Ratha’s Creature (The First Book of The Named) (18 page)

Ratha gave a start and felt her stomach sink even further. She could not bear to let him find her. She turned tail and fled out of the cavern, across a flooded gallery and into the tunnel she had come in by. In the tunnel she paused for a moment, the pulsebeat in her throat almost choking her. She heard the sound of splashing and leaped into a gallop. He was after her. What he would do when he caught her, she didn’t know.

Now she was running in total darkness, trusting only her whiskers to keep her away from the rock walls.

“Ratha!” Bonechewer’s voice came from behind her, hollow and hissing. “Ratha!”

Cold fresh air tickled her nose, and as she ran, she breathed great gulps of it. She was almost out, she thought, scrabbling up a graveled incline. She thrust her head out and glanced around. No one was here. She was free! Soon she would be racing down the mountainside, leaving the Un-Named far behind. She would go back to the clan and warn them. Someone there would listen even if Meoran didn’t. Her excitement almost choked her. At last, at last, she would be going home.

She was barely out of the hole when she felt jaws clamp on her tail. Something jerked her back, snapping her head and knocking the wind out of her. She struggled, but Bonechewer kept a tight grip on her tail. She pulled until it was raw, then collapsed in a heap, worn out and terrified.

She felt the jaws loosen and peered along her flank. Bonechewer’s eyes glowed back at her. She shut hers tight again, waiting for his teeth.

“Sit up, Ratha.” He cuffed her, but the blow was mild. She only went into a tighter huddle. “I’m not going to hurt you. Sit up and listen.”

Gradually Ratha uncurled and looked up at him doubtfully.

Bonechewer grinned; not a friendly expression. The moonlight gleamed on his teeth, and Ratha remembered how, long ago, she had fought him in the meadow.

“You’re no danger to us, despite your heroics,” he said. “Go and warn the clan. What good will it do them? How many of the clan are there? How many of the Un-Named? Think about that for a while.”

Ratha sat, feeling the cold seep back inside her. “They would be ready to fight,” she said, but her words sounded uncertain, even to herself.

“Do you think that would make any difference?” Bonechewer leaned over her. “The marsh-shrew is ready to fight, but it is I who eat the marsh-shrew. Your warning might prolong the fight a little and cause a few more of the Un-Named to die, but it won’t make any difference.”

“No ...” Ratha faltered, feeling despair creeping back along with the cold.

“You can’t change it, Ratha. I can’t either. You heard me try.”

Ratha got up, feeling the night wind cut through her. The stars overhead were hard, with a steely glitter. “The clan has lived with Un-Named raids,” she said in a low voice, turning her back on the wind and Bonechewer. “They will survive. They always have.”

He walked around and faced her. “You must have heard enough in the cavern to know the Un-Named will no longer kill just for food.”

“Why?” Ratha asked, and hated the pleading sound of her voice. “Why have things changed?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps because Meoran grazes his flocks on territory once held by the Un-Named. Perhaps because the winter has been hard and hunger listens readily to hate. Or because there are so many of us now that our land can no longer feed us.”

Ratha shut her eyes, but blocking out sight could not block out truth. His voice went on.

“I saw this starting to happen the season before last,” he said. “That is why I stayed away. I nearly starved, but I knew that without me, they would fail in their plan to kill the herders and take the beasts. They did fail.” Bonechewer paused. “Do you remember how frequent and fierce the raids were that season? There were quite a few of the Un-Named who sought to destroy the clan. Now, most of them agree with the silver-coat.”

Ratha looked at him scornfully. “They failed because you didn’t come with them? Hah! One more set of teeth wouldn’t have helped them.”

“One more mind would have. I am clan-born, Ratha. I lived long enough among our people to know how they think and what they will do. The raiders needed that knowledge.”

Our people,
Ratha thought, staring at Bonechewer. He
calls them our people
...

She whirled on Bonechewer, her misery turning her savage. “Why do you care?” she hissed.

“I don’t.” His gaze was cool. “I have no love for the clan. To me, they exist to feed us and that alone is my reason. If they die, we die. That is the truth, but the other Un-Named are too stupid to see it.” His eyes narrowed.
“You
are the one who cares, Ratha. Too bad Meoran threw away his one chance when he drove you out.”

“What do you mean?” Ratha demanded.

“I’ll let you find the answer to that.”

Ratha flattened her ears and bowed her head. Her heart jumped as she heard cries far up the slope.
They’re looking for us, she thought.
Bonechewer touched her, making her flinch. “Ratha,” he said and she turned fierce eyes on him. “The clan won’t survive. Nothing you can do will change that, so stop thinking about it. You will survive.”

“How? By turning raider and helping to slay herdfolk I once knew?”

Bonechewer waited for Ratha to calm herself before he went on. “You can’t afford to think about them, Ratha. Think only of yourself. Life with the Un-Named is not pleasant, but you keep your belly full.”

Bonechewer’s voice was in her ear again, soft and relentless. “The clan drove you out, as they drove me. They would have killed you. Do you remember? Were those faces any less savage than the Un-Named Ones around you?”

Ratha listened. His words brought the memories back and fanned them until they burned in her mind as the torch had in her mouth. She stood before the clan again, seeing the hate in their eyes. One voice rose from the pack to betray her and she shuddered. That one voice ... Thakur.

She ground her teeth together, feeling her rage grow. The memory of Thakur’s face as he hung from Meoran’s jaws would never leave her mind. If Meoran had only killed him then.... All in the clan deserved to die and Thakur most of all.

A growl bubbled in her throat.

“Ah, you do remember,” said Bonechewer.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Where will I go now?”

“Wherever you please. If you come with me, I will hide you for the night.”

“What about the council? Didn’t you tell them you knew who was hiding in the cavern?”

“I’ll tell them something they’ll believe. You let me worry about that.”

“When I come back, I will go to the council,” Ratha said. “They need those who can speak and think. Perhaps I too will be a leader.”

“A leader? You?
Ptahh!
You crept among them and listened to what you should not have heard. If you go before them, I will tell them it was you who hid among the stones-with-fangs.”

Ratha waited, glaring at him. He was right; he had the power to turn the council against her. It would not be difficult, for she was a stranger among the Un-Named.

“You may hunt with us,” Bonechewer said, “but not as a leader. You will be among the lowest of the Un-Named. You will not speak of the clan. You will not speak at all so that you keep from revealing who you are and where you come from. Only then will you be safe.”

“Shall I also rub mud on my face to dull my eyes?” Ratha cried bitterly. “Or make myself believe I am one of the witless ones I walk among?”

Bonechewer looked at her steadily. “Your belly will be full. That is all I promised you.”

Ratha followed him up the slope, her steps heavy, her throat burning. She remembered again the she-cub who had brandished the Red Tongue before the clan. She wished to the depths of her being that she had her creature once again. The soft mist around her turned all things gray and formless, mocking her memory of the bright flame. She would never find her creature again. Ratha hung her head and walked on. 

CHAPTER TEN

As the sun set many days later, the forest sent shadows creeping across the meadow. The shapes of trees elongated into talons, reaching out toward the herd and its guardians huddled together at the center.

Ratha lay hidden, along with others of the Un-Named. From the forest they watched and waited for night. The sun’s glow faded over the treetops and the light filtering through became weak and pale. Soon would come the order to attack.

She shifted, trying to move away from the bony flank that pressed too close to hers. She wrinkled her nose at the sour smell of dirty fur and decaying teeth. She glared at the gray-coat. The old mouth grinned, an ugly grin, lacking mirth or understanding. When the Un-Named left the gathering rock the gray had attached herself to Ratha, abandoning the young cub who had been her trail companion. No threats or cuffs could discourage her.

The aged one’s rheumy eyes glowed dimly with pleasure each time Ratha repressed a shudder or withdrew from her touch.

The sight and smell of her makes me miserable,
Ratha thought.
She knows it and she delights in it.

She turned away from the malicious old eyes and watched the herders prowling around their animals, but she could not ignore the gray, whose presence hung about her, turning the air stagnant and choking.

It isn’t age or dirt or rotting teeth that sickens me so,
Ratha thought.
There were aged, dirty ones in the clan. Old and smelly as they were, the wisdom in their eyes made me respect them. There is no wisdom in hers, and she has lived her life with this terrible emptiness. She knows only enough to taunt me for my fear of it.

In the meadow, a three-horn bawled. Ratha watched the clan herdfolk draw into a tighter circle about their animals. They knew the raid was coming.

Leaves brushed her nose as she peered out of the thicket. She was afraid to let her gaze linger on any one form for fear it would become someone she knew.

I am one of the Un-Named,
she told herself fiercely.
I am enemy.

But she could not help thinking about Fessran and Thakur ... although it was not easy to think about him. She didn’t want to think about Bonechewer either. She had come with him as companion and equal. Now he was with the elite of the council while she was left among the lowest of the Un-Named, forbidden to reveal she was anything more than they. It was bitter meat for her, and it was worse to know her own foolishness had placed her here. She ground her teeth together, remembering those gold eyes and the mocking broken-fanged grin.

It would be easier to hate him, she thought, had she not heard the words he spoke in the council. What he said then was wise and right. And he believed it. He had thrown himself at the silver-coat because he believed it.

Maybe it is better to be like the Un-Named, she thought bitterly.
Not to think, not to remember ... would make it easier.

A hoarse scream cut through the dusk; the signal to attack. A young cub leader leaped out of the thicket. Ratha ran after him, followed by two dun-colored males and the ancient gray. Another fawn-colored female streaked by Ratha as the cub leader shouted things that were lost in the pounding of feet and the wild cries that came from every throat. Ratha found herself howling along with them and the savage joy of the pack swept her with it.

The Un-Named spilled from the forest into the meadow, rising like a great wave against the herders, who stood together in a tight determined circle about their beasts. Yet the raiders did not become an amorphous mass; instead they held together in their groups and struck at the weak points in the clan’s defenses.

Another pack led by a young silver-coat raced past Ratha’s group and clashed with the herders. It broke apart into individual fights. Out of the corner of her eye, Ratha saw old Srass rear up to meet the young silver-coat. The two went down in a writhing, slashing blur. The cub led his group through the herders’ broken line toward the three-horns, now unguarded. The animals wheeled and began to stampede across the meadow. Ratha could hear the herders shrieking orders back and forth to each other as the three-horns split apart from the dapplebacks and thundered across the grass. Both raiders and herders went down beneath those trampling feet, and the torn earth was stained with blood. Ratha, wild with the intoxication of the chase, launched herself after the biggest stag she could see. He was on the outside edge of the herd, galloping easily, his horns held high.

She forgot the Named, the clan or anything except the magnificent animal. It would take all her skill to bring this one down. This kill would show she was indeed a hunter. She sped after the three-horn stag. She dived in among the pounding legs, dodging, turning, barely escaping flashing hooves and tossing horns. She reached her quarry and cut him out of the herd, leaping up to nip at his flanks and withers. An ecstatic bound carried her right onto his back and she rode him for several wild seconds, her claws digging deep into the coarse fur. He bucked, throwing her off, but she landed running and the chase began again.

She ran the three-horn as she had never run any of the herdbeasts when she had served the clan. She ran him, reveling in her strength and her skill as a hunter and herder. She turned and twisted, countering every lunge and thrust, dancing around him, leading him in circles until at last, eyes rolling and exhausted, the stag began to slow and Ratha closed in for the kill.

She did not realize her skill had given her away until an angry cry rose from behind her.

“She is clan!” the voice bellowed. “A clan herder kills with the raiders! Tear her tail off! Trample her guts into the ground!”

Ratha looked back to see Srass chasing her, bleeding from the wounds the silver-coat had given him. She was young and still unwounded, but Srass’s rage lent him speed. Suddenly he was beside her flank and then at her shoulder. She heard his heavy panting and felt his breath behind her ears. Frightened now, she tried to pull ahead, but before she could gain any distance, his teeth locked in her ruff and the two rolled over and over in the grass.

Ratha flailed and kicked, gouging Srass’s belly as he snapped at her throat. She ripped off the rest of one ragged ear. He clawed her chest and gashed the inside of her foreleg. Then, abruptly, the fight ended. Ratha tumbled free. She leaped to her feet, completely bewildered. She shook her head and stared.