Ratha’s Creature (The First Book of The Named) Read online

  The earth itself seemed to betray her, for it grew mushy underfoot and she sank at every step. The soft ground sucked at her feet, dragging her down, while the tangle thorns chewed at her ruff and flanks. She was caught and held by spikes growing from the vines, and struggle as she would, she could not break free. For a while she was still, regaining her strength. With a final effort, she wrenched herself loose, the thorns scoring her sides.

  She overbalanced, toppled and started to roll down a steep grade. Limp and exhausted, she let herself go, dragging a claw now and then to slow her descent. She landed against something, heard a soft crunch and smelled the odor of woody decay. She tried to rise, but could only lift her head; the rest of her body was too weary to obey.

  Ratha let her head loll, feeling damp moss against her cheek. Was this to be her deathplace? Would the clan find her here, a rotting lump of fur beside an equally rotten log?

  No! She ground her teeth; she would not lie still, not yet. If Meoran and the others came she would meet them on her feet, with fangs bared.

  If only she could have a little time to rest. That would be all she needed. Just time enough for the strength to flow back into her limbs and the ache in her chest to lessen. Then she would be able to fight if she had to, or to journey on, seeking water to soothe her throat and something to fill her belly.

  The ground seemed to rock beneath her when she closed her eyes, letting her rise and fall as though she were a cub crawling on her mother’s ribs. She opened one eye at the shadowed ferns hanging above her. The leaves were still, and she knew that it was not the ground that rocked her, but the depths of her own weariness. She let the imagined motion lull her into a daze, then into sleep.

  Ratha woke abruptly, itching all over. Had all her fleas gone mad? They were all dancing beneath her coat, tickling her skin until the urge to be rid of them overcame her exhaustion. She twitched a paw and saw something white and wriggling fall on the ground. Whatever was crawling through her fur, it wasn’t fleas.

  With one bound she was on her feet, shaking hard until she thought she would jerk her pelt loose. Some of the invaders fell on the ground beneath her, but others remained as moving lumps in her underfur. Her tail bristled with horror. Was she so close to death that worms were seeking her body? She remembered seeing the carcass of a dappleback mare felled by sickness. The clan would not touch the tainted meat and the body was left for other scavengers. She remembered the sound that welled up from the carcass; a soft humming and whispering. It was the song of the death-eaters; the sound of dissolution. It was the sound of millions of tiny jaws chewing through cold flesh. Ratha remembered the song and shuddered. She shook herself again. She saw pale carapaces and waving legs on the moonlit ground beside her paws. Some of her horror faded into curiosity. These weren’t worms, she thought, pawing at one scuttling insect.

  She looked back to where she had lain against the fallen log. The leathery wood was crushed inward, revealing a channeled interior. More pale termites swarmed and milled within the hollow, spilling out like a thick liquid around the edges.

  She had landed right in a nest of them. No wonder she had awakened with the creatures in her fur! She nosed her back and trapped one moving lump between her fangs. She pulled it loose from her coat, feeling the hair thread between her teeth. The flailing legs touched her tongue and made her gag. She bit down on the insect and felt the carapace break.

  She spat the mangled thing out, but not before a trace of its flavor escaped onto her tongue. She had been prepared for a bitter or nauseating taste, but instead found it bland and sweet, reminding her of the river-crawlers she had eaten with Thakur. Her hunger came back in a rush. She let saliva wash over her tongue, testing the flavor again. Not as good as river-crawlers, but definitely palatable.

  She licked up several termites that were crawling by her feet, crunched and swallowed them.

  Ha, eaters of death, she thought. I will eat you!

  She cleaned up the others that had fallen from her fur and began grooming herself, eating the ones she found in her pelt. Not satisfied with those, she pawed at the nest, breaking more of the rotten wood. A seething mass poured out on the ground. She stepped on them and then ate them.

  By dawn she was almost full. Daylight chased the termites into the depths of their battered nest, but Ratha no longer cared. With the cramp in her belly eased, she was ready to journey on.

  For several days, Ratha traveled through thick woods of broadleaf and pine. Here the fire’s touch had not been felt and the air beneath the trees was cool and dim, reminding her of her own forest before the Red Tongue’s coming. She thought, as she prowled on needles, that she could make a new home among these silent trees. There were plenty of rotting logs that would yield their inhabitants to her claws, at least until she found some other source of food. Even as she thought about staying, her feet carried her on until the forest thinned and gave way to scrub and tangle. Only when she was clear of the trees did she stop to look back. The forest beckoned to her from within its gray-green depths, promising her quiet and safety. The horizon also beckoned, promising her nothing except challenge.

  She turned from the forest and galloped toward the horizon.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Ratha sniffed at the trail of tiny prints that ran over the flat and into the rushes. The stink of marsh mud rose to her nostrils, overwhelming the smell of her quarry. Her hindquarters trembled and she sat down. A wave of nausea swept through her, and her stomach threatened to disgorge the lake water she’d drunk early that morning, trying to still the hunger cramps in her belly.

  The tracks led on further into the marsh. She coaxed herself up and followed them. The marsh shrew had run before her only a short time ago; the tracks cut sharply into the black mud. Ratha knew about tracks. Thakur had taught her to find straying three-horns and dapplebacks by their prints and how to tell if a trail was worth following.

  She stopped and studied the ground. Here, the prey had been running. The tracks were deeper and farther apart. Tiny bits of caked mud, a lighter gray than the ooze, littered the trail as if flung from scurrying paws. Ratha’s excitement rose as she padded alongside the trail. Saliva filled her mouth. Soon her teeth would crunch on bone and she would suck warm salty blood. The gnawing pain in her belly would cease....

  Ratha stopped. The tracks ended. One last footprint in the mud and beyond, nothing. She whined in dismay, nosing about around the trail. Could the shrew have leaped away onto a log or branch? She looked around, frantically. Nothing but mud on either side. Where had the prey vanished?

  Again, she circled, trying to find the track. She stepped on something smooth and slender that bent underneath her pad. She drew back her foot and looked. Embedded in her pawprint was a feather; a long slim quill. Shrill cries overhead made her look up. Several birds wheeled high above her. From the shape of their wings she knew that they also ate flesh. Her whiskers drooped. Her prey was probably squirming in their talons or being torn apart by hooked beaks. This hunt was ended. She would have to begin again.

  Ratha caught motion at the edge of her vision. She whirled around. A heavy beak clamped shut in the air where the nape of her neck had been.

  For an instant, she flattened on the ground, staring up at her opponent.

  The great bird cawed and raised its crest, staring at her with unblinking lizard eyes. Its weight sunk its talons deep into the ooze. Massive legs with scaled horny skin supported a body that was all bulk and neck, the tiny wings buried in hairy feathers. This one had not dropped from the skies. Atop the serpentine neck, the great head swayed and the beak gaped once again. A talon lifted. The inside of the beak was yellow; the narrow tongue a glistening pink.

  For another instant, Ratha crouched, paralyzed, watching the talon and the open maw descend. Then she remembered her legs. The beak stabbed into black ooze. Terrified, she scurried away through the rushes as the hunter’s hoarse cry of rage echoed over the marshland. She fled, turning and twisting, to throw her pursu
er off the trail. She ran until her legs would no longer carry her and then she fell and slept in exhaustion until her belly woke her with the reminder that it had yet to be filled.

  Afternoon found her tracking again. The prey was wounded or ill; she could tell by the irregular footsteps and wandering trail. Sometimes the prints were smudged by the impression of a dragging tail. Again, she followed, but this time she did not let the intensity of her hunt make her forget that she too might be prey.

  The trail grew fresher and the smell stronger. She crouched as she approached a fallen log in her path. On the far side of it she could hear soft rustling sounds, and the crack and crunch of seeds being eaten. Again she trembled and her belly grew tight. She slunk along the side of the rotting timber and looked around the edge. There it was. A little marsh-shrew with a dull striped pelt and flanks almost as shrunken as hers. One rear leg was wounded and dragging. The blunt snout turned, the nostrils twitched. Ratha ducked back. Then, as the creature turned once more to its meal, she peered past the ragged spongy ends of the fallen timber. At last something she could catch.

  She gathered herself, bunched and sprang over the log. She landed short, slipped in the mud, leaped again and landed on her prey with her front paws.

  Her tail swung wildly to keep her balance as the animal squirmed beneath her pads. She felt herself toppling, struck one forepaw out to catch herself and felt her prey slip out from beneath the other. Furious, she lunged and snapped, but the creature, despite its injury, was far away from her, scooting across the flat toward the reeds. Ratha flung herself after it, howling in anguish. She chased the animal up and down through the high grass, desperation keeping her only a few tail-lengths behind. The marsh grass opened into a meadow of ferns and she was gaining on her quarry when a flurry of black and brown erupted from nowhere and something charged into her, knocking her aside from her prey. There was a shrill scream from the animal, a deep growl and then silence.

  Ratha scrambled out of the clump of ferns and staggered to her feet. A young male of her own kind stood a short distance away, staring back at her. Her marsh-shrew, now lifeless, dangled from his jaws. He dropped it in among the ferns and began to play with it, glancing from time to time at Ratha. Driven by hunger, she moved closer. He lashed his tail, growled, picked the carcass up and pranced a short distance through the ferns. There he laid it down, ambled a few tail-lengths away and began grooming himself.

  Ratha flattened and crawled through the ferns, freezing whenever he looked her way. His smell was oddly familiar, she realized, between the waves of hunger that were sweeping over her. She slunk forward again, raising her whiskers above the fronds. He turned, yawned in her face and ducked his head among the ferns. A loud crunch of teeth on bone told her he was eating her prey.

  With an outraged scream, Ratha flung herself at him but exhaustion made her fall short. She pushed herself up on wobbly legs, fluffed her tail and spat. He flicked one ear and went on eating. Only half the carcass was left.

  “Scavenger!” Ratha hissed. “Un-Named dung-eater! Flea-ridden chewer of bones! Arrr, you can’t understand my words, bone-chewer, but you’ll understand my teeth!”

  The other gazed at her, a scrap of fur and flesh hanging from his jowls. It disappeared into his mouth in several swift bites and his lips drew back from his teeth as he chewed, revealing a broken lower fang. Ratha looked at his ears. One had a piece bitten out of it and the ragged edge bore the marks of teeth. Hers. It was the raider who had attacked Fessran’s dapplebacks in Ratha’s first encounter with the Un-Named raiders.

  “The same words again, clan cat?” he said, looking straight at her. “Do they teach you no others?”

  Ratha’s nape bristled and she felt the fur rising all the way down her spine to her tail. Her nostrils flared. She was unsure of whether to attack or retreat and did neither. She could only stare at the mangled carcass between his forepaws and swallow the warm saliva flooding her mouth.

  He tore another strip from the prey. The smell from the glistening flesh brought Ratha forward. Saliva slipped between her teeth and ran over her lips into her fur.

  “You are far from home ground, clan cat.” He gulped the meat. “And far from the herdbeasts that keep you fed.”

  Ratha took another step forward. She could see the ends of her whiskers quivering. “I chased the marsh-shrew, broken-fanged one. Let me have what is left of it.”

  “Yes, you chased it,” he agreed. His tone was light, but his eyes were wary. “You didn’t catch it. I caught it.”

  “I caught it. My paws were on it before yours. I drew first blood.”

  “Is that a new clan law? I thought they had enough laws and leaders to bare their throats to.” He grinned, exposing the jagged edge of his fang.

  “Give me my prey!” Ratha howled and flung herself at him. Her trembling legs turned her lunge into a stumble.

  He snatched up the remains of the prey and trotted beyond her reach. He sat down among the ferns and gave her a mocking look. “You are a bad hunter, clan cat. Only good hunters eat,” he said between his teeth, lifting his head to let the rest of the carcass slide into his open gullet.

  “Raider! Bone-chewer! I broke your fang and tore your ear. Come near me or steal my prey again and I will chew your tail off and stuff it down your gluttonous throat!”

  He lolled his tongue out at her, turned, and, tail in the air, sauntered away.

  Ratha went to where the shrew’s carcass had lain, hoping to find a few neglected morsels. She found only moss, stained with blood and spittle. She bent her head and licked the green carpet, but only got the faintest taste. She closed her eyes and felt her belly twist in despair.

  Only good hunters eat, she thought.

  She lifted her head and bared her fangs. She shredded the moss with her claws.

  She had lost her world and everything in it. The herder’s knowledge that served her in the clan was worthless here. She had left her people far behind. Now, she realized, as she felt the grinding pain of hunger fade into a frightening numbness inside her, she must leave their ways behind as well.

  I was raised to be a herder, part of her mind cried. That life is gone. What else is there? Nothing, the same part of her mind answered. In choosing to leave the clan, you chose to die.

  Despair paralyzed Ratha. She wanted to sink down onto the moss and lie still forever. To become dry bones, scattered by the feet of those who would pass this way. Crumbling bones, crawling with insects.

  Another part of her mind began speaking. She quieted the turmoil inside and listened. This part spoke in images and feelings rather than words. It told of scents followed along star-lit trails, of stalking and waiting in shadow, of branches breaking close by and the sudden fever at the smell of the prey. It told of a life far older than that of the clan, a life far deeper and, in a strange way, far wiser. The old part of her mind told Ratha she had that wisdom. She woke from the telling as she would from a dream and she trembled, for it was far stronger than the clan-taught knowledge. The way of the clan, she knew, went back many seasons and many lifetimes. She knew the names of those who led the clan, from the first ones all the way to Baire and Meoran. The way of the herder was old, but there was another way, ancient beyond memory. It went back to the time before the beginning. The way of the hunter.

  * * *

  Whiskers poked out of a burrow. A timorous nose followed. Earth and small stones tumbled as the occupant emerged and peered around. Hiding in a patch of weeds, Ratha tensed. She could see the black stripes along the animal’s cheeks; the blunt snout. Delicate five-toed paws joined the whiskers in exploring the ground outside the burrow.

  This hunt, Ratha thought, would be different. She knew hunger had robbed her of the speed and agility a hunter needed. She still had something that might make the difference if she used it properly: her cleverness. If she could outwit three-horns and Un-Named raiders, surely she could catch a shrew.

  The marsh-shrew looked toward Ratha’s hiding place, lifte
d its chin and showed long chisel teeth, as if it knew she was there.

  The animal’s forequarters were already out of the hole and the hindquarters soon followed. The striped shrew began wandering away from its burrow, stopping every few paces to raise its muzzle and sniff the air. Ratha’s excitement grew with every step the animal took away from its den. She quivered and bunched herself together, treading softly with her forepaws, waiting until the shrew was far from the burrow. She jerked sharply, fighting the impulse to pounce. There was something else that had to be done first.

  She remained still until the shrew reached a stand of marsh grass and began to gnaw on the tuberous roots. Ratha gave it one last glance, left her hiding place and crept, not toward the shrew, but toward the empty burrow. A mound of dried mud stood to one side of the entrance, a product of the shrew’s excavations. With one swipe, she pushed the fill into the burrow and added a few pawfuls of surface mud. She pressed hard to pack it solid, then, with another glance over her shoulder, slunk back to her place in the rushes. As she settled in her nest, she purred softly to herself, pleased with her cleverness. This hunting business wasn’t so hard if one gave it some thought, she decided.

  The hard part was staying still until the shrew had finished its meal of roots, and even after it had left the marsh grass, it still wasn’t ready to return to the den. Ratha watched, her impatience mixed with grudging admiration as her prey turned hunter, attacking and devouring flies and beetles. She saw the shrew leap at a dragonfly droning low over the marsh and when the little hunter fell back on the mud, she saw that it bore a broken jeweled body in its jaws. Her keen ears caught muffled snaps as the shrew bit off the insect’s legs and then continuous frantic crunching until only the lacy wings were left, scattered on the mud beside the still-twitching legs.

  The shrew sniffed among the remains, turned its head up and looked at the sky, as if wishing for more and, finally sated, waddled back toward its lair. Halfway there, it stopped and its careless amble turned into a wary creep. Hidden in the grass, Ratha shivered, trying to still the clamor in her brain. The promise of food had awakened her stomach and it growled its impatience at her. Spring now. Now. NOW!