Ratha bowed her head. “May my teeth rot if I ever take it into my mouth again! Fling it away, Thakur. The way of the Red Tongue is madness.”
“Madness it may be,” said Thakur, “but it is also life. Look to your people, Giver of the New Law.”
Ratha looked past him to the others of the Named who still crouched before her. She saw Cherfan huddling beside his mate, his eyes bright with terror. As Ratha’s gaze met his, he lifted his throat and bared it to her. His mate, crouching beside him, did the same.
“No!” Ratha whispered. “I never wished to rule. Meoran!”
“He lies burning in the grass. He will soon be ash and bones. His law is ended. The New Law must rule.”
“Then you or Fessran....” Ratha faltered.
“They do not bare their throats to me or to Fessran,” Thakur said. “Take the torch and lead your people.”
Again Ratha searched the eyes of those crouching before her. More chins were lifted. More throats bared. There were still those with eyes that waited and doubted.
Slowly she opened her jaws and felt Thakur place the branch between her teeth. His grip loosened and she felt the weight in her mouth and saw the Red Tongue dancing before her face. She watched Thakur back away, half of his face crusted and swollen. He too crouched and lifted his chin. She looked to the clan and saw that all throats were bared. She still had a choice. She could fling down the torch and throw herself into Meoran’s pyre. Or she could seek the trail that ran back to the mountains, abandoning her people to the ravages of the clanless ones.
The Red Tongue is madness. Thakur’s words came back to her again. It is also life. He had left one thing unspoken.
Now it is the only life we have.
She seized the branch, tasting the bitter bark. The wildfire still ate the trees and Meoran’s pyre was spreading through the grass.
“This is my creature,” Ratha said, holding the flame aloft. “It shall be yours as well. I will teach you to keep it and feed it, for it must never be allowed to die. You shall be called the Named no longer. Now you are the People of the Red Tongue.
She swung the torch around. “Follow me to the dens!” she cried. “Tonight we will give the raiders something new to taste. Do you hear me?”
The answer came back in a roar that deafened her. Her heart beating wildly, she sprang ahead, carrying the Red Tongue, and heard the sound of her people following.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ratha stared into the depths of the fire, curling up from its nest of branches into the night sky. It burned loudly, crackling and spitting. The Red Tongue lived both by day and by night, but to Ratha it seemed strongest when it burned against the darkness. It was a creature of the night, yet it obeyed none of the laws of stealth and silence that governed other animals.
Her people gathered around the fire. She could see their green and yellow eyes through the shimmering air and the smoky haze. She took her gaze from the fire’s heart, looking away into cool blackness. The Red Tongue’s image still danced before her eyes in ghostly form and she shut them. She could not delay long. Her people were waiting. So were the Un-Named who hid in the forest beyond the meadow’s edge.
Ratha seized a branch from the pile beside her. It was a good one, she thought, smelling the sharp tang of pitch. She thrust one end into the flame, pulled it out and watched the Red Tongue blossom around the end.
“Fessran,” she said between her teeth. Fessran limped to her and took the torch.
“May the Red Tongue be strong tonight,” she said before her jaws closed on the shaft.
“Guard the animals well, herder,” Ratha answered when her jaws were free. “If my creature holds the Un-Named from our throats tonight, then you shall share the power I hold. I do not forget who fought with me when the Red Tongue’s light first shone in the eyes of the clan.”
Fessran dipped her torch and carried it away.
I would also have called you friend, for you have been to me like a lair-sister, Ratha thought. But I dare not do more than acknowledge your loyalty.
She said another name and lit another torch, watching as the next herder came forward from the circle. He took his brand and followed Fessran.
Again, Ratha plunged a branch into the Red Tongue and passed it to a pair of waiting jaws. One herder after another took their torches and trotted away to take up their station between the herdbeasts and the Un-Named. The orange stars of the firebrands shone up and down the meadow, sending dancing shadows across the grass into the trees. Screams broke from the forest, as if the firelight had reached in and clawed those hiding there. She had heard those screams before. They had risen from her own throat when she hid where the Un-Named were hiding now. But as each herder took his or her place, the cries changed. The screams of hate and triumph faltered as uncertainty crept in. The voices wavered, and Ratha could hear wrath fighting with fear. A new creature stalked the meadow this night and the Un-Named were afraid.
She thought of her old pack, of the young leader, the witless old gray and the others. They would be crouching together beneath the trees and turning to each other with eyes filled with bewilderment. What was this terrible blazing thing that chased the night away and stole the courage from the strongest among them? Where and why did it come? Only one among the Un-Named would know. Ratha stared beyond the fire, trying not to remember Bonechewer. He might be out there along with the cubs she had birthed with him.
She bared her fangs as if Bonechewer were standing before her, wearing that mocking grin that showed his broken fang. She grabbed a branch, biting so hard that it cracked. She threw it aside, seized another and thrust it into the fire. When she turned, the face before her was Bonechewer’s. She felt her tail flare into a brush and all the hairs along her back stiffened.
The eyes were green, not amber and the muzzle bore a long jagged wound, still swollen and crusted.
“Thakur,” she said and let all her hairs lie flat. “Are you the last?”
He approached, his eyes puzzled and wary.
No wonder, she thought. I must have looked ready to attack him.
“All the others have taken their torches, Giver of the New Law,” he said, but he did not open his mouth for the fire-brand as the others had.
“You may go without one if you wish,” Ratha said. She placed the branch back in the fire. “It must hurt you to open your mouth.”
“It will take much time to heal,” said Thakur. “Meoran did not keep his claws clean.”
“Once you feared my creature,” Ratha said softly.
“I still fear it. I fear it more now than I ever did.”
He looked steadily at Ratha, and there was something in his eyes and his smell that chilled her.
“I mocked you for your fear,” she said. “I will not mock you again.”
“I will take a torch,” Thakur answered. “I will need it when the raiders strike. But first, Giver of the New Law, I will show you your people.”
She wrinkled her brows at him, dismayed and puzzled by his words. Now was the time to prepare for the attack that might break from the forest at any instant. It was not the time to follow Thakur about the meadow to see whatever he might have to show her. She was about to refuse and send him back to the herd when the thought came almost unbidden into her mind.
He is the wisest among us. I turned his wisdom away when I should have listened. Now, perhaps, it is too late, but I will listen this time.
She let the fire burn by itself and followed Thakur. He did not lead her directly to the nearest torchbearer. Instead he walked toward a flame flickering at the far end of the meadow. He approached from behind and downwind so that the torchbearer could neither see nor smell him. He was almost within reach of the herder’s tail when the other leaped up and whirled around, swinging the firebrand. The flame roared and Thakur flattened in the grass. He rolled away, leaving Ratha facing the torchbearer. A paralyzing fear shot through her as she saw her own creature in the jaws of another. She who had tamed the Red Tongue could only cower before it in the instant before the torchbearer stopped his assault.