Read Online Ratha and Thistle-Chaser (The Third Book of the Named) by Clare Bell - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Clare Bell
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wanted to control; you had to plan ahead.
He stared at her in dismay, his tail sagging. She backed away in a three-legged crab walk, growling deep in her throat.
“Go then,” he said sadly, more to himself than to her. Deliberately he broke eye contact, looking away. When he looked back again, she was gone.
Once Thakur had recovered Aree, the treeling cheered him, but he still remained puzzled about his encounter. He walked along the low bluff above the beach with Aree on his back, airing his thoughts aloud to his small companion as he often did.
“She doesn’t speak. I’m sure of that,” he said over his shoulder to the treeling. “And her eyes are those of a witless Un-Named one.” He stopped, remembering the swirling milky-green irises. Were those eyes indeed empty, or did the opacity hide the spark of intelligence that the Named valued? What about her led him to brood this way? Her companionship with the sea-beasts, part of him answered, but another, more honest part said no, that is not all.
He needed to find forage and a steady supply of good, fresh water for the clan and its herds. He had already noticed several estuaries and inlets that cut into the coast-line, but most that he sampled were too salty or brackish, even when he moved upstream. Sparse rainfall had dried up the rivers that fed the bays and inlets, allowing seawater to intrude.
Finally he found a creek that fed a lagoon. Though the lagoon water was briny and mixed with the sea, the stream itself, when he tasted it, was fresh. He followed the creek inland until he came to its source. At the base of a second tier of cliffs set far back from the ocean, a spring ran steadily from a cleft in blue-gray stone, collecting in a pool beneath. Shaded by the rock walls and watered by the spring, trees grew at the base of the cliffs with an open meadow beyond. Seepage from the spring moistened the ground, and fresh grass sprouted amid the dappled patterns of sun and shade.
Here, near the sea coast, morning and evening fogs muted the heat that blistered areas farther inland. Thakur drank from the pool, then stood on its margin, letting the feel of the place seep into him.
Several small pawprints in the moist earth near the pool told him that the stranger too knew of this spring. And seeing her prints made Thakur wonder what would happen if the Named did choose to come. She could always drink from the creek that spilled out of the overflow from the spring-fed pool instead of from the pool itself.
His belly gave a twinge: not true hunger, but a warning that he should eat within the next day or so. His time here was drawing to an end; the other scouts that Ratha had sent out would be returning with descriptions of their discoveries. He too would tell his story to those assembled before the sunning rock. This place, with its oasis of fresh growth and unfailing water, appeared ideal for the clan and their herd animals. In addition, the sea-beasts might be the answer to Ratha’s quest for another source of meat. If a lame Un-Named one had formed a protective relationship with one of them, surely the herders of the Named could do more.
Yet even as he thought this he had misgivings. He sensed that the relationship of the stranger to the sea-beasts was different from that of the clan herders to their animals. The creatures’ reactions as she walked among them told Thakur that she had blended herself into their community. She lived with them rather than managing them to serve her needs, as the Named did with their animals.
But she was alone and weak as well. This was the only way she could live, by disturbing the sea-beasts as little as possible. Perhaps she was only a scavenger after all, he thought, but the idea saddened him.
Could she perhaps find a place among the Named? And if the clan came, with their herds and their ways, could she live a better life than one of scratching and scrounging among middens left by these wave-wallowers?
No. She was not
He stared at her in dismay, his tail sagging. She backed away in a three-legged crab walk, growling deep in her throat.
“Go then,” he said sadly, more to himself than to her. Deliberately he broke eye contact, looking away. When he looked back again, she was gone.
Once Thakur had recovered Aree, the treeling cheered him, but he still remained puzzled about his encounter. He walked along the low bluff above the beach with Aree on his back, airing his thoughts aloud to his small companion as he often did.
“She doesn’t speak. I’m sure of that,” he said over his shoulder to the treeling. “And her eyes are those of a witless Un-Named one.” He stopped, remembering the swirling milky-green irises. Were those eyes indeed empty, or did the opacity hide the spark of intelligence that the Named valued? What about her led him to brood this way? Her companionship with the sea-beasts, part of him answered, but another, more honest part said no, that is not all.
He needed to find forage and a steady supply of good, fresh water for the clan and its herds. He had already noticed several estuaries and inlets that cut into the coast-line, but most that he sampled were too salty or brackish, even when he moved upstream. Sparse rainfall had dried up the rivers that fed the bays and inlets, allowing seawater to intrude.
Finally he found a creek that fed a lagoon. Though the lagoon water was briny and mixed with the sea, the stream itself, when he tasted it, was fresh. He followed the creek inland until he came to its source. At the base of a second tier of cliffs set far back from the ocean, a spring ran steadily from a cleft in blue-gray stone, collecting in a pool beneath. Shaded by the rock walls and watered by the spring, trees grew at the base of the cliffs with an open meadow beyond. Seepage from the spring moistened the ground, and fresh grass sprouted amid the dappled patterns of sun and shade.
Here, near the sea coast, morning and evening fogs muted the heat that blistered areas farther inland. Thakur drank from the pool, then stood on its margin, letting the feel of the place seep into him.
Several small pawprints in the moist earth near the pool told him that the stranger too knew of this spring. And seeing her prints made Thakur wonder what would happen if the Named did choose to come. She could always drink from the creek that spilled out of the overflow from the spring-fed pool instead of from the pool itself.
His belly gave a twinge: not true hunger, but a warning that he should eat within the next day or so. His time here was drawing to an end; the other scouts that Ratha had sent out would be returning with descriptions of their discoveries. He too would tell his story to those assembled before the sunning rock. This place, with its oasis of fresh growth and unfailing water, appeared ideal for the clan and their herd animals. In addition, the sea-beasts might be the answer to Ratha’s quest for another source of meat. If a lame Un-Named one had formed a protective relationship with one of them, surely the herders of the Named could do more.
Yet even as he thought this he had misgivings. He sensed that the relationship of the stranger to the sea-beasts was different from that of the clan herders to their animals. The creatures’ reactions as she walked among them told Thakur that she had blended herself into their community. She lived with them rather than managing them to serve her needs, as the Named did with their animals.
But she was alone and weak as well. This was the only way she could live, by disturbing the sea-beasts as little as possible. Perhaps she was only a scavenger after all, he thought, but the idea saddened him.
Could she perhaps find a place among the Named? And if the clan came, with their herds and their ways, could she live a better life than one of scratching and scrounging among middens left by these wave-wallowers?
No. She was not
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