Ratha’s Challenge (The Fourth Book of The Named) (19 page)

“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 left
them
alone, this wouldn’t have happened.”

Ratha felt her ears twitch back. “Thakur, I can’t deal with
what 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 follow
you,
respected Thakur,” said Bira. “Please, can you tell us what you mean?”