She slowed to a trot. Again she froze and the other sound that was not the stallion’s cry continued on for an instant. Ratha sat up on her hind legs, peering back over the grass. There. A circle of stalks behind her was still waving. Ratha dropped down again, whirled and faced the green curtain behind her. Again, no one appeared.
Disgruntled, she made her way forward again, no longer trotting but gliding quietly between the stems, leaving as little evidence of her passage as possible.
Her tracker was staying downwind of her so the slight breeze that fanned her face bore none of the intruder’s scent. The odor of dappleback was growing rich in her nostrils, making her wild with hunger. She could see them now, their backs brown and sweat-slicked above the wild wheat. Once she had tended and guarded such a herd. Now she was the raider and there was no one to defend this herd except the little stallion. Ratha crept close to the dapplebacks, crouched in the grass and picked out her quarry. An older mare, shaggy and ridgebacked. The little horse moved stiffly and lagged behind the others.
Ratha crawled, her belly to the ground, until she was sure that one short dash would bring down the prey. There was no sign of her shadower. Perhaps the intruder had gone or had never been there at all, an illusion made by capricious breezes playing through the grass.
Ratha gathered herself, tensed and sprang. A sharp yowl tore through the air behind her, almost before her paws left the ground. Nostrils flaring, the dapplebacks threw back their heads, wheeled and scattered. Ratha lost her prey in the confusion of bodies racing past her. She broke off her charge and veered away, retreating in the direction she had come.
She bounded high and saw the grass rippling as someone streaked toward her. The sunlight flashed on a dark copper coat and Ratha’s throat went tight with fear. Had Bonechewer tracked her here? Had Thistle-chaser died of her wounds and her father come to take revenge? Ratha clamped her teeth together and dove through the grass, ignoring the knife-edged leaves that lashed her face.
However fast she ran or however she dodged and turned, her pursuer was there before her, cutting off her escape. She used all the tricks she knew from her days of herding three-horns, yet she couldn’t shake this pursuer. Even Bonechewer wasn’t as quick or agile. Every time she turned, she heard the grass break and caught a glimpse of gleaming copper. Bewildered and dizzy, she stood still, hunching her shoulders. This time he was coming. As soon as he appeared, she would leap and sink her fangs into his throat....
The grass parted. Ratha sprang, tried to stop herself and tumbled. She scrambled to her feet, her tail creeping between her legs.
The face before her was Bonechewer’s but the eyes were green, not yellow. Both fangs stood intact in his lower jaw. As he lowered his head to peer at her, she saw the puckered scars on his neck. She remembered how Meoran had seized him and thrust him forward against the fury of the Red Tongue. The memory reflected back at her from his eyes with a quality of uncertainty, as if he could not yet believe who she was.
“I was ready to track and slay a raider,” Thakur said. “Instead I find you.”
Ratha waited.
“And I have found a raider.” Thakur’s voice became hard. “You didn’t come here just to watch the herd. Do you run with the Un-Named ones who still prey on my beasts? Were you among those I chased away last night?”
“I came to kill,” Ratha answered, “but I run with no one except myself.”
“My teeth seek a raider’s throat,” Thakur growled, lashing his tail against the grass. “Our animals are few and scrawny, yet still the Un-Named Ones prey. I would rip you open and hang you from a tree to tell them to seek other hunting grounds.”
Ratha drew back her whiskers and gave him a bitter grin. “You would better please Meoran rather than the Un-Named if you hung my pelt from a tree. It would be more useful there than where it is now.”
“Run, then,” Thakur snarled at her. “I will do Meoran no service.” He paused. “You look too much like her, yet you cannot be. You have the eyes of a hunter, not of the cub I taught.”
“Then, if I am not Ratha, kill me,” she said, looking at him steadily.
Thakur flattened his ears and bared his teeth as he approached. She smelled the sweat on his coat and his breath, heavy and acrid. He stopped, panting. He hung his head.
“Thakur, I am Ratha,” she said.
“Then you know where I got these wounds on my neck,” he said between his teeth. “They took too long to heal. There is another wound, not made by Meoran’s fangs.”
Ratha glared back at him. “Whose voice lifted above the clan yowling that night? Whose voice told them that my creature could be killed? Had you not spoken, Thakur, the clan would have listened to me, not Meoran!”
“I told you then it was not hatred that made me speak.”
“Why?” Ratha cried, searching his eyes.
“I saw too many throats bared to the Red Tongue,” Thakur said softly.
“And was that worse than throats bared to Meoran?” Ratha demanded.
“Meoran may be stupid and cruel, but he is of our kind. His power is the power of teeth and claws and that we understand even as we fear it. The Red Tongue’s power we fear because we do not understand it. It is a fear that makes the strongest among us into crying cubs. Except for you, Ratha.”
He stared at her long and hard.
“You thought I would use the Red Tongue’s power to rule the clan? No! I wanted only to share my creature, to teach my people how to use it and care for it. Meoran was blind not to see.”
“He was not blind,” Thakur answered. “He saw what I saw, throats bared to the one who carried the Red Tongue. You would have ruled whether or not you chose.”
Ratha’s ears drooped in dismay as Thakur continued. “I did not want that for my people, or for you either.”
“So that is why you spoke,” Ratha said.
“It was not the Red Tongue’s touch on my fur that I feared the most, Ratha. Meoran thinks that is why I spoke, but the truth is what I have told you. Do you believe me?”
Ratha looked down at her toes. “Does it matter whether or not I believe you? The Red Tongue is gone and the people we once called ours have been slain by the Un-Named.”
“Not all of them,” Thakur said. “The beasts I guard are not only mine.”
Ratha’s eyes widened. “The clan still lives? Where? How many?”
“Fewer than I have claws on all my feet. As to where, I can’t tell you yet.”
Ratha looked up at him, long-dead hopes starting to rise again.
“Yearling,” Thakur said softly, startling her by using the old name, “I know you have run a long and bitter trail. I also know I helped set you on it. I am not sorry for what happened, for I had no other choice, but I wish I was not the cause of the pain I see behind your eyes.”
Before she could speak again, the sharp yowl of a herder’s call sounded over the meadow. Thakur sat up on his hind legs and peered through the grass.
“Cherfan’s helping me,” he said as he dropped down. “He’s wondering where I am.”
“Cherfan?” Ratha asked. “The greedy one who always ate before I did? He survived?”
Thakur looked amused. “You would remember that. He became a good herder, although he was late in learning. He fought beside me in the raids and he has fathered the two new cubs we have in our little group.” He paused, watching Ratha’s face darken. “What is it, yearling?”
She glanced at him, aware she had betrayed herself. “Something I will tell you later. Go now, if you don’t want Cherfan to find me.”