Ratha’s Creature (The First Book of The Named) by Clare Bell Page A

that kind of creature.”
    Ratha glared at Fessran, winced and licked smarting jowls. She turned once again to the enigmatic thing still dancing over its breakfast of twigs. Fessran had placed several small branches awkwardly, leaving broken ends sticking out. Gingerly, Ratha took one of these into her mouth and drew the branch from the fire. It was shorter than she expected and she shifted it in her jaws, fighting the urge to fling the thing away as it burned close to her face. Out of the corner of one eye she saw Fessran raise a paw to bat the branch out of her mouth. Ratha held her torch as long as she could before having to drop it back in the fire.
    “There!” she panted. “I can carry my creature.”
    Fessran lowered her foot. “You wouldn’t go very far before you dropped it. The sun is high, Ratha. We don’t need the Red Tongue.”
    “No! You are just like Thakur, telling me to leave my creature. I found it, I fed it, and I’m going to take it back with me.” Ratha flopped on her belly and stared into the fire.
    There must be a way ... there must ... yes, there is.
    Ratha caught Fessran peering into her face. She sat up abruptly, almost bumping the other’s chin. “I know, Fessran! Look at the Red Tongue. See how the creature crawls along the branch? Do you see how the Red Tongue’s passing turns the wood gray and feathery?” Ratha leaned over Fessran’s shoulder as she snagged a charred stick with one claw and pulled it out of the fire. “Once the wood turns to feathers, the Red Tongue won’t eat it. If I pick my branch up by this end,” she said, tapping the blackened bark, impatient for it to cool, “I can carry it.”
    When the wood stopped glowing and smoking, Ratha got her jaws around it and lifted the branch out of the fire. She raised her head, holding the torch triumphantly. An instant later, the charcoaled end collapsed between her teeth and the lighted end fell on the ground. It flickered out. Ratha spat out a mouthful of embers, gagged and drooled on the ground, trying to cool the burning bitterness with saliva. Through pain-blurred eyes she glared at the Red Tongue, retching as fluid ran down her chin.
    She panted rapidly and stuck her sore tongue out into the morning wind.
    “Arr! I thought it would work,” she said when she could speak.
    “You did better the first time,” Fessran answered. “Perhaps a longer branch not yet touched by the Red Tongue would serve you. Wait. I’ll climb up and break one off.”
    Ratha stared, open-mouthed, as Fessran hitched herself up the sapling’s slanted trunk. “You’re helping me?”
    “I prefer that to leaving you here.” Fessran’s head appeared in a crotch between two limbs. The tree’s crown swayed as she balanced herself. She seized a nearby branch in her jaws, cracked it loose and tossed it down to Ratha. Several more followed, the dry wood snapping cleanly away from the trunk.
    “My teeth weren’t made for that.” Fessran landed beside Ratha, sending up a cloud of flaky ash.
    “Why did you knock down all those?” Ratha asked. “I can carry only one with the Red Tongue at the end.”
    “Yes, but I can carry the others. And when the Red Tongue creeps to the end of your branch, I will coax it into one of mine and give that one to you.”
    “Ah, but you are clever, Fessran,” Ratha said.
    “Not clever. Just hungry. Take the large branch for your creature.” Fessran waited as Ratha lit the stick. “What about the rest of your creature?” she asked, her voice indistinct through the stick she had picked up.
    “We will leave it and it will die,” Ratha said. “But my creature has given birth and its nursling dances at the end of my branch. So will it always be with the Red Tongue.” She paused. “Are you ready, Fessran?”
    The other flicked her tail in answer and the two set off across the burn, Fessran in the lead, Ratha following, bearing the torch.
    As the two traveled, the grass grew thicker underfoot, hiding the