Клэр Белл - The Named - The Complete Series

The dappleback went willingly, letting Thistle lead her through a tumble of rocks, then across the sand of the back beach. She floundered a bit in the loose sand but fared better on the wet foreshore.

Quiet Hunter was living up to his name, but the silence around him was full, not empty. She knew he had enjoyed and appreciated being shown her world, paddling with her in the nearby lagoon where she had taught herself to swim, dipping paws into the tide pools with her and grimacing with surprise at the teeming life there: tentacle-bearing sea-flowers that sucked themselves into rubbery lumps when a paw came near: tiny pugnacious crabs that did battle with anything, including Quiet Hunter’s toes; and breathtakingly colored miniature creatures with filmy or feathered gills who drifted elegantly through the water and didn’t deserve to be called just sea-slugs. The pair looked as often as caught, for Quiet Hunter was developing a lively curiosity about the kind of life that lived in various places, and he wasn’t always interested in eating it.

Thistle agreed with her mother that it was amazing that Quiet Hunter had learned to live without the song, considering how dependent the other hunters were on it. She knew he still needed to go back to True-of-voice every so often, to refresh himself in the fountain of its flow. So, for that matter, did she, although the urge was more want than need. She suspected that, as long as the Named lived near the hunters, he would periodically return to his old tribe and she along with him.

She also used her voice, her scent along with movement in attempts to re-create the feeling of the song for him. Every so often she managed to do it, but capturing its essence and flavor remained difficult.

“What you can do is good enough for this one,” said Quiet Hunter, coming alongside her. He shared one trick of her speech in that neither tended to use the words “I” or “me,” except when they were with the Named.

“Can do better,” Thistle mumbled through the lead rope in her mouth. “Want to, for both of us. Want to find song for outer ears as well as inner ones.”

“This one remembers that part of it is this,” her mate said, and swung away from her to walk slowly on the wet sand, slapping his paws down so that they made sounds in a repeating cadence. Step, pause, step, pause, step, pause, step, pause.

Thistle matched his pace, listening to the sound they made together. When the dappleback’s footfalls interrupted their pace, they changed it, walking in step with the horse. Doing so was a bit difficult, but once all three sets of feet fell together, the effect was pleasing, almost hypnotic. After a while, though, it became a bit boring, and Thistle said so.

“Then there is this,” Quiet Hunter said, and varied his stride so that the slap of his paws on sand went step, step, pause, step, step, pause.

Thistle’s ears pricked forward. She found a rock for the dappleback’s lead rope, then went to Quiet Hunter and imitated what he was doing. Together they tried various gaits, listening to the sounds their feet made while walking on wet sand and while trotting, cantering, bounding, and galloping. Biareeobjected to being bounced around on her back, so she stopped and let the treeling off to play in the sand.

“Funny, never listened to feet before,” Thistle panted, jogging to a stop. “Does True-of-voice use feet-sounds?”

“No, but he makes it feel as though he does.”

“Can do the same with voice, maybe? Arr, arr-arr. Arr, arr-arr,” Thistle tried, then grimaced. “Sounds silly.”

“Only a little,” her mate answered.

She went back to the horse, rolled the rock aside, and picked up the lead. Again she and Quiet Hunter walked together, matching pace.

“Listen again,” he said softly.

Thistle turned her head, looked at him.

“Not to us, or the dappleback, but to the sea.”

Thistle stopped, swiveled her ears.

“Keep walking with this one and listen.”

Puzzled, she did as he asked, and then she heard it: the inward rush and crash of the waves as a long, slow counterpoint to their footfalls. She remembered hearing this as she padded along the beach long ago, but it had meant nothing to her then. She knew that her mind had been sleeping, waking partially and only for the necessities such as sleep, food, and shelter. The Named had woken it fully, sharpened it, taught her to delight not only in her sensations but also in the growing agility of her thought.

She, in turn, had helped wake Quiet Hunter, and he was learning the excitement of experiment and discovery. In some things, he was better and he led, as he was doing now.

He changed gaits and encouraged her to follow. Again the whoosh and roar of the ocean made a background to their paw-slaps on the wet sand. A seabird sailed overhead, its wing beats blending into the river of interweaving sounds.

Thistle’s eyes widened in wonder. She reveled in the experience, and felt a sudden thrill when she glanced over at her partner and saw the rapture on his face. It was that which made her add her voice to the rest, sending it soaring upward, like the seabird, then wavering, plunging and winging up again.

She shut her mouth when she saw that Quiet Hunter had stopped and was looking intently at her. Had her impetuous squalling interrupted the hypnotic flow of sound from their footsteps and the ocean? She felt embarrassed.

“Didn’t mean to ruin it,” she said, her head starting to hang, her eyes starting to close.

She felt a nudge and then a push beneath her chin, lifting her head up again.

“You didn’t ruin it,” he breathed, the deep honey-brown of his eyes capturing her. “Not at all.”

Real happiness came over her in a rush as he rubbed alongside her and pushed her into a walk, then a matched, dancing trot against the ocean’s swell and lapse. Again she opened her mouth and let joy fountain up from her lungs through her throat, off her tongue into the sky, not caring where it went or how high. Then she heard his voice mingled with hers, deeper, perhaps a little harsh with awkwardness, but strong and willing.

It made her bound and leap alongside him, until they fell together in cat-play, making sand fly. Thistle got up and shook herself.“Not what True-of-voice does. Not his song.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Quiet Hunter said. “It makes this one feel a deep good. It is a song, but it is not True-of-voice’s. It is ours.”

“This one’s mate feels a deep good too,” Thistle purred, winding and unwinding her tail about his. She looked up suddenly, remembering the horse, hoping it hadn’t been alarmed by all the noise.

She was relieved to see the dappleback mare still stood placidly, one ear forward, the other back, as if curious about the odd goings-on. The lead rope snaked down into the sand.

“She’s not straying,” Quiet Hunter said. “Run and sing with this one … with me … again.”

Gladly, Thistle did.

After that, they both played in the sea, pawing up strands of washed-in kelp and batting them at one another until both were draped with it. Shedding their decorations back into the waves, the dripping pair went back to where Thistle-chaser had buried her catch. She found Biaree grooming himself on a rock, but the treeling refused to mount until Thistle’s fur had dried off.

She got the dappleback, and Quiet Hunter helped her fill the net bags on its sides, loading the little horse with the sea’s harvest. He dropped a sea perch when it flapped its tail in his face, but managed to scoop the fish up and secure it, along with all the others.

“Smart Quiet Hunter,” said Thistle, lolling her tongue in a cat-laugh. “Learns things quickly, even strange things like putting fish in string-tangles.”