The sound of his voice sent another shock through Ratha. She let out her breath slowly. She had been as wrong about the Un-Named cub as she had been about Bonechewer. The clan knows nothing about the Un-Named, she thought. Nothing.
The spotted coat spoke again. “There will be many tracks across your ground before this season is done.” The cub’s gaze strayed to the gutted carcass. “Ho, dweller-by-the-water,” he said. “The lake has brought you a good kill.”
“A good kill. Are these the marks of your teeth on its neck, little spotted-coat?” Bonechewer asked.
“No, dweller-by-the-water.”
“Then make your tracks across my ground and leave me alone.”
The cub stepped forward, head lowered, tail stiff. “You have not been long among us if you have forgotten the wanderer’s claim, dweller-by-the-water. The old one and I are far from home ground and we are hungry.”
“I had not forgotten, spotted-coat.” Bonechewer grinned, showing all of his fangs. “I hoped you were too young to know about it. Ah well. Come then, and bring the gray.”
“Bonechewer!” Ratha’s jaw dropped. “Why are you doing this? They have no right to the kill!”
Both the cub and the gray turned green eyes on her. “She speaks for you, dweller-by-the-water?” the cub asked Bonechewer, who had stepped quickly to Ratha’s side.
“Ratha,” Bonechewer hissed in her flattened ear, “if you want yourself in one piece, shut your jaws and let me speak to them.”
“You fear them? A spotted-coat and a gray half your size? They have no right to this kill,” Ratha spat back. “It was taken from clan herds. I’ll fight for it even if you won‘t!”
“The clan? Ptahh! You would fight for them? Meoran would kill you if you returned to them. Fight to fill your own belly, if you must, but speak no more of the clan.”
Ratha’s ears drooped. “If we kept the deer, we wouldn’t have to hunt tomorrow. They are only a spotted coat and a gray.”
“A spotted coat and a gray, yesss, but others follow.” Bonechewer’s whiskers poked Ratha’s cheek. “I don’t want to fight all the Un-Named. Be still, I tell you, and let them eat.” He shoved Ratha aside from the kill, opening the way for the two intruders. Hatred and outrage burned in her, and for a moment her fangs were bared against Bonechewer’s coat.
“You know better than that, clan cat,” he said very softly. “Your belly is full. Let them fill theirs.”
Ratha’s anger settled. She watched as the cub went and nudged the gray. He pointed to the carcass with one outstretched paw. The elder lifted her head, stared at the meat and licked her chops.
“Food,” Ratha heard the cub say. “Come. Eat.” The grizzled one peered past him to Ratha and Bonechewer. She whimpered, raised her hackles and showed her teeth, yellowed and worn. “No,” the cub said, pawing her. “No fight. No hurt. Gray one can eat.”
Bonechewer walked off a distance and sat down, his back turned. Ratha, however, stayed close, watching. Something about the gray female repelled yet fascinated her. The cub, slavering, trotted to the carcass and began ripping at the flank. The gray followed him and the two ate until their bellies were swollen.
At last, the two were finished. Ratha noticed, with dismay, that not much remained of the deer except the skull and shanks. The rest was eaten or scattered. The gray-coat coughed, shook off the rain pattering on her fur and swung around. Not knowing quite why she did so, Ratha set herself in front of the gray, blocking the old one’s path.
“Old one, if you eat of our kill,” Ratha said, “you must give us answers in return. Who are you? Where is your home ground? Where do you journey in such bad weather?”
The gray’s answer was a swipe at her face. Ratha ducked.
“Save your words, muddy one,” came the cub’s voice from behind her. Ratha turned to see him licking his whiskers. “The old one can’t speak. She barely understands what I say to her.”
“Why?” Ratha demanded. “Has she lost her wits to age?”
“She never had any. That’s the way she’s always been.” The cub yawned and stretched until his tail quivered.
Ratha backed away from the gray-coat. The rheumy eyes followed her and she felt imprisoned by their dull stare. Her stomach tightened with anger and revulsion. The cub lifted his brows at her.
“I’m sorry for her,” Ratha stammered, wishing she had never come near the gray.
“Why be sorry?” the cub asked. “She doesn’t care. She doesn’t know anything else. She’s a better hunter than most of the others. I like her because she doesn’t talk.”
Ratha opened her mouth again, but couldn’t think of anything to say. Despite her words, she was feeling sorrier for herself than for the gray-coat. Again she had been wrong. The answer had seemed simple and easy to catch between her teeth. Now it wiggled loose like a marsh-shrew and escaped down a hole of contradictions. She felt upset and uncomfortable, as if she had been caught doing something shameful. But all she had done was to ask a few questions. No. It was those eyes that chilled her, those ancient eyes that should have been full of life’s wisdom and instead were empty.
Thunder rumbled overhead and the rain sheeted down, stinging Ratha’s skin beneath her coat. The cub and the gray looked at her one last time. She ducked her head to avoid the old one’s gaze. The two jogged away through the weeds, lifting their feet high to avoid puddles. Ratha stood still, watching them disappear into the rain. She felt someone come up behind her. She gave a violent start before she realized it was Bonechewer.
“They bother you, don’t they,” he said.
“Not the cub. The gray ... she doesn’t have anything in her eyes, Bonechewer. I don’t know how else to explain it.”
“Your clan teaches that the Un-Named are witless,” Bonechewer said, a harsh edge to his voice. ”Why should you be upset to find that some of them are?”
“I thought Meoran was wrong ...” Ratha faltered. “What I was taught; it was just words. I said them, I learned them; I even questioned them, but I never knew what those words meant. Not until I looked into the gray-coat’s eyes and found nothing there.”
Bonechewer heaved a sigh. “You thought you had caught the truth, didn’t you. Again, you were wrong. Each time you try you will be wrong. The only truth is that the Un-Named are of many kinds. Some are like you and me. Some are like the gray-coat. Some are different from either. You will have to learn not to be bothered by what you see.”
“And I will see more of them?” Ratha asked.
“Yes, you will.”
“Does seeing ones like the gray-coat bother you?”
“It used to,” Bonechewer said. “It doesn’t any more.” He paused. “I learned never to look too deeply into anyone’s eyes.”
“Except mine,” Ratha said boldly, remembering his intense stare that seemed to pierce into her depths.
“True, clan cat,” he admitted, wrinkling his nose. “I do make mistakes sometimes. Is there anything left on that deer?”
Ratha inspected the stripped carcass. The other two had devoured what she and Bonechewer had left of the viscera and the meat. Rain crawled along the bare white ribs and dripped through. The fawn’s head and shanks still bore coarse fur. The rest had been torn off. The only part worth taking was the head. Ratha stared moodily at the carcass. She wanted to get rid of the deer, to forget they had found it.
“Do you want the head?” Bonechewer asked. He came up behind her and nudged her, making her flinch. His touch sent a wave of heat rushing through her body with a violence that made her gasp. The cold rushed in and she shivered hard. Unable to keep still, she began to pace back and forth. “No,” she growled. “There isn’t enough there to risk breaking a tooth cracking it.”
“Then help me drag it back into the lake. I don’t want these bones on my ground.”