There was a brief flurry of thumping noises, a yowl of pain, and then Scratchnail was lunging down to catch Nipslither in his heavy jaws, to grasp the hairless beast's throat. The Clawguard chieftain's mighty neck muscle jumped and pulsed-a short, cracking sound-and Scratchnail's enemy sagged. The black beast dropped the body of the Toothguard. It lay, kicking feebly for a moment, then was still.
Scratchnail turned to the cowering Pouncequick. The Clawguard's body was sleek with blood, but he seemed to give it no more notice than rainwater.
"You don't know how lucky you are, little sun-rat!" he grated. "Hissblood would bring you to a world of sorrow. Now, you and the old dirt-fur"-he indicated Eatbugs, who had slept through everything- "you just do what you're told. I'll be back to check on you." Scratchnail disappeared up the entranceway without a backward glance at Pouncequick or Eatbugs or the broken, eyeless thing on the cavern floor.
Many Hours later, Bitefast came to take Pouncequick out to dig. Bitefast's face was swollen: Scratchnail's punishment for laxity. Eatbugs could not be roused from sleep, and the limping Claw, in a foul temper, bit the old cat on his matted ear hard enough to draw blood. Eatbugs still did not wake, although the shallow rise and fall of his chest showed that he still lived. Irked by this failure-and perhaps fearful of more punishment-Bitefast treated little Pouncequick in brutal fashion as he forced him out to labor.
Pounce was assigned to a slave work gang, and spent long periods of hot, breathless time scrabbling at dirt tunnel walls with his small paws.
What seemed like days went by; Pouncequick's world narrowed to a repetitive nightmare of digging, followed by solitude in the tiny cave at the end of the work period. Eatbugs remained in a stupor, not rising either to eat or pass me'mre, and showing only occasional movement. Their Clawguard captors decided that he had given up his will to survive, and left him undisturbed in the small rock chamber when Pounce was harried forth to the excavations.
One day, while being led by Longtooth through the massive cavern that stood behind the Greater Gate of Vastnir, Pouncequick thought he saw Tailchaser.
The cat who appeared to be his friend was with a large press gang of slave Folk, and appeared bound for one of the outer tunnels. Pouncequick called out excitedly, but if it was Tailchaser the distance was too great, for the cat with the white star on his forehead did not turn. Pouncequick received a stinging paw-slap across the muzzle from Longtooth. and was kept longer at his digging than usual.
When he was returned to his jail that night, Pounce-quick began to seriously consider the fact that he might never see Tailchaser again. He had alreadv lost Roofshadow. He saw no way that he could ever escape from the mound.
Up until that moment he had hoped, deep in his mind, that the whole experience was a bad dream, a phantom. But finally, Pouncequick realized, his eyes were open. He knew now where he was. He knew he would remain there until his death.
There was something curiously liberating about this knowledge. In a way, it was as if somewhere, deep inside, a part of him had been set free to run beneath the sky-leaving only his body behind.
For the first time since being taken by the Claw-guard, he slept peacefully.
In the shadow of the trees at the edge of Ratleaf Forest, with the sun of Smaller Shadows dim and remote in the winter sky, Roofshadow looked out across the dim valley at the squat shape of the mound.
Although she was now well enough to travel-the twinge in her hind leg almost gone-she had felt impelled to come for one last look down on the agent of her unhappiness.
Vastnir crouched like a living thing, waiting for its proper moment to rise up and strike. She felt its pulse working in her stomach, nauseating her. Roofshadow wanted nothing more than to turn, now, and go. Somewhere, she knew, there were forests untainted by this blight-clean, deep forests. If the sickness spread, well, there were places it would not reach in her lifetime.
All through the dark afternoon, Roofshadow looked down upon the hated mound. When darkness came she found a hiding place and slept.
At first light she was staring down at Vastnir again. Thinking.
CHAPTER 22
I feel
The link of nature draw me: flesh of flesh, Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.
–John Milton
In his dream Tailchaser was standing at the very pinnacle of a tall needle of rock, hundreds of jumps above a misty forest. Looking down from his perch, he could hear the sounds of creatures hunting for him in the mists below-thin noises of speech that drifted up into his ears. It was cold on the rock; it seemed as if he had been on it forever. Below, the frozen green sea of forest stretched infinitely into the distance.
Although he knew he was in danger, Fritti felt no fear, but only a sense of the dull inevitable: soon the searchers would exhaust the hiding places in the woods below; inescapably their attention would turn to the spire. The burning eyes would gather at the bottom, then move upward…
Looking out into the swirling fogs that blurred the separation of earth and sky, Fritti saw an odd pattern in the vapors: a strange, spiraling nexus. With the speed and completeness natural to dreams it resolved itself into a white cat, spinning and spinning as it approached his eyrie. It was not the white cat of his Firsthome hallucination, though. As the revolving shape neared it became Eyeshimmer, Oel-var'iz of the First-walkers.
Hovering before Fritti, Eyeshimmer sang out in a high, keening voice: "Even the Garrin fears something… even the Garrin fears…"
Suddenly, a great wind blew up, setting the mists dancing. Eyeshimmer whirled off into the blackness. The wind swept through the trees, and around Tailchaser's rock. He could hear sounds of fear and despair from the hunters below. Finally, there were only the rushing fogs, and the roaring of wind and lost voices…
Tailchaser awoke on the hot, moist floor of his prison, mired in the sleeping bodies of his fellow captives. He tried to hold on to the dream-shards that were even now melting away like frost in the sun.
Eyeshimmer. What had the Oel-var'iz told him that day, so long ago? They had been taking leave from Quiverclaw and his walkers…
"… Everyone flees from the bear… but sometimes the bear has bad dreams…" In the dream, Eyeshimmer had mentioned the Garrin, the bear, also-but what did it mean? Surely nothing about a real Garrin? "Everyone flees from the bear…" Could it mean Hearteater? Bad dreams… was there something that even Lord Hearteater feared? What?
Fritti's thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of the Clawguard. In the ensuing confusion, the reluctant rising and the scramble up the entranceway to a meager breakfast, Tailchaser's dream faded back into his mind, dissolved by cruel reality.
Aboveground an Eye had opened, shut, and opened again since Fritti had come to Vastnir Mound. The brutal routine, harsh punishments, and hideous surroundings had pounded most of the resistance from him. He rarely thought of his friends: his inability to help them or himself was as terrible as his imprisonment; to dwell on it was more galling than to sink into the mud with all the others, to fight over grubs and squabble over a place to eat, and to keep an eye opened at all times for the Clawguard. Or the Toothguard. It was easier not to care; to live from moment to moment.
Once a muted hiss had run through the ranks of the tunnel slaves: "The Boneguard is coming!" The rustling shadows had come forward from a disused tunnel, and the light had seemed to dim. All of the other captive Folk had thrown themselves to the ground, their eyes tightly shut-even the Clawguard had looked nervous, their fur bristling. Fritti had felt a momentary urge to remain standing, to face up to whatever awful truth scared even their hulking captors, but as the strange voices and the cloying, spicy smell had wafted toward him his legs had become weak, and he, too, had sunk down-not looking up until Hearteater's chosen were gone. Thus, in the large things and the small, little by little, Fritti's spirit was broken to the mound.