by Clare Bell
Abruptly Thakur asked, “Will you need me on the next drive? If you would allow me to get a head start on the journey back to the lake-of-waves, I could take another look at the spring. It would also help me learn more about the creatures there.”
“And the odd one who lives among them.”
Thakur rolled onto his chest, his front paws spread out before him. “She has much to teach me, I think. Suppose you lead the first drive until the herders can manage alone. Then you and Fessran join me on the shore.”
“By ourselves?”
“Yes.”
“Why not bring others who are not needed to manage our own animals?”
“I’m afraid too many of us would scare our little sea-dappleback herder away. Let me go first, then the two of you. She might get used to me. Perhaps she can talk but was just too frightened.”
“Are you thinking of trying to bring her into the clan if she can speak?” Ratha asked. She knew Thakur could hear the wary edge in her voice. He too remembered what had happened when she had admitted an unknown stranger to the ranks of the Named.
“Let us run that trail when we find it,” said Thakur smoothly. “First I want to learn from her. If the question of clan admittance arises, you, as leader, will have to decide. I don’t think it’s going to be a problem. If she can’t speak, how is she going to ask?” He crossed one paw over the other, the gesture ending his words.
“Well, she doesn’t sound as though she will be too clever for her own good, as Shongshar was,” Ratha growled. “All right, herding teacher. Your plan sounds like a good one.”
“Then I will leave again after I’ve eaten and rested,” he answered. “When you are ready, follow me.” He then told her the way to the shore and said he would leave scent-marks to guide her. He asked her to leave her own signs, once she got there, to tell him she’d arrived. She listened carefully, remembering his words.
Ratha got up as she spotted Fessran’s tan form jogging back toward her.
She turned to Thakur. “Hungry?”
She didn’t need an answer as the herding teacher scrambled to his feet, his belly growling.
Several days later, the Named and their herds were treading the way to another river that lay farther from clan ground. Dust swirled, kicked up by the feet of the lead three-horns. Ratha kept her eye on the gray-coated stag and the two herders to either side of him. If the Named could keep him moving steadily, the others would follow. They had gotten him away from the trickling remains of the first river after several attempts that nearly became fights. She thought she might have to order the stag culled, but that would cause the loss of a good sire and throw the herd into disarray.
She had delayed the decision to move their watering site as long as possible, but when the sluggish trickle in the river became stagnant and she found three-horns pawing the streambed to find water that wasn’t scummy or thick with mud, she knew they had to make the trek. It hadn’t been easy to get the animals organized and the herders ready. She glanced at the lead stag again.
Though the beast was cooperating now, a certain look in his eye, and the way he tossed his head, made Ratha wary. The two herders looked nervous, switching their tails with every step. They were strong but still young. How she wished she had brought Thakur after all, but he was far away on his journey to the coast.
Ratha decided to bring another herder up, just in case the three-horn became obstinate. Khushi. He was a good one. From a timid cub, he had grown into a steady, patient young herder who understood three-horns, although lately he had been showing a tendency to disappear when someone wasn’t with him. Ratha decided she needed to give him a reminder about clan responsibilities. Odd, though—he wasn’t one she would describe as lazy.
She trotted back along the line of beasts and herders, sneezing dust from her nose. Her tongue felt leathery against her teeth, and she couldn’t help thinking of the rainy season, when the brook ran full and lively through the pastures.
Firekeepers flanked the main three-horn herd. They walked in guard positions, some carrying torches bearing the Red Tongue. Bright sun and blowing dust diminished the fire’s light, making it look pale against the sky.
Ratha searched for Khushi, calling out his name against the bawling and rumbling of the herd. She searched the throng of animals and herders without finding him, gave up, and sent another herder. Irritated, she jogged past the outskirts of the flock, intending to scold the errant youngster.
She caught sight of the Firekeeper leader walking near a torchbearer. Khushi was Fessran’s son, although the Named tended to forget such things once a cub was grown.
“Where’s Khushi?”
The Firekeeper’s tail came up in surprise. “How should I know? I don’t keep track of him anymore.”
“Maybe you should. This isn’t the first time I’ve caught him shirking.”
A crackle of brush made Ratha turn her head. Khushi came bounding out from between two low hills. His ears sagged as he slowed his pace.
“Are you still a litterling that I have to insult Fessran by asking where you are?” she said sharply to him. “You should have been in the lead. The old stag is planning trouble again.”
Khushi gulped, lowered his head, and wheeled toward the front, but Ratha stopped him. “You’re too late. I’ve already sent someone. If you don’t want to work with three-horns, I’ll place you in the rear, with the dappleback herd.”
“No, clan leader, it’s not that... .”
“Well, what is it, then? I’m fed up with looking for you and finding you gone. I’m tempted to put you back with the herding students for some lessons about laziness.”
“Wait, Ratha,” the Firekeeper interrupted. “He’s not usually lazy. There must be some reason.”
Khushi sat up and gave his ruff a few strokes with his tongue. He still looked and smelled ashamed, but there was a certain sense of relief, as if he had been carrying a burden and could now let it down.
“Clan leader, you remember that you sent me as a scout to look for game,” he began.
“Yes, and you told us about the face-tailed animals,” Ratha said.
Khushi took a breath. “After I saw the face-tails, the Firekeeper I was with stumbled across an Un-Named one. It was a female with cubs, and she must have been moving them when we found her.”
Ratha waited, wondering what this had to do with his periodic desertion of the herd.
“She was odd looking,” Khushi said. “The same gray color as old Shongshar, the same eyes, and the same long teeth.”
Ratha felt the hair prickle along her back at the mention of Shongshar’s name. She remembered how she and Thakur had left the cubs Shongshar had sired far beyond clan ground. The place she’d chosen offered some limited chances for them to find food. Could it be that one or both cubs had managed to survive and even to have their own young? The gray female Khushi described would be about the right age.
“Shongshar’s cubs by Bira?” Fessran was staring at Ratha in open amazement. “But you said they were witless and killed them.”
Ratha flinched at Fessran’s words. “I didn’t kill them; I abandoned them. In a place where they could eat insects and other things.”
Fessran took a long breath. “By the Red Tongue’s ashes, Ratha, if you’d told me what happened to them, things might have turned out differently with Shongshar.”
“Yes, you would have gone out to find the empty-eyed cubs you fostered after Bira left them. That wouldn’t have done us much good either,” Ratha snapped. “Let Khushi tell the rest of his story.”
With a curious glance at Fessran, Khushi went on. “The Un-Named female looked at me in a way that made me shiver and then ran off with a cub in her mouth. But she left one behind and didn’t come back for him.” Khushi halted, swallowed. “He’s over there, beneath the bushes. ”
Ratha sagged back on her haunches, staring at Khushi in disbelief. “You mean you brought the cub back with you?”
He hung his head. “I’m
sorry. It was a stupid thing to do. But once I’d been near him, his mother wouldn’t take him back. I put him out and waited as long as I could, but we’d scared her off for good.”
“How did you feed him?” Fessran wanted to know.
“The same way you fed me when you were weaning us from milk to meat. You burped up soft food from your stomach. I had eaten enough from the clan kill before I went scouting that I could do the same.”
Ratha started to pace. If the drought and the herd weren’t enough to cope with, now she had to deal with a young herder with motherly delusions and an orphaned cub that might well be Shongshar’s grandson. She stopped, turned to Khushi.
“If this wild tale is true and not just an elaborate excuse to make me sheath my claws, all I can ask is why didn’t you tell me about him?”
Khushi shuffled his paws in the dust. “Well, you were gone just after that, and when you came back, you were busy, and the longer I waited, the harder it got to tell you. ”
“So you’ve been sneaking away to feed this Un-Named litterling with food from your own belly.”
“And to move him too,” Khushi added. “When these river drives started, I thought I’d have to leave him behind, but I found that if I ran really fast with him in my mouth and got ahead of the herd, then I could hide him and then work until the herd passed the hiding place and—”
“All right,” Ratha interrupted. “Show me.” Khushi led them away from the line of animals, up over the crest of a hill and down the other side. He jogged to a low bush with peeling red bark and thorny leaves, pulled a dead branch aside, and peered in. A weak mew came from inside. Lying in a hollow between gnarled roots was a tiny, thin, spotted shape. Carefully, Khushi drew the cub out with his paw.
Every bone showed on the little body. The coat was dull and rough over prominent ribs, and the litterling staggered badly as he wobbled to Khushi and lay against the herder’s forepaws.
Ratha stared down at the cub, feeling totally at a loss. Even if he had come from one of the clan’s own females, she knew the drought was already straining the clan’s resources.
Yet she couldn’t help a twinge of pity for the cub’s condition and awe for his tenacity. Having been taken from his mother at an early age and bumped around by a young herder who didn’t know how to treat him, he should, by all rights, have been dead.
Fessran came alongside and peered at him. “Ratha, watch how he moves, tries to look at things. He reminds me of our own cubs.”
Ratha felt that things were galloping ahead of her. “Firekeeper, he’s too young and starved for us to make any judgment. And if there is one to be made, you are not the one to make it.” She turned to Khushi once again. “Herder, you should have left him where he was. Take him back.”
Fessran gave a derisive yowl. “You think his mother would accept him after Khushi’s had him this long? We’d be lucky to even find her. And she may not want him back, especially now. The dry weather is also pressing the Un-Named.”
Ratha eyed the Firekeeper. Fessran crouched down to nuzzle and lick the orphan. She wouldn’t have a family this year, and Ratha knew she wanted to raise cubs. That, plus the memory of Nyang’s death and the loss of her treeling...
“If you get your scent on him too, we’ll never get him back where he belongs,” Ratha said.
“I think you’re fooling yourself about that, clan leader,” Fessran answered softly.
Ratha became aware that Khushi was watching the interchange between her and Fessran with unabashed curiosity. “Herder,” she said, “go back to the three-horns. Fessran and I have some thinking to do. And if you are tempted to nurse any more Un-Named litterlings, tell me first.”
When she looked back at Fessran, the Firekeeper lay on her side, the cub curled up against her belly. “I wish I could feed him,” she said wistfully.
“I wish Khushi had never found him,” Ratha growled. “Soft as dung indeed! Fessran, if you must play mother, ask Bira if you will be able to help with her litter. She came into heat early, and I can tell by her scent that the mating’s taken.”
“At least you’re sure Bira’s will have that cursed light in the eyes you’re always looking for.” Fessran looked up, her paw resting lightly on the orphan. “You bullied me into giving up Shongshar’s cubs. Were you really that convinced that they were witless? If the Un-Named one that Khushi saw is the female I fostered, maybe she has more wits about her than you think. Perhaps we should trail her and find out.”
Ratha said nothing, wondering if she should make Fessran remember the blank stare of Shongshar’s daughter on the morning she had taken both young ones from Fessran’s fostering.
“We can’t get distracted by this,” she said. “At least until the drought breaks. I’m not going to waste effort trailing an Un-Named female.” Ratha paused. “And even if I was mistaken and her eyes show the gift we value, she is of Shongshar’s blood and breed. Khushi said she had the long teeth. Would you want another like Shongshar to rise again in the clan?”
She saw the Firekeeper close her eyes and then lick the scars on her chest and upper foreleg. Fessran trembled for a minute, remembering. Then she withdrew herself from around the cub.
“What are you going to do with him?” she said gruffly.
“Khushi is to return him to the place he was found. If we leave him alone, his mother might reclaim him.”
Mournfully Fessran said, “If I could just give him a good bellyful of milk...
Ratha sighed. “All right. I’ll let Khushi feed him the way he did before.” She sent Fessran to get Khushi. When the young herder arrived, she told him to bring the litterling to her once it was fed. She and Fessran went back to the herd and waited until Khushi returned with the orphan.
Ratha looked at the cub and wished that the young of the clan and of the Un-Named didn’t look so much alike. It is not only that their cubs resemble ours. They are so close to us, it makes me tremble. The only difference is behind the eyes. I have asked so many times why it is so, but no one can answer.
Khushi put the youngster down, stretched his jaws, and complained. “He already feels heavy. And I’ll be traveling with a dry tongue and a half-empty belly.”
“Which is small punishment for sharing clan meat with one outside the clan and not telling me,” said Ratha firmly. “Even if the meat came from your own belly and if the other is a cub.”
Khushi sighed and agreed. He picked up the cub, started to trot away.
“Wait.” The voice was Fessran’s. Ratha narrowed her eyes at the Firekeeper.
“Let me go with him, clan leader,” Fessran said. “You can spare me from tending the Red Tongue for a few days. I want to be sure we do the best we can for this cub. When Khushi’s jaws start aching, he’ll be tempted to leave the litterling anywhere.”
Ratha was tempted to argue. In truth, she did need Fessran at her post, especially if there was an attack or an emergency. Other Firekeepers were good, but Fessran had the most experience with the Red Tongue.
“There’s something else, clan leader,” Fessran added. “I hate the thought of leaving my lost treeling behind. Maybe I can take one last look before we get too far from clan ground.”
Ratha considered this. If Fessran did by chance find her treeling, that might cheer her up and take her mind off Un-Named cubs. But letting Fessran go with Khushi might not be the best idea. The Firekeeper clearly wanted to adopt the foundling, and letting her stay near the cub would only encourage her to disobey.
She knew Fessran had caught the look in her eyes, for the other’s tail shivered, and she stared away. Ratha felt ashamed for doubting her friend. Her gaze rested on the fading scars that parted the Firekeeper’s sandy coat. Shongshar’s slash had been intended for Ratha. Fessran had taken it.
Yet Ratha knew she would be faltering in her role as clan leader if she didn’t admit her suspicions. What was it in the wretched litterling that touched Fessran so? She couldn’t see anything promising about him, and the thought of his pos
sible parentage made her shudder.
“Go look for your treeling, Fessran,” she said. “Help Khushi if he needs it, but remember, this is his responsibility, not yours.”
She knew from the slight twitch that narrowed one of Fessran’s eyes that her words had done no good. She could feel the rift between them deepening. She wanted to reach across, somehow draw Fessran back, but it was not the right moment or place. The animals waited, dusty and stamping. The herders started to stare.
“Both of you go before the day gets too hot,” Ratha said roughly, and turned back to the herd, not wanting to look as Khushi trotted away carrying the cub and Fessran followed.
Chapter Six
Thakur’s return journey to the coast went more quickly because he knew the trail. Again he emerged from the coastal forest onto meadows crowning high cliffs and traveled north along bluffs and ridges until late one evening, when he came to the beach and the jetty. In the scrub behind a bluff overlooking the ocean, he discovered a hollow between two boulders, made himself a nest, and slept.
In the morning, he awoke and took Aree up to a wooded area in the foothills behind the bluff, where the treeling could forage for leaves and insects. When she had eaten her fill, he started back to the beach, intending to seek out the young stranger who lived among the seamares.
The late morning sun warmed his back, making him feel loose limbed and lazy. Aree was snoozing in the hollow behind his shoulders; he could hear her gentle snoring and feel her wobble as he padded along. He grinned to himself, enjoying the feeling of her fingers gripping his fur and her small but comforting weight on his back.
Then the treeling tensed. He felt her fingers clench just as a warning rattle of brush made him flatten his ears. In the next instant a rust-and-black form sprang at him from the side, landing half across his back. He heard teeth click as jaws snapped at Aree. The treeling scrambled onto his head, her hindquarters hanging over his muzzle, blinding him. But the strong tang of seamare mixed with female cat-scent told him who the attacker was.
