Клэр Белл - The Named - The Complete Series

The face-tail unleashed the rest of her wrath against the ones who had tried to save their leader. Ratha heard Thistle screech in dismay as a vicious downswing of the face-tail’s trunk clubbed Quiet Hunter in the ribs and sent him tumbling to one side.

And then, as if she had made her choice, the red-eyed, shaggy-pelted animal pivoted on the brink and let herself topple to join her slaughtered companions below. With a hail of rocks, she was gone, and the dust was already settling on the bloodied and torn ground where True-of-voice had fought for his life.

To Thistle, the song screamed in a blending of voices high and low. It was True-of-voice himself and all those that sang through him. The fierce hunting sound of the song turned into the sound of terror, a fang thrust through the mind. Then all was bleak and quiet.

She had been in the center of the song, rushing with Quiet Hunter to defend the beloved singer. Now she was snatched away, thrust back into the caverns inside herself. They were no longer jeweled and shimmering with the light of the song. As if a vaulted arch had fallen in, blocking the sun rays from above, all went dark. The shadows took possession. And shadows were where the Dreambiter prowled.

What had been a haven for her was now a threat. She fled outward, as if the rumble behind her were the sound of a cave-in. Yet the paths to the outside, once well-known, had become little-used and forgotten. Like the hunters, she, too, was trapped, and though she ran to the side of the beloved one who had fallen under the face-tail’s strike, she could not break through to him. She could only fling herself against the inward walls that would not yield to either panic or rage. And soon, close behind her, she heard the echoing growl of the Dreambiter.

The battle was over. Finished. Ratha let out the breath she was holding, moved legs that felt as though they had been frozen. Thakur was already urging her away silently, with pressure from his body. She resisted, looking frantically for Thistle. Her daughter was there, crouching beside a breathless and dazed Quiet Hunter.

The other hunters looked dazed, too, even though they hadn’t been struck by the face-tail. They milled in confusion at the edge of the drop-off, as if unable to comprehend what had happened.

In an instant everything had changed. True-of-voice was gone. Had the song gone with him?

Ratha saw the answer in the shocked and stricken look in Thistle’s eyes, in the way Quiet Hunter, who had been the bravest of the hunters in his attempt to free True-of-voice, now lay shaking and helpless on the ground.

True-of-voice was gone. Without him as the source of the song that moved and shaped their actions, the hunters were as helpless as newborn cubs.

Ratha felt a bleakness within her and a sense of horror as she watched the hunters turn to one another, lost and frightened, perhaps for the first time in their lives. And Thistle… her Thistle … shared their loss, their agony. Thistle’s agony was overwhelming her as well. Ratha knew how deeply her daughter cared for Quiet Hunter.

But isn’t this what you wanted; isn’t this what you worked for? a voice spoke inside her.You said you wanted the hunters dead. Without True-of-voice, they essentially are. There is no opposition now. The Named will prevail.

She suddenly wished that things had not happened this way. True-of-voice did not deserve this. Nor did his people. Nor her daughter.

Thakur moved closer to her, silently communicating his presence, his support. He was the one who knew Thistle best. She wanted to ask him to go to her daughter and offer the comfort that she could not.

Let him comfort her so that I can back away… again, she thought miserably. But then suddenly something flamed up inside her, as hot and strong as the Red Tongue itself.No. I’m not going to shy away from her any longer. I care too much about her.

Ratha glanced warily at the hunters, wondering if she should avoid them, but they were all so preoccupied with the loss of their leader that they could only sit and stare or walk in dazed circles. All she got was a puzzled look or a halfhearted growl as she made her way through them toward her daughter.

Thistle, who had been crouching beside Quiet Hunter, raised her muzzle and stared directly at Ratha. It was hard for Ratha to keep walking toward her, to keep gazing into her eyes. Her overwhelming urge was to veer off, to drop her gaze, to run.

But Ratha met the sea-green stare and felt the grief deep within it. Forgetting everything else, she bounded to her daughter. With a wild flurry of her heart, she saw Thistle leap toward her — not to attack in protest or anger, but to bury her head against Ratha’s chest.

Flinging her paws about her daughter, the leader of the Named gathered Thistle to her, holding her fiercely.

Thistle, my cub, my walker on strange trails. Come to me. Whatever harms you, I will fight it; whatever hurts you, I will heal it. I am the one who birthed you and wounded you. Now let me help you.

The thickness in her throat made her half purr, half growl as she said softly,“Tell me.”

Thistle’s voice was ragged, broken. Her ribs heaved as she gasped, “True-of-voice. The song. Ended. Everything. Gone. Lost. Left only … hurt.”

“Not everything has ended for you,” Ratha said. “I know you care about Quiet Hunter and his people. I know the song was important, even if I didn’t understand it.”

“Can’t live if song ends!” Thistle cried, barely able to speak. Her eyes were swirling, her pupils remote. She began to shake, with the same sort of shuddering that was racking Quiet Hunter. Thakur was crouched down beside the young male, trying all his healing skills to soothe and calm him.

“Yes you can,” Ratha said, gently but firmly. “You can walk both their trails and ours. Come back from the strange trails, my Named one.”

“Not Named,” Thistle said in a low moan. “Inside, no names, no knowing.” Her voice faltered, faded.

Ratha sensed that her daughter was slipping into the same abyss of helpless despair that was claiming the hunters. With a rising despair of her own, she knew she would lose Thistle. Unless…

“Thistle-chaser. That is your name. I gave it to you. I’ll be meat for maggots if I let you refuse it! As Named and leader of the Named, I command you to come back to me, my Thistle-chaser.”

But the only answer was in the strangely swirling eyes with their shifting green sea.

In the endless dark, where dread sent her fleeing toward madness, something suddenly loomed ahead. Not so much seen, but heard and felt. Her name, spoken in her mother’s voice.

Her name shone ahead. Thistle. Thistle-chaser. Named and spoken and known.

She who could run on many paths remembered the ones she had run among the Named. She launched herself toward the inside cavern wall that had once been unyielding and suddenly she was through, from inside herself to outside, from ocean into air, from entrancement to awareness. She gasped, taking a huge breath as if she had risen from beneath a murky sea into sharp, clear air.

She blinked as if she had indeed been swimming in the salt ocean instead of a sea of the mind. But what stung her like ocean brine and made her eyes run was not salt, but mixed joy and grief.

Joy because she felt her mother’s caring, the power in the forelegs that embraced her, the fire of body and spirit that surrounded her, the raw devotion in a voice that said she was Named and known and deeply loved….

Grief as well, because outside the protective circle that Ratha and Thakur formed about her, she saw True-of-voice’s people. Some were pacing in circles, others huddled and shuddering like Quiet Hunter. Some were in mindless fights, as if what they had just lost had been stolen and could be wrestled back.