Клэр Белл - The Named - The Complete Series

The wind announced the hunters’ return late one afternoon. It brought a rich meaty smell that told of a successful kill. It also carried the leathery, dried-dung smell of live face-tails along with the trace of milky-scent that identified the animals as calves.

The Named needed little urging to follow Ratha to the fire-site on the hunters’ ground. She was glad to see Thistle-chaser by her side. “They’re bringing us face-tail meat,” said Cherfan, licking his chops as he sat down to wait for True-of-voice and his returning band.

“They are also bringing us more young tuskers,” Thakur said, pacing at Ratha’s other flank. “Those beasts will keep my cub-students running.”

“Not only your students,” Ratha teased, knowing that Thakur himself would be scampering frantically around, keeping his students from getting speared by tusks, trampled, or clubbed by trunks.

Fessran and Bira brought torches to relight the campfire. Other Firekeepers brought wood. Thistle and others helped Ratha scuff away grass and weeds, making a clear area around the Red-Tongue-nest. Ratharee also helped, then scrambled back up on Ratha. The long grass on this open plain felt and smelled drier than the growth in the clan’s meadow. She knew that the Red Tongue liked this dryness and would devour it eagerly, spreading out of control.

They were half done when a pounding grumble started. Ratha saw Thakur raise himself up on his hind legs, looking intently into the distance.

“Arrr, they are bringing young face-tails, but the beasts are getting away!”

Ratha jumped to his side and reared up to see over the long grass. Ratha recognized True-of-voice and Night-who-eats-stars. She also saw a group of young face-tails breaking away from their captors. The hunters were burdened by the raw meat they carried in their jaws and couldn’t act quickly enough to stop the beasts.

As the sounds of turmoil reached her ears, Ratha realized that the young face-tails were stampeding directly toward the Named and the Red Tongue.

“Dung-worms!” she heard Thakur curse as he plunged ahead. “They’re acting like stupid dapplebacks; they’re attracted to the Red Tongue!”

Even as she launched herself after him, calling for the rest of the Named to follow, she had a flash of memory, the shape of a little horse rearing in terror before the Red Tongue, but paradoxically turning to plunge into the fire. Why some creatures ran toward the Red Tongue rather than away, Ratha didn’t know.

The rumble of feet erupted into thunder. Looming from the late haze of afternoon, gray shapes filled her vision. Snarling,“Thistle, run!” she shoved her daughter away from a descending foot. The skin on Ratha’s tail tingled as the hairs bottle-brushed. With Ratharee clinging to her back, Ratha ducked under a leathery belly, was banged by a knee, butted by a head, and finally twisted herself free of the animals. Looking frantically around for Thistle, she found her daughter safe with Bira.

Around her the Named leaped up with paws spread, claws extended, and fangs bared, trying to break the stampede. Fessran caught one of the beasts by the tail. It swung her around, her fur bristling wildly. Thistle’s treeling Biaree hung from her neck, scooping up rocks from the ground and hurling them. They didn’t have much effect until a sharp stone hit one face-tail in the eye.

The young beast lashed its trunk, trumpeted, and swerved across the path of its fellows. Shrilling and bawling, the tuskers went down in a heap.

Ratha sprang up, shaking dust from her pelt and yowling a battle cry. Now True-of-voice and the other hunters ran alongside the Named, trying to surround and recapture the escapees.

In the commotion, two little tuskers caromed off one another, sending one crashing through the Red-Tongue-nest, throwing embers into the dry grass. The infant hastened away, batting frantically with its trunk at the shower of sparks and ashes onto its back.

Her nose full of the stink of scorched face-tail hide, Ratha whirled as smoke and then flame exploded from the grass beyond the clearing. Surging up with a menacing crackle, the fire spread as if poured along the base of the grass. It leaped high, rejoicing in its sudden freedom.

The wind kicked the flame higher, whipping it through the parched grass. Smoke tumbled and rolled down onto the Named and the hunters.

It clawed Ratha’s throat; bit her eyes. On her back, Ratharee sneezed and coughed. In the gray swirl, Ratha caught sight of a shape that at first looked like Thakur but, when the wind pulled aside the smoke curtain, revealed itself as Night-who-eats-stars.

He crouched, ears flat, ducking the smoke, but his eyes remained on the face-tails who were backing away from the wildfire, driven by the heat. Instead of helping the other hunters and the Named in catching the animals, Night remained crouched, staring, taking in the sight of flames lunging at the terrified face-tails. Abruptly his ears swiveled forward, and his eyes widened, reminding Ratha of a cub that had finally learned something it had struggled long to understand.

Her own ears flattened and went back. Her teeth seemed to bare themselves, and she wasn’t aware of starting the rasping growl in her throat. Night-who-eats-stars started violently, and then fixed her with his stare. She tensed, ready to meet him if he should spring at her. Instead, he lowered his head and backed into the smoke, vanishing.

Ratha stood still, one paw raised, ignoring the sting of ash in her fur and choking smoke in the shock of the unexpected encounter.

Another shape dashed up beside her. This time it was Thakur.

“Clan leader, follow me,” he said. Dazed, she did, galloping behind him with Ratharee bumping on her back until the air cleared. Together they made a wide circle behind the fire-line, bringing them to the main group of mixed clan and herders surrounding the frightened tuskers.

Ratha joined the fray once again, refreshed by the clear air so that her chest no longer ached and her feet were no longer leaden. With Ratharee clinging to her nape, she dashed among them, yowling instructions and commands. She saw True-of-voice moving among his people, but he didn’t have to yowl. He only touched noses, and the one touched seemed to lose fear and gain knowledge of what he or she had to do in order to force the face-tails away from the fire.

“Let it burn,” Ratha cried. “It can’t go that far. There’s a creek and a marshy area in the down-wind direction. The Red Tongue will run there and then die.”

Slowly, and then more rapidly as their captors gained control, the milling face-tails were forced to safety, and then guided back to the meadow on clan land. Thistle, smoke-stained and dirty, but unhurt, ran beside Ratha. The wildfire burned behind them, belching more black clouds into the oncoming twilight.

When they reached the meadow, the young face-tails calmed as they caught sight of others of their own kind. Ratha had the herders hold their ring until the tuskers had settled. The animals, made thirsty by the flight and parched by the smoke, drank deeply from the creek that flowed through the meadow. They sucked up water with their trunks and squirted it into their mouths.

Ratha let True-of-voice know, through Thistle, that his hunters could stay overnight on clan ground. Or, if they wished, return to their own land, to a place not affected by the blaze. The fire would soon burn itself out in the wetland.

True-of-voice, as she expected, chose to depart, leaving with his tribe. Before they went, however, the hunters laid down the meat they still had, leaving it for the Named.

He probably wants to regroup and take stock, Ratha thought. She needed to do the same — and she did, going to each clan member and seeing if he or she were hurt. She found surprisingly few injuries. Singed fur, blistered pads, someone still coughing from a lungful of smoke, cinders in ears, and a few sprains — but no bad burns, deep gashes, or broken bones. They’d only lost one or two of the face-tails, and the remainder were more than enough to cope with.