Clan Ground (The Second Book of the Named) (29 page)

Despite her exhaustion, Ratha felt a surge of triumph. She was ready. Now all the remained was to wait.

Chapter Eighteen

The sun hid for days behind a heavy bank of clouds, and the rain fell without ceasing. The stream began to swell, surging and cutting away at its banks until Ratha feared the wall of earth at the high end of the spillway would not hold it back. Now she crouched on the rise above the stream bank, watching the swirling water with anxious eyes.

The break had to be controlled, Thakur had said. If the packed earth gave way too soon or in the wrong place, the rushing water could destroy the channel and race down the hillside, missing the hollow. All their work would be useless if that happened.

Ratharee huddled on the ground beneath her, seeking shelter from the rain in the warmth between her forepaws and her breast. Ratha could feel the little body shiver.

“It won’t be long now, Ratharee,” she said softly, feeling the treeling’s paws on her forefeet. “Bira’s gone down to spy on the cave. She’ll be back soon.”

As she waited for Bira, she found herself thinking about Shongshar, as she had often done during the past days. At first her mind had been clouded with hate. Once the cave-fire was destroyed and his rule ended, she vowed to force the Firekeepers to change their arrogant ways. No one in the clan would speak Shongshar’s name without a hiss. Both his memory and his ways would be buried.

Yet she now realized that as ruthless and cruel as he had become, Shongshar had greater vision than she had. He was right: she had left the true understanding of the Red Tongue’s power to him, and thereby forfeited her leadership. The veneration of fire had thrust her people into debasement and a savagery previously unknown among their kind, but it also fed a hunger of the spirit, a need that could neither be ignored nor denied.

He was also right that the Named were pushed beyond themselves by the awesome presence of the Red Tongue. Not only did gazing into the fire inspire them to greater strength and courage, it gave them the vision to seek beyond the limits of their everyday life for a sense of meaning. Even Shongshar’s dream of extending his rule beyond clan ground was as inspired as it was arrogant, she admitted grudgingly.

As much as she hoped to obliterate all traces of his rule from among her people, she knew some of the things he had done could not be changed. This realization had forced her to put aside her hate long enough to see that not everything the Firekeepers had done under his rule was wrong. Storing wood and sheltering the source-fire in the cave were sound ideas, even though they had been turned to self-serving purposes.

If a large shelter such as the cave had been located in the meadow instead of far up the creek trail, it would have been more difficult to misuse. Had the Firekeepers been made to understand that the Red Tongue’s power was a gift for all to share, perhaps it might have been more difficult for Shongshar to lead them astray. And if she had understood the need of her people to belong to a power greater than themselves and used it for good instead of turning it aside, then Shongshar might not have been able to turn the clan against her.

Ratha heard the slap of wet pads and caught the smell of Bira’s soggy pelt. The shapes of the young female and her tree-ling appeared through the rain.

“Most of the Firekeepers are inside,” she panted as she crouched beside Ratha. “Shongshar is having a great feast in the cave. Where are Thakur and Fessran?”

“They’re coming.” Ratha shivered with cold and impatience.

When the other two arrived, Bira told them the news. They looked at each other with rising excitement and then all eyes turned to Ratha.

“Take Ratharee, Fessran,” she said and sprang onto the top earth dike holding back the stream. Dirt flew into the foaming water. She attacked the soil as if it were Shongshar’s throat; rage made her paw strokes more powerful.

“They’ll be starting ... to dance ... around the Red Tongue... soon,” she growled as she redoubled her efforts. Brown water began to trickle through the channel between her feet. She was turning to Thakur with a grin when she felt the earth give way beneath her.

Her triumph quickly turned to terror as the earth wall broke and toppled. She threw herself to one side, twisting and scrabbling for a clawhold. She landed on her belly, her hindquarters and tail in the surging flood that spilled through the break. As the wall crumbled the current grew stronger, tugging at her hindquarters. She splashed and kicked with frantic strength, knowing that if she fell beneath the pouring water, she would never fight her way to the surface. She would be carried like a leaf down into the frothing cauldron that would fill the hollow. The Red Tongue would have its revenge even before it died.

That thought gave her the added strength to stretch farther up the bank and drive her claws into harder ground. Her shoulder muscles cramped with the effort of dragging her body from the hungry current. Part of the bank broke away beneath one forepaw and she dangled, held by the claws of the other. She felt teeth seize her flailing paw and grunted as she was yanked up until her chest and then her belly lay on the edge.

Someone caught her scruff, someone else grabbed a hind paw, and treeling hands were on her tail. She was hauled, dragged and rolled away as the rest of the bank caved in, threatening to sweep away both her and her rescuers. When they finally reached safe ground, she could only lie and pant while the others looked anxiously at her.

“I’m all right,” she gasped, struggling to her feet. “See what’s happened.” She shook herself, though it was useless in the heavy rain, and staggered to where the others stood.

Water from the rain-swollen stream coursed into the channel, washing away the remains of the earthen wall. The flood widened and deepened its new course, eating farther into the original streambed and diverting more and more water into the spillway. Ratha and Bira ran along the edge of their ditch, following the foaming wave down to the bottom of the hollow. The strength of the current was enough to send the muddy water fountaining up onto the slope of the hollow and right into the cracks venting the cave.

“We’ve done it!” Ratha roared to Bira as they galloped back to the top where Fessran and Thakur waited.

“We certainly have,” said Thakur as she reached him. “Look. The stream’s left its old path entirely.” He pointed with his paw toward the streambed below the spillway opening. Only a small trickle of water ran between puddles in the sand.

Above the roar of water surging into the channel, Ratha caught the sound of shrieks and cries drifting up from far below.

“The cave-fire must be dead!” she cried, leaping up. “Now we strike against Shongshar!”

She led the four of them down past the new lake that was filling the hollow, to the trail that led to the bottom of the waterfall. She noticed that the sound of the fall was gone. Instead, the noise of falling water came from the cave that had once been the Red Tongue’s den. A torrent gushed from the entrance, washing away a portion of the trail that ran beside the stream and cutting its way back to fill the now-empty streambed.

Even as they watched, a body rode out on the flow, tumbling over rocks and boulders until it was finally pushed to one side and left. Ratha could see others, some lying limp and still in the rain, some trying to crawl away from the growing cataract.

Charred logs that hurtled out on the flood about the entrance gave evidence that the cave-fire had been drowned and washed away. The conspirators gazed at each other, awed by the destruction.

Ratha’s imagination gave her an image of what the inside of the cave had been like when the water came pouring in. First, a small dribble that hissed into steam when it struck the Red Tongue and startled the dancers. Then more rivulets falling from the ceiling, glinting in the firelight. The dancers would have stopped, laying back their ears and snarling at this strange invasion. And when the full force of the flood hit the great fire and plunged the cave into sudden darkness, she could almost hear the howls and screams above the echoing roar that grew louder and louder ...

Some would have tried to flee the cave in a panic near madness, guessing that the earth itself had turned against them for their wickedness in worshiping the Red Tongue. She could imagine that terror in the eyes of the half-drowned Firekeepers.

“It must have been terrible,” said Bira softly, saying what Ratha saw in the eyes of the two others.

“Let’s find Shongshar,” she said roughly and turned away.

They found him farther downstream, in a small gorge beside the trail. The rush of water had carried him with it, tumbling and turning him until at last it flung him aside. Now he lay, a sodden mass of silver fur, among the boulders at the bottom.

Carefully Ratha made her way down into the gorge, followed by the others. If Shongshar was dead, he shouldn’t be left to rot in the stream and taint the water. He should be taken elsewhere and buried. And if he wasn’t dead, she should know.

He remained so still as she approached that she was convinced life had gone from him. She was about to tell Thakur to take Shongshar’s tail in his jaws when Shongshar’s eyes suddenly cracked open. With a gasp, Bira skittered back, bumping into Fessran.

Shongshar’s eyes widened and focused on Ratha. She felt a sudden chill that was not just the wind on her wet pelt.

“Your rule is ended, Shongshar,” she said, trying to keep the tremor from her voice. “The Red Tongue in the cave has been destroyed and the Firekeepers are too frightened to listen to you again.”

“Then it was you who sent the angry water into the cave,” he hissed and drew a shuddering breath.

“Yes.”

“You have grown great indeed if water moves itself to do your will,” he said hoarsely. “The weaker power must yield to the stronger. That is the law of all things, clan leader. I offer you my throat for your fangs.” He rolled his head back as he spoke.

“Be careful!” Thakur hissed beside her. Behind her she could hear Fessran growl, “Kill him for me, Ratha.”

But Ratha stepped back from him. “No. There has been enough death among us. I offer you this, Shongshar. You may leave clan ground with your life, if you never return.”

“You offer me nothing then,” he snarled weakly.

“You say there is nothing for you outside the clan. What about your cubs?”

His eyes narrowed, and orange blazed between the lids. His lips drew back from his fangs as he spat. “You are crueler than I am, Ratha. You killed them. The thought of their deaths only left me when I gazed into the heart of the Red Tongue, and now that is gone, you torment me again with their memory.”

“Would you believe me if I told you I didn’t kill your cubs? Thakur and I took them off clan ground and left them in a place where they could find food and water. They might still be alive.”

Shongshar looked at her and she saw a faint hope warring with rage in his eyes. He sought Thakur. “Does she speak truth, herding teacher?”

“Yes,” Thakur replied.

“You couldn’t have told me, could you?” Shongshar said bitterly, turning his gaze back to Ratha.

“I couldn’t trust you. Listen, when you are ready to leave clan ground, I’ll tell you where we left them.”

Shongshar sank back, a strange glaze over his eyes. “You should have trusted me then, clan leader ... it’s too late now.”

Ratha barely heard Thakur’s warning cry before a fierce blow struck the side of her head, sending her reeling. Shongshar was suddenly on top of her, raking her sides with his claws. She writhed underneath him, heaving and bucking, trying to dodge the plunging teeth. A fang scored her side and she lashed up, dragging her claws across his cheek.

“I offered to let you go ... to find your lost cubs,” she gasped. She twisted underneath him, ignoring the rocks that bruised her back.

“What good would it do me to search for them now?” he hissed. “If they were as witless as you believed, they wouldn’t care who fathered them. And if they weren’t, they have been gone from me too long to know me.”

She understood then that hate had worked inside him too long for anything to turn it aside. The fierce glow of his eyes was the fire of madness. “No, Ratha,” he hissed, baring his fangs in front of her face. “All I want from you now is your death or mine.”

Again he strained his head back for a killing downslash. At the instant his throat lay exposed, Thakur struck. The momentum of the herding teacher’s attack thrust Shongshar aside from Ratha. She scrambled to her feet as Fessran and Bira leaped to Thakur’s aid.

Fessran made up for the handicap of her injury by the intensity of her rage. Shongshar was bleeding from many wounds by the time the three bore him down, but their combined strength could scarcely hold him.

“All right, Shongshar,” Ratha panted. “You have a choice. Either you leave clan ground now, or your life ends here.”

His only answer was a lunge at Ratha. Thakur cast her a look of despair that told her Shongshar had made his decision, and there was nothing the herding teacher could do about it.

“You are going to kill me,” Shongshar said, narrowing his eyes at Thakur. “That is a bitter thing, to have to kill one who was a friend. If you don’t, I will bury my teeth in her. Choose which one of us you will grieve for, herding teacher.”