by Clare Bell
When Thakur reached the bottom, he found himself in a muffled pandemonium. Cherfan and the other Named males were arranging the herd. Face-tails run-walked past, trunks swinging. Mondir dropped down to help Cherfan bully several young tuskers into place at the heels of the two rumblers. Khushi and Ashon brought the stripers and dapplebacks, the horses tossing their heads, stamping and snorting. The three-horn deer were next, does in the center, stags on the outside. Last came a few more face-tails, the larger ones, so that New Singer’s renegades would have a hard time attacking the herd from the rear.
As Cherfan passed Thakur, chivying a stray three-horn into place, the herding teacher heard him snarl, “This must be the craziest thing we’ve ever done. By the Red Tongue’s flame, I hope it works.”
The Red Tongue would also be part of the attack. Male Firekeepers joined Mondir, positioning themselves at the back of the herd, on either side. Their moment would come when the herdbeasts crashed through the raiders’ defense, opening a path to the captive females.
I hope Bundi and Mishanti remember to split the herd as they pass the fire-den.
Thakur waited, muscles tensed. Cherfan, as interim leader, would give the start signal. Aree was on Thakur’s nape. He had tried to hide her, but she wouldn’t be parted from him. None of the treelings would abandon their partners, as if they sensed the importance of the coming battle. Cherfan now carried a determined Cherfaree, and Quiet Hunter had Ratharee and Thistle-chaser’s Biaree, who had demonstrated a new ability to throw rocks. The two others were starting to copy him. And getting good at it, Thakur thought, as a yowl from Khushi betrayed the fact that he had been made a practice target.
Cherfan’s deep bellow cut across the stamping and scuffling of the herd. “As my dear Fessran would say,” he yowled, reaching high with a paw, “let’s get those belly-biters!”
At the sharp downstroke of his paw, lit by torches, the rumblers lurched ahead, their riders shoving their mounts’ ears forward. The first group of face-tails followed as the herd started to move. The Named plunged at their animals, starting to drive them through the night. Face-tail trumpeting mixed with dappleback squealing and three-horn bawling. Fire shone on clouds of dust that boiled up behind the moving mass of animals.
Cherfan is right, thought Thakur as he broke into a trot alongside the stripers, Aree bouncing on his nape. This is the craziest thing we’ve ever done. But if it works . . .
“Faster,” Cherfan howled lunging at a lagging striper. “Yearow! Get on there, you grass-eating piece of . . .” The rising thunder of the herd drowned him out. Ahead, Thakur heard bushes crunching and boughs snapping as Grunt and Belch ploughed their way through the forest. The pair Ratha had called the terrible two, Bundi and Mishanti, urged their mounts toward the border of clan ground. The two who had been the most useless to the clan were now the most critical. If they slipped, or lost control, it could be disastrous.
Thakur lengthened his stride from a trot to a canter. Beside him loped Quiet Hunter with the two treelings on his back.
“This one will take Aree,” said Quiet Hunter, as if he sensed what Thakur intended. As they cantered flank to flank, the herding teacher nudged Aree from his back to Quiet Hunter’s. The treeling gave him a questioning look and hesitated, but when he nudged her again, she hopped over to Quiet Hunter. “This one will keep her safe,” the dun male called. With three treelings lined up from nape to tailbase, Quiet Hunter dropped back.
Thakur spurred himself into a gallop. Now they were on clan ground, in the forest before the meadow. Ahead of him, Grunt and Belch moved like two gliding mountains covering ground quickly with their long strides.
Now the herd was in the meadow, gathering speed and pouring across the creek, churning the water into a muddy mess that stuck to Thakur’s feet. He couldn’t stop to shake his paws, but instead ran the muck off, sending it flying from his legs.
Now noise no longer mattered; in fact, the more the better. Thakur opened his jaws in a battle cry. Above the smells of dust, herdbeasts, and the other Named males, another mix of odors wafted to Thakur: the scents of the courting circle. Though he had never experienced it, images formed in his mind, of females prowling, rolling, calling, and posturing. Of males fighting, blood and fur filling the air while others sneaked past to grab a female by the nape, pull her down and climb hungrily onto her. . . .
Thakur ran faster, the aromas of the courting circle filling his nose and mind. Now he could catch the group scent of New Singer’s raiders and the scents of the females in heat. The sharp acridity of aroused males stung his nose.
Searching for one special smell, he found it. Ratha. Mingled with the odor of another male.
Thakur’s growl became into a roar, coming from deep in his chest, funneling through his throat, and surprising even him by its power. He flattened his ears, stretched his gallop to a fast run, intoxicated and enraged by the roiling scents pouring from the raiders’ courting circle.
Now he was no longer a herder managing a controlled stampede, but a determined challenger, charging in to defend his chosen mate. Now he was on clan ground, his own ground, and he felt strong and sure. None of those rogues would take Ratha. She was his.
A yowled, “Herding teacher, what are you doing?” sounded only dimly in his ears as he passed the run-walking face-tails and then the smooth-striding rumblers. He paid no heed, feeling only the burning of rage and longing and the pull and tense of his muscles as he flung himself ahead in huge bounds. His back bowed and arched, his hind feet swung so far forward that they nearly touched his ears, his forelegs reached and ate ground at a fantastic rate as he ran faster than he ever had before.
He was there, the astonished hunter males turning in his blurred sight, the campfire leaping, the shadows of single females and couples, the gleam of a tawny gold coat and a black pelt that shifted and sparkled.
Thakur was going far too fast to stop, even if he wished. He turned his last bound into a leap that carried him far above the heads of New Singer’s renegades. He sailed into the ring, baring teeth and claws, hurtling directly for Ratha and the night-coated rival that had dared to take her.
Whipping his tail, he crashed into the pair. He saw Ratha’s head come up, the eyes startled. Everything spun in a tumble of fur and claws as the three rolled. He kick-raked with his rear feet at the black coat as he flung his forearms around the tawny gold.
The growing roar was not only the outrage of the black usurper. Even through his rage and desire, he recognized the sound of the stampeding herd.
He was still rolling, his forelegs wrapped around Ratha, twisting and tumbling. The ground shook and the thunderstorm of the stampede shuddered through him. Ratha screeched in terror, and he found his voice joining hers. Through smeared vision he saw the huge shapes, the pistoning legs and the descending feet.
Not knowing how or why, he wrenched himself and Ratha over to a shadow that looked only a tiny bit different than all the others in the flickering light of the campfire. The ground suddenly disappeared from underneath him, and he spilled, still clutching Ratha, down a dirt slope, rolled, and slammed into an earthen wall.
“Thakur?” she squeaked, but the explosion of sound from above drowned Ratha out. He could only tighten his grip on her as the two were bounced about the chamber, hoping that a rumbler’s foot would not crash through the roof or a face-tail avalanche down on top of them.
He found himself burying his nose in the fur of her neck, his teeth seeking her nape. Her odor was wonderful, alluring, arousing.
He no longer cared about any danger that threatened. The thunder overhead only excited him. He was here with one he had loved for so long, with endless patience and hidden misery.
She felt the same—he could tell by her frenzied tongue-strokes on his neck, his chest, his belly, the root of his tail, the way she breathed his name and the way she moved beneath him.
“Thakur, I want you. I have always wanted you.”
Ratha, yearling, clan leader, bearer of
the Red Tongue, beloved—how I have ached to hear you say that. How I burn now and only you can soothe me.
Neither heard the noises outside or felt the end of the earth shaking, for they were both enraptured with one another, singing together in wild joy, trembling fiercely. Their scents mixed and the wonderful aroma cocooned Ratha and Thakur as they came closer together than ever before, burying themselves in one another, entangled and entranced by their need. It grew deeper and more passionate until Thakur spent himself.
He heard Ratha cry out and twist sharply beneath him. Instinctively he braced himself for her claw-strike across the face, feeling the muscles of her shoulders tense. Her paw moved, but she checked it and only her velveted paws touched and stroked Thakur’s face.
They curled around one another, each bathing in the feel of the other’s fur, the shape of their body, the glow of their eyes, the brush of their whiskers.
Thakur felt a rush of tenderness as strong as the mating urge. It nearly made him choke as he tongue-caressed her head, her ears, felt the whiskers over her eyes, then the lashes.
Ratha, my Ratha, as long as we live.
“Yes, I am yours,” she whispered, as if he had said his feelings aloud, then he felt her relax and her breathing become slow and regular. Sleep took him, too, and he sank into it, surrendering himself to a lazy bliss he thought he would never know.
The question of cubs and the Named light in their eyes crept through his mind. Things had changed. They were not as definite or forbidding as before. Thistle-chaser had certainly proved that cubs from his and Bone-chewer’s line could be as intelligent and self-aware as any others of the Named. If Night-who-eats-stars was, as Thakur suspected, Thistle’s brother from Ratha’s lost first litter, the brilliance in his eyes showed that he shared her gift.
Thakur had noticed that the most talented Named cubs grew more slowly than others less gifted. He himself had lagged as a cub, and he remembered how others had thought him stupid and slow for a long time.
Ratha’s judgment of her young had been too early. She herself had been young, with the rashness of youth. Now that she was older, she would have more patience. With what he now knew, he could guide her. Whatever gifts her cubs had or didn’t have, he knew that he would love them dearly.
His years of exile were over. Now he could stand proudly and openly at her side as her partner, her helper, and, most of all, her mate.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Drifting up from velvet darkness, Ratha became aware that she lay with her back against a warm chest, her head resting on the inside of someone’s foreleg, the weight of his other foreleg resting on her side just below her shoulder. No, not just someone. Not a night-coated intruder, not a dream Bone-chewer. Just a nice, real, strong, warm Thakur.
She listened to him breathe, deep and powerful, slightly slower than her own rhythm, hers a counterpoint to his, male and female in a soft breath-song.
The urgency of her heat had been quenched for the moment, and all she felt was a satisfied laziness. She tried not to stir, savoring the quiet alone with the one she had wanted for so long and dared not have.
Memories rolled around in her mind, the courting circle, the squabbling males, and the latecomer with moonlit eyes. She knew now that her mind had transformed him into Bone-chewer and that she had begun to give herself to him. It was strange, though. Even though he had seized her nape, climbed onto her, started treading with his rear feet and even swept her tail aside, he never completed the act of mating.
She remembered her heat-driven surge of impatience as he became still over her, yet kept holding her nape. The eagerness in his smell was mixed with something else: a gentle reluctance, as if he realized that she was someone who should not or could not be taken in such a way. No, it wasn’t Thakur’s leap into the courting circle that had interrupted their mating. It had already halted, yet the male still crouched over her, holding her.
It made no sense, unless he was only protecting her from the other males who had no such hesitation. No, she had to be imagining it, just as she had imagined that he was Bone-chewer.
Thakur was no figment of a heated imagination. He was here, he was solid, he was comforting, he smelled wonderful, he was her mate, and that was all that mattered.
She wished she could hold that moment forever, clasped to her breast by her paws. She tried to stay still, but she knew she must have stirred, for his breathing quickened and he began to wake.
She felt him give a slight start as he woke to find her in his embrace. For a sharp instant, she thought he would pull away, but she felt him relax again, draw her closer, and start to purr.
“My Ratha,” he said, and the words lit a thrill of delight in her. “Finally.”
“My Thakur,” she purred, nearly lost in a wave of contentment. “For the rest of my life.”
She felt she could have stayed with him in the cocooning silence forever, but gradually, noises from outside began to filter through. She felt him lift his head, listen. She did the same, and distinctly caught a Named voice asking the whereabouts of the clan leader and the herding teacher.
“That’s Cherfan,” said her mate, gently sliding his foreleg out from beneath her cheek so that he could roll onto his front. “He’s forgotten that he is the clan leader, at least temporarily.”
“We should find out what happened,” Ratha said, but it was hard to end the moment.
Thakur licked her cheek gently and said, as if he knew, “There will be many more like this.”
She got up, fluffed her fur. “Just one question. The one who had me before you came. It was Night-who-eats-stars, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. There was something strange. He was just holding you, even though he could have mated.”
So Thakur noticed that, too! It wasn’t just my imagination.
“Of course, my view of things was a little confused,” he admitted.
“Thakur, he freed Thistle. He attacked another male so that she could escape. I thought I heard him telling Thistle to go. How could that be unless—”
“He is your son, Ratha. Yours and Bone-chewer’s. Thistle’s brother.”
Ratha calmed the excited thoughts that were swirling through her with a deep long breath.“That is why I could so easily think he was Bone-chewer. His scent—It reminded me so much of Bone-chewer.”
“Are you disappointed that—?”
“The one who has me now is not Bone-chewer? No, Thakur!” She rubbed her cheek against his side. “Yes, I loved him, but I never knew him that well. When he died, I made an image that stayed with me. I made it more than he really was.”
“Well, he was extraordinary,” Thakur answered softly. “I don’t fault you for missing him. I wish he hadn’t died.”
“I don’t have to miss him anymore. Bone-chewer is still here. He’s still alive. In you. I have both of you now. And the living one is even more precious.”
“You also have your son, if that’s what Night turns out to be. If so, he will be mine as well.” Thakur halted. “If we can find him. I hope I didn’t hurt him in the fight, but I wasn’t exactly thinking that clearly.”
“My gentle Thakur. Fighting! For me,” she teased.
“I never thought I could fight like that, but when I saw you in the midst of those . . .” He broke off as the clamor outside grew louder.
“We’d better see what’s happened,” Ratha said, feeling suddenly guilty and wondering how much time had passed since the herd had stampeded overhead.
She climbed out of the fire-den, feeling her belly tighten and her ears flatten for a fight if they were still surrounded by New Singer and his renegades. Instead, as she emerged, she was surrounded by the odors and body-rubs of the Named, both males and females.
“Clan leader!”
“Where did you go?”
“You should have seen those belly-biters run when we . . . ”
As Thakur emerged behind her, he, too, was engulfed by the living wave of fur, affection and excitement. They all
toppled together in a squirming panther-pile.
“Wait,” Ratha said, as she tried not to get squashed. “You mean we won?”
“We won?” boomed a voice close to her ear. “Clan leader, it was like slapping a paw down on a bunch of sleepy flies, the way that rabble scattered. We probably didn’t need the other animals. One look at the rumblers and New Singer just about jumped out of his stripes. Herding teacher, that was a brilliant idea!”
“It wasn’t mine, Cherfan,” Ratha heard Thakur puff as he climbed free of the panther-pile and shook himself. “It was Mishanti and Bundi’s. Where are they?”
“Leading the herd back to the meadow,” Cherfan replied cheerfully. “Clan ground is ours again!”
“No sign of another attack?” Ratha asked, untangling herself reluctantly from the flopping tails, rubbing bodies, and licking tongues of her friends. Her fur was completely rumpled, but she didn’t care. It was so good for them to be together again on their home ground.
“I don’t think so,” Cherfan rumbled. “The last we saw of those renegades were their tails disappearing. Still, we’ll post scouts.”
“New Singer didn’t have time to even think his dung-eating song, much less send it.” This was Fessran, rubbing up against Cherfan. “Oooh, you big furry monster, you smell sooo luscious. . . .”
Ratha suddenly remembered the cubs. “They’re in the rock fall shelter by the steam.”
“Before we start making new cubs, we’d better get the old ones,” Cherfan said. “Quiet Hunter, give Ratha and Thakur their treelings and come with me. Mondir, Bira, Drani, you as well. Fessran, you stay. If you go, we’ll never get there.”
With his party in tow, the big herder brushed past Fessran, who collapsed on her rump with a “Hmmrh.” The Firekeeper turned to Ratha and Thakur. “So where did you two disappear to? I was afraid that all we would find of you would be flattened fur in the dirt.”
