Ratha's Courage

by Clare Bell

  Witnessing that fading made Ratha heartsick. What right did True-of-voice or that strangeness emanating from him mistakenly called “the song” have to strangle or stifle those tiny flames? It was like seeing empty eyes in the faces of Named litterlings. That just happened. This quenching of the soul was a deliberate act.

  Ratha’s heartsickness rose to anger. Why was she struggling so hard to understand something that was clearly so wrong? Why was she so willfully blind to the evil? She had the power to snatch away young ones who still held the promise of their own selves from the power that would engulf them.

  Accepting Quiet Hunter among us kept his flame from being stifled. Adopting face-tail hunter cubs might do the same, and we need more litterlings.

  But if I am blind, she thought, are Thakur and Thistle as well? Is what I thought of as wisdom unwillingness to see? Am I the one whose vision fails?

  Chapter Six

  Before the next performance came a short break. Ratha saw Thistle-chaser’s tail waving in the air, saying that she wanted to speak to her mother.

  Ratha sprang down off her perch to meet her daughter. They met and rubbed foreheads. Thistle smelled good—healthy and salty-fresh as the wind from a sea beach. In her abrupt way, Thistle said, “True-of-voice has questions.”

  Ratha let herself be led back through the throng to the gray-and-white leader. Watching Thistle move easily ahead of her, Ratha saw that her daughter now walked without even a trace of a limp. When they reached True-of-voice, Ratha started to speak to him, but Thistle put up a paw, stopping her.

  Thistle and Quiet Hunter sat very still, eyes closed, ears forward as if listening to something distant, noses lifted as if scenting something faint. True-of-voice gazed at both of his interpreters, but he also seemed to be looking at something else beyond them.

  Quiet Hunter opened his eyes, spoke quietly to Thistle, who then turned to Ratha, saying, “The song . . . I mean, True-of-voice feels pleasure at being shown how we keep and tend our animals.”

  “Tell True-of-voice that we are glad that he and his tribe have come. It will lead to better understanding between us.”

  She saw Thistle take a short breath, as if those words might be challenging to translate.

  “The song is to know,” said Thistle to Quiet Hunter, “that there is . . . pleasure in its coming. The . . . spirit of the Named desires to flow close to the song so that the knowledge is mingled in both.”

  At Thistle’s last words, Quiet Hunter grimaced as if they were too difficult.

  Ratha’s eyes widened. Is this what she had said?

  “All right, no ‘both,’” Thistle said hastily. With a glance at Ratha, she added, “Song doesn’t know what ‘both’ means. No word for things in many parts. Only for things in one.”

  She turned to Quiet Hunter. “Say, ‘so that knowing pours together like water.’”

  It was a little awkward, a little too Thistle-ish, Ratha thought, but Quiet Hunter indicated acceptance.

  Again he sat absolutely still with closed eyes, but Ratha could smell his scent changing. The transformations were so subtle and so rapid that she couldn’t follow them. Every once in a while, Quiet Hunter touched True-of-voice and spoke to him in simple words, mixed with a soft singsong that was somewhere between a murmur and a purr. To Ratha’s ears, the sound was oddly beautiful, and she wanted to imitate it. Thistle joined in with Quiet Hunter, her voice sounding in counterpoint and descant to his.

  It had a strange effect on Ratha, altering her perception of the moment so that everything seemed to slow and glide. So alien was this that a shiver ran up from her tail tip to the back of her head, making her want to shake to be rid of it.

  So, the way this “song” is carried is through scent, and touch as well as sound, Ratha thought.

  She found her tongue. “Thistle, did True-of-voice . . . I mean, the song . . . understand?”

  Again came the exchange between Thistle and Quiet Hunter, then the inclusion of True-of-voice. To Ratha, the process seemed to take forever, but part of her sensed that it was actually swifter than Named speech.

  Thistle returned with the answer. “The showing, the sharing are taken in and acknowledged.”

  “I assume that means yes.” Ratha couldn’t help the tartness that crept into her voice.

  “It does.”

  “What about True-of-voice’s question?”

  “About ‘practice.’ Thakur had to ‘practice’ to learn. Song doesn’t know what that means.”

  Ratha’s jaw threatened to drop open again, but she recovered. “You know what it means, Thistle. When we start to do something, we often make mistakes. To learn the right way, we have to do it again and again.”

  Thistle just stared at her in silence, and her gaze seemed a little sad. “Is no word for ‘mistake.’ Is no word for ‘right.’ No word for ‘wrong.’”

  “You mean that True-of-voice never makes mistakes?” Ratha knew her disbelief sounded in her voice. “That’s not true. You had to rescue him when he fell off the cliff.”

  “Mistakes happen when song isn’t heard,” Thistle said. “Or when the happening is beyond what the song knows.”

  “You are telling me that True-of-voice and his people don’t make errors. That they don’t have the idea of a wrong way or a right way.”

  “Song doesn’t mess up when it is within what it knows. Is no wrong way, right way, or anything other than song’s way.”

  “You are saying,” Ratha began carefully, “that when True-of-voice has had even a brief experience with something, he and his people can repeat it successfully.”

  “Yes. What he sees, he can do. Even if just a glimpse. Not just him either. All. Through the song.”

  “So they never have to practice anything? Once True-of-voice sees something done, they all know. They never do anything the wrong way again?”

  “Yes. So don’t need to practice like us. Song is like good teacher, or leader, inside head.”

  Such a good teacher that the student never makes errors or disobeys, Ratha thought grimly. They can’t disobey because they have no concept of doing anything except what this song-thing commands. I really don’t like this.

  Her feeling of distaste roared unexpectedly into hate. She suddenly wanted to be rid of these “guests.”

  She could still reverse what she had done when the Named rescued the other tribe’s leader, she thought. She might not have to harm True-of-voice or any of his folk. She could just tell him quietly, through her two interpreters, that his folk and hers were simply incompatible and must live apart.

  That message, she knew, would strike more deeply than fangs into the two who bore it. If Thistle and Quiet Hunter were pulled apart, something in each would collapse and die. The same would happen if Quiet Hunter were isolated from his people, or Thistle from hers.

  What if Ratha had to enforce the separation by driving the other tribe away with the Red Tongue? What would that do to Thistle-chaser?

  I cannot hurt her so badly . . . again. Or myself. Why am I forced to make this choice?

  Not yet, part of her hissed. You don’t know if the hunters really can do what Thistle claims.

  Ratha realized that True-of-voice and Quiet Hunter still waited, but she had to wrestle this prey to the ground before it escaped.

  “Thistle,” she began, “I can’t believe these hunters can do something perfectly the first time because True-of-voice sees it.”

  Thistle had a delicate pointed little face, but it could look extraordinarily stubborn. “Must believe, Mother. So you understand.” She paused. “Want proof? Want for True-of-voice to show you? Nothing else will make you believe? Right?”

  “Yes,” Ratha growled. She waited while Thistle conferred with Quiet Hunter, shaping the message for True-of-voice. At the end, Thistle turned to Ratha again.

  “Song says it will show. Have herders bring another fawn. Song will repeat what Thakur just did.”

  “True-of-voice? Is he fast enough?”

/>   “Not True-of-voice,” said Thistle. “Song chooses another—younger, quicker.”

  Now intense curiosity had Ratha. “All right, I’ll ask the herders to bring another fawn.” She eyed Thistle. “Are you sure this isn’t a trick? Maybe True-of-voice’s people already use that way of knocking beasts down.”

  Thistle’s eyes said no. “Not a trick. Face-tail hunters don’t run after little scampering bony things. Not worth it. Not enough meat.”

  Ratha left Thistle and the others briefly while she made her request to the herders. She also asked Cherfan to announce a slight change in the sequence of events. Their guests were going to put on a display of their own.

  Again a slender, lithe shape positioned itself at the edge of the arena while Named herders held a three-horn fawn. This time, however, the shape was night black rather than copper. The eyes were such a pale blue-green that, from a distance, they looked white.

  Ratha, perched once more on the sunning rock, wondered why True-of-voice had not chosen one of his many brindled gray-brown followers. Where had this shadow come from?

  The shadow’s shape was that of a young male and the scent, wafting to her on the breeze, confirmed the gender. The black had touched noses with True-of-voice before padding to the start position. Perhaps he was one of the leader’s sons.

  It could well be that only True-of-voice’s line had the freedom to vary from the dull pelt color of those they ruled.

  Ratha felt the skin on her muzzle start to wrinkle, lips drawing back from her fangs. Here was another instance of a tyrant’s power over his subordinates. Another Meoran, another Shongshar.

  She scrubbed her nose quickly with her paw to hide the beginnings of her snarl while she suppressed it. Though she, too, was a leader, she had sworn that she would govern by being respected and loved instead of feared. Though that intent had been badly strained in the past, it was working now.

  True-of-voice, however, was no Shongshar. She had never seen him strike or even threaten any of his people. He was extraordinarily gentle with them, even more so than she was with the Named. His gentleness seemed strangely at odds with his absolute power.

  Motion at the edge of her vision brought Ratha’s attention back to the field. She had seen the black male’s hindquarters lower and tense. The black gave the same quick lift of the tail as Thakur had done.

  For an instant Ratha wanted to spit out an order halting the show. Letting the hunter free on a clan herdbeast was risky. If she really didn’t understand these hunters, she didn’t know what they would do.

  It was because she needed to know that she kept silent.

  The herders responded to the black hunter’s signal, freeing the fawn.

  Ratha felt as if she were watching the herding teacher again as the black hunter sunk into a stalking crouch. He eased forward, placing one paw in front of the next. The three-horn, slightly older and more experienced than Thakur’s quarry, had already bounded away from the release position. The herders had to move fast in order to keep it within their ring.

  This wasn’t quite the same as Thakur’s pursuit, Ratha thought. It was harder.

  The black male surged from a stalk into a trot and then flashed into a gallop. In the time it took her to draw a breath, he was not only at the fawn’s heels, but on it, swiping and hooking the hock with his dewclaw in the same way. The quarry went down, the black atop it, searching for and seizing the throat.

  Ratha swallowed. This had to be some sort of trick, she thought. How could this youngster repeat precisely what had taken the best of the Named herders endless practice?

  “He’s done it exactly the same way,” she muttered under her breath.

  “No, clan leader,” said a voice near her ear. Thakur had sprung up quietly beside her. “He’s done it better.”

  “How can . . . ?” Ratha faltered, then narrowed her eyes. “Wait. What is he doing now?”

  Instead of freezing in position, the black continued to wrestle the deer, forcing its head far back. Ratha suddenly knew that the hunters were as capable as Thistle said, and more. She should never have allowed this. She felt a sudden panic. Smell as well as sight told her that blood was starting to stain the black’s jaws as his fangs sank in. The deer screamed.

  “No!” Ratha howled over the growing unrest among the Named onlookers. True-of-voice and his people kept their eyes on the young male and his struggling prey, as if they hadn’t heard.

  She used her position on the sunning rock to locate her daughter. “Thistle!” she cried, her voice raw. “He’s killing the fawn. Make True-of-voice stop him!”

  She saw Fessran and Bira already charging the black, their eyes burning with bewilderment and outrage. Thistle turned to True-of-voice in alarm, but the fawn’s eyes were already glazing, the body relaxing, the head falling. The hind legs gave one last kick and then went stiff and still.

  Rage rose in Ratha at the unexpected and unnecessary slaughter. A glance and sniff at Thakur told her that he, too, was upset.

  “Hold!” she heard him roar at Bira and Fessran, who seemed intent on tearing the black male to shreds. The killer pivoted quickly on his hind legs, dragging his limp catch around in his jaws. At Thakur’s call, Bira slowed but Fessran didn’t. “You son of a dung-eating, bone-crushing belly-biter!” she screamed, leaping at the black with fangs and claws bared. Ratha launched herself off the sunning rock, but Thakur was already far ahead of her.

  With a wrench of his head, the black slung the fawn’s body around as he spun toward the attacking Firekeeper. Blood sprayed from the torn throat as he threw the body at Fessran, knocking her down and away.

  Before the Firekeeper could pick herself up again, Thakur was beside her, his teeth in her scruff, pulling her back. The black stood over his kill, tail starting to lash, muscles rippling, ears flattened.

  Ratha sought Thistle-chaser. Her daughter was already halfway to her. When they met, Thistle scampered back through the throng to True-of-voice, who had risen at the disturbance. Ratha saw Quiet Hunter, concern in his eyes, speaking quickly and softly to the gray leader. Quiet Hunter was also using tail-waves and paw gestures, coupled, no doubt, with the subtle changes in scent that he had used before.

  “Trying to tell him,” panted Thistle, confirming Ratha’s impression that Quiet Hunter was attempting to explain what had happened and calm not only True-of-voice but those around him. “Trying to say no killing here, now.”

  When they reached True-of-voice, Quiet Hunter turned to them and said, “He doesn’t understand why the Named are angry, but he will stop the black one.”

  True-of-voice was already facing into the arena, eyes fixed on the black. He gave a loud rasping snarl that brought the young male back to the hunters, tail and eyes down. The fawn still lay on the field, the clan starting to cluster around it. Nearby, Thakur was wrestling an enraged Fessran into submission.

  “Let me go and I’ll feed that belly-biter his own guts!” Ratha heard the Firekeeper’s muffled yowl.

  Ratha knew she had to get control of the situation before it erupted into a fight. “Bira,” she called, “get everyone away from the kill.”

  Bira, red-gold coat flying, was already in action, rounding up her fellow clan members, gathering and calming them. Ratha gave a relieved breath, thankful that she was now free to question True-of-voice. His two interpreters stood beside him.

  After conferring briefly with Quiet Hunter, Thistle turned to Ratha. “True-of-voice questions why killing a prey animal causes so much fuss.”

  “That fawn was one of our herdbeasts, not prey.” Ratha tried to soften the sharpness in her voice.

  “He asks, why send hunter to stalk if not to kill?”

  Ratha controlled the urge to grind her teeth in frustration. “I thought he just wanted to show us what his people could do.”

  “Yes, but he says that stalk is wasted if kill not made. He asks may black one take the fawn?”

  “Doesn’t he understand that to kill without a reason is also wa
steful?”

  Ratha met True-of-voice’s concerned yet implacable gaze. He seemed stuck on the idea that a stalk had to end in a kill, no matter if the hunter was hungry or sated. She wondered if this was another expression of the killing instinct in her kind that she often had to fight while working with the clan’s herdbeasts.

  Yet she could and chose to control it. True-of-voice was as intelligent as she. The light in his eyes shone as strongly as hers, even if it differed from that of the Named.

  “It is the song,” Thistle said softly. “Once it has begun, it must complete.”

  All this was shredding Ratha’s patience. Trying to keep from hissing, she said, “Thistle, I know you and Quiet Hunter are doing the best you can. But I have to make True understand that he and his people are guests. While they are on clan ground, they must respect clan ways, as we have tried to respect theirs.”

  “They make some allowance,” Thistle said, “but not this. Not when prey-taking. The song says there is only one path. No others.”

  “Can’t you tell him that this was supposed to be just a demonstration? A show?” She watched while her daughter conferred again with Quiet Hunter, who in turn translated the message to True-of-voice. When Thistle turned back to her, there was resignation in the little pointed face.

  “No words for ‘show,’ no words for ‘demonstration,’ just like no words for practice. They act to do, not to pretend.” She paused. “Is my fault. Asked him to do this because I got mad at you. Shouldn’t have. Another Thistle-mess.”

  “Thistle, no. What happened isn’t your fault.” Ratha licked her daughter’s forehead, and bumped it gently with her own. It’s really more of a Ratha-mess, she thought. “In some ways it isn’t that important. The black one only killed a fawn.”

  “Bad thing though. Couldn’t make the song understand why fawn not to be killed here and now. Song too stiff.”

  Though she herself wouldn’t have said it that way, Ratha agreed with her daughter’s assessment. She had been aware of others waiting while she spoke to Thistle. This awareness sharpened. She couldn’t stop to puzzle this out. Not now. True-of-voice’s people were getting restive and many of the Named were looking resentful.