Клэр Белл - The Named - The Complete Series

With the shock came the flooding pain that raged from her shoulder and chest to her foreleg, drawing the leg up in a cramped knot. Writhing, screaming, she clawed at the Dreambiter with her good forepaw, but her foe was made of nothingness, and her claws found no hold. Then the jaws released her, but the release was almost worse than the bite, for when the teeth pulled out, it hurt more than ever, and the hurt flamed and seared until the pain burned away everything — herself, the caves, the Dreambiter — until all were ashes.

And the ashes were picked up by the wind and swirled high into the sky. They slowly drifted down.

Ratha yanked her claws from the driftwood as soon as she saw Thistle stiffen. She was beside her daughter in an instant, seeing the milky sea-green color of her eyes swirl, closing the pupils to points. With a jerk that freed her claws from the log, Thistle staggered backward on her hind legs, overbalanced, and fell on her back.

“Fessran!” Ratha yowled her friend’s name, thanking the impulse that had drawn the Firekeeper leader to come with her on this visit to Thistle’s beach. Fessran was a short distance down the beach, looking after Mishanti, the young cub Thistle had adopted. Ratha wished Thakur were there, buthe was gone on the search for the face-tailed beasts.

Thistle’s tail lashed the sand; her claws raked it. She writhed, hissed, and spat, striking with bared claws at an enemy only she could see. Then she screamed aloud with pain, and the foreleg she had been stretching pulled up against her chest and locked there, as if once again crippled and shrunken.

Ratha found her voice joining Thistle’s wordless cries, as if she could drive the nightmare from her daughter by sheer force of rage. She caught Thistle by the scruff, trying to hold her gently and tenderly as if she were a small cub. When she and her brothers were small, Ratha had carried them that way. She remembered how the wiggling bodies relaxed in her jaws, for the cubs sensed that they were safe.

Thistle only struggled harder, wrenching Ratha’s head back and forth. Ratha tried to soothe and calm her daughter with words, but her mouth was full of Thistle’s fur.

Fessran galloped up, her sandy-colored coat blackened with streaks of soot from the fires she tended. Raising her voice above Thistle’s squalling, Fessran yowled, “Quit the mother stuff, Ratha. It doesn’t work. The only thing to do is get her to the lagoon.” With her jaws she seized Thistle at the root of the tail and began hauling her toward a briny pool that lay behind the upper beach. Ratha, her mouth full of fur and her head swimming from being jerked back and forth, followed Fessran’s tugging.

Together they got Thistle over the sand and into the pool. Fearing that her daughter would drown while in the fit, Ratha held Thistle’s head up, but Fessran told her to let go.

“She’ll lift her nose to breathe. Just leave her alone. The water calms her. I don’t know why, but it works.”

Ratha knew that Fessran was right. As soon as the pool had wetted Thistle’s flank, she relaxed and stopped fighting. Now she drifted, looking like an orange-splotched brown sea otter. Ratha waited to see that she did lift her nose to take breaths and only then did she leave her daughter and wade to shore with Fessran.

She permitted herself one angry swipe at the ripples crossing the lagoon, jealous that its waters could soothe Thistle when she could not. Then she shook herself hard, sending spray flying in all directions.

“Come on,” said Fessran.

Ratha stayed silent, looking at Thistle.

Fessran nudged her.“I know you are angry. Be angry somewhere else.”

Fessran’s suggestion wasn’t the most helpful, but Ratha couldn’t think of an alternative. When they had gone a short distance from the pool, Ratha flopped down on her side. Wanting comfort, she wished she had her treeling, but she had left Ratharee safely hidden, just in case something like this should happen. Fessran sat down, curling her tail about her feet.

“She will be all right?” Ratha asked.

“Every time she gets one of those fits, Thakur drags her over and throws her in. Sometimes Thistle gets herself in when she feels it coming on. This one must have been too sudden.”

Ratha lay, trying not to resent the fact that Fessran and Thakur knew more about Thistle than she did. Her tail flipped irritably.

“Are you angry at me?” Fessran asked.

“No.”

“At her?”

“Yes and no. It isn’t her fault that she has fits. Thakur says that now they don’t come as often, but I hate seeing her in them. And when I come to visit, she seems uneasy.”

“Well,” said Fessran slowly, “it is still hard for her to be near you.”

“If I were her I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near me,” Ratha said bitterly. “I wouldn’t want to be near a mother who had attacked and bitten me for something I could not help. If I hadn’t been so reckless and cruel …”

“Before you pull out more of your own fur,” Fessran said, “let me tell you one thing.”

“What?”

“Young ones can be stupid.”

“That doesn’t justify what I did. She might have been slow-witted, but—”

Fessran interrupted.“I’m not talking about Thistle. I’m talking about you. You had those cubs when you were scarcely more than a cub yourself.” She paused. “You were young. Young ones can be stupid. They haven’t had time to learn or they are too impatient. You bit Thistle because you were young. You are older now. You wouldn’t do it again.”

Ratha opened her mouth to make a retort, then closed it again. Fessran gave her a quizzical look and said, a bit smugly,“These things are all simple when you turn them around the right way. It’s like learning to open a herdbeast carcass. You have to start at the right place.”

“Only you would say it that way,” Ratha grumbled, laying her nose on the sand.

“Only you would need to hear it that way, clan leader,” Fessran answered lightly, nibbling crusted sand from one paw. “Do you feel better?”

“I should say I feel worse, just to spite you.” Ratha eyed her friend. “But I do feel better.”

Fessran stood up and shook herself off again, peering down the beach. Ratha remembered that she had been watching Mishanti while Thistle did her leg stretching.

“I made him sit down and told him to stay there,” Fessran said. “I have no doubt that he is now tearing all over the beach. I am beginning to think that his ears have no connection to the inside of his head.” With a sigh, she added, “I had better go and look for him.”

“Wait,” Ratha said as she saw a puff of dust rise from the cliff where the path ran down to the beach. “He might be up there.” She stared harder. “No. That’s someone else.”

Fessran joined her in squinting at the path.“They’re certainly in a hurry, judging by all the dust being kicked up. Or clumsy. No, both — that’s my son Khushi up on the trail.”

Khushi! Ratha had sent him off many days ago with Bira and Thakur to find the face-tailed beasts. What had happened to bring him back so soon? Her ears swiveled forward as she watched Khushi skitter around one bend after another on the switchbacks of the trail. Soon he was down on the beach, bounding over the dunes.

“Clan leader!” he cried as he slid to a stop. “Thakur sent me with a message.”

“Is he well? Is Bira well?”

“Yes, they are both fine. We found the face-tailed beasts you sent us after. But we also found another tribe of clan-cats. That is why Thakur sent me back.”

“Another clan like us?” Ratha stared at him.

Khushi’s words spilled out in a breathless rush. “Well, Thakur thinks they may turn out to be like us, although they are hunters and not herders. He has been having trouble trying to talk to them, and that is why he wants you to come. He wants Thistle-chaser as well.”