Клэр Белл - The Named - The Complete Series

With a malicious glance at Ratha, the old gray seized the flesh of Srass’s flank and tore it open. The duns, both mute, showed their teeth at Ratha. They were going to kill, she thought with growing horror. Srass had bared his throat. All knew that sign, even the Un-Named. It was a law older than any other, and rarely disobeyed.

Ratha saw the muscles bunch in the silver’s cheeks.

“At least do him the honor of tearing out his throat!” she shrieked at them.

The silver-coat gave her one brief glance. His jaws sheared shut. Srass screamed and Ratha heard the hollow crunch of bone. The herder’s body convulsed, the spasming muscles pulling his limbs in ways they were not meant to go. The scream continued from Srass’s open mouth even after his head had been crushed. With a last shudder, the body fell limp and the terror-filled eyes went blank.

The silver-coat opened his jaws and Srass fell to the ground with a heavy thud. Blood seeped from his ruined head and neck.

“Is this how you kill?” Ratha faced the silver-coat. “You slay those of the clan as you kill prey.Ptahh!”

“To us they are prey,” the silver answered, licking his red-stained jaws. He narrowed his eyes at Ratha. “I heard this one cry out that you, female, are also of the clan even though you run with the Un-Named.” He left Srass and took a step toward her. “Your head would be easier to crush. Perhaps your feet had better take it away before my jaws open again.”

She spat, whirled around and galloped away from them. The night rang with howls and shrieks and the bawling of terrified animals. As she ran, Ratha could see the shapes of raiders dragging slain dapplebacks toward the trees. The moon had risen and the flattened grass showed black stains where the raiders had made their kills.

The sounds of fighting grew and faded as the battle raged back and forth across the meadow. The herders were losing, their circle shrinking as they bunched together to protect the remaining three-horns and dapplebacks.

Ratha stopped and licked the wound on her foreleg. It was starting to crust and stiffen, making her limp. She closed her eyes, seeing again Srass’s face as he died. He had been killed like a herdbeast and his eyes had rolled like a herdbeast’s when the silver-coat’s teeth crushed his skull. Ratha shuddered. None of the Named had died such a death until now. It seemed as though all of the laws that governed her kind, Un-Named or clan, were breaking. If one whose throat was bared could be killed like a herdbeast, then there were no laws and nothing made sense any more.

She knew that whatever was happening to her people, she was a part of it; however much she feared and hated the changes, she was helping to bring them about. Srass had died because he spotted a herder among the raiders. He had not come close enough to see her face or smell her odor, but he saw how she had run the three-horn and cut him out from the herd. Her skill and her recklessness betrayed her. Her mouth felt as bloody as the silver-coat’s, as if it had been her teeth that crushed the old herder’s skull.

No, she thought, trying to give herself some small comfort.Srass’s skull would have been too thick for my jaws. But she knew as she ran that she shared equally with the Un-Named in his death.

Again she stopped. The fighting was now distant. All she could see were raiders dragging thrashing animals across the grass, leaving black stains between their pawprints. They were still working in packs, as they had in the initial assault. One group looked familiar, and Ratha recognized the two dun-coats and the gray who had helped to kill Srass. The gray’s jaws were dark with blood. The old one raised her ugly head and stared at Ratha. The pack leader dropped the neck of the dappleback he was dragging. Ratha was suddenly afraid he might be the silver-coat, but she saw the face of the young cub who had been leading the group when the raid started. He stared at her over the body of his prey. He bounded over the animal and, before Ratha could react, clawed her across the face.

“The council is not pleased with me for failing to keep my pack together. I pass their displeasure on to you.” She fell back, shaking her head. Warm wetness seeped from the new cut on her muzzle and dripped onto her lower lip into her mouth. She was so relieved he wasn’t the silver-coat that the blow only startled her. She got up tasting the metallic tang of her own blood.

“There are more beasts to drag away,” the pack leader snarled. “The gray lags. Help her to carry her prey. Then you are to return with the others and bring the remaining kills.” He looked hard at Ratha. “If you leave the pack again, you will be killed.”

She lowered her head and walked toward the watery green eyes glinting in the dark above the indistinct bulk of the herdbeast. The gray’s smell washed over her again, surrounding her and making her feel even more of a prisoner. The old female growled and seized the beast’s neck. Ratha took the hock and followed the pull of her companion.

The packs dumped the kills in a moonlit clearing and were sent back to retrieve more. The rest of the night Ratha spent hauling the Un-Named kills from the meadow to the clearing deep in the forest. By the time the first sunlight filtered through the trees, Ratha’s teeth were aching, her neck was stiff and her pads sore. She grew to hate the taste of coarse oily fur and the limp weight of the kill in her jaws. She resented having to drag beasts that others had slain.

It was midmorning when the pack carried the last of the carcasses into the clearing. Ratha pried her teeth loose from a dappleback’s neck and let the horse’s head drop. She staggered into the shade beneath a gnarled pine and collapsed. To her disgust, the gray female came and sat beside her, but she was too tired to drive the old one away. With her head on her paws, smelling the pungent needles that littered the earth beneath the tree, Ratha watched the raiders gather to feast on their prizes. Some had already come and had begun eating when the first carcasses were dragged in. Now the rest, ravenous and still savage from the battle, swarmed over the kills, spitting and squabbling with each other over who was to get the choicest pieces. She smelled the rich flesh as the carcasses were torn open and the entrails eaten. The odor only disgusted her and destroyed what little appetite she had. After hauling the dead creatures all night, smelling and tasting them, she could hardly bear the idea of eating from them. She thought with longing of the stringy marsh-shrews she had caught on Bonechewer’s land.

A new group appeared among the gorging raiders and pushed aside a scruffy pack from a dappleback mare. These were the council leaders and the planners, Ratha realized, as she glanced at them, recognizing the black female and the old cripple she had seen in the cavern beneath the gathering rock. Among them, she saw Bonechewer.

The Un-Named council leaders began to eat. Ratha saw the black place a paw on the mare’s flank and ribs. The black’s shoulders hunched as she dived into the dappleback’s belly. All the others attacked the carcass with equal relish except for Bonechewer. He hung back until the crippled one had finished, then took his place. He ate then, but Ratha could see from his eyes that hehad as little appetite as she. She remembered his words to the council in the cavern, and she knew he was disgusted by the reckless slaughter. The Un-Named could ill-afford waste, he had said, even in the midst of plenty.

She raised her head from her paws, hoping to catch his eye. Her heart beat in her throat, her feelings a violent mix of hope and anger. Once or twice he lifted his muzzle, still chewing, as if he sensed someone was watching. Each time Ratha longed to call out, but caution stilled her. And then he did raise his chin and stared at her over the mare’s flank. She leaped to her feet, panting in her excitement, but he looked away, as if ashamed. For a moment, she stood still. Then slowly she lay down again and rested her chin on her paws, staring at the dried needles tumbled together on the ground. When she looked up again, Bonechewer was gone.