The hunter was closing in on the cats now, and one or two of them had begun to look up, mewling in terror. “Kee-kee-kee-KILL! KILL! KILL!” cried Tooth. His beak dispatched the two cats who had been holding Miao’s back paws down; the others fled, some turning to snarl and slash at the birds. But the cheels knew their ground well, and were experts at pulling back up into the safety of the skies. Within a few moments, four of the Shuttered House cats lay dead on the ground.
“Careful,” called Miao. “They’re warned now, and they’re dangerous—Tooth! Behind you!”
She watched in alarm as Datura silently rose from the branch where he’d been watching the battle and slashed at the great bird’s feathers. He connected, and Tooth went into a nosedive, spinning as he neared the ground. The cheel pulled out at the last moment, skimming the leaves, his feathers brushing the dead, still bodies of the mice. Then he had righted himself and was soaring into the air, his bright eyes furious. “Keek!” he called. “Kkkkk-urses!” But both Miao and Datura saw that he flew with a wobble, dipping his right wing down in pain.
The other two birds held themselves in flight, ready to attack. At a hissed command from Datura, though, the ferals pulled back—and there was ample shelter in the overgrown wilderness of the Shuttered House, few spaces where the pariah cheels could attack the cats with ease. But they continued to skirmish, ambushing those ferals who tried to cross from the jacarandas into the orange trees.
During the brief respite she was granted when the pariah cheels attacked, Miao was able to look around for her companions. But when she saw them, her heart sank. Beraal had been driven up a tree, from where she was spitting furiously at six ferals who were forcing her to back further and further up. She was out on a thin, slender branch that looked dangerously close to its breaking point, and a clowder of ferals sat around the roots of the tree, waiting for her to fall. The black-and-white was bleeding heavily from the mouth; her paws were stained red with blood, though Miao couldn’t tell whether it was her own or from the cats she had fought.
In the overgrown flowerbeds filled with carrotweed and wild grasses, Katar, Hulo, and the young market wildings held another cluster of ferals at bay. Miao narrowed her eyes, even as she ducked another determined attack, sliding to the left away from her would-be assailant, using her tail to spin around and smack down a second one. The two toms and their tiny group had been pushed well back—they were too close to the crumbling wall that was the only division between the grounds of the Shuttered House, at that end, and Nizamuddin proper.
To Miao’s dismay, more ferals appeared, keeping a wary eye on the skies, but slinking around the hedges—there had been an entire clowder hiding in the wild gardenias and the lawsonia shrubs. The garden seemed to writhe with cats, their sleek heads emerging from every hiding place. The Shuttered House had held at least six litters worth of ferals, by Miao’s estimation, and here she counted more than thirty heads before she gave up. They seemed to respond to every twitch of Datura’s whiskers. Miao looked over to where Katar and Hulo fought and saw with horror that four or five ferals were about to open a fresh front of attack from some shrubbery that concealed them from the embattled wildings. “Your back, Hulo!” she called—just in time. Miao darted towards them, her paws gathering speed, and as she ran, out of the corner of her eye the Siamese could see Datura’s whiskers rise in unmistakeable pleasure. It was only when she cleared the lantana hedge and had to stop dead, her black tail waving from side to side, that she realized why. She had run into an ambush: beyond the hedge, she was caught in a part of the garden where the land dipped down. Ferals surrounded the Siamese, and as she turned, Ratsbane slipped into position, blocking her last exit.
Miao’s blue eyes went blank. She wondered absently whether the dargah cats would arrive on time. She heard Beraal scream in pain from her tree. The bushes around her grew too thickly; the cheels would never make their way through the branches. Tooth yarked in frustration, soaring overhead, wobbling close to the tops of the branches, but he couldn’t slide in—there was no gap, and even if there had been, it was too dangerous.
Ratsbane’s eyes were febrile. Blood spotted his jaw. “I asked Datura if I could have you,” he said, his mews a snarl. “I’ve always wanted to kill a Siamese.” Miao stared at him, her eyes impassive. Her claws came out. She flung her head back and for the first time since the battle began, she let out a war cry, a yowl of implacable defiance. Around her, the ferals closed in.
Katar heard Miao and his whiskers sank in fear. With a massive effort, the tom swung out at the line of ferals in front of him, using his claws to rake deep slashes in their foreheads so that the blood would blind them. In the confusion that followed, he sprang up to the top of a stump.
“Datura!” he called. “Hold your troops! We have not spoken yet!”
“This is war, meat!” the white cat said, barely flicking his whiskers in Katar’s direction. “I never talk to my prey.”
Tooth dived towards the white cat, but had to pull back when his wing started to drag. The cheel flew instead towards Katar, hovering over the tomcat protectively, buying him precious time as he spoke from the stump.
“This is my territory, Datura!” called Katar. “Perhaps there’s some way in which we can welcome you to our lands and forget this skirmish. If the Shuttered House is no longer your home, what lands would you want? This and the baoli? Would you and your ferals wish to share our lives? Speak, Datura—do what is right for your clan!”
The white cat’s eyes went opaque.
“You offer me a share of your territory? You have the temerity to make that offer, meat? Look around you: there are so few of you, against so many of us.”
The garden was alive with the ferals, hiding from the cheels, their eyes glittering as they listened.
“What can you offer us, meat, that I couldn’t take for myself?”
Hulo’s voice rang out, hoarse and exhausted, but still filled with defiance.
“What kind of cat are you?” he demanded. “You attack the smallest and the weakest; you invade our territory, and when we offer you equal space under our skies, you spit on our whiskers? You attack in the daytime when the clan sleeps, like a dog or a Bigfoot? I spit on you. You and your kind make me sick!”
Datura’s whiskers rippled in anger.
“Kill him,” he hissed. “Kill the meat!” He stared at Katar. “You don’t understand, do you? We had everything all these years—food, prey, shelter! We had everything except the outside, and now we have that. As for the rest of your clan, they’ll soon be dead, just like you.”
Katar heard Beraal call out, “The Nizamuddin wildings are almost here! They’re in the lane, coming down from the baoli—back, damn you!—they’ll be here soon.” She growled in pain and he heard a branch snap, the snarls of many cats.
He couldn’t see Miao, but Hulo’s rough head emerged from what looked like a gigantic scrum of fur, baying defiance before the tomcat bobbed down again. Tooth and the cheels came diving in again, but with the hedges in the way, the best they could do was scare the ferals, picking off one or two who had strayed unwisely into more open terrain. Qawwali called out to the dargah wildings, his mew hoarse and urgent as he rapidly filled them in on the battle. They threw themselves into the fray, joyously—most of the dargah cats were fierce young toms and queens, hardened by their constant battles with the large and aggressive rats and bandicoots who lived in the alleys.
Katar snarled, baring his teeth, and hurled himself at the ferals advancing upon him. His ferocity drove them off, some howling. But the grey tom was tiring, and he could sense that Hulo and Beraal were hard-pressed. He couldn’t see Miao; the Siamese was a tough fighter, but there had been too many ferals in that ambush.
“Miao?” he called, whipping his tail away from a marauding feral paw just in time.
“Lift your paw off her face,” he heard Ratsbane say from the hedges, and Katar’s blood went cold.
Miao screamed. Once, twice, and then the thir
d time, the Siamese’s voice abruptly cut off.
“No!” said Katar, mewing like a kitten. He could feel Datura’s curious eyes on him, the white cat drinking in his grief and fear with avid interest. “Beraal!” he called, “Hulo! To Miao!”
“We can’t,” said Hulo in a low growl. “Or they’ll be over the wall.”
Katar had taken his eyes off the scrum, and the ferals noticed. Before the tom could collect himself, two cats slammed into him, pinning him to the ground.
Hulo went down under a sea of cats, and this time, the tomcat didn’t come up again.
Beraal yowled, desperation in the sound. High above the Shuttered House, Tooth circled in frustration, calling out a war cry, hoping to draw the ferals out so that he could close in on them instead of having to chase shadows through the scrub.
Datura stirred on his branch, and dropped down to the ground.
“I hope the rest of the meat is like this,” he said to Ratsbane. “It’s so much more fun when they put up a fight. Shall we kill them all at once?”
Ratsbane’s whiskers dropped in apology.
“Have you already killed yours?” said Datura, strolling over and looking down at Miao’s limp body. “What a shame. Let’s do the rest, shall we?”
A tiny brown shape darted out and flashed across his paw. The white cat felt a sudden sharp sting.
“What was that—mrraow!” His paw was under attack, and he hopped back in a hurry. The brown mouse who had sunk its teeth into Datura’s paw was nowhere to be seen, but the tomcat had to move forward just as rapidly as he’d moved back—a nest of fire ants blocked the path.
“Do.not.pass.go.” said their quiet voices.
Datura stared at them in distaste, wanting to smack his paw down on the line, but instinct told him that this would be a very bad idea. “The last warriors of Nizamuddin,” he said, catching sight of the mouse’s furious black eyes. His whiskers rose in laughter. Ratsbane joined him.
“So their bravest fighters are all three inches off the ground,” said Ratsbane. “Ow! Meerrrowwwwww!” A mynah bird, squawking loudly into his ear, had smacked down her claws on his head. She rose up and flew just out of reach of the two cats.
Datura thought this was even funnier.
“Tomcat!” he called to Katar. “Behold your army—ants, mice and mynahs. What a glorious host you command!”
He paid little attention to the dargah wildings. They were strong warriors, but there were too few of them. With a flick of his ears, the white cat sent another battalion of ferals off to dispatch them. He was staring down at Miao, noting the bleeding muzzle, the whiskers she had lost to Ratsbane and his friends in her unequal battle. He felt he would have liked to know more about the Siamese—she had impressed him strangely. He placed a paw on her carcass—the cat was still warm—and then he turned away. It was time to move into the rest of Nizamuddin.
“Ratsbane,” he called, and then his ears twitched, rising in inquiry.
It seemed to Datura that the air rumbled with something other than thunder. The fur on his paws rose. Then the fur on his back stood up, as though it had been touched by electricity. Instinctively, the white cat looked up, and the open sky made him vertiginous—he had to look away until the earth stopped whirling. In the distance, there was a slow, ominous rumble.
The ferals shifted uneasily.
“Enough!” said Datura, trying to ignore the way his whiskers were prickling. He glanced at the rooftops. Bigfeet were out on some of the verandah, pointing in their direction, clearly discussing the cats. “It’s time for us to move into the colony—Ratsbane, first you—”
What he was about to say stayed on the tip of his whiskers. The ground seemed to tremble and split as a rumble shook the earth. Then it turned into a low, deep, unmistakeable roar, as though the largest cat in the world walked in their midst.
“Ignore that,” shouted Datura, seeing that many of the ferals had their ears laid flat and were lying low to the ground. “It’s just thunder, nothing more! Are you ferals, or are you scaredy-cats? Get up!”
The air in front of his whiskers shimmered and parted, like a heavy curtain. Datura’s eyes widened. And then the white cat mewled in terror, foam flecking his jaws as he scrabbled to get out of the way.
Out of nowhere, a massive tiger had appeared. It strode down the path, roaring straight into Datura’s face. Ozzy’s black-and-orange stripes seemed to shimmer in the rain, lighting up the grey day, dazzling all the ferals and the Nizamuddin cats. Qawwali stopped dead, unable to believe his eyes. But when Ozzy roared again, every one of the cats felt the rumble in the depths of their hearts, and felt their whiskers go cold, their blood run thin.
Beraal was the first to recognize Mara, who was bobbing along next to the tiger’s gigantic face. Few of the cats, wildings or ferals, had seen her tiny but jaunty figure, since she was so high up in the air—but Beraal had no trouble spotting her pupil.
“Hold your ground,” she said to the Nizamuddin wildings, using the link so that the ferals wouldn’t hear. “It’s the Sender’s work—the tiger is just a sending, it isn’t real! There’s nothing to fear—keep your whiskers unknotted. Well done, Mara!”
The ferals panicked. When Ozzy—who was enjoying his virtual stroll immensely—threw his head back for another immense roar, displaying his curved, wicked teeth, the ferals yelped and whimpered. In their fear, they scrambled out of their shelters—and the cheels saw their chance.
“Battle formation!” called Tooth, soaring out from behind the clouds. The other two cheels, Claw and Talon, rode the thermals with him, attacking the ferals savagely, clearing space for Hulo to struggle out from under a pack of the Shuttered House cats, for Katar to limp away from his own battles, staring in astonishment at the tiger. Beraal spat on her paws to stop the blood from flowing and got up unsteadily, as the ferals scattered away from the tree, flushed into open ground where the cheels continued to pick them off.
Qawwali watched the tiger nervously as it roared, its magnificent head thrown back, the great yellow eyes alive and brilliant. Then the dargah cat passed his greetings to the Sender over the link, and flicked his ears.
“For Nizamuddin and glory!” yowled Qawwali, raising his plumed tail as a battle standard, marshalling his troops to stand against the fleeing ferals. “For the clan! For the clan!” miaowed the Nizamuddin cats, who had joined Hulo and Katar on the ground.
Hulo chased Ratsbane through the bushes, until he had the other cat backed up against a tree. “Stand your ground and fight,” said the tom. Ratsbane rolled in the mud, pleading for mercy, and despite what he had done to Miao, Hulo might have let him be. But when Hulo turned his back on the feral, Ratsbane leapt on the tom, trying to bite his spine. The black tom shook the cat off easily. His yowl was deadly and savage. His claws ripped through Ratsbane’s throat, leaving the tree roots soaked in blood.
Aconite slunk along the grass, hoping to escape being noticed. The grey cat with gold eyes didn’t intend to risk her own skin; she had a great aversion to the sight of her own blood, much as she liked shedding the blood of smaller creatures. She kept a wary eye out for Katar. The tom didn’t look as fearsome as either Hulo or Datura, but he had dispatched a round dozen of the ferals, if she was any judge. As she reached the foot of the wall, the grey cat thought of the prey waiting for her on the other side—the fat mice, the lazy birds—and felt her mouth water. “Silly of them to have no one watching the wall,” she said, her eyes on the wildings who were mopping up the fight near the Shuttered House and closer to the baoli.
There was no shadow; the sun was too weak for that, and the rain was coming down steadily. But Aconite felt the rushing beat of the pariah cheel’s wings, and rose, too late, into a savage leap, hoping to rake the great bird’s underside with her claws. She missed, and Tooth’s talons fastened onto her neck. “I was watching,” he said to the wriggling cat, before he twisted his talons sharply. He let Aconite’s body fall back onto the grass. The kill had given him no pleasure, b
ut it was necessary.
The ferals began to make a frantic retreat. Those who weren’t killed outright were chased by a posse of dargah cats right up to the front line of Bigfeet houses that faced the road. Some braved the traffic, trying to cross to the other side; many more shuddered at the cars and looked for shelter at the mouth of the filthy canal, less scared of the pigs than of the dargah’s fierce warriors.
Prowling around near the Shuttered House, Ozzy roared and roared—the only creatures that didn’t seem to hear him at all were the Bigfeet. “Best walk of my life!” he said happily. “Haven’t enjoyed myself so much since I was a cub chasing Bigfeet jeeps and sending them packing in Ranthambore! You’re looking tired, Mara—is this too much for you?”
The tiger could sense that it took all of Mara’s strength and energy to keep up the sending. The battle was almost over; most of the ferals were either dead or fleeing.
Ozzy roared again, and the Sender seemed to shimmer in the air. “Beraal,” called Mara. “I can’t hold on any longer. I’m taking Ozzy back home.” The black-and-white cat watched her student leave, remembering the tiny kitten who had interrupted their sleep with her howls. And then she was fading, the Sender of Nizamuddin who had summoned a tiger to the grounds of their greatest, bloodiest battle. The kitten bobbed tiredly ahead of the tiger, who followed like an ocean liner in the wake of a tugboat. He roared one last time, just for the fun of it, and then the air shimmered around the unlikely pair, and they were gone.
Katar limped up to Beraal, and Hulo joined them. The earth stank of blood; fear still hung in the branches of the trees. Beraal’s mind was on the Bigfeet. She could see their heads bobbing up and down on the roofs. They wouldn’t have seen Ozzy and Mara—the Bigfeet appeared to be deaf where linking and sending were concerned—but they had certainly seen, and heard, the battle between the ferals and the wildings. They would not like this at all, and she hoped it wouldn’t be the start of bad times for the Nizamuddin cats and other strays. Bigfeet were strange creatures, given to unpredictable bouts of fear.
The Wildings Page 24