The Named: The Complete Series

Chapter Two

Scrub jays swooped back and forth across the forest trail, teasing the leader of the Named. Their iridescent blue feathers shone in the sun. Their raucous taunting and their tempting scent made Ratha want to spring and swipe them out of the air. She knew she wouldn’t even get close, but her lower jaw chattered in excitement.

Firmly she clamped her teeth together to make the chattering stop. She had other duties and could not be distracted by impudent jays. She lowered her gaze to the trail and went on, but a part of her wanted those birds fiercely, and her jaw trembled with the longing.

Inwardly she chided herself gently for her foolishness. It wasn’t the first time inborn urges had tempted her, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. Sometimes she felt as though there were two of her, each part wrestling with the other: the fire-hearted stalker and the cool, detached thinker.

Farther along the trail, Ratha halted to rake her claws down a tree trunk and chase her thoughts together before continuing with her morning prowl. The stretch felt good in her shoulders and the sun was warm on her back. Her tail high and quivering, she backed up to the tree, sprayed it, and scraped with her rear paws.

Ratharee wasn’t with her today. Ratha had asked Bira to take the treeling while she patrolled.

As she went on, setting one paw silently in front of another, she wondered what the day would bring. She hadn’t seen the herder Bundi or his friend Mishanti recently. Her tail wagged sideways in annoyance. Those two strange animals that Bundi had found were already huge and showed no sign of slowing their growth.

How he and Mishanti had gotten the pair, she wasn’t sure, and why she had allowed the two herders to keep them she didn’t know either. At the time, the creatures were pitiful—orphaned and starved, barely larger than a dappleback. Now they exceeded the size of an adult face-tail and might well double it.

Well, actually, she admitted, she did know why she had let Bundi and Mishanti keep the beasts. To be honest, the two weren’t much good at anything else. Bundi, although Thakur had tried hard with him, was too clumsy and easily distracted for the classic herding techniques of the Named. Mishanti, having been raised by Thistle-chaser at the seacoast, was still too young and still settling into the clan.

Perhaps it was their similarities that attracted them to one another. Bundi now treated Mishanti as a younger brother. Bundi, once injured by fire and left with burn scars down his neck and shoulder, used to be withdrawn and sullen. Mishanti’s arrival drew him out and made him forget his own troubles. Chasing the lively Mishanti about the meadow and up and down trees had also given Bundi more strength and speed.

Mishanti also benefited, becoming less rebellious and disobedient. He also could speak better, although his speech still had remnants of Thistle-chaser’s odd phrasing.

When the pair of friends had found the two motherless creatures near clan land, Ratha realized that their affection for the orphans would keep them too busy to get into mischief.

She rationalized her decision by including it as part of a larger scheme to increase and diversify clan herds. She planned originally to cull the creatures when they got older, but Bundi and Mishanti’s pleading made her delay.

With care and good feeding, the orphaned animals grew so fast that, before Ratha realized it, they were too big to cull. To take them now would require all the Named, and Ratha doubted that even that number could make a clean kill. It would be messy and upsetting. She also didn’t relish the idea of Bundi and Mishanti squalling in her ears for days after.

Letting the creatures live under the youngsters’ care wouldn’t harm anything, and the Named had plenty of other herdbeasts. Perhaps the things would even breed.

As Ratha came to a grassy clearing, the sound of splintering branches made her look up. The hair lifted on her neck and her eyes widened. The alert hunter within made Ratha take a quick step back before she caught herself.

Slightly embarrassed to be so startled, Ratha bent her head and gave her foreleg a quick swipe with her tongue. Then she looked again.

There was almost no word in the Named tongue to describe the two gray-brown beasts browsing in the treetops. They were mountainous. They even looked a bit like mountains, with backs sloping slightly up from rump to shoulders, extended necks increasing the slope and carrying the ascending line to huge, blocky, horselike heads.

She had no idea what these beasts were. Once she had seen a rhino, a low-slung leathery-skinned animal with a head that resembled those moving among the branches far above her. That animal had a horn on its nose. These didn’t, just a bulbous swelling above the upper lip.

Her ears swiveled to the sound of drawn-out grinding and crashing. She narrowed her eyes. The beasts were not just eating leaves or twigs; they were crunching up whole branches. A substantial part of the tree’s canopy was already gone. Ratha promptly changed her mind about the creatures doing no harm. If they kept this up, they might just eat the top off every tree in the forest.

“Don’t be afraid, clan leader,” came a yowl from above. “The rumblers are gentle.”

Inwardly Ratha bristled at the slightly mocking tone but didn’t let her tail even twitch.

One rumble-beast lowered its head to gaze at Ratha. It was still chewing. The mushy slurping sound made her put back her ears. It was as disgusting as any other herdbeast’s chomping, and much louder.

The rumbler’s eyes, however, were mild, unlike the rhino’s red-rimmed, irritable stare.

“They may be gentle, but I still don’t want to be sat on.” Ratha reared up on her hind legs, squinting to find Bundi in the treetop. “Where are you, Bundi, you little son of a three-horn?”

She spied a familiar faintly spotted dun-colored form lying along a tree limb, licking a paw. Nearby she caught sight of another, smaller and more distinctly spotted shape resting on the same branch.

With a grunt, the rumbler that had been staring at Ratha began munching on the branch where the two friends sat, oblivious now to anything but food. As Ratha watched, the creature chewed its way toward Mishanti and Bundi. The bough swayed and shook as the animal tore at it. The beast used its long upper lip almost like a treeling finger to rip off twigs. Mishanti looked alarmed, his fur rising and his paws spreading as his claws dug into the bark.

Bundi, however, looked relaxed, lazing along the branch with his tail looping down. With its eyes blissfully closed and massive jaw working slowly, the rumbler ate up Bundi’s branch. Ratha half wondered if Bundi would move before it ate him as well, or if the jostling would dump him off the tree limb.

When the rumbler’s jaws were less than a cub’s tail-length from Bundi and the branch was swaying as if caught in a windstorm, Bundi lifted his head, yawned, and batted the huge nose with his paw. “Get away, Belch,” he said as the huge horselike ears flapped amiably and the snout withdrew.

“Belch?” asked Ratha, balancing on her hind legs again. The beast paused in its careless eating, lowered its head, and gave a resonant burp. Looking vaguely satisfied, the creature flipped its absurdly small tail, waggled its horselike ears and began destroying another branch.

“Belch is the female,” Bundi called down. “The other is a male. I call him Grunt.”

Ratha skittered to the side as a large mass of Grunt’s manure plopped down, just missing her.

“Our first choice was ‘Dung-Dumper’ but that lacked something.” Bundi’s eyes were half-closed, his whiskers fanning out from his nose. His facial markings enhanced the slight cat-grin on his face. The scent wafting from him had a trace of smugness.

That wretched half-grown runt is enjoying this, Ratha thought indignantly. She lifted a hind foot and shook it as if she had stepped in the stuff, although she hadn’t.

“Come down,” she yowled. “I need to talk to both of you.”

Mishanti started to scramble down the tree. Bundi, however, climbed onto the branch that Belch was munching, sauntered fearlessly to the huge nose, and hopped up on it. Tail waving, he strolled along the top of the rumbler’s muzzle above the eyes, then made his way between the ears. He padded down the back of the neck while Belch kept browsing as if this was nothing strange at all. When he came down the back and reached the base of the tail, Belch spoiled his show by sitting abruptly, making the ground under Ratha’s paws shake. Bundi plunged nose-down into Grunt’s deposit. As he got himself out and shook off, Ratha lolled her tongue at him. Mishanti arrived tail-first down the trunk, looking and smelling pleased with himself.

“You both can go wash off in the creek, but first listen to me,” Ratha said.

“Yes, clan leader,” they both answered together.

“You know that I want the herding meet for True-of-voice to go well. Are you two ready?”

Bundi grimaced, making his tear-lines crumple. “Thakur has been running us around until our pads are sore. We came down here to get away from him. Yes, we’re ready.”

Mishanti chimed in with a high-pitched, “We very ready.”

“Just be grateful I don’t ask you to show me right now,” Ratha said, trying to make herself sound stern but knowing she was failing. The sight and scent of Bundi, crestfallen and dung-caked, made her want to loll her tongue out again.

“Come on, Mishanti,” Bundi said impatiently. “I don’t usually mind getting herdbeast dung on me, but this stuff is really gooey and stinky … .” He glowered at Grunt.

“I hope you get clean before the herding display,” Ratha called after him. “I don’t want to have to wash you myself.” Two tails disappeared down the path before she could finish.

Satisfied, Ratha continued her stroll until she reached an area where the forest opened, giving way to brush and meadow. Here the creek ran with its waters dappled by sun and shade.

She caught the rainy freshness of flowing water and passed a small pond that bloomed from the creek side like a flower from a stem. She knew this was not a natural part of the creek. Thakur and Thistle-chaser had dug it.

She circled the pond, trying to see into the water without being dazzled by reflections. The pool was crowded with both free-swimming fish and limp dead ones that were tethered to a sunken log. The pool’s connection with the creek had been cleverly made so that stream water could flow in but the live fish couldn’t get out.

The tethered fish were Thistle-chaser’s, brought from her seaside home and placed in this specially dug pond to stay cool and appetizing. Her daughter’s attempts to add seafood to the Named diet was having somewhat mixed results. The ocean fish grew larger and meatier than freshwater fish, but their smell and taste were stronger.

Both Thistle and Bira had caught the live free-swimmers, spotted silvery trout, and whiskered mud-grubbers. This pond kept them fresh, and easily available.

Wherever Thistle-chaser goes, she changes things, Ratha thought, recollecting. Thistle had helped rescue True-of-voice, the leader of the face-tail hunting clan. The event was many full season-turns past, but it still remained sharp in Ratha’s memory.

She thought about her daughter, the image of the stubborn, pointed little face with sea-green eyes coming into her mind along with the smells of waves, kelp, and gulls. The eyes in that face had once looked cloudy and dull, lacking the Named depth and clarity. Now Thistle-chaser’s gaze was sharp and her wit, if not her words, was the equal of any in the clan. Only her slight foreleg limp remained to remind Ratha that she had once bitten, crippled, and abandoned this cub in a frenzy of disappointed rage. It was Thakur who had found Thistle, taught her speech, and then brought her back to the clan.

Ratha sometimes wondered how such a tough and intense spirit as Thistle’s could inhabit such a funny, odd-colored little body. Only in her facial markings and lighter underside did Thistle resemble the Named. The rest was a patchwork of rust, tan, and black that made Ratha understand why Thistle had once called herself Newt, after the slow-moving salamander.

Thistle was growing, but her early exile and struggle for survival had stunted her. The crippled leg, however, was healing, along with other, more invisible wounds.

Not wanting to think about the past, Ratha turned her attention back to the pond. Crayfish crawled over the graveled bottom, feeding with their claws, climbing over one another, getting into quick fights, and shooting away with sudden flaps of their tails.

She knew that the crayfish were Thakur’s doing. He liked to feast on river crawlers and he preferred them fresh. Whenever he caught a few, he put them in this holding pond.

Thistle’s fish-storing idea was generally a success, although sometimes Thakur’s crayfish decided to help themselves to an ocean fish snack. He could solve the problem by giving the clan a crayfish banquet. She remembered the exotic sweet taste of the meat as she delicately teased it out of the shell with her front teeth and tongue. Her mouth started watering just from the memory. Ratha eyed the swarm of river-crawlers and licked her jowls.

A little farther, at the meadow’s edge, the creek ran wide and shallow, making a convenient ford. Ratha crossed, feeling chilled water surge over her front toes up to her dewclaws. Gravel rolled under her pads and stuck between her toes so that she had to pause and clean her feet.

The meadow was so lush with high-sprouting grass that Ratha had to crane her neck to see above it. A crowd of butterflies surrounded her nose. Their fluttering tickled her whiskers, making them twitch.

Her ears pricked to the distant voices of Thakur and his herding students. She also caught the high but still brassy bellows of young face-tails and saw a spray of wet grass and dirt.

Ratha bounded through the high grass until she reached a place where the exuberant spring growth had been grazed down. Now she could see Thakur and his students ringing a young face-tail. An older cub was attempting to back the little elephant using the Named stare-down, but the creature wouldn’t let the herding student lock its gaze. It danced, surprisingly agile on its tree-trunk legs, bobbing its head, swishing its trunk, and tusking up more dirt and grass to throw. The young student, his spots fading into blue-gray with a darker stripe along his back, was getting splattered with mud-brown and green. Judging by the little elephant’s aim, the cub would be mostly mud-colored by the time he either gave up or got control of the face-tail.

Getting absolutely filthy seemed to be one of the drawbacks of Named life, Ratha thought in amusement, remembering Bundi’s recent plunge.

Above the racket, she could hear Thakur’s yowling.

“You have a strong will, cub. Use it; let it out through your eyes. Don’t let the creature even think that it can escape you.”

The fray became even thicker, the face-tail and its would-be master hidden by flying dirt and debris. The heavy mud smell of the face-tail permeated the air.

Ratha altered her path to avoid the two, homing in on Thakur. She gave a little sideways jump to evade a dirt clod that smacked into the ground ahead of her.

The cub-student, oblivious to everything except the rebellious face-tail, bored in through the flying dirt, growling with determination. The young tusker lunged, clubbed with its trunk, its short pigtail stuck straight up. The blue-gray cub ducked and flattened but kept his stare fixed on his quarry. He was completely covered with clots of mud and grass.

Both adversaries came to a halt, the young face-tail with one heavy forefoot raised to trample its tormentor, trunk curled up over its head. The cub crouched, frozen, tail held rigid, gaze still piercing that of the prey.

Ratha sensed the critical moment, the instant when a good herder was made or lost. She felt her heart pound and her breath deepen. The two antagonists held, as if in balance.

Then the tusker slowly raised one rear foot, easing backward. The student stalked ahead a pace, his green-gold eyes intense. The face-tail planted the foot, shifting its weight, then was forced to lower the front leg in order to continue.

Abruptly the face-tail wheeled, ducking its head and lashing its trunk. With the young herder behind it, the face-tail run-walked away while squalling cheers erupted from Thakur and the others. Ratha joined in.

When the beast halted, the youngster confronted it again, forcing it back. This time the creature didn’t even try to escape. It lowered its head, dragging the tip of its trunk on the ground, flapping its ears.

The student, although bedraggled and spent, approached the young tusker again, making it turn one way, then the other. As a final gesture, he shook himself hard, spraying the face-tail’s hide with the dirt it had thrown at him.

“Enough, Ashon!” called Thakur, and the student strutted back to him, head and tail up, his aroma rich with triumph.

As Ratha came alongside the herding teacher, she saw another cub preparing for a turn with the beast.

“No, let the face-tail rest,” Thakur said to his class, and added, “I need to speak to Ratha. We’ll practice again later. Go and lie down in the shade.”

To the mud-drenched Ashon, he said, “Very good. Keep working on the stare. You must seize the creature’s gaze the moment you decide to approach it. Now go rinse off in the creek before that stuff hardens.”

When the students had trotted away, their tails swinging, Ratha touched noses with Thakur. She breathed in the musky honey of his scent and rubbed along his side from shoulder to tailbase, arching her own tail up and flopping it lazily over his back.

“The Named are gifted with the best herding teacher ever,” she purred.

“It helps when you have good students,” Thakur purred back, flopping his longer tail across hers.

Ratha stretched, sliding her forepaws out while her back bowed. “I thought Ashon would be too timid to herd face-tails.”

“I thought so, too, but he’s surprised me.”

“Speaking of training herders, Bundi and Mishanti are in the forest with their rumbler-things, if you want either of them today.”

“No, I’ve drilled them enough. Anyway, they don’t have that big a part in tomorrow’s gathering.” He paused, lifted his whiskers. “I assume True-of-voice and his people will come?”

“Thistle-chaser said they would.”

“Good.”

After another pause, Ratha said, “Thakur, do you think they’ll understand what we are doing?”

She had good reasons to wonder. True-of-voice was a huge male who led his tribe in hunting face-tails. Though the light in hunters’ eyes was as strong as that of the Named, it was turned strangely inward. True-of-voice’s people seemed to move in a trance that Thistle-chaser had called “dream-stalking.”

Instead of the obedience and loyalty that held the Named to one another and their leader, the hunters were bound to one another and True-of-voice by a strange emanation that arose from him. They called it “the song,” although it seemed to be transmitted by scent as much as hearing. It pervaded every part of face-tail hunter life, controlling each hunter so that they no longer had the ability or the freedom to make conscious choices.

After befriending a young hunter male, Thistle had brought him into the clan and helped him survive the tremendous change from dream-stalking hunter to self-aware clan member that was forced upon him with the near-death of True-of-voice. The male, named Quiet Hunter, was now Thistle’s intended mate.

Thakur’s voice brought Ratha back from the quick flight of her thoughts. “With Thistle and Quiet Hunter there to interpret, I think True will catch the idea.”

“I hope so. I want to help them get familiar with us so we can learn to trust one another.” Her ears twitched, and she stared moodily at the grass. “I wish I could speak to True-of-voice directly. Thistle and Quiet Hunter have done well, but hearing his words through them isn’t quite the same.”

“Well, if you want to talk about the taste of meat or the sharpness of teeth, you could,” Thakur replied, and Ratha knew he was remembering his experience with True-of-voice’s tribe. He had been disappointed to learn that the hunters used language only for very basic things. “Anything more has to come through the song.”

“And I’m deaf to it, even though I’ve tried to learn from Thistle.”

“I have done the same with Quiet Hunter and Thistle, but I’m still as song-deaf as you.” Thakur paused to nibble on a claw. “Perhaps we just have to admit that there are paths we can’t follow.”

“Why must True-of-voice be so … remote? Does he think he is so much greater than his people? Or so much greater than the Named?”

Thakur peered into her face. “You smell as though you resent him, Ratha.”

“I do. I know this doesn’t make sense, but I really do. I feel as though he is perched up on a high place looking down at us with a sneer. I’d feel better if I could just speak with him whiskers-to-whiskers. After all, our peoples both use the same basic language.”

“Yes, but we use it very differently. Ratha, your feeling is honest. I must confess I have felt that way myself, since I’m a bit spoiled by having a clan leader who actually listens to me.” He paused. “Remember, though: we can’t make any assumptions about how True-of-voice feels or why he acts as he does.”

“I just wish that he would at least try to come down to our limb on the tree,” Ratha grumbled.

“Or up to it, or onto it from another at the same height.”

Ratha looked up at Thakur, thanking the patience in his eyes. “Maybe I didn’t really learn from our experience last season. I just can’t get rid of the feeling that True-of-voice is isolating himself from us deliberately. Why can’t he even try to speak with me?”

“Understanding this new tribe is hard to get a claw into,” the herding teacher answered. “I don’t know if True-of-voice or any of his people can understand what you want, Ratha.”

She tried not to let her voice break as she said, “I really wanted to find another clan like us. Instead we got these strangers who seem to be dazed all the time and can’t even think for themselves.” She paused. “And I chose to help them … .”

“And you chose to help them,” agreed Thakur. “So why can’t True-of-voice be a little more grateful?”

“Yes. I know they have given us face-tail meat and a few young animals, but that doesn’t …”

Thakur looked at her steadily. “You want them to give of themselves. You want True-of-voice to give of himself.”

“Why not? We’re willing to. I know you are, and I’ll try. I just want to be friends with him.”

“Giving of one’s self means that one has a self to give,” the herding teacher answered. “True-of-voice and his people may not.”

Ratha grimaced. “You’re right. I really can’t get my claws into this. I keep asking how they can walk and speak and eat and raise cubs and have a tribe and have light in their eyes and not have selves?”

“Not as we do,” Thakur answered. “I think that their whole tribe together forms a very powerful ‘self’ of a sort.”

Ratha paced restlessly, sweeping her tail along her flanks. “I want to do what is best, but I can’t if I don’t understand. How do I walk a path I can’t see or feel?”

“Trust,” the herding teacher answered, and the growing warmth in his scent matched the increasing gold in his eyes. “In yourself, in what you sense is right. And in the two who carry your good words and wishes: Thistle-chaser and Quiet Hunter.”

Ratha wanted to protest—why did things have to be so complex, so twisted around like a vine choking a tree? But instead, she lowered her gaze and said, “I will try hard to look at this without resentment, Thakur.”

“That is already a long step on the path.”

Except I feel as though I’ve been stumbling, Ratha thought.

“Herding teacher, your words have helped. I feel better, so I won’t keep you from your herding students. Don’t work them too hard.”

“I’ll be here if you need me,” Thakur replied.

With a parting nose-touch and a flip of her tail, Ratha trotted on about her rounds.

* * *

In the afternoon, when the shadows grew and the sun sank, Ratha came back, looking for Thakur.

In another corner of the meadow near the forested border, she stopped, her eyes widening in curiosity, her whiskers and tail lifting. A strange little scene lay before her. In the shade of a large live-oak tree, Thistle-chaser, Thakur, and their treelings were busily making something. As Ratha approached, she caught the dry-leather smell of three-horn, dappleback, and striper hides lying rumpled and stiff on the ground. Several cubs were cleaning and softening the skin sides with their tongues.

Thistle and her treeling, Biaree, crouched over a deer hide, doing something that Ratha couldn’t see at first. When she moved closer, she saw that Biaree was using his finger to widen a hole someone had bitten in the hide. With prompting from Thistle, the treeling took a strip that had been bitten or torn from another hide, and poked one end through the hole.

Staying quiet, Ratha watched. Biaree pulled at the poked-through end until he had enough length to twist and loop the strip back around itself. He did this several times and then pulled both ends so that the strip was securely attached to the hide.

Nearby, Thakur and his treeling, Aree, were doing the same thing, although slower.

“Ashon,” Thakur called, “come over here and bite some holes for me. Your fangs are sharper than mine.”

The cub came over and did what Thakur asked, using a fang on one side to pierce the skin.

“I can use my claws,” Thakur said, glancing up at Ratha, “but it takes longer. These hides are tough.”

Ashon and several other cubs acted as hole punchers, moving around between the hide workers and biting wherever a claw pointed.

For a moment Ratha was puzzled by what they were doing, then she remembered a previous discussion with Thakur.

“Yes, we’re making the beast-riding hides we talked about,” he said. “We agreed that we couldn’t keep the older cubs from trying to stay on a bucking dappleback, so Thistle and I figured out how to make skins to wrap around the animals. The hides give the cubs a way to hang on without clawing the horses.”

Ratha remembered the first time she had tried to climb onto a dappleback and the resulting frenzied plunging when the animal tried to throw her off.

She also remembered Thakur’s scolding when he saw the bleeding claw marks along the horse’s side and flanks. He had tried to discourage the cubs’ sport by pointing out that it not only injured the herdbeasts and could harm the young riders, it undermined the training that he was trying to instill. He said that the riders became too excited and that the activity woke the killing urge that a good herder had to control.

But Thakur faced a tradition of beast riding among the cubs. Everyone had done it when they were that age. The cubs had always done it and always would. Even Thakur finally had to make a compromise. This was it.

“Finished this one,” said Thistle abruptly. “Biaree needs a rest. Paws are tired.”

“Maybe you should try the first pad before you make more,” Ratha suggested.

“I’ll get a dappleback,” Thakur answered. “Ratha, would you look after Aree for a few tail-waves?”

As she felt Thakur’s treeling climb onto her shoulder, she sniffed one of the completed hides. Usually the Named dragged the skins aside or tore them up for teething cubs to chew.

Thakur was soon back, driving the small three-toed horse ahead of him. This beast, Ratha knew, was one of his practice animals. It was an experienced and calm little mare, used to being chivvied around the pasture by clumsy beginners.

Thakur and Aree wrapped a long hide strip around the horse’s head, just behind the ears. Thistle, with Biaree on her shoulder, grasped the free end in her jaws.

“All right, keep her still,” Thakur said as he and Ashon started tugging one of their creations over and onto the dappleback mare. It was awkward, and Ratha joined in to help.

The mare shifted restlessly and snorted as the hide was draped over her back and then secured with treeling-made tangles.

The tangle-making skill that Thistle, and especially Biaree, had mastered was becoming very useful to the clan. These tightened tangles could bind anything from wood to wet fish. They could also be tied onto things so that the items could be pulled or lifted. Ratha remembered how critical this skill had been in rescuing True-of-voice from the ledge where he had fallen.

The Named had experimented with these string-tangles before, but had never settled on a particular way of making them. Thistle and her treeling had found a repeatable method that resulted in knots that stayed tight.

“Yesterday we tried several ways of holding it on,” Thakur explained. “This seems to work the best.”

Ratha studied the way they had threaded and tangled the strips so that two ran under the mare’s belly, one across her chest and one behind her rump, below her tail.

The mare only grunted and blinked as the chest, belly, and breech straps were pulled tight. Thistle did have some trouble with the bellybands. Ratha thought they were tight, but when she looked again, they were hanging loose.

“Bump her in the belly with your head,” Thakur instructed Thistle. “She’s holding her breath.”

When Thistle did, the mare let out the inhaled air with a whoosh. This time the bellybands stayed cinched.

Thakur stood back, cocking his head and eyeing the result.

“A little big, but good enough. Now we need a cub.”

Ashon volunteered. Ratha helped Thakur lift him onto the mare while Thistle held the horse.

“Don’t let her go,” the cub said, sounding slightly nervous. His scent took on the slight saltiness of paw pad sweat. “I haven’t done this before.”

“We won’t,” Ratha answered. “This is just to see if it works.”

“Face-tail chaser scared of a dappleback?” Thistle teased Ashon.

“It’s one thing herding beasts. Riding them is another,” the cub retorted.

Ratha and Thakur backed away. Ashon settled onto the mare, gripping the hide covering with his claws.

“He’s a bit big for her,” Ratha observed. “He should be on one of the striper colts.”

“This first,” Thakur said firmly, and Ratha agreed.

With his teeth, Ashon grabbed a strap that lay low across the horse’s neck and shoulders.

“Feels good,” he said, his voice muffled by the hide between his teeth. “I won’t fall off.”

“Move around a little,” Thakur said.

Ashon shifted his weight. The hide stayed in place.

“Good, it’s not slipping. All right, cub, get down.”

Ashon hopped off the dappleback, who lowered her head and gave him a friendly nudge.

“Let’s make a few more of these hides and try them on the other herdbeasts,” Thakur suggested. “Ratha, what do you think?”

“I think that you have all done very well,” she answered, impressed by the accomplishment. Keep working with it.”

As they turned once more to the task, Ratha took her leave and set about once more on her rounds.

She enjoyed her people’s often startling inventiveness. It might well be that quality that would see them through instead of strength, determination, or even the protection of the Red Tongue.

When the sun was lower, Ratha went with Thakur and two cubs, Mishanti and Ashon, to the dappleback herd. The horses liked the mixture of sunlight and shade of the meadow’s edge.

Thakur stopped, nosed the two cubs forward. “Each one of you, choose a dappleback.”

Mishanti wrinkled his nose in a squint that wrinkled his tear-lines as he peered hard at the animals. He slid his paws forward, bowing his spine and arching his tail over his back until it nearly touched his shoulders. Then he made his decision, pawing in the air to point. “That one. Smells tame. Faded spots, white-speckled mane.”

“Ashon?”

The cub sat down and calmly surveyed the herd. “The light tan mare with black legs.”

Obviously the cubs were making choices based on their experience. The selected animals showed small scratch-scars on their shoulders, sides, and rumps.

The dapplebacks were lazy and not inclined to bolt and run. Together Ratha and Thakur strolled into the herd and easily separated out one horse at a time. They then turned each dappleback over to the cub that had picked it. Ratha watched, inhaling the horsey dry-grass aroma as the cubs exercised their herding skills by driving each dappleback in turn to the old oak. There, treelings would tie on the protective hide and the holding strap.

Ratha stayed close to Mishanti, and Thakur watched Ashon to make sure the cubs’ intended mounts didn’t have a burst of spirit and escape the young herders.

“Bet your dappleback throws you off,” Mishanti teased Ashon. Ratha noticed that the smaller cub’s speech was getting better, more understandable. He was using clan inflections and losing some of the oddities he had picked up from Thistle.

“Bet yours steps on your tail,” Ashon taunted back. He was taller and leaner than Mishanti, although he was actually younger. Ashon was one of Drani’s sons from her latest litter. Although where he’d gotten that silky background color and silver tipping on his face and feet, Ratha had no idea.

The cub would be beautiful when his spots faded completely. His appearance made Ratha think of the two male cubs from her first and only litter. Thistle-chaser’s siblings—they would be nearly full grown by now. Ratha wondered briefly what they looked and smelled like. Their smell would be similar to hers and Thistle’s, but with the distinctly male variation.

Her ears went back and down at the sharp bite of sorrow, but she swatted the feeling away before it could take hold. Having Thistle back was an unexpected gift; finding any of her brothers would be even more unlikely.

Quickly Ratha brought her attention back to Mishanti. He was getting distracted, letting his dappleback stray and graze. She trotted alongside the horse, giving it a meaningful glance to let it know that she was watching, even it Mishanti wasn’t.

Despite Thakur’s teaching and patience, Mishanti just wasn’t a very good herder. She was thankful that Ashon was shaping up to be an excellent herder, perhaps even good enough to become a teacher, like Thakur. That demonstration with the face-tail had been more than impressive, and Ratha liked the cub’s spirit. Ashon also paid full attention to what he was doing. His dappleback moved on briskly, with no hint of straying.

When the party arrived at the old oak, several other herding students held each horse gently with their forepaws while treelings tied the straps under its belly, beneath its tail, and across its chest. Though the horses tossed their heads and squealed, the hold-on strap went over their ears and down their short manes, resting around their shoulders.

Mishanti was eager to climb aboard, but Ratha delayed him, having him join with other young herders to surround the horse and escort it to the riding area. Ashon watched as his hide-draped dappleback was also ringed and moved. The cub looked calm, but Ratha could see his tail tip jumping like a cornered mouse in the grass.

Both cubs could hardly suppress their excitement as they followed their mounts. Ratha and Thakur trailed a short distance behind them. More of the Named joined them, curious about what was happening.

“All right,” announced Thakur, when they reached the show area. “Now pay attention. You, especially, Mishanti,” he warned when he saw the cub staring across the low grass at the assembled onlookers.

“Know rules,” Mishanti grumbled.

“Listen anyway,” Ratha hissed.

Thakur repeated the guidelines. The cubs competed in pairs, and the one who fell on the ground first was the loser. The thrown rider was to get his or her tail safely out of the arena, leaving the dappleback to be rounded up by the herders. Claws could be sunk into the protective pad only. Clawing or biting the horse would get a cub disqualified, as would an attempt to scratch his opponent’s mount. An accidental collision was allowed, but not a deliberate one.

Barely waiting for Thakur’s command to start, Mishanti and Ashon galloped to their dapplebacks. The herders held each beast steady as Ratha lifted Mishanti on by the scruff, pawed the hold strap into his mouth, and saw that he was securely settled on his pad. Thakur did the same with Ashon.

Ratha spoke quickly to Mishanti. “Remember, if it gets too wild, or Ashon’s dappleback gets too close to yours, jump off.”

The dappleback holders moved both animals apart. This would minimize the chances of a collision at the start.

“Ready?” Thakur howled, “Go!”

The herders in front of each cub-dappleback pair retreated quickly. Each little horse sprang free to the sound of cheers from the audience. Both cubs had supporters who yowled encouragement.

“Stay on him, Mishanti!” Among the voices, Ratha heard Fessran’s and Thistle’s.

“Ashon, show that daughter of a dappleback who is the herder!” That cry was from Thakur. Ratha decided to encourage both cubs and added her voice to the tumult.

The gray cub’s mount reared and plunged, throwing its rider’s hindquarters into the air. Ashon clung with his foreclaws, cub-fangs sunk deeply into the hold-on strap, tail whirling for balance.

Mishanti’s mount was more of a runner than a bucker, but the herders blocked its path, forcing it back into the arena. It then decided to scrape Mishanti off against a tree, but the cub was ready. Claws securely fastened in the pad, Mishanti hung his body over the opposite side. When the dappleback tried to rub him off on the opposite side, the cub hung the other way.

He almost lost his hold and he did lose his satisfied grin when the dappleback leaped up, trying to slam the cub against a low-hanging bough. He flattened, barely avoiding getting mashed.

Ashon’s dappleback bucked in tight, stiff-legged circles, snapping the cub’s head back and forth, but he clung with the same determination he had showed while mastering the young face-tail.

A “Yeharrrooow!” was jerked out of Mishanti as his mount leaped and twisted beneath him. It reared, flailing its four-toed feet and jerking Mishanti’s front claws loose. He slid backward on his pad, and the hold-on strap ripped out of his mouth. The little horse threw its heels up and its head down, standing on its front feet. The dappleback’s kicking handstand brought the cub’s tail and hindquarters into abrupt contact with the horse’s rump. Mishanti sailed high in the air, tumbling and squalling.

Ratha watched, mouth open. He would land a lot harder than she anticipated. Ouch!

However, the arch of his flight took him into a tree. With a crash, he landed in the leafy crown and bounced down a few branches while the tree swayed.

A whisker-flick later, Ratha also saw Ashon leave his mount, flying forward between the dappleback’s ears. Fortunately he spread his legs and landed on his feet.

Amid the resulting caterwauling applause, the herders rounded up the two dapplebacks and ran them out of the arena.

Ratha saw Thakur run to Mishanti’s tree. The cub was already backing down slowly, yelling something Ratha couldn’t hear over the other noise. She saw Mishanti jump onto Thakur’s back and ride him as the herding teacher paced back to Ratha.

“Sorry, Mishanti,” she said. “Ashon won.”

“Didn’t,” Mishanti sputtered. “Have to land on the ground to finish. Rules don’t say about landing in a tree.”

Thakur glanced at the cub over his shoulder.

Ratha took advantage of the opportunity to tease the herding teacher. “He’s right. The rules don’t say anything about trees.”

“Then we’ll have to make one. Hitting a tree is the same as hitting the ground.”

“Not for this ride,” Mishanti insisted. “Didn’t touch the ground until after Ashon.”

“Yes, but you were off your dappleback before Ashon was thrown from his,” Thakur winced as Mishanti climbed down off his back. “Cub, the rule against scratching applies to me as well as the dapplebacks.”

“Okay, change rules now, but still I won.”

“He has a point, herding teacher.”

“He has too many of them,” Thakur grumbled. Faced with such determination, the herding teacher capitulated. “All right. Both of you won. You both can go again against someone else. Understood?”

Whiskers lifted in amusement, Ratha left him and continued her rounds.