiet Hunter’s people than we think.”

Thistle laid her chin on her paws briefly before she spoke again.“My mother. Seen her yet?”

“Not for a while. She went off by herself to think.”

Thistle stared ahead at nothing.“Don’t know if she can make the jump I am asking her to make. Remember all the times she couldn’t. Wish I could hope, Thakur, but don’t dare.”

“Thistle, it is hard for her. Do you know that she is not a great deal older than you?”

“Than me? But mothers. fathers, always seem so much older. Seems hard to believe.”

“I know.”

“Not a lot older than me,” Thistle mused. “Still learning.” She turned her gaze to him. “Thakur, can. I. dare hope? Not expect. Hope.”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I think you can.”

* * *

I see them both together as I come near. The two who demand the most of me. Thistle and Thakur. Do I see disappointment in their eyes even before I tell them what I will do?

Thakur knows this is not easy. Thistle. She thinks anything is possible for the Named. Anything except looking beyond the needs of your own people.

But seeing first to the needs of your own people is what a good leader docs, isn’t it?

Not always.

What helps the Named does not have to harm others. Not when you can see them without the shadow of the Dreambiter darkening their shapes.

I am taking the leap, daughter of mine. Help me land safely on the far edge.

As Ratha finished speaking to Thakur and Thistle, she watched the shock in her daughter’s eyes turn first to amazement. then to joy. Then she was nearly knocked off her feet by Thistle’s boisterous rubbing, purring, and licking.

“Wait!” she protested as her daughter sprang around in happiness. “I’ve only said that I will help rescue True-of-voice if we can find a way. I haven’tfound that way yet.”

But Thistle, in her triumph and joy, seemed to think that the hardest part of the task was over.

Perhaps it was.

* * *

The camp of the Named was in an uproar. Ratha had a hard time calming everyone down after her announcement. She had expected that it would be Fessran’s son, Khushi, who would be hardest to convince, but instead it was Bira.

“I am not asking you to agree with me,” Ratha said finally, when the gentle but stubborn little Firekeeper refused to give up ground. “As clan leader, I don’t need agreement, even if I would like it. What I need is help.”

“Help in doing something that might hurt us?” Bira asked. “Ratha, I want to trust you, but this trail looks so treacherous.”

“I know how treacherous it feels. I’ve been on it. Bira, there is a chance that rescuing True-of-voice may hurt us. I’m ready to accept the blame if it does. But I feel now that there is a greater chance that it will help us as well as the hunters.” Ratha paused. “If you really can’t live with this, you can return to the seacoast with your treeling, if you want.”

“No. You need a Firekeeper,” Bira said staunchly as her treeling, Biaree, groomed her ruff. “I will stand behind you, clan leader.”

Standing in the center of the circle, looking at those gathered about her, Ratha at once felt immense pride and humility.

The pride was for her people as well as herself. There they were, around her. She was their center, and they her support. They had put aside personal reservations to do what their leader thought right.

Impulsive, sometimes foolish, but always well-intentioned Khushi. Bira — dainty, calm, her gentleness covering a deep-seated stubbornness that was only exceeded by her loyalty. Thakur, teacher of healing, herding, and living life in the most honest way. He was the essence and spirit of the Named.

And now Thistle, with her strange mixture of gifts and deficits. Of all, she was the unexpected visionary. She who had been most deeply wounded was perhaps the strongest among them. If she does not lead the Named, she will guide them, Ratha thought, and had a strong sense that she was looking at the future of her people embodied in her daughter.

No. She will serve more than the Named. Quiet Hunter and his people may be only the start. And I hope that I may be able to reach far enough beyond my limitations to help her.

“Well,” said Khushi, after the discussion had finally died down. “Now that we’ve decided what to do, we’d better figure out how to do it. True-of-voice probably doesn’t have much life left.”

Nor does Quiet Hunter, Ratha thought as she saw Thistle glancing at a shape lying still beneath the trees.

* * *

When Thistle felt that she could spend a few moments away from Quiet Hunter, she went to her mother and the others of the Named, who had gathered to figure out a way to save True-of-voice.

“We all saw the cliff,” Ratha was saying as Thistle joined the group. “Does anyone remember seeing any way to reach the ledge he’s on?”

“Maybe we should go and look again,” Khushi suggested.

“I wish we could,” Ratha said, “but the hunters are pretty stirred up. If we try, they’ll attack.”

“Then how are we going to get close enough to rescue True-of-voice?” Khushi asked, his voice doubtful.

Thistle was startled when the Firekeeper Bira turned to her and said,“You were with the hunters for a long time at the top of the cliff. Did you see any way down to the ledge?”

She replayed the scene over in her mind as she had done countless times. She had peered over the edge until her eyes ached, searching for a path down to the trapped leader. There was a slanting, rocky shelf that descended partway, but it petered out before it reached the larger ledge where True-of-voice was.

“Could only get halfway there,” Thistle said, and was about to add that it wouldn’t do any good when her gaze fell on Biaree, Bira’s treeling. Those creatures were good at climbing. At least in trees.

Bira inclined her head and gazed down at her treeling, who was grooming the ruff around her neck. Thistle watched the expression in Bira’s eyes change, and could almost follow her thoughts. First came astonishment, then recognition of a new possibility, but after that was a touch of fear and defensiveness.

Ratha was not slow to pick up the meaning of Thistle’s look and Bira’s response. Thistle could see her mother was trying to decide if this idea was quarry worth chasing.

“You think that Biaree could climb down the cliff to True-of-voice,” Ratha said.

“Treeling is smaller. Lighter. More toes to use for holding on,” Thistle answered.

“Even if Biaree could reach the ledge, what could he do?” This was from Khushi, who looked more skeptical than ever.

The reply, to Thistle’s surprise, came from Bira. “He could do a lot, Khushi. He could take bits of meat and melon down to the trapped leader. True-of-voice is probably dying of hunger and thirst as well as his injuries.” Her voice faded slightly as she looked down again at Biaree, and Thistle felt a stab of remorse.

“Don’t want treeling to get hurt,” she stammered. “Know how much you care for him, Bira. Maybe. too much to ask?”

“I think it is a good idea, Thistle,” Bira answered slowly.

“I wish it wasn’t so risky for Biaree,” Ratha said. “If I had brought Ratharee or Thakur had his treeling …”

Thakur, who had just been listening up to this point, made a suggestion.“Bira, I’ve seen you and Biaree bundle up twigs with lengths of vine. Biaree knows how to tie things. If you could get a very long length and get him to tie it around his middle and someone held onto it, he couldn’t fall.”

Thistle felt her cars prick up. How clever Thakur was! To see something that the Named used every day and be able to turn it to another purpose. that was a gift indeed.

She found herself making pictures in her mind. Of how the vine would attach to the treeling by using the controlled tangle that the Named called a“ knot.” Of how the vine would run from the treeling to someone else who held the end in their jaws.

“Even if we can reach True-of-voice, and feed him to keep him alive, we haven’t solved the problem,” Ratha pointed out. “How are we going to get himdown?”

And then the pictures in Thistle’s mind changed. Instead of seeing the vine tied to the treeling, the vine was tied to True-of-voice. And all of the Named were pulling, to lift the injured hunter up the cliff.

But would the vine be strong enough? For a treeling, yes, but not for True-of-voice.

“Would break,” Thistle muttered.

“What would break?” Ratha asked, and her gaze became sharp.

“Vines.”

“Vines?”

“The ones tied to True-of-voice,” Thistle said, wishing she had kept her silly thoughts to herself.

“How do they get tied onto him?”

“Treeling. If he can.”

Everyone sat staring at her. Thistle felt as though she wanted to slink away, back to Quiet Hunter. It was a stupid idea. True-of-voice was too heavy to be pulled up by vines. They would break. There was no point in risking Bira’s treeling for something that would never work.

But Bira herself was looking back with widened eyes.“I think you’ve got something, Thistle.”

Thakur and Ratha agreed.

“But couldn’t pull him up,” Thistle said. “Vines would rub on edge of cliff and break. He too heavy, even for all of us together.”

“We might not be able to pull him up,” Thakur said. “Once we got him off the ledge, however, we could lower him.”

The hopeful expression on his face began to spread to the others. Thistle felt it bubble up inside her. She looked to her mother and saw that the same hope was lighting Ratha’s eyes.

And not only hope. Pride as well.“I think it will be tricky, but it will work,” she heard Ratha say.

“Three yowls for Thistle,” Khushi crowed, and followed it up with earsplitting praise.

The meeting dissolved in a hubbub as the Named made their plans and assigned tasks. Thakur and Khushi set out to scout the forest for the heaviest vines they could find. Bira found a length of jungle creeper and began the task of teaching Biaree to attach it around his middle. Using Ratha and Thistle as models, she also had the treeling tie short lengths of vine around their paws.

“There is only one problem,” Bira said to Thistle, as she nudged the treeling into looping a length of vine about one of Thistle’s forepaws.

“What?” asked Ratha, who was watching.

“I can send Biaree down with food or melon bits for True-of-voice. That’s not such a complicated thing. But tying vines onto someone’s paws, especially if Biaree doesn’t know that someone — that may be the hard part.”

“He won’t do it?” Ratha asked as Thistle felt her hopes sag.

“He will, but I’ll have to go down with him at least partway to coax him. I’m willing to try,” Bira added. “Thistle said there was a slanting shelf on the face.”

Thistle watched the way her mother looked at Bira.“That shelf is pretty narrow. I saw it. Even the treeling is going to have a hard time.”

Bira looked steadily back at Ratha. In the Firekeeper’s gaze, Thistle saw the words that Bira did not need to say.Even if I risk falling, I’ll try it.

The clan’s deep loyalty to Ratha, despite her mistakes, made Thistle feel envious for a moment. It also brought a new respect for her mother.

“Could Biaree work with someone other than you?” Ratha asked Bira.

Bira looked startled.“Why yes, clan leader. But why?”

“Because I can’t let you risk your life as well as your treeling,” Ratha said. “And I won’t.”

“Don’t worry about me, clan leader. The important thing is doing what needs to be done, which is saving True-of-voice.” Bira’s voice sounded calm, but Thistle picked up a slight tremor underneath.

“I am the one who made the decision to attempt the rescue,” Ratha said. “I won’t ask any of you to take the risk. Unless I fail.”

“But clan leader,” Bira faltered, and then fell silent.

Thistle felt a bolt of fear go through her. Fear for her mother. That Ratha might die in a fall from the cliff, leaving the Named leaderless. And herself without Ratha, just as she was really starting to know her mother.

“None of you can go,” Thistle heard herself say sharply. “All too. big!”

There was a silence. Ratha glowered, while Bira looked thoughtful.“She has a point,” the Firekeeper said.

Ratha’s answer was a low growl. “I know. I wish she didn’t.”

Thistle interrupted.“Better chance for me. Smaller. Lighter. Not part of clan. Not needed. Or not as much as you and Bira.”

“Face-tail dung!” Ratha exploded. “Of all the idiot things to say! Thakur needed you enough to bring you here. And if you think I’m going to let you hang your scrawny tail over the cliff — what if you get one of those fits?”

Thistle shivered inside at the thought of being attacked by her illness, but she refused to back down.“My problem,” she said, thrusting her nose forward until her muzzle nearly met Ratha’s. “Not yours. Not clan member. don’t have to obey you. Can do as I want. hang tail where you can’t get to … can do what you can’t!”

“Thistle …”

“No, listen, my mother and clan leader. You chose to help hunters. But who pushed you. nagged you … made you think? Not any Named!”

With a thrill, Thistle realized that she was actually pushing against Ratha’s nose. She, the little half-Named scruffball, was making the clan leader give ground.

“Am going to take my scrawny tail down the cliff to True-of-voice. Only way to stop me is to say I can’t use Bira’s treeling.”

Ratha was going back on her haunches, but Thistle didn’t stop her advance. Not while she had her newly beloved foe on the run. “You going to do that? Tell Bira to not let me use treeling? Throw away onereal chance to save True-of-voice?”

Abruptly, Thistle jerked her head away from Ratha’s nose. “Am going. With or without treeling.” She started to pace away.

There was utter silence behind her.

All right, they were going to make things hard. She was used to dealing with things when they were hard. Including her mother.

And then came a roar that made her ears flatten.

“Thistle-chaser, come back here or I’ll—”

She turned around, lifted her tail and her chin.

“—have tobring you the treeling!”

Chapter Twenty-Two

The following morning, everyone in Ratha’s group assembled at the foot of the trail up to the cliff top. To Thistle’s surprise, Quiet Hunter was there, too, even though he looked weak and shaky.

“Must tell people that you are trying to help,” he said, leaning against Thakur, who stood beside him. Thistle felt a strong surge of affection and gratitude to the herding teacher for his dedication to Quiet Hunter. Thakur had stayed beside him, trying to calm him, to heal the pain caused by the loss of the song. Even though the gentle healer and teacher knew that his caring would not save Quiet Hunter, he gave all that he could.

And now Quiet Hunter, in his own way, was trying to give something back.

Thistle was startled by something touching the nape of her neck. It was the treeling, a still-strange sensation. She wasn’t used to carrying Biaree, although he had been with her since the end of the teaching sessions of the previous day. Bira had insisted on this, though Thistle knew that the Firekeeper missed the companionship of her treeling.

One day and one night — it wasn’t nearly enough time to form the kind of partnership that the task demanded.If not ready, my fault, not Biaree’s,Thistle thought. For it was as if the treeling understood the importance of what he was being trained to do. He had accepted both an abrupt change in companions as well as an intense series of training sessions. And all without any treeling fussiness or outbursts of temper.

He had tied innumerable knots around Named paws with various different sizes of vines. Thakur, in addition to caring for Quiet Hunter, had doubled as paw donor, for his feet were probably the closest in size to True-of-voice’s. He had to put up not only with having loops tied around his feet but with having the vines yanked on, since Biaree had been taught to test knots as well as make them.

Now the Named were about to see if all their preparation was enough.

Thistle watched as Ratha arranged everyone for the climb up the trail and the first confrontation with the hunters who were still keeping vigil for True-of-voice. She felt herself fidgeting with impatience as Ratha trotted from one to the other, assigning them their roles in the rescue attempt. She had sought True-of-voice’s song and could not find it. The leader might already be dead, or close to it. Any more delay and.

Even so, Thistle could see that what her mother was doing made sense. Ratha had put herself, Khushi, and Bira in the lead. Bira carried fire embers, nestled in a sand-filled basket that had a carrying loop. She and her treeling had made it together. Khushi had a mouthful of dry pine branches that would light quickly, if needed. It was a compromise — Ratha had originally wanted Bira to carry a lighted torch to repel any attack. It was not Thistle’s objection that had changed the clan leader’s mind, but Quiet Hunter’s soft plea that the Red Tongue not be used against his people unless there was no other way.

Thistle herself was next, with Biaree on her shoulders. Behind her came Thakur, with loops and coils of heavy vines tied onto his back and flanks. He also had a few packets of food and chunks of melon, so that the hunger and thirst that threatened True-of-voice might be fended off long enough to get the trapped leader down. Beside Thakur walked Quiet Hunter, carrying some of the lighter coils of vine ropes.

“All right, Thistle,” Ratha announced. “We’re ready.”

Ratha and Bira set the upward pace — a ground-eating jog-trot. Even so, Thistle had to keep herself from forcing her way forward or crowding the three before her. She also fought to control her fear that True-of-voice might be beyond help. She needed to keep calm in order to avoid alarming Biaree. So far the partnership had worked out astonishingly well, but she knew how quickly it had been formed and how easily it might be destroyed.

It was hard going, especially the last section of the trail, which led to the top, where the hunters were still gathered. Thistle felt herself sweating so heavily through her pads that dust seemed to turn to slippery mud beneath her feet. Would the hunters attack? Would they rush the party as soon as she and the Named appeared? If she were attacked, what would Biaree do? Could they keep the treeling safe from the hunters?

Can’t lose Biaree. Without him, have no hope of rescuing True-of-voice.

Thistle watched Khushi, trotting ahead of her, clench his teeth on the unlit firebrands as the party emerged from the trail to the cliff top.

“Slow,” came Ratha’s voice from in front, and everyone eased to a cautious pace. Thistle could feel Biaree crouch down low on her neck. She gave a low purr to reassure him, the way Bira had taught her.

Now she could see the hunters. They were still gathered at the cliff edge. Some were sprawled out the way Quiet Hunter had been until she sang to him. Some were staggering back and forth, their bleeding paws mute witness that they had been pacing like this for days. Some were circling endlessly, their heads hanging low.

None had groomed or eaten, despite the presence of meat from the kill lying in rotting, fly-ridden piles. Their coats were dusty, matted. Some of the hunters had bare, raw patches where they had obsessively licked themselves or pulled out hair. Ribs showed and stomachs were shrunken. Drool hung from half-open mouths.

Thistle felt her own belly clench at the sight.Thought I was exaggerating about them dying. But they are.

She hoped that the hunters might be too weak or crazed to offer the Named any resistance, but her hope faded as the mourning howls turned to snarls, heads were lowered, and teeth showed.

In front, she saw Ratha narrow her eyes, take an unlit firebrand from Khushi, and hold it, ready to dip the end in Bira’s embers. There was suddenly a flurry behind her as Quiet Hunter staggered forward as fast as his shaky legs would carry him. Past the Firekeeper, past the clan leader, out to his own people, even though they had expelled him, threatened to kill him.

Looking at the torture in their eyes, Thistle knew that loss and pain were demanding blood, and they did not care whose. And looking at her mother’s face and the jaws gripping the torch, she knew that Ratha was ready to defend her own group — and Quiet Hunter — with the equal savagery of the Red Tongue.

Hoping that Biaree would stay quiet, Thistle also left her place, moving toward her mother. She heard Quiet Hunter speaking, trying to fend off the threatened attack with gentle words. He knew their pain, he said. He, too, was dying from it. But the ones with him intended to help. They had not come to prey but to heal.

The hunters would not believe. They were too deeply in pain to believe. The sight and smell of the strangers and the hint of their weapon, even though hidden in the basket of sand and embers, was too much to accept. Thistle knew that things would break down — were already breaking down, even though Quiet Hunter was desperately trying to get through to the rest.

“Quiet Hunter offers himself,” she heard him saying. “If anger must take life, then Quiet Hunter is ready. If the pain of losing the song is eased by killing, then Quiet Hunter is willing to be killed.”

His words sent a charge of fear through Thistle, so strongly that she felt the treeling react, too — hunching and stiffening. It was all she could do not to leap to Quiet Hunter’s side with teeth bared and claws ready. But she knew that if she did, both he and she would die, and the treeling as well. Even scaring Biaree might destroy any chance of saving True-of-voice.

As she purred to quiet the treeling, she saw Ratha turn her head, the torch-stick in her mouth moving to the source that birthed the Red Tongue.

If the flame-creature took life at the end of the branch, Quiet Hunter would not die, but any chance of reaching the hunters would. Though Thistle’s whole being cried out in agony at the choice, she made it.

With a quick nudge, Thistle sent Biaree to temporary safety with Bira.

Moving more quickly and quietly than she thought she could, she reached Ratha. Her teeth met around the unlit torch in Ratha’s mouth. As her eyes met those of her mother, she felt Ratha resist, and the branch was held between them in an abrupt tugging contest.

Ratha flicked her gaze toward Quiet Hunter, who stood with head lowered, accepting the claw swipes that were already opening wounds on his sides and flanks. His refusal to defend or guard himself was making the attackers hesitate, but it wouldn’t keep them off for long.

“For him,” Thistle heard her mother hiss through her teeth.

For an instant they were locked together, braced against each other. Thistle knew that her mother was stronger. Ratha could jerk the firebrand away from her easily. Yet something seemed to be happening deep in her green eyes. Ratha’s jaws loosened on the unlit firebrand, and Thistle heard the whisper of her mother’s voice. “For you, Thistle.”

The stick was in her own mouth and her heart was pounding wildly. She threw it aside. It was not the weapon to defend Quiet Hunter. But what was?

And then she heard it — the distant, slender echo in her mind. The song. And it said,This One knows what Thistle-chaser is trying to do. If only the people would understand.

They would if they could hear you, True-of-voice.

Then let them hear. Through you. Sing to them.

My song, my voice — not the same. Cannot be the same for them. They need the center, the soul, the strength.

The strength is gone. Death is too near. From True-of-voice take the center and the soul. From you, add the strength.

Thistle couldn’t answer. She could make no reply. Only to search within herself for what he asked for.

And then, as Quiet Hunter reeled back from another vicious strike and the threatening snarls from the hunters grew deeper, Thistle lifted her voice in the song.

* * *

Ratha looked up at the sky. The sun had moved only a little, but somehow things below — in hearts, bellies, and heads — had moved an immense distance.

She glanced at Quiet Hunter, who was with his people. The one who had first struck him was now licking and soothing his wounds. Such was the power of the song, even when it came from Thistle.

I’ll never understand these hunters, she thought. I’ll probably never like them, but at least I’m willing to give them a chance.

She crouched by the cliff edge, watching Thistle send Biaree down with bits of food and thirst-quenching melon for True-of-voice. Thakur had said that hunger and thirst were probably weakening him more than any injuries he might have. The hunters lay as close as they could get, yet out of the way of the rescue effort.

Thakur crouched close to Thistle so that Biaree could take the bits of life-preserving food to the one who so desperately needed them. In his mouth Thakur held the end of the slender vine safety rope. The other end was knotted securely about the treeling’s middle. Bira and Khushi stood ready to help Thakur with the rope or get more food.

Biaree had already made several trips up and down the cliff face, carrying as much as he could, but to Ratha, the amounts seemed woefully small.

She joined the rescuers, settling beside Thakur.

“I think we’ve fed True-of-voice as much as we can,” the herding teacher was saying to Thistle. “We don’t want to tire Biaree out; he’s still got to get the vines tied onto the leader’s paws and around his chest, if possible.”

Ratha felt a growing apprehension. Soon would come the moment that she dreaded, when Thistle would descend with her borrowed treeling. She felt that she had too many things to say, yet could not say any of them. She wished deeply that she could be the one to act in Thistle’s place, but she knew that she couldn’t. All other considerations aside, there was the simple fact that Thistle was the smallest of the party and better able to sidle along the narrow shelf. She, like the treeling, would have a safety line, and her lighter weight would minimize the chances of it snapping.

Although a good jerk probably would break it,Ratha thought.We don’t know. We haven’t been able to try it out. I wouldn’t be so worried if it weren’t for those wretched fits. They attack her at the worst possible times.

She listened as Thakur and her daughter talked about the difficulties Biaree would encounter when the treeling went down with the ropes. If True-of-voice was awake, he might be able to help by lifting his limbs and other parts so that Biaree could pass the vine rope around them. Yet, if he was awake, he might accidentally scare the treeling, especially if he was in delirium or only half-conscious.

“Can you reach him?” Thakur asked.

“Difficult. Not clear. Fading in and out.” Thistle squeezed her eyes shut. “Can’t be sure. Really reached him? Don’t know. Maybe song voices were all in my own head.”

“Well, even if they were, they were the right voices.”

“So strange,” Thistle said. “Even for me.” She shook herself. “Can’t wait any longer. Treeling Biaree,” she said, gently nudging her borrowed companion, “True-of-voice won’t hurt you. Go now. Quickly.”

She looked deeply into the treeling’s sharp black eyes, making Ratha wonder if the strange gift that made Thistle able to speak to True-of-voice’s people also worked with treelings. And then with a chitter and a scamper, the treeling was down on the cliff face, finding his way to the trapped leader, holding the end of the vine rope alternately in his teeth or wound around with his tail.

Thistle wore a vine-rope harness made of two loops.

One ran under her chest behind her forelegs; the other was a breastband that anchored the first. Thakur had suggested it and Biaree had tied it, under Bira’s direction. Biaree had also tied the far end to a stout spur of rock. It would help in case of a fall, but it was no guarantee.

Ratha, wrapped up in her thoughts, was startled when Thistle’s cool nose leather touched her own.

“Be with me,” said the soft yet strong voice. “In heart, in breath. Even in guts.”

“I will be, especially the guts,” said Ratha, for she felt her own start to roll and twist with trepidation. She forced herself to watch as Thistle started to climb down, headfirst, after the treeling.

* * *

Keep eyes fixed on True-of-voice. Don’t look beyond. Too far down. No, don’t think about down. There is no down. Just True-of-voice, looking dead.

No, he can’t be. Not after all this. True-of-voice, you aren’t dead, are you?

Can’t reach him now. Have to think too hard. Where to put each foot. How hard to drive in each claw.

Pads are sweaty. Have to stop, wipe carefully on fur. More sweat.

Biaree, don’t get too far ahead. Know you are impatient. Don’t blame you. Want to get this over as fast as possible, but sweaty pads make it slow.

Prrrp. Calling him, just like Bira taught me.Prrrp! Yes, he’s obeying. Good treeling. Wait for Thistle.

Flank against the rock…. Heart banging. Feels like it is trying to beat me right off this slab of rock.

No, don’t think about that. Just keep paws moving or they’ll freeze. True-of-voice, don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead.

Stupid, Thistle. He is alive or he isn’t. Wishing doesn’t make any difference.

If only it wasn’t so far to reach him….

Slow, hard, with damp paw pads. Wish I had a tail that could curl around things the way Biaree’s does.

Biaree, you are nearly there. Move slowly, carefully. Don’t be frightened.Prrrr. Good treeling, clever treeling. Tie the rope.

Arrr!True-of-voice moved. Don’t skitter away, Biaree. He won’t hurt you. He’s trying to help by lifting his paw.

Biaree’s fur is fluffed. True-of-voice moved too fast. Startled Biaree. Please, treeling, please go back.

He looks at me. Wants me down with him. Doesn’t have the courage to touch True-of-voice again unless I’m there.

Can’t. get there! Shelf narrows to nothing.

Biaree, please.

No good. Got scared. Doesn’t trust.

Face-tail dung! Everything ruined because True-of-voice twitched.

Biaree won’t go if I’m not down there to encourage him.

Won’t give up. Won’t!

I’m coming even if I have to find clawholds on the bare rock.

Prrrp! I’m coming, Biaree. Banging heart, scrawny tail, and everything.

* * *

Ratha crouched at the top of the cliff, looking down on Thistle. Her breath came fast and felt like the Red Tongue searing her throat.

Beside her was Thakur, and she could tell from the rigidity of his muscles and the stiffness of his neck that he was nearly as tense.

Both of them had some bad moments when Thistle left the small shelf she was inching along and began to descend, head down, along the open rock face.

Ratha could hardly bear to watch, knowing that at any instant her daughter might lose her hold and go plunging to a terrible death. The safety rope was too thin to stop such a fall. But Thistle had stuck to the cliff face like a tick to skin. Long enough for Biaree to tie vine cord to all four of True-of-voice’s limbs. Long enough to cajole and encourage the treeling to actually work a heavy vine rope under True-of-voice’s belly and then loop it across the leader’s chest, to make a heavier version of the harness that Thistle wore.

She had actually been able to do more than Ratha had hoped for. There was a good chance that the Named could get him down without worsening any of his injuries.

“There. Biaree’s coming back to her,” Ratha said, letting out a sigh of relief. “They’re done, and it looks like all the ropes will hold.”

“That’s good, since we don’t have any more heavy vines,” Thakur said.

Ratha glanced sideways, to where Quiet Hunter was trying to explain to his people what the Named were doing. Some of them had come to the cliff edge and peered over. They retreated again, but a more hopeful look had replaced the despair in their faces.

I hope he can persuade a few of them to help when we start lowering True-of-voice. He’s no lightweight.

She peered down over the cliff at her daughter. Thistle was still hanging, head down, near True-of-voice. Biaree had returned to her. Ratha waited, expecting to see Thistle turn around and climb back up. But she didn’t.

A cold feeling started creeping along Ratha’s back. Something was going wrong.

Thistle, your part is over. Come back up before you make me wild with worry.

Thakur was also peering over, his eyes narrowed, his whiskers drawn back.“She’s in trouble,” he hissed. “She can’t turn around. She tried and nearly lost her hold. And her tail is shaking.”

Ratha’s own tail was lashing. Thistle had gotten through the hard part. Why was she faltering now?

You’ve saved True-of-voice. Now save yourself. But as Ratha watched, it became ominously clear that Thistle couldn’t.

“It’s one of her fits,” she growled. “At the worst possible time. Thakur, we’ve got to do something. Can she get down to the ledge where True-of-voice is? Or can we lower her all the way by her harness?”

“There’s no room left on the ledge,” Thakur answered. “And we don’t know if the harness would hold, especially if she jerked it. I’m afraid those vines will snap. And the rope isn’t long enough to lower her all the way. I gave her a shorter one, since I assumed that she would be climbing back up.”

“Can she take one of the vines off True-of-voice?”

“That would lower our chances of getting him down, Ratha. And I don’t think Thistle can do anything right now. You know how the fits affect her.” He paused. “Someone is going to have to go down to her. I’ll do it, since I should have made her rope longer.”

He started to get up, but she put a paw on his back.“There aren’t any ropes left, Thakur,” she said, trying to speak calmly despite the fear that was rushing through her. “No time to make new ones.”

His gaze as he looked into her eyes supplied the answer.I know. I’m still willing.

“No,” she said. “You can’t be the one. I must be.”

“Ratha …”

“It has nothing to do with who is more valuable to the clan.”

“But. ”

“You’ve tried to make me understand all along. Now I do. She’smy daughter, Thakur. That is what matters.”

She could see the mixture of emotions in his eyes, but all he said as his nose leather touched hers was,“Go to her, Ratha. We will all be with you.”

* * *

Thought. it would be easy. Thought. that the hard part was over.

It is. Biaree has done what he needed to do. Ropes are on True-of-voice. The Named can lower him to safe ground.

Maybe that’s why the Dreambiter waited. But now, it is coming.

Climb back down to True-of-voice, treeling. You’ll be safe with him. Not with me. Not with me, hanging by my claws while the Dreambiter prowls.

Tried to do too much too fast. Strained my leg. Hurts. The Dreambiter knows that hurt. That’s why it woke. That’s why it is coming.

Am shaking. Vision closing. Can’t see outside anymore.

At least what I had to do is done.

Dreambiter, you won’t endanger anyone else if you take me now.

Shaking. Can barely feel my feet, my claws.

Feel like I am already falling.

Maybe I am.

* * *

Waves of white terror washed through Ratha as she sidled along the rock shelf, balancing herself with her long tail. She could see Thistle’s footsteps ahead of her in the fine, gritty dirt. They were damp. She knew why. Her own paw pads were slick with sweat.

Each step was harder than the one before, since the shelf was fading back into the cliff face. Ever so carefully she eased herself along, testing every step to be sure the rocks would not crumble away beneath her weight.

Fear came in stabs, each one driving deep, then withdrawing in a wake of sick dizziness. Yet the urge that drove her on overrode everything, and she had to fight not to launch herself in a bold but fatal scramble down the face to where her daughter was clinging.

The ropes running down to True-of-voice were there beside her, but Ratha dared not use them. A scratch or bite might start them fraying or cracking. The ropes had to stay strong — for True-of-voice and his people.

When the moment came to leave the vanishing shelf and climb down headfirst, as Thistle had done, Ratha thought she couldn’t. Dread locked up her limbs, froze her will. She could hardly bend her neck to look down.

You have to. Look at Thistle. Keep centered on her. You have to reach her soon or she will fall.

Ratha forced her head down, fixed her gaze on Thistle. She fought a whirlwind that seemed to howl around her, shrieking and moaning in her ears and buffeting her dangerously back and forth. She forced her forelimbs to reach down below the shelf, groping for clawholds.

But the vortex was nearly too much for her, threatening to spin her right off the shelf. She knew what the whirlwind was. It was her body trying to say that this was madness; common sense was trying to take over and send her scrambling back up to a part of the ledge where she would be safe.

Every time she tried to defeat the wildly spinning wind of fear, she was overwhelmed. It was tearing Thistle from her and threatening to destroy both of them.

She heard Thistle cry out and she heard a name she knew well. The Dreambiter had waited long for a chance to attack. Thistle would never be as vulnerable as she was now. And this time, the apparition might claim two victims.

Ratha bared her teeth, flattened her ears. No. The Dreambiter would not win. There was one thing that could slice through the whirlwind of fear: the enemy — hatred for her enemy.

Following the marks of Thistle’s clawholds, Ratha climbed down off the rocky shelf. The dread was still there, but it had somehow become remote. The fear-wind was still spinning, but now she had moved into the eye, the center, where the air was still.

And in the center, although distant, as if seen from far down a tunnel, was Thistle. Ratha fixed her gaze on Thistle and let her body take her to her daughter. Her legs somehow knew where to reach, her claws knew how deep to drive, and she trusted in that wisdom.

Suddenly she was beside Thistle, both now hanging head down on the cliff face. Thistle was losing the clawhold of one forefoot, for it was the leg that had been crippled. Under the Dreambiter’s attack, it was starting to draw up, pull back against her chest. Thistle’s trembling was giving way to twitches and jerks that she couldn’t control. Each was more violent than the one before.

Ratha was ready to fight, but the enemy was invisible, inside. The only thing she could see was Thistle herself, eyes swirling, slender body shuddering, mouth wide in a silent, agonized cry.

No… enemy.

But there is one. The Dreambiter.

Who is the Dreambiter, Ratha?

Mine and hers, yet it doesn’t belong to either of us alone. Thakur said that it would take both of us to put it to rest.

He didn’t say that both of us might have to die.

“Thistle,” Ratha said softly, then nudged her daughter very gently, for fear of startling her.

The eyes turned to her. They were all swirling sea-green, like the ocean’s clashing waves. The pupils had shrunk to the size of a claw point, swallowed by the wild storm within.

A spasm seized the once-crippled foreleg, jerking it, threatening to break the fragile clawhold of the foot. Ratha slapped her paw on top of Thistle’s, drove her own, longer claws into the crumbling rock. She pushed hard, flattening Thistle’s foot and keeping it there despite the continuing spasms in the leg.

“Bites,” Thistle gasped. “Keeps biting. Won’t stop. Wants. wants to kill.”

The words tore into Ratha, making a wound in which pain welled up. But something else rose as well. A realization.Yes. The Dreambiter does want to kill. And I know why. When I attacked Thistle, out of rage and frustration and fear, I wanted to kill.

Now she knew.That is why the Dreambiter is so powerful.

Thistle was speaking again in a quavering voice.“Two Dreambiters. One inside. One outside.”

Again the word hurt. More than Ratha could bear, and again she wanted to flee. Not back up the cliff to safety, but deep into the refuge of denial.

That wasn’t me who bit you. That was something else. Someone else. That wasn’t me, Thistle. It was an evil thing that came from outside, that wore my skin, looked through my eyes.

And because it wasn’t me, it became the Dreambiter.

I said then that you made it. Even now I want to believe that you made it.

Two Dreambiters?

No, Thistle. There is only one. I am the Dreambiter, the Dreamkiller. But I am also the Dreamsaver, the Dreamcarer. The same passion that drove me close to killing you has now driven me here, down onto this cliff. To either save you or die with you.

* * *

She is here. The one who gave me birth, who nearly gave me death. She is here.

Shadow teeth drive into chest and leg. Shadow teeth, but real pain, real wounds. The leg shrinks, crippled. Or it tries to, but something holds the paw from pulling back.

Teeth take hold of the scruff. Real teeth. Brace for more pain, Thistle. The real teeth are the ones that cast the shadows.

But. no pain. Not a bite. A hold. A mouth that held a very small cub.

She held me that way. I remember. She carried me that way. In that mouth, in those teeth that did not bite, there was gentleness, there was caring. When she carried me, I was safe. Nothing could harm me. All my legs were strong. All things were good and promising.

The Dreambiter drove it all away.

But now she has brought it back.

I remember. I remember. I felt it then. I feel it again now. In the gentleness of the jaws that hold my scruff. In the strength of the paw that holds my leg from drawing back. In the voice that says she will stay with me now, no matter what happens.

The pain in my leg has changed. It is not less than it used to be. It is worse, because my legs can’t pull back. Bad enough so that I could scream. But it no longer has the bleakness and coldness that made me so helpless. It is a hot, wild pain, but one I can fight.

She is with me. All of her. In a way I have always wanted.

Leader of the Named. Tamer of the Red Tongue. Fighter for the clan.

Wounder and wounded. Singer and sung-to. Dreambiter and Dreambitten.

Ratha. My mother.

* * *

The fit that seized Thistle was bad enough, but Ratha, her jaws fastened in her daughter’s scruff, dreaded even more what would happen when the attack ended. When the illness released its hold, Thistle would collapse into unconsciousness.

Ratha felt the driving beat of her heart in her breast where her fur met Thistle’s. If she lets go, I won’t be able to hold her. We’ll both go down. I won’t give up my hold. Not now.

She pressed against Thistle’s foot more firmly than ever, making sure that her daughter kept at least one set of claws anchored. At any instant, she feared, the rigid, jerking body would either throw both of them from their precarious hold on the cliff face, or she would feel the sudden sag of Thistle’s limbs as she toppled loose from the grip of the fit.

To her astonishment, neither happened. As she was bracing to somehow take Thistle’s full weight, she realized that she no longer had to struggle to keep Thistle’s foreleg extended or her pad pressed against the rock. The jerking spasms had died away. Thistle was holding on again, by herself.

“Am all right now,” said the quiet little voice.

The wave of relief that washed over Ratha made her own limbs weak, and she had to pay attention to keep her own clawhold on the rocks.

It was not until she felt Thistle moving that she remembered that she still was holding her by the scruff. Thankfully she released her grip and opened her jaws, which were now starting to ache.

She watched as Thistle, her agility regained, turned herself around to head back up the cliff face. As Thistle brushed her, she felt a grateful nudge and heard her daughter’s voice saying softly, “Good-bye, Dreambiter. Welcome, Ratha-mother. Climb up carefully with me. True-of-voice needs both of us.”

Ratha had a few bad moments while turning around, but by following Thistle’s claw marks, she managed to get herself facing up the cliff. Her heart was still slamming inside her ribs, so hard that she thought it might shake her off, but the beat of dread and anger had been replaced by one of joy.

First Thistle and then Ratha reached the narrow, sloping ledge that led back to the top. Ratha saw Thakur reach down with a helping paw, first for Thistle and then herself.

Only when both were back on firm and stable ground did Ratha begin to feel her legs shake so hard that she sank down on her belly.

“You stay, Ratha-mother,” Thistle said, pushing her firmly with a paw when she tried to overcome the shakiness and get up. Biaree, who had scrambled up onto Thistle’s back, added a few treeling admonitions.

“My fur hasn’t started to go gray yet, Thistle,” Ratha protested, but she was grateful for the chance to take a brief rest.

“Both of you rest,” said Thakur, butting Thistle gently off her feet so that she rolled over beside her mother. Biaree chittered, scolding Thakur.

“But True-of-voice—” Ratha tried.

“Is being taken care of. While you were down getting the vines tied onto him, Quiet Hunter was persuading his people to help us. A task that in some ways,” Thakur added, “was as difficult as what you had to do.”

Ratha saw her daughter’s head turn sharply toward Quiet Hunter. The young male was well named. He was gentle and quiet in everything he said and did, but underlying the gentleness was a strong determination.

He had lined the hunters up near the cliff edge. Ratha saw that they were ready to take the heavy vine ropes in their mouths and lift True-of-voice off the ledge. Bira and Khushi were also working with Quiet Hunter. They were getting the rope holders arranged in relays so that the vine ropes could be carefully passed from one set of jaws to the next.

In some ways Quiet Hunter is the real leader of this group, Ratha thought.True-of-voice may have the gift of the song, but Quiet Hunter has a way of inspiring trust.

When her shakiness retreated enough so that she could creep back to the cliff edge and peer over, she saw that the rescue was already underway.

One problem immediately became apparent. The cliff edge was not an overhang that would have allowed the rescuers to raise True-of-voice by just pulling up on freely dangling ropes. There was a backward slant to the rock face, and the edge itself had been worn and broken. The ropes could not be allowed to rub against the rocks as they passed over the edge, or the vines would fray and tear.

Thakur and Quiet Hunter solved the difficulty, with more cooperation from the hunters themselves. By lying on their backs, pushing the vine ropes up off the ground with their paws, they protected the lines against damage and allowed them to slide slowly but freely. Several of True-of-voice’s people even draped themselves over the edge, their companions hanging onto their forepaws, in order to use their powerful hind legs to cantilever the lines away from the cliff.

Soon True-of-voice was suspended by the vines that had been tied by treeling hands.

Ratha felt Thistle come alongside her, with Biaree still onboard.

“Treeling tied good knots,” Thistle said, giving her companion an affectionate nudge. “Nothing slipped.” She paused, then yowled at Thakur, who was helping Quiet Hunter. “Tell those fur-brained furballs not to bite down so hard. Will break the ropes!”

Ratha grinned to herself. Talk about leadership. She had a good idea who would probably be leading the clan when her fur did go gray and her muzzle turned white.Thistle’s even bossier than I am.

Slowly, carefully, True-of-voice was lifted, then lowered past the ledge where he’d been trapped. The teams of rope holders kept the lines securely anchored, yet allowed them to slip.

“Easier if we had treeling paws,” Thistle said, watching. “But using teeth works too. Wouldn’t want to be where True-of-voice is now, though. Had enough of hanging off rocks.”

Ratha narrowed her eyes, wondering if True-of-voice was alert enough to be aware of what was going on. She thought she had seen his eyes flutter open briefly. But he was either aware enough or unconscious enough not to struggle.

Just don’t die before we get you to the bottom. And don’t die then either.

As the vine-roped form descended, the hunters who had been moping at the foot of the cliff gathered and waited, their heads lifted, their eyes filled with wonder and hope.

And then came the moment when the ropes went slack because their burden had reached the ground. A weary team of rescuers, Named and hunters alike, turned to one another with relieved expressions. Below, at the foot of the cliff, the ones who had been keeping vigil now crowded in around their leader.

Thakur came to Ratha with Quiet Hunter. They crouched beside Ratha as Thakur said,“I’m going down there with him. Have you recovered enough to go with us?”

In answer, Ratha sprang to her feet.“We’d better hurry before they kill him with happiness. Thistle, you come, too. But watch your treeling.”

She saw a look of pleased surprise come over her daughter’s face.

Yes, I’m going to treat you as an equal now, so get used to it.

* * *

Once all the tumultuous greetings had died down, the hunters stood aside so that the Named and their healer could get to True-of-voice. At the bottom of the cliff,Ratha watched, wondering if all the effort had been for nothing or whether True-of-voice would survive.

Thakur worked devotedly over the hunting clan’s leader while others of the Named ran back and forth, gathering the herbs he asked for.

“He’s pretty battered, Ratha,” Thakur said when he paused briefly in his efforts, “but there are no severe wounds. What nearly killed him was lack of water.”

He spent the rest of the day and most of the night tending True-of-voice, while both the Named and the hunters kept a quiet but hopeful vigil.

Their patience was rewarded when a weary Thakur at last came to Ratha and said that True-of-voice would take several days to recover his strength, but he was out of danger. When Ratha had Quiet Hunter announce it to his people, there were yowls of joy.

Her gaze went to Thistle and Quiet Hunter, standing on each side of Thakur and helping to keep the herding teacher from falling over out of sheer exhaustion.

The two did not join in the outburst of celebration, but Ratha could tell by the looks they exchanged that they were the happiest of all.

* * *

Thistle is not the only one who can cross over between the two peoples. Quiet Hunter, who can swim in the bright and bubbling flow of the song, can also walk the trails of the Named.

The gift the Named have given to the hunters is the words that they have taught.

Understanding. Acceptance. Wisdom.

In both clans.

The song is heard.

* * *

There had never been such a meeting between the Named and outsiders before, Ratha thought. The same was true for the hunters, or so True-of-voice said. Ratha had received the information through Thistle and Quiet Hunter. She had not yet spoken directly to True-of-voice at any length, although she had exchanged brief words with him while he lay under Thakur’s care.

The meeting took place on the open grassy plain. Each of the two tribes sat in a semicircle around its leader. Both leaders had someone special at their sides. Beside Ratha sat Thistle, her eyes clear, her ears up, and a treeling perched on her shoulder. Across from Ratha was True-of-voice, the massive gray male who was more than just a leader to those who clustered about him. Beside True-of-voice sat Quiet Hunter.

The two who can cross over to the others’ trails. The messengers. The sinews that bind our tribes together.

Among the Named were those who had not been on the initial search for face-tails. Beside Thakur in the half circle of the Named sat Fessran and others who had been summoned to be present.

The excited buzz that was running through both sides of the circle died down. As if it were a signal, both Thistle and Quiet Hunter rose, their gazes fixed on each other. Ratha knew that for these two, little else existed right now. The bond between her daughter and the shy son of the hunting group was far more than the mating of male and female. Thistle and Quiet Hunter shared experiences that none of their people had known. Each had had to break out of a familiar way of being and risk those things that they valued most. Now both were being rewarded.

As Thistle and Quiet Hunter came together and touched noses, Ratha felt that something new had been born — a feeling deeper than any that could be felt by members of either tribe alone. When she looked across to True-of-voice, she knew that he realized the same thing, for his gaze was also fixed on the young pair.

True-of-voice. I have wondered about him. I have hated him. Now I am about to know him.

Thistle and Quiet Hunter came first to Ratha, one flanking her on each side.

“I am still a little afraid,” Ratha said in a low voice to her daughter.

“Everyone here is also. That is where the bravery is,” Thistle answered. “You are brave enough, Ratha-mother.”

The daughter of the Named and the son of the hunters brushed close to Ratha on either side as they escorted her to the center point of the full circle made up by the two tribes. The pair then went to True-of-voice, took up positions to either side of him, and brought the leader forward.

Ratha watched him approach, her heart beating hard with a mixture of trepidation and hope. He and she were so different. His people and the Named were so alien to each other. How could it possibly work?

Yet, looking at Thistle and Quiet Hunter, she knew that it could. With enough wisdom. and bravery. on both sides.

She extended her head for the nose-touch, breathed in True-of-voice’s breath, and gave hers to be breathed in by him.

What is it like to walk in a dream with your people? To be center and soul to them? To be the wellspring of the song?

He’s probably asking himself what it is like to be me, how I can be leader to a bunch of stubborn characters who not only know their own names but think for themselves whether I want them to or not!

True-of-voice, I don’t think we are that different after all.

Finding her voice, Ratha said,“We of the Named are here to join your people in friendship. We have talents that we will share, abilities that we will teach, if your tribe wishes.”

“The value of those things has been shown,” answered True-of-voice. “The Named saved this life, this song, this people. Named gifts will be accepted with joy and things given in return.”

She listened as he proposed the kinds of exchanges that would help both tribes. The Named would be allowed to take face-tails and add them to their herds if they so wished. If they needed help, the hunters would provide it. In return, the hunters might wish to adopt Named herding skills and learn about some of the other herdbeasts, such as the three-horn deer and dapplebacked horses.

There was also interest in treelings. The continued presence of Biaree on Thistle’s shoulder, as she went among the members of the hunting tribe, had sparked curiosity. Ratha noticed that True-of-voice’s people went to great lengths to make sure that the treeling was never alarmed or threatened.

Biaree was now Thistle’s. Ratha had not intended it to happen, but somehow the bond that had formed between her daughter and the treeling during the rescue of True-of-voice was deeper and stronger than the one that Bira, Biaree’s original companion, had built.

Ratha glanced over at Bira. The little ruddy-coated Firekeeper looked proud, yet there was a sadness in her eyes. She had been with Biaree since the treeling’s birth, carefully training him in the skills that she and he both needed to carry out the duties demanded by the Red Tongue. And then, in only a few days, she had lost him to Thistle.

It was a measure of Bira’s clear-sightedness that she had been the one to suggest that the temporary arrangement be made permanent. Biaree could have come back to her, for he had kept his affection for his first companion. But what had been created between Thistle and the treeling had a seriousness and a depth that wentbeyond the usual treeling-Named bond. Perhaps having a life at stake had increased the two partners’ devotion to each other.

I will make sure that Bira gets the first choice of the next treeling litter. As Thistle said, everyone is showing bravery, and Bira is not the least.

As Ratha gazed at her daughter, she realized that the change inside Thistle was starting to change her outside.

She’s not so scruffy anymore. She’s filling out a bit. And when she grooms her coat, she’s really quite pretty.

The meeting was starting to wind down. True-of-voice was making one last suggestion, one he was sure that the Named would agree to.

Thistle and Quiet Hunter would be allowed to move freely from one tribe to the other, staying together and using their combined skills to aid the members of both tribes to understand one another. There would be disagreements, perhaps even open conflicts. That was inevitable between peoples as different as theirs. But with two who could walk both sets of trails, there would be a better chance that matters could be settled without fighting.

We are setting out on another journey — one I never thought we’d ever take. But it feels right.

It happened because of you, Thistle. I never knew that daughters could help their mothers grow up. You yourself may be a mother some day. You already are, in a sense. A mother to two tribes of quarreling cubs that are also learning.

You have more than I ever hoped. A place. A purpose. A treeling companion to comfort you. And another companion, if I am any judge of what Quiet Hunter wants. He will be a gentle, devoted mate, I think. He is what you need.

And there is also.

One who is still struggling to find the best ways. Not only for myself and the Named, but for others as well.

A clan leader, a Dreambiter, a Dreamhealer. Impatient, reckless, carrier of fire, bearer of cubs. Jumping into unknown abysses, scrambling up dangerous cliffs. Facing challenges — and the greatest one is you.

You have a new name for me now.

Ratha-mother.

[Картинка: _8.jpg]

Ratha’s Courage

The Named Series: Book Five

Chapter One

A shiver of excitement went through Ratha. She began her stalk, belly fur brushing the ground. Grass whispered past her legs as she felt the slow, controlled power of each muscle. Her tailtip tingled with the urge to twitch, but she held it still.

The horse the Named called a striper tossed its head and flapped its tail, eyes widening. Ratha slowed her downwind stalk so that she seemed nearly frozen, yet was still moving. The striper swung its neck around, jerking its head and ears back.

Ratha stilled until the herdbeast settled, then quickened her stalk, easing her weight from one foot to the next, placing each directly ahead of the one behind and moving so smoothly she felt as though she were flowing across and through the grass, a green-eyed river of tawny gold.

Nearing the striper’s dancing rear hooves, inhaling its sweat-sharpened scent, Ratha trembled with the impulse to dash, spring, and wrestle her prey to the ground. She took a long slow breath — as the herding teacher, Thakur, had taught her — mastered her urge, and crept around the striper, circling in front of it.

Stripers were new to the Named herds. This horse was dun, with dark brown mane and tail. Ratha turned her head to bring her gaze down along its banded forelegs to the three-toed feet. These feet differed from those of the smaller dappleback horses that the clan had long tended. The striper’s center toe, sheathed in a single hoof, was larger, the side toes farther off the ground. That hoof had far more power than the dappleback’s feet. Ratha had dodged it many times, and other herders had been sent sprawling.

The striper grunted and whinnied, its nostrils flaring with her smell. From her crouch, Ratha lifted her chin and stared up at the horse, trying to catch and hold its gaze. As if sensing her purpose, the striper reared, its forefeet cutting the air, its tail whisking its flanks. She froze again, waited.

When the striper dropped down, she pounced on its stare with her own. Again it evaded her, closing its eyes and ducking its head, showing her only its bristling mane.

She knew the stripers were smarter than the dapplebacks; by now her stare would have a dappleback helplessly imprisoned.

Thakur had warned her that the stripers were clever, that the larger head held a more alert and cunning mind. Suppressing her frustrated growl, Ratha made several rasping snarls that were almost barks.

The sounds had the effect she wanted. The striper’s ears swiveled, the head came up, the eyes opened. Again her eyes sought the striper’s gaze, and this time she captured it. The animal stiffened, as if about to fight, but snort and stamp as it would, the striper couldn’t break Ratha’s stare. It stilled to near immobility, only its hide shivering.

Ratha felt triumph strengthen her heartbeat and deepen her breathing. She was so close; she could reach out and tap one of the horse’s forelegs with a front paw.

Again came the rush of desire that threatened to propel her up onto the horse’s shoulders, driving her teeth into its neck. In her imagination, she was already atop the striper, feeling the stiff upright mane bristle into the corners of her mouth. Part of her already felt the velvet-furred skin resist, stretch, and then tear through beneath the points of her fangs, her neck muscles pulling and twisting in just the right way so that her fangs would slip between the neck bones and skillfully separate them while the prey’s blood flowed in pulses over her tongue ….

Outwardly Ratha shuddered, yet kept her eyes fixed on those of the horse while inwardly she swiped the feelings aside. No, such a fevered attack was not the way of the Named. She had fought this internal battle many times before, when she trained as a cub under Thakur, and later when she began her duties as a herder. Even when she culled herdbeasts, she would not let instinct run wild.

Ratha used her frustration and desire, pouring them out savagely through her eyes. The horse was now as still as if it were already in her killing embrace. The muscles and tendons atop her forelegs quivered with the need to drive her claws out and deep into flesh.

She lifted out of her crouch, rearing up on her hind paws to lay one foreleg almost gently over the horse’s shoulders and up along the back of its neck. In spite of her care, the beast started, but before it could begin its escape flurry, Ratha slapped the other forepaw around the underside of its neck.

Now Ratha used her claws, but only enough to maintain her hold as she pushed backward with her hind feet to unbalance the striper and pull it over. She was so close to the horse now that she couldn’t hold its gaze, but she no longer needed to. It was falling into the daze that doomed prey often assumed.

Instead of digging into the striper’s nape with claws and teeth, Ratha used the pressure and friction of her pads combined with her weight and her experience in knowing exactly how and where to push in order to topple the beast.

As if in a trance, the striper sank to its knees. Ratha climbed farther onto it, using her weight to press the horse down onto its belly. She draped herself across the animal, one forepaw keeping the horse’s forelegs, with their dangerous hooves, at a distance. She wrapped the other forepaw around the top of the horse’s head, twisting it up so that the throat lay exposed.

Feeling the striper’s heartbeat thudding through its ribs and into her own body, Ratha bent her head, jaws starting to open. The heart’s beat was strong in the creature’s neck, visibly jolting the skin over the great vessels and releasing a deep temptation in Ratha to bite deeply and hard.

Instead she opened her mouth to its full gape and set her teeth in position for the instinctive throat bite. With the horse’s sweat-smell hot in her nose, she squeezed her eyes shut with the effort not to bite, feeling the jaw-closing muscles beneath her eyes and on the sides of her forehead tremble with the strain.

The onlookers, Thakur and the young cubs learning herding from him, had grown quiet, as if they sensed the conflict within her.

Slowly, deliberately, she pulled her head up, feeling the skin of her muzzle slide back over her teeth as her mouth closed. She swallowed the saliva that had flooded her mouth, staying atop the striper while the youngsters shrilled their praise and Thakur added his deeper note. Their cries sounded strangely muted to her, as if they were distant or her ears muffled.

She wanted to speak to them, saying, this is how you take down a striper, but a feeling stronger than just her heartbeat thudding in her chest held back her voice.

Something Ratha didn’t understand made her give the horse’s neck a gentle lick before she slipped her paws out from under its neck, lifted herself off its body, and quickly backed away. The striper lifted its head, then lurched to its feet. Before the horse took a step, Thakur and some older cubs surrounded it.

As Ratha watched them return the striper to its herd, she shook her pelt hard, as if she needed to shed it in preparation for resuming the mantle of Named clan leader. Today, she reminded herself, her role was more humble: guest herding instructor.

She struggled to rid herself of the confusion between ancient hunter and Named herder. Perhaps the feeling was stronger today because her leadership duties had taken her away from herding. Intense practice had brought back her skills, but not complete control of her instincts.

The cubs and their teacher were returning. Ratha lifted her head, now hearing individual voices instead of a general clamor.

“The males may be able to take down stripers, but I’ll never be able to do that,” said a discouraged little female voice.

“That is why I asked Ratha to show you the technique,” Ratha heard Thakur say. He trotted toward her, his step springy, his whiskers fanning with pride. Scent and sight told Ratha that he had groomed himself especially well this morning. The metallic copper highlights in his fur shimmered in the sun. He had lost the leg feathering of his winter coat, and his slender limbs were clean, his body taut and spare.

His scent had a musky undertone, reminding Ratha that the Named mating season was not far away. She wanted to rub herself luxuriously alongside him and flop her tail across his back. Instead, she contented herself with an affectionate head-rub and turned to the discouraged youngster, finding her voice at last.

“Little one,” she said to the cub, “it is true that the culling takedown is harder for female herders, especially with the stripers. We don’t have as much weight or muscle as the males.”

“Then how will I do it?”

Gently, Ratha explained how she depended on precision and balance instead of sheer force to bring a beast down.

“But you are special, clan leader,” said the cub. “You aren’t just a female, you’re—”

“As a herder, I am no different than any of you,” Ratha said, looking the cub in the eyes. “I had to struggle with takedowns when I was your age, even with the dapplebacks. And a three-horn stag chased me up a tree once.”

“No, really?” the cub asked, wide-eyed, and others joined with her, wrinkling their noses in disbelief that a mere herdbeast could terrorize the Tamer of the Red Tongue, the Giver of the New Law, their clan leader.

“Yes, really. Ask Thakur.”

The cubs clustered around their teacher, who answered, then shooed them all away, telling them to go practice stare-downs with three-horn fawns until he called them.

Ratha watched them bumble and scramble away, wondering if they knew she got dung between her pads and muck on her coat, just like everyone else.

“Let them worship you a bit,” Thakur said softly. “It helps them, especially the little females.”

“They are doing well this season,” Ratha mused. “It is hard to believe that it hasn’t been that long since Meoran forbade any female cubs to train as herders.”

“Except a certain one,” Thakur answered.

Because you fought for me. You defied him to train me. You stood by me when I overthrew his tyranny.

“I can answer the rest of the cubs’ questions. Go take a nap on the sunning rock, yearling,” he said, using his old name for her.

She had a new name for him, but one that she dared not use. Beloved.

Or, perhaps it wasn’t so new.

“May you eat of the haunch and sleep in the driest den, clan leader,” he said formally, and returned to the cubs.

She looked after him, letting her whiskers droop slightly in a silent sigh, then decided to take his advice.

* * *

Ratha awoke from her nap, stretched out on the sunning rock in the middle of the meadow. She felt the late spring breeze ruffle her tawny-gold fur backward from tail tip to nape. Warmth grew on her fur, and the scent of drying sandstone mingled with the freshness of new grass.

Yawning until her tongue quivered, Ratha extended her front legs over the edge. The breeze tickled the spur whiskers at the back of her front paws, teased the hairs inside her ears and the silky velvet at their edges. It played with the longer fur on her ear tips, tugging at her nose and eyebrow whiskers.

Swiveling her head to turn her gaze, she saw that morning was still chasing dew-sparks from the grass.

She sat up, licked a forepaw with a raspy tongue, and rubbed her face. She scrubbed her nose and behind her ears in circles, and tongued down her short ruff and creamy chest fur.

In the distance Ratha heard the muffled sound of hoof beats on grass, mixed with cub squeals. She turned her head into the wind, cocking her ears. She raised her nose whiskers, opening her mouth slightly to capture scents. Odor turned to taste in a sensitive place at the roof of her mouth when she touched it with her tongue.

Smell and flavor combined with sound, telling Ratha that Thakur was still in the meadow with his group of half-grown cubs. Now they were working with three-horn deer instead of stripers.

Ratha knew that long ago her kind had been hunters, but they had learned to tame and herd the three-horn deer, dappleback horses, and other beasts they once stalked. Because they had to know one another well in order to cooperate, they needed and valued names. They also grew to value the light in a cub’s eyes that meant that the young one would be able to think clearly and speak well.

Lifting her head, Ratha narrowed green eyes against the sunlight. Looking down, she saw paw prints on the damp soil below.

She knew that the sunning rock stood not only at the center of the surrounding meadow, but also at the center of clan life. The Named used it as a meeting ground and a seat of honor for their leader.

In the midst of all the prints lay a clear area where stones encircled a still-smoldering pile of ash. It was a nest of the Red Tongue, the fire-creature she had brought to her people.

She grimaced as she remembered how the clan had kept her up late last night with their arguing and yowling in the firelight. She had let all have their say. Though still young, she knew by experience that a good clan leader should listen rather than speak.

Gathering her hindquarters beneath her, Ratha raised herself on her forepaws. A front claw snagged on the sandstone. Her tail tip flicked with annoyance. With her tongue, she explored her paw and found a not-quite-shed outer layer of the claw. Using the small sharp incisor teeth between her fangs, she nibbled it off.

Sandstone grit scraped beneath her pads as she pushed her front paws out, bowed her back, and indulged in a good long stretch. She enjoyed the feel of her body: her long powerful hind legs that launched her into a swift charge at a herdbeast; her slim but muscular forelegs that could wrap around the animal’s neck and pull it down. Her neck and shoulders drove the force of her bite, but her forequarters were flexible enough so that she could lick most of her back.

Her longer hind legs raised her hindquarters slightly above her forequarters so that her back sloped gently down from hips to shoulders. When Ratha galloped, she could feel the arch and bow of her spine, giving her strides additional length.

She thought about the herding teacher, and his place in the clan. Shifting from hunters to herders helped the Named, but others had taken advantage of the change. Raiders of Ratha’s own kind, but lacking the self-aware gift of the Named, attacked the herds. The Un-Named ones far outnumbered the clan and could devastate the herd, driving the Named to starvation. Clan cubs had to be well trained in the ways the Named used to defend and protect their animals.

While thinking about Thakur again, she caught the distant flash of morning sun on his copper coat.

Ratha watched the shapes moving against the sky and trees at the meadow’s edge. She saw spotted cub-students cut in and out of the small teaching herd of three-horn deer as Thakur dashed alongside, yowling instructions. Other cubs practiced stare-downs with the young deer.

One youngster instantly became a ball of fluff as an aggressive half-grown buck broke the cub’s stare and charged. A whiff and taste of cub fear-scent made Ratha tense, but Thakur had already plunged in and headed the buck off. She watched, tail flicking, as he confronted it with bared claws and teeth. For an instant it challenged him with its forked nose-horn and pronged antlers, then backed off.

At least he didn’t have to kill the animal, Ratha thought, again remembering the day when a three-horn stag had nearly gotten the best of her. Thakur had not let that deer live with its dangerous knowledge that it could defy its Named keepers. It had swiftly become clan meat.

From a closer part of the meadow screened off by brush came another ruckus, accompanied by strange smells and puffs of dust. Ratha couldn’t see the source, but brassy bellows and yearling cub-cries told her that the older herding students were practicing their skills on a leathery-skinned baby beast with legs like young trees.

She remembered when she had first seen one of these creatures. At first she had the odd thought that they were built backward, for the tail on their rumps was far less impressive than the one that curled down from their faces and waved about in front of their tusks.

This“ face-tail” trunk was as impressive as it looked, as several of the Named had learned by being suddenly plucked from the ground and hurled into a thornbush. It had earned the beasts their name.

The Named decided to start slowly with baby face-tails but even so, the huge, boisterous infants kept the herders busy. The young face-tails used their domed heads as well as their trunks and many a Named herder had been butted from behind and sent rolling across the meadow.

Ratha listened to the assorted screeches, bellows, and yowled commands and thought, Thakur sounds like he is losing patience with them, but he never does.

The wind shifted, bringing Ratha another scent, acrid and ashy.

Cubs, herdbeasts, and skirmishes with Un-Named raiders; these were all we knew. Until…

She gazed upwind, to the source of the smell. From the open forest bordering the meadow, smoke twisted into the sky. Ratha could almost imagine that she saw the flicker of fire through the leaves. She looked down at the remains of the campfire from the previous evening.

Training cubs, caring for herdbeasts, and fighting off marauders had been the life of the Named until a young she-cub dared to bring something new to the clan.

Ratha’s skin prickled as if flakes of hot ash and embers were falling into her fur. She remembered the eerie, almost-alive thing she had tamed and called “her creature.” Even though the clan did not see the fiery color as well as they did other hues, the flame shone intensely enough for them to call it the Red Tongue. It now burned on torches carried by Named Firekeepers and in guard-fires that frightened Un-Named ones back. It held a strange power that warmed and sheltered, yet had terrified, tempted, and corrupted. The old way of claws and fangs gave way to the new power of fire. Remembering, Ratha felt her whiskers rise and pull back as her lips drew back in a half-snarl and her ears flattened. Though she had not wished for it, the death of the old clan tyrant Meoran and her own ascension to leadership began the change.

Guard-fires, campfires, the Firekeeper’s den dug in the meadow, wood gathering, and tending the Red Tongue had become the Named way.

The rustle of leaves nearby and a rising chirr reminded Ratha of other, gentler changes. Her ears and whiskers relaxed when she caught sight of a small agile climber scrambling down from a sapling. The creature clung to branches with fingers and toes that had flat nails instead of claws. Lifting its head and balancing with its long ringed tail, it pointed its sharp muzzle at her. Gently mischievous, yellow eyes blinked at her from the black-and-gray mask over the face. Tufted black ears pricked. She answered the chirr with one of her own and called,“Come to me, little treeling.”

The lemurlike creature bounced down from the sapling and into the high meadow grass. Ringed tail held high, it bounded to the sunning rock, jumped up, and perched on the edge. It cocked its head, widened its large eyes at Ratha, and said,“Aree?”

“Good Ratharee,” she praised, lowering her head so that the treeling could climb onto her nape. It wound its fingers in her fur. They felt slightly sticky.

Ratha often found herself talking to her treeling, even though she knew Ratharee could not speak, at least not in the clan language. The treeling did respond to the various sounds of Ratha’s voice, as well as Named paw-and tail-waves.

“At least you can’t dribble fruit juice on me,” Ratha said, nuzzling her little companion. “That tree doesn’t have any ripe fruit.”

Her whiskers lifted with amusement as she remembered how Thakur’s treeling often gorged on overripe autumn fruit, making a sticky mess of his fur.

As Ratha had brought a new creature to the clan, so had Thakur, in the form of a ring-tailed sharp-nosed fuzzball he called“ Aree” after the noise it made.

Aree turned out to be female and was now the mother and grandmother of all the treelings who were companions of clan members. Ratha’s treeling, Ratharee, was also female, but had no young.

Not all the Named kept treelings, but Ratha and others who did felt that their little friends brought an additional richness to their lives. Treeling companionship had a soothing effect on the often-restless nature of the Named.

Treelings can offer more than just companionship, Ratha thought, as Ratharee scurried up the slope of her back to groom the troublesome area at the root of her tail. The treeling chittered as her fingers combed Ratha’s pelt. She found several ticks and gleefully ate them.

When Ratharee finished, she groomed herself with a flurry of quick, short strokes, and then crouched expectantly on Ratha’s nape. Yes, you’re right. It’s time to rejoin the others.

Ratha pivoted, lifted a forepaw to take a step down. As she lowered it, she felt the spur whisker behind her paw pad stroking the rough rock. She touched the stone with the outside edge of her forefoot, rolling the foot inward and using the whiskerlike hairs between her pads to judge the surface underfoot before putting her weight on it. She did the elegant yet important move without thinking, as did the rest of her kind. Thakur, who often thought about such things, said this manner of walking prevented the Named from stepping hard on anything that might give way beneath them.

The swish of grass past legs drew Ratha’s attention. She saw a line of clan females carrying tiny cubs and smelled milky scents. Some spotted youngsters hung by their scruffs from their mother’s or a helper’s jaws, others stumbled or romped behind, and several even sat atop feline shoulders and backs. In front walked a rangy sand-colored female with a light foreleg limp, flame-shortened whiskers, a long tapered tail, and green eyes. Like Ratha herself, the newcomer had white fur around her whiskers and a black patch behind them. Dark tear-lines ran from the corners of her eyes along her nose, snaking back to the corners of her mouth to join the black patches on either side of her muzzle. Her underside was also white, from her tail to her throat and her lower jaw.

It was Fessran, chief of the Firekeepers who tended the Red Tongue. She was also Ratha’s friend and, this season, a mother. She had two fuzzy, blue-eyed cubs: one riding on her shoulders and one dangling from her mouth.

Ratha felt her treeling scurry up to her hindquarters as she leaned down from the sunning rock to greet Fessran and the cub-carriers.

“Are you raising little treelings to perch on you?” Ratha teased.

Fessran, impatient as always, didn’t want to set the cub down and instead tried to speak through a mouthful of spotted fur.

“Mmmph. Bira,” Fessran sputtered to the young female behind her, “take this little son of a dappleback.”

Lifting her long plume of a tail, red-gold Bira took Fessran’s burden. She had muzzle-patches, tear-lines, and a lighter color underneath. She also had a treeling riding on her nape.

The Firekeeper leader sneezed twice and scrubbed her nose with a charcoal-stained forepaw. Her facemarkings emphasized her grimace.“I can’t believe he’s already shedding,” Ratha heard her friend complain. “Rrrraatchooo!”

“Ho, singe-whiskers,” Ratha greeted. “Is it already time to move the litterlings?”

“Ho yourself, clan leader. Yes, the new nursery is finished.” With an upward jerk of her tail and a slight sharpening of her scent that told Ratha the Firekeeper was mildly annoyed, Fessran added, “I don’t suppose you remembered you were going to help us this morning.”

“I said that before all of you kept me awake last night,” Ratha retorted. “And I still want to talk to Thistle-chaser.”

Fessran gave a snort, and Ratha knew it wasn’t just cub fur up her nose. “The decision is made, and we’re going to carry it out. I don’t see why we have to keep pawing at it over and over.”

“Yes, but I still wanted to speak to her.”

“Well, even if she is your daughter, she isn’t going to change things,” Fessran said, licking her sand-colored coat.

Especially things that you want, singe-whiskers, Ratha thought, half-fondly and half-sourly.

“For once we’re following the right trail,” the Firekeeper argued. “Letting True-of-voice and his hunter tribe use the Red Tongue is good for them and us. You were right when you made us rescue him. This is one more step along a better path.”

Ratha made her reply mild.“I know, Fessran, but we’ve already made some mistakes. I don’t want any more.”

Fessran stopped to swat a pair of cubs playing tag around her forelegs.

“I’m glad you are doing this, Ratha,” the Firekeeper said, her voice becoming softer. Her face relaxed and her tear-lines straightened. “I imagine how their litterlings’ eyes will glow when they curl up near the Red Tongue, safe and warm.”

Even if the light in their eyes differs from the light in ours, Ratha thought.“Just be careful. As for moving our cubs to the new nursery, you don’t need me — you’re doing fine.”

“We’ve picked a good site. It’s sheltered, but open enough so that cubs can run and pounce. We can also bring in some three-horn fawns and dappleback foals for the cubs to play with. So they get used to the herdbeasts.” She paused. “It was Thakur’s idea.”

Cub scuffling around Fessran’s legs made her jump. “Yow, you little daughter of a dappleback! Clan leader, be glad you didn’t have a litter this year. Bira, let’s get this bunch to the nursery before they make me climb a tree.”

“I’ll come to visit,” Ratha offered.

“Just you, though. Not Thakur or any of the other males, or someone may get their ears shredded.”

“Fess, no clan male would hurt a cub.”

“You know that, and the sensible part of me knows that, but the mother part of me just goes wild. Bira’s does, too. We’re all like that.”

Ratha let her gaze travel down the line of Named females as she sampled their scents. There was a milky overlay, but she caught and enjoyed their individual smells. Fessran: spicy, sharp with an acrid touch of soot and ash. Bira: sun-warm earth and cinnamon bark. Drani: grass awns, sycamore, horse dung. Chika, Fessran’s older daughter: flowery with a slight fruitiness of pride in her first litter. The first-litter mothers and helpers had the clean freshness of youth, the older ones, steeped and aged in their own odors, had deeper, darker, richer scents.

Closing her eyes briefly, Ratha bathed in the aromas of her friends. When she opened them, she saw whiskers lifted and nostrils widened as the other females sampled hers in return. She knew her scent didn’t have the milk-odor of motherhood and felt a little sad.

Fessran grabbed her spotted culprit gently but firmly around the neck and hoisted the cub. Ratha noticed the short, soft, silvery mantle of fur that formed a crest just behind his ears and swept down his back. She had seen this before in Named litterlings, and some kept it even after weaning. The ones who had it often had longer legs and could sprint faster.

As Fessran lifted him, the youngster mewed, paddled oversize paws, and then settled into a submissive curl. Ratha sniffed him, catching the beginning odor of maleness in his baby-scent.

Fessran moved off with the other Named females, each with one or more squalling or wide-eyed burdens. Soon they were gone.

Ratha settled back on the sunning rock while Ratharee groomed her. Along with ticks and fleas, the treeling could somehow pick out and get rid of Ratha’s troubling thoughts. One, however, remained.

Yes, I would be like Fessran if I had another litter. I wonder if I ever will.

Chapter Two

Scrub jays swooped back and forth across the forest trail, teasing the leader of the Named. Their iridescent blue feathers shone in the sun. Their raucous taunting and their tempting scent made Ratha want to spring and swipe them out of the air. She knew she wouldn’t even get close, but her lower jaw chattered in excitement.

Firmly she clamped her teeth together to make the chattering stop. She had other duties and could not be distracted by impudent jays. She lowered her gaze to the trail and went on, but a part of her wanted those birds fiercely, and her jaw trembled with the longing.

Inwardly she chided herself gently for her foolishness. It wasn’t the first time inborn urges had tempted her, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. Sometimes she felt as though there were two of her, each part wrestling with the other: the fire-hearted stalker and the cool, detached thinker.

Farther along the trail, Ratha halted to rake her claws down a tree trunk and chase her thoughts together before continuing with her morning prowl. The stretch felt good in her shoulders and the sun was warm on her back. Her tail high and quivering, she backed up to the tree, sprayed it, and scraped with her rear paws.

Ratharee wasn’t with her today. Ratha had asked Bira to take the treeling while she patrolled.

As she went on, setting one paw silently in front of another, she wondered what the day would bring. She hadn’t seen the herder Bundi or his friend Mishanti recently. Her tail wagged sideways in annoyance. Those two strange animals that Bundi had found were already huge and showed no sign of slowing their growth.

How he and Mishanti had gotten the pair, she wasn’t sure, and why she had allowed the two herders to keep them she didn’t know either. At the time, the creatures were pitiful — orphaned and starved, barely larger than a dappleback. Now they exceeded the size of an adult face-tail and might well double it.

Well, actually, she admitted, she did know why she had let Bundi and Mishanti keep the beasts. To be honest, the two weren’t much good at anything else. Bundi, although Thakur had tried hard with him, was too clumsy and easily distracted for the classic herding techniques of the Named. Mishanti, having been raised by Thistle-chaser at the seacoast, was still too young and still settling into the clan.

Perhaps it was their similarities that attracted them to one another. Bundi now treated Mishanti as a younger brother. Bundi, once injured by fire and left with burn scars down his neck and shoulder, used to be withdrawn and sullen. Mishanti’s arrival drew him out and made him forget his own troubles. Chasing the lively Mishanti about the meadow and up and down trees had also given Bundi more strength and speed.

Mishanti also benefited, becoming less rebellious and disobedient. He also could speak better, although his speech still had remnants of Thistle-chaser’s odd phrasing.

When the pair of friends had found the two motherless creatures near clan land, Ratha realized that their affection for the orphans would keep them too busy to get into mischief.

She rationalized her decision by including it as part of a larger scheme to increase and diversify clan herds. She planned originally to cull the creatures when they got older, but Bundi and Mishanti’s pleading made her delay.

With care and good feeding, the orphaned animals grew so fast that, before Ratha realized it, they were too big to cull. To take them now would require all the Named, and Ratha doubted that even that number could make a clean kill. It would be messy and upsetting. She also didn’t relish the idea of Bundi and Mishanti squalling in her ears for days after.

Letting the creatures live under the youngsters’ care wouldn’t harm anything, and the Named had plenty of other herdbeasts. Perhaps the things would even breed.

As Ratha came to a grassy clearing, the sound of splintering branches made her look up. The hair lifted on her neck and her eyes widened. The alert hunter within made Ratha take a quick step back before she caught herself.

Slightly embarrassed to be so startled, Ratha bent her head and gave her foreleg a quick swipe with her tongue. Then she looked again.

There was almost no word in the Named tongue to describe the two gray-brown beasts browsing in the treetops. They were mountainous. They even looked a bit like mountains, with backs sloping slightly up from rump to shoulders, extended necks increasing the slope and carrying the ascending line to huge, blocky, horselike heads.

She had no idea what these beasts were. Once she had seen a rhino, a low-slung leathery-skinned animal with a head that resembled those moving among the branches far above her. That animal had a horn on its nose. These didn’t, just a bulbous swelling above the upper lip.

Her ears swiveled to the sound of drawn-out grinding and crashing. She narrowed her eyes. The beasts were not just eating leaves or twigs; they were crunching up whole branches. A substantial part of the tree’s canopy was already gone. Ratha promptly changed her mind about the creatures doing no harm. If they kept this up, they might just eat the top off every tree in the forest.

“Don’t be afraid, clan leader,” came a yowl from above. “The rumblers are gentle.”

Inwardly Ratha bristled at the slightly mocking tone but didn’t let her tail even twitch.

One rumble-beast lowered its head to gaze at Ratha. It was still chewing. The mushy slurping sound made her put back her ears. It was as disgusting as any other herdbeast’s chomping, and much louder.

The rumbler’s eyes, however, were mild, unlike the rhino’s red-rimmed, irritable stare.

“They may be gentle, but I still don’t want to be sat on.” Ratha reared up on her hind legs, squinting to find Bundi in the treetop. “Where are you, Bundi, you little son of a three-horn?”

She spied a familiar faintly spotted dun-colored form lying along a tree limb, licking a paw. Nearby she caught sight of another, smaller and more distinctly spotted shape resting on the same branch.

With a grunt, the rumbler that had been staring at Ratha began munching on the branch where the two friends sat, oblivious now to anything but food. As Ratha watched, the creature chewed its way toward Mishanti and Bundi. The bough swayed and shook as the animal tore at it. The beast used its long upper lip almost like a treeling finger to rip off twigs. Mishanti looked alarmed, his fur rising and his paws spreading as his claws dug into the bark.

Bundi, however, looked relaxed, lazing along the branch with his tail looping down. With its eyes blissfully closed and massive jaw working slowly, the rumbler ate up Bundi’s branch. Ratha half wondered if Bundi would move before it ate him as well, or if the jostling would dump him off the tree limb.

When the rumbler’s jaws were less than a cub’s tail-length from Bundi and the branch was swaying as if caught in a windstorm, Bundi lifted his head, yawned, and batted the huge nose with his paw. “Get away, Belch,” he said as the huge horselike ears flapped amiably and the snout withdrew.

“Belch?” asked Ratha, balancing on her hind legs again. The beast paused in its careless eating, lowered its head, and gave a resonant burp. Looking vaguely satisfied, the creature flipped its absurdly small tail, waggled its horselike ears and began destroying another branch.

“Belch is the female,” Bundi called down. “The other is a male. I call him Grunt.”

Ratha skittered to the side as a large mass of Grunt’s manure plopped down, just missing her.

“Our first choice was ‘Dung-Dumper’ but that lacked something.” Bundi’s eyes were half-closed, his whiskers fanning out from his nose. His facial markings enhanced the slight cat-grin on his face. The scent wafting from him had a trace of smugness.

That wretched half-grown runt is enjoying this, Ratha thought indignantly. She lifted a hind foot and shook it as if she had stepped in the stuff, although she hadn’t.

“Come down,” she yowled. “I need to talk to both of you.”

Mishanti started to scramble down the tree. Bundi, however, climbed onto the branch that Belch was munching, sauntered fearlessly to the huge nose, and hopped up on it. Tail waving, he strolled along the top of the rumbler’s muzzle above the eyes, then made his way between the ears. He padded down the back of the neck while Belch kept browsing as if this was nothing strange at all. When he came down the back and reached the base of the tail, Belch spoiled his show by sitting abruptly, making the ground under Ratha’s paws shake. Bundi plunged nose-down into Grunt’s deposit. As he got himself out and shook off, Ratha lolled her tongue at him. Mishanti arrived tail-first down the trunk, looking and smelling pleased with himself.

“You both can go wash off in the creek, but first listen to me,” Ratha said.

“Yes, clan leader,” they both answered together.

“You know that I want the herding meet for True-of-voice to go well. Are you two ready?”

Bundi grimaced, making his tear-lines crumple.“Thakur has been running us around until our pads are sore. We came down here to get away from him. Yes, we’re ready.”

Mishanti chimed in with a high-pitched,“We very ready.”

“Just be grateful I don’t ask you to show me right now,” Ratha said, trying to make herself sound stern but knowing she was failing. The sight and scent of Bundi, crestfallen and dung-caked, made her want to loll her tongue out again.

“Come on, Mishanti,” Bundi said impatiently. “I don’t usually mind getting herdbeast dung on me, but this stuff is really gooey and stinky ….” He glowered at Grunt.

“I hope you get clean before the herding display,” Ratha called after him. “I don’t want to have to wash you myself.” Two tails disappeared down the path before she could finish.

Satisfied, Ratha continued her stroll until she reached an area where the forest opened, giving way to brush and meadow. Here the creek ran with its waters dappled by sun and shade.

She caught the rainy freshness of flowing water and passed a small pond that bloomed from the creek side like a flower from a stem. She knew this was not a natural part of the creek. Thakur and Thistle-chaser had dug it.

She circled the pond, trying to see into the water without being dazzled by reflections. The pool was crowded with both free-swimming fish and limp dead ones that were tethered to a sunken log. The pool’s connection with the creek had been cleverly made so that stream water could flow in but the live fish couldn’t get out.

The tethered fish were Thistle-chaser’s, brought from her seaside home and placed in this specially dug pond to stay cool and appetizing. Her daughter’s attempts to add seafood to the Named diet was having somewhat mixed results. The ocean fish grew larger and meatier than freshwater fish, but their smell and taste were stronger.

Both Thistle and Bira had caught the live free-swimmers, spotted silvery trout, and whiskered mud-grubbers. This pond kept them fresh, and easily available.

Wherever Thistle-chaser goes, she changes things, Ratha thought, recollecting. Thistle had helped rescue True-of-voice, the leader of the face-tail hunting clan. The event was many full season-turns past, but it still remained sharp in Ratha’s memory.

She thought about her daughter, the image of the stubborn, pointed little face with sea-green eyes coming into her mind along with the smells of waves, kelp, and gulls. The eyes in that face had once looked cloudy and dull, lacking the Named depth and clarity. Now Thistle-chaser’s gaze was sharp and her wit, if not her words, was the equal of any in the clan. Only her slight foreleg limp remained to remind Ratha that she had once bitten, crippled, and abandoned this cub in a frenzy of disappointed rage. It was Thakur who had found Thistle, taught her speech, and then brought her back to the clan.

Ratha sometimes wondered how such a tough and intense spirit as Thistle’s could inhabit such a funny, odd-colored little body. Only in her facial markings and lighter underside did Thistle resemble the Named. The rest was a patchwork of rust, tan, and black that made Ratha understand why Thistle had once called herself Newt, after the slow-moving salamander.

Thistle was growing, but her early exile and struggle for survival had stunted her. The crippled leg, however, was healing, along with other, more invisible wounds.

Not wanting to think about the past, Ratha turned her attention back to the pond. Crayfish crawled over the graveled bottom, feeding with their claws, climbing over one another, getting into quick fights, and shooting away with sudden flaps of their tails.

She knew that the crayfish were Thakur’s doing. He liked to feast on river crawlers and he preferred them fresh. Whenever he caught a few, he put them in this holding pond.

Thistle’s fish-storing idea was generally a success, although sometimes Thakur’s crayfish decided to help themselves to an ocean fish snack. He could solve the problem by giving the clan a crayfish banquet. She remembered the exotic sweet taste of the meat as she delicately teased it out of the shell with her front teeth and tongue. Her mouth started watering just from the memory. Ratha eyed the swarm of river-crawlers and licked her jowls.

A little farther, at the meadow’s edge, the creek ran wide and shallow, making a convenient ford. Ratha crossed, feeling chilled water surge over her front toes up to her dewclaws. Gravel rolled under her pads and stuck between her toes so that she had to pause and clean her feet.

The meadow was so lush with high-sprouting grass that Ratha had to crane her neck to see above it. A crowd of butterflies surrounded her nose. Their fluttering tickled her whiskers, making them twitch.

Her ears pricked to the distant voices of Thakur and his herding students. She also caught the high but still brassy bellows of young face-tails and saw a spray of wet grass and dirt.

Ratha bounded through the high grass until she reached a place where the exuberant spring growth had been grazed down. Now she could see Thakur and his students ringing a young face-tail. An older cub was attempting to back the little elephant using the Named stare-down, but the creature wouldn’t let the herding student lock its gaze. It danced, surprisingly agile on its tree-trunk legs, bobbing its head, swishing its trunk, and tusking up more dirt and grass to throw. The young student, his spots fading into blue-gray with a darker stripe along his back, was getting splattered with mud-brown and green. Judging by the little elephant’s aim, the cub would be mostly mud-colored by the time he either gave up or got control of the face-tail.

Getting absolutely filthy seemed to be one of the drawbacks of Named life, Ratha thought in amusement, remembering Bundi’s recent plunge.

Above the racket, she could hear Thakur’s yowling.

“You have a strong will, cub. Use it; let it out through your eyes. Don’t let the creature even think that it can escape you.”

The fray became even thicker, the face-tail and its would-be master hidden by flying dirt and debris. The heavy mud smell of the face-tail permeated the air.

Ratha altered her path to avoid the two, homing in on Thakur. She gave a little sideways jump to evade a dirt clod that smacked into the ground ahead of her.

The cub-student, oblivious to everything except the rebellious face-tail, bored in through the flying dirt, growling with determination. The young tusker lunged, clubbed with its trunk, its short pigtail stuck straight up. The blue-gray cub ducked and flattened but kept his stare fixed on his quarry. He was completely covered with clots of mud and grass.

Both adversaries came to a halt, the young face-tail with one heavy forefoot raised to trample its tormentor, trunk curled up over its head. The cub crouched, frozen, tail held rigid, gaze still piercing that of the prey.

Ratha sensed the critical moment, the instant when a good herder was made or lost. She felt her heart pound and her breath deepen. The two antagonists held, as if in balance.

Then the tusker slowly raised one rear foot, easing backward. The student stalked ahead a pace, his green-gold eyes intense. The face-tail planted the foot, shifting its weight, then was forced to lower the front leg in order to continue.

Abruptly the face-tail wheeled, ducking its head and lashing its trunk. With the young herder behind it, the face-tail run-walked away while squalling cheers erupted from Thakur and the others. Ratha joined in.

When the beast halted, the youngster confronted it again, forcing it back. This time the creature didn’t even try to escape. It lowered its head, dragging the tip of its trunk on the ground, flapping its ears.

The student, although bedraggled and spent, approached the young tusker again, making it turn one way, then the other. As a final gesture, he shook himself hard, spraying the face-tail’s hide with the dirt it had thrown at him.

“Enough, Ashon!” called Thakur, and the student strutted back to him, head and tail up, his aroma rich with triumph.

As Ratha came alongside the herding teacher, she saw another cub preparing for a turn with the beast.

“No, let the face-tail rest,” Thakur said to his class, and added, “I need to speak to Ratha. We’ll practice again later. Go and lie down in the shade.”

To the mud-drenched Ashon, he said,“Very good. Keep working on the stare. You must seize the creature’s gaze the moment you decide to approach it. Now go rinse off in the creek before that stuff hardens.”

When the students had trotted away, their tails swinging, Ratha touched noses with Thakur. She breathed in the musky honey of his scent and rubbed along his side from shoulder to tailbase, arching her own tail up and flopping it lazily over his back.

“The Named are gifted with the best herding teacher ever,” she purred.

“It helps when you have good students,” Thakur purred back, flopping his longer tail across hers.

Ratha stretched, sliding her forepaws out while her back bowed.“I thought Ashon would be too timid to herd face-tails.”

“I thought so, too, but he’s surprised me.”

“Speaking of training herders, Bundi and Mishanti are in the forest with their rumbler-things, if you want either of them today.”

“No, I’ve drilled them enough. Anyway, they don’t have that big a part in tomorrow’s gathering.” He paused, lifted his whiskers. “I assume True-of-voice and his people will come?”

“Thistle-chaser said they would.”

“Good.”

After another pause, Ratha said,“Thakur, do you think they’ll understand what we are doing?”

She had good reasons to wonder. True-of-voice was a huge male who led his tribe in hunting face-tails. Though the light in hunters’ eyes was as strong as that of the Named, it was turned strangely inward. True-of-voice’s people seemed to move in a trance that Thistle-chaser had called “dream-stalking.”

Instead of the obedience and loyalty that held the Named to one another and their leader, the hunters were bound to one another and True-of-voice by a strange emanation that arose from him. They called it“ the song,” although it seemed to be transmitted by scent as much as hearing. It pervaded every part of face-tail hunter life, controlling each hunter so that they no longer had the ability or the freedom to make conscious choices.

After befriending a young hunter male, Thistle had brought him into the clan and helped him survive the tremendous change from dream-stalking hunter to self-aware clan member that was forced upon him with the near-death of True-of-voice. The male, named Quiet Hunter, was now Thistle’s intended mate.

Thakur’s voice brought Ratha back from the quick flight of her thoughts. “With Thistle and Quiet Hunter there to interpret, I think True will catch the idea.”

“I hope so. I want to help them get familiar with us so we can learn to trust one another.” Her ears twitched, and she stared moodily at the grass. “I wish I could speak to True-of-voice directly. Thistle and Quiet Hunter have done well, but hearing his words through them isn’t quite the same.”

“Well, if you want to talk about the taste of meat or the sharpness of teeth, you could,” Thakur replied, and Ratha knew he was remembering his experience with True-of-voice’s tribe. He had been disappointed to learn that the hunters used language only for very basic things. “Anything more has to come through the song.”

“And I’m deaf to it, even though I’ve tried to learn from Thistle.”

“I have done the same with Quiet Hunter and Thistle, but I’m still as song-deaf as you.” Thakur paused to nibble on a claw. “Perhaps we just have to admit that there are paths we can’t follow.”

“Why must True-of-voice be so … remote? Does he think he is so much greater than his people? Or so much greater than the Named?”

Thakur peered into her face.“You smell as though you resent him, Ratha.”

“I do. I know this doesn’t make sense, but I really do. I feel as though he is perched up on a high place looking down at us with a sneer. I’d feel better if I could just speak with him whiskers-to-whiskers. After all, our peoples both use the same basic language.”

“Yes, but we use it very differently. Ratha, your feeling is honest. I must confess I have felt that way myself, since I’m a bit spoiled by having a clan leader who actually listens to me.” He paused. “Remember, though: we can’t make any assumptions about how True-of-voice feels or why heacts as he does.”

“I just wish that he would at least try to come down to our limb on the tree,” Ratha grumbled.

“Or up to it, or onto it from another at the same height.”

Ratha looked up at Thakur, thanking the patience in his eyes.“Maybe I didn’t really learn from our experience last season. I just can’t get rid of the feeling that True-of-voice is isolating himself from us deliberately. Why can’t he even try to speak with me?”

“Understanding this new tribe is hard to get a claw into,” the herding teacher answered. “I don’t know if True-of-voice or any of his people can understand what you want, Ratha.”

She tried not to let her voice break as she said,“I really wanted to find another clan like us. Instead we got these strangers who seem to be dazed all the time and can’t even think for themselves.” She paused. “And I chose to help them ….”

“And you chose to help them,” agreed Thakur. “So why can’t True-of-voice be a little more grateful?”

“Yes. I know they have given us face-tail meat and a few young animals, but that doesn’t …”

Thakur looked at her steadily.“You want them to give of themselves. You want True-of-voice to give of himself.”

“Why not? We’re willing to. I know you are, and I’ll try. I just want to be friends with him.”

“Giving of one’s self means that one has a self to give,” the herding teacher answered. “True-of-voice and his people may not.”

Ratha grimaced.“You’re right. I really can’t get my claws into this. I keep asking how they can walk and speak and eat and raise cubs and have a tribe and have light in their eyes and not have selves?”

“Not as we do,” Thakur answered. “I think that their whole tribe together forms a very powerful ‘self’ of a sort.”

Ratha paced restlessly, sweeping her tail along her flanks.“I want to do what is best, but I can’t if I don’t understand. How do I walk a path I can’t see or feel?”

“Trust,” the herding teacher answered, and the growing warmth in his scent matched the increasing gold in his eyes. “In yourself, in what you sense is right. And in the two who carry your good words and wishes: Thistle-chaser and Quiet Hunter.”

Ratha wanted to protest — why did things have to be so complex, so twisted around like a vine choking a tree? But instead, she lowered her gaze and said, “I will try hard to look at this without resentment, Thakur.”

“That is already a long step on the path.”

Except I feel as though I’ve been stumbling, Ratha thought.

“Herding teacher, your words have helped. I feel better, so I won’t keep you from your herding students. Don’t work them too hard.”

“I’ll be here if you need me,” Thakur replied.

With a parting nose-touch and a flip of her tail, Ratha trotted on about her rounds.

* * *

In the afternoon, when the shadows grew and the sun sank, Ratha came back, looking for Thakur.

In another corner of the meadow near the forested border, she stopped, her eyes widening in curiosity, her whiskers and tail lifting. A strange little scene lay before her. In the shade of a large live-oak tree, Thistle-chaser, Thakur, and their treelings were busily making something. As Ratha approached, she caught the dry-leather smell of three-horn, dappleback, and striper hides lying rumpled and stiff on the ground. Several cubs were cleaning and softening the skin sides with their tongues.

Thistle and her treeling, Biaree, crouched over a deer hide, doing something that Ratha couldn’t see at first. When she moved closer, she saw that Biaree was using his finger to widen a hole someone had bitten in the hide. With prompting from Thistle, the treeling took a strip that had been bitten or torn from another hide, and poked one end through the hole.

Staying quiet, Ratha watched. Biaree pulled at the poked-through end until he had enough length to twist and loop the strip back around itself. He did this several times and then pulled both ends so that the strip was securely attached to the hide.

Nearby, Thakur and his treeling, Aree, were doing the same thing, although slower.

“Ashon,” Thakur called, “come over here and bite some holes for me. Your fangs are sharper than mine.”

The cub came over and did what Thakur asked, using a fang on one side to pierce the skin.

“I can use my claws,” Thakur said, glancing up at Ratha, “but it takes longer. These hides are tough.”

Ashon and several other cubs acted as hole punchers, moving around between the hide workers and biting wherever a claw pointed.

For a moment Ratha was puzzled by what they were doing, then she remembered a previous discussion with Thakur.

“Yes, we’re making the beast-riding hides we talked about,” he said. “We agreed that we couldn’t keep the older cubs from trying to stay on a bucking dappleback, so Thistle and I figured out how to make skins to wrap around the animals. The hides give the cubs a way to hang on without clawing the horses.”

Ratha remembered the first time she had tried to climb onto a dappleback and the resulting frenzied plunging when the animal tried to throw her off.

She also remembered Thakur’s scolding when he saw the bleeding claw marks along the horse’s side and flanks. He had tried to discourage the cubs’ sport by pointing out that it not only injured the herdbeasts and could harm the young riders, it undermined the training that he was trying to instill. He said that the riders became too excited and that the activity woke the killing urge that a good herder had to control.

But Thakur faced a tradition of beast riding among the cubs. Everyone had done it when they were that age. The cubs had always done it and always would. Even Thakur finally had to make a compromise. This was it.

“Finished this one,” said Thistle abruptly. “Biaree needs a rest. Paws are tired.”

“Maybe you should try the first pad before you make more,” Ratha suggested.

“I’ll get a dappleback,” Thakur answered. “Ratha, would you look after Aree for a few tail-waves?”

As she felt Thakur’s treeling climb onto her shoulder, she sniffed one of the completed hides. Usually the Named dragged the skins aside or tore them up for teething cubs to chew.

Thakur was soon back, driving the small three-toed horse ahead of him. This beast, Ratha knew, was one of his practice animals. It was an experienced and calm little mare, used to being chivvied around the pasture by clumsy beginners.

Thakur and Aree wrapped a long hide strip around the horse’s head, just behind the ears. Thistle, with Biaree on her shoulder, grasped the free end in her jaws.

“All right, keep her still,” Thakur said as he and Ashon started tugging one of their creations over and onto the dappleback mare. It was awkward, and Ratha joined in to help.

The mare shifted restlessly and snorted as the hide was draped over her back and then secured with treeling-made tangles.

The tangle-making skill that Thistle, and especially Biaree, had mastered was becoming very useful to the clan. These tightened tangles could bind anything from wood to wet fish. They could also be tied onto things so that the items could be pulled or lifted. Ratha remembered how critical this skill had been in rescuing True-of-voice from the ledge where he had fallen.

The Named had experimented with these string-tangles before, but had never settled on a particular way of making them. Thistle and her treeling had found a repeatable method that resulted in knots that stayed tight.

“Yesterday we tried several ways of holding it on,” Thakur explained. “This seems to work the best.”

Ratha studied the way they had threaded and tangled the strips so that two ran under the mare’s belly, one across her chest and one behind her rump, below her tail.

The mare only grunted and blinked as the chest, belly, and breech straps were pulled tight. Thistle did have some trouble with the bellybands. Ratha thought they were tight, but when she looked again, they were hanging loose.

“Bump her in the belly with your head,” Thakur instructed Thistle. “She’s holding her breath.”

When Thistle did, the mare let out the inhaled air with a whoosh. This time the bellybands stayed cinched.

Thakur stood back, cocking his head and eyeing the result.

“A little big, but good enough. Now we need a cub.”

Ashon volunteered. Ratha helped Thakur lift him onto the mare while Thistle held the horse.

“Don’t let her go,” the cub said, sounding slightly nervous. His scent took on the slight saltiness of paw pad sweat. “I haven’t done this before.”

“We won’t,” Ratha answered. “This is just to see if it works.”

“Face-tail chaser scared of a dappleback?” Thistle teased Ashon.

“It’s one thing herding beasts. Riding them is another,” the cub retorted.

Ratha and Thakur backed away. Ashon settled onto the mare, gripping the hide covering with his claws.

“He’s a bit big for her,” Ratha observed. “He should be on one of the striper colts.”

“This first,” Thakur said firmly, and Ratha agreed.

With his teeth, Ashon grabbed a strap that lay low across the horse’s neck and shoulders.

“Feels good,” he said, his voice muffled by the hide between his teeth. “I won’t fall off.”

“Move around a little,” Thakur said.

Ashon shifted his weight. The hide stayed in place.

“Good, it’s not slipping. All right, cub, get down.”

Ashon hopped off the dappleback, who lowered her head and gave him a friendly nudge.

“Let’s make a few more of these hides and try them on the other herdbeasts,” Thakur suggested. “Ratha, what do you think?”

“I think that you have all done very well,” she answered, impressed by the accomplishment. Keep working with it.”

As they turned once more to the task, Ratha took her leave and set about once more on her rounds.

She enjoyed her people’s often startling inventiveness. It might well be that quality that would see them through instead of strength, determination, or even the protection of the Red Tongue.

When the sun was lower, Ratha went with Thakur and two cubs, Mishanti and Ashon, to the dappleback herd. The horses liked the mixture of sunlight and shade of the meadow’s edge.

Thakur stopped, nosed the two cubs forward.“Each one of you, choose a dappleback.”

Mishanti wrinkled his nose in a squint that wrinkled his tear-lines as he peered hard at the animals. He slid his paws forward, bowing his spine and arching his tail over his back until it nearly touched his shoulders. Then he made his decision, pawing in the air to point.“That one. Smells tame. Faded spots, white-speckled mane.”

“Ashon?”

The cub sat down and calmly surveyed the herd.“The light tan mare with black legs.”

Obviously the cubs were making choices based on their experience. The selected animals showed small scratch-scars on their shoulders, sides, and rumps.

The dapplebacks were lazy and not inclined to bolt and run. Together Ratha and Thakur strolled into the herd and easily separated out one horse at a time. They then turned each dappleback over to the cub that had picked it. Ratha watched, inhaling the horsey dry-grass aroma as the cubs exercised their herding skills by driving each dappleback in turn to the old oak. There, treelings would tie on the protective hide and the holding strap.

Ratha stayed close to Mishanti, and Thakur watched Ashon to make sure the cubs’ intended mounts didn’t have a burst of spirit and escape the young herders.

“Bet your dappleback throws you off,” Mishanti teased Ashon. Ratha noticed that the smaller cub’s speech was getting better, more understandable. He was using clan inflections and losing some of the oddities he had picked up from Thistle.

“Bet yours steps on your tail,” Ashon taunted back. He was taller and leaner than Mishanti, although he was actually younger. Ashon was one of Drani’s sons from her latest litter. Although where he’d gotten that silky background color and silver tipping on his face and feet, Ratha had no idea.

The cub would be beautiful when his spots faded completely. His appearance made Ratha think of the two male cubs from her first and only litter. Thistle-chaser’s siblings — they would be nearly full grown by now. Ratha wondered briefly what they looked and smelled like. Their smell would be similar to hers and Thistle’s, but with the distinctly male variation.

Her ears went back and down at the sharp bite of sorrow, but she swatted the feeling away before it could take hold. Having Thistle back was an unexpected gift; finding any of her brothers would be even more unlikely.

Quickly Ratha brought her attention back to Mishanti. He was getting distracted, letting his dappleback stray and graze. She trotted alongside the horse, giving it a meaningful glance to let it know that she was watching, even it Mishanti wasn’t.

Despite Thakur’s teaching and patience, Mishanti just wasn’t a very good herder. She was thankful that Ashon was shaping up to be an excellent herder, perhaps even good enough to become a teacher, like Thakur. That demonstration with the face-tail had been more than impressive, and Ratha liked the cub’s spirit. Ashon also paid full attention to what he was doing. His dappleback moved on briskly, with no hint of straying.

When the party arrived at the old oak, several other herding students held each horse gently with their forepaws while treelings tied the straps under its belly, beneath its tail, and across its chest. Though the horses tossed their heads and squealed, the hold-on strap went over their ears and down their short manes, resting around their shoulders.

Mishanti was eager to climb aboard, but Ratha delayed him, having him join with other young herders to surround the horse and escort it to the riding area. Ashon watched as his hide-draped dappleback was also ringed and moved. The cub looked calm, but Ratha could see his tail tip jumping like a cornered mouse in the grass.

Both cubs could hardly suppress their excitement as they followed their mounts. Ratha and Thakur trailed a short distance behind them. More of the Named joined them, curious about what was happening.

“All right,” announced Thakur, when they reached the show area. “Now pay attention. You, especially, Mishanti,” he warned when he saw the cub staring across the low grass at the assembled onlookers.

“Know rules,” Mishanti grumbled.

“Listen anyway,” Ratha hissed.

Thakur repeated the guidelines. The cubs competed in pairs, and the one who fell on the ground first was the loser. The thrown rider was to get his or her tail safely out of the arena, leaving the dappleback to be rounded up by the herders. Claws could be sunk into the protective pad only. Clawing or biting the horse would get a cub disqualified, as would an attempt to scratch his opponent’s mount. An accidental collision was allowed, but not a deliberate one.

Barely waiting for Thakur’s command to start, Mishanti and Ashon galloped to their dapplebacks. The herders held each beast steady as Ratha lifted Mishanti on by the scruff, pawed the hold strap into his mouth, and saw that he was securely settled on his pad. Thakur did the same with Ashon.

Ratha spoke quickly to Mishanti.“Remember, if it gets too wild, or Ashon’s dappleback gets too close to yours, jump off.”

The dappleback holders moved both animals apart. This would minimize the chances of a collision at the start.

“Ready?” Thakur howled, “Go!”

The herders in front of each cub-dappleback pair retreated quickly. Each little horse sprang free to the sound of cheers from the audience. Both cubs had supporters who yowled encouragement.

“Stay on him, Mishanti!” Among the voices, Ratha heard Fessran’s and Thistle’s.

“Ashon, show that daughter of a dappleback who is the herder!” That cry was from Thakur. Ratha decided to encourage both cubs and added her voice to the tumult.

The gray cub’s mount reared and plunged, throwing its rider’s hindquarters into the air. Ashon clung with his foreclaws, cub-fangs sunk deeply into the hold-on strap, tail whirling for balance.

Mishanti’s mount was more of a runner than a bucker, but the herders blocked its path, forcing it back into the arena. It then decided to scrape Mishanti off against a tree, but the cub was ready. Claws securely fastened in the pad, Mishanti hung his body over the opposite side. When the dappleback triedto rub him off on the opposite side, the cub hung the other way.

He almost lost his hold and he did lose his satisfied grin when the dappleback leaped up, trying to slam the cub against a low-hanging bough. He flattened, barely avoiding getting mashed.

Ashon’s dappleback bucked in tight, stiff-legged circles, snapping the cub’s head back and forth, but he clung with the same determination he had showed while mastering the young face-tail.

A“ Yeharrrooow!” was jerked out of Mishanti as his mount leaped and twisted beneath him. It reared, flailing its four-toed feet and jerking Mishanti’s front claws loose. He slid backward on his pad, and the hold-on strap ripped out of his mouth. The little horse threw its heels up and its head down, standing on its front feet. The dappleback’s kicking handstand brought the cub’s tail and hindquarters into abrupt contact with the horse’s rump. Mishanti sailed high in the air, tumbling and squalling.

Ratha watched, mouth open. He would land a lot harder than she anticipated. Ouch!

However, the arch of his flight took him into a tree. With a crash, he landed in the leafy crown and bounced down a few branches while the tree swayed.

A whisker-flick later, Ratha also saw Ashon leave his mount, flying forward between the dappleback’s ears. Fortunately he spread his legs and landed on his feet.

Amid the resulting caterwauling applause, the herders rounded up the two dapplebacks and ran them out of the arena.

Ratha saw Thakur run to Mishanti’s tree. The cub was already backing down slowly, yelling something Ratha couldn’t hear over the other noise. She saw Mishanti jump onto Thakur’s back and ride him as the herding teacher paced back to Ratha.

“Sorry, Mishanti,” she said. “Ashon won.”

“Didn’t,” Mishanti sputtered. “Have to land on the ground to finish. Rules don’t say about landing in a tree.”

Thakur glanced at the cub over his shoulder.

Ratha took advantage of the opportunity to tease the herding teacher.“He’s right. The rules don’t say anything about trees.”

“Then we’ll have to make one. Hitting a tree is the same as hitting the ground.”

“Not for this ride,” Mishanti insisted. “Didn’t touch the ground until after Ashon.”

“Yes, but you were off your dappleback before Ashon was thrown from his,” Thakur winced as Mishanti climbed down off his back. “Cub, the rule against scratching applies to me as well as the dapplebacks.”

“Okay, change rules now, but still I won.”

“He has a point, herding teacher.”

“He has too many of them,” Thakur grumbled. Faced with such determination, the herding teacher capitulated. “All right. Both of you won. You both can go again against someone else. Understood?”

Whiskers lifted in amusement, Ratha left him and continued her rounds.

Chapter Three

The meadow was large and irregular, with smaller areas fenced off by brush and low trees. In one such corner, Ratha found Cherfan guarding a herd of three-horn deer while his partner for the day, red-gold Bira, tended a watch fire nearby.

Bira was an unusual and striking color for the Named, who tended to be shades of brown and tan, some with faint spots that lingered from their cubhood. The hue of Bira’s long fur was most intense down her back, deep gold tipped with reds and oranges. Her one vanity was her beautifully plumed tail.

Bira had two treelings sitting on her back. One started to jump up and down with excitement as Ratha approached.

“Here she is,” said Bira to the bouncing treeling, as the Firekeeper and Ratha touched noses and slid along one another.

“Was Ratharee any trouble?” Ratha asked, as the little female sprang from Bira’s back to Ratha’s nape.

“Oh no. She just visited with Cherfaree while I looked after the fire.”

Cherfaree was Bira’s new treeling. She had selflessly given up her original treeling, Biaree, to Thistle-chaser when Ratha’s daughter needed him to tie ropes to True-of-voice during the rescue. Bira had named this new one after her one-time mate Cherfan because she was fond of him, but also liked to tease him.

Bira’s new partner was from the second litter that Aree, the original treeling, had birthed. Aree was getting a few gray hairs around the muzzle but was still as lively as ever. Ratha wondered how long treelings lived. She hoped Thakur and Aree would have many more seasons together.

She felt Ratharee starting to groom her nape as she took her leave and went on.

In another section of the meadow, she found the main herd of dapplebacks. New foals played with one another, rearing and play-kicking with their four-toed feet. Their sweaty wet-fur scent blended with the fresh grass. Mondir and Drani watched these animals. Gray-brown Mondir was the same age as Ratha and had trained with her under Thakur. Hazel-eyed Drani was several seasons older, having been born under Meoran’s rule. She had startled Ratha by asking to be trained as a herder. She wanted to give the clan more than just cubs, although they were important to her as well.

Thakur had given Drani one-on-one attention, since she was more mature and disciplined than his cub-students. Both had enjoyed the process, and Drani emerged as a dedicated herder who worked best with dapplebacks; she was fond of the little horses and gentle with them.

Ratha didn’t have to inspect the herd closely. Trusting the two herders, she gave the horses a quick sniff, and departed.

She then made a partial circuit of clan ground, pausing to rub her chin on saplings, leaving her scent. Larger trees she clawed and sprayed, leaving the message that this was clan territory.

With Ratharee on her neck, she ended her circuit and jogged back to the center of the Named territory along the outbound path she had taken.

She was nearing the clan dens when an outraged squall broke the peaceful scene.

“Yeaaarrrr! I don’t care why that thing stuck its nose in my den, Mishanti! Get it out!”

Ratha could already guess why Fessran was yowling. Around a bend in the path, she saw the two rumblers, Grunt and Belch. Belch was casually eating another treetop while Grunt knelt down, huge snout buried up to the eyes in the entrance of a newly dug lair. Grunt’s half-closed eyes suddenly widened and his head jerked back enough for Mishanti’s spotted form to scramble out past his face.

Fessran’s rising yowl followed the cub. The rumbler yanked his nose out of the den, starting to back away. He lurched and teetered as dirt gave way beneath a massive hind foot. Ratha winced. Grunt had stepped through the roof of another den. More outraged cries joined Fessran’s. “Get this thing out of here!”

Ratha briefly thanked whatever guardian spirit looked after errant cubs and overgrown animals that there were no shrieks of pain. Most of the dens were empty since the Named didn’t use them in the spring and summer.

She was about to dive in, although not exactly sure what to do, when she heard a gasp behind her.

“Oh, no.”

It was Bundi. He galloped jerkily past Ratha and bounded up the nearest tree, screeching at Mishanti, who was trying to climb up Belch’s enormous foreleg.

“You little ball of dappleback dung! You knew Grunt would try to follow you in there.”

From the tree, Bundi launched himself with startling agility to Grunt’s rump and scrambled up the rumbler’s back to the head. Hissing and batting the huge ears, he got the big beast into a lumbering turn, but not before a forefoot sank in deep again. Ratha grimaced.

Fessran’s yowl grew stronger as the Firekeeper sprang out of the ruined entrance at Mishanti, grabbing him by the tail with her teeth. He jerked free and shot up Belch’s neck, leaving a trail of scratches. The rumbler only looked vaguely startled; Mishanti hadn’t penetrated the thick skin. Like Bundi, Mishanti gave a swipe at the ears and got the same result; Belch turned and trotted ponderously after Grunt. Fessran, her odor stinging and all her fur on end, bared her teeth and screeched abuse at the retreating den-wreckers.

“I’ll shred your hides, you poor excuses for face-tails! I just finished digging this lair. Bundi! Mishanti! Get your scrawny tails back here!”

Ratha, knowing better than to interrupt, let Fessran yell until she was panting. A very large dust cloud hung in the air in the direction of the escapees.

Fessran turned and glared at Ratha.“And you, clan leader. You let those two cubs keep those … those things! You should have culled them. I’d rather have their meat in my stomach than their clumsy feet through the roof of my den ….”

“Fess, calm down. I’ll help you redig the entrance.”

Fessran flicked her whickers toward the massive hole Grunt had left.“That lair was Thakur’s. He’s not going to be happy.”

“He isn’t using it,” Ratha pointed out patiently. “As for culling the creatures, you try.”

“This isn’t the first time,” Fessran said, her fur starting to flatten again, fading her anger-scent. “Two days ago that Belch-thing stuck her nose in Bira’s den while she was sleeping and nearly scared her out of her fur.”

“All right, all right. I’ll have a talk with Bundi and Mishanti.”

“Make them dig their own lairs for those creatures to trample on.” Fessran was still ruffled, but starting to settle down. With quick tongue-strokes, she licked the front of her ash-streaked forepaws and got up.

“Have you thought about including my Firekeepers in the herders’ show?” Fessran asked. “Bira’s new treeling can do some impressive things with the Red Tongue.”

“Everyone will have a part.”

“But as herders, not Firekeepers.”

Ratha smelled disappointment.

“Fess, I’m sorry. This show is to introduce the other tribe to our ways.”

Fessran snorted.“The Red Tongue is our way. You, of all of us, know that.”

“Of course I do. But I want to be cautious with it. You know how my creature changed us. We need to be very careful in choosing how and when we introduce it to True-of-voice and his people. As much as I want to be friends with them, we have to recognize that they could be a powerful threat.”

“Rrrrr, I suppose you’re right, clan leader. Still, it would have been fun to have Bira’s treeling jump up on one of the tamer dapplebacks with a torch.”

“Next season,” Ratha promised and added, “I didn’t want to overload True-of-voice with too many new impressions. Trying to understand our ways will be confusing enough for his people. I want to go one paw print at a time.”

“And you want to lift the paw and clean it before setting it down again.” Fessran’s whiskers relaxed.

“You understand,” Ratha said, relieved. “Good.”

A slight teasing glint crept into the Firekeeper’s eyes.

“I’m going to check the fire-den, clan leader. Assuming those rumbler-things haven’t trampled it as well. I thought face-tails were trouble, but these things …” She padded off, still grumbling to herself, but Ratha knew she wasn’t really that upset.

Ratha and her treeling both fluffed their own fur, exchanging glances. Fessran had left one thing unsaid, which was how Ratha was going to keep the rumblers from disrupting tomorrow’s herding show. Well, she was clan leader, so she’d have to figure it out. She lowered her head and went to find the two mischief makers and their charges.

She discovered the culprits deeper in the forest, near the edge of clan ground. Both were sitting on their rumblers’ heads, Mishanti now on Grunt, Bundi on Belch. Everyone looked and smelled disgruntled. Belch was starting to destroy another tree crown. Mishanti looked startled when Ratha approached; Bundi just gave her a resigned look and flopped along Belch’s head, his paws dangling just behind the rumbler’s eyes.

“I’m not coming up,” Ratha said meaningfully.

“Glad you not Fessran,” Mishanti said, swatting his beast’s ear down with a forepaw. Grunt lowered his long neck. To Ratha, the rumbler’s motion looked like a tree falling. Her body wanted to skitter away, but her determination kept her still.

“I can get Fessran if you want,” she said through clenched teeth, eyeing Grunt.

“Oh, no, we fine without.”

At the edge of her vision, Ratha saw Bundi slide off Belch’s huge back and land without incident. Grunt conveyed Mishanti down to Ratha’s level, and the half-grown cub climbed off while the rumbler inspected Ratha. She could handle its mild gaze, and its breath wasn’t offensive, but when an unexpectedly long purple tongue extended and tried to lick her, she backed off, walking stiffly.

With a commanding wave of her tail, she beckoned Bundi and Mishanti over.

“I’m sorry, clan leader.” Bundi said, his eyes down. He dragged a claw along the ground. “It’s just that they really like us.”

“Lots,” added Mishanti. He peered up at Ratha, his head cocked to one side. “We in trouble? Two big troubles?”

“Are you going to have them culled or driven away?” Bundi asked, his scent tinged with sadness.

“Not if you help me keep them away from True-of-voice and his people.” Ratha replied, not saying that all of the Named together couldn’t drive off the beasts, much less cull them. “They follow you all the time, don’t they?”

Bundi waggled his whiskers in a yes.

“Well, if you stayed here with them during the herder’s display, that might work,” Ratha suggested.

“We’re supposed to be part of the show,” Bundi said.

“You don’t have to be.”

Bundi’s eyes widened. “But we want to be. You’re not going to swat us out, are you?”

“If that’s the only way to keep your creatures from destroying everything, I will. Unless you have another idea.”

“Trap them,” Mishanti said. “Tall canyon, pile big rocks.”

“Do you think that any rock pile we could make would be much more than a bunch of pebbles to them?” Bundi asked scornfully.

“I’m going to lay this prey right before you,” Ratha said. “I will not allow your rumblers to disrupt this display. It is too important both for us and True-of-voice’s people. If this means that you are both out of the show, then you are and that’s it.”

“Arrr,” Bundi and Mishanti grumbled together. Then Bundi stared at Mishanti. “Grunt and Belch will stay here even if there’s only one of us with them.”

“You, me, both in show,” Mishanti objected.

“Not together. You can be here while I do my herding part, then I’ll come replace you and you can go do yours.” Bundi turned to Ratha. “Clan leader, if you set things up so that I’m at the end and Mishanti is at the beginning, then we can do it. Please.”

“I can still make changes,” she said, noting the sudden urgency in his eyes. It is important to Bundi to join us in the show. He cares about it as much as he cares about the rumblers, a part of her whispered. “All right, I’ll do that, even if I have to argue with Fessran. Are you sure you can keep Grunt and Belch away? It will mean a lot of running back and forth.”

Mishanti grimaced.“Maybe you put us and rumblers in show. Then no running.”

“Good pounce, Mishanti, but no catch. Grunt and Belch have to stay here.”

“Then running. Bundi getting too fat anyway. Needs running.”

“I am not too fat,” Bundi exploded, diving at his partner. The brief flurry ended with Bundi sitting on top of Mishanti. Only the tip of the half-grown cub’s tail and the ends of his whiskers showed under Bundi’s paws and belly, but Mishanti’s defiance was still alive, although muffled. “Are too fat, too. Squishing me!”

“Enough cub-play!” Ratha snapped. “Don’t make me drive Grunt and Belch off with the Red Tongue!”

Bundi climbed off Mishanti, and both sat, suitably chastened. Ratha smoothed her fur.

“You two make sure that Grunt and Belch stay here. If you can’t, I’ll send Fessran out with the Firekeepers to enforce my orders. Am I understood?”

Two sets of whiskers waggled assent.

“I’ll see you tomorrow at the display,” Ratha said. “Assuming this idea works.”

“It will,” the two answered together.

As Ratha began to pad off in the direction from which she had come, she heard Bundi say,“Just because you’re a scrawny little river-crawler doesn’t mean— Ow, Mishanti! Yarrr, Belch, quit that ….”

Ratha quickened her steps. She had to get ready — she would be very busy tomorrow.

Chapter Four

The Named rose early and ate lightly. Ratha saw Bundi and Mishanti, who had stayed with their rumblers overnight, take turns at the meat, fish, and grouse meal: one eating while the other made sure the rumblers stayed at the edge of clan ground.

Ratha, washing her face after lapping water from the creek, noted the efforts of the two. Maybe things would go well after all.

She hoped so, since she was certainly prepared to enjoy herself. She nose-touched with a freshly washed Bundi and sent him off to look after the rumblers. He would send Mishanti back, since the youngster had an early part in the herding show.

Both Thistle-chaser and Quiet Hunter would serve as interpreters, but they had also asked for a part in the show. Ratha knew what Quiet Hunter would do, since the lead herder, Cherfan, and Thakur had been giving him some instruction. Thistle, however, said she planned something a bit different than just a presentation of the beginner’s skills she had been learning.

Thistle and Quiet Hunter arrived well in advance of the main body of True-of-voice’s people. Thistle had her treeling, Biaree, as well as a short coil of vine rope.

Though Ratha, when she was young, had often imagined what her cubs would be like, she could never have predicted Thistle-chaser. Even Bone-chewer, Thistle’s Un-Named but gifted father, had often wondered aloud where the cub got her sea-green eyes, rust and black pelt, and wiry little body. Even the stunting Thistle endured after Ratha had injured her in a fit of disappointed fury could not completely account for her small size. The light in the eyes that the Named so valued had been late in coming. Ratha was too impatient and afraid that her mating with an Un-Named male had tainted her litter.

Now Thistle’s eyes, once clouded, shone with the Named gift. They glowed as if they were sunlight seen through green seawater.

Quiet Hunter, Thistle’s chosen mate from the face-tail hunting tribe, was a light dun with no special markings except muzzle-patches and brown tear-lines on his face. His honey-brown eyes and patient temper were a gift to the Named from his own people.

Anyone who saw Thistle-chaser and Quiet Hunter together would know that they had a special partnership, deeper than the usual attraction that drew mates to one another.

Thistle’s fur was clean and shining. Quiet Hunter had also obviously taken pains with his grooming; every hair was in place, and he smelled strong and sure.

Ratha delighted in the sight of the young couple and even more in her daughter’s happiness. She turned the formal nose-touch greeting into an affectionate head-rub and slide-along, feeling her daughter’s tail flop over her back.

Thakur arrived, looking a little disheveled, since he had the last-minute task of organizing and arranging who would work with which animals and seeing that the presentations followed one another smoothly and without incident.

Everyone agreed that Cherfan’s cheery manner and loud voice should make him the show’s announcer.

Ratha spied Fessran, Drani, Bira, and Mishanti over by the piled-brush fence they had built the previous evening for their herdbeast-penning demonstration. Fessran and Drani didn’t have treelings, nor yet did Mishanti, but Bira’s Cherfaree and a borrowed Ratharee helped get the fence completed quickly.

When the time came for their guests to arrive, Ratha sent an escort to meet and guide them. It included both interpreters and Cherfan.

Ratha could feel the excitement building among the rest of the clan, and she admitted she felt it, too. This event would be fun and draw the two tribes closer together.

Perched on the sunning rock, Ratha craned her neck for the first view of True-of-voice and his people. Below, she heard Fessran yowling,“Your tail looks fine, Bira. You don’t need to groom it again ….”

Other Named voices blended with the chatter of treelings and the bellows, hoots, and neighs of the animals that Thakur and his students were holding in readiness for the performance.

True-of-voice paced at the head of his group, flanked by Thistle and Quiet Hunter. His stride was easy and supple, showing that he had completely recovered from his nearly fatal injuries. His gray coat shone with highlights of silver. Behind him was the old female whom Ratha recognized as Bent Whiskers and another called Tooth-broke-on-a-bone. The rest fanned out about him, reminding Ratha that the face-tail hunters formed a larger group than did her clan. This tribe had been a formidable threat once and could be again.

Some of them had fangs so long that a good portion showed outside the mouth.

“Reminds me of old Shongshar,” Ratha heard Fessran hiss. “How do they eat with those things? Can they open their mouths wide enough?”

The other group halted, and Ratha saw True-of-voice looking up at her. Other gazes followed his.

Ratha sat up and lifted her chin, suppressing a strong urge to give her fur a few quick licks. She hoped she looked as impressive to True-of-voice as he did to her.

While the clan took their places to one side of the sunning rock, Thistle and Quiet Hunter showed the face-tail hunters to the other. Ratha had asked everyone to sit so that she could see faces and forepaws as well as tails and backs. From her perch, she had a good view of the assembly.

Ratha watched Thistle and noticed that her daughter was moving in an odd, slow, gliding manner, as she sometimes did while in the trance she used to communicate with True-of-voice. Was she already speaking to him through the mysterious song? Was she so deep in her trance that she wouldn’t be able to leave it in time for her part in the display?

Well, if she didn’t, it wouldn’t be that much of a problem. It was more important to have Thistle-chaser as an interpreter than a participant. But Thistle would be disappointed, and Ratha herself was curious about what her daughter planned to present.

From atop the sunning rock, the clan leader called, her voice calming and stilling the Named as well as welcoming their guests.

“We of the Named greet you again on your return visit. We have already shown you some of our ways. Many are like yours, but many are different. Today we will show you how we live by keeping and tending beasts rather than hunting them. It is our hope that what you see here today helps you understand us.” Ratha paused, allowing the two interpreters to convey her meaning to True-of-voice and give his reply.

It was Quiet Hunter, not Thistle, who raised his voice.“The hearers of the song greet those who preserved True-of-voice. The sharing of ways is awaited with interest.”

“There is food, if any of your people wish it,” Ratha offered.

“The song will sate one of its hungers,” the other leader replied through Quiet Hunter. “There is acknowledgment and pleasure.”

Not quite gratitude, Ratha thought, but perhaps close enough. She wondered if curiosity was one of the song’s hungers. What others did it have?

She hopped down, approached True-of-voice, and gave him a formal nose touch. His scent was powerful, musky.

“May the song of the Named well up within,” said True-of-voice, this time through Thistle.

“May you eat of the haunch and sleep in the driest den,” Ratha answered, giving the ritual greeting of the clan. She waited as Thistle interpreted her words to True-of-voice. Her daughter sat eerily still and silent, her muzzle lifted, her nostrils flared, her eyes distant. How she did so was amystery to Ratha, but Thistle was clearly communicating with the other tribe’s leader.

The Named and their guests still took up separate areas. The only mixing so far was between Thistle-chaser and Quiet Hunter, who were now licking one another’s cheeks and talking quietly. They took their places, sitting to each side of True-of-voice. Soon they would be helping him and his people to understand what the clan was showing them.

Ratha also regained her seat on the sunning rock. She wondered if, even despite the interpreters’ aid, True-of-voice or his people could comprehend the event to come. She always had the frustrating feeling that these folk were far different than the Named. Now, being near, scenting them and able to watch closely and compare them with her clan, she felt the differences intensify.

It was not a feeling she liked or wanted, at least not the rational part of her. But she could not deny the truth or depth of her feeling.

Turning back to her own people, she spotted Cherfan, who was already springing up on an outcrop near the sunning rock.

“Face-tail hunters and song-hearers, you have come here not just to learn but to enjoy as well.” Cherfan’s resonant voice had warmth as well as power. “Are we ready, herding teacher?” he asked Thakur.

“Yes,” came the reply.

Cherfan turned back to the crowd of the Named and their guests.“We are showing these herding methods with the simplest and easiest first, the more challenging later. This is the way we teach our cubs.” He stopped for the interpreters to communicate with True-of-voice, then said, “To show that these skills can be mastered by those who are not clan-born, here is your own Quiet Hunter with one of our dappleback horses.”

Ratha saw True-of-voice lean forward, his eyes widening.

Quiet Hunter moved to the edge of the performance area. The herders released the horse, which trotted into the center, flicked its tail and looked slightly bored. Ratha knew that this dappleback was another of Thakur’s practice animals.

Though very new to Named ways, Quiet Hunter had transformed the skill and control of a face-tail stalker into that of a herder. For safety, Ratha had stationed the herder Mondir nearby.

Quiet Hunter closed with the little horse before the animal noticed it, but instead of making the dappleback start and bolt, he eased his way toward it from behind. He stayed low, coming into its vision very carefully and slowly. He was patient, letting the creature’s own curiosity draw it toward him.

Then he began to press the little horse, using his presence to move it to one side, then the other. He walked it forward, turned it in a circle, and then made it back up, using a very creditable version of the Named stare-locking technique. He then delivered it to the clan herder, waved his tail at the audience, and strutted off, looking quietly pleased.

Catching Thakur’s eyes, Ratha could also see that he also looked pleased by the performance.

That should help convince True-of-voice that our ways are not so strange, she thought.

Next, a small herd of dapplebacks trotted into the show area. Fessran, Bira, and Drani cantered onto the field, followed by a strutting Mishanti. Working together, they rounded up the dapplebacks. Mishanti made good use of his speed, darting out to head off would-be strays while the others kept the herd tight and moving. Each herder cut out individual animals and maneuvered them to the brush pen, using rushes and feints to get them inside. Mishanti’s performance was slightly unusual; he ran one little horse so fast that it jumped the bush fence instead of going in the pen’s entrance.

When he seemed intent on doing it again, Fessran swooped down and lifted him by the scruff. The other three gathered up the dapplebacks and drove them into the brush-ringed corral.

“Well done,” boomed Cherfan. “Although that part wasn’t in the plan, was it, Fess? Now our herding teacher will perform something new he’s been perfecting. Thistle-chaser will show her own variation with help from her treeling, Biaree. First, Thakur.”

Again she turned her gaze to True-of-voice. She noted that he leaned forward with interest, and his eyes were alive with curiosity.

Yet this was not a trait he shared with his people. They were attentive, but not absorbed. Their real fascination was turned inward; they perceived instead the strange entity that came from True-of-voice, who called it“ the song.”

It was not“ his song.” It seemed to exist almost independently of him. Even though he was the immediate source, he seemed as caught up in it as the others. It was like a river flowing into a pool and then out again, but split into many smaller tributaries. He was the intake, they were the outflow, but allwere bathed in the flowing water.

Her own Thistle had somehow managed to capture the song’s character when she said, “It sings through him. Those of his line, long dead, sing through him.” She had also said, “It isn’t just hearing. Not just ear-hearing. Or nose-smelling or tongue-tasting, or whisker-touching. It is all those, but it is more. It is with me behind the eyes. I am no longer one behind the eyes.”

How hard Ratha herself had fought to understand, to overcome the instinct to withdraw, pull back, cut off. Her choice had been in conflict with her feelings when she had directed the clan to rescue True-of-voice from the ledge where he had fallen. She still felt the conflict now.

She noticed that True-of voice’s tribe resembled one another more than did the clan. On the Named side, Thakur’s copper coat contrasted with Fessran’s pale sandy fur; Bira’s rich red-gold pelt and plumed tail shone against the grassy background. Silken blue-gray Ashon, head and feet haloed with glowing silver; Cherfan’s dark sepia brown; Thistle’s mix of white, brown, tan, and rust; Ratha’s own fawn, gold and cream; and the other pelt and eye colors were each as individual as each personality.

But Tooth-broke-on-a-bone and Bent Whiskers could have exchanged pelts and still looked the same brindled gray-brown. There may have been some slight difference in shade or pattern, but besides the riotous colors of the clan, that variation was insignificant. The only one who stood out at all was True-of-voice.

She put the thought aside and turned her attention back to the show.

Chapter Five

Cherfan came next, Thakur taking over as announcer while the big herder performed. Cherfan’s display used a three-horn buck, and he had to step on the beast’s Y-shaped nose-horn to keep its head down and the antlers away. Though not unusual, it was very well done, and Cherfan earned the yowling applause he got from the Named side.

After Cherfan came Thistle-chaser, her treeling Biaree on her nape. Biaree held a coiled length of vine in one small hand, the other wound tightly in Thistle’s fur. The herders released a dappleback mare.

The treeling hunkered low between Thistle’s shoulders as she stalked belly-down through the grass. Ratha wondered whether her daughter would try the stare-down. Thistle chose the classic technique, using her sea-green gaze to immobilize the dappleback until she could get her forepaws around the horse’s neck. She pulled the animal over, but Ratha was startled when her daughter did not go for the throat.

Instead, Thistle spread herself across the beast, holding it down. Biaree hopped off her back, dodging the horse’s hoofed toes. With her rear foot behind the dappleback’s rump, Thistle pushed the hind legs forward while using a forepaw to swipe the front legs back until both sets crossed. Biaree sprang onto the uppermost hock and wound the vine around the crossed fetlocks. Pulling it tight, the treeling made a knot, and then bounced back onto Thistle’s nape. When Thistle climbed off the dappleback, the mare stayed on her side, feet tied together. Struggle as it might, the dappleback couldn’t escape. At last it lay, spent and heaving.

Ratha listened to the clan herders’ voices. They were impressed by this way of restraining a beast so that the herder who made the capture didn’t have to keep fighting the animal or kill it. How Thistle had combined Biaree’s skill at making knots with her own newly learned herding abilities, Ratha had no idea. As she watched,she decided that her daughter had contributed something else valuable to the clan. Thistle’s use of a treeling was so strange, however, that clan herders might take a while to understand and accept it.

Ratha wondered about True-of-voice’s reaction. Could he be thinking that treelings and vines could be used to hunt face-tails? No, Thistle’s technique worked far better on smaller animals such as the dapplebacks.

She imagined that True-of voice would have a difficult time understanding Thistle-chaser. Of the independent Named, Thistle was the most individualistic. One would never think that she could also reach True-of-voice well enough to translate the hunting tribe’s song into clan speech.

Well, she does have Quiet Hunter as a partner. It is not Thistle alone, but the two of them together.

Wondering what the hunting tribe thought of the display, she surveyed their numbers. Again she was struck by how alike the other tribe’s members were as compared to the clan.

These differences might be even greater than she knew, Ratha thought. Thistle and Thakur had been playing around with the idea that the Named couldn’t see reds and oranges as well as their treelings could. Thakur suggested that one could collect some of a reddish fruit that had equal hues (at least to Named eyes), but had varying degrees of ripeness. By blanking out a treeling’s sense of smell, perhaps by scattering strong-scented leaves nearby, one could show that treelings selected the ripest fruit by the depth of its rosy color.

For Ratha, it felt odd to think that she might not be seeing the true color of the ember within a flame, or the burning intensity of Bira’s luxurious fur.

What did Bira look like to a treeling, Ratha wondered. Perhaps only Thakur and Thistle had the imagination to even ask such a question.

And herself? She might well have enough imagination but limited opportunities to indulge it. She had to pay more attention to practical questions, such as whether the differences between her people and True-of-voice’s were dangerous.

When Ratha pointed her nose toward the face-tail hunters, closed her eyes, and let odor claim her attention, she noticed that the theme of similarity among them continued from sight to scent. True-of-voice’s people had almost no individual scents, only traces. The dominant smell was True-of-voice, and even his pure scent did not encompass his group. They had a tribal smell: part True-of-voice, part other. The scent of the song, Thakur had called it, even though his choice of words seemed muddled and contradictory.

The scents of her own people, though, Ratha could easily pick out, even if Thakur, Bira, Thistle, or whoever had been rolling in the strongest herdbeast dung. Even Quiet Hunter, in moving from True-of-voice’s tribe to her clan, had developed more of his individual scent as well as the Named group-smell. His was strong enough now that Ratha could taste it on the air that passed the sensitive area on the roof of her mouth. She envied Thistle slightly, and her gaze wandered to Thakur.

She also caught herself grimacing slightly to catch the scent and taste of the herding teacher. She bent and groomed a forepaw to distract herself from those thoughts.

Thakur followed Thistle. He would be displaying an unusual herding tactic. Though the Named herders were reluctant to admit it, some beasts couldn’t be stared into submission or easily caught. Young three-horns were often too quick and too fleet for the Named to catch and hold their gaze.

Ratha shifted on the sunning rock. Thakur had been working on this new capture technique for a while but had kept it private until he could perfect it.

Now he was ready. He stood to one side of the arena, almost within a tail-length of the Named side of the audience. Opposite him, Fessran, Drani, and Bira held a three-horn fawn. Fessran wrapped her forelegs around the deer’s neck while Drani held the tail and rump. Bira put both forepaws on the young deer’s spotted back, using her weight to keep the animal still.

She saw Thakur gather his hindquarters beneath him and lower his head. Catching the suppressed excitement in his scent gave Ratha a powerful wish to slide her forepaws out, raise her hindquarters, lay her chest down, and moan in longing. She quickly squashed the urge.

Thakur lifted a forefoot, extended his claws and gave them a quick glance, paying particular attention to the dewclaw. Curious, Ratha sat up, craning her neck. The Named didn’t use the dewclaw much, at least not in herding.

Muscles quivered and tensed in Thakur’s flanks.

He gave a sharp upward flip of his tail, the signal for the three females to release the fawn.

Ratha thought he would explode forward in a rush, using his speed to bring the fawn down before it could take a step. Instead, while the young deer stood nervously, flicking its tail, Thakur sank down low in the grass and began a hunting stalk.

The deer broke into a high-stepping trot, herders loosely ringing the creature to prevent it from running too far away. They didn’t want to let the animal think that it could actually escape.

Thakur quickened his stalk, his shoulders and haunches the only parts of him visible in the high grass. His stalk became a fast walk, a trot, and then a springing gallop, the deer bounding ahead of him.

For an instant the deer pulled ahead, and Ratha thought that Thakur would lose it. Less than a whisker-twitch later, he hit his full speed, his back bowing and arching, his reaching strides flying him to the fawn’s heels.

The deer ran hard, swerving and dodging, but Thakur stayed on it, whipping his tail out to keep his balance. Ratha saw his forepaw flash out, dewclaw fully extended. His blow struck and hooked the deer on the outside of the hock, sweeping its hind legs out from under it. The quarry fell, sliding on its side in a jumble of flailing hooves and a shroud of dust, pebbles, and torn-up grass. Both prey and hunter tumbled together, loose earth raining down on them.

With a snakelike strike, Thakur was on top of the deer, diving, twisting, dodging the hooves, seeking the throat. Ratha’s breath quickened. Was he going for a kill?

As the dirt and dust settled, Ratha saw him crouching, forearms embracing the fawn’s neck, open jaws cradling the underside of the throat, gently twisting the head back and to one side. A slight twitching at the corners of his mouth told Ratha that he was holding back, fighting the urge to bite deeply.

Applause was slow to start, for many of the Named bore expressions of puzzled amazement. When it did come, it broke from the clan side in a swelling roar that vibrated through the sunning rock where Ratha sat.

Both stalker and prey held absolutely still until the crowd noise died. Then Thakur released the deer and backed away. Bira, Fessran, and Drani were already closing in. The fawn, dazed, sat as if still held, then, with a jerk, scrambled to its feet. The three deer-wranglers ringed the young three-horn and took it away.

Thakur pivoted around, his tail sweeping the air in a flourish. Ratha knew Thakur never strutted like some clan males, but he was close. His walk was full of suppleness and pride, his chin lifted, his eyes glowing.

Again happy caterwauling and howling burst from the clan side and seemed to fountain up into the trees.

Thakur is the one who carries the true spirit of the Named, Ratha thought. She joined the applause until her throat felt scratchy. When it faded, she heard Cherfan’s voice saying, “And that was our herding teacher, showing the newest capture technique he developed. He did it without really harming that fawn. How did you do that?”

Some movement on True-of-voice’s side of the crowd drew Ratha’s gaze. It was Thistle and Quiet Hunter, leaning close to the other tribe’s leader, speaking quietly to him and one another. True-of-voice leaned forward on his forepaws, eyes narrowed and intent.

Tail high, Thakur jogged to the announcer, taking a place beside Cherfan on a low outcropping near the sunning rock.

Ratha could hear his fast breathing from the chase and a slight strain in his voice as he tried to speak louder.

“I borrowed the idea from some long-legged Un-Named ones who were hunting prong-buck. I tried it out on our fawns and it worked.”

“I imagine that getting it to work took some practice,” Cherfan replied.

The herding teacher took a large breath.“It certainly did. I was pretty winded by the time I got it right.”

His part ended, Thakur hopped down off the outcrop, leaving Cherfan to announce the next event, a contest between the cubs as to who could stay longest on a bucking animal. Ratha, having seen this several times previously, crouched down as Thakur passed the sunning rock, and asked him to come sit with her.

While the crowd’s attention focused on the next event, Ratha touched noses with Thakur, then slid alongside him, both flopping their tails over one another’s backs. She enjoyed a moment of bathing in his scent, and then spoke to him. “Herding teacher, that was amazing! Will you teach it to the cubs?”

“Yes, but I’ll tell them I don’t like to knock a beast down that way unless other culling methods don’t work. It’s a bit rough on the creatures.” Thakur stuck a rear leg forward and curled down, nibbling clots of mud out from between his spread toes. “And you get very dirty.”

Ratha licked streaks of mud from his side. Tasting the salt of minerals, she swallowed it. She spit out the coarse grass, and then sat, curling her long tail over her feet.“That’s nothing new for the Named.”

She saw Thakur grin slightly at the wry tone in her voice. When he lay down next to her, one foot brushing the base of her tail, she felt a wave of warmth surge through her, drawing sweat from her pads and the leather of her nose. It wasn’t the mating season yet. Was her heat coming early?

She distracted herself by watching the bucking contest. This time it was a tie between Ashon and Mishanti, and the latter did not have to be thrown into a tree.

“He’s getting better,” Thakur commented, watching Mishanti pick himself up and lope after his mount. “Maybe there are some things he’ll be good at.”

“Riding bucking dapplebacks and herding rumblers,” Ratha said, her voice slightly sour.

Thakur excused himself, saying that he should help prepare the next pair of riders. He leaped down from the sunning rock. Ratha felt the surge of warmth fade. No, she wasn’t in heat yet.

Her gaze strayed back to True-of-voice’s people. One could be replaced by the next, she thought, and it would make no difference.

Thakur had once told her why he thought the Named varied so much from one another. It was because they had started to farm instead of hunt their prey. Hunters needed to blend into their surroundings. Pelt colors and patterns remained the same from individual to individual and between generations. One whose coat color stood out wouldn’t survive very long.

The need to match the background was far less for herders. Standing out even helped to fascinate and intimidate herdbeasts, making them easier to manage. Freedom from the constraints of the hunter allowed the Named to choose their mates for beauty as well as ability and temperament. This tendency influenced the colors of eyes as well as pelts. Clan eyes ranged from the agate blue of newborn cubs through all shades of gray, green, yellow, gold amber, honey, hazel, copper, and dark sepia.

A part of her still couldn’t be convinced that the differences between True-of-voice’s face-tail hunters and the Named were not alien. Perhaps the impulse that made her reach out, to help rather than harm, was, in the end, misguided. A voice in her kept whispering that her choice could still lead to tragedy. It still whispered, making her search among the True-of-voice’s people for any sign of initiative or individuality.

To her surprise, she did find tiny sparks of it. She saw it among the half-grown ones, the yearlings, and some of the older cubs. In some way, the traits that were so buried in their nature fought their way out. She saw eyes that would widen and brighten with the wish to see more, ears swivel and flick forward with the urge to hear more, tails lash with impatience to know more than just the song. It was then that the young of True-of-voice’s people began to resemble the young of the Named.

As if the power within the song knew that it was being challenged, it reacted. The sparks in those young eyes flamed only briefly before they were suffocated down to embers and then darkened.

Witnessing that fading made Ratha heartsick. What right did True-of-voice or that strangeness emanating from him mistakenly called“ the song” have to strangle or stifle those tiny flames? It was like seeing empty eyes in the faces of Named litterlings. That just happened. This quenching of the soul was a deliberate act.

Ratha’s heartsickness rose to anger. Why was she struggling so hard to understand something that was clearly so wrong? Why was she so willfully blind to the evil? She had the power to snatch away young ones who still held the promise of their own selves from the power that would engulf them.

Accepting Quiet Hunter among us kept his flame from being stifled. Adopting face-tail hunter cubs might do the same, and we need more litterlings.

But if I am blind, she thought, are Thakur and Thistle as well? Is what I thought of as wisdom unwillingness to see? Am I the one whose vision fails?

Chapter Six

Before the next performance came a short break. Ratha saw Thistle-chaser’s tail waving in the air, saying that she wanted to speak to her mother.

Ratha sprang down off her perch to meet her daughter. They met and rubbed foreheads. Thistle smelled good — healthy and salty-fresh as the wind from a sea beach. In her abrupt way, Thistle said, “True-of-voice has questions.”

Ratha let herself be led back through the throng to the gray-and-white leader. Watching Thistle move easily ahead of her, Ratha saw that her daughter now walked without even a trace of a limp. When they reached True-of-voice, Ratha started to speak to him, but Thistle put up a paw, stopping her.

Thistle and Quiet Hunter sat very still, eyes closed, ears forward as if listening to something distant, noses lifted as if scenting something faint. True-of-voice gazed at both of his interpreters, but he also seemed to be looking at something else beyond them.

Quiet Hunter opened his eyes, spoke quietly to Thistle, who then turned to Ratha, saying,“The song … I mean, True-of-voice feels pleasure at being shown how we keep and tend our animals.”

“Tell True-of-voice that we are glad that he and his tribe have come. It will lead to better understanding between us.”

She saw Thistle take a short breath, as if those words might be challenging to translate.

“The song is to know,” said Thistle to Quiet Hunter, “that there is … pleasure in its coming. The … spirit of the Named desires to flow close to the song so that the knowledge is mingled in both.”

At Thistle’s last words, Quiet Hunter grimaced as if they were too difficult.

Ratha’s eyes widened. Is this what she had said?

“All right, no ‘both,’” Thistle said hastily. With a glance at Ratha, she added, “Song doesn’t know what ‘both’ means. No word for things in many parts. Only for things in one.”

She turned to Quiet Hunter.“Say, ‘so that knowing pours together like water.’”

It was a little awkward, a little too Thistle-ish, Ratha thought, but Quiet Hunter indicated acceptance.

Again he sat absolutely still with closed eyes, but Ratha could smell his scent changing. The transformations were so subtle and so rapid that she couldn’t follow them. Every once in a while, Quiet Hunter touched True-of-voice and spoke to him in simple words, mixed with a soft singsong that was somewhere between a murmur and a purr. To Ratha’s ears, the sound was oddly beautiful, and she wanted to imitate it. Thistle joined in with Quiet Hunter, her voice sounding in counterpoint and descant to his.

It had a strange effect on Ratha, altering her perception of the moment so that everything seemed to slow and glide. So alien was this that a shiver ran up from her tail tip to the back of her head, making her want to shake to be rid of it.

So, the way this“ song” is carried is through scent, and touch as well as sound, Ratha thought.

She found her tongue.“Thistle, did True-of-voice … I mean, the song … understand?”

Again came the exchange between Thistle and Quiet Hunter, then the inclusion of True-of-voice. To Ratha, the process seemed to take forever, but part of her sensed that it was actually swifter than Named speech.

Thistle returned with the answer.“The showing, the sharing are taken in and acknowledged.”

“I assume that means yes.” Ratha couldn’t help the tartness that crept into her voice.

“It does.”

“What about True-of-voice’s question?”

“About ‘practice.’ Thakur had to ‘practice’ to learn. Song doesn’t know what that means.”

Ratha’s jaw threatened to drop open again, but she recovered. “You know what it means, Thistle. When we start to do something, we often make mistakes. To learn the right way, we have to do it again and again.”

Thistle just stared at her in silence, and her gaze seemed a little sad.“Is no word for ‘mistake.’ Is no word for ‘right.’ No word for ‘wrong.’”

“You mean that True-of-voice never makes mistakes?” Ratha knew her disbelief sounded in her voice. “That’s not true. You had to rescue him when he fell off the cliff.”

“Mistakes happen when song isn’t heard,” Thistle said. “Or when the happening is beyond what the song knows.”

“You are telling me that True-of-voice and his people don’t make errors. That they don’t have the idea of a wrong way or a right way.”

“Song doesn’t mess up when it is within what it knows. Is no wrong way, right way, or anything other than song’s way.”

“You are saying,” Ratha began carefully, “that when True-of-voice has had even a brief experience with something, he and his people can repeat it successfully.”

“Yes. What he sees, he can do. Even if just a glimpse. Not just him either. All. Through the song.”

“So they never have to practice anything? Once True-of-voice sees something done, they all know. They never do anything the wrong way again?”

“Yes. So don’t need to practice like us. Song is like good teacher, or leader, inside head.”

Such a good teacher that the student never makes errors or disobeys, Ratha thought grimly. They can’t disobey because they have no concept of doing anything except what this song-thing commands. I really don’t like this.

Her feeling of distaste roared unexpectedly into hate. She suddenly wanted to be rid of these“ guests.”

She could still reverse what she had done when the Named rescued the other tribe’s leader, she thought. She might not have to harm True-of-voice or any of his folk. She could just tell him quietly, through her two interpreters, that his folk and hers were simply incompatible and must live apart.

That message, she knew, would strike more deeply than fangs into the two who bore it. If Thistle and Quiet Hunter were pulled apart, something in each would collapse and die. The same would happen if Quiet Hunter were isolated from his people, or Thistle from hers.

What if Ratha had to enforce the separation by driving the other tribe away with the Red Tongue? What would that do to Thistle-chaser?

I cannot hurt her so badly… again. Or myself. Why am I forced to make this choice?

Not yet, part of her hissed. You don’t know if the hunters really can do what Thistle claims.

Ratha realized that True-of-voice and Quiet Hunter still waited, but she had to wrestle this prey to the ground before it escaped.

“Thistle,” she began, “I can’t believe these hunters can do something perfectly the first time because True-of-voice sees it.”

Thistle had a delicate pointed little face, but it could look extraordinarily stubborn.“Must believe, Mother. So you understand.” She paused. “Want proof? Want for True-of-voice to show you? Nothing else will make you believe? Right?”

“Yes,” Ratha growled. She waited while Thistle conferred with Quiet Hunter, shaping the message for True-of-voice. At the end, Thistle turned to Ratha again.

“Song says it will show. Have herders bring another fawn. Song will repeat what Thakur just did.”

“True-of-voice? Is he fast enough?”

“Not True-of-voice,” said Thistle. “Song chooses another — younger, quicker.”

Now intense curiosity had Ratha.“All right, I’ll ask the herders to bring another fawn.” She eyed Thistle. “Are you sure this isn’t a trick? Maybe True-of-voice’s people already use that way of knocking beasts down.”

Thistle’s eyes said no. “Not a trick. Face-tail hunters don’t run after little scampering bony things. Not worth it. Not enough meat.”

Ratha left Thistle and the others briefly while she made her request to the herders. She also asked Cherfan to announce a slight change in the sequence of events. Their guests were going to put on a display of their own.

Again a slender, lithe shape positioned itself at the edge of the arena while Named herders held a three-horn fawn. This time, however, the shape was night black rather than copper. The eyes were such a pale blue-green that, from a distance, they looked white.

Ratha, perched once more on the sunning rock, wondered why True-of-voice had not chosen one of his many brindled gray-brown followers. Where had this shadow come from?

The shadow’s shape was that of a young male and the scent, wafting to her on the breeze, confirmed the gender. The black had touched noses with True-of-voice before padding to the start position. Perhaps he was one of the leader’s sons.

It could well be that only True-of-voice’s line had the freedom to vary from the dull pelt color of those they ruled.

Ratha felt the skin on her muzzle start to wrinkle, lips drawing back from her fangs. Here was another instance of a tyrant’s power over his subordinates. Another Meoran, another Shongshar.

She scrubbed her nose quickly with her paw to hide the beginnings of her snarl while she suppressed it. Though she, too, was a leader, she had sworn that she would govern by being respected and loved instead of feared. Though that intent had been badly strained in the past, it was working now.

True-of-voice, however, was no Shongshar. She had never seen him strike or even threaten any of his people. He was extraordinarily gentle with them, even more so than she was with the Named. His gentleness seemed strangely at odds with his absolute power.

Motion at the edge of her vision brought Ratha’s attention back to the field. She had seen the black male’s hindquarters lower and tense. The black gave the same quick lift of the tail as Thakur had done.

For an instant Ratha wanted to spit out an order halting the show. Letting the hunter free on a clan herdbeast was risky. If she really didn’t understand these hunters, she didn’t know what they would do.

It was because she needed to know that she kept silent.

The herders responded to the black hunter’s signal, freeing the fawn.

Ratha felt as if she were watching the herding teacher again as the black hunter sunk into a stalking crouch. He eased forward, placing one paw in front of the next. The three-horn, slightly older and more experienced than Thakur’s quarry, had already bounded away from the release position. The herders had to move fast in order to keep it within their ring.

This wasn’t quite the same as Thakur’s pursuit, Ratha thought. It was harder.

The black male surged from a stalk into a trot and then flashed into a gallop. In the time it took her to draw a breath, he was not only at the fawn’s heels, but on it, swiping and hooking the hock with his dewclaw in the same way. The quarry went down, the black atop it, searching for and seizing the throat.

Ratha swallowed. This had to be some sort of trick, she thought. How could this youngster repeat precisely what had taken the best of the Named herders endless practice?

“He’s done it exactly the same way,” she muttered under her breath.

“No, clan leader,” said a voice near her ear. Thakur had sprung up quietly beside her. “He’s done it better.”

“How can …?” Ratha faltered, then narrowed her eyes. “Wait. What is he doing now?”

Instead of freezing in position, the black continued to wrestle the deer, forcing its head far back. Ratha suddenly knew that the hunters were as capable as Thistle said, and more. She should never have allowed this. She felt a sudden panic. Smell as well as sight told her that blood was starting to stain the black’s jaws as his fangs sank in. The deer screamed.

“No!” Ratha howled over the growing unrest among the Named onlookers. True-of-voice and his people kept their eyes on the young male and his struggling prey, as if they hadn’t heard.

She used her position on the sunning rock to locate her daughter.“Thistle!” she cried, her voice raw. “He’s killing the fawn. Make True-of-voice stop him!”

She saw Fessran and Bira already charging the black, their eyes burning with bewilderment and outrage. Thistle turned to True-of-voice in alarm, but the fawn’s eyes were already glazing, the body relaxing, the head falling. The hind legs gave one last kick and then went stiff and still.

Rage rose in Ratha at the unexpected and unnecessary slaughter. A glance and sniff at Thakur told her that he, too, was upset.

“Hold!” she heard him roar at Bira and Fessran, who seemed intent on tearing the black male to shreds. The killer pivoted quickly on his hind legs, dragging his limp catch around in his jaws. At Thakur’s call, Bira slowed but Fessran didn’t. “You son of a dung-eating, bone-crushing belly-biter!” she screamed, leaping at the black with fangs and claws bared. Ratha launched herself off the sunning rock, but Thakur was already far ahead of her.

With a wrench of his head, the black slung the fawn’s body around as he spun toward the attacking Firekeeper. Blood sprayed from the torn throat as he threw the body at Fessran, knocking her down and away.

Before the Firekeeper could pick herself up again, Thakur was beside her, his teeth in her scruff, pulling her back. The black stood over his kill, tail starting to lash, muscles rippling, ears flattened.

Ratha sought Thistle-chaser. Her daughter was already halfway to her. When they met, Thistle scampered back through the throng to True-of-voice, who had risen at the disturbance. Ratha saw Quiet Hunter, concern in his eyes, speaking quickly and softly to the gray leader. Quiet Hunter was also using tail-waves and paw gestures, coupled, no doubt, with the subtle changes in scent that he had used before.

“Trying to tell him,” panted Thistle, confirming Ratha’s impression that Quiet Hunter was attempting to explain what had happened and calm not only True-of-voice but those around him. “Trying to say no killing here, now.”

When they reached True-of-voice, Quiet Hunter turned to them and said,“He doesn’t understand why the Named are angry, but he will stop the black one.”

True-of-voice was already facing into the arena, eyes fixed on the black. He gave a loud rasping snarl that brought the young male back to the hunters, tail and eyes down. The fawn still lay on the field, the clan starting to cluster around it. Nearby, Thakur was wrestling an enraged Fessran into submission.

“Let me go and I’ll feed that belly-biter his own guts!” Ratha heard the Firekeeper’s muffled yowl.

Ratha knew she had to get control of the situation before it erupted into a fight.“Bira,” she called, “get everyone away from the kill.”

Bira, red-gold coat flying, was already in action, rounding up her fellow clan members, gathering and calming them. Ratha gave a relieved breath, thankful that she was now free to question True-of-voice. His two interpreters stood beside him.

After conferring briefly with Quiet Hunter, Thistle turned to Ratha.“True-of-voice questions why killing a prey animal causes so much fuss.”

“That fawn was one of our herdbeasts, not prey.” Ratha tried to soften the sharpness in her voice.

“He asks, why send hunter to stalk if not to kill?”

Ratha controlled the urge to grind her teeth in frustration.“I thought he just wanted to show us what his people could do.”

“Yes, but he says that stalk is wasted if kill not made. He asks may black one take the fawn?”

“Doesn’t he understand that to kill without a reason is also wasteful?”

Ratha met True-of-voice’s concerned yet implacable gaze. He seemed stuck on the idea that a stalk had to end in a kill, no matter if the hunter was hungry or sated. She wondered if this was another expression of the killing instinct in her kind that she often had to fight while working with the clan’s herdbeasts.

Yet she could and chose to control it. True-of-voice was as intelligent as she. The light in his eyes shone as strongly as hers, even if it differed from that of the Named.

“It is the song,” Thistle said softly. “Once it has begun, it must complete.”

All this was shredding Ratha’s patience. Trying to keep from hissing, she said, “Thistle, I know you and Quiet Hunter are doing the best you can. But I have to make True understand that he and his people are guests. While they are on clan ground, they must respect clan ways, as we have tried to respect theirs.”

“They make some allowance,” Thistle said, “but not this. Not when prey-taking. The song says there is only one path. No others.”

“Can’t you tell him that this was supposed to be just a demonstration? A show?” She watched while her daughter conferred again with Quiet Hunter, who in turn translated the message to True-of-voice. When Thistle turned back to her, there was resignation in the little pointed face.

“No words for ‘show,’ no words for ‘demonstration,’ just like no words for practice. They act to do, not to pretend.” She paused. “Is my fault. Asked him to do this because I got mad at you. Shouldn’t have. Another Thistle-mess.”

“Thistle, no. What happened isn’t your fault.” Ratha licked her daughter’s forehead, and bumped it gently with her own. It’s really more of a Ratha-mess, she thought. “In some ways it isn’t that important. The black one only killed a fawn.”

“Bad thing though. Couldn’t make the song understand why fawn not to be killed here and now. Song too stiff.”

Though she herself wouldn’t have said it that way, Ratha agreed with her daughter’s assessment. She had been aware of others waiting while she spoke to Thistle. This awareness sharpened. She couldn’t stop to puzzle this out. Not now. True-of-voice’s people were getting restive and many of the Named were looking resentful.

“Wait,” Thistle commanded suddenly. She listened to Quiet Hunter and then gave a brief moan of dismay. “Oh, no. Now True-of-voice asks if the black one’s stalk with the fawn was not enough. He asks, should it be done again, with another animal?”

“No!” The word was out of Ratha’s mouth before she could bite it back. “Absolutely not. One wastefully slaughtered deer is enough. Tell True that this … gathering … is ended. We must think about what has happened.”

Evidently Thistle and Quiet Hunter were able to get this across to True-of-voice. His people gathered around him and prepared to leave. Ratha asked Bira to escort them politely off clan ground.

“Sorry to ask again,” Thistle said as the party began to depart. “Leader wants to know, may black one take kill?”

“Yes,” Ratha snapped. “I don’t want to look at it, but don’t tell True that.”

True-of-voice and his people moved off into the lengthening shadows. Ratha glanced at the setting sun. Like it, she was exhausted, ready to drop into darkness.

The Named would meet tomorrow, around the sunning rock. We may have to drive True-of-voice and the others away with the Red Tongue as we should have done in the beginning. Yes, I have been blind.

Ratha forced herself to watch as the black went to his prey, picked it up by the neck, and dragged it away.

Chapter Seven

When Ratha woke, she was eager to scramble out of her den. Then she remembered what had happened at the herding show. Her ears sagged and her whiskers drooped. She wanted to curl up in the den and bury her nose in her tail, hoping nobody would need her.

I can’t just retreat, Ratha scolded herself. She bore most of the responsibility for the act that let a young three-horn be slaughtered without need. Her daughter also bore a little. If Thistle hadn’t taunted me like that …

Ratha turned a regretful grimace into a yawn, shook dead leaves out of her fur, and left the den. Dawn was pawing new shadows across the dew-dampened grass. She sat down in the weak morning sunlight a few paces away from her den. A lungful of crisp morning air made her feel slightly better. A wash would help.

She had done her face and was craning around to do her back when two scents and two shadows joined hers. Thistle and Quiet Hunter looked a bit rumpled, as if they had worried more than slept.

“Please, finish your grooming,” said Quiet Hunter, earning him, Ratha noticed, an impatient look from Thistle. Patiently he started to lick Thistle’s nape.

“I appreciate your courtesy,” Ratha answered, knowing that they both urgently needed to speak to her. The young pair groomed one another, while Ratha completed her task as quickly as possible.

“I know, you need to talk about what happened yesterday,” she said as Thistle opened her mouth. Quiet Hunter waved his whiskers in a silent ‘yes.’

“Will let him go first,” Thistle said, nudging him. Quiet Hunter began to speak.

“Clan leader, this one … is sorry that the herd animal was needlessly killed. There is another feeling … more than sadness. The other feeling makes this one wish he was not from those led by True-of-voice. This one … I … I do not know what to call this feeling. It makes me choke, though Ihave eaten nothing. It makes me hang my head and drag my tail, though I am not weary.”

Ratha realized that he was appealing to her as one who was more experienced with the Named ways of thinking and feeling. She remembered what a vast gulf he had crossed, not so very long ago. That he had managed to adapt to the Named and adopt ways that at first were impossibly alien to him spoke of his determination.

“Have tried to help him with this,” Thistle said softly. “Can’t. Still not good at word-thinking.”

Ratha looked at the downcast young male, wanting to put her paws around him, as if he were a cub.“Quiet Hunter, we do have a word for the feeling, but you should not have to use it. Nothing you have done has harmed or angered us. It doesn’t matter that you came from the other tribe. You are as truly Named as if you had been born among us. And you have given my Thistle-chaser great happiness.”

Some of the strain left Quiet Hunter’s face as he looked at Ratha, then at Thistle, who rubbed her forehead against his.

“The feeling eases,” he said, “but a little still remains.”

“The word you seek is ‘shame,’” Ratha answered. “You are ashamed at what True-of-voice and the black one did.”

Quiet Hunter seemed to taste the word, trying it on his tongue and in his mind.“Yes,” he said at last. “The word has the right sound. Of rain falling, heavy on fur, pulling down so that the head falls and the feet slow. Yes, I am ashamed … of them.”

Ratha did not know what to say next. She could point out that he had left the hunter tribe and its old ways, that he had no need to be ashamed on their behalf. That, however, was not strictly true. Quiet Hunter still needed to return, to bathe in the mysterious power of True-of-voice’s song. Thistle went with him, not so much out of need, but out of longing.

“They are still part of you.” Ratha found her voice. “Quiet Hunter, we have all known shame. We have all been ashamed of a part of us, whether it lies inside or with others. When we don’t understand that part, we are afraid and ashamed of it. Many times when we know it better, when we understand why, the bad feeling starts to go away. It may never all go away, but it gets better.”

“Is that a part of being Named?” asked Quiet Hunter. “Living alone behind the eyes … with such feelings?”

“Not alone,” interrupted Thistle fiercely. “Never alone!”

Quiet Hunter seemed to brighten as Thistle slid alongside him, dropping her tail over his back and drawing it over him in a long caress.

“Know these things are new to you,” she purred. “If you struggle, I will help.”

From the way that Quiet Hunter laid his tail across Thistle’s, Ratha knew that he would welcome her offer.

“Your mother has a lot of you in her,” Quiet Hunter said to Thistle. “Both of you give words that comfort. I feel …”

“Better,” mother and daughter finished for him.

Ratha relaxed, thinking about grooming that one place on her flank that she hadn’t gotten to her satisfaction. Quiet Hunter, however, had one more question.

“So it is the same with anger,” he said. “Instead of being angry at my people, you will try to know them better. So that you understand. You will not feel anger. I will not feel ashamed.”

Ratha found herself with her mouth open.“Well, those are the ideals. We can’t always reach them. It is like jumping up to a branch in the wind. Sometimes the wind helps you, other times it doesn’t. I promise, though, Quiet Hunter, we will do our best.”

She paused.“Do you have any other questions?”

“No, but can Quiet Hunter say one thing more?”

Ratha lifted her tail in a yes.

“This one … no … I … I lost my mother when young. I was too old for any female to take in. Many nights was I alone and huddled shivering while the wind blew. Now this one’s fur is heavier. I no longer shiver in the wind off the plain. Other little ones do, even those who have mothers. Some die. The clan’s creature, Red Tongue, makes great warmth. Please let the little ones share it.”

“So you are asking me to do as I originally intended,” Ratha said. “Let my Firekeepers bring the Red Tongue to your people’s litterlings.”

“Yes, if it can be done so that the wrong that happened yesterday can be kept from happening again.”

“You mean so that True-of-voice can be prevented from misusing our gift, if I decide to give it.”

“Yes. This one knows that finding such a way will be hard. This one also knows that you and your clan have done hard things.”

“We are your clan as well,” Ratha couldn’t help saying. Quiet Hunter had his own simple eloquence, even in his mistakes with Named language. Those mistakes were similar to, but not the same as, Thistle’s, giving each a unique voice.

“If it could be,” said Quiet Hunter, looking deeply into Ratha’s eyes, “both would be my clan.”

Ratha felt her own eyes widen. Somehow this young male was asking even more of her than any of the Named, even Thistle. I wonder if he knows what he asks? She felt at once awed and shaken by the trust he was placing in her.

“I am grateful for your honesty, Quiet Hunter,” she answered finally.

“This one … I … will go to the meeting place so that you and Thistle can speak alone,”

Thistle came to her side and sat while both watched Quiet Hunter leaving.

Something in me whispers that he could grow into a leader of great wisdom, Ratha thought.

Thistle glanced up at her, sea-green eyes glowing.“Can’t say it the same way you can, Mother, but he is … just … good.”

“If you are happy with him, that is good.” Ratha took a deep breath. “Now, you wanted to speak to me before the gathering.”

“Also would like to see Quiet Hunter have both clans,” Thistle began. “Know it will be difficult. Dangerous, too. Afraid of what could happen if we share Red Tongue. More afraid, maybe, than Quiet Hunter.” She stopped, looked down at her paws, then up, a stubborn glint coming into her eyes.“Feel that Red Tongue is way too dangerous to share at start. When True-of-voice and others see Firekeepers, they will do same, only better, like Thakur and three-horn fawn. Like killing — they won’t just grab and pull down, they won’t be able to stop. Something bad will happen, like killing fawn when not needed. Understand?”

“I think so,” Ratha said.

“Love Quiet Hunter, but can’t agree with him on this. Must use something else to draw two tribes together. Song is too powerful and … blind … for using Red Tongue.”

“Thistle, to be honest, I feel the same. I hate the way that True-of-voice claws into his people’s minds and twists them, like breaking a herdbeast’s neck.”

“Then you won’t—”

“I can’t say that yet, Thistle. If my choice just affected me, or just me and you, I could, but it affects so many. There are other things as well.”

“What other things?” Thistle asked, her whiskers starting to bristle.

“Well, you said that True-of-voice’s song is very good at doing the things it knows about. The Red Tongue isn’t one of those.”

“Didn’t know about herdbeast takedowns either,” Thistle retorted.

“Yes, but True knows hunting very well. Even though that black belly-biter repeated nearly everything Thakur did, he was still hunting, not herding.”

Thistle cocked her head.“Are words fighting feelings inside you? Hear scratching and yowling.”

For a moment Ratha did not know what to say. She also wished Thistle wasn’t so perceptive. “Yes,” she finally answered. “But they have to fight.”

“Because of you being clan leader.”

Because of me being what I am, Thistle.

She noticed that the sun was growing warmer and the shadows shorter.“The gathering will start soon.”

“I can speak at it?” Thistle asked as Ratha started to turn. She felt Thistle’s tail brush tentatively across her back.

“Yes, both you and Quiet Hunter. Everybody will have a turn, but since I have talked to both of you before the gathering, let others go first.”

Thistle’s tail lifted in agreement, and then flopped across Ratha’s. They slid alongside one another, exchanging affection and scents.

“You are like Quiet Hunter,” Thistle whispered in her ear.

In that you can disagree with both of us but still love us, Ratha thought, feeling the fur of her daughter’s forehead against her own. The hairs met and mingled, finding their way through and past one another to sensitive skin.

Side-by-side, they set off for the gathering. Part of the way there, Thistle stopped, flipping her tail back and forth. Ratha recognized indecision.“Something else troubles you?”

“Think you would be mad at me. For saying that True-of-voice should show you what his hunters could do. Teased you. Shouldn’t have. Made fawn die. Sorry.”

“I was angry at you,” Ratha said as the two paced together. “Maybe I still am, a little.”

“Can understand that. I should think more before pouncing. Not make so many Thistle-messes.”

“We caught something out of that incident, as much as I don’t want to admit it.”

Thistle crooked her tail, looking up in puzzlement.

“We would have found out about the song’s ‘blindness’ later, perhaps after we’d given True’s people the use of fire. I prefer to know it now.”

Chapter Eight

Instead of sitting on the sunning rock, Ratha decided to take her seat on the lower outcrop nearby. This morning she wanted to be with, not above, her people. The clan, who had arrived, settled around the outcrop. Thistle fell behind Ratha as mother and daughter approached the gathering.

“No, stay at my side,” Ratha commanded.

As the rising sun chased off the dew, the Named made way for Ratha and Thistle. Ratha caught looks of mild surprise mingled with approval. She was pleased that Thistle had earned the right to walk in honor beside her mother. The clan surged around the pair, rubbing foreheads and licking faces. All the Named were there except for Mishanti who was looking after the rumblers, and Fessran’s older daughter Chikka, who was minding the small cubs in the nursery.

Ratha draped herself across the outcrop with Thistle beside her. She began slowly, almost softly.“What happened at the gathering yesterday is troubling. It will affect our decision whether or not to share the Red Tongue with True-of-voice’s people.”

She looked across at Fessran, who sat with Bira by her side and the Firekeepers around her. Then Ratha’s gaze went to Thakur, with Ashon and the other herding students, and then to Cherfan and the working herders. Bringing her gaze back to the Firekeepers, Ratha said, “Fessran, I’d like to hear from you first. When the black hunter killed the fawn, you were furious. Has this changed your feeling about sharing the Red Tongue?”

“No it has not, clan leader. Even though Thakur had to sit on me to keep me from shredding that belly-biting killer, I still believe that my Firekeepers can safely share the Red Tongue with them.”

“How can we prevent what happened yesterday?” Cherfan asked gruffly. “Yes, this time it was a fawn, but next time it might be a grown three-horn, a striper, or—”

“The mistake yesterday,” the sandy-furred Firekeeper leader interrupted, “was not in showing our herding skills. It was in letting a hunter actually get his claws on our herdbeast. This will not happen with the Red Tongue if only Firekeepers tend the flame.”

Ratha saw heads turning to exchange looks. Fessran had obviously made a strong point.“Bira,” she said, pointing with her nose at the ruddy-gold young female whose plumed tail curled around her feet. “You did well yesterday when you prevented a fight. What do you think?”

“If we place several Firekeepers at each campfire to prevent anyone from meddling with it, I will agree with Fessran. Quiet Hunter has spoken about the litterlings shivering in the wind. I feel it would be wrong not to help them,” Bira replied.

“Can the Firekeepers keep the campfire safe?” The question came from Mondir. Beside him, Khushi, Fessran’s son and also a herder, lifted his whiskers in support.

Hazel-eyed Drani had a suggestion.“If we keep the Red Tongue on clan land and bring the other tribe’s small cubs here …”

Before Ratha could stop Fessran, the Firekeeper leader snorted.“Haven’t you had enough of carrying our own litterlings around, Drani? The fur between my teeth makes everything I eat taste like cub hair.”

“Besides,” added Bira, “would the hunter cubs’ mothers allow us anywhere near them?”

“Then their mothers can bring them,” said Drani, refusing to back down.

Bira gazed at Fessran,“That’s not a bad idea.”

“Not all mothers will,” said Quiet Hunter softly. “If you make it harder, fewer will use it. Cubs will still shiver.”

Ratha swiveled her ears as they spoke, taking in all the opinions. She agreed with Bira. Letting the face-tail hunting tribe come to the Red Tongue on clan ground would be safer. Should they even allow that? Her eyes sought Thakur, who, so far, had said little.

“Herding teacher?” she asked.

Thakur sat up a little straighter.“I often take a longer view on things. Basically, we have only two choices. We either share your creature with the face-tail hunters, or we deny it. If we decide to share, we must know the risks and prepare for them. There is no halfway point.”

Again Ratha saw heads turning, eyes meeting. She showed her teeth slightly to quell any interruptions.

“If we don’t share, we must accept what the decision means,” Thakur continued. “This hunter tribe has a strong will. If they want the Red Tongue enough, they will take it. The only way to prevent this is to separate completely from them.”

Ratha felt her jaw drop a little. Thakur usually wasn’t one to claw such sharp lines. He also, however, wasn’t one to avoid facing the uncomfortable or unpleasant.

“This is not a taste I savor,” she heard Thakur say. “We would either seek a new home for ourselves and our herds or use the Red Tongue to keep the hunters away.” He turned his gaze to Thistle-chaser and Quiet Hunter. “Such a choice would be hard, especially for the two who just came to us.”

“You would chase the hunters away with the Red Tongue?” Fessran asked. “That is not like you, Thakur.”

“I didn’t say that,” the herding teacher answered patiently. “Only if we choose that branch of the trail, we must follow it.”

Ratha waited while Thakur gathered his thoughts to continue. Her glance fell on Bira, who looked as if she needed to speak.“Thakur, can you wait to finish? Bira has something.”

Thakur agreed and the young Firekeeper stood up, tail down in a gentle curve, whiskers, fanning out. Sometimes Ratha envied Bira’s even temper. “Why do you think that the answer only lies on one side of a clawed line?” Bira asked Thakur. “Keeping the Red Tongue here while letting the hunters warm their cubs is being careful.”

“True, but it is still a choice to share. You are right: doing so might reduce the risks, but risks are like fleas, they never go away entirely.”

And sometimes they bite you when and where you least expect it, Ratha thought.

“I also think we should let Thistle and Quiet Hunter speak,” said Bira calmly. “If we do choose to separate from the hunters, it will affect them the most.”

Quiet Hunter also rose, his ear tips trembling.“This one would … I would … do all I could to persuade True-of-voice not to do wrong with the clan’s gift. If the two tribes must be apart, Thistle and I would suffer.”

“Drani’s idea is good one,” said Thistle when it was her turn to speak. “Would be even more careful, though. Maybe start slowly with hunters coming to just one Red-Tongue-nest on clan land. And all Firekeepers watching it.”

“Then later, if it works, two,” said Fessran, her tail tip flicking in growing excitement. “I’m willing to start very slowly and to pull back if needed.”

“Isn’t this really the clan leader’s decision?” asked Mondir, glancing at all the others, then at Ratha. “I mean, she can listen to us, but she has to choose.”

“Yes, you have given me that responsibility,” Ratha answered him. “But this is so important, I’d like to see the clan agree as much as you can. If you can’t, I will make the choice.”

She saw many looks of approval, a few of doubt. She let them argue but kept the talk from becoming too heated. Thakur and Thistle were the holdouts.

“We may be setting our paws down very carefully, but we are still choosing the path,” the herding teacher said. “Thistle is right about being extremely careful. Even if we finally agree, we must keep the risks in mind and be ready for them.”

“Just waking up each day is risky,” said Fessran. “Herding teacher, don’t be an old frog-in-the-mud.”

Thakur only sighed patiently.

“We sound close to agreement,” said Ratha. “For the Named it is unusual, but I won’t question it.”

At her side, she felt Thistle shift restlessly.“Go ahead,” Ratha prompted.

“One Red-Tongue-nest,” Thistle said. “Here. With all the Firekeepers.”

Across the circle Ratha saw Fessran wrinkle her nose.

“Fess?” she asked.

“I said that we should walk carefully, not crawl.” Fessran paused. “All right, all right, I agree. I think we’ll soon see how well this works and can move faster.”

“So then”—Ratha stood up, fluffing her fur—“we will share the Red Tongue, but we will start with one fire-nest on clan ground. If there are even the slightest problems, we will stop.” She paused. “The decision is made. We will begin tomorrow. It is the will of the Named.”

The clan’s voices echoed hers. “It is the will of the Named.”

“Good,” said Fessran as she got up and stretched. “My tongue is getting tired.”

“Your tongue never gets tired,” teased Cherfan, bumping the Firekeeper’s flank with his head. She answered him with a sheathed-claw swat, and he retaliated. The two tumbled over, play-biting like cubs.

Ratha shook herself.“My ears are tired. I want a drink, a bath, and a nap. Take yourselves off, all of you,” she mock-scolded, shooing them away like errant cubs.

With Thistle by her side, she padded away, feeling glad she had guided the clan to a consensus. It was a rare accomplishment and she felt proud, though weary. Beside her, Thistle yawned and Ratha found herself gaping widely.

“You’re right. This has been hard work,” she said. Both strolled away, swinging their tails.

D D D

On the following day, Fessran and the Firekeepers, with the help of their treelings, built a campfire at the edge of clan ground closest to the hunters’ territory. Quiet Hunter and Thistle-chaser went to tell True-of-voice that his people could come that night and bring their young.

There was scarcely enough room around the campfire for all who came. With Thistle and Quiet Hunter’s help, Fessran, Bira, and other Firekeepers arranged the visitors so that small cubs and their mothers were closest to the fire, older cubs and elders next, then pregnant females. When Ratha visited the campfire, she saw True-of-voice, sitting at the back with other adults.

Ratha also noticed an unusual quiet. She heard no speaking, only the sounds of infant cubs suckling from their mothers or the raspy breathing of the very old. At first, the other tribe hesitated, but when the Named showed True-of-voice that the campfire was safe, they approached.

Each evening Bira and some Firekeepers kept their visitors safely back until other Firekeepers and their treelings readied the fire. Before letting the other tribe near, the fire-builders tucked their treelings safely away in nearby branches. Ratha didn’t think that their guests would be so rude as to eat a treeling, but the memory of the needlessly slain three-horn shadowed her.

After a few days, she noticed on her evening visit that True-of-voice’s people brought wood. She had mixed feelings about this. The hunters’ contribution eased the wood-gathering burden on the Firekeepers, which Fessran welcomed. At the same time, the act showed that True-of-voice and his people now knew what the Red Tongue needed. Ratha added another precaution, asking herders to assist the Firekeepers, increasing the number of clan members overseeing their guests.

She didn’t see the black fawn-killer at the campfire gathering and thought that True-of-voice must have gotten rid of him. A few days later, Bira reported that the fawn-killer did appear. She also said she would keep a close watch on him.

Curiosity brought Ratha to the shared fire later the same night. She had seen the black hunter only from a distance.

None of the other face-tail hunters wore much more than a trace or shade of black. Lighter, dustier pelt colors and patterns concealed better on the open plains. Ratha had once encountered a completely black female among the Un-Named on her travels with Bone-chewer, but that was the only one. Though the meadow-and forest-dwelling Named had a wider range of colors, none were a solid black.

Ratha learned to her surprise when she got close that the fawn-killer wasn’t solid black either. Though sparsely scattered in his midnight pelt, white-tipped hairs caught the fire’s light for just an instant, so that it seemed as if tiny stars flashed and died in his coat as his muscles moved beneath. On one flank, the white-tipped hairs were close enough that they appeared to connect in ghostly lines, as if the fur was draped with a cobweb.

Ratha had never seen such markings. She wondered if the firelight was reflecting from sand grains in his coat. When she watched him groom, however, the pattern stayed.

His eyes, too, were strange, turning from pale blue to even paler green as he turned his sleek head in the firelight. Ratha had seen similar eyes only in those whose coats were completely white.

She found herself oddly fascinated yet repelled. Who was he? Had he been birthed among the face-tail hunters or joined them later? Was he a son of True-of-voice? She could tell nothing from his scent, which was dominated by the hunters’ group smell. Yet something within told her he was not completely like them.

The impression came from his eyes, Ratha finally decided. Though they held the same dreamy far-seeing stare as other hunters, occasionally there came a sharpness as quick and intense as the shimmers in his coat. Was that why he seemed shy, turning his head away from direct stares and keeping his gaze down?

At the same time, she felt that the fleeting intensity followed her when she wasn’t looking. It almost made her ask the Firekeepers to ban him from the campfire, but what if he was True-of-voice’s son, and perhaps the next in line for leadership. She thought about trying to talk to him, but Bira said she hadn’t heard him speak.

Ratha could not let him distract her. Her role in supervising the fire sharing needed her full attention. Her emotions swung oddly from one extreme to the other. When she visited the campfire site, she felt warmed by the sight of cubs curled up comfortably in the Red Tongue’s glow. Then she was proud that she had overcome the fiercer instincts that would have used the fire not to warm but to sear.

However, she could not rid herself of a nagging doubt that closed in when she was alone. Had she done the right thing? Would her precautions be enough to prevent another tragedy? Was she indeed seeking the best interests of the Named, or would her need to befriend another tribe ultimately betray her own?

Fire’s power to help or harm was great, but even greater was the sweeping change it produced in those who used it. Living with fire tapped an unused potential within the Named for good or evil. What then would fire do to those whose potential might be even stronger? What might it release inside True-of-voice, or the song? Friendship or harm? In her mind, the image of cubs sleeping before the fire alternated with the memory of the black hunter killing the fawn.

She couldn’t argue that it was her people, not their leader, who had made the final choice. Yes, she had refrained from imposing her feelings on them, but she might have somehow herded them to a premature decision.

Was her attempt to reach out a sign of vision or blindness? Perhaps she should have listened to the instinctive revulsion that still sometimes churned in her belly. Equally strong was her sense that reaching out to these strangers was right.

As Thakur said, the paw prints were already on the trail. The only way lay ahead. If she moved with utmost care, taking all imaginable precautions, it might be enough.

Chapter Nine

Ratha could scarcely believe that, after many nights of sharing the campfire with True-of-voice’s tribe, nothing threatening had happened. Fessran and the Firekeepers soon asked for permission to build another campfire near the first. Keep it small at first, Ratha told them.

Visiting and inspecting both campfire sites, she found Fessran and Bira doing exactly as she asked. If anything, they were even more careful. The only change was that the hunters had started to bring face-tail meat as well as wood.

“I think True-of-voice realizes that building and tending the Red Tongue takes much effort,” Fessran said during one of the clan leader’s visits. “So far, sharing the Red Tongue with the hunters appears to be going very well.”

Ratha felt she could relax a little if adding a second campfire caused no problems. She waited before giving Fessran permission to enlarge this second fire.

Even if True-of-voice and his tribe didn’t express gratitude other than contributing food and fuel, Ratha accepted this limitation. The sight of cubs curled up together, comfortable and warm, felt better than words. Some cubs were from Named families, especially those of the Firekeepers.

Both Fessran and Bira encouraged Named youngsters to play and sleep among the hunter cubs. Ratha approved of this, agreeing that the two sets of cubs might understand one another better if they grew up together.

“Our hopes lie with them,” Ratha said to herself softly, as she watched one of Drani’s young sons sleepily patting a female hunter cub who licked him on the nose. Both looked so much alike in their cub-spots that Ratha had to study whisker patterns to tell them apart. Even their scents weren’t that different. This mingling of young convinced Ratha that she guided the Named along the right path.

It also helped Ratha to watch Thistle-chaser and Quiet Hunter affectionately grooming one another. They had opened that path, proving that two from very different worlds could meet and love. Their young would be a blending of herder and hunter; Named thinker and song-hearer. The thought helped ease the old pain of what had happened to Thistle-chaser herself and her lost siblings.

When True-of-voice asked, through Thistle and Quiet Hunter, for a fire on the hunters’ ground, Ratha thought long and hard before directing Fessran to go ahead with a small one. She asked Bira to take charge of this encampment, as Fessran was busy with the two on clan ground.

Among the first to approach the new flame was the black fawn-killer. When Ratha visited the site, with Ratharee on her back, she saw the black-coat as well as Bira, Quiet Hunter, and a scattering of others. Ratha felt alarm start up in her belly, making her ears twitch back and her nape fur ridge up. Ratharee, on her back, stiffened and crouched. Bira, her color deepened by the firelight, touched noses with Ratha and then spoke softly.

“Clan leader, the black one been coming here since we started this Red-Tongue-nest. He hasn’t done anything. He just sits and watches.”

Ratha greeted Quiet Hunter, who was minding various cubs. He seemed to enjoy them, for he was bathing one with his tongue. Another youngster wrestled with his foot while two others hunted his tail. Good preparation, Ratha thought, for having his own family.

She left him among the wiggling bodies, flailing paws, squeaks, and tiny growls. Settling beside Bira, Ratha felt the brush of the Firekeeper’s pelt against her own. Ratharee hopped from her back to Bira’s, chirring and starting to groom Cherfaree. Ratha’s gaze traveled, almost unwillingly, to the midnight shape that crouched apart.

“I thought about driving him off, but I really didn’t want to,” Bira said. Ratha felt the young Firekeeper’s whiskers tickling the inside of her ear as Bira spoke. “It wasn’t his fault that True-of-voice chose him to take down the fawn. These spring nights are still cold.” Ratha listened, trying hard not to flick her ear. “If you tell me to chase him off, clan leader, I will.”

“No,” Ratha answered, not wanting to dampen Bira’s generous spirit. “At least not yet.”

“He doesn’t talk. I haven’t heard him make any sound. I call him Night-who-eats-stars, because of the way his black fur swallows up the little white sparkles.”

Night-who-eats-stars, Ratha thought, looking across at the solitary form whose pale blue-green eyes stared into the fire’s heart. She found Bira’s made-up name strange, even silly, but in watching the black hunter, and seeing how ghostly specks appeared and vanished in his fur, she also found it appropriate.

“Of course, we don’t have to call him anything if we—”

“Shhh, Bira.” Ratha made her voice low. “Night can stay … for a while. I’m curious about him.”

She let her crouching hindquarters flop over so that she lay in a half-twist on one flank while Ratharee climbed over onto her ribs. Spreading her forelegs out, she crossed her rear paws and stretched, extending herself so that the fire warmed the length of her belly. Even though she had done this many times, she still marveled at her creature’s ability to breathe out heat.

Bira laid herself out in a similar way, keeping her head and forepaws toward Ratha. Bira’s treeling, Cherfaree slept beneath her chin. A cub bumbled its infant way from Quiet Hunter to Bira, seeking a full teat. Ratha watched as Bira curled around the litterling, as she herself had once curled around an infant Thistle-chaser and her brothers. Thistle had returned to her; would any of the others?

She listened to Bira’s purr and the soft gurgle-snort-smack of the cub suckling. Watching Bira made her remember how it felt, the tugging at her belly, the warm flow of milk through her teats into the mouths of those tiny furred bodies, the warmth and tingling that echoed the arousal of mating, but most of all the feeling, as she gazed down at her family, that she wanted to bathe them in endless, boundless love. Until they had been torn from her, not by a foe, but by her own blind devastating rage when she learned …

Ratha stiffened; eyes squeezed shut so hard that she felt eye fluid welling up beneath the lids and gathering in the corners to seep down the channels on each side of her nose. No, I will not think of that!

She opened her eyes, panting slightly at the rush of emotion. She had Thistle back and those once-clouded sea-green eyes were now alert and aware. It was enough. It had to be enough.

The weight of a small wiry body and a whiff of treeling scent told Ratha that Ratharee sensed her distress. Slender arms went around her neck, and she felt tufted treeling ears against her cheek, small careful hands stroking her face. She nuzzled Ratharee and then turned her head for a quick look at Bira. The young mother was so absorbed in nursing her cub that she hadn’t noticed Ratha’s reaction.

Why am I thinking of this? I thought the feelings were long dead, but they are wakening. Why?

Because it’s nearly mating season, dung-for-brains, she scolded herself.

But Thakur’s not even here. It doesn’t matter anyway. I can have any clan male; the matings have never taken. Not since Bone-chewer.

She shook out of her reverie and distracted herself by watching Night-who-eats-stars. Ratharee was curled up against Ratha’s chest fur, sleeping on her forepaws.

Night-who-eats-our-fawn, she thought, trying to take refuge in a bout of ill temper. It didn’t last, and she found herself watching him intensely.

Though Night shifted occasionally, the inky gloom of his coat creating and destroying the sparks of white, his gaze remained immobile, fixed on the fire. Within those eyes, something shifted, rising and falling like a restless sea. His eyes seemed as distant and dreamy as the eyes of other hunters, but every so often Ratha saw a pinpoint sharpness even more intense than the light in the eyes of the clan. It vanished instantly, like the white in his fur. Ratha blinked and wondered if both the stars in fur and eyes had existed only in her imagination.

She decided that he had to be a son of True-of-voice, perhaps the gray one’s heir. But if Night was, he showed no understanding of fire, as True-of-voice did. Nor did he ever speak, not even the stunted half language the hunter tribe used.

Opening her mouth and extending her tongue slightly, Ratha tried to catch his aroma. Dominated as it was by the hunter group-scent and masked by the burning fire, she could only smell and taste enough to tantalize her. Again she attempted, inhaling deeply through nose and mouth. She had learned how to enhance her scent-detection by trapping the air high in the most delicate and sensitive part of her nose and holding it still while she continued to breathe through her mouth. Closing her eyes, she focused attention on her smell-sense, sampling every part of the trapped air for the slightest odor trace that might reveal more about Night-who-eats-stars.

He must have heard her breathing change as she struggled to place him by smell, for he turned his head, letting his gaze fix briefly on her before it returned to the fire. His stare was at once icier than the most freezing wind and at the same time hotter than the fiercest of the Red Tongue’s flames.

Heat-sweat started from Ratha’s nose leather and paw pads, then cooled and dried.

Who was he? What was he? And why did he have such an effect on her?

She abandoned her questioning by bidding Bira and the others farewell, coaxing a sleepy Ratharee onto her back, and continuing on to the fire-site on clan ground. There she spoke to Fessran and then lay down. With the treeling nesting in her fur, she slept in the Red Tongue’s glow.

She woke to the sound of rustling and snapping followed by a soft but growing roar. It created a strong light that Ratha could see even through closed eyelids. Blinking, she saw Bira and her treeling Cherfaree coming to feed the fire. The sky was still black, shading to violet in the direction of sunrise.

Ratha rolled from her side to her front, taking care not to squash Ratharee. She nibbled a front toe pad that itched. She tasted salt, remembering her feelings from the previous evening. Furtively looking for Night, she remembered that she had left the other fire-site and felt abashed.

There were none of True-of-voice’s people here, only clan herders and Firekeepers sleeping near her. Thistle-chaser and Fessran were among them.

“It is still early, clan leader,” said Bira as her treeling added a trilling chirr. “I came to take Fessran’s watch so she can sleep.”

Ratha stretched her jowls and arched her tongue in an enormous yawn. Ratharee settled on Ratha’s nape as she asked Bira where the hunters had gone.

“Thistle told me last night that True-of-voice was leading the most able hunters after face-tails. His people will be gone for several evenings, so we don’t have to make as many fires. Just enough for the mothers and the old. I made the other fire-creature die, since we won’t need it. Then I brought everyone who was there over here.”

Bira nudged her treeling, purring a request. Cherfaree responded, feeding several sticks into the Red Tongue while Bira crouched alongside, coaching him. As the pair worked, Bira waved her plumed tail in enjoyment but carefully swept it away from the leaping flames.

Sleepily, Ratha licked her nose, grimacing slightly at the taste of salt there as well. She was glad Night-who-eats-stars was gone and would be for several days. She disliked the feelings he provoked in her.

The air had the cold taste of predawn, making Ratha move closer to the fire and settle near Bira. Close by, Fessran snored, whistling every time she inhaled.

“Go back to sleep, clan leader,” Bira said. “I’ll tend the fire-creature.”

Ratha had curled up on her side, her tail between her forepaws, and the tip beneath her chin. She was already starting to drift back into slumber.

With True-of-voice and most of his tribe away, Ratha could devote more attention to her own people. She did her regular patrolling and marking, joined Thakur in helping the herders, and made sure that Bundi and Mishanti were keeping the rumblers from trampling any more dens. A three-horn doe had a difficult birth, and Ratha was present as Drani and Thakur attended. The doe had twins, and while the fawns staggered around on their stiltlike legs, their fur still wet and spiky, Ratha nosed them, grateful to the doe for providing not only a replacement for the slain fawn, but for increasing the three-horn herd by one. The event cheered her, and she enjoyed the days that passed while True-of-voice’s people were gone.

The wind announced the hunters’ return late one afternoon. It brought a rich meaty smell that told of a successful kill. It also carried the leathery, dried-dung smell of live face-tails along with the trace of milky-scent that identified the animals as calves.

The Named needed little urging to follow Ratha to the fire-site on the hunters’ ground. She was glad to see Thistle-chaser by her side. “They’re bringing us face-tail meat,” said Cherfan, licking his chops as he sat down to wait for True-of-voice and his returning band.

“They are also bringing us more young tuskers,” Thakur said, pacing at Ratha’s other flank. “Those beasts will keep my cub-students running.”

“Not only your students,” Ratha teased, knowing that Thakur himself would be scampering frantically around, keeping his students from getting speared by tusks, trampled, or clubbed by trunks.

Fessran and Bira brought torches to relight the campfire. Other Firekeepers brought wood. Thistle and others helped Ratha scuff away grass and weeds, making a clear area around the Red-Tongue-nest. Ratharee also helped, then scrambled back up on Ratha. The long grass on this open plain felt and smelled drier than the growth in the clan’s meadow. She knew that the Red Tongue liked this dryness and would devour it eagerly, spreading out of control.

They were half done when a pounding grumble started. Ratha saw Thakur raise himself up on his hind legs, looking intently into the distance.

“Arrr, they are bringing young face-tails, but the beasts are getting away!”

Ratha jumped to his side and reared up to see over the long grass. Ratha recognized True-of-voice and Night-who-eats-stars. She also saw a group of young face-tails breaking away from their captors. The hunters were burdened by the raw meat they carried in their jaws and couldn’t act quickly enough to stop the beasts.

As the sounds of turmoil reached her ears, Ratha realized that the young face-tails were stampeding directly toward the Named and the Red Tongue.

“Dung-worms!” she heard Thakur curse as he plunged ahead. “They’re acting like stupid dapplebacks; they’re attracted to the Red Tongue!”

Even as she launched herself after him, calling for the rest of the Named to follow, she had a flash of memory, the shape of a little horse rearing in terror before the Red Tongue, but paradoxically turning to plunge into the fire. Why some creatures ran toward the Red Tongue rather than away, Ratha didn’t know.

The rumble of feet erupted into thunder. Looming from the late haze of afternoon, gray shapes filled her vision. Snarling,“Thistle, run!” she shoved her daughter away from a descending foot. The skin on Ratha’s tail tingled as the hairs bottle-brushed. With Ratharee clinging to her back, Ratha ducked under a leathery belly, was banged by a knee, butted by a head, and finally twisted herself free of the animals. Looking frantically around for Thistle, she found her daughter safe with Bira.

Around her the Named leaped up with paws spread, claws extended, and fangs bared, trying to break the stampede. Fessran caught one of the beasts by the tail. It swung her around, her fur bristling wildly. Thistle’s treeling Biaree hung from her neck, scooping up rocks from the ground and hurling them. They didn’t have much effect until a sharp stone hit one face-tail in the eye.

The young beast lashed its trunk, trumpeted, and swerved across the path of its fellows. Shrilling and bawling, the tuskers went down in a heap.

Ratha sprang up, shaking dust from her pelt and yowling a battle cry. Now True-of-voice and the other hunters ran alongside the Named, trying to surround and recapture the escapees.

In the commotion, two little tuskers caromed off one another, sending one crashing through the Red-Tongue-nest, throwing embers into the dry grass. The infant hastened away, batting frantically with its trunk at the shower of sparks and ashes onto its back.

Her nose full of the stink of scorched face-tail hide, Ratha whirled as smoke and then flame exploded from the grass beyond the clearing. Surging up with a menacing crackle, the fire spread as if poured along the base of the grass. It leaped high, rejoicing in its sudden freedom.

The wind kicked the flame higher, whipping it through the parched grass. Smoke tumbled and rolled down onto the Named and the hunters.

It clawed Ratha’s throat; bit her eyes. On her back, Ratharee sneezed and coughed. In the gray swirl, Ratha caught sight of a shape that at first looked like Thakur but, when the wind pulled aside the smoke curtain, revealed itself as Night-who-eats-stars.

He crouched, ears flat, ducking the smoke, but his eyes remained on the face-tails who were backing away from the wildfire, driven by the heat. Instead of helping the other hunters and the Named in catching the animals, Night remained crouched, staring, taking in the sight of flames lunging at the terrified face-tails. Abruptly his ears swiveled forward, and his eyes widened, reminding Ratha of a cub that had finally learned something it had struggled long to understand.

Her own ears flattened and went back. Her teeth seemed to bare themselves, and she wasn’t aware of starting the rasping growl in her throat. Night-who-eats-stars started violently, and then fixed her with his stare. She tensed, ready to meet him if he should spring at her. Instead, he lowered his head and backed into the smoke, vanishing.

Ratha stood still, one paw raised, ignoring the sting of ash in her fur and choking smoke in the shock of the unexpected encounter.

Another shape dashed up beside her. This time it was Thakur.

“Clan leader, follow me,” he said. Dazed, she did, galloping behind him with Ratharee bumping on her back until the air cleared. Together they made a wide circle behind the fire-line, bringing them to the main group of mixed clan and herders surrounding the frightened tuskers.

Ratha joined the fray once again, refreshed by the clear air so that her chest no longer ached and her feet were no longer leaden. With Ratharee clinging to her nape, she dashed among them, yowling instructions and commands. She saw True-of-voice moving among his people, but he didn’t have to yowl. He only touched noses, and the one touched seemed to lose fear and gain knowledge of what he or she had to do in order to force the face-tails away from the fire.

“Let it burn,” Ratha cried. “It can’t go that far. There’s a creek and a marshy area in the down-wind direction. The Red Tongue will run there and then die.”

Slowly, and then more rapidly as their captors gained control, the milling face-tails were forced to safety, and then guided back to the meadow on clan land. Thistle, smoke-stained and dirty, but unhurt, ran beside Ratha. The wildfire burned behind them, belching more black clouds into the oncoming twilight.

When they reached the meadow, the young face-tails calmed as they caught sight of others of their own kind. Ratha had the herders hold their ring until the tuskers had settled. The animals, made thirsty by the flight and parched by the smoke, drank deeply from the creek that flowed through the meadow. They sucked up water with their trunks and squirted it into their mouths.

Ratha let True-of-voice know, through Thistle, that his hunters could stay overnight on clan ground. Or, if they wished, return to their own land, to a place not affected by the blaze. The fire would soon burn itself out in the wetland.

True-of-voice, as she expected, chose to depart, leaving with his tribe. Before they went, however, the hunters laid down the meat they still had, leaving it for the Named.

He probably wants to regroup and take stock, Ratha thought. She needed to do the same — and she did, going to each clan member and seeing if he or she were hurt. She found surprisingly few injuries. Singed fur, blistered pads, someone still coughing from a lungful of smoke, cinders in ears, and a few sprains — but no bad burns, deep gashes, or broken bones. They’d only lost one or two of the face-tails, and the remainder were more than enough to cope with.

As Thakur, with Drani’s aid, ministered to the mildly injured, Ratha watched, feeling deeply grateful that none of the Named had been killed or disabled.

Only one thing bothered her now, as she sat on the sunning rock in the cool of late evening. She remembered how the black hunter had crouched, watching, as the face-tails retreated before the wall of fire. It was that understanding that lit his eyes.

But exactly what had Night understood?

Chapter Ten

With the dream-stalking hunters taking refuge on their home ground, Named life settled into familiar paths. Knowing the mating season was approaching, Ratha told the herders to cull herdbeasts and stockpile food. The Firekeepers gathered enough wood to kindle many days’ worth of campfires. Once caught in the heat of mating, her people would be too distracted.

Some clan members would not be caught up in it this time. Mothers with very young cubs would not be taken by the fever. Fessran’s youngsters were old enough that she would be. Mishanti would look after the rumblers while his friend Bundi courted. Thistle-chaser would be among the first-timers, calling to Quiet Hunter. Ratha would fight off the effects of her own heat to see that everything went well for her daughter. Only then would she let the fever take her.

“As if you had a choice,” snorted Fessran when Ratha told her friend her plans the next day. “You are older now and the heat will be stronger. Trust me, I know.”

Instead of hissing a retort, Ratha touched noses with Fessran and left, Ratharee on her shoulder, intending to patrol. She found herself drifting to the meadow’s edge, where the herding teacher was training older students how to manage the new face-tails.

Glancing at the far end of the meadow, Ratha saw Thakur end his session. He shooed away his students, recovered his treeling, Aree, from a bush, and jogged toward Ratha.

Looking as lithe and slim as though he were still young, Thakur moved effortlessly in a ground-eating pace. Ratha found herself enjoying the sight of him, the sun gleaming on his copper coat, his strong, lean muscles, and swift stride. Even the fading scar on his cheek and the fact that he was missing some claws from one foot only gave him more uniqueness and made him more attractive to her than any other clan male. As she watched Thakur approach, Ratha extended her claws in frustration, tearing at the ground beneath her feet. He is the one I want most as a mate. And he is the one I cannot have.

When the herding teacher reached Ratha, his treeling, Aree, bounded up to see Ratharee. Thakur lolled his tongue in amusement as the two treelings huddled together for a quick mother-daughter chatter session.

“Ho, Thakur. May you eat of the haunch and sleep in the driest den,” Ratha said, really meaning the words that were usually spoken in ritual.

“Thanks to you and Fessran’s Firekeepers, I am doing both. Although between you and me, clan leader, I prefer the liver.”

“Come sit with me in the shade and call me ‘yearling’ like you used to.”

With a single bound, Thakur was beside her and licking the nape of her neck. For an instant, his smell overwhelmed her and she wondered if she was to coming into heat. If so, she knew that Thakur would soon have to exile himself as he did every mating season. His heritage was half Un-Named and any cubs he sired on a clan female could lack the Named light in their eyes. Such births only brought tragedy and had already happened too many times in the clan. She remembered Shongshar and the witless young he sired on Bira. Dull-eyed as they were, Shongshar loved them, and taking them away to exile was what turned him into a tyrant. Ratha understood that Thakur dared not take the risk of fathering animal-eyed cubs, especially with her. It did not make her want him any less.

Night… with stars.

Dark has crept past day. Hiding. Watching. No longer going close to the fire-nest. Don’t want to be seen by the red-gold female or the sandy one. Most of all, not the tawny one.

These eyes see the bright licking thing tonguing the night. Warmth, yes, light yes, but more…

The paw rests on a small hollowed-out log from a fallen tree. The end closed. Sand scraped inside. The talking ones do not know that paws have this cleverness. Singing one does not know that the ears inside can choose to hear singing or not. Now they choose not, and all is silent except for what speaks within.

The eyes inside see pictures, and they move as this night-black body will move, without noise, toward brightness that bites the eyes.

More pictures now, telling what the eyes outside saw when yesterday faded. The young of the two-tailed thick-skinned prey, running to the fire-nest. Their fear-scent is hot and acrid in the nose, flooding the mouth with salt and sour, making the body tense. The skin beneath the fur prickles.

Fear and fascination, making the thick-skinned young prey draw close, yet pushing them away. Making the thick-skinned young prey confused, easier to attack.

Inside, the tongue and nose senses taste a meaty flavor. The pictures tell of less shedding of hunter blood, fewer pain-cries from wounds made by tusks.

The song and singer pleased.

Not yet. Not now. Now is for stillness.

Muscles ache with the urge to spring. When, when will the red-gold one turn away from the fire-nest? The scent of the sand-colored female comes on the wind. The red-gold turns, lifts the nose, pricks the ears. Go, go red-gold, and meet sand-pelt, leaving a path open to the burning thing.

* * *

Now is for swiftness. Jaws seize the hollowed end-closed wood. It is heavy with sand. Only a few of the talking ones sleep on the far side. Lower the head, feel the weight of sand drag at the jaws and teeth. The brightness that licks at the night sky cannot devour sand, only wood. The glowing eggs at its base will live in sand, if fed.

Steal closer. Narrow the eyes against the brilliance that blinds, the heat that sears. Reach into the nest for the glowing eggs laid by the flame. Use claws, not pads, and brace for the burning, beating pain. The song cannot banish the pain, for the ears inside have shut it out.

Paws moving in a blur before tearing, squinting eyes. Heat blasts the face. Claw the glowing orange and black eggs out. Sweep them into the sand-filled log. Sink the teeth into the bitter bark, feeling blisters rise on the nose leather, the forefeet pads, the chin, the jowls… desperately want the song to take away pain, but it cannot be heard, must not be heard.

Scent says that the red-gold and the sand-coat are returning. It is good that the tawny is not with them. Muscles launch this body free of the torment. Night wind cools the burning, but its touch intensifies the pain.

Want the comfort of the song. Can’t have it, for the singer will know about the glowing eggs in the sand-filled log. The singer will know about the thick-skinned prey being both drawn and repelled by the sky-licking thing.

Fleeing now, the fiery eggs hidden in the log between the jaws. Fleeing now, not only from the two returning females and the eye-clawing light, but also from the song and the singer.

Now is for distance, silence, fur flattened to hold in scent. For seeking out food for the stolen morsels of brightness and feeding them wood so that they stay alive.

Now is for waiting until the singer once again hungers for the thick-skinned prey. Now is for this coat that swallows stars to be swallowed itself by night….

Ratha was dozing on the sunning rock after the morning’s patrol when she felt two clan members spring up beside her. She scented Bira and Fessran. An acridness in their smells told her both were distressed. She forced her eyes fully open and faced the two Firekeepers. Uneasiness stalked down her back to the base of her tail.

“I’ll set his guts on fire andthen I’ll make him eat them,” Fessran growled. “Bira, quit looking like a swatted cub. It wasn’t your fault. You only left the Red-Tongue-nest long enough to nose-touch with me.”

“He, I assume, is our black fawn-killer,” Ratha said, keeping her tone mild.

“I let him stay.” Bira looked miserably at Ratha. “He only watched. Remember? You saw. I thought everyone should be able to warm themselves.”

Ratha lowered her own head and rubbed Bira’s cheek. “There is no wrong in wanting to be kind,” she said. “We need more of that, not less.”

Bira closed her eyes and her trembling eased.“You understand. You are also kind, clan leader.”

You have helped to teach me, Ratha thought.

“Ratha’s right,” Fessran added gruffly. “It isn’t your fault. I didn’t yowl at you and I’m not going to, so lift those whiskers.”

“Can you tell me what happened? The black hunter meddled with the Red Tongue?”

“Yes. You know the way Cherfaree and I set the wood up. We like to make it tidy. When I came back from greeting Fessran, it was all a mess and someone had been pawing at the coals.”

“He tried to scuff out his tracks,” Fessran added, “but he missed a few and old eagle-eyes here spotted them. He’d torn his front toe pad in the scrap with Bira and me, and the mark was as plain as the tail on a tusker’s face.”

“Clan leader, it wouldn’t be so bad if he had just messed up the fire. But I think he stole some of it.”

“Bira, are you sure?” Fessran asked.

“There’s a bare patch where coals and embers are missing. I’ll show you.”

“I believe you, Bira,” Ratha said.

“I don’t know how he did it. If he’d used a torch, I’m sure we would have seen the flame. We weren’t that far away, and when I leave the Red-Tongue-nest, I often look back.”

Ratha’s gaze went to Fessran. “You’ve tried other ways of carrying my creature.”

“Yes, but none of them have really worked. We keep going back to torches. What rumples my fur is how can Night have figured out a way to do it when we can’t? We’re the ones who are supposed to have the smarts, right?”

“I don’t know, Fess. If he is a face-tail hunter, he has that song-thing of theirs and True-of-voice. We both saw what they can do.”

“Excuse me, clan leader,” said Bira, her voice soft but determined. “When he was watching the Red Tongue, he didn’t always look as if he was listening to their song. You saw that, too, didn’t you, clan leader?”

“Yes, I did,” said Ratha, denying the temptation not to admit it. “And it was my decision to let him stay.”

“Well, don’t claw at yourself for it,” said Fessran.

“Yes, if I need clawing, no doubt you’ll do it.” Ratha paced restlessly. “We have to think hard about this. If the black hunter took the Red Tongue, he means to use it.”

“How could he know anything …?” began Bira.

Ratha turned abruptly, sweeping the air with her tail.“That doesn’t matter. We must find him and take the Red Tongue back. We also must tell True-of-voice what has happened. Fessran, you assemble a tracking party, since you know the black one’s prints. Bira, find Thistle-chaser and Quiet Hunter. Let them know what has happened and send them to True-of-voice. Ask him to help us find the renegade before Night harms anyone. I’ll get Thakur and join you.”

Fessran leaped up, her whiskers bristling.“We’ll get that belly-biter!”

“Fess,” Ratha paused. “Don’t kill him unless there is no other way to stop him. We have to find out why he did this.”

“Trust me, clan leader,” Fessran answered. Ratha then looked at Bira, who said, “I’ve put my fire out and get Thistle,” and galloped away, Fessran following.

Ratha looked after them, thinking, I have often feared that the Red Tongue would be stolen from us. Now it has happened. She found herself panting, and then she shook her pelt and slowed her breathing. She couldn’t waste time in panic.

Thakur, I need you. Please be there.

At the meadow’s far end, she found the herding teacher, with his students and the practice animals. As soon as he heard her, he sent the younger cubs back to their mothers and asked Cherfan and the herders to take charge of the older cubs and the animals. Fear quickening her steps, Ratha ran beside Thakur toward the tail leading to the hunters’ land. On the way they joined up with Thistle-chaser and Quiet Hunter. Bira took everyone’s treelings, promising to hide them safely in the trees. Ratha agreed with Bira that this task was not for treelings.

There was no need to seek out True-of-voice. He and his people met the Named at the boundary of the hunters’ territory. The solemn look in his eyes made Ratha’s stomach sink.

Quiet Hunter and Thistle approached the gray hunter leader, but the intensity in his gaze turned them back. He clearly did not want to talk.

Without words or gestures, he turned abruptly, looking back, his eyes commanding her and the Named to follow.

Ratha led her people slowly after him. Thakur paced beside her, slightly behind and so close that his whiskers brushed her shoulder. Quiet Hunter walked as close to True-of-voice as he could get, while Thistle-chaser took up the same position as Thakur on Ratha’s opposite side.

Ratha hoped that it wasn’t Fessran’s tracking party that had inadvertently caused trouble by invading the hunters’ land too suddenly.

“I don’t think it was Fessran,” Thakur said quietly. “I am sorry, but what you tried to prevent has happened. We are no longer the only ones who have the Red Tongue.”

Ratha could only lean forward into the wind and keep walking, wondering what she and her people would find. From the look on True-of-voice’s face, it was not something he welcomed.

Had the black renegade set a blaze that destroyed the other tribe’s hunting ground? Or worse?

Their destination was a canyon that cut into the rolling hills east of the hunters’ plain. Ratha saw it first from a distance, the tumbling smoke that belched from the canyon mouth. When they got closer, she stepped in the water of a creek that was gray and turbid with ash. The creek was spilling down from the canyon. As she shook the mud-ash from her feet, she smelled and heard the fire.

When they got closer, she saw her creature gone wild and raging in the dry, resin-filled pines that filled that cut in the earth. It was a blaze no longer, but a storm of flame, creating its own strong wind up the canyon.

Enveloping and devouring brush and trees, the firestorm made a sound no longer a hiss or a roar but a ground-shaking thunder. It left no blackened crags or stumps but burned and blasted entire trees to coals and powder that thickened the air. Ratha braced herself back against the wind that was trying to suck her off her feet and into the firestorm. It flew the tip of her tail nearly to her ear and her whiskers nearly straight in front of her face.

Frantically she thought of Fessran. Had she sent her friend into this maelstrom?

True-of-voice led his group to the side, out of the strongest wind. Ratha and the Named followed. He stood still on a small rise. Ratha, peering through the roiling smoke, saw Quiet Hunter’s dun coat moving among the hunters’ browns and grays. He was leaving True-of-voice and coming to her. Thistle-chaser joined him when he reached the clan.

Ratha, searching the surrounding hills for Fessran and the trackers, spotted movement and caught familiar smells. Soon Fessran and her party were close enough to see. They were ash-dusted and soot-streaked, but none looked injured. Much as she wanted to run out and greet the Firekeeper and her searchers, she needed to hear what news Quiet Hunter had brought from True-of-voice.

“Thakur,” she said to him softly, “meet Fessran and make sure everyone is all right.”

The herding teacher was away almost before she had finished. She turned to face Quiet Hunter. His expression was also solemn, almost stern.

“True-of-voice tells this one that female hunters had trapped face-tails in this canyon. Then the Red Tongue appeared and filled the canyon. The female hunters did not come back.”

Ratha swallowed, trying to ease the dry scratchiness in her throat.“Did True-of-voice send any searchers? Is there a chance those females escaped?”

“No. The song was torn by their death-screams. The Red Tongue has eaten them.”

“One hunter? Two? A few?” Ratha forced herself to ask.

In answer, Quiet Hunter sat, lifted both paws and spread the toes.

Again Ratha turned her head to the canyon’s entrance. She could see flames leaping over the rocky walls. The air above shimmered with waves of heat. Soon there would be nothing alive in the canyon, nothing moving except ash settling and dying coals breaking apart.

Ratha caught sight of Fessran butting her way through other clan members.

“It was him,” she panted, when she reached Ratha. “We followed his tracks here. That whelp of a belly-biting hyena let the Red Tongue loose.”

“Fessran, Quiet Hunter says that many of the other tribe’s hunters died in this fire.”

“I smelled burned face-tail hide,” the Firekeeper answered. “I wondered why the beasts would be in a canyon. So they were driven in there by hunters and then that black devil started the fire?”

“Accidentally or deliberately, yes.”

“Rrrr, if I was True-of-voice, I’d be spitting mad.”

“Well, I hope he isn’t, since I need to talk to him and tell him what happened.”

As she turned away to summon Quiet Hunter and Thistle, she heard Fessran growl,“Night-who-eats-stars, rahrrr! It’s more Night-who-lacks-brains.”

I’m afraid it’s the opposite, Fess. If anything, Night-who-eats-stars has too many brains. If he didn’t, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Who, by the Red Tongue’s flame, is he?

Chapter Eleven

With cinders filtering through her fur and still uncomfortably hot under her feet, Ratha sat, surrounded by the Named. More of the clan were present, for she had sent a messenger to fetch those who could be spared from the herdbeasts and the cubs. The firestorm had died down, but the smoke and ash were thicker than ever. It would not burn beyond the canyon, for the in-rushing wind now forced it deeper into the rocky cleft.

She had not seen the Red Tongue rage like this since the forest fire that had brought“ her creature” to the clan. It made her realize how unpredictable and dangerous it was, and how familiarity with it had made the Named careless.

Ratha looked the other direction, through haze, to where True-of-voice sat surrounded by his tribe. Close by were Thistle and Quiet Hunter, eyes closed, noses lifted, speaking wordlessly to True-of-voice through the mystery called only“ the song.”

I gave birth to her, Ratha thought, yet I am totally deaf to whatever she can hear. How can that be? Her gifts must have come through Bone-chewer‘s line, not mine. If he were still alive, would he be able to reach True-of-voice?

Part of her wanted to snort with derision. If there ever was an independent, irreverent son of a rutting three-horn, it was her first mate. She remembered all too well that copper-dark face with amber eyes. It resembled Thakur’s, for the two were brothers. But Thakur never had Bone-chewer’s sardonic expression which was softened only briefly by caring and passion.

Even though she let the thought run only briefly, it opened the old ache in her belly. How she had loved Bone-chewer, raider and loner that he was, and how wrenching it had been to lose him. He was slain in the long-ago battle between the clan and the Un-Named.

It was then that Thakur had placed the flaming branch in her teeth, though she would have refused it if acceptance had not meant survival for her people. And now she was learning anew what the choice meant.

Again her gaze sought out Thistle and Quiet Hunter. Her daughter still had her eyes closed and her muzzle raised. Now she was shivering. So was Quiet Hunter. What was True-of-voice telling the two?

Ratha set her teeth, feeling the top fangs slide over the lower ones, the small teeth between the fangs scissor together. Her strong will brought her through so many trials — it would get her through this as well.

Thistle and Quiet Hunter were getting up, touching noses with True-of-voice, turning, looking to her, coming back. She forced herself to wait until the pair reached her. Both looked shaken. Thistle gave intermittent shivers. Stolid Quiet Hunter was not shivering, but the fur ridged along his back and tail. He also looked baffled.

He spoke first, in answer to Ratha’s expectant look. “This one, this … I … asked True-of-voice about the black eater of stars. The reply was strange.”

“How?”

“The song said that the star-eater was known, but is no longer. It does not sing of that one. It will never again sing of him. He is gone from the song.”

“Claw-rip the song!” Ratha hissed. “Did you ask if True-of-voice would find the renegade so that we can take the Red Tongue back? Then he can do what he likes with that black fawn-killer.”

“I tried,” Quiet Hunter said calmly. “This is the only reply. To True-of-voice, the black hunter no longer exists, so he can do nothing.”

“No longer exists? You mean the renegade is dead?”

“No, although he could be. It means only that True-of-voice cannot reach him.”

“Then we have to find him ourselves. Arrr!” Ratha felt her tail wanting to lash and put a firm forefoot on it.

“Something we have to do first.” The lighter voice was Thistle-chaser’s. Ratha stared at her daughter, and then dropped her gaze to avoid implying challenge. “What?”

“Red Tongue in the canyon — soon it will die. True-of-voice asks something hard.”

Ratha waited. Thistle hardened her voice to stop it from trembling.“Wants us to stay, help find dead ones, give them to …” She halted, the fur between her eyebrow whiskers wrinkling. “Hard to understand. Maybe Thistle-mistake. Says he wants us to help give them to … the air?”

Ratha wanted to throw her head back and forth and howl with frustration. She felt as though she were being shrouded with this maddening mystery, as though threads were wrapping around her until she was immobilized, cocooned. She wanted to act, to leap, to claw, to bite, to shred…

“Easy, yearling.” It was Thakur’s shoulder against her, his words calming her.

“This is like trying to bite mist,” she growled. “I can’t get hold of it.”

She caught Thistle glancing up at her.“Having hard time, too. Like getting across fast-running water, but am finding rocks to step on. One rock is, True-of-voice wants dead ones found and brought. By his people … and us.”

“Dead ones? You mean bodies? Thistle, there won’t be anything left! You saw how the Red Tongue’s wildness blew the trees completely apart. What could remain after that?”

“Of some hunters, nothing. But others not burned up. Climbed canyon walls. Up trees. Died from heat, from smoke,” Thistle said. “Wait with True-of-voice. When Red Tongue finally lies down, must search.”

“We have to find the renegade. Or make sure he is dead. We can’t chase our tails scuffing in the ashes to find …” Ratha couldn’t go on. The images in her mind were bad enough, and she dreaded that the reality would be worse.

She looked away from Thistle to Quiet Hunter. His calm gaze was soothing rather than disturbing, but it held the same message. He answered,“This one, at least, must join in the search. I must help those who were, and still are, my people.”

Ratha was momentarily distracted as Fessran entered the group and came alongside.“Well, clan leader,” the Firekeeper said, evidently having heard part of the conversation, “it could be worse. True-of-voice might have wanted revenge by killing some of us.”

“If he means this as punishment, it is. Do you really want a mouthful of …?” Ratha broke off. “Fess, keep looking for the black hunter. Take anyone you need. We’ve got to keep him from setting the Red Tongue loose again.”

Waving a soot-streaked paw, Fessran added more of the Named to her search party, which already included Bira and other Firekeepers. She took Thistle, leaving Quiet Hunter as interpreter, saying that Thistle had been on hunters’ ground so often that, of all the Named, she knew it best. Quiet Hunter might know it better, but Thistle’s young mate felt he needed to join in the search for the hunter dead. Ratha was grateful that the usually impatient and demanding Firekeeper leader would respect that.

Then Ratha and the Named settled down to wait until the fire had burned itself out. Waiting, for her, was the hardest part. Too many thoughts crowded into her head, memories of finding the Red Tongue, bringing it to the clan, of killing the old clan leader Meoran by jamming a lighted torch through the bottom of his jaw. Then she felt triumph. Now it made her shudder and she suddenly wanted the comfort of her treeling very badly.

Thakur seemed to sense her distress, for he left his nest in the ashes and came to her.

“Thakur, what have I done? I thought the trail that led us to the Red Tongue was done, but it isn’t. What unbearable thing will come next? Maybe I shouldn’t have—”

“Then we would have perished, clan leader,” he answered, his whiskers brushing her cheek fur. “And all our uncomfortable thoughts with us.” He licked the nape of her neck; his scent started to make her head swim. Oh, no. Not this. Not now …

As if he sensed the effect he had on her, he moved downwind, staying close enough to be comforting, far away enough not to be distracting.

“Yearling,” he said, “if it helps, I believe that you will lead us through this and we will be better because of it.”

His words made her want to wrinkle her nose, yet it touched the needy part of her and soothed it.“That is a lot of faith, herding teacher.”

“Faith based on knowing you,” he answered simply.

She shifted.“It is going to be hard pulling those dead ones out of the canyon. My nose and my tongue won’t like me for it. And knowing that it was my creature that killed them. I’m afraid when I pick them up, they will just fall apart, like dead coals … like Meoran did when the Red Tongue finally let him go ….”

“I was beside you then. I will be beside you tomorrow.” He paused. “Don’t take this all on yourself, yearling. You did all you could to prevent it. If there is blame, it lies with the one whose pelt eats stars.”

“He … he … fascinates me, Thakur. I can’t help it. He draws me like the Red Tongue draws a dazed dappleback. How can that be, when he has done so much harm and I hate him? I would bring him down with a throat-bite, yet I have to know who he is, where he comes from.”

“I thought you believed he was True-of-voice’s son.”

She turned, stared into the emerald of his eyes.“He couldn’t be. Not after what he did to his own people.”

“Maybe it was an accident. Maybe he was trying to help and the fire got away from him.”

“Help?” This time her nose did wrinkle in disbelief.

“They were hunting face-tails in that canyon. Remember several days ago when the tusked ones ran into the fire? You told me that Night was there and watching. Maybe he thought he could help the hunters by drawing the face-tails or driving them.”

Ratha sat, thinking.“That’s true, Thakur. I saw the look in his eyes. He understood what fire would do to the beasts.” And I saw that, and failed to act.

“If Night-who-eats-stars is alive and out there, he may be in as much pain as you are now. That is another reason to find him.”

“Well, his ‘help’ has caused a mess that I have to clean up. An ugly one, and I am not just thinking about the corpses in the canyon. I hope Fessran can find Night-who-eats-stars. I need to know why and how he did this.”

Ratha lay down, her nose buried in her tail, but she didn’t sleep for a long time.

In the morning, Fessran and her search party returned, tails switching in frustration. They had found no trace of Night-who-eats-stars, no scents, no footprints, not even a hair. Bira had a small hollowed out log, part of it burned away, but still containing sand and ash. She carried it in her mouth and placed it before Ratha.

“I think Night used this to keep the Red Tongue alive. Look at the tooth-marks on it.”

Blinking sleep away, Ratha studied Bira’s find. “If he did use this, and we now have it, does that mean he no longer has the Red Tongue?”

“He could make or find another log and scoop coals into it,” Fessran said, interrupting Bira’s reply. “No, my guts tell me that he still has the Red Tongue’s cubs. You were right, Ratha. This black fawn-killer is too smart.” A yawn muddled the Firekeeper’s last words, and she stretched her jaws open and arched her tongue, the tip curling up between her two lower fangs.

Ratha stared at the remains of Night’s hollow fire-carrier, lying between her paws. Its charred bark reminded her of the task that lay ahead: finding those who had been slain by the blaze. “Keep this safe,” she said finally, rolling the log back to Bira.

She felt Fessran’s gaze on her and lifted her head to meet it.

“Ratha,” her friend said abruptly, “let me lead the hunt for the dead. You take the search party and look for Night. You might do better than I did.”

“And I would be spared the smells, sights, and tastes of the ones my creature killed. You would do this for me?”

“Why not? I’ve seen similar things. I’m older, harder, meaner; it won’t bother me.”

For a tail-wave, Ratha was tempted to take Fessran’s offer. She dreaded the grisly job that loomed ahead. But she knew that the Firekeeper also would hate the task, even if she showed and said nothing. There was a core of kindness deeper than the streak of ruthlessness or the surface toughness in that soot streaked sandy coat and those fire-stung eyes. She didn’t want to damage that well-hidden but precious reserve.

“No, Fess. The Red Tongue is my creature and this is my task. Rest a bit, then please, if you can, take the search party out again.”

Fessran paused, holding Ratha’s gaze as if she meant to argue, but then she lowered her head, brushed past Ratha in a silent acknowledgment, and padded away. Bira followed, Night’s fire-carrying log in her jaws.

Ratha groomed herself briefly, just enough to get the worst of the ash out of her fur. A few last swipes, and she was ready to face the day and her people, who were waking and gathering around her.

“True-of-voice has asked that we help recover the bodies of the hunters who were slain by the Red Tongue. Anyone who feels they can’t do it may return to clan ground, especially the younger ones. I won’t just be directing the search; I will work among you.”

“Why must we do this?” Cherfan asked. “We didn’t set the fire. The fawn-killer did.”

“We do it because True-of-voice has asked. Yes, we did not start the fire, but we are responsible for taming and keeping it.” She paused. “You may be excused, if you wish, herder.”

“No. I may grumble and sneeze, but I’ll help you, Ratha. Just don’t ask me to climb any trees. I’m too big for that.”

She picked out the younger clan members.“You half-grown ones should be spared this. Go back to clan ground and wait for us there. Bundi, you lead them.”

“Clan leader, let me stay and help,” Bundi asked, unexpectedly.

“Why?”

“Because I have felt the Red Tongue’s touch. Because of this,” Bundi said, lifting his head to show the burnscars that ran down his neck and shoulder.

Because you know the pain that the hunter dead felt before my creature took their lives.

Ratha took a breath.“You can stay then, Bundi. Ashon, you lead the older cubs back. Go to Drani. She’s taking care of the nurslings.”

The silver-gray youngster gathered up his peers and departed for clan ground.

Ratha then found Thistle-chaser and Quiet Hunter, asking them to go over to True-of-voice’s group so that they could learn where the dead were to be taken. Thistle wanted to stay with the Named and work alongside her mother.

“No, I need you to go with the hunters,” Ratha told her firmly.

Thistle was stubborn.“Am as strong as Fessran. Won’t get belly-sick at smells. If, maybe, follow you as clan leader, need to take on same duties.”

“Thistle, I know you are willing. Right now I need you to go with the hunters and not argue.”

“Won’t argue, then. Will do.”

Ratha rubbed her forehead against her daughter’s. They had only begun to approach the idea that Thistle-chaser might lead the Named one day, when Ratha grew too old and feeble. Initially it had seemed ridiculous, but as Ratha watched Thistle growing, recovering from the injuries received as a cub, and, most of all, developing in character, the possibility had grown stronger.

Thistle rubbed alongside her with the affectionate tail-flop, then joined Quiet Hunter, who had been waiting nearby. Both headed across the intervening distance to True-of-voice and the hunter tribe. Ratha let her gaze rest on them only briefly, cradling the joy that the young couple gave her, then letting it go.

She turned to the remaining clan members.

“We’ll start at the canyon entrance. Space yourselves across so that we don’t miss anything.”

Heads lowered, shoulders hunched, the Named started up the fire-scoured canyon. Ratha was in the center, and they spread out to either side of her. Some hunters came across and joined them, filling up the gaps. Ratha noticed that Thakur took up a place downwind of her and two positions away, so that his scent wouldn’t distract her, but he could still speak to her.

The air was still, heavy with haze.

The first body they found was not burned or heat-damaged. The hunter lay on her side, as if she had fallen asleep.

“Killed by the Red Tongue’s breath,” said Thakur.

Ratha knew the sting of smoke in her throat. Sometimes it got so thick, it made her cough and gasp.

The body might be untouched, but Ratha knew that the death had been as wretched as any other in the canyon.

“Put that one where we can find it on the way out. No sense in dragging it up and back,” Ratha instructed.

They came across two more, both smoke-killed. Ratha recognized the face, but she couldn’t remember the name.

“Bent Whiskers,” said Thakur softly. “I knew her. I’ll take her.”

I knew her, too. Just a little.

Before Ratha could move, Cherfan grabbed the scruff of the other.“This may not be as bad as I feared,” he mumbled through his mouthful of fur.

“Just put them aside,” Ratha said, ignoring the clenching sensation in her stomach. “With the first.” She listened to the soft sounds as Thakur and Cherfan dragged the slain away. She didn’t watch.

The line of Named and hunters moved carefully up the floor of the ravaged cut in the earth.

When they found the next few dead hunters, Cherfan admitted that he was wrong. It was as bad as he had feared, and worse.

Ratha had seen Un-Named ones wounded or killed by her creature, but she never realized how bone could be so twisted by intense heat, how flesh and skin could be roasted, seared, charred into an ugly black crust that bled when it broke open.

A growing numbness in her mind offered an escape, but she chose not to take it. Instead, she forced her senses to accept it all, the beyond-bitter taste of the charred crust that covered the bodies, the way it broke beneath her fangs and the gritty crunch of it in her teeth. The acrid, corrosive smell ate its way into her nose. Her eyes blurred so that she couldn’t tell if the red beneath the crust when it crumbled was still-glowing ember or once-living flesh.

Next to her, someone retched, and that smell joined the other foulness.

She tightened her belly against sickness. The offer of numbness rose again, but this time she drove it off with rage against the black renegade. He was the one, not she. He stole coals from the watch-fire, he hid them and tended them, and he tried to use them to assist the hunters in capturing and killing face-tails. This hellishness that surrounded her now was of his making, not hers. She imagined what she would do to him if she caught him, adding to Fessran’s expressed intentions with a few of her own.

She made a shield of her anger and cast it all about her, willing it to harden and defend her from all other feelings, but even as she fanned rage’s flame, she felt it falter. The thoughts she coaxed from her anger began to repulse her, and then sicken her until she, too, retched and drooled on the ground.

Her will made her shaking legs move, stretched her neck out, made her mouth open so that she could fasten her teeth in the next one of the slain, but a paw appeared in her tunneling vision, stopping her. She thought at first it was Thakur — and, yes, he stood nearby — but the paw was Bundi’s.

“Clan leader, let me take this one,” the herder said, and a flash of memory told her why he was in the line of searchers.

The horrible thing was pulled out of her vision and away from her nose. She could only gasp her gratitude since her tail had become so heavy that she couldn’t lift it in acknowledgment. Now it was Thakur beside her, steadying her.

“I doubt if it helps to know this, yearling, but True-of-voice hasn’t shirked this duty either.”

Her tongue feeling the acid-etched surface of her fangs, Ratha turned her head to one side. Thakur was right. True-of-voice was in the line with some of the other hunters. Even as she watched, he had found another of his dead and was pawing at her to turn her over. It wasn’t an easy task, for the heat had shortened the ligaments in her back so that she was bowed, the back of her head touching the base of her tail. Her mouth was frozen open, revealing teeth that were nearly sabers. One had broken, the fracture line sparking another of Ratha’s memories. Tooth-broke-on-a-bone.

She watched True-of-voice. He positioned the body so that he and another hunter could pick it up. Although it was a struggle, he moved so gently, so carefully, so… reverently … that Ratha felt her throat tighten. What was he thinking, feeling? Did he understand why this had happened? Did he hate Night-who-eats-stars? Did he hate the clan now, and was he planning revenge on them?

“Can you go on, Ratha?” Thakur asked softly.

She could and did, again taking up her position in the line. Thakur rolled in ash, disguising his scent so that he could stay beside Ratha without distracting her.

She saw True-of-voice’s people working alongside her own and wondered what they thought and felt.

The last body was up in a tree. True-of-voice circled the scorched pine, looking up. Ratha saw that he wanted to climb it, but like Cherfan, he was too large.

“I’ll get it,” she said. “I haven’t done a lot yet. Let me at least do this.”

“I’ll get Thistle,” said Thakur. “She’ll tell True-of-voice what you want to do.”

“Hasn’t she gone with the hunters?”

“No, they haven’t left yet.”

Still fighting off the numbness that wanted to seduce her into its comfort, she went to the tree, sank her claws into the scaly bark, and started to climb. Reaching high with her forepaws while standing on her rear legs, she embraced the tree, sinking her foreclaws deep. With a spine-arching bound, she got her rear claws up and fastened. Freeing the foreclaws, she used the power of her hindquarters to drive her up the trunk. She repeated the forelimb clasp, feeling the tendons on the top of her forepaws pull against her weight as the claws sank in. Hanging by her front claws, she jumped her rear paws, took the weight off the fronts, and surged up again. Using this bounding motion, she ascended into the branches.

Chapter Twelve

The Red Tongue had not licked as far up this pine as it had many others. Once above the zone of charring, Ratha saw green and smelled pine needles. Above her, partially wedged between a branch and the main trunk, was a still form whose tail dangled and swung as Ratha’s climbing made the tree sway. The hunter had climbed high in a frantic attempt to escape the blaze but had perished anyway.

Now Ratha had to thread her way through the branches, spiraling up the tree until she reached the dangling tail. With a grunt and another surge of effort, she hauled herself up level with the body. She saw that this hunter was only half grown, barely out of cubhood. Trying to ignore the twist that this thought gave to her belly, Ratha grabbed the scruff and pulled. At least this one wasn’t burned, and it was more flexible, but somehow it was stuck in the tree. Then Ratha saw the forepaws and the claws driven deep, through the bark into the sapwood. She imagined how the tree would have been rocking, lashed by the in-rushing wind. Choking, terrified, the young hunter would have clung until death froze her claws in an unbreakable hold.

Not looking at the face, Ratha tried pulling at the scruff again. No good. She would have to release the feet, and that meant biting off the deeply embedded claws. Prying with her teeth wouldn’t work, and she might break a fang.

Ratha took a deep breath. The pine-needle scent was the smell of life that had survived the fire’s assault, and it gave her the strength of will to begin the grisly task. She had to take the whole foot in her jaws, maneuver it with her tongue, and use her side teeth to bite off each claw close to the toe. It was a slow and difficult task. If the hunter had been alive, it would have hurt herbadly, for Ratha had to cut into the sensitive quick.

She had freed one foot and was halfway though the claws of another when she felt the claw she was cutting move in her mouth. Startled, she pulled back, stunned with the realization that the young hunter might still be alive.

Quickly she turned herself so that she could see the face. Licking it with her rough tongue, she felt the flicker of eyelashes and again pulled back so that the eyes could open. One did, barely a slit, but it showed there was still life.

Ratha swallowed, her throat suddenly tight. It was hard to speak, yet she had to.“Release your claws. Can you hear me? I’m trying to get you down, but I can’t if you won’t let go.”

Both eyelids fluttered now and the tear-lines crumpled in a grimace of pain.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you. Pull your claws back so I can bring you down.”

She saw one forefoot tremble with effort, then the other. The claws were too deeply embedded. Getting her jaws around the forefoot, she pulled while the young hunter strained, trying not to taste the blood seeping from the remains of the claws she had bitten off.

The forefoot came free. Trembling, Ratha started on the other, but as the claws pulled out, the forefoot went limp in her mouth. Again she looked at the face, but saw that the life had slipped free, along with the claws.

Ratha shut her eyes and tried to control her trembling, which was turning into waves of shudders. It was all she could do not to leave the body and back down the tree, but she had promised True-of-voice to bring the young hunter down.

Digging her own claws in deeply, she grabbed the scruff, feeling the skin and hair stiffening in death. She dragged the body out of the fork where it had stuck. She had to weave it through the branches as she retraced her course down the tree.

Her teeth were aching and her legs shaking by the time she was halfway down. She feared she was going to drop the body when she heard and felt someone climbing up to her. Thakur.

“I’ll help,” he said, and his muzzle was beside hers, his teeth fastening in the scruff, taking the weight from her jaws.

“She … she was still alive. When I started to free her … she was still alive and I bit through her claws to get her out … I didn’t know … and then she died … I didn’t know, Thakur! I didn’t know …”

Now Ratha wanted the comforting numbness, but having thrust it away so many times, it would not return. Her senses seemed sharper than ever, hammered to shards by a horror she could not escape.

It fixed her to the tree, unable to move until she saw Thakur moving below, backing down with the young hunter’s body. She saw his ears flatten and his neck muscles bulge with the effort, but he managed to look up, even with that weight in his jaws. It was the look in his eyes, not words, that finally broke her free, and she plunged headfirst down the tree, almost falling. She managed to land on legs that threatened to give way, and staggered to one side as Thakur laid the body out before True-of-voice.

“That was the last, yearling,” he said when he returned to Ratha. “It is done.”

Ratha struggled to stand against shudders that were shaking her off her feet.“True … True-of-voice … won’t think I’m … much … of a leader … if I go down…. Hold me up.”

“He’s gone, Ratha. I asked him to take the dead one and go. They were simple words. He understood.”

Ratha collapsed and drew herself into a huddle, letting the shuddering take her. She put her paws over her face, but couldn’t stop the cub-cries that were escaping from her mouth, or the heaving of her sides. She felt as though she were still up the tree, the taste of bleeding claw-stumps harsh and scratchy in her mouth, watching green eyes fading to gray in death.

“The last thing she knew was the pain I caused,” Ratha whispered.

“You didn’t intend it,” Thakur answered gently. “Let this go, yearling.”

“I can’t. I’m trapped, alone, inside with it. Help me, Thakur!” she cried as the horror racked her again and again.

Through her shudders, she felt him curl around her, drape heavy comforting paws over her, lay his tail across hers, breathe into her face, lick her cheek…

I will never again wield the Red Tongue against another of my kind, she vowed, still struggling against the horror in her mind.

Then, dimly, she felt someone else lie down next to her. And another of the Named, and then another. They were even lifting her, crawling underneath to raise her from the ground. More came and she was enveloped in her people, smelling their fur, feeling their bodies, their strength, and the depth of their caring.

She wasn’t sure if the voice was Thakur’s or another of the Named, or perhaps even all of them speaking together.

“You are not alone. You will never be alone. We, your people, are with you, surrounding you with ourselves, for you are precious to us.”

Gradually she felt the shudders fade to trembling and then stilled. The memory of the young hunter’s death was still in her mind, but not as sharp, not as cold, not as cutting.

“Ratha?” said a voice in her ear.

“I … I can bear this now, Thakur…. Let me up….”

“Rest for a while. True-of-voice and the others are taking their dead to the place where they will be given to the air. They are going slowly, so there is no hurry.”

Ratha took his advice, sinking into a doze. She woke when someone squirmed against her flank.

“Bundi, get your foot out of my eye,” came a growl from Cherfan.

“I can’t. Someone’s sitting on me. Ooof …”

“Whose tail is sticking up my nose?” someone else complained and another voice said, “Be still, you’ll wake her….”

“She’s awake,” Ratha managed to say. “She feels better and she wants to get up.”

The Named unscrambled themselves from the protective panther-pile they had made about their leader. Ratha got squashed a few times by various paws before she wriggled free.

“The first thing I want is a drink,” she said, shaking her pelt. “And then we’ll follow True-of-voice.”

When Ratha had regained her steadiness and had drunk some water, which made her feel stronger, she led the Named in the direction that True-of-voice and his tribe had departed. Some of the clan carried the hunter dead, either on their backs or in their jaws. Fessran and her party had rejoined them, still unable to find Night-who-eats-stars.

Ratha could tell by the way the Firekeeper eyed the clan’s burdens that she was relieved to have been spared that task.

“Are you all right?” her friend asked, her scent strong with concern. “You smell like you’ve been through something bad. You look a bit shaky, too.”

Ratha head-bumped with Fessran, feeling her friend’s ears and eyebrow whiskers against her own. “I was and I did, but I’m better now. I’ll tell you more later.”

“I saw True-of-voice and his gang starting up that peak you see to the east. If you want, I can show you so that you don’t have to track them.”

Ratha accepted her friend’s offer, glad to have Fessran by her side again.

“Where’s Thakur?” Fessran asked, turning her head.

“In the back, Firekeeper,” came his response. “I’m staying here because I’m carrying one of them. Cherfan is, too.”

Fessran wrinkled her nose so that the tops of her fangs showed.“Ugh. I’ll keep away from you both until we get where we’re going.”

“That’s just as well. You stay up front with Ratha,” Thakur called back.

“Not because I stink of cinders?” Fessran returned mockingly.

“That, too.”

As they went, the Firekeeper gave Ratha nudges to indicate the way. The ground began to slope underfoot, and the plain gave way to brush and scrub oak. Looking back over her shoulder, Ratha could see the hunters’ plain sweeping out below her, and in the distance, the greener open-forested hills and meadows of clan ground. She hoped she could soon be back there, watching young cubs play in the nursery and older ones in the meadow, learning how to manage the herdbeasts. She also hoped that the clan members who were still guarding both during her absence had not encountered any problems.

On the hunters’ plain, she saw other animals: groups of face-tails scattered about the grassland, herds of springing antelope, and wild stripers grazing.

Soon both oak and pine shadowed the trail, then just pine with dirt and dry needles underfoot. As the Named continued up, the trees grew sparser and the trail rockier. Ratha thought that True-of-voice would climb all the way to the top, but instead she caught sight of the big gray leader and his tribe halted before a huge tilted granite table. It was shaded by pines and fissured by sun and rain. Where sunlight beamed, the granite made little sparkles that appeared and vanished as Ratha moved her head. Above the sloping granite face, an outcropping jutted from the mountain’s flank. The air was dry, yet fresh, and the skylight blue with wisps of cloud. Against it Ratha could see birds wheeling and gliding, huge wings outspread.

A bump from Fessran’s shoulder brought her gaze down again. She saw that True-of-voice’s people were padding into place in a half circle around the table. Those who carried bodies approached the table and climbed onto it. There they laid down their burdens, being as careful and caring as True-of-voice when Ratha had watched him help lift Tooth-broke-on-a-bone.

Though she had not given any order, Thakur and Cherfan walked forward to join the ones climbing onto the table. In a silence broken only by the hissing wind, she heard crumbled granite crunch under their pads. As they mounted the broken rock, their claws scratched and Ratha could hear their soft grunts of effort. When they reached the fissured flat surface, the two clan males helped one another unload their burdens in the same careful way as the hunters. Soon all the dead were laid out. The bearers withdrew, joining their companions, who were now sitting in a loose half ring about the table.

Ratha caught movement flickering at the edge of one eyes. Turning her head, she saw Thistle padding toward her. Her daughter nose-touched, then said,“True-of-voice glad you came. Me, too. Places there for you, see? Wants you all here to share song for dead ones.”

Ratha looked. Thistle was right. The hunters had left places for Ratha and the Named. They took them, slowly and silently. Thistle sat across from Fessran, on Ratha’s other flank.

“What now?” asked Fessran softly.

“Shhh. We wait,” Ratha answered.

From her position, she looked up at the upthrust ridge that formed one side of the table. It blocked her view of the top, although, if she strained her neck, she could catch a glimpse of it.

What are we waiting for? Ratha wondered. Are we just going to sit here while the dead ones rot and dry under the sun? Is that what they mean by“ giving them to the air?”

The answer came in the form of heavy wing-flaps overhead. A large hawk, its eyes fierce and beady, swooped over the table, landing on the outcrop. It stared down at the table, moving its feathered head around in a quick series of jerks. Another followed, also landing on the outcrop. Then a third.

More were gathering overhead, gliding down in an open spiral as Thakur and Cherfan returned from the table and took places near Ratha. The hawks on the outcrop bobbed their heads, cleaned their beaks against their talons, and mantled their wings at one another. One sailed down and landed.

Ratha felt herself grimacing in disgust. Then, as the hawk hopped and landed again on something higher so that Ratha could see its head and opening beak, the grimace turned into a snarl. Wretched carrion-birds, violating the stillness of the dead, she thought, wanting someone to chase them away, but neither True-of-voice nor any of his tribe made a move. Her muscles tensed and she was just about to launch herself up on the table when a heavy foot slapped onto her tail and pinned it.

“No, yearling!” a voice hissed in her ear. For an instant she wanted to leap, and struggled briefly against him. Then she became still, not wanting to interrupt the hunters’ vigil. Baffled, she turned her head to Thakur, whispering, “I was just trying to help. Those carrion-eaters are goingto ruin whatever True-of-voice has planned.”

In a softer whisper, Thakur replied,“Ratha, they are part of what he has planned. The dead are being given to the air. The birds of the air.”

At first Ratha refused to believe him. Instinct made her want to lunge at the raptors, driving them away as she would chase them from a kill. It went against her grain to let them land and feed on a herdbeast kill. To allow or even encourage carrion-feeders to alight on the dead of one’s own tribe was unthinkable, yet True-of-voice seemed to be doing that. It was all she could do not to whip her tail out from beneath Thakur’s paw. She felt the muscles in her haunches tremble and twitch with the instinct to attack.

Her ears twitched back, wanted to flatten. This has hideous, revolting, alien. How could True-of-voice… and how could Thakur understand?

“Yearling, they are doing the same as we do when we bury the ones whose spirit has left them. In some ways it is better, quicker, and the bones are left clean.”

Ratha still wasn’t convinced, but she was willing to sit still. More hawks were alighting, joined now by eagles and condors. The edge of the table hid everything but the tops of their bobbing heads from view. As for smell, the wind was at her back, bringing her only the scents of the mountain: warm rock, earth mixed with pine needles, tree bark, and leaves. The wind spared her the sounds as well, and she did not strain to see anything more of what was happening on the granite table. What she could see was enough.

To distract herself, she looked over at the hunters. They all had their heads raised, eyes closed, and noses up. Their ears pricked forward, trembling with the effort to hear, but no sound came to Ratha except those of the wind and the mountain. She looked to Thistle-chaser, who was also sitting nose-up, eyes closed.

It’s that strange “song” of theirs again, Ratha thought. From the solemn expression on Thistle’s face, she knew it was a song of mourning. Unwanted envy crept over her. Why were she and the other clan members being excluded from this? They had played a part in it. True-of-voice had asked themto come. Why did the hunters now mourn in silence, allowing the Named no part? Why, among all the clan-born, did only Thistle-chaser have the ability to hear it?

She looked at her people. They answered her gaze with expressions of puzzlement, even irritation. Only Thakur looked calm, and even his eyes questioned.

And then, faintly, Ratha did hear something. A faint note that made her ears quiver, swiveling to catch it. So soft, but inexplicably powerful. It was coming… yes, from True-of-voice. The sound was not a howl, a screech, a growl, or any of the other cat-noises her kind made. It was a pure tone — low, resonating, growing. It began to waver, then to soar. It swelled with grief and then plunged to a depth almost below Ratha’s hearing. When it faded, Ratha found herself wanting it to grow again. Even when its power nearly hurt her ears, she desired only to hear more. She didn’t know whether it was mourning, raging, rejoicing, or somber, and she guessed it was all of these, or none, or more.

She was barely able to tear herself free of it for an instant, to glance at her people. Even such a brief look told her that they were as caught up in this as she was. And Thistle, eyes now wide open in amazement, was hearing both the inner and the outer manifestations of the song.

Then she heard another voice — a higher, different tone — and then a third. Other hunters opened their mouths, their voices joining. But the strange thing to Ratha was that none of the voices clashed with the leaders. All seemed to harmonize, supporting and strengthening the central theme of the song. As she listened, Ratha got the feeling that there were things missing, gaps that had opened, voices that had fallen silent. How she could tell, she didn’t know, but a part of her whispered that it was the voices of the fire-slain dead that would have filled the emptiness.

This was the way the hunters mourned the passing of their own.

A new voice entered the song, weaving its own way among the interlacing lines and subsidiary themes, but never crossing, never challenging. It was Thistle, singing as Ratha had never heard her, high, clear, with almost a piercing purity.

Even so, Ratha knew that what she could hear was only a small part of the entity that enveloped the group and now her as well. The intoxication might be coming from scent as well, and as Ratha chased that thought briefly, a flood of odors, as complex as the vocal chorus, shifting, ever-changing, but somehow unified, created a scent-song in her nose and a taste-song on her tongue. The fur on her body lifted in response to a touch-song on her skin. Colors and shapes swirled before her eyes as vision found its song as well.

In each of these sense-songs, there were gaps, voids, empty spaces, missing voices, and echoes of loss that spoke of passing, grief, and a profound wish that the song would once again be whole. But it remained flawed, the needed voices, themes, counterpoints still absent, and in that Ratha found a kind of acceptance of change, of loss, of death, of finality, that made the song even more beautiful and compelling.

The song pervaded all her senses, increasing in intensity until she thought she could no longer stand it, yet her hunger only deepened.

Abruptly it stopped, leaving a ringing void into which Ratha had to cast the sound, image, smell, taste of herself, her own individuality in order to fill it.

She blinked, opened her eyes, not sure for an instant who or what she was. Her mouth was open in a cry that faded in her ears as she continued to wake. Her eyes strained to see through the dusk about her, and she wondered if the song still had possession of her sight. Then she saw the faint glow of a lingering sunset to the west and realized that evening had come. It was almost night, and she couldn’t even remember the day passing.

The raptors were leaving. Even as she turned her head back to the granite table, the last one leaped into the air with a clap and swish of wing feathers. Then, heavily, as if laden, it flapped away. A bone rolled off the granite, landed in the gravel near her feet. It had been picked so clean that it looked stark and beautiful in the glow from a rising moon.

The air had taken what the Red Tongue had slain. What moved the forms of the hunters would now fuel the hawk’s flight, the building of nests, the hatching of chicks that would grow into young hawks that would someday again descend to this granite slab to feed. The awesome, terrible, yet essential cycle would continue, taking all who sat here now.

This was, after all, a fitting way to mark and acknowledge the transition.

Someone was putting a soft paw on Ratha’s flank. Thistle.

“You understand now?” her daughter asked.

Ratha found it hard to speak.“I am just beginning to understand.” Her jaws gaped in a yawn as weariness rushed over her. She heard the sound of other yawns as well. She wasn’t surprised. It had been a long, intense day. At last it was over and the Named could return to home ground.

“Thistle, walk beside me on the way back,” Ratha said.

“If you fall over, can hold you up,” Thistle offered.

“I appreciate that, but it’s not what I need.”

“Talk on the trail? About the birds and the dead hunters?”

“That’s closer.”

Ratha turned around, feeling her daughter turning with her, and padded down the trail leading to clan ground. Ratha let her tail swing with each step of her rear paws.

“Thistle, I’m confused. Sometimes when I’m watching True-of-voice and his tribe, I feel that they are impossibly different from us.”

“When they are held by the song,” Thistle said. “Or when they hunt face-tails so well. Or when they do hard things without practicing. Or maybe when they give their dead to carrion-birds?”

“Yes. Then I think about the way they mourned Bent Whiskers, Tooth-broke-on-a-bone, and the others, and I feel that they aren’t that different. We both feel the pain of loss, we both grieve. We both love our cubs and do all we can to care for them.” Ratha paused. “I look at you and Quiet Hunter, and I am amazed how well both of you have done in the clan. Our tribes can’t be so different inside if one who was born into a very different way of thinking and acting can make such a huge change.”

“He still talks a bit funny, like me. Like it, though.”

“I like the way you talk, Thistle. Learn more words, yes, but don’t change the way you put them together. Everyone in the clan does speak slightly differently. Listen to Fessran or Cherfan or Thakur. They don’t say things exactly the way I do.”

“Every other word not ‘dung-eater’ or ‘belly-biter,’” Thistle said with a cat-grin. “Wouldn’t have Fessran any other way, right?”

“Well, she gave me a lot of trouble once, before you came into the clan, but she’s my friend now. I’ll tell you about that later.”

“About the hunters and us …” Thistle began. “They are the same, but they grow up to be not the same. Instead of each one learning to think and speak, they learn to let True-of-voice think for them through the song. Instead of learning to be wide awake when they hunt, they learn to dream-stalk.”

“Do you feel that is wrong?” Ratha asked as the two paced together.

“Feelings mixed up, like you. Sometimes is better, easier not to be always thinking, to have someone or something else do it. But sometimes want to decide for me, don’t want anyone else to. Wouldn’t like True-of-voice to force me.”

“He doesn’t?”

“Not to me.”

“What about the others?” Ratha asked.

“Doesn’t force them either. Doesn’t need to. They don’t fight against him.”

“They don’t … arrr … resist? Is that the right word?”

“Resist,” said Thistle. “Yes. They don’t know that they can.”

“Doesn’t that bother you? That they don’t have a choice?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes a lot, especially when they meet something new and get stuck. Don’t like to see that. Sad.”

“I don’t like it either. But if they don’t know they have a choice, how did Quiet Hunter escape?”

Ratha saw Thistle turn her head, fixing her with that intent uncomfortable sea-green gaze.“Didn’t escape. He lost the song. Remember? Song escaped away from him, made him have to think open-eyed like us. Hurt him. Nearly killed him.”

Both padded along, tails swinging. Being smaller than Ratha, Thistle had a crisper pace, which made her tail swing faster.

“I remember. But he did it.”

“Because he was young, like me. Young ones, thinking can bend, twist, stretch. Older ones, thinking is strong, but sometimes too stiff. I could learn Named ways — Named talking and thinking — because I was still young when Thakur found me. If older, would be still limping on beach, eating sea-scraps.” Ratha detected a slight note of longing in Thistle’s voice that was reflected in her scent. She missed her seaside home, despite the hard life she had led there.

“Will go back for a visit soon. Now things are quieter here. Will take Quiet Hunter, show him sea-mare friends, teach him to swim in the waves.”

“That should be fun,” Ratha said cheerfully. “You know, though, that the clan’s mating season is coming soon.”

“Will be here for it. Will catch fish and bring back. Just a short trip.”

“Good. Even though you don’t have to be here, I’d like it if you were.”

“Want to be here. May need a little help, maybe a little scared of new feelings.”

They walked together in silence for a while.

“So you think we and the hunters aren’t that different. Do you think we can live together without fighting?”

Ratha heard Thistle take a deep breath.“Know that you may want to make them more like clan members. Also know that you know it would be wrong to try. Living together, maybe, but have to be very careful. They are they and we are us.”

“But cubs are cubs, and that’s what makes me hopeful, cub of mine,” Ratha nuzzled her daughter.

“Mothers are mothers, too, Makes me glad,” Thistle said.

Now is for blackness within. Black beyond black. Darker than this coat that eats stars. Blacker than dead coals in the canyon. So many song-hearers burned. The song itself, burned.

Thoughts tumbling like smoke. The thick-skinned prey running in fear. The hunters wanting the thick-skinned prey. These jaws, carrying the log where the burning thing lives. These paws, scraping it out into dry pine needles. Knowing that the thick-skinned prey fear it and that they will run into the claws of the hunters.

Not knowing that death would run with it and fill the canyon. Not knowing that the song would char, become terrible for the part within.

Now is for painful questions. For asking what the jaws took, what the paws loosed and why the song of all senses has turned to black, to soot, and has blown away so that these paws cannot gather it back.

This night coat that eats stars is no longer known by the true voice and that is a black deeper than pain.

Now is for bewilderment, for suffering.

Now, alone.

Chapter Thirteen

A few days later, Thistle was walking on her beloved beach at low tide, her treeling, Biaree, on her shoulder. Behind her paced her chosen partner, Quiet Hunter. She had longed to show him this place, since it had been, and still was, a treasured part of her life. Ratha had told her that things were quiet and that she should take this opportunity to go before the chaos of the mating season entered clan life. She planned to be back just before it started.

Ahead of her, in the scrub brush that lay high above the dunes, she heard the neigh of a dappleback. The little horses didn’t live near the seacoast; she had brought this dappleback with her from clan land.

Biaree, on her back, scratched his side with the flurry of a rear foot, and then lifted whiskers, sampling the strong, salty sea breeze. He blinked, not sure if he liked it.

His clever paws and his growing ability to tie things together under her guidance would make this trip to the beach even more fruitful than before. Biaree, with the help of some other treelings, managed to make some baggy nets that would hold fish and other seafood. The things were a bit of a mess, but they were a first effort, and they worked when Thistle tried them out on the stored fish in her creek-side pool. With some help from Thakur, she managed to tie these basket nets onto an older, placid dappleback in a similar manner to the beast-riding pads they had made for the cubs. Then she had to have something to lead the horse. She had tried her new herding skills, and they worked, but it was hard making the animal go any real distance without herder and herd-eel becoming exhausted. A treeling-knotted vine rope around the animal’s neck was far easier, both for her and the horse.

Once she was sure that the animal wouldn’t bolt or stray, she put a few fish in the net bags and walked around clan ground with her fish-carrying horse. She did get a few puzzled looks from both herders and Firekeepers, but she was used to that.

The dappleback didn’t seem to mind. She was the same animal that Quiet Hunter had used to exhibit his beginning skills. The mare probably found this duty less onerous than being chased and mauled by Thakur’s introductory herding class, Thistle decided. The horse hadn’t objected strenuously to anything yet, though she neighed a bit when Thistle rolled a heavy rock onto the end of the lead rope and left the dappleback to browse.

Now she was returning to get her packhorse and load the net bags with fish, clams, and other dainty morsels. She had recently discovered that the big sea snails were succulent and tasty when you clawed them out of the shell and bit any bad-tasting parts out. Now her catch was waiting on the beach, buried in wet sand to keep it fresh and safe from other fish-eaters.

When she and Quiet Hunter reached the sea grass and brush where she had left the dappleback mare, she pushed the anchoring rock aside with Quiet Hunter’s help. Taking the lead rope in her jaws, she made a clicking sound with her teeth and pulled gently.

At first, leading the dappleback hadn’t been that pleasant. The beast had a rocking walk and its head bobbed up and down with each steps, sometimes jerking the line. Once the rope had stuck on Thistle’s fangs. That hurt, but the dappleback didn’t mean it. The horse’s small hoofed toes clicked and scraped on rock, unlike the silent fall of feline pads. That had annoyed Thistle too, but she was getting used to the sound and had even started to like it.

The dappleback went willingly, letting Thistle lead her through a tumble of rocks, then across the sand of the back beach. She floundered a bit in the loose sand but fared better on the wet foreshore.

Quiet Hunter was living up to his name, but the silence around him was full, not empty. She knew he had enjoyed and appreciated being shown her world, paddling with her in the nearby lagoon where she had taught herself to swim, dipping paws into the tide pools with her and grimacing with surprise at the teeming life there: tentacle-bearing sea-flowers that sucked themselves into rubbery lumps when a paw came near: tiny pugnacious crabs that did battle with anything, including Quiet Hunter’s toes; and breathtakingly colored miniature creatures with filmy or feathered gills who drifted elegantly through the water and didn’t deserve to be called just sea-slugs. The pair looked as often as caught, for Quiet Hunter was developing a lively curiosity about the kind of life that lived in various places, and he wasn’t always interested in eating it.

Thistle agreed with her mother that it was amazing that Quiet Hunter had learned to live without the song, considering how dependent the other hunters were on it. She knew he still needed to go back to True-of-voice every so often, to refresh himself in the fountain of its flow. So, for that matter, did she, although the urge was more want than need. She suspected that, as long as the Named lived near the hunters, he would periodically return to his old tribe and she along with him.

She also used her voice, her scent along with movement in attempts to re-create the feeling of the song for him. Every so often she managed to do it, but capturing its essence and flavor remained difficult.

“What you can do is good enough for this one,” said Quiet Hunter, coming alongside her. He shared one trick of her speech in that neither tended to use the words “I” or “me,” except when they were with the Named.

“Can do better,” Thistle mumbled through the lead rope in her mouth. “Want to, for both of us. Want to find song for outer ears as well as inner ones.”

“This one remembers that part of it is this,” her mate said, and swung away from her to walk slowly on the wet sand, slapping his paws down so that they made sounds in a repeating cadence. Step, pause, step, pause, step, pause, step, pause.

Thistle matched his pace, listening to the sound they made together. When the dappleback’s footfalls interrupted their pace, they changed it, walking in step with the horse. Doing so was a bit difficult, but once all three sets of feet fell together, the effect was pleasing, almost hypnotic. After a while, though, it became a bit boring, and Thistle said so.

“Then there is this,” Quiet Hunter said, and varied his stride so that the slap of his paws on sand went step, step, pause, step, step, pause.

Thistle’s ears pricked forward. She found a rock for the dappleback’s lead rope, then went to Quiet Hunter and imitated what he was doing. Together they tried various gaits, listening to the sounds their feet made while walking on wet sand and while trotting, cantering, bounding, and galloping. Biareeobjected to being bounced around on her back, so she stopped and let the treeling off to play in the sand.

“Funny, never listened to feet before,” Thistle panted, jogging to a stop. “Does True-of-voice use feet-sounds?”

“No, but he makes it feel as though he does.”

“Can do the same with voice, maybe? Arr, arr-arr. Arr, arr-arr,” Thistle tried, then grimaced. “Sounds silly.”

“Only a little,” her mate answered.

She went back to the horse, rolled the rock aside, and picked up the lead. Again she and Quiet Hunter walked together, matching pace.

“Listen again,” he said softly.

Thistle turned her head, looked at him.

“Not to us, or the dappleback, but to the sea.”

Thistle stopped, swiveled her ears.

“Keep walking with this one and listen.”

Puzzled, she did as he asked, and then she heard it: the inward rush and crash of the waves as a long, slow counterpoint to their footfalls. She remembered hearing this as she padded along the beach long ago, but it had meant nothing to her then. She knew that her mind had been sleeping, waking partially and only for the necessities such as sleep, food, and shelter. The Named had woken it fully, sharpened it, taught her to delight not only in her sensations but also in the growing agility of her thought.

She, in turn, had helped wake Quiet Hunter, and he was learning the excitement of experiment and discovery. In some things, he was better and he led, as he was doing now.

He changed gaits and encouraged her to follow. Again the whoosh and roar of the ocean made a background to their paw-slaps on the wet sand. A seabird sailed overhead, its wing beats blending into the river of interweaving sounds.

Thistle’s eyes widened in wonder. She reveled in the experience, and felt a sudden thrill when she glanced over at her partner and saw the rapture on his face. It was that which made her add her voice to the rest, sending it soaring upward, like the seabird, then wavering, plunging and winging up again.

She shut her mouth when she saw that Quiet Hunter had stopped and was looking intently at her. Had her impetuous squalling interrupted the hypnotic flow of sound from their footsteps and the ocean? She felt embarrassed.

“Didn’t mean to ruin it,” she said, her head starting to hang, her eyes starting to close.

She felt a nudge and then a push beneath her chin, lifting her head up again.

“You didn’t ruin it,” he breathed, the deep honey-brown of his eyes capturing her. “Not at all.”

Real happiness came over her in a rush as he rubbed alongside her and pushed her into a walk, then a matched, dancing trot against the ocean’s swell and lapse. Again she opened her mouth and let joy fountain up from her lungs through her throat, off her tongue into the sky, not caring where it went or how high. Then she heard his voice mingled with hers, deeper, perhaps a little harsh with awkwardness, but strong and willing.

It made her bound and leap alongside him, until they fell together in cat-play, making sand fly. Thistle got up and shook herself.“Not what True-of-voice does. Not his song.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Quiet Hunter said. “It makes this one feel a deep good. It is a song, but it is not True-of-voice’s. It is ours.”

“This one’s mate feels a deep good too,” Thistle purred, winding and unwinding her tail about his. She looked up suddenly, remembering the horse, hoping it hadn’t been alarmed by all the noise.

She was relieved to see the dappleback mare still stood placidly, one ear forward, the other back, as if curious about the odd goings-on. The lead rope snaked down into the sand.

“She’s not straying,” Quiet Hunter said. “Run and sing with this one … with me … again.”

Gladly, Thistle did.

After that, they both played in the sea, pawing up strands of washed-in kelp and batting them at one another until both were draped with it. Shedding their decorations back into the waves, the dripping pair went back to where Thistle-chaser had buried her catch. She found Biaree grooming himself on a rock, but the treeling refused to mount until Thistle’s fur had dried off.

She got the dappleback, and Quiet Hunter helped her fill the net bags on its sides, loading the little horse with the sea’s harvest. He dropped a sea perch when it flapped its tail in his face, but managed to scoop the fish up and secure it, along with all the others.

“Smart Quiet Hunter,” said Thistle, lolling her tongue in a cat-laugh. “Learns things quickly, even strange things like putting fish in string-tangles.”

“Smart Thistle, who learned how to make the string-tangles and put them on a dappleback,” Quiet Hunter replied, his purr deep.

“Thistle and Biaree,” she corrected. “Couldn’t do without treeling.”

Quiet Hunter sniffed Biaree, who tried to grab a handful of whiskers.

“You could have a treeling, too,” Thistle said.

The male looked dubious.“This one is not sure about treelings. Their eyes are bright with cleverness, they move with quickness, but they don’t speak and they don’t hear songs. This one is not sure he wants to be close to such a creature.”

“Quiet Hunter, you are funny but sweet. Why does it matter if a treeling can speak or if they can hear kinds of songs we can?”

“Maybe this one is wrong and needs more knowledge about treelings. Do they sing?”

She batted his face softly, cat-laughing again.“Biaree can’t sing. Just screeches.”

Quiet Hunter eyed the treeling.“Strange animal.”

“You,” Thistle retorted gently, “are the strange animal. Love you anyway.” She coaxed Biaree onto a drying but still-salty shoulder. “Will get used to treelings. Maybe even will want one.”

“This one will think about it. Not yet, though.”

Picking up the dappleback’s lead rope, Thistle started across the beach, heading toward the higher dunes and the brush beyond. Instead of walking ahead of her, as she had seen the clan’s males do with their females, Quiet Hunter preferred to pace beside her.

Once out of the sand, they headed toward the place where the sun would rise, a direction Thistle knew would guide her back to clan ground. The sun was already starting to decline down the sky, and Thistle hoped to arrive before late evening.

They broke into an easy jog trot. The dappleback seemed willing to keep pace. Thistle guessed the horse was enjoying the exercise after lazing on the beach for the last few days. The bumpier pace might cause a few fish to fall out of the net bags, but they were quickly replaced. One large clam broke its shell, but Thistle and Quiet Hunter nibbled up the bits and went on, refreshed. They talked and joked to make the journeying time go faster. Quiet Hunter was curious why the clan gave treelings names but didn’t name the herdbeasts. Thistle didn’t know, but guessed that the clan only named creatures they didn’t intend to eat.

“But we aren’t eating this dappleback,” Quiet Hunter pointed out.

“Then maybe it should have a name,” Thistle answered. “You think of one.”

The lively discussion continued along the trail, over and through forested hills, into more open woodland. They were nearing the hunters’ plain, and Thistle was asking her partner why exactly did Quiet Hunter need to know if every new creature he encountered could either sing or hear some sort of True-of-voice song, when someone appeared on the trail in front of them.

Dusk shaded the new arrival’s color to a dark gray and Thistle didn’t recognize any smell except the hunter group-scent. For a tail-flick, she thought it was the renegade Night-who-eats-stars, but beside her, Quiet Hunter said, “This one … I … I … know him. It is not the black fawn-killer. Let me nose-touch.”

Thistle clamped the dappleback’s lead tighter in her mouth, bracing her feet to hold the restive horse. She hoped this hunter hadn’t decided that her dappleback and its seafood cargo might be easy prey.

She growled, but her partner looked back over his shoulder, grimacing to quiet her. Then, with tail lifted in greeting, he approached the other, who stood still, dark-green eyes narrowed to slits.

“This one can smell that he won’t attack,” Quiet Hunter said to Thistle.

“Don’t like the look in his eyes. You sure?” Thistle hissed back, teeth still clenched on the lead rope.

“Yes.”

She squashed her own instinct to attack. The best thing she could do was to hang on to the horse and keep it from bolting. She wished she was close enough to smell the newcomer’s mood, but she couldn’t approach.

She watched Quiet Hunter and the other hunter meet in the half-light. Both tails were lifted, waving with inquiry as their nose leathers touched. Thistle could hear her partner breathe in, inhaling the other’s scent.

Quiet Hunter’s tail stiffened. His head went back in a series of jerks, collapsing him back on his rump and haunches. His fur bristled all over, and he panted in panic. The other hunter ducked aside, eyed the stricken male over his shoulder briefly, and then slunk away.

Thistle’s first impulse was to chase the intruder and shred his ears. Even though she hadn’t seen him lift a paw, he had obviously done something bad to Quiet Hunter. She pulled the laden dappleback forward so that she could reach her partner. Now he was sitting, his head down, eyes squeezed shut, onepaw over his nose, fur still on end. She dropped the lead, put a rear paw on it, and gave him a worried lick. “What is it? Did he hit you? What did he do?” The sudden bitterness in his scent alarmed her and sent her treeling scampering from her shoulders to the root of her tail.

Quiet Hunter lifted his head, but instead of meeting her gaze, he sat rigidly, the expression in his eyes telling her that he was once again turned inward, as he had been when she first met him. She suddenly hated that dreamlike veil that clouded the beauty of his honey-colored eyes.

“Wake up!” she yowled. “Tell me what happened.”

“The song … This one is hearing True-of-voice again.”

Baffled, she laid a paw on his back.“But you wanted to hear him.”

Quiet Hunter jerked away, frightening Thistle.“Not as he sings now. How it has changed in color. Harsh. Black. Thorns. Claws. Fangs behind the eyes …” He reared, lashing both his head and his tail in a maddened frenzy. “No, this one can’t go, must go, why does he sing this way, why has it all turned so bleak, so wild …?”

He started running back and forth, stopping abruptly, then turning again, fleeing the other direction, then halting so sharply he stumbled as if tripped. Now ignoring the horse, Thistle grabbed his scruff, trying to stop him, but he struggled away, howling.

“If True-of-voice has done something bad to you, will shred his face,” Thistle growled, “Quiet Hunter, talk to me!”

He panted, breaking his words up.“This one … must find others who … hear the blackness, the bleakness … Forcing this one to go away, no, not away from Thistle …”

Fear struck deep into her, lancing like pain. He leaped back and forth, head rolling, as if in agony, then with a lash of his tail, he fled before Thistle could catch him.

He was gone. Gone so completely that not even a leaf still rustled. So that there was a stillness inside Thistle before grief and anger rushed in. She tried to track him, but there was no trace, not even the bitterness of fear-scent. She had no idea what direction he’d taken.

She called his name until rawness made her voice harsh, and then cried out that harshness until she lost breath. Then she fell silent, hoping desperately that he would return and rub against her, and things would be as they were before.

She nosed around, wondering what had happened. She caught some of the other hunter’s scent, just a whiff, but enough to tell her that the strange “song,” transmitted in part by scent, was the same as it had ever been, at least for her. No change in tone or color, no bleakness or darkness. Knowing that ruled out one thought, namely that Quiet Hunter had gone berserk becauseTrue-of-voice had suddenly died and the song had fallen silent. That had happened before, when True-of-voice fell from the cliff and lay near death on a ledge below. All the hunters, including her mate, had been affected so severely that the clan thought they would die.

No, the other tribe’s leader was still alive and healthy, and acting as he always did. So what had driven Quiet Hunter away? Thistle was more baffled than ever, and her nosing became frantic.

A neigh behind her made Thistle aware once again of the horse and its load. As much as she wanted to tear around through the brush in search of her mate, she had to get this horse back safely. Her whiskers still quivering, she picked up a few spilled fish from the trail and put them back into the net baskets. Biaree, no longer frightened, clambered from her loins onto her shoulders where he settled with a sigh. With dying hope, Thistle called once again, but when the dusk remained still and silent, she picked up the lead rope with her teeth and started down the trail with the dappleback.

When she reached clan ground, she would tell Ratha what happened. Maybe her mother would know. She could ask her to send a search party to seek Quiet Hunter and bring him back.

She jogged along, trying to ignore a sad ache in her chest that seemed to spear down into her once-lame front leg. Fighting away an old fog that hovered about her eyes and mind, Thistle quickened her pace. She was determined to discover what had happened to her partner and mate. She wouldn’t rest, nor would she let the Named rest, until she found out.

Chapter Fourteen

Evening came slowly during the summer on clan ground. The brisk wind of late afternoon faded to a light breeze, and the sunning rock held enough of the day’s heat to be uncomfortable. Ratha was sitting in the cooling grass at its base when she saw Bira and Fessran approaching. Their forms were shaded, and Ratha knew them only by the shine of their eyes and their scents.

By Ratha’s order, the Firekeepers made only one fire-nest each night for the hunter tribe, on the border of clan land and hunter territory. The fire was small and well guarded, although Ratha felt that even doing that was a risk. Ratha did it because Bira pleaded passionately that the clan should not stop helping the hunter mothers and cubs. The renegade Night-who-eats-stars had apparently vanished, which helped Ratha’s decision.

Bira looked worried; Fessran, puzzled. When Ratha asked why, Bira answered that something odd seemed to be happening in the hunter tribe.

“Often we get others besides mothers and nurslings at the campfire. I’m used to seeing some of the young hunter males. But the last few nights only one came. He seemed upset, even a bit … crazy, talking about how the song had somehow changed and ‘gone dark’ for him. I didn’t see him last night. It may be silly, but I thought I should tell you before we went ahead and built the fire.”

“It isn’t silly, Bira,” Fessran answered. “I sent out some Firekeeper scouts to make sure the fawn-killer wasn’t still around and to see what was going on. All the younger males in True-of-voice’s tribe are affected. They ramble on about how that rat-scratching song-thing has changed for them. It seems to be driving them away.” She swished her tail as Ratha got up and paced. “These hunters seem to get more weird things happening to them. I’d rather be squabbling with the Un-Named again,” she grumbled.

“I’ve watched the mothers and other females who have come to my fire,” Bira said. “They don’t seem to feel any such change. I’d still like to make the fire-nest for them, if you feel that it is safe.”

“I …” Ratha started, then turned her head abruptly, staring into the deepening dusk. “Thistle-chaser’s back,” she said, and bounded away from the Firekeepers. They followed.

Ratha could tell by the bitter tang in Thistle’s scent that something had happened along the return trail. Her night-sight told her that Thistle’s fur was rumpled, and the nose-touch revealed her daughter’s whiskers were vibrating with anger and grief.

“Oh, Thistle,” Ratha breathed, wishing she could curl protectively around her cub, protecting her daughter from more of the blows the world gave her.

“Brought back the horse,” Thistle said shortly. “Lost Quiet Hunter.”

Ratha looked up as Fessran and Bira caught up with them.“I can guess,” said Fessran drily. “Did he start yowling some nonsense about the song going black and then high-tail it into the bushes?”

“How do you know?” Thistle glowered suspiciously at the Firekeepers and spat,“Were you hiding, spying?”

“Don’t raise your fur at me, youngster,” Fessran retorted. “No, I wasn’t. We’ve been seeing this happen to the other young toms in their tribe.”

“Others?” Thistle said, and then broke off, turning to Ratha. “Please help me find him. Know what he means. Send out Named ones in search, ask True-of-voice. Just bring him back.”

“I’ll help you, Thistle,” Ratha said hastily. “First I need to know exactly what happened.”

Thistle breathed deeply to steady herself.“Was walking back from sea with horse and fish. Passing face-tail valley. One from hunter tribe jumped out in front. Wasn’t Night-who-eats-stars. Was one Quiet Hunter knew. Said so. Then, touched noses with other. Went stiff, fuzzed fur. Thought Quiet Hunter had been hit. He talked about changein song. Fangs behind the eyes …”

“Did he say anything else?” Ratha asked, while Fessran and Bira looked on.

Thistle’s facial markings emphasized the crinkle over her eyes as she squeezed them shut. “Remember now. Said, why must he go, didn’t want to, didn’t want to leave me, but had to. Said he had to find others that hear blackness, bleakness. Then, gone.”

“Fangs behind the eyes …?” Ratha heard Fessran muse, while Bira drew in her breath sharply, hissing between her teeth at the image.

“You couldn’t track him?”

“No scent. Must have flattened fur to keep smell in. Miss him lots already.”

Ratha ached at the mournful tone in Thistle’s voice.

“Look, there is no point in blundering around in the dark,” said Fessran. “If we are going to talk about this, we might as well be comfortable around a fire.”

Thistle flashed again at Fessran.“Don’t want to be comfortable around a fire. Want to find Quiet Hunter!”

“Fessran, go find Thakur. Bira, please have the Firekeepers make a small campfire in the same place as before. Enough of us will be there so that nothing will happen and we can figure out what to do.”

Both Firekeepers left. Ratha calmed her daughter, saying that she would do all she could to find Quiet Hunter, but the Named had to act intelligently, not just send scouts out to thrash around the woods.“Quiet Hunter is important to you, but I feel something more is happening.”

They rejoined the two Firekeepers at the small fire. Fessran had fetched Thakur as well, and he lay in a half-sphinx attitude, his face toward the dancing flame, his copper fur metallic-tipped by its glow.

Thistle nose-touched with him, and then sat down by his side.“Seeking Quiet Hunter. Seen him, herding teacher?”

“Why no, Thistle. I thought he was with you at the seacoast.”

Ratha stepped into the conversation.“She’s back, but he isn’t. She told me that something strange happened to him on the way. Thistle, tell Thakur just what you told me.”

When Thistle had finished, Thakur rested his muzzle on the back of his forepaw. After some silence, he said,“Hmrrrr. Just a nose-touch?”

“Was all I smelled, or saw, or heard,” Thistle replied. “No claw, no swat, no lunge, no growl. Then, Quiet Hunter vanished.”

“You say that he felt the song change, turn color to black,” Thakur mused. “You can also hear the song. Did you feel a change in it?”

“Couldn’t sense it very well. Got something, though. Not changed for me.”

“Or for any of the older males, or the hunter females, if I understand Bira and Fessran.”

Fessran stirred.“This gives me an itch between my shoulders. I don’t know why, but it’s not a nice itch.”

Thakur looked at the Firekeeper steadily. Ratha also felt something low on the nape of her neck, a cold that seeped down along her back. She got up and shook, saying,“I’d be more worried, except that scouts report everything on the hunters’ ground is calm.”

“They are only watching from one edge of the hunters’ land. If those who hear the blackened song are leaving, our scouts might not pick that up,” Fessran observed.

“Then we aren’t sure the affected ones are all young males.” Ratha suppressed her urge to wriggle on the ground in order to get rid of the crawly feeling on her back. She was sure it wasn’t fleas.

“I’ve been with the hunters the most, since I’ve been building their fire,” put in Bira. “I’m sure that the only ones who hear the song as black are the younger males.”

“Why would True-of-voice be doing that?” Ratha asked. “He needs strong young toms to hunt face-tails—”

“Even though the females are the better hunters,” Fessran interrupted. “Well, they are,” she insisted, to Ratha’s annoyed look. “At least they bring in most of the meat.”

“Could we have angered True-of-voice somehow?” asked Bira, tilting her head.

“If he was feeling hissy, why would he take it out on his own people, Bira?” Fessran asked. “We’re the ones he would attack. Thakur, can you follow this impossibly twisted trail? I can’t.”

“Assuming there is indeed a trail to follow,” said the herding teacher. “I’ve said this before — we don’t know how True-of-voice or his people think. There may be no sense to what he does, at least that we can understand.”

Ratha spoke carefully.“They may not think like us, but they must share some feelings with us. Why else would they ask us to join their farewell gathering for the dead?”

“To make us feel bad,” Fessran grumbled.

“No, it wasn’t that,” Ratha retorted. “You were there, Firekeeper.”

Fessran admitted that she was, and the impression she got was not that True-of-voice was trying to induce guilt.

Ratha, glancing at Thistle, saw that her daughter was once again getting impatient with all the talk. To head off another interruption, she pointed out that the clan really didn’t know what was happening. The next step was to recall the scouts, get their reports and then send them out again. Some could go with Thistle on her search for Quiet Hunter.

“What about the fire for the hunter cubs?” Bira asked. “May I build it?”

Ratha was reluctant to answer.“Yes, Firekeeper. Depending on what the scouts report, this might be the last night. You can tell them, if you wish. I’m sorry.”

Bira brushed her whiskers along Ratha’s cheek. “You are still trying to be kind, clan leader. I respect that.”

“Too much kindness may hurt us. You have to understand that.”

“I know,” said Bira. “I’m glad you are clan leader, not me.” With a wave of her tail, Bira went to help Fessran and Thakur recall the scouts to discover what they had learned.

Ratha didn’t realize that she had fallen into a doze until she felt a lick on the back of the neck, combined with a claw-poke. She knew even before she had tried to focus her eyes that the former had been from Thakur, the latter from Fessran. Both helped make the summary that Ratha had requested.

Quiet Hunter was still missing. Thistle was still out with several scouts, searching. The young males were still leaving True-of-voice’s tribe. The only new thing was unsettling, although it confirmed Quiet Hunter’s last frantic words. The renegades were joining together in small groups. They were finding one another, made brothers by being outcasts of the song. Quiet Hunter had also spoken of finding a similar brotherhood, but he had not yet joined them, although Thakur felt that he soon would. Thakur also thought that the smaller groups would coalesce into a single one. Scouts reporting later in the day proved him right.

“Herding teacher,” Ratha said when she met with him again the next day, “could True-of-voice have somehow changed, maybe gone … rotten? I know that leadership can do such things. I’ve had to fight hard against it.”

Pausing in his quick grooming, Thakur spat out some loose fur. Ratha jumped in again before he could reply.“We thought he was bad for a while, then we found he was good. Could he have turned again?”

Thakur stopped his grooming.“You think he has

become… evil?”

“Well, you said yourself that he was unpredictable.”

The herding teacher looked at her, and she felt a strange kind of sadness in his gaze.“Yearling, True-of-voice may have changed, but the ideas of good or evil belong to us, not them. They are things that neither True-of-voice nor his people understand.”

Ratha argued, laying back her ears slightly. She felt if she accepted Thakur’s words, she would just be floating, with no place to put her feet. “You don’t drive your own young away, you don’t deliberately hurt them, and you don’t do that unless there is something in you that is wrong, bad … evil.”

“Or unless you are so swept away by events that you feel you have no choice,” said Thakur, his eyes steady on hers.

Ratha felt her teeth snap together. Was it fair of Thakur to throw her old mistake in her face? She didn’t want to fight with him, though, and she sat on her response, forcing herself to say instead, “You think True-of-voice has no choice in what he does? You don’t think he’s angry … or evil?”

“Whatever moves him, yearling,is far more powerful than either.” was Thakur’s reply.

“We have no right to judge him?”

“No, yearling. We don’t have the capability to judge him.”

Ratha could do nothing more than fall silent. After a while, she said,“Why do we have these ideas … about good and evil? Herdbeasts don’t, treelings don’t, the Un-Named don’t, you say that the hunters don’t….”

In answer, Thakur drew a line in the dirt with one claw.“Because we are awake to see differences in things and are aware that we can choose between them. We see opposites and they somehow have to balance, like your tail and your head when you leap to a branch.”

Ratha fought to absorb and understand this. The question might seem very remote and abstract, but she suddenly knew that it wasn’t.

“Thakur, you stretch my thinking until it hurts.”

“Good,” he said, and then licked the nape of her neck again, reminding her that she had a body and all was not just thought. “I just hope that it doesn’t hurt too much.”

Later Thistle returned, looking disgruntled. Thakur had gone and there was only Ratha there to meet her.

“Found Quiet Hunter, but can’t reach him,” Thistle said. “Went with the other black-song-hearers. Making new group. Separate from True-of-voice.”

“You can’t go to Quiet Hunter and ask him to return?”

“No.” Thistle’s voice was harsh with frustration. “Others won’t let me near him. Yowled, but he didn’t answer. Is not like him. Being stopped, maybe?”

“That’s the only thing I can think of. He wouldn’t stay away from you by choice. I know he wouldn’t.” Ratha looked at her daughter, fur tangled with sticks and thorns, pads worn until blistered, but eyes still full of crashing-wave strength. She both pitied and marveled at this beloved stubborn creature who was somehow her daughter. “Thistle, if we have to free him by force, I promise that we will.”

Thistle let her eyes fall shut.“Know what you would do for me. And him. But don’t think it would work. Feel that something else, not True-of-voice, is happening.”

Ratha pricked her ears so far forward and so hard that it made the muscles along the sides of her face ache.“What kind of ‘something else’?”

“Don’t know. One thing, though. Don’t think that hunters in new group can hear True-of-voice anymore. Too distant.”

Ratha felt as though she were being spun off her feet again.“Thistle, from what you’ve told me, and from what I know, those hunter males can’t exist without True-of-voice’s song. Maybe Quiet Hunter can, because we taught him, but not the others.”

“Know that,” said Thistle.

“Then how …?” Ratha faltered.

“Maybe … new group has … own song?”

“Can you sense it?”

“No.”

Ratha stepped on all the other questions she badly wanted to ask.“Thistle, you’re worn out. Go rest, eat, and let Biaree groom you. Other scouts will be reporting back; we have to wait for them.”

Thistle, for once, didn’t argue. She wobbled off to collect her treeling, her tail barely clearing the ground. Ratha could see that she had given nearly all she had in the search for the one she loved. Thistle would if there was something she really cared about. Perhaps being so single-minded was a weakness, running toabsolute exhaustion out of passion. Ratha knew she was like that once, but she had learned to conserve, to pace, to balance. She hoped that in doing so she had not lost the passion that burned like the Red Tongue in her daughter.

Now is for fleeing. The song-hearers have given this night-black coat stars that it cannot eat; red stars that dry to dull on stiffened fur. Fur stiffened also by sweat between the pads, the pads that have run again and again.

The wrath of the song-hearers stinks and blasts and blinds. Their claws make the red stars.

These eyes cannot seek the hunting tribe, for it is split with two true voices and both push aside the star-eater.

The star-eater, who will die if not joined to something. The only something left is the clan of the talking ones. They gave life to another who lost the song, the quiet hunter.

Among the talking ones is the yellow-gold fur. The eyes do not want to see the yellow-gold fur. The heart will beat too fast. Not just because the yellow-gold brought the searing gift to the talking ones. The yellow-gold left burning tracks inside what once lived inside this night-black coat.

The black fur swallowed stars. The yellow-gold swallowed hope.

There must be something other than the yellow-gold fur’s clan. There must.

The returning Named scouts had seen things that confirmed Thistle’s odd prediction. There was something new in the all-male splinter group: another like True-of-voice. The new singer was the oldest one in the bunch, the scouts said, and his coloring and scent marked him as one of True-of-voice’s sons. He was a darker gray than his sire, with faint vertical barring along his sides, black ringing his tail, and white on his lower jaw, chest, and feet. This new singer’s presence in all senses was dominating the group — the individual members’ scents were being submerged in his.

To avoid confusion, the scouts had started to call this individual New Singer. Ratha continued using the name, and the usage soon spread.

For Ratha, New Singer’s appearance added new complications to an unstable situation. She felt she had to pull back and concentrate her resources on clan ground. As she had already told Bira, there would be no more warming fires on hunter land or anywhere else except on Named territory. If things improved, perhaps they could resume.

She half expected Bira to protest, but the young Firekeeper took this in her usual calm manner. She had already told those who came to the fire that the Named couldn’t keep this favor going. She had explained why, although she wasn’t sure if they understood. She also hoped that if this filtered through to True-of-voice, he might act.

As well as redoubling their effort on home-ground tasks, the Named also kept a careful watch on both the old and new groups of face-tail hunters.

“I don’t think New Singer and his gang can survive apart from True-of-voice,” Fessran said to Ratha a day or so later, after the clan had started an intense watch on the new group. “They’re all one age — they don’t have any old ones to give them advice, they don’t have any cubs, and they don’t have any females.”

“Is that Night-who-eats-stars with New Singer?”

“No, he isn’t. The last time I caught his scent, it told me he was on his own now; he’d lost any trace of his original group-odor, and he hadn’t taken on any of the new. In fact, I haven’t seen or caught a whiff or taste of him for days. I think he’s gone for good.”

“Well, that would help prevent New Singer and his bunch from using the Red Tongue,” Ratha said, then looked over her shoulder as Thakur approached. He had shortened his herding classes so that he could help Ratha and Fessran.

“Since some of the herders are working as scouts,” he said after he nose-touched with the two, “I’ve turned some of their duties to the older cubs, especially Ashon.”

“Good,” Ratha answered. “We need to stay alert until we know how this new hunter group will act as neighbors.” She paused, then told him about Fessran’s speculation that New Singer’s band would collapse and probably be reabsorbed into his sire’s tribe.

“That isn’t going to happen,” Thakur said bluntly. “Not if New Singer is half as strong as his father. I’m worried about the fact that they have no females.”

“Maybe True-of-voice lost so many in the fire that he couldn’t let any go,” Ratha suggested.

“That may be a part of it.”

“Then why did he and his dung-eating song drive the young males away if they can’t survive long-term?” Fessran asked, sounding irritated.

Ratha responded,“Well, if they don’t, that eventually lessens the threat to us.”

“Not if New Singer’s bunch gets desperate and tries for the Red Tongue or our herdbeasts. Remember, we have face-tails now.” Fessran’s tail made a few lashes.

“We’re all aware of that and working to prevent it,” Ratha answered.

She saw Thakur turn to Fessran.“You are absolutely sure that no females joined New Singer’s band.”

“The scouts are watching out for that. Bira says she’s sure, and she’s reliable.” Fessran breathed deeply through her nose.

“Why are you both still clawing this question around?” Ratha asked. “If they don’t have females, it helps us.”

“I’m not sure about that, Ratha,” Thakur said slowly.

“I’m not either,” Fessran added. “Something about this mess is really bothering me, though I don’t know what or why.”

Ratha studied both of her friends. Thakur looked as if he had begun putting some pieces together and didn’t like the result. Fessran’s reaction seemed hazier and more instinctive, as if she knew where the answer lay but was having trouble tracking it.

“Having both of you agree on something isn’t usual,” Ratha said. “It also makes me want to do more, but I don’t know what. We’ve got all the scouts out that we can spare from the usual duties.”

“Pull the scouts back,” Thakur said suddenly. “We’re going to need them here.”

“Fessran?” Ratha’s gaze went to the Firekeeper leader.

“For once I’m with Thakur. That itch between my shoulders is getting nastier.”

Ratha felt resolution settle over her.“All right, I’ll take your counsel. So you both think that the threat is not True-of-voice but New Singer. And that if he strikes us, he will try to seize the Red Tongue and the herdbeasts.”

“Given that we don’t know how the hunters think, we have to assume that would be his intent,” said Thakur.

Fessran agreed.“We must protect the fire and the animals.”

“All right, bring your Firekeeper scouts back in. Tell Thistle I want her as well. Thakur, you and Cherfan have the herders get all the herdbeasts into the meadow. Fessran, set up guard-fires around the herd and the fire-den. Have torches ready.” Ratha paused. “We won’t strike first, but we’ll be ready if New Singer does.”

Fessran left, but Ratha asked Thakur to stay.“Herding teacher,” she said, “I am surprised you haven’t suggested that we try to speak with New Singer. Or True-of-voice, either.”

“If it was just the one group of hunters, I would,” he replied. “Having to deal with a second is too much — it stretches us too thin.”

“Also, we don’t have Quiet Hunter. And Thistle is distracted. Look, if nothing happens in a few days, I will try to speak with True-of-voice or New Singer. I don’t want to lash out at either without cause. At the same time, we can’t leave ourselves vulnerable to attack.”

“Reasonable, yet responsible,” Thakur said.

“I learned from you,” Ratha said softly.

“That pleases me, yearling. I’ll go get Cherfan and secure the animals.”

A tense stillness lay on the air as the Named prepared for the unknown yet still attended to the necessities: the cubs, the animals, and the fire. Ratha hoped that this would last only a few days, but she was ready for conflict. She tried not to get anyone angry or excited. A mistake by an over eager torchbearer could plunge the clan into an unwanted fight. Instead, she sought her own calmness, blended it with determination, and spread it among her people.

If New Singer held off, then perhaps she could approach him. And/or, perhaps, True-of-voice, asking him to change the song that drove his son and his peers out, and receive them again. If the Named had unintentionally caused this split in the hunter tribe, they could help heal it.

I don’t want this to stop me from reaching out, Ratha thought as she watched her clan go about their tasks. I also don’t want to undermine my own people.

I have to stop chasing my tail about this. What I’ve done is right, and I don’t need Thakur or Fessran to agree, although I’m glad they do.

I’ve done what the Named have been afraid to do before; I’ve thought beyond just the needs of our clan and extended help to others. Even if we have to pull back temporarily, reaching out to True-of-voice and his people is right. Perhaps someday we can extend such friendship to the Un-Named.

Chapter Fifteen

Each day that passed without a fight breaking out was a victory for Ratha. Although she kept a tight watch on New Singer and his all-male group, she saw no indication that the fledgling tribe wanted conflict with the Named. This was the fifth day after she had given the alert and she thought she might send Thistle-chaser and an escort to attempt to speak with New Singer.

This may all be worry over nothing, she told herself as she lay in a half-sphinx on the sunning rock, watching the morning sun rise. What is happening between True-of-voice’s tribe and New Singer’s renegades probably has nothing to do with us.

Ratharee stirred in the warm fur on Ratha’s belly.

“What do you think?” she asked her treeling. The creature gave what Ratha thought was an enormous yawn for a small animal. “Have I managed to walk this tricky path, with True-of-voice on one side and New Singer on the other? Have I helped others without harming the clan?”

It was beginning to appear that she had. The day looked beautiful, promising. Warmth began to bathe the sunning rock as Ratharee jumped up to Ratha’s nape, settled herself, and began grooming.

“Have you managed to convince your friend and second in command that you’re getting mushy-brained, talking to a treeling? Yes, you have.”

Ratha snapped her head around. Fessran was sauntering toward the base of the sunning rock.

“Ho, singe-whiskers,” Ratha teased back. “How stand things on clan ground?”

“Well, my leader, things stand the same as they did yesterday and the day before and the day before that. Not a move or a peep out of any of our strange neighbors. To rudely interrupt the … ahh … conversation you were having with your treeling, I’d say yes, you have once again managed to tiptoe a path through the crocodiles.”

Ratha couldn’t help a cat-grin. Fessran was certainly in good form this morning.

“Well, I’m looking forward to getting a bit more sleep when you relax things a bit,” said the Firekeeper, in response to Ratha’s query.

“I’ll ease off after I’ve settled things with New Singer. Thistle and I should be able to go over there tomorrow and talk to them. We’ll also recover Quiet Hunter. Then I’ll approach True-of-voice.”

“In the mean time, Thakur, Cherfan, you, and I will keep on as we have. I assume that guarding the Red Tongue and the herdbeasts are the most important tasks?”

“They are,” Ratha replied, trying to inject a note of somberness into her voice, but the brilliant, playful freshness of the day made it difficult. And she was feeling relieved and rewarded at having made it over another barrier in the path of the Named….

After she had patrolled, she would reward herself with a good meal, a thorough grooming, and a nap in the shade of the old live oak.

“I think that New Singer’s group is already falling apart,” Fessran observed. “They’re scattering; he doesn’t have as many as he did at first.”

“All right, but keep a close watch,” Ratha said.

With an elegant wave of her ash-streaked tail, Fessran pivoted around to leave.

“Just wait until you get a treeling,” Ratha yowled.

“I don’t need one of those flea-pickers,” Fessran retorted. “Unlike some people, I don’t have any fleas.”

Ratha watched her friend stalk off. If Fessran was any indication, things were getting back to normal.

I hope the only problem I have after this is what to do about Bundi and Mishanti’s rumbler-beasts.

She did her patrol as she intended, checking in with everyone and hearing the latest reports. Fessran was right. New Singer’s band appeared to be fragmenting, its members dispersing, perhaps returning to their parent tribe. It was possible that the entire situation would resolve itself.

Ratha was glad she had used patience. She felt she was still young, for a clan leader, but growing more mature. She didn’t have to pounce on things so quickly; she could wait, watch, and think before choosing the best move.

Ratha lifted her head and felt the sun warm her face. A feeling of contentment washed through her, replacing the worry. She had done her best for all, even though it was difficult. No one, not even Thistle, could ask any more of her. She’d done it without harming the clan. That was the most important thing.

After a meal and a good pelt-licking session, she told Fessran where she would be and what to do if something did happen. Then, with Ratharee on her shoulder, she ambled over to the old oak and settled in the leaves from last season, smelling their aroma and letting herself drift luxuriously into a well-deserved snooze.

“Ratha!”

“Clan leader!”

“We’re being attacked!”

The calls came in two voices, startling Ratha. Feeling Ratharee grabbing her nape, she jerked her head up. She blinked. A moment ago she had been in a contented doze; now, if she believed what she was hearing…

No, it couldn’t be. Someone was trying a trick, or some half-grown litterling had gotten scared. The scents and voices told her that the pair was the yearling Mishanti and his older friend Bundi, sharpening her suspicions.

She felt Ratharee’s fingers tighten in her fur as she jumped up from the leaf litter. Yes, it was the terrible two again.

She eyed them both, the tip of her tail flicking irritably.“This is a bad time to try to fool me with …”

Her voice died. Both partners were shaking so hard they could barely stay on their feet. Their pupils had gone to slits, and their scent was acrid with fear.

“Not fooling,” quavered Mishanti, his faintly spotted fur bristling as Bundi panted, “Invaders, maybe hunters, maybe Un-Named. I don’t know.”

The sharp scent of Named blood made Ratha search beyond the two. Another form staggered toward her, head down and weaving. She had to look twice before she recognized Fessran’s older son Khushi under all the slashes and scratches. His usually amiable face looked exhausted and grim, and his ribs heaved. Bundi and Mishanti ran out and did their best to keep him on his feet as he lurched toward her.

“Surprised us,” he rasped. “Came from behind while we were scouting … ”

“Where’s your partner?” Ratha asked, her dry mouth making it hard to speak. She knew that Fessran had sent the scouts out in pairs.

“Dead. Throat-bite. I escaped and ran to warn you,

but. too late.”

“No, you did well, Khushi. Help him to the stream, you two,” Ratha told Bundi and Mishanti.

A commotion in the meadow drew her gaze. Fessran was galloping toward her, followed by other Firekeepers. She didn’t see Bira.

The flame-tenders had torches in their jaws. Fessran didn’t have a torch, but she looked furious.

A streak of ice shot down Ratha’s back, and her legs went stiff with shock. This was no cub-game.

She felt her treeling crouch low on her back, readying herself. Even Ratharee knew. The only one to be caught napping was the clan leader.

An attack? How could that be, a part of her argued, even while she ran to meet the Firekeepers. For several days she had been hearing, not just from Fessran but from others as well, that New Singer’s rogue band was coming apart — that they were in no shape to attack either the Red Tongue or clan herds.

Could it be True-of-voice again? How could he, after she had worked so hard to overcome the first mistakes? Yes, Thakur said that the Named didn’t understand how the hunter leader thought, but surely True-of-voice wouldn’t destroy the fragile alliance the clan had started to build.

Or was this a sudden assault from the previously quiet Un-Named? Ratha tumbled the possibilities around in her mind as her feet flashed over the meadow grass. She didn’t have time to curse herself for being taken by surprise. That would have to come later.

“It’s New Singer, may worms eat his eyes,” Fessran panted. “He fooled both of us and we believed him. Fooled us like we were cubs! I thought his gang of belly-biters was breaking up, but—”

“Fess, yowl about it later,” Ratha snapped. “Defend the fire-den and the guard flames. We can’t lose the Red Tongue.”

“It’s not just the Red Tongue they’re after,” Fessran snarled. “They’re attacking the herders. I saw Thakur, Mondir, and Cherfan leading the fight. I ran to get the Firekeepers.” She broke off, looking toward the stumbling figure between the two smaller ones. “My son Khushi. Thank the Red Tongue that he made it back.”

“The other scout didn’t,” Ratha said. “Go to Khushi. I’ll lead the Firekeepers.”

With a grateful look, Fessran sprang away after her wounded son. Ratha took her place and leaped into a gallop, hearing the thunder of feet and the rush of fire behind her. There was no torch between her teeth for she needed her jaws free to command.

Gathering her hindquarters beneath her, she sprinted ahead, ears straining for the sounds of battle, nose flaring for the scents of fighting. The tang of savage desperation on her tongue made Ratha stretch her run until she felt as though she were flying. Ratharee was huddled between her shoulders, arms halfway embracing her neck, legs straddling her spine, toes and fingers wound tightly in her fur.

Ratha knew she should stop and hide the treeling, but she couldn’t. The herders’ lives might depend on her speed and the Firekeepers’ torches.

Guard-fires, defending the perimeter of clan ground, still flamed and blazed high in the wind made by the Firekeepers’ passing.

Now she could hear the fight — the wailing snarls, the wild, spitting yowls and screeches. A tangle of low brush lay ahead with dust boiling up beyond it. In the haze, she saw backs heaving, twisting, heads striking like snakes, teeth reddened.

Not pausing in her stride, she cleared the brush, the Firekeepers following in a river of angry fur and fire. They spread out to either side of her, charging into the enemy, swinging their firebrands. As Ratha reared and pivoted, howling orders, she caught sight of New Singer’s white-and-dark gray pelt amid the swirling mass of the fight.

Ratha saw instantly that the herder Cherfan was New Singer’s main opponent. The rogue hunter leader leaped, snarling, at the big herder. Cherfan reared to meet him, teeth and claws flashing white against the heavy brown of his coat, black-tipped ruff bristling like a mane.

Even the sight of the Firekeepers attacking the enemy with their torches quailed against the majestic battle between New Singer and Cherfan.

Over the deep roaring, Ratha heard the smack of flesh as the two powerful males collided. This was no sparring or paw-boxing. On hind legs, they raked and bit one another in a devastating flurry, then fell apart only to rear and clash again. Fur and blood spray flew with the dust kicked up by combat.

Cherfan was heavier, New Singer quicker; but both moved at a speed that blurred them before Ratha‘s eyes. Claws and teeth struck, and she heard the rip of fur-covered skin. Now one seized the other’s throat but was hurled away to land with a thud, only to streak in again. Now one dealt the other a massive blow with a forepaw to send him dancing back, reeling, tail lashing for balance. Again and again the hunter and the herder threw themselves together, rebounding off one another with heavy grunts and quivering flesh.

Other fights had erupted around the two, but it was the two heavyweights that stole Ratha’s attention even as she howled orders to the Firekeepers.

She squashed her impulse to leap between the two huge males, knowing that she had no place in this fight. Either one could swat her aside like a cub.

With a thundering roar, Cherfan belted New Singer away from him so hard that the other cartwheeled over and fell on his side. The force of the big herder’s blow overbalanced him, too, and he went down on his chest. Both scrambled to their feet, shoulders hunched, facing one another, muzzles crumpled by snarls that showed the full length of teeth.

At this pause in the battle, another hunter tore away from his opponent to fling himself onto Cherfan’s hindquarters, clawing his way up the herder’s spine while New Singer tried again for Cherfan’s throat. Arching his back, twisting, clawing, Cherfan threw them both off. Another hunter dashed into the fight. Three opponents now covered Cherfan. Their strikes were swift, deadly. With anotherchilling shock, Ratha saw that the enemy wasn’t trying to get the clan males out of the way so that they could prey on the herd. Their intent was not to injure or to put to flight, but to drag down and kill.

With a roar almost as impressive as Cherfan’s, the herder Mondir launched himself at New Singer, banging him aside. Light brown fur joined the cloud of darker brown and brindled gray. Mondir was no older than Ratha, but he had the Named male’s heavier bones and more powerful shoulders, and he had matured to his full strength in the lastseason. He was nearly as formidable as Cherfan, had the lightning quickness of youth, and used it savagely against New Singer, tearing the hunter leader’s shoulder open.

More renegades came to their leader’s side and now the fight was fierce, fast, and wild, frantic with the hunters’ intent to kill.

Fessran arrived, seized a firebrand and plunged in, eyes and torch blazing. Behind her came a wet, pink-stained Khushi with Bundi and Mishanti. Though wounded, the young scout waded into the battle and added his weight and muscle to Cherfan’s defense.

Thakur, Ratha saw, was wise enough not to tangle directly with New Singer’s bigger rogues. After flashing in for several precise strikes at the hunters, he turned to rally the younger clan males who were being forced back by their opponents.

“Ashon, Bundi, Mishanti, to me!” Thakur called, rounding them up. “They aren’t trying to kill you, just drive you away!” Ratha saw him duck and dive, wrenching a scrabbling Mishanti away from a hopelessly larger opponent and tossing him to Bundi, who poked him up a tree.

Yowling through teeth clenched on the shaft of a flaming branch, Fessran swung her firebrand at the rogues. Other Firekeepers poked and thrust with their torches, and the stink of burned flesh and hair rose above the battle.

A wiry hunter male attacked Ratha, giving her a target for her rage. She launched into him with all four feet, kick-ripping his belly while she shredded the side of his neck and clawed at his eyes. With a wrench, he twisted away, and she rolled to her feet, panting.

Screeching in pain and terror, the rogues backed off, but they didn’t flee like the Un-Named raiders did. Something seemed to force them back into the fray, making them ignore their fright and their agony to attack again.

The flame-bearers’ attack faltered as eyes met eyes and the enemy’s ability to withstand the Red Tongue was passed quickly among the Named Firekeepers.

It was the song again. That thrice-cursed, mysterious, dung-eating song.

“Take down New Singer!” howled Thakur. “He’s their source. Take him down, and the others will run.”

Even before Thakur’s call, the renegade hunters had started to form a living wall about New Singer. As fast as Ratha, Fessran, and the Firekeepers ripped the defense open, it formed again, stronger and fiercer than ever.

Above the commotion, Ratha heard an agonized shriek, so raw that she didn’t recognize the voice. She whirled, thinking one of the Named had been mortally struck. Instead she saw Bira, not in the battle but on its edge. Her ears were back, her mouth was open, but the sound from her throat wasn’t a battle cry but a horrified scream.

“They’re killing the cubs!” Bira paused only long enough to gather breath and shriek again, even louder. “They’re attacking the nursery! They’re killing the cubs!”

Another shock went through Ratha, raising all the fur on her back. Fessran, wild-eyed, leaped out of the fray, landing beside Bira. Other female Firekeepers and herders followed.

“No!” Ratha howled, knowing her forces had been suddenly and disastrously split, but even as she called, her body was tensing to bound after Fessran. A threat to the clan’s young struck deep into her, as it did all the Named females.

“Go, clan leader,” Cherfan roared. “Mondir and I can hold them!”

Ratha searched frantically for Thakur, but found him already by her side. Together they bounded after Fessran.

Now bewilderment added itself to the feelings churning in Ratha’s chest and driving her legs. She thought the enemy would go for the Red Tongue and the herdbeasts, not the clan males and the cubs. So had Fessran and Thakur. What was happening? Why were things going so horribly wrong?

With the sounds of the first fight still in her ears, she raced beside Thakur to the cub nursery, dreading what she would see there. The weight of responsibility and the realization of her mistake caught in her throat, dragged at her chest. She dared not look back, even though she feared for Cherfan and the Named males who still fought around him.

She caught Thakur’s eye and gulped, “We have to save—”

“I know, yearling,” Thakur answered, his voice hissing and harsh from the effort of running.

Squalls rose along with the roar of torches from the open cleft of the nursery. The terrified shrilling of cubs stabbed at Ratha, the sight of a dead litterling dangling from a raider’s jaws pushed her close to madness.

She saw Bira and Thistle-chaser defending a scared huddle of cubs from more attacking hunter males while Fessran and the Firekeepers beat back others. Directly in front of Ratha, one of the renegades snatched up a litterling and started to shake it. The attacker had a dun coat and gold eyes just like…

“Quiet Hunter!”

Thistle-chaser’s screech nearly deafened Ratha, and another white surge of shock nearly knocked her down.

“Quiet Hunter, no!”

Thistle became a streak of tan, white, and rust, charging at Quiet Hunter.“No, don’t kill her!” Ratha heard her daughter cry and ached at the pain in that voice. To see her own intended mate not only in the renegade group but in the act of slaying a Named cub …

She saw her daughter’s face stiffen, the eyes harden, the paw draw back, and Thistle struck Quiet Hunter as hard as she could, snapping his head around and making him drop the cub. Crying and shivering, the litterling tried to crawl away, but Quiet Hunter lunged to seize the cub again. Held immobile by a growing numbness, Ratha watched as Thistle planted herself in the way.

“Have to kill me to get this cub.”

Gold eyes met sea-green ones. The gold was shifting, misty… dreaming … under the sway of the song. No longer controlled by True-of-voice but the renegade New Singer.

“Hear me?” Thistle hissed at Quiet Hunter. “Have to kill me, but know you won’t.”

Through the numbness Ratha felt another strike of fear. It tore at her vision, making it ragged. It froze her feet, even as she gathered them for a leap. The dun male’s face was starting to distort in a snarl, his paw rising, claws bared.

All else about Ratha faded: Thakur’s nearby fight with another hunter, Fessran’s sweeping torch, Bira’s frantic defense of the cubs huddled in the circle of her long tail … everything except Thistle and Quiet Hunter.

He can kill her. If the song commands, he will. The thought made Ratha’s hind legs extend, but her spring was shaken and clumsy, weakened by wounds she didn’t realize that she had. She had fallen short and scrabble as she might, she couldn’t reach her daughter quickly enough.

Thistle, run. Please run. I can’t bear to see you …

Somehow time had elongated, making events lag. Quiet Hunter’s paw was starting to move forward, with all of the power of his shoulder muscles behind it. The blow could cave in Thistle’s narrow chest, or tear it open.

She felt rather than saw Thakur tear loose from his opponent and start to spin around, but he, too, would be late.

As Quiet Hunter’s paw gathered speed, a small tan-and-rust leg thrust up against it. Thistle’s foreleg trembled with the strain, and Ratha thought the male would just sweep it aside, but his paw went still, his leg rigid.

Thistle pushed her nose so hard against Quiet Hunter’s that the fur on both noses wrinkled.

“Not a renegade. Don’t have to listen to the song. Come back to me, Quiet Hunter. Come back.”

The male’s eyes widened, and then slowly cleared. He was focusing, staring deep into Thistle’s eyes. Ratha felt a desperate hope that his paw would drop and a sweep of thankfulness when it finally did.

Quiet Hunter’s head rolled. He blinked. Then he looked down at the trembling cub and shuddered, closing his eyes. “What was this one … doing?”

“Shhh, you didn’t,” Thistle said. “Stopped you before …”

Now the dun male’s eyes went wide with horror. “This one … this one tried to kill a clan cub.”

“Song did it, not you. Here.” Thistle lifted the youngster and held the cub before Quiet Hunter’s eyes. “She’s not hurt badly.”

There was a thump behind the two as Thakur landed. Ratha knew that he’d sprung at Quiet Hunter but checked himself in midair.

Things snapped back to normal speed and Ratha’s view widened. Again the fight pressed in. Several renegades had noted Quiet Hunter’s recovery; eerily, their heads came up together, and they targeted him.

Thakur charged both, and then Ratha found her strength again and flew to his side. From the corner of her eye, she saw Bira take the cub from Thistle, then both Thistle and Quiet Hunter joined Bira’s defense of the cubs.

Then all was the confusion of fighting again, dust and fur and squalling litterlings, fluttering firebrands and panicked screams. Ratha sprang up, trying to see above the commotion to yowl commands at the female Firekeepers. The sound of deeper roars and the crown of fire on torches heartened her. Cherfan and the herders were coming, along with the male Firekeepers.

She saw Thakur bound through the fight to reach Cherfan and heard him yowl,“Did you get New Singer!”

“We beat off those renegades,” Cherfan panted, “but it wasn’t easy, even with the Firekeepers. We didn’t even get near New Singer — he’s still with that rat-eating bunch. I don’t know what he’ll do next.”

“If they want to keep their hides, they’ll run for home,” growled Mondir, behind Cherfan.

The enemy showed no sign of following Mondir’s advice. More hunter renegades spilled into the nursery. Ratha searched frantically for Bira and the cubs. She found them backed into a small hollow, aided by Drani, Thistle-chaser, Quiet Hunter, and a torch-wielding Fessran.

She jumped to Fessran’s side, grabbed a torch offered her by another Firekeeper and swung it in an angry arc, driving off a raider who had crept close enough to grab a cub by the leg. He flattened and spun around to flee, but then gave a strange jerk and flung himself back to try again, despite the fear in his eyes.

She knew she was witnessing the power of the song and those driven by it. She also knew the source was close by, and as she searched, she caught sight of New Singer’s dark-gray-striped pelt, now mottled with red. Thakur was right. To win this battle, the Named had to kill or capture New Singer. She passed her torch to Bira, freeing her jaws once again for command, telling Drani to soothe the cubs while Bira took up her place as torch-wielder. She also told Quiet Hunter and Thistle-chaser to stay behind the two flame-bearers and help Drani shield the cubs, the living treasure of the Named. Then she whirled and reared, roaring, “Clan males, Firekeepers, Cherfan, Thakur, and Mondir. To me!”

Chapter Sixteen

The Named all surged about Ratha as she launched herself at the guard around New Singer, determined to tear her way through his defense and sink her fangs repeatedly in his throat, one bite for every Named cub that died. The Firekeepers reared and plunged, swinging their brands down on raider backs and thrusting them into faces. However badly singed or blistered, the enemy held their ground, commanded by the intense power of the song coming from their leader.

Ratha knew that the effort was costing the Named too much and that even the powerful males would soon become exhausted.

“We can’t defend the nursery,” she yowled to Bira and Fessran. “Take the cubs to the fire-den!”

Thakur, who was leading Ashon, Bundi, and other young males at the edge of the fight, arrowed in with his group to Fessran and Bira. The two females loaded the young males with all the litterlings they could carry, cubs dangling from their mouths, clinging to their backs, their flanks, and even hanging from their necks. Ratha saw Thistle pick up a cub, start to pass it to Quiet Hunter, then hesitate, and finally give it to him. Ashon was so covered with his younger siblings that he could barely stagger, but he started out bravely. Bira stopped him, relieved him of some of his burden, and sent him off. She followed him, her torch flagging in the wind. More cub-carriers followed her.

Once the cub-rescue had started, Ratha led more attempts to tear away the guard around New Singer, leading a heavy charge made up of the older herders and the Firekeepers.

She thought she had won through when the rear of the line surrounding the enemy leader started to fragment. It closed again, making Ratha realize that New Singer had just released some of his core guard. To do what, was the question in Ratha’s mind, but it was quickly answered when the gang of hunter males homed in on the cub rescue. Evading Fessran, they surrounded Drani, who had just sent off another cub-carrier. Instead of trying to kill the few cubs remaining in the nursery, they jumped on Drani, subdued her, and then dragged her in an unexpected direction — toward the center of clan ground.

Three raiders separated from their gang, then, despite Fessran’s yowled warning, ambushed Bira when she returned to escort another cub-carrier, knocking her down and wresting the torch away from her. They pulled her away in the same direction they had taken Drani.

The renegades had changed tactics yet again, and almost instantly. Again Ratha felt caught off balance, not knowing what New Singer was up to. His guard seemed to fragment, but then reclosed, sending off another gang to take down and drag off another female Firekeeper.

Grinding her teeth with frustration, Ratha grabbed the fallen torch, jumped up on Mondir’s and Khushi’s backs, and, with a twist of her head, lobbed the firebrand over New Singer’s defenders right at the enemy leader himself. It hit, but bounced off, guttering to black smoke as it rolled away. In the instant it struck, though, Ratha saw and sensed a collective shudder go throughthe enemy fighters.

The blurred sight of a sandy coat told Ratha that Fessran had seen the same thing and understood it. Bounding atop Cherfan, the Firekeeper leader reared and flung her brand at New Singer, hitting square on. Another, deeper shudder ran through the hunter renegades, freezing some of them, but New Singer recovered.

With his warriors beating the flame out of his fur, even throwing themselves atop him to quench it, New Singer whipped his forces to greater ferocity, rage leaping in his eyes.

Fessran’s effort had been briefly effective, but it hadn’t stopped the hunter attack, and it had left the Firekeeper without her torch. Ratha was already leaping to her friend’s side as Fessran sprang away and landed, but brindled raider pelts blocked her way as the rogues surrounded and overwhelmedFessran. The air was filled with growling, spitting, and hissed cursing as the Firekeeper went into a wild flurry. Ratha could see the blood spray flying over the heads of Fessran’s attackers. She fought to reach Fessran’s side.

With a frantic glance behind, Ratha saw that the enemy’s staunch huddle of defense had transformed itself into two wings curving outward around the raging fight. New Singer was still protected in the midst of one wing. Ratha heard Cherfan’s bellow of annoyance when the big herder found himself clawing the air where the enemy leader had been an instant ago.

More enemy gangs leaped on Firekeepers and herders alike, but they were dodging the males to fall upon the females, who were encircled and either forced or dragged away by the scruff.

Other raiders seemed to be running away, but in the wrong direction, farther into clan ground.

Fearing that they were going after the cub-carriers, Ratha twisted her head frantically, eyes and ears straining to take in everything that was happening beyond the immediate fight.

She saw the rogues chasing the cub-rescuers, but instead of trying to pull them down and kill them, or snatch the cub away, the enemy was cutting them off, driving them away toward the borders of clan ground.

“Ratha, watch yourself!” came a screech. Thakur bounded toward her, but the snarling faces of an encircling raider gang cut off her view of him. They were capturing all the females, the clan leader being no exception.

Ratha let her rage turn her into a spinning fury, slashing and raking with claws, tearing and ripping with teeth. When she had to pause, chest and throat burning, raiders lay about her, but more surrounded her. Behind them she caught a glimpse of New Singer, silently commanding his forces. The sight of him enraged her, but despite another wild flurry, they closed on her and seized her. She felt her feet being pulled through the grass as they hauled her away after Fessran and Bira.

Despair flooded over her rage, mixing to form desperation. Attacked again. Defeated again, just like she had been when Shongshar took over the clan and drove her out. No. No. She wouldn’t accept that.

Throwing her head around wildly, she caught sight of more rogues closing in on Thistle-chaser.

Not my daughter. Not Thistle!

She screamed, a sound that made even her captors start. Maddened, she heaved and bucked, renewing her struggle, feeling enemy teeth breaking as she tore away or slammed into them.

They pushed her down, crushing her, pulling her head back, stretching her neck. She saw New Singer approaching, bending his head down over her. The points of sharp teeth at her throat slid through her fur to her skin. New Singer’s breath was hot beneath her chin. She felt the points start to dig in, stretching, and then breaking through skin into less-resisting flesh.

New Singer was closing his mouth slowly, letting her experience the gradual buildup of pressure in his jaws, savoring his triumph.

Very well then. So this would be her end. The proud bearer of the Red Tongue slain by outcasts from a dream-walking hunter tribe. No, not slain just by the enemy, but by her mistakes and misjudgment. She had blundered badly. She was not worthy to lead the Named. It was better that she die in the teeth of the enemy. It would be quick and less painful than watching her people fall under New Singer. More merciful than being exiled and having to watch from a distance as her people suffered under a tyrant as they had under Shongshar.

So she would die and another would lead the Named. She was ready. She wouldn’t flinch or cry out no matter how deep those teeth went.

Suddenly the teeth went sideways, making her gasp with an unexpected pain. Then with a jerk, they yanked free. The sound of Named males roaring, and then a sudden jostling, made her realize she was no longer in the claws of the enemy. Paws were rolling her over, getting her feet underneath her. Tongues were licking away the blood from her throat. Suddenly she felt a flash of resentment. No. She had been ready to die. She could not bear what life had done. She wanted New Singer to finish his task and eliminate a failure of a Named leader. Having to know and face what was happing to Thistle-chaser, Fessran, Bira and others because of her was torture beyond bearing.

Cherfan loomed over her, his face bloodied but triumphant.“I wasn’t going to let him kill you, clan leader.”

Then another voice: Thakur.“Ratha, you’re free. Can you get up? We didn’t get New Singer, but we got you back, which is more important.”

She almost welcomed the sudden faintness from blood loss. She trembled on the edge, wanting to dive into that enveloping dark. Thakur, you are wrong. You shouldn’t have wasted your effort to rescue me.

She felt herself propped up on one side by Thakur, on the other by Cherfan. Despite the bleakness in her heart, she made her body do as the two males and the rest of her people demanded.

Where were the rest of her people? She blinked, forced herself to look around. She saw the faces of clan males, but there were no females. Had the enemy killed them all? What had happened to the cubs?

“We have the cubs here,” said Thakur, swinging aside to show her litterlings in the gentle grasp of their sires, brothers, or uncles.

Ratha gasped,“What happened …?”

“New Singer changed his mind,” Thakur answered, his voice grim. “Again. We made it too hard for him to kill our young, so he’s taken a new trail. He just wants to get rid of us clan males; whether he kills or drives us out makes no difference to him.”

“Why? What’s he doing? My head is spinning, Thakur. I can’t get a claw or a tooth into this. I could fight the Un-Named when they preyed on our herds. I could even fight Shongshar when he took over the clan. This New Singer … he keeps twisting and turning…. I feel that every time we strike at him, we get a clawful of air.” She paused and said ruefully, “Every time I try to understand him, I feel as though I’ve got air between my ears.”

“Yearling,” he said, using his old name for her, “I am beginning to understand. I can’t explain to you now. We have to take the cubs to a refuge and then get the herdbeasts.”

“But Thistle … Fessran … Bira …” Ratha stumbled.

“They were alive the last time I saw them. If New Singer is doing what I think he is, he won’t kill them.”

“Am I the only female they didn’t take?” Ratha looked around again for her daughter, her friends, still not able to accept that they were gone.

“Yes, clan leader.”

Ratha glanced at Thakur. His choice of words was deliberate. Whether or not she wanted the task or felt worthy of it, she was still the leader of the Named. Something cried in her to plunge into a rescue of the captured Named females, but she knew that the immediate survival of her people depended on saving the cubs.

She struggled to push the black fog out of her mind and think.“We have to find a safe place before any of New Singer’s rogues return.” She made herself speak, addressing all the clan males. Her eyes met theirs, but only briefly, for a part of her couldn’t bear to see any looks of judgment that might cross their faces. “I know one and it isn’t far.” She forced her voice to be strong. “Thakur, you know it, too. Do you remember the leaning stones above the waterfall where we hid when Shongshar threw me out?”

“Yes. We’ll go …”

Ratha knew why he stopped himself. Again she had to force words from her tongue.

“Take the cubs and follow me. Hurry, before New Singer gets wind of this. As soon as the cubs are safe, we’ll go back for the herdbeasts.”

“I’ll go find Quiet Hunter, Ashon, and Bundi and meet up with you,” volunteered Mondir. Then he looked at Ratha, his gaze steady. Even though his expression was mild, it seemed to stab her in the tender part of her feelings. “We’ve lost, haven’t we?”

“For now, yes,” she managed. “In the long term, no, not if we can save our litterlings.” She bent down and picked up a cub that had fallen from its father’s back, willing her legs not to turn to water.

With the youngster in her jaws, she sprang into a canter, Thakur beside but slightly behind her, the others following.

She led the clan males along a route she remembered. The experience seemed so long ago, although she knew it was only a few turns of the seasons. She skirted the borders of clan ground, up a pine-wooded slope, shadowing a three-horn trail that climbed along a rocky creek bank. Her party passed the huge cave where Shongshar had held his fire-dance, and reigned, a bloated tyrant, over the Named. Now the waterfall that had once fallen in the free air plunged through the roof of the cave and made another cascade out the former entrance, its flow washing out the previous access path.

The waterfall washed away the evil that the Red Tongue had been twisted into and those who had done the twisting. As Ratha climbed past it, she wished that there could be such a simple, clean resolution to the threat that she and the Named now faced. This situation was more complex, less easy to divide into absolute good and evil.

She pulled her thoughts away from the past. What mattered at this point was the fuzzy mewling bundle she held by the scruff and the others being carried along behind her.

Red-brown soil and dried pine needles became mixed with crunchy white pebbles that soon grew into rocks and then boulders between the trees. The creek grew steep, from a brook to a torrent, and pine boughs hung so low that they stroked Named backs passing beneath.

When the creek veered away from clan ground, Ratha’s party found themselves rock-hopping up an increasingly narrow gorge as the stream rushed beneath them. She was afraid for a moment that the stream flow might have destroyed her former refuge, tumbling its gray and white granite down the creek bed. No, there it was, perched on a ledge ahead, sparkling in the dappled sunshine, looking light and welcoming to weary feet.

Carrying the cub, she slipped into a crevice made by gray-and-white-speckled slabs leaning against one another. She heard Thakur follow, and then she emerged from the rock shadow into a naturally guarded courtyard formed by fallen granite. Sun warmed its rock benches, pine boughs swayed overhead, and cooling breezes found their way through the stone maze. Yes, the refuge was as she had remembered it, although perhaps during her struggle, she hadn’t appreciated it enough.

The darker gray rocks absorbed more heat from the sun. Here she and the clan males made a nest for their spotted burdens. Mondir had done as he promised — Ashon and Bundi were now with her group along with the cubs they carried. Mondir hadn’t found Quiet Hunter, but he had managed to locate and bring Mishanti.

Of course, along with Bundi and Mishanti, usually came…

No. Ratha shook her head. The rumblers couldn’t have followed us here.

As if on cue, a resounding bellow echoed from below, followed by a second. Grunt and, what was her name? Belch.

Ratha grimaced. This was absurd. Of all the things the Named did not need… She glared at Bundi and Mishanti.

“You’d better get rid of those creatures right now or—”

“We didn’t think the rumblers would see us,” Bundi protested. “We were thinking about the cubs, not them.”

“Saw us, followed us,” put in Mishanti. “Nothing we could do to stop them.”

“Their noise is going to lead the renegades right to us,” Ratha yowled, her voice rising. She turned to Thakur. “Herding teacher, make those two understand.”

Bundi kept arguing.“Why should New Singer think we’re with them? He doesn’t know we have them. To him, they’re just another beast.”

“Bundi …” Ratha began, her voice dropping to a growl, her ears flattening.

She felt someone’s whiskers against her side and smelled Thakur. “Easy, yearling,” he said gently. “Don’t pounce on Bundi. He’s right — the rumblers won’t give us away.”

“But they’re such a noisy nuisance,” Ratha began, and then broke off. “All right, Thakur. We’ve got more important things to worry about than a pair of stupid—”

“We’ll go quiet them anyway. Come on, Mishanti,” Bundi said, scrambling away and dragging his friend with him.

“At least they can’t get up here and knock this place flat,” Ratha grumbled to herself.

As for Quiet Hunter, she couldn’t spare the effort to look for him. The Named were stretched pretty thin. If he came under New Singer’s control again, he would be more dangerous than helpful. He’s probably searching for Thistle-chaser. When things stabilized, she would look for both.

By now, all of the Named were inside. They deposited the litterlings they carried in the makeshift nursery. Cherfan and Mondir curled themselves around the cubs while other males settled themselves nearby. Ratha was grateful that her party had saved enough youngsters to require two big herders to encircle them.

Several litterlings head-bumped Cherfan’s belly.

“They’re hungry.” Mondir patted one cub with a paw. “I never thought I’d say this, but I wish I had … Well, I wish I had milk so that I could feed them.”

Several heads turned to Ratha.“Don’t look at me,” she said crossly. “Even if I can make milk, it will take a few days and that’s too long. We’ll have to feed them on chewed meat.”

“I think they’ll be all right for a little while,” Thakur put in softly. “We need to rest and think about what to do next.”

“I’ll get them some creek water in my mouth,” Ashon offered. He got up and went out. Several other young males followed. They ferried stream water to the youngsters, warming it in their mouths. The cubs lapped the liquid from the sides of their fathers’ jaws.

“So who gets to eat and then burp it up again to feed this bunch?” Khushi asked. He had cleaned himself up and now looked less damp and pink.

“I will,” said Cherfan, cracking the dried blood on his face with a yawn. “I’ve got a big stomach and I don’t mind.”

“You eat so much garbage that you’re used to burping things up,” Mondir said, poking him in the belly with a foot.

“You’ve got a big stomach, too,” Cherfan retaliated. “But it’s your big mouth that gets you in trouble. You’re helping me warm them, you can help me feed them.”

“Settle down, both of you,” Ratha said. “Let the cubs sleep.” Both males complied and soon joined the litterlings in slumber. Ratha moved herself and the others away in order not to disturb them.

“Well, I never thought I’d see that,” said Khushi, settling down beside Thakur. “A big bruiser like him trying to play mother.” He cut himself off, was silent, and then said, “I wish we had my mother with us.”

“I miss Fessran, too,” Ratha said softly. “And Thistle and Bira and Drani and all the others. If I hadn’t … ”

Ratha felt Thakur press against her as if saying, Don’t tear yourself up, yearling. We need you.

She pressed back in acknowledgment, more than grateful for his silent support.

“Never mind that,” she said, her voice still slightly rough. “We have to take stock. What we have and what we don’t have. It’s hard for me to say this, but we have lost a lot. In the confusion of the fight, we lost the Red Tongue and the treelings. I think the treelings will be all right — I felt Ratharee jump from my back into a tree when things got wild.”

“I tucked Aree into a safe place,” Thakur answered. “She’ll stay there until I get her, hopefully soon.”

“Cherfaree and Biaree got away when the renegades took Thistle and Bira,” Khushi added, then stopped himself again. “Ooops, I’m sorry, clan leader…. ’

The stab into Ratha’s belly had only begun, but she endured the pang of grief and said, “I’m not going to say that I don’t miss Thistle and that it doesn’t hurt. I do and it does. Badly. But I’m not going to ask anyone to spare me. I think and I hope that Thakur is right — that my daughter and the others are still alive.”

Thakur raised his head.“I can tell you why I think so.”

“I’ll welcome it, herding teacher, but later. First we’ve got to get meat to feed the cubs, and that means Thakur and I will have to hunt.”

“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Since you’ve hunted? Do you remember how?” This was from Khushi.

“I’ll have to,” she replied shortly. She went to the snoozing Cherfan, told him what she was going to do and then let him sleep again. Designating Mondir to be in charge while she was gone, she left the shelter through a crevice. Thakur followed.

He said that he was better at fishing than hunting and that the tumbling brook held trout. Ratha said she would go after grouse, although she wasn’t as good at stalking them as Bira. If she found lizards, she would take them, too.

She found that although her conscious self might have forgotten the techniques of hunting birds and other small prey, her body remembered. Her ears trembled to hear the betraying rustles in the brush, and when she heard them, her body dropped into a stalking crouch, leaving part of her mind to watch.

She was thankful, for she drew no enjoyment from this hunt other than the knowledge that it would put food in the cubs’ bellies.

In her hurry, she badly mauled her catches when she made them, but between her and Thakur, she had enough to feed the cubs and enough left over to provide for herself and the others.

“I miss Bira. I hope I don’t have to teach Cherfan how to hunt,” she said while she and Thakur were defeathering and descaling their prizes. “He’d be crashing through the bushes scaring everything away. But we couldn’t have saved the cubs without him.”

When they brought the food back, the widened eyes, lifted whiskers, and sharpened scents told her everyone was hungry. They all backed away and waited while she and Thakur fed the two cub-nurses all that they could hold.

She told them they didn’t have to regurgitate everything they ate for cub-feeding — they should keep some down, since they would need it later.

While Cherfan and Mondir did the messy job, she shared the rest out with the others.

“Come on, Ashon, eat,” she heard Khushi say.

“The fish is good,” the cub replied, “but this bird-stuff … it doesn’t taste bad, but it feels funny in my mouth.”

“Well, get used to it, stripling, or you’ll lose it to Mishanti.”

“Or me,” grunted Cherfan, wiping his jowls with the back of his paw and raising his head from the cubs. “This bunch is insatiable.”

Chapter Seventeen

Ratha thought she would have no appetite, but the exercise of hunting brought it back, at least a little. And maybe the courageous banter among the Named helped to lift her spirits.

Courageous because she sensed that everyone, even Bundi and Mishanti, knew at bottom how bad things really were. In one blow, the Named had been stripped of everything they valued and needed: their land, their herdbeasts, the Red Tongue — even all their females but one had been captured.

New Singer had taken the fire-den, the source for all the brands and campfires. In capturing Bira and Fessran along with other Firekeeper females, he had also taken the means to keep fire alive and use it, if he so chose. Why then had his gang seized Thistle, Drani, and the others who were not Firekeepers?

The answer emerged out of Ratha’s memories of the fight and what followed. Her fur stiffened as she realized what New Singer and his group wanted from the imprisoned females.

“I thought you’d catch that prey soon,” Thakur said.

“I’m so stupid … I never thought … All males, no females. Young toms, eager to mate. That’s it, isn’t it, Thakur?”

“I don’t believe it was stupidity that made you avoid the idea,” Thakur answered gently and added, “I have somewhat the same problem, which is why it took me so long to see the answer.”

For us, mating is more than just coupling. There is love, and in love there is pain. Not just the pain of losing the one you choose, but the pain of looking at the young you birth and seeing eyes that will never see the world as you do, tongues that will never speak, minds that can never understand. And that the one you chose brought this upon you, or could bring it upon you, through no fault of his own.

That is why neither Thakur nor I could understand this. Though I may take a male in the courting season while he exiles himself instead, neither of us dares to love.

We are so similar, so close. Is that why I want him? I cannot think of that now.

“Tell me what happened,” Ratha said. “Mating is part of it, but killing cubs?”

“This is how things went,” Thakur began as the others settled close by.

Ratha stopped him.“Wait, we must post a watch.” She assigned Khushi and Bundi the task.

“I’ll speak loud enough so that they can hear as well,” said Thakur, and started again.

At first Ratha didn’t understand why he was recounting episodes such as the escaping face-tails, the canyon fire that killed True-of-voice’s hunters, and the schism within the other leader’s ranks that ejected New Singer and the other young hunter males.

Then, gradually, she began to see the sinews that bound the parts together.

“The ones slain in the canyon fire were all female,” Thakur emphasized. “Many hunter females died. The few females left would have been torn to pieces by both the old and young males fighting for them. True-of-voice had no choice. He had to drive the younger males out.” Thakur paused. “I’m not saying that he consciously decided to do this. I’m saying that something in him or the song told him he had to.”

“So that is why the song turned ‘black’ for Quiet Hunter and those like him,” Ratha muttered.

“And when you have a bunch of randy young toms, as my sweet Fessran would say,” said Cherfan who had awakened and come over with Mondir, leaving the cubs sleeping in a big pile, “they’ll go to the nearest source. And they did. Us.”

“How can they do that?” Ashon wrinkled his young nose. “It sounds so strange. We don’t do these things.”

Thakur looked at the half-grown male. His voice deepened, urging Ratha to listen closely.“We don’t do these things now, Ashon. But we used to do them.”

A vibrating silence followed his words, then a babble of protest.

“What?”

“No, we’d never—”

“Where did you hear that, herding teacher?”

“Let Thakur speak,” Ratha commanded, although she wanted to object as well.

Thakur continued,“My mother, Reshara, told me. I believe her, because it all makes sense. Back before Meoran’s rule, back before Baire and many clan leaders before him, when the Named were so many that we had to form separate clans, our ways were different. Reshara learned this from her mother, who heard it from her own, and so on. We had learned to herd instead of stalking, and our kind were flourishing.”

“There was such a time?” Ashon asked, his eyes wide.

“Yes, there was,” Thakur answered. “Before the coming of the Un-Named. That is another story. For now, what matters is that, although our people spoke and thought, they were more like beasts than we are now.”

“How did the change happen?” asked Khushi. “I mean from being beasts to not being beasts?”

“It just did. No one really knows how.”

“We’re still beasts. Look at Cherfan.” This was from Mondir.

“Maybe so,” Thakur said, as the big herder yawned off the insult, “but there’s something else in us.”

“Go on,” Ratha said.

“More males were born among us than females. The older males got the females, but they had to fight the younger ones for that right. To keep mating fights from tearing up our tribes, clan leaders had to force the younger males out. These exiles from one tribe became invaders of another, driving that tribe’s elders off and mating with the females. The usurpers killed any cubs sired by the old males. The invaders didn’t want to waste effort raising them when they could have sons and daughters of their own.”

“It makes sense in a cruel way,” said Khushi.

“It did. In some ways we were crueler than we are now.”

“If it made sense,” Ratha asked, “why did we stop?”

“When the Un-Named began attacking us, our numbers fell. We couldn’t afford to kill or drive out any of our own kind. That, in part, explains why we are different now. Why we care more about one another and our young.”

“So we became kinder. In order to survive,” Ratha mused. “Bira would like to hear that.” She paused. “So True-of-voice and New Singer are doing as our clan used to.”

“Yes, because they are our kind, although they have taken a different trail.” Thakur looked around at his listeners. “So now do you understand what has happened?”

“The canyon fire killed too many hunter females,” Khushi said. “But we didn’t start the fire — it was that Night-who-eats-stars.”

“If we hadn’t kept and tamed the Red Tongue, the star-eater wouldn’t have been able to misuse it,” Ratha answered. “We do bear some of the responsibility.”

“To True-of-voice, it didn’t matter,” Thakur resumed. “To restore balance, he exiled the young males, including his own son, who became New Singer. That’s why there were no females in their group.”

“Yes, you were worried about that,” said Ratha.

“So now that we know, what do we do?” asked Cherfan.

“First,” said Thakur, “we plan. Then we sleep. Ratha?” He tilted his head up to her.

She agreed. With food in their bellies, the Named were better able to think. They formed an irregular circle around Ratha and Thakur, reminding her of the comforting panther-pile they had made around her while she was suffering from grief and shock after the canyon fire.

The first thing, she said, was to recover as many of the herdbeasts as they could and find a protected place to graze them. Hunting could feed the Named in an emergency, but Ratha didn’t want her people to lose their herding ways.

“Uh, clan leader,” said Khushi, “if New Singer’s bunch captured Fess and the others for mating, shouldn’t we try to rescue them first before …?”

Ratha heard the other clan males growling agreement. The thought of outsiders coupling with their females raised the fur on their napes.

It raised Ratha’s hackles, too … the thought of Thistle being forced …

No, she couldn’t let emotion run away with her. She had to think. She got up.

“The renegades can’t mate with Fessran and the others until those females come into heat.”

“How do you know they aren’t?” Mondir asked.

She waved her tail.“Because I’m not. You’d certainly know if I were. We all come in season together.”

Close by, she felt Thakur shift, as if to say, you may not be now, but you’re close. Just the thought was enough to bring a warm prickle up her back from the base of her tail. The stress of the attack had driven away the onset of her heat, but it would return soon. When it did, she would be less than useless to the Named, at least as a leader. She had less time than she thought.

“All right, tomorrow we go after the herdbeasts,” she announced. “After that, our friends.”

Everyone agreed and made a panther-pile around the cubs to keep them snug. Ratha, close to the center, appreciated the support and affection, but she was feeling hot and itchy. Wiggling her way out, she left through a crevice, seeking the cool night air. She told Bundi and Khushi that she was taking over their watch and they could go and sleep. Gratefully they did, leaving Ratha alone with the cloudy night sky and the scent of pinecones drying amid granite pebbles.

Though she had put up a good front for her people, now she slumped. She felt ragged, empty, and most of all, guilty. Retracing the trail of events in her mind, she found mistake after mistake. The biggest one was the first — choosing to rescue True-of-voice and restoring him to his people. It had felt like the right thing to do, but the choice had hurt the Named badly.

And I was stroking myself for being so farseeing and generous when I did it, she thought bitterly. If she had let True-of-voice die and the hunter tribe wither, the Named would still be on clan land, living in safety, herding, teaching cubs: all the things that meant the most to them. There would have been no fawn-killing, no canyon fire, no dead-gathering, no resulting imbalance, no rogue males, and no attack.

While trying to reach out to others, she had led the Named to disaster. Even her creature, the Red Tongue, couldn’t save them. It, too, was lost to her, along with her land, her daughter, and even her treeling.

And who as to blame? Night-who-eats stars, for stealing the Red Tongue and setting the canyon blaze? Perhaps a little. His crime was more ineptness than harmful intent. Not True-of-voice, for he bore no malice toward the Named. He was only acting out of necessity when he exiled the young males and unleashed New Singer on the clan. Not even New Singer himself, even though he had done so much damage to the clan that Ratha hated him. He was only following the age-old urge to breed.

A leader’s first duty was to her people. She had betrayed that duty. She no longer deserved to lead. Another could do better.

Like the clouds creeping across the sky, engulfing the stars, Ratha felt despair creeping over her, flattening her, dissolving her down until her drooping chin and whiskers sagged upon her paws, and her tail, limp, hung over the edge of the boulder where she crouched.

It wasn’t in her nature to be cruel or harsh. She had to force herself to be stern. Kindness came more easily. Had she indulged herself at the expense of her people by taking the easy trail? Had kindness and the wish to be thought of as such been just an illusion that enticed her and her people off a fatal hidden edge?

Inside, she cried at the unfairness of it all. What she had felt so strongly to be right — kindness, reaching out, looking beyond — they weren’t what made a leader. The tyrants Meoran, Shongshar — even they were better leaders than she. Cruel as they were, they would have led the Named to triumph rather than destruction.

It would be better for the clan if she just crept away. She felt mocked by the ghosts of the tyrants she thought she had defeated. Were they right after all in believing that a female didn’t have the strength to lead, that she would always be seduced by gentleness, kindness?

She didn’t realize that she had let a despairing cry escape her until she felt a paw on her shoulder and the ends of whiskers brushing her cheek.

“What we are now,” Thakur’s voice said, “could not be ruled by the old ways of claws and teeth, or even the new way of the Red Tongue. Never mistake kindness for weakness, Ratha. Kindness takes far more strength than cruelty.”

There was more than understanding in his voice, or even affection. There was love.

It made her gulp and then choke out all the despairs that rent and tore her. He listened quietly.

“I’m no leader. I only became one by accident and then stayed when you placed the torch in my mouth,” she moaned. “Ever since then, all I’ve done is blunder. I misjudged Shongshar. I was blind about True-of-voice, and New Singer took me by surprise.” She took a sobbing breath. “I can’t even keep a proper watch without getting distracted by my feelings! If anyone came, they’d have easily gotten past me.”

In answer, Thakur turned his head one way, to where Ashon stood, looking silvery in a shaft of moonlight. When he turned his head the other way, she followed his head to Mondir, eyes gleaming, ears erect.

“They asked me if they could come out and take the watch. They wanted to. They know it is hard to keep alert when you suffer.”

“A leader shouldn’t go to mush like this,” Ratha growled. “If I suffer, I deserve it. Look at what I’ve done.”

“Yes, look at what you’ve done,” Thakur said, soft mockery lilting his voice. “Created a clan where all can speak without fear and know they will be heard. Where all feel safe; where they can use their talents without being squashed; where they can be safe, live, mate, raise cubs in freedom. Where I can teach and grow with my students, Fessran can rant, Mishanti can be a nuisance, Thistle-chaser can be stubborn, Bira can groom that tail of hers; most of all, you’ve created a clan where we can be ourselves.” He stopped for breath. “You know how precious that is, Ratha. I’ve seen you fight savagely for it.”

She felt her ribs heave in a deep sigh.“You shouldn’t trust something precious to someone who stumbles and loses it.”

“Since when does a leader have no right to stumble or fall? Only if you have someone or something else doing your thinking for you, like True-of-voice’s hunters, can anyone expect you to always be perfect. ” Thakur’s teeth flashed as he spoke. “You may feel like everything is lost, Ratha,but we haven’t lost what is most important, and we won’t, unless we deliberately give it up.”

“I feel I should just step aside and let you or Cherfan take over. As the only female left among you, maybe the best I can do is give you cubs. I’m not sure I can even do that.”

Thakur crouched down before her, nudging her head up with his nose, looking her in the eyes. His eyes had a deep glow that penetrated the blanket of despair she had cast over herself.“Ratha, if you really feel this way, I won’t argue you out of it. It wouldn’t be me who leads. I’m a teacher, not a leader, and they know that. Cherfan could, but he’s not really a leader.” Thakur paused. “Besides, you wouldn’t really be happy, and we wouldn’t be either.”

“ ‘In your eyes I will always see challenge,’ ” Ratha said. “That is what Meoran said to me when I promised to obey him in order to return to the clan.”

“The one thing he was right about,” said Thakur gently. “Yes, eventually you would challenge. I wouldn’t want to face you. Neither would Cherfan or any of the rest.”

“Being a leader has spoiled me. I don’t think I could to go back to being a clan female, or even just a Firekeeper or herder.”

“You could if you truly wanted, but I don’t think you do. Not yet.” He paused. “Don’t make any decisions now. Come inside and rest. You’ve had a bad shock and you‘re spent. Let things go for a while.”

Ratha felt a yawn building up in the back of her jaws and gave in to it. Hauling herself back to her feet, she followed Thakur back inside their refuge.

“We’ll get Thistle back,” she heard him say as she finally let herself drift loose, floating into sleep. “And Fessran, Bira, and the others. I promise.”

In the morning came a pleasant surprise. Ratha woke to the sound of a joyous tumult outside the rock-fall shelter. Mixed into it was the sound of small hooves. Startled, she tumbled out, fur sticking up at all angles. She saw Mondir, Khushi, and Ashon dancing around a newcomer and three dapplebacks. Unsure, she sniffed and then knew. Quiet Hunter had returned, bringing the little horses with him. To Ratha’s sleep-blurred eyes, his back looked a little odd, a little lumpy. Then, as her vision focused and she caught more scents, she realized what the bumps were.

One lump leaped off Quiet Hunter and bounded to her, chirring excitedly. Small wiry arms encircled her neck, fingers wove into her fur, treeling-scent surrounded her. Ratharee!

Ratha was so involved in the return of her treeling that she couldn’t pay attention to anything else. Finally looking up from all the licks and nuzzles, she saw that Quiet Hunter had brought back all the treelings, even Thistle’s Biaree and Bira’s Cherfaree. With Ratharee clinging to her nape once again, Ratha rushed inside to wake Thakur. He bounced to his feet and shot through the crevice. When Ratha came after him, she saw him sitting up on his hind feet, cradling his Aree between his forepaws while the treeling licked his face so vigorously that he toppled over backward, grinning with delight.

Quiet Hunter still had two furballs left. Cherfan sauntered up, his tail curving. He smelled Cherfaree.“Since that bug-eater’s got my name, I’ll take him until Bira comes back.”

“This one will keep Biaree for Thistle-chaser,” Quiet Hunter replied.

“I thought you didn’t like treelings,” Cherfan said, as Cherfaree sniffed him cautiously, then made a quick decision and skipped up to his nape.

“This one … I didn’t. But I felt so bad when I nearly killed the cub I felt this one had to do something … To make up for it.”

“Quiet Hunter, I’m so glad to see you,” Ratha said, nose-touching and then sliding alongside him with a tail-flop. “And not just for bringing the treelings back, either. We missed you.”

“How did you get those dapplebacks all the way from the meadow up here?” Mondir wanted to know.

“They weren’t in the meadow. New Singer isn’t looking after the herdbeasts and they are straying. After find the treelings, this one came upon these horses.”

“You weren’t seen or chased?”

“This one was chased, but the chasing only made the horses run fast ahead of me.”

“You still had to round them up and bring them here,” Ratha said, still buoyed by Ratharee’s return. “And with the treelings, too. Quiet Hunter, you are amazing!”

“It took me all night. This one is a bit sleepy,” he confessed.

Giving his face a last grateful lick, Ratha asked Mondir and Khushi to take care of the little horses while she led Quiet Hunter inside, fed him, and then settled him and Biaree in the most comfortable place she could find.

“I know you want to hear about Thistle-chaser,” he said, making Ratha’s heart give a sudden bound. “She and the others — New Singer is not treating them badly. They are frightened but not hurt, and they are being fed. New Singer has Fessran and Bira making Red-Tongue-nests for him. This onehid and saw.” His gold eyes darkened to deep amber. “This one wants Thistle back. I will fight for her.”

“That time will come,” Ratha promised, watching his eyes close. And I’ll be right beside you.

That same day, Cherfan and Thakur led a team to catch more of the straying herdbeasts. Ratha led another to watch New Singer and his Named captives.

Quiet Hunter was right — the renegades were not treating the clan females badly. Ratha couldn’t get close enough to speak to any of the captives, but she and her party saw that Fessran was keeping the blaze in the fire-den alive. Bira was even allowed, under guard, to gather wood and stack it in the fire-den. Ratha paid close attention to how far Bira was allowed to go, and which renegades guarded her on these trips. Sometimes Thistle went with Bira to help carry the wood back.

Ratha remembered the joyful dancing around and through the fire-den when they had first dug it; the Named and their treelings celebrating the end of Shongshar’s tyranny. Now the fire-den and the Red Tongue had again fallen under the control of a usurper. How long would the seizure last this time, and could the Named ever dance around the fire-lair again?

We will. I swear that we will.

Thakur and Cherfan returned with a few more herdbeasts and found a sheltered area nearby to graze them. Ratha returned with the beginnings of a plan to free her friends from New Singer. It would have to wait until next day, however, and Ratha still felt drained from the previous two days. She meant to think over her plan and discuss it with Thakur on the rocky sill just outside the refuge. Instead, before twilight, she fell asleep with her treeling still on her back, leaving Thakur keeping watch.

Chapter Eighteen

The night was warm, and the herding teacher saw no reason to interrupt Ratha’s slumber. Thakur stayed outside with her, silently requesting that the other clan males step quietly around her or use another entrance to their refuge.

With his own treeling, Aree, curled up against his neck, Thakur listened to Ratha sleep. She made an odd sound that he wouldn’t exactly call a snore. It was more like a squeak or creak that she made while inhaling and then a little exhaling sigh.

He thought about what had happened to her and why, what she had said, what he had said. He hoped he had chosen words wisely enough to bring her out of despair and give her the hope she badly needed.

Yearling, he thought, you are so young to have done as much as you have. That is one reason things hit you so hard. Quiet Hunter, bless him, had brought Ratharee back. Ratha rejoiced at her treeling’s return, but Thakur knew how easily she could slide back into paralyzing despair.

Hearing her say that she had blundered made his throat tighten. Anyone would have. None of the Named had any experience with a tribe like True-of-voice’s, an enemy like New Singer, or the strange forces that pulled at the situation, turning everything upside down and backward. Trying to cope with it all was like having each foot on a separately rolling log and trying to stay up. You have to dance like crazy, and Ratha had, longer and better than he had expected or hoped.

He looked down at the sleeping face, the graceful curve of the nose, the delicate yet strong sculpting of the muzzle and jaw, traced out in moonlight. It woke pangs in him that were not just the urges of mating.

Ratha, how I want you, how I want to be with you, take care of you, keep you from harm, give you what you need, delight in you, stand at your side while you hold the Red Tongue in your jaws and dance with you forever. Instead, all I can do is offer what is sometimes wisdom, sometimes foolishness.

He studied the markings on her face, wanting to run his tongue in a soft caress along her tear-lines. All the Named had such markings in black, brown, or dark amber — they accented the expression on feline faces so that intent could be read from afar. All had them, but there was something unique and beautiful about the way hers began at the inner corner of her sleeping eyes, swept down the sides of her nose, then S-curved to end at the patch of white fur behind her whiskers.

He saw an elegant arch-line that followed the swell of each brow and softer streaks that flowed down her cheeks. Not too many — that would have made her look striped, and she wasn’t; she was a self-colored tawny. And what a wonderful color. Even paled by moonlight, her rich gold shading stole his breath, the creamy fur on her chest and belly made him want to nestle up against her like a cub and wrap himself in its warmth.

He knew these were not the usual thoughts of a Named male. The females were just other clan members until the mating season, and then it was their intoxicating scent that drew the males.

No, what he experienced now was far more visual, perhaps because he tended to use sight more than smell. It was also far more aesthetic, for he had taught himself to see and value beauty.

The Named language had no words for what he was feeling now, a surge of joy and fear so strong it shook him to his depths.

She had asked him once about courage. He had no good answer then. Now he knew, as he bathed himself in the sight and smell and sound of her and trembled so that his whiskers vibrated, courage was the strength to hang over the abyss no matter how far the fall. Courage was the strength to love.

The faint sound of a footstep had the effect on Thakur of a splash of cold water. It was all he could do not to jump up and roar his resentment. He had so little time to be alone with Ratha that this unfair interruption seemed like an outrage.

Silently he got up as if to defend a mate against an intruding male. The footfalls stayed quiet but grew nearer. Thakur tried to catch an odor, but the newcomer had approached upwind. He heard teeth grate on wood and wondered if it might be a Firekeeper.

He saw a sliver of red light against a dark form. The red light went ghostly as if it had been covered. A wave of scintillation swept over the still-indistinct shadow, followed by a wave of even deeper dark that swallowed it. One flank seemed have been draped with a cobweb. The eyes opened, their shine an unearthly pale blue-green.

Night-who-eats-stars, Thakur realized. I thought he was gone, vanished. What has brought him back?

The herding teacher thought that the star-eater might have come upon him by mistake, but as Night moved closer, Thakur realized his approach was deliberate. Thakur’s first reaction was to hackle, but he saw two things that made him stop. First, Night was carrying something, a something that leaked intense orange-red light. Second, the way Night stood and the look in his eyes reminded Thakur powerfully of his lost brother Bone-chewer.

Thakur thought about rousing Ratha and the rest of the Named. Part of him wanted to jump on this enigmatic stranger, take out his anger on Night, and invite Ratha and the others do the same.

Instead, he held still, letting Night make the next move. Much as he wanted to challenge the star-eater with a direct stare, he kept his gaze averted.

Like the shadows he so resembled, Night flowed in out of the dark, carrying the shrouded glow. Thakur’s heart bounded. There was no source of such light other than Ratha’s creature, the Red Tongue itself. Bira had shown Thakur the charred sand-filled hollow log she had found while the Named were trying to track Night.

What Night bore and laid down in front of Thakur was another log, this one full of sand and live coals. The herding teacher didn’t move until the star-eater nosed the log gently over to Thakur. Very slowly, the herding teacher raised a paw and laid it on the log, afraid that the gift would be snatched back.

Why had Night done this? Thakur was baffled, but he didn’t want to upset the delicate balance between him and the star-eater. Only when the log and its precious contents rested securely under both forepaws did he look up at Night, half expecting him to have vanished.

Night remained, but he wasn’t looking at Thakur. Instead his gaze rested on the other shape sleeping nearby, now dimly lighted by the escaping glow. Night’s tail twitched, making and eating tiny specks of light. He took one step toward the slumbering clan leader.

Gift or no gift, Thakur wasn’t about to let any stranger near Ratha, especially one whose intentions were questionable. Sweeping the hollow log under a bush, he moved to shield Ratha by placing his body sideways between her and the star-eater. He met the other’s gaze. The moon paleness of Night’s eyes made Thakur shiver, but he recognized the light that burned within those eyes. It was the same light he’d sought in Thistle-chaser and struggled hard to bring out.

The eyes and the star-eater’s uncanny way of reminding Thakur of his brother convinced Thakur that Night was not only Named, but kin to Bone-chewer and Thakur himself. Now that the hunter tribe’s group-scent had worn off, Night’s smell also spoke of kinship.

“Who are you, star-eater?” Thakur asked very softly, feeling the tip of his own tail twitch.

Night, however, was silent, waiting. Again he looked beyond Thakur to the sleeping Ratha and then met the herding teacher’s eyes. Night wanted something very much. The star-eater’s scent and attitude told Thakur that Night wouldn’t harm Ratha.

“All right. You can come near her, but don’t wake her. She’s tired.” Thakur backed off, opening the approach. Night set his feet noiselessly one step at a time, lowering his head as he approached Ratha. Thakur remained alert for any change in the star-eater’s smell or movement that might betray a change of intention. No. All Night wanted was to look at Ratha and inhale her scent.

Sniffing very gently and circling her as if he were floating, Night seemed to immerse himself in the sight and smell of the clan leader.

Thakur hoped none of the Named would wake and interrupt this odd yet touching encounter. The stars in Night’s coat seemed to twinkle briefly before they vanished. The star-eater was trembling.

Thakur felt his head slowly cock to one side. He was suddenly eaten up with curiosity, yet he feared to indulge himself.

Abruptly, Night closed his eyes and swung away, tensing his hindquarters as if to spring into the dark.

“Wait,” Thakur hissed. Night halted, telling the herding teacher that the star-eater understood at least one word of clan speech.

“Don’t you speak? Where did you come from?”

Night either couldn’t answer or chose not to. Thakur suspected it was the latter.

Again he thought of rousing the Named, but it would be an ungrateful response for what Night had done. In the resulting turmoil, the fire-bearing log might be broken and the precious embers scattered. Thakur also had the feeling that Night valued his privacy intensely and would shy away beyond reach if it was violated.

“We appreciate your gift. We need it badly. All that happened before … is forgiven, at least by me. Do you understand?”

The star-eater’s whiskers lifted in a Named yes, but he still remained silent.

“May you eat of the haunch and sleep in the driest den, Night-who-eats-stars,” Thakur said softly.

He could have sworn later that he saw an echo of Bone-chewer’s sardonic grin creep along the line of Night’s mouth just before the star-eater disappeared.

And Night’s reaction to Ratha. It all added up to something, and Thakur wasn’t stupid. He would keep this to himself for now. When the clan leader woke to the comforting flame of her creature once more, she would ask, and Thakur would tell her as much of the truth as he could.

Once sure that Night was completely gone, Thakur nosed the ember-containing log out of its hiding place. He woke two male Firekeepers and silenced their questions. Getting Bira’s treeling Cherfaree from a snoozing Cherfan, he gave him to the Firekeepers and asked them to build and light a small campfire inside the refuge, where it would warm the cubs.

Despite the fact that Cherfaree had been violently parted from Bira, then given briefly to a new and unfamiliar partner and borrowed again for this task, the treeling cooperated willingly. Soon a tidy little fire was flickering inside the rock-tumble shelter that had become a new home for the Named.

With help from a Firekeeper, Thakur carried a sound-asleep Ratha into the refuge and laid her down near the fire. She didn’t stir or break the rhythm of her soft snoring.

Thakur settled beside her, Aree nestling into his flank. For some reason, things were starting to look up for the Named. They had come from unexpected sources. Quiet Hunter had brought the treelings back, and Night-who-eats-stars had returned Ratha’s creature to her. If the star-eater was who Thakur suspected, Night might be able to restore something even more precious. Whatever happened, it would take time.

Thakur decided that he wasn’t going to force things by telling Ratha his speculations. For one thing, she wouldn’t believe it. What line had produced Night’s ghostly blue-green eyes and star-shifting pelt? Surely not hers. Such a coat had never been seen within the clan. Thakur would watch and see what developed. When Ratha was ready to believe, then she would.

The crackle-hiss of the Red Tongue found its way into Ratha’s dreams. Her creature’s light and warmth were there as well, but so, too, were the charred remains of those her creature had slain and the harsh taste of their burned corpses as she had to drag them away….

She woke with a sudden start. The horror vanished, but to her surprise the sound, light and smell of flame remained. She blinked, leaning toward the fire. It was real.

How…? Amid the smoky scent came Thakur’s smell. She turned her head, looking up at him.

“Night-who-eats-stars. I found him. He got away, but left this.”

Ratha narrowed her eyes, suspecting that this wasn’t the whole story, but the look on Thakur’s face said that she would have to coax hard to get any more out of him. A male Firekeeper came with Bira’s treeling on his back and a load of wood in his mouth. He tended the fire while Ratha tongued her paw and scrubbed away sleep from her eyes.

Watching the Firekeeper and the treeling go about their duties was a comforting sight, especially when the Named way of life had been so badly damaged. Cub-mews made her look back over her shoulder to where Cherfan and Mondir were feeding the litterlings. One cub scrambled over to Ratha and butted its head against her belly, seeking milk. She wished briefly that she could nurse them, but Khushi came over and swept the cub back to its littermates.

“We’ve taken a few more stray animals,” he said. “The raiders seem to be ignoring our herdbeasts for now, but they won’t when they get hungry.”

Ratha got up and stretched.

“The first animals they’ll take will be our young face-tails, since those are their usual prey,” said Thakur from behind Khushi. “We should send a party to get the tuskers and any other beasts we can round up, clan leader.”

He was implying that Ratha should lead the herdbeast rescuers, but she had other ideas.“First I want to go with Quiet Hunter to True-of-voice.”

“Why?” asked Khushi.

“Because he is the source of our problem. He exiled New Singer and the other young hunter males. If he took the renegades back into his tribe, they would release the other females and leave us alone.”

Ratha heard Thakur’s hissing sigh. “I don’t think it will work, Ratha. Even if he does understand what you want, he can’t undo what’s been done.”

After a good night’s sleep, Ratha was feeling feisty. “I think he can, especially with a little persuasion.” She paused. “Thakur, you and Cherfan lead the herders. Mondir, you, one of the Firekeepers, Ashon, Bundi, and Mishanti stay here and guard the cubs with the Red Tongue. Quiet Hunter, please come with me.”

As she passed Thakur, he said,“I don’t think this is a good idea.” His fangs showed as he spoke, telling her he was annoyed.

“You told me you didn’t want me to give up leadership,” Ratha answered. “This is the best idea I’ve had, so I’ve got to try it.”

“Very well, but don’t expect much. I will meet you here at nightfall.” He left the cave, followed by Cherfan and the other herders.

“Quiet Hunter, are you ready?” she asked the dun-colored, gold-eyed male. A lift of his whiskers told her that he was.

Ratha chose two torchbearers to accompany her to True-of-voice, then set off with her party to speak with the hunter leader.

She had brought the torchbearers to counter any challenge and was mildly surprised when none came. Everything seemed to be back to normal among the song-hearers. At her request, Quiet Hunter asked one to summon True-of-voice. Again, to Ratha’s surprise, the leader came, surrounded by a group of older males.

Using Quiet Hunter as the intermediary, she told True-of-voice what she thought had happened, why it had, and what he could do about it.

As she spoke, her irritation grew. She decided that now was the time to ask the question she had delayed.

“How could you have let this happen, especially after we helped you and your people?” she had Quiet Hunter ask the hunter leader.

She watched as the dun male conveyed her message with the singsong voice, smell-changes, touches, gestures, and the other means he had previously used. Ratha had to work to sit on her impatience. Why couldn’t he just talk?!

“True-of-voice tells this one that his tribe has done nothing wrong.” Quiet Hunter turned to Ratha. “As for bringing the exiled ones back, he must not. The song told him what to do and for him it is right.”

“For us it isn’t. Can’t you make him understand?”

“This one will try,” Quiet Hunter said, but when he turned back to Ratha, there was defeat in his eyes.

“Tell him,” Ratha said through frustration-clenched teeth, “that New Singer and that gang of his are hurting our females by killing their cubs and holding the mothers captive. It is wrong, and you must stop them.”

Struggle as Quiet Hunter might, he could not get her meaning across to True-of-voice.

“The song … I mean True-of-voice … does not understand how he has hurt your clan.”

Ratha explained again how events had cascaded into the final damaging result. She tried not to snarl as she concluded,“You are hurting our friends because they don’t want to be captive or have their cubs killed or be forced to mate.”

After a very long exchange, Quiet Hunter turned back to Ratha.“You must understand that for True-of-voice the song is all. To be alone behind the eyes, to be individual — the idea is beyond his reach. What an individual wants or needs means nothing to him, thus it cannot affect what he does.”

Ratha hated the floating-off-her-feet feeling that was starting again. She wanted all four paws slammed down on solid ground.

“Tell him that if he doesn’t stop his son from harassing my people, he will taste the Red Tongue,” she growled. “Or would he prefer a slash for a slash? For every Named cub that died, many hunter cubs would be slain.”

“This one understands now how you feel,” said Quiet Hunter to her. “But such threats are of no use if he cannot understand what you want, or why.”

Ratha hackled.“Don’t you understand, song-hearer? New Singer has my daughter!”

Something hardened briefly in Quiet Hunter’s eyes. “I want Thistle back as much as you do. Attacking True-of-voice won’t help her.”

Ratha’s temper was on the point of taking over and demanding that Quiet Hunter obey and translate the message. She wanted revenge for the suffering of her people. If True-of-voice had to kill New Singer to bring the renegades under control, so be it. If he didn’t do something, he would know the wrath of the Named.

“The song is growing restive,” said the dun male, his ears flicking nervously. “We are not enough to challenge it. This one knows that if the song becomes angry, we will be killed. We should go. Please, clan leader.”

She met Quiet Hunter’s gaze. He was asking her not to throw his life away, but whatever she decided, he would do. Then came a flash of memory. The canyon. The firestorm. The dead.

It took nearly all of Ratha’s will to round up her surging feelings and pen them away. It would do the Named no good if she, Quiet Hunter, and the two torchbearers were slain.

“You are starting to sound like Thakur,” Ratha grumbled, and grudgingly told the two torchbearers to turn around. With Quiet Hunter following, she turned away, taking the path back to their streamside refuge.

Brooding, she waited by the fire for Thakur and the herders to return. She extended her claws and ran her tongue along her fangs. There was a time when leading a charge with the Red Tongue between her jaws could sweep all problems aside. That time had gone.

Near sunset, Thakur, Cherfan, and the herders returned with the young face-tails, a few three-horns, and some dapplebacks. She wasn’t surprised that the renegades had eaten a few herdbeasts. She wondered why they hadn’t killed more.

“They are more interested in mating than eating. They want to be there when the first female comes into heat,” Thakur told her. He paused. “Quiet Hunter tells me that you wanted to threaten True-of-voice with fire, but you held off. I am grateful for that, clan leader.”

“Be grateful to Quiet Hunter. He counseled me just like you would.”

“Was it just Quiet Hunter?”

“No,” Ratha admitted. “Just after I gave him the order, I thought about the fire-slain hunters in the canyon. It was brief, just a flash, but it was enough to make me hesitate when he resisted my order.” She laid her nose on her paws. “It will be a lot harder for me to use the Red Tongue against others. Every time I think about it, I get that taste in my mouth, that smell up my nose, and I see how those burned bodies fell apart. And that dead hunter up that tree …” She shuddered. “I hope this doesn’t … cripple me as a leader.”

“I think you will just seek other alternatives.”

“What worries me is when there are none.”

“Then you will do what you must in spite of your feelings. I have faith in that,” he answered.

For a while Ratha was silent, staring at the fire. Her creature had such power to harm as well as help.“Did you find more grazing space?”

“Yes. Those rumbler-creatures are useful after all. They’ve eaten down the brush and knocked over trees so that new grass is growing. There will be enough to feed the herd, at least for a while.”

He sat down by the fire with her. She watched it shimmer in his emerald green eyes.

Ratha felt her voice lower into a growl.

“I wanted to kill their cubs, Thakur. Revenge for every Named litterling that New Singer slaughtered. I still do.”

Thakur was quiet.

“Revenge would feel good,” he said, surprising her. “My teeth ache to tear New Singer’s hide. I could even kill the hunter cubs, if you ordered. I saw how our litterlings died.”

“Then …”

“I can feel this way and not act on it,” he said. “I know that such revenge would destroy us. We value the light in the eyes. True-of-voice’s people have that light, even though it has taken a strange form.” His voice softened. “Retaliating by killing cubs will not only cost our lives, it will taint us and everything we are trying to be. I think you understand me, clan leader.”

This time it was Ratha who fell silent. At last she asked,“What are we trying to be?”

“I don’t know. I hope I get a chance to find out. And I hope that True-of-voice and New Singer get that chance as well.”

“It seems so easy for you to forgive them.”

He lay down beside her.“It may seem so, but I struggle as much as you do.”

“Is that another kind of courage?” Ratha asked him as he laid his head on his paws and let the fire reflect in his eyes.

“Yes,” he said. “It is.”

Chapter Nineteen

Ratha awoke the next morning, half believing that the return of the treelings and her creature was a dream until she felt Ratharee curled up against her flank and the fire’s warmth on her face. This refuge seemed like home, a thought that brought mixed feelings. No, home was clan ground. Home was also Thistle-chaser, Fessran, Bira, Drani, and the others. Ratha was determined to free them.

First, she would get word to the captives that most of their cubs were safe. By using whisker patterns, she knew now that the Named had lost four litterlings. Fessran had five and two were killed. Bira and Drani had each lost one. Though the mothers would mourn their slain young, they would take heart to hear that most of the cubs were still alive, cared for by fathers. It would give the captives what they needed most — hope.

Ratha thought about sending one of the Named with that message, but dared not. Any male who approached New Singer’s stronghold would be killed. She was the only female left among the exiled Named. Thakur would argue that losing her would imperil them even more, both as a leader and a breeding-age female.

Did he really see the truth, or was he blinded by his feelings for her? Despite his words, she knew he could lead. Even if Cherfan became leader, Thakur would counsel and guide him. As for breeding, she knew she wanted only Thakur. Yes, she could accept another male and had, but somehow her body, shocked by what had happened to her first litter and her first mate, had never produced any more cubs. So she might not be as important in those ways. If she could help the captives and free them, she might be serving a greater good.

She knew that she and her friends were fast running out of time. By the feelings in her body, she sensed that she and the other Named females were coming into heat. It could not be denied or delayed.

Ratha knew the captives would be fighting the overwhelming urge to mate as well as the encroaching renegade males.

My friends and my daughter won’t be able to resist. Or if they do, they will be killed.

She knew that Fessran would certainly resist, turning into a spitting slashing fury. Bira, who had younger cubs, might not come into heat, but she would certainly be scared. In the commotion, a male might try to mount her. And Thistle-chaser… the first heat should be a time of joy, not …. Ratha buried her nose in her paws, unable to bear the thought.

I wish we were like the witness Un-Named or the dreaming hunters who are spared anticipation or dread.

Ratha knew she couldn’t choose anyone else for the task. She was the one who had to go.

She flattened her fur, holding in her scent. She didn’t want the males to know how close she was to being in season. They didn’t need the distraction. She didn’t either.

She surprised Thakur by agreeing to lead the next herdbeast roundup. The more animals they could secure, the better, since it would deprive New Singer’s renegades of easy prey and give the surviving cubs more food.

Leaving Khushi and Mishanti to guard the cubs, Ratha assembled the Named males and led them down the trail.

She kept her tail up and her step lively to convince everyone that she had recovered from the self-recrimination that had threatened to paralyze her. They, in turn, seemed to gain confidence as well.

“We’ve been sneaking around, taking strays,” she told the group when they stopped briefly for a drink at the stream beside the rocky trail. “This time we are retaking what is ours. We’re going for the herdbeasts in the meadow.”

The resulting yowling cheers were subdued but intense, to avoid alerting the enemy. Eyes shone and teeth flashed.

Ratha’s party found the edge of clan ground open. New Singer hadn’t set guards on the perimeter. This at once encouraged and dismayed her. It would make recovering the herdbeasts easier. At the same time, was New Singer’s carelessness an indication that the renegades were already distracted by themating fever?

“I’m glad to see you feeling better,” said Thakur at her shoulder. Startled, Ratha skipped away. A rush of warmth ran through her, centering deep in her belly, making her head spin.

Not now. Please, not now.

She caught Thakur’s puzzled look and his tentative sniff, but knew she couldn’t stop to explain. She ran ahead, choosing a path where the wind blew her scent away from the clan males. She could just imagine the herdbeast rescue turning into a mating frenzy, the clan males suddenly turning on one another, fighting over her.

Thankfully the clan males had spotted the herdbeasts and the meadow. Only a few sentries watched the herdbeasts. Before the guards could even roar, Cherfan, Mondir, Thakur and the others charged in and overwhelmed them.

“Quick, before they alert New Singer,” Ratha hissed. Cherfan and Thakur surged to the front, leading the herders. Surrounding the animals, they nipped harshly at hocks and rumps to get the beasts moving. Hooves started to thunder, dirt spattered, grass flew. The mass of three-horns and dapplebacks tightened and began to flow out of the meadow. This was no usual roundup but a near stampede.

Thakur was at his best, dodging and darting with incredible speed to keep the animals at the edge from splintering away. Cherfan’s and Mondir’s strength and ferocity made the animals in the rear sprint past those in the front. Ratha helped Thakur in keeping the herd packed while yowling orders to the herders and keeping an eye out for New Singer’s minions.

The enemy came, charging out from the direction of the fire-den, but they were slow and late. Most of the herd had poured out of the meadow and was streaming away over the borders of clan ground, urged on by the herders. Cherfan and Mondir threw themselves at the renegades, a note of joy in their roars telling Ratha that they welcomed this chance to strike back.

Cherfan reared, belting down his attackers as if swatting half-grown cubs. He stunned them with body slams powerful enough to knock over a tree. Mondir landed on backs, raked shoulders, slashed flanks. Even Bundi kick-raked a bigger opponent, reddening the other’s belly.

Ratha, impressed by the power of the attack, thought for an instant that her forces could sweep onto the fire-den itself and retake the heart of their land.

No, there were too many raiders. Even as New Singer’s wounded fled from the fray, more raced to join them.

Fearing that the tail end of the escaping herd would be cut off, and the Named with it, she yelled to the fighting males to leave their opponents and help Thakur break off the end of the herd. She and the herders turned the animals across the path of the oncoming enemy while the main mass of animals disappeared in a swirl of dust.

New Singer and his gang were furious at having lost the animals and launched themselves at the clan males, but the Named had already sheltered themselves behind a wall of galloping three-horns, stripers, and dapplebacks.

Throwing their heads and arching their necks, the animals shattered the front of the renegade attack. Enemy squalls choked into silence as several renegades fell under trampling hooves.

Following the path made by the herdbeasts, the Named streaked through and ran after their animals. Seeing the results of turning the herd itself into a weapon, Ratha thought again of carrying the attack to the fire-den and rescuing the captives. If she could, she would spare herself the task of doing it alone. Weighing the chances of succeeding, she knew she didn’t have enough animals or enough herders to sustain such an attack.

For now, she thought, as she sprang into a gallop that carried her swiftly away from the raiders, it was enough to have rescued the herdbeasts.

“By the Red Tongue’s litterlings, that was fun!” cried a joyfully bloodied Mondir, pounding beside Cherfan. “Hope we can do it again, clan leader!”

She sped up, passing the heavier clan males, drawing abreast of Thakur. After making a wide arc away from the border of clan ground, she looked back, saw no signs of immediate pursuit, and ordered the herders to slow the animals.

She jogged to a stop. Thakur came to her, prancing with excitement and triumph.

“Did you see the look on their faces when we snatched the animals out of their claws?” he crowed.

“Take the herdbeasts to those trees and rest them. Then herd them to the grazing near our shelter,” Ratha said.

He cocked his head.“I thought you were leading, Ratha.”

She knew, even if he didn’t, that the brightness in his eyes was not just the exultation of winning back the herdbeasts. She was upwind of him, and he was catching more of her scent. She was definitely in heat. She could tell by the way her vision was starting to shimmer around the edges.

Again she sprang away.“I have something I need to do.”

“Ratha,” he began, taking a step toward her.

“No closer,” she said, her voice roughening. “Do as I told you. Tell the others I will meet them later.”

He knew what she was planning. She saw the look in his eyes and the question, What if you don’t come back?

“Help Cherfan lead the others,” she said softly, feeling an overwhelming desire to rub against him. Just a rub, but she knew what it would become. She leaped away, turning the rush of warmth into a surge of energy that lifted and carried her. A glance behind revealed Thakur talking to a puzzledCherfan, and then moving the herd on.

Watching, she felt her throat tighten as if this was her last sight of them.

Her whiskers and ears sagged.

It might just be.

Fighting her sense of urgency, Ratha hid on the edge of clan ground and waited for the excitement to die down. Having lost the herdbeasts, New Singer would have to send his rogues out to hunt. The closest face-tails, of course, were the ones held by the Named. Thakur, however, had done what he could to cover the tuskers’ scents by mixing them in with the other herdbeasts, including Bundi and Mishanti’s rumbler-creatures. The rumblers’ sheer size would make any hunter think twice about approaching.

If I don’t return, Thakur will become clan leader, and he’ll be the best one the Named have ever had.

She could no longer spare thoughts for those she had just left behind. She would need all her skills of stealth to slip through New Singer’s guard and reach the fire-den.

Her knowledge of her home ground served her well, letting her choose paths unguarded by the renegades. For a while she used the forest, climbing and slinking along interweaving boughs so that she could run aloft from one tree to the next. Whenever she spotted any of the interlopers, she froze until they had passed by underneath.

She was about to leap an intervening gap from one bough to the next when the bushes rustled below. She checked and huddled, thinking that the disturbance was just another of the intruders. As she peered down through the leaves, a small rust-white-and-tan form emerged from cover, nose down to the ground, picking up fallen sticks beneath the tree.

Ratha bristled all over with excitement. Thistle-chaser! Unharmed and apparently alone. Had she managed to escape?

Ratha couldn’t help herself. She half dove, half fell headfirst down the tree, sliding with a crunch into the dead leaves below. Thistle, startled, dropped her twigs, half-reared and stared, her eyes wide. Her emotions fleeted through the shifting sea-green of her eyes: surprise, delight, but then fear. Fear? Ratha felt her own eyes widen.

“Go!” Thistle hissed, lunging at Ratha, sending her mother scrambling a short distance back up the tree. “Not alone, not free!”

Even before Thistle got all the words out, the bushes shook again, and three of the rogues pounced into position around her. One drew a paw back for a blow at Thistle. Ratha launched herself to intercept, her face pulling into a snarl.

“No, Mother!” Thistle shrieked as another of the males pulled her down by the hindquarters. “Not fight. They’ll take you. Run!”

Ratha scarcely heard her daughter’s cry or felt the blood welling from two claw-stripes down her shoulder. Red rage turned her into a whirling, spitting, slashing streak of claws and teeth. Blood and fur sprayed as the males went back on their haunches under the fury of her attack. At the corner of her blurred vision, Ratha saw Thistle-chaser struggling, biting the massive forelimbs that held her, fighting to wriggle free.

Ratha aimed her next bared-claw blow at her daughter’s captor, but before she could complete the strike, two of the rogue males body-slammed her off center on both sides, spinning her in midair and flipping her into the base of the tree. Aching and dizzy as she was, Ratha threw herself at them again, biting, raking, tearing. She wasn’t sure whose blood smeared her by the time the two males swatted her down and sat on her. It was small gratification to her to hear them panting. It was the only sound they had made during the attack.

Hoping that Thistle had somehow managed to escape, she craned her head around beneath the males’ paws and bellies, seeking her daughter. Another spurt of rage sent her into a desperate flurry when she saw Thistle hoisted high by her scruff by her captor, squalling and clawing air. She actually managed to lift one of the males, but they both squashed her down again.

As exhaustion drained her rage, Ratha found herself wondering if New Singer had been so devilishly clever as to use Thistle as bait to capture her. No, the scattered twigs on the ground told the true story. Thistle had been allowed out to gather wood for the fire, guarded by the three males. It was just chance that Ratha spotted her daughter and been drawn into the sudden trap.

She yowled and spat, screaming all the insults she could remember, perhaps even inventing a few. She included herself as a target for her abuse, for once again she had let her impulses rule her.

How could I have held back? a part of her cried. She is my cub, my own, my daughter.

The males were eerily patient, letting her howl until her throat was raw.

“All right,” she gasped, “you’re suffocating me. Let me up.”

With a last emphatic trounce, the two rogues got off Ratha. She climbed stiffly and shakily to her feet, feeling the sting of the crusted wounds on her shoulder and the pull of fur matted by dirt, leaf litter, and dried blood. Her ribs ached from the crushing weight of the two males and she thought one rib might be cracked.

As she stood, getting her breath back, her two assailants flanked her tightly on either side, giving her no chance to escape. Thistle’s tormentor dumped her back on her feet, releasing her scruff but holding her with his claws while his teeth seized the base of her tail. Ratha was terrified that the male would bite the tail right off, but instead he used his hold to control Thistle, clamping down each time she tried to struggle until the pain made her stop.

A stinging swat at the back of her hind legs made Ratha lurch ahead and the two rogues beside her forced her to keep staggering.

Behind Ratha, the one who had struck her pushed Thistle along, his grip on her tail forcing her to walk crabwise, and sometimes on just her front feet when he jerked her hindquarters up in the air.

“Don’t do that!” Ratha growled. “Her front leg can’t take it.”

Trying one more time, she jammed her elbow into the side of one escort, making him hiss sharply. In retaliation, he swung his hips hard against hers, threatening to break her pelvis.

She hung her head and let herself be shoved along, trying not to hear Thistle’s cries of protest as she was pushed and dragged.

Glancing to one side, Ratha saw that she was being taken to the fire-den. She might be a captive, but at least she had found her daughter and would soon be rejoining the other Named females.

Chapter Twenty

Ratha fell into a daze, stumbling between her two captors. When they halted, she gazed blearily around. In the waning light of evening, she saw New Singer and his gang lying in a loose circle around the entrance to the fire-den. Within the circle burned a small campfire. Against its glow, Ratha could see a lanky shape crouch down to drop sticks into the flame. Fessran!

The shape turned, phosphor-green eyes lighting momentarily, sandy coat looking almost white against the shadows. That huddled shape close by must be Bira, and the hazel eyes peering over Bira’s back have to be Drani’s. Ratha caught the fire-shine from other Named eyes. All the clan females were now here.

At the edge of the circle, the male holding Thistle-chaser by the tail yanked her forward and threw her into the center with a toss of his head. She tried to catch herself on her forepaws, but one leg folded. She went down, grimacing in pain. Fessran sprang and stood over Thistle, fangs bared and gleaming.

“Touch her again and I’ll rip you from throat to balls, carrion-eater,” she hissed. Then she nosed Thistle up. It hurt Ratha to see her daughter limp, the nearly healed forelimb again drawn up.

She worked so hard to be able to use that leg, and you sons of belly-biters just ruined it again. Well, see how you like this.

Ratha snaked her head down and sank her fangs into the one captor’s muscled shoulder. He howled and wheeled, dragging her around and finally flinging her into the enclosure, ripping her teeth out of his skin. She tumbled, spat out the foul-tasting wad of flesh and fur, and came to rest near Fessran.

“Nice entrance,” said the Firekeeper, looking down at her. “You took a chunk out of that belly-biter. Did you break any teeth?”

Ratha sat up, her head hanging, her ears flattened.“No,” she said, though the roots of her fangs throbbed from the wrench they’d been given. She gave up trying to take account of her injuries. Everything hurt.

Her head wobbled when she tried to lift it, and she collapsed over on her side. Her cheek and whiskers fell on fur, and a tongue licked the top of her forehead. Thistle-chaser.

“Your leg,” Ratha managed. “I saw them throw you.”

“Twisted it. Sprain, maybe. Doesn’t matter. You’re hurt, too.”

“Your comfort helps. Can you help me roll onto my front?” Gently, Thistle pushed her onto her chest. Ratha fought to hold her head up.

“Welcome to our little gathering, clan leader,” Fessran’s voice was ironic, but a slight tremor in her tone made Ratha struggle to focus so that she could study her friend.

She read the story of Fessran’s resistance against New Singer and his minions in the battered face, torn ears, and scored sides.

“Not all the red on my teeth is mine,” Fessran hissed, grimacing. “I’ve been collecting it from all of them. Good to smell you again, clan leader.”

“Fess, listen. Thakur and the other clan males survived. They’ve got some of your cubs. Bira’s and Drani’s, too. The cubs are hidden, safe with their fathers. We only lost a few.”

Something lit in Fessran’s eyes, making her look less beaten. “How many of mine?”

“Two. We tried to save—”

“Say no more, clan leader. Two alive is better than I hoped for. I thought I’d lost them all.”

“I had to reach you, Fess. To tell you and the others—”

“Well, tell Bira. She’s been moping ever since we got shoved in here. Bira, get your thorn-tangled tail over here,” Fessran yowled. “Ratha’s here with some news.”

“Oh no, clan leader, they caught you, too,” Bira breathed.

“I just couldn’t stay away from you,” Ratha sat up, bracing herself with her forelegs against a fit of shaking. As the rest of the Named females gathered around her with exclamations of surprise, delight, and dismay, Ratha repeated her message.

Hearing that one of her offspring had survived seemed to hearten Bira and snap her out of her lethargy.“I’d given up ever seeing any of them again,” she said softly. “Or Cherfan, or you. Even though I’m sorry you’ve been captured, I’m glad you’re with us, Ratha.”

She bent to groom herself, something she had been neglecting, judging by the state of her fur.

The others expressed their feelings by rubbing against Ratha, flopping tails over her, and licking her face. She closed her eyes, letting the warmth of friendship comfort her. For an instant she could forget that all around her lay New Singer and his cohorts, each waiting to have a turn with the imprisoned Named females.

Ratha crouched beside Fessran and Bira as the two tended the campfire. Her wounds were better, but her heat was growing, just like the fire rising over the wood. The sensations were hard to ignore. From the changes in the other females’ scents, the same was happening to them, even Bira, despite her recent litter. Ratha tried to distract herself by watching the Firekeepers work.

This time, Bira had been the one allowed out to gather wood. She leaned toward Ratha.

“I found some pine branches that are big enough for torches,” she hissed. “They’re at the bottom of the woodpile, and they’ve got enough pine tar to stay lit.”

“Fess?” Ratha turned her head to her friend.

“I’m ready for another scrap.”

A deep growl from the encircling males made Bira jump and Fessran pull back.

“They don’t like us talking together,” Fessran snarled. “They’re too stupid to understand us.”

I’m not sure about that, Ratha thought, glancing at New Singer. Maybe the others are, but he isn’t.

She pivoted away from the fire, ears cocking at the sound of footsteps beyond the Red Tongue’s glow and something dragging on the ground. Then a carcass was flung to the females.

“They’re feeding us. It’s carrion, but it’s meat.” Fessran stooped to nose the food.

Ratha spat out her first bite. It was pretty rancid, but not bad enough to disguise the animal it came from.“This is a three-horn. One of our herdbeasts!”

Her wrath and her gorge rose together at the outrage. She swallowed hard, flattening her ears. She knew that New Singer’s males had been feasting from the Named herds, but to be presented with the stinking evidence …

“This is pretty awful,” said Bira through her mouthful.

“At least it isn’t wormy,” Fessran answered philosophically. Beside her, Bira and Drani shuddered.

“Well, the rogues won’t get any more of this,” Ratha said angrily. “Thakur and the others rescued the herd.”

“Stole them right from under New Singer’s whiskers? Arr! That’s what all the fuss was about. I would have liked to see that.”

Ratha turned aside from the carcass, but Fessran stopped her.“Eat, clan leader. You’re going to need it.”

Ratha managed to eat enough to fill her and make it stay down.

The sky was now darkening into evening, making the Red Tongue seem brighter. Ratha rested on her side with the other clan females. They faced the fire or one another so that they would not have to see the gleam of eyes surrounding them.

“Let the fire burn low so that you need help to feed it,” Ratha told Fessran. “Then those rogues won’t suspect anything….

“Until we cram the Red Tongue down their gullets. Good idea, clan leader.”

Ratha felt suddenly sick at Fessran’s words. Would the images from the canyon fire always be with her, crippling her ability to take action?

Though shaky, she got up and yawned, trying to convince the watching males she was too weary to try anything. Her body told her that was the truth. She could barely sustain the meandering pace she took over to Thistle. It took only a few words to tell her daughter the plan. In the same way, Bira and Fessran alerted the others.

As she waited for the campfire to burn down, she thought, New Singer can’t be that smart, keeping us near the fire. He deserves what he gets.

The moment came. Fessran went to tend the fire, called Ratha and Bira to help. Bira got the pine branches, laid them with their ends in the flame. She and Fessran stood sideways, blocking the sight of her activities from the males.

“Now!” Ratha hissed, and dove for the end of the lighted pine bough, yanking it from the fire. In less than a tail-flick, other females, even Drani and Thistle, seized the firebrands and Ratha sprang ahead, leading the charge.

Once again she felt filled with power and triumph as her creature roared from the torch in her jaws. Now the males would retreat, mewling like cubs.

Shoulder to shoulder with Fessran, she ran at New Singer, expecting him to duck, cower and run. But the rogue hunter leader held his ground, his eyes cold and intense. He crouched, but it was to spring at Fessran. New Singer aimed his blow not at the Firekeeper herself, but at her firebrand, swatting it out of her jaws and sending it rolling along the ground to lie and burn uselessly.

How New Singer had learned this defense, Ratha didn’t know, but when the enemy leader swept his eyes over the circle of males, each one quickly learned the same tactic. The power of the song. Again.

Ratha reared, trying to keep the torch away from striking paws. At the edge of her vision, she saw Bira trying to do the same, but a rogue pounced on the young Firekeeper from behind, yanked her down, and another male next to him sent the firebrand flying.

Even though the enemy feared the Red Tongue and howled with pain when a torch seared or struck, the power of the song coming from their leader forced them to face it and fight back. Whenever one, through intent or accident, found a maneuver that worked against the firebearers, that knowledge quickly spread to all.

Fessran, scrabbling for her torch, was surrounded and subdued. Bira, Drani, and the others were the next to go down. Then Thistle, and finally Ratha herself.

New Singer’s minions picked up the torches and threw them back in the fire.

The enemy leader stood, looking at the defeated Named females, triumph in his yellow-green eyes. He had them thrown back into their prison where the bars were shadows and the shine of waiting eyes.

Ratha expected a reprisal and she braced herself for a beating, but when New Singer and the males only tightened their circle, she was almost disappointed. Their captors had even put them back near the campfire, so that the females could mount another attack if they had the heart to try.

None did. They huddled together on the ground, Ratha protecting Thistle, Fessran defending Bira and Drani, others shielding their companions.

Again the circle tightened as all the males moved in closer.

The females all shifted to one side of the campfire, forming a many-pointed star with their hindquarters together and their heads and paws facing out. Ratha positioned the vulnerable ones, such as Thistle-chaser, at the center of the star, defended from all sides. They would meet any approach from the males with teeth and claws.

None of the males approached. As the night grew darker, Ratha heard a strange moaning over the crackle-hiss of the Red Tongue. It came from the males, who were now all sitting up, leaning forward with anticipation. The moaning grew louder, hungrier.

Ratha felt the growing warmth in her loins flare and spread all over her. Her skin became highly sensitive, making her move away from Fessran on one side and Bira on the other. She noticed that other Named females were doing the same, loosening and cracking their defensive star.

The males caterwauled, and a powerful musky scent filled the air. Bira broke from the group. She started to prowl back and forth, her ears flattened.

“Get back here!” Ratha hissed.

“I just can’t stay still, clan leader. I’m too hot and itchy.” Bira’s voice was strained. “This shouldn’t be happening. My cubs are too young.”

Ratha knew exactly what Bira was feeling. She, too, was fighting an overwhelming urge to fling herself on the ground, rubbing and rolling madly to quench the prickles in her skin.

Try as she might, Ratha couldn’t keep her friends together. The star dissolved and all the females began to prowl back and forth, the firelight gleaming on their undulating backs.

The males showed their teeth and lolled their tongues, infuriating Ratha.

“Stop that!” she screamed, part of her knowing that her demand was irrational. She charged their line, howling, but she never reached it. Waves of arousing scent met her and melted her anger into desire and distraction. Colors glowed and danced hypnotically in her vision. The male before her suddenly looked like Thakur and smelled so enticing….

She was barely able to pull herself away and stagger back to her friends. The rush of sensation still washed back and forth over and through her, rocking her on her feet. Everything was taking on a golden halo and a haunting beauty. Bira looked so lovely in the firelight that Ratha wanted to rub herself against the young Firekeeper.

She shook herself hard, trying to clear her head. She had experienced heat before, but never had it been so overwhelming, so intoxicating. She turned to Fessran. It was difficult to think, much less speak.

“What is happening, Fessran?” she managed.

Dreamy-eyed, her friend was slow in responding.“You’ve been … in heat before … clan leader.”

“But not like this. Not so fast, so intense …” Ratha broke off, her tongue too woolly to form words. Not even her first time, when she had taken Bone-chewer, were the sensations this intense. She felt molten, heavy, slowed. Liquid fire was flowing like thick lava through her limbs, her chest,her belly, igniting the places where cubs could come into life, grow and then pulse and surge their way into the outside world.

She suddenly wanted to be full, ripe, gravid, round, swollen with new life growing from the seed that only the males could give her. So powerful was the urge that part of her started up in alarm.

She fought to speak, finding that her voice seemed to echo and resonate in her ears, confusing her more than ever.

“Fess,” she pleaded, trying to see her friend through the rippling in her vision. “This … isn’t … the way … we …”

Fessran looked back at her, gold and green appearing and dissolving in her friend’s eyes. “The courting circle …” she breathed. “My mother told me …”

“Wha … what …?” Baffled, Ratha fought the glowing fog that seemed to have taken over her mind.

“We … used to … do this a long time … ago.”

“No, Fess, you’re imagining …”

“We did,” insisted the Firekeeper, starting to slur her words and sway on her feet. “Not often, but … we did. Before the light … was strong … in our eyes.”

“No, not … like this.” Ratha’s tongue felt impossibly leaden, but worse, she was starting not to care.

“Yes … thissss …” Fessran’s words trailed off, and her gaze wandered.

Ratha had to lift a paw and pull her friend’s head around before Fessran would focus on her again. Ages seemed to pass as she dragged a few words at a time out of the Firekeeper. The other females prowled around them.

Rocked by the resonating echo of her heartbeat in her ears, Ratha began to understand. She could almost visualize it, the Named males in a circle, and the females at the center, the harsh yowling that to her was starting to sound strangely beautiful….

That was the way of her kind before they were fully Named, before they cared so deeply for one another. Before they needed to be together apart from the others so that they could lose themselves in the molten velvet dance of lovemaking.

The thought drew Ratha’s gaze out to the males. Now they were inhaling deeply, drawing the corners of their mouths back, lifting their tongues in the scent-grimace.

Ratha realized that the heady scent in the air was not just male musk. She and the others were adding their smells to the enticing brew, drawing their captors closer. Ratha tried to flatten her fur, holding in the betraying odors, but they grew stronger than ever, making her head swim.

Something far away inside her huddled in fear while the rest of her body, strangely detached, glided back and forth, almost floating.

The fearful part managed to break through the gauziness wrapping her mind. It made her seek Fessran again, but the only answer she got was,“This … is … what … the courting circle does, Ratha.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Ratha fought to hold on to the hard lump of fear and outrage, but it somehow melted and flowed away.

An odd sound met her ears. She had to close her eyes and shake her head before she realized that the noise was Bira crying.

“I’m scared,” Bira quavered. “Mating isn’t supposed to be like this. Cherfan used to play with me, cuddle me…. I can’t. I’m not ready.”

“They will wait … until you are,” Fessran said.

For an instant Ratha wanted to strike the Firekeeper leader, but she couldn’t make her paw obey. Her tail, however, lashed without being told to, and her mouth opened in a growl.

“I will … never … be ready. Not for any … of … them!” she spat.

Even as Ratha spoke, she betrayed her words, falling into the ancient fever of the courting circle.

“Will they take us away?” asked another female voice, squeaky with fright.

“Why?” Ratha heard Fessran ask.

“To mate. They aren’t … going to take us … right here, are they?”

“They have to give us some privacy!” Bira’s voice shook.

“Where?” came Fessran’s languid response.

“Behind a bush or a tree.” Suddenly becoming furious, Bira clawed Fessran across the face, startling Ratha. “You may not care, but I do!”

Somehow Ratha stopped the threatened fight.“Save it for them,” she hissed.

Bira turned to her, pupils wide with dread and pleading. Her voice shook.“Not right here. Not before all those eyes …”

Fessran was silent. Ratha couldn’t think of anything to say. Sensations began to immerse her again.

“Bira,” she tried to comfort the terrified young Firekeeper, “it will be all right—”

“No, it won’t!” Bira screamed. She crouched, as if preparing for a last frantic dash, then ducked her head down, grabbed her tail with her teeth, and pulled it between her legs. She looked both courageous and ridiculous.

Fessran sighed, shook her head.

Through the surges of her fever, Ratha felt herself tremble with outrage and fear. From her previous experience, she knew that it wouldn’t matter where she was when the full power of the mating urge hit.

Knowing that won’t comfort Bira. For the young Firekeeper, and many others, mating and the time between was intensely private. Ratha knew she was among them. How she had savored the moments alone with Bone-chewer, reveling in the expansion of feelings, savoring the fierce joy. For her, if not for all the Named, a mate was far more than a sire.

That thought made her glance at Thistle. Her daughter wouldn’t have any such memories to soften the coming violation. Ratha so wanted Thistle’s first time to be filled with gentleness and joy. With Quiet Hunter, it would have happened that way, but with these males …

She was weaving her way over to Thistle when one male erupted from the circle’s edge. Large, powerful, and reeking, he dashed at the females and, to Ratha’s horror, grabbed Bira’s nape.

Bira fought back, writhing and plunging.“No!” she screamed. “I won’t mate with one who killed my cubs!”

Ratha had never seen the calm Firekeeper like this. Even in fights with the Un-Named, Bira never turned into the red, spitting fury that she saw now.

With Fessran, Drani, and others, Ratha jumped to Bira’s defense. They drove off the panting male, and then crouched beside the young Firekeeper. Bira’s ribs heaved and her eyes were wild.

“I am Named,” she hissed. “This is wrong, this is so wrong. I’ll rip the flesh of my loins out with my claws before I’ll let any of them take me!”

She managed to rake herself on the belly before Ratha and Fessran managed to grab her paws. They forced her down, then held her, panting.

Ratha knew that Bira’s reaction wasn’t just rage at being forced. Bira already knew the heartbreak of bearing an animal-eyed litter — cubs without the Named light. Ratha, too, had known it, and Thistle might as well.

Ratha crouched down beside Bira, trying to comfort her.“You will survive this, Firekeeper. Fess and I will defend you as long as we can. When Thakur hears I was taken, he and the other males will attack and rescue us. And if you do have cubs sired upon you, by force, don’t despair. Mating outside the clan doesn’t have to result in tragedy. See how wrong I was about Thistle.”

As Ratha tried to soothe Bira, Thistle came over, trying not to limp, and positioned herself on one side of Bira while Fessran took the other. As Fessran passed Ratha, she hissed very softly,“She won’t resist, you know. None of us will fight them when the time comes.”

Again Ratha wanted to swat Fessran, but she knew the older Firekeeper was speaking the truth.

Standing side-on to Fessran and giving her a narrow-eyed glare, Ratha heard Bira pleading,“I have to care for the one who takes me — please, this is so wrong….”

Ratha felt her tail bottle with rage. She whirled, facing New Singer, snarling,“This is useless! Such a mating won’t take or hold!”

Even as she spoke, Ratha knew she was mistaken. The way the atmosphere of the courting circle intensified her own heat told her that the mating would hold. Even in a female who had been barren for the last few seasons…

Her mind replayed Fessran’s words again. Being surrounded by excited and odorous males heightened not only the urge but fertility as well. Fessran was right when she said, “This is what the courting circle does, Ratha.”

She glanced at Thistle and Fessran guarding Bira. Perhaps the young Firekeeper’s self-destructive action might not be so crazy after all….

No. She might have done such a thing when she was younger and more impulsive, but not now. Bearing what she thought were witless cubs hadn’t ended her life and wouldn’t even if it happened again. You will survive this, she told herself as she had told Bira.

She saw Thistle crouch down beside Bira, offering her own comfort.“Will fight for you as well. If they make you have cubs and any of them are like me, will be friend to them, will teach them.”

Bira, calming, managed to whisper that she was grateful to Thistle for those words. Ratha felt a surge of pride that her daughter, despite her own injury, uncertainty, and fear, was strong enough to comfort someone else. With a nose-touch and a head-bump, she praised Thistle.

She faced out to the enclosing circle, feeling more able to defy those impatient eyes. As she watched, there was a disturbance in the circle. Someone else had arrived and was taking a place. He entered on the far side of the circle, behind the campfire so that Ratha couldn’t see the colors of his eyes or his coat. The firelight that reflected from his eyes fell on her with an unsettling intensity. It made Ratha wonder if he would be the one to approach and take her. She tried to catch his scent, but it was so overlaid with campfire smoke and the odors of courting,she couldn’t. Her eyes, however, fixed on him briefly before she turned her head away.

The moment had yet to come. Beyond the dancing light from the fire, the males yowled and shifted, waiting.

Back in their rocky refuge above the waterfall, the clan males came together in a somber meeting. They had pastured the recovered herdbeasts and posted scouts to warn of any reprisal. Thakur felt that things were improving for the Named until dark covered the refuge and Ratha didn’t appear.

“Now we’re the ones that will have to go hunting for females,” grumbled Mondir, settling himself beside the small flame that threw shadows across the tumbled granite of their shelter. “Why did you let her go, Thakur?”

Thakur, sitting beside Cherfan, flattened his ears at Mondir. He was tired from rounding up herdbeasts, and Mondir’s question had clawed a little too deep. “I didn’t see you trying to stop her.”

“Enough,” growled Cherfan, who had been made interim clan leader and didn’t want the job. “We have to figure out how to get her and the others back. And the fire-den and clan ground.”

“Well, we have the Red Tongue again,” said Khushi. “If we charge at New Singer with torches, he and the others will run.”

Thakur caught an uncertain look from Cherfan.“Khushi, these invaders are not like the Un-Named,” the herding teacher said wearily. “Thanks to us, they have learned a lot about fire. Our losing fight with them showed how much they knew.”

Thakur looked at the ground between his paws, already missing Ratha deeply.“The usurpers won’t be scared off. For one thing, they have the Red Tongue. For another, they have Fessran and other Firekeepers. New Singer can force the females to fight back with torches, so we’d be facing our own sisters, daughters, and mates.”

A discouraged silence fell over the group.

“What about treelings?” asked Ashon. “Treelings can hold torches, and they can throw things. They can climb trees and drop rocks.”

“We could use the tree-creatures if we have to,” rumbled Cherfan, giving Bira’s treeling a lick that nearly soaked Cherfaree. “We don’t have that many, though. I’d hate to see them get hurt or killed.”

Thakur nuzzled Aree and agreed with Cherfan, adding that he didn’t feel it was right to risk their little companions in such an attempt.

“Well, if the Red Tongue and treelings are out, what else do we have?” Cherfan asked grumpily.

“Herdbeasts!” came a squeak from an unexpected corner.

Mondir made a disgusted grimace and several other males got dismissive looks on their faces.“Oh, that’s just Mishanti,” someone said.

“I thought he was supposed to be sleeping with the cubs,” someone else said, and others added that this was clan business and no place for a half-grown runt who had no right to be in this gathering, much less to speak out.

“He does have a right to speak,” Thakur interrupted, and turned to Cherfan. “You are leader now. Decide.”

“Let my friend have his say,” Bundi said. “Sometimes he’s pretty smart.”

Cherfan raised himself up.“Mishanti, let’s hear you.”

Bundi pushed Mishanti to the center of the gathering.

“Herdbeasts,” Mishanti said, with less of a squeak in his voice. “You told me how the last part of the herd nearly got trapped. Thakur made the animals trample the enemy guards. You got the herd out safely.”

“A stampede?” Cherfan peered at Mishanti.

“Right through the center of clan ground. Knock those belly-biters right off their paws.”

“I should have thought of that myself,” Thakur answered.

“Thistle did it, too, when she rescued her water-horses. When I lived with her. Remember?”

Thakur paused, thinking. A mass of galloping herdbeasts could be unstoppable, especially if they appeared in the enemy’s camp without warning. Effective, possibly, he thought, but difficult to control and direct.

“It would be pretty powerful, especially if we put our face-tails at the front.” This was from Mondir.

“If the stampede gets out of control, the beasts could trample the fire-den and kill the females,” Khushi said.

“He’s right about that, especially if the face-tails were in front,” Cherfan said in an aside to Thakur.

“If it failed, we’d lose the beasts we just recaptured,” someone else wailed. “Not even putting face-tails at the front would save the herd. Those hunters know how to kill face-tails.”

The discussion continued, agitated and noisy. What we need, Thakur thought, is a beast that the raiders can’t kill and that we can control.

Mishanti had crawled back over to Bundi, seeking shelter from the storm of talk around him.

“Clan leader,” said Bundi to Cherfan, “Mishanti has something else to say.”

An idea popped into the herding teacher’s mind as the cub began to speak in a squeaky voice.

“Raiders can’t kill our rumblers. Use them!”

The reaction began, louder than before.

“Those things?”

“They aren’t herdbeasts, they’re disasters.”

“That’s the stupidest idea I ever heard.”

“Mishanti, the herders don’t know how to manage them. Or if they can even be controlled,” said Thakur, wishing that the youngster had indeed come up with a workable solution.

The uproar began again, but this time Bundi’s voice broke through.

“Wait. It will work. Listen.”

Cherfan quelled the noise with the lift of a heavy paw as Bundi said,“Mishanti and me make the rumblers go where we want by sitting on their heads and pushing their ears.”

The chatter died as the Named males stared at one another.

“Bumbling around in the forest is one thing,” Mondir said scornfully. “We’re taking about a stampede, stripling.”

“We do ride them fast,” Mishanti piped up. “Remember when they wrecked the dens? We got them out of there fast. Still got in trouble, though.”

“Herding teacher,” said Cherfan, turning to Thakur, “you’re the expert. Could it be done?”

Thakur was already rising to his feet, lifted by a sudden hope.“Mishanti, Bundi, show me how you ride your rumblers. Mondir, come with me and bring a torch, but don’t get too close to the creatures. The rest of you stay here.”

In a flash he was out of the refuge, followed by Mishanti and Bundi, Mondir was last, bearing a torch and keeping his distance.

Thakur galloped as fast as he could without leaving Bundi and Mishanti behind. He had to find out quickly if the idea would work.

A waxing moon lit the pasture where the rescued herdbeasts had been settled. Standing in their midst were the two rumblers, Grunt and Belch. The enormous but placid creatures mixed peaceably with the three-horns, stripers, and dapplebacks. Their heads swiveled on their huge long necks, acting as lookouts for the smaller herdbeasts. As the rumblers moved, the rest of the herd followed.

Thakur felt an upsurge of real hope. If the herdbeasts would trust and follow the rumblers, the idea might work. Without slacking pace, Mishanti and Bundi called to their two enormous mounts. The rumblers’ horselike ears stood up and their eyes brightened. Clearly they had missed the attention they used to get from their companions.

Running ahead of Thakur, Mishanti and Bundi dashed through the herd to the rumblers. Both leaped onto the towering forelegs and scaled the creatures as if they were trees.

Once settled on the blocky heads and suitably greeted by the long tongues, both rumbler-riders showed Thakur how the ear-control worked. The rumblers were startlingly obedient and surprisingly agile. Thakur feared that some dapplebacks might get trampled when Bundi pivoted Belch around, but the rumbler deftly avoided stepping on anything that moved. The herdbeasts appeared to know that the rumbler wouldn’t harm them. Even though they got out of the way, none of the animals seemed panicked, or even terribly worried. They trailed after the rumblers like cubs after a mother.

Mishanti took his rumbler for a moonlight canter. Although the big limbs moved slowly, each stride covered a surprising amount of distance. At Thakur’s request, each rumbler-rider demonstrated his abilities. When Bundi or Mishanti pushed or batted the big ears forward, the beast moved ahead. Push an ear to the side and the mount turned. Pull both back and the creature carefully reversed.

Thakur was impressed, not only with the performance of the two steeds, but at Bundi’s and Mishanti’s ability to stay aboard. “Their skin is so thick on their heads that they don’t feel our claws,” Bundi yelled down. “We’ve learned how to balance so that we don’t have to use claws as much.”

By swatting both ears down, Bundi and Mishanti asked both rumblers to lower their heads so that the riders could hear and speak to Thakur.

“I think we have a chance,” the herding teacher yowled, rearing up on his hind legs. He asked Mondir to fetch the rest of the clan males to witness an astonishing demonstration.

All weren’t as impressed as Thakur but agreed that it was worth trying. When Thakur communicated that response up to the two rumbler-riders, both gave yowling cheers.

“Yeoowwroo!” crowed Mishanti. “Wait until Ratha sees this!”

“There won’t be much waiting,” Thakur howled back. “We’re going to try it tonight. Are you sure you can stay on?”

After some discussion, both rumbler-pilots agreed to have treelings tie them onto their huge mounts. It would keep them from falling off, even if a rumbler tripped.

Thakur felt his excitement rise as Cherfan guided the rest of the Named males in preparations for the guided stampede. Mishanti was right. When Ratha saw this, she wouldn’t believe her eyes. Not until the wave of herdbeasts washed New Singer and his gang away. Then he, Cherfan, and the other clan males would charge in, sweeping Ratha and her companions to freedom.

Despite all the possible pitfalls, Thakur felt that the controlled stampede would work. It had to, for the Named had no other hope.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The increasing eagerness in the musk of the encircling males had an intoxicating effect on the Named females, enhancing their senses and making them even more hot and itchy.

A large brindled male with gray tear-lines stepped out, neck arched, tail swishing. Another followed him.

Instantly the first turned and lunged at the second, bringing down his front paws in a stamp Ratha could hear. Both reared and boxed one another, dancing back and forth, forepaws moving furiously, heads weaving and snaking.

The females scattered, getting out of their way.

New Singer’s growl brought both rivals back to the circle. A short while later, three hunter males, enticed into the center by the females’ odor, reared and boxed one another. The fight, starting as a sparring match, quickly grew intense. Feints became swats, then bared-claw strikes at faces and shoulders. The metallic tang of blood added to the heady scents roiling in the enclosure.

Ratha concentrated on keeping the females distant from the contesting males, but it was difficult, for she couldn’t tell where a fight would erupt. The Named females were often bowled over and knocked aside.

What was worse, some females were being overcome by the hypnotic effect of the scents, the sounds, and especially the fights. Ratha found herself imagining how Thakur would rear to fend off a rival, his nape and ruff lifting, his paws striking in a blur, his teeth flashing.

She had to shake herself out of the daydream. What was happening to her affected others. A change in Bira’s scent directed Ratha’s stare to the young Firekeeper. With a yowl, Bira threw herself on the ground. She wriggled on her back, sweeping her tail up across her belly to her jaws. Though she started rolling and moaning, Bira clung to her tail tip, biting down hard.

“Stop that!” hissed Fessran.

“I can’t. The smells are too strong,” Bira moaned, through a mouthful of her own fur. “So hot, itch all over …”

“Try,”—Fessran bared her teeth—“or I’ll scratch your itch.”

Moaning and whimpering, Bira rolled onto her front, her tail still between her teeth.

Ratha gave Fessran a warning spit. She laid a comforting paw on Bira, although the heat waves through her vision made it hard to see beyond her nose.

Nearby, Thistle-chaser curled up into a shivering ball. Ratha herded Thistle and Bira together, guarding them both against another fight between suitors that exploded from the circle.

“Wish Quiet Hunter was here.” Thistle buried her nose in her tail and closed her eyes. “Want him, want him so much …” Licking Thistle’s nape, Ratha saw her daughter’s ears flatten. “Want him, but better he’s not here. If caught by New Singer’s song, might try to kill us … likecubs in nursery.” Thistle’s voice caught. “Still miss him, want him …”

“I’m sure Quiet Hunter has gone to Thakur.” Ratha tried to soothe the shaking Thistle. “He’ll be with the others when they rescue us, Thistle. Just stay here. I’ll keep the raiders away from you.”

“Don’t like feelings. Too hot, too dizzy … Body going crazy … Must be something wrong with me … Don’t want to want … Not them … Hate this!”

“Thistle, what you feel is happening to all of us. It draws us to our mates. There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s just … happening at a bad time.”

“Don’t want this heat-thing ever again!” Thistle growled, making Ratha’s belly twist. If this scars Thistle, she might never take a mate, not even Quiet Hunter.

Ratha did not know what else to say. She crouched down over Thistle, shielding her daughter with her body. The males would have to rip her apart to get to her cub.

Thistle shifted under her.“One thing good,” said the small voice from beneath her belly. “You’re with me.”

The mother-rage surging through Ratha kept her heat from seizing her completely, but her head was swimming. She fought back, raising every hair on her body until she thought she must look like a porcupine, but it only made her skin tingle and flush.

She found her head turning, seeking one particular scent in the heady mixture. It came from the pair of moon-glow eyes, the male that had last entered the circle. He was young, slender, enticing, and he looked so much like Thakur….

“Thistle, poke me,” she hissed.

She heard her daughter’s indrawn breath and then a tentative scratch behind her foreleg.

“Harder! Don’t let me get drawn into this.”

She was rewarded with the sting of claws. Ratha would do what she had to. Briefly she ducked and nuzzled the top of her daughter’s head.

I will get you through this.

She lifted her head to the sound of Fessran’s voice. It sounded slow and fuzzed-out, resonating strangely in her ears.

“Look at Bira,” she heard Fessran say. “A tail-wave ago, she had her tail in her mouth, now she’s down on her forepaws and calling like a randy queen.”

Other sounds drew Ratha’s attention: moaning and yowling. They were not just coming from the males. Again Ratha found her nose turning toward those intensely glowing eyes and this time she had to stop a moan from escaping her own jaws.

“I hate to say this,” Fessran said, her voice laced with desire and dread, “but that big male in the center is smelling awfully good to me.”

Dragging her attention back from the moon-eyed shape in the circle, Ratha forced her rippling gaze back to her friend. Now Fessran and all the others had acquired a warm, glowing halo. Even the males in the circle were starting to look fuzzier and friendlier. Ratha had to struggle to make her tongue form words.“Fess, listen to me. Whatever happens, don’t blame yourself or any of the others.”

“For what?” the Firekeeper purred. “For bringing us all these lovely big toms?”

Again Ratha wanted to leap up and swipe her.“If you mate with them and have dull-eyed young, blame me. This all started when I decided to save True-of-voice and let his people use the Red Tongue. Fess, I’m so sorry.”

For an instant the Firekeeper’s eyes focused as she looked at Ratha, and the clan leader saw the fear and desperation hidden far behind the veil of lazy nonchalance.

Fessran shuddered and dipped her head as if in pain.“Can’t hurt me,” Ratha heard her say between clenched teeth. “Too hard, too mean.”

“Maybe you are to others, Fess, but I know better. I promised Thistle, and I’ll promise you — we will get through this.”

She felt Fessran lick her cheek. The Firekeeper’s tongue was trembling. She whirled away from Ratha, then stood with her neck arched, her nose down. “Stop smelling so good, you dung-eating son of a belly-biter!”

Ratha felt her body sliding away from her control. She could no longer feel Thistle’s scratches at the back of her leg. It was not her will that pivoted her slowly, slid her paws out, no longer feeling Thistle crouching underneath her. It was not her wish that bowed her back, raised her tail, and moaned in longing.

She yanked herself back long enough to spit,“I can’t fight this any more, Thistle. Get away! Run!”

“No place to run,” Thistle hissed. “Stay with me. Help me. Scared.”

Ratha turned to the circle of eyes, seeking New Singer.

“Please,” she howled at him. “Let Thistle-chaser go. She’s too young. You can have me, but let my daughter go.”

There was no sign that New Singer or any of the others had heard her plea. Their eyes were intent on the females in the circle, their faces in the grimace that was half-grin, half-snarl.

The heat took Ratha in a flaming rush, pulling her away from her daughter, turning her to the intense eyes and the shadowed form. The circle, the other females, even Thistle, no longer existed for her. There was only a glowing halo and him, at the center.

She breathed his scent, finding, or perhaps imagining, an echo of Thakur’s.

He rose and came to her, looking slender and strong in the backlight of the halo. Yes, his scent and shape were like Thakur’s, but he reminded her of someone else that a part of her, long hidden, wanted even more.

Bone-chewer.

No. It can’t be. Bone-chewer’s dead. She clawed at the last rags of thought, burning to cinders in her heat.

The male moved closer, his scent wafting ahead of him, enveloping Ratha.

Those eyes are as bright as Bone-chewer’s.

In her eyes, the shape seemed to shimmer with a dark copper sheen, and the eyes took on a fiery amber. Even the mouth, with its broken fang, was the same.

A part of her fought against the miracle that had somehow given her lost mate back to her. Most of her didn’t question. His movements were slow, silken, fluid. She found herself gliding to meet him, panting for his scent as she would pant for the air that kept life in her body.

The nose-touch was the same, the rub, the tail-flop, and oh the strong, delicious smell of him. It didn’t matter that she had once raged at him for giving her animal-eyed cubs — she was wrong about Thistle. She would cherish any cub he gave her, especially one like Thistle. It didn’t matter either that he didn’t speak; this time was not for speaking, only for rolling in waves of joy, feeling her fur and skin against one who was so beloved….

Now he was behind her. Her body moved, leaving all else behind. Her back bowed, her front paws slid out, her tail lifted and she sang out her longing and her love.

A cry so sharp that it punched through the enrapturing veil made Ratha lift her head. She knew it instantly. Thistle.

Abruptly, her beloved left her side, leaping and snarling, driving off another male who lunged at Thistle. Both combatants rose on their rear paws, but this was no sparring contest. Yes, this male was Bone-chewer, for he defended his daughter with a powerful flurry of teeth and claws that sent his opponent reeling back, breast and face streaked with blood. Teeth bared, her beloved followed up the attack, moving swiftly and fiercely. His opponent stumbled and squalled, scrambling crabwise through the circle, creating a gap.

“Thistle, go!” Ratha shrieked. Near her, another, deeper voice hissed the same word. Before the warning ended, Thistle streaked for freedom, evading the males who pounced at her.

With a last flash of black, rust, and tan, Thistle was gone. None of the males tried to follow her. They were too intent on the other Named females.

Ratha’s surge of gratitude toward her beloved turned into a rush of desire. He loved his daughter, he had freed her, and now that she was away safely, Ratha was drawn back into the halo-filled shell that held only the two of them.

She rubbed herself in ecstasy along the powerful slenderness of his body, bathing in not only his scent, but also his entire presence. A distant part of her begged him to speak to her, caress her in words, but another part whispered that words had no part in this molten upheaval of sense and emotion that tumbled her into him.

Now she lay on her back. The face hovering over her, yes, it was his. The eyes, so deep, without ending, and so was the power of the light shining from those depths.

It was that light to which Ratha gave herself, even as she felt the male roll her over, sweep her quivering tail aside, position himself atop her, and seize her nape gently between his teeth.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Thakur found it a bit awkward to climb a tree with two treelings aboard and Mondir close behind him, carrying a torch. Aree didn’t like it either, for she turned around and hissed at the torchbearer. Biaree only clung harder, small fists wrapped in fur. Thakur heard Mondir grumble around the branch in his mouth.

“Now I’ve done everything,” the younger male growled. “I thought feeding cubs was the end, but climbing up a tree with the Red Tongue …”

Thakur turned back briefly.“I need the light to make sure Bundi and Mishanti are lashed to their animals. I can see well enough in the dark for everything else, but I must make sure the knots are tight. If they aren’t, Biaree can retie them.”

He climbed higher, and then gazed out from his perch. Mondir’s torch lit a long expanse of gray-skinned neck. The head was still high above.

“Bundi, Mishanti, get the rumblers to lower their heads,” he called, panting.

Two huge hornless muzzles slid through the fire-lit leaves, carrying their riders. One purple-gray tongue curled out and tried to lick Thakur. Bundi tapped Belch between the ears and the tongue retreated.

“All right. Bundi, you first.” Thakur leaned far out of the tree while the two treelings briefly abandoned him for the branches. Clinging with three sets of claws, he used those on one forepaw to pull at the knots while inspecting them closely.

“They’ll hold,” he announced. “Mishanti, bring Grunt here. Hurry. My toes are aching.”

Thakur did another close inspection of the vine cords that held Mishanti to Grunt’s head.

“Tied me so tight, can barely breathe,” the youngster protested.

“We don’t want either of you falling off. If these loosen or break, jump for the nearest tree. Can you still reach Grunt’s ears? Good. Are you ready?”

Bundi gave a nervous yes with his whiskers.

“Ready,” Mishanti quavered.

Thakur swung himself back to a more secure perch. He didn’t like climbing. He was more of a runner. Retrieving both treelings, he started backing down. Below him, Mondir, who was a better tree-climber, even with the torch in his mouth, turned himself around and went headfirst.

When Thakur reached the bottom, he found himself in a muffled pandemonium. Cherfan and the other Named males were arranging the herd. Face-tails run-walked past, trunks swinging. Mondir dropped down to help Cherfan bully several young tuskers into place at the heels of the two rumblers. Khushi and Ashon brought the stripers and dapplebacks, the horses tossing their heads, stamping and snorting. The three-horn deer were next, does in the center, stags on the outside. Last came a few more face-tails, the larger ones, so that New Singer’s renegades would have a hard time attacking the herd from the rear.

As Cherfan passed Thakur, chivying a stray three-horn into place, the herding teacher heard him snarl,“This must be the craziest thing we’ve ever done. By the Red Tongue’s flame, I hope it works.”

The Red Tongue would also be part of the attack. Male Firekeepers joined Mondir, positioning themselves at the back of the herd, on either side. Their moment would come when the herdbeasts crashed through the raiders’ defense, opening a path to the captive females.

I hope Bundi and Mishanti remember to split the herd as they pass the fire-den.

Thakur waited, muscles tensed. Cherfan, as interim leader, would give the start signal. Aree was on Thakur’s nape. He had tried to hide her, but she wouldn’t be parted from him. None of the treelings would abandon their partners, as if they sensed the importance of the coming battle. Cherfan now carried a determined Cherfaree, and Quiet Hunter had Ratharee and Thistle-chaser’s Biaree, who had demonstrated a new ability to throw rocks. The two others were starting to copy him. And getting good at it, Thakur thought, as a yowl from Khushi betrayed the fact that he had been made a practice target.

Cherfan’s deep bellow cut across the stamping and scuffling of the herd. “As my dear Fessran would say,” he yowled, reaching high with a paw, “let’s get those belly-biters!”

At the sharp downstroke of his paw, lit by torches, the rumblers lurched ahead, their riders shoving their mounts’ ears forward. The first group of face-tails followed as the herd started to move. The Named plunged at their animals, starting to drive them through the night. Face-tail trumpeting mixed with dappleback squealing and three-horn bawling. Fire shone on clouds of dust that boiled up behind the moving mass of animals.

Cherfan is right, thought Thakur as he broke into a trot alongside the stripers, Aree bouncing on his nape. This is the craziest thing we’ve ever done. But if it works …

“Faster,” Cherfan howled lunging at a lagging striper. “Yearow! Get on there, you grass-eating piece of …” The rising thunder of the herd drowned him out. Ahead, Thakur heard bushes crunching and boughs snapping as Grunt and Belch ploughed their way through the forest. The pair Ratha had called the terrible two, Bundi and Mishanti, urged their mounts toward the border of clan ground. The two who had been the most useless to the clan were now the most critical. If they slipped, or lost control, it could be disastrous.

Thakur lengthened his stride from a trot to a canter. Beside him loped Quiet Hunter with the two treelings on his back.

“This one will take Aree,” said Quiet Hunter, as if he sensed what Thakur intended. As they cantered flank to flank, the herding teacher nudged Aree from his back to Quiet Hunter’s. The treeling gave him a questioning look and hesitated, but when he nudged her again, she hopped over to Quiet Hunter. “This one will keep her safe,” the dun male called. With three treelings lined up from nape to tailbase, Quiet Hunter dropped back.

Thakur spurred himself into a gallop. Now they were on clan ground, in the forest before the meadow. Ahead of him, Grunt and Belch moved like two gliding mountains covering ground quickly with their long strides.

Now the herd was in the meadow, gathering speed and pouring across the creek, churning the water into a muddy mess that stuck to Thakur’s feet. He couldn’t stop to shake his paws, but instead ran the muck off, sending it flying from his legs.

Now noise no longer mattered; in fact, the more the better. Thakur opened his jaws in a battle cry. Above the smells of dust, herdbeasts, and the other Named males, another mix of odors wafted to Thakur: the scents of the courting circle. Though he had never experienced it, images formed in his mind, of females prowling, rolling, calling, and posturing. Of males fighting, blood and fur filling the air while others sneaked past to grab a female by the nape, pull her down and climb hungrily onto her….

Thakur ran faster, the aromas of the courting circle filling his nose and mind. Now he could catch the group scent of New Singer’s raiders and the scents of the females in heat. The sharp acridity of aroused males stung his nose.

Searching for one special smell, he found it. Ratha. Mingled with the odor of another male.

Thakur’s growl became into a roar, coming from deep in his chest, funneling through his throat, and surprising even him by its power. He flattened his ears, stretched his gallop to a fast run, intoxicated and enraged by the roiling scents pouring from the raiders’ courting circle.

Now he was no longer a herder managing a controlled stampede, but a determined challenger, charging in to defend his chosen mate. Now he was on clan ground, his own ground, and he felt strong and sure. None of those rogues would take Ratha. She was his.

A yowled,“Herding teacher, what are you doing?” sounded only dimly in his ears as he passed the run-walking face-tails and then the smooth-striding rumblers. He paid no heed, feeling only the burning of rage and longing and the pull and tense of his muscles as he flung himself ahead in huge bounds. His back bowed and arched, his hind feet swung so far forward that they nearly touched his ears, his forelegs reached and ate ground at a fantastic rate as he ran faster than he ever had before.

He was there, the astonished hunter males turning in his blurred sight, the campfire leaping, the shadows of single females and couples, the gleam of a tawny gold coat and a black pelt that shifted and sparkled.

Thakur was going far too fast to stop, even if he wished. He turned his last bound into a leap that carried him far above the heads of New Singer’s renegades. He sailed into the ring, baring teeth and claws, hurtling directly for Ratha and the night-coated rival that had dared to take her.

Whipping his tail, he crashed into the pair. He saw Ratha’s head come up, the eyes startled. Everything spun in a tumble of fur and claws as the three rolled. He kick-raked with his rear feet at the black coat as he flung his forearms around the tawny gold.

The growing roar was not only the outrage of the black usurper. Even through his rage and desire, he recognized the sound of the stampeding herd.

He was still rolling, his forelegs wrapped around Ratha, twisting and tumbling. The ground shook and the thunderstorm of the stampede shuddered through him. Ratha screeched in terror, and he found his voice joining hers. Through smeared vision he saw the huge shapes, the pistoning legs and the descending feet.

Not knowing how or why, he wrenched himself and Ratha over to a shadow that looked only a tiny bit different than all the others in the flickering light of the campfire. The ground suddenly disappeared from underneath him, and he spilled, still clutching Ratha, down a dirt slope, rolled, and slammed into an earthen wall.

“Thakur?” she squeaked, but the explosion of sound from above drowned Ratha out. He could only tighten his grip on her as the two were bounced about the chamber, hoping that a rumbler’s foot would not crash through the roof or a face-tail avalanche down on top of them.

He found himself burying his nose in the fur of her neck, his teeth seeking her nape. Her odor was wonderful, alluring, arousing.

He no longer cared about any danger that threatened. The thunder overhead only excited him. He was here with one he had loved for so long, with endless patience and hidden misery.

She felt the same — he could tell by her frenzied tongue-strokes on his neck, his chest, his belly, the root of his tail, the way she breathed his name and the way she moved beneath him.

“Thakur, I want you. I have always wanted you.”

Ratha, yearling, clan leader, bearer of the Red Tongue, beloved — how I have ached to hear you say that. How I burn now and only you can soothe me.

Neither heard the noises outside or felt the end of the earth shaking, for they were both enraptured with one another, singing together in wild joy, trembling fiercely. Their scents mixed and the wonderful aroma cocooned Ratha and Thakur as they came closer together than ever before, burying themselves in one another, entangled and entranced by their need. It grew deeper and more passionate until Thakur spent himself.

He heard Ratha cry out and twist sharply beneath him. Instinctively he braced himself for her claw-strike across the face, feeling the muscles of her shoulders tense. Her paw moved, but she checked it and only her velveted paws touched and stroked Thakur’s face.

They curled around one another, each bathing in the feel of the other’s fur, the shape of their body, the glow of their eyes, the brush of their whiskers.

Thakur felt a rush of tenderness as strong as the mating urge. It nearly made him choke as he tongue-caressed her head, her ears, felt the whiskers over her eyes, then the lashes.

Ratha, my Ratha, as long as we live.

“Yes, I am yours,” she whispered, as if he had said his feelings aloud, then he felt her relax and her breathing become slow and regular. Sleep took him, too, and he sank into it, surrendering himself to a lazy bliss he thought he would never know.

The question of cubs and the Named light in their eyes crept through his mind. Things had changed. They were not as definite or forbidding as before. Thistle-chaser had certainly proved that cubs from his and Bone-chewer’s line could be as intelligent and self-aware as any others of the Named. If Night-who-eats-stars was, as Thakur suspected, Thistle’s brother from Ratha’s lost first litter, the brilliance in his eyes showed that he shared her gift.

Thakur had noticed that the most talented Named cubs grew more slowly than others less gifted. He himself had lagged as a cub, and he remembered how others had thought him stupid and slow for a long time.

Ratha’s judgment of her young had been too early. She herself had been young, with the rashness of youth. Now that she was older, she would have more patience. With what he now knew, he could guide her. Whatever gifts her cubs had or didn’t have, he knew that he would love them dearly.

His years of exile were over. Now he could stand proudly and openly at her side as her partner, her helper, and, most of all, her mate.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Drifting up from velvet darkness, Ratha became aware that she lay with her back against a warm chest, her head resting on the inside of someone’s foreleg, the weight of his other foreleg resting on her side just below her shoulder. No, not just someone. Not a night-coated intruder, not a dream Bone-chewer. Just a nice, real, strong, warm Thakur.

She listened to him breathe, deep and powerful, slightly slower than her own rhythm, hers a counterpoint to his, male and female in a soft breath-song.

The urgency of her heat had been quenched for the moment, and all she felt was a satisfied laziness. She tried not to stir, savoring the quiet alone with the one she had wanted for so long and dared not have.

Memories rolled around in her mind, the courting circle, the squabbling males, and the latecomer with moonlit eyes. She knew now that her mind had transformed him into Bone-chewer and that she had begun to give herself to him. It was strange, though. Even though he had seized her nape, climbed onto her, started treading with his rear feet and even swept her tail aside, he never completed the act of mating.

She remembered her heat-driven surge of impatience as he became still over her, yet kept holding her nape. The eagerness in his smell was mixed with something else: a gentle reluctance, as if he realized that she was someone who should not or could not be taken in such a way. No, it wasn’t Thakur’s leap into the courting circle that had interrupted their mating. It had already halted, yet the male still crouched over her, holding her.

It made no sense, unless he was only protecting her from the other males who had no such hesitation. No, she had to be imagining it, just as she had imagined that he was Bone-chewer.

Thakur was no figment of a heated imagination. He was here, he was solid, he was comforting, he smelled wonderful, he was her mate, and that was all that mattered.

She wished she could hold that moment forever, clasped to her breast by her paws. She tried to stay still, but she knew she must have stirred, for his breathing quickened and he began to wake.

She felt him give a slight start as he woke to find her in his embrace. For a sharp instant, she thought he would pull away, but she felt him relax again, draw her closer, and start to purr.

“My Ratha,” he said, and the words lit a thrill of delight in her. “Finally.”

“My Thakur,” she purred, nearly lost in a wave of contentment. “For the rest of my life.”

She felt she could have stayed with him in the cocooning silence forever, but gradually, noises from outside began to filter through. She felt him lift his head, listen. She did the same, and distinctly caught a Named voice asking the whereabouts of the clan leader and the herding teacher.

“That’s Cherfan,” said her mate, gently sliding his foreleg out from beneath her cheek so that he could roll onto his front. “He’s forgotten that he is the clan leader, at least temporarily.”

“We should find out what happened,” Ratha said, but it was hard to end the moment.

Thakur licked her cheek gently and said, as if he knew,“There will be many more like this.”

She got up, fluffed her fur.“Just one question. The one who had me before you came. It was Night-who-eats-stars, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. There was something strange. He was just holding you, even though he could have mated.”

So Thakur noticed that, too! It wasn’t just my imagination.

“Of course, my view of things was a little confused,” he admitted.

“Thakur, he freed Thistle. He attacked another male so that she could escape. I thought I heard him telling Thistle to go. How could that be unless—”

“He is your son, Ratha. Yours and Bone-chewer’s. Thistle’s brother.”

Ratha calmed the excited thoughts that were swirling through her with a deep long breath.“That is why I could so easily think he was Bone-chewer. His scent — It reminded me so much of Bone-chewer.”

“Are you disappointed that—?”

“The one who has me now is not Bone-chewer? No, Thakur!” She rubbed her cheek against his side. “Yes, I loved him, but I never knew him that well. When he died, I made an image that stayed with me. I made it more than he really was.”

“Well, he was extraordinary,” Thakur answered softly. “I don’t fault you for missing him. I wish he hadn’t died.”

“I don’t have to miss him anymore. Bone-chewer is still here. He’s still alive. In you. I have both of you now. And the living one is even more precious.”

“You also have your son, if that’s what Night turns out to be. If so, he will be mine as well.” Thakur halted. “If we can find him. I hope I didn’t hurt him in the fight, but I wasn’t exactly thinking that clearly.”

“My gentle Thakur. Fighting! For me,” she teased.

“I never thought I could fight like that, but when I saw you in the midst of those …” He broke off as the clamor outside grew louder.

“We’d better see what’s happened,” Ratha said, feeling suddenly guilty and wondering how much time had passed since the herd had stampeded overhead.

She climbed out of the fire-den, feeling her belly tighten and her ears flatten for a fight if they were still surrounded by New Singer and his renegades. Instead, as she emerged, she was surrounded by the odors and body-rubs of the Named, both males and females.

“Clan leader!”

“Where did you go?”

“You should have seen those belly-biters run when we … ”

As Thakur emerged behind her, he, too, was engulfed by the living wave of fur, affection and excitement. They all toppled together in a squirming panther-pile.

“Wait,” Ratha said, as she tried not to get squashed. “You mean we won?”

“We won?” boomed a voice close to her ear. “Clan leader, it was like slapping a paw down on a bunch of sleepy flies, the way that rabble scattered. We probably didn’t need the other animals. One look at the rumblers and New Singer just about jumped out of his stripes. Herding teacher, that was a brilliant idea!”

“It wasn’t mine, Cherfan,” Ratha heard Thakur puff as he climbed free of the panther-pile and shook himself. “It was Mishanti and Bundi’s. Where are they?”

“Leading the herd back to the meadow,” Cherfan replied cheerfully. “Clan ground is ours again!”

“No sign of another attack?” Ratha asked, untangling herself reluctantly from the flopping tails, rubbing bodies, and licking tongues of her friends. Her fur was completely rumpled, but she didn’t care. It was so good for them to be together again on their home ground.

“I don’t think so,” Cherfan rumbled. “The last we saw of those renegades were their tails disappearing. Still, we’ll post scouts.”

“New Singer didn’t have time to even think his dung-eating song, much less send it.” This was Fessran, rubbing up against Cherfan. “Oooh, you big furry monster, you smell sooo luscious….”

Ratha suddenly remembered the cubs.“They’re in the rock fall shelter by the steam.”

“Before we start making new cubs, we’d better get the old ones,” Cherfan said. “Quiet Hunter, give Ratha and Thakur their treelings and come with me. Mondir, Bira, Drani, you as well. Fessran, you stay. If you go, we’ll never get there.”

With his party in tow, the big herder brushed past Fessran, who collapsed on her rump with a“ Hmmrh.” The Firekeeper turned to Ratha and Thakur. “So where did you two disappear to? I was afraid that all we would find of you would be flattened fur in the dirt.”

“We fell into the fire-den. It was a good thing that the rumblers didn’t break through the roof,” Ratha explained. “Bundi and Mishanti must have guided them away from it.”

“So it was the terrible two who saved our tails this time,” Fessran grinned. “Well, maybe I’ll forgive them for wrecking my den.”

“Where’s Thistle-chaser?”

“Sleeping in Quiet Hunter’s den. Well, actually it’s Thakur’s old one and Quiet Hunter repaired it. When Thistle escaped, he ran to her, and I imagine that they were soon doing the same thing in that lair that you two were doing in the fire-den.”

Ratha bristled,“Fess!”

She turned to Thakur.“I think I should find Thistle. After what she went through in the courting circle …”

“I think that Quiet Hunter can provide more than a cure for that,” Fessran replied.

“I think that we should leave them alone,” Thakur said quietly to Ratha. “If Thistle needs you, she’ll come to you. I should go to the meadow and check the animals. And Bundi and Mishanti may need some help getting untied from their rumblers.”

The urgency of her heat reduced for the moment, Ratha followed Thakur into the meadow, enjoying the feel of Ratharee riding once again on her back. Actually, it was the edge of the meadow, for Thakur had to locate some tall trees in order to reach the two rumbler-riders and help them get down. Both Bundi and Mishanti were tired and stiff, but they still gave their mounts grateful pats and strokes. Grunt and Belch responded with their tongues, the only part of them that wouldn’t squash their small friends. Aree, clinging to Thakur’s shoulder as he climbed, and Ratharee, perched on Ratha as she followed, quickly freed the two riders from the vine ropes, which had gotten into a horrific tangle.

Thakur carried Bundi down; Ratha took Mishanti.

“I know you could have climbed down,” Ratha said to the pair when they reached the grass again. “But you’re tired, and we don’t want to risk having you two heroes fall.”

She saw both rumbler-riders exchange surprised glances and grins that quickly became yawns. She and Thakur herded them both into the shade beneath an oak and told them to sleep. Mishanti collapsed atop Bundi, who gathered his smaller friend in his paws. They both dissolved in snores while Grunt and Belch began browsing in a tree nearby.

“The terrible two,” Ratha mused. “Who would have thought they’d be the ones to save the clan.”

“Now they’ve got a reputation to live up to,” Thakur answered. “I’ll see that they do.”

Ratha stared at the female rumbler. Something about the line of the animal’s belly seemed a bit different. “Thakur, I don’t know much about these beasts, but I think Belch is going to have cubs….”

She looked at him and she knew they were both sharing the same thought. More tree-eaters. More den-wreckers. But more guarantees that New Singer or one like him would have more difficulty overrunning clan ground.

“Maybe you’ll have to learn how to ride a rumbler,” Thakur teased.

“I don’t think so. The thought makes me dizzy.” At the sound of running footsteps, she spun around. “Look, Cherfan and the others are already back with the cubs.”

Trotting through the high grass of the meadow came Cherfan, decorated with Fessran’s two surviving youngsters; Bira, carrying her own plus her treeling, Cherfaree; Mondir, carrying an assorted bunch whose parentage Ratha couldn’t remember, and Quiet Hunter with Biaree on his nape and a clan cub held gently in his mouth. Last came hazel-eyed Drani, with her young son clingingto her neck, and, in her jaws, a hollow log packed with the Red Tongue’s embers. Ratha knew that the log contained what was left of the gift that Night-who-eats-stars had given the Named.

It was not the fire itself that mattered, for the Firekeepers had kept their lighted torches and a new blaze now burned in the fire-den. It was the idea, the technique that made fire much easier to keep and carry. Fessran and the Firekeepers would welcome anything that made their task less difficult.

If Night-who-eats-stars is my cub, he must have all my gifts and perhaps more, Ratha thought. I have to find him.

But not now. Now was for nuzzling and licking cubs, sorting out who was from what litter, giving them back to their mothers and then parading back to the nursery where everyone could flop down, the mothers could feed their young, and the rest of the clan could watch and relax, taking time to think about the events that had tumbled through the last few days. Ratha lay close beside Thakur, wondering when she might join Bira, Drani, and the others who lay in quiet contentment, suckling their young.

Ratha was mildly surprised when Quiet Hunter appeared in the nursery. He was alone but had Biaree on his back. He didn’t enter, but made his way around the edge to Ratha and Thakur.

“Where’s Thistle?” Ratha asked.

“Asleep in a safe place. This one has only comforted her, helping her to put the bad memories aside. This one will wait until she knows she is ready and has no fear. Even if the wait is until the next mating season.”

A weight that Ratha had not known was there felt lifted off her. She met Quiet Hunter’s eyes, saw there the depth of his caring for Thistle, and was deeply grateful.

Still a little shy, he looked away.“This one will do all he can for Thistle.”

“I know you will,” Ratha answered. “I am so glad you came to us, Quiet Hunter.”

“For this one, it was not easy. Losing the song brought death close. If not for Thistle and you, this one would no longer walk in life.”

“Me?” Ratha was startled.

“You made the choice to save the source of the song. Even Thistle’s caring could only sustain me for a while. When you saved and healed True-of-voice, you healed me as well. You and Thistle and all the others — you have taught me how powerful is the thing you call … kindness.”

Surprise and awe sank Ratha back on her rump, knowing that any other words would be inappropriate.

“This one … I … will go back to Thistle now. If she needs you, may I come and get you?”

“Yes, of course,” Ratha managed. She stared after Quiet Hunter as he left, her jaw hanging slightly open. She felt Thakur’s paw gently bump underneath her chin. Swallowing, she closed her mouth.

“Do you still think that saving True-of-voice was a mistake?” Thakur asked as she settled back against him.

“M-maybe it wasn’t. I have to think about what has happened.”

She laid her head on her paws and watched the cubs play in the nursery. Ratharee curled up beneath her chin, chirring softly.

* * *

Ratha knew that her first task was to make sure clan ground was safe and secure. With Thakur and Fessran by her side, she patrolled clan land, ready to search out and chase away any remaining threat. She didn’t find any. All the raiders, including New Singer, were gone.

She sent out younger males as scouts, including Ashon, Mishanti, and others who were not yet affected by the mating season. They reported that the renegades had gone back to the parent hunter tribe. That baffled Ratha until Quiet Hunter and Thakur joined the scouts in a foray near hunter territory. Quiet Hunter got close enough to pick up some of the scents, sounds, and feelings that transmitted True-of-voice’s mysterious song.

It was no longer“ black” for him or any of the other young males. In addition, the one the Named had called “New Singer” was no longer, for he was again with his father, caught up in the power of True-of-voice’s song.

“I don’t understand,” Ratha said to Quiet Hunter after the two had returned. “Why did True-of-voice take the renegades back? When I asked him to, he refused. Their tribe still has too few females and again, too many males. Why did he change his mind?”

Quiet Hunter had a partial answer, though for Ratha, it was difficult to understand. Quiet Hunter’s mastery of Named speech was strained by the task, and Thakur had to help him explain.

In essence, when New Singer was literally driven back to True-of-voice by the stampede, the father could not help absorbing his son’s experience. Now True-of-voice understood what his exile of New Singer had done to the Named. His son and the other renegade males had not only attacked the Named as individuals, they had abused and destroyed the clan’s spirit, or what True-of-voice understood as the “song” that united the Named.

“I don’t really care how he thinks of it,” Ratha said at last. “What matters is that he understands enough to act, and he has.” She raised a paw and licked it thoughtfully. “But he still has the problem that we caused. The death of too many females in the canyon fire.”

“When this one spoke to Thistle-chaser,” Quiet Hunter began, “she said she was willing to live with me as a hunter for a while, and raise her cubs as both Named and song-hearers, as she and I are. If any of the cubs are females, that will help. It would be by their own choice, of course,” he added. “Neither I nor Thistle would allow our daughters to be forced, as she nearly was.”

“How soon would that move happen?” Ratha asked, starting to feel anxious. “I mean, I just got Thistle back.”

“Not for a while. This one, Thistle, and you — we can decide together. This one knows you have missed her.”

Thakur, who had been listening, entered the discussion.“There are other possibilities as well. We could ease the imbalance by inviting other young hunter males to take the same path as Thistle’s mate has, to learn the ways of the Named. We can also adopt male cubs, if True-of-voice is willing.”

“This one senses that he will be. He is pressed to find an answer, but one that does not harm the song of the Named.”

“If so, we can work with him,” Ratha said. “He must understand, though, that we can’t allow his actions to damage us. She glanced at Thakur as she spoke.

“There is something else,” the herding teacher said, sitting up and leaning forward. “This affects both you and I deeply, Ratha, but we must talk about it. Quiet Hunter, cubs have been born in the clan who could not be raised as Named. In the past we have been forced to exile and abandon suchyoung ones, a very painful thing.” He paused. “I am wondering if such cubs could be raised as song-hearers instead. Would True-of-voice accept that?”

Quiet Hunter was silent for a long time.“We will only know by trying,” he answered at last.

Ratha was opening her mouth when Thakur turned to her.“Yearling,” he said softly, using his affectionate name for her, “I don’t think this will happen with our cubs, but there is no harm in thinking ahead.” He paused. “Not only to protect the young ones, but both of us as well.”

She agreed. She never again wanted the misery of having to take animal-eyed young from clan ground and cast them out to live or die as they might. It was better that they had another chance among the face-tail hunters.

“Whatever we do,” she concluded, “if True knows that we will help him instead of leaving him to struggle, that in itself will help.”

“I will do the best I can to bring him that message. I think he will understand its wisdom, clan leader,” said Quiet Hunter, before he left to return to Thistle.

Ratha caught Thakur cocking his head as he watched Quiet Hunter depart.“He’s still got Biaree on his back,” the herding teacher answered her look. “I thought he didn’t like treelings.”

“I guess that’s another change he’s made. He’s pretty adaptable, isn’t he, Thakur? If there are more like him among the hunters, we have good reason to hope.”

Before she allowed her heat to take her again, Ratha went to her den to do some serious thinking. She let Ratharee stay with Thakur and Aree, so there would be no treeling distractions. There was still something to be resolved. Telling Thakur she would talk to him later, she lay half-inside, looking up at the stars, trying to work out the question of how two so very different societies could interact without harming one another.

Even without intent, one could inflict great damage on the other. Knowledge that was essential or useful to the Named could turn devastating or tragic if gained by the hunters. The opposite was true as well. An act that was normal and natural for the hunters could rebound with serious consequences for the Named. Driving away excess males, which was something even the clan had once done, led to New Singer’s attack on the clan.

Ratha remembered the events that led to True-of-voice’s fall from the cliff and subsequent rescue. The Named had sparked that off as well, by inadvertently showing the hunters how to kill face-tails by driving them off a cliff.

What Thakur said at the beginning might be right, that the herders and the hunters could not live so closely together. Isolation wasn’t the answer either. Bonds had been formed and would not easily be broken — Thistle-chaser and Quiet Hunter, for one.

This was a difficult problem, and Ratha knew she wouldn’t solve it even with many days and nights of thinking. Chewing at the situation in her mind, as if it were a gristly piece of meat, she began to see some guidelines that might lead to benefits for the Named and the hunters.

First, distance. The hunters and the Named could not be direct neighbors. An expanded area of neutral territory between the two groups would lessen inadvertent contact. Ratha was willing to shift the borders of clan ground to help create such a territory. Whether True-of-voice would reciprocate, she didn’t know, but he might. The hunters were more nomadic than the Named, following the face-tails on migrations north and south.

Next, time. Although her clan and True-of-voice’s hunters were developing a friendship of sorts, it was fragile and too easily disrupted by the acts and accidents that both sides had just experienced. Each had abilities and powers that could easily upset and damage the other. The face-tail hunters had True-of-voice’s mysterious song, which the Named were only starting to understand. The clan had the Red Tongue, in some ways more powerful, but hard to control and limit. Both societies, Ratha thought, needed time to grow, both in terms of replacing numbers, and in maturity and insight.

Thirdly, control based on respect. Even with time and distance, there would be contact. There had to be, for if the Named and the hunters isolated themselves completely from one another, they might again begin to think of one another as enemies. Ratha didn’t want that and, she suspected, neither did True-of-voice.

If only those individuals with experience that had developed respect for the other group were permitted and encouraged to cross between the two cultures, limited contact could work. Among the Named, Thistle-chaser and Quiet Hunter would be first. Their cubs, too, when the couple had a family. Also Thakur, for her newly won mate had amply demonstrated the insight and wisdom needed.

The next name that came to her mind surprised her. Bira. It was the young Firekeeper who had pushed for kindness and for sharing the warmth of fire. Although Bira had been badly scared by her experience in the courting circle, Ratha knew the Firekeeper was resilient — she had bounced back from other difficulties in her life. She could also separate the renegade males in her mind from the rest of True-of-voice’s people.

Ratha hesitated to include the next one who came to mind. Herself.

She knew she still had deep-seated feelings she would have to wrestle with before she could understand and accept the ways of the hunters. She remembered how alien she had thought them and how willing she had been to attack them with fire. She had managed to hold back and think things through, but her temper, she knew, could still get her into trouble.

That is where Thakur would come in. He could guide her and advise her. He was older, more experienced, and, above all, patient. He could not only teach the age-old herding skills that the Named depended on, he could also teach tolerance, kindness, and insight. The younger cubs with more flexible minds, half-grown clan members such as Ashon and Mishanti, even the older Bundi, might also become bridges between the song-hearing, dream-stalking hunters and the alert, aware, individualistic Named.

Ratha thought this all out, packaged it carefully in her mind, with the right words, gestures, inflections, tail-waves, and even scents to express it.

One more difficulty remained, and she knew this would be the most difficult piece of the problem to chew apart.

What would she do with the Red Tongue? If she shared it, as she had started to do, would that act rebound again on her and her people? If she kept it strictly for the Named, would that be right? Was there some center trail that could minimize risks and benefits for both?

She yawned. She was starting to get dizzy with thinking.

Sitting up under the deep night sky, she shook leaf litter out of her coat and began to groom herself. The snap of a twig and soft footfalls made her pause, look up. Two shapes approached, one carrying a torch. The flame reflected on a copper coat and a red-gold one. Thakur had his treeling and Ratharee. Bira was reunited with Cherfaree. The herding teacher approached first, and Ratharee sprang from his back to Ratha’s. Before he nose-touched with her, he had to drop the load of wood in his jaws.

“Are you learning to be a Firekeeper?” she asked, half teasing.

“I’m just helping Bira.”

“Clan leader,” Bira began, “I thought you might like a little fire near your den. I’ll make you one, if you like.”

The night wasn’t that cold, but Ratha welcomed the thought of a bright friendly flame. She also sensed that Bira wanted to talk. After Bira and her treeling had built and lit the campfire, Ratha invited the young Firekeeper to lie down facing her. Wanting Thakur next to her, she gave the ground a pat with her tail, and he settled there.

“I just wanted to tell you and Thakur that I appreciated what you did for me. Tell Thistle, too. She was frightened, but she still tried to comfort me.”

Ratha waited, giving Bira time to untangle her thoughts.

“I’m feeling better now,” Bira said. I’m still having dreams about those horrible males in the courting circle, but I think they’ll go away. Especially since Thakur got there before they mated with any of us.” She looked at her paws, then said abruptly, “I know that sharing the Red Tongue with the hunter mothers and cubs helped bring all this on, but …”

“Go on,” Ratha coaxed.

“I still don’t feel that it was a bad thing to do. I wanted to help the hunters.”

“And you still have that wish.”

“Yes, even after what happened.” She gave a small cat-grin. “Am I crazy, clan leader? Rolling around with my tail in my mouth, scratching Fessran across the face, then turning around and saying that I want to build Red Tongue-nests for the young hunter cubs — I must be up a tree.”

Ratha exchanged glances with Thakur.“Bira, if you are up a tree, than I must be as well. I’ve been thinking about the same thing.”

Bira’s eyes widened. “You want to continue what we were doing? Letting me make the fires to warm their cubs?”

Ratha paused.“Yes, but not right away. We need to think of a way to do it so that what happened this time doesn’t happen again. I can’t do that by myself — I need all of the clan to help me, including you, Bira.” She paused. “We can take the opportunity to plan. The nights are warmer now and not as windy. The hunters won’t need the Red Tongue until the fall.”

“So you are willing to help them, after all that happened?” Bira asked.

“Well, you are,” Ratha answered with a cat-grin. “Bira, I can’t make absolute promises. We’re still feeling our way with the hunters. If we are respectful and careful, we can share my creature without hurting them or us. When the clan’s mating season is over, I intend to meet with True-of-voice again. I’ll tell him what I just told you.”

“I can’t ask for anything more than that, clan leader,” Bira said, getting a contented glow in her eyes. “Will the fire be all right for a while? I need to go feed cubs in the nursery.”

With a soft swish of her tail, Bira got up and padded away. Ratha went to the small woodpile and gathered up some sticks. She came back and fed the fire.

“What a trail my creature has led us along!” she said as she laid the wood gently in the hearth with her teeth. “What do you think will come next, Thakur?”

He sighed, but it was a sound of contentment, not worry.

She wiggled closer to him. He laid a paw over her. Nesting between them, the two treelings cuddled and groomed one another.

“My Ratha and her courage,” he said.

“Why courage, Thakur?”

“Because you’ve found out what courage really is, yearling.”

“I thought you told me. Courage is taking the risk of being kind.”

He nuzzled her nape, breathing gently into her fur.“That was only part of it. Real courage is being kind again, after you’ve felt that your kindness was thrown in your face. To risk it once more, or even twice more takes a special strength.”

Ratha felt warmed by the fire and by her mate. She had taken another step forward in learning leadership, though she wasn’t sure exactly when or how. “Thakur,” she said sleepily, “it wasn’t their fault. I mean True-of-voice and even New Singer. They were doing what their natures told them to. They didn’t mean the harm they did.” She paused. “They didn’t have a choice. I’m glad we do.”

“We can choose to be careful, and at the same time, we can choose to reach out,” Thakur answered.

“I know that we can’t prevent all the mistakes. Something like this could happen again, but I feel better prepared … and I will try not to be so hard on myself again.”

In answer he licked her nape. His closeness woke her heat again. Ratharee and Aree, sensing what was starting, scurried aside. Ratha flipped her tail mischievously.“You know what I want now?”

“I do,” he said, his voice deepening with hunger.

With a strong paw, he rolled her over, and they both tumbled into the shelter of her den.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born in England in 1952, Clare Bell immigrated to the United States in 1957. She worked in oceanography, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering before she wrote her first book,Ratha’s Creature (Atheneum-Argo Margaret K. McElderry, 1983), about a prehistoric wildcat who tames fire. She continued to write fantasy and science fiction for children and adults. She says,“I am still fascinated by prehistoric animals and big cats, as showcased in the five Ratha novels…. My stories show sociological themes, exploring how culture changes through technology, even one as crude as fire. The central theme of my fiction is evolution, a result of my being influenced early by the works of C. S. Lewis, Olaf Stapledon, and Arthur C. Clarke.”

Bell has multiple science degrees and works in technical areas in addition to writing fiction. She built and designed electric vehicles, and worked in Norway on the Ford Think EV. She also raced EVs in the Arizona Public Service Company — sponsored Solar and Electrics competitions. Her electric Porsche 914, race number 13, was a top-placing competitor. She helped lead the Women’s Electric Racing and Educational Team (WE’RE-IT), with the Porsche and a converted Rabbit (number 6) Hop-Along. After moving to the hills west of Patterson, California, Bell and her husband, Chuck Piper, installed their own solar, waterwheel, and wind systems.

After writing the most recent novel in the Ratha series, Bell launched an exciting new project: working with young artists on a Ratha’s Creature graphic novel. To learn more, please visit www.facebook.com/rathaseries.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

These are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Ratha’s Creature copyright© 1983 by Clare Bell

Clan Ground copyright© 1984 by Clare Bell

Ratha and Thistle-Chaser copyright© 2010 by Clare Bell

Ratha’s Challenge copyright© 1994 by Clare Bell

Ratha’s Courage copyright© by Clare Bell

Cover design by Amanda Shaffer

ISBN: 978-1-5040-4825-5

This edition published in 2017 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

180 Maiden Lane

New York, NY 10038

www.openroadmedia.com

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Content

Белл Клэр The Named: The Complete Series

Clare Bell The Named The Complete Series

Ratha’s Creature The Named Series: Book One

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Clan Ground The Named Series: Book Two

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Ratha and Thistle-Chaser The Named Series: Book Three

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Ratha’s Challenge The Named Series: Book Four

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Ratha’s Courage The Named Series: Book Five

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four