“You don’t have time to wash yourself off before he gets here.” Ratha pawed Fessran’s face, leaving a smear along her jaw. She jumped back at Fessran’s strike. The eyes were blazing.
“Get away from here before I make it real!” Fessran snarled.
Ratha ducked her head and scuttled away. She paused, lifted her head and looked back. “May you eat of the haunch and sleep in the driest den, Fessran,” she said softly. “You are of the clan. You cannot leave them. I am the one whose way lies apart from the rest.”
The other’s eyes cooled. The tail gave one last twitch. “May the trail you run lead you back to us.”
“See to Thakur,” Ratha said.
“I will. Go now.” Fessran’s whiskers drew back. “I don’t want you to see me fawning on Meoran.”
Ratha leaped up the bank, leaving her behind. The howls of the clan sounded not far across the creek. Ratha trotted downstream for a short distance and angled off into the brush. Making sure that she was downwind from the stream bank, Ratha crouched in a thicket, listening. Her heartbeat threatened to choke her. Would her plan work? Would the clan leader believe Fessran’s story and spare her? They needed good herders too badly to kill one needlessly.
If Fessran dies, Ratha thought, kneading the earth beneath her forepaws, I will go and bare my throat to Meoran.
The howling swelled, then fell silent. Voices spoke. Ratha was too far away to hear the words, but she caught tones. Meoran’s deep growl, Srass’s whine. Fessran’s voice, rising and falling. Then, silence. Ratha tensed, grinding her teeth together, waiting for the outcry from the pack that would signal Fessran’s death. Nothing.
She lifted her chin, swiveling her ears all the way forward, hardly daring to think that such a simple trick had saved her companion. She peered through the interwoven branches. The moon was silver on the stream bank. Forms paced up and down on the far side. Fessran was seated, speaking to Meoran. She extended a paw. Meoran leaned forward to sniff it while the clan gathered about them. Fessran got up, joined the others, and Ratha lost her among them.
She dropped down behind her thicket, dizzy with relief and weariness. She laid her chin on the damp ground and felt her heart gradually slow. The ache in her belly came back and the cuts on her pads began to throb. There was mud in the wounds, but she didn’t have time to clean them. The wind might soon shift, carrying her scent to the clan and revealing her hiding place. Exhausted and hungry as she was, she had far to run before she would be beyond the clan’s reach.
She yawned. This would be a good place to sleep, she thought, pushing herself up on her front paws. If I did, Meoran would soon be standing over me, ready to give the killing bite. She coaxed her reluctant hindquarters up and peered out of the thicket. The voices were silent. The clan folk had gone. Fessran was probably sending them on all sorts of false trails, looking for her.
She stepped out of the thicket and looked up at the stars. The trees here were fewer and she could see a greater stretch of sky. So many stars, she thought. Each seemed to burn like a tiny piece of her lost creature. The night wind touched her wet coat, making her prickle and shiver.
She was clanless; outcast and outlaw. Her training as a herder was worthless now, for she had no beasts to keep. There would be no more gatherings; no sharing of the clan kill. From now on she would have to provide for herself, and that no one had taught her.
Miserably, she crept away. She stayed in shadow beneath brush and trees, avoiding open ground where newly sprouting grass was bathed in moonlight beside the charred lengths of fallen pines. For a while, she chose stealth over speed, but at last her desperation drove her from cover. She ran from an enemy neither seen nor smelled, whose dark presence loomed up in every tree shadow, sending her fleeing from the path. She ran like a cub on her first night trail, fearful of anything that moved.
The wind grew bitter, hissing and rattling branches. The new ache in Ratha’s chest did not distract her from the old ache in her belly, and she endured them both, until the hunger pain became a weakness that seeped into her legs. She stumbled from tree to tree, resting against them until she gained breath to go on. The trail faded away, or she lost it, for now she fought her way through thorns and ropy vines. She panted harder. Her pads grew slippery with sweat, stinging the gravel cuts. She was almost grateful for the pain; it kept her alive and angry when she was tempted to fall and lie amid the brambles that snared her. It was the anger that made her tear loose from them and stagger on, leaving tufts of fur behind.
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.