Clan Ground (The Second Book of the Named)

Chapter Seventeen

Resting briefly, Ratha leaned on a dew-dampened rock, laying her cheek against its coolness. She heard the Firekeepers crashing through brush and dead leaves. She could see the approaching flicker of their firebrands through the trees and sensed that once again they were picking up her trail. A shiver that was half fear and half excitement ran through her.

She was glad, however, that the Firekeepers had chosen to track her by torchlight. A scent trail, which they might have followed easily in the damp night air, became difficult and elusive in the smoky haze from the torches. No. Shongshar knew better than to think he would catch her this way. He had brought out the torchbearers to show the Red Tongue’s wrath and let her own fear drive her like a renegade from clan ground.

She grinned bitterly as she ran across a patch of hair-ferns that made no rustle to give her away. She had already seen the worst that the fire-creature could do. It could burn flesh and bone and even forest, but it could also possess the minds and twist the wills of her people as if they were pieces of bark glowing and curling in the heart of the flame.

The sky above the treetops showed deep violet and the glittering stars were dimming. Ratha realized, looking up, that she had been leading the Firekeepers astray all night. Thakur would have had plenty of time to reach Bira. It was time to put an end to this cub’s play before daylight gave the searchers additional advantage.

She crept away a little farther and listened. Again they had come to a halt and were casting about for signs of her. She spat quietly to herself, disgusted with the noise they were making, and then slipped away through the underbrush.

She kept to the edge of clan ground to avoid being seen by accident. To conceal her trail, she frequently backtracked, waded in streams and rolled in the dung of other animals to disguise her smell.

The sun was just showing over the treetops when she reached the sandy path that led beneath the overhang to the cave where she, Bira, Thakur and the treelings had spent the previous night. She had a bad moment when she discovered that particular hollow empty. She was nervously searching the other caves when the sound of Thakur’s voice came from the shadows beneath the overhang.

“Over here,” he said. “We’ve moved our hiding place.” Her relief made her nearly collapse on the sand, but she only lolled her tongue out and padded after him.

Thakur led her farther upstream, to a smaller fall where the water cascaded down onto split stones that turned it into many tumbling rivulets. Ratha turned for a moment to watch the morning light dance and run down the falling water. Then she glimpsed Thakur’s tail disappearing between two slabs of rock that leaned against each other.

She followed him, reluctant to leave the cheerful morning and go into the dimness of a cave. When she was inside, however, she found the tilted stone floor dappled with sunlight and shadow and felt a breeze that carried the fresh smell and sound of the little fall. It was sufficient shelter to keep anyone who hid within from being seen, yet it was open enough not to feel confining.

Bira lay in a sun-washed hollow with the treelings gathered around her and on top of her. Ratha looked for Ratharee and saw the young one’s black eyes gleam as Ratharee spotted her. With a squeal of joy, the treeling scampered up the sloping rock and launched herself at her companion.

“Ooof. She’s getting heavy, Thakur,” Ratha groaned, but she couldn’t quite make her voice sound convincingly plaintive. Once the treeling had taken her usual place on Ratha’s shoulder with her tail curled around her neck, Ratha stretched out in a pool of sun near Thakur and Bira.

For a while, they lay there, quietly relaxed, and Ratha felt herself drifting into a light doze. Then Thakur sat up, with Aree perched on his shoulder, and said, “We must talk.”

Ratha yawned and shook away her drowsiness. “Does Bira know what happened last night?”

“Yes, Thakur told me,” Bira answered. “I’m not surprised that the herders deserted you. Shongshar seems able to persuade anyone to do anything.”

“There were some things I should have said,” Ratha growled, laying her head on her paws and feeling the helplessness and rage sweep over her again. “I should have told them that his talk about the Named ruling beyond clan ground was a mad cub’s dream. I should have torn apart the herder who brought Shongshar the kindling. And I should have known that trying to kill the Red Tongue by starving it was exactly what Shongshar wanted me to do.”

“Extending his rule may not be a mad cub’s dream for him,” said Thakur thoughtfully. “If he can make the Firekeepers fierce and arrogant, they can hold more territory and the herders can graze more animals. This may be difficult to face, but we have to admit that Shongshar has offered the Named a way not only to survive, but to flourish.”

“Ptahh! They will be meat for his belly.” Ratha spat. “They will grovel before the fire-creature in the cave and forget they once had wills of their own.”

“Many of our people would rather follow the commands of a voice stronger than their own, even if it is cruel and harsh. We of the Named have a strange hate and an even stranger love for those who are powerful,” Thakur said softly and added, “as you found when you first brought us this creature we call the Red Tongue.”

Ratha sighed. “If I had known then what my creature would become to them, I never would have—” She caught herself. “No. Once it was done, there was no way I could go back.”

“And we can’t go back now. Shongshar holds the minds of our people just as surely as he holds the Red Tongue.”

“He is only one and one can die,” she snarled fiercely, making Ratharee start in alarm.

Thakur looked sadly back at her as she soothed her tree-ling. “That is not the answer, Ratha. Even if you succeeded in killing him, others would carry on his ideas. To regain your place as clan leader, you would have to destroy the cave and everything in it. I do not know how that could be done with only you, Bira and me.”

“Are you going to give up and leave our people to become meat in Shongshar’s jaws?” Angry indignation swept over her.

“Listen to me. Whatever prompted the choice of our people, they have made it. If you take Shongshar from them now, you will only earn your own death. Later, when his ways have made him hated, you may have a chance. You must wait and watch.”

Bira shifted herself as a young treeling climbed down from her and went to its mother, who started to groom it. “I don’t think we can stay here,” she said. “We are still on clan ground and, although this place is hidden, Shongshar will eventually find it.”

“I agree,” said Thakur. “We must leave clan territory and live somewhere else for a while. There is a place I often go when I leave during the mating season. It isn’t that far, and it has fruit trees, which will feed the treelings.”

Reluctantly Ratha agreed with him. Her first thought had been to make this place their temporary home and use it to launch forays against the Firekeepers or try to undermine Shongshar’s support among the herders. But she had to admit that Thakur was right. There wasn’t much that their small group could do with the rest of the clan against them. It was time now to think not of revenge but of survival.

“How will we live without the herdbeasts and the Red Tongue?” asked Bira fearfully.

“There are other animals that we can eat,” Thakur answered.

“But there are no herders to cull them for us or to keep them from running away.” Bira turned her worried face to him.

“You can take them yourself. Haven’t you ever stalked grasshoppers?”

“Yes, but that was a long time ago.” The young Firekeeper cocked her head at him. “You mean, you can catch other animals that way? I never thought of that. I’m so used to eating from the clan kills.”

Ratha quelled the scorn that started rising inside her at Bira’s words. Once she too had been just as alarmed at the prospect of life outside the clan. She had been equally helpless until an Un-Named male taught her how to hunt and provide for herself. Hunger had made her an eager student, and she never forgot those lessons with Bonechewer, even though the thought of him still brought pain.

She knew that her life as clan leader had dulled her hunting skills, but practice could hone them again. Perhaps she could teach the rudiments to Thakur and Bira. The thought cheered her a little. At least she would have something else to think about other than her hatred of Shongshar.

“I lived apart from the clan for several seasons, Bira,” she said slowly. “I learned how to hunt and take care of myself. I think I can teach you how to do the same.”

Bira stared at her with respectful admiration, and Ratha suddenly felt warmed by the Firekeeper’s gaze. She had almost forgotten what it meant to be looked up to for her own abilities rather than the fact she was clan leader. A life in exile, she thought, might have its compensations.

The little group set out later that same morning, with most of the treelings riding on Bira and Ratha while Thakur and Aree took the lead. They left the pleasant shelter they had found by the fall and followed the stream farther up until they reached the spring that was its source. This was the end of clan territory in the direction of the setting sun. Shongshar would not seek them beyond this boundary.

At least not for a while, Ratha thought to herself.

They wound along the top of a forested ridge for the rest of the day and spent the night curled up together in dry leaves beneath a thicket. By midmorning of the following day, Thakur announced they had come far enough to avoid clan territory; he turned back downhill on the same side he had brought them up.

On the downgrade, their pace was much faster than it had been climbing, and by evening they were back on the plain with the setting sun behind them. On open land, the three could travel through the night. Morning found them approaching the redwood grove that Thakur had made his home during the mating season.

Once they reached it, Thakur showed Ratha and Bira the stream that flowed nearby and the den he had dug in the red clay beneath the roots of an old tree. The next task was to feed the treelings, who were growing cranky with hunger, having had only a few insects during the journey from clan territory. Aree led her brood up into the branches of the nearest laden tree while Thakur napped in the shade beneath and waited.

Ratha took Bira out into the open meadow and began to show her how to stalk quietly. They practiced on the big grasshoppers that clung to swaying fronds, and by the time the afternoon was over, Bira had caught several of the insects by herself. She couldn’t quite bring herself to eat them, however, and Ratha ended up disposing of most of their catch.

When the two returned to Thakur, they found him covered with surfeited treelings and surrounded by fruit pits and gnawed cores. Some of the discards bore his toothmarks, and Ratha guessed that the treelings had shared their harvest. Neither she nor Bira wanted to try such strange food, so she set herself to hunting, leaving Bira behind with Thakur.

Her first attempts were unsuccessful, but on her next try, she caught a wounded ground-bird that had escaped another hunter and brought it back to her companions. The feathers made Bira sneeze, but she was too hungry to be fussy. The bird wasn’t enough to fill their bellies, but Thakur had gnawed fruit while she had eaten all the grasshoppers. Bira ended up with most of the carcass and it was enough to satisfy her.

In the next few days, Ratha found herself assuming the role of major provider for the group. She caught small animals and birds for the others, and once managed to bring down a wild three-horn doe with some help from Thakur. The tree-lings flourished on the ripening fruit. The herding teacher, who admitted he was not much of a hunter, tried his skill at fishing in a nearby creek.

At first the task of providing for the group and feeding the treelings took up all of Ratha’s time and attention. As practice rapidly sharpened her skills and strengthened unused muscles, she found her thoughts turning back to the clan. She would often wonder, as she followed the track of her prey through the grass, what was happening to the Named under Shongshar’s leadership. If those thoughts distracted her and made her miss her kill, she snarled at herself and resolved to pay attention to what she was doing.

Despite herself, her curiosity grew, until she finally admitted that she could not turn her back on her people despite their betrayal of her. Bira, too, confessed that she hungered for the feel of familiar ground and the smells of those she knew.

Thakur was the most adamant about their need to leave the old life behind and not be tempted by any rash hopes of overthrowing Shongshar. Ratha finally gave up her attempts to convince him to come with her, to hide and watch the Named. Bira, however, was willing to come.

Together, they found a tree at the edge of clan land that was tall enough to overlook the meadow where the herdbeasts grazed. From this far height, the two could watch the activities of the herders without fear of being discovered. What they could see from their perch, however, only frustrated Ratha. The smells that the wind brought hinted that the herders were tense and uneasy, but whether they were worried about a lack of rain or the harshness of Shongshar’s rule, she didn’t know.

Ratha and Bira climbed down from their spying tree and started back to their own land. They hadn’t gone far from the edge of clan teritory when Ratha heard a faint buzzing that grew louder and more ominous as they approached the sound.

A cloud of black flies hovered about a bush that stood to the side of the trail and beneath, in the shadows, something lay.

“A dead herdbeast, I think,” said Bira, wrinkling her nose. “I can’t smell it; the wind’s not right.”

Ratha peered at the still form. It didn’t look the right shape for a dappleback or a three-horn, but she couldn’t really tell. She normally didn’t eat carrion, but she knew she shouldn’t waste this opportunity. “The meat may still be good,” she said to Bira and padded toward the bush.

“Don’t taint your belly with this carcass, scavenger,” said a hoarse voice, and a pair of dull yellow eyes opened in the shadowed darkness. “It’s already begun to stink.”

Ratha started at the well-remembered sarcasm in the voice and her jaw dropped in disbelief. “Fessran?”

The eyes gazed back at her, their brightness filmed over by fever and pain. She could hear harsh breathing above the drone of the flies. “Fessran?” she said again, coming closer.

Now she could see there was no fly-ridden dead herdbeast beneath the leaves, with Fessran crouched over it, as she had first thought. The limp form was Fessran herself and the flies were thick around her.

Ratha felt revulsion and sudden pity tighten her throat as she said, “You took the strike that was meant for me and I thought it killed you.”

“It did. I’m just taking a long time to die.” She gave Ratha an exhausted grin. “Remember, I guarded dapplebacks before I held the Red Tongue between my jaws. You and I both know that clan herders are hard to kill.” She coughed and shuddered. “There was a carrion bird here before you came. I thought he’d be at me before I was dead. I’m glad you scared him away for a while.” The eyes closed.

“We left you in the cavern ...”

“I stayed there until Shongshar got tired of looking at me and had me dragged off clan ground,” she said weakly and coughed again. “He made Cherfan do it. Poor herder, he gets all the nasty jobs. He tried to give me some meat, but I couldn’t eat it and he looked so sad that I finally had to tell him to go.” She paused and caught her breath. “You had better go too, Ratha.”

Ratha wasn’t listening. “Bira, hold the branches aside so I can see her wound,” she told the young Firekeeper and the shadows slid back. She peered closer and swallowed to keep herself from gagging at the stench that rose from torn and ulcerated flesh. Shongshar’s fangs had struck into Fessran’s upper foreleg at the shoulder, driving through the leg itself and into her chest. Having her leg in the way was the only thing that saved her from an immediately fatal wound, but that death might have been better, Ratha thought, looking at Fessran’s shrunken flanks and pain-wracked face.

Yet there was something in that face that told her Fessran wasn’t ready to die, that if she had a chance, she would fight for her life with the same ferocity that had saved Ratha’s. The wound itself wasn’t that bad. What had weakened her was infection and starvation. If they could get her back to Thakur, his knowledge of healing might save her.

She knew that her friend read her intent, for Fessran shook her head slowly. “No, Ratha. Leave me here for the carrion birds. You have yourself and Bira to care for.”

Ratha only laid back her ears at these words. “Ptahh! You were the one who said clan herders were hard to kill.” She bent her head, seized Fessran’s other forepaw, and dragged her out from beneath the bush. The flies swarmed about her in an angry cloud. “Crouch down, Bira,” Ratha said before Fessran could pull away.

Trembling with pity, the little Firekeeper flattened herself near Fessran. Ratha gave the paw another tug.

“Ratha, you can’t. I’m too heavy for her,” Fessran protested as Bira wiggled herself underneath.

“You, Firekeeper leader?” Bira said over her shoulder and grinned at Ratha. “You’re no heavier than the sticks I carry in my mouth or the fleas in my coat.”

When Ratha had Fessran arranged so that she would not fall off, Bira stood up. Fessran gasped and hissed softly in pain. “All right?” Bira asked.

“No, but it’s better than lying there with flies all over me,” Fessran retorted.

Weakened as Fessran was, Ratha could see she seemed more herself than she had when they first discovered her. She felt a surge of hope that her friend would live.

Bira took a few cautious steps while Ratha walked beside her and steadied Fessran. When it became evident that Bira could carry her burden at a reasonable pace, she set off, with Ratha beside her. Fessran laid her head along Bira’s neck and closed her eyes, letting her legs and tail dangle.

The journey was more painful for her than she would admit and, by the time they reached the redwood grove, she was moaning aloud and rolling her head back and forth. Blood and fluid from her wound trickled down Bira’s side and seeped into the young Firekeeper’s coat.

They put Fessran in Thakur’s den beneath the redwoods and Ratha stayed with her while Bira ran to get Thakur. His astonishment at seeing her was only slightly less than his shock at seeing the ugliness of her wound. Immediately he set about gathering medicinal leaves, which Bira shredded and soaked in the stream before laying on the wound. He also took Aree with him to look for a type of fruit with a thick skin that had gone rotten and fuzzy. When he returned with these, he removed the skin. To Ratha’s astonishment, he forced Fessran to swallow some of the moldy fuzz while he mixed the rest into the shredded poultice.

While he tended the wound, Ratha fed her friend with meat that she had chewed until it was almost liquid. Bira brought damp leaves from the stream to drip water onto Fessran’s dry tongue.

For several days, she lay in the den like a lifeless thing, barely able to swallow or open her eyes. The food and water they gave her only seemed to be prolonging her end, and Ratha felt her hope slipping into desperation. The wound stank and oozed despite Thakur’s poultices, and fever melted her away until she was little more than a skeleton.

Night after night, Ratha stayed beside Fessran, struggling not to fall into a doze for fear she would wake to look into her eyes and find the stare of death. With a fierce devotion, she fed her friend, even though the food often came back up.

And, finally, as they were at the point of giving up, Fessran began to rally. The swelling in the wound went down. It ceased oozing and crusted over. She was able to keep down the food that Ratha gave her and could suck on a wet leaf placed in her mouth.

She no longer lay limply on her side, but was able to roll onto her front, although she often grimaced with pain. She soon was able to take bits of meat and, with Ratha’s aid, could stagger to the nearby stream to lap water.

As Fessran improved, Ratha was able to leave her and resume her task of hunting for the group. She continued teaching Bira her skill and before long the young female was making small kills of her own. Bira also accompanied Ratha on forays to the spying tree, where they would hide and watch what went on in the meadow.

The clan culled more herdbeasts, but few of these were left to the herders. Most of the meat was taken by the Firekeepers and often dragged up the trail out of sight. Ratha strained for the sight or smell of Shongshar, but he never appeared in the meadow, even when the guard-fires were lit at dusk. She itched to know what was going on in the cave, and her anger conjured up images of him lolling before the Red Tongue, bloated with meat taken from the herders. Such thoughts made her growl between her teeth and shred the bark on the branch where she crouched.

Summer wore into autumn and the leaves began to turn and fall. One afternoon, after Ratha had helped Fessran back from the stream, the Firekeeper stretched herself out in the den and carefully licked the fur around the edge of her wound.

“Not too many of the Named have taken a bite like that and survived,” Ratha observed.

“It was worth the pain. You and Thakur got away.” Fessran fell silent for a while. “When I saw Shongshar about to kill you, I realized what he was. Before then, I lived in a daze. He used my fear of the fire-creature to lead me like a dappleback. He was so clever! Everything he said sounded right and even everything he did, until he bared his fangs to take your life.”

“And almost took yours instead. I wanted to go back and rip Shongshar’s throat out, but Thakur persuaded me not to try. Sometimes I think Thakur is the only one of us that has any sense.”

“Yes,” Fessran agreed and added, “Thank goodness.”

They lolled their tongues at each other, and Ratha felt warmed by the quiet joy of renewed friendship. Yet not all of what Fessran had to say was pleasant. When Ratha asked her for her story, her eyes darkened and she told of the Firekeepers’ arrogance, Shongshar’s increasing gluttony and the fevered dances about the cave-fire. Already, she said, Shongshar had begun to use the terror of fire to expand clan holdings. More cubs were being trained as Firekeepers and the herders were being worked hard to provide enough meat for those who feasted in the Red Tongue’s den.

As Ratha listened, her rage grew and she racked her mind for a way to wrest her power back from Shongshar. She knew that she was the one responsible for this change in her people. She had brought the gift of fire to the Named and with it had not only slain the old leader but ended the old laws and traditions that had governed the clan. Her rule had led them to triumph against the Un-Named, but she had failed to provide for the spiritual wants of her people, a hunger that grew and fostered Shongshar’s rise.

Fessran began to speak of banding together to kill Shongshar. Once, Ratha would have been eager for such fierce talk, but time alone to think had shown her the truth of Thakur’s words.

“No,” she answered as Fessran stared at her with puzzled eyes. “Killing him would do no good. The Named want to crouch down before the Red Tongue and serve a leader who bears that power. If he were to die, his way would not end, for they would find another like him to rule in his place.”

Her friend’s eyes narrowed. “Suppose he were to die and the cave-fire along with him. Then if the Named had nothing to crouch down before, they would turn back to you.”

“What good would my leadership do the clan without the Red Tongue to protect the herd? The Named have become too dependent on the fire-creature to survive without it.”

“All of the Red Tongue need not die,” answered Fessran. “The fire-creature in the cave is what gives him his power. Herders don’t crouch down to guard-flames kept in the meadow or those kept in fire-lairs. They go to the cave. We must strike there.”

The longer Ratha thought about Fessran’s argument, the more convincing it sounded. If Shongshar lost the cave-fire, his influence would be severely crippled. “Some Firekeepers would also have to die, Fessran,” said Ratha slowly. “The young ones, the cubs who know no way other than his. Your son, Nyang, would be one.”

“He is more Shongshar’s than mine,” said Fessran bitterly. “It is my fault; I let Shongshar influence him and turn him into the little killer that he is. Even if he lived, he couldn’t be trusted. No. I wouldn’t let that turn me aside.”

Ratha stared at her, looking deep into her eyes. “Are you saying you know of a way to destroy the fire-creature in the cave?”

“There is a big crack in the roof,” said Fessran. “It draws the smoke up and out so that it doesn’t fill the cavern. That’s one reason we chose that cave for the Red Tongue’s den.” She paused. “The smoke comes out of several cracks above the falls. I’ve seen it when I’ve been up there.”

“Are any of them wide enough to crawl through?”

“No, I don’t think so,” said Fessran.

“Then I don’t see what good they are.”

“Think,” Fessran prodded her. “What is the greatest enemy of the Red Tongue? What was our reason for bringing the fire into the cavern?”

“The rain?” asked Ratha. “But how are you going to make it rain inside that cave?”

“Well, I’m not sure exactly how to do it, but the crack is close to the stream, and if smoke can come up, water can go down.”

“How would you get the water from the stream into the crack?” Ratha cocked her head at Fessran.

“That’s the part I don’t know.”

Ratha thought for a while. “Thakur might be able to help us. He often plays with mud and water when he’s fishing.”

When Thakur returned from the creek with his catch in his jaws, Ratha told him about Fessran’s idea. At first, he seemed doubtful, but the longer he thought about it, the more he became convinced that the scheme might work. As for moving water from stream to cave, that could be done by digging a long trench in the earth from the stream to the cleft, making a path for the water to follow. He had dug such water-paths in the creekbank to trap fish.

“Do the cracks that lead into the cave lie above or below the stream?” he asked Fessran.

“In a little hollow where the stream bends before it reaches the falls,” was her answer.

“Is the stream bank rocky or muddy there?”

Fessran thought it was muddy, but she wasn’t sure. The only way to tell was to go and look.

Ratha turned to Thakur, who had begun to look doubtful again. “Herding teacher, this would give us a way to strike down the fire-creature and free our people from Shongshar. Will you work with us?”

Thakur agreed, and they began to plan a small expedition to the site to judge whether the idea would work. This time only Thakur and Ratha would go, along with Aree and Ratharee, leaving Bira to take care of Fessran and the rest of the treelings. If the plan was feasible, one of them would start digging while the other went back to the redwood grove to fetch Bira and Fessran, too, if she was well enough to travel.

Before Ratha left, she caught enough game so that Bira wouldn’t have to hunt. When that was done, she and Thakur bid their companions farewell and set off.

To avoid trouble, they decided to return to clan ground by the same route they had come, skirting Shongshar’s territory until they reached the spring that marked the border in the direction of the setting sun. They crossed over by night and hid until they were sure Shongshar wasn’t patrolling this remote part of his ground. When daylight came, the two made their way downstream and Ratha soon recognized the bend that Fessran had described. They found the hollow by following the scent of smoke and discovered the maze of cracks from which it issued.

As Fessran had said, the stream lay slightly above the hollow, separated only by the grassy rise of its bank. If a deep enough channel could be dug, the stream could be turned from its course and rerouted down the hollow. The fissures that vented the cave lay near the bottom, so that the water filling the hollow would not have to rise far before it drained through them.

Thakur dug a hole at the top of the rise and found sandy clay as far down as he could reach. Ratha made another test excavation near the stream and came up with only a few stubborn rocks.

“This looks better than I’d thought,” Thakur said after examining the results of her digging. “I had my doubts, but now I know that we can do it. I’ll start while you fetch Fessran and Bira.”

Within a few days, Ratha returned with the two others and the treelings. She sheltered them in small caves farther upstream they had previously used. Leaving Fessran and Bira to rest, she sought Thakur.

When she could find no trace of him or his work, she began to grow worried, but before long he appeared and pushed back some fallen branches and brush to show her the extent of the trench he had already dug.

“Whenever I leave, I hide it by laying branches across the top,” he explained. “Then, even if any of the Firekeepers comes along, they won’t notice what we’re doing.”

“You’ve done a lot,” said Ratha, impressed by the length and the depth of his excavation.

“There’s much more to do and we’ll have to hurry to finish before the rainy season starts,” he replied and added almost mischievously, “Start digging, clan leader.”

Despite her weariness from the journey, she got into the trench and began scraping away at the dirt in front of her. She dug all that day and late into the evening. She dug until her claws ached, scarcely noticing when Bira joined her. When she crawled out of the trench she staggered beneath a bush and collapsed into sleep.

The next day she dug and the day after that, and, when she was not digging, she hunted to feed the others who were devoting themselves even more to the task. Her life seemed to narrow, focusing only on the digging: guarding it, hiding it and extending it laboriously, day by day.

Thakur guided the work, making a pilot trench that Bira and Ratha deepened and widened. Fessran joined in, and, although her injury prevented her from attacking the hard-packed clay along with the other two, she could push aside the soil they threw between their legs, clear away brush and pull roots.

Even the treelings helped. Their clever paws could often dig a way around an embedded rock or break away a stubborn root. Aree sometimes acted as lookout, sitting in a tree that overhung the trench and screeching to warn of approaching intruders. The treelings groomed the dirt out of the diggers’ fur, pulled caked clay from between aching pads and provided comfort and affection that was badly needed.

Ratha felt herself growing closer to Ratharee, who seemed to stay on her shoulder all the time, whether she was laboring in the trench or stalking game. The treeling knew to keep quiet during the hunt and to crouch and cling when Ratha sprang. Often Ratha would forget that Ratharee was there until a little voice murmured in her ear or small fingers began to clean her fur.

Fessran and Bira also chose treeling companions. The injured Firekeeper had become friendly with Ratharee’s older sibling. At first she had viewed the treelings with mixed emotions and had been reluctant to take one, but once the relationship had begun, it grew with amazing rapidity until Fessran couldn’t be separated from her new companion. Bira chose the younger male of Aree’s brood, leaving Thakur with only Aree herself and her elder son. Bira called her treeling Biaree, imitating Ratha’s way of naming them.

Days passed, and the trench was gradually extended from the hollow where it had begun over the rise to the stream. It became deep enough so that someone could walk in it with only the tips of their ears showing above the edge, and wide enough to turn around in. Ratha and her companions interrupted their work only to eat, sleep and relieve themselves. Each section of the spillway was covered over with branches and brush as it was completed, so that if intruders threatened, the diggers only had to conceal the open trench they were working in.

Sunset came a little earlier each day, giving them less light to work by. Falling leaves drifted into the trench and had to be cleared out. Ratha sensed that it was nearly time for the clan’s mating season to begin, but neither she nor her female companions showed signs of going into heat. She vowed to herself that even if she did, she was going to stay at the bottom of the trench and use her restlessness to dig. Fessran and Bira agreed with her, saying that, if any of them felt the onset of the mating urge, they could send Thakur away to fish and provide food while they continued to work. The layout of the spillway was now complete, with two pilot trenches running side by side to mark the width of the remaining section to be dug.

One morning Ratha and Bira were widening the side of the channel when Ratha felt something sting her nose. She looked up to see gray clouds rolling above the trees; another drop struck her between the eyes.

“The rains are coming early,” said Thakur, leaning into the trench and alternately glancing down at her and up at the sky.

“How far are we from the stream bank?” she asked, lifting her nose above the piles of dirt on the edge.

“A few tail-lengths. We’re going to have to dig deeper, though, to cut through the bank and make the water run this way.”

She sighed and went back to work.

Overhead, the clouds grumbled and the rain began. At first it was light and helped by softening the ground so that the work went faster. As it grew into a pelting downpour, the bottom of the trench became a bog. The diggers fought to keep their footing on the slick clay and frequently fell into puddles or accidentally spattered each other with the pawfuls of mud they flung aside. Their small companions began to look less like treelings and more like soggy mudballs.

At the end of the day, Ratha would crawl shivering from the trench, her coat soaked, her underside and flanks grimy with clay and gravel. Once she was under shelter, Ratharee made a determined attempt to groom her, but the treeling was often so exhausted that she fell asleep when she had barely begun. Ratha was so tired, she didn’t care.

The work grew more difficult and the task seemed endless. Sometimes Ratha, in her haze of fatigue, couldn’t remember what the purpose of it was. She felt as though she had spent her life scraping away at this wretched hole and would do so for the rest of her existence. When at last Thakur leaned down into the trench again and cried, “Stop!,” she paid no attention to him and kept on digging mechanically until water began seeping through the gravel and soil at her feet.

She felt Thakur drop into the ditch beside her, seize her scruff and shake her. “Ratha, stop! We’re finished. If you go any farther, the water-path will flood before we’re ready.”

She blinked, trying to pull herself out of her daze. She scrambled out of the trench after Thakur and saw that he was right. Only the remaining thin wall of earth held back the stream. When the time came, they would dig at the embankment to weaken it until it broke, sending the flow down the spillway, into the hollow and down the cracks that vented the cave below. The cave-fire would perish in a rush of water, and those who tended it would be swept away.

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