Ratha’s Creature (The First Book of The Named) (7 page)

Ratha pawed the branch. She scratched the burned bark, trying to find the elusive fire-creature, but the wood was cold. When she lifted her head from the branch, Thakur’s eyes were on her. Carefully he padded forward and sniffed at the branch where the Red Tongue had been. Ratha stood to one side, panting a little from excitement.

“Can you crawl through the thicket now, Thakur?” she asked.

“Yes, yearling, I can,” he said quietly. “Lead the way.”

There were other places where the Red Tongue still guttered weakly on twigs or bark and Ratha broke the branches off and smothered the flame. Each time Thakur would sniff the charred wood to convince himself that the Red Tongue had vanished. Ratha offered to teach him her newly acquired skill, but Thakur hastily declined.

The sun stood at midpoint in the hazy sky and Thakur and Ratha were approaching another stand of gutted pines when they heard the sound of approaching feet.

Thakur lifted his muzzle and pricked his ears.

“Fessran?” he called.

“Ho, herder.” Fessran jogged around the far end of the smoking brush, keeping her distance from it.

“How far is the dan?” asked Ratha, coming alongside Thakur.

“Less than half a day’s run, if one could go straight through. Having to go around all the brush tangles and fallen trees makes the journey longer.” Fessran sat down and licked soot from her coat. “I’m surprised that you have come this far.”

“We went through,” Thakur said. “Ask Ratha.”

“You can crawl through, yes,” Fessran said doubtfully, “if you don’t mind the Red Tongue’s cubs licking at your coat.”

“I don’t worry about the Red Tongue’s cubs.” Ratha grinned. “Watch.”

Fessran came alongside Thakur and stood. Ratha trotted past them to the pile of downed trees, hopped up on a log and seized a branch with fire dancing at the tip. She bounced down with the twig in her mouth, threw it on the ground and kicked dirt on it. She grabbed the end and rubbed the glowing coals in the ash, which billowed up around her, making her sneeze. When the cloud settled, Ratha swaggered toward Fessran and Thakur, the burned stick still in her mouth. Fessran hunched her shoulders and retreated. Ratha stopped where she was.

“Come and sniff it, Fessran,” she coaxed. With a glance at Thakur, who hadn’t moved, Fessran approached Ratha, extended her neck and brushed the charcoaled bark with her whiskers. She grimaced at the smell and shied away as if she expected the fire-creature to revive and leap off the branch at her. Eyes fixed on the spot where the Red Tongue had been, Fessran crouched. Thakur nosed the branch.

“Yarr!”
Fessran’s tail swept back and forth in the ash. “It is gone. You killed it!”

“I can only kill little ones,” Ratha said, still grinning around the branch end in her mouth.

“No one can do that,” Fessran said, straightening from her crouch, her belly smeared with ash. “Not even Meoran.”

Ratha strutted, her ruff and whiskers bristling. “Clan leader,
ptah!
Who is he compared to the slayer of the Red Tongue?”

“One who would rip you from throat to belly if he heard your words,” Thakur said, stopping her swagger with a penetrating look. Ratha wrinkled her nose at him, tossed the stick away and began scrambling across the fallen trees.

The three of them didn’t see the Red Tongue again until the sun had fallen halfway down the sky. Two saplings had fallen together, their sparse crowns interwoven. The Red Tongue crouched inside a nest of branches that sheltered it from the wind. Ratha stopped, shook the soot from between her pads and stared.

“That one isn’t in our way,” she heard Thakur say. “You don’t need to kill it.”

Ratha took a step forward. Thakur was right. She should go on and let the creature be. She lifted her muzzle and smelled. The odor was acrid, stinging her nose, burning her throat. The hated smell.

“Leave it, Ratha.”

She glanced at Thakur. He and Fessran were turning away. Another step toward the trees. Another. The fire’s rush and crackle filled her ears. The flames’ mocking dance drew her to the base of the trees and she stared up, awe and hatred mingling in a strange hunger.

She climbed onto one leaning tree, which shook and threatened to break under her weight. She balanced herself and crawled up the slender trunk, digging her claws into fire-brittled wood. She crept up until she reached the Red Tongue’s nest and began to snap away the dry twigs that guarded the flame. The creature seemed to shrink back as Ratha destroyed its nest. It withdrew to a single limb and clung there, as if daring her to reach in and pull it out. She shifted her weight and glanced down.

Fessran and Thakur stood near the tree, alternately staring up at her then at each other, brows wrinkled in dismay.

She cleared an opening large enough for her head, gulped a breath of air, tensed and lunged at the Red Tongue’s branch. Her teeth ground on wood. A branch broke beneath one of her paws, and she flailed wildly, bouncing in the treetop. The branch in her mouth splintered, with a crack that jarred her teeth. Her claws hooked, held, tore loose, and she slid. Her ears were bombarded by a volley of snapping limbs, and everything blurred, as the tree’s crown disintegrated. Black twigs, blue sky and the fire’s mocking orange tumbled together, whirled madly and crashed to a stop.

Ratha lay in the ash, her body one large ache. She opened one eye. Things were still moving. She sighed and shut it again.

Voices. Thakur’s. Fessran’s. A scuffing sound, someone kicking dirt. Ratha jumped up, shaking her ringing head. She staggered, squinting. Something moved. She planted all four paws and forced her eyes to focus on Thakur’s image, still blurred. Something was flickering between his legs as he jumped back and forth. Smoke boiled up behind him. Ratha heard the scuffing sound again and a thin, frightened yowl.

She pitched toward him, barely supporting herself on wobbly legs.

“Grab the end!” she heard Fessran call as Thakur made short useless rushes at the burning branch. “Take the end and rub it in the dirt as she did!”

But Thakur was too timid. Ratha saw him shy away again, his eyes wild with fright. Fessran blocked Ratha’s view as she charged the fire and frantically pawed dirt and ash into it. The Red Tongue paled under the gray cloud. It sputtered, choking. Ratha saw the muscles bunch in Fessran’s shoulders. The fire grew smaller; started to fade under her frenzied strokes.

Yet the fire-creature still lived and Ratha didn’t know what it might be able to do. Fessran was too close to the hail of sparks leaping from the flame.

“Fessran!” Ratha called and the other female paused in her stroking and glanced over her shoulder as Ratha stumbled toward her.

“So you live, young one. I thought you’d killed yourself with your foolishness.”

“Fessran, get away! You’re too close to it!”

Another shower of sparks went up and Fessran coughed in the thick smoke swirling around her. She sneezed and backed away. “Slay the creature, Ratha!” she hissed, squeezing her eyes shut.

Ratha jumped at the guttering fire and seized the end of the branch in her jaws. She threw it down, but the Red Tongue was stubborn and clung to the wood. She pawed the branch, rolling it over, yet still the creature peeked from between patches of curling bark. She crouched, watching, growing too fascinated with the creature to kill it. The fire crept out of its hiding place, as if it sensed that the initial assault was over. It burned cautiously along the top of the log. Ratha circled it.

“Look how it changes shape, Fessran,” she said.

“Don’t play with it,” Fessran snarled, her ears back. “Kill it.”

“Why? If we stay far enough away, it won’t hurt us. It is only a cub, Fessran.”

“It grows fast. Kill it.”

Ratha raised one paw, dipped it into the ash, stared at the fire curling around the branch. “No.” She put the paw down.

“Ratha, kill it!” Thakur cried. Fessran showed her teeth and crept toward the fire. Ratha blocked her. She tried to push past, but Ratha shoved her back. Fessran skidded in the ash and fell on her side. Ratha stood between her and the Red Tongue, her hackles up, her tail fluffed. Two pairs of slitted eyes met.

“This is my creature.”

“The Red Tongue is no one’s creature. Kill it.” Fessran scrambled in the ash, pulling her paws underneath her. Ratha tensed, feeling her eyes burn. “I will kill it or I will let it live, but it is my creature.” She leaned toward Fessran. The other’s eyes widened in dismay. She got up, shook the flaky ash from her coat.

“You don’t want to fight me,” Ratha said as Fessran sidestepped around her. The other female glared at her one more time and lowered her head. “The Named do not bare fangs against the Named,” she said harshly, “and I do not bare fangs against one I trained. Very well. The creature is yours. Keep it or kill it as you wish.”

There was the sound of feet padding away. Fessran turned her head. “Thakur has gone,” she said and took a step after him.

“Are you going with him?” Ratha asked. Her anger was gone. A hollow, empty feeling crept into her belly as she watched Fessran turn, her eyes following Thakur’s pawprints in the ash.

“I should. He is my herd-brother. You don’t need either one of us. You have your creature.”

Ratha felt herself start to tremble. “Fessran ...”

The other female stood, her tail twitching, something shifting around in the depths of her eyes. Ratha’s tongue felt numb and heavy in her mouth.

“Find Thakur, then,” she said. “Tell him I didn’t mean to frighten him. After you have found him, come back to me.”

“I doubt he will come back here, Ratha.”

“Then send him on ahead and come back by yourself.” Ratha tried to keep her voice steady, but she knew her eyes were pleading. Fessran stared beyond her to the fire. Ratha followed her gaze and said, “The creature is dying. It does not matter whether I kill it or not; when you return it will be dead.”

Fessran snorted. “You were ready to fight me to protect a creature already dying? You make no sense, Ratha.”

Ratha opened her mouth to speak, found no words and hung her head. She didn’t know why she had tried to protect the Red Tongue; why her sudden anger had made her threaten Fessran and scorn Thakur.

Ratha saw Fessran’s eyes soften. “Wait here while I track Thakur. I will return for you then.” She padded away, leaving her footprints on top of Thakur’s. Ratha watched her for a while before turning back to the fire. The flame had shrunk to a pale orange fringe that huddled on the branch.

Ratha crouched beside it, curled her tail around her feet and watched it.

What are you?
she asked it silently.

The flame crackled back.

Do you speak like me, or do you only growl like the Un-Named Ones?
Ratha crept closer, laying her chin on the ground.
You are so tiny now that you couldn’t hurt me. Whose cub are you, little Red Tongue?
Her breath teased up small clouds of ashes and made the fire flutter.
Don’t die, little Red Tongue,
she thought.

The flame jumped, doubled its size for a moment, then shrank again.

Ratha lifted her chin, stared at the creature, extended her neck and breathed gently on it. Again the fire gained strength as it fed on her breath. Ratha jerked her whiskers back, opened her mouth and exhaled.

After a while, however, the flame began to flicker and die down into glowing coals. Ratha had to blow hard to coax the creature up again and it wouldn’t stay. Her breath wasn’t enough. It was dying. It needed something else. Ratha watched it, feeling helpless.

The charred branch broke; crumbled. Embers glowed orange and the warmth beat on Ratha’s face as she leaned over the fire. Again, she blew, raising a fountain of sparks. One landed on some dry needles and flashed into flame. For several moments, the second fire outdid the first one; then as it consumed the needles, it fell and died.

Ratha trotted to the scorched spot, sniffed it; turned back to her creature. She felt she was on the edge of an answer.

It needs
...
it needs ... I know what it needs!

Ratha almost stumbled over her own paws as she ran to seize a twig covered with brown needles. She dropped it on the embers and jumped back as the fire spurted up again.

My creature needs to eat,
she thought, whisking her tail about in her excitement.
It won’t die if I feed it.

She scurried about, collecting food. She found that the fire wouldn’t eat rocks or dirt and balked when fed green stems, but would leap and crackle happily over dry needles and twigs. It also displayed a disconcerting relish for fur and whiskers. Ratha was careful to keep hers well out of its reach.

The fire burned fast and grew large. The waves of heat made Ratha’s eyes water. She stopped feeding it and soon it grew small again.

The song of a bird far across the burn made Ratha lift her head. She saw that it was evening. The sun’s edge was slipping below the horizon and the red-streaked sky was fading to violet. A single cricket began chirping; then the chorus joined in. Ratha listened to the noises, muted by the night and the soft hiss of the dying Red Tongue.

The burn lay open beneath the star-filled sky. With no trees to hold the day’s heat and break the wind, the air grew cold. Ratha, prowling in the shadows beyond the firelight, fluffed her fur and shivered, despite the summer stars overhead.

When she came back and lay down by the flame, it spread its warmth over her; her shivering stopped. She yawned and stretched her pads toward the flame. She hadn’t felt so warm and comfortable since she was a nursling curled up in the den with her mother. She rolled onto her front, tucked her forepaws under her breast and fell into a light doze, waking now and then to feed her fire.

The night grew colder. A harsh wind hissed in the trees. Ratha crept closer to the fire. She gathered a bundle of twigs and moved it nearby so that she need not leave her creature’s warmth to search for the food it needed. The fire’s sound became friendlier to her ears and she thought, sleepily, that her creature was purring. The sound lulled her and she dozed.

* * *

Ratha woke, not knowing what had disturbed her. She lay still, peering through half-closed eyes, her chin on the ground, trying not to sneeze despite the flaky ash that stung and teased her nose. A slight tremor in the ground beneath her chin told her someone was coming.