Ratha and Thistle-Chaser (The Third Book of the Named) (8 page)

With that thought, Thakur got to his feet, coaxed Aree to his shoulder, and set off on his return journey.

Newt spent the rest of that day, after the confrontation with Thakur, hiding in the deepest sandstone hollow she could find. Panic closed around her, making her want to run blindly away from this place and the stranger whose sudden arrival and smell woke the old terrors.

His smell. Her nose had not lied to her. Yes, he had his own scent, but mixed in with it she had caught the hated stink of the Dreambiter. But the Dreambiter was not real, could not leave a true scent except in memory. Newt had thought the Dreambiter’s scent was as unreal as the apparition itself, until the newcomer’s odor-mark sent its shock through her and brought the nightmare down to rend her. Now she shuddered at the recollection and thought only of fleeing.

But a part of her fought against deserting the beach and the seamares. That she might be forced to abandon this new life she had built for herself was a bitterness she couldn’t swallow. Why had he come? What did he want?

She remembered other encounters with those of her kind, of snarls and sneers and the coldness of hate. She had left all that behind. Would she have to return to it once again?

But worst of all was knowing that the newcomer could wake the Dreambiter. Was he the source of the apparition in her dreams that slashed and crippled her? She bared her teeth at the thought but knew that he was not. Though his smell carried enough traces of the Dreambiter’s to trigger the onrush of the hallucination, his scent itself was not the cause.

Newt’s smell-memories of that maiming attack were stronger than the sight-images. The odor of the one whose teeth had torn her flesh was seared into the center of her being. The smell betrayed one thing: that the Dreambiter was female. Whatever dangers this invading male brought were his own. He might wake her apparition, but he wasn’t the source of it.

If she ever found the one who was, she promised herself there would blood and fur scattered until she took the hated one’s life in payment for her pain or gave up her own.

She crouched in her cave, thinking about the strange male and shivering. Slowly she realized that he himself had done nothing to threaten or harm her. His voice and his tail gestures were not those of one who wished her ill. His manner was careful, gentle, with a quality she was slowly starting to recognize, for she had known it once long ago.

A picture formed in her mind of the copper-furred, amber-eyed face of the one who had loved her and tried so hard to teach her. And then came an image of the intruder, who also seemed to want her to respond. The two faces were strangely alike, even though one had green eyes and the other amber.

A forgotten part of Newt cried out for more of what she had once known. She wanted kindness and the friendly sound of a purr, the sight of a tail lifted in greeting. When had she heard, felt, and seen those things? So long ago that she could barely remember... or was it the mist drifting through her mind that made it all seem so distant?

The Dreambiter had taken it all away.

As Newt lay in her cave, she felt her anger and confusion harden into stubbornness. She would stay here. If she had to face the strange male, she would. The life she was starting to build among the seamares was too precious to yield. No one would drive her away. Not even the Dreambiter.

Chapter Five

In the late-afternoon shade of a thicket on the meadow’s edge, Ratha watched a young Firekeeper and his treeling tangle two cords made from twisted bark. Fessran sat nearby, still without her treeling.

“Tell me again why this would be useful,” Ratha said, trying to understand what Fessran’s student was to show her.

“Well, you know that we wrap wood with those lengths of twisted bark so that we can drag more of it. The trouble is that our wrapping often doesn’t hold, so the bundle comes apart, the sticks get scattered, and we have to gather them again. When this student showed me a way to prevent that, I decided you should know.”

Looking nervously at the clan leader, the young Firekeeper pawed apart the two cords, then began again.

“I don’t see any wood, and he’s using separate pieces,” Ratha objected.

“It’s easier to see what he’s doing without twigs in the way. And think of the separate bark-twists as the ends of a single one,” Fessran soothed.

Ratha gave up arguing and watched. She saw how well the youngster and his small companion worked together, as if each knew what the other needed and expected. He had been born after treelings had become a part of clan life, and the two had been raised together.

She listened to the young Firekeeper and his treeling as the two purred and chirred back and forth, exchanging gestures and nudges. The two strings of bark came together under treeling hands, but both wills worked the change.

Ratha asked them to stop so she could see how the cords wound about each other.

“Think of it this way, clan leader,” said the Firekeeper student. “Two snakes have crossed over each other, then the one underneath has looped back and crawled over the top one.”

Ratha stared hard. She was beginning to get the idea.

Do you see what he’s doing, Ratharee?
she thought at her treeling, who perched on her head, peering down between her ears.
I think I do. Perhaps we can try it together.

The student pulled his tangled cords apart. Ratharee didn’t need any nudging to scramble down from Ratha’s back to get her paws on this intriguing new toy, but she had no idea how to repeat what the Firekeeper’s treeling had done. With soft prrrups and nudges, Ratha directed Ratharee’s hands until the bark cords wound once about each other on the ground.

“Now the wrapped snakes rise up and face each other,” said the young Firekeeper, warming to his task, “and they wind again, but they must go in the opposite direction, or the tangle won’t hold. We pull both tails, and the snakes tighten about each other,” he said as his treeling completed tying the knot.

Ratha had the idea, but getting Ratharee to translate that understanding into action was difficult. She could wind the cords, but she wanted to continue wrapping them about each other until she’d turned them into a tangled mess. However much Ratha nudged, purred, and pawed, she couldn’t get past that.

“It isn’t easy, clan leader,” the student said apologetically. “I had to work a lot with my treeling before we could even do the first part.”

“Yes, and I thought you were just fooling around. I cuffed you for not attending to your duties, as you remember well.” Fessran grinned as her protégé looked slightly dismayed. She sniffed the treeling-made knot.

“All right, youngster,” Fessran announced to the young Firekeeper. “Enough for now. Go back to your work. Since the clan leader likes what you’ve done, you may continue it, but don’t use that as an excuse to be lazy. ”

Ratha called Ratharee to her and watched the student lope away with his ring-tailed companion on his back.

“He’s clever, isn’t he? Makes me feel old and stupid.” Fessran sighed.

“If you got yourself another treeling, my Firekeeper friend, you could do the same things.”

“No. If I can’t have Fessree, I’d prefer to burn my whiskers myself. And have smart young students to think up easier ways to bundle wood.”

“It may go beyond just wood bundling. You know that, since you’re encouraging him,” Ratha pointed out.

“It may, but nothing will ever top what a certain young herder did with the Red Tongue.” Fessran lay down beside Ratha, pawing her playfully.

“Flatterer! No one will ever accuse you of being old and stupid, not while you have a voice to tease me with. What power has the Red Tongue compared to Fessran’s?” With that, Ratha rolled over and play-wrestled with the Firekeeper, while Ratharee scolded both.

The sound of rustling brush and trotting feet brought both heads up. The sun flashed on a dark copper coat as Thakur jogged toward them and slowed to touch noses. With a rising purr, he rubbed past Ratha.

“It is good to smell you again, Thakur,” she said softly. “I’ve thought often of you.”

“And I have missed you, yearling. I have much to tell, but first let me rest.”

He touched noses with Fessran, then flopped himself down in the shade with Aree on his shoulder.

“I thought everyone would still be off yowling in the bushes,” he said, grinning at both of them. “Did you hear any good courting songs this year, Fess?”

The Firekeeper hissed scornfully. “None of this year’s crop of suitors has any voice at all.”

“So we make cubs by singing? That is something new among the Named.” Thakur lolled his tongue at her.

Hearing Thakur’s teasing was like old times, but it also served to remind Ratha that the delayed mating season had been short, with few of the Named taking part. Her own heat had lasted only a few days, then tapered off.

Thakur turned to Ratha. “Have the other scouts returned yet?”

“They’ve been coming in during the past few days. You’re the last. Everyone’s hungry. I’ll have a herdbeast culled.”

Thakur’s brow furrowed slightly. “The last cull took all the unfit animals. Have the herders choose carefully. We need good stock for breeding.”

Ratha felt slightly irritated at him for telling her something she knew well. But he was right; they had to be careful.

“Those who have journeyed far for the sake of their clan shall not sleep tonight with empty bellies,” she answered. “We will take what is needed, no more. Fessran, I’d like to speak with Thakur alone. Would you go and look to the culling?”

The Firekeeper sprang to her feet and padded away. Ratha turned to Thakur. “So then, herding teacher. What tales do you bring?”

He paused, then answered. “I have news, but first tell me what the other scouts have reported.”

Ratha wondered why he was being evasive, but she said only, “The scouts found many new beasts, but none appear to be as well suited to our needs as the creatures we now keep.”

“Oh?” Thakur cocked his head. “That surprises me.”

“Young Khushi came back with a wild tale about huge, shaggy creatures who bear tusks and wear their tails on their faces. Although he didn’t think we could kill the big ones, he thought we might take the young.”

“While their mothers’ backs are turned, of course,” said Thakur with a grin, for he knew how fiercely protective herdbeast mothers could be.

Ratha glanced at him and went on. “I may go with him to see these face-tails, since we might be able to use them. After all, my grandfather brought us three-horns, and everyone told him they were too dangerous. We just need to learn new ways of managing certain animals.”

“Did any other scout find something worthwhile?”

She sighed. “I suppose you didn’t find anything either, since you’re so eager to know if others did. There were some reports that I considered as possibilities. One scout said he saw many prong-horns. He also spoke of lowing beasts with widespread horns and great humps on their shoulders. He thought the prong-horns too small and fleet for our keeping and the others too ugly tempered. Again, I said I might go with him to judge the creatures for myself.” After a pause she noticed he wasn’t listening but seemed to be turned inward as if thinking hard. “What’s the matter, Thakur?”

Slowly he answered, “Ratha, I did find some creatures on the sea coast that we might herd. They are strange, but they can be managed, and I think I know how.”

Carefully he described the seamares, including their shore-dwelling existence. “These water-beasts are larger than our dapplebacks and will provide more meat per cull. They have tusks, but they are clumsy on land.”

“These creatures do sound strange, Thakur,” Ratha said doubtfully after he had finished. “Fat, tusked dapplebacks with short legs and duck’s feet? And you say they swim in this great, wave-filled lake you found? How would we keep one from just swimming away if it didn’t want to be our meat?”

“How do we keep our herdbeasts from running away when we cull them? There are ways, especially when we work together.”

Ratha stared at her paws. “I suppose. But it sounds as if herding these creatures would cause a big change in the way our herders do things. And it might not work out.”

With a sharpness in his voice that betrayed a flicker of injured pride, he said, “Clan leader, I know we can live off these seamares because I have seen another doing it.”

Ratha’s whiskers bristled and her pupils expanded. She turned her head to stare at him. He looked uncomfortable, as if he had said more than he meant to. “One of our kind?”

“I don’t know who she is,” Thakur confessed. “She may come from among the fringes of the Un-Named who have bred with the clan. I tried to speak with her, but she doesn’t talk. At least not in the way that we do.”

He went on to describe the way the young stranger had blended into the seamare colony.

“A small number of us may be able to do the same thing,” he said. “Perhaps by watching her, we can learn.”

“She actually herds these duck-footed dapplebacks?” Ratha asked. “Are you sure you didn’t just see what you wanted to see, herding teacher? She could have been an Un-Named one passing among them. From what you say, she doesn’t sound as though she has the light in her eyes or the wit to understand herding.”