Клэр Белл - The Named - The Complete Series

Ratha let Mishanti down long enough to speak.“I can’t fight you with him in my jaws.”

Newt ignored her words. When Ratha held her ground with the cub between her forelegs, Newt stalked up and stood facing her. Uncertainly, Ratha watched as Newt balanced on her good foreleg, her other one drawn up against her chest. She readied herself to fend off a biting attack, thinking the cripple could not attack with her foreclaws.

Newt’s raised paw shot out. A claw dug into Ratha’s cheek fur, dragged across her face. Angrily she lashed out with both forepaws, but Newt was too quick. The two faced each other, tails flicking with rage. Quickly Ratha grabbed Mishanti and shoved him to one side. Newt took advantage of the distraction to attack. Again the two met in a brief flurry, scattering fur and droplets of blood before breaking apart.

“Can use this paw now,” Newt snarled.

“Thakur told me that he worked with you… healed you…,” Ratha panted.

“He understood, Dreambiter. He knew.”

“But he did stop. After you wrecked the pen… ”

“Too late. This leg better. Soon Newt will run on all legs, Dreambiter.”

Again she launched herself at Ratha, striking in whirl-wind slashes of claws and teeth. Enraged, Ratha fought back. She hated the instinct that made her want to seize Newt’s throat and twist until her enemy’s neck broke, yet she knew that was the instinct that would save her own life. The battle raging inside her was more savage than the frenzied bursts of combat as the two fought back and forth across the islet.

“Dreambiter,” Newt hissed, closing her teeth around the word as she stalked Ratha. “Soon I will be free of you.”

Ratha jumped sideways, letting Newt slice empty air. She hadn’t missed by much, and Ratha knew exhaustion was slowing her. “Your nightmares,” she panted.

“No, yours. You run in them. You tear me. Not once, but again and again and each time the pain comes.”

“You think you’ll end the nightmares by killing me?” Ratha spat back. “This thing that strikes at you out of your dreams is not me. It is something you have made. Killing me won’t put an end to it.” Her words were lost in the rising yowl of Newt’s battle cry and the wailing of the seawind.

The wind’s moan grew shriller, and the waves rolled higher around the islet, warning Ratha that a squall was nearing. To spring and dodge as she did on land earned her only hard, bruising falls on spray-slicked rocks, with Newt gouging at her belly.

A big wave broke across the islet, drenching them both and slithering away in a foaming cascade of gray-green water. A trembling cry struck through the tumult of the noise and fighting. Ratha saw Mishanti, engulfed by the retreating water, being dragged away. She leaped, landed badly on the craggy rocks. One forepaw slipped into a crevice, throwing her hard on her shoulder.

Ignoring the bruising, she tried to pull free but found her foot wedged into the crack. Irritated, she wiggled and jerked fruitlessly. She was stuck, her paw jammed and the cub sliding away beyond her reach.

She lunged, straining the caught leg with her frantic swipes to reach Mishanti with her free paw. As a last, wild effort, she threw herself over, stretching and scrabbling with her rear paws to catch the cub. Her trapped foreleg twisted, sending shooting pain into her breast. For a terrible moment she felt only water against her hind toes, then a wet, sliding body. She caught the cub between her two rear pads and tried to claw him up to where she could grab him. His teeth fastened in her hock in angry protest. Then she could only hang onto him while another wave spilled across the islet.

Even before the water rushed away, she felt him hitching himself up her leg as she lay on the rocks. She looked down and saw his eyes open and burning like amber flames while his needlesharp talons dug into her leg. Something had jolted him out of his numbed terror. Now he was angry, with a fierce rage to live.

Hate me, hate the world, hate everything, but stay alive,Ratha thought at him as he struggled up her wet flank, over her belly, and up her ribs. With a surge of relief, she grabbed him.

A sharp blow bashed her head against jagged rock and nearly stole her consciousness. Against her will, her jaws slackened. The cub slid from her mouth. She cursed herself for having forgotten Newt.

“You can’t use your leg, Dreambiter,” came the bitter voice. “How does it feel?”

Ratha ignored Newt, lunged groggily to reach the cub, who had tumbled into a tidepool. Her trapped leg sent fiery pains in protest. Again she had almost reached him when Newt caught the flailing paw.

Ratha stared at her daughter as Newt’s teeth came down on her leg. Though Newt could not speak now, Ratha read her eyes and seemed to hear words spoken in that flat, cold voice.

You crippled me, Dreambiter. Now you will know how it feels.

“I am not your Dreambiter,” Ratha said hoarsely. “I was once, but not now. Listen to me, Thistle-chaser. My death won’t kill the creature that torments you. It will make it even stronger.”

She curled herself up, kicking out at Newt with rear claws bared, but Newt swung herself aside, yanking Ratha into an even more painful position. Ratha yowled as Newt’s teeth sawed against her foreleg. She saw Newt grimace in frustration. A new look, closer to despair than madness, came into Newt’s eyes, but the blow to Ratha’s head, combined with the grinding pain in her trapped foreleg, had driven her close to oblivion. Newt’s face became a blur, along with everything else.

The pain abruptly grew muted. Ratha felt her paw flop free from Newt’s jaws. Through the waves of dizziness that washed over her, she heard an angry squall. Struggling to focus her vision, she saw a double image of Newt spinning around to face Mishanti.

“Yow! You bit my tail!” Newt snarled and dealt the bristling cub a slap that sent him tumbling. Shivering and snarling, he launched himself to the attack once again, leaping between Ratha and Newt. He stood astride Ratha’s extended foreleg, his head lowered, short tail lashing. With a growl, he leaped at Newt, making her draw back.

“Get him out of the way,” she hissed at Ratha. “Get rid of him, or I’ll kill him.”

Ratha could only lie still, fighting waves of gray nausea and weariness. Hopelessly she jerked at her trapped foreleg.“Do you think I can?”

Her words only enraged Newt. The sea-green eyes shrank to slits, and the ears flattened against the spray-slicked head. She bared her claws and aimed another blow at Ratha, but again Mishanti flung himself between the two. Ratha struggled to raise her head enough to grab the little warrior in her jaws and yank him aside, but she was too cold and weak. She could only croak out,“No, Thistle-chaser… ” as Newt struck the youngster.

The cub spun away with two red gashes along his flank, but he rebounded, hurling himself between Ratha and Newt. Again Newt tried to wound Ratha, tore the cub instead. He rolled aside, shuddering, his mouth wide. For one horrible instant, Ratha thought Newt had gutted him; then another gray-green surge of seawater spilled through the rocks. Ratha could feel the wave tug at her, but it wasn’t as powerful as the last few.

The cub clung to the jagged rock with his claws as the water streamed around him. It washed the blood away, letting Ratha see the new wound, a long diagonal slash across the lower ribs. When the water retreated, he fought his way back to Ratha, his soaked fur making him look almost skeletal. The welling blood and the too-bright eyes made her feel that he had become something more dangerous than just a litterling.

Again he put himself in front of Ratha, facing Newt. Ratha saw Newt’s lips writhe back, baring her teeth. She struggled to make some part of her body move, but she could get only uncoordinated jerks. Newt snapped at the cub, who wobbled aside at the last moment. Again Ratha tried to reach him and failed. Newt was preparing to lunge for the killing bite.