Tailchaser's Song by Tad Williams Page B

the trees.
    Foxes were no danger to grown cats. Fritti had relaxed back into his sleeping position when he heard another sound—the unhappy mewing of a kitten.
    He leaped up instantly to investigate, springing out of the copse and down a tree-crowded slope. The barking and snarling became louder. He leaped onto a crest of rock that jutted from a welter of underbrush.
    Many jumps downslope from him an adult red fox had backed a small catling against a hummock. The young cat’s back was arched, all the fur puffed out from its small body.
    Still not a very daunting sight, thought Fritti, not even to one of the Visl.
    As he jumped down from the rock, Fritti noticed something unusual in the young cat’s posture: it was injured, somehow, and despite all its loud hissing and spitting, was obviously not in much shape to fight. Fritti felt sure that the Visl knew this, too.
    Then, shockingly, Tailchaser realized that the fox-cornered catling was Pouncequick.

6 CHAPTER
    ... cats in their huddled sleep
(Two heaps of fur made one)
Twitch their ears and whimper—
Do they dream the same dream?
    —Eric Barker
     
     
     
     
    “Pouncequick! Little Pouncequick!” Fritti loped down the shrub-spotted slope. “It’s me! Tailchaser!”
    The youngling, from his sagging defensive posture, turned a drooping eye in Fritti’s direction, but showed no sign of recognition. The fox turned sharply to look at the oncoming Tailchaser, but gave no ground. When Fritti drew to a halt a jump or two away, the Visl barked a warning.
    “Come no closer, bark-scrabbler! I will do for you, also!”
    Tailchaser could now see that the Visl was a female, and despite her ruffled hackles, not much bigger than he. She was thin, too, and her legs were trembling—whether from anger or fear, Fritti could not tell.
    “Why do you menace this cat, hunt-sister?” sang Fritti, slowly and soothingly. “Has he done wrong to you? He is my cousin-son, and I must stand for him.”
    The ritualistic question seemed to calm the fox a little, but she did not back off. “He menaced my pups,” she said, panting. “I will fight you both if I must.”
    Her pups! Tailchaser understood the situation better. Fox mothers, just as the matriarchs of the Folk, would do anything to protect their litters. He looked at her protruding ribs. It must have been a difficult autumn for mother and young.
    “How was your family menaced?” Tailchaser inquired. Pouncequick, a jump away, was staring fixedly at the Visl, seemingly unaware of Fritti’s presence.
    The she-fox looked at Fritti appraisingly. “In the morning-dark, I had taken the pups out prowling,” she began, “when I smelled predators—large ones. The scent was unfamiliar, but it had something of badgers, and something of cats. I hurried the pups down to the den and lay on them to keep them quiet, but the danger smell did not go away. So I decided to lead whatever lurked out there away from the nest. I told the pups to stay where they were, then broke from a second burrow entrance.
    “The smell was very strong—the predators were near. I showed myself briefly and ran. After a moment, I heard something following. I took them down-ravine, and up the basin’s edge. I even exposed myself to sight on the long meadow, in hopes of getting a moon-glimpse of what pursued me—”
    “What were they?” Tailchaser interrupted. The Visl glared at him, and her hackles bristled. Patience! Tailchaser chided himself.
    “I don’t know, cat,” she said harshly. “They were too smart to follow out onto the grassland.
    “When they didn’t appear, I had to double back, for fear they had given me up and gone back to seek the den. As I said, though, they were cruelly clever ... they were waiting for me when I reentered the scrub wood, and I had to run like Renred to get away. They kept to shadows and underbrush, though. I don’t even know to a certainty how many there were. More than three, I think.”
    Fritti admired the fox mother