Клэр Белл - The Named - The Complete Series

They went up the grassy rise and over the knoll, past the ancient oak with limbs low to the ground, where, Ratha remembered, she had first seen the Un-Named raider.

Fessran’s gait slowed. Her footsteps became quieter, then ceased. Ratha crept alongside her. “There. Up ahead.” Fessran’s whiskers brushed her face. “Do you see? There they are.” Ratha felt the whiskers twitch and slide away. “Stay here, Ratha,” Fessran said. “I will have words with them.”

Ratha dug her claws into the ground to anchor her shaky legs. She stared back at the eyes watching her. They had come out of hiding and were assembled together in mute challenge. Ratha smelled the scents drifting to her on the night breeze. She searched for the remembered scent of the clan, of kinfolk, of herdfolk who had taught her their skills and those she had run beside in the meadow when the Un-Named, their enemy, were attacking. The scents were there, but not as she remembered them. The smell of the clan had become the smell of the pack.

As soon as Fessran had taken a few steps downtrail, a single hoarse voice rose from the front of the group.“Come no further unless you wish to feel our teeth in your unworthy throats!”

“Are you growing blind with age, Srass?” Ratha heard Fessran yowl. “You know me and you know Ratha, who stands behind me. Let us pass and eat at the kill.”

There was only silence and burning eyes.

“The clan knows you, Fessran,” said a deeper voice, and Ratha’s hackles rose, for she knew that voice and hated it. “But the one who follows we do not know. Turn that one away and you may come and eat.”

“The one behind me, clan herder, is one you know and know well,” Fessran said. Her voice was strained and Ratha knew she was trying not to anger Meoran. “The smell that is mingled with mine is of the herder Ratha, the she-cub that Thakur and I taught.”

“She-cub? We smell no she-cub,” Srass howled, and Ratha could imagine that Meoran stood next to Srass muttering the words into the old herder’s tattered ear. “We smell no she-cub. We smell only that which burns, that which we hate.”

“Yaran!” Fessran called, startling Ratha by naming her lair-father. “If you stand among these mangy fleabags, answer me! Do you turn away your own, the she-cub that you and Narir bore?”

“I smell no she-cub,” Yaran’s gravely voice answered, and Ratha’s belly twisted in a sharper pain than hunger.

“Have you all got dung up your noses? Ratha, come forward and show yourself so we may end this nursling’s play.”

Shaking, Ratha crept forward, her torch casting orange light on the path. As the torchlight fell on the pack, they cowered. Ratha saw Meoran blink and narrow his eyes to agate slits in his broad face.

“We smell no she-cub!” Srass’s cry rose again. “We smell only the thing we hate. Drive it away! Drive it from clan ground.” He showed his broken teeth at Ratha.

She tried to speak above the pack’s howling, but the torch in her mouth kept her mute. “Let her speak!” Fessran cried, lashing her tail. “She is Named. Let her speak.”

“Fessran, take my creature,” Ratha hissed through her teeth. As soon as her jaws were free she faced the pack.

“Look! Fessran holds it. She doesn’t fear it,” Ratha said as Fessran stood beside her, the torch between her jaws. “This is my creature. I have brought it to the clan. I am Ratha, who once herded three-horn deer. Now I herd the Red Tongue.”

Ratha heard a muffled cry and Meoran shouldered Srass aside and came to the front.

Ratha felt the ground grow damp with sweat from her paw pads. Meoran’s odor surrounded her and seemed to crush her as he would with his great weight. His eyes were enough to still a challenge in any throat. If the eyes failed, the massive jaws would succeed. Ratha caught the glint of teeth like tusks behind his lips and remembered a time when the scent of freshlydrawn blood mingled with his odor and those in the clan went about with lowered heads and eyes dull with fright.

“There will be no herder of the Red Tongue on ground I rule,” Meoran said, his gaze steady on Ratha.

“I have not come to offer challenge, clan leader. I bring my creature to serve you, to keep you warm while you guard the animals at night.”

“We do not know you, clanless and nameless one. Take the hateful thing and go.”

Cold seeped through Ratha and horror crawled across her skin like a flea seeking somewhere to bite. In those few words he had stripped her of her name, her kin and all that she knew and valued. Only one thing remained now and it blazed in the jaws of the one who stood beside her.

“Give me my creature,” she said to Fessran, who gave her a startled look at the change in her voice. Ratha took the torch from her companion.

She turned, playing the firelight across the front of the pack. They all squinted in pain and ducked their heads. Even Meoran lowered his jowled muzzle.

“Kill it!” someone screamed and the rest took up the cry. “Kill her and the thing she bears!” The pack glared at her with hateful eyes, but not one of them approached her as she swung the flame in a sweeping arc.

“Yes, kill it,” Ratha snarled through her teeth. “Come then. Tear out its throat. Spring and break its back. Here it is. What? You shy away?” She grinned around the branch. “You don’t know how to kill it, do you? Hah! Such sharp teeth the clan has. Surely you can kill a little creature like this? Or am I the only one who knows?”

“Sss, Ratha!” Fessran’s whiskers were in her ears. “You run too fast on a trail you don’t know. Thakur is in the pack. I smell him.”

“What do I care for …” Ratha growled back.

“You will care very much if he speaks what he knows,” Fessran hissed, stamping her foot near Ratha’s.

“Kill the Red Tongue!” Meoran roared.

“How? We don’t know how,” the pack wailed.

“None of you know!” Ratha brandished the torch, swinging it viciously. “The Red Tongue is my creature. It can’t be killed.”

The howls died down into a low moaning. Some of those in the front were lifting their chins and baring their throats. Baring their throats to her and the Red Tongue, Ratha realized with a shock. Not to Meoran. Again she met the clan leader’s eyes and saw kindling in them a rage that would never burn out as long as her blood ran warm and the Red Tongue danced on the end of her branch. There was no returning along the trail she had chosen to take.

Meoran glared at the nearest herder whose chin was lifted. He raised a heavy paw and struck the supplicant, driving the lifted muzzle into the dirt. Other heads turned in fear of him, but Ratha could see that their terror of the fire was greater and the sudden fear in his eyes told her he also knew.

Ratha lifted the torch, casting its light further across the huddled bodies, seeking Thakur. She heard his voice before she saw him.

“Hear me, you of the clan. The Red Tonguecan be killed. I saw her do it.”

Beside her, Ratha felt Fessran start. She saw Meoran spring over the backs of the crouching pack and land among them again, ignoring the squalls of those crushed by his bulk. He seized Thakur by the scruff and dragged him out of the crowd. He flipped Thakur on his back and spread a massive paw on his chest.

“You would speak, herder. Tell what you know.” Meoran seized and shook him.

Thakur twisted his head to look at Ratha.“He will kill you, yearling,” he said calmly, bright blood running down his neck. “Take your creature and run away now.”

Ratha’s lower jaw was trembling so that her teeth vibrated against the torch shaft and she could barely hold it aloft.

“Speak, herder!” said Meoran between his teeth. Ratha swung the torch at him, but Thakur was closer and in the way. However much Ratha hated Thakur for betraying her, she could not use the fire against him. She knew Meoran sensed her reluctance, for as he moved, he thrust Thakur in front of him, a shield between himself and the vengeful thing that fluttered on Ratha’s branch. He clawed at Ratha from behind Thakur’s head and over Thakur’s shoulder. Fessran danced around them, trying to distract Meoran enough so that she could snatch Thakur from the clan leader’s jaws.