Ratha and Thistle-Chaser (The Third Book of the Named)

by Clare Bell

  She watched as the intruders brought shorter sticks in their jaws and held them crossways against the uprights. The other animals reared up and did something with their paws and long pieces of vine that then held the crossmembers in place. When they finished each section, Newt saw what they had built. It was like a tree, but not a tree, or like a bush that had been wrenched and bent to serve some unknown purpose. Bewildered and frightened, she crept away.

  The next day found her back behind the dunes, spying on the strangers. She could see that the mysterious thing had grown, now extending from the mud-beach to midriver, then bending at an angle to follow the current flow downstream.

  She still didn’t know what it was, but as the strangers and their small helpers continued to put poles in place and lash them together, she gained a dim sense of what this thing might be. Then, when the builders brought tangles of thornbrush and added those to the construction (not without grimaces of pain and yowls when tender noses got pricked), she began to understand. She watched a seamare lumber up to the construction, hoping the creature might butt it down. Instead the animal nosed it, then bellowed as the thorns stung its muzzle. It retreated, beaten and bewildered, and made no other attempt to escape.

  Now Newt understood. This thing was a barrier, an obstruction, like a wall of rock or tangled, thorny growth. It shocked and dismayed her that anyone would make something like this. She growled deep in her throat as she watched the barrier grow, encircling the apprehensive seamares.

  She thought of Thakur and her promise that she would come to him instead of launching an attack on the Named. But the thought of Thakur only made her angrier. He was one of those invading strangers who had captured the seamares; he would do nothing to help.

  She was weary from all the thinking she had done. As the afternoon shadows lengthened, she tried and failed to come up with a way to free the seamares. At last she sank into the wordless, dull anger of defeat.

  The barrier was nearly completed. The seamares huddled in the center, bewildered and miserable. From her vantage point, Newt could see that the barrier enclosed most of the mud-beach and ran out into the river, giving the creatures only limited room to swim. She remembered swimming with Splayfoot and seeing the seamare fly through the twilight under the ocean. These strangers had no understanding of the seamares, and they didn’t care. She sniffed the scents coming to her on the wind. There was already the taint of sickness in the odors of the trapped creatures.

  Shifting restlessly, she raked the dune. Sand ground under her claws. And then she watched again, this time fixing her gaze on the intruders themselves as they worked to set the last stakes in place before bundling them with thorns. She saw how the cats struggled, often getting splinters in their jaws and blunting their fangs while bringing heavy sticks to midriver and setting them in place. Sometimes they set a pole wrong, or a surge of current from the stream pushed the stake over.

  Often she saw two or three of the strangers, coats muddy and soggy, hanging on to a pole with their claws and trying to sink the end deep into the mud bottom by their combined weight. Half the time the stake sagged when they released it, then came loose and was carried downstream. Growling with frustration, the workers retrieved it and fought to anchor it in place again.

  It was not a task for which they were well suited, and that became more obvious the longer Newt watched them work. Yet, although she disliked what they were doing, she could not help seeing how hard they tried. It reminded her of her own struggles, and she saw a tiny bit of herself in the strangers. She could also see that, despite the difficulty, they were succeeding.

  She stayed until evening, hoping to creep closer by dark. When she approached the seamares’ pen, she found that the night she hoped would shield her had been pushed back. On the banks of the river were strange bright spots she had never seen before. They flickered and danced, like reflections of the sun on the surface of her lagoon, and they cast a fierce light. Newt’s nape prickled in terror. Were the invaders so powerful that they could capture pieces of the sun and hold them, as they did the seamares?

  Though she trembled and wished she could retreat to the beach, with its soft darkness and swish of waves, she forced herself on. When she drew closer, the bright points took on form. To her they were a nest of yellow and orange snakes writhing together toward the night sky, hissing and snapping their jaws as if the stars were prey.

  Beside the fires, outlined by the fierce light, she saw the forms of sentinels. In their eyes, even at a distance, the orange light shone in glints of amber and green.

  The smell was harsh and choking, as irritating to her nose as the light was to her night-widened eyes. She shuddered. Here was a foe she could not face down, for the fear it struck in her lay too deep. She took flight back into the darkness and crouched on cold sand, watching and hating those glowing, writhing nests of snakes.

  The acrid smell of smoke could not drown out the scents of the seamares behind the barrier. They still reached her and somehow reproached her for turning back. She kneaded the sand fiercely with her claws, drawn on by the seamare odor and pushed back by the ashes and smoke. At last she crept forward again. The snake-nests lay on both banks of the river, but there were no dismaying lights in the river itself. It lay open to her, a dark, safe path.

  Wet sand felt clammy against her pads as she limped across the flats toward the river. She waded into the shallows, the night-chilled water seeping through the fur of her legs, her belly, and her flanks. Feeling ahead with her good forepaw, she sought the bottom drop-off that would show her the channel. The only way to conceal her approach was to swim underwater in the deepest part of the river.

  After poking her nose up to take a breath, Newt slipped beneath the surface and down into the main channel. Here it was deep and wide enough for her to swim. The incoming tide overcame the downstream current, helping her to glide upriver, near the channel bottom. And the strange lights unexpectedly aided her by casting a glow into the murky gloom, so she could see her way ahead.

  Each time she surfaced to breathe, she made herself inhale slowly and quietly rather than gulping air. The sentries stood with their faces turned outward, away from her. No one had seen or smelled... yet.

  Gradually she worked her way upriver toward the mud-beach where the seamare pen had been built. Lifting her dripping head, she stared at the barrier of poles and thorns that now rose out of the water only a few tail lengths away. Those who had made it had unwittingly aided her by extending it into midriver, where the water was deep enough to conceal her.

  She floated at an angle, with only her nose above the ripples, gathering breath and strength. Then she dived and shot toward the barrier, her good foreleg stretched out with claws extended. She hit the barrier hard underwater , ignoring the thorns that sank into her paw. Pulling thorn-tangles aside, she ripped away lashed crosspieces, using her jaws to aid her good foreleg.

  Sounds from the beach made her halt her destructive flurry and duck back into the depths of the channel. She hid there until her lungs were nearly bursting, expecting to hear angry roars and the noise of running feet, but nothing happened. Perhaps the noise she had made sounded loud only to her. Gasping, she surfaced, approached the barrier, and saw a horselike head rise from the water on the other side. Another followed, blowing quietly. The seamares knew what she was doing.

  Feeling a sudden surge of triumph, she attacked the thorns and stakes again. One pole tipped sideways under her weight. She wrenched the lashings off another and pulled prickly branches aside, even though they stung her mouth and scraped her teeth.

  She worked until she had cleared a narrow opening, then fought to widen it. Abruptly she heard a grunt and was nearly ploughed underwater when a heavy body rammed itself through the break. Another followed, and then another, as the seamares poured through. They churned the water into froth, bumped and banged her, but in her delight at having freed them, she didn’t care.

  Abruptly, yowls and sounds of galloping feet began fro
m the shore. Newt saw sentinels running along the bank, some bearing branches with the writhing snakes of light curling about their ends. Fear quickly chilled her triumph. She sought the channel depths once more, stroking and kicking hard to keep up with the escaping seamares, whose wake helped to carry her along.

  It seemed to take the Named intruders a long time to realize that the attack had come from the water. They were still dashing up and down the riverbanks by the time Newt and the seamares passed the last of their beacons and had swum far enough downstream so that night could shield their escape.

  Gradually the noise and confusion died into the distance, as Newt and the seamares made their way back down the loops and meanders of the river toward the sea. The honks and grunts of her big companions blended into the wash of surf in a boisterous song of freedom.

  The escapees hauled themselves out onto the night-silvered gravel of the beach, with Newt doing a three-limbed frolic around them. And when they reached the jetty and were gathered once more into the herd, Newt gamboled off to her sleeping place, wet and weary but happy.

  Chapter Eleven

  Though Thakur could see well enough in the early-morning dark to tell that the seamare pen was damaged, he had to wait until dawn to tell how badly. As the sun cast its first light over the salt fens near the estuary where the pen had been built, Thakur saw Ratha striding toward him, her shadow thrown far ahead of her and her form backlit by the dawn.

  At first she stepped daintily, avoiding soggy patches or stopping to shake mud off her feet. But as the ooze deepened, she gave up and slogged through it to meet him. Wading into the chill water of the estuary, he showed her how one wall of the pen had been ripped open to free the seamares. Newt had not been content with just tearing an exit but had vented her wrath on the stick-and-lash construction, wrecking an entire section of wall where it stood in the deepest water.

  Ratha sniffed a pole that had been knocked askew. Thakur could tell by her expression that she couldn’t smell anything; the briny water had washed away any remaining odor. But he didn’t need the odor to know who had done this and why. He also felt the sharp jabs of his conscience. He had helped and encouraged Newt to regain some use of her leg and with it increased mobility and a greater capacity to destroy what the Named had built. Still, the healer in Thakur argued, he had done the right thing.

  “This was done by someone who could swim well, since the water was high last night,” Ratha said. “Also someone who has plagued our efforts with the seamares ever since we arrived. And we both know who that is, herding teacher.”

  Thakur felt his ears and whiskers sag as water dribbled off them. “I didn’t think she was strong enough to wreck the pen.”

  “That was a lot of work for us and the treelings,” Ratha said. “And we are going to have to catch all the seamares again, which will be twice as hard. We may not be able to find them again.” She paused. “Thakur, I’ve tried to be nice to you about this, but this three-legged renegade of yours has caused more trouble than we can afford right now. If I catch sight of her, I am going to give her a good cuffing to drive her away, and I’m ordering everyone else to do the same. Including you.”

  Thakur looked away. “You don’t have to make that an order, clan leader,” he growled between his teeth. “I know where my duty lies.” Though he was furious with Newt, the thought of chasing her off only made him feel worse. He hung his head. “Ratha, the way we were keeping the seamares penned here wasn’t a good thing. She tried to tell us in the best way she knew, and we didn’t listen.”

  “By the Red Tongue’s ashes, how are we supposed to keep the beasts where we want them, then? If we didn’t pen them, they’d use those duck-feet of theirs to swim away, and then where would we be?” Ratha’s teeth clicked as she shivered, and Thakur knew the chilly water wasn’t doing her temper any good.

  “The ones she keeps don’t swim away,” he retorted.

  “But we can’t live among them and just scavenge off dead young ones, as she does. Even in this small group, there are too many of us.”

  “Newt doesn’t just scavenge. It’s something more than that. She knows the beasts, and they know her. They accept her, and they trust her.”

  Ratha only snorted.

  “No, it is true. Our herdbeasts may tolerate us and accept the protection we give them from other meat eaters, but we do not have the kind of bond that she seems to have developed with these seamares. That is what I want to learn from her.”

  “Is that worth a wrecked pen and so much work gone to waste?” she retorted.

  Thakur was prepared to snap back at her when he realized how silly it must seem to anyone watching. Here stood the clan leader and the herding teacher, up to their bellies in clammy seawater, shivering and arguing.

  “Come on, Ratha. Let’s get out and fluff our coats dry, then we can talk sense,” he suggested. He turned and splashed toward shore.

  She followed, complaining that this soggy existence was going to ruin her coat. The salt crystals, she said, were already making her skin itch.

  “Well, maybe the water will drown your fleas,” he answered.

  “That may be true. I don’t have as many now,” she admitted, her mood lightening as the morning sun warmed both of them. “Herding teacher, I understand that you think this outcast has something we should learn. I won’t disagree with you, but”—and here she pointed her nose toward the pen—“I can’t let something like this happen again. Keep her away from our herd of seamares once we get them back. I don’t care how you do it, but keep her away.”

  Thakur looked her in the eye and answered, “Yes, clan leader. ”

  It took Thakur most of the rest of the day to find Newt, and when he did, he could see she was angry. But the longer she glared at him, the more her flattened ears began to droop. Savagely she turned her head away then looked at the ground between her paws.

  Thakur sat down. She glared at him again, then hissed, lifting her lame foreleg with claws bared. “Paw can scratch,” she said. His eyes followed the motion of her foreleg. She was right; she had gained enough flexibility and strength in the limb that she could strike out with that forepaw.

  “Thakur go now,” said Newt sullenly, lapsing into her rhyming, “or will say yow.” She waved the paw at him, swishing her tail.

  “Thakur hurt Newt,” she said accusingly.

  “Newt hurt Thakur too,” he answered, not letting her break his gaze. “You wrecked the pen we built.”

  “Thakur and... others took... ” Newt faltered, stumbling on her lack of words for what she wanted to say. She tried again. “Big one, little one, they swim.” She made an odd paddling motion, spreading the toes of her foot to suggest the webbed, splayed feet of the seamares.

  Thakur felt a sting of guilt, even though he had tried to dissuade Ratha from taking more seamares. “Why didn’t you come to me?”

  “Me,” Newt said echoing him. “Seamares free because of me. Thakur see?”

  “I asked you to stay away from that pen. Now I’m in trouble for helping you, and you are in more trouble if any of the Named catch you there again. Why didn’t you come to me instead?”

  She jerked her head up and stared at him with a strange new bitterness. “Come to you. Come to Dreambiter as well. She walks with you. Her smell. Her track. Newt knows.”

  Thakur felt himself on uncertain ground.

  Newt’s eyes narrowed. “Thakur knows too. And doesn’t speak.”

  “I haven’t said anything because I don’t know enough yet about what happened to you. And if you think you have the right to attack one of the Named because you smell her in your dreams, I’m sorry, but I won’t let you do that.”

  “Named.” Newt wrinkled her nose. “Named, lamed.”

  Her derisiveness and her accusations were starting to get under his skin. “You’re only describing yourself, Thistle-chaser,” he retorted, letting his temper get the better of him. Then he froze and snapped his jaw shut, but it was too late. She had heard tha
t last utterance.

  “Thistle-chaser?” Newt said the word slowly, as if tasting it. Thakur could see feelings fleeting through her eyes like clouds being whipped across the sky by a harsh wind. For an instant her eyes were brighter and clearer than he had ever seen them, then a shroud of pain wiped away the brightness.

  He swore inwardly at himself. The last thing he had intended to do was use the name as a weapon, but she had goaded him into flinging it at her. And why had he used it? Because he knew from the feeling in his belly that this was Ratha’s daughter.

  Newt stayed still, turned far inward. Slowly her legs gave way beneath her, and she sagged until her chin lay on the ground. Her chin moved slightly as she muttered the name again.

  Thakur began to think she had gone into a gentler form of her usual fit, when she suddenly bounced up and limped around him in circles, whimpering and rubbing her nose with a forepaw.

  “Newt, what’s wrong?”

  “Thistle. Hurts. Jumped on. Hurts.”

  He caught her long enough to pry her paw away from her nose and look to see if there was a thorn embedded but found nothing. Her circling became more frenzied and then degenerated into a series of short jumps back and forth, as if she was dodging something only she could see.

  “Go to him. He will help. Not to the Dreambiter. Says she’ll never learn... eyes are empty,” she babbled. Now she was bounding around on her three legs like a cub at play, but at every other step a shudder went through her as if she had collided with something unseen. Thakur felt chilled. This was unlike any of her other fits, and it seemed to have complete possession of her. Afraid she was gone for good, he caught up with her and laid a paw on her, trying to halt her mad dance.

  “Thistle. Hurts. Go to him. No, Dreambiter!” Newt cried, her voice rising. She leaped in the air, writhing, twisting, slashing out with claws and teeth at the ghost in her memory. One wild swipe caught Thakur on the side of the jaw. He pounced on her, trying to hold her down until the fit loosed its grip, but she wiggled free and shot off down the path toward the cliff edge. To his horror she did not slow or turn aside but ran right over. He heard a faint scrabbling, a yowl, several soft bumps, and then a terrifying silence.