The trail grew fresher and the smell stronger. She crouched as she approached a fallen log in her path. On the far side of it she could hear soft rustling sounds, and the crack and crunch of seeds being eaten. Again she trembled and her belly grew tight. She slunk along the side of the rotting timber and looked around the edge. There it was. A little marsh-shrew with a dull striped pelt and flanks almost as shrunken as hers. One rear leg was wounded and dragging. The blunt snout turned, the nostrils twitched. Ratha ducked back. Then, as the creature turned once more to its meal, she peered past the ragged spongy ends of the fallen timber. At last something she could catch.
She gathered herself, bunched and sprang over the log. She landed short, slipped in the mud, leaped again and landed on her prey with her front paws.
Her tail swung wildly to keep her balance as the animal squirmed beneath her pads. She felt herself toppling, struck one forepaw out to catch herself and felt her prey slip out from beneath the other. Furious, she lunged and snapped, but the creature, despite its injury, was far away from her, scooting across the flat toward the reeds. Ratha flung herself after it, howling in anguish. She chased the animal up and down through the high grass, desperation keeping her only a few tail-lengths behind. The marsh grass opened into a meadow of ferns and she was gaining on her quarry when a flurry of black and brown erupted from nowhere and something charged into her, knocking her aside from her prey. There was a shrill scream from the animal, a deep growl and then silence.
Ratha scrambled out of the clump of ferns and staggered to her feet. A young male of her own kind stood a short distance away, staring back at her. Her marsh-shrew, now lifeless, dangled from his jaws. He dropped it in among the ferns and began to play with it, glancing from time to time at Ratha. Driven by hunger, she moved closer. He lashed his tail, growled, picked the carcass up and pranced a short distance through the ferns. There he laid it down, ambled a few tail-lengths away and began grooming himself.
Ratha flattened and crawled through the ferns, freezing whenever he looked her way. His smell was oddly familiar, she realized, between the waves of hunger that were sweeping over her. She slunk forward again, raising her whiskers above the fronds. He turned, yawned in her face and ducked his head among the ferns. A loud crunch of teeth on bone told her he was eating her prey.
With an outraged scream, Ratha flung herself at him but exhaustion made her fall short. She pushed herself up on wobbly legs, fluffed her tail and spat. He flicked one ear and went on eating. Only half the carcass was left.
“Scavenger!” Ratha hissed. “Un-Named dung-eater! Flea-ridden chewer of bones! Arrr, you can’t understand my words, bone-chewer, but you’ll understand my teeth!”
The other gazed at her, a scrap of fur and flesh hanging from his jowls. It disappeared into his mouth in several swift bites and his lips drew back from his teeth as he chewed, revealing a broken lower fang. Ratha looked at his ears. One had a piece bitten out of it and the ragged edge bore the marks of teeth. Hers. It was the raider who had attacked Fessran’s dapplebacks in Ratha’s first encounter with the Un-Named raiders.
“The same words again, clan cat?” he said, looking straight at her. “Do they teach you no others?”
Ratha’s nape bristled and she felt the fur rising all the way down her spine to her tail. Her nostrils flared. She was unsure of whether to attack or retreat and did neither. She could only stare at the mangled carcass between his forepaws and swallow the warm saliva flooding her mouth.
He tore another strip from the prey. The smell from the glistening flesh brought Ratha forward. Saliva slipped between her teeth and ran over her lips into her fur.
“You are far from home ground, clan cat.” He gulped the meat. “And far from the herdbeasts that keep you fed.”
Ratha took another step forward. She could see the ends of her whiskers quivering. “I chased the marsh-shrew, broken-fanged one. Let me have what is left of it.”
“Yes, you chased it,” he agreed. His tone was light, but his eyes were wary. “You didn’t catch it. I caught it.”
“I caught it. My paws were on it before yours. I drew first blood.”
“Is that a new clan law? I thought they had enough laws and leaders to bare their throats to.” He grinned, exposing the jagged edge of his fang.
“Give me my prey!” Ratha howled and flung herself at him. Her trembling legs turned her lunge into a stumble.
He snatched up the remains of the prey and trotted beyond her reach. He sat down among the ferns and gave her a mocking look. “You are a bad hunter, clan cat. Only good hunters eat,” he said between his teeth, lifting his head to let the rest of the carcass slide into his open gullet.
“Raider! Bone-chewer! I broke your fang and tore your ear. Come near me or steal my prey again and I will chew your tail off and stuff it down your gluttonous throat!”
He lolled his tongue out at her, turned, and, tail in the air, sauntered away.
Ratha went to where the shrew’s carcass had lain, hoping to find a few neglected morsels. She found only moss, stained with blood and spittle. She bent her head and licked the green carpet, but only got the faintest taste. She closed her eyes and felt her belly twist in despair.
Only good hunters eat, she thought.
She lifted her head and bared her fangs. She shredded the moss with her claws.
She had lost her world and everything in it. The herder’s knowledge that served her in the clan was worthless here. She had left her people far behind. Now, she realized, as she felt the grinding pain of hunger fade into a frightening numbness inside her, she must leave their ways behind as well.
I was raised to be a herder, part of her mind cried. That life is gone. What else is there? Nothing, the same part of her mind answered. In choosing to leave the clan, you chose to die.
Despair paralyzed Ratha. She wanted to sink down onto the moss and lie still forever. To become dry bones, scattered by the feet of those who would pass this way. Crumbling bones, crawling with insects.
Another part of her mind began speaking. She quieted the turmoil inside and listened. This part spoke in images and feelings rather than words. It told of scents followed along star-lit trails, of stalking and waiting in shadow, of branches breaking close by and the sudden fever at the smell of the prey. It told of a life far older than that of the clan, a life far deeper and, in a strange way, far wiser. The old part of her mind told Ratha she had that wisdom. She woke from the telling as she would from a dream and she trembled, for it was far stronger than the clan-taught knowledge. The way of the clan, she knew, went back many seasons and many lifetimes. She knew the names of those who led the clan, from the first ones all the way to Baire and Meoran. The way of the herder was old, but there was another way, ancient beyond memory. It went back to the time before the beginning. The way of the hunter.
* * *
Whiskers poked out of a burrow. A timorous nose followed. Earth and small stones tumbled as the occupant emerged and peered around. Hiding in a patch of weeds, Ratha tensed. She could see the black stripes along the animal’s cheeks; the blunt snout. Delicate five-toed paws joined the whiskers in exploring the ground outside the burrow.
This hunt, Ratha thought, would be different. She knew hunger had robbed her of the speed and agility a hunter needed. She still had something that might make the difference if she used it properly: her cleverness. If she could outwit three-horns and Un-Named raiders, surely she could catch a shrew.