A blow knocked her loose from the cub and sent her sprawling down the hillside. Bonechewer was on top of her, eyes blazing, fangs driving toward her throat.
Then he was gone and she was alone with the coming night and her pounding heart. Still dizzy with rage, she leaped up. She shut away the horrified part of her that recoiled at the taste of Thistle-chaser’s blood in her mouth. As if from a great distance, she saw Bonechewer licking the wounded cub. She waited as he sensed her and turned around.
“Kill me,” she said very softly. “I want no more of life.”
His eyes were two coals from the fire of the setting sun, but he stood where he was. Ratha looked past him to Thistle-chaser.
“Why don’t you leave them to starve and mate with someone else,” she taunted. “Perhaps the next time ...”
A sharp cuff flung her head to one side. She felt a muscle tear in her neck.
“Enough, Ratha.” Bonechewer panted.
Ratha took one step toward him, her eyes on Thistle-chaser. The wounded cub cowered, shaking, ugly black stains spreading across her shoulder and chest. Again a part of Ratha’s mind recoiled from the sight, but she forced that part away.
“Don’t try,” Bonechewer said. “You won’t earn your death that way.”
Ratha curled her lips back from her fangs as she watched Thistle-chaser.
“Do you really want her? She’s witless!” Her voice was thick with scorn.
“I want her. And the others,” Bonechewer said quietly. “You are right. They will never know themselves as you and I do. They will never share our gift of words. But they are mine and I will keep them, for I will have no others.” He lowered his head. “I will not mate again, Ratha.”
Her whiskers drooped as her rage fell, allowing her to see the terror in Thistle-chaser’s eyes. She sought her anger and used it to blur her sight. Soon enough, she knew, she would see all too clearly.
The cries of the other cubs drifted up the hill beneath the violet sky. The night wind touched Ratha’s fur. Thistle-chaser’s brothers were still at play. She turned to go downhill but Bonechewer blocked her way. “Stay away from them. I’m warning you.”
He raised one paw, claws extended. “I won’t kill you, but if you come near my cubs, you will leave blinded and limping.”
Ratha drew back, trembling. Now she had truly lost everything. Bonechewer would never accept her again, and there would only be fear and hatred in Thistle-chaser’s eyes. There was no returning along the trail she had chosen to take.
Again she fanned her anger into a blazing flame, burning away all regret or remorse.
“Take the cubs, Un-Named One,” she snarled. “Feed them well so they do not slay you and gorge themselves on your carcass. I go.”
She turned and trotted away, taking the path along the crest of the little hill above the marsh. The damp night wind brought her the many smells she had come to know. Never would she run here again.
She stopped and listened. Bonechewer was following her, making sure she was leaving his territory. Her anger failed her and despair seeped in. How she wanted to go to him, bury her head in his flank and beg his forgiveness, saying she would learn to love the cubs as they were, not as she wanted them to be.
He stopped at the edge of his territory. She ran on, leaving him behind. Her paws beat the ground as she galloped, filling her mind with the rhythm.
Now she was outcast to the Un-Named as well as the clan. All fangs would be bared against her wherever she went, for she would be known as a killer and a renegade. She ran, not looking or caring where she was going.
Behind her in the night a voice rose. Ratha tried to shut her ears to it, but the voice continued and grew louder. She stopped at a stream to drink and rinse the metallic taste of blood from her mouth. She ran on until at last Bonechewer’s farewell faded and died, leaving her alone with the night as her only companion.
CHAPTER TWELVE
For the rest of the summer Ratha wandered, drifting across the land as if she were a leaf blown by a fitful wind. She often stood atop a sharp cliff, wondering whether to throw herself down, or lay in the dark of a cave, wishing starvation would take her quickly. But she always turned away from the cliff or dragged herself out of the cave to hunt. Something forced her to survive almost against her will.
Ratha lived each day, trying not to think about the past or the future. Her eyes were always fixed on her prey or searching for those who would prey on her. When she looked at her reflection in the ponds and streams where she drank, she could barely answer the gaze of that thin face looking at her from beneath the water. Her belly twisted when she saw how the bitterness showed like the fresh scars not yet hidden beneath new fur. One who saw her in the days when Thakur called her yearling would never know her now, she thought. She walked with her head low and her fur was dull and rough.
She meant her wandering to be aimless, but she knew she was drifting back toward clan land. Something was calling her home, and she answered, even though she knew there was no home. Only gray bones remained in the meadow where the three-horns used to run and old dens filled with moldy leaves.
Why she was drawn to the old clan holdings she didn’t know. There would be nothing waiting for her at the end of this trail. She often fought the pull, turning onto a new path each time her feet carried her toward the old. Many times before she had been able to leave worn trails behind and run on fresh paths, but this time she had no will or wish to challenge the new. She felt used up and worn out; as if the wounds Bonechewer had given her would never stop bleeding. Each day she cursed her body for living when the pain inside made her want to lie down and never rise again. The taste of Thistle-chaser’s blood clung inside her mouth no matter how much water she drank trying to rinse it away.
At last, on a hot day in midsummer, Ratha stood on a stream bank, looking across. The meadow beyond spread far in every direction, the grass high and thick. Charred spikes that had once been trees stood against the sky, their trunks washed with waving grass, the space between blackened branches empty of leaves. Insects droned about Ratha’s ears as she stood with the sun on her back, wondering whether to cross.
She turned and walked along the shaded stream bank, the mud cool beneath her feet. She emerged into an open patch and narrowed her eyes at the glitter of the sun on the water. A slight thinning of the grass on the far bank was all that marked the trail that had run across the stream and the meadow. Soon it would be entirely hidden.
Ratha remembered how she had run that trail, Fessran panting at her side as the clan-pack howled behind her Those howls still seemed to echo through the hot, still air. Her ears trembled. She started, swiveling her ears forward. It hadn’t all been memory. She had heard something, although it was faint and far away. She lifted her head and listened again, wondering if the sun on her head was making her dizzy. She looked across the meadow. No one was there, yet it seemed that the sound had come from that direction. Not howls of rage, but the echo of a high ringing cry she had heard before. She plunged into the tall grass and trotted toward the sound.
It was much further than she thought. The grass, un-cropped, grew higher than she could raise her nose with all four feet on the ground. She seemed to run forever in a lush green cage whose walls moved with her as she ran. Stalks whipped her flanks and broke beneath her feet.
She froze, one paw lifted, yet the swishing sound of grass brushing past legs continued briefly and stopped. Ratha sniffed, trying to catch a scent, but she could only smell the sugary juices of the crushed grass. Hair bristled on her nape. She waited. No one appeared. The air was quiet. The cry she heard before came again, muffled by the hot, still air. It was the imperious call of a dappleback stallion gathering his flock of mares. Dappleback! Ratha’s stomach rumbled. If she killed a mare, she could gorge herself, drag the rest up a tree and not have to hunt again for days. She bounded on through the grass, the ripe seed-heads lashing her back.