by Clare Bell
“True, but it is still a choice to share. You are right: doing so might reduce the risks, but risks are like fleas, they never go away entirely.”
And sometimes they bite you when and where you least expect it, Ratha thought.
“I also think we should let Thistle and Quiet Hunter speak,” said Bira calmly. “If we do choose to separate from the hunters, it will affect them the most.”
Quiet Hunter also rose, his ear tips trembling. “This one would . . . I would . . . do all I could to persuade True-of-voice not to do wrong with the clan’s gift. If the two tribes must be apart, Thistle and I would suffer.”
“Drani’s idea is good one,” said Thistle when it was her turn to speak. “Would be even more careful, though. Maybe start slowly with hunters coming to just one Red-Tongue-nest on clan land. And all Firekeepers watching it.”
“Then later, if it works, two,” said Fessran, her tail tip flicking in growing excitement. “I’m willing to start very slowly and to pull back if needed.”
“Isn’t this really the clan leader’s decision?” asked Mondir, glancing at all the others, then at Ratha. “I mean, she can listen to us, but she has to choose.”
“Yes, you have given me that responsibility,” Ratha answered him. “But this is so important, I’d like to see the clan agree as much as you can. If you can’t, I will make the choice.”
She saw many looks of approval, a few of doubt. She let them argue but kept the talk from becoming too heated. Thakur and Thistle were the holdouts.
“We may be setting our paws down very carefully, but we are still choosing the path,” the herding teacher said. “Thistle is right about being extremely careful. Even if we finally agree, we must keep the risks in mind and be ready for them.”
“Just waking up each day is risky,” said Fessran. “Herding teacher, don’t be an old frog-in-the-mud.”
Thakur only sighed patiently.
“We sound close to agreement,” said Ratha. “For the Named it is unusual, but I won’t question it.”
At her side, she felt Thistle shift restlessly. “Go ahead,” Ratha prompted.
“One Red-Tongue-nest,” Thistle said. “Here. With all the Firekeepers.”
Across the circle Ratha saw Fessran wrinkle her nose.
“Fess?” she asked.
“I said that we should walk carefully, not crawl.” Fessran paused. “All right, all right, I agree. I think we’ll soon see how well this works and can move faster.”
“So then”—Ratha stood up, fluffing her fur—“we will share the Red Tongue, but we will start with one fire-nest on clan ground. If there are even the slightest problems, we will stop.” She paused. “The decision is made. We will begin tomorrow. It is the will of the Named.”
The clan’s voices echoed hers. “It is the will of the Named.”
“Good,” said Fessran as she got up and stretched. “My tongue is getting tired.”
“Your tongue never gets tired,” teased Cherfan, bumping the Firekeeper’s flank with his head. She answered him with a sheathed-claw swat, and he retaliated. The two tumbled over, play-biting like cubs.
Ratha shook herself. “My ears are tired. I want a drink, a bath, and a nap. Take yourselves off, all of you,” she mock-scolded, shooing them away like errant cubs.
With Thistle by her side, she padded away, feeling glad she had guided the clan to a consensus. It was a rare accomplishment and she felt proud, though weary. Beside her, Thistle yawned and Ratha found herself gaping widely.
“You’re right. This has been hard work,” she said. Both strolled away, swinging their tails.
D D D
On the following day, Fessran and the Firekeepers, with the help of their treelings, built a campfire at the edge of clan ground closest to the hunters’ territory. Quiet Hunter and Thistle-chaser went to tell True-of-voice that his people could come that night and bring their young.
There was scarcely enough room around the campfire for all who came. With Thistle and Quiet Hunter’s help, Fessran, Bira, and other Firekeepers arranged the visitors so that small cubs and their mothers were closest to the fire, older cubs and elders next, then pregnant females. When Ratha visited the campfire, she saw True-of-voice, sitting at the back with other adults.
Ratha also noticed an unusual quiet. She heard no speaking, only the sounds of infant cubs suckling from their mothers or the raspy breathing of the very old. At first, the other tribe hesitated, but when the Named showed True-of-voice that the campfire was safe, they approached.
Each evening Bira and some Firekeepers kept their visitors safely back until other Firekeepers and their treelings readied the fire. Before letting the other tribe near, the fire-builders tucked their treelings safely away in nearby branches. Ratha didn’t think that their guests would be so rude as to eat a treeling, but the memory of the needlessly slain three-horn shadowed her.
After a few days, she noticed on her evening visit that True-of-voice’s people brought wood. She had mixed feelings about this. The hunters’ contribution eased the wood-gathering burden on the Firekeepers, which Fessran welcomed. At the same time, the act showed that True-of-voice and his people now knew what the Red Tongue needed. Ratha added another precaution, asking herders to assist the Firekeepers, increasing the number of clan members overseeing their guests.
She didn’t see the black fawn-killer at the campfire gathering and thought that True-of-voice must have gotten rid of him. A few days later, Bira reported that the fawn-killer did appear. She also said she would keep a close watch on him.
Curiosity brought Ratha to the shared fire later the same night. She had seen the black hunter only from a distance.
None of the other face-tail hunters wore much more than a trace or shade of black. Lighter, dustier pelt colors and patterns concealed better on the open plains. Ratha had once encountered a completely black female among the Un-Named on her travels with Bone-chewer, but that was the only one. Though the meadow-and forest-dwelling Named had a wider range of colors, none were a solid black.
Ratha learned to her surprise when she got close that the fawn-killer wasn’t solid black either. Though sparsely scattered in his midnight pelt, white-tipped hairs caught the fire’s light for just an instant, so that it seemed as if tiny stars flashed and died in his coat as his muscles moved beneath. On one flank, the white-tipped hairs were close enough that they appeared to connect in ghostly lines, as if the fur was draped with a cobweb.
Ratha had never seen such markings. She wondered if the firelight was reflecting from sand grains in his coat. When she watched him groom, however, the pattern stayed.
His eyes, too, were strange, turning from pale blue to even paler green as he turned his sleek head in the firelight. Ratha had seen similar eyes only in those whose coats were completely white.
She found herself oddly fascinated yet repelled. Who was he? Had he been birthed among the face-tail hunters or joined them later? Was he a son of True-of-voice? She could tell nothing from his scent, which was dominated by the hunters’ group smell. Yet something within told her he was not completely like them.
The impression came from his eyes, Ratha finally decided. Though they held the same dreamy far-seeing stare as other hunters, occasionally there came a sharpness as quick and intense as the shimmers in his coat. Was that why he seemed shy, turning his head away from direct stares and keeping his gaze down?
At the same time, she felt that the fleeting intensity followed her when she wasn’t looking. It almost made her ask the Firekeepers to ban him from the campfire, but what if he was True-of-voice’s son, and perhaps the next in line for leadership. She thought about trying to talk to him, but Bira said she hadn’t heard him speak.
Ratha could not let him distract her. Her role in supervising the fire sharing needed her full attention. Her emotions swung oddly from one extreme to the other. When she visited the campfire site, she felt warmed by the sight of cubs curled up comfortably in the Red Tongue’s glow. Then
she was proud that she had overcome the fiercer instincts that would have used the fire not to warm but to sear.
However, she could not rid herself of a nagging doubt that closed in when she was alone. Had she done the right thing? Would her precautions be enough to prevent another tragedy? Was she indeed seeking the best interests of the Named, or would her need to befriend another tribe ultimately betray her own?
Fire’s power to help or harm was great, but even greater was the sweeping change it produced in those who used it. Living with fire tapped an unused potential within the Named for good or evil. What then would fire do to those whose potential might be even stronger? What might it release inside True-of-voice, or the song? Friendship or harm? In her mind, the image of cubs sleeping before the fire alternated with the memory of the black hunter killing the fawn.
She couldn’t argue that it was her people, not their leader, who had made the final choice. Yes, she had refrained from imposing her feelings on them, but she might have somehow herded them to a premature decision.
Was her attempt to reach out a sign of vision or blindness? Perhaps she should have listened to the instinctive revulsion that still sometimes churned in her belly. Equally strong was her sense that reaching out to these strangers was right.
As Thakur said, the paw prints were already on the trail. The only way lay ahead. If she moved with utmost care, taking all imaginable precautions, it might be enough.
Chapter Nine
Ratha could scarcely believe that, after many nights of sharing the campfire with True-of-voice’s tribe, nothing threatening had happened. Fessran and the Firekeepers soon asked for permission to build another campfire near the first. Keep it small at first, Ratha told them.
Visiting and inspecting both campfire sites, she found Fessran and Bira doing exactly as she asked. If anything, they were even more careful. The only change was that the hunters had started to bring face-tail meat as well as wood.
“I think True-of-voice realizes that building and tending the Red Tongue takes much effort,” Fessran said during one of the clan leader’s visits. “So far, sharing the Red Tongue with the hunters appears to be going very well.”
Ratha felt she could relax a little if adding a second campfire caused no problems. She waited before giving Fessran permission to enlarge this second fire.
Even if True-of-voice and his tribe didn’t express gratitude other than contributing food and fuel, Ratha accepted this limitation. The sight of cubs curled up together, comfortable and warm, felt better than words. Some cubs were from Named families, especially those of the Firekeepers.
Both Fessran and Bira encouraged Named youngsters to play and sleep among the hunter cubs. Ratha approved of this, agreeing that the two sets of cubs might understand one another better if they grew up together.
“Our hopes lie with them,” Ratha said to herself softly, as she watched one of Drani’s young sons sleepily patting a female hunter cub who licked him on the nose. Both looked so much alike in their cub-spots that Ratha had to study whisker patterns to tell them apart. Even their scents weren’t that different. This mingling of young convinced Ratha that she guided the Named along the right path.
It also helped Ratha to watch Thistle-chaser and Quiet Hunter affectionately grooming one another. They had opened that path, proving that two from very different worlds could meet and love. Their young would be a blending of herder and hunter; Named thinker and song-hearer. The thought helped ease the old pain of what had happened to Thistle-chaser herself and her lost siblings.
When True-of-voice asked, through Thistle and Quiet Hunter, for a fire on the hunters’ ground, Ratha thought long and hard before directing Fessran to go ahead with a small one. She asked Bira to take charge of this encampment, as Fessran was busy with the two on clan ground.
Among the first to approach the new flame was the black fawn-killer. When Ratha visited the site, with Ratharee on her back, she saw the black-coat as well as Bira, Quiet Hunter, and a scattering of others. Ratha felt alarm start up in her belly, making her ears twitch back and her nape fur ridge up. Ratharee, on her back, stiffened and crouched. Bira, her color deepened by the firelight, touched noses with Ratha and then spoke softly.
“Clan leader, the black one been coming here since we started this Red-Tongue-nest. He hasn’t done anything. He just sits and watches.”
Ratha greeted Quiet Hunter, who was minding various cubs. He seemed to enjoy them, for he was bathing one with his tongue. Another youngster wrestled with his foot while two others hunted his tail. Good preparation, Ratha thought, for having his own family.
She left him among the wiggling bodies, flailing paws, squeaks, and tiny growls. Settling beside Bira, Ratha felt the brush of the Firekeeper’s pelt against her own. Ratharee hopped from her back to Bira’s, chirring and starting to groom Cherfaree. Ratha’s gaze traveled, almost unwillingly, to the midnight shape that crouched apart.
“I thought about driving him off, but I really didn’t want to,” Bira said. Ratha felt the young Firekeeper’s whiskers tickling the inside of her ear as Bira spoke. “It wasn’t his fault that True-of-voice chose him to take down the fawn. These spring nights are still cold.” Ratha listened, trying hard not to flick her ear. “If you tell me to chase him off, clan leader, I will.”
“No,” Ratha answered, not wanting to dampen Bira’s generous spirit. “At least not yet.”
“He doesn’t talk. I haven’t heard him make any sound. I call him Night-who-eats-stars, because of the way his black fur swallows up the little white sparkles.”
Night-who-eats-stars, Ratha thought, looking across at the solitary form whose pale blue-green eyes stared into the fire’s heart. She found Bira’s made-up name strange, even silly, but in watching the black hunter, and seeing how ghostly specks appeared and vanished in his fur, she also found it appropriate.
“Of course, we don’t have to call him anything if we—”
“Shhh, Bira.” Ratha made her voice low. “Night can stay . . . for a while. I’m curious about him.”
She let her crouching hindquarters flop over so that she lay in a half-twist on one flank while Ratharee climbed over onto her ribs. Spreading her forelegs out, she crossed her rear paws and stretched, extending herself so that the fire warmed the length of her belly. Even though she had done this many times, she still marveled at her creature’s ability to breathe out heat.
Bira laid herself out in a similar way, keeping her head and forepaws toward Ratha. Bira’s treeling, Cherfaree slept beneath her chin. A cub bumbled its infant way from Quiet Hunter to Bira, seeking a full teat. Ratha watched as Bira curled around the litterling, as she herself had once curled around an infant Thistle-chaser and her brothers. Thistle had returned to her; would any of the others?
She listened to Bira’s purr and the soft gurgle-snort-smack of the cub suckling. Watching Bira made her remember how it felt, the tugging at her belly, the warm flow of milk through her teats into the mouths of those tiny furred bodies, the warmth and tingling that echoed the arousal of mating, but most of all the feeling, as she gazed down at her family, that she wanted to bathe them in endless, boundless love. Until they had been torn from her, not by a foe, but by her own blind devastating rage when she learned . . .
Ratha stiffened; eyes squeezed shut so hard that she felt eye fluid welling up beneath the lids and gathering in the corners to seep down the channels on each side of her nose. No, I will not think of that!
She opened her eyes, panting slightly at the rush of emotion. She had Thistle back and those once-clouded sea-green eyes were now alert and aware. It was enough. It had to be enough.
The weight of a small wiry body and a whiff of treeling scent told Ratha that Ratharee sensed her distress. Slender arms went around her neck, and she felt tufted treeling ears against her cheek, small careful hands stroking her face. She nuzzled Ratharee and then turned her head for a quick look at Bira. The young mother was so absorbed in nursing her cub that she hadn’t noti
ced Ratha’s reaction.
Why am I thinking of this? I thought the feelings were long dead, but they are wakening. Why?
Because it’s nearly mating season, dung-for-brains, she scolded herself.
But Thakur’s not even here. It doesn’t matter anyway. I can have any clan male; the matings have never taken. Not since Bone-chewer.
She shook out of her reverie and distracted herself by watching Night-who-eats-stars. Ratharee was curled up against Ratha’s chest fur, sleeping on her forepaws.
Night-who-eats-our-fawn, she thought, trying to take refuge in a bout of ill temper. It didn’t last, and she found herself watching him intensely.
Though Night shifted occasionally, the inky gloom of his coat creating and destroying the sparks of white, his gaze remained immobile, fixed on the fire. Within those eyes, something shifted, rising and falling like a restless sea. His eyes seemed as distant and dreamy as the eyes of other hunters, but every so often Ratha saw a pinpoint sharpness even more intense than the light in the eyes of the clan. It vanished instantly, like the white in his fur. Ratha blinked and wondered if both the stars in fur and eyes had existed only in her imagination.
She decided that he had to be a son of True-of-voice, perhaps the gray one’s heir. But if Night was, he showed no understanding of fire, as True-of-voice did. Nor did he ever speak, not even the stunted half language the hunter tribe used.
Opening her mouth and extending her tongue slightly, Ratha tried to catch his aroma. Dominated as it was by the hunter group-scent and masked by the burning fire, she could only smell and taste enough to tantalize her. Again she attempted, inhaling deeply through nose and mouth. She had learned how to enhance her scent-detection by trapping the air high in the most delicate and sensitive part of her nose and holding it still while she continued to breathe through her mouth. Closing her eyes, she focused attention on her smell-sense, sampling every part of the trapped air wfor the slightest odor trace that might reveal more about Night-who-eats-stars.
