“No,” the herding teacher replied, his green eyes glowing angrily. “How can you expect a treeling to understand such things? There is no need for him to understand. He just does what you tell him.”
“Then he is an animal, like the dapplebacks and three-horns,” said Shongshar with a hiss in his voice and a gold glitter in his eyes. “He is witless, like my cubs that you and Ratha took from clan ground. Is an animal to serve the Red Tongue?”
Ratha felt her own eyes narrow and her nape rise. “Enough, Shongshar! It is Fessran I would hear, not you.”
The Firekeeper leader lifted her chin and eyed Ratha coolly. “Clan leader, I share many of Shongshar’s feelings. You know better than I how fiercely we fought for the Red Tongue in the days when Meoran ruled the Named.”
“Yes, you ran with me then and your feelings were your own,” growled Ratha. She regretted her words as they left her tongue, for Fessran flinched visibly and her amber eyes took on some of the same hard glitter as Shongshar’s.
“The treeling’s skill is impressive,” she said. “However, I do have some questions. You have only one treeling and there are many Firekeepers. Do you intend to catch more treelings and train them in the same way?”
Thakur looked at Ratha. “I hadn’t thought about that. I got Aree by accident. He was injured when I found him. It may be difficult to catch others.”
“If we accepted Aree and let him do the difficult tasks for us, we would no longer try to do them for ourselves,” Fessran pointed out. “What would happen then if the treeling were to run away or get killed?”
Thakur had come to sit beside Ratha and she felt him tense at Fessran’s words. “I don’t think Aree is going to run away and I am certainly not going to let anyone kill him.” He glared back at the Firekeepers.
Ratha decided it was time to interrupt. “There will be no talk of killing,” she snapped. “Thakur has offered to share his treeling’s ability and you should be grateful.”
“Clan leader, we did not mean to offend either you or Thakur,” said Fessran. “We think that the treeling’s skill is valuable, but there are some problems. After all, Thakur did not know what the creature would do when he snatched up a torch and began running around us. I think you would agree that more training is needed before the treeling can really be trusted.”
Ratha tried to control her temper. Fessran might be irritating, but she had made some points. Aree’s last display showed that the treeling was still unpredictable, and there remained the problem that there was only one of the creatures. Nonetheless, Ratha was pleased with Thakur for trying to jolt the Firekeepers out of their complacency.
“All right,” she said at last. “Thakur, you are to continue teaching Aree. To make things easier for you, Fessran will assign a Firekeeper to build and tend a fire near your den. Do you both agree?”
Fessran glanced at Shongshar and looked uncomfortable. “Is there anyone you would like?” she asked Thakur.
“If you could spare Bira, I wouldn’t mind working with her,” Thakur answered.
He stayed beside Ratha as the Firekeepers put out their fire and left. He smoothed his ruffled fur with short angry strokes of his tongue.
“Fessran will let you have Bira,” Ratha said as the dusk closed around them.
“She may. I wonder what else she’ll do.”
Ratha looked at him sharply, but he was only an outline and two eyes in the growing darkness. “She will do as I tell her as long as I am clan leader.”
He sighed. “I wish you hadn’t put it that way,” he said softly and padded away with his treeling on his back.
During the next few mornings Ratha visited Thakur at his den to be sure Fessran was doing what had been promised. Each time she went, she found Bira there along with a well-made little fire and a stack of wood that was always kept full. The young Firekeeper seemed to enjoy watching Thakur teach Aree. Ratha watched her carefully for signs of the same hostility that other Firekeepers had shown, but there were none.
Aree’s instruction was progressing well. The treeling seemed to understand that capricious actions, such as those he had performed in front of the Firekeepers, were not acceptable and would result in a scolding. Thakur reported that Aree had become more obedient, and she could see for herself that the herding teacher had managed to accomplish this without breaking the creature’s spirit. Every once in a while Aree looked at Thakur with a mischievous glint in his eyes, but the treeling took his task seriously and never deliberately disobeyed.
Ratha watched and felt encouraged. Soon Thakur would be able to show Aree to the Firekeepers again, and they would be unable to find any fault with the treeling’s performance. Perhaps she and Thakur could also devise a way to capture more treelings. Aree might be able to lure another one down from the branches. If the captured treeling was a female, she might bear young. Or Thakur might climb one of the fruit trees with Aree and look for a treeling nest that might shelter young ones. If they could find and train more of the creatures, Fessran might be willing to accept the idea.
She made her plans carefully as she rested in her den or lay atop the sunning rock. Each morning she asked Thakur whether Aree was ready. The last time, instead of saying no, he had told her to assemble the entire clan on the following day. This was something for everyone to see, he said. Not just Firekeepers.
On the evening before the assembly was to take place, Ratha visited him to be sure he was prepared. She came just before sunset and was only halfway to his den when she heard someone running toward her on the path. Thakur galloped up to her, his whiskers trembling and his fur on end.
“Aree’s gone, Ratha!” he gasped.
Disbelief shot through her. “What? He can’t be. You never leave him alone.”
“I did. Just for a little while. I left him curled up in my den. I had to get some wood; Bira let the woodpile get low. Thornwood is best, but I can’t get into a thicket with Aree on my back, so I left him.”
“How long ago?” She began to pace beside him.
“I had just come back from teaching my herding pupils. I left Aree in my den, went to get wood, and when I came back I couldn’t find him. I looked everywhere,” he added mournfully.
“Did you try to track him?”
“Yes, but there was such a smoky smell in the air that I couldn’t follow his scent.”
They reached his den. Ratha trotted over to the ashy bed where the teaching fire usually burned. She lifted her nose and sniffed. Thakur certainly was right: the air was too acrid to detect the treeling’s scent. Carefully she pawed the dirt and cinders. If the fire had been burning recently, they would still be hot. They weren’t.
Then why did the whole place smell like someone had been throwing ashes around, she wondered.
“Where’s Bira?” she asked, suddenly.
“She’s not here. She only helps me in the mornings. I thought I’d build a fire myself and then get a Firekeeper to light it.”
Ratha glanced up at the few trees that stood about the den. Their branches were outlined against the red and gray sunset, but she saw nothing on them that looked like the hunched form of a treeling. She helped Thakur look through the bushes, but neither one of them found anything.
The wind had begun to stir, blowing away the acrid smell in the air, but Aree’s scent had faded too. The treeling was gone and there was nothing either one of them could do about it.
Thakur crawled into his den and laid his head on his paws. “It’s my fault,” he moaned. “I shouldn’t have left him alone. Aree, wherever you are, please come back. I miss you.”
“Thakur,” Ratha said softly, “I have to go and tell everyone that the gathering won’t happen tomorrow.”