Clan Ground (The Second Book of the Named) (6 page)

Thakur gave Fessran a questioning look.

“You’ve earned it, herding teacher,” she said. “And so has he.” She got up and stretched. “I suppose I have too.”

“Fessran, get some sleep. And Orange-Eyes,” Ratha said. “Thakur, please stay.”

After the Firekeeper and the silvercoat had gone, Thakur leaned toward Ratha and asked softly, “Will you tell me what troubles you?”

Ratha turned her head and stared at Thakur, wrinkling the fur on her brow.

“Fessran was asking you to accept Orange-Eyes and make him a Firekeeper, wasn’t she?”

In spite of herself, her jaw dropped. “How did you know? Your ears must be keener than I thought. Or I spoke louder than I meant to.”

“No, I didn’t hear you. I’ve been around Fessran long enough to know that when she wants something, she chases after it.”

“I told her that I haven’t decided. If he does stay with us, I don’t know whether he should be trained as a Firekeeper. It’s true, Fessran does need some more torchbearers.”

“And you are willing to give her what she wants?” said Thakur with surprise and more than a trace of annoyance. “I thought that if he stayed, he would be trained as a herder.”

Ratha fought the feeling of guilt that crept over her at the sound of disappointment in his voice. She felt drained by the bristlemane attack and knew she had not chosen her words as carefully as she should have. She hoped Thakur could sense her weariness and not press her further, but this time, his usual selflessness had been pushed aside by anger. He waited, a subdued glitter in his eyes.

Ratha looked at her toes, the ground, the fire; anything but the questioning green eyes. “Thakur, what else can I do?” she burst out at last. “Fessran says she must have torchbearers who have the strength of will to master the fire they guard. If the fires die, then we of the clan have no hope against the Un-Named or the bristlemanes.”

“Has Fessran persuaded you that Orange-Eyes alone would make such a difference?”

“He would teach; he would inspire others to try harder. If any torchbearer would make a difference, I agree with Fessran that he would be the one.”

“I have no doubt that he would,” said Thakur. “I also have no doubt that Fessran is thinking not only of him but of the cubs he might sire. Perhaps he might father a whole family of cubs strong and brave enough to guard the Red Tongue, if they have wit enough to remember which end of a torch to take in their jaws!”

Ratha couldn’t help ducking her head and drawing back her whiskers. She felt lost and uncertain. Where was the patient teacher and friend she thought she knew?

“Thakur, why are you so upset about this?”

Thakur took a long breath. “Before tonight, I would have said it was only because I feared his young would be witless. That is worry enough, but now I have seen something else. I find this hard to explain, but I have seen him looking at the fire and I don’t like what I see. Ratha, he is not one of the Named, even though he has enough light in his eyes for a whole litter of cubs.”

“I thought you liked him.” Ratha was puzzled.

“I can like him and still fear him.”

“Fear him! A half-grown cub!”

“One who can rip the nape out of a full-sized bristlemane?” Thakur said, spacing his words. “No, Orange-Eyes is not a cub. I have seen him looking at the fire, and I sense that in some way he may understand it better than we do.”

“Well, then, if he does, maybe he can help us find other ways to manage it.” She lifted her chin, trying to recapture her confidence.

“No, Ratha. It’s not that kind of understanding. He knows what the Red Tongue has done and can do to us. I have a feeling in my belly that his sort of knowledge may be dangerous.”

Ratha felt hot and cold. She wondered whether it was just the fire’s breath on one side of her and the night’s chill on the other or whether Thakur’s words angered and frightened her.

“How? Are you afraid he would seize my creature and use it against me?”

“No. I’m not saying he would do that, or even want to. I am only saying that my belly tells me there is risk in making him a Firekeeper. What the risk is, I don’t know.”

“That’s all you can tell me?” Ratha stared at him in dismay.

“Yes.”

“And what if I choose to take the dangerous trail?”
 

He looked at her for a long time. “Then nothing I can do or say can help you bear the load you may carry along that trail. I do not envy you the journey.”

“You can’t even offer a little comfort?” she said as he turned away.

“No. I don’t seem to be able to do the things I used to,” he said bitterly. “The coming of the Red Tongue has changed all of us, even me.”

She was silent until he had gone a few paces away from the fire. Swallowing hard, she said, “You still may eat after me at the kill tomorrow.”

“If you wish me to,” he answered and was gone.

It wasn’t just the night’s cold that made Ratha creep closer to the fire.

Chapter Five

At the clan gathering, Ratha looked down from her place atop the sunning rock to the Named settling themselves below. Again they had fed and again they had come together, but this time there would be talk rather than celebration.

She smelled the rich odor of three-horn flesh. It lingered on the twilight breeze even though the herdbeast was now bones and rags of hide. She had eaten half the liver and left the rest to the others. Usually she gorged herself, but too much meat made her sleepy and muddled her thoughts. She went away from the carcass with her belly half-filled; she knew she needed to think clearly tonight.

She watched Fessran lead in the torchbearers. They looked black against the setting sun. The flame that leaped and danced on their brands seemed born of the sky’s red and orange light. The Firekeepers who bore no torches carried wood in their mouths. Under Fessran’s direction, they arranged the kindling to the side of the sunning rock and lit the meeting fire.

The firelight grew as the sun’s glow faded. Wavering shadows stretched out behind the clanfolk. The eyes that turned up to Ratha held their own fires of green and amber. One color was missing among them; the hue closest to that of the flame itself.

The Firekeepers lay together near the blaze. Fessran remained on her feet, searching the gathering. Ratha saw the Firekeeper leader sit down again with a puzzled expression in her eyes. From Fessran, Ratha looked across to Thakur, who was sitting on the opposite side with the herders. The closed, remote look on his face told her why the Un-Named One wasn’t there.

The group quieted, leaving the evening to the snap and hiss of the Red Tongue. Ratha stood up, waving her tail to indicate the meeting was to begin. She sat and curled her tail about her feet.

“We of the Named,” she said, “have seen many changes. Once we were ruled by the Law of the Named and the power of teeth and claws. Now we follow a new law and a new way.” She turned her head toward the meeting fire and the Firekeepers beside it. “Change begets change as do cubs that grow up and have their own young. Now another change has come upon us, and again we must choose whether to accept it or turn it back.

“We have always grown from within,” she continued. “In Baire’s day and Meoran’s too, that was the law. There was no mingling with the clanless ones. But we were different then. We are fewer now. The number of cubs born each season is less. We never dared to seek outside the clan for others, but now one of them has come seeking us. He is Un-Named, but he has the same light in his eyes that we do. The question I must decide is this: shall the Un-Named One be taken among us?”

Fessran raised her soot-stained muzzle. “Tamer of the Red Tongue, I would speak in support of the Un-Named One. I would like him to hear my words. Why is he not here?”

Ratha’s gaze darted to Thakur. He seemed to wilt a bit as other stares followed hers. He sighed and sat up. “He is not here, Fessran, because I told him to stay with the yearlings. I thought it best that we make our decision without him.” Thakur paused. “Remember what happened during the dance-hunt.”

Fessran walked to the base of the sunning rock and looked up at Ratha. “Giver of the New Law, I do recall what happened then and that is why I speak in praise of him. Never have I seen such courage, even among my own torchbearers.”

“Firekeeper leader,” said Thakur, “you forget that he is neither Named nor of the clan. Our own yearlings may not come to this meeting until they have proven themselves worthy.”

But the Un-Named One has proven himself,
Ratha thought suddenly.
When he turned back the herdbeast so I could save Bundi, he showed his worth.

“He can’t be treated as a yearling, Thakur,” said Fessran. “He isn’t one. Ratha said his coming is something new to the clan. It can’t be dealt with in old ways.”
 

The Firekeeper leader turned again to the sunning rock. “Clan leader, I and the Firekeepers ask that he be allowed into this gathering so he may hear our words.”

A surprised murmur rippled through the group and Ratha caught an undercurrent of growls from the herders. Shoman leaped to his feet, his tail lashing.

“I have no praise for the Un-Named One,” the lop-eared herder sneered, glaring at Thakur. “But I join with the Firekeepers and ask that he be brought before us.”

Thakur’s jaw dropped. His eyes narrowed at Shoman. He looked to Ratha. “Is it the will of the Named?” he asked, his voice sounding harsh.

“Yes, Thakur,” she said and saw his eyes frost. “The meeting will wait while you fetch him.”

Clanfolk parted to let the herding teacher through. When he was gone, Ratha studied the two others who had spoken: Shoman, with his lip curled and his whiskers drawn back in a malicious grin, and Fessran, with her eyes eager, but not entirely innocent.

Ratha suddenly wished she could be down among them, waiting for someone else on the sunning rock to make the decisions and find the answers.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Thakur returning with Orange-Eyes. The Un-Named One looked guarded and wary as he followed Thakur to a place among the herders. He sought to catch Thakur’s gaze, but the herding teacher, who had led him in without looking at him, turned his face away. The silvercoat lowered his head and whisked his tail away from Thakur’s.

On the other side of the meeting circle, the Firekeepers stirred. Fessran rose again. “Now that the Un-Named One is among us, as he deserves to be, I may speak. I am not one to praise the clanless ones. I have seen too many of us fall to them. But, as Ratha has said, some of them hold the same light in their eyes as we do and want more than the lives of raiders and scavengers.”

A hard voice broke from the growls of the herders. “Ptahh! What he wants is to fill his belly with the flesh of our herdbeasts!”

Heads turned to Shoman. Fessran tried to answer, but her words were drowned in the sudden uproar. Ratha slapped the sunning rock with her paw to quiet the gathering. “Let Fessran speak.” She directed a meaningful glance at Shoman.

Fessran also eyed Shoman and said, “If that’s all you think he wants, why did you ask that he be brought to the meeting?”

“So that all of you may see him for what he is.” Shoman’s gaze darted over the group. “You, Cherfan,” he said to a herder in the back, “you, who lost a lair-son to the Un-Named. You, Mondir, who buried the body of your littermate after a raid. All of you who bear scars on your coats. Look at him. Those eyes. Are they like ours? Those teeth. They could easily slash our throats.” He turned back to Fessran. “You don’t think of that, Firekeeper.”

Fessran only yawned. “You bear no scars on your pelt,” she said dryly. Some of the Firekeepers lolled their tongues in derisive grins.

Shoman’s eyes blazed. “Wounds may be deep but unseen. I know my lair-father died at the jaws of the Un-Named. That is enough.”

Several of the herders who were Shoman’s friends flattened their ears at the Un-Named One. The silvercoat ignored them, drawing himself in and sitting stiffly.

“No, it is not enough,” Fessran snapped. “What you want, Shoman, is revenge, not what is best for the rest of us. As for teeth, we all have them and we could all bite each other’s throats if we were savage enough.” She stamped impatiently. “You of the clan, don’t you know what you saw that night of the dance-hunt? You saw someone with the strength of will to fight his fear of the Red Tongue, someone who stood his ground against my Firekeepers even when he was sick and starving.”

Fessran began to circle, twitching her tail. “Yes, he wants to fill his belly. All of us do. And he will earn that right by using his courage to defend our herds.”

She reared up on her hind legs, her belly fur showing golden-white in the flame’s glow.

“Cherfan!” she called to him. “You lost a litterling in the Un-Named raids. What was his name?”

Cherfan reacted slowly, blinking in surprise. “He was called Shongshar.”

“Good. What the Un-Named have taken, they will give back. Had Cherfan’s cub lived, he would have been a brave herder and sired strong young. I have seen that this one”—she wagged her whiskers toward the silvercoat—“shows much courage in guarding the animals. As for young, we will have to wait a little while, but not too long, I think.” Fessran cast a sly glance at the young females among the Firekeepers.