Digging her own claws in deeply, she grabbed the scruff, feeling the skin and hair stiffening in death. She dragged the body out of the fork where it had stuck. She had to weave it through the branches as she retraced her course down the tree.
Her teeth were aching and her legs shaking by the time she was halfway down. She feared she was going to drop the body when she heard and felt someone climbing up to her. Thakur.
“I’ll help,” he said, and his muzzle was beside hers, his teeth fastening in the scruff, taking the weight from her jaws.
“She … she was still alive. When I started to free her … she was still alive and I bit through her claws to get her out … I didn’t know … and then she died … I didn’t know, Thakur! I didn’t know …”
Now Ratha wanted the comforting numbness, but having thrust it away so many times, it would not return. Her senses seemed sharper than ever, hammered to shards by a horror she could not escape.
It fixed her to the tree, unable to move until she saw Thakur moving below, backing down with the young hunter’s body. She saw his ears flatten and his neck muscles bulge with the effort, but he managed to look up, even with that weight in his jaws. It was the look in his eyes, not words, that finally broke her free, and she plunged headfirst down the tree, almost falling. She managed to land on legs that threatened to give way, and staggered to one side as Thakur laid the body out before True-of-voice.
“That was the last, yearling,” he said when he returned to Ratha. “It is done.”
Ratha struggled to stand against shudders that were shaking her off her feet. “True … True-of-voice … won’t think I’m … much … of a leader … if I go down… . Hold me up.”
“He’s gone, Ratha. I asked him to take the dead one and go. They were simple words. He understood.”
Ratha collapsed and drew herself into a huddle, letting the shuddering take her. She put her paws over her face, but couldn’t stop the cub-cries that were escaping from her mouth, or the heaving of her sides. She felt as though she were still up the tree, the taste of bleeding claw-stumps harsh and scratchy in her mouth, watching green eyes fading to gray in death.
“The last thing she knew was the pain I caused,” Ratha whispered.
“You didn’t intend it,” Thakur answered gently. “Let this go, yearling.”
“I can’t. I’m trapped, alone, inside with it. Help me, Thakur!” she cried as the horror racked her again and again.
Through her shudders, she felt him curl around her, drape heavy comforting paws over her, lay his tail across hers, breathe into her face, lick her cheek …
I will never again wield the Red Tongue against another of my kind, she vowed, still struggling against the horror in her mind.
Then, dimly, she felt someone else lie down next to her. And another of the Named, and then another. They were even lifting her, crawling underneath to raise her from the ground. More came and she was enveloped in her people, smelling their fur, feeling their bodies, their strength, and the depth of their caring.
She wasn’t sure if the voice was Thakur’s or another of the Named, or perhaps even all of them speaking together.
“You are not alone. You will never be alone. We, your people, are with you, surrounding you with ourselves, for you are precious to us.”
Gradually she felt the shudders fade to trembling and then stilled. The memory of the young hunter’s death was still in her mind, but not as sharp, not as cold, not as cutting.
“Ratha?” said a voice in her ear.
“I … I can bear this now, Thakur… . Let me up… .”
“Rest for a while. True-of-voice and the others are taking their dead to the place where they will be given to the air. They are going slowly, so there is no hurry.”
Ratha took his advice, sinking into a doze. She woke when someone squirmed against her flank.
“Bundi, get your foot out of my eye,” came a growl from Cherfan.
“I can’t. Someone’s sitting on me. Ooof …”
“Whose tail is sticking up my nose?” someone else complained and another voice said, “Be still, you’ll wake her… .”
“She’s awake,” Ratha managed to say. “She feels better and she wants to get up.”
The Named unscrambled themselves from the protective panther-pile they had made about their leader. Ratha got squashed a few times by various paws before she wriggled free.
“The first thing I want is a drink,” she said, shaking her pelt. “And then we’ll follow True-of-voice.”
When Ratha had regained her steadiness and had drunk some water, which made her feel stronger, she led the Named in the direction that True-of-voice and his tribe had departed. Some of the clan carried the hunter dead, either on their backs or in their jaws. Fessran and her party had rejoined them, still unable to find Night-who-eats-stars.
Ratha could tell by the way the Firekeeper eyed the clan’s burdens that she was relieved to have been spared that task.
“Are you all right?” her friend asked, her scent strong with concern. “You smell like you’ve been through something bad. You look a bit shaky, too.”
Ratha head-bumped with Fessran, feeling her friend’s ears and eyebrow whiskers against her own. “I was and I did, but I’m better now. I’ll tell you more later.”
“I saw True-of-voice and his gang starting up that peak you see to the east. If you want, I can show you so that you don’t have to track them.”
Ratha accepted her friend’s offer, glad to have Fessran by her side again.
“Where’s Thakur?” Fessran asked, turning her head.
“In the back, Firekeeper,” came his response. “I’m staying here because I’m carrying one of them. Cherfan is, too.”
Fessran wrinkled her nose so that the tops of her fangs showed. “Ugh. I’ll keep away from you both until we get where we’re going.”
“That’s just as well. You stay up front with Ratha,” Thakur called back.
“Not because I stink of cinders?” Fessran returned mockingly.
“That, too.”
As they went, the Firekeeper gave Ratha nudges to indicate the way. The ground began to slope underfoot, and the plain gave way to brush and scrub oak. Looking back over her shoulder, Ratha could see the hunters’ plain sweeping out below her, and in the distance, the greener open-forested hills and meadows of clan ground. She hoped she could soon be back there, watching young cubs play in the nursery and older ones in the meadow, learning how to manage the herdbeasts. She also hoped that the clan members who were still guarding both during her absence had not encountered any problems.
On the hunters’ plain, she saw other animals: groups of face-tails scattered about the grassland, herds of springing antelope, and wild stripers grazing.
Soon both oak and pine shadowed the trail, then just pine with dirt and dry needles underfoot. As the Named continued up, the trees grew sparser and the trail rockier. Ratha thought that True-of-voice would climb all the way to the top, but instead she caught sight of the big gray leader and his tribe halted before a huge tilted granite table. It was shaded by pines and fissured by sun and rain. Where sunlight beamed, the granite made little sparkles that appeared and vanished as Ratha moved her head. Above the sloping granite face, an outcropping jutted from the mountain’s flank. The air was dry, yet fresh, and the skylight blue with wisps of cloud. Against it Ratha could see birds wheeling and gliding, huge wings outspread.
A bump from Fessran’s shoulder brought her gaze down again. She saw that True-of-voice’s people were padding into place in a half circle around the table. Those who carried bodies approached the table and climbed onto it. There they laid down their burdens, being as careful and caring as True-of-voice when Ratha had watched him help lift Tooth-broke-on-a-bone.
Though she had not given any order, Thakur and Cherfan walked forward to join the ones climbing onto the table. In a silence broken only by the hissing wind, she heard crumbled granite crunch under their pads. As they mounted the broken rock, their claws scratched and Ratha could hear their soft grunts of effort. When they reached the fissured flat surface, the two clan males helped one another unload their burdens in the same careful way as the hunters. Soon all the dead were laid out. The bearers withdrew, joining their companions, who were now sitting in a loose half ring about the table.