Ratha’s Challenge (The Fourth Book of The Named) (9 page)

“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 words
Quiet 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.