Ratha whirled to face the snarling silver. She dodged as he flung himself at her and dragged her torch across his face over his eye. The charred wood snapped, the end falling onto his foreleg. Blind and fear-crazed, the silver lurched away.
Ratha saw two other herders beating him across the back with their brands as he fled. She lost sight of him.
The branch in her mouth was now only glowing coals, creeping toward her whiskers. She dropped it and scuffed dirt on it. Other brands were also burning down or had broken against Un-Named ribs. She saw torchbearers slashing with fangs and claws and blood gleaming red in the firelight. She ducked a raider’s strike and ran to the bonfire. She lit a new torch and passed it to a wounded herder who carried only a broken stub, too dazed to throw the useless thing away. His eyes brightened; he snatched the new light and plunged back into the fray. As she stood panting, Fessran came alongside.
“Giver of the New Law, let me carry new torches to the ones who need them,” she said. “That is not your duty.”
“It shall be yours, Fessran. You are now the keeper of the Red Tongue and its cubs. If it still burns when dawn comes, its tending shall be your honor and your duty.”
Fessran passed her a lighted branch. “Go and drive the Un-Named back. The Red Tongue will eat their bodies when the sun rises.”
Ratha charged back into the fighting, her roar spilling from between her teeth. She leaped at the nearest enemy, raking him and searing him. Cries of rage and triumph broke from the weary herders, and they flung themselves on the raiders with renewed fury.
The Un-Named began to fall back. Slowly they gave way. They fought only to save themselves, and no longer tried to break through the herder’s circle to attack the milling herdbeasts. The mass of the enemy began to thin and Ratha saw more moonlit forms streak away into the trees.
She drove her torch into the ground beside a stiffening body and let out a mocking yowl. “They run!” she cried. “They are as cubs before the power of the Red Tongue. Let them taste it once again before the forest shelters them. To me, my people!”
The enemy’s ranks wavered and broke. The herders bore down on them and many cried their death scream before they reached the forest.
And then, all at once, it was over and the night fell quiet except for the soft screams of the wounded and dying.
Ratha stood with the torch guttering in her mouth, staring across the emptied meadow. Her heart gradually stopped its pounding. She had won. After such a beating as they had taken tonight, the Un-Named would not come again. The little flock of herdbeasts would grow large and cubs would play in the high grass, well-fed and free of fear.
She plodded back across the meadow, her feet dragging from weariness. Now there was no need to run fast. When she reached the bonfire, Fessran took the burning stick from her jaws and returned it to the flames. Others followed in Ratha’s wake and gave their brands back to Fessran. There was one more thing to be done and for that they needed their jaws free.
Among the Un-Named dead were the wounded, writhing in pain or trying to drag their shattered bodies from the meadow. Ratha watched her people walk among them. The herders vented their still-smoldering anger on the bleeding ones, clawing and slashing at them until they were torn lumps of flesh in which the breath trembled one last time and left. Ratha watched grimly. She had not given the order to mutilate the wounded, but she had not forbidden it either. She remembered how the raiders had eaten from Srass while he still lived. She watched, but took no part for the taste of blood mixed with the bitterness of charred bark was still thick in her mouth.
“Giver of the New Law,” a voice said, and she looked up into Thakur’s eyes. They were lit not by the firebrand, but by the faint glow of dawn over the forest.
“I am weary,” she said crossly. “If you wish to show me more of the change in my people, you will wait until I have slept.”
“It is not your people I wish to show you,” Thakur answered.
Ratha’s eyes narrowed. “One of the Un-Named?”
“One of the wounded raiders. He lives. He asks for you. He knows your name.”
She felt a sudden chill in her belly. It spread along her back, down the insides of her legs. Only one among the raiders knew her by her name. She had thought he was far away and safe on his own land.
“Lead me to where he lies,” she said roughly.
Thakur took her to the edge of the forest, to the long faint shadow of a small pine standing apart from the rest. The shadow grew darker and the grass lighter as the sky turned from violet to rose and then to gold. Two herders sat together, eyeing the wounded raider who lay beneath the pine. At her approach they uncurled their tails from about their feet and bared their fangs at the raider.
“No,” Ratha said sharply. “There will be no killing until I command it.”
She and Thakur approached the Un-Named one. A muscle jerked beneath the red-smeared copper pelt. Ratha heard a voice, hoarse and weak.
“Does she come, brother? I grow too weary to lift my head.”
“She comes,” Thakur answered and Ratha felt him nudge her ahead while he stayed behind. She stepped into the coolness beneath the trees. The raider’s muzzle pulled back scorched and swollen lips in a mocking grin. There was the broken lower fang.
“Come here, Ratha,” Bonechewer said, bloody froth dribbling from his mouth.” “Let me see the one who now leads the clan. Ah, yes,” he said as she neared him. ”You have grown strong and fierce. You will be a better leader than Meoran. What a fool he was to drive you out! What a fool!”
Ratha nearly pounced on him. She jumped and landed with her forepaws almost touching his face. She glared down at him. “Why did you come? Why?”
“To see you,” he answered, gazing up at her. “Perhaps to die at your fangs.”
“Bonechewer, stop mocking me, or I swear by the Red Tongue, you will have your wish! You told me you would no longer run with the Un-Named. Did your land yield too little to feed you this season?”
“No.” He coughed and his chest heaved. Ratha could see why the blood seeped from his mouth. The lower part of his chest was crushed and caved in. Blood welled there too and the flat, jagged end of a broken bone showed in the wound.
“I’m a mess, aren’t I, clan cat? That’s what I get for leading a pack of cowards. They fought me to escape the Red Tongue and when I went down, they trampled me.” He grinned again, grimacing with pain. “Then your herders came along and played with me for a while. Not the death I would have chosen.”
“Why did you come?” Ratha’s voice grew soft and trembled, despite her wish to hate him.
“After I drove you away and the cubs left, there was nothing to hold me to my land. When the Un-Named came through again, I went with them.”
“The cubs left?”
“Yes. You were right about them. I could not believe I fathered such a litter. I could scarcely keep them from each other’s throats or from mine either. They are out there, the savage little killers.”
“Did Thistle-chaser live?”
“Yes, she lives, half-mad as she is. You may see her in the packs if the Un-Named are foolish enough to venture here again.” He coughed and shuddered. “I have seen you again, Ratha. That is all I dared ask for and all I wish.”
“Is that all you want from me, Bonechewer?” she asked, trying to suppress the sudden grief that welled up inside her.
“If your fangs would help me toward the dark trail, I would not resent it,” he answered. “Or if you cannot kill me, tell another to do it.”
Ratha swallowed, barely able to speak. She looked toward Thakur. He rose and came toward Bonechewer. Her flank brushed his as the two passed.