The Named: The Complete Series

Chapter Thirteen

With Bira and Khushi, Ratha made her way along the outskirts of the face-tail herd. The animals spread over the river plain, and there were some small groups that had broken off from the main herd.

It was the morning of the day following her talk with Thakur. She wasn’t ready to face him again. Nor did she want to see Thistle.

“Surely the hunters won’t bother us here,” said Bira, when the three found several face-tails and their young in a small side valley between two hills.

“We’ve just come to watch the animals,” Khushi reminded her. “Ratha said that we need to learn more before we try to catch one again.”

The clan leader listened to them, feeling slightly guilty. She wasn’t going to break her promise to Thakur, but he had said nothing about scouting the beasts. Well, watching was all they would do, no matter how the creatures tempted her. Anyhow, Thakur wasn’t with them and he was the best at dealing with face-tails.

He was also the only one who could cope effectively with Thistle. He had said he would keep her from trying again to make herself ready to talk with the hunters. There was no reason to, at least for now.

No sooner had she, Bira, and Khushi settled down in the grass to watch the face-tails than Bira’s sharp eyes caught movement in a bush nearby.

“That is definitely not a face-tail,” Bira said. “I think the hunters are spying on us.”

Ratha considered a hasty retreat, but the idea made her hackles rise. Khushi and Bira both agreed with her. They weren’t going to be frightened off by one spy.

“They don’t own the whole face-tail herd,” Khushi said indignantly.

“Perhaps the watcher will just stay hidden and report later,” the more even-tempered Bira suggested. “But I could go and light a torch from the fire-den I dug.”

“No,” Ratha said. She wanted to keep her promise to Thakur. She had disappointed him—and Thistle—in so many ways already. She wasn’t going to add another, although Bira’s offer was tempting. She would like to feed these arrogant hunters a small taste of the Red Tongue.

She turned her attention to watching the face-tails, but it was hard to keep her mind on the big animals.

Maybe Thakur is right. Maybe we should just move on and leave these animals to the hunters. Then we could forget about them, and Thakur wouldn’t need me to help him with Thistle.

“The spy just left,” said Bira, who had been keeping an eye on the suspicious bush. “I think he’s gone to get the others.”

“Let them come,” growled Khushi.

As much as Ratha shared his feelings, she realized that they were at a big disadvantage. And without the Red Tongue…

Bira wanted to bring a torch. I should have let her. But I promised Thakur.

“No,” she said again. “We’re going back to the fire-den. I doubt if they will follow us there, but just in case …”

Quickly she got the two others moving through the long grass. Having to retreat stuck in her throat, and she could tell by the looks on the others’ faces that it stuck in theirs, too.

We are the Named. We shouldn’t let ourselves be chased off by a bunch of sleepwalking hunters. I almost hope they do chase us to the fire-den so we can feed them the Red Tongue!

Khushi, scouting briefly from the top of a hill, reported that the spy from the hunters had indeed gone to fetch some reinforcements. However, they seemed to be content just to make sure the Named had left the face-tail herd.

“We could make another try at a different place in the herd,” he suggested when he got back.

“No, they’ll find us and chase us off again,” Ratha said, disgusted.

“How can they watch the whole herd?” Bira wondered.

“I don’t know. They seem to be very well organized.” Ratha paused, her tail twitching with annoyance. “I think we’re going to have to make a choice. The only way we are going to get near those face-tails is by using the Red Tongue to scare off the hunters.”

“I think we should,” Khushi argued. “I’m fed up with playing hide-in-the-grass.”

“But you said that you made a promise to Thakur not to,” Bira said gently to Ratha, coming alongside her.

“I may have to rethink it. I will talk to him when we get back.”

As Ratha paced toward the camp with the others, she argued with herself.

Most of the Named would say I am justified in using the Red Tongue against True-of-voice and his bunch. We used it against the Un-Named in order to survive. This is the same situation.

She shook herself as she ran. She didn’t need justification. Her rage was enough. True-of-voice was a filthy tyrant and his subjects mindless fools. The world would be better without them. She should set the Red Tongue against them, burn them out.

She drew her lips back from her fangs as she imagined the grass afire on the plain, the hunters and their prey fleeing in terror, or falling, exhausted, and burning to death in the flames.

And then, suddenly, one of those frightened shapes fleeing from the fire in her mind was her daughter. The flames caught up with Thistle, surrounded her, consumed her, leaving her body black and charred….

No! Ratha recoiled from the imagined scene in horror. Not Thistle. Why was she thinking like this?

“Clan leader? Are you … all right?”

The voice beside her was Bira’s. Ratha realized that she had slowed to a stop and was staring straight ahead at nothing.

“I’m all right,” she said, her voice feeling rough in her throat. “Bira, Khushi, go on ahead. I’ll follow.”

Both of them gave her a backward glance as they left. Then she was alone. She checked briefly for any sign of enemies or ambush before she went on slowly, immersed once more in her thoughts.

Again she seemed to look upon the fire-swept ground where the hunters had once been. It was swept clean of them.

Instead of triumph, she felt only horror.

Not only because her daughter had been among those seared by the fire’s touch. The high, waving grass was burned to stubble. The blue sky had gone gray. The whole landscape before her was ashen, hellish with cruelty and the terrible knowledge of what she had done in the name of survival.

Ratha closed her eyes, bent her head in pain. No, no, no … I would never… But she knew that a part of her would.

There was something in her that was as ruthless and relentless as the Red Tongue itself, that burned with hatred and consumed those around her.

There were many who had felt its searing touch. The old clan leader, who had died with a flaming brand jammed through his lower jaw. Thakur’s brother Bonechewer. The Un-Named ones who had fallen in the first battle with fire as a weapon. The cubs she had borne in the litter that included Thistle. The usurper Shongshar, whom she had thrown down in a bitter fight that had nearly cost the life of her friend Fessran. Thistle, who had known the terrible shock and pain of her own mother’s teeth sinking deep into her chest and foreleg.

She had nearly destroyed the Named themselves and she had certainly changed them.

And now the victims would include True-of-voice and his people.

Thistle had a name for the fiery wildness that struck out, not caring who it hurt: the Dreambiter.

The Dreambiter.

No, I am not…. She made it…. I am not….

In the midst of her denial, she heard Thakur’s voice, speaking in her memory.

Ratha, don’t run.

Don’t run from your daughter. Don’t run from yourself.

How can I not run? This part of me hurts, kills, hates…. The Dreambiter. It consumes everything. Soon it will swallow the rest of me.

No. Ratha clamped her jaws together. I don’t have to let it take over. I can fight it. I will fight it. I will drive it out of my daughter’s life and out of mine.

Yet it was hard to take those steps along the trail that would lead her back to Thakur; hard to say, Yes, I will help you with Thistle.

She stopped, caught in indecision. The hatred was still there. She still hated the hunters, wanted to burn them. She still dreaded the Dreambiter and dreaded even more the look on Thakur’s face when he realized that she really was the Dreambiter.

Thakur, I don’t want you to turn away from me. Please don’t hate me, despite what I am, despite what I’ve done….

She forced herself to take a step, even though her legs felt as though they were sheathed in ice. She shut down all the thoughts in her mind except one as she walked stiffly back toward the camp.

I have to kill the Dreambiter.