“Thakur,” she said suddenly. “Do you think Shongshar’s cubs are still alive?”
It was a while before he answered. “I don’t think so. Why?”
“I wonder if I should have told him we didn’t kill them. If I had let him know where we left them, he might have been able to go and see them.” She lifted her head. “I didn’t tell him because I thought he might try to bring them back. Perhaps it would have been better had I trusted him.” She fell silent awhile and then asked softly, “Do you think it would do any good to tell him now?”
“No,” Thakur answered. “If there was a time that it would have done any good, that time is past. His grief has set him on a new trail and he has been on it too long.”
She sighed. “I wish I knew why Fessran listens to him.”
“She listens to him for the same reason you find it difficult to disbelieve his words: he understands the power of the Red Tongue and he knows how to use it.”
“I don’t know whether they are his words or Fessran’s. All I know is that they give me a feeling in my belly that I don’t like and I can’t do anything about it.”
He leaned closer, listening, and she felt her despair rising up again. “He is so clever! Everything he says or tells Fessran to say makes sense. He is right about sheltering the Red Tongue in the cave during the winter rains. He seems to think only of the safety of my people, but my belly tells me he has other reasons for what he does.”
“Your belly has been right before,” said Thakur.
“Yes, but my belly only had to persuade the rest of me that it was right. Persuading others is harder,” Ratha grumbled.
Thakur shifted so that he was farther into the sun and half-closed his eyes. Ratha was afraid he was going to drift off to sleep, but he opened his eyes and said, “The important thing is to show Fessran what treelings can do. She will see that there is another way to make use of the Red Tongue’s power. I think she listens to Shongshar because she thinks there is no way other than his.”
“Now that we will soon have more treelings, there is another way. I know we still have to train them and there may still be problems, but I think it will work.” She was about to say more when Thakur sat up and looked intently toward the lair.
“I hear Aree,” he said. “I think she wants me.”
Despite Ratha’s admonitions, he entered the den. She could only sigh and follow. When her eyes became accustomed to the dimness, she saw Thakur curled around the treeling’s nest. How he had done so without disturbing her, Ratha didn’t know, but Aree seemed to be pleased that he was there. The treeling wriggled herself close to him. He began to purr and she crooned softly to herself.
The blend of sounds soothed Ratha and made her drowsy. She laid her cheek against the hard-packed soil of the den floor and let herself drift. She was within the earth, as she had been in the Red Tongue’s cave, but here she felt sheltered and safe rather than afraid.
Daylight faded outside, but the moon rose, and she could see by the faint silvery light that filtered into the den. Aree grew restless again and Ratha heard her turning about inside her nest. Thakur’s half-closed eyes opened wide. Aree halted, crouched and seemed to shudder. She gave a deep grunt, a noise Ratha had never heard from a treeling before. She grunted again and began to pant.
“She’s pushing at me with her feet,” Thakur said. “Do you think she’s all right?”
“Yes. I made all sorts of strange noises when I was birthing my cubs. Let her push against you if she needs to.”
Ratha’s curiosity was suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of joyous excitement. This was the way she had felt when she knew that her first cub was pushing its way out from within her. Even the later knowledge that her litterlings were no more than animals couldn’t mar this first memory, and it came flooding back to her so that she began to pant eagerly along with Aree. It did not matter that these were treeling cubs rather than those of the Named; the wonder was still the same.
“Anyone would think you were birthing these litterlings,” Thakur teased gently.
Too excited to feel abashed, she peered into the nest, trying to see as much as she could. Aree gave an odd sort of heave and made a long grunt that was almost a growl.
“The first one’s coming, Thakur!” Ratha hissed. She heard Aree take a deep breath and growl again, and then there was something else in the nest, a shiny wriggling bundle that made tiny noises of its own. She saw the treeling’s eyes glint as the little mother curled around to lick her firstborn and free it from the birth-cord that still bound it to her body.
Ratha remembered the taste and feel of salty wet fur on her own tongue and the way the tiny thing mewed and writhed beneath her muzzle. She heard a surprisingly strong cry and then fast snuffling sounds as the newborn creature began to breathe.
Aree gathered her litterling to her and nursed it. She ate the afterbirth that soon followed and began to grunt again. The second treeling cub quickly followed its elder sibling and Aree lay against Thakur, cradling both little ones in her arms.
Several more arrived in the nest and Aree had to lie on her side to nurse them.
“I think she’s finished,” said Thakur after they had waited a long time for more treeling cubs to appear.
“I’m not surprised. Her litter is larger than any of ours.”
“How many are there?” asked Thakur. “I can’t see them all.”
“She has as many litterlings as you have paws,” said Ratha.
“That’s a clever way to think about it,” said Thakur, admiringly. “Whenever I want to know if I have all my herdbeasts together, I just smell them and I know which smells are missing. But we don’t know the treelings’ smells very well yet.”
“Until we do, just match them up with your paws. If you have a paw left over, then you know a little treeling is missing.”
She saw Thakur’s outline against the faintly moonlit wall of the den as he leaned over to nose his treeling. “Aree certainly doesn’t care how many there are. She’s happy.”
The sound of the treeling’s crooning filled the den. Soon Thakur joined in with a deep purr and Ratha found herself adding her own note. She wasn’t sure when his purr faded, for soon afterward, her own voice fell silent and she joined him in sleep.
It seemed that she had just closed her eyes when she was awakened by a nudge in the ribs. She rolled onto her back and blinked sleepily at Thakur. Brilliant morning sunlight lit the floor of the den near the entrance and the growing warmth promised a hot day.
“I have to go and teach my pupils, Ratha,” he said as he stepped over her, trailing his shadow. “Can you watch Aree and her litterlings until I get back?”
She yawned and shook her pelt, trying to rid herself of the sleepiness that still clung to her. She remembered the previous night’s events and came fully awake.
“How is Aree doing?” she asked.
“She just fed her litterlings again and they’re all asleep. They’re so tiny, but they already look fat.”
Ratha peered into the nest at the four balls of damp-fluffed fur curled up against the larger lump that was their mother. For a while, she lay with her chin resting on her crossed forepaws and watched the treelings sleep.
Later, she went outside to stretch her legs and keep watch. When she went in again to escape the full strength of the noon sun, she found Aree was awake and nursing two of her young while the others slept. She alternately dozed and watched the treeling family. Sometimes Aree would lie on her side and feed her little ones in the same manner as did the females of the Named. But often she nursed them in a different way, cradling them in her arms and holding them to her teats.
Ratha found this strange and endlessly fascinating. Aree seemed to know how to exchange her youngsters so that all got an equal share of milk, rather than having to fight their littermates for it as did the cubs of the Named. She became so absorbed that she didn’t notice the afternoon was passing until she smelled Thakur and heard his footsteps outside the den.