The Wildings (35 page)

Miao drifted between pain and the balm of her memories. She thought of Nizamuddin’s Senders, and she thought of teaching Southpaw to hunt, and of the mongoose who had appeared so unexpectedly that night. Even as she lay slumped and mortally wounded on the earth her memories were happy.

She had taught Beraal how to hunt, watching as the tiny kitten tried to tackle rats three times her size—Beraal had been born without an ounce of fear in her whiskers, as the old saying went. A parade of kittens marched through Miao’s mind, softening the pain in her blue eyes as she recalled each one’s first hunt, how they had reacted at their first sight of prey. Some had shied away; some, like Katar, had been wide-eyed and determined not
to let her down. A few, like Hulo, had been brawlers from the time their eyes lost their blue.

The Siamese flinched when she heard a mighty flapping of wings in the sky. She was vulnerable to any predator that came by, and many might arrive, attracted by the stench of blood. Perhaps it was better to be swiftly dispatched, thought Miao. It might be preferable to a long, slow, ending, or to the ignominy of being found by the Bigfeet.

The wings rustled close to her ears, and the Siamese forced herself to open her eyes; she wanted to see her predator, just as she had stared back into Ratsbane’s face.

Tooth furled his wings. The pariah cheel seemed awkward on the grass, but he walked over to her, hobbling the way cheels did on land. Over his head, bulbuls and sparrows called, checking on each other in the aftermath of the battle.

“I saw you from the skies,” he said. “Shall I call Beraal and the others to lick your wounds clean?” Then his great golden brown eyes took in the battered ribs, the damaged face, the broken legs. The bird raised his head, the curved beak conveying his sadness.

“I am sorry, Miao,” he said. “Is it bad?”

She blinked her blue eyes in assent. “Don’t need the others,” said Miao with difficulty. “It’s my time to go.”

“But not here,” said Tooth, taking in the grounds littered with bodies, sensing immediately that there were too many creatures, living and dead, in the gardens for Miao to be at peace. “Shall I move you somewhere quieter?”

It was a generous gesture, and Miao was touched to her heart. Her blue eyes said a quiet yes. The hunter flexed his chest
feathers, rose high into the air, circled her twice, then swooped down and lifted the cat by her neck, just as though she was a kitten. Tooth was surprised at how light Miao was; the Siamese had such a presence that she had always seemed much larger than she actually turned out to be.

The flight was a short one; he took her to a part of the wild garden where the wall had broken, and deposited the cat in the quiet back lane that wound between the garden and another old house.

“Thank you, Tooth,” said Miao, expecting the hunter to leave. He glanced down at her, but instead of rising into the skies again, he folded his wings.

“My debt is paid,” he said to the Siamese, his eyes hooded as he saw how her ribs were heaving up and down, noting the thin line of blood trickling out from her mouth. “But only in part. We could not keep all the little ones safe, after all. I didn’t think the ferals would kill so fast and so ruthlessly.”

Miao managed to say, “Neither did I.” The cheel took her in. She seemed so peaceful. Her black tail was as beautiful as ever, her blue eyes calm in the face of death, her creamy fur licked smooth, even though she hadn’t been able to use her paws to comb out the twigs and the dust.

“Some of them fought back, you know,” he said. “Ao and Jao, the squirrels, did a good job. And that mouse—Jethro Tail?—he bit Datura himself. Brave little creatures. I always wondered why you and I cared so much about the little ones. We hunt them often enough.”

“Perhaps it’s because we hunt them that we know them, Tooth,” said Miao. Her voice was soft as a whisper. “Your
mother—she knew all the little ones. Hunting is one thing, caring is another.”

The pariah cheel flapped his wings involuntarily.

“Who will teach us these things when you’re gone, Miao?” he cried.

“The new Sender will,” said Miao. “Keep an eye out for her, Tooth. She’s an inside cat, but one day she’ll step outside, and then she’ll need friends. Promise me you’ll look after her.”

Tooth was about to refuse—he was no cat babysitter!—but he saw the light dimming in Miao’s eyes, and the hunter said, “Yes, Miao, I promise I will.”

The tip of the Siamese’s tail stirred, in acknowledgement, and then she closed her eyes. “Tell me a story, Tooth,” said Miao. “Tell me what it’s like to sail the skies.” It was the first time in years she had asked for a story. She had often told them; even the most fierce hunter among the wildings loved a good story, and Miao was a good storyteller.

Now she listened, as the cheel drew pictures of the great empty space of the skies and how it was filled with the language of the winds, if only you cared to listen. He told her about their squadrons, and about vultures, about flying alongside the Bigfeet’s gliders, about the way the birds risked injury to dance with the Bigfeet’s painted paper kites. His voice was rough and hoarse, but Miao listened with happiness.

The hard stones of the back lane melted away as Tooth talked. The Siamese no longer felt the pain stab so sharply at her ribs; instead, the darkness seemed to gather around her, and the rain and the wind seemed to be growing colder and colder.

“Is it night yet?” she asked.

“No,” said Tooth. “The noon sun is coming up.”

“It must be dark, then, with the storm,” said Miao.

Tooth’s feathers fluffed out as he looked at the sun. The rain had stopped; the sun was out and the grey skies had given way to a bright monsoon blue.

“Yes, Miao,” he said gently. “It is very dark indeed.” And he went on with his stories, telling her one about the hunter who flew too close to the sun.

“Is it very cold now?” asked Miao after he had finished his story.

Tooth’s voice shook. “Yes, it’s getting colder,” he said. “It must have been the rain this morning.”

Miao was looking at him, and the cheel saw a smile in her eyes.

“I was thinking of all the kittens I knew, and how they grew up to be wonderful cats,” said the Siamese. “You must have been a very special fledgling, Tooth. Your mother must have been very proud of you.”

The hunter couldn’t trust himself to speak. Instead, he gently touched the cat’s fur with his beak.

“Shall I tell you another story?” he asked.

“Yes, please,” said Miao. “Tell me the one about the cheel who flew to the edge of the world and back.”

It was a beautiful story, and Tooth told it well, watching as the sun disappeared and the clouds moved slowly into the sky overhead. The rain started to drizzle as he came to the end of the tale.

“…  and so, the old hunter said, what you must do when you reach the edge of the world is very simple: keep your wings unfurled, and keep going.”

He stopped and glanced at Miao. Her eyes were closed, and her face was calm and peaceful. But underneath, the concrete slab where he had set her down was soaked in blood.

“Miao?” he said uncertainly.

The rain came down in a torrent, washing away the blood from the Siamese cat’s face. Miao made no movement at all, and Tooth understood that the finest, bravest warrior he had met in all of his life had gone to see for herself what the edge of the world was like.

J
ust before she climbed the stair to the Sender’s house, Beraal paused, listening to the chatter of the squirrels. Ao and Jao had shifted to the tree in the park, not wanting to be in the Shuttered House any more. The memories of the battle were harsh, and besides, the Bigfeet had overrun the wild garden.

The shock of the carnage had worn off, though, and the old squirrels were back to their squabbles. Ao insisted that the air tasted of winter. “Of course it’s not winter weather yet, we’re not even finished with the monsoons,” said Jao crossly.

“Why is your tail shivering, then?” Ao demanded.

“Quivering!” said Jao. “It was quivering, not shivering.”

“Nonsense!” said Ao. “I know what your tail does when it quivers. That was a shiver.”

And they were off, bickering as they raced along the feathery branches of the ashoka tree. The babblers had generously
composed a welcome home poem for them, which was only slightly ruined when Ga wandered off absent-mindedly, tempted by a worm, leaving Re and Ma to struggle with the missing rhyme.

Listening to the squirrels as she limped up the back stairs of the Sender’s house, Beraal felt her spirits lifting slightly. The cats had grieved for Miao after Tooth flew back and told Katar about her death. They grieved hard, sharing stories and memories through a long night at the fakir’s shrine, and then moved on to the urgent business of settling the young and the old into their winter quarters. A sharp chill had ridden into Nizamuddin on the back of the monsoon, and both Katar and Hulo felt in their whiskers that it would be a rough winter.

Though they didn’t need to discuss it, all three cats felt Miao’s absence every hour. Hunting, Beraal often imagined Miao’s slim figure, saw the Siamese’s blue eyes flash as she closed in on prey, imagined how her black tail would curl up to warm her paws.

Mara had slept for a day and a night after the battle, worn out by the effort of bringing the tiger into Nizamuddin. It was only their exceptional closeness that had allowed her to pull off the double sending: without his consent and his trust, the Sender would never have been able to carry Ozzy with her into Nizamuddin. Even with the tiger’s co-operation, the effort of visualizing and bringing his image into the field of battle had taxed all of Mara’s powers. Once the battle was over, the kitten realized how close she’d been to collapse. It was much harder to pull off a sending that included another creature than it was to simply send herself out into the world. It was like, she told Beraal when she finally woke up, hunting in two directions
at the same time, or trying to fly like Tooth while simultaneously prowling like Hulo.

Beraal wondered how long their lessons would continue. Mara would always be a small cat—Southpaw had already grown bigger than her—but her powers were extraordinary, and Beraal didn’t know whether she could keep pace. She had already taught Mara most of what she knew, and the young queen wished she had learned more from Miao. None of them had asked the right questions, because they had all thought they had many seasons with the Siamese. In cat-fashion, Beraal had asked only what was important for her to know when Mara was a tiny kitten. It wasn’t just her; the black-and-white knew how much Katar missed Miao’s wise counsel when he attended to the clan’s everyday affairs.

Before Beraal could check for Bigfeet or go into the Sender’s house, Southpaw jumped out of the window, almost landing on her. “Oof,” he said, “Sorry about that, Beraal, wasn’t thinking straight.”

Beraal leaned forward to give him a gentle head rub. The brown kitten tumbled all over the place, and still got into trouble every second day or so. But Mara had told her how Southpaw had stayed steadfastly by her side when she had tried to summon the tiger. It was difficult, and the Sender had cried out in frustration when her first attempts misfired.

“Southpaw kept me going,” she had told Beraal. “He never gave up, and he wouldn’t let me give up either.” Though he badly wanted to go back to the battle, though all of his instincts told him to give in to his curiosity and see how the wildings were doing, Southpaw curled up beside Mara, encouraging her,
washing her paws and flanks when she almost collapsed from exhaustion. Beraal and the other cats were proud of him. “He’ll make a fine tom when he’s older,” Katar had commented.

“Off you go, Southpaw,” Beraal said now. “Hulo was looking for you. He’s over there, across the park.” The cat and the kitten turned to see Hulo hobble out on the tin roof, wanting to catch what little there was left of the winter sun. The tom moved slowly—he was still recovering from his injuries. As the brown kitten bounced happily down the stairs, a thought occurred to Beraal.

“Any luck?” she called out, her whiskers questioning.

“None,” said Southpaw. His mew was resigned. He and Beraal had been trying to persuade Mara that she should come out and meet the wildings, but the Sender’s fear of the outside only seemed to have grown since the battle. It made Beraal sigh. There was so much she could teach Mara, if only the kitten would step outside her Bigfeet’s house.

When she walked cautiously through the house, it was to find Mara sitting bolt upright on the bed. Her tail was waving back and forth, and her eyes had gone a dark green.

“Southpaw left before we’d finished playing,” she said crossly to Beraal. “He said he wanted to meet Hulo and go hunting, and I wanted him to stay here.”

“He can’t stay with you all the time,” said Beraal reasonably, settling herself down on the flank that was less savagely injured. “He’s an outside tomcat, you know, and he’d be very happy if you’d go out with him from time to time, just the way he comes here to visit you.”

Mara’s eyes had a tendency to cross when she was really
angry, and her tail whipped stiffly from side to side. “I don’t have to go outside,” she said, her mew sulky. “I summoned Ozzy without having to put one paw out of my house, remember?”