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

by Clare Bell

  Ratha’s impulse was to strike quickly and get Newt off the raft. Her hind paws trembled but didn’t move. She was certain that Newt meant to seek her life, yet something in Ratha still held to the hope that it was only a threat.

  She couldn’t attack. Not without knowing.

  She secured Mishanti once again and craned her head back over her shoulder. The raft had slowed now. Newt was still in the water, hanging on with her claws, but the surging current no longer buried her. As Ratha peered back at her, Newt lifted her chin above the water, her ears flat, her gaze the color of serpentine.

  She may understand words. I have to try.

  “Thistle-chaser,” Ratha said. The ears twitched and flattened more against the brine-slicked head. The chill in the eyes went beyond the cold of the sea. They looked like marble or green-frosted ice.

  “Dreambiter,” Newt answered, never taking her gaze from Ratha’s. Ratha could not control her flinch.

  “We can tear each other apart well enough with words. Let it stop there.”

  “You tear me with teeth, Dreambiter. I answer.”

  “Leave the raft and swim to shore. I promise none of the Named will hunt you or seek you out,” Ratha said.

  Newt slitted her eyes. “I hunt you, cub-slayer.”

  “You have given me to this angry water. I will never reach shore. Isn’t that enough? Or will you force me to stain myself with your blood... ?”

  “Again,” Newt hissed, ending the sentence with the word Ratha could not say.

  Newt loosed her grip and slid back into the sea. For one hopeful instant Ratha thought she had persuaded her to go. Then she saw a shape glide alongside the raft. Newt lifted her head, bared her teeth, then ducked under. Again Ratha hoped she had gone. She felt the raft lurch once more and sag beneath her. Newt surfaced, her jaws tangled in bark-cord lashing from the bottom of the raft. Ratha watched, feeling numb. Newt was tearing her floating refuge apart.

  With slow, deliberate malice, Newt continued to destroy the raft-bridge. She slashed reed bundles, chewed off bindings, and pried driftwood sticks apart. Now Ratha fought back, striking out with bared claws from the narrow and increasingly cramped area that remained to her. But Newt could easily duck into the sea to escape and rise on the raft’s far side to plague her again.

  Ratha knew that Newt could mount a sharp, quick attack, tearing her throat or pulling her into the sea and dragging her under. Newt wanted more than just her death: She had discovered the savage pleasure of tormenting an enemy.

  The sea behind the raft was soon littered with shreds of driftwood, rushes, and bark-cord. Gray water welled up through the floor, soaking Ratha’s feet and half covering Mishanti. She tried to hold the fraying mass together with her claws, but Newt relentlessly pulled away one piece after another.

  Ratha found herself clinging to the last fragment of the raft, holding the cub in her mouth and staring at the foam-streaked back of a wave. As the swell lifted her, she caught sight of white surf in the distance. Waves breaking meant land of some sort, even if it was no more than a few rocks. She held to the raft as long as she could, then launched herself over Newt’s head into the sea.

  The shock of cold water punched the breath from her. The weight of the struggling cub dragged at her jaws as she fought to get her nose above water. For one panicky instant, she almost let him go in order to get a precious breath.

  She suddenly wondered why she was fighting so hard to save the youngster. Hadn’t she taken him from Fessran’s den to exile him from the clan? To abandon him, not kill him, a hurt part of her cried. The irony of that claim made Ratha cringe with shame as she shivered and struggled in the ocean. Had she really fooled herself into thinking that young cubs taken from their mothers and abandoned far beyond clan ground would survive? Quit fooling yourself. You were going to kill him. And now you probably will whether you intend to or not.

  With an angry sideways toss of her head, Ratha flung the youngster back over her shoulder, still holding on to his scruff. He slid off, dangling in her jaws and threatening to drown both of them. Once more she tried, giving a fierce kick and a wrench of her neck. He fell across the back of her shoulders and she felt cub-claws drive in deeply, making her snarl with pain.

  She wallowed in a trough between waves, searching for some sign of the breakers she had seen from the raft. Disoriented by the swells, she picked one direction and struck out with Mishanti clinging to her neck. A roller lifted her, showing her the distant surf line once again, and she changed her course.

  It was slow, hard paddling, with bouts of exhaustion, disorientation, and panic. Several times she lost sight of the breakers and ended up swimming aimlessly. Her breath seared her lungs and the back of her throat. Her limbs felt heavy and the cub on her back even heavier.

  And then she saw a shape circling her, and she thought about all the creatures of the sea, especially those who ate meat. Her heart sank further when she recognized the sleek form gliding around her. The thought came to her that without Mishanti, she would have a better chance against Newt and the ocean.

  His eyes are empty. I should let the sea take him.

  Ratha growled deep in her throat, angered by the suggestion and at the part of her that made it. She knew that if she sacrificed the youngster, she would be much closer to Newt’s image of her. But why did it matter, a part of her cried out, despairing. The cub would die out here anyway.

  The stinging pain of claws in her nape told her he wasn’t dead yet. She forced herself to stroke with limbs that throbbed with weariness and lungs that burned with ashy dryness, despite all the water around her. And all the time, Newt circled her like a shark, coming in to rake her flank.

  Newt’s attack was strangely languid, as if she were only sporting. Perhaps she was playing with her quarry as a hunter would toy with prey. Or perhaps she was surprised to see that Ratha had come this far and wondered how much farther she would go before the sea overwhelmed her.

  Ratha only fixed her eyes on the tossing surf and struggled toward it.

  It seemed to Ratha that she had been swimming forever in a gray, heaving landscape of waves, foam, and sky. Her limbs slowed of their own accord, and she hung in the water, utterly bewildered as to where she was or how she had gotten out here. She was tempted to just lie in the trough between swells and let the waves roll her around until she sank.

  Then she felt the soggy weight of the cub on her neck, remembered, and paddled onward. The sting from his claws faded. Either she was growing too numb to feel anything, or he was weakening. That thought stabbed her with alarm, and she redoubled her efforts.

  The sight of Newt cruising around helped to wake her cold-muddled wits with a surge of anger and sent her thrashing through the whitecaps.

  She panted and gasped, her throat raw from salt and hard breathing, her chest seared with pain. A spume of spray fountained into the air ahead of her, raining down onto her head. The boom of waves breaking against rocks penetrated her dulled hearing.

  A little surge of triumph fought its way through the layers of exhaustion and fear, but before she could really feel it, Mishanti started to slide from her neck, too weak to keep his claws fastened in her nape any longer. Again she grabbed him, slung him back into place, hoping the jolt would revive him long enough for her feet to find some purchase on the rocky bottom.

  But the rocks where the waves broke seemed to plunge right down into deep water, with no way to scale their sheer faces. With leaden paws and a growing fear weighting her down, Ratha swam behind the surf line, searching for some shoal or shallows where she could drag her weary self ashore.

  At last she came to a place where sea-battered stones had split and tumbled, forming a field of islets. Here she might have a chance of getting through before the breakers dashed her against the rocks. She splashed and scrabbled, tearing her pads on mussel shells that encrusted the islets. She floundered on her belly, nearly lost the cub again. Dragging him by his scruff, for she was too weary to lift her head,
she clambered up through tidepools, slipping and falling on slick strands of seaweed, while backwash from the surf dragged at her legs.

  Her vision, already blurred from exhaustion, threatened to fade completely. Desperately she sought a shelf or slab of rock far enough above the spray to offer some refuge. Just when she thought she would have to collapse atop the jagged crest of the wave-beaten rock, she caught sight of a low, sloping band of sandstone. It was steep and tilted down toward the surf, but it was better than lying on sharp-edged coral and shells. She struggled across the mussel beds, her pads bleeding and throbbing.

  At last she found herself crouching on a tiny, worn table of rock that barely rose above the sea. At least her refuge was flat enough so that she wouldn’t slip off, but it offered no protection against wind or wave. With no room to stretch out on her side, she huddled up with Mishanti against her chest and fell into an uneasy drowse.

  The flapping of wet fur woke Ratha from a sleep that had been too short and often interrupted by spray blown in her face by the wind. Groggily coming awake, she had to blink and stare before her eyes would focus. She felt her skin prickle, but her fur was too wet to bristle and her limbs too weary to respond, even to a surge of anger. Ratha could only watch Newt clamber onto a boulder that stood next to her own refuge.

  Newt stopped to shake more brine out of her coat. Ratha endured a long silence with only the sound of the sea and her daughter’s harsh breathing. The gray-green eyes stared at her, never wavering. Their color shifted like the hues on an incoming breaker.

  Then Newt came slowly down off her rock and onto Ratha’s. Though Ratha’s limbs screamed in protest, she gathered up the cub and scuttled away as far as she could go. Head low, eyes fixed, Newt limped after her.

  Ratha let Mishanti down long enough to speak. “I can’t fight you with him in my jaws.”

  Newt ignored her words. When Ratha held her ground with the cub between her forelegs, Newt stalked up and stood facing her. Uncertainly, Ratha watched as Newt balanced on her good foreleg, her other one drawn up against her chest. She readied herself to fend off a biting attack, thinking the cripple could not attack with her foreclaws.

  Newt’s raised paw shot out. A claw dug into Ratha’s cheek fur, dragged across her face. Angrily she lashed out with both forepaws, but Newt was too quick. The two faced each other, tails flicking with rage. Quickly Ratha grabbed Mishanti and shoved him to one side. Newt took advantage of the distraction to attack. Again the two met in a brief flurry, scattering fur and droplets of blood before breaking apart.

  “Can use this paw now,” Newt snarled.

  “Thakur told me that he worked with you... healed you... ,” Ratha panted.

  “He understood, Dreambiter. He knew.”

  “But he did stop. After you wrecked the pen... ”

  “Too late. This leg better. Soon Newt will run on all legs, Dreambiter.”

  Again she launched herself at Ratha, striking in whirl-wind slashes of claws and teeth. Enraged, Ratha fought back. She hated the instinct that made her want to seize Newt’s throat and twist until her enemy’s neck broke, yet she knew that was the instinct that would save her own life. The battle raging inside her was more savage than the frenzied bursts of combat as the two fought back and forth across the islet.

  “Dreambiter,” Newt hissed, closing her teeth around the word as she stalked Ratha. “Soon I will be free of you.”

  Ratha jumped sideways, letting Newt slice empty air. She hadn’t missed by much, and Ratha knew exhaustion was slowing her. “Your nightmares,” she panted.

  “No, yours. You run in them. You tear me. Not once, but again and again and each time the pain comes.”

  “You think you’ll end the nightmares by killing me?” Ratha spat back. “This thing that strikes at you out of your dreams is not me. It is something you have made. Killing me won’t put an end to it.” Her words were lost in the rising yowl of Newt’s battle cry and the wailing of the sea wind.

  The wind’s moan grew shriller, and the waves rolled higher around the islet, warning Ratha that a squall was nearing. To spring and dodge as she did on land earned her only hard, bruising falls on spray-slicked rocks, with Newt gouging at her belly.

  A big wave broke across the islet, drenching them both and slithering away in a foaming cascade of gray-green water. A trembling cry struck through the tumult of the noise and fighting. Ratha saw Mishanti, engulfed by the retreating water, being dragged away. She leaped, landed badly on the craggy rocks. One forepaw slipped into a crevice, throwing her hard on her shoulder.

  Ignoring the bruising, she tried to pull free but found her foot wedged into the crack. Irritated, she wiggled and jerked fruitlessly. She was stuck, her paw jammed and the cub sliding away beyond her reach.

  She lunged, straining the caught leg with her frantic swipes to reach Mishanti with her free paw. As a last, wild effort, she threw herself over, stretching and scrabbling with her rear paws to catch the cub. Her trapped foreleg twisted, sending shooting pain into her breast. For a terrible moment she felt only water against her hind toes, then a wet, sliding body. She caught the cub between her two rear pads and tried to claw him up to where she could grab him. His teeth fastened in her hock in angry protest. Then she could only hang onto him while another wave spilled across the islet.

  Even before the water rushed away, she felt him hitching himself up her leg as she lay on the rocks. She looked down and saw his eyes open and burning like amber flames while his needlesharp talons dug into her leg. Something had jolted him out of his numbed terror. Now he was angry, with a fierce rage to live.

  Hate me, hate the world, hate everything, but stay alive, Ratha thought at him as he struggled up her wet flank, over her belly, and up her ribs. With a surge of relief, she grabbed him.

  A sharp blow bashed her head against jagged rock and nearly stole her consciousness. Against her will, her jaws slackened. The cub slid from her mouth. She cursed herself for having forgotten Newt.

  “You can’t use your leg, Dreambiter,” came the bitter voice. “How does it feel?”

  Ratha ignored Newt, lunged groggily to reach the cub, who had tumbled into a tidepool. Her trapped leg sent fiery pains in protest. Again she had almost reached him when Newt caught the flailing paw.

  Ratha stared at her daughter as Newt’s teeth came down on her leg. Though Newt could not speak now, Ratha read her eyes and seemed to hear words spoken in that flat, cold voice.

  You crippled me, Dreambiter. Now you will know how it feels.

  “I am not your Dreambiter,” Ratha said hoarsely. “I was once, but not now. Listen to me, Thistle-chaser. My death won’t kill the creature that torments you. It will make it even stronger.”

  She curled herself up, kicking out at Newt with rear claws bared, but Newt swung herself aside, yanking Ratha into an even more painful position. Ratha yowled as Newt’s teeth sawed against her foreleg. She saw Newt grimace in frustration. A new look, closer to despair than madness, came into Newt’s eyes, but the blow to Ratha’s head, combined with the grinding pain in her trapped foreleg, had driven her close to oblivion. Newt’s face became a blur, along with everything else.

  The pain abruptly grew muted. Ratha felt her paw flop free from Newt’s jaws. Through the waves of dizziness that washed over her, she heard an angry squall. Struggling to focus her vision, she saw a double image of Newt spinning around to face Mishanti.

  “Yow! You bit my tail!” Newt snarled and dealt the bristling cub a slap that sent him tumbling. Shivering and snarling, he launched himself to the attack once again, leaping between Ratha and Newt. He stood astride Ratha’s extended foreleg, his head lowered, short tail lashing. With a growl, he leaped at Newt, making her draw back.

  “Get him out of the way,” she hissed at Ratha. “Get rid of him, or I’ll kill him.”

  Ratha could only lie still, fighting waves of gray nausea and weariness. Hopelessly she jerked at her trapped foreleg. “Do you think I can?”

  Her wor
ds only enraged Newt. The sea-green eyes shrank to slits, and the ears flattened against the spray-slicked head. She bared her claws and aimed another blow at Ratha, but again Mishanti flung himself between the two. Ratha struggled to raise her head enough to grab the little warrior in her jaws and yank him aside, but she was too cold and weak. She could only croak out, “No, Thistle-chaser... ” as Newt struck the youngster.

  The cub spun away with two red gashes along his flank, but he rebounded, hurling himself between Ratha and Newt. Again Newt tried to wound Ratha, tore the cub instead. He rolled aside, shuddering, his mouth wide. For one horrible instant, Ratha thought Newt had gutted him; then another gray-green surge of seawater spilled through the rocks. Ratha could feel the wave tug at her, but it wasn’t as powerful as the last few.

  The cub clung to the jagged rock with his claws as the water streamed around him. It washed the blood away, letting Ratha see the new wound, a long diagonal slash across the lower ribs. When the water retreated, he fought his way back to Ratha, his soaked fur making him look almost skeletal. The welling blood and the too-bright eyes made her feel that he had become something more dangerous than just a litterling.

  Again he put himself in front of Ratha, facing Newt. Ratha saw Newt’s lips writhe back, baring her teeth. She struggled to make some part of her body move, but she could get only uncoordinated jerks. Newt snapped at the cub, who wobbled aside at the last moment. Again Ratha tried to reach him and failed. Newt was preparing to lunge for the killing bite.

  Ratha had only her voice and her wits.

  “Dreambiter. Cub-slayer,” she snarled, throwing Newt’s words back at her.

  Slowly Newt’s ice-green stare moved from the cub to Ratha. “You are... ” she began.

  “His blood is on your claws now, daughter.”

  Newt froze, one paw still raised. A tremor crept over her, turning into shivering.