by Clare Bell
On three legs, Newt scampered shoreward, terrified that her pursuer was about to catch her. Instead the beast had come to a stop, puffing and blowing. It slapped the water with a stumpy hind flipper, roaring at her. Newt’s first reaction was surprise. Here was a creature that she could actually outrun, even at her limping pace.
The realization gave her courage, and instead of hobbling away, she stayed, watching the blubber-tusker shake its fat neck at her. Again she ventured nearer, ignoring the animal’s deafening roars. She nosed the edge of a broken clamshell, tasting what was inside. A shock of delight went through her when the meaty flavor spread over her tongue. In a sudden frenzy, she attacked the shell bed, clawing open damaged shells and swallowing the rubbery meat inside, nearly breaking her fangs in the rush.
A splashing, roaring commotion sent her scooting away, a clamshell still wedged in her jaws. In her urge to eat as much as she could, she had forgotten the blubber-tusker. Again she kept well away from the creature’s lumbering charge, and it halted, quivering, blowing out through its whiskers in frustration.
Newt waited until it had gone back to raking the shell bed before she mounted her next raid. The fact that the huge beast was slower than she was gave her a mischievous joy. She spent the afternoon scavenging from the plundered shell beds and dodging the walrus. At last it lumbered seaward, dived into a wave, and was gone.
As sunset streaked the beach in silver and gold, Newt padded back to the cave where she had napped. Her belly was full enough to ease hunger cramps, though this food was different from anything she had eaten before, and her stomach gurgled.
When she reached her cave, it looked much friendlier. With food in her belly and less pain in her foot, her mind felt clearer. She decided that she disliked the beach less than other places. For the present, this part of it was hers. She limped backward until her tail lay against a block of sandstone and sprayed the rock with her scent.
Newt flattened her ears and snaked her head back and forth, suddenly fearing that someone would come and take this place from her. She waited, stiff and tense. Nothing happened. Waves rolled in and washed out. Birds drifted down the sky with distant calls.
She crawled into the cave, making a nest for herself in the warm sand. She wondered if the tusked sea-animal would return to the shell beds, and while she was wondering, drowsiness crept over her, drew her head down on her paw, and coaxed her into sleep.
Chapter Two
Ratha, the leader of the Named, squinted through the trees to a sun paled by blowing dust. She had grit in her fawn-colored pelt, in the fur of her tail, and between the toes of all four paws. Her tongue felt dry and sticky against her fangs. On the riverbank where she stood, three-horn deer and small dapplebacked horses milled in groups, guarded by her people. The Named had long ago given up the risky life of huters for the more stable existence of herders, living on the meat of the beasts they kept.
Many of the Named carried a small companion called a treeling on their backs: a lemurlike creature with large eyes, a pointed muzzle, a ringed tail, and hands instead of paws. The treelings were the descendants of a single female who had been adopted by one of the Named as a pet. Her hands had proved useful for tasks too difficult for claws or teeth.
Ratha had her own treeling, a female called Ratharee, who sat on her back and groomed her. She felt deft treeling fingers comb the fur along her spine. Ratharee seemed to know exactly where the fleas tickled and would groom there before Ratha twitched or scratched. Sometimes Ratha felt needle-sharp teeth as the treeling nibbled to dislodge a stubborn tick, but Ratharee never nipped her.
Ratha turned her attention to the animals. The dapplebacks stood with their three-toed forefeet in the sluggish flow, nuzzling the water and sucking it up with thirsty gulps. Ratha badly wanted a bath, but she knew she’d have to settle for licking herself with her tongue. The river was too shallow to do more than wet her belly.
At least it had some water. The brook that ran from the river through the home pastures had become a dry channel, forcing the Named to move their drinking site.
Every day the water supply dwindled as the river fell. It was so low now that the three-horns and dapplebacks could not be watered together, or their hooves would churn mud into the water, making it undrinkable. Ratha watched as Named herders held the animals together by circling them, snarling and showing teeth. Firekeepers took up outlying positions, some carrying torches bearing the fire-creature called the Red Tongue. In good times, when the meadow brook ran full and clear and the pasturage was lush, herders rarely displayed more than an irritated grimace to control the animals, and the Red Tongue was needed only to defend themselves against outside raids. Now thirst made the herdbeasts restive, irritable, likely to rebel or stampede. The herders needed the Firekeepers close by, backing up the threat of claws and teeth with the threat of fire.
The dapplebacks grunted and squealed, laying back their ears, shaking their stiff, short manes, and lashing out with hoofed toes at any herder not quick enough to evade their ill temper. Ratha’s flank still stung from an unexpected kick.
She gave a soft prrrup that brought Ratharee from her back onto the nape of her neck. The treeling chirred and draped herself so that her forelegs and muzzle lay along the slant of one feline shoulder, while rear legs and tail extended along the other. The treeling angled her nose out, watching the commotion. Perhaps, Ratha thought, Ratharee was looking at her own treeling offspring, who now rode the backs of young herders.
Ratha paced the bank as the clan rounded up the dapplebacks that had already drunk, clearing the way for a group of three-horn does and fawns. She saw Thakur, the herding teacher, dodge a charge from a thirsty doe who threatened him with its forked nose-horn. His treeling, Aree, leaped from his scruff into the air in front of the deer, screeching and flailing her ringed tail. The startled herdbeast jumped sideways, its charge broken. Thakur and the others moved the does in to drink.
A grunting bellow rose above the tumult of lowing and bawling herdbeasts. Ratharee, startled, clung tightly to Ratha’s neck as the largest three-horn stag broke loose from the herd and headed for the river.
Snarling, Ratha leaped to join other herders dashing to cut the beast off. She found Thakur galloping alongside her through the scattered trees that edged the river. His copper coat flashed as he ran through patches of sun and shade with Aree riding on his nape.
“Turn the stag!” the herding teacher yowled. “Don’t try to block him!” Ratha saw Fessran, the Firekeeper leader, join the fray. A torch flame roared at the end of the branch in Fessran’s jaws. Close behind ran Bira, a red-gold shadow to Fessran’s sand-colored pelt.
Ratha skidded to a stop to let Ratharee scramble off. The treeling bounced on her hind legs over to Bira and jumped on alongside Bira’s own companion.
“Stay behind, Firekeepers,” Ratha called as she raced between saplings. The fire-creature she called the Red Tongue could cow aggressive animals, but the Named used it only if they had no other way.
She and Thakur turned the three-horn stag in tighter circles until it danced and bucked, pivoting on its hind feet to meet the herders with head horns and jabbing at them with both prongs of the forked nose-horn. The stag paused in its flurry, snorting and panting. Ratha saw her chance.
She lunged toward the three-horn stag, stamping with both forepaws together. She caught its gaze, locked her own with the animal’s. The three-horn bellowed, shook its heavy neck, but could not look away. Ratha took another step toward the beast, intensifying her stare. She put all her will into it, menacing and hypnotizing the beast.
She took another slow step, holding her body low, bowing her back, hunching her shoulders. Memories of a similar incident edged into her mind, threatening to distract her. Once, when she had been Thakur’s student, she had confronted a defiant three-horn. That time she allowed her gaze to break, and the animal nearly trampled her.
From behind her came the soft hiss of the Red Tongue as it fluttered on Fessran’s
torch. The power was there, if she wanted or needed it. But the Red Tongue was too savage a thing to be used lightly when dealing with herdbeasts. Brought too close, it could madden them, and the only choice then was a quick, killing bite. She didn’t want to sacrifice the stag now, even though the Named needed the meat. It was a bad time and place; the other animals were too restive.
Even so, the instinct to attack rose up in her, almost overwhelming her need to approach slowly, eyes fixed on the quarry. She fought down an urge to spring that tightened her muscles like a cramp. She knew that to return the stag safely to the herd, she must master it by the strength of her gaze. Her stare never faltered or wavered, holding the beast until its proud head dropped in defeat.
Ratha let out her breath as Ratharee came scampering back to her and clambered on. Other herders led the stag back to the herd. She shook herself, sneezed dust from her nose.
Thakur trotted up, his green eyes glowing in his copper-furred face. His treeling, Aree, was Ratharee’s mother. He had originally brought Aree to the clan as a pet.
“Well, yearling,” Thakur said, using his old teasing name for Ratha, “that was one of the best stare-downs I’ve seen.”
“We need every skilled herder we have,” Ratha answered, warmed by his praise. “Even me.” Her tail twitched. “And Shongshar’s rise taught me what can happen if I forget that I am also one of the clan and must work among our people to understand our needs.”
She paced back between the trees with Ratharee on her shoulder, thinking about Shongshar, the orange-eyed stranger she had admitted into the clan. His mating with Bira had produced cubs lacking the intelligence and self-awareness that the Named valued, and Ratha had been forced to exile those youngsters so that they would not grow up in the clan. Embittered by the loss, Shongshar had turned against her, using the Red Tongue to create a worshipful following among the Firekeepers that was strong enough to cast her down from leadership and out of the clan.
It had been two summers since Ratha had fought to gain back her position, but the Named had been long in recovering. Some, like the Firekeeper leader, Fessran, still bore scars on their pelts from Shongshar’s long fangs. Fessran had sided with the Firekeepers and Shongshar in the struggle two summers ago. But when Shongshar held Ratha down for the killing bite, Fessran flung herself between the two, taking the wound. Ratha had escaped his saber-teeth, but her memory of him would never fade from her mind and only gradually from those of her people. And now, too soon after that wrenching time, the drought had come.
The Named watered their herdbeasts with no more major incidents and drove them to a nearby clearing that still had scattered grass and a few thickets with green leaves. Ratha lay down in the shade, missing the sunning rock that stood in the middle of clan ground. She liked to lie on the sunning rock, looking out over the beasts and herders. But now, though spring had not yet yielded to summer, the brook running through the old pasture had dried up, and the green faded into gold and brown.
And how long would the river itself last? Each day it shrank, and the net of cracks in the muddy banks grew and deepened. Ratha remembered tales told by elders of seasons when the Named had left clan ground in a search for pasturage and water. But it had been so long ago that no one could recall where they went or how they managed.
As the animals straggled past, she watched dappleback foals capering about their mothers. Fewer had been born this dry spring. Among the three-horns, several fawns butted and nuzzled at the dams’ flanks. Three-horns often had twins, but this season none of the does had dropped more than one fawn, as if their bodies sensed that they would have food and milk to rear only a single youngster.
Ratha tipped her head back to eye the sun’s white-gold fire against a bleached sky. If rain came again, even a little, the forage might recover enough to last through the summer. But nothing could be done to recover from the disappointment of spring breeding. The herds would decrease instead of expanding this year. Still, if the Named limited the number of their own new cubs, perhaps they could live on what they had.
Ratha gave a soft snort at her own presumption. If there was anything she couldn’t control, it was the fertility of Named females. Though the clan’s mating season had been delayed by the hardships of a dry winter and spring, it would still come. And, if things went as they had the last breeding time, she herself wouldn’t be adding to the number of new cubs.
In a way she felt relieved. Watching mothers cope with their litters of squalling, scrambling youngsters made her feel tired, and the occasional times she did nursery duty, her patience was gone long before someone rescued her. It was clear she was not fit for motherly duties. Still...
Stop dreaming, she told herself crossly. You had your chance, and look what happened. She sighed. Every once in a while thoughts of her lost litter by the Un-Named male, whom she called Bonechewer, still entered her mind. The Un-Named were those of Ratha’s kind who lived outside the clan. Though they resembled her people so closely that they could mate with the Named, they lacked the spark of self-awareness that made thought and language possible. Or so Ratha had believed until her banishment for daring to challenge clan leadership with the Red Tongue, the fire-creature she had found. Her exile forced her to live among the Un-Named, and there she met Bonechewer, an intelligent male with the ability to speak. He and Ratha had mated.
By now she should have forgotten, but images of the cubs, especially of her daughter, Thistle-chaser, still haunted her. She remembered Thisde-chaser’s beautiful empty eyes, which spoke of a mind too stunted to know the world in the way the Named did.
I wonder where she is now. I remember Bonechewer said she lived to run with the Un-Named. Ratha sighed, blowing the breath out between her front fangs and startling Ratharee. Long ago she had dismissed any thought of trying to find the cubs. What good would it do her, or them either? She would look at their eyes and the old rage would rekindle, the fury of knowing that her flesh and blood were nothing more than animals like the herdbeasts on which she fed or the marauders she fought, or the treeling she carried on her back. Even Ratharee’s eyes held more flickerings of the mind’s light than her sons’ and daughter’s ever would.
She tore herself away from the bleak landscape of her memory and gazed out at the herders, their beasts, and their treelings. They were her sons and daughters now —all those who made up the clan, all those who knew names and their worth. She sighted along her nose to a distant point where a fire burned with a Firekeeper standing watch nearby. This too was her progeny, this flame-creature called the Red Tongue, with its power to twist and sear those who bore it. If she had known of this when she first found the Red Tongue, would she have brought it back as a gift to her people? She shivered again with the memory of Shongshar and the struggle between herders and Firekeepers that nearly destroyed the Named.
Now she was wiser. One like Shongshar would never again rise within the clan, not while she had wit and strength to prevent it.
Ratharee rubbed her small head against Ratha’s cheek, as if reminding her of the unexpected gift those events had brought: the coming of Ratharee and her kind. If Thakur hadn’t found that injured treeling cub, or if he had found it and decided to eat it...
She glanced to one side, catching a flicker of motion in the corner of one eye. Thakur, the clan herding teacher, was trotting toward her with Aree bouncing on his shoulder.
“Are the beasts settled?” she called to him.
“Yes, now that they’ve drunk. I’m glad you decided to stay near the river.” He lay down beside her and licked dust from his copper fur.
“I’m worried, herding teacher,” Ratha said. “You know how few young herdbeasts were born this season. We will have to limit the number we use for meat.”
“There won’t be enough,” Thakur said, looking at her steadily.
“I know. We can’t depend on the herdbeasts entirely for food. Later there may be other food, such as those soggy fruit-things the treelings eat. I know you like fruits, b
ut my stomach won’t stand them.” She paused. “The Named used to hunt all kinds of animals. Perhaps some of those that we used to hunt we can learn to herd. It wasn’t that long ago that old Baire brought three-horns to us.”
“I remember when a certain three-horn stag chased a young herding student up a tree.” Thakur’s eyes glowed with amusement at this memory of Ratha. “But you are right, clan leader. We have overlooked other animals. We should keep creatures that can do well in dry seasons, as well as those that flourish in good times.”
“This is what I will do,” said Ratha finally. “I will call all the strong, young herders and Firekeepers to the sunning rock. Those I need to guard the animals and the Red Tongue on our lands I will send back to their posts. Those who remain will stand in pairs in a circle with their backs to me and their noses pointed outward. Each pair will travel in the direction they face, seeking a place with water and forage for our herds, as well as new beasts we can learn to keep.”
“You know that the mating season will soon come, even if it is short,” said Thakur. “I heard Fessran yowling last night. I don’t think she was just singing.”
“With fewer of the Named on clan land during the mating season, fewer cubs will be born, I hope.”
“Perhaps that is sad, clan leader, but it is wise,” answered Thakur. “And I will also take my place among those you send.”
Ratha was unsure how to respond to Thakur’s offer. She found herself starting to lick a paw and scrub her face to avoid answering him.
“Yearling,” he said, using his old teasing name for her again, “I leave the clan every mating season. You know why, and I thought my going no longer bothered you.”
She licked her pad and gave her cheek a harder swipe than she meant to. “You won’t sire empty-eyed cubs on me, if that’s what you fear. I have not birthed cubs by anyone since Bonechewer. The matings don’t take.”
Thakur looked at the ground. “It is not just you I worry about, Ratha. The others too—Bira, Fessran. They don’t think about such things when the mating fever takes them. If I stay, the risk of siring witless cubs remains.”