Ratha's Courage (16 page)

“Can you go on, Ratha?” Thakur asked softly.

She could and did, again taking up her position in the line. Thakur rolled in ash, disguising his scent so that he could stay beside Ratha without distracting her.

She saw True-of-voice’s people working alongside her own and wondered what they thought and felt.

The last body was up in a tree. True-of-voice circled the scorched pine, looking up. Ratha saw that he wanted to climb it, but like Cherfan, he was too large.

“I’ll get it,” she said. “I haven’t done a lot yet. Let me at least do this.”

“I’ll get Thistle,” said Thakur. “She’ll tell True-of-voice what you want to do.”

“Hasn’t she gone with the hunters?”

“No, they haven’t left yet.”

Still fighting off the numbness that wanted to seduce her into its comfort, she went to the tree, sank her claws into the scaly bark, and started to climb. Reaching high with her forepaws while standing on her rear legs, she embraced the tree, sinking her foreclaws deep. With a spine-arching bound, she got her rear claws up and fastened. Freeing the foreclaws, she used the power of her hindquarters to drive her up the trunk. She repeated the forelimb clasp, feeling the tendons on the top of her forepaws pull against her weight as the claws sank in. Hanging by her front claws, she jumped her rear paws, took the weight off the fronts, and surged up again. Using this bounding motion, she ascended into the branches.

Chapter Twelve

The Red Tongue had not licked as far up this pine as it had many others. Once above the zone of charring, Ratha saw green and smelled pine needles. Above her, partially wedged between a branch and the main trunk, was a still form whose tail dangled and swung as Ratha’s climbing made the tree sway. The hunter had climbed high in a frantic attempt to escape the blaze but had perished anyway.

Now Ratha had to thread her way through the branches, spiraling up the tree until she reached the dangling tail. With a grunt and another surge of effort, she hauled herself up level with the body. She saw that this hunter was only half grown, barely out of cubhood. Trying to ignore the twist that this thought gave to her belly, Ratha grabbed the scruff and pulled. At least this one wasn’t burned, and it was more flexible, but somehow it was stuck in the tree. Then Ratha saw the forepaws and the claws driven deep, through the bark into the sapwood. She imagined how the tree would have been rocking, lashed by the in-rushing wind. Choking, terrified, the young hunter would have clung until death froze her claws in an unbreakable hold.

Not looking at the face, Ratha tried pulling at the scruff again. No good. She would have to release the feet, and that meant biting off the deeply embedded claws. Prying with her teeth wouldn’t work, and she might break a fang.

Ratha took a deep breath. The pine-needle scent was the smell of life that had survived the fire’s assault, and it gave her the strength of will to begin the grisly task. She had to take the whole foot in her jaws, maneuver it with her tongue, and use her side teeth to bite off each claw close to the toe. It was a slow and difficult task. If the hunter had been alive, it would have hurt her badly, for Ratha had to cut into the sensitive quick.

She had freed one foot and was halfway though the claws of another when she felt the claw she was cutting move in her mouth. Startled, she pulled back, stunned with the realization that the young hunter might still be alive.

Quickly she turned herself so that she could see the face. Licking it with her rough tongue, she felt the flicker of eyelashes and again pulled back so that the eyes could open. One did, barely a slit, but it showed there was still life.

Ratha swallowed, her throat suddenly tight. It was hard to speak, yet she had to. “Release your claws. Can you hear me? I’m trying to get you down, but I can’t if you won’t let go.”

Both eyelids fluttered now and the tear-lines crumpled in a grimace of pain.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you. Pull your claws back so I can bring you down.”

She saw one forefoot tremble with effort, then the other. The claws were too deeply embedded. Getting her jaws around the forefoot, she pulled while the young hunter strained, trying not to taste the blood seeping from the remains of the claws she had bitten off.

The forefoot came free. Trembling, Ratha started on the other, but as the claws pulled out, the forefoot went limp in her mouth. Again she looked at the face, but saw that the life had slipped free, along with the claws.

Ratha shut her eyes and tried to control her trembling, which was turning into waves of shudders. It was all she could do not to leave the body and back down the tree, but she had promised True-of-voice to bring the young hunter down.

Digging her own claws in deeply, she grabbed the scruff, feeling the skin and hair stiffening in death. She dragged the body out of the fork where it had stuck. She had to weave it through the branches as she retraced her course down the tree.

Her teeth were aching and her legs shaking by the time she was halfway down. She feared she was going to drop the body when she heard and felt someone climbing up to her. Thakur.

“I’ll help,” he said, and his muzzle was beside hers, his teeth fastening in the scruff, taking the weight from her jaws.

“She . . . she was still alive. When I started to free her . . .
she was still alive and I bit through her claws to get her out
. . . I didn’t know . . . and then she died . . . I didn’t know, Thakur! I didn’t know . . .”

Now Ratha wanted the comforting numbness, but having thrust it away so many times, it would not return. Her senses seemed sharper than ever, hammered to shards by a horror she could not escape.

It fixed her to the tree, unable to move until she saw Thakur moving below, backing down with the young hunter’s body. She saw his ears flatten and his neck muscles bulge with the effort, but he managed to look up, even with that weight in his jaws. It was the look in his eyes, not words, that finally broke her free, and she plunged headfirst down the tree, almost falling. She managed to land on legs that threatened to give way, and staggered to one side as Thakur laid the body out before True-of-voice.

“That was the last, yearling,” he said when he returned to Ratha. “It is done.”

Ratha struggled to stand against shudders that were shaking her off her feet. “True . . . True-of-voice . . . won’t think I’m . . . much . . . of a leader . . . if I go down. . . . Hold me up.”

“He’s gone, Ratha. I asked him to take the dead one and go. They were simple words. He understood.”

Ratha collapsed and drew herself into a huddle, letting the shuddering take her. She put her paws over her face, but couldn’t stop the cub-cries that were escaping from her mouth, or the heaving of her sides. She felt as though she were still up the tree, the taste of bleeding claw-stumps harsh and scratchy in her mouth, watching green eyes fading to gray in death.

“The last thing she knew was the pain I caused,” Ratha whispered.

“You didn’t intend it,” Thakur answered gently. “Let this go, yearling.”

“I can’t. I’m trapped, alone, inside with it. Help me, Thakur!” she cried as the horror racked her again and again.

Through her shudders, she felt him curl around her, drape heavy comforting paws over her, lay his tail across hers, breathe into her face, lick her cheek . . .

I will never again wield the Red Tongue against another of my kind,
she vowed, still struggling against the horror in her mind.

Then, dimly, she felt someone else lie down next to her. And another of the Named, and then another. They were even lifting her, crawling underneath to raise her from the ground. More came and she was enveloped in her people, smelling their fur, feeling their bodies, their strength, and the depth of their caring.

She wasn’t sure if the voice was Thakur’s or another of the Named, or perhaps even all of them speaking together.

“You are not alone. You will never be alone. We, your people, are with you, surrounding you with ourselves, for you are precious to us.”

Gradually she felt the shudders fade to trembling and then stilled. The memory of the young hunter’s death was still in her mind, but not as sharp, not as cold, not as cutting.

“Ratha?” said a voice in her ear.

“I . . . I can bear this now, Thakur. . . . Let me up. . . .”

“Rest for a while. True-of-voice and the others are taking their dead to the place where they will be given to the air. They are going slowly, so there is no hurry.”

Ratha took his advice, sinking into a doze. She woke when someone squirmed against her flank.

“Bundi, get your foot out of my eye,” came a growl from Cherfan.

“I can’t. Someone’s sitting on me. Ooof . . .”

“Whose tail is sticking up my nose?” someone else com
plained and another voice said, “Be still, you’ll wake her. . . .”

“She’s awake,” Ratha managed to say. “She feels better and she wants to get up.”

The Named unscrambled themselves from the protective panther-pile they had made about their leader. Ratha got squashed a few times by various paws before she wriggled free.

“The first thing I want is a drink,” she said, shaking her pelt. “And then we’ll follow True-of-voice.”

When Ratha had regained her steadiness and had drunk some water, which made her feel stronger, she led the Named in the direction that True-of-voice and his tribe had departed. Some of the clan carried the hunter dead, either on their backs or in their jaws. Fessran and her party had rejoined them, still unable to find Night-who-eats-stars.

Ratha could tell by the way the Firekeeper eyed the clan’s burdens that she was relieved to have been spared that task.

“Are you all right?” her friend asked, her scent strong with concern. “You smell like you’ve been through something bad. You look a bit shaky, too.”

Ratha head-bumped with Fessran, feeling her friend’s ears and eyebrow whiskers against her own. “I was and I did, but I’m better now. I’ll tell you more later.”

“I saw True-of-voice and his gang starting up that peak you see to the east. If you want, I can show you so that you don’t have to track them.”

Ratha accepted her friend’s offer, glad to have Fessran by her side again.

“Where’s Thakur?” Fessran asked, turning her head.

“In the back, Firekeeper,” came his response. “I’m staying here because I’m carrying one of them. Cherfan is, too.”

Fessran wrinkled her nose so that the tops of her fangs showed. “Ugh. I’ll keep away from you both until we get where we’re going.”

“That’s just as well. You stay up front with Ratha,” Thakur called back.

“Not because I stink of cinders?” Fessran returned mockingly.

“That, too.”

As they went, the Firekeeper gave Ratha nudges to indicate the way. The ground began to slope underfoot, and the plain gave way to brush and scrub oak. Looking back over her shoulder, Ratha could see the hunters’ plain sweeping out below her, and in the distance, the greener open-forested hills and meadows of clan ground. She hoped she could soon be back there, watching young cubs play in the nursery and older ones in the meadow, learning how to manage the herdbeasts. She also hoped that the clan members who were still guarding both during her absence had not encountered any problems.

On the hunters’ plain, she saw other animals: groups of face-tails scattered about the grassland, herds of springing antelope, and wild stripers grazing.

Soon both oak and pine shadowed the trail, then just pine with dirt and dry needles underfoot. As the Named continued up, the trees grew sparser and the trail rockier. Ratha thought that True-of-voice would climb all the way to the top, but instead she caught sight of the big gray leader and his tribe halted before a huge tilted granite table. It was shaded by pines and fissured by sun and rain. Where sunlight beamed, the granite made little sparkles that appeared and vanished as Ratha moved her head. Above the sloping granite face, an outcropping jutted from the mountain’s flank. The air was dry, yet fresh, and the skylight blue with wisps of cloud. Against it Ratha could see birds wheeling and gliding, huge wings outspread.

A bump from Fessran’s shoulder brought her gaze down again. She saw that True-of-voice’s people were padding into place in a half circle around the table. Those who carried bodies approached the table and climbed onto it. There they laid down their burdens, being as careful and caring as True-of-voice when Ratha had watched him help lift Tooth-broke-on-a-bone.

Though she had not given any order, Thakur and Cherfan walked forward to join the ones climbing onto the table. In a silence broken only by the hissing wind, she heard crumbled granite crunch under their pads. As they mounted the broken rock, their claws scratched and Ratha could hear their soft grunts of effort. When they reached the fissured flat surface, the two clan males helped one another unload their burdens in the same careful way as the hunters. Soon all the dead were laid out. The bearers withdrew, joining their companions, who were now sitting in a loose half ring about the table.

Ratha caught movement flickering at the edge of one eyes. Turning her head, she saw Thistle padding toward her. Her daughter nose-touched, then said, “True-of-voice glad you came. Me, too. Places there for you, see? Wants you all here to share song for dead ones.”

Ratha looked. Thistle was right. The hunters had left places for Ratha and the Named. They took them, slowly and silently. Thistle sat across from Fessran, on Ratha’s other flank.

“What now?” asked Fessran softly.

“Shhh. We wait,” Ratha answered.

From her position, she looked up at the upthrust ridge that formed one side of the table. It blocked her view of the top, although, if she strained her neck, she could catch a glimpse of it.

What are we waiting for? Ratha wondered. Are we just going to sit here while the dead ones rot and dry under the sun? Is that what they mean by “giving them to the air?”

The answer came in the form of heavy wing-flaps overhead. A large hawk, its eyes fierce and beady, swooped over the table, landing on the outcrop. It stared down at the table, moving its feathered head around in a quick series of jerks. Another followed, also landing on the outcrop. Then a third.