The Named: The Complete Series

Chapter Nineteen

Ratha awoke the next morning, half believing that the return of the treelings and her creature was a dream until she felt Ratharee curled up against her flank and the fire’s warmth on her face. This refuge seemed like home, a thought that brought mixed feelings. No, home was clan ground. Home was also Thistle-chaser, Fessran, Bira, Drani, and the others. Ratha was determined to free them.

First, she would get word to the captives that most of their cubs were safe. By using whisker patterns, she knew now that the Named had lost four litterlings. Fessran had five and two were killed. Bira and Drani had each lost one. Though the mothers would mourn their slain young, they would take heart to hear that most of the cubs were still alive, cared for by fathers. It would give the captives what they needed most—hope.

Ratha thought about sending one of the Named with that message, but dared not. Any male who approached New Singer’s stronghold would be killed. She was the only female left among the exiled Named. Thakur would argue that losing her would imperil them even more, both as a leader and a breeding-age female.

Did he really see the truth, or was he blinded by his feelings for her? Despite his words, she knew he could lead. Even if Cherfan became leader, Thakur would counsel and guide him. As for breeding, she knew she wanted only Thakur. Yes, she could accept another male and had, but somehow her body, shocked by what had happened to her first litter and her first mate, had never produced any more cubs. So she might not be as important in those ways. If she could help the captives and free them, she might be serving a greater good.

She knew that she and her friends were fast running out of time. By the feelings in her body, she sensed that she and the other Named females were coming into heat. It could not be denied or delayed.

Ratha knew the captives would be fighting the overwhelming urge to mate as well as the encroaching renegade males.

My friends and my daughter won’t be able to resist. Or if they do, they will be killed.

She knew that Fessran would certainly resist, turning into a spitting slashing fury. Bira, who had younger cubs, might not come into heat, but she would certainly be scared. In the commotion, a male might try to mount her. And Thistle-chaser … the first heat should be a time of joy, not … . Ratha buried her nose in her paws, unable to bear the thought.

I wish we were like the witness Un-Named or the dreaming hunters who are spared anticipation or dread.

Ratha knew she couldn’t choose anyone else for the task. She was the one who had to go.

She flattened her fur, holding in her scent. She didn’t want the males to know how close she was to being in season. They didn’t need the distraction. She didn’t either.

She surprised Thakur by agreeing to lead the next herdbeast roundup. The more animals they could secure, the better, since it would deprive New Singer’s renegades of easy prey and give the surviving cubs more food.

Leaving Khushi and Mishanti to guard the cubs, Ratha assembled the Named males and led them down the trail.

She kept her tail up and her step lively to convince everyone that she had recovered from the self-recrimination that had threatened to paralyze her. They, in turn, seemed to gain confidence as well.

“We’ve been sneaking around, taking strays,” she told the group when they stopped briefly for a drink at the stream beside the rocky trail. “This time we are retaking what is ours. We’re going for the herdbeasts in the meadow.”

The resulting yowling cheers were subdued but intense, to avoid alerting the enemy. Eyes shone and teeth flashed.

Ratha’s party found the edge of clan ground open. New Singer hadn’t set guards on the perimeter. This at once encouraged and dismayed her. It would make recovering the herdbeasts easier. At the same time, was New Singer’s carelessness an indication that the renegades were already distracted by the mating fever?

“I’m glad to see you feeling better,” said Thakur at her shoulder. Startled, Ratha skipped away. A rush of warmth ran through her, centering deep in her belly, making her head spin.

Not now. Please, not now.

She caught Thakur’s puzzled look and his tentative sniff, but knew she couldn’t stop to explain. She ran ahead, choosing a path where the wind blew her scent away from the clan males. She could just imagine the herdbeast rescue turning into a mating frenzy, the clan males suddenly turning on one another, fighting over her.

Thankfully the clan males had spotted the herdbeasts and the meadow. Only a few sentries watched the herdbeasts. Before the guards could even roar, Cherfan, Mondir, Thakur and the others charged in and overwhelmed them.

“Quick, before they alert New Singer,” Ratha hissed. Cherfan and Thakur surged to the front, leading the herders. Surrounding the animals, they nipped harshly at hocks and rumps to get the beasts moving. Hooves started to thunder, dirt spattered, grass flew. The mass of three-horns and dapplebacks tightened and began to flow out of the meadow. This was no usual roundup but a near stampede.

Thakur was at his best, dodging and darting with incredible speed to keep the animals at the edge from splintering away. Cherfan’s and Mondir’s strength and ferocity made the animals in the rear sprint past those in the front. Ratha helped Thakur in keeping the herd packed while yowling orders to the herders and keeping an eye out for New Singer’s minions.

The enemy came, charging out from the direction of the fire-den, but they were slow and late. Most of the herd had poured out of the meadow and was streaming away over the borders of clan ground, urged on by the herders. Cherfan and Mondir threw themselves at the renegades, a note of joy in their roars telling Ratha that they welcomed this chance to strike back.

Cherfan reared, belting down his attackers as if swatting half-grown cubs. He stunned them with body slams powerful enough to knock over a tree. Mondir landed on backs, raked shoulders, slashed flanks. Even Bundi kick-raked a bigger opponent, reddening the other’s belly.

Ratha, impressed by the power of the attack, thought for an instant that her forces could sweep onto the fire-den itself and retake the heart of their land.

No, there were too many raiders. Even as New Singer’s wounded fled from the fray, more raced to join them.

Fearing that the tail end of the escaping herd would be cut off, and the Named with it, she yelled to the fighting males to leave their opponents and help Thakur break off the end of the herd. She and the herders turned the animals across the path of the oncoming enemy while the main mass of animals disappeared in a swirl of dust.

New Singer and his gang were furious at having lost the animals and launched themselves at the clan males, but the Named had already sheltered themselves behind a wall of galloping three-horns, stripers, and dapplebacks.

Throwing their heads and arching their necks, the animals shattered the front of the renegade attack. Enemy squalls choked into silence as several renegades fell under trampling hooves.

Following the path made by the herdbeasts, the Named streaked through and ran after their animals. Seeing the results of turning the herd itself into a weapon, Ratha thought again of carrying the attack to the fire-den and rescuing the captives. If she could, she would spare herself the task of doing it alone. Weighing the chances of succeeding, she knew she didn’t have enough animals or enough herders to sustain such an attack.

For now, she thought, as she sprang into a gallop that carried her swiftly away from the raiders, it was enough to have rescued the herdbeasts.

“By the Red Tongue’s litterlings, that was fun!” cried a joyfully bloodied Mondir, pounding beside Cherfan. “Hope we can do it again, clan leader!”

She sped up, passing the heavier clan males, drawing abreast of Thakur. After making a wide arc away from the border of clan ground, she looked back, saw no signs of immediate pursuit, and ordered the herders to slow the animals.

She jogged to a stop. Thakur came to her, prancing with excitement and triumph.

“Did you see the look on their faces when we snatched the animals out of their claws?” he crowed.

“Take the herdbeasts to those trees and rest them. Then herd them to the grazing near our shelter,” Ratha said.

He cocked his head. “I thought you were leading, Ratha.”

She knew, even if he didn’t, that the brightness in his eyes was not just the exultation of winning back the herdbeasts. She was upwind of him, and he was catching more of her scent. She was definitely in heat. She could tell by the way her vision was starting to shimmer around the edges.

Again she sprang away. “I have something I need to do.”

“Ratha,” he began, taking a step toward her.

“No closer,” she said, her voice roughening. “Do as I told you. Tell the others I will meet them later.”

He knew what she was planning. She saw the look in his eyes and the question, What if you don’t come back?

“Help Cherfan lead the others,” she said softly, feeling an overwhelming desire to rub against him. Just a rub, but she knew what it would become. She leaped away, turning the rush of warmth into a surge of energy that lifted and carried her. A glance behind revealed Thakur talking to a puzzled Cherfan, and then moving the herd on.

Watching, she felt her throat tighten as if this was her last sight of them.

Her whiskers and ears sagged.

It might just be.

Fighting her sense of urgency, Ratha hid on the edge of clan ground and waited for the excitement to die down. Having lost the herdbeasts, New Singer would have to send his rogues out to hunt. The closest face-tails, of course, were the ones held by the Named. Thakur, however, had done what he could to cover the tuskers’ scents by mixing them in with the other herdbeasts, including Bundi and Mishanti’s rumbler-creatures. The rumblers’ sheer size would make any hunter think twice about approaching.

If I don’t return, Thakur will become clan leader, and he’ll be the best one the Named have ever had.

She could no longer spare thoughts for those she had just left behind. She would need all her skills of stealth to slip through New Singer’s guard and reach the fire-den.

Her knowledge of her home ground served her well, letting her choose paths unguarded by the renegades. For a while she used the forest, climbing and slinking along interweaving boughs so that she could run aloft from one tree to the next. Whenever she spotted any of the interlopers, she froze until they had passed by underneath.

She was about to leap an intervening gap from one bough to the next when the bushes rustled below. She checked and huddled, thinking that the disturbance was just another of the intruders. As she peered down through the leaves, a small rust-white-and-tan form emerged from cover, nose down to the ground, picking up fallen sticks beneath the tree.

Ratha bristled all over with excitement. Thistle-chaser! Unharmed and apparently alone. Had she managed to escape?

Ratha couldn’t help herself. She half dove, half fell headfirst down the tree, sliding with a crunch into the dead leaves below. Thistle, startled, dropped her twigs, half-reared and stared, her eyes wide. Her emotions fleeted through the shifting sea-green of her eyes: surprise, delight, but then fear. Fear? Ratha felt her own eyes widen.

“Go!” Thistle hissed, lunging at Ratha, sending her mother scrambling a short distance back up the tree. “Not alone, not free!”

Even before Thistle got all the words out, the bushes shook again, and three of the rogues pounced into position around her. One drew a paw back for a blow at Thistle. Ratha launched herself to intercept, her face pulling into a snarl.

“No, Mother!” Thistle shrieked as another of the males pulled her down by the hindquarters. “Not fight. They’ll take you. Run!”

Ratha scarcely heard her daughter’s cry or felt the blood welling from two claw-stripes down her shoulder. Red rage turned her into a whirling, spitting, slashing streak of claws and teeth. Blood and fur sprayed as the males went back on their haunches under the fury of her attack. At the corner of her blurred vision, Ratha saw Thistle-chaser struggling, biting the massive forelimbs that held her, fighting to wriggle free.

Ratha aimed her next bared-claw blow at her daughter’s captor, but before she could complete the strike, two of the rogue males body-slammed her off center on both sides, spinning her in midair and flipping her into the base of the tree. Aching and dizzy as she was, Ratha threw herself at them again, biting, raking, tearing. She wasn’t sure whose blood smeared her by the time the two males swatted her down and sat on her. It was small gratification to her to hear them panting. It was the only sound they had made during the attack.

Hoping that Thistle had somehow managed to escape, she craned her head around beneath the males’ paws and bellies, seeking her daughter. Another spurt of rage sent her into a desperate flurry when she saw Thistle hoisted high by her scruff by her captor, squalling and clawing air. She actually managed to lift one of the males, but they both squashed her down again.

As exhaustion drained her rage, Ratha found herself wondering if New Singer had been so devilishly clever as to use Thistle as bait to capture her. No, the scattered twigs on the ground told the true story. Thistle had been allowed out to gather wood for the fire, guarded by the three males. It was just chance that Ratha spotted her daughter and been drawn into the sudden trap.

She yowled and spat, screaming all the insults she could remember, perhaps even inventing a few. She included herself as a target for her abuse, for once again she had let her impulses rule her.

How could I have held back? a part of her cried. She is my cub, my own, my daughter.

The males were eerily patient, letting her howl until her throat was raw.

“All right,” she gasped, “you’re suffocating me. Let me up.”

With a last emphatic trounce, the two rogues got off Ratha. She climbed stiffly and shakily to her feet, feeling the sting of the crusted wounds on her shoulder and the pull of fur matted by dirt, leaf litter, and dried blood. Her ribs ached from the crushing weight of the two males and she thought one rib might be cracked.

As she stood, getting her breath back, her two assailants flanked her tightly on either side, giving her no chance to escape. Thistle’s tormentor dumped her back on her feet, releasing her scruff but holding her with his claws while his teeth seized the base of her tail. Ratha was terrified that the male would bite the tail right off, but instead he used his hold to control Thistle, clamping down each time she tried to struggle until the pain made her stop.

A stinging swat at the back of her hind legs made Ratha lurch ahead and the two rogues beside her forced her to keep staggering.

Behind Ratha, the one who had struck her pushed Thistle along, his grip on her tail forcing her to walk crabwise, and sometimes on just her front feet when he jerked her hindquarters up in the air.

“Don’t do that!” Ratha growled. “Her front leg can’t take it.”

Trying one more time, she jammed her elbow into the side of one escort, making him hiss sharply. In retaliation, he swung his hips hard against hers, threatening to break her pelvis.

She hung her head and let herself be shoved along, trying not to hear Thistle’s cries of protest as she was pushed and dragged.

Glancing to one side, Ratha saw that she was being taken to the fire-den. She might be a captive, but at least she had found her daughter and would soon be rejoining the other Named females.