Клэр Белл - The Named - The Complete Series

Ratha sniffed a pole that had been knocked askew. Thakur could tell by her expression that she couldn’t smell anything; the briny water had washed away any remaining odor. But he didn’t need the odor to know who had done this and why. He also felt the sharp jabs of his conscience. He had helped and encouraged Newt to regain some use of her leg and with it increased mobility and a greater capacity to destroy what the Named had built. Still, the healer in Thakur argued, he had done the right thing.

“This was done by someone who could swim well, since the water was high last night,” Ratha said. “Also someone who has plagued our efforts with the seamares ever since we arrived. And we both know who that is, herding teacher.”

Thakur felt his ears and whiskers sag as water dribbled off them.“I didn’t think she was strong enough to wreck the pen.”

“That was a lot of work for us and the treelings,” Ratha said. “And we are going to have to catch all the seamares again, which will be twice as hard. We may not be able to find them again.” She paused. “Thakur, I’ve tried to be nice to you about this, but this three-legged renegade of yours has caused more trouble than we can afford right now. If I catch sight of her, I am going to give her a good cuffing to drive her away, and I’m ordering everyone else to do the same. Including you.”

Thakur looked away.“You don’t have to make that an order, clan leader,” he growled between his teeth. “I know where my duty lies.” Though he was furious with Newt, the thought of chasing her off only made him feel worse. He hung his head. “Ratha, the way we were keeping the seamares penned here wasn’t agood thing. She tried to tell us in the best way she knew, and we didn’t listen.”

“By the Red Tongue’s ashes, how are we supposed to keep the beasts where we want them, then? If we didn’t pen them, they’d use those duck-feet of theirs to swim away, and then where would we be?” Ratha’s teeth clicked as she shivered, and Thakur knew the chilly water wasn’t doing her temper any good.

“The ones she keeps don’t swim away,” he retorted.

“But we can’t live among them and just scavenge off dead young ones, as she does. Even in this small group, there are too many of us.”

“Newt doesn’t just scavenge. It’s something more than that. She knows the beasts, and they know her. They accept her, and they trust her.”

Ratha only snorted.

“No, it is true. Our herdbeasts may tolerate us and accept the protection we give them from other meat eaters, but we do not have the kind of bond that she seems to have developed with these seamares. That is what I want to learn from her.”

“Is that worth a wrecked pen and so much work gone to waste?” she retorted.

Thakur was prepared to snap back at her when he realized how silly it must seem to anyone watching. Here stood the clan leader and the herding teacher, up to their bellies in clammy seawater, shivering and arguing.

“Come on, Ratha. Let’s get out and fluff our coats dry, then we can talk sense,” he suggested. He turned and splashed toward shore.

She followed, complaining that this soggy existence was going to ruin her coat. The salt crystals, she said, were already making her skin itch.

“Well, maybe the water will drown your fleas,” he answered.

“That may be true. I don’t have as many now,” she admitted, her mood lightening as the morning sun warmed both of them. “Herding teacher, I understand that you think this outcast has something we should learn. I won’t disagree with you, but”—and here she pointed her nose toward the pen—“I can’t let something like this happen again. Keep her away from our herd of seamares once we get them back. I don’t care how you do it, but keep her away.”

Thakur looked her in the eye and answered,“Yes, clan leader. ”

It took Thakur most of the rest of the day to find Newt, and when he did, he could see she was angry. But the longer she glared at him, the more her flattened ears began to droop. Savagely she turned her head away then looked at the ground between her paws.

Thakur sat down. She glared at him again, then hissed, lifting her lame foreleg with claws bared.“Paw can scratch,” she said. His eyes followed the motion of her foreleg. She was right; she had gained enough flexibility and strength in the limb that she could strike out with that forepaw.

“Thakur go now,” said Newt sullenly, lapsing into her rhyming, “or will say yow.” She waved the paw at him, swishing her tail.

“Thakur hurt Newt,” she said accusingly.

“Newt hurt Thakur too,” he answered, not letting her break his gaze. “You wrecked the pen we built.”

“Thakur and… others took… ” Newt faltered, stumbling on her lack of words for what she wanted to say. She tried again. “Big one, little one, they swim.” She made an odd paddling motion, spreading the toes of her foot to suggest the webbed, splayed feet of the seamares.

Thakur felt a sting of guilt, even though he had tried to dissuade Ratha from taking more seamares.“Why didn’t you come to me?”

“Me,” Newt said echoing him. “Seamares free because of me. Thakur see?”

“I asked you to stay away from that pen. Now I’m in trouble for helping you, and you are in more trouble if any of the Named catch you there again. Why didn’t you come to me instead?”

She jerked her head up and stared at him with a strange new bitterness.“Come to you. Come to Dreambiter as well. She walks with you. Her smell. Her track. Newt knows.”

Thakur felt himself on uncertain ground.

Newt’s eyes narrowed. “Thakur knows too. And doesn’t speak.”

“I haven’t said anything because I don’t know enough yet about what happened to you. And if you think you have the right to attack one of the Named because you smell her in your dreams, I’m sorry, but I won’t let you do that.”

“Named.” Newt wrinkled her nose. “Named, lamed.”

Her derisiveness and her accusations were starting to get under his skin.“You’re only describing yourself, Thistle-chaser,” he retorted, letting his temper get the better of him. Then he froze and snapped his jaw shut, but it was too late. She had heard that last utterance.

“Thistle-chaser?” Newt said the word slowly, as if tasting it. Thakur could see feelings fleeting through her eyes like clouds being whipped across the sky by a harsh wind. For an instant her eyes were brighter and clearer than he had ever seen them, then a shroud of pain wiped away the brightness.

He swore inwardly at himself. The last thing he had intended to do was use the name as a weapon, but she had goaded him into flinging it at her. And why had he used it? Because he knew from the feeling in his belly that this was Ratha’s daughter.

Newt stayed still, turned far inward. Slowly her legs gave way beneath her, and she sagged until her chin lay on the ground. Her chin moved slightly as she muttered the name again.

Thakur began to think she had gone into a gentler form of her usual fit, when she suddenly bounced up and limped around him in circles, whimpering and rubbing her nose with a forepaw.

“Newt, what’s wrong?”

“Thistle. Hurts. Jumped on. Hurts.”

He caught her long enough to pry her paw away from her nose and look to see if there was a thorn embedded but found nothing. Her circling became more frenzied and then degenerated into a series of short jumps back and forth, as if she was dodging something only she could see.

“Go to him. He will help. Not to the Dreambiter. Says she’ll never learn… eyes are empty,” she babbled. Now she was bounding around on her three legs like a cub at play, but at every other step a shudder went through her as if she had collided with something unseen. Thakur felt chilled. This was unlike any of her other fits, and it seemed to have complete possession of her. Afraid she was gone for good, he caught up with her and laid a paw on her, trying to halt her mad dance.