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.