Clan Ground (The Second Book of the Named) (23 page)

“The only treachery is within that den of belly-crawlers,” Ratha growled. “No, you stay here with Aree and her little ones. Keep the fire going until I return with Fessran. I won’t be gone long.”

She heard him sigh and turn away, but she was too angry for his words to hold her back, or even to think that her hasty actions might place him in danger.

She leaped away into the night, her rage giving her speed. There was no moon that night and the trees that overhung the creek trail made the path so black that she followed it by smell and by feel, rather than by sight. The dark made the way seem steeper, with far more turns and twists than in daylight. She brushed against dew-dampened ferns whose touch, once gentle, now seemed ominous and threatening.

Exhaustion took away some of her anger, and she began to think whether Thakur had been right after all. She also began to wonder if she should have left him without anyone else to help guard the treelings.

She climbed the last part of the trail, with her paws slipping on gravel made slick by spray and the booming of the fall in her ears. There was another sound, which grew louder as she approached the cave: the harsh roar of the Red Tongue.

Shadowy orange light spilling from the cave backlit the forms of the two Firekeepers who stood guard before the entrance. They rose, growling, but their challenge died to a mutter as they caught her smell. “You have come to crouch before the Red Tongue, clan leader?”

“No. I have come to see Fessran.”

The speaker glanced at his companion, who looked doubtfully back. “Before you enter, clan leader, there are some things you must not do ...” He faltered under Ratha’s glare and his ears twitched back.

“You dare tell me what I may do before the creature that I brought to the clan?
Ptaah!
” She lunged at them, striking out with teeth and claws.

Before either of the guards could recover, she was past them and into the gallery leading to the cave. She could tell at once that the fire was much larger than it had been. She could see her shadow on the rock floor of the gallery. A steady wind from outside blew past her, drawn to feed the hunger of the fire-creature.

Despite her anger, she hesitated. The light ahead dazzled her, and the heat swept over her in parching waves. For a moment, the fire seemed to hold her back; then her anger flared, forcing the fear aside.

She was in the cave itself. The Red Tongue’s harsh and constant song filled the cavern and echoed back from the other chambers. The great fire reared up as if it was the central pillar that supported the cave, a writhing column of yellow and gold seeming to reach from floor to vaulted ceiling.

It lit the stone fangs that hung from the ceiling, turning them to a gleaming yellow that made them look even more like teeth in the mouth of a great and terrible creature.

Ratha was so awed by the Red Tongue itself that she almost didn’t see the shapes that gathered around it. Their shadows stretched out toward her, wavering and dancing over the rubble-strewn floor until they passed over her. At first she thought the figures were Firekeepers stoking the great flame, but as she crept closer and her eyes grew accustomed to the fierce light, she saw that they were moving together in a circle around the fire. Their movements were slow and rhythmic, as if they were beginning a dance.

The longer Ratha watched, the more she was convinced that this was a dance, but one such as she had never seen. She remembered the dance-hunts she had used to celebrate the victory of the clan over the Un-Named. Those had been fierce and wild, but even the intensity of the dance-hunt didn’t have the frenzy and fierceness of this.

The dancers leaped, lashed their flanks with their tails and struck out with their claws as if against some unseen but hated enemy. They reared up on their hind paws and reached toward the ceiling, twisting and writhing in the heat as if they themselves were the branches that were being consumed by the fire-creature in its endless hunger.

They shrieked aloud, and whether it was joy or terror in those cries, Ratha did not know. Their faces bore a look that none of the Named had ever held before, a look that was nearly madness. It was the wish to join themselves with the power of something far greater than themselves, even if it meant the sacrifice of their own wills.

The pounding rush and roar formed a rhythm for the dance, and even Ratha felt the strange tug of wild ecstasy that filled the eyes and bodies of the dancers. Amid the leaping figures, Ratha saw Fessran herself, her mouth stretched open in a cry of celebration to the power of the Red Tongue. She bounded higher than Ratha had ever seen her leap before, twisted herself in impossible ways and came so near the fire that Ratha trembled for fear she would fall in.

Ratha was so absorbed by the fire-dance that she didn’t hear someone creep up behind her until his voice was in her ear.

“Yesss,” he hissed. “Watch. Watch how it draws them, how it makes them dance. Look how it inspires them, clan leader, in a way that you cannot.”

Ratha flinched away from Shongshar, but she was too dazed by the scene to do more than take a swipe at him. When her attention swung back to the dancers, he sidled up to her and began to speak again, his words blending in some strange way into the cries of the dancers and the harsh song of the fire. Hypnotized, she listened, unable to break the trance that had fallen across her.

“What is the skill of treelings compared to this?” Shongshar whispered. “Ah, clan leader, you never understood the real power of the creature you tamed. You left that understanding to me.”

Ratha shuddered, but she could not take her eyes from the frenzied circle around the Red Tongue, nor could she block his voice from her ears.

“See what it does to your people. See how it pushes them beyond themselves. See how it takes them and fills them with strength and joy so that they have to leap and cry out. Join them, clan leader. Join them in their dance to the Red Tongue.”

Angrily, Ratha spat at him and her slash drew blood, but he didn’t strike back. She could see in his eyes that he knew she trembled. Her smell betrayed everything: rage, helplessness, fear, disgust and horrified fascination. She could see in his half-closed eyes that he knew she was close to the edge and that he would only have to wait for her to fall.

“Your mistake, clan leader,” he said softly, “is in thinking that the fire-creature is just something to be used to protect us against the Un-Named Ones and to warm us by night. It is that, but it is something much more.”

“It is the egg of a fly that turns a carcass rotten. It is the wound that starts an abscess under the skin,” she hissed, desperately seeking the strength of her anger and trying not to see how high the Firekeepers leaped in the terrifying beauty of the dance.

“If that is how you choose to think of it, clan leader,” Shongshar said placidly.

“Why aren’t you part of the dance?” Ratha demanded, but even as she spoke, she knew the answer. One who understood the Red Tongue’s power as well as he did would not be easily controlled by it.

“I am part of it in my own way,” he said and as he spoke the firelight flashed on his sabers, reminding her that he did not need any power other than his own to be dangerous. He eyed her and grinned at her discomfort. “Perhaps you shouldn’t wait for the dance to finish, clan leader. You’ve left Thakur alone with the treeling creatures. Since you seem to value them for reasons I don’t quite understand, you wouldn’t want anything to happen to them, would you?”

Ratha stiffened, her rage paralyzing her tongue. “You wouldn’t dare!” she finally spat.

“Me? Certainly not. But there are others who dislike the idea of the clan leader dirtying herself with those animals.”

“And you wouldn’t raise a paw to stop anyone from doing such a thing. Let me tell you this, Shongshar. If any one of the Firekeepers even makes a threat against Thakur or his tree-lings, this cave will be closed down and the Red Tongue will die. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, I do,” he said in a silky voice that was almost a purr. “But to be sure, I would also ask them.” He flicked his whiskers at the dancers. His voice hardened. “And then I would ask them who they obey. It might surprise you, clan leader.”

His eyes still held their same orange glint, but now a cold ruthlessness came into them. Their hate struck into Ratha as if he had slashed her with his fangs, and she backed away from him, trembling with fear and the cold certainty that she had left Thakur and the treelings open to attack.

She whirled and sprinted away from him, across the shadows that still danced and flickered on the cave floor, through the gallery and out into the darkness. The fire-creature’s fading roar became a mocking howl as she slipped and skidded on the graveled trail and fought to find her way with eyes that had been made night-blind by the angry light.

Thakur, you told me not to go and again you were right. I was too angry to listen, but anger does me no good now.
There was a bright spot before her eyes where she had looked at the heart of the cave-fire, and she could only see in front of her by turning her head from side to side as she ran. By the time she reached the path to Thakur’s den, her sight had recovered, but she could not find the welcoming flicker of the little fire she had left with him.

She thought at first that her panic might have led her down the wrong trail, but the scents about her and the feel of the ground were right. She peered ahead, her growing apprehension choking her throat and tightening her chest. The smell of smoldering ashes drew her to the remains of the fire she had left. It had been broken and scattered.

The ashy acrid smell was strong, and mixed in with it were traces of other scents that she could detect but not recognize. There were pugmarks faintly visible in the starlight, but they were smeared, as if whoever made them had slipped while running.

“Thakur ...,” she moaned softly, her whiskers trembling. “Aree ... Ratharee ...” She approached a shape on the ground and touched it tentatively with her paw, fearing it might be the torn body of a treeling. It was only a broken branch from the scattered fire, and she sighed with relief as it rolled under her paw.

She made her way to the den itself and crawled inside, thinking a treeling might have taken shelter there, but the den was cold and empty except for the same ashy smell that filled the air outside.

When Ratha left the den she froze at the sight of two amber eyes staring at her from the night-shadow of a tree. The eyes blinked and moved forward. Ratha arched her back and flared her tail, unable to catch the newcomer’s scent in the wind that blew away from her.

“Clan leader?” The voice was female and quavery with uncertainty.

“Who is that?” Ratha snarled. “Are you a Firekeeper?”

“I’m Bira. Clan leader, come with me. I know where Thakur is.”

Her first impulse was to follow Bira eagerly, but caution held her back. Young and friendly as Bira was, she belonged with those who tended the Red Tongue.

“How do I know that Shongshar hasn’t sent you?”

“He sent me down with those who were to kill the tree-lings. but I turned on them and fought beside Thakur,” Bira answered. “If you want proof, here is the ash that I rubbed into my pelt to disguise myself like them, and here is the bite on my foreleg from Nyang’s teeth.”

Bira came forward, letting Ratha smell her fur. As she approached, Ratha saw a small shape crouched on Bira’s neck. “Thakur told me to bring your treeling, and she came with me, even though she was still frightened,” said the young Firekeeper. “Here.” She came alongside and Ratha felt treeling paws grasp her fur as Ratharee climbed from Bira’s back to hers. The treeling wound its tail around her neck and hugged her fiercely, its trembling telling her how lost and frightened it had been.

Ratha suddenly felt steadier. Bira wouldn’t have brought Ratharee in order to lead her into a trap. If Shongshar wanted to have her killed, there were other, easier ways. The young female’s story sounded true and there was no taint of deceit in either her words or her smell.

“Hurry, clan leader! Once Shongshar knows I have betrayed him, he will send others after me.”

“All right, Bira. Take me to Thakur.”

She followed Bira down the path until it met the main trail. As soon as Bira took the turn that led to the creek trail, Ratha’s suspicion flared again, and she followed warily, testing the air for scents of hidden attackers. Soon, however, Bira cut off the creek trail and began to climb the steep bank above it. Before long they were in the deeper darkness amid the great trees, and Ratha’s paws fell on crumbled bark and pine needles.

Ratha sensed they were making a wide circle to avoid the base of the falls and the cave that sheltered the Red Tongue. She wondered if Fessran and the others were still at their wild dance. The thought made her shiver.

“We’re going to some little caves above the falls. I found them one day when I was exploring, and no one else knows about them,” Bira explained as Ratha padded beside her. “I brought Thakur up this far, told him where to find the place and then went back down to look for you.”

“Did you save all the treelings?”

“Yes. One of the little ones got a scratch and Aree’s a bit bruised, but they’re all right.”

Some of the tension seeped out of Ratha and she concentrated on climbing. At last they found an old trail that had many rises and drops as well as endless switchbacks. Ratha was sure they must be far beyond clan ground when Bira turned off the path and disappeared down a brush-covered slope. The way led into a little vale with the sound of a brook chuckling over rocks and the glint of starlight on foaming water. Bira ran along the near bank and ducked under a great gray slab of broken rock.