by Clare Bell
“No,” she answered as Fessran stared at her with puzzled eyes. “Killing him would do no good. The Named want to crouch down before the Red Tongue and serve a leader who bears that power. If he were to die, his way would not end, for they would find another like him to rule in his place.”
Her friend’s eyes narrowed. “Suppose he were to die and the cave-fire along with him. Then if the Named had nothing to crouch down before, they would turn back to you.”
“What good would my leadership do the clan without the Red Tongue to protect the herd? The Named have become too dependent on the fire-creature to survive without it.”
“All of the Red Tongue need not die,” answered Fessran. “The fire-creature in the cave is what gives him his power. Herders don’t crouch down to guard-flames kept in the meadow or those kept in fire-lairs. They go to the cave. We must strike there.”
The longer Ratha thought about Fessran’s argument, the more convincing it sounded. If Shongshar lost the cave-fire, his influence would be severely crippled. “Some Firekeepers would also have to die, Fessran,” said Ratha slowly. “The young ones, the cubs who know no way other than his. Your son, Nyang, would be one.”
“He is more Shongshar’s than mine,” said Fessran bitterly. “It is my fault; I let Shongshar influence him and turn him into the little killer that he is. Even if he lived, he couldn’t be trusted. No. I wouldn’t let that turn me aside.”
Ratha stared at her, looking deep into her eyes. “Are you saying you know of a way to destroy the fire-creature in the cave?”
“There is a big crack in the roof,” said Fessran. “It draws the smoke up and out so that it doesn’t fill the cavern. That’s one reason we chose that cave for the Red Tongue’s den.” She paused. “The smoke comes out of several cracks above the falls. I’ve seen it when I’ve been up there.”
“Are any of them wide enough to crawl through?”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Fessran.
“Then I don’t see what good they are.”
“Think,” Fessran prodded her. “What is the greatest enemy of the Red Tongue? What was our reason for bringing the fire into the cavern?”
“The rain?” asked Ratha. “But how are you going to make it rain inside that cave?”
“Well, I’m not sure exactly how to do it, but the crack is close to the stream, and if smoke can come up, water can go down.”
“How would you get the water from the stream into the crack?” Ratha cocked her head at Fessran.
“That’s the part I don’t know.”
Ratha thought for a while. “Thakur might be able to help us. He often plays with mud and water when he’s fishing.”
When Thakur returned from the creek with his catch in his jaws, Ratha told him about Fessran’s idea. At first, he seemed doubtful, but the longer he thought about it, the more he became convinced that the scheme might work. As for moving water from stream to cave, that could be done by digging a long trench in the earth from the stream to the cleft, making a path for the water to follow. He had dug such water-paths in the creekbank to trap fish.
“Do the cracks that lead into the cave lie above or below the stream?” he asked Fessran.
“In a little hollow where the stream bends before it reaches the falls,” was her answer.
“Is the stream bank rocky or muddy there?”
Fessran thought it was muddy, but she wasn’t sure. The only way to tell was to go and look.
Ratha turned to Thakur, who had begun to look doubtful again. “Herding teacher, this would give us a way to strike down the fire-creature and free our people from Shongshar. Will you work with us?”
Thakur agreed, and they began to plan a small expedition to the site to judge whether the idea would work. This time only Thakur and Ratha would go, along with Aree and Ratharee, leaving Bira to take care of Fessran and the rest of the treelings. If the plan was feasible, one of them would start digging while the other went back to the redwood grove to fetch Bira and Fessran, too, if she was well enough to travel.
Before Ratha left, she caught enough game so that Bira wouldn’t have to hunt. When that was done, she and Thakur bid their companions farewell and set off.
To avoid trouble, they decided to return to clan ground by the same route they had come, skirting Shongshar’s territory until they reached the spring that marked the border in the direction of the setting sun. They crossed over by night and hid until they were sure Shongshar wasn’t patrolling this remote part of his ground. When daylight came, the two made their way downstream and Ratha soon recognized the bend that Fessran had described. They found the hollow by following the scent of smoke and discovered the maze of cracks from which it issued.
As Fessran had said, the stream lay slightly above the hollow, separated only by the grassy rise of its bank. If a deep enough channel could be dug, the stream could be turned from its course and rerouted down the hollow. The fissures that vented the cave lay near the bottom, so that the water filling the hollow would not have to rise far before it drained through them.
Thakur dug a hole at the top of the rise and found sandy clay as far down as he could reach. Ratha made another test excavation near the stream and came up with only a few stubborn rocks.
“This looks better than I’d thought,” Thakur said after examining the results of her digging. “I had my doubts, but now I know that we can do it. I’ll start while you fetch Fessran and Bira.”
Within a few days, Ratha returned with the two others and the treelings. She sheltered them in small caves farther upstream they had previously used. Leaving Fessran and Bira to rest, she sought Thakur.
When she could find no trace of him or his work, she began to grow worried, but before long he appeared and pushed back some fallen branches and brush to show her the extent of the trench he had already dug.
“Whenever I leave, I hide it by laying branches across the top,” he explained. “Then, even if any of the Firekeepers comes along, they won’t notice what we’re doing.”
“You’ve done a lot,” said Ratha, impressed by the length and the depth of his excavation.
“There’s much more to do and we’ll have to hurry to finish before the rainy season starts,” he replied and added almost mischievously, “Start digging, clan leader.”
Despite her weariness from the journey, she got into the trench and began scraping away at the dirt in front of her. She dug all that day and late into the evening. She dug until her claws ached, scarcely noticing when Bira joined her. When she crawled out of the trench she staggered beneath a bush and collapsed into sleep.
The next day she dug and the day after that, and, when she was not digging, she hunted to feed the others who were devoting themselves even more to the task. Her life seemed to narrow, focusing only on the digging: guarding it, hiding it and extending it laboriously, day by day.
Thakur guided the work, making a pilot trench that Bira and Ratha deepened and widened. Fessran joined in, and, although her injury prevented her from attacking the hard-packed clay along with the other two, she could push aside the soil they threw between their legs, clear away brush and pull roots.
Even the treelings helped. Their clever paws could often dig a way around an embedded rock or break away a stubborn root. Aree sometimes acted as lookout, sitting in a tree that overhung the trench and screeching to warn of approaching intruders. The treelings groomed the dirt out of the diggers’ fur, pulled caked clay from between aching pads and provided comfort and affection that was badly needed.
Ratha felt herself growing closer to Ratharee, who seemed to stay on her shoulder all the time, whether she was laboring in the trench or stalking game. The treeling knew to keep quiet during the hunt and to crouch and cling when Ratha sprang. Often Ratha would forget that Ratharee was there until a little voice murmured in her ear or small fingers began to clean her fur.
Fessran and Bira also chose treeling companions. The injured Firekeeper had become friendly with Ratharee’s older
sibling. At first she had viewed the treelings with mixed emotions and had been reluctant to take one, but once the relationship had begun, it grew with amazing rapidity until Fessran couldn’t be separated from her new companion. Bira chose the younger male of Aree’s brood, leaving Thakur with only Aree herself and her elder son. Bira called her treeling Biaree, imitating Ratha’s way of naming them.
Days passed, and the trench was gradually extended from the hollow where it had begun over the rise to the stream. It became deep enough so that someone could walk in it with only the tips of their ears showing above the edge, and wide enough to turn around in. Ratha and her companions interrupted their work only to eat, sleep and relieve themselves. Each section of the spillway was covered over with branches and brush as it was completed, so that if intruders threatened, the diggers only had to conceal the open trench they were working in.
Sunset came a little earlier each day, giving them less light to work by. Falling leaves drifted into the trench and had to be cleared out. Ratha sensed that it was nearly time for the clan’s mating season to begin, but neither she nor her female companions showed signs of going into heat. She vowed to herself that even if she did, she was going to stay at the bottom of the trench and use her restlessness to dig. Fessran and Bira agreed with her, saying that, if any of them felt the onset of the mating urge, they could send Thakur away to fish and provide food while they continued to work. The layout of the spillway was now complete, with two pilot trenches running side by side to mark the width of the remaining section to be dug.
One morning Ratha and Bira were widening the side of the channel when Ratha felt something sting her nose. She looked up to see gray clouds rolling above the trees; another drop struck her between the eyes.
“The rains are coming early,” said Thakur, leaning into the trench and alternately glancing down at her and up at the sky.
“How far are we from the stream bank?” she asked, lifting her nose above the piles of dirt on the edge.
“A few tail-lengths. We’re going to have to dig deeper, though, to cut through the bank and make the water run this way.”
She sighed and went back to work.
Overhead, the clouds grumbled and the rain began. At first it was light and helped by softening the ground so that the work went faster. As it grew into a pelting downpour, the bottom of the trench became a bog. The diggers fought to keep their footing on the slick clay and frequently fell into puddles or accidentally spattered each other with the pawfuls of mud they flung aside. Their small companions began to look less like treelings and more like soggy mudballs.
At the end of the day, Ratha would crawl shivering from the trench, her coat soaked, her underside and flanks grimy with clay and gravel. Once she was under shelter, Ratharee made a determined attempt to groom her, but the treeling was often so exhausted that she fell asleep when she had barely begun. Ratha was so tired, she didn’t care.
The work grew more difficult and the task seemed endless. Sometimes Ratha, in her haze of fatigue, couldn’t remember what the purpose of it was. She felt as though she had spent her life scraping away at this wretched hole and would do so for the rest of her existence. When at last Thakur leaned down into the trench again and cried, “Stop!,” she paid no attention to him and kept on digging mechanically until water began seeping through the gravel and soil at her feet.
She felt Thakur drop into the ditch beside her, seize her scruff and shake her. “Ratha, stop! We’re finished. If you go any farther, the water-path will flood before we’re ready.”
She blinked, trying to pull herself out of her daze. She scrambled out of the trench after Thakur and saw that he was right. Only the remaining thin wall of earth held back the stream. When the time came, they would dig at the embankment to weaken it until it broke, sending the flow down the spillway, into the hollow and down the cracks that vented the cave below. The cave-fire would perish in a rush of water, and those who tended it would be swept away.
Despite her exhaustion, Ratha felt a surge of triumph. She was ready. Now all the remained was to wait.
Chapter Eighteen
The sun hid for days behind a heavy bank of clouds, and the rain fell without ceasing. The stream began to swell, surging and cutting away at its banks until Ratha feared the wall of earth at the high end of the spillway would not hold it back. Now she crouched on the rise above the stream bank, watching the swirling water with anxious eyes.
The break had to be controlled, Thakur had said. If the packed earth gave way too soon or in the wrong place, the rushing water could destroy the channel and race down the hillside, missing the hollow. All their work would be useless if that happened.
Ratharee huddled on the ground beneath her, seeking shelter from the rain in the warmth between her forepaws and her breast. Ratha could feel the little body shiver.
“It won’t be long now, Ratharee,” she said softly, feeling the treeling’s paws on her forefeet. “Bira’s gone down to spy on the cave. She’ll be back soon.”
As she waited for Bira, she found herself thinking about Shongshar, as she had often done during the past days. At first her mind had been clouded with hate. Once the cave-fire was destroyed and his rule ended, she vowed to force the Firekeepers to change their arrogant ways. No one in the clan would speak Shongshar’s name without a hiss. Both his memory and his ways would be buried.
Yet she now realized that as ruthless and cruel as he had become, Shongshar had greater vision than she had. He was right: she had left the true understanding of the Red Tongue’s power to him, and thereby forfeited her leadership. The veneration of fire had thrust her people into debasement and a savagery previously unknown among their kind, but it also fed a hunger of the spirit, a need that could neither be ignored nor denied.
He was also right that the Named were pushed beyond themselves by the awesome presence of the Red Tongue. Not only did gazing into the fire inspire them to greater strength and courage, it gave them the vision to seek beyond the limits of their everyday life for a sense of meaning. Even Shongshar’s dream of extending his rule beyond clan ground was as inspired as it was arrogant, she admitted grudgingly.
As much as she hoped to obliterate all traces of his rule from among her people, she knew some of the things he had done could not be changed. This realization had forced her to put aside her hate long enough to see that not everything the Firekeepers had done under his rule was wrong. Storing wood and sheltering the source-fire in the cave were sound ideas, even though they had been turned to self-serving purposes.
If a large shelter such as the cave had been located in the meadow instead of far up the creek trail, it would have been more difficult to misuse. Had the Firekeepers been made to understand that the Red Tongue’s power was a gift for all to share, perhaps it might have been more difficult for Shongshar to lead them astray. And if she had understood the need of her people to belong to a power greater than themselves and used it for good instead of turning it aside, then Shongshar might not have been able to turn the clan against her.
Ratha heard the slap of wet pads and caught the smell of Bira’s soggy pelt. The shapes of the young female and her tree-ling appeared through the rain.
“Most of the Firekeepers are inside,” she panted as she crouched beside Ratha. “Shongshar is having a great feast in the cave. Where are Thakur and Fessran?”
“They’re coming.” Ratha shivered with cold and impatience.
When the other two arrived, Bira told them the news. They looked at each other with rising excitement and then all eyes turned to Ratha.
“Take Ratharee, Fessran,” she said and sprang onto the top earth dike holding back the stream. Dirt flew into the foaming water. She attacked the soil as if it were Shongshar’s throat; rage made her paw strokes more powerful.
“They’ll be starting ... to dance ... around the Red Tongue... soon,” she growled as she redoubled her efforts. Brown water began to trickle through the channel between her feet. She was turning to
Thakur with a grin when she felt the earth give way beneath her.
Her triumph quickly turned to terror as the earth wall broke and toppled. She threw herself to one side, twisting and scrabbling for a clawhold. She landed on her belly, her hindquarters and tail in the surging flood that spilled through the break. As the wall crumbled the current grew stronger, tugging at her hindquarters. She splashed and kicked with frantic strength, knowing that if she fell beneath the pouring water, she would never fight her way to the surface. She would be carried like a leaf down into the frothing cauldron that would fill the hollow. The Red Tongue would have its revenge even before it died.
That thought gave her the added strength to stretch farther up the bank and drive her claws into harder ground. Her shoulder muscles cramped with the effort of dragging her body from the hungry current. Part of the bank broke away beneath one forepaw and she dangled, held by the claws of the other. She felt teeth seize her flailing paw and grunted as she was yanked up until her chest and then her belly lay on the edge.
Someone caught her scruff, someone else grabbed a hind paw, and treeling hands were on her tail. She was hauled, dragged and rolled away as the rest of the bank caved in, threatening to sweep away both her and her rescuers. When they finally reached safe ground, she could only lie and pant while the others looked anxiously at her.
“I’m all right,” she gasped, struggling to her feet. “See what’s happened.” She shook herself, though it was useless in the heavy rain, and staggered to where the others stood.
Water from the rain-swollen stream coursed into the channel, washing away the remains of the earthen wall. The flood widened and deepened its new course, eating farther into the original streambed and diverting more and more water into the spillway. Ratha and Bira ran along the edge of their ditch, following the foaming wave down to the bottom of the hollow. The strength of the current was enough to send the muddy water fountaining up onto the slope of the hollow and right into the cracks venting the cave.