Ratha's Courage Read online

  Guard-fires, campfires, the Firekeeper’s den dug in the meadow, wood gathering, and tending the Red Tongue had become the Named way.

  The rustle of leaves nearby and a rising chirr reminded Ratha of other, gentler changes. Her ears and whiskers relaxed when she caught sight of a small agile climber scrambling down from a sapling. The creature clung to branches with fingers and toes that had flat nails instead of claws. Lifting its head and balancing with its long ringed tail, it pointed its sharp muzzle at her. Gently mischievous, yellow eyes blinked at her from the black-and-gray mask over the face. Tufted black ears pricked. She answered the chirr with one of her own and called, “Come to me, little treeling.”

  The lemurlike creature bounced down from the sapling and into the high meadow grass. Ringed tail held high, it bounded to the sunning rock, jumped up, and perched on the edge. It cocked its head, widened its large eyes at Ratha, and said, “Aree?”

  “Good Ratharee,” she praised, lowering her head so that the treeling could climb onto her nape. It wound its fingers in her fur. They felt slightly sticky.

  Ratha often found herself talking to her treeling, even though she knew Ratharee could not speak, at least not in the clan language. The treeling did respond to the various sounds of Ratha’s voice, as well as Named paw-and tail-waves.

  “At least you can’t dribble fruit juice on me,” Ratha said, nuzzling her little companion. “That tree doesn’t have any ripe fruit.”

  Her whiskers lifted with amusement as she remembered how Thakur’s treeling often gorged on overripe autumn fruit, making a sticky mess of his fur.

  As Ratha had brought a new creature to the clan, so had Thakur, in the form of a ring-tailed sharp-nosed fuzzball he called “Aree” after the noise it made.

  Aree turned out to be female and was now the mother and grandmother of all the treelings who were companions of clan members. Ratha’s treeling, Ratharee, was also female, but had no young.

  Not all the Named kept treelings, but Ratha and others who did felt that their little friends brought an additional richness to their lives. Treeling companionship had a soothing effect on the often-restless nature of the Named.

  Treelings can offer more than just companionship, Ratha thought, as Ratharee scurried up the slope of her back to groom the troublesome area at the root of her tail. The treeling chittered as her fingers combed Ratha’s pelt. She found several ticks and gleefully ate them.

  When Ratharee finished, she groomed herself with a flurry of quick, short strokes, and then crouched expectantly on Ratha’s nape. Yes, you’re right. It’s time to rejoin the others.

  Ratha pivoted, lifted a forepaw to take a step down. As she lowered it, she felt the spur whisker behind her paw pad stroking the rough rock. She touched the stone with the outside edge of her forefoot, rolling the foot inward and using the whiskerlike hairs between her pads to judge the surface underfoot before putting her weight on it. She did the elegant yet important move without thinking, as did the rest of her kind. Thakur, who often thought about such things, said this manner of walking prevented the Named from stepping hard on anything that might give way beneath them.

  The swish of grass past legs drew Ratha’s attention. She saw a line of clan females carrying tiny cubs and smelled milky scents. Some spotted youngsters hung by their scruffs from their mother’s or a helper’s jaws, others stumbled or romped behind, and several even sat atop feline shoulders and backs. In front walked a rangy sand-colored female with a light foreleg limp, flame-shortened whiskers, a long tapered tail, and green eyes. Like Ratha herself, the newcomer had white fur around her whiskers and a black patch behind them. Dark tear-lines ran from the corners of her eyes along her nose, snaking back to the corners of her mouth to join the black patches on either side of her muzzle. Her underside was also white, from her tail to her throat and her lower jaw.

  It was Fessran, chief of the Firekeepers who tended the Red Tongue. She was also Ratha’s friend and, this season, a mother. She had two fuzzy, blue-eyed cubs: one riding on her shoulders and one dangling from her mouth.

  Ratha felt her treeling scurry up to her hindquarters as she leaned down from the sunning rock to greet Fessran and the cub-carriers.

  “Are you raising little treelings to perch on you?” Ratha teased.

  Fessran, impatient as always, didn’t want to set the cub down and instead tried to speak through a mouthful of spotted fur.

  “Mmmph. Bira,” Fessran sputtered to the young female behind her, “take this little son of a dappleback.”

  Lifting her long plume of a tail, red-gold Bira took Fessran’s burden. She had muzzle-patches, tear-lines, and a lighter color underneath. She also had a treeling riding on her nape.

  The Firekeeper leader sneezed twice and scrubbed her nose with a charcoal-stained forepaw. Her facemarkings emphasized her grimace. “I can’t believe he’s already shedding,” Ratha heard her friend complain. “Rrrraatchooo!”

  “Ho, singe-whiskers,” Ratha greeted. “Is it already time to move the litterlings?”

  “Ho yourself, clan leader. Yes, the new nursery is finished.” With an upward jerk of her tail and a slight sharpening of her scent that told Ratha the Firekeeper was mildly annoyed, Fessran added, “I don’t suppose you remembered you were going to help us this morning.”

  “I said that before all of you kept me awake last night,” Ratha retorted. “And I still want to talk to Thistle-chaser.”

  Fessran gave a snort, and Ratha knew it wasn’t just cub fur up her nose. “The decision is made, and we’re going to carry it out. I don’t see why we have to keep pawing at it over and over.”

  “Yes, but I still wanted to speak to her.”

  “Well, even if she is your daughter, she isn’t going to change things,” Fessran said, licking her sand-colored coat.

  Especially things that you want, singe-whiskers, Ratha thought, half-fondly and half-sourly.

  “For once we’re following the right trail,” the Firekeeper argued. “Letting True-of-voice and his hunter tribe use the Red Tongue is good for them and us. You were right when you made us rescue him. This is one more step along a better path.”

  Ratha made her reply mild. “I know, Fessran, but we’ve already made some mistakes. I don’t want any more.”

  Fessran stopped to swat a pair of cubs playing tag around her forelegs.

  “I’m glad you are doing this, Ratha,” the Firekeeper said, her voice becoming softer. Her face relaxed and her tear-lines straightened. “I imagine how their litterlings’ eyes will glow when they curl up near the Red Tongue, safe and warm.”

  Even if the light in their eyes differs from the light in ours, Ratha thought. “Just be careful. As for moving our cubs to the new nursery, you don’t need me—you’re doing fine.”

  “We’ve picked a good site. It’s sheltered, but open enough so that cubs can run and pounce. We can also bring in some three-horn fawns and dappleback foals for the cubs to play with. So they get used to the herdbeasts.” She paused. “It was Thakur’s idea.”

  Cub scuffling around Fessran’s legs made her jump. “Yow, you little daughter of a dappleback! Clan leader, be glad you didn’t have a litter this year. Bira, let’s get this bunch to the nursery before they make me climb a tree.”

  “I’ll come to visit,” Ratha offered.

  “Just you, though. Not Thakur or any of the other males, or someone may get their ears shredded.”

  “Fess, no clan male would hurt a cub.”

  “You know that, and the sensible part of me knows that, but the mother part of me just goes wild. Bira’s does, too. We’re all like that.”

  Ratha let her gaze travel down the line of Named females as she sampled their scents. There was a milky overlay, but she caught and enjoyed their individual smells. Fessran: spicy, sharp with an acrid touch of soot and ash. Bira: sun-warm earth and cinnamon bark. Drani: grass awns, sycamore, horse dung. Chika, Fessran’s older daughter: flowery with a slight fruitiness of pride in her first lit
ter. The first-litter mothers and helpers had the clean freshness of youth, the older ones, steeped and aged in their own odors, had deeper, darker, richer scents.

  Closing her eyes briefly, Ratha bathed in the aromas of her friends. When she opened them, she saw whiskers lifted and nostrils widened as the other females sampled hers in return. She knew her scent didn’t have the milk-odor of motherhood and felt a little sad.

  Fessran grabbed her spotted culprit gently but firmly around the neck and hoisted the cub. Ratha noticed the short, soft, silvery mantle of fur that formed a crest just behind his ears and swept down his back. She had seen this before in Named litterlings, and some kept it even after weaning. The ones who had it often had longer legs and could sprint faster.

  As Fessran lifted him, the youngster mewed, paddled oversize paws, and then settled into a submissive curl. Ratha sniffed him, catching the beginning odor of maleness in his baby-scent.

  Fessran moved off with the other Named females, each with one or more squalling or wide-eyed burdens. Soon they were gone.

  Ratha settled back on the sunning rock while Ratharee groomed her. Along with ticks and fleas, the treeling could somehow pick out and get rid of Ratha’s troubling thoughts. One, however, remained.

  Yes, I would be like Fessran if I had another litter. I wonder if I ever will.

  Chapter Two

  Scrub jays swooped back and forth across the forest trail, teasing the leader of the Named. Their iridescent blue feathers shone in the sun. Their raucous taunting and their tempting scent made Ratha want to spring and swipe them out of the air. She knew she wouldn’t even get close, but her lower jaw chattered in excitement.

  Firmly she clamped her teeth together to make the chattering stop. She had other duties and could not be distracted by impudent jays. She lowered her gaze to the trail and went on, but a part of her wanted those birds fiercely, and her jaw trembled with the longing.

  Inwardly she chided herself gently for her foolishness. It wasn’t the first time inborn urges had tempted her, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. Sometimes she felt as though there were two of her, each part wrestling with the other: the fire-hearted stalker and the cool, detached thinker.

  Farther along the trail, Ratha halted to rake her claws down a tree trunk and chase her thoughts together before continuing with her morning prowl. The stretch felt good in her shoulders and the sun was warm on her back. Her tail high and quivering, she backed up to the tree, sprayed it, and scraped with her rear paws.

  Ratharee wasn’t with her today. Ratha had asked Bira to take the treeling while she patrolled.

  As she went on, setting one paw silently in front of another, she wondered what the day would bring. She hadn’t seen the herder Bundi or his friend Mishanti recently. Her tail wagged sideways in annoyance. Those two strange animals that Bundi had found were already huge and showed no sign of slowing their growth.

  How he and Mishanti had gotten the pair, she wasn’t sure, and why she had allowed the two herders to keep them she didn’t know either. At the time, the creatures were pitiful—orphaned and starved, barely larger than a dappleback. Now they exceeded the size of an adult face-tail and might well double it.

  Well, actually, she admitted, she did know why she had let Bundi and Mishanti keep the beasts. To be honest, the two weren’t much good at anything else. Bundi, although Thakur had tried hard with him, was too clumsy and easily distracted for the classic herding techniques of the Named. Mishanti, having been raised by Thistle-chaser at the seacoast, was still too young and still settling into the clan.

  Perhaps it was their similarities that attracted them to one another. Bundi now treated Mishanti as a younger brother. Bundi, once injured by fire and left with burn scars down his neck and shoulder, used to be withdrawn and sullen. Mishanti’s arrival drew him out and made him forget his own troubles. Chasing the lively Mishanti about the meadow and up and down trees had also given Bundi more strength and speed.

  Mishanti also benefited, becoming less rebellious and disobedient. He also could speak better, although his speech still had remnants of Thistle-chaser’s odd phrasing.

  When the pair of friends had found the two motherless creatures near clan land, Ratha realized that their affection for the orphans would keep them too busy to get into mischief.

  She rationalized her decision by including it as part of a larger scheme to increase and diversify clan herds. She planned originally to cull the creatures when they got older, but Bundi and Mishanti’s pleading made her delay.

  With care and good feeding, the orphaned animals grew so fast that, before Ratha realized it, they were too big to cull. To take them now would require all the Named, and Ratha doubted that even that number could make a clean kill. It would be messy and upsetting. She also didn’t relish the idea of Bundi and Mishanti squalling in her ears for days after.

  Letting the creatures live under the youngsters’ care wouldn’t harm anything, and the Named had plenty of other herdbeasts. Perhaps the things would even breed.

  As Ratha came to a grassy clearing, the sound of splintering branches made her look up. The hair lifted on her neck and her eyes widened. The alert hunter within made Ratha take a quick step back before she caught herself.

  Slightly embarrassed to be so startled, Ratha bent her head and gave her foreleg a quick swipe with her tongue. Then she looked again.

  There was almost no word in the Named tongue to describe the two gray-brown beasts browsing in the treetops. They were mountainous. They even looked a bit like mountains, with backs sloping slightly up from rump to shoulders, extended necks increasing the slope and carrying the ascending line to huge, blocky, horselike heads.

  She had no idea what these beasts were. Once she had seen a rhino, a low-slung leathery-skinned animal with a head that resembled those moving among the branches far above her. That animal had a horn on its nose. These didn’t, just a bulbous swelling above the upper lip.

  Her ears swiveled to the sound of drawn-out grinding and crashing. She narrowed her eyes. The beasts were not just eating leaves or twigs; they were crunching up whole branches. A substantial part of the tree’s canopy was already gone. Ratha promptly changed her mind about the creatures doing no harm. If they kept this up, they might just eat the top off every tree in the forest.

  “Don’t be afraid, clan leader,” came a yowl from above. “The rumblers are gentle.”

  Inwardly Ratha bristled at the slightly mocking tone but didn’t let her tail even twitch.

  One rumble-beast lowered its head to gaze at Ratha. It was still chewing. The mushy slurping sound made her put back her ears. It was as disgusting as any other herdbeast’s chomping, and much louder.

  The rumbler’s eyes, however, were mild, unlike the rhino’s red-rimmed, irritable stare.

  “They may be gentle, but I still don’t want to be sat on.” Ratha reared up on her hind legs, squinting to find Bundi in the treetop. “Where are you, Bundi, you little son of a three-horn?”

  She spied a familiar faintly spotted dun-colored form lying along a tree limb, licking a paw. Nearby she caught sight of another, smaller and more distinctly spotted shape resting on the same branch.

  With a grunt, the rumbler that had been staring at Ratha began munching on the branch where the two friends sat, oblivious now to anything but food. As Ratha watched, the creature chewed its way toward Mishanti and Bundi. The bough swayed and shook as the animal tore at it. The beast used its long upper lip almost like a treeling finger to rip off twigs. Mishanti looked alarmed, his fur rising and his paws spreading as his claws dug into the bark.

  Bundi, however, looked relaxed, lazing along the branch with his tail looping down. With its eyes blissfully closed and massive jaw working slowly, the rumbler ate up Bundi’s branch. Ratha half wondered if Bundi would move before it ate him as well, or if the jostling would dump him off the tree limb.

  When the rumbler’s jaws were less than a cub’s tail-length from Bundi and the branch was sway
ing as if caught in a windstorm, Bundi lifted his head, yawned, and batted the huge nose with his paw. “Get away, Belch,” he said as the huge horselike ears flapped amiably and the snout withdrew.

  “Belch?” asked Ratha, balancing on her hind legs again. The beast paused in its careless eating, lowered its head, and gave a resonant burp. Looking vaguely satisfied, the creature flipped its absurdly small tail, waggled its horselike ears and began destroying another branch.

  “Belch is the female,” Bundi called down. “The other is a male. I call him Grunt.”

  Ratha skittered to the side as a large mass of Grunt’s manure plopped down, just missing her.

  “Our first choice was ‘Dung-Dumper’ but that lacked something.” Bundi’s eyes were half-closed, his whiskers fanning out from his nose. His facial markings enhanced the slight cat-grin on his face. The scent wafting from him had a trace of smugness.

  That wretched half-grown runt is enjoying this, Ratha thought indignantly. She lifted a hind foot and shook it as if she had stepped in the stuff, although she hadn’t.

  “Come down,” she yowled. “I need to talk to both of you.”

  Mishanti started to scramble down the tree. Bundi, however, climbed onto the branch that Belch was munching, sauntered fearlessly to the huge nose, and hopped up on it. Tail waving, he strolled along the top of the rumbler’s muzzle above the eyes, then made his way between the ears. He padded down the back of the neck while Belch kept browsing as if this was nothing strange at all. When he came down the back and reached the base of the tail, Belch spoiled his show by sitting abruptly, making the ground under Ratha’s paws shake. Bundi plunged nose-down into Grunt’s deposit. As he got himself out and shook off, Ratha lolled her tongue at him. Mishanti arrived tail-first down the trunk, looking and smelling pleased with himself.

  “You both can go wash off in the creek, but first listen to me,” Ratha said.

  “Yes, clan leader,” they both answered together.

  “You know that I want the herding meet for True-of-voice to go well. Are you two ready?”