Shadows that had been as still as rocks or bushes against the trees crept swiftly into the meadow. They streamed from the forest, eyes and teeth glinting as they emerged into the open.
Ratha planted her torch and looked about her in all directions. There are too many, she thought, feeling her heartbeat shake her. Even with the Red Tongue, we are too few. The herders about her seemed to share her dismay, for she heard whimpers and saw bodies huddling together. And the raiders seemed to sense it too. They came faster, their hissing grew more vicious. And then they were no longer creeping but charging; black forms bore down on the herders from all sides. Ratha seized her torch again and thrust it outward with the rest. The attack gathered speed. The torchbearers waited.
Trembling, Ratha tried to peer beyond the circle of orange light. The raiders were still coming but the attack was faltering, its edges growing ragged as many of the Un-Named hesitated before the firelight. Ratha could hear individual voices rise above the yowling as the Un-Named leaders tried to drive their packs to fight. There was fear in those cries as well as rage. Fights began in the Un-Named ranks. Those who sought to flee the new power battled with those who forced them to attack. The mass of the enemy became a churning moonlit sea, turning in on itself.
It quieted. The howls of those who had fled faded into the forest. The torchbearer’s brands shone into fewer eyes, but in those faces hate ruled over fear. The first attack had failed. The second was about to begin.
The herders faced the Un-Named across an open swath of meadow. With a howl that rose to a shriek, a shape flew from the Un-Named ranks. Firelight flashed on a silvery pelt and Ratha recognized the jaws that had crushed Srass’s skull. The silvercoat drew the others after him and the Un-Named surged forward to meet the herders.
Torches fluttered and roared. Bared fangs were met with fire. The attackers reeled back howling from the touch of the flames and some carried the terrible creature away with them, smoldering as hot coals and ash in their fur ate into their flesh. Some went mad with fear and lay thrashing and frothing while their companions trampled them.
Ratha whirled to face the snarling silver. She dodged as he flung himself at her and dragged her torch across his face over his eye. The charred wood snapped, the end falling onto his foreleg. Blind and fear-crazed, the silver lurched away.
Ratha saw two other herders beating him across the back with their brands as he fled. She lost sight of him.
The branch in her mouth was now only glowing coals, creeping toward her whiskers. She dropped it and scuffed dirt on it. Other brands were also burning down or had broken against Un-Named ribs. She saw torchbearers slashing with fangs and claws and blood gleaming red in the firelight. She ducked a raider’s strike and ran to the bonfire. She lit a new torch and passed it to a wounded herder who carried only a broken stub, too dazed to throw the useless thing away. His eyes brightened; he snatched the new light and plunged back into the fray. As she stood panting, Fessran came alongside.
“Giver of the New Law, let me carry new torches to the ones who need them,” she said. “That is not your duty.”
“It shall be yours, Fessran. You are now the keeper of the Red Tongue and its cubs. If it still burns when dawn comes, its tending shall be your honor and your duty.”
Fessran passed her a lighted branch. “Go and drive the Un-Named back. The Red Tongue will eat their bodies when the sun rises.”
Ratha charged back into the fighting, her roar spilling from between her teeth. She leaped at the nearest enemy, raking him and searing him. Cries of rage and triumph broke from the weary herders, and they flung themselves on the raiders with renewed fury.
The Un-Named began to fall back. Slowly they gave way. They fought only to save themselves, and no longer tried to break through the herder’s circle to attack the milling herdbeasts. The mass of the enemy began to thin and Ratha saw more moonlit forms streak away into the trees.
She drove her torch into the ground beside a stiffening body and let out a mocking yowl. “They run!” she cried. “They are as cubs before the power of the Red Tongue. Let them taste it once again before the forest shelters them. To me, my people!”
The enemy’s ranks wavered and broke. The herders bore down on them and many cried their death scream before they reached the forest.
And then, all at once, it was over and the night fell quiet except for the soft screams of the wounded and dying.
Ratha stood with the torch guttering in her mouth, staring across the emptied meadow. Her heart gradually stopped its pounding. She had won. After such a beating as they had taken tonight, the Un-Named would not come again. The little flock of herdbeasts would grow large and cubs would play in the high grass, well-fed and free of fear.
She plodded back across the meadow, her feet dragging from weariness. Now there was no need to run fast. When she reached the bonfire, Fessran took the burning stick from her jaws and returned it to the flames. Others followed in Ratha’s wake and gave their brands back to Fessran. There was one more thing to be done and for that they needed their jaws free.
Among the Un-Named dead were the wounded, writhing in pain or trying to drag their shattered bodies from the meadow. Ratha watched her people walk among them. The herders vented their still-smoldering anger on the bleeding ones, clawing and slashing at them until they were torn lumps of flesh in which the breath trembled one last time and left. Ratha watched grimly. She had not given the order to mutilate the wounded, but she had not forbidden it either. She remembered how the raiders had eaten from Srass while he still lived. She watched, but took no part for the taste of blood mixed with the bitterness of charred bark was still thick in her mouth.
“Giver of the New Law,” a voice said, and she looked up into Thakur’s eyes. They were lit not by the firebrand, but by the faint glow of dawn over the forest.
“I am weary,” she said crossly. “If you wish to show me more of the change in my people, you will wait until I have slept.”
“It is not your people I wish to show you,” Thakur answered.
Ratha’s eyes narrowed. “One of the Un-Named?”
“One of the wounded raiders. He lives. He asks for you. He knows your name.”
She felt a sudden chill in her belly. It spread along her back, down the insides of her legs. Only one among the raiders knew her by her name. She had thought he was far away and safe on his own land.
“Lead me to where he lies,” she said roughly.
Thakur took her to the edge of the forest, to the long faint shadow of a small pine standing apart from the rest. The shadow grew darker and the grass lighter as the sky turned from violet to rose and then to gold. Two herders sat together, eyeing the wounded raider who lay beneath the pine. At her approach they uncurled their tails from about their feet and bared their fangs at the raider.
“No,” Ratha said sharply. “There will be no killing until I command it.”
She and Thakur approached the Un-Named one. A muscle jerked beneath the red-smeared copper pelt. Ratha heard a voice, hoarse and weak.
“Does she come, brother? I grow too weary to lift my head.”
“She comes,” Thakur answered and Ratha felt him nudge her ahead while he stayed behind. She stepped into the coolness beneath the trees. The raider’s muzzle pulled back scorched and swollen lips in a mocking grin. There was the broken lower fang.
“Come here, Ratha,” Bonechewer said, bloody froth dribbling from his mouth.” “Let me see the one who now leads the clan. Ah, yes,” he said as she neared him. ”You have grown strong and fierce. You will be a better leader than Meoran. What a fool he was to drive you out! What a fool!”