“I remember when a certain three-horn stag chased a young herding student up a tree.” Thakur’s eyes glowed with amusement at this memory of Ratha. “But you are right, clan leader. We have overlooked other animals. We should keep creatures that can do well in dry seasons, as well as those that flourish in good times.”
“This is what I will do,” said Ratha finally. “I will call all the strong, young herders and Firekeepers to the sunning rock. Those I need to guard the animals and the Red Tongue on our lands I will send back to their posts. Those who remain will stand in pairs in a circle with their backs to me and their noses pointed outward. Each pair will travel in the direction they face, seeking a place with water and forage for our herds, as well as new beasts we can learn to keep.”
“You know that the mating season will soon come, even if it is short,” said Thakur. “I heard Fessran yowling last night. I don’t think she was just singing.”
“With fewer of the Named on clan land during the mating season, fewer cubs will be born, I hope.”
“Perhaps that is sad, clan leader, but it is wise,” answered Thakur. “And I will also take my place among those you send.”
Ratha was unsure how to respond to Thakur’s offer. She found herself starting to lick a paw and scrub her face to avoid answering him.
“Yearling,” he said, using his old teasing name for her again, “I leave the clan every mating season. You know why, and I thought my going no longer bothered you.”
She licked her pad and gave her cheek a harder swipe than she meant to. “You won’t sire empty-eyed cubs on me, if that’s what you fear. I have not birthed cubs by anyone since Bonechewer. The matings don’t take.”
Thakur looked at the ground. “It is not just you I worry about, Ratha. The others too—Bira, Fessran. They don’t think about such things when the mating fever takes them. If I stay, the risk of siring witless cubs remains.”
Ratha knew what he said was true, and a part of her cried out in sorrow for him. He would never take a mate from among the Named and risk fathering young on a clan female.
Thakur, along with Bonechewer, who was his brother and had lived with the Un-Named, had been born from a mating between a clan female called Reshara and an Un-Named male. Both brothers possessed gifts, showing that such pairings could produce cubs with the light of intelligence in their eyes. But the results were too erratic to trust and too tragic to risk.
Though Thakur knew only that Ratha had birthed Bonechewer’s cubs and lost them, he did not know why. But he had witnessed the results of another mating between one of the Named and an Un-Named outsider.
Shongshar’s cubs by Bira had lacked the ability to speak and think that the Named so valued. Thakur knew that well, for he had helped Ratha carry both litterlings from clan ground.
Thakur nosed Ratha gently, mistaking the reason for her mood. “Don’t mourn because you have no young, clan leader. We, the Named, are your cubs. And I also have sons and daughters in the young ones who learn the ways of herding from me.”
The treeling on his shoulder chirred, as if to remind him that she too was part of his adopted kin. Ratha’s small companion, Ratharee, trilled back at her mother.
“When those who are to journey take their places, let me choose where I will stand,” Thakur asked. “And let me go by myself, as I always do.”
“Do you know where you want to go?”
“Yes. I will stand and lift my head to place the setting sun at my whisker-tips. It will lead me to a place I have seen only once, from a distance, to a body of water greater than any lake.”
“Then I will have the gathering at sunset, and you will choose your place,” Ratha answered, her head full of the pictures Thakur’s words conjured. She felt a prick of envy, wishing she could travel with him, leaving behind the burden of leadership. But he would return and perhaps take her with him to see what he had found, though not for a while. She watched him pad away with Aree on his back, his tail swinging. She wished he didn’t remind her so much of Bonechewer, the father of her own lost cubs.
In the midafternoon heat Ratha ambled instead of trotted as she made her rounds among the scattered beasts, herders, and Firekeepers. At the nearest guard-fire, she saw Fessran. A tickle of worry about her friend crept along her back. The Firekeeper leader had seemed subdued lately.
Ratha touched noses and rubbed the full length of her body against her friend, crooking her tail over Fessran’s back. She could tell by the warm tone in Fessran’s scent that the Firekeeper welcomed such open affection. But underneath, Fessran’s smell told Ratha her friend was troubled.
“Thakur says he heard you singing last night,” Ratha said, trying to tease. “It is known among the Named that when Fessran is in full voice, the mating season is not far behind.”
Fessran’s reply was flat. “Thakur must have his ears stuffed with herdbeast hair. That was Bira, not me.”
Ratha’s ears swiveled forward, and she tried to look into Fessran’s eyes as the Firekeeper asked, “No one’s been complaining about me, have they? I mean, I haven’t shirked my duties even while I’ve been looking for my treeling.”
“No,” Ratha answered. She felt her own companion on her shoulder. Fessran looked a bit scruffy. Ever since her Fessree had disappeared, she had to depend on her own tongue for grooming.
“Do you want to borrow Ratharee?” Ratha asked.
“No. I appreciate the offer, but grooming isn’t the same if another treeling does it.” Fessran let her forepaws slide out until her creamy belly fur flattened the grass. “Funny. I never thought I’d really get attached to the little flea-picker. You and Thakur are as soft as dung when it comes to treelings, but I thought I was being more practical about it. It’s not Fessree’s little hands I miss. It’s her sitting on my shoulder and making noises in my ear. I got used to it.”
Ratha saw her shift some of the weight off her left foreleg, rolling half onto her side.
“How is your leg?”
“Thanks to Shongshar, it’ll never be the same again, even though it’s had this long to heal. I should be grateful that it works at all. Shoulder’s just a bit stiff. Bites heal better when you’re younger.” She licked the two puckered scars on her upper foreleg. There was another set of scars on her ribs where Shongshar’s saber-teeth had emerged through the leg and into her chest. It was a near-fatal wound, and Ratha was amazed and grateful Fessran had healed this well. Although Bira was coming along as Fessran’s backup for Firekeeper leader, Ratha needed Fessran in that role.
“You know, I wouldn’t feel so bad about Fessree,” Ratha said in an attempt to sound comforting. “Treelings sometimes wander off, but they come back. Aree did that to Thakur.”
“Well, I thought it might be because of the mating season. Everybody’s smell changing and all that. I notice it makes treelings nervous.” Fessran fell silent for a minute, but her scent told Ratha that she wasn’t in heat and probably wouldn’t be this season. After her wound and the long recovery that followed, she wasn’t yet in condition to bear a litter.
“You know why I’m so caught up with that miserable flea-picker?” Fessran asked suddenly, after a long silence. “It’s because of Nyang.”
Nyang. For a moment Ratha switched her tail, lost. Nyang was dead. He had been Fessran’s eldest cub from her last litter, one of those who went over to Shongshar when the clan split into two factions. He had been drowned when Ratha and Thakur managed to flood out the cave where Shongshar had hidden his worship-fire. In helping Ratha to dig the trench that diverted the stream from its banks, Fessran had helped in her son’s death.