Ratha's Courage (22 page)

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 through the 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 overwhelmed Fessran. 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.