by Clare Bell
Ratha watched him as he ate. His odor, his eyes and everything else about him told her that the reason he didn’t want to return to clan ground had nothing to do with river-crawlers.
* * *
Ratha trotted over the beach, her pads obliterating for a moment the maze of tracks in the sand. She stepped in a pile of dung and hopped on three legs, shaking her foot in disgust, while the dapplebacks covered her tracks with sharp-edged toe prints. The beach wasn’t big enough for this many animals at once, she thought, wiping her pad clean in a patch of scrubby dune grass.
The three-horned deer stood together in a tight bunch eyeing the clan herders. The stags pawed and thrust their spikes into the sand, their musky scent sharp with ill temper. Herdfolk rushed at them, singly and together, trying to shy the males away and split the herd in half. Ratha, knowing she was still too weak for this task, watched as Thakur and Fessran sparred with two big males guarding the center of the herd. Skillfully the two herders drew the stags aside and Meoran led a drive into the center of the herd. The mass of animals shuddered and then broke apart. Herders on both sides of the split kept the milling animals separated.
Ratha jumped up. Her task was to join with the other herdfolk in driving the dapplebacks, cud-chewers and other animals between the three-horns.
“Keep the deer on the outside!”
Ratha glanced back and saw Meoran yowling orders down the beach. Herdfolk snarled and nipped at the deer, driving them into the river. Over the backs and heads of the little horses, Ratha saw the deer plunging and tossing their heads, throwing spray from hooves and antlers. The sound of the river was lost in the clamor of splashing and bawling. The water boiled and darkened with mud, churned up from the bottom. Ratha saw flashes of white in the water, as silt-blinded fish thrashed and jumped to escape the animals’ hooves. The dapplebacks followed the deer into the river and the herders followed them.
Ratha ran down the beach, leaped and bellyflopped into the water. She opened her eyes, gasped at the cold and started paddling. Ahead of her, the short-legged dapplebacks swam beside the wading deer, bouncing in the brown current that swirled past the three-horns’ legs. Ratha’s feet left the bottom and she began to swim after the little horses, feeling the water pull through her pads at each stroke. She angled up against the current, which buffeted her chest.
Now the deer were swimming, only their necks above water, their crowns forming a moving thorny forest around the dapplebacks. Ratha felt the water churn beside her and saw Thakur’s slick head and dripping whiskers. She grinned at him over her shoulder and got a mouthful of muddy water as a wave slapped her in the face.
“Can you swim it, yearling?” he called as she sneezed and spluttered.
“I’ll swim it, Thakur,” she answered, water running out of the corners of her mouth. “Don’t stay beside me,” she protested as he bobbed alongside, his tail dragging downstream in the current.
Ratha settled down to the business of swimming, keeping her paws going in a steady rhythm and her nose above water. She fixed her eyes on the herd, moving in the water ahead of her. The three-horn deer formed an open ring around the dapplebacks and other animals, breaking the force of the current so that the smaller animals didn’t have to fight it. Even so, the flow was sweeping the little horses to one side of the ring, piling them up, flank to flank, against the deer. The three-horns kicked and poked the dapplebacks away, but the current pushed them back again. Trapped against their irritated neighbors, the dapplebacks squealed and bit.
Ratha swam in their wake, tasting blood in the water. Her stroke was slowing, her paws so heavy she could hardly move them. The ache in her lungs had begun before she had swum a few tail-lengths, but now it was a grinding pain, radiating from her breastbone into her chest. Her wet fur dragged her down. The water lapped along her cheek and the base of her ears. The shore seemed no closer and the herd farther away.
Thakur was swimming alongside her on the upstream side, staying close enough to grab her if she went under, but otherwise offering no help except an encouraging “Halfway, yearling.”
“Halfway, Thakur,” she bubbled and kept on stroking.
Ratha’s breastbone felt as though it would split and she was sobbing from exhaustion by the time her claws scraped bottom on the other side.
There was a tug at her ruff and the wet warmth of a body at her side. Thakur steadied her, while she found footing on the loose gravel. Slowly she waded to shore beside him and hauled herself out.
Weary as she was, she lifted her head and squinted up and down the beach. The tracks were there, but the herd had gone. The beach was quiet except for wavelets lapping along shore and her soaked pelt still draining onto the sand. Ratha ground her teeth together, crunching gritty sand between them. Meoran hadn’t bothered to wait. Yaran might have, but he was too afraid to cross Meoran. For all they knew, she had drowned in the crossing. She felt a nudge; a voice in her ear.
“It doesn’t matter, yearling. Lie down and rest.”
She turned and flattened her ears. “Meoran thinks he is rid of me, the weakling, the she-cub. When he sees me it will be like rubbing his face in dung.” She grinned, still panting. She turned and staggered up the beach, knowing Thakur could do nothing except follow.
He did. She heard his paws crunch on the sand as she made her way over the rippling dunes on the high part of the beach. She saw that he looked at the ground as he walked and not ahead to the forest, whose fire-scarred trees spoke of the Red Tongue’s passing. The burn smell hung in the air, and though it was mixed with the fresh scent of new growth, the odor brought with it the memory of the fire. Thakur began to lag and the ends of his whiskers trembled.
Ratha had gone several paces beyond him before she knew he’d stopped.
“Thakur?” She looked back. His shaking was worse than hers. “Thakur, are you sick?”
He stood, frozen, staring at the sand a few tail-lengths ahead of him. His fear-smell wafted to Ratha. Hesitantly, she came to him and nosed him.
“Now you see why Meoran called me coward,” he said, hanging his head.
“Why? What are you afraid of? The Red Tongue is gone.”
“For me it hasn’t gone.” Thakur said in a low voice. “Ratha, I can’t walk across there now. Stay here with me for a few days. We can eat river-crawlers.”
Ratha glared at him. “I want to make Meoran eat dung. The longer we wait the further away he gets.” She turned away.
“Idiot cub!” she heard Thakur yell at her back. “Ratha, you can’t go back by yourself. You couldn’t fight off a weanling cub let alone a pack of Un-Named raiders.”
“Then come with me.” Ratha stopped and looked back at him, flicking her tail.
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“I saw that dappleback die, yearling. You weren’t close enough to see it, but I did.”
“Thakur, the smell isn’t that bad. The ash will be soft beneath our feet. We’ll travel fast.”
He hung his head. “I can’t.”
Ratha yawned in frustration. She felt a sudden fury rising like acid in her throat.
“I don’t care about your burned dappleback! I want to go back to the clan. Maybe Meoran was right when he said your father was an Un-Named bone-eater!”
She was down in the sand before the last word was out of her mouth. Thakur stood over her, almost on top of her while her head rang from his blow. She shrank into a miserable ball and wished she could melt between the sand grains. She could feel his shadow on her, feel his pain, feel him waiting....
“I thought Meoran was just spreading lies about you,” she faltered.
Thakur gave her a smoldering look. “No. He was spreading the truth about me, which, it seems, is far worse. Where did you hear it?”
“At the clan kill. I overheard Meoran talking to Yaran. I was busy eating, but I heard enough.”
Thakur took a breath. “All right, yearling. Yes, what you heard is true. The one who sired me had no name, eve
n though he was more worthy of it than many in the clan. My mother Reshara chose unwisely.”
“I thought our law said that both the lair-mother and lair-father must be named in order for the cubs to be named,” Ratha said.
“So why do I bear a name?” Thakur grinned ruefully. “Old Baire took pity on Reshara even though she sought outside the clan for a mate. He let her stay until her two cubs were born and then she was driven out. He let me live and gave me my name. He had that much mercy.”
Ratha lifted her nose from the sand. “Cubs? You have no littermates in the clan.”
Thakur looked uncomfortable and she knew he had not meant to say as much as he had. At last he sighed. “My brother runs with the Un-Named. Reshara took him with her when she left the clan.”
“Why didn’t she take you?”
“Old Baire asked that she leave both of us with the clan. Although our father was Un-Named, Baire knew we were far from being witless.”
“Then why did she take your brother?”
“She disobeyed Baire. She took my brother and fled. My father came to get me, but Baire’s son, Meoran, was lying in wait for him.”
“Meoran caught you,” Ratha breathed.
“Meoran killed my father and caught me. I fought, but I was only a litterling. He put a paw on me and tore out some of my front claws with his teeth.”
Ratha looked down at Thakur’s right front foot and shivered. She had once asked him how he lost his claws, but he had distracted her with something else. The foot did not look very different from the other but Ratha guessed that scars lay beneath the fur.
“Did you ever see Reshara or your brother again?” she asked.
“Reshara is dead now, Ratha,” he said, in a tone that discouraged her from asking anything more.
She tested her legs and clambered to her feet. Thakur looked beyond her to the burn.
“Go, yearling. I’ll follow,” he said.
Ratha went ahead until she reached the border of the beach where the sand was streaked with charcoal.
Beyond the upper beach the forest floor was ash and charred stubble, with a few green blades poking through. Ratha sniffed, grimaced at the smell and passed onto the burn. She walked carefully, for the ground was still dew-damp and the ash slippery beneath her pads. Once or twice she looked back. Thakur was following. His tail bristled and his whiskers trembled and she could see the fear in his eyes, yet he said nothing as he walked behind her across the burn.
The farther they traveled, the harsher the landscape grew and the more acrid the burn smell. Here the fire had burned recently and more intensely. Saplings stood, charred forlorn sticks that would never put forth another leaf. Trunks of gutted pines lay in their path, blocking the way. Ratha leaped over them easily, but coaxing Thakur across them was another matter and more than once she had to force him up and over a still-smoking log.
Thakur followed Ratha across the burn until they were blocked by a tangle of downed trees and brush. In among the charred twigs was one still burning. The flame flickered against the pale sky and danced between blackened twists of bark.
To Ratha, the Red Tongue was an animal and its life should end with its death. To find the Red Tongue alive here, even this faint and flickering part of it, was contrary to all she knew of life or death. Behind her, Thakur whimpered, the sounds escaping from his throat despite his wish to hold them back. She butted him, trying to make him go forward, but he balked, unwilling to pass the Red Tongue in the downed tree.
Ratha stared at the flame. To go around the fallen trees meant a weary trek out of the way. But she knew she couldn’t get Thakur through the tangle, even though there was room to crawl beneath the interwoven branches. He stood frozen behind her, eyes closed, panting, unable now to overcome the terror that held him prisoner.
Ratha grew angry and spat at the fire-animal. Lashing her tail, she walked toward the burning twig. A sharp gust made the flame flutter back as she approached, and she grew bolder. Around the Red Tongue, the air shimmered as if it were flowing water. The smoke was thick and resinous.
Anger and a growing fascination drew Ratha to the Red Tongue, and she stared into the blue-gold heart of the flame. It was, she thought, a thing that danced, ate and grew like a creature, but unlike a creature, once killed it wouldn’t stay dead.
With flattened ears and streaming eyes, Ratha lunged at the Red Tongue’s black throat. Her teeth sank into charred wood and she twisted her head sharply. The branch broke off. She held it in her mouth for several seconds, watching the flame curl and hiss near the end of her nose. The charcoal tasted bitter and Ratha flung the branch away. It rolled over and over in the dirt. The fire flickered, hissed and went out.
Ratha pawed the branch. She scratched the burned bark, trying to find the elusive fire-creature, but the wood was cold. When she lifted her head from the branch, Thakur’s eyes were on her. Carefully he padded forward and sniffed at the branch where the Red Tongue had been. Ratha stood to one side, panting a little from excitement.
“Can you crawl through the thicket now, Thakur?” she asked.
“Yes, yearling, I can,” he said quietly. “Lead the way.”
There were other places where the Red Tongue still guttered weakly on twigs or bark and Ratha broke the branches off and smothered the flame. Each time Thakur would sniff the charred wood to convince himself that the Red Tongue had vanished. Ratha offered to teach him her newly acquired skill, but Thakur hastily declined.
The sun stood at midpoint in the hazy sky and Thakur and Ratha were approaching another stand of gutted pines when they heard the sound of approaching feet.
Thakur lifted his muzzle and pricked his ears.
“Fessran?” he called.
“Ho, herder.” Fessran jogged around the far end of the smoking brush, keeping her distance from it.
“How far is the dan?” asked Ratha, coming alongside Thakur.
“Less than half a day’s run, if one could go straight through. Having to go around all the brush tangles and fallen trees makes the journey longer.” Fessran sat down and licked soot from her coat. “I’m surprised that you have come this far.”
“We went through,” Thakur said. “Ask Ratha.”
“You can crawl through, yes,” Fessran said doubtfully, “if you don’t mind the Red Tongue’s cubs licking at your coat.”
“I don’t worry about the Red Tongue’s cubs.” Ratha grinned. “Watch.”
Fessran came alongside Thakur and stood. Ratha trotted past them to the pile of downed trees, hopped up on a log and seized a branch with fire dancing at the tip. She bounced down with the twig in her mouth, threw it on the ground and kicked dirt on it. She grabbed the end and rubbed the glowing coals in the ash, which billowed up around her, making her sneeze. When the cloud settled, Ratha swaggered toward Fessran and Thakur, the burned stick still in her mouth. Fessran hunched her shoulders and retreated. Ratha stopped where she was.
“Come and sniff it, Fessran,” she coaxed. With a glance at Thakur, who hadn’t moved, Fessran approached Ratha, extended her neck and brushed the charcoaled bark with her whiskers. She grimaced at the smell and shied away as if she expected the fire-creature to revive and leap off the branch at her. Eyes fixed on the spot where the Red Tongue had been, Fessran crouched. Thakur nosed the branch.
“Yarr!” Fessran’s tail swept back and forth in the ash. “It is gone. You killed it!”
“I can only kill little ones,” Ratha said, still grinning around the branch end in her mouth.
“No one can do that,” Fessran said, straightening from her crouch, her belly smeared with ash. “Not even Meoran.”
Ratha strutted, her ruff and whiskers bristling. “Clan leader, ptah! Who is he compared to the slayer of the Red Tongue?”
“One who would rip you from throat to belly if he heard your words,” Thakur said, stopping her swagger with a penetrating look. Ratha wrinkled her nose at him, tossed the stick away and began scrambling across the fallen trees.
“That one isn’t in our way,” she heard Thakur say. “You don’t need to kill it.”
Ratha took a step forward. Thakur was right. She should go on and let the creature be. She lifted her muzzle and smelled. The odor was acrid, stinging her nose, burning her throat. The hated smell.
“Leave it, Ratha.”
She glanced at Thakur. He and Fessran were turning away. Another step toward the trees. Another. The fire’s rush and crackle filled her ears. The flames’ mocking dance drew her to the base of the trees and she stared up, awe and hatred mingling in a strange hunger.
She climbed onto one leaning tree, which shook and threatened to break under her weight. She balanced herself and crawled up the slender trunk, digging her claws into fire-brittled wood. She crept up until she reached the Red Tongue’s nest and began to snap away the dry twigs that guarded the flame. The creature seemed to shrink back as Ratha destroyed its nest. It withdrew to a single limb and clung there, as if daring her to reach in and pull it out. She shifted her weight and glanced down.
Fessran and Thakur stood near the tree, alternately staring up at her then at each other, brows wrinkled in dismay.
She cleared an opening large enough for her head, gulped a breath of air, tensed and lunged at the Red Tongue’s branch. Her teeth ground on wood. A branch broke beneath one of her paws, and she flailed wildly, bouncing in the treetop. The branch in her mouth splintered, with a crack that jarred her teeth. Her claws hooked, held, tore loose, and she slid. Her ears were bombarded by a volley of snapping limbs, and everything blurred, as the tree’s crown disintegrated. Black twigs, blue sky and the fire’s mocking orange tumbled together, whirled madly and crashed to a stop.
