Ratha's Courage (8 page)

When Ratha pointed her nose toward the face-tail hunters, closed her eyes, and let odor claim her attention, she noticed that the theme of similarity among them continued from sight to scent. True-of-voice’s people had almost no individual scents, only traces. The dominant smell was True-of-voice, and even his pure scent did not encompass his group. They had a tribal smell: part True-of-voice, part other. The scent of the song, Thakur had called it, even though his choice of words seemed muddled and contradictory.

The scents of her own people, though, Ratha could easily pick out, even if Thakur, Bira, Thistle, or whoever had been rolling in the strongest herdbeast dung. Even Quiet Hunter, in moving from True-of-voice’s tribe to her clan, had developed more of his individual scent as well as the Named group-smell. His was strong enough now that Ratha could taste it on the air that passed the sensitive area on the roof of her mouth. She envied Thistle slightly, and her gaze wandered to Thakur.

She also caught herself grimacing slightly to catch the scent and taste of the herding teacher. She bent and groomed a forepaw to distract herself from those thoughts.

Thakur followed Thistle. He would be displaying an unusual herding tactic. Though the Named herders were reluctant to admit it, some beasts couldn’t be stared into submission or easily caught. Young three-horns were often too quick and too fleet for the Named to catch and hold their gaze.

Ratha shifted on the sunning rock. Thakur had been working on this new capture technique for a while but had kept it private until he could perfect it.

Now he was ready. He stood to one side of the arena, almost within a tail-length of the Named side of the audience. Opposite him, Fessran, Drani, and Bira held a three-horn fawn. Fessran wrapped her forelegs around the deer’s neck while Drani held the tail and rump. Bira put both forepaws on the young deer’s spotted back, using her weight to keep the animal still.

She saw Thakur gather his hindquarters beneath him and lower his head. Catching the suppressed excitement in his scent gave Ratha a powerful wish to slide her forepaws out, raise her hindquarters, lay her chest down, and moan in longing. She quickly squashed the urge.

Thakur lifted a forefoot, extended his claws and gave them a quick glance, paying particular attention to the dewclaw. Curious, Ratha sat up, craning her neck. The Named didn’t use the dewclaw much, at least not in herding.

Muscles quivered and tensed in Thakur’s flanks.

He gave a sharp upward flip of his tail, the signal for the three females to release the fawn.

Ratha thought he would explode forward in a rush, using his speed to bring the fawn down before it could take a step. Instead, while the young deer stood nervously, flicking its tail, Thakur sank down low in the grass and began a hunting stalk.

The deer broke into a high-stepping trot, herders loosely ringing the creature to prevent it from running too far away. They didn’t want to let the animal think that it could actually escape.

Thakur quickened his stalk, his shoulders and haunches the only parts of him visible in the high grass. His stalk became a fast walk, a trot, and then a springing gallop, the deer bounding ahead of him.

For an instant the deer pulled ahead, and Ratha thought that Thakur would lose it. Less than a whisker-twitch later, he hit his full speed, his back bowing and arching, his reaching strides flying him to the fawn’s heels.

The deer ran hard, swerving and dodging, but Thakur stayed on it, whipping his tail out to keep his balance. Ratha saw his forepaw flash out, dewclaw fully extended. His blow struck and hooked the deer on the outside of the hock, sweeping its hind legs out from under it. The quarry fell, sliding on its side in a jumble of flailing hooves and a shroud of dust, pebbles, and torn-up grass. Both prey and hunter tumbled together, loose earth raining down on them.

With a snakelike strike, Thakur was on top of the deer, diving, twisting, dodging the hooves, seeking the throat. Ratha’s breath quickened. Was he going for a kill?

As the dirt and dust settled, Ratha saw him crouching, forearms embracing the fawn’s neck, open jaws cradling the underside of the throat, gently twisting the head back and to one side. A slight twitching at the corners of his mouth told Ratha that he was holding back, fighting the urge to bite deeply.

Applause was slow to start, for many of the Named bore expressions of puzzled amazement. When it did come, it broke from the clan side in a swelling roar that vibrated through the sunning rock where Ratha sat.

Both stalker and prey held absolutely still until the crowd noise died. Then Thakur released the deer and backed away. Bira, Fessran, and Drani were already closing in. The fawn, dazed, sat as if still held, then, with a jerk, scrambled to its feet. The three deer-wranglers ringed the young three-horn and took it away.

Thakur pivoted around, his tail sweeping the air in a flourish. Ratha knew Thakur never strutted like some clan males, but he was close. His walk was full of suppleness and pride, his chin lifted, his eyes glowing.

Again happy caterwauling and howling burst from the clan side and seemed to fountain up into the trees.

Thakur is the one who carries the true spirit of the Named, Ratha thought. She joined the applause until her throat felt scratchy. When it faded, she heard Cherfan’s voice saying, “And that was our herding teacher, showing the newest capture technique he developed. He did it without really harming that fawn. How did you do that?”

Some movement on True-of-voice’s side of the crowd drew Ratha’s gaze. It was Thistle and Quiet Hunter, leaning close to the other tribe’s leader, speaking quietly to him and one another. True-of-voice leaned forward on his forepaws, eyes narrowed and intent.

Tail high, Thakur jogged to the announcer, taking a place beside Cherfan on a low outcropping near the sunning rock.

Ratha could hear his fast breathing from the chase and a slight strain in his voice as he tried to speak louder.

“I borrowed the idea from some long-legged Un-Named ones who were hunting prong-buck. I tried it out on our fawns and it worked.”

“I imagine that getting it to work took some practice,” Cherfan replied.

The herding teacher took a large breath. “It certainly did. I was pretty winded by the time I got it right.”

His part ended, Thakur hopped down off the outcrop, leaving Cherfan to announce the next event, a contest between the cubs as to who could stay longest on a bucking animal. Ratha, having seen this several times previously, crouched down as Thakur passed the sunning rock, and asked him to come sit with her.

While the crowd’s attention focused on the next event, Ratha touched noses with Thakur, then slid alongside him, both flopping their tails over one another’s backs. She enjoyed a moment of bathing in his scent, and then spoke to him. “Herding teacher, that was amazing! Will you teach it to the cubs?”

“Yes, but I’ll tell them I don’t like to knock a beast down that way unless other culling methods don’t work. It’s a bit rough on the creatures.” Thakur stuck a rear leg forward and curled down, nibbling clots of mud out from between his spread toes. “And you get very dirty.”

Ratha licked streaks of mud from his side. Tasting the salt of minerals, she swallowed it. She spit out the coarse grass, and then sat, curling her long tail over her feet. “That’s nothing new for the Named.”

She saw Thakur grin slightly at the wry tone in her voice. When he lay down next to her, one foot brushing the base of her tail, she felt a wave of warmth surge through her, drawing sweat from her pads and the leather of her nose. It wasn’t the mating season yet. Was her heat coming early?

She distracted herself by watching the bucking contest. This time it was a tie between Ashon and Mishanti, and the latter did not have to be thrown into a tree.

“He’s getting better,” Thakur commented, watching Mishanti pick himself up and lope after his mount. “Maybe there are some things he’ll be good at.”

“Riding bucking dapplebacks and herding rumblers,” Ratha said, her voice slightly sour.

Thakur excused himself, saying that he should help prepare the next pair of riders. He leaped down from the sunning rock. Ratha felt the surge of warmth fade. No, she wasn’t in heat yet.

Her gaze strayed back to True-of-voice’s people. One could be replaced by the next, she thought, and it would make no difference.

Thakur had once told her why he thought the Named varied so much from one another. It was because they had started to farm instead of hunt their prey. Hunters needed to blend into their surroundings. Pelt colors and patterns remained the same from individual to individual and between generations. One whose coat color stood out wouldn’t survive very long.

The need to match the background was far less for herders. Standing out even helped to fascinate and intimidate herdbeasts, making them easier to manage. Freedom from the constraints of the hunter allowed the Named to choose their mates for beauty as well as ability and temperament. This tendency influenced the colors of eyes as well as pelts. Clan eyes ranged from the agate blue of newborn cubs through all shades of gray, green, yellow, gold amber, honey, hazel, copper, and dark sepia.

A part of her still couldn’t be convinced that the differences between True-of-voice’s face-tail hunters and the Named were not alien. Perhaps the impulse that made her reach out, to help rather than harm, was, in the end, misguided. A voice in her kept whispering that her choice could still lead to tragedy. It still whispered, making her search among the True-of-voice’s people for any sign of initiative or individuality.

To her surprise, she did find tiny sparks of it. She saw it among the half-grown ones, the yearlings, and some of the older cubs. In some way, the traits that were so buried in their nature fought their way out. She saw eyes that would widen and brighten with the wish to see more, ears swivel and flick forward with the urge to hear more, tails lash with impatience to know more than just the song. It was then that the young of True-of-voice’s people began to resemble the young of the Named.

As if the power within the song knew that it was being challenged, it reacted. The sparks in those young eyes flamed only briefly before they were suffocated down to embers and then darkened.

Witnessing that fading made Ratha heartsick. What right did True-of-voice or that strangeness emanating from him mistakenly called “the song” have to strangle or stifle those tiny flames? It was like seeing empty eyes in the faces of Named litterlings. That just happened. This quenching of the soul was a deliberate act.

Ratha’s heartsickness rose to anger. Why was she struggling so hard to understand something that was clearly so wrong? Why was she so willfully blind to the evil? She had the power to snatch away young ones who still held the promise of their own selves from the power that would engulf them.

Accepting Quiet Hunter among us kept his flame from being stifled. Adopting face-tail hunter cubs might do the same, and we need more litterlings.

But if I am blind, she thought, are Thakur and Thistle as well? Is what I thought of as wisdom unwillingness to see? Am I the one whose vision fails?

Chapter Six

Before the next performance came a short break. Ratha saw Thistle-chaser’s tail waving in the air, saying that she wanted to speak to her mother.

Ratha sprang down off her perch to meet her daughter. They met and rubbed foreheads. Thistle smelled good—healthy and salty-fresh as the wind from a sea beach. In her abrupt way, Thistle said, “True-of-voice has questions.”

Ratha let herself be led back through the throng to the gray-and-white leader. Watching Thistle move easily ahead of her, Ratha saw that her daughter now walked without even a trace of a limp. When they reached True-of-voice, Ratha started to speak to him, but Thistle put up a paw, stopping her.

Thistle and Quiet Hunter sat very still, eyes closed, ears forward as if listening to something distant, noses lifted as if scenting something faint. True-of-voice gazed at both of his interpreters, but he also seemed to be looking at something else beyond them.

Quiet Hunter opened his eyes, spoke quietly to Thistle, who then turned to Ratha, saying, “The song . . . I mean, True-of-voice feels pleasure at being shown how we keep and tend our animals.”

“Tell True-of-voice that we are glad that he and his tribe have come. It will lead to better understanding between us.”

She saw Thistle take a short breath, as if those words might be challenging to translate.

“The song is to know,” said Thistle to Quiet Hunter, “that there is . . . pleasure in its coming. The . . . spirit of the Named desires to flow close to the song so that the knowledge is mingled in both.”

At Thistle’s last words, Quiet Hunter grimaced as if they were too difficult.

Ratha’s eyes widened. Is this what she had said?

“All right, no ‘both,’” Thistle said hastily. With a glance at Ratha, she added, “Song doesn’t know what ‘both’ means. No word for things in many parts. Only for things in one.”

She turned to Quiet Hunter. “Say, ‘so that knowing pours together like water.’”

It was a little awkward, a little too Thistle-ish, Ratha thought, but Quiet Hunter indicated acceptance.

Again he sat absolutely still with closed eyes, but Ratha could smell his scent changing. The transformations were so subtle and so rapid that she couldn’t follow them. Every once in a while, Quiet Hunter touched True-of-voice and spoke to him in simple words, mixed with a soft singsong that was somewhere between a murmur and a purr. To Ratha’s ears, the sound was oddly beautiful, and she wanted to imitate it. Thistle joined in with Quiet Hunter, her voice sounding in counterpoint and descant to his.

It had a strange effect on Ratha, altering her perception of the moment so that everything seemed to slow and glide. So alien was this that a shiver ran up from her tail tip to the back of her head, making her want to shake to be rid of it.

So, the way this “song” is carried is through scent, and touch as well as sound, Ratha thought.

She found her tongue. “Thistle, did True-of-voice . . . I mean, the song . . . understand?”