Клэр Белл - The Named - The Complete Series

If I don’t return, Thakur will become clan leader, and he’ll be the best one the Named have ever had.

She could no longer spare thoughts for those she had just left behind. She would need all her skills of stealth to slip through New Singer’s guard and reach the fire-den.

Her knowledge of her home ground served her well, letting her choose paths unguarded by the renegades. For a while she used the forest, climbing and slinking along interweaving boughs so that she could run aloft from one tree to the next. Whenever she spotted any of the interlopers, she froze until they had passed by underneath.

She was about to leap an intervening gap from one bough to the next when the bushes rustled below. She checked and huddled, thinking that the disturbance was just another of the intruders. As she peered down through the leaves, a small rust-white-and-tan form emerged from cover, nose down to the ground, picking up fallen sticks beneath the tree.

Ratha bristled all over with excitement. Thistle-chaser! Unharmed and apparently alone. Had she managed to escape?

Ratha couldn’t help herself. She half dove, half fell headfirst down the tree, sliding with a crunch into the dead leaves below. Thistle, startled, dropped her twigs, half-reared and stared, her eyes wide. Her emotions fleeted through the shifting sea-green of her eyes: surprise, delight, but then fear. Fear? Ratha felt her own eyes widen.

“Go!” Thistle hissed, lunging at Ratha, sending her mother scrambling a short distance back up the tree. “Not alone, not free!”

Even before Thistle got all the words out, the bushes shook again, and three of the rogues pounced into position around her. One drew a paw back for a blow at Thistle. Ratha launched herself to intercept, her face pulling into a snarl.

“No, Mother!” Thistle shrieked as another of the males pulled her down by the hindquarters. “Not fight. They’ll take you. Run!”

Ratha scarcely heard her daughter’s cry or felt the blood welling from two claw-stripes down her shoulder. Red rage turned her into a whirling, spitting, slashing streak of claws and teeth. Blood and fur sprayed as the males went back on their haunches under the fury of her attack. At the corner of her blurred vision, Ratha saw Thistle-chaser struggling, biting the massive forelimbs that held her, fighting to wriggle free.

Ratha aimed her next bared-claw blow at her daughter’s captor, but before she could complete the strike, two of the rogue males body-slammed her off center on both sides, spinning her in midair and flipping her into the base of the tree. Aching and dizzy as she was, Ratha threw herself at them again, biting, raking, tearing. She wasn’t sure whose blood smeared her by the time the two males swatted her down and sat on her. It was small gratification to her to hear them panting. It was the only sound they had made during the attack.

Hoping that Thistle had somehow managed to escape, she craned her head around beneath the males’ paws and bellies, seeking her daughter. Another spurt of rage sent her into a desperate flurry when she saw Thistle hoisted high by her scruff by her captor, squalling and clawing air. She actually managed to lift one of the males, but they both squashed her down again.

As exhaustion drained her rage, Ratha found herself wondering if New Singer had been so devilishly clever as to use Thistle as bait to capture her. No, the scattered twigs on the ground told the true story. Thistle had been allowed out to gather wood for the fire, guarded by the three males. It was just chance that Ratha spotted her daughter and been drawn into the sudden trap.

She yowled and spat, screaming all the insults she could remember, perhaps even inventing a few. She included herself as a target for her abuse, for once again she had let her impulses rule her.

How could I have held back? a part of her cried. She is my cub, my own, my daughter.

The males were eerily patient, letting her howl until her throat was raw.

“All right,” she gasped, “you’re suffocating me. Let me up.”

With a last emphatic trounce, the two rogues got off Ratha. She climbed stiffly and shakily to her feet, feeling the sting of the crusted wounds on her shoulder and the pull of fur matted by dirt, leaf litter, and dried blood. Her ribs ached from the crushing weight of the two males and she thought one rib might be cracked.

As she stood, getting her breath back, her two assailants flanked her tightly on either side, giving her no chance to escape. Thistle’s tormentor dumped her back on her feet, releasing her scruff but holding her with his claws while his teeth seized the base of her tail. Ratha was terrified that the male would bite the tail right off, but instead he used his hold to control Thistle, clamping down each time she tried to struggle until the pain made her stop.

A stinging swat at the back of her hind legs made Ratha lurch ahead and the two rogues beside her forced her to keep staggering.

Behind Ratha, the one who had struck her pushed Thistle along, his grip on her tail forcing her to walk crabwise, and sometimes on just her front feet when he jerked her hindquarters up in the air.

“Don’t do that!” Ratha growled. “Her front leg can’t take it.”

Trying one more time, she jammed her elbow into the side of one escort, making him hiss sharply. In retaliation, he swung his hips hard against hers, threatening to break her pelvis.

She hung her head and let herself be shoved along, trying not to hear Thistle’s cries of protest as she was pushed and dragged.

Glancing to one side, Ratha saw that she was being taken to the fire-den. She might be a captive, but at least she had found her daughter and would soon be rejoining the other Named females.

Ratha fell into a daze, stumbling between her two captors. When they halted, she gazed blearily around. In the waning light of evening, she saw New Singer and his gang lying in a loose circle around the entrance to the fire-den. Within the circle burned a small campfire. Against its glow, Ratha could see a lanky shape crouch down to drop sticks into the flame. Fessran!

The shape turned, phosphor-green eyes lighting momentarily, sandy coat looking almost white against the shadows. That huddled shape close by must be Bira, and the hazel eyes peering over Bira’s back have to be Drani’s. Ratha caught the fire-shine from other Named eyes. All the clan females were now here.

At the edge of the circle, the male holding Thistle-chaser by the tail yanked her forward and threw her into the center with a toss of his head. She tried to catch herself on her forepaws, but one leg folded. She went down, grimacing in pain. Fessran sprang and stood over Thistle, fangs bared and gleaming.

“Touch her again and I’ll rip you from throat to balls, carrion-eater,” she hissed. Then she nosed Thistle up. It hurt Ratha to see her daughter limp, the nearly healed forelimb again drawn up.

She worked so hard to be able to use that leg, and you sons of belly-biters just ruined it again. Well, see how you like this.

Ratha snaked her head down and sank her fangs into the one captor’s muscled shoulder. He howled and wheeled, dragging her around and finally flinging her into the enclosure, ripping her teeth out of his skin. She tumbled, spat out the foul-tasting wad of flesh and fur, and came to rest near Fessran.

“Nice entrance,” said the Firekeeper, looking down at her. “You took a chunk out of that belly-biter. Did you break any teeth?”

Ratha sat up, her head hanging, her ears flattened.“No,” she said, though the roots of her fangs throbbed from the wrench they’d been given. She gave up trying to take account of her injuries. Everything hurt.

Her head wobbled when she tried to lift it, and she collapsed over on her side. Her cheek and whiskers fell on fur, and a tongue licked the top of her forehead. Thistle-chaser.