“There are too many of them, you said …” Ratha answered cautiously.
He grunted and said, “This is the only way the wanderers can go. On one side of my ground lies the lake. On the other lie the mountains. They must cross my ground. I can’t stop them. I do not want to.” He circled the tracks and then began to paw mud over them. “I make sure that as they pass, they catch no sight of me.”
“Why?” Ratha asked. “Do you fear them?”
He patted the mud down. “No. But I don’t want to share my prey with everyone that passes, as I did the cub and gray-coat.”
“The wanderer’s claim,” Ratha remembered. “Is that a law among the Un-Named?”
“As close as we come to a law, I suppose.” Bonechewer sounded annoyed. “But we have work enough to fill our own bellies so I let the strangers hunt for themselves.” He turned away, flicking his tail. Beneath the sharp tang of irritation in his scent, Ratha detected a trace of worry.
He turned away to hunt. Ratha gazed at the smeared pawprints. She dipped her muzzle and smelled the edge of one track, but the rain had washed its scent away. She lifted her head and jogged after Bonechewer.
The next day Ratha returned to the same spot and saw fresh tracks. Bonechewer did not come with her and she decided to say nothing to him about it. He knew and, it seemed, he didn’t particularly care. Ratha began leaving the den earlier, hoping she might see the ones who made the tracks. Once she hid before sunrise and caught a glimpse of shadows moving far away in the misty drizzle.
Where were the travelers coming from, she wondered, and where were they going? Why would Bonechewer retreat each day to the far reaches of his territory and not venture near the trail? Part of it, she knew, was selfishness, but his odor and his manner suggested something more.
Once or twice, Ratha, hunting mice on the hillside, saw him stop on the trail the Un-Named Ones had taken. He looked down the path after their tracks and there was a longing in his eyes as if he wanted to join them on their journey. Then, as Ratha watched, his expression changed to disgust. He rubbed out the remaining pawmarks and leaped away through the bushes.
She noticed that his prowling was not random. Each day he spent in a certain section of his territory, inspecting it, marking it and making sure everything was as it should be before….
Before he leaves, Ratha thought to herself and felt cold and lonely as she shadowed him in the early morning drizzle. He had said nothing to her about such a journey, yet he appeared to be making preparations, catching more than he could eat and storing the rest in the crotch of a tree or under a flat stone. Often he would break away from these activities, as if he did them against his will, but if Ratha watched long enough, she would see him renew his efforts. She should go, she thought miserably. She had learned enough from him that she might survive the rest of the winter if she worked hard. He seemed caught up in some inner struggle that she could not understand, yet she sensed that it involved her in some way, as well as the Un-Named she had seen on the trail. The deer carcass they had fished from the lake was part of it too. She had a few of the pieces, but not enough to fit together.
She slunk through the wet grass and peered between the stems. She caught a glimpse of a rain-slick copper coat. There he was. Checking the trail as he usually did. Should she follow? He never found anything except pawmarks. Why should she waste her time?
She lifted her head and saw birds wheeling and dipping beneath the gray mass of clouds. A breeze tickled her whiskers, bringing with it the smell of the marshlands and the hills. She sensed, as she stood still and let the wind ruffle her fur, that this might be the last day she spent here.
Bonechewer had come out into the opening and was pacing toward the trail. Ratha saw him stop and stare up the path. The curve of a hill cut off her view, but she knew from Bonechewer’s reaction that he had seen more than pawmarks. She scampered down the hill, keeping herself hidden. She made a wide circuit behind Bonechewer and followed him, creeping low on her belly, scuttling from one weed patch to the next until she was quite close to Bonechewer.
As she approached the trail, she saw that it wasn’t empty. There were three of the Un-Named there. She dropped down behind a rise and hid, stretching out in the long grass, her chin resting on the top of the knoll. Now she could see and hear everything.
She watched Bonechewer approach the three on the trail. Two were tawny, the other black. The tawny ones were heavy and each bore a ruff. Their scent, drifting to Ratha through the damp air, told her they were males. They had the same eyes as the witless gray female and Ratha knew they wouldn’t speak. The two males crouched and curled their tails across their feet. The black sat upright, green eyes luminous in a narrow ebony face. The eyes fixed on Bonechewer.
Ratha crawled further over the crest of the knoll, feeling her heart thump against the ground. Would the black one speak or be as dumb as the two others?
The black rose onto all four feet as the copper-coat approached.
“I wondered when you would come, nightling,” Ratha heard Bonechewer say.
“The gathering place calls, dweller-by-the-water,” the stranger replied. The black’s odor and voice were female. “I and my companions are the last.”
“They who gather will wait for you,” Bonechewer said.
The black came a few steps down the trail, keeping her eyes on him. “We need you, dweller-by-the-water. Few among us have your gifts.”
The green eyes were intense, half pleading, half-threatening. Ratha saw Bonechewer’s hackles rise.
“That I know, nightling. How I will use them is for me to decide.”
The black lowered her whiskers and walked down the trail past Bonechewer. The two tawny males followed her. She paused and looked over one silken shoulder at Bonechewer. “I could make use of their teeth, dweller-by-the-water.”
Ratha tensed, gathering herself for a possible charge up the hill to Bonechewer’s aid.
“You could, nightling,” Bonechewer answered pleasantly, but Ratha saw the muscles bunch beneath his fur.
“No, dweller-by-the-water,” the black said, showing the pointed tips of her fangs. “I am not so foolish as that. You are right, the decision is yours to make. If we are your people, then come. If not, then return to those of the clan from which you came and leave this territory to the Un-Named.”
Ratha crept closer. If the black was right, Bonechewer was not one of the Un-Named. Clan-born? Could he be? That might explain many things.
The black waved her tail and trotted down the path, followed by her two companions. Bonechewer stared at the ground until their footsteps faded. Only then did he raise his head. He swung his muzzle back and forth, flicking his tail. Then he turned and gazed downhill to where Ratha was hiding.
“Clever, clan cat,” he said loudly, “but the wind has shifted and I can smell you.”
Disgruntled, Ratha trotted uphill to the path. As she approached, he laid his ears back until he looked as if he didn’t have any.
“So, dweller-by-the-water,” she said mockingly, staying beyond reach of his claws, “do you take the trail with your people? And will you raid those who were also your people?”
“Yarr. So you know my little secret,” he said, slightly taken aback. “No matter. You would have found out fairly soon. One wouldn’t know it from your hunting ability, but you are quite clever. Too clever, I think.”
She eyed him. “You bear no love for the Un-Named. That I know from watching you rub out their tracks.”
“I have no love of growing thin, either. The weather is already harsh and growing worse. Were I to stay here alone, my land would barely feed me. It will not feed the two of us. You are eating more every day, clan cat.” He looked pointedly at her belly. Her pregnancy was becoming noticeable even as her appetite was growing more voracious.