Ratha's Courage

by Clare Bell

  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 complained 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 hu
nters. 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.

  More were gathering overhead, gliding down in an open spiral as Thakur and Cherfan returned from the table and took places near Ratha. The hawks on the outcrop bobbed their heads, cleaned their beaks against their talons, and mantled their wings at one another. One sailed down and landed.

  Ratha felt herself grimacing in disgust. Then, as the hawk hopped and landed again on something higher so that Ratha could see its head and opening beak, the grimace turned into a snarl. Wretched carrion-birds, violating the stillness of the dead, she thought, wanting someone to chase them away, but neither True-of-voice nor any of his tribe made a move. Her muscles tensed and she was just about to launch herself up on the table when a heavy foot slapped onto her tail and pinned it.

  “No, yearling!” a voice hissed in her ear. For an instant she wanted to leap, and struggled briefly against him. Then she became still, not wanting to interrupt the hunters’ vigil. Baffled, she turned her head to Thakur, whispering, “I was just trying to help. Those carrion-eaters are going to ruin whatever True-of-voice has planned.”

  In a softer whisper, Thakur replied, “Ratha, they are part of what he has planned. The dead are being given to the air. The birds of the air.”

  At first Ratha refused to believe him. Instinct made her want to lunge at the raptors, driving them away as she would chase them from a kill. It went against her grain to let them land and feed on a herdbeast kill. To allow or even encourage carrion-feeders to alight on the dead of one’s own tribe was unthinkable, yet True-of-voice seemed to be doing that. It was all she could do not to whip her tail out from beneath Thakur’s paw. She felt the muscles in her haunches tremble and twitch with the instinct to attack.

  Her ears twitched back, wanted to flatten. This has hideous, revolting, alien. How could True-of-voice . . . and how could Thakur understand?

  “Yearling, they are doing the same as we do when we bury the ones whose spirit has left them. In some ways it is better, quicker, and the bones are left clean.”

  Ratha still wasn’t convinced, but she was willing to sit still. More hawks were alighting, joined now by eagles and condors. The edge of the table hid everything but the tops of their bobbing heads from view. As for smell, the wind was at her back, bringing her only the scents of the mountain: warm rock, earth mixed with pine needles, tree bark, and leaves. The wind spared her the sounds as well, and she did not strain to see anything more of what was happening on the granite table. What she could see was enough.

  To distract herself, she looked over at the hunters. They all had their heads raised, eyes closed, and noses up. Their ears pricked forward, trembling with the effort to hear, but no sound came to Ratha except those of the wind and the mountain. She looked to Thistle-chaser, who was also sitting nose-up, eyes closed.

  It’s that strange “song” of theirs again, Ratha thought. From the solemn expression on Thistle’s face, she knew it was a song of mourning. Unwanted envy crept over her. Why were she and the other clan members being excluded from this? They had played a part in it. True-of-voice had asked them to come. Why did the hunters now mourn in silence, allowing the Named no part? Why, among all the clan-born, did only Thistle-chaser have the ability to hear it?

  She looked at her people. They answered her gaze with expressions of puzzlement, even irritation. Only Thakur looked calm, and even his eyes questioned.

  And then, faintly, Ratha did hear something. A faint note that made her ears quiver, swiveling to catch it. So soft, but inexplicably powerful. It was coming . . . yes, from True-of-voice. The sound was not a howl, a screech, a growl, or any of the other cat-noises her kind made. It was a pure tone—low, resonating, growing. It began to waver, then to soar. It swelled with grief and then plunged to a depth almost below Ratha’s hearing. When it faded, Ratha found herself wanting it to grow again. Even when its power nearly hurt her ears, she desired only to hear more. She didn’t know whether it was mourning, raging, rejoicing, or somber, and she guessed it was all of these, or none, or more.

  She was barely able to tear herself free of it for an instant, to glance at her people. Even such a brief look told her that they were as caught up in this as she was. And Thistle, eyes now wide open in amazement, was hearing both the inner and the outer manifestations of the song.

  Then she heard another voice—a higher, different tone—and then a third. Other hunters opened their mouths, their voices joining. But the strange thing to Ratha was that none of the voices clashed with the leaders. All seemed to harmonize, supporting and strengthening the central theme of the song. As she listened, Ratha got the feeling that there were things missing, gaps that had opened, voices that had fallen silent. How she could tell, she didn’t know, but a part of her whispered that it was the voices of the fire-slain dead that would have filled the emptiness.

  This was the way the hunters mourned the passing of their own.

  A new voice entered the song, weaving its own way among the interlacing lines and subsidiary themes, but never crossing, never challenging. It was Thistle, singing as Ratha had never heard her, high, clear, with almost a piercing purity.

  Even so, Ratha knew that what she could hear was only a small part of the entity that enveloped the group and now her as well. The intoxication might be coming from scent as well, and as Ratha chased that thought briefly, a flood of odors, as complex as the vocal chorus, shifting, ever-changing, but somehow unified, created a scent-song in her nose and a taste-song on her tongue. The fur on her body lifted in response to a touch-song on her skin. Colors and shapes swirled before her eyes as vision found its song as well.

  In each of these sense-songs, there were gaps, voids, empty spaces, missing voices, and echoes of loss that spoke of passing, grief, and a profound wish that the song would once again be whole. But it remained flawed, the needed voices, themes, counterpoints still absent, and in that Ratha found a kind of acceptance of change, of loss, of death, of finality, that made the song even more beautiful and compelling.

  The song pervaded all her senses, increasing in intensity until she thought she could no longer stand it, yet her hunger only deepened.

  Abruptly it stopped, leaving a ringing void into which Ratha had to cast the sound, image, smell, taste of herself, her own individuality in order to fill it.

  She blinked, opened her eyes, not sure for an instant who or what she was. Her mouth was open in a cry that faded in her ears as she continued to wake. Her eyes strained to see through the dusk about her, and she wondered if the song still had possession of her sight. Then she saw the faint glow of a lingering sunset to the west and realized that evening had come. It was almost night, and she couldn’t even remember the day passing.

  The raptor
s were leaving. Even as she turned her head back to the granite table, the last one leaped into the air with a clap and swish of wing feathers. Then, heavily, as if laden, it flapped away. A bone rolled off the granite, landed in the gravel near her feet. It had been picked so clean that it looked stark and beautiful in the glow from a rising moon.

  The air had taken what the Red Tongue had slain. What moved the forms of the hunters would now fuel the hawk’s flight, the building of nests, the hatching of chicks that would grow into young hawks that would someday again descend to this granite slab to feed. The awesome, terrible, yet essential cycle would continue, taking all who sat here now.

  This was, after all, a fitting way to mark and acknowledge the transition.

  Someone was putting a soft paw on Ratha’s flank. Thistle.

  “You understand now?” her daughter asked.

  Ratha found it hard to speak. “I am just beginning to understand.” Her jaws gaped in a yawn as weariness rushed over her. She heard the sound of other yawns as well. She wasn’t surprised. It had been a long, intense day. At last it was over and the Named could return to home ground.

  “Thistle, walk beside me on the way back,” Ratha said.

  “If you fall over, can hold you up,” Thistle offered.

  “I appreciate that, but it’s not what I need.”

  “Talk on the trail? About the birds and the dead hunters?”

  “That’s closer.”

  Ratha turned around, feeling her daughter turning with her, and padded down the trail leading to clan ground. Ratha let her tail swing with each step of her rear paws.

  “Thistle, I’m confused. Sometimes when I’m watching True-of-voice and his tribe, I feel that they are impossibly different from us.”

  “When they are held by the song,” Thistle said. “Or when they hunt face-tails so well. Or when they do hard things without practicing. Or maybe when they give their dead to carrion-birds?”