Ratha’s Creature (The First Book of The Named) (20 page)

Ratha did not expect him to keep his word, but a day later, he appeared through the bushes with another piece of meat. This too, she shared with the gray, and the old one’s eyes widened in astonishment. Every few days he came, bringing something he had taken from the freshest kill. Ratha began to anticipate his visits, not only for the food, but for the conversation. To all the others, she remained dumb. They thought her witless and she encouraged them to think so, hoping to dull certain memories of her performance in the meadow during the first raid.

As the weather grew harsher, the Un-Named began to raid once more. Ratha expected to have no part of the fighting. Again, she and the others of her pack were made to carry the spoils from the meadow. Her job was easier this time, for the slain beasts were few and small. Her only contact with the fighting was through Bonechewer, when he brought her food. She also hungered for news of the clan and that, too, Bonechewer brought, although none of it was cheerful.

He told her that plans were being made for a final raid in which the Un-Named would drive the clan from their dens, slaughter them and take their land. Ratha listened in silence. There was nothing she could do to change the fate of her people. She could only look out for herself and try to survive along with her cubs. She sought refuge in the old anger. Why should she mourn for those who had made her renegade and outcast because they did not understand the new power she had brought them? Whatever death Meoran died he would have earned. The only ones who tried to defend her, she remembered, had been Thakur and Fessran. And even Thakur had turned betrayer.
I will mourn for none of them except Fessran,
she thought bitterly.

That evening, she watched the packs assemble for the last attack on the clan. Her group was among them, since all were needed to fight and none to drag away kills. The only carcasses this time would be those of the enemy. Even so, Ratha was held back from the fighting, along with others too old, too young or otherwise unsuitable. Her pregnancy did not make her awkward, and she suspected the real reason was distrust.

She lay with her chin on her paws, glancing from time to time at the guards who had been assigned to keep watch on her and her companions. The night was quiet except for a breeze rustling the dry leaves and a last lonely cricket chirping. Once in a while, faraway shrieks and cries broke the stillness, and Ratha lifted her head. She thought of Srass’s death in the first raid and shivered. That scene would be repeated again and again before dawn. The cries died out and she could hear only the wind and the cricket.

I hope Fessran escaped,
she thought.

Toward dawn, she heard the raiders returning. They came, roaring their victory, and broke through the forest with a great crashing of branches. Many were wounded and some missing. Ratha lay and watched the Un-Named strut past in the dawn light. The clan, she guessed, had fought hard in its final battle.

An argument started between several of the pack leaders. Ratha ignored it at first, letting their angry words blend into the rest of the noise. Then she realized what the disputants were arguing about and she swivelled her ears to listen.

“What does it matter that a few of them still live?” asked the youngster who had led Ratha’s pack. “We have their dens and their herds.”

They walked beyond Ratha’s hearing, still snarling at each other. She went a few steps after them and nearly bumped into Bonechewer.

“Yarrr!
Watch yourself. I hurt enough already,” he growled, dodging awkwardly to avoid her. He limped away, fresh blood oozing from his flank. His face was a nest of scratches. Both ears were torn.

“It is over,” he said flatly, looking at Ratha. He glanced at the boisterous raiders milling about. “They go to the dens. Come with me.”

The path they took across the meadow was overgrown. The bodies on both sides looked half-eaten. Some were not only slain: they looked half-eaten and the insects had not been there long enough to consume them. Ratha remembered the gray-coat stripping flesh from Srass’s flank even before he was dead. Numb as she was, she shuddered and shut her eyes, following Bonechewer by the sound of his footsteps and the grass brushing past his legs. The smell, however, she couldn’t shut out, and it was with her all the way along the path until they reached the clan dens.

Bodies had lain there too, for there were sticky stains at the entrances to many of the lairs. Ratha could see the trails in the mud where the remains had been dragged away. Had one of them been Fessran or Thakur? Or perhaps her father, Yaran, or her mother Narir? From each den came faint familiar odors, and for a moment, she was a cub again, romping by the lairs, seeing the faces framed in the entrances. One face showed a touch of annoyance for being wakened by her noise. Another’s eyes were indulgent, knowing she was only a cub and would learn soon enough. The memory left Ratha and she stared into the abandoned dens, empty except for the faint smell of those who had lived there.

Bonechewer walked back to her and together they wandered among the lairs, neither one saying anything. They watched the other Un-Named ones crawling in and out of the dens, claiming them, enlarging them and starting to dig new ones nearby. The clan’s territory was now theirs, and here they would stay for the rest of the winter. New faces grinned from entrance holes, and one new owner called out to Ratha and Bonechewer, “Find one for yourselves! These are fine lairs indeed; too fine to belong to clan filth.” The big silver-coat had taken possession of Meoran’s den. The lair Ratha knew as Fessran’s was now occupied by the young pack leader. She followed Bonechewer until he stopped at a small den in an earthen bank. He ducked and crawled inside. Ratha started to follow, then stopped. The smell wafting back to her was Bonechewer’s, yet it wasn’t. She sniffed the sill and sides of the hole, and she knew suddenly who the den had belonged to. Bonechewer, by accident or design, had found Thakur’s den. Bonechewer’s smell was oddly similar to the odor lingering on the sides of the lair.

Ratha backed away as if the smell had stung her nose. Her memories of Thakur were still too fresh, and the smell of him made them stronger.

“It isn’t large,” came Bonechewer’s voice from inside, “but it will hold the two of us. Come in and see.”

“No, I don’t like it,” Ratha snapped. “Find another.”

Bonechewer gave her a puzzled glance and crawled out of the den.

He led her to other dens, but each time she found a familiar smell and a face came up in her memory. However much she tried to wipe it away with hatred, the image persisted and seemed to haunt the cool earthen walls. She could escape it only by retreating outside into the sunshine. Only there could she stop trembling.

When Ratha had calmed herself, she wandered among the lairs, looking for Bonechewer. She spotted him standing near a den that lay apart from the rest. This lair had been deserted long before the coming of the Un-Named. Ratha remembered it being empty from her early cubhood.

She watched Bonechewer sniff the ruined entrance. He reached up and pawed more dirt down. The roof of the old den collapsed.

Ratha moved closer. What could he want with an old clan den? No one ever used it or went near it. Even cubs at play stayed away from it, not only because it was dark and crumbling, but because, the older cubs said, someone had been killed there. They claimed that the ground still smelled of old blood.

As Ratha thought about the abandoned lair, she remembered that she had once seen someone there, and with a shock, she recalled who it was.

Thakur. I saw Thakur there.

She dropped into the grass and crept downwind, trying not to disturb Bonechewer. He gazed at the old den with an expression Ratha had seen on another face, a face whose eyes were green instead of amber.

Then everything fell together and Ratha nearly jumped out of the grass. Now she knew. Reshara had birthed twin males, alike except for eye color.

Seek out old memories and bury them,
Ratha thought as Bonechewer pawed more dirt into the lair. Is that the place where Reshara had her cubs?

She scuttled away so that Bonechewer would not see her. She stood up and shook the grass from her fur. Should she ask him? No. She had the truth now. Whether he would accept it or deny it made no difference.

Her pack leader found her and tried to put her in a lair with the gray and the two dun-coats, but Ratha escaped him and clambered up a tree. She sat up in the crotch, watching those down below and decided she would rather sleep out in the open or in this tree than in the dens that had once belonged to her people.

Despite harassment and threats from the others, Ratha stayed in her tree, only coming down to eat or serve as a sentry, guarding the Un-Named settlement from attacks by any of the previous owners who had survived. Some of the clan had survived, but who they were and where they were, she had no idea.

The weather grew colder. The rain turned to sleet and frost covered the ground, turning the soil hard. One morning Ratha woke in her tree with a carpet of snow on her back. Below her, everything was a soft, unbroken white. She climbed down from her tree. Nearby was a three-horn carcass that had been almost stripped. She found it and uncovered it, eating the frozen rags of meat still remaining on the bones. She thought longingly of the entrails and haunch meat the Un-Named leaders had dragged into their dens. Perhaps Bonechewer would bring her something today.

She found the old gray who always stood sentry with her. She had grown used to the ancient one with her wordless muttering and malicious eyes. She knew too that the gray served only to guard her, for the old one would be nearly useless in an attack.

Once she had resented it bitterly; now she thought no more about it and even welcomed her companion’s company, dull and surly as it was. She watched the old female mark a tree, then went and left her own mark beside it. It was almost a ritual they performed before starting each watch. The gray then took up a position several tail-lengths from Ratha and turned her face outward. Ratha did the same.

Morning passed and then midday. The crisp winter breeze brought no new smells and the forest was muffled and silent. Shadows began creeping across the snow crust. Ratha decided Bonechewer was not going to come that day. She swallowed and ate some snow to ease the tight burning feeling in her throat. He hadn’t come for several days. Perhaps he had grown tired of her, her prickliness and her swelling belly. Perhaps he had picked someone else whose coat wasn’t rough and dull and whose temper was less unpredictable.

She told herself fiercely that her burning throat was hunger rather than hurt. She was dipping her muzzle into the snow again when she heard the gray snarl. The snarl turned into a whine and there was a soft thump.

Ratha turned. The gray-coat crouched, chewing on a chunk of flesh that spread red stains on the crystalline snow. Behind the gray, Bonechewer stood. Ratha waited for her morsel, but nothing appeared and Bonechewer’s jaws were empty. Pangs of disappointment cramped her stomach.

“Do I get nothing this time?” she asked.

“I have more meat for you,” he answered. “First, come with me. I want to show you something.”

“I can’t. I have to stand guard. And the old one will raise a fuss if I leave my place. My pack leader—”

“Will answer to me for the way he has treated you.” Bonechewer showed his teeth as he spoke. “And as for the old gray, she will think of nothing but her meat. Come.” He bounded away.

With a cautious glance toward her partner, Ratha padded after him. She saw that his pawprints were stained with tiny flecks of brown and red. She frowned and tried to catch up with him to ask why. She broke into a canter, showering snow over the bushes. Again she frowned, wrinkling her brows. He hadn’t been that far ahead, had he? His prints led over a white-covered rise and down the other side. On top of a little cliff, they ended and Ratha could see no other tracks. For a moment, she felt panic. Had he tricked her? Had he enticed her away from her guard duty only to leave her? If she was found away from her post, she would be fair game for anyone, for they would assume she was escaping.

“Bonechewer!” she called, her voice sharp and raw with fear.

“In here,” came his muffled reply from somewhere beneath her feet. She craned her neck over the bank and saw the top of his head and his ears above the snow. He twisted his head around and grinned at her.

“Where are you?” she demanded, wondering if he had buried himself in the snow just to tease her.

His head disappeared again. Ratha leaned over the bank, walking her forepaws down the steep slope. She was afraid to jump into the hollow beneath, fearing jagged rocks or stumps might be concealed under the snow. Without warning, her forepaws slipped and she plunged into an unexpected hole in the bank. She lost her footing completely, flipped and came down hard on her back. She lay in the snow, her head spinning, all four paws waving in the air. Bonechewer’s face appeared upside down, framed between her own front paws. “What are you trying to do? Cave it in?”

Ratha gazed up at him. “Cave what in?”

“The den.”

She rolled over slowly, shedding snow from her pelt. “Den? Is that what you wanted to show me?” She peered past him at the bank. Now she could see the low entrance and the dirt tracked onto the snow. “I don’t want any of those clan dens. I told you that.” She heaved herself to her feet.

“This isn’t a clan lair,” he answered.

“I don’t believe you. It’s too big for any other creature. Who dug it if the clan didn’t?”

“I did,” said Bonechewer.

“When?”

“I finished last night, before the snowfall. Just in time.”

“The ground is too hard for digging,” Ratha protested. Bonechewer gave her an exasperated look and turned over a front paw. The pad was torn and ragged; the toes raw and muddy. Ratha remembered the red and brown stains in his tracks. She walked past him and sniffed the hole. It smelled of freshly dug earth.

“You dug it,” she admitted grudgingly. “Why?”

“Why do you think?” he snapped.