“Don’t say such things, Tailchaser,” said Pouncequick. “That’s not true, any of it.”
“It is true, Pounce,” said Fritti bitterly. “The great hunter Tailchaser has come to the limit of his quest.”
“The only thing you have said that is true, Tailchaser,” said. Roofshadow with surprising vehemence, “is that we have found what we were looking for. That is something that Fencewalker, Squeakerbane and the others cannot say. We have found the source of the terror.”
“Apparently Thane Brushstalker found it, too—and you heard what happened to him! Meerclar protect us!” Tailchaser was a little mollified, though. He looked up from his sulk to face his comrades. “All right. The question still remains. What do we do?”
Pouncequick looked at the two elder cats, then said quietly, as if ashamed: “I think we should go back to the Prince and tell him. He’ll know what to do.”
Fritti was about to object when Roofshadow cut in: “Pouncequick’s right. We felt the os in that place. We three are too few and too small. To think that it is our place alone to deal with this is an arrogance surpassing Ninebirds‘.” The fela shook her head, green eyes thoughtful. “If we bring others here they cannot fail to discover what we have. Perhaps then the weight of the Court of Harar will be put to some use.” She stood, another shadow in the dark forest. “Come, let’s return to the tree roots until the sun is out. I am certainly not going anywhere tonight.”
Tailchaser stared at the gray fela, admiring her. “As usual, you speak with quite a bit more reason than
I
have been using. You too, Pounce.” He smiled at his young friend. “Harar! I’m glad that you two didn’t let me go off by my stupid self.”
In the Hour before dawn Fritti was unable to sleep. Roofshadow and Pouncequick tossed fitfully and muttered, but Tailchaser lay between them and stared up into the dark treetops, nerves as taut as a bent branch. From time to time he would drift off into a brief, dreamy near-sleep, only to find himself suddenly wide awake again, feeling trapped and exposed, his heart pounding.
The night wore on. The forest remained as still as stone.
Tailchaser was wandering along the dream threshold when he heard a noise. He lay listening distractedly for a moment as it grew louder; suddenly he realized that something was charging rapidly toward them through the underbrush. He leaped onto his paws, jarring his friends into groggy wakefulness.
“Something’s coming!” he hissed, fur bristling. The din increased. Time seemed to slow, each moment expanding into a smothering eternity. A shape burst out of the undergrowth only a few jumps away.
Spiky and tattered, eyes starting from its head, the apparition crashed out into the open. Highlighted by the Eye beaming down through the trees, it seemed to take forever to reach the companions. Tailchaser, rigid with panic, felt as though he were under deep water.
The bizarre figure skidded to a halt. The Eye-light was full in its face for a moment—full in the face of Eatbugs.
Before Fritti, shocked and startled, could move or say a word, Eatbugs threw back his head and howled like the bitterest winter storm.
“Run! Run!” cried the mad cat. “They’re coming!
RUN!”
Pouncequick and Roofshadow were bolt upright now. As if to emphasize Eatbugs’ cry, a terrible choking scream welled up from the darkness of the woods beyond. With a bound, Eatbugs was past Tailchaser and his companions and gone. Another horrible moan split the air. With unconscious noises of terror, the trio was after him, running headlong into the forest, away from the hideous sound.
Tailchaser felt as if he were in an awful dream—the flickering of Eye-light and darkness nearly blinding him, Eatbugs barely visible before him, rocks and roots rising up around him. The forest seemed to rush past. He could hear Pouncequick and the fela laboring along beside him. On and on they ran, no thought of stealth or hiding, only escape, escape!
Now Pouncequick alone was at his side—gasping, driving himself along on his short kitten-legs in an ecstasy of terror. Fritti was pulling away from him. Without thinking, Tailchaser slowed down, turned to urge him on. There was a cracking sound from overhead, and something sprang down from the trees. Tailchaser felt sharp claws gouging him, raking his back; then he was crushed to the ground and his ka fled into complete darkness.
18
CHAPTER
I
saw my evil day at hand. The sun rose dim on us in the morning,
and
at night it sank in a dark cloud, and looked like a ball of fire.
—Black Hawk
Another jarring impact returned Fritti to the waking world. Bruised and exhausted, he lay with his eyes closed. He could feel the bitter cold rain splashing down on him, matting his fur. The sudden jolt—had he been dropped? pushed?—had knocked the breath out of his chest. As he sucked the air back into his lungs a scent came with it that prickled his skin: cold earth and salty blood—and a deep, penetrating animal musk. His muscles clenched involuntarily, and a bright pain shot across his back and shoulders. He restrained a noise of protest.
Slowly and cautiously he opened an eye. He shut it again immediately as cold rainwater splashed in. Af ter a moment he tried once more. Just beyond the blurry tip of his own muzzle he could see the miserable, bedraggled face of Eatbugs, who was cringing on the ground nearby. Over the arch of Eatbugs’ back he could also see a little of Pouncequick’s fluffy tail.
“There. I told you the little grub would wake up. Now he can carry his own sun-cursed weight.”
Tailchaser started involuntarily at this speech so near to his head. The voice used the Higher Singing in awkward, halting style, full of dissonant notes and slurs. The harsh sounds resonated with violence.
Ears flattened against his head, Tailchaser turned very slowly to look over his shoulder. Something large and terrible loomed there.
Three cats stared down at Fritti and his companions where they lay on the wet ground. They were big, fully as large as Dayhunter and Nightcatcher, Fencewalker’s comrades—but they looked very different : wrong, not the way the Folk were meant to be. Their faces were snakelike, flat brows and wide cheekbones, and their ears lay well back on their skulls. Three pairs of eyes stared from these faces, huge and deep-set, burning with an unsettling fire. The muscular bodies were knotted, low-slung and powerful, terminating in wide, spatulate paws with ... red talons, hooked nails the color of blood.
Tailchaser felt his heart quicken with fear. One of the beasts approached him, strange eyes glinting. Like the other two he was mostly a sooty black, with a few sickly, pale spots on his underside.
“Get up, me‘mre,” he snarled. “You’ve been carried long enough. From now on you’ll hop along properly, or feel my teeth.” He bared the spiky contents of his mouth. “Do you understand?” With this the creature leaned down toward Tailchaser. His breath smelled of carrion. Fritti felt terror’s constriction from his throat to his stomach, and could only move his head weakly.
“Good. Well, you and your miserable friends can get up, then.” Tailchaser, unable to meet those terrible eyes any longer, snuck a glance over to his companions. He could see Pouncequick’s face now. The kitten was awake, but wearing a look of shock and numbness. He did not meet Fritti’s gaze.
“You there!” Tailchaser turned back. “Listen, when I say ‘up,’ up is where you’d better be. This is Scratchnail speaking, a chief of the Clawguard. You’ve not still got your miserable guts because I like you little bugs. Up! Now!”
Fritti climbed painfully to his feet. He could feel something thicker and warmer than rainwater matting the fur on his back. He wanted desperately to groom, to clean the wound, but his fear was too strong.
Scratchnail hissed at the other two beasts: “Longtooth! Bitefast! Sun sizzle you, don’t stand there—kick these slugs onto their paws! If you have to bite an ear off, go ahead. The Fat One won’t much care if they’re not so pretty.” Scratchnail laughed, a grating, coughing sound that hurt Tailchaser’s ears. The other Clawguard moved forward and pulled the silent Pouncequick and Eatbugs to their feet.
For the first time since regaining the waking world, Fritti took a look at his surroundings. They were still in Ratleaf, apparently—lines of trees extended out on all sides into the night. A drizzling rain spattered down through the branches, and the ground was spongy and sodden.
As the three companions were forced into a slow march, all Tailchaser could think was:
I’m going to die. I didn’t find Hushpad, and now I’ve died trying. Died. Going to die.
Then, as the Clawguard impelled them along with savage paw-blows to the head and flanks, he wondered:
Where is Roofshadow?
Although it seemed to Fritti that they had been walking forever, the feel of the air told him that it was still only midway through Final Dancing. Had it really been only a short time ago that he, Roofshadow and Pounce had been curled up together warmly? He looked at his young friend limping along before him. Poor Pounce—if only he hadn’t come. Looking at the small, bedraggled form, he felt the first warmth of an unfamiliar emotion: hatred. The huge, deformed beasts that harried them on with cuffs and snarls were all too tangible, but since they were real they could be hated. Where were they going? Where were these creatures taking them? Fritti knew—the mound.
So there was something to know, at least; some face to the evil. It seemed to help a little, although Fritti could not say why. It was pointless to wonder too much, though, because he knew that he was—that thought again—going to die.
Eatbugs, leading the procession, had begun to mumble to himself. Tailchaser could not distinguish any words in the angry murmur, and apparently the Clawguard could not either. After the first moments they ceased paying attention, but Fritti could sense something building in the mad old cat, a gradually swelling tension. It made him apprehensive.
Eatbugs, with a yowl of rage, turned on Longtooth, the nearest Guard. “Crawler!!” screamed the ragged old cat. “Your song is sour! I know your dirt and darkness!” Longtooth, lips curling in surprise, started back almost imperceptibly, and Eatbugs leaped past him into the trees. Tailchaser’s heart was racing.
The beast of the Clawguard was off balance for only a heartbeat; with a growl he bounded after Eatbugs. He caught him within a matter of moments, knocking the tattered cat skidding in the mud, then leaped onto his back. There came a frenzied yowl—from which of the two Fritti could not say—and then, amazingly, Eatbugs rose up and raked his claws against Longtooth’s snout. Eatbugs’ mud-matted fur stood out spikily as he pressed forward; for a moment he seemed to grow, to become strong. Then, as Longtooth recovered his wits and charged again, Tailchaser saw that Eatbugs was just what he had been: an old cat, puffed by madness, up against a monster twice his size. Longtooth dealt a crashing kick to Eatbugs’ face as they grappled, and the old one dropped limply to the muddy earth, blood running from his nose, and lay silent. The Clawguard, hissing like a hlizza, jumped forward to tear out his throat, but Scratchnail’s voice rasped out.
“Stop, or I’ll have your eyes!” Longtooth, his glittering stare now opaque with bloodlust, hesitated for a moment. He bared his teeth, then turned to stare at his chief. Scratchnail chuckled, a dry, scaly sound.
“Well,” he said, “the old drooler made a pretty fool out of you, didn’t he?” Longtooth looked over to his leader with undisguised hatred, but moved no closer to Eatbugs. “Almost got away, too, didn’t he?” Scratchnail taunted. “It was your fault, and now you can carry him for a while. You’d better hope that pathetic old skin-rat is still breathing, because the Fat One wanted this bunch alive—at least until he sees them. What do you think he’d do to you if you interfered, my friend?” Scratchnail grinned. Longtooth, shaken, backed away from the crumpled form of Eatbugs.
“Maybe he’d give you to the Toothguard, eh? Wouldn’t
that
be unpleasant!” Longtooth shivered and looked away from his chief. Gingerly, he approached the old cat and sniffed him, then picked him up with his mouth.
“Very good,” said Scratchnail, motioning to Bitefast, who had watched the events without moving. “Let’s go. The Fire-eye will be open soon. We’ll have to make double-time to the Western Mouth.”
Fritti and his young friend were harried forward, always in a straight line, with no slackening of pace allowed. The steady rain had thickened, soaking their fur and turning the forest paths into slippery bog.
When it seemed as though things could be no worse for the prisoners, the rain began to turn to hail. Tailchaser, feeling the stinging pelt of the ice-stones, remembered the Rikchikchik and their attack from the treetops. This attack was unceasing, though, and his body was already cold and battered. When he and Pouncequick tried to change their route slightly, to gain more protection from the trees overhead, Scratchnail and his bullies pushed them back onto the path. The beast-cats themselves were not bothered by the hailstones—or did not seem to be—and seemed to be hurrying toward some important rendezvous. Fritti and Pounce, silent and beaten, kept their heads low and kept moving. The first traces of dawn were beginning to blue the edges of the Vez‘an sky, and the Clawguard had grown agitated.
Abruptly, at an unintelligible command from Scratchnail, Longtooth bounded forward and vanished into a clump of bracken. Everyone else waited for a moment in the eerie silence of Ratleaf. Then Bitefast’s reptilian head reappeared and bobbed once. Scratchnail gave a low growl of approval.
“Now, you miserable Squeakers, into the bushes you go!”
Longtooth, still carrying the silent form of Eatbugs, followed Bitefast into the tangle of brush. After a moment’s hesitation—in which he weighed the chances of making a break for freedom, and realized that he would never outrun Scratchnail—Tailchaser followed the Clawguard. Pouncequick, eyes still inwardly fixed, padded after.