Fritti tried: "Mreowarriksnap." Lord Snap repeated the phrase, and Fritti tried again, troubled by the difficult squirrelish sounds. Over and over he repeated it, tasting the odd chattering feel. All the Rikchikchik leaned forward, encouraging him, showing him how to make the noises.
If Stretchslow saw this he'd really have a laugh, thought Fritti.
Finally he approximated it closely enough to satisfy the old squirrel-lord.
"In my so-so-nice forest, you use for help. Also sing for certain in trees of brother, Lord Pop. Further… Snap-knows-not."
The old squirrel leaned forward and fixed Tail-chaser with his gleaming eyes. "Other thing. You hunt Rikchikchik, no help. Promise gone-gone. Rule of Leaf and Bough. Agree, good-cat?" Snap looked at him cunningly.
Fritti was taken by surprise. "I… I suppose so. Yes, I promise." A gasp of pleasure went up from the attending squirrels, and Lord Snap beamed with delight, showing his worn incisors.
"Good, most-good." He chuckled. "Is bargain-bargain." The Rikchikchik chief gestured with his tail to the squirrel who had brought Tailchaser. "Master Click, take cat-folk down tree."
"Yes, Lord Snap," said Click. Fritti-sensing the end of his interview-began to inch backward along the narrow tree limb. The squirrels chattered brightly behind him. He thought he heard Whir and Fizz bid him good-journey.
As he descended behind the brisk and efficient Click, Tailchaser reflected with chagrin on the bargain he had just struck with the Rikchikchik.
All I have to do is meet the King of the Birds and the King of the Field Mice, he thought sourly, and I'll most likely starve to death.
The waning moments of Stretching Sun had turned the sky above the great forest into flame. The glow of the setting sun reached through the tangled branches and speckled the leafy ground at Tailchaser's feet. On the eve of his journey's first night he padded on, deeper and deeper into the ancient secrecy of the Old Woods.
He was hungry. He had not eaten since Final Dancing of the previous day.
Suddenly, as if it had been swallowed up by the Venris Hound, the light disappeared. In the half-moment it took his eyes to adjust, Fritti was blinded.
He paused, and as his night vision compensated for the sudden darkness, Tailchaser shook his head and shivered. To live always in darkness! Harar! How could the hole-dwellers and burrow-sleepers stand it? He thanked the Allmother for having brought him into the fields as one of the Folk, who enjoyed all their senses.
Continuing on his way with the effortless stealth native to his race, Tailchaser noted the nighttime life of the great woods in its first flowering. His whiskers received the faint heat-pulses of small creatures cautiously emerging to test the evening. All their movements were tentative, though-cautious and hesitant. Fritti himself was a factor most of them were already aware of. The small animal that charged headlong from its huddling place at first dark did not usually live long enough to pass its foolishness along to offspring.
Thinking of food now, Fritti moved with control, each step coming down on packed ground that would betray no sound. He wanted to find a place where the air currents moved in more favorable ways, or did not move at alclass="underline" he was going to effect a trap. He had walked hungry for too long, and did not want to wait for a chance kill.
Besides, Grassnestle, his mother, had taught him hunting lore, after all. He was not going to be forced into digging up Squeaker-nests for newborns on his first night out!
He would make a clean kill.
Night birds wheeled and soared above. He could feel the presence of the Ruhue in silent overflight. They were not hunting, he guessed: the Ruhue preferred to search and swoop over flat ground. More likely they were leaving nests in the nearby forest.
Just as well, he thought. The nearness of an owl would freeze the forest creatures and make it that much harder to find dinner.
Other night-rising fla-fa'az whistled and piped in the trees, up in the farthest reaches where the Folk were too heavy to travel. Fritti dismissed them without a second thought.
Hopping down into a dry, rock-strewn gully, Tailchaser got a sudden and surprising whiff of cat-scent. He turned, muscles tensed, and the smell was gone. In a moment it was back again, and he breathed it long enough to note some familiarity in the odor. Then, oddly, it disappeared once more.
Fritti stood perplexed by this bewildering phenomenon, hackles raised and nose twitching. The scent had not changed in intensity from movement or wind failure-it had simply vanished.
When the scent returned to him he recognized it. No wonder it had seemed to have a familiar tang to it-it was his own scent.
His nose wrinkled delicately as he sampled the air, confirming his suspicions. He had walked into a night-eddy: a slow, barely detectable whirlwind. The rocks in the dry creek bed, heated by the sun during the day, were warming the air above them. Contacting the cool night air descending, trapped and rerouted by the waffs of the gully, the resultant swirl of air made lazy circles… carrying his own scent back to him. If he had not paused for a moment, he would not have been in place long enough for it to circle around!
Pleased that he had solved the puzzle, he leaped up to the far side of the stream bed and was moving away when an idea tugged at him. He turned back and inspected the gully wall for several jumps up and down on both sides. He found what he had been looking for-the half-concealed entrance to a Squeaker-burrow.
He knew that the sunwarmth would dissipate eventually. He also knew that the trick would work only once. Carefully, he set himself in place: lying atop the gully wall three or four jumps down the stream course from the burrow opening. He tested the edge of the stream-bed wall on which he lay, and found a spot that would not crumble under movement and send a shower of earth down to betray his plot. Then, working the catechism that his mother had taught him, he stilled himself into immobility to wait.
Unwilling to move his head, he sensed, rather than saw, that Meerclar's Eye had moved but a short distance. When he was finally rewarded by a faint movement at the tunnel mouth, it seemed as if he had waited several lifetimes.
Carefully, so carefully, a nose appeared from the hiding hole and sniffed the air. The rest of the Squeaker followed. It sat frightened-eyed on the lip of the tunnel for a moment, every movement showing a readiness to run at the first sign of danger.-Crouched, with nose wrinkling, it tested for hazard. It was a field mouse, brown-gray and skittery.
Without awareness, Fritti began to flick his tail back and forth.
The Squeaker, scenting nothing immediately dangerous close by, moved a cautious distance away from the hole mouth and began to search for food. Its nose, ears, and eyes were constantly trained for predators. Never straying more than a quick leap away from its hole, the Squeaker scavenged from side to side of the dry stream trough.
Fritti found that it took all of his control to not leap down on the mouse that seemed so close. His stomach clenched silently with hunger, and he could feel the impatient trembling of his hind legs.
But he also remembered Bristlejaw's admonition to be patient. He knew that the little Squeaker would be back down its bolt-hole at the first sign of movement.
I will not be a kitten, Fritti told himself. This is a good hunt-plan. I will wait for the proper moment.
Finally, he judged that the mre'az was as far from the burrow as was necessary. When the mouse turned its back on his position for a moment, Tailchaser brought up his forepaw and dipped it slowly over the edge of the gully wall, halting and freezing if the mouse seemed about to turn his way. Gradually, with great care, he stretched his paw down, until he felt the faint currents of the night-eddy ruffle the fur of his extended foot.