Ratha and Thistle-Chaser (The Third Book of the Named) (3 page)

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 her mind 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 to me 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.”