The Named: The Complete Series

CHAPTER TEN

As the sun set many days later, the forest sent shadows creeping across the meadow. The shapes of trees elongated into talons, reaching out toward the herd and its guardians huddled together at the center.

Ratha lay hidden, along with others of the Un-Named. From the forest they watched and waited for night. The sun’s glow faded over the treetops and the light filtering through became weak and pale. Soon would come the order to attack.

She shifted, trying to move away from the bony flank that pressed too close to hers. She wrinkled her nose at the sour smell of dirty fur and decaying teeth. She glared at the gray-coat. The old mouth grinned, an ugly grin, lacking mirth or understanding. When the Un-Named left the gathering rock the gray had attached herself to Ratha, abandoning the young cub who had been her trail companion. No threats or cuffs could discourage her.

The aged one’s rheumy eyes glowed dimly with pleasure each time Ratha repressed a shudder or withdrew from her touch.

The sight and smell of her makes me miserable, Ratha thought. She knows it and she delights in it.

She turned away from the malicious old eyes and watched the herders prowling around their animals, but she could not ignore the gray, whose presence hung about her, turning the air stagnant and choking.

It isn’t age or dirt or rotting teeth that sickens me so, Ratha thought. There were aged, dirty ones in the clan. Old and smelly as they were, the wisdom in their eyes made me respect them. There is no wisdom in hers, and she has lived her life with this terrible emptiness. She knows only enough to taunt me for my fear of it.

In the meadow, a three-horn bawled. Ratha watched the clan herdfolk draw into a tighter circle about their animals. They knew the raid was coming.

Leaves brushed her nose as she peered out of the thicket. She was afraid to let her gaze linger on any one form for fear it would become someone she knew.

I am one of the Un-Named, she told herself fiercely. I am enemy.

But she could not help thinking about Fessran and Thakur … although it was not easy to think about him. She didn’t want to think about Bonechewer either. She had come with him as companion and equal. Now he was with the elite of the council while she was left among the lowest of the Un-Named, forbidden to reveal she was anything more than they. It was bitter meat for her, and it was worse to know her own foolishness had placed her here. She ground her teeth together, remembering those gold eyes and the mocking broken-fanged grin.

It would be easier to hate him, she thought, had she not heard the words he spoke in the council. What he said then was wise and right. And he believed it. He had thrown himself at the silver-coat because he believed it.

Maybe it is better to be like the Un-Named, she thought bitterly. Not to think, not to remember … would make it easier.

A hoarse scream cut through the dusk; the signal to attack. A young cub leader leaped out of the thicket. Ratha ran after him, followed by two dun-colored males and the ancient gray. Another fawn-colored female streaked by Ratha as the cub leader shouted things that were lost in the pounding of feet and the wild cries that came from every throat. Ratha found herself howling along with them and the savage joy of the pack swept her with it.

The Un-Named spilled from the forest into the meadow, rising like a great wave against the herders, who stood together in a tight determined circle about their beasts. Yet the raiders did not become an amorphous mass; instead they held together in their groups and struck at the weak points in the clan’s defenses.

Another pack led by a young silver-coat raced past Ratha’s group and clashed with the herders. It broke apart into individual fights. Out of the corner of her eye, Ratha saw old Srass rear up to meet the young silver-coat. The two went down in a writhing, slashing blur. The cub led his group through the herders’ broken line toward the three-horns, now unguarded. The animals wheeled and began to stampede across the meadow. Ratha could hear the herders shrieking orders back and forth to each other as the three-horns split apart from the dapplebacks and thundered across the grass. Both raiders and herders went down beneath those trampling feet, and the torn earth was stained with blood. Ratha, wild with the intoxication of the chase, launched herself after the biggest stag she could see. He was on the outside edge of the herd, galloping easily, his horns held high.

She forgot the Named, the clan or anything except the magnificent animal. It would take all her skill to bring this one down. This kill would show she was indeed a hunter. She sped after the three-horn stag. She dived in among the pounding legs, dodging, turning, barely escaping flashing hooves and tossing horns. She reached her quarry and cut him out of the herd, leaping up to nip at his flanks and withers. An ecstatic bound carried her right onto his back and she rode him for several wild seconds, her claws digging deep into the coarse fur. He bucked, throwing her off, but she landed running and the chase began again.

She ran the three-horn as she had never run any of the herdbeasts when she had served the clan. She ran him, reveling in her strength and her skill as a hunter and herder. She turned and twisted, countering every lunge and thrust, dancing around him, leading him in circles until at last, eyes rolling and exhausted, the stag began to slow and Ratha closed in for the kill.

She did not realize her skill had given her away until an angry cry rose from behind her.

“She is clan!” the voice bellowed. “A clan herder kills with the raiders! Tear her tail off! Trample her guts into the ground!”

Ratha looked back to see Srass chasing her, bleeding from the wounds the silver-coat had given him. She was young and still unwounded, but Srass’s rage lent him speed. Suddenly he was beside her flank and then at her shoulder. She heard his heavy panting and felt his breath behind her ears. Frightened now, she tried to pull ahead, but before she could gain any distance, his teeth locked in her ruff and the two rolled over and over in the grass.

Ratha flailed and kicked, gouging Srass’s belly as he snapped at her throat. She ripped off the rest of one ragged ear. He clawed her chest and gashed the inside of her foreleg. Then, abruptly, the fight ended. Ratha tumbled free. She leaped to her feet, completely bewildered. She shook her head and stared.

Srass was struggling beneath the two dun-colored raiders and the old gray. The silver-coat seized the old herder’s nape in his jaws. Srass tried to wrench free, but the four together overpowered him and at last he ceased fighting. He lifted his chin and bared his throat in submission. Ratha thought then that they would let him go, for he was thoroughly beaten. The silver-coat loosened his grip only to seize Srass again at the back of his head behind the ears. The old herder stiffened and fear dulled his eyes.

“Take the herdbeasts,” Ratha said. “Leave him. He isn’t worth the killing.” Her voice died in her throat as she saw that none of the four had moved away from Srass.

“He bared his throat to you. He will not fight again. Leave him!” Ratha said.

“I came to taste clan blood,” snarled the silver-coat between his teeth.

With a malicious glance at Ratha, the old gray seized the flesh of Srass’s flank and tore it open. The duns, both mute, showed their teeth at Ratha. They were going to kill, she thought with growing horror. Srass had bared his throat. All knew that sign, even the Un-Named. It was a law older than any other, and rarely disobeyed.

Ratha saw the muscles bunch in the silver’s cheeks.

“At least do him the honor of tearing out his throat!” she shrieked at them.

The silver-coat gave her one brief glance. His jaws sheared shut. Srass screamed and Ratha heard the hollow crunch of bone. The herder’s body convulsed, the spasming muscles pulling his limbs in ways they were not meant to go. The scream continued from Srass’s open mouth even after his head had been crushed. With a last shudder, the body fell limp and the terror-filled eyes went blank.

The silver-coat opened his jaws and Srass fell to the ground with a heavy thud. Blood seeped from his ruined head and neck.

“Is this how you kill?” Ratha faced the silver-coat. “You slay those of the clan as you kill prey. Ptahh!”

“To us they are prey,” the silver answered, licking his red-stained jaws. He narrowed his eyes at Ratha. “I heard this one cry out that you, female, are also of the clan even though you run with the Un-Named.” He left Srass and took a step toward her. “Your head would be easier to crush. Perhaps your feet had better take it away before my jaws open again.”

She spat, whirled around and galloped away from them. The night rang with howls and shrieks and the bawling of terrified animals. As she ran, Ratha could see the shapes of raiders dragging slain dapplebacks toward the trees. The moon had risen and the flattened grass showed black stains where the raiders had made their kills.

The sounds of fighting grew and faded as the battle raged back and forth across the meadow. The herders were losing, their circle shrinking as they bunched together to protect the remaining three-horns and dapplebacks.

Ratha stopped and licked the wound on her foreleg. It was starting to crust and stiffen, making her limp. She closed her eyes, seeing again Srass’s face as he died. He had been killed like a herdbeast and his eyes had rolled like a herdbeast’s when the silver-coat’s teeth crushed his skull. Ratha shuddered. None of the Named had died such a death until now. It seemed as though all of the laws that governed her kind, Un-Named or clan, were breaking. If one whose throat was bared could be killed like a herdbeast, then there were no laws and nothing made sense any more.

She knew that whatever was happening to her people, she was a part of it; however much she feared and hated the changes, she was helping to bring them about. Srass had died because he spotted a herder among the raiders. He had not come close enough to see her face or smell her odor, but he saw how she had run the three-horn and cut him out from the herd. Her skill and her recklessness betrayed her. Her mouth felt as bloody as the silver-coat’s, as if it had been her teeth that crushed the old herder’s skull.

No, she thought, trying to give herself some small comfort. Srass’s skull would have been too thick for my jaws. But she knew as she ran that she shared equally with the Un-Named in his death.

Again she stopped. The fighting was now distant. All she could see were raiders dragging thrashing animals across the grass, leaving black stains between their pawprints. They were still working in packs, as they had in the initial assault. One group looked familiar, and Ratha recognized the two dun-coats and the gray who had helped to kill Srass. The gray’s jaws were dark with blood. The old one raised her ugly head and stared at Ratha. The pack leader dropped the neck of the dappleback he was dragging. Ratha was suddenly afraid he might be the silver-coat, but she saw the face of the young cub who had been leading the group when the raid started. He stared at her over the body of his prey. He bounded over the animal and, before Ratha could react, clawed her across the face.

“The council is not pleased with me for failing to keep my pack together. I pass their displeasure on to you.” She fell back, shaking her head. Warm wetness seeped from the new cut on her muzzle and dripped onto her lower lip into her mouth. She was so relieved he wasn’t the silver-coat that the blow only startled her. She got up tasting the metallic tang of her own blood.

“There are more beasts to drag away,” the pack leader snarled. “The gray lags. Help her to carry her prey. Then you are to return with the others and bring the remaining kills.” He looked hard at Ratha. “If you leave the pack again, you will be killed.”

She lowered her head and walked toward the watery green eyes glinting in the dark above the indistinct bulk of the herdbeast. The gray’s smell washed over her again, surrounding her and making her feel even more of a prisoner. The old female growled and seized the beast’s neck. Ratha took the hock and followed the pull of her companion.

The packs dumped the kills in a moonlit clearing and were sent back to retrieve more. The rest of the night Ratha spent hauling the Un-Named kills from the meadow to the clearing deep in the forest. By the time the first sunlight filtered through the trees, Ratha’s teeth were aching, her neck was stiff and her pads sore. She grew to hate the taste of coarse oily fur and the limp weight of the kill in her jaws. She resented having to drag beasts that others had slain.

It was midmorning when the pack carried the last of the carcasses into the clearing. Ratha pried her teeth loose from a dappleback’s neck and let the horse’s head drop. She staggered into the shade beneath a gnarled pine and collapsed. To her disgust, the gray female came and sat beside her, but she was too tired to drive the old one away. With her head on her paws, smelling the pungent needles that littered the earth beneath the tree, Ratha watched the raiders gather to feast on their prizes. Some had already come and had begun eating when the first carcasses were dragged in. Now the rest, ravenous and still savage from the battle, swarmed over the kills, spitting and squabbling with each other over who was to get the choicest pieces. She smelled the rich flesh as the carcasses were torn open and the entrails eaten. The odor only disgusted her and destroyed what little appetite she had. After hauling the dead creatures all night, smelling and tasting them, she could hardly bear the idea of eating from them. She thought with longing of the stringy marsh-shrews she had caught on Bonechewer’s land.

A new group appeared among the gorging raiders and pushed aside a scruffy pack from a dappleback mare. These were the council leaders and the planners, Ratha realized, as she glanced at them, recognizing the black female and the old cripple she had seen in the cavern beneath the gathering rock. Among them, she saw Bonechewer.

The Un-Named council leaders began to eat. Ratha saw the black place a paw on the mare’s flank and ribs. The black’s shoulders hunched as she dived into the dappleback’s belly. All the others attacked the carcass with equal relish except for Bonechewer. He hung back until the crippled one had finished, then took his place. He ate then, but Ratha could see from his eyes that he had as little appetite as she. She remembered his words to the council in the cavern, and she knew he was disgusted by the reckless slaughter. The Un-Named could ill-afford waste, he had said, even in the midst of plenty.

She raised her head from her paws, hoping to catch his eye. Her heart beat in her throat, her feelings a violent mix of hope and anger. Once or twice he lifted his muzzle, still chewing, as if he sensed someone was watching. Each time Ratha longed to call out, but caution stilled her. And then he did raise his chin and stared at her over the mare’s flank. She leaped to her feet, panting in her excitement, but he looked away, as if ashamed. For a moment, she stood still. Then slowly she lay down again and rested her chin on her paws, staring at the dried needles tumbled together on the ground. When she looked up again, Bonechewer was gone.

For many days, the Un-Named stayed in the clearing, lazing in the pale winter sun and gorging themselves on their kills. Ratha, along with others of her pack, were posted as sentries to guard against attacks by the clan herders. None ever came, telling her that the clan was too weakened and dispirited to try for revenge.

She ate little and tried to stay far from the sounds of feasting. She felt odd sensations in her belly, vague aches, heaviness and strange rippling motions, as if something was moving inside her. She was also enlarged and her teats were tender. At first the feelings were mild and she hardly noticed. As the Un-Named alternately raided and feasted and the days grew colder, her pregnancy became obvious, earning her questioning looks from the others. This was not the season to bear cubs. If the Un-Named females were like the clan, they would mate in early spring and have their young in summer. She had done everything wrong, she thought miserably, as she stood in the rain watching for an attack that never came. She couldn’t even bear cubs at the right time of year. They would be born too soon, before she could get away from the Un-Named. And even if she did, hunting in winter would be poor. She would starve and her cubs would die.

Ratha took no part in the raids following the first one. She, along with the gray-coat, was held back to drag away beasts that others had killed. She spent many nights wrestling carcasses through the undergrowth, collapsing at dawn to watch the raiders feast until they were bloated. After each raid she saw Bonechewer eating with the council leaders as before. She caught him giving her anxious glances but this time it was she who turned away.

One rainy morning between raids, she stood guard near the edge of the meadow where the fighting had been. Her partner hissed, taking her mind from her troubles. Ratha tensed, driving her claws into the spongy ground. Had the clan reclaimed enough strength to attack? The gray lurched to her feet, growling as the bushes rustled several tail-lengths away. Her ears went back, making her look uglier than ever.

“Ho, ancient one,” came a voice from behind the bushes. “Still your noise. You know my smell.” A coppery head poked through, framed by wet leaves. It disappeared for a moment, then Bonechewer pushed his way through the undergrowth, carrying meat in his mouth.

“Not for you,” he said through his teeth as he pushed the slavering gray-coat aside. She whined and showed her teeth, but under his gaze, she backed off.

“There you are,” Bonechewer said, and without further words, he laid the meat down in front of Ratha. She stared at it dully, then at him.

“Eat. You need it. That young fool of a pack leader is letting you starve.”

She said nothing. She sniffed the aroma of the meat. It was fresh, taken from the latest kill. She still could not eat.

“Ratha,” he said, growing exasperated. “I bring you something better than the rotten leavings you pick from old bones, yet you eat nothing and stare at me like that witless gray-coat. Have you forgotten how to speak?”

For a moment, she stared at him, able to answer only with her eyes. She had not spoken for so long that the words came slowly. His words shocked her and her own awkwardness frightened her. She fought down panic; the fear that she, in pretending to be mute and stupid, had actually become so. It lasted only an instant; then the words came.

“You said I was to be among the lowest of the Un-Named,” she said, her voice hoarse from disuse.

“Even the lowest should have enough to eat,” Bonechewer answered. He nudged her. “Every rib shows. If you get any thinner, you’ll lose the cubs.”

Ratha flattened her ears. “So that is why you watch me and bring me meat. You care nothing for me; only for what I carry in my belly. Ptahh!”

“Does it matter why I am here?” Bonechewer snarled back. “I could leave you to your pack leader’s mercies; think about that.”

Ratha kicked mud on the meat and walked away. “Give it to the gray-coat.”

“I saved your ragged pelt, and believe me, it has cost me to do even that. Few on the council listen to me now, and the foolish killing goes on. I can do nothing about it, just as I can do nothing for you except bring you extra food.” Bonechewer pawed the meat. “Yes, I care about the cubs,” he said, his eyes seeming to glow even in daylight. “But I want you just as much. The others want you killed, and if you do anything that brings you to their attention, you will not live long and I may not either.”

Ratha lowered her muzzle and nosed the slab of flesh. As she took a first bite, she felt him gently licking her ears. Startled, she jumped back and stared at him in astonishment.

“All right,” he said. “Eat. I’ll leave you alone.”

Ratha devoured half of the meat, all her stomach could hold. As she ate, she could hear the gray-coat whining softly.

“If I eat it all, I’ll be sick,” she said to Bonechewer. “Take some to the gray. She works as hard as I do.”

“I thought you didn’t like her.”

“I don’t,” Ratha said, gaining back some of her spirit now that she had eaten. “I hate her, especially the look in her eyes. But you said that even the lowest should have enough to eat.”

Bonechewer grinned at her and, with a toss of his head, threw the rest of the morsel to the old gray. She caught it in midair and began demolishing it in noisy gulps.

“I will come back,” Bonechewer said, as he turned to go. “I’ll bring you food as often as I can. I wish I had come sooner; I hate to see you so thin.”

Ratha did not expect him to keep his word, but a day later, he appeared through the bushes with another piece of meat. This too, she shared with the gray, and the old one’s eyes widened in astonishment. Every few days he came, bringing something he had taken from the freshest kill. Ratha began to anticipate his visits, not only for the food, but for the conversation. To all the others, she remained dumb. They thought her witless and she encouraged them to think so, hoping to dull certain memories of her performance in the meadow during the first raid.

As the weather grew harsher, the Un-Named began to raid once more. Ratha expected to have no part of the fighting. Again, she and the others of her pack were made to carry the spoils from the meadow. Her job was easier this time, for the slain beasts were few and small. Her only contact with the fighting was through Bonechewer, when he brought her food. She also hungered for news of the clan and that, too, Bonechewer brought, although none of it was cheerful.

He told her that plans were being made for a final raid in which the Un-Named would drive the clan from their dens, slaughter them and take their land. Ratha listened in silence. There was nothing she could do to change the fate of her people. She could only look out for herself and try to survive along with her cubs. She sought refuge in the old anger. Why should she mourn for those who had made her renegade and outcast because they did not understand the new power she had brought them? Whatever death Meoran died he would have earned. The only ones who tried to defend her, she remembered, had been Thakur and Fessran. And even Thakur had turned betrayer. I will mourn for none of them except Fessran, she thought bitterly.

That evening, she watched the packs assemble for the last attack on the clan. Her group was among them, since all were needed to fight and none to drag away kills. The only carcasses this time would be those of the enemy. Even so, Ratha was held back from the fighting, along with others too old, too young or otherwise unsuitable. Her pregnancy did not make her awkward, and she suspected the real reason was distrust.

She lay with her chin on her paws, glancing from time to time at the guards who had been assigned to keep watch on her and her companions. The night was quiet except for a breeze rustling the dry leaves and a last lonely cricket chirping. Once in a while, faraway shrieks and cries broke the stillness, and Ratha lifted her head. She thought of Srass’s death in the first raid and shivered. That scene would be repeated again and again before dawn. The cries died out and she could hear only the wind and the cricket.

I hope Fessran escaped, she thought.

Toward dawn, she heard the raiders returning. They came, roaring their victory, and broke through the forest with a great crashing of branches. Many were wounded and some missing. Ratha lay and watched the Un-Named strut past in the dawn light. The clan, she guessed, had fought hard in its final battle.

An argument started between several of the pack leaders. Ratha ignored it at first, letting their angry words blend into the rest of the noise. Then she realized what the disputants were arguing about and she swivelled her ears to listen.

“What does it matter that a few of them still live?” asked the youngster who had led Ratha’s pack. “We have their dens and their herds.”

They walked beyond Ratha’s hearing, still snarling at each other. She went a few steps after them and nearly bumped into Bonechewer.

“Yarrr! Watch yourself. I hurt enough already,” he growled, dodging awkwardly to avoid her. He limped away, fresh blood oozing from his flank. His face was a nest of scratches. Both ears were torn.

“It is over,” he said flatly, looking at Ratha. He glanced at the boisterous raiders milling about. “They go to the dens. Come with me.”

The path they took across the meadow was overgrown. The bodies on both sides looked half-eaten. Some were not only slain: they looked half-eaten and the insects had not been there long enough to consume them. Ratha remembered the gray-coat stripping flesh from Srass’s flank even before he was dead. Numb as she was, she shuddered and shut her eyes, following Bonechewer by the sound of his footsteps and the grass brushing past his legs. The smell, however, she couldn’t shut out, and it was with her all the way along the path until they reached the clan dens.

Bodies had lain there too, for there were sticky stains at the entrances to many of the lairs. Ratha could see the trails in the mud where the remains had been dragged away. Had one of them been Fessran or Thakur? Or perhaps her father, Yaran, or her mother Narir? From each den came faint familiar odors, and for a moment, she was a cub again, romping by the lairs, seeing the faces framed in the entrances. One face showed a touch of annoyance for being wakened by her noise. Another’s eyes were indulgent, knowing she was only a cub and would learn soon enough. The memory left Ratha and she stared into the abandoned dens, empty except for the faint smell of those who had lived there.

Bonechewer walked back to her and together they wandered among the lairs, neither one saying anything. They watched the other Un-Named ones crawling in and out of the dens, claiming them, enlarging them and starting to dig new ones nearby. The clan’s territory was now theirs, and here they would stay for the rest of the winter. New faces grinned from entrance holes, and one new owner called out to Ratha and Bonechewer, “Find one for yourselves! These are fine lairs indeed; too fine to belong to clan filth.” The big silver-coat had taken possession of Meoran’s den. The lair Ratha knew as Fessran’s was now occupied by the young pack leader. She followed Bonechewer until he stopped at a small den in an earthen bank. He ducked and crawled inside. Ratha started to follow, then stopped. The smell wafting back to her was Bonechewer’s, yet it wasn’t. She sniffed the sill and sides of the hole, and she knew suddenly who the den had belonged to. Bonechewer, by accident or design, had found Thakur’s den. Bonechewer’s smell was oddly similar to the odor lingering on the sides of the lair.

Ratha backed away as if the smell had stung her nose. Her memories of Thakur were still too fresh, and the smell of him made them stronger.

“It isn’t large,” came Bonechewer’s voice from inside, “but it will hold the two of us. Come in and see.”

“No, I don’t like it,” Ratha snapped. “Find another.”

Bonechewer gave her a puzzled glance and crawled out of the den.

He led her to other dens, but each time she found a familiar smell and a face came up in her memory. However much she tried to wipe it away with hatred, the image persisted and seemed to haunt the cool earthen walls. She could escape it only by retreating outside into the sunshine. Only there could she stop trembling.

When Ratha had calmed herself, she wandered among the lairs, looking for Bonechewer. She spotted him standing near a den that lay apart from the rest. This lair had been deserted long before the coming of the Un-Named. Ratha remembered it being empty from her early cubhood.

She watched Bonechewer sniff the ruined entrance. He reached up and pawed more dirt down. The roof of the old den collapsed.

Ratha moved closer. What could he want with an old clan den? No one ever used it or went near it. Even cubs at play stayed away from it, not only because it was dark and crumbling, but because, the older cubs said, someone had been killed there. They claimed that the ground still smelled of old blood.

As Ratha thought about the abandoned lair, she remembered that she had once seen someone there, and with a shock, she recalled who it was.

Thakur. I saw Thakur there.

She dropped into the grass and crept downwind, trying not to disturb Bonechewer. He gazed at the old den with an expression Ratha had seen on another face, a face whose eyes were green instead of amber.

Then everything fell together and Ratha nearly jumped out of the grass. Now she knew. Reshara had birthed twin males, alike except for eye color.

Seek out old memories and bury them, Ratha thought as Bonechewer pawed more dirt into the lair. Is that the place where Reshara had her cubs?

She scuttled away so that Bonechewer would not see her. She stood up and shook the grass from her fur. Should she ask him? No. She had the truth now. Whether he would accept it or deny it made no difference.

Her pack leader found her and tried to put her in a lair with the gray and the two dun-coats, but Ratha escaped him and clambered up a tree. She sat up in the crotch, watching those down below and decided she would rather sleep out in the open or in this tree than in the dens that had once belonged to her people.

Despite harassment and threats from the others, Ratha stayed in her tree, only coming down to eat or serve as a sentry, guarding the Un-Named settlement from attacks by any of the previous owners who had survived. Some of the clan had survived, but who they were and where they were, she had no idea.

The weather grew colder. The rain turned to sleet and frost covered the ground, turning the soil hard. One morning Ratha woke in her tree with a carpet of snow on her back. Below her, everything was a soft, unbroken white. She climbed down from her tree. Nearby was a three-horn carcass that had been almost stripped. She found it and uncovered it, eating the frozen rags of meat still remaining on the bones. She thought longingly of the entrails and haunch meat the Un-Named leaders had dragged into their dens. Perhaps Bonechewer would bring her something today.

She found the old gray who always stood sentry with her. She had grown used to the ancient one with her wordless muttering and malicious eyes. She knew too that the gray served only to guard her, for the old one would be nearly useless in an attack.

Once she had resented it bitterly; now she thought no more about it and even welcomed her companion’s company, dull and surly as it was. She watched the old female mark a tree, then went and left her own mark beside it. It was almost a ritual they performed before starting each watch. The gray then took up a position several tail-lengths from Ratha and turned her face outward. Ratha did the same.

Morning passed and then midday. The crisp winter breeze brought no new smells and the forest was muffled and silent. Shadows began creeping across the snow crust. Ratha decided Bonechewer was not going to come that day. She swallowed and ate some snow to ease the tight burning feeling in her throat. He hadn’t come for several days. Perhaps he had grown tired of her, her prickliness and her swelling belly. Perhaps he had picked someone else whose coat wasn’t rough and dull and whose temper was less unpredictable.

She told herself fiercely that her burning throat was hunger rather than hurt. She was dipping her muzzle into the snow again when she heard the gray snarl. The snarl turned into a whine and there was a soft thump.

Ratha turned. The gray-coat crouched, chewing on a chunk of flesh that spread red stains on the crystalline snow. Behind the gray, Bonechewer stood. Ratha waited for her morsel, but nothing appeared and Bonechewer’s jaws were empty. Pangs of disappointment cramped her stomach.

“Do I get nothing this time?” she asked.

“I have more meat for you,” he answered. “First, come with me. I want to show you something.”

“I can’t. I have to stand guard. And the old one will raise a fuss if I leave my place. My pack leader—”

“Will answer to me for the way he has treated you.” Bonechewer showed his teeth as he spoke. “And as for the old gray, she will think of nothing but her meat. Come.” He bounded away.

With a cautious glance toward her partner, Ratha padded after him. She saw that his pawprints were stained with tiny flecks of brown and red. She frowned and tried to catch up with him to ask why. She broke into a canter, showering snow over the bushes. Again she frowned, wrinkling her brows. He hadn’t been that far ahead, had he? His prints led over a white-covered rise and down the other side. On top of a little cliff, they ended and Ratha could see no other tracks. For a moment, she felt panic. Had he tricked her? Had he enticed her away from her guard duty only to leave her? If she was found away from her post, she would be fair game for anyone, for they would assume she was escaping.

“Bonechewer!” she called, her voice sharp and raw with fear.

“In here,” came his muffled reply from somewhere beneath her feet. She craned her neck over the bank and saw the top of his head and his ears above the snow. He twisted his head around and grinned at her.

“Where are you?” she demanded, wondering if he had buried himself in the snow just to tease her.

His head disappeared again. Ratha leaned over the bank, walking her forepaws down the steep slope. She was afraid to jump into the hollow beneath, fearing jagged rocks or stumps might be concealed under the snow. Without warning, her forepaws slipped and she plunged into an unexpected hole in the bank. She lost her footing completely, flipped and came down hard on her back. She lay in the snow, her head spinning, all four paws waving in the air. Bonechewer’s face appeared upside down, framed between her own front paws. “What are you trying to do? Cave it in?”

Ratha gazed up at him. “Cave what in?”

“The den.”

She rolled over slowly, shedding snow from her pelt. “Den? Is that what you wanted to show me?” She peered past him at the bank. Now she could see the low entrance and the dirt tracked onto the snow. “I don’t want any of those clan dens. I told you that.” She heaved herself to her feet.

“This isn’t a clan lair,” he answered.

“I don’t believe you. It’s too big for any other creature. Who dug it if the clan didn’t?”

“I did,” said Bonechewer.

“When?”

“I finished last night, before the snowfall. Just in time.”

“The ground is too hard for digging,” Ratha protested. Bonechewer gave her an exasperated look and turned over a front paw. The pad was torn and ragged; the toes raw and muddy. Ratha remembered the red and brown stains in his tracks. She walked past him and sniffed the hole. It smelled of freshly dug earth.

“You dug it,” she admitted grudgingly. “Why?”

“Why do you think?” he snapped.

“For your cubs.”

“Yarrr! They won’t be born here. You’re not that big yet. No. We’ll be back on my land when they come.”

“Then why did you dig it?”

“Because I know you don’t freeze in that tree because you want to. The smells in those other lairs raise old memories you would rather keep buried. I know, Ratha,” he said, his voice and his eyes growing soft. “I could not sleep in Reshara’s den either.”

She eyed him, wondering whether this was a challenge to reveal what she knew or an offer to let her share more of his life.

“You didn’t see your lair-father die,” she said slowly.

Bonechewer showed his teeth as he answered, “You grow bold, clan cat. Thakur must have told you, for it was he who saw Meoran’s work.” His eyes narrowed. “My brother herded his animals but let his tongue run free, it seems.”

Ratha felt the fur rise on her nape. “You would speak that way of him? Ptahh! I know the Un-Named do not honor those they slay, but I thought you were different.”

She thought he would strike her, but instead he licked a paw and said. “He is not slain. I did not see him among the clan dead.”

Ratha’s hope leaped ahead of her anger. “You didn’t? Could he have escaped?”

“I’m sure he escaped, but searching for him would be useless,” he added as Ratha started to open her mouth again. “If I know my brother, he will be far away by now.”

She stared down at the trampled snow around her feet. Far away, she thought. Perhaps it is best. I will think no more of Thakur.

She peered into the new den Bonechewer had dug for her, but she did not go in. She dipped her muzzle and gently nipped the top of his forepaw.

“What are you doing now?” he demanded.

“Lift your foot.”

He grunted and presented his paw to her, balancing on three legs. She began to lick the sore pads, cleaning mud from between his toes and from beneath his claws. The claws were blunted and dull, telling her that the soil had not yielded easily. No wonder he had been gone for several days! Once the paw was clean, she gave it several soothing licks and asked for the other.

After she finished, she crawled into the lair, turned around in the friendly darkness several times and lay with her forepaws hanging out the entrance.

“It is small, but well dug,” she said critically. She could see he was waiting for more of a reaction. When she said nothing else, his whiskers drooped slightly in disappointment.

She wiggled on her belly and lolled her tongue out at him. “I like it. I couldn’t have dug a better one.”

“Good!” His whiskers sprang back to their usual exuberant bristle. “I dug it far enough away from the others so no one will try to take it. And if they are so stupid as to try, they will answer to me.”

“Did you mean what you said about the cubs being born on your ground?” Ratha asked, growing serious again.

“Yes. As soon as the weather lets us travel, we’ll go. I have had enough of the Un-Named and seen enough of their foolishness. They no longer need me, nor I them. I will run with them no more. You and I, Ratha, will run together.”

He went with her back to her sentry post. There, they saw the old gray asleep in the snow, her chin on her paws.

“She’ll wake soon. I should go, Ratha,” he said, looking into her eyes. “This has been hard for you, strong as you are. I am sorry for the part I played. Things won’t get easier; not very soon. But I promise you that when this season ends, we will leave this place and never return.” Ratha looked around at the white-covered landscape.

“Snowfall has just started.” She sighed. “It will seem like a long time. At least I don’t have to sleep in a tree.”

“I know. The days may seem endless. When things get difficult, think of spring. And me,” he added, with a glint of mischief in his eyes.

She watched him trot away over the snow. The gray-coat was starting to wake up, but despite that, Ratha was happy.