“Wait here,” Thakur said. A moment later he was gone, leaving only swaying grass to mark where he had been.
Ratha waited. Far above her a bird looped and dipped. Insects chirped monotonously and droned back and forth overhead, making her feel sleepy. The light slanted between the grass stems and a late afternoon breeze rustled the leaves. A worried tittle voice inside Ratha’s head kept asking her why she trusted Thakur. He could easily bring Meoran or a hate-filled pack that would fall upon her and tear her to pieces. Or he could circle behind her and attack her through the grass curtain, she thought, feeling very vulnerable. He trusts me to wait for him and not run away, even though I could. I think he is asking me what I choose.
She lifted her muzzle, hearing him coming through the grass. He poked his head out, saw her and looked pleased. “Good, you stayed. I told Cherfan I chased the raider away. He’s looking after the dapplebacks. I told him I was going to make sure the raider is gone.” He grinned at her. “Is the raider gone, Ratha?”
She looked back at him, feeling very empty. “I could give you a better answer if I could fill my belly.”
“There will be meat tonight,” Thakur said. “Not much, for our kills have to last many days.”
Ratha sat up. “The raider isn’t gone,” she teased, feeling some of her old spirit coming back. “The raider is Thakur. It will be good to eat from Meoran’s herd. Bring me a good piece, Thakur. Steal the liver if no one else has eaten it. I’ll wait for you by the stream.”
“No, yearling. What you want, you may take yourself. I want you to come back with me.”
“Come back to the clan?” Ratha was aghast. “If Meoran is there, he’ll rip me in half!”
“He is there, but I have reason to believe he will keep his claws sheathed. If you keep your mouth shut,” Thakur added meaningfully and continued, “You speak of us as the clan, but we are only the remains of it; scarcely enough to fill a well-dug lair. The Un-Named took many lives, Ratha.”
She swallowed. She was not yet ready to tell him that she had been there and watched her people die.
“Every one that remains is precious to us,” Thakur said. “Meoran knows that now.”
Ratha only wrinkled her nose. Thakur saw it and said, “You will find him much changed. Even I, who bear the scars of his teeth on my neck, can say that about him. It was he who saved those of us who did survive.”
“It was he whose stupidity gave you to the jaws of the Un-Named,” Ratha spat back.
“Yes. That too, he knows,” said Thakur. “It is bitter meat to him.”
“And you still keep him as leader? Ptah!”
“What has died is dead, Ratha. He is strong. We need his strength. We need yours as well. Come back to us.”
She looked at him, seeing in his eyes what he had not been able to say. It has been lonely without you, Ratha. Come back... come back to me.
She lowered her head, seeing too much of Bonechewer in the face before her. Could she put the bitterness behind? Here, again, was a new trail before her, one she never hoped she’d find. She thought she had nothing left to give anyone, but now....
“You say there are new cubs,” she said slowly. “How old are they?”
“Old enough to train as herders, but I haven’t had time to teach them.”
He looked at Ratha and she could see the hope rising in his face.
“It will be hard for me to see cubs again, knowing they are someone else’s.”
As Ratha watched him, she knew she had betrayed herself. Before she finished speaking, she wished that she could bite off her treacherous tongue and be mute for the rest of her days.
Thakur spoke. “I am wrong to call you ‘yearling.’ I see that you have grown older. You have been gone from us long enough to have birthed a family.”
“To have birthed them and lost them.”
He looked at her keenly. “I see that you have ended a trail. One too painful to set foot upon even in memory. I will not ask what happened.”
“When I can, I’ll tell you, Thakur,” she said, and she was thankful it had been he who found her in the meadow. “If I help you with the herding, will you have enough time to teach?”
His eyes brightened. He raised his head and yowled at the sky. “Arrowoo!”
“Thakur! You’ll bring the others!”
“I don’t care. Now they can see you.”
Ratha swallowed again. His happiness was starting to infect her, and she wanted to let it in, but she was still afraid.
“Are you sure Meoran will listen?” she asked.
“If he has any wits at all, he will,” Thakur said. “Just don’t say anything to anger him.”
He turned and pranced away through the grass, his tail high. Ratha followed.
Ratha climbed over water-smoothed stone, the sound of the stream below beating in her ears. Or perhaps it was her own heartbeat she heard, seeming to echo back and forth between the rocks. She looked up at the cliff face overhead, painted in streaks by the sun’s last rays. In seasons past, when she was a cub, the stream had run much higher, undercutting the cliff, sculpturing and polishing the rock that now lay far above its banks.
Thakur’s tail disappeared around a worn boulder and she hurried to catch up. She could smell the odor of a well-aged kill.
She emerged to find him standing on a sloping gray table of rock looking up into a water-carved cavern. There were shapes in the cave, and they stirred as she approached behind Thakur. Eyes fixed on her. The meat smell came from the rear of the cavern. At the front, a husky dun-colored male stood over a fragile-looking female and her two spotted cubs. The dun coat came forward as the female nudged the cubs further into the cavern.
“Hold, Thakur,” he said. “Who is that one with you?” As he finished, Ratha caught a flurry of motion inside the cavern. A face appeared between two seated forms. The dazed eyes grew wide with joy and the ears pricked up. It was Fessran. Ratha saw her give a wary glance to one side, calm herself and begin sidling toward the entrance.
“Come smell her and tell me yourself, Cherfan,” Thakur answered, nosing Ratha ahead of him. She approached Cherfan. Another movement brought her eyes back to the cavern and the large gray-coat standing beneath the center of the arch. Ratha froze. Cherfan looked back over his shoulder.
“I can tell you who she is,” said a harsh voice, and amber eyes were fixed on Ratha. “Cherfan, stay back.” The dun coat obeyed and retreated. Meoran turned to Thakur. “You know I have little patience with you these days, herder, yet you dare to push me further. Where did you find her and why do you bring her?” He sat, waiting for Thakur’s answer.
“I found her in the high grass of the meadow. I thought she was a raider stalking our dapplebacks.”
“Then do with her what is done to raiders,” Meoran snapped.
“Wait, Meoran,” Thakur’s voice was stronger and louder, rising above the muted roar of the stream below.
“Hear me. She has not returned to us as an enemy even though you stripped her of her name and made her outcast. She wants to join again with her people.”
Meoran curled back his lips, showing fangs like tusks.
“She wants to come back. Accept her. We of the Named are so few that to cast one aside is foolish. Once you would not have listened to words such as these, but I know you have changed.”
“So it is your new knowledge of me that makes you bring her drooling to my den.” Meoran sneered. “I would use that knowledge in a wiser way, herder.”
Ratha swallowed and tried to hide her hunger. Thakur’s front claws scraped on stone.
“I hear your words, Thakur,” Meoran answered at last. “The wisdom I have learned from the Un-Named makes me admit what you say is true. Every one of our people we can gather in will help us to survive.”
“Then may we accept her?” Thakur’s eyes were bright, eager. He leaned forward.