Ratha’s Creature (The First Book of The Named) (11 page)

She dropped down behind her thicket, dizzy with relief and weariness. She laid her chin on the damp ground and felt her heart gradually slow. The ache in her belly came back and the cuts on her pads began to throb. There was mud in the wounds, but she didn’t have time to clean them. The wind might soon shift, carrying her scent to the clan and revealing her hiding place. Exhausted and hungry as she was, she had far to run before she would be beyond the clan’s reach.

She yawned.
This would be a good place to sleep, she
thought, pushing herself up on her front paws.
If I did, Meoran would soon be standing over me, ready to give the killing bite.
She coaxed her reluctant hindquarters up and peered out of the thicket. The voices were silent. The clan folk had gone. Fessran was probably sending them on all sorts of false trails, looking for her.

She stepped out of the thicket and looked up at the stars. The trees here were fewer and she could see a greater stretch of sky. So many stars, she thought. Each seemed to burn like a tiny piece of her lost creature. The night wind touched her wet coat, making her prickle and shiver.

She was clanless; outcast and outlaw. Her training as a herder was worthless now, for she had no beasts to keep. There would be no more gatherings; no sharing of the clan kill. From now on she would have to provide for herself, and that no one had taught her.

Miserably, she crept away. She stayed in shadow beneath brush and trees, avoiding open ground where newly sprouting grass was bathed in moonlight beside the charred lengths of fallen pines. For a while, she chose stealth over speed, but at last her desperation drove her from cover. She ran from an enemy neither seen nor smelled, whose dark presence loomed up in every tree shadow, sending her fleeing from the path. She ran like a cub on her first night trail, fearful of anything that moved.

The wind grew bitter, hissing and rattling branches. The new ache in Ratha’s chest did not distract her from the old ache in her belly, and she endured them both, until the hunger pain became a weakness that seeped into her legs. She stumbled from tree to tree, resting against them until she gained breath to go on. The trail faded away, or she lost it, for now she fought her way through thorns and ropy vines. She panted harder. Her pads grew slippery with sweat, stinging the gravel cuts. She was almost grateful for the pain; it kept her alive and angry when she was tempted to fall and lie amid the brambles that snared her. It was the anger that made her tear loose from them and stagger on, leaving tufts of fur behind.

The earth itself seemed to betray her, for it grew mushy underfoot and she sank at every step. The soft ground sucked at her feet, dragging her down, while the tangle thorns chewed at her ruff and flanks. She was caught and held by spikes growing from the vines, and struggle as she would, she could not break free. For a while she was still, regaining her strength. With a final effort, she wrenched herself loose, the thorns scoring her sides.

She overbalanced, toppled and started to roll down a steep grade. Limp and exhausted, she let herself go, dragging a claw now and then to slow her descent. She landed against something, heard a soft crunch and smelled the odor of woody decay. She tried to rise, but could only lift her head; the rest of her body was too weary to obey.

Ratha let her head loll, feeling damp moss against her cheek. Was this to be her deathplace? Would the clan find her here, a rotting lump of fur beside an equally rotten log?

No! She ground her teeth; she would not lie still, not yet. If Meoran and the others came she would meet them on her feet, with fangs bared.

If only she could have a little time to rest. That would be all she needed. Just time enough for the strength to flow back into her limbs and the ache in her chest to lessen. Then she would be able to fight if she had to, or to journey on, seeking water to soothe her throat and something to fill her belly.

The ground seemed to rock beneath her when she closed her eyes, letting her rise and fall as though she were a cub crawling on her mother’s ribs. She opened one eye at the shadowed ferns hanging above her. The leaves were still, and she knew that it was not the ground that rocked her, but the depths of her own weariness. She let the imagined motion lull her into a daze, then into sleep.

Ratha woke abruptly, itching all over. Had all her fleas gone mad? They were all dancing beneath her coat, tickling her skin until the urge to be rid of them overcame her exhaustion. She twitched a paw and saw something white and wriggling fall on the ground. Whatever was crawling through her fur, it wasn’t fleas.

With one bound she was on her feet, shaking hard until she thought she would jerk her pelt loose. Some of the invaders fell on the ground beneath her, but others remained as moving lumps in her underfur. Her tail bristled with horror. Was she so close to death that worms were seeking her body? She remembered seeing the carcass of a dappleback mare felled by sickness. The clan would not touch the tainted meat and the body was left for other scavengers. She remembered the sound that welled up from the carcass; a soft humming and whispering. It was the song of the death-eaters; the sound of dissolution. It was the sound of millions of tiny jaws chewing through cold flesh. Ratha remembered the song and shuddered. She shook herself again. She saw pale carapaces and waving legs on the moonlit ground beside her paws. Some of her horror faded into curiosity. These weren’t worms, she thought, pawing at one scuttling insect.

She looked back to where she had lain against the fallen log. The leathery wood was crushed inward, revealing a channeled interior. More pale termites swarmed and milled within the hollow, spilling out like a thick liquid around the edges.

She had landed right in a nest of them. No wonder she had awakened with the creatures in her fur! She nosed her back and trapped one moving lump between her fangs. She pulled it loose from her coat, feeling the hair thread between her teeth. The flailing legs touched her tongue and made her gag. She bit down on the insect and felt the carapace break.

She spat the mangled thing out, but not before a trace of its flavor escaped onto her tongue. She had been prepared for a bitter or nauseating taste, but instead found it bland and sweet, reminding her of the river-crawlers she had eaten with Thakur. Her hunger came back in a rush. She let saliva wash over her tongue, testing the flavor again. Not as good as river-crawlers, but definitely palatable.

She licked up several termites that were crawling by her feet, crunched and swallowed them.

Ha, eaters of death,
she thought.
I will eat you!

She cleaned up the others that had fallen from her fur and began grooming herself, eating the ones she found in her pelt. Not satisfied with those, she pawed at the nest, breaking more of the rotten wood. A seething mass poured out on the ground. She stepped on them and then ate them.

By dawn she was almost full. Daylight chased the termites into the depths of their battered nest, but Ratha no longer cared. With the cramp in her belly eased, she was ready to journey on.

For several days, Ratha traveled through thick woods of broadleaf and pine. Here the fire’s touch had not been felt and the air beneath the trees was cool and dim, reminding her of her own forest before the Red Tongue’s coming. She thought, as she prowled on needles, that she could make a new home among these silent trees. There were plenty of rotting logs that would yield their inhabitants to her claws, at least until she found some other source of food. Even as she thought about staying, her feet carried her on until the forest thinned and gave way to scrub and tangle. Only when she was clear of the trees did she stop to look back. The forest beckoned to her from within its gray-green depths, promising her quiet and safety. The horizon also beckoned, promising her nothing except challenge.

She turned from the forest and galloped toward the horizon. 

CHAPTER SEVEN

Ratha sniffed at the trail of tiny prints that ran over the flat and into the rushes. The stink of marsh mud rose to her nostrils, overwhelming the smell of her quarry. Her hindquarters trembled and she sat down. A wave of nausea swept through her, and her stomach threatened to disgorge the lake water she’d drunk early that morning, trying to still the hunger cramps in her belly.

The tracks led on further into the marsh. She coaxed herself up and followed them. The marsh shrew had run before her only a short time ago; the tracks cut sharply into the black mud. Ratha knew about tracks. Thakur had taught her to find straying three-horns and dapplebacks by their prints and how to tell if a trail was worth following.

She stopped and studied the ground. Here, the prey had been running. The tracks were deeper and farther apart. Tiny bits of caked mud, a lighter gray than the ooze, littered the trail as if flung from scurrying paws. Ratha’s excitement rose as she padded alongside the trail. Saliva filled her mouth. Soon her teeth would crunch on bone and she would suck warm salty blood. The gnawing pain in her belly would cease....

Ratha stopped. The tracks ended. One last footprint in the mud and beyond, nothing. She whined in dismay, nosing about around the trail. Could the shrew have leaped away onto a log or branch? She looked around, frantically. Nothing but mud on either side. Where had the prey vanished?

Again, she circled, trying to find the track. She stepped on something smooth and slender that bent underneath her pad. She drew back her foot and looked. Embedded in her pawprint was a feather; a long slim quill. Shrill cries overhead made her look up. Several birds wheeled high above her. From the shape of their wings she knew that they also ate flesh. Her whiskers drooped. Her prey was probably squirming in their talons or being torn apart by hooked beaks. This hunt was ended. She would have to begin again.

Ratha caught motion at the edge of her vision. She whirled around. A heavy beak clamped shut in the air where the nape of her neck had been.

For an instant, she flattened on the ground, staring up at her opponent.

The great bird cawed and raised its crest, staring at her with unblinking lizard eyes. Its weight sunk its talons deep into the ooze. Massive legs with scaled horny skin supported a body that was all bulk and neck, the tiny wings buried in hairy feathers. This one had not dropped from the skies. Atop the serpentine neck, the great head swayed and the beak gaped once again. A talon lifted. The inside of the beak was yellow; the narrow tongue a glistening pink.

For another instant, Ratha crouched, paralyzed, watching the talon and the open maw descend. Then she remembered her legs. The beak stabbed into black ooze. Terrified, she scurried away through the rushes as the hunter’s hoarse cry of rage echoed over the marshland. She fled, turning and twisting, to throw her pursuer off the trail. She ran until her legs would no longer carry her and then she fell and slept in exhaustion until her belly woke her with the reminder that it had yet to be filled.

Afternoon found her tracking again. The prey was wounded or ill; she could tell by the irregular footsteps and wandering trail. Sometimes the prints were smudged by the impression of a dragging tail. Again, she followed, but this time she did not let the intensity of her hunt make her forget that she too might be prey.

The trail grew fresher and the smell stronger. She crouched as she approached a fallen log in her path. On the far side of it she could hear soft rustling sounds, and the crack and crunch of seeds being eaten. Again she trembled and her belly grew tight. She slunk along the side of the rotting timber and looked around the edge. There it was. A little marsh-shrew with a dull striped pelt and flanks almost as shrunken as hers. One rear leg was wounded and dragging. The blunt snout turned, the nostrils twitched. Ratha ducked back. Then, as the creature turned once more to its meal, she peered past the ragged spongy ends of the fallen timber. At last something she could catch.

She gathered herself, bunched and sprang over the log. She landed short, slipped in the mud, leaped again and landed on her prey with her front paws.

Her tail swung wildly to keep her balance as the animal squirmed beneath her pads. She felt herself toppling, struck one forepaw out to catch herself and felt her prey slip out from beneath the other. Furious, she lunged and snapped, but the creature, despite its injury, was far away from her, scooting across the flat toward the reeds. Ratha flung herself after it, howling in anguish. She chased the animal up and down through the high grass, desperation keeping her only a few tail-lengths behind. The marsh grass opened into a meadow of ferns and she was gaining on her quarry when a flurry of black and brown erupted from nowhere and something charged into her, knocking her aside from her prey. There was a shrill scream from the animal, a deep growl and then silence.

Ratha scrambled out of the clump of ferns and staggered to her feet. A young male of her own kind stood a short distance away, staring back at her. Her marsh-shrew, now lifeless, dangled from his jaws. He dropped it in among the ferns and began to play with it, glancing from time to time at Ratha. Driven by hunger, she moved closer. He lashed his tail, growled, picked the carcass up and pranced a short distance through the ferns. There he laid it down, ambled a few tail-lengths away and began grooming himself.

Ratha flattened and crawled through the ferns, freezing whenever he looked her way. His smell was oddly familiar, she realized, between the waves of hunger that were sweeping over her. She slunk forward again, raising her whiskers above the fronds. He turned, yawned in her face and ducked his head among the ferns. A loud crunch of teeth on bone told her he was eating her prey.

With an outraged scream, Ratha flung herself at him but exhaustion made her fall short. She pushed herself up on wobbly legs, fluffed her tail and spat. He flicked one ear and went on eating. Only half the carcass was left.

“Scavenger!” Ratha hissed. “Un-Named dung-eater! Flea-ridden chewer of bones!
Arrr
, you can’t understand my words, bone-chewer, but you’ll understand my teeth!”