Клэр Белл - The Named - The Complete Series

“Don’t think about eating,” he said when he saw the thought in Khushi’s eyes. “We won’t get close to the kill. The chances are that they will smell something strange about us, despite the dung, and chase us away.”

To Thakur’s astonishment, his deception worked. In the fading light the two managed to pass the outer fringes of the large group without being challenged. To one side, Thakur saw spotted cubs gamboling around their parents. He and Khushi skirted a group of half-grown males all snoring together in a pile.

“They don’t even post sentries?” Khushi whispered to Thakur.

“Why should they? Who is going to attack them? As for the kill, it is too heavy to be stolen, and they have eaten all they want.”

Thakur looked about for someone who might respond to their approach. He chose a group of three who were resting but not asleep. One was toying with a broken piece of rib bone, but none were still eating. As one lifted a muzzle against the sky, Thakur could see that the fangs were long enough to show outside the mouth.

The sight of those teeth reminded him of Shongshar, the orange-eyed stranger that Ratha had once taken into the clan. Could these hunters be his people? Feeling a chill, Thakur hoped not. Shongshar had turned into a tyrant, overthrowing Ratha and ruling the clan with his savage ways and long saber-teeth. One of his kind was enough.

But the fangs of these hunters were not as long as Shongshar’s, although their teeth were longer than Thakur’s own. The length seemed to vary in different individuals. It also did among the Named, although not to such extremes.

He realized that he was delaying, fearful of making the first try at speaking to these people. Was he more afraid of provoking an attack or of losing his hope that this group might be a clan like the Named? He did not know.

“Khushi, stay close behind me and don’t say anything,” he warned. His mouth, wetted by appetite, went dry with apprehension. His usually eloquent tail felt stiff and clumsy. Swallowing to moisten his tongue, he deliberately approached the other group. Eyes — green, gold, and amber — shone in the fading dusk.

He feared that his heart was booming loud enough for everyone to hear. His pelt felt as though it would jump right off his body — every hair was standing so much on end. Would the face-tail hunters know him for a stranger and attack, or would they welcome him as a brother?

Not trusting the manure scent to conceal his smell entirely, he and Khushi positioned themselves downwind of the three they were approaching. He lifted his tail in a friendly arch.

One, a tawny female with heavy shoulders, got up. He was afraid she would snarl, but instead she extended her muzzle for a nose-touch. His hopes leaped up. This was the same greeting the Named knew and used. Eagerly he answered in kind, breathing in her scent. It was much like that of his own people, though overlaid with the powerful aroma of face-tail.

The two others in the group roused themselves and also greeted him with the nose-touch. One even rubbed a welcoming chin on Thakur’s shoulder and flopped a tail across his back. Khushi was also accepted.

Yet as soon as the nose-touching and rubbing were finished, the three turned back to lazing or grooming or playing, without a word to the newcomers. Thakur found this disconcerting. They must have recognized that he was a stranger. Why, then, hadn’t they attacked him or chased him away?

Or, if for some reason they had chosen to accept him anyway, why wouldn’t they say something to him?

He rolled over on his side, nudging Khushi to follow suit. He would have to speak first. A dismaying thought seized him. He had not heard any of these hunters talk. Suppose Bira was right and they couldn’t.

No, that can’t be true, he argued to himself. They could not have organized that hunt if they couldn’t tell each other what to do.

Perhaps their language was all gesture and scent. As Thakur considered that possibility, he heard a voice that was not Khushi’s.

“Give the bone,” it said. The heavy-shouldered female was trying to paw the rib fragment from the male who was playing with it.

“No. Go get another. There are plenty left in the carcass,” came the irritable reply.

Thakur’s heart leaped in excitement. Not only did these ones speak, but they used a language so close to that of the Named that he could understand what they said. He waited tensely, hoping someone would speak to him.

The female yawned.“The meat was tender.”

“Salty,” said the other.

“Go drink,” the male advised. “There are places at the water hole.”

Thakur’s ears, which had been sharply pricked, started to sag. Surely they had more interesting things to say than this. He made himself stay quiet and listen, but he heard only more of the same.

Khushi, bored, yawned widely, showing all his teeth. He snapped his mouth shut self-consciously.

“Open it again,” said the male who was playing with the bone. Thakur blinked when he realized the command had been given to Khushi. Khushi was startled, too. Thakur had to nuzzle him before he responded.

The male peered into Khushi’s mouth. “Those fangs are too short. Stop eating bones. They wear teeth down. The song says good teeth are needed for the hunt. Listen to the song.”

“The … song?” asked Khushi, but he spoke so softly that the male didn’t hear him. Thakur listened, but he could hear nothing like the courting yowls the Named called songs.

Puzzled, he asked the hunter,“What are you listening to?”

He thought he spoke clearly, but the male only gave him a baffled look.“Those words are confusing,” the other said. “Speak again.”

Thakur had no idea why his question was not clear.“The song,” he faltered.

“The song is always being sung,” the other stated.

“Why can’t I—”

“Stop speaking!” the male ordered sharply. “Those words make no sense.”

Puzzled and slightly irritated, Thakur closed his mouth. He noticed that the others in the group were eyeing him as if he were something noxious that had walked into their midst. What had he said? He wondered if it had been wise for him to confess he could not hear this“ song” or whatever it was that they were making such a fuss about.

Perhaps if he stayed away from that, he might make some headway. With a sinking heart he realized that it was already too late. His easy acceptance and anonymity in the group were gone. Now he was the subject of attention and discussion.

“The ears don’t work,” said the female, looking at him with a grimace and turning to the male.

“The ears do work. The words are heard.”

“The song is not heard.” The female stared at Thakur with molten-gold eyes.

Without answering her stare directly, Thakur tried to get a good look into her eyes. He expected to meet a gaze that was much like his own. He felt the fur prickle up and down his tail when he could not find what he sought. The look in her eyes was neither the blank, unknowing stare of the animal-like Un-Named, nor the sharp, aware gaze of his own people. It was aware, yes, but the awareness was somehow… different.

“The song is heard,” Thakur put in quickly, imitating the odd style of speech.

He hoped his answer would mollify the hunters, but the suspicion in the female’s face grew deeper as she stared at him. “The form is not known to True-of-voice. The eyes are not known; the voice is not known.”

What did she mean? Thakur could make no sense out of what she was saying. Perhaps True-of-voice was her name.

“True-of-voice,” he repeated. “Is that you? Is True-of-voice your name?”

He did not know if she understood him or not, but he saw he had made a major blunder. She flattened her ears and spat.