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

burn beneath a new carpet of green. Wild wheat stems stroked their bellies and flanks as they passed through, and Ratha had to hold her torch aloft to avoid setting the new growth alight. A sea of waving grasses covered what had been forest floor, swirling around the fire-blighted stands of pine and fir. Only the great red-woods still shaded the land, their heartwood still living, their fibrous bark only scarred by the Red Tongue’s passing. The wild grasses grew thin in their shadow and the torch seemed to burn brighter in the cool, still air beneath their boughs.
    But the trees were few and the grass triumphant as it spread far in the open sunlight. Ratha walked behind Fessran, watching her tail swing back and forth in time to her pace, listening to the fire snap and hiss. The only other sounds were of grass swishing past legs and the muted hammer of a woodpecker from its faraway perch.
    The sun reached its zenith and began to fall again. Fessran had replaced Ratha’s torch as many times as there were blackened stubs left along the trail. Ratha could hear Fessran’s stomach growl and her own, she was sure, would meet her backbone by the time they arrived on clan ground.
    Ratha slowly became aware that the continuous low gurgle in the background was not coming from her stomach or Fessran’s. It was the sound of running water. She tried to scent the stream, but the acrid tang of torch smoke made her nose useless. She could only follow Fessran’s lead.
    Soon they were walking along a grassy stream bank. Fessran found a ford where the stream ran shallow over gravel. They began to wade across, Fessran still leading, Ratha behind.
    Fessran reached the other side and scrambled up the steep bank, shaking mud and pebbles from her feet. “Here is where we swam with the deer away from the Red Tongue,” she called back to Ratha, who still stood in midstream.
    Ratha remained where she was, letting the water flow over her paws. The creek looked different in the open sun with grass instead of trees on its banks. But there, upstream, were the potholes she’d swum across and above them the waterfall she’d tumbled down. Her flank ached momentarily at the memory.
    “I know your feet are weary, Ratha”—Fessran’s voice cut into her thoughts—“but we have only a little farther to go.”
    Ratha’s jaws loosened in dismay and she almost dropped the torch in the water. Only at little farther to go? She wished that she was back on the burn, still traveling; the goal of her journey too far ahead to have to worry or think about. Now, suddenly, she had arrived. Ratha looked up the bank to where her companion was standing. Clan ground. And she wasn’t ready.
    “Are you going to let your tail drag in the water all day?” Fessran sounded annoyed.
    Ratha glanced down at her reflection. Herder of the Red Tongue, she thought wryly. A thin forlorn face stared back at her, holding the torch in its jaws. An echo of her own voice rang in her ears. Clan leader, hah! Who is he compared to....
    “Ratha, hurry.” Fessran leaned down the bank. Ratha jerked her head up and sprang, dripping, onto the slope. Her paws slid on the muddy bank but Fessran seized her ruff and hauled her up.
    Ratha paced back and forth on the stream bank while Fessran shook herself off. This was home ground, but very much changed. The forest no longer reached the stream and the meadow had altered shape and grown larger. The grass felt new and crisp underfoot. Ratha looked across the open land and remembered the cool dimness of the old forest.
    The meadow stood empty. No beasts grazed; no herdfolk stood guard. Ratha shivered. Where are they ... ?
    “Fessran, could the clan have gone somewhere else?” she asked, turning to her companion and speaking awkwardly around the branch.
    “The meadow grass is not thick enough for beasts to graze,” Fessran said. “And the dapplebacks like to browse in thickets. Our folk may have taken the animals further away to graze, but I