The Named: The Complete Series

Chapter Five

In the late-afternoon shade of a thicket on the meadow’s edge, Ratha watched a young Firekeeper and his treeling tangle two cords made from twisted bark. Fessran sat nearby, still without her treeling.

“Tell me again why this would be useful,” Ratha said, trying to understand what Fessran’s student was to show her.

“Well, you know that we wrap wood with those lengths of twisted bark so that we can drag more of it. The trouble is that our wrapping often doesn’t hold, so the bundle comes apart, the sticks get scattered, and we have to gather them again. When this student showed me a way to prevent that, I decided you should know.”

Looking nervously at the clan leader, the young Firekeeper pawed apart the two cords, then began again.

“I don’t see any wood, and he’s using separate pieces,” Ratha objected.

“It’s easier to see what he’s doing without twigs in the way. And think of the separate bark-twists as the ends of a single one,” Fessran soothed.

Ratha gave up arguing and watched. She saw how well the youngster and his small companion worked together, as if each knew what the other needed and expected. He had been born after treelings had become a part of clan life, and the two had been raised together.

She listened to the young Firekeeper and his treeling as the two purred and chirred back and forth, exchanging gestures and nudges. The two strings of bark came together under treeling hands, but both wills worked the change.

Ratha asked them to stop so she could see how the cords wound about each other.

“Think of it this way, clan leader,” said the Firekeeper student. “Two snakes have crossed over each other, then the one underneath has looped back and crawled over the top one.”

Ratha stared hard. She was beginning to get the idea.

Do you see what he’s doing, Ratharee? she thought at her treeling, who perched on her head, peering down between her ears. I think I do. Perhaps we can try it together.

The student pulled his tangled cords apart. Ratharee didn’t need any nudging to scramble down from Ratha’s back to get her paws on this intriguing new toy, but she had no idea how to repeat what the Firekeeper’s treeling had done. With soft prrrups and nudges, Ratha directed Ratharee’s hands until the bark cords wound once about each other on the ground.

“Now the wrapped snakes rise up and face each other,” said the young Firekeeper, warming to his task, “and they wind again, but they must go in the opposite direction, or the tangle won’t hold. We pull both tails, and the snakes tighten about each other,” he said as his treeling completed tying the knot.

Ratha had the idea, but getting Ratharee to translate that understanding into action was difficult. She could wind the cords, but she wanted to continue wrapping them about each other until she’d turned them into a tangled mess. However much Ratha nudged, purred, and pawed, she couldn’t get past that.

“It isn’t easy, clan leader,” the student said apologetically. “I had to work a lot with my treeling before we could even do the first part.”

“Yes, and I thought you were just fooling around. I cuffed you for not attending to your duties, as you remember well.” Fessran grinned as her protégé looked slightly dismayed. She sniffed the treeling-made knot.

“All right, youngster,” Fessran announced to the young Firekeeper. “Enough for now. Go back to your work. Since the clan leader likes what you’ve done, you may continue it, but don’t use that as an excuse to be lazy. ”

Ratha called Ratharee to her and watched the student lope away with his ring-tailed companion on his back.

“He’s clever, isn’t he? Makes me feel old and stupid.” Fessran sighed.

“If you got yourself another treeling, my Firekeeper friend, you could do the same things.”

“No. If I can’t have Fessree, I’d prefer to burn my whiskers myself. And have smart young students to think up easier ways to bundle wood.”

“It may go beyond just wood bundling. You know that, since you’re encouraging him,” Ratha pointed out.

“It may, but nothing will ever top what a certain young herder did with the Red Tongue.” Fessran lay down beside Ratha, pawing her playfully.

“Flatterer! No one will ever accuse you of being old and stupid, not while you have a voice to tease me with. What power has the Red Tongue compared to Fessran’s?” With that, Ratha rolled over and play-wrestled with the Firekeeper, while Ratharee scolded both.

The sound of rustling brush and trotting feet brought both heads up. The sun flashed on a dark copper coat as Thakur jogged toward them and slowed to touch noses. With a rising purr, he rubbed past Ratha.

“It is good to smell you again, Thakur,” she said softly. “I’ve thought often of you.”

“And I have missed you, yearling. I have much to tell, but first let me rest.”

He touched noses with Fessran, then flopped himself down in the shade with Aree on his shoulder.

“I thought everyone would still be off yowling in the bushes,” he said, grinning at both of them. “Did you hear any good courting songs this year, Fess?”

The Firekeeper hissed scornfully. “None of this year’s crop of suitors has any voice at all.”

“So we make cubs by singing? That is something new among the Named.” Thakur lolled his tongue at her.

Hearing Thakur’s teasing was like old times, but it also served to remind Ratha that the delayed mating season had been short, with few of the Named taking part. Her own heat had lasted only a few days, then tapered off.

Thakur turned to Ratha. “Have the other scouts returned yet?”

“They’ve been coming in during the past few days. You’re the last. Everyone’s hungry. I’ll have a herdbeast culled.”

Thakur’s brow furrowed slightly. “The last cull took all the unfit animals. Have the herders choose carefully. We need good stock for breeding.”

Ratha felt slightly irritated at him for telling her something she knew well. But he was right; they had to be careful.

“Those who have journeyed far for the sake of their clan shall not sleep tonight with empty bellies,” she answered. “We will take what is needed, no more. Fessran, I’d like to speak with Thakur alone. Would you go and look to the culling?”

The Firekeeper sprang to her feet and padded away. Ratha turned to Thakur. “So then, herding teacher. What tales do you bring?”

He paused, then answered. “I have news, but first tell me what the other scouts have reported.”

Ratha wondered why he was being evasive, but she said only, “The scouts found many new beasts, but none appear to be as well suited to our needs as the creatures we now keep.”

“Oh?” Thakur cocked his head. “That surprises me.”

“Young Khushi came back with a wild tale about huge, shaggy creatures who bear tusks and wear their tails on their faces. Although he didn’t think we could kill the big ones, he thought we might take the young.”

“While their mothers’ backs are turned, of course,” said Thakur with a grin, for he knew how fiercely protective herdbeast mothers could be.

Ratha glanced at him and went on. “I may go with him to see these face-tails, since we might be able to use them. After all, my grandfather brought us three-horns, and everyone told him they were too dangerous. We just need to learn new ways of managing certain animals.”

“Did any other scout find something worthwhile?”

She sighed. “I suppose you didn’t find anything either, since you’re so eager to know if others did. There were some reports that I considered as possibilities. One scout said he saw many prong-horns. He also spoke of lowing beasts with widespread horns and great humps on their shoulders. He thought the prong-horns too small and fleet for our keeping and the others too ugly tempered. Again, I said I might go with him to judge the creatures for myself.” After a pause she noticed he wasn’t listening but seemed to be turned inward as if thinking hard. “What’s the matter, Thakur?”

Slowly he answered, “Ratha, I did find some creatures on the sea coast that we might herd. They are strange, but they can be managed, and I think I know how.”

Carefully he described the seamares, including their shore-dwelling existence. “These water-beasts are larger than our dapplebacks and will provide more meat per cull. They have tusks, but they are clumsy on land.”

“These creatures do sound strange, Thakur,” Ratha said doubtfully after he had finished. “Fat, tusked dapplebacks with short legs and duck’s feet? And you say they swim in this great, wave-filled lake you found? How would we keep one from just swimming away if it didn’t want to be our meat?”

“How do we keep our herdbeasts from running away when we cull them? There are ways, especially when we work together.”

Ratha stared at her paws. “I suppose. But it sounds as if herding these creatures would cause a big change in the way our herders do things. And it might not work out.”

With a sharpness in his voice that betrayed a flicker of injured pride, he said, “Clan leader, I know we can live off these seamares because I have seen another doing it.”

Ratha’s whiskers bristled and her pupils expanded. She turned her head to stare at him. He looked uncomfortable, as if he had said more than he meant to. “One of our kind?”

“I don’t know who she is,” Thakur confessed. “She may come from among the fringes of the Un-Named who have bred with the clan. I tried to speak with her, but she doesn’t talk. At least not in the way that we do.”

He went on to describe the way the young stranger had blended into the seamare colony.

“A small number of us may be able to do the same thing,” he said. “Perhaps by watching her, we can learn.”

“She actually herds these duck-footed dapplebacks?” Ratha asked. “Are you sure you didn’t just see what you wanted to see, herding teacher? She could have been an Un-Named one passing among them. From what you say, she doesn’t sound as though she has the light in her eyes or the wit to understand herding.”

“I watched her fight off a crested sea eagle from a duck-footed foal. I also saw her swimming with the creatures and sharing their food. Whatever she is doing has a purpose. What’s more, the fact she has done it amazes me even more because she’s lame.” He described how the odd stranger got about on three legs, keeping one forepaw tucked against her chest.

Ratha eyed him. “You seem to have been taken with this bit of an Un-Named one.”

“Do you think I missed the mating season so much that I would consider taking an outside female?” Thakur flashed his teeth at her in irritation. “You and I, of any among the Named, should know the dangers of that!”

“I don’t seem to have to worry,” Ratha said, her voice turning bitter. “I know I won’t have cubs this year, even though the courting fever took me as it did the others. Perhaps it is better that I don’t, since I have all of the clan to look after.” She laid her nose on her paw for a minute and stared ahead into nothing. “I’m sorry, herding teacher. I didn’t mean that. Words can hurt more than claws sometimes.”

“Well, in any case, I wasn’t tempted,” Thakur said, still ruffled. “She wasn’t in heat. She also stank of wave-wallower dung and fish.”

Ratha pensively licked the back of a forepaw. She glanced at him from the corner of one eye. “I will come with you to the lake-of-waves, and you can show me these animals. But you’ll have to wait for a few days. We’re driving the beasts to another river tomorrow.”

“I was afraid you’d have to do that soon,” Thakur said. “So the nearby one has gone dry.”

“And I don’t know how long this new one can supply us.”

“Well, another good reason for going to see those duck-footed dapplebacks is that I found a spring near their beach.” He went on to describe the gush of water from the face of a shaded cliff so well that Ratha became uncomfortably aware of her dry tongue. The drought was progressing so rapidly that a reliable water source had become more important than new game animals.

“I’m interested in the spring,” Ratha said. “I’m thinking of moving our animals permanently to another place until this drought ends.”

Abruptly Thakur asked, “Will you need me on the next drive? If you would allow me to get a head start on the journey back to the lake-of-waves, I could take another look at the spring. It would also help me learn more about the creatures there.”

“And the odd one who lives among them.”

Thakur rolled onto his chest, his front paws spread out before him. “She has much to teach me, I think. Suppose you lead the first drive until the herders can manage alone. Then you and Fessran join me on the shore.”

“By ourselves?”

“Yes.”

“Why not bring others who are not needed to manage our own animals?”

“I’m afraid too many of us would scare our little sea-dappleback herder away. Let me go first, then the two of you. She might get used to me. Perhaps she can talk but was just too frightened.”

“Are you thinking of trying to bring her into the clan if she can speak?” Ratha asked. She knew Thakur could hear the wary edge in her voice. He too remembered what had happened when she had admitted an unknown stranger to the ranks of the Named.

“Let us run that trail when we find it,” said Thakur smoothly. “First I want to learn from her. If the question of clan admittance arises, you, as leader, will have to decide. I don’t think it’s going to be a problem. If she can’t speak, how is she going to ask?” He crossed one paw over the other, the gesture ending his words.

“Well, she doesn’t sound as though she will be too clever for her own good, as Shongshar was,” Ratha growled. “All right, herding teacher. Your plan sounds like a good one.”

“Then I will leave again after I’ve eaten and rested,” he answered. “When you are ready, follow me.” He then told her the way to the shore and said he would leave scent-marks to guide her. He asked her to leave her own signs, once she got there, to tell him she’d arrived. She listened carefully, remembering his words.

Ratha got up as she spotted Fessran’s tan form jogging back toward her.

She turned to Thakur. “Hungry?”

She didn’t need an answer as the herding teacher scrambled to his feet, his belly growling.

Several days later, the Named and their herds were treading the way to another river that lay farther from clan ground. Dust swirled, kicked up by the feet of the lead three-horns. Ratha kept her eye on the gray-coated stag and the two herders to either side of him. If the Named could keep him moving steadily, the others would follow. They had gotten him away from the trickling remains of the first river after several attempts that nearly became fights. She thought she might have to order the stag culled, but that would cause the loss of a good sire and throw the herd into disarray.

She had delayed the decision to move their watering site as long as possible, but when the sluggish trickle in the river became stagnant and she found three-horns pawing the streambed to find water that wasn’t scummy or thick with mud, she knew they had to make the trek. It hadn’t been easy to get the animals organized and the herders ready. She glanced at the lead stag again.

Though the beast was cooperating now, a certain look in his eye, and the way he tossed his head, made Ratha wary. The two herders looked nervous, switching their tails with every step. They were strong but still young. How she wished she had brought Thakur after all, but he was far away on his journey to the coast.

Ratha decided to bring another herder up, just in case the three-horn became obstinate. Khushi. He was a good one. From a timid cub, he had grown into a steady, patient young herder who understood three-horns, although lately he had been showing a tendency to disappear when someone wasn’t with him. Ratha decided she needed to give him a reminder about clan responsibilities. Odd, though—he wasn’t one she would describe as lazy.

She trotted back along the line of beasts and herders, sneezing dust from her nose. Her tongue felt leathery against her teeth, and she couldn’t help thinking of the rainy season, when the brook ran full and lively through the pastures.

Firekeepers flanked the main three-horn herd. They walked in guard positions, some carrying torches bearing the Red Tongue. Bright sun and blowing dust diminished the fire’s light, making it look pale against the sky.

Ratha searched for Khushi, calling out his name against the bawling and rumbling of the herd. She searched the throng of animals and herders without finding him, gave up, and sent another herder. Irritated, she jogged past the outskirts of the flock, intending to scold the errant youngster.

She caught sight of the Firekeeper leader walking near a torchbearer. Khushi was Fessran’s son, although the Named tended to forget such things once a cub was grown.

“Where’s Khushi?”

The Firekeeper’s tail came up in surprise. “How should I know? I don’t keep track of him anymore.”

“Maybe you should. This isn’t the first time I’ve caught him shirking.”

A crackle of brush made Ratha turn her head. Khushi came bounding out from between two low hills. His ears sagged as he slowed his pace.

“Are you still a litterling that I have to insult Fessran by asking where you are?” she said sharply to him. “You should have been in the lead. The old stag is planning trouble again.”

Khushi gulped, lowered his head, and wheeled toward the front, but Ratha stopped him. “You’re too late. I’ve already sent someone. If you don’t want to work with three-horns, I’ll place you in the rear, with the dappleback herd.”

“No, clan leader, it’s not that... .”

“Well, what is it, then? I’m fed up with looking for you and finding you gone. I’m tempted to put you back with the herding students for some lessons about laziness.”

“Wait, Ratha,” the Firekeeper interrupted. “He’s not usually lazy. There must be some reason.”

Khushi sat up and gave his ruff a few strokes with his tongue. He still looked and smelled ashamed, but there was a certain sense of relief, as if he had been carrying a burden and could now let it down.

“Clan leader, you remember that you sent me as a scout to look for game,” he began.

“Yes, and you told us about the face-tailed animals,” Ratha said.

Khushi took a breath. “After I saw the face-tails, the Firekeeper I was with stumbled across an Un-Named one. It was a female with cubs, and she must have been moving them when we found her.”

Ratha waited, wondering what this had to do with his periodic desertion of the herd.

“She was odd looking,” Khushi said. “The same gray color as old Shongshar, the same eyes, and the same long teeth.”

Ratha felt the hair prickle along her back at the mention of Shongshar’s name. She remembered how she and Thakur had left the cubs Shongshar had sired far beyond clan ground. The place she’d chosen offered some limited chances for them to find food. Could it be that one or both cubs had managed to survive and even to have their own young? The gray female Khushi described would be about the right age.

“Shongshar’s cubs by Bira?” Fessran was staring at Ratha in open amazement. “But you said they were witless and killed them.”

Ratha flinched at Fessran’s words. “I didn’t kill them; I abandoned them. In a place where they could eat insects and other things.”

Fessran took a long breath. “By the Red Tongue’s ashes, Ratha, if you’d told me what happened to them, things might have turned out differently with Shongshar.”

“Yes, you would have gone out to find the empty-eyed cubs you fostered after Bira left them. That wouldn’t have done us much good either,” Ratha snapped. “Let Khushi tell the rest of his story.”

With a curious glance at Fessran, Khushi went on. “The Un-Named female looked at me in a way that made me shiver and then ran off with a cub in her mouth. But she left one behind and didn’t come back for him.” Khushi halted, swallowed. “He’s over there, beneath the bushes. ”

Ratha sagged back on her haunches, staring at Khushi in disbelief. “You mean you brought the cub back with you?”

He hung his head. “I’m sorry. It was a stupid thing to do. But once I’d been near him, his mother wouldn’t take him back. I put him out and waited as long as I could, but we’d scared her off for good.”

“How did you feed him?” Fessran wanted to know.

“The same way you fed me when you were weaning us from milk to meat. You burped up soft food from your stomach. I had eaten enough from the clan kill before I went scouting that I could do the same.”

Ratha started to pace. If the drought and the herd weren’t enough to cope with, now she had to deal with a young herder with motherly delusions and an orphaned cub that might well be Shongshar’s grandson. She stopped, turned to Khushi.

“If this wild tale is true and not just an elaborate excuse to make me sheath my claws, all I can ask is why didn’t you tell me about him?”

Khushi shuffled his paws in the dust. “Well, you were gone just after that, and when you came back, you were busy, and the longer I waited, the harder it got to tell you. ”

“So you’ve been sneaking away to feed this Un-Named litterling with food from your own belly.”

“And to move him too,” Khushi added. “When these river drives started, I thought I’d have to leave him behind, but I found that if I ran really fast with him in my mouth and got ahead of the herd, then I could hide him and then work until the herd passed the hiding place and—”

“All right,” Ratha interrupted. “Show me.” Khushi led them away from the line of animals, up over the crest of a hill and down the other side. He jogged to a low bush with peeling red bark and thorny leaves, pulled a dead branch aside, and peered in. A weak mew came from inside. Lying in a hollow between gnarled roots was a tiny, thin, spotted shape. Carefully, Khushi drew the cub out with his paw.

Every bone showed on the little body. The coat was dull and rough over prominent ribs, and the litterling staggered badly as he wobbled to Khushi and lay against the herder’s forepaws.

Ratha stared down at the cub, feeling totally at a loss. Even if he had come from one of the clan’s own females, she knew the drought was already straining the clan’s resources.

Yet she couldn’t help a twinge of pity for the cub’s condition and awe for his tenacity. Having been taken from his mother at an early age and bumped around by a young herder who didn’t know how to treat him, he should, by all rights, have been dead.

Fessran came alongside and peered at him. “Ratha, watch how he moves, tries to look at things. He reminds me of our own cubs.”

Ratha felt that things were galloping ahead of her. “Firekeeper, he’s too young and starved for us to make any judgment. And if there is one to be made, you are not the one to make it.” She turned to Khushi once again. “Herder, you should have left him where he was. Take him back.”

Fessran gave a derisive yowl. “You think his mother would accept him after Khushi’s had him this long? We’d be lucky to even find her. And she may not want him back, especially now. The dry weather is also pressing the Un-Named.”

Ratha eyed the Firekeeper. Fessran crouched down to nuzzle and lick the orphan. She wouldn’t have a family this year, and Ratha knew she wanted to raise cubs. That, plus the memory of Nyang’s death and the loss of her treeling...

“If you get your scent on him too, we’ll never get him back where he belongs,” Ratha said.

“I think you’re fooling yourself about that, clan leader,” Fessran answered softly.

Ratha became aware that Khushi was watching the interchange between her and Fessran with unabashed curiosity. “Herder,” she said, “go back to the three-horns. Fessran and I have some thinking to do. And if you are tempted to nurse any more Un-Named litterlings, tell me first.”

When she looked back at Fessran, the Firekeeper lay on her side, the cub curled up against her belly. “I wish I could feed him,” she said wistfully.

“I wish Khushi had never found him,” Ratha growled. “Soft as dung indeed! Fessran, if you must play mother, ask Bira if you will be able to help with her litter. She came into heat early, and I can tell by her scent that the mating’s taken.”

“At least you’re sure Bira’s will have that cursed light in the eyes you’re always looking for.” Fessran looked up, her paw resting lightly on the orphan. “You bullied me into giving up Shongshar’s cubs. Were you really that convinced that they were witless? If the Un-Named one that Khushi saw is the female I fostered, maybe she has more wits about her than you think. Perhaps we should trail her and find out.”

Ratha said nothing, wondering if she should make Fessran remember the blank stare of Shongshar’s daughter on the morning she had taken both young ones from Fessran’s fostering.

“We can’t get distracted by this,” she said. “At least until the drought breaks. I’m not going to waste effort trailing an Un-Named female.” Ratha paused. “And even if I was mistaken and her eyes show the gift we value, she is of Shongshar’s blood and breed. Khushi said she had the long teeth. Would you want another like Shongshar to rise again in the clan?”

She saw the Firekeeper close her eyes and then lick the scars on her chest and upper foreleg. Fessran trembled for a minute, remembering. Then she withdrew herself from around the cub.

“What are you going to do with him?” she said gruffly.

“Khushi is to return him to the place he was found. If we leave him alone, his mother might reclaim him.”

Mournfully Fessran said, “If I could just give him a good bellyful of milk...

Ratha sighed. “All right. I’ll let Khushi feed him the way he did before.” She sent Fessran to get Khushi. When the young herder arrived, she told him to bring the litterling to her once it was fed. She and Fessran went back to the herd and waited until Khushi returned with the orphan.

Ratha looked at the cub and wished that the young of the clan and of the Un-Named didn’t look so much alike. It is not only that their cubs resemble ours. They are so close to us, it makes me tremble. The only difference is behind the eyes. I have asked so many times why it is so, but no one can answer.

Khushi put the youngster down, stretched his jaws, and complained. “He already feels heavy. And I’ll be traveling with a dry tongue and a half-empty belly.”

“Which is small punishment for sharing clan meat with one outside the clan and not telling me,” said Ratha firmly. “Even if the meat came from your own belly and if the other is a cub.”

Khushi sighed and agreed. He picked up the cub, started to trot away.

“Wait.” The voice was Fessran’s. Ratha narrowed her eyes at the Firekeeper.

“Let me go with him, clan leader,” Fessran said. “You can spare me from tending the Red Tongue for a few days. I want to be sure we do the best we can for this cub. When Khushi’s jaws start aching, he’ll be tempted to leave the litterling anywhere.”

Ratha was tempted to argue. In truth, she did need Fessran at her post, especially if there was an attack or an emergency. Other Firekeepers were good, but Fessran had the most experience with the Red Tongue.

“There’s something else, clan leader,” Fessran added. “I hate the thought of leaving my lost treeling behind. Maybe I can take one last look before we get too far from clan ground.”

Ratha considered this. If Fessran did by chance find her treeling, that might cheer her up and take her mind off Un-Named cubs. But letting Fessran go with Khushi might not be the best idea. The Firekeeper clearly wanted to adopt the foundling, and letting her stay near the cub would only encourage her to disobey.

She knew Fessran had caught the look in her eyes, for the other’s tail shivered, and she stared away. Ratha felt ashamed for doubting her friend. Her gaze rested on the fading scars that parted the Firekeeper’s sandy coat. Shongshar’s slash had been intended for Ratha. Fessran had taken it.

Yet Ratha knew she would be faltering in her role as clan leader if she didn’t admit her suspicions. What was it in the wretched litterling that touched Fessran so? She couldn’t see anything promising about him, and the thought of his possible parentage made her shudder.

“Go look for your treeling, Fessran,” she said. “Help Khushi if he needs it, but remember, this is his responsibility, not yours.”

She knew from the slight twitch that narrowed one of Fessran’s eyes that her words had done no good. She could feel the rift between them deepening. She wanted to reach across, somehow draw Fessran back, but it was not the right moment or place. The animals waited, dusty and stamping. The herders started to stare.

“Both of you go before the day gets too hot,” Ratha said roughly, and turned back to the herd, not wanting to look as Khushi trotted away carrying the cub and Fessran followed.