Clan Ground (The Second Book of the Named)

by Clare Bell

  During the next few days, Ratha fell into a regular routine of watching Thakur’s treelings while he was gone in the morning and then hiding out near the fire-cave and observing what went on there. More herders came to visit. Some, like Cherfan, she liked and respected, and it dismayed her that they were drawn here. At first the herders came to satisfy their curiosity, but their interest soon became fascination and they returned again and again to enter the cave.

  Ratha noticed that the Firekeepers became more selective about whom they would admit. Herders who were eager to crouch before the fire-creature had to obey rules that seemed to grow harsher and more arbitrary each time Ratha listened to them. She ground her teeth and growled—promising herself that once Fessran understood what was happening she would end these abuses.

  Yet, the more she watched, the more uncertain she became. Those who came to the cave begged to enter with such unabashed eagerness that Ratha felt shame for them. They were blind to the pettiness of the Firekeepers’ rules, accepting these restrictions as part of the ritual that seemed to be growing up around the cave.

  As she watched, she gained a new and disconcerting knowledge of her people. There was something in the nature of the Named that drove them to crouch in obedience to this new power. Ratha sensed in them a confusion of loyalties. Never before had she thought her position as clan leader might be seriously threatened. She was the one who had brought this new power to the clan. She had tamed the Red Tongue and driven the Un-Named back in terror before its power. All the Named were grateful to her and all bared their throats to her.

  But, she realized, they did not look upon her with the same awe and passion as they gave to the thing she had once called her creature. Without the blazing presence of a firebrand in her jaws, she had only the power of claws and teeth—and loyalty based on fading memories. Yes, she had tamed the Red Tongue, but she had given its keeping to others and been blind to how it changed them.

  She began to see the real truth behind her dream. Her mind had built an image of a Named One made of fire to show her how deep its power reached within her people and even within herself.

  “We are all crying cubs before it,” Thakur had said once long ago. Ratha remembered his words and thought, Once, I alone could stand before it without fear. Now I know I am no better than the others.

  One day in late summer, she lay in her hiding place with the sun on her back and her chin on the rock, far enough from the Firekeeper guards so they wouldn’t smell her. The air was still and even the sound of the fall seemed to be muffled by the heat. No one had come all afternoon and the two Firekeepers were dozing where they sat. Ratha was thinking about leaving her refuge to drink from the stream above the falls when she heard claws scraping on rock. She ducked down and peered through a cleft between two boulders. For a moment, the crack framed an ugly face with lop ears and bile-yellow eyes.

  Shoman! What was he doing there?

  Ratha saw his grizzled brown coat and his kinked tail as he passed her hiding place. Someone followed him, and she caught a glimpse of a burn-scarred muzzle and the faded spots of a yearling.

  “Bundi?” she whispered to herself, but she didn’t need his smell to know the injured herder. She felt a sense of betrayal, although she was not quite sure why. Perhaps she had assumed that one who had been wounded by the Red Tongue would never seek its presence again.

  She saw Shoman and Bundi approach the Firekeeper guards. One of them was Fessran’s son Nyang and he came forward to challenge the two herders who sought entry.

  “Take yourselves back down the trail,” Nyang said, flattening his ears at them. “The Red Tongue has marked you as unfit to enter its lair.”

  “Unfit because I bear this scar, or unfit because I see only what is there and not what others would have me see?” growled Shoman.

  Nyang’s eyes narrowed. “The fire-creature can make you see whatever it wishes you to see. If you do not believe, why are you here?”

  “Because of this!” Shoman thrust his scarred foreleg at Nyang. “Because the other herders see this and shun me. I have never been liked and I never expected to be, but to have them wrinkle their noses and look at me as if I were a diseased carcass full of blowflies ... that I can’t bear.”

  “And you are not afraid that one who angered the fire-creature once may anger it again?” asked Nyang.

  “If it is clumsiness that angers it, then it may have me,” Shoman spat. “I did nothing wrong, but the other herders won’t believe it. I would rather risk its anger than to go back down to the meadow and be hissed at with contempt.” He paused. Ratha could not see his face, but she knew he was glaring at Nyang. At last he said, “If you won’t let both of us in, then take Bundi. He suffered much more from the Red Tongue’s touch than I did, and he is too young to be spurned and made one apart.”

  Shoman’s rough sympathy with Bundi startled Ratha, who had thought that he was too bitter and selfish to care much about anyone else. His words were wasted on Nyang, who looked at him coldly.

  “I need a better reason than that,” he said and then leered at Shoman.

  The herder gave a deep growl that ended in a sigh. “I thought you might. Bundi”—he turned to the youngster behind him—“bring the meat I gave you.”

  It was a small piece and Bundi had hidden it in his mouth, concealing the sight and smell from anyone else. He came forward and disgorged it in front of Nyang.

  The sight of the chunk of torn flesh lying on the stone before the Firekeeper enraged Ratha and she had to fight to keep herself concealed. No one had the right to take meat from a herdbeast carcass unless they were feeding a nursing mother. All in the clan ate together and shared equally until their bellies were filled. Stealing or hoarding was a shameful act, and by the old laws of the Named, a clan leader could demand that the culprit bare his throat for a killing bite.

  Nyang smelled the meat, looked to either side to be sure no one else was watching and then fastened his jaws in it. Ratha let him eat half before she left her hiding place and stepped out onto the trail. At the sound of her footsteps, Nyang started and the other two whirled around.

  “That meat is forbidden, Firekeeper,” Ratha said, lowering her head as the hair rose on the nape of her neck. Nyang tried to gulp down the rest of it, but he choked and dropped it as she showed her fangs at him. She turned to Bundi, who could not answer her accusing stare.

  “The meat is mine,” Shoman said in a harsh voice. “It is from my share.”

  “You know as well as I do that we eat from the carcass where it lies,” said Ratha fiercely. “Your share or not, it is stolen, and I will not tolerate such a shameful thing among my people.”

  He looked back at her, half-ashamed, half-defiant. “Do you allow a good herder to be shunned and spat on just because he bears the scars from an accident that was not his fault? I am speaking of Bundi, clan leader, not myself.”

  “What good would it do him to enter this cave?” Ratha asked. “The Red Tongue does not heal its own wounds.”

  “It can heal the wounds that are made by malicious words. If Bundi and I enter the cave as if to seek forgiveness and emerge unharmed, and if this news is spread among the other herders, then we will not be treated as outcasts.”

  Ratha wanted to ask why they had not come to Cherfan or to her, but another thought stilled her question. If Shoman had come to her, she could have ordered that all who were shunning him and Bundi stop doing so, but while she might have put an end to their acts, she could not have changed the feelings that showed in their eyes. Shoman had taken the only action he could, despite the risk. He had done it for Bundi as well as himself, and that made Ratha respect him.

  “All right,” she said at last. “Nyang, take them into the cave.” With a last hungry look at the meat, the Firekeeper led the two herders in.

  She picked up the remains of the meat, holding it with the tips of her fangs as if the taste was rancid. She pushed past the other Firekeeper guard, who had been watching in astonishm
ent, and entered the low gallery that led into the cave.

  She halted in the flickering shadows to watch Shoman and Bundi approach the fire. Shoman stood still, but Bundi crouched before the flame, ducking his head so low that his whiskers swept the ground.

  Beyond them, on a ledge in the darkness at the rear of the cave, sat Shongshar and behind him Fessran. Their eyes were fixed on Bundi and they seemed to brighten as the young herder raised his chin as if to bare his throat.

  Ratha leaped over a row of stone fangs and began to walk purposefully toward the ledge at the rear of the cave. Bundi halted in his supplication and crept away from the fire. If he had ignored her and bared his throat to the fire-creature, she knew she would have filled the cave with her roar, but she stayed silent and set her feet quietly.

  Her path took her past the two herders. She stopped briefly, narrowing her eyes against the firelight and said, “Go now. I will make sure the others learn that you are no longer to be shunned.”

  When the two were gone, Ratha continued her walk toward the rear of the cave.

  “Why do you enter the Red Tongue’s den without permission from the ones who guard it?” Fessran’s voice came from the ledge, sounding hollow and threatening, yet there was also an edge of fear in her words.

  “Because I am the one who tamed the creature for you, Firekeeper,” Ratha answered, looking up at the two on the ledge. “And I am growing tired of these cub-games. Call Nyang here.”

  “My son? What has he done to offend the clan leader?”

  Ratha had dropped the meat she carried in order to speak clearly. Now she picked it up and tossed it in front of the ledge. Both Fessran and Shongshar came to the edge of their perch and peered down, smelling the raw flesh. Shongshar fixed his eyes on Ratha.

  “Your son accepted that meat from the two herders who wished to enter the cave. It was stolen from a clan kill,” she said.

  “Then punish the herders,” Shongshar growled. “It is they who have done wrong.” Fessran’s eyes grew wide.

  “It is also wrong to accept meat that has been stolen or to demand it in return for allowing in herders who would otherwise be unwelcome,” Ratha hissed.

  “I think you misunderstand the intent of the herders, clan leader,” said Shongshar easily as he draped himself along the edge. The gesture was casual, but she could read the intent in his half-veiled eyes. He was larger and more powerful than she remembered and the shadows gave his orange eyes a strange hidden malevolence. She knew he saw how her eyes traveled along his body, registering his bulk and the powerful muscles of his neck and forelegs.

  He shifted himself again and continued, “It is a long way down to the meadow, and some of us do not get the chance to eat as much as those who stay near the kills. If the herders try to even things out by bringing us some meat, I see nothing wrong with it.”

  “Nyang is always hungry,” said Fessran, trying to sound motherly and indulgent. “He’ll eat anything without thinking about where it came from.”

  “It is my responsibility to see that everyone has an equal share of a kill. Nyang gets no less than his share and frequently tries to take from others. There is no need for the herders to bring you meat. If you think this cave is too far from the meadow, move your wood somewhere else.”

  Fessran glanced at Shongshar, but although he was aware of her gaze, Ratha noticed he did not look back at her. “I’ll talk to Nyang,” Fessran said at last.

  “You should talk to all your Firekeepers. Before I leave, let me remind you that I will not permit anyone to steal from a carcass or accept meat that has been stolen.” She turned to leave and then looked back over her shoulder. “If I find that this has happened again, I will have this fire killed and the wood moved somewhere else. Do you understand me? Good.”

  She whirled around, trotted across the cave floor, down the gallery and out into the sunlight. She felt cleansed by her anger and pleased that she had finally confronted this thing that had been festering in her mind like the canker made by a tick burrowing into her flesh. She felt as though she had found it and nipped it out. But she knew as she traveled down the trail in the hazy sunlight of late afternoon that she hadn’t yet gotten all of it.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The herders continued to visit the Red Tongue’s cave. Some did so openly; others were ashamed and furtive, sneaking up the trail through the shadows. Ratha knew she could do nothing to stop them, but she kept a careful watch to see that no meat was taken. Once or twice, she had read that intention in someone’s eyes as they sank their teeth into a haunch of three-horn, but her look and the slight lift of her lip as she growled quickly dissuaded them.

  Her suspicion and the growing ascendancy of the Firekeepers over the herders poisoned the rough-and-tumble yet good-natured competition for places about a culled herdbeast. Ratha made sure that everyone received an adequate share, and there was in fact less inequality than there had been before. But everyone ate in a tense silence, punctuated only by the sound of tearing flesh. Ratha found herself eating less, for the atmosphere around a kill made the meat seem to taste rancid and stick in her throat. Even the cubs were subdued; they rarely dived in to snatch a piece of meat as they had done before. Perhaps they had learned that such antics could result in a fierce bite or scratch rather than an easygoing cuff.

  No more food was stolen, and Ratha became less obvious about her watchfulness, hoping that the event would be forgotten and the clan would go back to its old ways. This helped a little. There was more conversation at meal-times and even some humor, but the unspoken distrust between the Firekeepers and the herders was an undercurrent of ill-feeling that kept everyone on edge.

  A few days after the last cull, Ratha noticed that one of the three-horn fawns that had been born that spring was missing. She questioned the herders closely and had them search, but no sign of the animal was found. To lose a herdbeast without explanation was a dangerous precedent and she made it clear to the herders that it was not to happen again.

  Sometimes she felt as if she was no longer walking among her own people, but among strangers whose puzzled, resentful glances made her feel strangely lost. She looked for the animal herself and did no better than the herders.

  At last Cherfan told her that the fawn had been diseased. It died when the herd was driven to the river and the carcass had been buried there as it was unfit for food. She suspected this was told to placate her; she knew Cherfan and the others were growing tired of her suspicions. She gave up the search, finally deciding that trying to discover the animal’s fate would cost too much resentment and further divide the clan.

  She found herself turning more and more to Thakur and his family of treelings as a relief from the burden of her leadership. Each morning, when the herding teacher went off to instruct his pupils, she stayed at his den and watched over Aree and her young ones until he returned.

  At first, when the youngsters were too small to leave the nest, Ratha found her task easy and pleasant. They would nurse and sleep, although sometimes Aree would take them out into the morning sun to creep about and stare at the world with wide eyes. Like cubs, they were intensely curious and aware of everything around them. Ratha knew, however, that their awareness was not like that of the Named.

  As the treelings grew older, the differences between them began to show. The larger of the two males was placid and even-tempered, while his brother made up for his small size with a bullying aggressive nature. Both the little females of the litter were lively and inquisitive, although one sister was reckless, tending to shred the objects of her curiosity, while the other would gaze at flowers or insects without touching them. She seemed to know how to be gentle without needing to be taught.

  At first, Ratha was attracted to the larger and bolder of the two sisters. The young treeling shared qualities she had herself and which she thought she might want in a companion. She was stronger and had a beautifully marked pelt and distinctive masking around her muzzle. She was also adventurous, having bee
n the first to come out of the nest. Aree was forever having to seize her tail and yank her out of trouble.

  Although Ratha enjoyed the bigger female’s rough-and-tumble play, she often felt her gaze wandering to the smaller sister. The little female’s fur was less rich in color and her markings more subdued, but her gentle nature seemed to feed Ratha’s hunger for affection in a way that even Thakur’s companionship could not. The little treeling could sense when Ratha was troubled and would come to cuddle against her before settling down to groom her fur.

  She wasn’t sure when she decided that the little tree- ling was to be her companion. Perhaps it was when Thakur noticed the growing friendship and in a teasing way began to call the youngster “Ratha’s Aree.” Since Ratha could think of nothing better, she finally accepted the name. It was easier for her to blend the two words into one, so after a while, she began to call the little treeling “Ratharee.”

  The ripening season soon started, and Aree climbed trees eagerly to gather fruit. At first, the young treelings disdained this new food, but they were growing too big to nurse and the sweet smell began to tempt them. It was not long before they were eating fruit with as much gusto as their mother.

  From birth, the young treelings knew fire. Its glow flickered on the wall of the den above their nest, and they became as used to the smell and sound as they were to their own mother. When the litter was old enough for Aree to leave them for long periods, Thakur again began to teach her how to care for the Red Tongue. Soon they had an audience of youngsters, who attended each teaching session and watched their mother’s training with eager curiosity.

  Both Thakur and Ratha welcomed this interest and began to test the little creatures for evidence of Aree’s ability. They did this carefully and gradually, using the same methods that Thakur had used with Aree. Like their mother, the youngsters quickly discovered that the Red Tongue’s warmth could be strong enough to hurt, but if they were careful, they would not be injured.