Клэр Белл - The Named - The Complete Series

In answer, Thakur lay down, forming himself into a half circle around Thistle, his tail lying across hers, his head lifted so that he could look into her eyes.You make the rest of the circle, his eyes seemed to tell Ratha. She arranged herself on the other side of Thistle, draping her tail across Thakur’s and bringing up her forepaws to touch his. Her belly lay against her daughter’s rear foot and flank.

“All right, Thistle. Go … inside,” Thakur said.

The clear green in Thistle’s eyes seemed to shift, as if a cloud were moving across sunlit water. Her breathing grew fast and shallow and her jaw opened as she panted.

Thakur’s voice was soft yet strong. “Don’t be afraid. We’re here. We’re both here.”

Thistle swallowed, but her panting cased. Ratha’s own heart was pounding so hard she thought that Thakur might be able to hear it. Mingled dread and excitement swept through her. At last she was going to meet and battle the enemy.

“Dreaming,” Thistle said in a distant voice. “Caves. Walking. Speaking not easy.”

“Say what you can,” Thakur coaxed.

“Oh!” Thistle gave a sharp indrawn breath.

“What?” Ratha asked, her voice tight with anxiety and eagerness.

“Easy, Ratha,” Thakur said softly, pushing his forefeet against hers.

“Even here. Far away. It comes.”

“The badness?” Thakur asked.

“Oh, no!” Thistle’s face was rapt. “Good. Sweet. Want to follow.”

Thakur looked surprised.“The song? You can hear True-of-voice’s song?”

“Yes. So faint. Want to be closer.”

Thakur leaned closer to Ratha, who was bursting with impatience.“She’s picking up the song, the thing True-of-voice sends out to his people. I’m surprised. They’re pretty far away from us.”

“It won’t hurt her, will it? It won’t take her over?” Ratha’s worry made her whisper harsh. She felt intensely uncomfortable with the idea that the strange leader of the hunters could somehow reach from a distance and lure her daughter. She had thought she would have to fight only one threat. Not two.

“Want to go closer,” Thistle begged.

“Go,” Thakur answered.

A look crept across Thistle’s face that Ratha had rarely, if ever, seen. It was happiness. Pure delight.

“Not walking anymore,” Thistle said. “Swimming. Like… in the sea. But warmer. Softer.” Again she gave a sharp gasp. “Oh! Ahead brightness, shape, color, beauty… sweetness in the ears, the nose, the eyes, the skin, everywhere. No words good enough to say.”

“To say what, Thistle?” Thakur asked gently.

“What it is. What he is. What she is.”

“True-of-voice?”

“More than True-of-voice. Wise ones sing through him. Wise ones now dead sing through him. Fathers, mothers, all sing through him.”

Ratha felt her fur prickle as she listened. Wonder and dread fought inside her. This was stranger than anything she had ever encountered before. And it was in her own daughter! What was Thistle-chaser? More than Named. More than Un-Named. Something else, working through both, had shaped her.

“I’m lost, Thistle,” Ratha heard Thakur say.

“Not lost. Never be lost again.” Her daughter’s voice was breathy. The black of her pupils had gone to tiny slits in swirls of sea-green.

“I mean that I don’t understand.”

“Will tell you. When I come back.”

Come back! She might never come back. Ratha gave Thakur’s forefoot a sharp push to get his attention. “Where’s she going? What is this?”

“I don’t know. She’s never gone this far before,” Thakur admitted. “Having you here has done something.”

“It’s scaring me. Take her out of it.”

“It’s not frightening her. Let her go, Ratha. She knows this path better than you.”

“I don’t want to lose her! Seeing her sitting there, staring at nothing, makes me feel as though I have a million fleas in my fur. She might… just… stay… like that for the rest of her life.”

Thakur started to say something, but Thistle interrupted. Her voice was strangely light and she turned her head to gaze at Ratha, although the remoteness was still in her eyes.

“Do not be afraid, my mother. Can come back if I want. Help me to go on. Need you to help me go on.”

“Thistle, I care too much. I’m frightened. This is too strange. Come back. Please. I–I love you.”

“Must reach where the hunters are to speak to them.”

“I-is it that important to you?”

“Yes. If you give love, give trust too.”

Ratha closed her eyes, pressed her feet against Thakur’s, feeling the answering warmth. “Then I trust you. Go where you must.”

“Not sure about doing. But must try.”

Ratha opened her eyes, fixing her gaze on her daughter as Thistle continued her inward flight. Who had given her this ability? The one called Bonechewer who was her father, the brash and gifted outsider, Thakur’s brother?

Or was the ability from Ratha’s own lineage, a trait that had hidden among her parents and grandparents to emerge now in her daughter?

“Where are you now, Thistle?” Ratha asked, feeling her voice trembling.

“Swimming, but no closer. Sea is getting thick, heavy. Brightness ahead hard to see. Something… coming between.”

Ratha tensed.

Thistle’s voice rose in pitch. “Down deep. Getting cold. Swimming too hard. Have to walk. In the distance, hear footsteps.”

This was it. The long-dreaded enemy was at last making an approach. Ratha saw Thakur squirm closer to Thistle, guarding her, protecting her.

What good will it do when the enemy is inside? Ratha thought in despair, but she also wriggled closer to Thistle.

“Can’t block the way!” Thistle cried out in sudden rage. “Fight you, fire-eyes. Tear you before you can tear me!”

She sank to a crouch, her forepaws sliding out in front of her. She was starting to shake. Ratha could feel it.

And then Thistle began to draw one foot up against her chest, as if the leg that had been healed was being crippled again, right before Ratha’s eyes.

“No, you aren’t going to take her again!” Ratha cried, as if the nightmare could hear her. “Fight it, Thistle. Drive it off!”

But Thistle only seemed to crumple under a terrible weight of pain, her leg pulled tightly against her chest. Ratha felt a storm of rage building inside her against the thing that tortured her daughter.

In her mind she flung herself at the enemy, ripped it with her claws, savaged it with her teeth, and then set it aflame with a torch. In a low, hissing voice, she spoke her battle aloud, and the depth of her hatred. She would kill the Dreambiter a thousand times if she had to, rip out its throat and its guts so that it bled.

But it was Thistle who bled. From an invisible wound. And each time Ratha screamed her rage at the Dreambiter, Thistle drew a little further into a tight ball of pain.

And at last, though Ratha was far from emptied of rage, the sight, the feel, the smell of her daughter’s suffering made her voice break as she cried, “Thistle, I am with you. I hate this thing as much as you do. Fight it … Please fight it.”

But Thistle only huddled and shuddered. Thakur put a paw on Ratha’s nose to quiet her. She jerked her head back, baring her teeth, the wildness and the anger focusing on him, wanting to attack him.

Everything was fierce, wild, flaming. She would hurt, she would kill if she did not get away. It was out of control. She had to run or the fire inside her would destroy Thakur, Thistle, everything.

She was already on her feet, running, not caring where she went. She would charge into the midst of the hunters and go down in a last frenzied battle. She would tear her way through them until she found True-of-voice and locked her teeth in his throat.