A splashing, roaring commotion sent her scooting away, a clamshell still wedged in her jaws. In her urge to eat as much as she could, she had forgotten the blubber-tusker. Again she kept well away from the creature’s lumbering charge, and it halted, quivering, blowing out through its whiskers in frustration.
Newt waited until it had gone back to raking the shell bed before she mounted her next raid. The fact that the huge beast was slower than she was gave her a mischievous joy. She spent the afternoon scavenging from the plundered shell beds and dodging the walrus. At last it lumbered seaward, dived into a wave, and was gone.
As sunset streaked the beach in silver and gold, Newt padded back to the cave where she had napped. Her belly was full enough to ease hunger cramps, though this food was different from anything she had eaten before, and her stomach gurgled.
When she reached her cave, it looked much friendlier. With food in her belly and less pain in her foot, her mind felt clearer. She decided that she disliked the beach less than other places. For the present, this part of it was hers. She limped backward until her tail lay against a block of sandstone and sprayed the rock with her scent.
Newt flattened her ears and snaked her head back and forth, suddenly fearing that someone would come and take this place from her. She waited, stiff and tense. Nothing happened. Waves rolled in and washed out. Birds drifted down the sky with distant calls.
She crawled into the cave, making a nest for herself in the warm sand. She wondered if the tusked sea-animal would return to the shell beds, and while she was wondering, drowsiness crept over her, drew her head down on her paw, and coaxed her into sleep.
Chapter Two
Ratha, the leader of the Named, squinted through the trees to a sun paled by blowing dust. She had grit in her fawn-colored pelt, in the fur of her tail, and between the toes of all four paws. Her tongue felt dry and sticky against her fangs. On the riverbank where she stood, three-horn deer and small dapplebacked horses milled in groups, guarded by her people. The Named had long ago given up the risky life of huters for the more stable existence of herders, living on the meat of the beasts they kept.
Many of the Named carried a small companion called a treeling on their backs: a lemurlike creature with large eyes, a pointed muzzle, a ringed tail, and hands instead of paws. The treelings were the descendants of a single female who had been adopted by one of the Named as a pet. Her hands had proved useful for tasks too difficult for claws or teeth.
Ratha had her own treeling, a female called Ratharee, who sat on her back and groomed her. She felt deft treeling fingers comb the fur along her spine. Ratharee seemed to know exactly where the fleas tickled and would groom there before Ratha twitched or scratched. Sometimes Ratha felt needle-sharp teeth as the treeling nibbled to dislodge a stubborn tick, but Ratharee never nipped her.
Ratha turned her attention to the animals. The dapplebacks stood with their three-toed forefeet in the sluggish flow, nuzzling the water and sucking it up with thirsty gulps. Ratha badly wanted a bath, but she knew she’d have to settle for licking herself with her tongue. The river was too shallow to do more than wet her belly.
At least it had some water. The brook that ran from the river through the home pastures had become a dry channel, forcing the Named to move their drinking site.
Every day the water supply dwindled as the river fell. It was so low now that the three-horns and dapplebacks could not be watered together, or their hooves would churn mud into the water, making it undrinkable. Ratha watched as Named herders held the animals together by circling them, snarling and showing teeth. Firekeepers took up outlying positions, some carrying torches bearing the fire-creature called the Red Tongue. In good times, when the meadow brook ran full and clear and the pasturage was lush, herders rarely displayed more than an irritated grimace to control the animals, and the Red Tongue was needed only to defend themselves against outside raids. Now thirst made the herdbeasts restive, irritable, likely to rebel or stampede. The herders needed the Firekeepers close by, backing up the threat of claws and teeth with the threat of fire.
The dapplebacks grunted and squealed, laying back their ears, shaking their stiff, short manes, and lashing out with hoofed toes at any herder not quick enough to evade their ill temper. Ratha’s flank still stung from an unexpected kick.
She gave a soft prrrup that brought Ratharee from her back onto the nape of her neck. The treeling chirred and draped herself so that her forelegs and muzzle lay along the slant of one feline shoulder, while rear legs and tail extended along the other. The treeling angled her nose out, watching the commotion. Perhaps, Ratha thought, Ratharee was looking at her own treeling offspring, who now rode the backs of young herders.
Ratha paced the bank as the clan rounded up the dapplebacks that had already drunk, clearing the way for a group of three-horn does and fawns. She saw Thakur, the herding teacher, dodge a charge from a thirsty doe who threatened him with its forked nose-horn. His treeling, Aree, leaped from his scruff into the air in front of the deer, screeching and flailing her ringed tail. The startled herdbeast jumped sideways, its charge broken. Thakur and the others moved the does in to drink.
A grunting bellow rose above the tumult of lowing and bawling herdbeasts. Ratharee, startled, clung tightly to Ratha’s neck as the largest three-horn stag broke loose from the herd and headed for the river.
Snarling, Ratha leaped to join other herders dashing to cut the beast off. She found Thakur galloping alongside her through the scattered trees that edged the river. His copper coat flashed as he ran through patches of sun and shade with Aree riding on his nape.
“Turn the stag!” the herding teacher yowled. “Don’t try to block him!” Ratha saw Fessran, the Firekeeper leader, join the fray. A torch flame roared at the end of the branch in Fessran’s jaws. Close behind ran Bira, a red-gold shadow to Fessran’s sand-colored pelt.
Ratha skidded to a stop to let Ratharee scramble off. The treeling bounced on her hind legs over to Bira and jumped on alongside Bira’s own companion.
“Stay behind, Firekeepers,” Ratha called as she raced between saplings. The fire-creature she called the Red Tongue could cow aggressive animals, but the Named used it only if they had no other way.
She and Thakur turned the three-horn stag in tighter circles until it danced and bucked, pivoting on its hind feet to meet the herders with head horns and jabbing at them with both prongs of the forked nose-horn. The stag paused in its flurry, snorting and panting. Ratha saw her chance.
She lunged toward the three-horn stag, stamping with both forepaws together. She caught its gaze, locked her own with the animal’s. The three-horn bellowed, shook its heavy neck, but could not look away. Ratha took another step toward the beast, intensifying her stare. She put all her will into it, menacing and hypnotizing the beast.
She took another slow step, holding her body low, bowing her back, hunching her shoulders. Memories of a similar incident edged into her mind, threatening to distract her. Once, when she had been Thakur’s student, she had confronted a defiant three-horn. That time she allowed her gaze to break, and the animal nearly trampled her.
From behind her came the soft hiss of the Red Tongue as it fluttered on Fessran’s torch. The power was there, if she wanted or needed it. But the Red Tongue was too savage a thing to be used lightly when dealing with herdbeasts. Brought too close, it could madden them, and the only choice then was a quick, killing bite. She didn’t want to sacrifice the stag now, even though the Named needed the meat. It was a bad time and place; the other animals were too restive.