Клэр Белл - The Named - The Complete Series

Night-who-eats-stars, Ratha thought, looking across at the solitary form whose pale blue-green eyes stared into the fire’s heart. She found Bira’s made-up name strange, even silly, but in watching the black hunter, and seeing how ghostly specks appeared and vanished in his fur, she also found it appropriate.

“Of course, we don’t have to call him anything if we—”

“Shhh, Bira.” Ratha made her voice low. “Night can stay … for a while. I’m curious about him.”

She let her crouching hindquarters flop over so that she lay in a half-twist on one flank while Ratharee climbed over onto her ribs. Spreading her forelegs out, she crossed her rear paws and stretched, extending herself so that the fire warmed the length of her belly. Even though she had done this many times, she still marveled at her creature’s ability to breathe out heat.

Bira laid herself out in a similar way, keeping her head and forepaws toward Ratha. Bira’s treeling, Cherfaree slept beneath her chin. A cub bumbled its infant way from Quiet Hunter to Bira, seeking a full teat. Ratha watched as Bira curled around the litterling, as she herself had once curled around an infant Thistle-chaser and her brothers. Thistle had returned to her; would any of the others?

She listened to Bira’s purr and the soft gurgle-snort-smack of the cub suckling. Watching Bira made her remember how it felt, the tugging at her belly, the warm flow of milk through her teats into the mouths of those tiny furred bodies, the warmth and tingling that echoed the arousal of mating, but most of all the feeling, as she gazed down at her family, that she wanted to bathe them in endless, boundless love. Until they had been torn from her, not by a foe, but by her own blind devastating rage when she learned …

Ratha stiffened; eyes squeezed shut so hard that she felt eye fluid welling up beneath the lids and gathering in the corners to seep down the channels on each side of her nose. No, I will not think of that!

She opened her eyes, panting slightly at the rush of emotion. She had Thistle back and those once-clouded sea-green eyes were now alert and aware. It was enough. It had to be enough.

The weight of a small wiry body and a whiff of treeling scent told Ratha that Ratharee sensed her distress. Slender arms went around her neck, and she felt tufted treeling ears against her cheek, small careful hands stroking her face. She nuzzled Ratharee and then turned her head for a quick look at Bira. The young mother was so absorbed in nursing her cub that she hadn’t noticed Ratha’s reaction.

Why am I thinking of this? I thought the feelings were long dead, but they are wakening. Why?

Because it’s nearly mating season, dung-for-brains, she scolded herself.

But Thakur’s not even here. It doesn’t matter anyway. I can have any clan male; the matings have never taken. Not since Bone-chewer.

She shook out of her reverie and distracted herself by watching Night-who-eats-stars. Ratharee was curled up against Ratha’s chest fur, sleeping on her forepaws.

Night-who-eats-our-fawn, she thought, trying to take refuge in a bout of ill temper. It didn’t last, and she found herself watching him intensely.

Though Night shifted occasionally, the inky gloom of his coat creating and destroying the sparks of white, his gaze remained immobile, fixed on the fire. Within those eyes, something shifted, rising and falling like a restless sea. His eyes seemed as distant and dreamy as the eyes of other hunters, but every so often Ratha saw a pinpoint sharpness even more intense than the light in the eyes of the clan. It vanished instantly, like the white in his fur. Ratha blinked and wondered if both the stars in fur and eyes had existed only in her imagination.

She decided that he had to be a son of True-of-voice, perhaps the gray one’s heir. But if Night was, he showed no understanding of fire, as True-of-voice did. Nor did he ever speak, not even the stunted half language the hunter tribe used.

Opening her mouth and extending her tongue slightly, Ratha tried to catch his aroma. Dominated as it was by the hunter group-scent and masked by the burning fire, she could only smell and taste enough to tantalize her. Again she attempted, inhaling deeply through nose and mouth. She had learned how to enhance her scent-detection by trapping the air high in the most delicate and sensitive part of her nose and holding it still while she continued to breathe through her mouth. Closing her eyes, she focused attention on her smell-sense, sampling every part of the trapped air for the slightest odor trace that might reveal more about Night-who-eats-stars.

He must have heard her breathing change as she struggled to place him by smell, for he turned his head, letting his gaze fix briefly on her before it returned to the fire. His stare was at once icier than the most freezing wind and at the same time hotter than the fiercest of the Red Tongue’s flames.

Heat-sweat started from Ratha’s nose leather and paw pads, then cooled and dried.

Who was he? What was he? And why did he have such an effect on her?

She abandoned her questioning by bidding Bira and the others farewell, coaxing a sleepy Ratharee onto her back, and continuing on to the fire-site on clan ground. There she spoke to Fessran and then lay down. With the treeling nesting in her fur, she slept in the Red Tongue’s glow.

She woke to the sound of rustling and snapping followed by a soft but growing roar. It created a strong light that Ratha could see even through closed eyelids. Blinking, she saw Bira and her treeling Cherfaree coming to feed the fire. The sky was still black, shading to violet in the direction of sunrise.

Ratha rolled from her side to her front, taking care not to squash Ratharee. She nibbled a front toe pad that itched. She tasted salt, remembering her feelings from the previous evening. Furtively looking for Night, she remembered that she had left the other fire-site and felt abashed.

There were none of True-of-voice’s people here, only clan herders and Firekeepers sleeping near her. Thistle-chaser and Fessran were among them.

“It is still early, clan leader,” said Bira as her treeling added a trilling chirr. “I came to take Fessran’s watch so she can sleep.”

Ratha stretched her jowls and arched her tongue in an enormous yawn. Ratharee settled on Ratha’s nape as she asked Bira where the hunters had gone.

“Thistle told me last night that True-of-voice was leading the most able hunters after face-tails. His people will be gone for several evenings, so we don’t have to make as many fires. Just enough for the mothers and the old. I made the other fire-creature die, since we won’t need it. Then I brought everyone who was there over here.”

Bira nudged her treeling, purring a request. Cherfaree responded, feeding several sticks into the Red Tongue while Bira crouched alongside, coaching him. As the pair worked, Bira waved her plumed tail in enjoyment but carefully swept it away from the leaping flames.

Sleepily, Ratha licked her nose, grimacing slightly at the taste of salt there as well. She was glad Night-who-eats-stars was gone and would be for several days. She disliked the feelings he provoked in her.

The air had the cold taste of predawn, making Ratha move closer to the fire and settle near Bira. Close by, Fessran snored, whistling every time she inhaled.

“Go back to sleep, clan leader,” Bira said. “I’ll tend the fire-creature.”

Ratha had curled up on her side, her tail between her forepaws, and the tip beneath her chin. She was already starting to drift back into slumber.

With True-of-voice and most of his tribe away, Ratha could devote more attention to her own people. She did her regular patrolling and marking, joined Thakur in helping the herders, and made sure that Bundi and Mishanti were keeping the rumblers from trampling any more dens. A three-horn doe had a difficult birth, and Ratha was present as Drani and Thakur attended. The doe had twins, and while the fawns staggered around on their stiltlike legs, their fur still wet and spiky, Ratha nosed them, grateful to the doe for providing not only a replacement for the slain fawn, but for increasing the three-horn herd by one. The event cheered her, and she enjoyed the days that passed while True-of-voice’s people were gone.