Tailchaser's Song (22 page)

“I know that.” Pouncequick had a more serious expression, but was still enjoying Tailchaser’s discomfiture. “I think that between you and Roofshadow, you’ll manage to keep me out of harm. And perhaps we can do the same for you.”

“Roofshadow?” Now Fritti was astonished. “Roof shadow, you must not understand how risky this all is. Keep Pounce here, I beg of you. Harar! Have you both gone as mad as old Eatbugs?”

Roofshadow stared at Tailchaser with cool, deep eyes.

“I, too, wish the young one didn’t insist on going— but he does. Who am I to know the way of Meerclar? She calls the Folk to many different purposes. As for me, well, I do not fault you for not knowing... but others beside yourself have scores to settle—and promises to keep.”

“But ...” Fritti began. The gray cat cut him off.

“Tailchaser, before you ever came to Firsthome I stood before the Vaka‘az’me, asking for help. I got no more assistance than you did. I, too, had thought about striking north to seek answers—and was about to set off when you two arrived, and broke my resolve. Now, I am ready again.”

Fritti stared, uncomprehending.

“I come from the far side of Rootwood,” Roofshadow began. “My birthing-place is separated by many leagues and countless trees from the Seat of Sunback. My sire was Slipwhisker, one of the elders of the Forest-Light Clan. He was a respected hunter, and I had many brothers and sisters.

“As a young fela I scorned the young males in our tribe—they were overbold and self-satisfied. When I came into my season I made sure to be far away from the clan, so I would not be betrayed by my nature into bearing a litter that I did not yet desire. I found that I
enjoyed
being by myself; enjoyed the solitary way of the hunter.

“I wandered far afield, usually alone. Sometimes I would take my little nest-brother, Snufflenose. He was one of the few Forest-Light Folk whose company I cared for.” Here Roofshadow looked away into the forest heights for a moment. When she turned her gaze back to Fritti, her face was as calm as before.

“Slipwhisker, who sired me, would sometimes tease me about whether I was a fela at all, or instead a small and slender tom. I think he was proud, though. I could hunt as well as any of the young males—and bragged about it a good deal less.

“One morning I had resolved to go exploring E‘award into the Rootwood. I asked little Snufflenose if he wanted to come, but he was not feeling well. He asked me if I would stay and keep him company around the nest, but the smell of the morning was strong, and there were new and exciting currents tickling my whiskers. I left him behind, and went out on my own.

“I will not grieve you with a long tale. I returned well after Deepest Quiet—and found a horror such as I could scarcely believe. Most of my clan were dead: torn as if attacked by a fik‘az pack. Snufflenose was one of them. No dog pack could ever have caught the entire Forest-Light Clan by surprise. Those whose bodies were not scattered about the forest were gone with no trace. Slipwhisker was one of those who had disappeared.

“For many days I was as mad as a fla-fa‘az who has eaten poison berries. When my dreams were in the sunlight again I came through the forest to Firsthonie. I waited long for an audience, and when I was seen they told me it was the brawling Garrin, the honey-lovers, who had destroyed my folk. I know better.

“When I saw you and Pouncequick I knew that our paths had come together for a reason. Pouncequick is much like my brother Snufflenose, and now he is my friend. And you, Tailchaser—I am not sure why, but I feel drawn to you, also.” Roofshadow averted her eyes as she said this last. “Anyway, these are my sorrows, and now I think you understand my desires. We will go together.”

After long moments of silence, Fritti turned to Pouncequick. “Did you know all this?” he asked weakly.

“Some,” the kitten replied. “But not all. Why are such terrible things happening, Tailchaser?”

“I can’t say, Pounce.”

Roofshadow looked up. The fires that had been kindled in her eyes during her story had abated. She looked cold and tired.

“We had best leave soon, or we shall not leave at all,” she said flatly. “The winter is killing fierce in this part of our fields.”

As if in answer, the wind sounded a whistling call through the branches above.

The long light shakes across the lakes
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying
Blow, bugle; answer echoes, dying, dying, dying.

—Alfred, Lord Tennyson

 

 

 

The snow fluttered and swirled through the col umned byways of Rootwood. A near-silent group of cats, Fritti and his companions among them, wandered in straying disorder through the trees. Scattered pawprints slowly filled with powdered snow behind them.

Fencewalker and his group of conscripts were moving out to the northern border of Firsthome; Squeakerbane was accompanying them to forest’s edge, where he would turn Vez‘an for Sourweed’s thanage.

When Tailchaser and his companions had asked to come along, Fencewalker had been surprised and Squeakerbane a little suspicious, but neither had offered objections.

“Why in the name of Blueback’s Hindbristles you want to go padding around in the U‘ea territories at this season—and with a fela and a youngling besides—I don’t var. But it’s your pelt, my catling,” the Prince had grumped.

 

Fencewalker’s conscripts were mostly a mixed lot of young hunters and battered old toms who were not finding favor with the felas. One or two, like young Snaremouse—and, of course, Dayhunter and Nightcatcher—looked as though they would prove reliable in troublesome situations, but Tailchaser had doubts that the rest would be much use around Pouncequick’s “red-clawed monsters.” The ragged band showed none of the discipline that had been evident among the First-walkers—they meandered far afield as the group passed through the forest, each reluctant to perform the uncatlike role of staying with his fellows. As a result, when the group stopped to sleep or discuss directions it took ages for the stragglers to come trooping in; quite often the missing would have to be searched for.

In the coldest parts of Final Dancing the band would huddle together for warmth, bodies piled and sprawled piecemeal like fallen leaves. A sudden movement usually meant a paw in someone’s eye or nose, and there was endless scuffling.

Of the three companions, only Pouncequick seemed to find any pleasure in the journey. Tailchaser and Roofshadow were often quiet, deep in thought—the fela, especially, remaining aloof from Fencewalker’s fractious crew.

So the strange group traveled on through the tree-beamed halls of outer Rootwood ...over the thin blanket of new snow....

 

 

Fifth Eye-rise out from the Court of Harar the travelers noticed the Rootwood beginning to thin. Soon Squeakerbane, Tailchaser and his companions would separate from Fencewalker’s caravan to go their own ways.

In honor of their last night together the Folk halted early that evening. They found a sheltered copse—out of the wind, and with only the faintest wisp of white on the earthen floor. They split up to hunt; one by one they returned, after varying degrees of success.

Roofshadow and Tailchaser did not hunt, but instead took a silent walk through the woods. Side by side they paced, unspeaking, their noses filled with the crisp bite of winter, the delicate crunching of their pads on the snow the only sound.

Watching the gray fela move gracefully beside him, Fritti more than once felt the urge to speak, to elicit some reaction from the calm, silent Roofshadow ... but he could not bring himself to break the stillness.

After they had paused to watch the bright points that speckled the night sky, they walked back to the copse as quietly as they had come.

Pouncequick, puffed with chill and excitement, had also just returned. He had gone hunting with the Prince, and had apparently kept his squeaking to a minimum: they had been successful.

“Isn’t it cold?” he piped. “Fencewalker’s an awfully good hunter. You should have seen us! Here he comes now!”

The Prince approached, passing through a gaggle of other Folk who were wandering back—some licking their muzzles. Fencewalker approached the trio and dumped a plump Rikchikchik on the ground before them.

“I hope you will do me the honor of sharing my kill,” he said, with more than a touch of pride. Fritti’s stomach rumbled as he watched his companions fall to, but he remembered his oath to Lord Snap.

This promise-keeping seems a me mre of a way to go about things,
he thought ruefully.

Fencewalker looked up, his muzzle steaming with squirrel blood. “Here now, Tailchaser old fellow, what are you waiting on?” he asked.

“It’s too difficult to explain, O Prince. I am honored by your kind offer, but I just can’t eat right now.” Fritti’s resolve seemed stronger than his hunger, but he did not feel comfortable it would last long. He moved away from his companions.

“Well, let everyone groom himself, I always say,” muttered Fencewalker philosophically, and returned to the fast-disappearing Rikchikchik.

Later, after all the hunters had returned, the group gathered itself into a close-pressed circle, backs against the breeze that swept through even this well-protected stand of trees. They took turns boasting and telling stories. Many of the Folk that Fencewalker had brought from Firsthome proved quite adept at relating funny songs and tales.

“Chances are they’re better storytellers than they’ll ever be fighters,” muttered Thane Squeakerbane to Furscuff, the only First-walker who had accompanied him from his thanage to the Court.

After a while young Snaremouse got up—after much urging from his fellows—and did a dance. He bobbed and crouched, now sliding on his stomach, now leaping in the air as if he were being pulled into the sky by his black nose. At times only his tail would move, forming strange and hilarious curves as Snaremouse stood stock-still with a look of intense concentration on his face.

The party whooped with glee when he was done. Overheated, he ran off to roll in a small snowdrift.

Squeakerbane—who, despite himself, had enjoyed Snaremouse’s dance—rose and stretched. One of the Firsthome cats called out for him to tell a story. The rest of the assembly agreed, and pressed him for a tale.

“Very well,” the Thane said, closing his eyes in thought for a moment, “a story I shall give you. Do not take offense if I tell you that we prefer stories with a little less fluff and a little more bone, we First-walkers.” Opening his eyes, Squeakerbane shook his scarred, bristly body and sat back on his haunches.

“What your esteemed Prince Consort, Dewtreader, said about Ninebirds and his deformed progeny has put me in mind of something. Do you all know how M‘an, the servant, and Aziri’le, the Folk, first fell out? It is an old story—but not much told around the Court, I’ll warrant.”

None but Fencewalker and one or two of the older toms had ever heard of this tale. The Prince said he could not remember how it went.

“Ah, but we First-walkers make a practice of remembering things like this,” said Squeakerbane with a brief smile.

he chanted in a singsong voice.

After a pause, the Thane began his narrative.

“In the time of Prince Strongclaw, in the long and felicitous reign of Queen Windruffle, our Lord Firefoot hunted deep into the farthest reaches of Southern Rootwood. He had been many winters in the wild, and had seen no Folk for many a season-turn. He had run with the Visl, wrestled with the ponderous Garrin and raced the fleet Praere. He missed the company of his own kind, but he had vowed never to return to the. Court of his father until Whitewind was avenged.

“One afternoon he met another cat walking on the edge of Rootwood—the most beautiful of the Folk he had ever seen:

“The beautiful one was the color of grain swaying in the broad fields beyond the Qu‘cef; as soft and downy as the cloudcats over Sunsnest.

“ ‘What is your name, lovely one?’ asked Lord Firefoot.

“ ‘My name is Windflower,’ replied the newcomer in a voice as sweet as a tiny stream. ‘Who are you?’

“ ‘Do you not know me?’ asked the Firstborn. ‘I am Tangaloor Firefoot, child of Goldeneye and Skydancer, hunter and wanderer of the First Blood!’