Ratha’s Challenge (The Fourth Book of The Named) (12 page)

Maybe Thakur is right. Maybe we should just move on and leave these animals to the hunters. Then we could forget about them, and Thakur wouldn’t need me to help him with Thistle.

“The spy just left,” said Bira, who had been keeping an eye on the suspicious bush. “I think he’s gone to get the others.”

“Let them come,” growled Khushi.

As much as Ratha shared his feelings, she realized that they were at a big disadvantage. And without the Red Tongue...

Bira wanted to bring a torch. I should have let her. But I promised Thakur.

“No,” she said again. “We’re going back to the fire-den. I doubt if they will follow us there, but just in case ...”

Quickly she got the two others moving through the long grass. Having to retreat stuck in her throat, and she could tell by the looks on the others’ faces that it stuck in theirs, too.

We are the Named. We shouldn’t let ourselves be chased off by a bunch of sleepwalking hunters. I almost hope they do chase us to the fire-den so we can feed them the Red Tongue!

Khushi, scouting briefly from the top of a hill, reported that the spy from the hunters had indeed gone to fetch some reinforcements. However, they seemed to be content just to make sure the Named had left the face-tail herd.

“We could make another try at a different place in the herd,” he suggested when he got back.

“No, they’ll find us and chase us off again,” Ratha said, disgusted.

“How can they watch the whole herd?” Bira wondered.

“I don’t know. They seem to be very well organized.” Ratha paused, her tail twitching with annoyance. “I think we’re going to have to make a choice. The only way we are going to get near those face-tails is by using the Red Tongue to scare off the hunters.”

“I think we should,” Khushi argued. “I’m fed up with playing hide-in-the-grass.”

“But you said that you made a promise to Thakur not to,” Bira said gently to Ratha, coming alongside her.

“I may have to rethink it. I will talk to him when we get back.”

As Ratha paced toward the camp with the others, she argued with herself.

Most of the Named would say I am justified in using the Red Tongue against True-of-voice and his bunch. We used it against the Un-Named in order to survive. This is the same situation.

She shook herself as she ran. She didn’t need justification. Her rage was enough. True-of-voice was a filthy tyrant and his subjects mindless fools. The world would be better without them. She should set the Red Tongue against them, burn them out.

She drew her lips back from her fangs as she imagined the grass afire on the plain, the hunters and their prey fleeing in terror, or falling, exhausted, and burning to death in the flames.

And then, suddenly, one of those frightened shapes fleeing from the fire in her mind was her daughter. The flames caught up with Thistle, surrounded her, consumed her, leaving her body black and charred....

No! Ratha recoiled from the imagined scene in horror. Not Thistle. Why was she thinking like this?

“Clan leader? Are you ... all right?”

The voice beside her was Bira’s. Ratha realized that she had slowed to a stop and was staring straight ahead at nothing.

“I’m all right,” she said, her voice feeling rough in her throat. “Bira, Khushi, go on ahead. I’ll follow.”

Both of them gave her a backward glance as they left. Then she was alone. She checked briefly for any sign of enemies or ambush before she went on slowly, immersed once more in her thoughts.

Again she seemed to look upon the fire-swept ground where the hunters had once been. It was swept clean of them.

Instead of triumph, she felt only horror.

Not only because her daughter had been among those seared by the fire’s touch. The high, waving grass was burned to stubble. The blue sky had gone gray. The whole landscape before her was ashen, hellish with cruelty and the terrible knowledge of what she had done in the name of survival.

Ratha closed her eyes, bent her head in pain. No, no, no ... I would never... But she knew that a part of her would.

There was something in her that was as ruthless and relentless as the Red Tongue itself, that burned with hatred and consumed those around her.

There were many who had felt its searing touch. The old clan leader, who had died with a flaming brand jammed through his lower jaw. Thakur’s brother Bonechewer. The Un-Named ones who had fallen in the first battle with fire as a weapon. The cubs she had borne in the litter that included Thistle. The usurper Shongshar, whom she had thrown down in a bitter fight that had nearly cost the life of her friend Fessran. Thistle, who had known the terrible shock and pain of her own mother’s teeth sinking deep into her chest and foreleg.

She had nearly destroyed the Named themselves and she had certainly changed them.

And now the victims would include True-of-voice and his people.

Thistle had a name for the fiery wildness that struck out, not caring who it hurt: the Dreambiter.

The Dreambiter.

No, I am not.... She made it.... I am not....

In the midst of her denial, she heard Thakur’s voice, speaking in her memory.

Ratha, don’t run.

Don’t run from your daughter. Don’t run from yourself.

How can I not run? This part of me hurts, kills, hates.... The Dreambiter. It consumes everything. Soon it will swallow the rest of me.

No.
Ratha clamped her jaws together.
I don’t have to let it take over. I can fight it. I
will
fight it. I will drive it out of my daughter’s life and out of mine.

Yet it was hard to take those steps along the trail that would lead her back to Thakur; hard to say,
Yes, I will help you with Thistle.

She stopped, caught in indecision. The hatred was still there. She still hated the hunters, wanted to burn them. She still dreaded the Dreambiter and dreaded even more the look on Thakur’s face when he realized that she really
was
the Dreambiter.

Thakur, I don’t want you to turn away from me. Please don’t hate me, despite what I am, despite what I’ve done....

She forced herself to take a step, even though her legs felt as though they were sheathed in ice. She shut down all the thoughts in her mind except one as she walked stiffly back toward the camp.

I have to kill the Dreambiter.

Chapter Fourteen

Thakur looked dumbfounded when Ratha stood before him and said the words that she had been practicing all the way along the trail.

“You’ve changed your mind?” he said. “You’ll work with Thistle and me?”

“Yes. Anything to help her get rid of this nightmare.”

Thakur gave her an odd look, and she realized that she had spoken as if the nightmare were also hers. Well, it was.

“Do you mind if I ask you why?”

“Because of what you said to me. I have been running away. Now I’m ready to fight.”

Thakur gave her another strange look, but he seemed to be satisfied. After all, it was he who was asking for her help, not the other way around. Or was it?

Quietly he led her to Thistle, who was having a nap by the dunking pond. Ratha could see that her daughter had obeyed Thakur by not attempting to go into any trances and thus risk the apparition again. Instead, she had rested, and eaten to gain strength. She looked good, her coat better groomed and dry.

When Thistle woke up and saw that Ratha had joined them, she looked a little nervous.

“Must have been hard deciding,” she said, glancing shyly at her mother.

“Yes.”

“Hope you don’t mind... getting wet. Thakur throws me in pond.... Chases the ...” She faltered, then went on. “Chases the bad away.”

“Perhaps I won’t have to do that anymore,” Thakur said, with a glance at the pond. “Thistle, Ratha, are you ready?”

Thistle sat up straighter, her whiskers bristling. Ratha realized that she couldn’t tell which of her daughter’s forelegs had been the crippled one. She seemed to use both equally well now.

“I’m ready, although I don’t know exactly what to do,” Ratha said.

In answer, Thakur lay down, forming himself into a half circle around Thistle, his tail lying across hers, his head lifted so that he could look into her eyes.
You make the rest of the circle,
his eyes seemed to tell Ratha. She arranged herself on the other side of Thistle, draping her tail across Thakur’s and bringing up her forepaws to touch his. Her belly lay against her daughter’s rear foot and flank.

“All right, Thistle. Go ... inside,” Thakur said.

The clear green in Thistle’s eyes seemed to shift, as if a cloud were moving across sunlit water. Her breathing grew fast and shallow and her jaw opened as she panted.

Thakur’s voice was soft yet strong. “Don’t be afraid. We’re here. We’re both here.”

Thistle swallowed, but her panting cased. Ratha’s own heart was pounding so hard she thought that Thakur might be able to hear it. Mingled dread and excitement swept through her. At last she was going to meet and battle the enemy.

“Dreaming,” Thistle said in a distant voice. “Caves. Walking. Speaking not easy.”

“Say what you can,” Thakur coaxed.

“Oh!” Thistle gave a sharp indrawn breath.

“What?” Ratha asked, her voice tight with anxiety and eagerness.

“Easy, Ratha,” Thakur said softly, pushing his forefeet against hers.

“Even here. Far away. It comes.”

“The badness?” Thakur asked.

“Oh, no!” Thistle’s face was rapt. “Good. Sweet. Want to follow.”

Thakur looked surprised. “The song? You can hear True-of-voice’s song?”

“Yes. So faint. Want to be closer.”

Thakur leaned closer to Ratha, who was bursting with impatience. “She’s picking up the song, the thing True-of-voice sends out to his people. I’m surprised. They’re pretty far away from us.”

“It won’t hurt her, will it? It won’t take her over?” Ratha’s worry made her whisper harsh. She felt intensely uncomfortable with the idea that the strange leader of the hunters could somehow reach from a distance and lure her daughter. She had thought she would have to fight only one threat. Not two.

“Want to go closer,” Thistle begged.

“Go,” Thakur answered.

A look crept across Thistle’s face that Ratha had rarely, if ever, seen. It was happiness. Pure delight.

“Not walking anymore,” Thistle said. “Swimming. Like... in the sea. But warmer. Softer.” Again she gave a sharp gasp. “Oh! Ahead brightness, shape, color, beauty... sweetness in the ears, the nose, the eyes, the skin, everywhere. No words good enough to say.”

“To say what, Thistle?” Thakur asked gently.

“What it is. What he is. What she is.”

“True-of-voice?”

“More than True-of-voice. Wise ones sing through him. Wise ones now dead sing through him. Fathers, mothers, all sing through him.”

Ratha felt her fur prickle as she listened. Wonder and dread fought inside her. This was stranger than anything she had ever encountered before. And it was in her own daughter! What was Thistle-chaser? More than Named. More than Un-Named. Something else, working through both, had shaped her.

“I’m lost, Thistle,” Ratha heard Thakur say.

“Not lost. Never be lost again.” Her daughter’s voice was breathy. The black of her pupils had gone to tiny slits in swirls of sea-green.

“I mean that I don’t understand.”

“Will tell you. When I come back.”

Come back! She might never come back.
Ratha gave Thakur’s forefoot a sharp push to get his attention. “Where’s she going? What is this?”

“I don’t know. She’s never gone this far before,” Thakur admitted. “Having you here has done something.”

“It’s scaring me. Take her out of it.”

“It’s not frightening her. Let her go, Ratha. She knows this path better than you.”

“I don’t want to lose her! Seeing her sitting there, staring at nothing, makes me feel as though I have a million fleas in my fur. She might... just... stay... like that for the rest of her life.”

Thakur started to say something, but Thistle interrupted. Her voice was strangely light and she turned her head to gaze at Ratha, although the remoteness was still in her eyes.

“Do not be afraid, my mother. Can come back if I want. Help me to go on. Need you to help me go on.”

“Thistle, I care too much. I’m frightened. This is too strange. Come back. Please. I—I love you.”

“Must reach where the hunters are to speak to them.”

“I-is it that important to you?”

“Yes. If you give love, give trust too.”

Ratha closed her eyes, pressed her feet against Thakur’s, feeling the answering warmth. “Then I trust you. Go where you must.”

“Not sure about doing. But must try.”

Ratha opened her eyes, fixing her gaze on her daughter as Thistle continued her inward flight. Who had given her this ability? The one called Bonechewer who was her father, the brash and gifted outsider, Thakur’s brother?