Ratha's Courage

by Clare Bell

  None did. They huddled together on the ground, Ratha protecting Thistle, Fessran defending Bira and Drani, others shielding their companions.

  Again the circle tightened as all the males moved in closer.

  The females all shifted to one side of the campfire, forming a many-pointed star with their hindquarters together and their heads and paws facing out. Ratha positioned the vulnerable ones, such as Thistle-chaser, at the center of the star, defended from all sides. They would meet any approach from the males with teeth and claws.

  None of the males approached. As the night grew darker, Ratha heard a strange moaning over the crackle-hiss of the Red Tongue. It came from the males, who were now all sitting up, leaning forward with anticipation. The moaning grew louder, hungrier.

  Ratha felt the growing warmth in her loins flare and spread all over her. Her skin became highly sensitive, making her move away from Fessran on one side and Bira on the other. She noticed that other Named females were doing the same, loosening and cracking their defensive star.

  The males caterwauled, and a powerful musky scent filled the air. Bira broke from the group. She started to prowl back and forth, her ears flattened.

  “Get back here!” Ratha hissed.

  “I just can’t stay still, clan leader. I’m too hot and itchy.” Bira’s voice was strained. “This shouldn’t be happening. My cubs are too young.”

  Ratha knew exactly what Bira was feeling. She, too, was fighting an overwhelming urge to fling herself on the ground, rubbing and rolling madly to quench the prickles in her skin.

  Try as she might, Ratha couldn’t keep her friends together. The star dissolved and all the females began to prowl back and forth, the firelight gleaming on their undulating backs.

  The males showed their teeth and lolled their tongues, infuriating Ratha.

  “Stop that!” she screamed, part of her knowing that her demand was irrational. She charged their line, howling, but she never reached it. Waves of arousing scent met her and melted her anger into desire and distraction. Colors glowed and danced hypnotically in her vision. The male before her suddenly looked like Thakur and smelled so enticing. . . .

  She was barely able to pull herself away and stagger back to her friends. The rush of sensation still washed back and forth over and through her, rocking her on her feet. Everything was taking on a golden halo and a haunting beauty. Bira looked so lovely in the firelight that Ratha wanted to rub herself against the young Firekeeper.

  She shook herself hard, trying to clear her head. She had experienced heat before, but never had it been so overwhelming, so intoxicating. She turned to Fessran. It was difficult to think, much less speak.

  “What is happening, Fessran?” she managed.

  Dreamy-eyed, her friend was slow in responding. “You’ve been . . . in heat before . . . clan leader.”

  “But not like this. Not so fast, so intense . . .” Ratha broke off, her tongue too woolly to form words. Not even her first time, when she had taken Bone-chewer, were the sensations this intense. She felt molten, heavy, slowed. Liquid fire was flowing like thick lava through her limbs, her chest, her belly, igniting the places where cubs could come into life, grow and then pulse and surge their way into the outside world.

  She suddenly wanted to be full, ripe, gravid, round, swollen with new life growing from the seed that only the males could give her. So powerful was the urge that part of her started up in alarm.

  She fought to speak, finding that her voice seemed to echo and resonate in her ears, confusing her more than ever.

  “Fess,” she pleaded, trying to see her friend through the rippling in her vision. “This . . . isn’t . . . the way . . . we . . .”

  Fessran looked back at her, gold and green appearing and dissolving in her friend’s eyes. “The courting circle . . .” she breathed. “My mother told me . . .”

  “Wha . . . what . . . ?” Baffled, Ratha fought the glowing fog that seemed to have taken over her mind.

  “We . . . used to . . . do this a long time . . . ago.”

  “No, Fess, you’re imagining . . .”

  “We did,” insisted the Firekeeper, starting to slur her words and sway on her feet. “Not often, but . . . we did. Before the light . . . was strong . . . in our eyes.”

  “No, not . . . like this.” Ratha’s tongue felt impossibly leaden, but worse, she was starting not to care.

  “Yes . . . thissss . . .” Fessran’s words trailed off, and her gaze wandered.

  Ratha had to lift a paw and pull her friend’s head around before Fessran would focus on her again. Ages seemed to pass as she dragged a few words at a time out of the Firekeeper. The other females prowled around them.

  Rocked by the resonating echo of her heartbeat in her ears, Ratha began to understand. She could almost visualize it, the Named males in a circle, and the females at the center, the harsh yowling that to her was starting to sound strangely beautiful. . . .

  That was the way of her kind before they were fully Named, before they cared so deeply for one another. Before they needed to be together apart from the others so that they could lose themselves in the molten velvet dance of lovemaking.

  The thought drew Ratha’s gaze out to the males. Now they were inhaling deeply, drawing the corners of their mouths back, lifting their tongues in the scent-grimace.

  Ratha realized that the heady scent in the air was not just male musk. She and the others were adding their smells to the enticing brew, drawing their captors closer. Ratha tried to flatten her fur, holding in the betraying odors, but they grew stronger than ever, making her head swim.

  Something far away inside her huddled in fear while the rest of her body, strangely detached, glided back and forth, almost floating.

  The fearful part managed to break through the gauziness wrapping her mind. It made her seek Fessran again, but the only answer she got was, “This . . . is . . . what . . . the courting circle does, Ratha.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Ratha fought to hold on to the hard lump of fear and outrage, but it somehow melted and flowed away.

  An odd sound met her ears. She had to close her eyes and shake her head before she realized that the noise was Bira crying.

  “I’m scared,” Bira quavered. “Mating isn’t supposed to be like this. Cherfan used to play with me, cuddle me. . . . I can’t. I’m not ready.”

  “They will wait . . . until you are,” Fessran said.

  For an instant Ratha wanted to strike the Firekeeper leader, but she couldn’t make her paw obey. Her tail, however, lashed without being told to, and her mouth opened in a growl.

  “I will . . . never . . . be ready. Not for any . . . of . . . them!” she spat.

  Even as Ratha spoke, she betrayed her words, falling into the ancient fever of the courting circle.

  “Will they take us away?” asked another female voice, squeaky with fright.

  “Why?” Ratha heard Fessran ask.

  “To mate. They aren’t . . . going to take us . . . right here, are they?”

  “They have to give us some privacy!” Bira’s voice shook.

  “Where?” came Fessran’s languid response.

  “Behind a bush or a tree.” Suddenly becoming furious, Bira clawed Fessran across the face, startling Ratha. “You may not care, but I do!”

  Somehow Ratha stopped the threatened fight. “Save it for them,” she hissed.

  Bira turned to her, pupils wide with dread and pleading. Her voice shook. “Not right here. Not before all those eyes . . .”

  Fessran was silent. Ratha couldn’t think of anything to say. Sensations began to immerse her again.

  “Bira,” she tried to comfort the terrified young Firekeeper, “it will be all right—”

  “No, it won’t!” Bira screamed. She crouched, as if preparing for a last frantic dash, then ducked her head down, grabbed her tail with her teeth, and pulled it between her legs. She looked both courageous and ridiculous.

  Fessran sighed, shook her h
ead.

  Through the surges of her fever, Ratha felt herself tremble with outrage and fear. From her previous experience, she knew that it wouldn’t matter where she was when the full power of the mating urge hit.

  Knowing that won’t comfort Bira. For the young Firekeeper, and many others, mating and the time between was intensely private. Ratha knew she was among them. How she had savored the moments alone with Bone-chewer, reveling in the expansion of feelings, savoring the fierce joy. For her, if not for all the Named, a mate was far more than a sire.

  That thought made her glance at Thistle. Her daughter wouldn’t have any such memories to soften the coming violation. Ratha so wanted Thistle’s first time to be filled with gentleness and joy. With Quiet Hunter, it would have happened that way, but with these males . . .

  She was weaving her way over to Thistle when one male erupted from the circle’s edge. Large, powerful, and reeking, he dashed at the females and, to Ratha’s horror, grabbed Bira’s nape.

  Bira fought back, writhing and plunging. “No!” she screamed. “I won’t mate with one who killed my cubs!”

  Ratha had never seen the calm Firekeeper like this. Even in fights with the Un-Named, Bira never turned into the red, spitting fury that she saw now.

  With Fessran, Drani, and others, Ratha jumped to Bira’s defense. They drove off the panting male, and then crouched beside the young Firekeeper. Bira’s ribs heaved and her eyes were wild.

  “I am Named,” she hissed. “This is wrong, this is so wrong. I’ll rip the flesh of my loins out with my claws before I’ll let any of them take me!”

  She managed to rake herself on the belly before Ratha and Fessran managed to grab her paws. They forced her down, then held her, panting.

  Ratha knew that Bira’s reaction wasn’t just rage at being forced. Bira already knew the heartbreak of bearing an animal-eyed litter—cubs without the Named light. Ratha, too, had known it, and Thistle might as well.

  Ratha crouched down beside Bira, trying to comfort her. “You will survive this, Firekeeper. Fess and I will defend you as long as we can. When Thakur hears I was taken, he and the other males will attack and rescue us. And if you do have cubs sired upon you, by force, don’t despair. Mating outside the clan doesn’t have to result in tragedy. See how wrong I was about Thistle.”

  As Ratha tried to soothe Bira, Thistle came over, trying not to limp, and positioned herself on one side of Bira while Fessran took the other. As Fessran passed Ratha, she hissed very softly, “She won’t resist, you know. None of us will fight them when the time comes.”

  Again Ratha wanted to swat Fessran, but she knew the older Firekeeper was speaking the truth.

  Standing side-on to Fessran and giving her a narrow-eyed glare, Ratha heard Bira pleading, “I have to care for the one who takes me—please, this is so wrong. . . .”

  Ratha felt her tail bottle with rage. She whirled, facing New Singer, snarling, “This is useless! Such a mating won’t take or hold!”

  Even as she spoke, Ratha knew she was mistaken. The way the atmosphere of the courting circle intensified her own heat told her that the mating would hold. Even in a female who had been barren for the last few seasons . . .

  Her mind replayed Fessran’s words again. Being surrounded by excited and odorous males heightened not only the urge but fertility as well. Fessran was right when she said, “This is what the courting circle does, Ratha.”

  She glanced at Thistle and Fessran guarding Bira. Perhaps the young Firekeeper’s self-destructive action might not be so crazy after all. . . .

  No. She might have done such a thing when she was younger and more impulsive, but not now. Bearing what she thought were witless cubs hadn’t ended her life and wouldn’t even if it happened again. You will survive this, she told herself as she had told Bira.

  She saw Thistle crouch down beside Bira, offering her own comfort. “Will fight for you as well. If they make you have cubs and any of them are like me, will be friend to them, will teach them.”

  Bira, calming, managed to whisper that she was grateful to Thistle for those words. Ratha felt a surge of pride that her daughter, despite her own injury, uncertainty, and fear, was strong enough to comfort someone else. With a nose-touch and a head-bump, she praised Thistle.

  She faced out to the enclosing circle, feeling more able to defy those impatient eyes. As she watched, there was a disturbance in the circle. Someone else had arrived and was taking a place. He entered on the far side of the circle, behind the campfire so that Ratha couldn’t see the colors of his eyes or his coat. The firelight that reflected from his eyes fell on her with an unsettling intensity. It made Ratha wonder if he would be the one to approach and take her. She tried to catch his scent, but it was so overlaid with campfire smoke and the odors of courting, she couldn’t. Her eyes, however, fixed on him briefly before she turned her head away.

  The moment had yet to come. Beyond the dancing light from the fire, the males yowled and shifted, waiting.

  Back in their rocky refuge above the waterfall, the clan males came together in a somber meeting. They had pastured the recovered herdbeasts and posted scouts to warn of any reprisal. Thakur felt that things were improving for the Named until dark covered the refuge and Ratha didn’t appear.

  “Now we’re the ones that will have to go hunting for females,” grumbled Mondir, settling himself beside the small flame that threw shadows across the tumbled granite of their shelter. “Why did you let her go, Thakur?”

  Thakur, sitting beside Cherfan, flattened his ears at Mondir. He was tired from rounding up herdbeasts, and Mondir’s question had clawed a little too deep. “I didn’t see you trying to stop her.”

  “Enough,” growled Cherfan, who had been made interim clan leader and didn’t want the job. “We have to figure out how to get her and the others back. And the fire-den and clan ground.”

  “Well, we have the Red Tongue again,” said Khushi. “If we charge at New Singer with torches, he and the others will run.”

  Thakur caught an uncertain look from Cherfan. “Khushi, these invaders are not like the Un-Named,” the herding teacher said wearily. “Thanks to us, they have learned a lot about fire. Our losing fight with them showed how much they knew.”

  Thakur looked at the ground between his paws, already missing Ratha deeply. “The usurpers won’t be scared off. For one thing, they have the Red Tongue. For another, they have Fessran and other Firekeepers. New Singer can force the females to fight back with torches, so we’d be facing our own sisters, daughters, and mates.”

  A discouraged silence fell over the group.

  “What about treelings?” asked Ashon. “Treelings can hold torches, and they can throw things. They can climb trees and drop rocks.”

  “We could use the tree-creatures if we have to,” rumbled Cherfan, giving Bira’s treeling a lick that nearly soaked Cherfaree. “We don’t have that many, though. I’d hate to see them get hurt or killed.”

  Thakur nuzzled Aree and agreed with Cherfan, adding that he didn’t feel it was right to risk their little companions in such an attempt.

  “Well, if the Red Tongue and treelings are out, what else do we have?” Cherfan asked grumpily.

  “Herdbeasts!” came a squeak from an unexpected corner.

  Mondir made a disgusted grimace and several other males got dismissive looks on their faces. “Oh, that’s just Mishanti,” someone said.

  “I thought he was supposed to be sleeping with the cubs,” someone else said, and others added that this was clan business and no place for a half-grown runt who had no right to be in this gathering, much less to speak out.

  “He does have a right to speak,” Thakur interrupted, and turned to Cherfan. “You are leader now. Decide.”

  “Let my friend have his say,” Bundi said. “Sometimes he’s pretty smart.”

  Cherfan raised himself up. “Mishanti, let’s hear you.”

  Bundi pushed Mishanti to the center of the gathering.

  “Herdbe
asts,” Mishanti said, with less of a squeak in his voice. “You told me how the last part of the herd nearly got trapped. Thakur made the animals trample the enemy guards. You got the herd out safely.”

  “A stampede?” Cherfan peered at Mishanti.

  “Right through the center of clan ground. Knock those belly-biters right off their paws.”

  “I should have thought of that myself,” Thakur answered.

  “Thistle did it, too, when she rescued her water-horses. When I lived with her. Remember?”

  Thakur paused, thinking. A mass of galloping herdbeasts could be unstoppable, especially if they appeared in the enemy’s camp without warning. Effective, possibly, he thought, but difficult to control and direct.

  “It would be pretty powerful, especially if we put our face-tails at the front.” This was from Mondir.

  “If the stampede gets out of control, the beasts could trample the fire-den and kill the females,” Khushi said.

  “He’s right about that, especially if the face-tails were in front,” Cherfan said in an aside to Thakur.

  “If it failed, we’d lose the beasts we just recaptured,” someone else wailed. “Not even putting face-tails at the front would save the herd. Those hunters know how to kill face-tails.”

  The discussion continued, agitated and noisy. What we need, Thakur thought, is a beast that the raiders can’t kill and that we can control.

  Mishanti had crawled back over to Bundi, seeking shelter from the storm of talk around him.

  “Clan leader,” said Bundi to Cherfan, “Mishanti has something else to say.”

  An idea popped into the herding teacher’s mind as the cub began to speak in a squeaky voice.

  “Raiders can’t kill our rumblers. Use them!”

  The reaction began, louder than before.

  “Those things?”

  “They aren’t herdbeasts, they’re disasters.”