Ratha’s Challenge (The Fourth Book of The Named) (14 page)

“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 trust
them?

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 lifted her 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.