She told herself fiercely that her burning throat was hunger rather than hurt. She was dipping her muzzle into the snow again when she heard the gray snarl. The snarl turned into a whine and there was a soft thump.
Ratha turned. The gray-coat crouched, chewing on a chunk of flesh that spread red stains on the crystalline snow. Behind the gray, Bonechewer stood. Ratha waited for her morsel, but nothing appeared and Bonechewer’s jaws were empty. Pangs of disappointment cramped her stomach.
“Do I get nothing this time?” she asked.
“I have more meat for you,” he answered. “First, come with me. I want to show you something.”
“I can’t. I have to stand guard. And the old one will raise a fuss if I leave my place. My pack leader—”
“Will answer to me for the way he has treated you.” Bonechewer showed his teeth as he spoke. “And as for the old gray, she will think of nothing but her meat. Come.” He bounded away.
With a cautious glance toward her partner, Ratha padded after him. She saw that his pawprints were stained with tiny flecks of brown and red. She frowned and tried to catch up with him to ask why. She broke into a canter, showering snow over the bushes. Again she frowned, wrinkling her brows. He hadn’t been that far ahead, had he? His prints led over a white-covered rise and down the other side. On top of a little cliff, they ended and Ratha could see no other tracks. For a moment, she felt panic. Had he tricked her? Had he enticed her away from her guard duty only to leave her? If she was found away from her post, she would be fair game for anyone, for they would assume she was escaping.
“Bonechewer!” she called, her voice sharp and raw with fear.
“In here,” came his muffled reply from somewhere beneath her feet. She craned her neck over the bank and saw the top of his head and his ears above the snow. He twisted his head around and grinned at her.
“Where are you?” she demanded, wondering if he had buried himself in the snow just to tease her.
His head disappeared again. Ratha leaned over the bank, walking her forepaws down the steep slope. She was afraid to jump into the hollow beneath, fearing jagged rocks or stumps might be concealed under the snow. Without warning, her forepaws slipped and she plunged into an unexpected hole in the bank. She lost her footing completely, flipped and came down hard on her back. She lay in the snow, her head spinning, all four paws waving in the air. Bonechewer’s face appeared upside down, framed between her own front paws. “What are you trying to do? Cave it in?”
Ratha gazed up at him. “Cave what in?”
“The den.”
She rolled over slowly, shedding snow from her pelt. “Den? Is that what you wanted to show me?” She peered past him at the bank. Now she could see the low entrance and the dirt tracked onto the snow. “I don’t want any of those clan dens. I told you that.” She heaved herself to her feet.
“This isn’t a clan lair,” he answered.
“I don’t believe you. It’s too big for any other creature. Who dug it if the clan didn’t?”
“I did,” said Bonechewer.
“When?”
“I finished last night, before the snowfall. Just in time.”
“The ground is too hard for digging,” Ratha protested. Bonechewer gave her an exasperated look and turned over a front paw. The pad was torn and ragged; the toes raw and muddy. Ratha remembered the red and brown stains in his tracks. She walked past him and sniffed the hole. It smelled of freshly dug earth.
“You dug it,” she admitted grudgingly. “Why?”
“Why do you think?” he snapped.
“For your cubs.”
“Yarrr! They won’t be born here. You’re not that big yet. No. We’ll be back on my land when they come.”
“Then why did you dig it?”
“Because I know you don’t freeze in that tree because you want to. The smells in those other lairs raise old memories you would rather keep buried. I know, Ratha,” he said, his voice and his eyes growing soft. “I could not sleep in Reshara’s den either.”
She eyed him, wondering whether this was a challenge to reveal what she knew or an offer to let her share more of his life.
“You didn’t see your lair-father die,” she said slowly.
Bonechewer showed his teeth as he answered, “You grow bold, clan cat. Thakur must have told you, for it was he who saw Meoran’s work.” His eyes narrowed. “My brother herded his animals but let his tongue run free, it seems.”
Ratha felt the fur rise on her nape. “You would speak that way of him? Ptahh! I know the Un-Named do not honor those they slay, but I thought you were different.”
She thought he would strike her, but instead he licked a paw and said. “He is not slain. I did not see him among the clan dead.”
Ratha’s hope leaped ahead of her anger. “You didn’t? Could he have escaped?”
“I’m sure he escaped, but searching for him would be useless,” he added as Ratha started to open her mouth again. “If I know my brother, he will be far away by now.”
She stared down at the trampled snow around her feet. Far away, she thought. Perhaps it is best. I will think no more of Thakur.
She peered into the new den Bonechewer had dug for her, but she did not go in. She dipped her muzzle and gently nipped the top of his forepaw.
“What are you doing now?” he demanded.
“Lift your foot.”
He grunted and presented his paw to her, balancing on three legs. She began to lick the sore pads, cleaning mud from between his toes and from beneath his claws. The claws were blunted and dull, telling her that the soil had not yielded easily. No wonder he had been gone for several days! Once the paw was clean, she gave it several soothing licks and asked for the other.
After she finished, she crawled into the lair, turned around in the friendly darkness several times and lay with her forepaws hanging out the entrance.
“It is small, but well dug,” she said critically. She could see he was waiting for more of a reaction. When she said nothing else, his whiskers drooped slightly in disappointment.
She wiggled on her belly and lolled her tongue out at him. “I like it. I couldn’t have dug a better one.”
“Good!” His whiskers sprang back to their usual exuberant bristle. “I dug it far enough away from the others so no one will try to take it. And if they are so stupid as to try, they will answer to me.”
“Did you mean what you said about the cubs being born on your ground?” Ratha asked, growing serious again.
“Yes. As soon as the weather lets us travel, we’ll go. I have had enough of the Un-Named and seen enough of their foolishness. They no longer need me, nor I them. I will run with them no more. You and I, Ratha, will run together.”
He went with her back to her sentry post. There, they saw the old gray asleep in the snow, her chin on her paws.
“She’ll wake soon. I should go, Ratha,” he said, looking into her eyes. “This has been hard for you, strong as you are. I am sorry for the part I played. Things won’t get easier; not very soon. But I promise you that when this season ends, we will leave this place and never return.” Ratha looked around at the white-covered landscape.
“Snowfall has just started.” She sighed. “It will seem like a long time. At least I don’t have to sleep in a tree.”
“I know. The days may seem endless. When things get difficult, think of spring. And me,” he added, with a glint of mischief in his eyes.
She watched him trot away over the snow. The gray-coat was starting to wake up, but despite that, Ratha was happy.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Spring was slower in coming to the heights than to the lowlands. As Ratha and Bonechewer wound their way out of the hills, the sparse grass and scrub bush gave way to new growth, green and springy underfoot. They did not take the old trail, still rutted and worn by the passage of the Un-Named. As if in unspoken agreement, neither one ventured toward it, preferring to find their own way across the endless meadow that covered the hills.