The Named: The Complete Series

Chapter Fifteen

Each day that passed without a fight breaking out was a victory for Ratha. Although she kept a tight watch on New Singer and his all-male group, she saw no indication that the fledgling tribe wanted conflict with the Named. This was the fifth day after she had given the alert and she thought she might send Thistle-chaser and an escort to attempt to speak with New Singer.

This may all be worry over nothing, she told herself as she lay in a half-sphinx on the sunning rock, watching the morning sun rise. What is happening between True-of-voice’s tribe and New Singer’s renegades probably has nothing to do with us.

Ratharee stirred in the warm fur on Ratha’s belly.

“What do you think?” she asked her treeling. The creature gave what Ratha thought was an enormous yawn for a small animal. “Have I managed to walk this tricky path, with True-of-voice on one side and New Singer on the other? Have I helped others without harming the clan?”

It was beginning to appear that she had. The day looked beautiful, promising. Warmth began to bathe the sunning rock as Ratharee jumped up to Ratha’s nape, settled herself, and began grooming.

“Have you managed to convince your friend and second in command that you’re getting mushy-brained, talking to a treeling? Yes, you have.”

Ratha snapped her head around. Fessran was sauntering toward the base of the sunning rock.

“Ho, singe-whiskers,” Ratha teased back. “How stand things on clan ground?”

“Well, my leader, things stand the same as they did yesterday and the day before and the day before that. Not a move or a peep out of any of our strange neighbors. To rudely interrupt the … ahh … conversation you were having with your treeling, I’d say yes, you have once again managed to tiptoe a path through the crocodiles.”

Ratha couldn’t help a cat-grin. Fessran was certainly in good form this morning.

“Well, I’m looking forward to getting a bit more sleep when you relax things a bit,” said the Firekeeper, in response to Ratha’s query.

“I’ll ease off after I’ve settled things with New Singer. Thistle and I should be able to go over there tomorrow and talk to them. We’ll also recover Quiet Hunter. Then I’ll approach True-of-voice.”

“In the mean time, Thakur, Cherfan, you, and I will keep on as we have. I assume that guarding the Red Tongue and the herdbeasts are the most important tasks?”

“They are,” Ratha replied, trying to inject a note of somberness into her voice, but the brilliant, playful freshness of the day made it difficult. And she was feeling relieved and rewarded at having made it over another barrier in the path of the Named… .

After she had patrolled, she would reward herself with a good meal, a thorough grooming, and a nap in the shade of the old live oak.

“I think that New Singer’s group is already falling apart,” Fessran observed. “They’re scattering; he doesn’t have as many as he did at first.”

“All right, but keep a close watch,” Ratha said.

With an elegant wave of her ash-streaked tail, Fessran pivoted around to leave.

“Just wait until you get a treeling,” Ratha yowled.

“I don’t need one of those flea-pickers,” Fessran retorted. “Unlike some people, I don’t have any fleas.”

Ratha watched her friend stalk off. If Fessran was any indication, things were getting back to normal.

I hope the only problem I have after this is what to do about Bundi and Mishanti’s rumbler-beasts.

She did her patrol as she intended, checking in with everyone and hearing the latest reports. Fessran was right. New Singer’s band appeared to be fragmenting, its members dispersing, perhaps returning to their parent tribe. It was possible that the entire situation would resolve itself.

Ratha was glad she had used patience. She felt she was still young, for a clan leader, but growing more mature. She didn’t have to pounce on things so quickly; she could wait, watch, and think before choosing the best move.

Ratha lifted her head and felt the sun warm her face. A feeling of contentment washed through her, replacing the worry. She had done her best for all, even though it was difficult. No one, not even Thistle, could ask any more of her. She’d done it without harming the clan. That was the most important thing.

After a meal and a good pelt-licking session, she told Fessran where she would be and what to do if something did happen. Then, with Ratharee on her shoulder, she ambled over to the old oak and settled in the leaves from last season, smelling their aroma and letting herself drift luxuriously into a well-deserved snooze.

“Ratha!”

“Clan leader!”

“We’re being attacked!”

The calls came in two voices, startling Ratha. Feeling Ratharee grabbing her nape, she jerked her head up. She blinked. A moment ago she had been in a contented doze; now, if she believed what she was hearing …

No, it couldn’t be. Someone was trying a trick, or some half-grown litterling had gotten scared. The scents and voices told her that the pair was the yearling Mishanti and his older friend Bundi, sharpening her suspicions.

She felt Ratharee’s fingers tighten in her fur as she jumped up from the leaf litter. Yes, it was the terrible two again.

She eyed them both, the tip of her tail flicking irritably. “This is a bad time to try to fool me with …”

Her voice died. Both partners were shaking so hard they could barely stay on their feet. Their pupils had gone to slits, and their scent was acrid with fear.

“Not fooling,” quavered Mishanti, his faintly spotted fur bristling as Bundi panted, “Invaders, maybe hunters, maybe Un-Named. I don’t know.”

The sharp scent of Named blood made Ratha search beyond the two. Another form staggered toward her, head down and weaving. She had to look twice before she recognized Fessran’s older son Khushi under all the slashes and scratches. His usually amiable face looked exhausted and grim, and his ribs heaved. Bundi and Mishanti ran out and did their best to keep him on his feet as he lurched toward her.

“Surprised us,” he rasped. “Came from behind while we were scouting … ”

“Where’s your partner?” Ratha asked, her dry mouth making it hard to speak. She knew that Fessran had sent the scouts out in pairs.

“Dead. Throat-bite. I escaped and ran to warn you,

but . . . too late.”

“No, you did well, Khushi. Help him to the stream, you two,” Ratha told Bundi and Mishanti.

A commotion in the meadow drew her gaze. Fessran was galloping toward her, followed by other Firekeepers. She didn’t see Bira.

The flame-tenders had torches in their jaws. Fessran didn’t have a torch, but she looked furious.

A streak of ice shot down Ratha’s back, and her legs went stiff with shock. This was no cub-game.

She felt her treeling crouch low on her back, readying herself. Even Ratharee knew. The only one to be caught napping was the clan leader.

An attack? How could that be, a part of her argued, even while she ran to meet the Firekeepers. For several days she had been hearing, not just from Fessran but from others as well, that New Singer’s rogue band was coming apart—that they were in no shape to attack either the Red Tongue or clan herds.

Could it be True-of-voice again? How could he, after she had worked so hard to overcome the first mistakes? Yes, Thakur said that the Named didn’t understand how the hunter leader thought, but surely True-of-voice wouldn’t destroy the fragile alliance the clan had started to build.

Or was this a sudden assault from the previously quiet Un-Named? Ratha tumbled the possibilities around in her mind as her feet flashed over the meadow grass. She didn’t have time to curse herself for being taken by surprise. That would have to come later.

“It’s New Singer, may worms eat his eyes,” Fessran panted. “He fooled both of us and we believed him. Fooled us like we were cubs! I thought his gang of belly-biters was breaking up, but—”

“Fess, yowl about it later,” Ratha snapped. “Defend the fire-den and the guard flames. We can’t lose the Red Tongue.”

“It’s not just the Red Tongue they’re after,” Fessran snarled. “They’re attacking the herders. I saw Thakur, Mondir, and Cherfan leading the fight. I ran to get the Firekeepers.” She broke off, looking toward the stumbling figure between the two smaller ones. “My son Khushi. Thank the Red Tongue that he made it back.”

“The other scout didn’t,” Ratha said. “Go to Khushi. I’ll lead the Firekeepers.”

With a grateful look, Fessran sprang away after her wounded son. Ratha took her place and leaped into a gallop, hearing the thunder of feet and the rush of fire behind her. There was no torch between her teeth for she needed her jaws free to command.

Gathering her hindquarters beneath her, she sprinted ahead, ears straining for the sounds of battle, nose flaring for the scents of fighting. The tang of savage desperation on her tongue made Ratha stretch her run until she felt as though she were flying. Ratharee was huddled between her shoulders, arms halfway embracing her neck, legs straddling her spine, toes and fingers wound tightly in her fur.

Ratha knew she should stop and hide the treeling, but she couldn’t. The herders’ lives might depend on her speed and the Firekeepers’ torches.

Guard-fires, defending the perimeter of clan ground, still flamed and blazed high in the wind made by the Firekeepers’ passing.

Now she could hear the fight—the wailing snarls, the wild, spitting yowls and screeches. A tangle of low brush lay ahead with dust boiling up beyond it. In the haze, she saw backs heaving, twisting, heads striking like snakes, teeth reddened.

Not pausing in her stride, she cleared the brush, the Firekeepers following in a river of angry fur and fire. They spread out to either side of her, charging into the enemy, swinging their firebrands. As Ratha reared and pivoted, howling orders, she caught sight of New Singer’s white-and-dark gray pelt amid the swirling mass of the fight.

Ratha saw instantly that the herder Cherfan was New Singer’s main opponent. The rogue hunter leader leaped, snarling, at the big herder. Cherfan reared to meet him, teeth and claws flashing white against the heavy brown of his coat, black-tipped ruff bristling like a mane.

Even the sight of the Firekeepers attacking the enemy with their torches quailed against the majestic battle between New Singer and Cherfan.

Over the deep roaring, Ratha heard the smack of flesh as the two powerful males collided. This was no sparring or paw-boxing. On hind legs, they raked and bit one another in a devastating flurry, then fell apart only to rear and clash again. Fur and blood spray flew with the dust kicked up by combat.

Cherfan was heavier, New Singer quicker; but both moved at a speed that blurred them before Ratha‘s eyes. Claws and teeth struck, and she heard the rip of fur-covered skin. Now one seized the other’s throat but was hurled away to land with a thud, only to streak in again. Now one dealt the other a massive blow with a forepaw to send him dancing back, reeling, tail lashing for balance. Again and again the hunter and the herder threw themselves together, rebounding off one another with heavy grunts and quivering flesh.

Other fights had erupted around the two, but it was the two heavyweights that stole Ratha’s attention even as she howled orders to the Firekeepers.

She squashed her impulse to leap between the two huge males, knowing that she had no place in this fight. Either one could swat her aside like a cub.

With a thundering roar, Cherfan belted New Singer away from him so hard that the other cartwheeled over and fell on his side. The force of the big herder’s blow overbalanced him, too, and he went down on his chest. Both scrambled to their feet, shoulders hunched, facing one another, muzzles crumpled by snarls that showed the full length of teeth.

At this pause in the battle, another hunter tore away from his opponent to fling himself onto Cherfan’s hindquarters, clawing his way up the herder’s spine while New Singer tried again for Cherfan’s throat. Arching his back, twisting, clawing, Cherfan threw them both off. Another hunter dashed into the fight. Three opponents now covered Cherfan. Their strikes were swift, deadly. With another chilling shock, Ratha saw that the enemy wasn’t trying to get the clan males out of the way so that they could prey on the herd. Their intent was not to injure or to put to flight, but to drag down and kill.

With a roar almost as impressive as Cherfan’s, the herder Mondir launched himself at New Singer, banging him aside. Light brown fur joined the cloud of darker brown and brindled gray. Mondir was no older than Ratha, but he had the Named male’s heavier bones and more powerful shoulders, and he had matured to his full strength in the last season. He was nearly as formidable as Cherfan, had the lightning quickness of youth, and used it savagely against New Singer, tearing the hunter leader’s shoulder open.

More renegades came to their leader’s side and now the fight was fierce, fast, and wild, frantic with the hunters’ intent to kill.

Fessran arrived, seized a firebrand and plunged in, eyes and torch blazing. Behind her came a wet, pink-stained Khushi with Bundi and Mishanti. Though wounded, the young scout waded into the battle and added his weight and muscle to Cherfan’s defense.

Thakur, Ratha saw, was wise enough not to tangle directly with New Singer’s bigger rogues. After flashing in for several precise strikes at the hunters, he turned to rally the younger clan males who were being forced back by their opponents.

“Ashon, Bundi, Mishanti, to me!” Thakur called, rounding them up. “They aren’t trying to kill you, just drive you away!” Ratha saw him duck and dive, wrenching a scrabbling Mishanti away from a hopelessly larger opponent and tossing him to Bundi, who poked him up a tree.

Yowling through teeth clenched on the shaft of a flaming branch, Fessran swung her firebrand at the rogues. Other Firekeepers poked and thrust with their torches, and the stink of burned flesh and hair rose above the battle.

A wiry hunter male attacked Ratha, giving her a target for her rage. She launched into him with all four feet, kick-ripping his belly while she shredded the side of his neck and clawed at his eyes. With a wrench, he twisted away, and she rolled to her feet, panting.

Screeching in pain and terror, the rogues backed off, but they didn’t flee like the Un-Named raiders did. Something seemed to force them back into the fray, making them ignore their fright and their agony to attack again.

The flame-bearers’ attack faltered as eyes met eyes and the enemy’s ability to withstand the Red Tongue was passed quickly among the Named Firekeepers.

It was the song again. That thrice-cursed, mysterious, dung-eating song.

“Take down New Singer!” howled Thakur. “He’s their source. Take him down, and the others will run.”

Even before Thakur’s call, the renegade hunters had started to form a living wall about New Singer. As fast as Ratha, Fessran, and the Firekeepers ripped the defense open, it formed again, stronger and fiercer than ever.

Above the commotion, Ratha heard an agonized shriek, so raw that she didn’t recognize the voice. She whirled, thinking one of the Named had been mortally struck. Instead she saw Bira, not in the battle but on its edge. Her ears were back, her mouth was open, but the sound from her throat wasn’t a battle cry but a horrified scream.

“They’re killing the cubs!” Bira paused only long enough to gather breath and shriek again, even louder. “They’re attacking the nursery! They’re killing the cubs!”

Another shock went through Ratha, raising all the fur on her back. Fessran, wild-eyed, leaped out of the fray, landing beside Bira. Other female Firekeepers and herders followed.

“No!” Ratha howled, knowing her forces had been suddenly and disastrously split, but even as she called, her body was tensing to bound after Fessran. A threat to the clan’s young struck deep into her, as it did all the Named females.

“Go, clan leader,” Cherfan roared. “Mondir and I can hold them!”

Ratha searched frantically for Thakur, but found him already by her side. Together they bounded after Fessran.

Now bewilderment added itself to the feelings churning in Ratha’s chest and driving her legs. She thought the enemy would go for the Red Tongue and the herdbeasts, not the clan males and the cubs. So had Fessran and Thakur. What was happening? Why were things going so horribly wrong?

With the sounds of the first fight still in her ears, she raced beside Thakur to the cub nursery, dreading what she would see there. The weight of responsibility and the realization of her mistake caught in her throat, dragged at her chest. She dared not look back, even though she feared for Cherfan and the Named males who still fought around him.

She caught Thakur’s eye and gulped, “We have to save—”

“I know, yearling,” Thakur answered, his voice hissing and harsh from the effort of running.

Squalls rose along with the roar of torches from the open cleft of the nursery. The terrified shrilling of cubs stabbed at Ratha, the sight of a dead litterling dangling from a raider’s jaws pushed her close to madness.

She saw Bira and Thistle-chaser defending a scared huddle of cubs from more attacking hunter males while Fessran and the Firekeepers beat back others. Directly in front of Ratha, one of the renegades snatched up a litterling and started to shake it. The attacker had a dun coat and gold eyes just like …

“Quiet Hunter!”

Thistle-chaser’s screech nearly deafened Ratha, and another white surge of shock nearly knocked her down.

“Quiet Hunter, no!”

Thistle became a streak of tan, white, and rust, charging at Quiet Hunter. “No, don’t kill her!” Ratha heard her daughter cry and ached at the pain in that voice. To see her own intended mate not only in the renegade group but in the act of slaying a Named cub …

She saw her daughter’s face stiffen, the eyes harden, the paw draw back, and Thistle struck Quiet Hunter as hard as she could, snapping his head around and making him drop the cub. Crying and shivering, the litterling tried to crawl away, but Quiet Hunter lunged to seize the cub again. Held immobile by a growing numbness, Ratha watched as Thistle planted herself in the way.

“Have to kill me to get this cub.”

Gold eyes met sea-green ones. The gold was shifting, misty … dreaming … under the sway of the song. No longer controlled by True-of-voice but the renegade New Singer.

“Hear me?” Thistle hissed at Quiet Hunter. “Have to kill me, but know you won’t.”

Through the numbness Ratha felt another strike of fear. It tore at her vision, making it ragged. It froze her feet, even as she gathered them for a leap. The dun male’s face was starting to distort in a snarl, his paw rising, claws bared.

All else about Ratha faded: Thakur’s nearby fight with another hunter, Fessran’s sweeping torch, Bira’s frantic defense of the cubs huddled in the circle of her long tail … everything except Thistle and Quiet Hunter.

He can kill her. If the song commands, he will. The thought made Ratha’s hind legs extend, but her spring was shaken and clumsy, weakened by wounds she didn’t realize that she had. She had fallen short and scrabble as she might, she couldn’t reach her daughter quickly enough.

Thistle, run. Please run. I can’t bear to see you …

Somehow time had elongated, making events lag. Quiet Hunter’s paw was starting to move forward, with all of the power of his shoulder muscles behind it. The blow could cave in Thistle’s narrow chest, or tear it open.

She felt rather than saw Thakur tear loose from his opponent and start to spin around, but he, too, would be late.

As Quiet Hunter’s paw gathered speed, a small tan-and-rust leg thrust up against it. Thistle’s foreleg trembled with the strain, and Ratha thought the male would just sweep it aside, but his paw went still, his leg rigid.

Thistle pushed her nose so hard against Quiet Hunter’s that the fur on both noses wrinkled.

“Not a renegade. Don’t have to listen to the song. Come back to me, Quiet Hunter. Come back.”

The male’s eyes widened, and then slowly cleared. He was focusing, staring deep into Thistle’s eyes. Ratha felt a desperate hope that his paw would drop and a sweep of thankfulness when it finally did.

Quiet Hunter’s head rolled. He blinked. Then he looked down at the trembling cub and shuddered, closing his eyes. “What was this one … doing?”

“Shhh, you didn’t,” Thistle said. “Stopped you before …”

Now the dun male’s eyes went wide with horror. “This one … this one tried to kill a clan cub.”

“Song did it, not you. Here.” Thistle lifted the youngster and held the cub before Quiet Hunter’s eyes. “She’s not hurt badly.”

There was a thump behind the two as Thakur landed. Ratha knew that he’d sprung at Quiet Hunter but checked himself in midair.

Things snapped back to normal speed and Ratha’s view widened. Again the fight pressed in. Several renegades had noted Quiet Hunter’s recovery; eerily, their heads came up together, and they targeted him.

Thakur charged both, and then Ratha found her strength again and flew to his side. From the corner of her eye, she saw Bira take the cub from Thistle, then both Thistle and Quiet Hunter joined Bira’s defense of the cubs.

Then all was the confusion of fighting again, dust and fur and squalling litterlings, fluttering firebrands and panicked screams. Ratha sprang up, trying to see above the commotion to yowl commands at the female Firekeepers. The sound of deeper roars and the crown of fire on torches heartened her. Cherfan and the herders were coming, along with the male Firekeepers.

She saw Thakur bound through the fight to reach Cherfan and heard him yowl, “Did you get New Singer!”

“We beat off those renegades,” Cherfan panted, “but it wasn’t easy, even with the Firekeepers. We didn’t even get near New Singer—he’s still with that rat-eating bunch. I don’t know what he’ll do next.”

“If they want to keep their hides, they’ll run for home,” growled Mondir, behind Cherfan.

The enemy showed no sign of following Mondir’s advice. More hunter renegades spilled into the nursery. Ratha searched frantically for Bira and the cubs. She found them backed into a small hollow, aided by Drani, Thistle-chaser, Quiet Hunter, and a torch-wielding Fessran.

She jumped to Fessran’s side, grabbed a torch offered her by another Firekeeper and swung it in an angry arc, driving off a raider who had crept close enough to grab a cub by the leg. He flattened and spun around to flee, but then gave a strange jerk and flung himself back to try again, despite the fear in his eyes.

She knew she was witnessing the power of the song and those driven by it. She also knew the source was close by, and as she searched, she caught sight of New Singer’s dark-gray-striped pelt, now mottled with red. Thakur was right. To win this battle, the Named had to kill or capture New Singer. She passed her torch to Bira, freeing her jaws once again for command, telling Drani to soothe the cubs while Bira took up her place as torch-wielder. She also told Quiet Hunter and Thistle-chaser to stay behind the two flame-bearers and help Drani shield the cubs, the living treasure of the Named. Then she whirled and reared, roaring, “Clan males, Firekeepers, Cherfan, Thakur, and Mondir. To me!”