For an instant the three of them stood still facing Meoran and the clan. Then, with a sudden shriek of rage, Fessran snatched up her torch and flung herself at Meoran. He reared, hauling his gray bulk into the air. He struck out with slashing foreclaws as Cherfan and the other young males rushed from behind to guard his flanks. Fessran tumbled away, bleeding. Her torch fell and guttered out.
“So this is the power of the Red Tongue.” He sneered and kicked the smoldering branch away from her groping forepaws.
“Meoran, wait!” cried Thakur. “You have destroyed Fessran’s creature. There is no need to take her life. Let me talk to her.”
Fessran lay on her side, her neck and chest red and ragged. She lifted her head and glared hate at Meoran.
“Talk will do nothing,” Meoran snarled. “Her eyes are like the eyes of the other, the she-cub.”
Ratha watched Fessran quivering on the ground. She raised her head and met the gray-coat’s stare. “The she-cub speaks,” she said quietly. “Leave Fessran. She is not the one you seek. I told you before; it is between you and me, Meoran.”
The clan leader took one heavy step forward. “Stay back,” Ratha heard him growl to Cherfan and the other young males who flanked him. “This one is my meat.”
He took another step and then jerked his head back in astonishment. Thakur stood in front of him, blocking his way to Ratha.
“The Named do not bare fangs against the Named,” she heard Thakur say. “Do you forget the old laws?”
“I make the laws for the clan, Thakur Torn-Claw. Move aside!” Meoran spat at Thakur and struck him in the face. He bowed his head and Ratha saw him lick blood from his nose.
“The Named do not bare fangs against the Named,” he said again, so softly that Ratha could barely hear him.
“I don’t bother with fangs for such as you. Claws do well enough.” Again Meoran lashed out at Thakur, laying the other’s cheek open to the bone. Ratha flinched as if she had been the one struck. Something inside her began beating against the walls of its prison. She wanted to shriek at Thakur to stand aside and let her face Meoran alone. She began to tremble, fighting her rage. She knew if Meoran struck Thakur again, that her rage would win.
The two stood apart, stiff-legged and bristling, Thakur still blocking Meoran’s way. The wild thing beating inside Ratha’s chest was as angry at Thakur as Meoran. What right had he to interfere? Had he not betrayed her the night the Red Tongue died? Meoran’s power would have fallen then. And what did he think he was doing now? Did he think that seeing him bleed would calm her? No! Blood would bring blood.
Meoran raised a paw. Thakur looked at him, his face blank, expressionless. The blow came, with all of Meoran’s weight behind it. Thakur reeled and his head snapped around spraying red onto Ratha’s coat. He sank down in front of the gray coat.
Fessran shrieked and the cry tore through Ratha. She wrenched her torch from the ground. Meoran was approaching Thakur slowly, almost leisurely, his jaws opening for the killing bite. Flame barred his way. Again he reared striking out with his forelegs to knock Ratha’s torch from her jaws as he had Fessran’s but Ratha was too quick. The brand scorched his chest and he skittered back, howling.
“Ratha, no!” cried a hoarse voice and she caught a blurred glimpse of Thakur staggering to his feet, his mouth open in pain as the gleaming blood ran from his eye and cheek, dripping along his jaw.
Ratha walked toward Meoran with the torch in her teeth. All those that had clustered around the clan leader melted away. And Meoran cowered, terrified, mouth gaping, sides heaving.
“Close your jaw or your tongue shall meet the Red Tongue,” Ratha snarled. He gulped and shut his mouth.
“On your side and offer your throat,” Ratha ordered lifting her head with the torch. “Look well, you of the clan. The Law of the Named is now the Law of the Red Tongue.”
They crouched together, their bellies to the ground. Cherfan, his mate, Srass’s young son and the others all stared helplessly at the scene before them.
In her pride, Ratha answered their gaze and took her eyes from Meoran.
He exploded up at her, fangs seeking her throat. With a violent twist of her head, she swung the torch in a vicious arc and drove it down into those gaping jaws. The impact almost jarred her teeth loose from the shaft. Then, with a strange tearing sound, it gave, throwing Ratha off-balance. The shaft was torn out of her mouth and she was knocked aside.
She had lost, she thought dizzily as she fought to keep her footing. She whirled, ready to meet Meoran in a final desperate attack with teeth and claws. For a moment, she stood, stupefied.
Meoran spun in a circle like a cub chasing its tail. He was a blur of gray with a dancing patch of orange. And he was screaming.
When he paused, exhausted and spent, Ratha could see him and her rage froze into horror. The shaft of the torch protruded from his mouth, jamming it open. The blackened end, streaked with red showed beneath his chin and the Red Tongue curled up around his lower jaw on both sides. With a shock, Ratha realized she had driven the jagged end of the firebrand through the bottom of his mouth. Blood and froth bubbled up around the shaft and sizzled in the flame.
Meoran cried again, a half-choked scream. He pawed at the hated thing, now so terribly embedded in his own flesh. The Red Tongue blazed up wrathfully and Meoran flung himself back and forth as it licked at his face, blistering his jowls.
From the corner of her eye, Ratha saw Thakur lurch through the swirling haze toward Meoran.
“The stream!” he cried. “It dies in water! Seek the stream.”
Ratha stood frozen as Meoran staggered toward the creek. She did nothing to help or to hinder him. She no longer wished to be the one to decide how he would die.
Meoran shrieked and reeled back from the bank. Fessran leaped at him from the rushes, blood-spattered, vengeance-hunger hot in her eyes. She struck at the torch shaft penetrating his lower jaw, using the pain to drive him back from the water.
“Eat well, night creature,” she crooned to the flame. “He is a feast worthy of your hunger. Dance on his bones, sear his entrails and make him sing as he dies!”
Each time Meoran tried to gain the stream, Fessran was before him, singing a soft song to the flame and striking at Meoran’s face. The fur was black on his muzzle and ruff. The skin beneath was starting to swell.
Ratha leaped toward Fessran, but Thakur reached Fessran first. He caught her by the hindquarters and rolled away, dragging her with him. Meoran plunged past Ratha, the fire wreathing his head and neck. He did not reach the stream. He fell, writhing, into the grass. The wind whipped the Red Tongue.
Ratha saw Thakur approach, but the spreading fire drove him back. With a last spasm, Meoran’s body became still and started burning.
Thakur stood before the gray-coat’s pyre, Fessran’s limp form at his feet. Ratha could see him shuddering.
He turned and walked to the pile of branches she had gathered. He took one in his mouth and lit the end in the fire engulfing Meoran.
Ratha waited, trembling, as he approached her. She could see only one of his eyes and she feared the light there was the glow of madness. The fire was before her now, speaking with a savage voice. She stared into it. She would burn with Meoran.
“Ratha!” came Thakur’s voice and she looked into the ravaged face. “Are you ready?”
“To die by the Red Tongue? Yes. It is right. I am glad you will do it.” She lifted her chin, baring her throat. She closed her eyes.
“No! Not to die,” Thakur hissed. “To live as you told us. By the Law of the Red Tongue.”
Her eyes flew open. He was extending the torch shaft to her. “Take it, Giver of the New Law,” he said between his teeth.