Even so, the instinct to attack rose up in her, almost overwhelming her need to approach slowly, eyes fixed on the quarry. She fought down an urge to spring that tightened her muscles like a cramp. She knew that to return the stag safely to the herd, she must master it by the strength of her gaze. Her stare never faltered or wavered, holding the beast until its proud head dropped in defeat.
Ratha let out her breath as Ratharee came scampering back to her and clambered on. Other herders led the stag back to the herd. She shook herself, sneezed dust from her nose.
Thakur trotted up, his green eyes glowing in his copper-furred face. His treeling, Aree, was Ratharee’s mother. He had originally brought Aree to the clan as a pet.
“Well, yearling,” Thakur said, using his old teasing name for Ratha, “that was one of the best stare-downs I’ve seen.”
“We need every skilled herder we have,” Ratha answered, warmed by his praise. “Even me.” Her tail twitched. “And Shongshar’s rise taught me what can happen if I forget that I am also one of the clan and must work among our people to understand our needs.”
She paced back between the trees with Ratharee on her shoulder, thinking about Shongshar, the orange-eyed stranger she had admitted into the clan. His mating with Bira had produced cubs lacking the intelligence and self-awareness that the Named valued, and Ratha had been forced to exile those youngsters so that they would not grow up in the clan. Embittered by the loss, Shongshar had turned against her, using the Red Tongue to create a worshipful following among the Firekeepers that was strong enough to cast her down from leadership and out of the clan.
It had been two summers since Ratha had fought to gain back her position, but the Named had been long in recovering. Some, like the Firekeeper leader, Fessran, still bore scars on their pelts from Shongshar’s long fangs. Fessran had sided with the Firekeepers and Shongshar in the struggle two summers ago. But when Shongshar held Ratha down for the killing bite, Fessran flung herself between the two, taking the wound. Ratha had escaped his saber-teeth, but her memory of him would never fade from her mind and only gradually from those of her people. And now, too soon after that wrenching time, the drought had come.
The Named watered their herdbeasts with no more major incidents and drove them to a nearby clearing that still had scattered grass and a few thickets with green leaves. Ratha lay down in the shade, missing the sunning rock that stood in the middle of clan ground. She liked to lie on the sunning rock, looking out over the beasts and herders. But now, though spring had not yet yielded to summer, the brook running through the old pasture had dried up, and the green faded into gold and brown.
And how long would the river itself last? Each day it shrank, and the net of cracks in the muddy banks grew and deepened. Ratha remembered tales told by elders of seasons when the Named had left clan ground in a search for pasturage and water. But it had been so long ago that no one could recall where they went or how they managed.
As the animals straggled past, she watched dappleback foals capering about their mothers. Fewer had been born this dry spring. Among the three-horns, several fawns butted and nuzzled at the dams’ flanks. Three-horns often had twins, but this season none of the does had dropped more than one fawn, as if their bodies sensed that they would have food and milk to rear only a single youngster.
Ratha tipped her head back to eye the sun’s white-gold fire against a bleached sky. If rain came again, even a little, the forage might recover enough to last through the summer. But nothing could be done to recover from the disappointment of spring breeding. The herds would decrease instead of expanding this year. Still, if the Named limited the number of their own new cubs, perhaps they could live on what they had.
Ratha gave a soft snort at her own presumption. If there was anything she couldn’t control, it was the fertility of Named females. Though the clan’s mating season had been delayed by the hardships of a dry winter and spring, it would still come. And, if things went as they had the last breeding time, she herself wouldn’t be adding to the number of new cubs.
In a way she felt relieved. Watching mothers cope with their litters of squalling, scrambling youngsters made her feel tired, and the occasional times she did nursery duty, her patience was gone long before someone rescued her. It was clear she was not fit for motherly duties. Still...
Stop dreaming, she told herself crossly. You had your chance, and look what happened. She sighed. Every once in a while thoughts of her lost litter by the Un-Named male, whom she called Bonechewer, still entered her mind. The Un-Named were those of Ratha’s kind who lived outside the clan. Though they resembled her people so closely that they could mate with the Named, they lacked the spark of self-awareness that made thought and language possible. Or so Ratha had believed until her banishment for daring to challenge clan leadership with the Red Tongue, the fire-creature she had found. Her exile forced her to live among the Un-Named, and there she met Bonechewer, an intelligent male with the ability to speak. He and Ratha had mated.
By now she should have forgotten, but images of the cubs, especially of her daughter, Thistle-chaser, still haunted her. She remembered Thisde-chaser’s beautiful empty eyes, which spoke of a mind too stunted to know the world in the way the Named did.
I wonder where she is now. I remember Bonechewer said she lived to run with the Un-Named. Ratha sighed, blowing the breath out between her front fangs and startling Ratharee. Long ago she had dismissed any thought of trying to find the cubs. What good would it do her, or them either? She would look at their eyes and the old rage would rekindle, the fury of knowing that her flesh and blood were nothing more than animals like the herdbeasts on which she fed or the marauders she fought, or the treeling she carried on her back. Even Ratharee’s eyes held more flickerings of the mind’s light than her sons’ and daughter’s ever would.
She tore herself away from the bleak landscape of her memory and gazed out at the herders, their beasts, and their treelings. They were her sons and daughters now —all those who made up the clan, all those who knew names and their worth. She sighted along her nose to a distant point where a fire burned with a Firekeeper standing watch nearby. This too was her progeny, this flame-creature called the Red Tongue, with its power to twist and sear those who bore it. If she had known of this when she first found the Red Tongue, would she have brought it back as a gift to her people? She shivered again with the memory of Shongshar and the struggle between herders and Firekeepers that nearly destroyed the Named.
Now she was wiser. One like Shongshar would never again rise within the clan, not while she had wit and strength to prevent it.
Ratharee rubbed her small head against Ratha’s cheek, as if reminding her of the unexpected gift those events had brought: the coming of Ratharee and her kind. If Thakur hadn’t found that injured treeling cub, or if he had found it and decided to eat it...
She glanced to one side, catching a flicker of motion in the corner of one eye. Thakur, the clan herding teacher, was trotting toward her with Aree bouncing on his shoulder.
“Are the beasts settled?” she called to him.
“Yes, now that they’ve drunk. I’m glad you decided to stay near the river.” He lay down beside her and licked dust from his copper fur.
“I’m worried, herding teacher,” Ratha said. “You know how few young herdbeasts were born this season. We will have to limit the number we use for meat.”
“There won’t be enough,” Thakur said, looking at her steadily.
“I know. We can’t depend on the herdbeasts entirely for food. Later there may be other food, such as those soggy fruit-things the treelings eat. I know you like fruits, but my stomach won’t stand them.” She paused. “The Named used to hunt all kinds of animals. Perhaps some of those that we used to hunt we can learn to herd. It wasn’t that long ago that old Baire brought three-horns to us.”