by Clare Bell
She forgot her embarrassment and her soggy flank as Thakur’s voice and scent reached her. The green eyes blinked. Another, smaller pair glowed momentarily and Ratha made out the shape of the treeling’s face between the outline of Thakur’s ears.
The herding teacher came forward to touch noses with her. “Where were you going in such a hurry?”
“To find you,” Ratha gulped. “You were right about Shongshar. Bira’s cubs are witless. You were right and I didn’t listen,” she cried. “Oh, I wish I had!”
Thakur was quiet for a while and his silence tore at her in a way worse than angry words could. When she thought she couldn’t bear it any longer, he said, “Come with me to my den. We’ll talk there.”
Gratefully she padded after him until they reached his lair. He stood aside to let her in and then followed.
“I knew Bira had abandoned her litter,” he said as she curled up with the earthen wall of the den against her back. The rich smell of soil and leaf-mold mixed with his scent made her feel better.
“Their eyes are empty,” she said, feeling her voice growing steadier. “I know. I looked at them.”
“There is no chance that you are mistaken?”
“How could I be wrong, when my own cubs were like that? I’ll never forget my daughter’s eyes. I imagine Bira won’t forget hers either.” Her voice was heavy with self-accusation.
“She’ll get over it, in time. You did.”
Ratha laid her head on her paws. “I did until seeing Shongshar’s cubs brought it all back.”
“What have you told Shongshar?”
“I reminded him of his promise to me and gave him the choice of abandoning his cubs in order to stay, or taking them with him and leaving the clan.”
“Can he take them?” Thakur asked.
“I think so. They were still nursing, but Fessran was starting to feed them chewed meat. He can’t give them milk, but he can chew meat for them.”
She heard the soft sound of the herding teacher’s tail brushing the ground as he curled it around himself. “When does Shongshar have to make the choice?”
“I said I would come to his den tomorrow. If the cubs are still there, I suppose I will have to take charge of them myself.” She sighed unhappily at the thought of that possibility.
She heard an odd shuffling noise and then Thakur saying softly, “Go on, little friend. She knows you. She won’t hurt you.”
She felt the treeling’s paws on her hind foot and held still as Aree hopped up onto her leg and walked up her flank to her back, where he began grooming her fur. Aree’s touch was so gentle and careful that she wondered if the treeling knew she was upset.
“The longer I have Aree, the more I think he knows what I’m feeling,” said Thakur, and his voice was warm with affection for the treeling. “He doesn’t speak, but he seems to say things with his paws.”
“He is very gentle. I hope he doesn’t mind that I’m a bit wet.” Ratha felt her tenseness seeping away and stretched her mouth wide in a great yawn. “I just had a funny thought.”
“What?”
“Aree grooms me the way you would if you had his clever little paws. Maybe he’s got some of you in him.”
“Perhaps,” said Thakur softly. “Do you feel better?”
“A little. I wish he could groom out all my bad feelings along with the ticks and the fleas.”
“Not even a treeling can do that.”
Ratha drew in her breath and let it out in a huge sigh, lifting the treeling up on her ribs and letting him sink down again.
“Are you thinking about tomorrow?” Thakur asked, after he had been quiet awhile.
“Yes. I hope Shongshar’s cubs are gone when I reach the den. I’ll still have to face Fessran and tell her what has happened, but I’d much rather do that than have to take them out and abandon them myself.”
“I’ll come with you, if you want.”
“I thought you were angry with me,” she said, surprised.
“Not any more.” He paused. “If you do have to take the cubs, you can’t carry both of them at once.”
“Thakur, you don’t have to,” Ratha answered, ashamed and grateful at the same time. “This is my responsibility.”
“The responsibility belongs to all of us,” he said as Aree finished cleaning Ratha’s fur and climbed down from her back. She felt warmed, comforted and ready to sleep. Perhaps she would be able to face the coming day after all, she thought.
She woke early, unsure of what had roused her. It might have been a bird trilling outside or the faint morning light filtering into the den. She buried her nose in her tail and tried to shut her eyes again, but it was useless. Thoughts of the task that lay ahead stole sleep away. All she could do was watch and wait while the gray light outside grew stronger and Thakur’s ribs rose and fell with his slow breathing. Aree, curled up against his belly, looked like a small cub with dusky brown fur.
The treeling began to stir. Thakur twitched and moved in his slumber. She hoped he would wake soon; it was nearly time to depart for Shongshar’s den. When he settled down again and began to snore, she reached out a hind foot and poked him. He grumbled a sleepy protest, but his eyes opened and, when she stepped over him on her way out of the den, he quickly came to life.
A ragged fog lay along the ground and patches of mist hung around the few stands of trees. Thakur crawled out of the den with Aree wobbling and yawning on his back. The treeling eyed the weather with distaste and fluffed his fur.
The moist air held scents well and before Ratha reached Shongshar’s den she knew he and the cubs would still be there. Someone else would also be with them. Fessran’s odor and footprints were fresh, telling Ratha that the Firekeeper leader had taken the same path earlier in the morning.
“I think Shongshar came to get her,” Thakur said, from behind Ratha. “His scent is alone on one side of the trail and mingled with hers on the other.” Aree contributed a sneeze to the conversation and then shook itself.
Ratha glanced back and wondered whether Thakur should bring his treeling on an errand such as this. She was so grateful for his presence that she decided not to say anything. No one would notice anyway; the creature had become so much a part of him. If Shongshar became angry and forced a fight, Thakur would send his companion up into the nearest tree.
“Even so,” she said to him as they approached, “you let me go first.”
She saw Shongshar waiting outside the den. His feet and legs were lost in the white swirl of ground fog and the silver in his coat blended into the gray mist. His eyes were the only part of him she could see clearly and they burned at her with a mixture of pain and defiance.
“I couldn’t abandon them,” he said in a low growl “I tried, but I just couldn’t do it.”
Ratha faced him directly. “Do you wish to stay with us?”
“I came to the clan because it was the only way I could survive. There is nothing for me outside.”
“You have disobeyed me,” Ratha said. “The cubs are still here and so are you. However, if you stand aside and let me take them you may keep your name and your place among us.”
He moved away from the mouth of the lair and stared away as she passed him. “I’m sorry, Shongshar,” she said but he gave no indication that he had heard.
She bent her head and crawled inside the den. A warm, milky scent met her nose. Enough light entered the lair so that she could see Fessran stretched out with Shongshar’s young at her teats.
“They won’t be nursing much longer,” she said. “I’ve begun to feed them chewed meat, but they still need a little milk.”
“I thought you weren’t going to care for them any more.”
“I wasn’t.” Fessran replied. “But when Shongshar came and asked me again, I couldn’t refuse him. Why aren’t you doing something about getting Bira to nurse them?”
Ratha braced herself and said in a flat voice, “Bira is not coming back to them, Fessran. Hasn’t Shongshar told you what I said t
o him last night?”
The Firekeeper narrowed her eyes and curled closer about the litterlings. “So you are going to take them to die. I didn’t believe you could do such a thing.”
Ratha lost her temper. “Oh, stop trying to fool yourself! You’ve looked at those cubs and you know as well as I do that there is nothing in their eyes.” She stopped, trying to calm herself. “Didn’t Drani tell you about the trouble in the nursery?”
“Yes,” Fessran admitted, looking down at the floor between her paws. She sat up as the restless cubs continued to paw at her belly.
Ratha leaned forward and opened her jaws to take the little male by the scruff. Fessran blocked her, snarling. “No! I have given these cubs my milk. I don’t want them to die.”
Ratha crouched, her own nape raised, lips pulling back from her teeth.
“I ... I just think you should give them a little more time, that’s all ...,” Fessran faltered, embarrassed by her sudden flare of anger.
“And you think that it will be easier then? When you have nursed them longer and begun to think of them as yours?” Ratha hissed.
“No. I know they are Bira’s.”
“But you will still want to see them kept and raised, for Shongshar’s sake.”
The Firekeeper stared back, her eyes reflecting the light from the lair’s entrance.
“Fessran, I would do you no kindness by allowing you to keep them. What will happen when these cubs grow up and you have to face the truth about them? What will happen when the mating season comes? We won’t be able to keep them from mating, any more than we could keep Shongshar from it. Do you want to see more litters like this? Do you want to birth cubs like this?”
“No!” Fessran cried. “No, not if you are right about them. But you could be wrong.”
Ratha snatched the little male and placed him so that the light from outside the lair fell across his face. “Go on, look at him,” she hissed. “Look at him and tell me if you really think I’m wrong.” She seized him by the scruff and held him up before Fessran.
The cub hung in her jaws, making no effort to struggle. Fessran peered into his face, studying him intently. Something like pity and revulsion came into her eyes and she turned her head away.
“All right, take him,” she said harshly. “Take the female, too; she’s the same.”
Ratha put the cub down long enough to say, “Go back to your family, Fessran. Go back to your little daughter who is starting to talk. Think how proud you will be when you bring your cubs before the clan to be given names.”
She picked the litterling up and carried him from the den.
Outside, she paused in front of Shongshar and put the cub on the ground to free her jaws. “These cubs are yours,” she said. “If you still want to take them and abandon them yourself, I will trust you.”
“No, clan leader,” he answered. “You were the one who asked for that promise. You have said my cubs must die. I can’t fight you, but I won’t help you either.”
She took a breath. “All right. They are my responsibility now. I accept that.”
She picked up the cub again, but Shongshar stood, blocking her way. His orange eyes burned with grief, but what frightened Ratha was the sudden hate that flared in their depths. It was as if she were looking into the eyes of an old bitter enemy. Ratha felt her nape and back itch as the hair lifted; she narrowed her eyes and growled, sweeping her tail from side to side. Shongshar moved out of her way, but as Ratha passed him she sensed that she had not won the confrontation, she had only delayed it.
Fessran crawled out of the den, her coat rumpled. Without looking at the clan leader, she said, “Come with me, Shongshar. I am having trouble being a Firekeeper leader and raising a family at the same time. Cherfan isn’t interested in my cubs. If I share my family with you, it will help both of us.”
Shongshar lowered his head and paced to Fessran’s side. Neither of them looked back at Ratha as they left.
When Shongshar and Fessran had gone, Thakur came out of the brush and fetched the female cub from the lair.
Carrying the cubs in their mouths, the two left clan ground and trotted toward the hazy shapes of the mountains beneath the rising sun. Ratha’s jaw was soon aching from straining against the male cub’s weight, but she forced herself to go on carrying him, without stopping to rest. Something told her to get these litterlings as far from clan territory as possible.
Part of her started to go numb as she traveled, and it wasn’t just her jaw. Her legs seemed to go on by themselves while her mind functioned only enough to choose the path. The litterlings, seemingly dazed, never cried or struggled, which made them seem more like lifeless burdens than living creatures.
For the rest of the day Ratha and Thakur traveled over plains and foothills until they reached the mountains. Among the pine forests that covered the lower slopes, they found a stream leading up through a shallow canyon until it entered a sheltered meadow. The surrounding canyon walls protected the meadow from wind and the stream lay close by. When the two saw the enclosed pasture, they knew they had come far enough.
As soon as Thakur let the female cub down, she began stalking a large beetle that clung to a swaying stem. She wriggled, pounced, and then Ratha heard her jaws crunch on the insect. The litterling grimaced in disgust at the taste but she gulped it down.
Ratha stared at her, then at Thakur as he said, “Hmm. If she can eat insects, there is a chance that she and her brother may survive here.”
“Maybe. Fessran said they had begun to eat chewed meat.”
She watched the cubs as they romped around their new home. When they reached the far end of the meadow, she felt Thakur nudge her. “We should go now,” he said softly.
He trotted away downstream and, after one last look at Shongshar’s cubs, Ratha followed.
She said little on the journey back to clan ground. Although there was some hope that the abandoned young might survive, she knew she couldn’t risk telling Shongshar where they had been left. Thakur led the way back and she paced after him, wondering if she would ever lose the weariness of body and spirit that had crept over her, numbing her feelings.
Chapter Ten
For a while after Thakur and Ratha returned to clan ground, he noticed that she was unusually subdued and did not appear among the Named any more often than she had to. She spent much time in her den, her head resting on her paws, her eyes staring ahead at nothing.
“It would have been no easier for me if Shongshar had taken his cubs out and abandoned them,” she muttered in response to Thakur’s gentle questioning. “It was I who allowed him into the clan to sire those cubs and it was I who decided he must lose them. I wish I could forget that they were ever born, but I keep seeing those little faces before me.”
“You didn’t kill the cubs,” Thakur pointed out. “We chose a place for them where there is food and they will be safe.”
“Until the next hungry beast comes along. It doesn’t really matter. Shongshar thinks they are dead and so does everyone else who knew about them. Only you and I know that they may survive, at least for a little while.”
She sighed, laid her head back on her paws and stared away again, not noticing when Aree hopped up on her and began to groom her pelt. Thakur called the treeling back again, knowing that Ratha’s distress was something she would have to come to terms with by herself; he couldn’t help her. He wondered if the faces she saw in her waking dreams were those of Shongshar’s cubs or of her own lost young.
Gradually she came out of her lassitude, but whether she had resolved her feelings or just buried them, Thakur couldn’t tell. As much as he wanted to stay with her and comfort her, he had other duties that called him. The cubs in the spring litters were now old enough so that he would soon have to begin training some of them as herders.
“It’s too early to wake up,” Thakur grumbled, opening one eye at his treeling. Aree cocked his head at him and evaded his sleepy paw. For some reason the creature was unusually frisky. On
all fours he galloped to the threshold of the den, poked his nose out, galloped back and leaped on Thakur. The creature pawed his fur and told him, with various treeling noises, what he thought of those who snored in their dens while there was such a beautiful morning outside.
The scolding, plus the impact Aree had made when he landed on him, brought Thakur fully awake. “I’m feeding you too much,” he growled at the treeling. “You’re getting heavy.” The treeling had grown rapidly, reaching his adult size. Now when Aree stood beside Thakur on all fours, his back reached the level of the herding teacher’s belly. With his legs and tail outstretched, he could extend himself from Thakur’s shoulder to withers.
Aree looked at Thakur with such wide soulful eyes that he knew he must feed his creature. The herding teacher crawled wearily out of his den and found a dead tree that was covered with bark-beetles. Aree climbed up and munched on the insects until he was sated.
Thakur’s belly was still comfortably full from the previous day’s herdbeast kill, so he would not have to eat for a few days. He shivered as the cold in the early morning air crept into his coat. The mothers would eventually bring their cubs to the meadow and the first day’s teaching would begin, but it was still much too early.
He considered returning to his den, but the treeling was still lively. Aree would never let him go back to sleep. He decided instead to take a walk out to the meadow. Some Firekeepers might still be on duty and he could warm himself at the guard-fires.
Only a single fire was still going when he got there, and he could see that the Firekeeper was getting ready to put it out. During winter, the guard-fires burned night and day, but in summer they were only needed in darkness, or when an attack threatened the herds.
He quickened his pace and called to the Firekeeper. He had not expected that it would be Bira.
She greeted him with a nose-touch and asked when he was to start teaching.
“This morning, but not for a while,” he answered. “My treeling got me up.”
