Instead of digging into the striper’s nape with claws and teeth, Ratha used the pressure and friction of her pads combined with her weight and her experience in knowing exactly how and where to push in order to topple the beast.
As if in a trance, the striper sank to its knees. Ratha climbed farther onto it, using her weight to press the horse down onto its belly. She draped herself across the animal, one forepaw keeping the horse’s forelegs, with their dangerous hooves, at a distance. She wrapped the other forepaw around the top of the horse’s head, twisting it up so that the throat lay exposed.
Feeling the striper’s heartbeat thudding through its ribs and into her own body, Ratha bent her head, jaws starting to open. The heart’s beat was strong in the creature’s neck, visibly jolting the skin over the great vessels and releasing a deep temptation in Ratha to bite deeply and hard.
Instead she opened her mouth to its full gape and set her teeth in position for the instinctive throat bite. With the horse’s sweat-smell hot in her nose, she squeezed her eyes shut with the effort not to bite, feeling the jaw-closing muscles beneath her eyes and on the sides of her forehead tremble with the strain.
The onlookers, Thakur and the young cubs learning herding from him, had grown quiet, as if they sensed the conflict within her.
Slowly, deliberately, she pulled her head up, feeling the skin of her muzzle slide back over her teeth as her mouth closed. She swallowed the saliva that had flooded her mouth, staying atop the striper while the youngsters shrilled their praise and Thakur added his deeper note. Their cries sounded strangely muted to her, as if they were distant or her ears muffled.
She wanted to speak to them, saying, this is how you take down a striper, but a feeling stronger than just her heartbeat thudding in her chest held back her voice.
Something Ratha didn’t understand made her give the horse’s neck a gentle lick before she slipped her paws out from under its neck, lifted herself off its body, and quickly backed away. The striper lifted its head, then lurched to its feet. Before the horse took a step, Thakur and some older cubs surrounded it.
As Ratha watched them return the striper to its herd, she shook her pelt hard, as if she needed to shed it in preparation for resuming the mantle of Named clan leader. Today, she reminded herself, her role was more humble: guest herding instructor.
She struggled to rid herself of the confusion between ancient hunter and Named herder. Perhaps the feeling was stronger today because her leadership duties had taken her away from herding. Intense practice had brought back her skills, but not complete control of her instincts.
The cubs and their teacher were returning. Ratha lifted her head, now hearing individual voices instead of a general clamor.
“The males may be able to take down stripers, but I’ll never be able to do that,” said a discouraged little female voice.
“That is why I asked Ratha to show you the technique,” Ratha heard Thakur say. He trotted toward her, his step springy, his whiskers fanning with pride. Scent and sight told Ratha that he had groomed himself especially well this morning. The metallic copper highlights in his fur shimmered in the sun. He had lost the leg feathering of his winter coat, and his slender limbs were clean, his body taut and spare.
His scent had a musky undertone, reminding Ratha that the Named mating season was not far away. She wanted to rub herself luxuriously alongside him and flop her tail across his back. Instead, she contented herself with an affectionate head-rub and turned to the discouraged youngster, finding her voice at last.
“Little one,” she said to the cub, “it is true that the culling takedown is harder for female herders, especially with the stripers. We don’t have as much weight or muscle as the males.”
“Then how will I do it?”
Gently, Ratha explained how she depended on precision and balance instead of sheer force to bring a beast down.
“But you are special, clan leader,” said the cub. “You aren’t just a female, you’re—”
“As a herder, I am no different than any of you,” Ratha said, looking the cub in the eyes. “I had to struggle with takedowns when I was your age, even with the dapplebacks. And a three-horn stag chased me up a tree once.”
“No, really?” the cub asked, wide-eyed, and others joined with her, wrinkling their noses in disbelief that a mere herdbeast could terrorize the Tamer of the Red Tongue, the Giver of the New Law, their clan leader.
“Yes, really. Ask Thakur.”
The cubs clustered around their teacher, who answered, then shooed them all away, telling them to go practice stare-downs with three-horn fawns until he called them.
Ratha watched them bumble and scramble away, wondering if they knew she got dung between her pads and muck on her coat, just like everyone else.
“Let them worship you a bit,” Thakur said softly. “It helps them, especially the little females.”
“They are doing well this season,” Ratha mused. “It is hard to believe that it hasn’t been that long since Meoran forbade any female cubs to train as herders.”
“Except a certain one,” Thakur answered.
Because you fought for me. You defied him to train me. You stood by me when I overthrew his tyranny.
“I can answer the rest of the cubs’ questions. Go take a nap on the sunning rock, yearling,” he said, using his old name for her.
She had a new name for him, but one that she dared not use. Beloved.
Or, perhaps it wasn’t so new.
“May you eat of the haunch and sleep in the driest den, clan leader,” he said formally, and returned to the cubs.
She looked after him, letting her whiskers droop slightly in a silent sigh, then decided to take his advice.
* * *
Ratha awoke from her nap, stretched out on the sunning rock in the middle of the meadow. She felt the late spring breeze ruffle her tawny-gold fur backward from tail tip to nape. Warmth grew on her fur, and the scent of drying sandstone mingled with the freshness of new grass.
Yawning until her tongue quivered, Ratha extended her front legs over the edge. The breeze tickled the spur whiskers at the back of her front paws, teased the hairs inside her ears and the silky velvet at their edges. It played with the longer fur on her ear tips, tugging at her nose and eyebrow whiskers.
Swiveling her head to turn her gaze, she saw that morning was still chasing dew-sparks from the grass.
She sat up, licked a forepaw with a raspy tongue, and rubbed her face. She scrubbed her nose and behind her ears in circles, and tongued down her short ruff and creamy chest fur.
In the distance Ratha heard the muffled sound of hoof beats on grass, mixed with cub squeals. She turned her head into the wind, cocking her ears. She raised her nose whiskers, opening her mouth slightly to capture scents. Odor turned to taste in a sensitive place at the roof of her mouth when she touched it with her tongue.
Smell and flavor combined with sound, telling Ratha that Thakur was still in the meadow with his group of half-grown cubs. Now they were working with three-horn deer instead of stripers.
Ratha knew that long ago her kind had been hunters, but they had learned to tame and herd the three-horn deer, dappleback horses, and other beasts they once stalked. Because they had to know one another well in order to cooperate, they needed and valued names. They also grew to value the light in a cub’s eyes that meant that the young one would be able to think clearly and speak well.
Lifting her head, Ratha narrowed green eyes against the sunlight. Looking down, she saw paw prints on the damp soil below.
She knew that the sunning rock stood not only at the center of the surrounding meadow, but also at the center of clan life. The Named used it as a meeting ground and a seat of honor for their leader.
In the midst of all the prints lay a clear area where stones encircled a still-smoldering pile of ash. It was a nest of the Red Tongue, the fire-creature she had brought to her people.