by Clare Bell
“Well, I was lucky,” he said when she finally calmed down. “The Firekeepers weren’t really after me, just the tree-lings. And when Bira turned and started helping me fight, that really confused them. That gave us time to gather up the tree-lings and run.”
“We nearly lost Aree,” added the young Firekeeper. “When Nyang scratched one of her cubs, she flew at him and bit him hard. You should have heard him yell.”
“Nyang again,” Ratha said with distaste. “He will do anything for Shongshar, won’t he? I imagine he was the one who pushed Bundi into the fire.”
“He led us,” said Bira. “He showed us how to rub ashes into our pelts so that no one could smell who we were. I hate the taste and feel of it; I’m going to wash myself in the stream tomorrow.”
“Bira,” Ratha said slowly, “I’m grateful to you for what you did. You had no reason to want to help me. You wouldn’t have had a witless litter if I hadn’t let Shongshar into the clan.”
“You took your chance, clan leader, and I took mine,” Bira answered. “I grieved for that litter, but now they are gone I don’t think of them any more. As for Thakur, I was the one who built the fire for him when he was teaching Aree. I liked him and I liked the treelings too much to let Shongshar kill them, so I tried to make Nyang think I was fierce and nasty enough for his group of killers. It wasn’t easy,” she added with a grimace that narrowed the glow of her eyes.
“I think,” said Thakur firmly, “that we should get some sleep. Whatever is happening has just begun, and we are going to need all our strength and cleverness tomorrow.”
Although his words sounded somber, Ratha was too tired to worry. Bira offered to stand guard through the first part of the night and Thakur said he would take the following watch. He hadn’t finished speaking when his voice became a drone that faded in Ratha’s ears as she slid into sleep.
She woke suddenly, shaking away the dream-image of a huge fire with grotesque black figures leaping through the flames. She opened her eyes and gratefully breathed the air of a quiet morning. Somewhere a bird trilled a high sweet note over the merry noise of the stream. Bira slept alongside, her head on her paws, her flanks rising and falling slowly. Ratharee was curled between them, the treeling’s brown-black fur contrasting with Bira’s ash-streaked red and Ratha’s own fawn color.
She lifted her muzzle and focused on Thakur, who was sitting just outside the little cave. Ratha yawned and then crept out, trying not to disturb either Bira or the treelings. She stretched, gathering herself together for the new day.
“No one knows what happened last night except Shongshar, Nyang’s group of Firekeepers and ourselves,” she said thoughtfully. “None of them are going to tell anyone, especially since their attempt was a failure, thanks to Bira.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Thakur. “Talk to Fessran?”
Ratha fell silent. After seeing the Firekeeper leader in her frenzied dance before the Red Tongue, she doubted that Fessran would listen to anything about treelings or even about Shongshar’s misdeeds.
“No,” she said. “I’m going to talk to the herders and tell them what Shongshar is up to. Then I’m going to lead them up the creek trail and take all the wood out of the cave. Without wood, the cave-fire will die and so will Shongshar’s power. We’ll see who obeys him then!”
“It may not be so easy.” The herding teacher looked at her, his eyes full of doubt.
“It won’t be, but if I can hold the loyalty of the herders, I can do it. Come with me, Thakur. Cherfan and the other herders will be more likely to listen to me if you are there.”
“And I am less likely to get pounced upon by Nyang and his pack of Firekeepers,” said Thakur dryly and added, “I didn’t think I would do much teaching today.”
“Can we trust Bira to stay with the treelings?”
“Yes. She’s no longer a Firekeeper. They wouldn’t take her back after she turned on them to help me. Nyang’s probably looking for her, and she knows she’s safe here.”
Ratha stared into the cave, taking one last look at Ratharee. “I hope Bira can keep the treelings safe.” She turned to face Thakur and felt a shiver at the solemn look on his face.
“You aren’t sure about this either, are you.”
“No,” he admitted.
There was nothing else to be said. She led the way out from under the overhang, and they waded in the stream for a distance so that their scents and prints wouldn’t lead anyone to Bira. Then they cut back to the trail and set off downhill for the meadow.
Chapter Sixteen
Ratha and Thakur didn’t meet anyone on the trails they took. Even the path to the meadow was deserted and, when Ratha reached the trailhead and gazed out across the grass, she sensed a tense stillness in the morning air.
She saw the dapplebacks and three-horns gathered in a tight flock instead of being scattered across the pasture as they usually were in the morning. Around the edge of the meadow, several guard-fires still burned. That was strange, she thought. Usually the Firekeepers put them out after sunrise.
The herdbeasts didn’t like being confined to such a small area of meadow. Ratha could hear the three-horns bray and paw the ground, while the dapplebacks snorted and whinnied. A few herders circled the animals, trotting around the flock to keep it together. The others were nowhere in sight.
“Ratha!” A deep voice drew her attention away from the animals. Cherfan bounded toward her over the grass. She could tell from the urgency in the big herder’s stride and the way his whiskers trembled that he was worried.
“Where is everyone, Cherfan?” Thakur asked calmly.
“Behind the big thorn thicket near the far end of the meadow. Someone killed a dappleback early this morning,” he said, turning to Ratha.
“Un-Named raiders? Bristlemanes?”
“I don’t think so. Nothing broke through the line of guard-fires.”
Ratha began pacing beside him with Thakur at her Bank. “Have you found the carcass?”
“No, but we found the place where the animal was brought down.” Cherfan broke into a fast lope and Ratha galloped beside him until they reached the thornbush. Behind it was a hidden stretch of meadow and she could tell by the torn and flattened grass that the herdbeast had died here.
Gathered around the spot were the rest of the herders, sniffing the ground and exchanging puzzled looks. Cherfan stepped into their midst, waving his tail. He stopped and looked them over carefully. “That’s strange,” he growled. “We’re missing someone. Where’s Shoman?”
The herders muttered among themselves and soon confirmed that Shoman was not helping to guard the remaining animals, nor was he anywhere else in the meadow. In fact, no one remembered having seen him since the middle of the night.
“And Bundi’s not here either,” said Thakur abruptly.
“There’s something else I don’t understand.” Cherfan narrowed his eyes. “We keep the dapplebacks out in the center of the meadow during the night. We don’t let them go behind these bushes; it’s too easy for them to wander away. If someone killed a mare here, he would have had to drive it away from the flock and the beast would have fought and made enough noise to bring all of us running.”
“Unless it was lured here by someone it knew,” said Ratha.
“All right. The dappleback may have been lured here and then killed, but none of us heard it scream. A dappleback will cry out when it feels the touch of fangs.”
“Not if there are a pair of attackers,” Thakur said quickly. “One lures the beast while the other hides. When the beast is distracted, the other leaps out and bites behind the head. The creature dies quickly and quietly. I’ve used the same method in culling.”
Cherfan wrinkled the fur on his brow. “Shoman ... and Bundi? Perhaps Shoman would do such a thing. I’ve never trusted him. But Bundi?”
“I caught Shoman with a piece of meat he was using to bribe a Firekeeper,” Ratha reminded him. “Bundi was with him. He said they were both being shu
nned by the rest of you because of their injuries from the Red Tongue.”
“Shoman killed that dappleback to revenge himself on us?” Cherfan’s puzzlement began to give way to anger.
“Not for revenge,” said Ratha. “I think he was forced to lure it here and kill it.”
“Forced? By whom? And where is the meat? He and Bundi couldn’t have eaten it by themselves.”
Ratha glanced at Thakur, then turned her gaze back to Cherfan. “You will find the carcass in the cave where the Red Tongue is kept.”
A wave of mutters and growls spread through the herders. Some looked uncertain while others raised the fur on their napes and showed their fangs. Cherfan flattened his ears. “You’re saying that Shoman killed the beast for Shongshar and Fessran? Why?”
“Because he and Bundi were made outcasts by the Red Tongue’s mark and sought to placate the Firekeepers by any way possible. Shongshar knew his desperation and used him,” Ratha hissed.
A wave of muttering and growling spread among the herders. Cherfan flattened his ears. “No one is allowed to kill herdbeasts without your order.”
“And I did not order anyone to take that animal,” said Ratha, staring meaningfully at the other herders. “Shongshar and Fessran have disobeyed me and clan law. The carcass is stolen meat and they have no right to it. If the Firekeepers are left unpunished, they will steal again and the rest of us will go hungry.” She paused and then growled, “Do you want to hear your bellies rumble because of the Firekeepers’ greed?”
“No!” came the answer in many voices. “Lead us to the cave and we will take back the stolen meat.”
“Listen to me,” cried Ratha. “It is the Red Tongue in the cave that gives the Firekeepers their strength. They have stored wood there to feed it. If we take back the wood as well as the meat, the cave-fire will starve and die.”
“We will take back what they have stolen!”
“You do not fear the Firekeepers?”
A chorus of roars and howls rose from the group. “There are more of us than there are of them. To the cave!”
With Thakur and Cherfan flanking her, Ratha led the outraged herders up the creek trail. At first the group was boisterous and noisy, but as they drew close enough to hear the song of the Red Tongue, they became quiet. Uncertain looks passed back and forth among the herders and Ratha knew that the sense of awe that subdued those who came before the fire-creature was creeping over them again.
Thakur could sense it too, for he put his muzzle to her ear and whispered, “Don’t hesitate, Ratha, or these brave herders will desert us.”
She was grateful for the smell of dappleback meat that lingered in the air along the path. The scent fanned the herders’ anger anew and kept them pacing steadily behind her. When they reached the last stretch of the trail, Ratha whispered her final instructions.
With a roar as loud as the booming of the falls, her pack charged the cave entrance and the two Firekeeper guards. The guards tried to fight, but only managed to avoid being trampled as the herders knocked them aside and surged into the cave.
Again the fire-creature rose up before her, writhing and hissing like a live thing, but this time, Ratha was too angry to be cowed by the sight. She looked beyond the fire to where a group of Firekeepers pulled and tore at a half-stripped carcass. Nyang lifted his head, his muzzle ash-streaked and bloody. Fessran dropped the haunch she was chewing and stood up while the others glared back at Ratha over the bared ribs of the kill.
Only Shongshar continued to eat, holding a chunk of liver between his paws and slicing it with his side teeth. Ratha could hear muffled growls among the herders, but none of them came forward to challenge the Firekeepers at their feast. Many of them glanced uneasily at the Red Tongue in the center of the cave, as if expecting it to leap out and sear the first herder who made a move.
Ratha turned her gaze to Fessran. Fessran stared back haughtily, but a flicker of guilt crossed her face. “This meat is forbidden,” Ratha said in a voice that echoed around the walls of the cavern. “Leave it.”
Some of the Firekeepers exchanged glances and a few backed away from the kill.
“No!” Fessran leaped over the carcass and stood before it, lashing her tail. “We who serve the Red Tongue have taken what is rightfully ours. Eat without shame, Firekeepers, for it is the creature that we tend that guards the herd from raiders.”
“Yes, Fessran. Tell them to eat without shame from a beast killed wrongly and dragged to a cave in secret,” Ratha snarled.
“When those who keep the herdbeasts hold back meat from us who watch the guard-fires, then we have a right to such a kill,” cried Nyang, from behind Fessran.
“Ptahh! All in the clan have an equal chance to fill their bellies when the kill is eaten where it falls. Anything else is greed or arrogance, litterling.” Ratha glared at Nyang, but he ducked behind Fessran.
“What you think is equal, clan leader, is not enough for us,” Fessran said. “Serving the Red Tongue is difficult work, and it is a long way to the meadow.”
Ratha spat again. “You shame yourself by speaking lies you don’t even believe, Firekeeper leader. You know as well as I that to steal and hoard meat from a kill is an act that strikes out against the clan and my leadership.” She met their stares one by one until she fixed her eyes on Fessran. “Who ordered that herdbeast to be taken without my knowledge. Was it you, Fessran?”
“The beast was killed by herders.” The Firekeeper leader spoke sullenly.
“Yes, by a pair of herders who were told that they had to lure the beast and slaughter it in return for being allowed to enter this cave. In return for being allowed to crouch before the creature that I brought to serve the Named, but which now has birthed a litter that feeds from us like cubs from their mother.”
“You dare!” Fessran’s eyes were blazing. “You dare to speak of us that way. We serve the power of the Red Tongue, clan leader, and that power answers to none except itself!”
Ratha waited until the echoes of Fessran’s voice had faded into the hollow roar of the cave-fire. “Are those words your own, Firekeeper?” she asked with bitter sorrow thick in her throat. “Did you force Shoman and Bundi to make that kill?”
Fessran tried to answer, but the word would not leave her tongue. She stood, shaking, staring down at the floor between her feet.
“I did. I did!” screamed Nyang, lunging over the kill to face Ratha. His face, stained with blood and distorted by hate, was no longer that of an older cub but of someone filled with menace and malevolence.
“No, you wretched cub!” Fessran seized his scruff as he crouched to spring at Ratha and wrenched him off his feet. She threw him aside with a powerful toss of her head and flattened her ears at him. He crawled away, his eyes smoldering.
Ratha’s stare was suddenly drawn to Shongshar, who had finished the dappleback’s liver and now sat up. He began to clean his paws, but he interrupted this task to lift his head and fix his gaze on Ratha.
She felt as though she could fall into those eyes and be consumed by the flame that burned behind them, without leaving so much as a charred bone. The orange in them shimmered and writhed as if she saw into them through waves of terrible heat. Now she knew where the true power of the Red Tongue lay. Not in the fire burning within the cave, but in the depths of those eyes.
She knew that she had helped to lay the kindling for this fire of the spirit that had taken grief into its fierce heart and blackened it into hate. The herders saw it too and many turned their faces away from him.
“Shongshar,” she said softly, yet her voice seemed to ring about her in the cavern.
“The order to kill the dappleback was mine, clan leader,” he answered and continued to lick his paw.
“Why?”
“So that the Firekeepers might feast. The herding teacher beside you knows that cubs learn well if they have had enough to eat, and they are more willing to listen to the one who has fed them.”
Ratha waited. Shongshar pace
d forward and took Fessran’s place without even looking at her. She melted away from him with a frightened glance that left no doubt who was the real leader of the Firekeepers.
Shongshar spoke again. “The beast was not killed just for food, clan leader. There is another kind of hunger in your people, and it is one that a full belly will not satisfy. You do not understand this hunger, and you have done nothing to feed it. But it is a hunger that I know well.”
Ratha shivered, held against her will by the spell of his voice and the depths of his eyes.
“Look around you, and you will see it in the eyes of your herders as well as the Firekeepers,” said Shongshar, with a strange compelling rhythm in his speech. “Look within you and you will see it there.”
Despite herself, Ratha found her gaze traveling over the faces of the herders. They were silent, held as she was by the sibilant sound of Shongshar’s voice. And yes, he was right. In their faces, in their eyes and even in the changing scents of their smells, she felt a longing that perhaps had always been there, or perhaps had just been conjured out of them by the power of his words. She didn’t know which it was, and that knowledge made her afraid.
Within herself she sensed the same hunger, a feeling that she had never been able to put words to. It was a strange hunger that crept up inside her when she was alone looking up at the stars. It had come upon her when she had first sought a mate; in the closeness with him, it had nearly been filled. And it was the same hunger that drew her to the dance she had seen around the Red Tongue even as she had feared it.
And she knew that the search to satisfy this strange need could lead to things that were good, such as seeing the fluffy beauty of a newborn cub or the sheen of a dappleback stallion’s coat as he pranced about the meadow. Yet the same hunger could be twisted into something that could flourish in the depths of a cave, feeding on hatred amidst bones and tainted flesh.
Shongshar knew how to feed it; she had no doubt of that. It was as if he had fathered a litter that suckled not milk, but blood. Her horror and her anger gave her the strength to tear her gaze away from his and turn his words aside.
