Клэр Белл - The Named - The Complete Series

She tried to shake herself free of the impending tragedy. She had to look ahead, into the future. The Named had come to capture face-tails. The hunters had blocked them. Now, with the other clan paralyzed and distracted, there would be no more interference.

At an evening gathering around the Named campfire, everyone talked about what to do next. Khushi felt that the Named should make another try to capture a face-tail. The five of them had already been here far longer than intended. Fessran and the others would be starting to worry. Bira agreed. She was also getting restless.

Thakur, however, urged caution. The hunters, he said, might not be as paralyzed as they seemed. Grief and frustration could easily ignite into rage. If the bereaved group did not lash out against the Named directly, they might well take out their anger on the Named one who remained among them — Thistle.

Ratha, torn, agreed on a compromise. On the following day the Named would prepare for another attempt to capture a face-tail, but the hunt itself would not take place until the day after.

She needed to find a way to either get Thistle back from the hunters or minimize the threat to her daughter. Given Thistle’s determination, she wouldn’t return until True-of-voice died. Or Quiet Hunter.

If she even comes back at all. She may hate me for letting this happen to the hunters and then not doing anything to help. But I have no choice. Or do I?

Before Ratha could make any definite plans or carry them out, however, the hunters showed that they might be grief-stricken, but not rendered completely helpless.

The morning after the campfire meeting, Ratha woke to find Khushi and Thakur gone. Sounds of yowling and spitting from the bottom of the cliff told her that the situation had erupted into a fight.

Telling Bira to take a torch and follow, she galloped toward the foot of the cliff, where the second group of hunters was gathered, waiting for the death of their leader. Remembering Thakur’s warning, she feared the worst.

Before she and Bira were even halfway there, a brown streak shot past her and down the trail. It was Khushi, running as if all the hunters were after him. An instant later, there was the flash of a copper coat, and Thakur dashed into view.

Bira, her torch burning fiercely in her jaws, leaped forward to attack any enemy that might be pursuing him.

“No!” Ratha heard Thakur yowl. “Run. Don’t fight. They won’t go far from True-of-voice.”

Although Ratha felt ready for a good scrap, she turned around, and Bira followed.

As the three fled together down the trail, Ratha cantered abreast of Thakur, asking what had happened.

“It was that idiot Khushi,” Thakur panted. “He tried to take some meat from a face-tail carcass.”

They caught up with Khushi near the camp. The scout was abashed, yet defiant.

“I was hungry,” he confessed. “And I was tired of eating grouse. The face-tail meat was just lying there, attracting vultures. I didn’t think they would care. They weren’t eating it.”

“So you sneaked in there and got the hunters all stirred up,” Ratha snarled. “I should shred your ears and maybe a few more parts!”

Khushi looked sheepish.“I–I didn’t think they cared. They didn’t seem to notice me. At least at first. Then,yarr! They were all over me!”

“And you would have been another piece of meat for the vultures if Thakur hadn’t gone in after you.”

“I guess I would have,” the young scout said shakily. Turning almost shyly to Thakur, he said, “I’m grateful, herding teacher. I don’t know why I thought I could get away with it. Perhaps it was because they didn’t seem to notice me, even when I was right at the kill. Then all of a sudden …” He trailed off.

“They don’t give warning signals,” said Thakur shortly, licking a deep scratch on his foreleg. “That is why what you did was so dangerous.”

Ratha interrupted.“We can’t stay here talking. I want to make sure your stupid blunder didn’t make the hunters turn on Thistle.”

Khushi’s eyes opened wide. “Oh no! I didn’t realize … Well, she’s in the other group at the top of the cliff, isn’t she?”

“Scout, next time try thinking with your brain, not your guts. Guts are for stuffing with food and making dung. Not for thinking with,” Ratha said brusquely. “Remember that the next time.”

Khushi gulped.“I–I’m sorry, clan leader. I hope Thistle is safe.”

“So do I,” Ratha said curtly.

With Khushi, Bira, and Thakur close behind, she headed for the trail to the cliff top.

Sitting among True-of-voice’s people, her paw still on Quiet Hunter, Thistle felt her exhaustion and desperation grow as True-of-voice’s song faded.

It had changed several times during the night. First it had spoken of suffering, then of fear for the fate of those it was abandoning. Early in the morning there had also been a strong flash of rage at the doings of the strangers, and Thistle feared that her mother had led the Named across some forbidden boundary.

Now the song had changed for the final time. Now it was saying farewell.

It had grown so weak that many could not hear it. Quiet Hunter was among them. He still lay, like many others, with his nose at the cliff edge. He was no longer trying to crawl over. The call that drew him had faded from his mind. Thistle kept her paw on his back, to keep him beside her and to tell him wordlessly that she still heard the waning thread of the song.

As long as he understood, he would fight to stay alive. As long as he knew that the song continued, even in someone else’s mind, he would not bury himself in the lost blackness of his own.

Thistle wondered how much longer he would struggle if she kept her paw on him after the song had faded out completely. Would it be worth having him beside her for a little more time if she had to lie to him?

No, she thought, and the paw on Quiet Hunter’s back trembled, for the song was getting harder to hear.

She caught glances from some of the others around her. She knew they were watching her, waiting for the moment she would take her paw from Quiet Hunter’s back. The looks were starting to get resentful, and unspoken questions seemed to gather in the air around her.

Why can she still hear True-of-voice when we cannot? We are his people — why do we have to listen to an outsider?

Don’t know where I got this gift. Never wanted it, she answered back silently. She did not speak aloud lest it distract her. Even thinking the words loosened her grip on the last fading vestiges of the song, and she had to scramble wildly to keep hold of it.

And now the mutters were starting.

“The song is not heard. True-of-voice is dead.”

“That one says he is not dead. The paw is on Quiet Hunter.”

“The paw does not work. The tongue does not work. They say things are so when they are not. That is a bad thing.”

“That one made the first face-tail fall off a cliff. The face-tail died. True-of-voice saw. Then the song commanded that other face-tails be killed that way.”

“The song changed because of what that one did. It caused hurt. True-of-voice is lost.”

“That one” felt her fur start to prickle in apprehension. Her ears twitched back. She wished she could speak her feelings as clearly as she thought them.Was all a mistake. Never meant to show True-of-voice anything. Was all an accident. When I jumped off the bluff, the face-tail followed.

“The song would not cause hurt. Those who hear would not cause hurt. Outsiders do. That one has caused hurt. That one is an outsider, a stranger.”

Thistle felt her eyes starting to flame with rage. Whose fault was it that the tragedy happened? Who chose to copy her, even though the face-tail’s death was an accident? True-of-voice himself. He made all the decisions for the group. He laid his will on his people. He had created his own downfall.