She saw many looks of approval, a few of doubt. She let them argue but kept the talk from becoming too heated. Thakur and Thistle were the holdouts.
“We may be setting our paws down very carefully, but we are still choosing the path,” the herding teacher said. “Thistle is right about being extremely careful. Even if we finally agree, we must keep the risks in mind and be ready for them.”
“Just waking up each day is risky,” said Fessran. “Herding teacher, don’t be an old frog-in-the-mud.”
Thakur only sighed patiently.
“We sound close to agreement,” said Ratha. “For the Named it is unusual, but I won’t question it.”
At her side, she felt Thistle shift restlessly. “Go ahead,” Ratha prompted.
“One Red-Tongue-nest,” Thistle said. “Here. With all the Firekeepers.”
Across the circle Ratha saw Fessran wrinkle her nose.
“Fess?” she asked.
“I said that we should walk carefully, not crawl.” Fessran paused. “All right, all right, I agree. I think we’ll soon see how well this works and can move faster.”
“So then”—Ratha stood up, fluffing her fur—“we will share the Red Tongue, but we will start with one fire-nest on clan ground. If there are even the slightest problems, we will stop.” She paused. “The decision is made. We will begin tomorrow. It is the will of the Named.”
The clan’s voices echoed hers. “It is the will of the Named.”
“Good,” said Fessran as she got up and stretched. “My tongue is getting tired.”
“Your tongue never gets tired,” teased Cherfan, bumping the Firekeeper’s flank with his head. She answered him with a sheathed-claw swat, and he retaliated. The two tumbled over, play-biting like cubs.
Ratha shook herself. “My ears are tired. I want a drink, a bath, and a nap. Take yourselves off, all of you,” she mock-scolded, shooing them away like errant cubs.
With Thistle by her side, she padded away, feeling glad she had guided the clan to a consensus. It was a rare accomplishment and she felt proud, though weary. Beside her, Thistle yawned and Ratha found herself gaping widely.
“You’re right. This has been hard work,” she said. Both strolled away, swinging their tails.
D D D
On the following day, Fessran and the Firekeepers, with the help of their treelings, built a campfire at the edge of clan ground closest to the hunters’ territory. Quiet Hunter and Thistle-chaser went to tell True-of-voice that his people could come that night and bring their young.
There was scarcely enough room around the campfire for all who came. With Thistle and Quiet Hunter’s help, Fessran, Bira, and other Firekeepers arranged the visitors so that small cubs and their mothers were closest to the fire, older cubs and elders next, then pregnant females. When Ratha visited the campfire, she saw True-of-voice, sitting at the back with other adults.
Ratha also noticed an unusual quiet. She heard no speaking, only the sounds of infant cubs suckling from their mothers or the raspy breathing of the very old. At first, the other tribe hesitated, but when the Named showed True-of-voice that the campfire was safe, they approached.
Each evening Bira and some Firekeepers kept their visitors safely back until other Firekeepers and their treelings readied the fire. Before letting the other tribe near, the fire-builders tucked their treelings safely away in nearby branches. Ratha didn’t think that their guests would be so rude as to eat a treeling, but the memory of the needlessly slain three-horn shadowed her.
After a few days, she noticed on her evening visit that True-of-voice’s people brought wood. She had mixed feelings about this. The hunters’ contribution eased the wood-gathering burden on the Firekeepers, which Fessran welcomed. At the same time, the act showed that True-of-voice and his people now knew what the Red Tongue needed. Ratha added another precaution, asking herders to assist the Firekeepers, increasing the number of clan members overseeing their guests.
She didn’t see the black fawn-killer at the campfire gathering and thought that True-of-voice must have gotten rid of him. A few days later, Bira reported that the fawn-killer did appear. She also said she would keep a close watch on him.
Curiosity brought Ratha to the shared fire later the same night. She had seen the black hunter only from a distance.
None of the other face-tail hunters wore much more than a trace or shade of black. Lighter, dustier pelt colors and patterns concealed better on the open plains. Ratha had once encountered a completely black female among the Un-Named on her travels with Bone-chewer, but that was the only one. Though the meadow-and forest-dwelling Named had a wider range of colors, none were a solid black.
Ratha learned to her surprise when she got close that the fawn-killer wasn’t solid black either. Though sparsely scattered in his midnight pelt, white-tipped hairs caught the fire’s light for just an instant, so that it seemed as if tiny stars flashed and died in his coat as his muscles moved beneath. On one flank, the white-tipped hairs were close enough that they appeared to connect in ghostly lines, as if the fur was draped with a cobweb.
Ratha had never seen such markings. She wondered if the firelight was reflecting from sand grains in his coat. When she watched him groom, however, the pattern stayed.
His eyes, too, were strange, turning from pale blue to even paler green as he turned his sleek head in the firelight. Ratha had seen similar eyes only in those whose coats were completely white.
She found herself oddly fascinated yet repelled. Who was he? Had he been birthed among the face-tail hunters or joined them later? Was he a son of True-of-voice? She could tell nothing from his scent, which was dominated by the hunters’ group smell. Yet something within told her he was not completely like them.
The impression came from his eyes, Ratha finally decided. Though they held the same dreamy far-seeing stare as other hunters, occasionally there came a sharpness as quick and intense as the shimmers in his coat. Was that why he seemed shy, turning his head away from direct stares and keeping his gaze down?
At the same time, she felt that the fleeting intensity followed her when she wasn’t looking. It almost made her ask the Firekeepers to ban him from the campfire, but what if he was True-of-voice’s son, and perhaps the next in line for leadership. She thought about trying to talk to him, but Bira said she hadn’t heard him speak.
Ratha could not let him distract her. Her role in supervising the fire sharing needed her full attention. Her emotions swung oddly from one extreme to the other. When she visited the campfire site, she felt warmed by the sight of cubs curled up comfortably in the Red Tongue’s glow. Then she was proud that she had overcome the fiercer instincts that would have used the fire not to warm but to sear.
However, she could not rid herself of a nagging doubt that closed in when she was alone. Had she done the right thing? Would her precautions be enough to prevent another tragedy? Was she indeed seeking the best interests of the Named, or would her need to befriend another tribe ultimately betray her own?
Fire’s power to help or harm was great, but even greater was the sweeping change it produced in those who used it. Living with fire tapped an unused potential within the Named for good or evil. What then would fire do to those whose potential might be even stronger? What might it release inside True-of-voice, or the song? Friendship or harm? In her mind, the image of cubs sleeping before the fire alternated with the memory of the black hunter killing the fawn.
She couldn’t argue that it was her people, not their leader, who had made the final choice. Yes, she had refrained from imposing her feelings on them, but she might have somehow herded them to a premature decision.
Was her attempt to reach out a sign of vision or blindness? Perhaps she should have listened to the instinctive revulsion that still sometimes churned in her belly. Equally strong was her sense that reaching out to these strangers was right.