by Clare Bell
Once or twice, Ratha, hunting mice on the hillside, saw him stop on the trail the Un-Named Ones had taken. He looked down the path after their tracks and there was a longing in his eyes as if he wanted to join them on their journey. Then, as Ratha watched, his expression changed to disgust. He rubbed out the remaining pawmarks and leaped away through the bushes.
She noticed that his prowling was not random. Each day he spent in a certain section of his territory, inspecting it, marking it and making sure everything was as it should be before....
Before he leaves, Ratha thought to herself and felt cold and lonely as she shadowed him in the early morning drizzle. He had said nothing to her about such a journey, yet he appeared to be making preparations, catching more than he could eat and storing the rest in the crotch of a tree or under a flat stone. Often he would break away from these activities, as if he did them against his will, but if Ratha watched long enough, she would see him renew his efforts. She should go, she thought miserably. She had learned enough from him that she might survive the rest of the winter if she worked hard. He seemed caught up in some inner struggle that she could not understand, yet she sensed that it involved her in some way, as well as the Un-Named she had seen on the trail. The deer carcass they had fished from the lake was part of it too. She had a few of the pieces, but not enough to fit together.
She slunk through the wet grass and peered between the stems. She caught a glimpse of a rain-slick copper coat. There he was. Checking the trail as he usually did. Should she follow? He never found anything except pawmarks. Why should she waste her time?
She lifted her head and saw birds wheeling and dipping beneath the gray mass of clouds. A breeze tickled her whiskers, bringing with it the smell of the marshlands and the hills. She sensed, as she stood still and let the wind ruffle her fur, that this might be the last day she spent here.
Bonechewer had come out into the opening and was pacing toward the trail. Ratha saw him stop and stare up the path. The curve of a hill cut off her view, but she knew from Bonechewer’s reaction that he had seen more than pawmarks. She scampered down the hill, keeping herself hidden. She made a wide circuit behind Bonechewer and followed him, creeping low on her belly, scuttling from one weed patch to the next until she was quite close to Bonechewer.
As she approached the trail, she saw that it wasn’t empty. There were three of the Un-Named there. She dropped down behind a rise and hid, stretching out in the long grass, her chin resting on the top of the knoll. Now she could see and hear everything.
She watched Bonechewer approach the three on the trail. Two were tawny, the other black. The tawny ones were heavy and each bore a ruff. Their scent, drifting to Ratha through the damp air, told her they were males. They had the same eyes as the witless gray female and Ratha knew they wouldn’t speak. The two males crouched and curled their tails across their feet. The black sat upright, green eyes luminous in a narrow ebony face. The eyes fixed on Bonechewer.
Ratha crawled further over the crest of the knoll, feeling her heart thump against the ground. Would the black one speak or be as dumb as the two others?
The black rose onto all four feet as the copper-coat approached.
“I wondered when you would come, nightling,” Ratha heard Bonechewer say.
“The gathering place calls, dweller-by-the-water,” the stranger replied. The black’s odor and voice were female. “I and my companions are the last.”
“They who gather will wait for you,” Bonechewer said.
The black came a few steps down the trail, keeping her eyes on him. “We need you, dweller-by-the-water. Few among us have your gifts.”
The green eyes were intense, half pleading, half-threatening. Ratha saw Bonechewer’s hackles rise.
“That I know, nightling. How I will use them is for me to decide.”
The black lowered her whiskers and walked down the trail past Bonechewer. The two tawny males followed her. She paused and looked over one silken shoulder at Bonechewer. “I could make use of their teeth, dweller-by-the-water.”
Ratha tensed, gathering herself for a possible charge up the hill to Bonechewer’s aid.
“You could, nightling,” Bonechewer answered pleasantly, but Ratha saw the muscles bunch beneath his fur.
“No, dweller-by-the-water,” the black said, showing the pointed tips of her fangs. “I am not so foolish as that. You are right, the decision is yours to make. If we are your people, then come. If not, then return to those of the clan from which you came and leave this territory to the Un-Named.”
Ratha crept closer. If the black was right, Bonechewer was not one of the Un-Named. Clan-born? Could he be? That might explain many things.
The black waved her tail and trotted down the path, followed by her two companions. Bonechewer stared at the ground until their footsteps faded. Only then did he raise his head. He swung his muzzle back and forth, flicking his tail. Then he turned and gazed downhill to where Ratha was hiding.
“Clever, clan cat,” he said loudly, “but the wind has shifted and I can smell you.”
Disgruntled, Ratha trotted uphill to the path. As she approached, he laid his ears back until he looked as if he didn’t have any.
“So, dweller-by-the-water,” she said mockingly, staying beyond reach of his claws, “do you take the trail with your people? And will you raid those who were also your people?”
“Yarr. So you know my little secret,” he said, slightly taken aback. “No matter. You would have found out fairly soon. One wouldn’t know it from your hunting ability, but you are quite clever. Too clever, I think.”
She eyed him. “You bear no love for the Un-Named. That I know from watching you rub out their tracks.”
“I have no love of growing thin, either. The weather is already harsh and growing worse. Were I to stay here alone, my land would barely feed me. It will not feed the two of us. You are eating more every day, clan cat.” He looked pointedly at her belly. Her pregnancy was becoming noticeable even as her appetite was growing more voracious.
“Then we go,” Ratha said, taking a step down the trail.
Bonechewer’s whiskers twitched and he looked uncomfortable. “The journey will not be easy and there will be things you won’t like.”
“Do I have a choice? If I am to bear your cubs, I must eat. As for the things I won’t like, I’ll deal with them as they come. When I think about what I’ve lived through, I know I can survive anything.”
At least, I hope I can, she thought as she jogged along the trail beside Bonechewer.
* * *
Despite Bonechewer’s warning, Ratha found the journey to be pleasant at first. The hills were open, clothed only in waving grasses, and the trail rose and dipped among them. Every once in a while the sun escaped the clouds and made the rain-washed earth seem bright and new.
When night came, or when the day grew cold and the rain turned to sleet, Ratha would crouch with Bonechewer in a burrow or beneath a bush until they could resume their journey.
At first, the two of them were the only ones on the trail, but soon they saw and passed others, including the black and her companions. Bonechewer traveled fast, and Ratha had to push herself to keep up with him. He caught most of what they ate, for he could flush prey from the weeds along the trail and bring the animal down before Ratha had gone very far ahead of him. Sometimes the two shared what they caught with the Un-Named Ones they passed. When their bellies and jaws were empty, their fellow travelers would share with them.
As the days passed like the ground underfoot, Ratha noticed more of the Un-Named emerging from the underbrush or from side trails to join. The path, once dotted with individuals moving far apart, became a river of furry pelts stretching away in both directions. Bonechewer could no longer hunt beside the trail, for the prey animals had either been killed or frightened away by the travelers who preceded him.
While he was gone on hunting excursions, Ratha sometimes sat by the side of the path and watched as the Un-Named went
by. Grizzled patriarchs, scruffy half-growns, females shepherding cubs, fight-scarred males, all of the kinds she had seen in the clan and others besides. Some were strong while others were half-starved and barely able to totter along at the rear. Some were sleek and as well-groomed as Ratha had seen in the clan. Others were rough, tattered and mangy.
But there was no way to tell, before she looked in each pair of eyes, whether or not the mind behind them had the spark of intelligence. In some it barely flickered, while in others it burned and lit their whole being from the inside out. The gift often showed itself in those in whom Ratha least expected to find it, and, perversely, was absent from those she assumed would have it. Shaggy, sullen hunters, who at first glance seemed capable only of brutality would surprise her by the depth of their gaze. Elders, whose gray fur betokened wisdom, startled her out of her assumptions when she saw the emptiness behind their faces.
Why? The question beat in her mind as her paws beat the trail. Why some and not others?
She also noticed that most eyes were dull; that ones such as she and Bonechewer had were rarities among the Un-Named. Few could understand speech and fewer still could speak at all, let alone with any sophistication.
Why? Why among these folk was the gift so rare? It was not so in the clan.
Ratha thought about these questions, but she could get no answers that satisfied her. Only her own study of the Un-Named would tell her, she decided. Somehow she sensed that the answer would come soon and part of it might come from her own self, although how she did not know. The thought, instead of reassuring her, made her feel uneasy. She said nothing of this to Bonechewer. She knew he wasn’t interested in either the questions or the answers.
The path grew steeper, the trail windy and narrow as the hills became mountains. It rained continuously and all the travelers acquired the same color, the dull brown of mud. Each day, Ratha woke chilled and sodden to plod along in the line, staring at the trail or at the curtain of rain in front of her whiskers. Bonechewer was quiet, almost sullen, showing little of his former energy.
Something began to bother Ratha, and at first she could not tell what it was. It was a feeling of familiarity, as though this country was not entirely new to her. The smells, the way the wind blew, the shape of the leaves and the rocks on the path told Ratha that she had passed through these mountains once before. Not on the same trail; she knew that. Perhaps not even across the same spur that the group was crossing now. Her memory could only provide her with vague images, for she had run most of the way, driven by rage and terror and the terrible pain of betrayal.
She found herself trembling as she put each foot in front of the other and she left the trail and stood aside, watching the others pass, blurred shadows behind the rain. She stood there, telling herself that it happened long ago and not to her. The Ratha that slogged along this muddy trail with the ragged Un-Named could scarcely be the Ratha who had brandished the Red Tongue before the clan. That part of her life was gone now and she cursed the things that woke her memory.
“Are you tired, Ratha?” a voice said. Bonechewer had left the line to join her by the side of the trail. She looked up, trying to hide her misery, but she was sure Bonechewer caught it, for there was a flicker in his eyes and for a moment he looked guilty.
“Come,” Bonechewer said gruffly, glancing back toward the trail. “I don’t want to be the last to get there.”
“How far?” Ratha asked.
“Less than a day’s travel. We should be there by sunset.”
Ratha wiped her pads on the grass and shook out the mud between them. There was no sense in doing so, for she knew she would pick up more as soon as she stepped back on the path. She intended it to annoy Bonechewer, and it did, for he drew back his whiskers and plunged into the stream, leaving her alone by the side of the trail.
The rest of the day she walked by herself, despite the others jostling around her. The rain slackened and then stopped. The clouds lightened and a little sunlight filtered through, edging the wet grass with silver. The drops clinging to her whiskers caught the light and startled her with their sparkle. She shook her head and tossed them all away.
The grass became scrubby and then sparse as Ratha climbed the mountain along with the others. The sun fell low, sending shadows among the peaks, and she knew that the Un-Named and she were almost at the end of their journey.
The line now was long and straggling. Some of the travelers Ratha had seen at the beginning were no longer in their places, having fallen out by the side. They reached the top of the ridge and wound along its spine as the clouds turned from gray to rose and gold.
Ratha saw an outcropping of rock rising from the flank of the hill. As she and the others at the end of the line approached, the river of the Un-Named ended, breaking up into streamlets that poured around and over the great mass of stone. This was the gathering place.
The sun flared over the edge of the rock, blinding her for an instant. Dazed and weary, she let the flow carry her to the base, and she washed up against it, caught in her own little eddy, while the others surged by her.
“Sss, up here,” came Bonechewer’s voice from above her. Ratha stretched her neck back and saw the outline of his head against the dusk. Ratha gathered herself and leaped up to the ledge where he was sitting.
“Look,” he said and Ratha did. Up and down the steep rock face, eyes glowed and damp pelts gleamed faintly in the sun’s last light. Bonechewer rose and walked along the ledge, Ratha followed, placing her feet carefully, for the stone was weathered and broken. Pieces skittered out from under her pads and went clattering down the rock face until their echo died. The ledge led into a cleft and then they were through to the other side. Here the stone had split and fallen apart in several sections, creating a sheltered hollow where many more of the Un-Named were gathered. Out of the stiff wind that blew on the rock face, Ratha was warmer. She followed Bonechewer as he picked his way over talus and fallen boulders, giving greeting to the Un-Named perched on top of them or clustered around them. No one spoke to Ratha, although she felt their eyes follow her as she moved among them.
“Bone—” Ratha started. His tail slapped her across the muzzle before she could say his name. Hurt and outraged, Ratha snapped at the tail and caught a mouthful of fur before he whisked it away.
“Why did you—” she demanded, but he cut her off before she could finish.
“To keep you from making a fool of yourself and of me as well,” he said softly. “There is no use of names here. Do not forget.”
“How am I to speak to you if I can’t use your name?” Ratha asked, feeling bewildered.
“Call me dweller-by-the-water, as they do. Or, better still, be quiet and listen.”
“Yarrr.” Ratha flattened her ears but she knew he was right. He had stopped calling her “clan cat” as well. Although the nickname had begun as an insult, he used it now in an affectionate sense. To have this stripped from her left her feeling empty and desolate, as if she were becoming one of those who had nothing behind their eyes. She hung her head and swallowed hard.
“What is the matter, young one?” The voice was not Bonechewer’s, although he still stood nearby. Ratha looked up into a pair of glowing green eyes in a face so black it seemed to her that the eyes floated by themselves in the dark.
“She is just tired, nightling,” Bonechewer said before Ratha could gather her wits to speak.
“I haven’t seen or smelled her before,” the black remarked, “yet she is too old to be of the last litters. Did she come with you, dweller-by-the-water?”
“She joined me on the trail,” Bonechewer said shortly. Ratha sensed a certain tension between him and the black one.
“We meet at the same place, among the stones-with-fangs.”
“I will be there, nightling.”
“Good.” The black turned and snarled at the two dull-eyed shadows standing behind her. “Away, cubs! I have no need of you until sunrise.” With guttural growls, the two males lowere
d their heads and padded away.
“Why do you keep them, nightling?” Bonechewer asked. “You are worthy of better companions.”
“If I wanted companions, I would choose others. The witless ones obey me and that is all I ask.”
“All you ask, nightling?” Bonechewer said.
The black opened her eyes all the way, revealing their full depth. “There are certain things that wit or lack of wit does not affect, dweller-by-the-water. And you seem to have made a similar choice, for I have not heard your little female speak.”
“I can speak,” Ratha spluttered, sending a burning glance at Bonechewer.
The other yawned and arched her back. “Ah. Perhaps, then, he will bring you to council.”
“I think not, nightling.”
“Very well, dweller-by-the-water,” the black said and trotted away.
“Your little female!” Ratha spat in disgust and pawed in the dirt as if she were burying dung. “If there are many like her among the Un-Named, I want nothing more to do with them. Where are you going?” she asked, for she felt Bonechewer start to move away from her.
“To the stones-with-fangs.”
“Are you taking me?”
“No. You stay here. Curl up and sleep. You won’t get much sleep later.”
“Sleep! How can I—” Ratha stopped. He was already gone, his shadow disappearing among the rocks.
She lashed her tail and dug her claws into the gravel.
What was this gathering for? What was this council the black spoke of and why hadn’t Bonechewer taken her? Was he afraid she would embarrass him by speaking his name? Ratha snorted. He was just being silly. Who other than she and he would know that “Bonechewer” was even a name? There had to be another reason.
She sniffed the ground. Bonechewer’s track was still fresh. She could follow him to the place he spoke of, the stones-with-fangs. Perhaps she could hide and attend the meeting in secret. Perhaps she would even get a chance to maul that slinky black before she could summon her body-guards. Now that was an appealing idea.