Ratha's Courage (33 page)

She looked at him and she knew they were both sharing the same thought. More tree-eaters. More den-wreckers. But more guarantees that New Singer or one like him would have more difficulty overrunning clan ground.

“Maybe you’ll have to learn how to ride a rumbler,” Thakur teased.

“I don’t think so. The thought makes me dizzy.” At the sound of running footsteps, she spun around. “Look, Cherfan and the others are already back with the cubs.”

Trotting through the high grass of the meadow came Cherfan, decorated with Fessran’s two surviving youngsters; Bira, carrying her own plus her treeling, Cherfaree; Mondir, carrying an assorted bunch whose parentage Ratha couldn’t remember, and Quiet Hunter with Biaree on his nape and a clan cub held gently in his mouth. Last came hazel-eyed Drani, with her young son clinging to her neck, and, in her jaws, a hollow log packed with the Red Tongue’s embers. Ratha knew that the log contained what was left of the gift that Night-who-eats-stars had given the Named.

It was not the fire itself that mattered, for the Firekeepers had kept their lighted torches and a new blaze now burned in the fire-den. It was the idea, the technique that made fire much easier to keep and carry. Fessran and the Firekeepers would welcome anything that made their task less difficult.

If Night-who-eats-stars is my cub, he must have all my gifts and perhaps more, Ratha thought. I have to find him.

But not now. Now was for nuzzling and licking cubs, sorting out who was from what litter, giving them back to their mothers and then parading back to the nursery where everyone could flop down, the mothers could feed their young, and the rest of the clan could watch and relax, taking time to think about the events that had tumbled through the last few days. Ratha lay close beside Thakur, wondering when she might join Bira, Drani, and the others who lay in quiet contentment, suckling their young.

Ratha was mildly surprised when Quiet Hunter appeared in the nursery. He was alone but had Biaree on his back. He didn’t enter, but made his way around the edge to Ratha and Thakur.

“Where’s Thistle?” Ratha asked.

“Asleep in a safe place. This one has only comforted her, helping her to put the bad memories aside. This one will wait until she knows she is ready and has no fear. Even if the wait is until the next mating season.”

A weight that Ratha had not known was there felt lifted off her. She met Quiet Hunter’s eyes, saw there the depth of his caring for Thistle, and was deeply grateful.

Still a little shy, he looked away. “This one will do all he can for Thistle.”

“I know you will,” Ratha answered. “I am so glad you came to us, Quiet Hunter.”

“For this one, it was not easy. Losing the song brought death close. If not for Thistle and you, this one would no longer walk in life.”

“Me?” Ratha was startled.

“You made the choice to save the source of the song. Even Thistle’s caring could only sustain me for a while. When you saved and healed True-of-voice, you healed me as well. You and Thistle and all the others—you have taught me how powerful is the thing you call . . . kindness.”

Surprise and awe sank Ratha back on her rump, knowing that any other words would be inappropriate.

“This one . . . I . . . will go back to Thistle now. If she needs you, may I come and get you?”

“Yes, of course,” Ratha managed. She stared after Quiet Hunter as he left, her jaw hanging slightly open. She felt Thakur’s paw gently bump underneath her chin. Swallowing, she closed her mouth.

“Do you still think that saving True-of-voice was a mistake?” Thakur asked as she settled back against him.

“M-maybe it wasn’t. I have to think about what has happened.”

She laid her head on her paws and watched the cubs play in the nursery. Ratharee curled up beneath her chin, chirring softly.

* * *

Ratha knew that her first task was to make sure clan ground was safe and secure. With Thakur and Fessran by her side, she patrolled clan land, ready to search out and chase away any remaining threat. She didn’t find any. All the raiders, including New Singer, were gone.

She sent out younger males as scouts, including Ashon, Mishanti, and others who were not yet affected by the mating season. They reported that the renegades had gone back to the parent hunter tribe. That baffled Ratha until Quiet Hunter and Thakur joined the scouts in a foray near hunter territory. Quiet Hunter got close enough to pick up some of the scents, sounds, and feelings that transmitted True-of-voice’s mysterious song.

It was no longer “black” for him or any of the other young males. In addition, the one the Named had called “New Singer” was no longer, for he was again with his father, caught up in the power of True-of-voice’s song.

“I don’t understand,” Ratha said to Quiet Hunter after the two had returned. “Why did True-of-voice take the renegades back? When I asked him to, he refused. Their tribe still has too few females and again, too many males. Why did he change his mind?”

Quiet Hunter had a partial answer, though for Ratha, it was difficult to understand. Quiet Hunter’s mastery of Named speech was strained by the task, and Thakur had to help him explain.

In essence, when New Singer was literally driven back to True-of-voice by the stampede, the father could not help absorbing his son’s experience. Now True-of-voice understood what his exile of New Singer had done to the Named. His son and the other renegade males had not only attacked the Named as individuals, they had abused and destroyed the clan’s spirit, or what True-of-voice understood as the “song” that united the Named.

“I don’t really care how he thinks of it,” Ratha said at last. “What matters is that he understands enough to act, and he has.” She raised a paw and licked it thoughtfully. “But he still has the problem that we caused. The death of too many females in the canyon fire.”

“When this one spoke to Thistle-chaser,” Quiet Hunter began, “she said she was willing to live with me as a hunter for a while, and raise her cubs as both Named and song-hearers, as she and I are. If any of the cubs are females, that will help. It would be by their own choice, of course,” he added. “Neither I nor Thistle would allow our daughters to be forced, as she nearly was.”

“How soon would that move happen?” Ratha asked, starting to feel anxious. “I mean, I just got Thistle back.”

“Not for a while. This one, Thistle, and you—we can decide together. This one knows you have missed her.”

Thakur, who had been listening, entered the discussion. “There are other possibilities as well. We could ease the imbalance by inviting other young hunter males to take the same path as Thistle’s mate has, to learn the ways of the Named. We can also adopt male cubs, if True-of-voice is willing.”

“This one senses that he will be. He is pressed to find an answer, but one that does not harm the song of the Named.”

“If so, we can work with him,” Ratha said. “He must understand, though, that we can’t allow his actions to damage us. She glanced at Thakur as she spoke.

“There is something else,” the herding teacher said, sitting up and leaning forward. “This affects both you and I deeply, Ratha, but we must talk about it. Quiet Hunter, cubs have been born in the clan who could not be raised as Named. In the past we have been forced to exile and abandon such young ones, a very painful thing.” He paused. “I am wondering if such cubs could be raised as song-hearers instead. Would True-of-voice accept that?”

Quiet Hunter was silent for a long time. “We will only know by trying,” he answered at last.

Ratha was opening her mouth when Thakur turned to her. “Yearling,” he said softly, using his affectionate name for her, “I don’t think this will happen with our cubs, but there is no harm in thinking ahead.” He paused. “Not only to protect the young ones, but both of us as well.”

She agreed. She never again wanted the misery of having to take animal-eyed young from clan ground and cast them out to live or die as they might. It was better that they had another chance among the face-tail hunters.

“Whatever we do,” she concluded, “if True knows that we will help him instead of leaving him to struggle, that in itself will help.”

“I will do the best I can to bring him that message. I think he will understand its wisdom, clan leader,” said Quiet Hunter, before he left to return to Thistle.

Ratha caught Thakur cocking his head as he watched Quiet Hunter depart. “He’s still got Biaree on his back,” the herding teacher answered her look. “I thought he didn’t like treelings.”

“I guess that’s another change he’s made. He’s pretty adaptable, isn’t he, Thakur? If there are more like him among the hunters, we have good reason to hope.”

Before she allowed her heat to take her again, Ratha went to her den to do some serious thinking. She let Ratharee stay with Thakur and Aree, so there would be no treeling distractions. There was still something to be resolved. Telling Thakur she would talk to him later, she lay half-inside, looking up at the stars, trying to work out the question of how two so very different societies could interact without harming one another.

Even without intent, one could inflict great damage on the other. Knowledge that was essential or useful to the Named could turn devastating or tragic if gained by the hunters. The opposite was true as well. An act that was normal and natural for the hunters could rebound with serious consequences for the Named. Driving away excess males, which was something even the clan had once done, led to New Singer’s attack on the clan.

Ratha remembered the events that led to True-of-voice’s fall from the cliff and subsequent rescue. The Named had sparked that off as well, by inadvertently showing the hunters how to kill face-tails by driving them off a cliff.

What Thakur said at the beginning might be right, that the herders and the hunters could not live so closely together. Isolation wasn’t the answer either. Bonds had been formed and would not easily be broken—Thistle-chaser and Quiet Hunter, for one.

This was a difficult problem, and Ratha knew she wouldn’t solve it even with many days and nights of thinking. Chewing at the situation in her mind, as if it were a gristly piece of meat, she began to see some guidelines that might lead to benefits for the Named and the hunters.

First, distance. The hunters and the Named could not be direct neighbors. An expanded area of neutral territory between the two groups would lessen inadvertent contact. Ratha was willing to shift the borders of clan ground to help create such a territory. Whether True-of-voice would reciprocate, she didn’t know, but he might. The hunters were more nomadic than the Named, following the face-tails on migrations north and south.

Next, time. Although her clan and True-of-voice’s hunters were developing a friendship of sorts, it was fragile and too easily disrupted by the acts and accidents that both sides had just experienced. Each had abilities and powers that could easily upset and damage the other. The face-tail hunters had True-of-voice’s mysterious song, which the Named were only starting to understand. The clan had the Red Tongue, in some ways more powerful, but hard to control and limit. Both societies, Ratha thought, needed time to grow, both in terms of replacing numbers, and in maturity and insight.

Thirdly, control based on respect. Even with time and distance, there would be contact. There had to be, for if the Named and the hunters isolated themselves completely from one another, they might again begin to think of one another as enemies. Ratha didn’t want that and, she suspected, neither did True-of-voice.

If only those individuals with experience that had developed respect for the other group were permitted and encouraged to cross between the two cultures, limited contact could work. Among the Named, Thistle-chaser and Quiet Hunter would be first. Their cubs, too, when the couple had a family. Also Thakur, for her newly won mate had amply demonstrated the insight and wisdom needed.

The next name that came to her mind surprised her. Bira. It was the young Firekeeper who had pushed for kindness and for sharing the warmth of fire. Although Bira had been badly scared by her experience in the courting circle, Ratha knew the Firekeeper was resilient—she had bounced back from other difficulties in her life. She could also separate the renegade males in her mind from the rest of True-of-voice’s people.

Ratha hesitated to include the next one who came to mind. Herself.

She knew she still had deep-seated feelings she would have to wrestle with before she could understand and accept the ways of the hunters. She remembered how alien she had thought them and how willing she had been to attack them with fire. She had managed to hold back and think things through, but her temper, she knew, could still get her into trouble.

That is where Thakur would come in. He could guide her and advise her. He was older, more experienced, and, above all, patient. He could not only teach the age-old herding skills that the Named depended on, he could also teach tolerance, kindness, and insight. The younger cubs with more flexible minds, half-grown clan members such as Ashon and Mishanti, even the older Bundi, might also become bridges between the song-hearing, dream-stalking hunters and the alert, aware, individualistic Named.

Ratha thought this all out, packaged it carefully in her mind, with the right words, gestures, inflections, tail-waves, and even scents to express it.

One more difficulty remained, and she knew this would be the most difficult piece of the problem to chew apart.

What would she do with the Red Tongue? If she shared it, as she had started to do, would that act rebound again on her and her people? If she kept it strictly for the Named, would that be right? Was there some center trail that could minimize risks and benefits for both?

She yawned. She was starting to get dizzy with thinking.

Sitting up under the deep night sky, she shook leaf litter out of her coat and began to groom herself. The snap of a twig and soft footfalls made her pause, look up. Two shapes approached, one carrying a torch. The flame reflected on a copper coat and a red-gold one. Thakur had his treeling and Ratharee. Bira was reunited with Cherfaree. The herding teacher approached first, and Ratharee sprang from his back to Ratha’s. Before he nose-touched with her, he had to drop the load of wood in his jaws.