Ratha’s Creature (The First Book of The Named) Page 10

  Ratha’s hind legs shot back, throwing her through the rushes. She stayed flat, hugging the ground. The shrew bolted for its den, launched itself at the entrance and bounced off the packed mud. It scurried back and forth, dodging her wildly slapping paws. She chased it away from the burrow, across the mudflat between the rushes, around a rotting log and back again. Reeds slapped her face as she dashed through them, trying to keep her prey in sight.

  The shrew tried again for its burrow. It flung itself onto the packed earth and dug in a wild frenzy. By the time Ratha reached the den, the shrew had bored halfway in. She skidded to a stop; scooped the shrew out of its hole. It nipped her pad and she dropped it, squalling in pain. Squeaking shrilly, the animal reared up on its hind paws and showed its teeth. Ratha circled the shrew as it squealed and danced. She lifted one paw and slapped down hard, trying to squash the shrew into the mud. It bounced high into the air and shot off in a different direction. Ratha whirled and caught a glimpse of another tunnel opening in a mudbank beneath a tangle of swamp grass roots. The shrew was heading straight for it.

  With a yowl of rage, Ratha scrambled after her prey. Despair gave her speed, but her shaky legs failed to stop her in time. The shrew reached the second tunnel before she did. She made one last snap at the vanishing hindquarters before she overshot and plowed headfirst into the bank.

  The impact ground her teeth against gravel and filled her mouth and nose with mud.

  Ratha recoiled, rearing back and clawing the air. The ooze clung inside her mouth, blocked her nose and she fell on her back, retching, trying to push the vile-tasting muck out with frantic thrusts of her tongue. Her maltreated stomach cramped and convulsed, sending its meager contents up her throat. She stretched her mouth wide, letting the bitter fluid stream over her tongue and through her nose, turning the ooze to sizzling froth that dripped from her jaws. Her stomach was empty, but the spasms continued, wrenching her belly and thrusting her hind legs out stiff until they quivered and cramped.

  For a moment she thought she was going to heave her insides up onto the marsh mud, but the sickness soon subsided, leaving her a limp and panting heap of fur, drooling brown saliva.

  She wished then that she could die and that the clan could know how she died. Meoran would howl until he farted if he knew that the proud bearer of the Red Tongue had choked on swamp mud trying to catch a wretched shrew! She squeezed her eyes shut and felt fluid run from them to join the stuff dribbling from her eyes and nose. The Red Tongue? Why think of that now? It was gone. Finding the fire once was a fluke. She would never find it again. This was the life she would have to lead, if she could.

  Slowly Ratha rolled from her side onto her stomach and dragged herself through a clump of rushes to the shore on the other side. Her belly ached; her nose and throat burned. Her lips and tongue were raw. Her fangs had lost their usual smooth slickness against her tongue and felt etched and gritty.

  Scum edged the bank and clung to the half-drowned rushes. A rainbow film on the water’s surface shimmered in translucent colors. Ratha closed her eyes and put out her tongue to drink.

  A paw slid under her neck, shoving her muzzle away from the water. Ratha gave a weak cry and pushed stupidly against it, feeling a strong foreleg against her jaw. She opened her eyes. At seeing her companion’s tinted reflection, she cried again and turned her head away, hating the taste of bile in her mouth and hating the intruder for not letting her drink. Again she tried and again he thrust her back. She lay panting, her chin in the mud. He walked in front of her, flicking a ragged ear.

  “Clan cat, doesn’t your nose tell you this is bad water?”

  “I’m thirsty. My mouth burns. Let me drink.” Ratha whimpered.

  “I know. I saw you being sick. You’ll be much sicker if you drink here. There’s a stream further up. You’ll be able to find it.”

  “Bone-chewer, keep to your own trail! I’ll decide for myself where to drink.” She glared at him with all the hate she could muster. She narrowed her eyes, feeling them go to slits. “Why do you care if I get sick? You took my prey; you want me to starve. Go away.” Ratha rolled away from him onto her side and curled into a ball. She heard his footsteps squelch on the marshy ground. They stopped. She cracked one eyelid, hoping the silence meant he was gone. No. He was still there, sitting a short distance away, watching her with yellow eyes. Yellow eyes, in a face that seemed strangely familiar, as if it echoed the face of another.

  Ratha groaned and slid her chin across her forepaws, as she looked up at him. “Bone-chewer, why do you stay?”

  “I’m full. I have nothing else to do. And you are interesting. I’ve never seen such a poor hunter in my life.”

  “Leave me alone!” Ratha snarled weakly. “Why should I hunt if you take everything I catch?”

  “You flatter yourself, clan cat. You have yet to catch anything.”

  Ratha jerked her head up and glared at him again, wishing she had the strength left to tear him into small scraps. Her head shook with anger and weariness. “I caught you, raider. Let your ear and your broken fang remind you of that.”

  She let her head sink back to her forepaws. The weeds rustled and she felt feet pad beside her. She stiffened. “What are you going to do now, raider? Kill and eat me?”

  From somewhere above her head came a low rumble that sounded more amused than threatening. “No. There’s not enough flesh on you to be worth the killing.” He cocked his head at her. His coat gleamed with red-gold highlights in the hazy afternoon sun. “Despite what you may have been told about the Un-Named, we do not eat our own kind.”

  Ratha hitched herself away from him, but his tail still brushed her ribs as he curled it across his feet. “You are not of my kind, bone-chewer,” she growled.

  “There are differences,” he agreed. “I am not nearly as foolish. Now that we know each other, clan cat, shall I show you where the stream lies?”

  Ratha only grunted and ignored him. Her thirst was fading, along with everything else. All she wanted now was sleep. There was something still stirring in her mind, though, that would not leave her alone.

  I fought the raider in the meadow but that’s not why I know his smell and his face. It is as if I know him, and yet I don’t. Why?

  She opened one eye and peered past the brush of her tail at him. Her eyelid felt heavy. She let it fall shut, blotting him out. His smell grew stronger and teeth seized her ruff. Ratha’s eyes flew open as he hauled her up off the mud, shoving her forepaws underneath her with one swipe of his foot. When he let her go, she sagged, her legs buckled and she flopped down.

  He backed off and gave her a puzzled look, faintly tinged with sadness. “Are you of the clan so weak that you can only lie down and die when you meet hardship? I thought you had more spirit when you mauled me in the meadow.”

  “Fine words from one who stole my prey!” Ratha hissed bitterly. “Had I eaten, I could follow you.”

  He circled her, his tail twitching.

  “Too late, bone-chewer,” she said hoarsely.

  “Lie with your whiskers in the mud, then, clan cat” he said scornfully, his own bristling. Ratha closed her eyes and buried her nose in her forepaws. When she opened them again he was gone. She listened to the wind threshing the swamp grass and the cries of birds high overhead.

  Who is he? she wondered, but then, as she drifted off to sleep, decided that now it really didn’t matter.

  A smell woke her. Musky, rich, intoxicating, the odor filled her nose and her whole hungry being. It lured her back out of a sleep that was letting her slip closer and closer to death. She plunged her fangs into the furry body lying beside her. Not until she felt the warm flesh between her jaws did she realize she was awake. She sank her teeth in to their full depth but she was too weak to manage a shearing bite. She squeezed the meat between her jaws, sucking the salty juices. Her stomach jumped in astonishment and began to churn greedily.

  Where the kill had come from, she didn’t know and didn’t care. It was here, it
was hers, and to her hunger-sharpened senses, it was the best thing she had ever tasted. Once she gained enough strength to start eating in earnest, she started at the head and had devoured half of the carcass when a now-familiar smell and familiar step made her freeze.

  She hunched over the prey. She began to eat rapidly, with both paws guarding the carcass, gulping chunks that still had fur attached. He sat down and watched her. She shot wary glances at him between bites.

  “Eat slowly, clan cat, or it will do you no good.”

  Ratha’s ears started to flatten, but they pricked up again as she thought of something.

  The prey ... she hadn’t caught it. Had be? She stopped eating, turned the remains over with her paw and inspected it for the marks that might be left by a broken fang.

  “Don’t bother, clan cat. I caught it,” he said.

  Ratha raised her chin and eyed him. “Why?”

  “For the same reason I pushed you away from that tainted water.”

  Ratha lowered her head and slowly finished her meal. “The Un-Named do not give help without a reason. What is it you wish from me, raider?”

  “The Un-Named do not speak either, according to the great wisdom of the clan,” he replied with a grin, but the yellow in his eyes had turned slightly bitter. Ratha pushed herself up on her forepaws and stretched, feeling the fullness of her belly and the returning strength in her legs. The fur on her face felt stiff and tight, caked with filth and dried fluid. With mild dismay, she realized she was mud-spattered from nose to tail. She licked one paw and began to scrub at her muzzle. After several strokes she stopped, dissatisfied with the results.

  “You, clan cat, are a mess.” The young male stood up and arched his back, showing off sleek copper-gold fur. “I’ll show you the stream. You’ll never get all that mud off with your tongue.” With a wave of his tail, he trotted off. Ratha heaved herself to her feet, growling irritably.

  The stranger led the way along a narrow trail, marked with deer and dappleback prints, edged with moss and mushrooms. Gradually the marshy ground gave way to a drier track, leading them uphill to a brook emerging from a cleft in the grassy slope. Ratha went to the spring and lapped the upwelling water. It was cold and clear, and she dipped her chin in and drank until her teeth ached. Once her thirst was slaked, she let the water flow over her tongue, from one side of her jaw to the other, cooling and rinsing her mouth until the last taste of sickness was gone.

  She waded downstream and crouched in the shallows, letting the bubbling current ruffle her fur backwards. With chattering teeth she leaped out of the brook, wriggled on the grass and shook herself dry, sending a small shower in her companion’s direction. He sneezed and trotted uphill beyond range. There he sat, on the slope above the spring, something unreadable in his eyes.

  Ratha turned her tail to him and walked away.

  “Where do you go now, clan cat?” His voice came from behind her. She stopped, lowered her tail and looked back at him. It was nearly sunset and the slanting red light set fire to his coat as he glanced over his shoulder at the sinking sun. Ratha caught herself thinking that he was very beautiful and immediately squelched the idea.

  “To hunt, raider. My belly is full now and I am strong.”

  “What do you know of hunting?” he asked scornfully. “You’ve never hunted anything except grasshoppers and wayward herdbeasts.”

  “I know how to stalk and pounce. I know how to wait until the prey has left its hole and then fill the hole with dirt. I almost got that shrew.”

  “No matter how good you were at stalking and pouncing, and no matter how clever you were, you would never have caught that shrew. And you won’t catch any other animals either,” he said.

  Ratha dug her foreclaws into the ground. He was still waiting, still wearing that maddening grin that showed his broken fang. She wanted to knock out the other one. “All right, raider,” she said, taking a breath, “tell me why I won’t catch anything.”

  “You don’t know your prey. That striped shrew. What do you know about it?” he asked.

  “I know what it smells like. I know what its prints look like. I know where it hides and what it eats. Isn’t that enough?”

  “You didn’t know the one thing that might have saved you from eating mud instead of shrew. That shrew has many holes and they are all connected.”

  Ratha eyed him suspiciously. “What would a shrew want with so many holes? It can’t sleep in more than one at a time. I would only want one. Everyone at home has only a single den. Some have to share.”

  The stranger sighed. “You are thinking like the clan herder you are. To catch a shrew, you must think as the shrew does.”

  Ratha wrinkled her nose. “Shrews can’t think, can they? Not as we do.”

  “Oh yes, they can. They can be quite clever, as you will learn.”

  “But they don’t have names ... or clans either,” Ratha spluttered.

  “Must all who are clever have names and clans?” he asked, looking at her intently.

  Ratha felt uncomfortable under his stare. “No,” she said at last. “You have neither clan nor name, but you are quite clever. And that shrew was also clever.”

  “Not all animals have tunnels,” he said, continuing. “Many hide in other ways. What you know now may let you hunt marsh shrews, but you’ll get pretty sick of them.” Ratha flicked her tail irritably as he paused. “There’s a lot you need to know,” he said and added, as if to himself, “I almost think I should teach you.”

  “You?” Ratha backed away, her tail fluffed. “I’d rather go back to the clan than have you as a teacher!”

  He stared at her intently. His eyes held hers. He walked up to her and thrust his muzzle into her face. She tried to break the intensity of his stare, but could not and sat down nervously on her tail. “You can’t go back to them, clan cat,” he said. She sensed, as she looked past her reflection into the yellow depths of his eyes, that he knew much more about her than one of the Un-Named should know.

  “You can’t go back,” he said again, softly. “And you can’t live here without my help. No other among the Un-Named will aid you.” He withdrew his face and she pulled her tail out from underneath herself and glared at him defiantly.

  “I can find another clan. They’ll take me in.”

  “There are no clans among our kind.”

  Ratha started to spit back a reply, but she knew deep inside that he spoke truth. However far she might wander, she would never find another herding community such as the one she had left. It had never been a real hope and it died as soon as it arose.

  “Why? Why will you do this for me?” she demanded, knowing that she had no choice but to take his help if he offered to give it.

  “Because of what I am, I suppose.”

  “You?” Ratha’s spirit came back. “You are a raider and a bone-chewer!”

  He ducked his head and grinned ruefully. “I am indeed, clan cat. But you may find I am something more.”

  “Hah! If you are the only one of all the other bone-chewers who will help me, why did I meet you instead of one of the others?”

  “You didn’t find me,” he said, yawning. “I found you.”

  “Found me?” Ratha’s jaw dropped. “You were looking for me? Why would an Un-Named bone-chewer be looking for me?”

  “Perhaps to teach you some manners, young one,” he snapped, giving her an irritated cuff. Ratha jumped away and shook her head. Her eyes narrowed.

  “I don’t think you are an Un-Named One. You are far too clever. You remind me of someone in the clan, although I can’t remember who.” Ratha felt the fur rise on her nape. “Did Meoran send you to find me and kill me?”

  “If he had, the marsh birds would be picking at your dirty pelt. No, clan cat. I bear no name and I obey no one.” He grinned again. “Except my stomach.”

  “That I can believe,” she said sourly, letting her prickling fur soften. He must be telling the truth, she thought. Meoran would never have anyone like him in th
e clan.

  “Time to hunt, clan cat,” he said, turning his face toward her. “We’ll start with marsh-shrews. Later I’ll teach you how to catch bush-tails and diggers. Are you ready?”

  “Yes ...” she said, and her voice trailed off.

  “Mmm?” He crooked his tail.

  “What do I call you?”

  “Don’t call me anything. I don’t have a name.”

  “I have to call you something if I’m going to talk to you. If you can call me ‘clan cat,’ I should be able to call you something,” she said stubbornly.

  He flicked an ear. “Very well.”

  She hesitated. “What do you want me to call you?”

  “You want the name. You choose it.”

  “Arrr, it isn’t really a name,” Ratha haid doubtfully. “Only the clan can give someone a real name, such as mine.”

  He looked irritated. “All that means is that it was bestowed upon you by some fat whelp that everybody bares their throat to. For no good reason I can think of,” he added scornfully.

  Ratha began sorting through possibilities. None of the names of those in the clan fitted him at all. The only one that even came close was one she had invented. The more she thought about it, the more she liked it. And there was nothing wrong with it. After all, she thought, it isn’t a real name.

  She saw him peer into her face and knew he had caught the glint in her eye. “I’ve got one,” she said.

  He drew back his whiskers. “I should have known better. Very well, clan cat. What am I to be called?”

  “Bonechewer!”

  “Arrr,” he grumbled. “I suppose it suits me. Very well then. Follow me to the marsh and I’ll see if I can make you into a hunter.”

  Ratha followed him, cheered by her minor revenge. Bonechewer. It really wasn’t bad.