Ratha’s Challenge (The Fourth Book of The Named) (21 page)

She felt Thakur’s tongue on the ragged ruff that was starting to grow around her neck.

“Sometimes being one behind the eyes hurts us, Thistle,” he said softly. “Maybe we are closer to Quiet Hunter’s people than we think.”

Thistle laid her chin on her paws briefly before she spoke again. “My mother. Seen her yet?”

“Not for a while. She went off by herself to think.”

Thistle stared ahead at nothing. “Don’t know if she can make the jump I am asking her to make. Remember all the times she couldn’t. Wish I could hope, Thakur, but don’t dare.”

“Thistle, it is hard for her. Do you know that she is not a great deal older than you?”

“Than me? But mothers . . . fathers, always seem so much older. Seems hard to believe.”

“I know.”

“Not a lot older than me,” Thistle mused. “Still learning.” She turned her gaze to him. “Thakur, can . . . I . . . dare hope? Not expect. Hope.”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I think you can.”

* * *

I see them both together as I come near. The two who demand the most of me. Thistle and Thakur. Do I see disappointment in their eyes even before I tell them what I will do?

Thakur knows this is not easy. Thistle . . . She thinks anything is possible for the Named. Anything except looking beyond the needs of your own people.

But seeing first to the needs of your own people is what a good leader docs, isn’t it?

Not always.

What helps the Named does not have to harm others. Not when you can see them without the shadow of the Dreambiter darkening their shapes.

I am taking the leap, daughter of mine. Help me land safely on the far edge.

As Ratha finished speaking to Thakur and Thistle, she watched the shock in her daughter’s eyes turn first to amazement . . . then to joy. Then she was nearly knocked off her feet by Thistle’s boisterous rubbing, purring, and licking.

“Wait!” she protested as her daughter sprang around in happiness. “I’ve only said that I will help rescue True-of-voice if we can find a way. I haven’t
found
that way yet.”

But Thistle, in her triumph and joy, seemed to think that the hardest part of the task was over.

Perhaps it was.

* * *

The camp of the Named was in an uproar. Ratha had a hard time calming everyone down after her announcement. She had expected that it would be Fessran’s son, Khushi, who would be hardest to convince, but instead it was Bira.

“I am not asking you to agree with me,” Ratha said finally, when the gentle but stubborn little Firekeeper refused to give up ground. “As clan leader, I don’t need agreement, even if I would like it. What I need is help.”

“Help in doing something that might hurt us?” Bira asked. “Ratha, I want to trust you, but this trail looks so treacherous.”

“I know how treacherous it feels. I’ve been on it. Bira, there is a chance that rescuing True-of-voice may hurt us. I’m ready to accept the blame if it does. But I feel now that there is a greater chance that it will help us as well as the hunters.” Ratha paused. “If you really can’t live with this, you can return to the seacoast with your treeling, if you want.”

“No. You need a Firekeeper,” Bira said staunchly as her treeling, Biaree, groomed her ruff. “I will stand behind you, clan leader.”

Standing in the center of the circle, looking at those gathered about her, Ratha at once felt immense pride and humility.

The pride was for her people as well as herself. There they were, around her. She was their center, and they her support. They had put aside personal reservations to do what their leader thought right.

Impulsive, sometimes foolish, but always well-intentioned Khushi. Bira—dainty, calm, her gentleness covering a deep-seated stubbornness that was only exceeded by her loyalty. Thakur, teacher of healing, herding, and living life in the most honest way. He was the essence and spirit of the Named.

And now Thistle, with her strange mixture of gifts and deficits. Of all, she was the unexpected visionary. She who had been most deeply wounded was perhaps the strongest among them. I
f she does not lead the Named, she will guide them,
Ratha thought, and had a strong sense that she was looking at the future of her people embodied in her daughter.

No. She will serve more than the Named. Quiet Hunter and his people may be only the start. And I hope that I may be able to reach far enough beyond my limitations to help her.

“Well,” said Khushi, after the discussion had finally died down. “Now that we’ve decided what to do, we’d better figure out how to do it. True-of-voice probably doesn’t have much life left.”

Nor does Quiet Hunter,
Ratha thought as she saw Thistle glancing at a shape lying still beneath the trees.

* * *

When Thistle felt that she could spend a few moments away from Quiet Hunter, she went to her mother and the others of the Named, who had gathered to figure out a way to save True-of-voice.

“We all saw the cliff,” Ratha was saying as Thistle joined the group. “Does anyone remember seeing any way to reach the ledge he’s on?”

“Maybe we should go and look again,” Khushi suggested.

“I wish we could,” Ratha said, “but the hunters are pretty stirred up. If we try, they’ll attack.”

“Then how are we going to get close enough to rescue True-of-voice?” Khushi asked, his voice doubtful.

Thistle was startled when the Firekeeper Bira turned to her and said, “You were with the hunters for a long time at the top of the cliff. Did you see any way down to the ledge?”

She replayed the scene over in her mind as she had done countless times. She had peered over the edge until her eyes ached, searching for a path down to the trapped leader. There was a slanting, rocky shelf that descended partway, but it petered out before it reached the larger ledge where True-of-voice was.

“Could only get halfway there,” Thistle said, and was about to add that it wouldn’t do any good when her gaze fell on Biaree, Bira’s treeling. Those creatures were good at climbing. At least in trees.

Bira inclined her head and gazed down at her treeling, who was grooming the ruff around her neck. Thistle watched the expression in Bira’s eyes change, and could almost follow her thoughts. First came astonishment, then recognition of a new possibility, but after that was a touch of fear and defensiveness.

Ratha was not slow to pick up the meaning of Thistle’s look and Bira’s response. Thistle could see her mother was trying to decide if this idea was quarry worth chasing.

“You think that Biaree could climb down the cliff to True-of-voice,” Ratha said.

“Treeling is smaller. Lighter. More toes to use for holding on,” Thistle answered.

“Even if Biaree could reach the ledge, what could he do?” This was from Khushi, who looked more skeptical than ever.

The reply, to Thistle’s surprise, came from Bira. “He could do a lot, Khushi. He could take bits of meat and melon down to the trapped leader. True-of-voice is probably dying of hunger and thirst as well as his injuries.” Her voice faded slightly as she looked down again at Biaree, and Thistle felt a stab of remorse.

“Don’t want treeling to get hurt,” she stammered. “Know how much you care for him, Bira. Maybe . . . too much to ask?”

“I think it is a good idea, Thistle,” Bira answered slowly.

“I wish it wasn’t so risky for Biaree,” Ratha said. “If I had brought Ratharee or Thakur had his treeling ...”

Thakur, who had just been listening up to this point, made a suggestion. “Bira, I’ve seen you and Biaree bundle up twigs with lengths of vine. Biaree knows how to tie things. If you could get a very long length and get him to tie it around his middle and someone held onto it, he couldn’t fall.”

Thistle felt her cars prick up. How clever Thakur was! To see something that the Named used every day and be able to turn it to another purpose . . . that was a gift indeed.

She found herself making pictures in her mind. Of how the vine would attach to the treeling by using the controlled tangle that the Named called a “knot.” Of how the vine would run from the treeling to someone else who held the end in their jaws.

“Even if we can reach True-of-voice, and feed him to keep him alive, we haven’t solved the problem,” Ratha pointed out. “How are we going to get him
down
?”

And then the pictures in Thistle’s mind changed. Instead of seeing the vine tied to the treeling, the vine was tied to True-of-voice. And all of the Named were pulling, to lift the injured hunter up the cliff.

But would the vine be strong enough? For a treeling, yes, but not for True-of-voice.

“Would break,” Thistle muttered.

“What would break?” Ratha asked, and her gaze became sharp.

“Vines.”

“Vines?”

“The ones tied to True-of-voice,” Thistle said, wishing she had kept her silly thoughts to herself.

“How do they get tied onto him?”

“Treeling. If he can.”

Everyone sat staring at her. Thistle felt as though she wanted to slink away, back to Quiet Hunter. It was a stupid idea. True-of-voice was too heavy to be pulled up by vines. They would break. There was no point in risking Bira’s treeling for something that would never work.

But Bira herself was looking back with widened eyes. “I think you’ve got something, Thistle.”

Thakur and Ratha agreed.

“But couldn’t pull him up,” Thistle said. “Vines would rub on edge of cliff and break. He too heavy, even for all of us together.”

“We might not be able to pull him up,” Thakur said. “Once we got him off the ledge, however, we could lower him.”

The hopeful expression on his face began to spread to the others. Thistle felt it bubble up inside her. She looked to her mother and saw that the same hope was lighting Ratha’s eyes.

And not only hope. Pride as well. “I think it will be tricky, but it will work,” she heard Ratha say.

“Three yowls for Thistle,” Khushi crowed, and followed it up with earsplitting praise.

The meeting dissolved in a hubbub as the Named made their plans and assigned tasks. Thakur and Khushi set out to scout the forest for the heaviest vines they could find. Bira found a length of jungle creeper and began the task of teaching Biaree to attach it around his middle. Using Ratha and Thistle as models, she also had the treeling tie short lengths of vine around their paws.

“There is only one problem,” Bira said to Thistle, as she nudged the treeling into looping a length of vine about one of Thistle’s forepaws.

“What?” asked Ratha, who was watching.

“I can send Biaree down with food or melon bits for True-of-voice. That’s not such a complicated thing. But tying vines onto someone’s paws, especially if Biaree doesn’t know that someone—that may be the hard part.”

“He won’t do it?” Ratha asked as Thistle felt her hopes sag.

“He will, but I’ll have to go down with him at least partway to coax him. I’m willing to try,” Bira added. “Thistle said there was a slanting shelf on the face.”

Thistle watched the way her mother looked at Bira. “That shelf is pretty narrow. I saw it. Even the treeling is going to have a hard time.”

Bira looked steadily back at Ratha. In the Firekeeper’s gaze, Thistle saw the words that Bira did not need to say.
Even if I risk falling, I’ll try it.

The clan’s deep loyalty to Ratha, despite her mistakes, made Thistle feel envious for a moment. It also brought a new respect for her mother.

“Could Biaree work with someone other than you?” Ratha asked Bira.

Bira looked startled. “Why yes, clan leader. But why?”

“Because I can’t let you risk your life as well as your treeling,” Ratha said. “And I won’t.”

“Don’t worry about me, clan leader. The important thing is doing what needs to be done, which is saving True-of-voice.” Bira’s voice sounded calm, but Thistle picked up a slight tremor underneath.

“I am the one who made the decision to attempt the rescue,” Ratha said. “I won’t ask any of you to take the risk. Unless I fail.”

“But clan leader,” Bira faltered, and then fell silent.

Thistle felt a bolt of fear go through her. Fear for her mother. That Ratha might die in a fall from the cliff, leaving the Named leaderless. And herself without Ratha, just as she was really starting to know her mother.

“None of you can go,” Thistle heard herself say sharply. “All too . . . big!”

There was a silence. Ratha glowered, while Bira looked thoughtful. “She has a point,” the Firekeeper said.

Ratha’s answer was a low growl. “I know. I wish she didn’t.”

Thistle interrupted. “Better chance for me. Smaller. Lighter. Not part of clan. Not needed. Or not as much as you and Bira.”

“Face-tail dung!” Ratha exploded. “Of all the idiot things to say! Thakur needed you enough to bring you here. And if you think I’m going to let you hang your scrawny tail over the cliff—what if you get one of those fits?”