Клэр Белл - The Named - The Complete Series

“At least you can’t dribble fruit juice on me,” Ratha said, nuzzling her little companion. “That tree doesn’t have any ripe fruit.”

Her whiskers lifted with amusement as she remembered how Thakur’s treeling often gorged on overripe autumn fruit, making a sticky mess of his fur.

As Ratha had brought a new creature to the clan, so had Thakur, in the form of a ring-tailed sharp-nosed fuzzball he called“ Aree” after the noise it made.

Aree turned out to be female and was now the mother and grandmother of all the treelings who were companions of clan members. Ratha’s treeling, Ratharee, was also female, but had no young.

Not all the Named kept treelings, but Ratha and others who did felt that their little friends brought an additional richness to their lives. Treeling companionship had a soothing effect on the often-restless nature of the Named.

Treelings can offer more than just companionship, Ratha thought, as Ratharee scurried up the slope of her back to groom the troublesome area at the root of her tail. The treeling chittered as her fingers combed Ratha’s pelt. She found several ticks and gleefully ate them.

When Ratharee finished, she groomed herself with a flurry of quick, short strokes, and then crouched expectantly on Ratha’s nape. Yes, you’re right. It’s time to rejoin the others.

Ratha pivoted, lifted a forepaw to take a step down. As she lowered it, she felt the spur whisker behind her paw pad stroking the rough rock. She touched the stone with the outside edge of her forefoot, rolling the foot inward and using the whiskerlike hairs between her pads to judge the surface underfoot before putting her weight on it. She did the elegant yet important move without thinking, as did the rest of her kind. Thakur, who often thought about such things, said this manner of walking prevented the Named from stepping hard on anything that might give way beneath them.

The swish of grass past legs drew Ratha’s attention. She saw a line of clan females carrying tiny cubs and smelled milky scents. Some spotted youngsters hung by their scruffs from their mother’s or a helper’s jaws, others stumbled or romped behind, and several even sat atop feline shoulders and backs. In front walked a rangy sand-colored female with a light foreleg limp, flame-shortened whiskers, a long tapered tail, and green eyes. Like Ratha herself, the newcomer had white fur around her whiskers and a black patch behind them. Dark tear-lines ran from the corners of her eyes along her nose, snaking back to the corners of her mouth to join the black patches on either side of her muzzle. Her underside was also white, from her tail to her throat and her lower jaw.

It was Fessran, chief of the Firekeepers who tended the Red Tongue. She was also Ratha’s friend and, this season, a mother. She had two fuzzy, blue-eyed cubs: one riding on her shoulders and one dangling from her mouth.

Ratha felt her treeling scurry up to her hindquarters as she leaned down from the sunning rock to greet Fessran and the cub-carriers.

“Are you raising little treelings to perch on you?” Ratha teased.

Fessran, impatient as always, didn’t want to set the cub down and instead tried to speak through a mouthful of spotted fur.

“Mmmph. Bira,” Fessran sputtered to the young female behind her, “take this little son of a dappleback.”

Lifting her long plume of a tail, red-gold Bira took Fessran’s burden. She had muzzle-patches, tear-lines, and a lighter color underneath. She also had a treeling riding on her nape.

The Firekeeper leader sneezed twice and scrubbed her nose with a charcoal-stained forepaw. Her facemarkings emphasized her grimace.“I can’t believe he’s already shedding,” Ratha heard her friend complain. “Rrrraatchooo!”

“Ho, singe-whiskers,” Ratha greeted. “Is it already time to move the litterlings?”

“Ho yourself, clan leader. Yes, the new nursery is finished.” With an upward jerk of her tail and a slight sharpening of her scent that told Ratha the Firekeeper was mildly annoyed, Fessran added, “I don’t suppose you remembered you were going to help us this morning.”

“I said that before all of you kept me awake last night,” Ratha retorted. “And I still want to talk to Thistle-chaser.”

Fessran gave a snort, and Ratha knew it wasn’t just cub fur up her nose. “The decision is made, and we’re going to carry it out. I don’t see why we have to keep pawing at it over and over.”

“Yes, but I still wanted to speak to her.”

“Well, even if she is your daughter, she isn’t going to change things,” Fessran said, licking her sand-colored coat.

Especially things that you want, singe-whiskers, Ratha thought, half-fondly and half-sourly.

“For once we’re following the right trail,” the Firekeeper argued. “Letting True-of-voice and his hunter tribe use the Red Tongue is good for them and us. You were right when you made us rescue him. This is one more step along a better path.”

Ratha made her reply mild.“I know, Fessran, but we’ve already made some mistakes. I don’t want any more.”

Fessran stopped to swat a pair of cubs playing tag around her forelegs.

“I’m glad you are doing this, Ratha,” the Firekeeper said, her voice becoming softer. Her face relaxed and her tear-lines straightened. “I imagine how their litterlings’ eyes will glow when they curl up near the Red Tongue, safe and warm.”

Even if the light in their eyes differs from the light in ours, Ratha thought.“Just be careful. As for moving our cubs to the new nursery, you don’t need me — you’re doing fine.”

“We’ve picked a good site. It’s sheltered, but open enough so that cubs can run and pounce. We can also bring in some three-horn fawns and dappleback foals for the cubs to play with. So they get used to the herdbeasts.” She paused. “It was Thakur’s idea.”

Cub scuffling around Fessran’s legs made her jump. “Yow, you little daughter of a dappleback! Clan leader, be glad you didn’t have a litter this year. Bira, let’s get this bunch to the nursery before they make me climb a tree.”

“I’ll come to visit,” Ratha offered.

“Just you, though. Not Thakur or any of the other males, or someone may get their ears shredded.”

“Fess, no clan male would hurt a cub.”

“You know that, and the sensible part of me knows that, but the mother part of me just goes wild. Bira’s does, too. We’re all like that.”

Ratha let her gaze travel down the line of Named females as she sampled their scents. There was a milky overlay, but she caught and enjoyed their individual smells. Fessran: spicy, sharp with an acrid touch of soot and ash. Bira: sun-warm earth and cinnamon bark. Drani: grass awns, sycamore, horse dung. Chika, Fessran’s older daughter: flowery with a slight fruitiness of pride in her first litter. The first-litter mothers and helpers had the clean freshness of youth, the older ones, steeped and aged in their own odors, had deeper, darker, richer scents.

Closing her eyes briefly, Ratha bathed in the aromas of her friends. When she opened them, she saw whiskers lifted and nostrils widened as the other females sampled hers in return. She knew her scent didn’t have the milk-odor of motherhood and felt a little sad.

Fessran grabbed her spotted culprit gently but firmly around the neck and hoisted the cub. Ratha noticed the short, soft, silvery mantle of fur that formed a crest just behind his ears and swept down his back. She had seen this before in Named litterlings, and some kept it even after weaning. The ones who had it often had longer legs and could sprint faster.

As Fessran lifted him, the youngster mewed, paddled oversize paws, and then settled into a submissive curl. Ratha sniffed him, catching the beginning odor of maleness in his baby-scent.