Ratha’s Creature

CHAPTER SEVEN

Ratha sniffed at the trail of tiny prints that ran over the flat and into the rushes. The stink of marsh mud rose to her nostrils, overwhelming the smell of her quarry. Her hindquarters trembled and she sat down. A wave of nausea swept through her, and her stomach threatened to disgorge the lake water she’d drunk early that morning, trying to still the hunger cramps in her belly.

The tracks led on further into the marsh. She coaxed herself up and followed them. The marsh shrew had run before her only a short time ago; the tracks cut sharply into the black mud. Ratha knew about tracks. Thakur had taught her to find straying three-horns and dapplebacks by their prints and how to tell if a trail was worth following.

She stopped and studied the ground. Here, the prey had been running. The tracks were deeper and farther apart. Tiny bits of caked mud, a lighter gray than the ooze, littered the trail as if flung from scurrying paws. Ratha’s excitement rose as she padded alongside the trail. Saliva filled her mouth. Soon her teeth would crunch on bone and she would suck warm salty blood. The gnawing pain in her belly would cease....

Ratha stopped. The tracks ended. One last footprint in the mud and beyond, nothing. She whined in dismay, nosing about around the trail. Could the shrew have leaped away onto a log or branch? She looked around, frantically. Nothing but mud on either side. Where had the prey vanished?

Again, she circled, trying to find the track. She stepped on something smooth and slender that bent underneath her pad. She drew back her foot and looked. Embedded in her pawprint was a feather; a long slim quill. Shrill cries overhead made her look up. Several birds wheeled high above her. From the shape of their wings she knew that they also ate flesh. Her whiskers drooped. Her prey was probably squirming in their talons or being torn apart by hooked beaks. This hunt was ended. She would have to begin again.

Ratha caught motion at the edge of her vision. She whirled around. A heavy beak clamped shut in the air where the nape of her neck had been.

For an instant, she flattened on the ground, staring up at her opponent.

The great bird cawed and raised its crest, staring at her with unblinking lizard eyes. Its weight sunk its talons deep into the ooze. Massive legs with scaled horny skin supported a body that was all bulk and neck, the tiny wings buried in hairy feathers. This one had not dropped from the skies. Atop the serpentine neck, the great head swayed and the beak gaped once again. A talon lifted. The inside of the beak was yellow; the narrow tongue a glistening pink.

For another instant, Ratha crouched, paralyzed, watching the talon and the open maw descend. Then she remembered her legs. The beak stabbed into black ooze. Terrified, she scurried away through the rushes as the hunter’s hoarse cry of rage echoed over the marshland. She fled, turning and twisting, to throw her pursuer off the trail. She ran until her legs would no longer carry her and then she fell and slept in exhaustion until her belly woke her with the reminder that it had yet to be filled.

Afternoon found her tracking again. The prey was wounded or ill; she could tell by the irregular footsteps and wandering trail. Sometimes the prints were smudged by the impression of a dragging tail. Again, she followed, but this time she did not let the intensity of her hunt make her forget that she too might be prey.

The trail grew fresher and the smell stronger. She crouched as she approached a fallen log in her path. On the far side of it she could hear soft rustling sounds, and the crack and crunch of seeds being eaten. Again she trembled and her belly grew tight. She slunk along the side of the rotting timber and looked around the edge. There it was. A little marsh-shrew with a dull striped pelt and flanks almost as shrunken as hers. One rear leg was wounded and dragging. The blunt snout turned, the nostrils twitched. Ratha ducked back. Then, as the creature turned once more to its meal, she peered past the ragged spongy ends of the fallen timber. At last something she could catch.

She gathered herself, bunched and sprang over the log. She landed short, slipped in the mud, leaped again and landed on her prey with her front paws.

Her tail swung wildly to keep her balance as the animal squirmed beneath her pads. She felt herself toppling, struck one forepaw out to catch herself and felt her prey slip out from beneath the other. Furious, she lunged and snapped, but the creature, despite its injury, was far away from her, scooting across the flat toward the reeds. Ratha flung herself after it, howling in anguish. She chased the animal up and down through the high grass, desperation keeping her only a few tail-lengths behind. The marsh grass opened into a meadow of ferns and she was gaining on her quarry when a flurry of black and brown erupted from nowhere and something charged into her, knocking her aside from her prey. There was a shrill scream from the animal, a deep growl and then silence.

Ratha scrambled out of the clump of ferns and staggered to her feet. A young male of her own kind stood a short distance away, staring back at her. Her marsh-shrew, now lifeless, dangled from his jaws. He dropped it in among the ferns and began to play with it, glancing from time to time at Ratha. Driven by hunger, she moved closer. He lashed his tail, growled, picked the carcass up and pranced a short distance through the ferns. There he laid it down, ambled a few tail-lengths away and began grooming himself.

Ratha flattened and crawled through the ferns, freezing whenever he looked her way. His smell was oddly familiar, she realized, between the waves of hunger that were sweeping over her. She slunk forward again, raising her whiskers above the fronds. He turned, yawned in her face and ducked his head among the ferns. A loud crunch of teeth on bone told her he was eating her prey.

With an outraged scream, Ratha flung herself at him but exhaustion made her fall short. She pushed herself up on wobbly legs, fluffed her tail and spat. He flicked one ear and went on eating. Only half the carcass was left.

“Scavenger!” Ratha hissed. “Un-Named dung-eater! Flea-ridden chewer of bones! Arrr, you can’t understand my words, bone-chewer, but you’ll understand my teeth!”

The other gazed at her, a scrap of fur and flesh hanging from his jowls. It disappeared into his mouth in several swift bites and his lips drew back from his teeth as he chewed, revealing a broken lower fang. Ratha looked at his ears. One had a piece bitten out of it and the ragged edge bore the marks of teeth. Hers. It was the raider who had attacked Fessran’s dapplebacks in Ratha’s first encounter with the Un-Named raiders.

“The same words again, clan cat?” he said, looking straight at her. “Do they teach you no others?”

Ratha’s nape bristled and she felt the fur rising all the way down her spine to her tail. Her nostrils flared. She was unsure of whether to attack or retreat and did neither. She could only stare at the mangled carcass between his forepaws and swallow the warm saliva flooding her mouth.

He tore another strip from the prey. The smell from the glistening flesh brought Ratha forward. Saliva slipped between her teeth and ran over her lips into her fur.

“You are far from home ground, clan cat.” He gulped the meat. “And far from the herdbeasts that keep you fed.”

Ratha took another step forward. She could see the ends of her whiskers quivering. “I chased the marsh-shrew, broken-fanged one. Let me have what is left of it.”

“Yes, you chased it,” he agreed. His tone was light, but his eyes were wary. “You didn’t catch it. I caught it.”

“I caught it. My paws were on it before yours. I drew first blood.”

“Is that a new clan law? I thought they had enough laws and leaders to bare their throats to.” He grinned, exposing the jagged edge of his fang.

“Give me my prey!” Ratha howled and flung herself at him. Her trembling legs turned her lunge into a stumble.

He snatched up the remains of the prey and trotted beyond her reach. He sat down among the ferns and gave her a mocking look. “You are a bad hunter, clan cat. Only good hunters eat,” he said between his teeth, lifting his head to let the rest of the carcass slide into his open gullet.

“Raider! Bone-chewer! I broke your fang and tore your ear. Come near me or steal my prey again and I will chew your tail off and stuff it down your gluttonous throat!”

He lolled his tongue out at her, turned, and, tail in the air, sauntered away.

Ratha went to where the shrew’s carcass had lain, hoping to find a few neglected morsels. She found only moss, stained with blood and spittle. She bent her head and licked the green carpet, but only got the faintest taste. She closed her eyes and felt her belly twist in despair.

Only good hunters eat, she thought.

She lifted her head and bared her fangs. She shredded the moss with her claws.

She had lost her world and everything in it. The herder’s knowledge that served her in the clan was worthless here. She had left her people far behind. Now, she realized, as she felt the grinding pain of hunger fade into a frightening numbness inside her, she must leave their ways behind as well.

I was raised to be a herder, part of her mind cried. That life is gone. What else is there? Nothing, the same part of her mind answered. In choosing to leave the clan, you chose to die.

Despair paralyzed Ratha. She wanted to sink down onto the moss and lie still forever. To become dry bones, scattered by the feet of those who would pass this way. Crumbling bones, crawling with insects.

Another part of her mind began speaking. She quieted the turmoil inside and listened. This part spoke in images and feelings rather than words. It told of scents followed along star-lit trails, of stalking and waiting in shadow, of branches breaking close by and the sudden fever at the smell of the prey. It told of a life far older than that of the clan, a life far deeper and, in a strange way, far wiser. The old part of her mind told Ratha she had that wisdom. She woke from the telling as she would from a dream and she trembled, for it was far stronger than the clan-taught knowledge. The way of the clan, she knew, went back many seasons and many lifetimes. She knew the names of those who led the clan, from the first ones all the way to Baire and Meoran. The way of the herder was old, but there was another way, ancient beyond memory. It went back to the time before the beginning. The way of the hunter.

* * *

Whiskers poked out of a burrow. A timorous nose followed. Earth and small stones tumbled as the occupant emerged and peered around. Hiding in a patch of weeds, Ratha tensed. She could see the black stripes along the animal’s cheeks; the blunt snout. Delicate five-toed paws joined the whiskers in exploring the ground outside the burrow.

This hunt, Ratha thought, would be different. She knew hunger had robbed her of the speed and agility a hunter needed. She still had something that might make the difference if she used it properly: her cleverness. If she could outwit three-horns and Un-Named raiders, surely she could catch a shrew.

The marsh-shrew looked toward Ratha’s hiding place, lifted its chin and showed long chisel teeth, as if it knew she was there.

The animal’s forequarters were already out of the hole and the hindquarters soon followed. The striped shrew began wandering away from its burrow, stopping every few paces to raise its muzzle and sniff the air. Ratha’s excitement grew with every step the animal took away from its den. She quivered and bunched herself together, treading softly with her forepaws, waiting until the shrew was far from the burrow. She jerked sharply, fighting the impulse to pounce. There was something else that had to be done first.

She remained still until the shrew reached a stand of marsh grass and began to gnaw on the tuberous roots. Ratha gave it one last glance, left her hiding place and crept, not toward the shrew, but toward the empty burrow. A mound of dried mud stood to one side of the entrance, a product of the shrew’s excavations. With one swipe, she pushed the fill into the burrow and added a few pawfuls of surface mud. She pressed hard to pack it solid, then, with another glance over her shoulder, slunk back to her place in the rushes. As she settled in her nest, she purred softly to herself, pleased with her cleverness. This hunting business wasn’t so hard if one gave it some thought, she decided.

The hard part was staying still until the shrew had finished its meal of roots, and even after it had left the marsh grass, it still wasn’t ready to return to the den. Ratha watched, her impatience mixed with grudging admiration as her prey turned hunter, attacking and devouring flies and beetles. She saw the shrew leap at a dragonfly droning low over the marsh and when the little hunter fell back on the mud, she saw that it bore a broken jeweled body in its jaws. Her keen ears caught muffled snaps as the shrew bit off the insect’s legs and then continuous frantic crunching until only the lacy wings were left, scattered on the mud beside the still-twitching legs.

The shrew sniffed among the remains, turned its head up and looked at the sky, as if wishing for more and, finally sated, waddled back toward its lair. Halfway there, it stopped and its careless amble turned into a wary creep. Hidden in the grass, Ratha shivered, trying to still the clamor in her brain. The promise of food had awakened her stomach and it growled its impatience at her. Spring now. Now. NOW!

Ratha’s hind legs shot back, throwing her through the rushes. She stayed flat, hugging the ground. The shrew bolted for its den, launched itself at the entrance and bounced off the packed mud. It scurried back and forth, dodging her wildly slapping paws. She chased it away from the burrow, across the mudflat between the rushes, around a rotting log and back again. Reeds slapped her face as she dashed through them, trying to keep her prey in sight.

The shrew tried again for its burrow. It flung itself onto the packed earth and dug in a wild frenzy. By the time Ratha reached the den, the shrew had bored halfway in. She skidded to a stop; scooped the shrew out of its hole. It nipped her pad and she dropped it, squalling in pain. Squeaking shrilly, the animal reared up on its hind paws and showed its teeth. Ratha circled the shrew as it squealed and danced. She lifted one paw and slapped down hard, trying to squash the shrew into the mud. It bounced high into the air and shot off in a different direction. Ratha whirled and caught a glimpse of another tunnel opening in a mudbank beneath a tangle of swamp grass roots. The shrew was heading straight for it.

With a yowl of rage, Ratha scrambled after her prey. Despair gave her speed, but her shaky legs failed to stop her in time. The shrew reached the second tunnel before she did. She made one last snap at the vanishing hindquarters before she overshot and plowed headfirst into the bank.

The impact ground her teeth against gravel and filled her mouth and nose with mud.

Ratha recoiled, rearing back and clawing the air. The ooze clung inside her mouth, blocked her nose and she fell on her back, retching, trying to push the vile-tasting muck out with frantic thrusts of her tongue. Her maltreated stomach cramped and convulsed, sending its meager contents up her throat. She stretched her mouth wide, letting the bitter fluid stream over her tongue and through her nose, turning the ooze to sizzling froth that dripped from her jaws. Her stomach was empty, but the spasms continued, wrenching her belly and thrusting her hind legs out stiff until they quivered and cramped.

For a moment she thought she was going to heave her insides up onto the marsh mud, but the sickness soon subsided, leaving her a limp and panting heap of fur, drooling brown saliva.

She wished then that she could die and that the clan could know how she died. Meoran would howl until he farted if he knew that the proud bearer of the Red Tongue had choked on swamp mud trying to catch a wretched shrew! She squeezed her eyes shut and felt fluid run from them to join the stuff dribbling from her eyes and nose. The Red Tongue? Why think of that now? It was gone. Finding the fire once was a fluke. She would never find it again. This was the life she would have to lead, if she could.

Slowly Ratha rolled from her side onto her stomach and dragged herself through a clump of rushes to the shore on the other side. Her belly ached; her nose and throat burned. Her lips and tongue were raw. Her fangs had lost their usual smooth slickness against her tongue and felt etched and gritty.

Scum edged the bank and clung to the half-drowned rushes. A rainbow film on the water’s surface shimmered in translucent colors. Ratha closed her eyes and put out her tongue to drink.

A paw slid under her neck, shoving her muzzle away from the water. Ratha gave a weak cry and pushed stupidly against it, feeling a strong foreleg against her jaw. She opened her eyes. At seeing her companion’s tinted reflection, she cried again and turned her head away, hating the taste of bile in her mouth and hating the intruder for not letting her drink. Again she tried and again he thrust her back. She lay panting, her chin in the mud. He walked in front of her, flicking a ragged ear.

“Clan cat, doesn’t your nose tell you this is bad water?”

“I’m thirsty. My mouth burns. Let me drink.” Ratha whimpered.

“I know. I saw you being sick. You’ll be much sicker if you drink here. There’s a stream further up. You’ll be able to find it.”

“Bone-chewer, keep to your own trail! I’ll decide for myself where to drink.” She glared at him with all the hate she could muster. She narrowed her eyes, feeling them go to slits. “Why do you care if I get sick? You took my prey; you want me to starve. Go away.” Ratha rolled away from him onto her side and curled into a ball. She heard his footsteps squelch on the marshy ground. They stopped. She cracked one eyelid, hoping the silence meant he was gone. No. He was still there, sitting a short distance away, watching her with yellow eyes. Yellow eyes, in a face that seemed strangely familiar, as if it echoed the face of another.

Ratha groaned and slid her chin across her forepaws, as she looked up at him. “Bone-chewer, why do you stay?”

“I’m full. I have nothing else to do. And you are interesting. I’ve never seen such a poor hunter in my life.”

“Leave me alone!” Ratha snarled weakly. “Why should I hunt if you take everything I catch?”

“You flatter yourself, clan cat. You have yet to catch anything.”

Ratha jerked her head up and glared at him again, wishing she had the strength left to tear him into small scraps. Her head shook with anger and weariness. “I caught you, raider. Let your ear and your broken fang remind you of that.”

She let her head sink back to her forepaws. The weeds rustled and she felt feet pad beside her. She stiffened. “What are you going to do now, raider? Kill and eat me?”

From somewhere above her head came a low rumble that sounded more amused than threatening. “No. There’s not enough flesh on you to be worth the killing.” He cocked his head at her. His coat gleamed with red-gold highlights in the hazy afternoon sun. “Despite what you may have been told about the Un-Named, we do not eat our own kind.”

Ratha hitched herself away from him, but his tail still brushed her ribs as he curled it across his feet. “You are not of my kind, bone-chewer,” she growled.

“There are differences,” he agreed. “I am not nearly as foolish. Now that we know each other, clan cat, shall I show you where the stream lies?”

Ratha only grunted and ignored him. Her thirst was fading, along with everything else. All she wanted now was sleep. There was something still stirring in her mind, though, that would not leave her alone.

I fought the raider in the meadow but that’s not why I know his smell and his face. It is as if I know him, and yet I don’t. Why?

She opened one eye and peered past the brush of her tail at him. Her eyelid felt heavy. She let it fall shut, blotting him out. His smell grew stronger and teeth seized her ruff. Ratha’s eyes flew open as he hauled her up off the mud, shoving her forepaws underneath her with one swipe of his foot. When he let her go, she sagged, her legs buckled and she flopped down.

He backed off and gave her a puzzled look, faintly tinged with sadness. “Are you of the clan so weak that you can only lie down and die when you meet hardship? I thought you had more spirit when you mauled me in the meadow.”

“Fine words from one who stole my prey!” Ratha hissed bitterly. “Had I eaten, I could follow you.”

He circled her, his tail twitching.

“Too late, bone-chewer,” she said hoarsely.

“Lie with your whiskers in the mud, then, clan cat” he said scornfully, his own bristling. Ratha closed her eyes and buried her nose in her forepaws. When she opened them again he was gone. She listened to the wind threshing the swamp grass and the cries of birds high overhead.

Who is he? she wondered, but then, as she drifted off to sleep, decided that now it really didn’t matter.

A smell woke her. Musky, rich, intoxicating, the odor filled her nose and her whole hungry being. It lured her back out of a sleep that was letting her slip closer and closer to death. She plunged her fangs into the furry body lying beside her. Not until she felt the warm flesh between her jaws did she realize she was awake. She sank her teeth in to their full depth but she was too weak to manage a shearing bite. She squeezed the meat between her jaws, sucking the salty juices. Her stomach jumped in astonishment and began to churn greedily.

Where the kill had come from, she didn’t know and didn’t care. It was here, it was hers, and to her hunger-sharpened senses, it was the best thing she had ever tasted. Once she gained enough strength to start eating in earnest, she started at the head and had devoured half of the carcass when a now-familiar smell and familiar step made her freeze.

She hunched over the prey. She began to eat rapidly, with both paws guarding the carcass, gulping chunks that still had fur attached. He sat down and watched her. She shot wary glances at him between bites.

“Eat slowly, clan cat, or it will do you no good.”

Ratha’s ears started to flatten, but they pricked up again as she thought of something.

The prey ... she hadn’t caught it. Had be? She stopped eating, turned the remains over with her paw and inspected it for the marks that might be left by a broken fang.

“Don’t bother, clan cat. I caught it,” he said.

Ratha raised her chin and eyed him. “Why?”

“For the same reason I pushed you away from that tainted water.”

Ratha lowered her head and slowly finished her meal. “The Un-Named do not give help without a reason. What is it you wish from me, raider?”

“The Un-Named do not speak either, according to the great wisdom of the clan,” he replied with a grin, but the yellow in his eyes had turned slightly bitter. Ratha pushed herself up on her forepaws and stretched, feeling the fullness of her belly and the returning strength in her legs. The fur on her face felt stiff and tight, caked with filth and dried fluid. With mild dismay, she realized she was mud-spattered from nose to tail. She licked one paw and began to scrub at her muzzle. After several strokes she stopped, dissatisfied with the results.

“You, clan cat, are a mess.” The young male stood up and arched his back, showing off sleek copper-gold fur. “I’ll show you the stream. You’ll never get all that mud off with your tongue.” With a wave of his tail, he trotted off. Ratha heaved herself to her feet, growling irritably.

The stranger led the way along a narrow trail, marked with deer and dappleback prints, edged with moss and mushrooms. Gradually the marshy ground gave way to a drier track, leading them uphill to a brook emerging from a cleft in the grassy slope. Ratha went to the spring and lapped the upwelling water. It was cold and clear, and she dipped her chin in and drank until her teeth ached. Once her thirst was slaked, she let the water flow over her tongue, from one side of her jaw to the other, cooling and rinsing her mouth until the last taste of sickness was gone.

She waded downstream and crouched in the shallows, letting the bubbling current ruffle her fur backwards. With chattering teeth she leaped out of the brook, wriggled on the grass and shook herself dry, sending a small shower in her companion’s direction. He sneezed and trotted uphill beyond range. There he sat, on the slope above the spring, something unreadable in his eyes.

Ratha turned her tail to him and walked away.

“Where do you go now, clan cat?” His voice came from behind her. She stopped, lowered her tail and looked back at him. It was nearly sunset and the slanting red light set fire to his coat as he glanced over his shoulder at the sinking sun. Ratha caught herself thinking that he was very beautiful and immediately squelched the idea.

“To hunt, raider. My belly is full now and I am strong.”

“What do you know of hunting?” he asked scornfully. “You’ve never hunted anything except grasshoppers and wayward herdbeasts.”

“I know how to stalk and pounce. I know how to wait until the prey has left its hole and then fill the hole with dirt. I almost got that shrew.”

“No matter how good you were at stalking and pouncing, and no matter how clever you were, you would never have caught that shrew. And you won’t catch any other animals either,” he said.

Ratha dug her foreclaws into the ground. He was still waiting, still wearing that maddening grin that showed his broken fang. She wanted to knock out the other one. “All right, raider,” she said, taking a breath, “tell me why I won’t catch anything.”

“You don’t know your prey. That striped shrew. What do you know about it?” he asked.

“I know what it smells like. I know what its prints look like. I know where it hides and what it eats. Isn’t that enough?”

“You didn’t know the one thing that might have saved you from eating mud instead of shrew. That shrew has many holes and they are all connected.”

Ratha eyed him suspiciously. “What would a shrew want with so many holes? It can’t sleep in more than one at a time. I would only want one. Everyone at home has only a single den. Some have to share.”

The stranger sighed. “You are thinking like the clan herder you are. To catch a shrew, you must think as the shrew does.”

Ratha wrinkled her nose. “Shrews can’t think, can they? Not as we do.”

“Oh yes, they can. They can be quite clever, as you will learn.”

“But they don’t have names ... or clans either,” Ratha spluttered.

“Must all who are clever have names and clans?” he asked, looking at her intently.

Ratha felt uncomfortable under his stare. “No,” she said at last. “You have neither clan nor name, but you are quite clever. And that shrew was also clever.”

“Not all animals have tunnels,” he said, continuing. “Many hide in other ways. What you know now may let you hunt marsh shrews, but you’ll get pretty sick of them.” Ratha flicked her tail irritably as he paused. “There’s a lot you need to know,” he said and added, as if to himself, “I almost think I should teach you.”

“You?” Ratha backed away, her tail fluffed. “I’d rather go back to the clan than have you as a teacher!”

He stared at her intently. His eyes held hers. He walked up to her and thrust his muzzle into her face. She tried to break the intensity of his stare, but could not and sat down nervously on her tail. “You can’t go back to them, clan cat,” he said. She sensed, as she looked past her reflection into the yellow depths of his eyes, that he knew much more about her than one of the Un-Named should know.

“You can’t go back,” he said again, softly. “And you can’t live here without my help. No other among the Un-Named will aid you.” He withdrew his face and she pulled her tail out from underneath herself and glared at him defiantly.

“I can find another clan. They’ll take me in.”

“There are no clans among our kind.”

Ratha started to spit back a reply, but she knew deep inside that he spoke truth. However far she might wander, she would never find another herding community such as the one she had left. It had never been a real hope and it died as soon as it arose.

“Why? Why will you do this for me?” she demanded, knowing that she had no choice but to take his help if he offered to give it.

“Because of what I am, I suppose.”

“You?” Ratha’s spirit came back. “You are a raider and a bone-chewer!”

He ducked his head and grinned ruefully. “I am indeed, clan cat. But you may find I am something more.”

“Hah! If you are the only one of all the other bone-chewers who will help me, why did I meet you instead of one of the others?”

“You didn’t find me,” he said, yawning. “I found you.”

“Found me?” Ratha’s jaw dropped. “You were looking for me? Why would an Un-Named bone-chewer be looking for me?”

“Perhaps to teach you some manners, young one,” he snapped, giving her an irritated cuff. Ratha jumped away and shook her head. Her eyes narrowed.

“I don’t think you are an Un-Named One. You are far too clever. You remind me of someone in the clan, although I can’t remember who.” Ratha felt the fur rise on her nape. “Did Meoran send you to find me and kill me?”

“If he had, the marsh birds would be picking at your dirty pelt. No, clan cat. I bear no name and I obey no one.” He grinned again. “Except my stomach.”

“That I can believe,” she said sourly, letting her prickling fur soften. He must be telling the truth, she thought. Meoran would never have anyone like him in the clan.

“Time to hunt, clan cat,” he said, turning his face toward her. “We’ll start with marsh-shrews. Later I’ll teach you how to catch bush-tails and diggers. Are you ready?”

“Yes ...” she said, and her voice trailed off.

“Mmm?” He crooked his tail.

“What do I call you?”

“Don’t call me anything. I don’t have a name.”

“I have to call you something if I’m going to talk to you. If you can call me ‘clan cat,’ I should be able to call you something,” she said stubbornly.

He flicked an ear. “Very well.”

She hesitated. “What do you want me to call you?”

“You want the name. You choose it.”

“Arrr, it isn’t really a name,” Ratha haid doubtfully. “Only the clan can give someone a real name, such as mine.”

He looked irritated. “All that means is that it was bestowed upon you by some fat whelp that everybody bares their throat to. For no good reason I can think of,” he added scornfully.

Ratha began sorting through possibilities. None of the names of those in the clan fitted him at all. The only one that even came close was one she had invented. The more she thought about it, the more she liked it. And there was nothing wrong with it. After all, she thought, it isn’t a real name.

She saw him peer into her face and knew he had caught the glint in her eye. “I’ve got one,” she said.

He drew back his whiskers. “I should have known better. Very well, clan cat. What am I to be called?”

“Bonechewer!”

“Arrr,” he grumbled. “I suppose it suits me. Very well then. Follow me to the marsh and I’ll see if I can make you into a hunter.”

Ratha followed him, cheered by her minor revenge. Bonechewer. It really wasn’t bad.

* * *

That evening he and Ratha caught more striped shrews and she managed to trap and kill one by herself. By nightfall, she was full and drowsy. She wanted a den where she could sleep. Instead, Bonechewer took her to a moonlit glade beneath the slope where the spring ran and told her to hide amid the ferns.

“We aren’t going to hunt,” he said in response to her grumble that she was stuffed right down to her tail. “Just stay here with me and watch.”

He crouched beside her and they watched as the glade began to stir. Ratha had run trails and herded animals by night, but she had never stopped to notice how the darkness brought so many small creatures out of their dens. Even though Ratha’s hunger was sated, she quivered with excitement and felt Bonechewer’s paw descend on her to keep her from wreaking havoc among the night denizens of the meadow.

Tiny feet pattered back and forth through the underbrush, rustling last season’s brittle leaves. Bonechewer listened and told her what creatures made which sounds. Some of them she knew, from her nights of guarding clan herds. Most, however, she didn’t and had difficulty telling one animal’s noises from those of another. Her ears were tuned to the calls of lost or straying herdbeasts or to the sounds of raiders lying in wait in the brush.

She started when a little blacksnake emerged from its hole almost between her forepaws and slithered away, its scales edged with silver. She watched it crawl through the grass and onto a rock still warm with the day’s heat. As the blacksnake coiled itself with a soft scrape of scales, an animal with dingy gray fur, a pointed nose and a long bare tail ambled by the base of the rock. The blacksnake raised its head, tongue darting and scanned the bare-tail as it went by. The snake sank down again, loosening its coils. Ratha wrinkled her nose at the bare-tail’s rank odor and agreed with the blacksnake that there were better meals to be had. A second bare-tail followed the first, the tail arched over its back. Several gray bundles dangled upside down by their own small tails wrapped around the larger one. The smelly bare-tail, Bonechewer said, often carried her young that way.

Bonechewer didn’t take Ratha back to his den until sunrise and she slept until midday. Again they hunted marsh-shrews, and when both had killed and eaten their fill, he took Ratha to another place where she could hide and watch. They spent several evenings hidden together. Each evening Bonechewer showed her the creatures that made up his hunter’s world. He told her about their lives and habits and drilled her until she knew them. Not until she understood every quirk and characteristic of a prey animal did he let her hunt. She complained bitterly at first, for her instincts told her to pounce.

As she learned more, however, she complained less, for she began to see the wisdom in his method. Once she turned seriously to the task, she became so absorbed that it threatened to distract her from the business of filling her belly. Bonechewer varied things by showing her other hunters who shared his territory. One of Bonechewer’s neighbors was the flightless bird that had attacked her on her first hunt. From afar, she watched it stride across the marshland, the furred carcass of its catch dangling from its hooked beak. That limp pelt could have easily been hers, she thought, shivering. When the great head lifted and the lizard eyes stared her way as if they knew exactly where she was hiding, Ratha broke cover and fled, ending the lesson for that day.

Once Bonechewer took her out of the marsh along the lakeshore and turned inland until they came to a small plateau dotted with trees and wildflowers.

There they saw a huge beast with the body, neck and head of an oversized dappleback. The creature’s forelegs were longer than the rear legs, its back sloping down from shoulders to withers. Shaggy orange fur covered back and belly. Instead of hoofed toes, the feet bore sickle claws that forced the creature to walk with an awkward shuffle. Ratha hid among the flowers and watched the shambleclaw as it reared up to strip tender leaves from the trees or grub for roots with its claws.

It seemed to Ratha, as she followed Bonechewer on hunts and expeditions, that she was seeing every kind of animal there was. How narrow the herder’s life seemed to her now as she began to relish the variety of forms and the variety of flavors. Bonechewer also taught her to fish in the lake and she found that the finny denizens of the water were as varied as creatures on land and sometimes even queerer. He showed her a fish with four eyes, two above and two below the surface of the water. He said it tasted dreadful, but was fun to watch on lazy summer afternoons as it shot down dragonflies with a stream of water and gobbled the drowning insects as they thrashed on the surface.

The only creature they had not seen was another of their own kind. Bonechewer prowled his territory alone except for her and they saw no other Un-Named hunters. To Ratha, accustomed to eating or working alongside many others, this solitary existence seemed strange and unsettling.

They were stalking meadow mice on the hillside below the spring when Ratha asked him why he never saw the other raiders.

“They don’t come here,” he answered, after finishing his kill.

“Why?”

“Why should they? They have their territories and I have mine. They stay on their ground and I stay on mine. I like it that way.”

“If you like hunting alone,” Ratha asked, puzzled, “why did you take me in?”

He grinned at her and she grinned back at the sight of the limp tail still hanging out of his mouth. He swallowed and the tail disappeared. “You’re different,” he said.

“I’m Named, if that’s what you mean,” Ratha answered tartly, not quite sure what she was getting into.

“Ptahh! That silly custom? It means nothing to me.”

“If my name doesn’t make me different, then what does?” Ratha demanded.

“You’ll see, clan cat.” He turned his head sharply and pointed with a paw. “There’s a fat one over there.” Ratha followed his gaze and saw the grass rippling. She wanted an answer to her question more than she wanted another mouse, but she sensed she wouldn’t get it. At least not from him. She put away her annoyance and began to stalk, but she couldn’t help wondering what he meant.