Ratha had gone several paces beyond him before she knew he’d stopped.
“Thakur?” She looked back. His shaking was worse than hers. “Thakur, are you sick?”
He stood, frozen, staring at the sand a few tail-lengths ahead of him. His fear-smell wafted to Ratha. Hesitantly, she came to him and nosed him.
“Now you see why Meoran called me coward,” he said, hanging his head.
“Why? What are you afraid of? The Red Tongue is gone.”
“For me it hasn’t gone.” Thakur said in a low voice. “Ratha, I can’t walk across there now. Stay here with me for a few days. We can eat river-crawlers.”
Ratha glared at him. “I want to make Meoran eat dung. The longer we wait the further away he gets.” She turned away.
“Idiot cub!” she heard Thakur yell at her back. “Ratha, you can’t go back by yourself. You couldn’t fight off a weanling cub let alone a pack of Un-Named raiders.”
“Then come with me.” Ratha stopped and looked back at him, flicking her tail.
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“I saw that dappleback die, yearling. You weren’t close enough to see it, but I did.”
“Thakur, the smell isn’t that bad. The ash will be soft beneath our feet. We’ll travel fast.”
He hung his head. “I can’t.”
Ratha yawned in frustration. She felt a sudden fury rising like acid in her throat.
“I don’t care about your burned dappleback! I want to go back to the clan. Maybe Meoran was right when he said your father was an Un-Named bone-eater!”
She was down in the sand before the last word was out of her mouth. Thakur stood over her, almost on top of her while her head rang from his blow. She shrank into a miserable ball and wished she could melt between the sand grains. She could feel his shadow on her, feel his pain, feel him waiting....
“I thought Meoran was just spreading lies about you,” she faltered.
Thakur gave her a smoldering look. “No. He was spreading the truth about me, which, it seems, is far worse. Where did you hear it?”
“At the clan kill. I overheard Meoran talking to Yaran. I was busy eating, but I heard enough.”
Thakur took a breath. “All right, yearling. Yes, what you heard is true. The one who sired me had no name, even though he was more worthy of it than many in the clan. My mother Reshara chose unwisely.”
“I thought our law said that both the lair-mother and lair-father must be named in order for the cubs to be named,” Ratha said.
“So why do I bear a name?” Thakur grinned ruefully. “Old Baire took pity on Reshara even though she sought outside the clan for a mate. He let her stay until her two cubs were born and then she was driven out. He let me live and gave me my name. He had that much mercy.”
Ratha lifted her nose from the sand. “Cubs? You have no littermates in the clan.”
Thakur looked uncomfortable and she knew he had not meant to say as much as he had. At last he sighed. “My brother runs with the Un-Named. Reshara took him with her when she left the clan.”
“Why didn’t she take you?”
“Old Baire asked that she leave both of us with the clan. Although our father was Un-Named, Baire knew we were far from being witless.”
“Then why did she take your brother?”
“She disobeyed Baire. She took my brother and fled. My father came to get me, but Baire’s son, Meoran, was lying in wait for him.”
“Meoran caught you,” Ratha breathed.
“Meoran killed my father and caught me. I fought, but I was only a litterling. He put a paw on me and tore out some of my front claws with his teeth.”
Ratha looked down at Thakur’s right front foot and shivered. She had once asked him how he lost his claws, but he had distracted her with something else. The foot did not look very different from the other but Ratha guessed that scars lay beneath the fur.
“Did you ever see Reshara or your brother again?” she asked.
“Reshara is dead now, Ratha,” he said, in a tone that discouraged her from asking anything more.
She tested her legs and clambered to her feet. Thakur looked beyond her to the burn.
“Go, yearling. I’ll follow,” he said.
Ratha went ahead until she reached the border of the beach where the sand was streaked with charcoal.
Beyond the upper beach the forest floor was ash and charred stubble, with a few green blades poking through. Ratha sniffed, grimaced at the smell and passed onto the burn. She walked carefully, for the ground was still dew-damp and the ash slippery beneath her pads. Once or twice she looked back. Thakur was following. His tail bristled and his whiskers trembled and she could see the fear in his eyes, yet he said nothing as he walked behind her across the burn.
The farther they traveled, the harsher the landscape grew and the more acrid the burn smell. Here the fire had burned recently and more intensely. Saplings stood, charred forlorn sticks that would never put forth another leaf. Trunks of gutted pines lay in their path, blocking the way. Ratha leaped over them easily, but coaxing Thakur across them was another matter and more than once she had to force him up and over a still-smoking log.
Thakur followed Ratha across the burn until they were blocked by a tangle of downed trees and brush. In among the charred twigs was one still burning. The flame flickered against the pale sky and danced between blackened twists of bark.
To Ratha, the Red Tongue was an animal and its life should end with its death. To find the Red Tongue alive here, even this faint and flickering part of it, was contrary to all she knew of life or death. Behind her, Thakur whimpered, the sounds escaping from his throat despite his wish to hold them back. She butted him, trying to make him go forward, but he balked, unwilling to pass the Red Tongue in the downed tree.
Ratha stared at the flame. To go around the fallen trees meant a weary trek out of the way. But she knew she couldn’t get Thakur through the tangle, even though there was room to crawl beneath the interwoven branches. He stood frozen behind her, eyes closed, panting, unable now to overcome the terror that held him prisoner.
Ratha grew angry and spat at the fire-animal. Lashing her tail, she walked toward the burning twig. A sharp gust made the flame flutter back as she approached, and she grew bolder. Around the Red Tongue, the air shimmered as if it were flowing water. The smoke was thick and resinous.
Anger and a growing fascination drew Ratha to the Red Tongue, and she stared into the blue-gold heart of the flame. It was, she thought, a thing that danced, ate and grew like a creature, but unlike a creature, once killed it wouldn’t stay dead.
With flattened ears and streaming eyes, Ratha lunged at the Red Tongue’s black throat. Her teeth sank into charred wood and she twisted her head sharply. The branch broke off. She held it in her mouth for several seconds, watching the flame curl and hiss near the end of her nose. The charcoal tasted bitter and Ratha flung the branch away. It rolled over and over in the dirt. The fire flickered, hissed and went out.
Ratha pawed the branch. She scratched the burned bark, trying to find the elusive fire-creature, but the wood was cold. When she lifted her head from the branch, Thakur’s eyes were on her. Carefully he padded forward and sniffed at the branch where the Red Tongue had been. Ratha stood to one side, panting a little from excitement.
“Can you crawl through the thicket now, Thakur?” she asked.
“Yes, yearling, I can,” he said quietly. “Lead the way.”
There were other places where the Red Tongue still guttered weakly on twigs or bark and Ratha broke the branches off and smothered the flame. Each time Thakur would sniff the charred wood to convince himself that the Red Tongue had vanished. Ratha offered to teach him her newly acquired skill, but Thakur hastily declined.