Ratha’s Creature (The First Book of The Named) (4 page)

With one last glance at the two herders, Ratha lowered her head and padded after him.

“Are we going back?” she asked, catching up.

“No, Srass is right. The trail is too dangerous.”

“Now I want to go home. My underfur is wet.” Her voice was petulant.

“We can‘t, yearling. Not until dawn.”

“What if the raiders break through?”

“Then both of us go up the nearest tree.”

Ratha shivered and shook herself, sending dewdrops flying. She sneezed.

“Come back with me to the sunning rock,” Thakur suggested. “You can curl up beside me and Fessran. We’ll warm you up.”

“Fessran is angry with me,” Ratha grumbled.

“I’ll tell her to sharpen her claws on someone else. Come on, yearling,” he said as Ratha yawned, a gape that stretched her mouth and made her jaw muscles ache again. Thakur waved his tail imperiously, but Ratha was in no mood to follow. She flattened her ears and turned away from him.

“Ratha!”

She ignored Thakur’s call as she trotted away into the fog.

There was a drumming of feet behind her and the sound of wet grass swishing. She stopped and glared back at Thakur.

“You idiot cub, you can’t go back by yourself!” Ratha turned her head aside and trotted off in a different direction. Again Thakur blocked her.

“Go away. I don’t want you as teacher any more,” she snarled. “Fessran may be hard, but she listens to me and answers my questions. And I am not a cub. You wouldn’t have brought me here with you if you thought I was.”

“The way you are acting tells me I may have made a mistake.
Yarr!
Yearling, come back here!” he called as Ratha galloped away. She ran as hard as she could, twisting and turning so that Thakur would lose her trail. Soon the fog muffled his footsteps and they died away behind her. She ran on, aching and shivering, not sure where she was going and not really caring. There was a feeling in her throat as if a piece of meat were stuck there, and swallow as she might, she couldn’t get it down.

At last Ratha jogged into a patch of frosty grass and stopped to rest. The cold was pulling the fog out of the air, laying it on the ground in crystals of ice. She fluffed her fur. Running had warmed her, but as she stood, the chill began to creep back again. She lifted her nose. Some stars were showing through the mist overhead. Everything was quiet now.

Ratha peered between two white-covered stalks and ducked back. She didn’t want to be found by anyone, whether it was her teacher or the Un-Named raider. Her whiskers trembled. She whimpered softly and closed her eyes.

She was afraid of the night, of the raiders, of Thakur, but what frightened her most was the change in herself. A cub wasn’t supposed to get angry with her teacher. A cub wasn’t supposed to question, to doubt, or to sense that things were wrong. When had the awareness come?

She hung her head miserably. Had she imagined that the Un-Named One had spoken during the fight? It was easy to believe that she hadn’t heard his words and less frightening to believe so. Less frightening for her and Thakur. But why? Why should Thakur even care whether the scavenger had talked?

Because he knows they can,
something in her mind answered, and, for a moment, she was startled by the realization.

Everyone thinks the clanless ones are stupid, Ratha thought. Meoran tells us to think that way. But if Thakur thinks they can talk, as we do, perhaps he thinks they aren’t stupid, either.

“The Un-Named One spoke to me,” Ratha said aloud to herself. “I know he did.”

She sat down and stared at nothing for a long time. None of it made any sense.

“Thakur is wrong,” she muttered. “I am not a cub anymore.”

She stared at the faint form on the grass beside her for a long time before she realized that it was the first trace of her shadow. As the milky light began to spread over the horizon behind the trees, Ratha blinked and shook her head, not sure whether she had been awake.

The sun rose, chasing the fog away into the trees. The hoarfrost melted back into dew and the drops hung from grassblades and the leaves glittered. Sounds reached Ratha’s ears and she turned her head.

She had run so far across the meadow that she couldn’t see the sunning rock and she wasn’t quite sure where she was. As the fog slid away, it uncovered the carnage of the night’s battle. Bodies of slain herdbeasts, both three-horns and dapplebacks, lay still and stiff. Nearby were smaller forms, the torn remains of both the herd’s defenders and attackers. From where she hid, Ratha couldn’t tell whether the slain were clan folk or raiders. The clan believed the Un-Named Ones were different, yet they all looked alike in death, Ratha thought, as she crept from her hiding place.

She shook her head, trying to get rid of such thoughts. It was day. There were tasks to be done: herdbeasts to graze and water, cubs to teach and feed. The clan would gather itself together, bury its dead and go on. There was no other way. Things didn’t change. After all, day still came. Ratha grinned sourly to herself. Thakur would probably even expect her for a lesson, once she had taken a nap and had her wounds attended to. Thakur would treat her as if this night hadn’t happened and expect her to be the same cub he had led out on the trail one evening very long ago.

But I am not the same,
Ratha thought as she wandered back across the meadow.
I have changed in a way I don’t understand.
 

CHAPTER FOUR

Blue wings fluttered in the boughs above the trail. A volley of squawks broke lose and the two quarreling jays chased each other in and out among the branches. Startled, Ratha glanced up, catching only the flash of white tail feathers as the two combatants disappeared. She had forgotten that birds could be so noisy. The owls and nightjars she saw floating over the meadow at night were utterly silent.

The warm tongue of sunlight washed her back as she emerged from beneath the trees. She felt the heat sink through her fur to her skin and she yawned, feeling lazy. How long had it been since she had seen the full sun of day and heard birds singing? Ever since the first raid, it seemed. Other clan herdfolk had also learned to live by night, guarding their animals from sudden attacks by raiders.

Even their best efforts could only slow the loss of herdbeasts to the enemy. This season was the first time that the number of animals killed exceeded the number of young born, and the clan knew that unbalance could not continue for long. The need for more herders was so great that cubs who had only partially completed their training were taken to guard the herds. Among them was Ratha. She was eager to leave Thakur’s tutelage, for ever since the night of the first raid, she had made little progress and knew that it was because she no longer trusted him. He had refused to answer her questions about the clanless ones and denied that the Un-Named could speak. Later he said he had never hinted that they could. Ratha knew this lie was intended for Meoran’s ears and did not fault Thakur for that. Even when they were alone, he refused her the truth, even as his eyes betrayed his words.

She sensed that there was another fear keeping him silent. When she pressed him to explain, he lost his temper and mocked her. What she had heard, he said, was her own imagination or the sound of the wind in the grass. Only a cub could believe that the Un-Named One spoke. Only a cub.

She knew it was Thakur who had encouraged her, fought for her and had even stood up against her father and the clan leader so that he could train her. At times, her resentment weakened in the face of this knowledge, but she was a clan herder now, with many responsibilities and little time, and Thakur had many new cubs to train. They seldom saw or spoke to each other.

Ratha ambled along the path, her tail swinging, enjoying the morning.

She had already worked the previous night, but when one of the herders who took the day watch fell ill, she had asked to take his place for the sake of a ramble in the sunshine. And, although she wouldn’t admit it to herself, for the chance of seeing Thakur.

She hopped over the stream at the meadow’s edge. The dapplebacks grazed in the shade on the far side. Fessran was there too, showing three fat spotted cubs how to dodge kicks from the feisty little horses. Ratha waved her tail at Fessran and the other herder paused in her lesson.

“Ho, Fessran? Where’s your randy little stallion? I don’t see him.”

“In the thicket, with a mare, as usual,” Fessran answered. “If it weren’t for him, the Un-Named would have eaten all of my flock long ago.”

“What’s he doing?” one of the cubs piped up.

“Making more dapplebacks,” said Fessran.

“Oh.” The youngster looked thoughtful. “Will we see them when he comes out?”

The cub’s teacher grimaced. Ratha gave Fessran a wide-mouthed grin and lolled her tongue out.

“That isn’t the way it happens, Mondir,” said a voice next to the question-asker. Stung, Mondir shoved his muzzle against the other’s nose. “Since you know everything, Bira, you tell me how it happens.”

“I don’t know everything,” the female cub said, wrinkling her nose and sitting down on her tail. “But my lair-mother did tell me it’s something I will do when I am big. And you will too.”

“What? Make dapplebacks?” Mondir protested loudly and then wilted when he saw four tongues lolling at him.

“Yarr!
Don’t the lair-mothers teach you litterlings anything?” Fessran grumbled. “Away with you, Ratha!” she growled. “I have cubs to train.”

Ratha grinned at her and jogged away. As she left, she heard Fessran soothing Mondir, who had begun to whimper.

“No, litterling. You won’t make dapplebacks when you grow up. I’ll explain it to you when the lesson is over....”

Ratha trotted toward a flock of three-horned deer and cud-chewers, her charges for the day. It was going to be a lazy morning and an even lazier afternoon. None of the raiders would show their whiskers before dusk. Perhaps she could even cajole one of Fessran’s students into watching the herd while she took a short nap in the sun.

Ratha found the group she had been assigned, circled them once and flopped down on her side, her eyes half-closed, listening to the three-horns tearing up grass. The sounds of grazing were punctuated every once in a while by a rumble or a belch from one of the cud-chewers. Ratha’s whiskers twitched. Those animals were disgusting, but they were also very tasty. One always had to make compromises.

The day’s warmth faded briefly and she opened one eye to see the sun slip behind a cloud. She waited for the cloud to pass and soon felt the warm rays on her coat again. She flicked an ear and glanced up at the shadowed cloudbank gathering on the opposite side of the sky. The rainy season had ended early and spring had been dry. The forest floor had lost its dampness and dried sticks cracked underfoot wherever one went. A little rain might be welcome, if rain was all these clouds would bring, Ratha thought, not particularly liking the look of them.

The clouds began to mass and march across the sky. The air grew still and tense. Ratha stood up. The herdbeasts smelled the oncoming storm and crowded together, jostling each other.

Across the meadow, Ratha could see other herders raising their muzzles to the sky as they stood among the beasts they guarded. Even Fessran had stopped teaching and was shooing her young students back to their mothers’ dens.

The day darkened as the low clouds scudded over the sun. Heat lightning cracked the sky. Thunder grumbled.

Ratha trotted around her charges, glancing from time to time at the other herders and their animals. The herdbeasts milled together, their trotting legs and barrel bodies eclipsing the low, slender forms of their guardians.

Several more clan herders appeared at the trail head and galloped into the meadow. With a twinge of pain, Ratha recognized a familiar coppery coat. She had little time to think about Thakur. The deer and cud-chewers broke into short, nervous runs, and Ratha galloped back and forth, trying to keep the herd together. She loped around with her tongue hanging out, flattening her ears and flinching whenever lightning flashed and thunder boomed above the animals’ bawling.

An old pine had poked its top through the forest canopy near the meadow. Ratha caught a glimpse of the tree before she was blinded by a burst of light; deafened and knocked over by the shock. Ratha rolled to her feet. Nearby, several three-horns had fallen and were staggering up, their eyes wild. Ratha’s gaze swept the meadow. Beasts were running in front of her. Above the thunder came another sound, the sharp crackle of flames. The old pine was burning.

The herders stood with raised hackles as their animals ran past them.

The old tree shot sparks and dropped burning branches, setting the forest alight. The flames rushed and roared, leaping from tree to tree until the fire reached the meadow and the grass began to burn.

“To the creek!” a voice cried, jarring Ratha out of her stupor. Thakur galloped past her, snarling and snapping at the panicked three-horns. “Keep them together, Ratha! Drive them to the creek!”

Other herders bounded to join them. With their help, Ratha and Thakur turned the flock and drove the deer toward the stream at the trail head.

“It isn’t deep enough, Thakur!” Ratha panted, alongside him as they raced after the deer.

“I know, but we can follow it to the river. String them out!” he called to the other herders as the lead animals splashed into the creek. “Keep them in the water!” Herders on both sides of the stream forced the three-horns to wade at the center. Soon there was a line of deer bounding and splashing down the creek. Thakur braked to a stop, balancing himself with his tail. “Next, the dapplebacks,” he said to Ratha. “Come on.”

Together they galloped back to Fessran. The herder was hissing at the horses. Ratha could see that she was terrified by the fire and enraged by her charges’ stupidity.

“They don’t have the sense to run away,” Fessran gasped, coughing. “They run toward it!”

The fire reached into the meadow. It swept after the fleeing creatures, driven and fed by a fitful wind. It blinded them with smoke, choked them with ash and threw cinders on their coats. Ratha joined Fessran and Thakur, helping to drive the dapplebacks into the stream after the deer. The little stallion, maddened by the flames, fought the herders for control of his mares.