Клэр Белл - The Named - The Complete Series

She felt Thakur drop into the ditch beside her, seize her scruff and shake her.“Ratha, stop! We’re finished. If you go any farther, the water-path will flood before we’re ready.”

She blinked, trying to pull herself out of her daze. She scrambled out of the trench after Thakur and saw that he was right. Only the remaining thin wall of earth held back the stream. When the time came, they would dig at the embankment to weaken it until it broke, sending the flow down the spillway, into the hollow and down the cracks that vented the cave below. The cave-fire would perish in a rush of water, and those who tended it would be swept away.

Despite her exhaustion, Ratha felt a surge of triumph. She was ready. Now all the remained was to wait.

The sun hid for days behind a heavy bank of clouds, and the rain fell without ceasing. The stream began to swell, surging and cutting away at its banks until Ratha feared the wall of earth at the high end of the spillway would not hold it back. Now she crouched on the rise above the stream bank, watching the swirling water with anxious eyes.

The break had to be controlled, Thakur had said. If the packed earth gave way too soon or in the wrong place, the rushing water could destroy the channel and race down the hillside, missing the hollow. All their work would be useless if that happened.

Ratharee huddled on the ground beneath her, seeking shelter from the rain in the warmth between her forepaws and her breast. Ratha could feel the little body shiver.

“It won’t be long now, Ratharee,” she said softly, feeling the treeling’s paws on her forefeet. “Bira’s gone down to spy on the cave. She’ll be back soon.”

As she waited for Bira, she found herself thinking about Shongshar, as she had often done during the past days. At first her mind had been clouded with hate. Once the cave-fire was destroyed and his rule ended, she vowed to force the Firekeepers to change their arrogant ways. No one in the clan would speak Shongshar’s name without a hiss. Both his memory and his ways would be buried.

Yet she now realized that as ruthless and cruel as he had become, Shongshar had greater vision than she had. He was right: she had left the true understanding of the Red Tongue’s power to him, and thereby forfeited her leadership. The veneration of fire had thrust her people into debasement and a savagery previously unknown among their kind, but it also fed a hunger of the spirit, a need that could neither be ignored nor denied.

He was also right that the Named were pushed beyond themselves by the awesome presence of the Red Tongue. Not only did gazing into the fire inspire them to greater strength and courage, it gave them the vision to seek beyond the limits of their everyday life for a sense of meaning. Even Shongshar’s dream of extending his rule beyond clan ground was as inspired as it was arrogant, she admitted grudgingly.

As much as she hoped to obliterate all traces of his rule from among her people, she knew some of the things he had done could not be changed. This realization had forced her to put aside her hate long enough to see that not everything the Firekeepers had done under his rule was wrong. Storing wood and sheltering the source-fire in the cave were sound ideas, even though they had been turned to self-serving purposes.

If a large shelter such as the cave had been located in the meadow instead of far up the creek trail, it would have been more difficult to misuse. Had the Firekeepers been made to understand that the Red Tongue’s power was a gift for all to share, perhaps it might have been more difficult for Shongshar to lead them astray. And if she had understood the need of her people to belong to a power greater than themselves and used it for good instead of turning it aside, then Shongshar might not have been able to turn the clan against her.

Ratha heard the slap of wet pads and caught the smell of Bira’s soggy pelt. The shapes of the young female and her tree-ling appeared through the rain.

“Most of the Firekeepers are inside,” she panted as she crouched beside Ratha. “Shongshar is having a great feast in the cave. Where are Thakur and Fessran?”

“They’re coming.” Ratha shivered with cold and impatience.

When the other two arrived, Bira told them the news. They looked at each other with rising excitement and then all eyes turned to Ratha.

“Take Ratharee, Fessran,” she said and sprang onto the top earth dike holding back the stream. Dirt flew into the foaming water. She attacked the soil as if it were Shongshar’s throat; rage made her paw strokes more powerful.

“They’ll be starting … to dance … around the Red Tongue… soon,” she growled as she redoubled her efforts. Brown water began to trickle through the channel between her feet. She was turning to Thakur with a grin when she felt the earth give way beneath her.

Her triumph quickly turned to terror as the earth wall broke and toppled. She threw herself to one side, twisting and scrabbling for a clawhold. She landed on her belly, her hindquarters and tail in the surging flood that spilled through the break. As the wall crumbled the current grew stronger, tugging at her hindquarters. She splashed and kicked with frantic strength, knowing that if she fell beneath the pouring water, she would never fight her way to the surface. She would be carried like a leaf down into the frothing cauldron that would fill the hollow. The Red Tongue would have its revenge even before it died.

That thought gave her the added strength to stretch farther up the bank and drive her claws into harder ground. Her shoulder muscles cramped with the effort of dragging her body from the hungry current. Part of the bank broke away beneath one forepaw and she dangled, held by the claws of the other. She felt teeth seize her flailing paw and grunted as she was yanked up until her chest and then her belly lay on the edge.

Someone caught her scruff, someone else grabbed a hind paw, and treeling hands were on her tail. She was hauled, dragged and rolled away as the rest of the bank caved in, threatening to sweep away both her and her rescuers. When they finally reached safe ground, she could only lie and pant while the others looked anxiously at her.

“I’m all right,” she gasped, struggling to her feet. “See what’s happened.” She shook herself, though it was useless in the heavy rain, and staggered to where the others stood.

Water from the rain-swollen stream coursed into the channel, washing away the remains of the earthen wall. The flood widened and deepened its new course, eating farther into the original streambed and diverting more and more water into the spillway. Ratha and Bira ran along the edge of their ditch, following the foaming wave down to the bottom of the hollow. The strength of the current was enough to send the muddy water fountaining up onto the slope of the hollow and right into the cracks venting the cave.

“We’ve done it!” Ratha roared to Bira as they galloped back to the top where Fessran and Thakur waited.

“We certainly have,” said Thakur as she reached him. “Look. The stream’s left its old path entirely.” He pointed with his paw toward the streambed below the spillway opening. Only a small trickle of water ran between puddles in the sand.

Above the roar of water surging into the channel, Ratha caught the sound of shrieks and cries drifting up from far below.

“The cave-fire must be dead!” she cried, leaping up. “Now we strike against Shongshar!”

She led the four of them down past the new lake that was filling the hollow, to the trail that led to the bottom of the waterfall. She noticed that the sound of the fall was gone. Instead, the noise of falling water came from the cave that had once been the Red Tongue’s den. A torrent gushed from the entrance, washing away a portion of the trail that ran beside the stream and cutting its way back to fill the now-empty streambed.