Free Tailchaser's Song by Tad Williams Page A

upper levels of the great live oak the procession halted for a moment. Fritti sat on a none-too-wide branch and waited for his breath to come back. Like all cats, he was a good climber, but he outweighed his squirrel companions manyfold. He had to cling tighter and maintain better balance than they, especially up here where the branches were getting thinner: from time to time a limb had swayed dizzyingly under him, forcing him to climb quickly to a sturdier one.
    They stopped in one of the last trunk crotches: several large branches flaring out from the trunk of the oak. They had climbed so high that Fritti could no longer see down to the earth below through the overlapping limbs. The fetching party, augmented by scores of other Rikchikchik, watched him from a safe distance and squittered between themselves in amazement at the sight of a cat in the Lord’s tree.
    His legs aching, Tailchaser was again forced to rise and follow his hosts. After ascending a few more feet up the central trunk, spiraling upward on radiating branches, they turned out along a wide outreaching limb. Away from the trunk the bough’s circumference became rapidly smaller, until Fritti balked for fear that it Would not hold his weight. The Rikchikchik urged him on, though, and he edged forward until he was forced to lie on his stomach and cling. He would go no farther.
    As he lay—swaying gently in the breeze—the squirrel who had led the party chirped a brief signal. The tok-tok-tokking noise that he had heard earlier resumed. Craning his head, Fritti could see several of the Rikchikchik with nutshells clutched in their fore paws, banging them sharply against the tree’s trunk and branches in organized, staccato bursts of cadence.
    From the other side of the treetops a new round of raps answered.
    On a branch perpendicular to Tailchaser‘s, separated from his by several jumps of empty air, a slow and dignified procession was moving—dignified by squirrel standards, although perhaps a little brisk and hoppy in comparison to the sinuous grace of the Folk. Fritti thought he recognized Master Fizz and Mistress Whir near the front of the procession, which contained several pawfuls of Rikchikchik.
    Leading the strange parade was a large squirrel with grayshot fur and an exultantly bushy tail. The old squirrel’s eyes were as black as obsidian, and they studied Tailchaser intently as the line of tree-dwellers stopped and crouched.
    After eyeing the cat imperiously for a moment, the old one turned to Mistress Whir.
    “This cat-cat-folk who saved?”
    Mistress Whir looked demurely across at Fritti, who clung gamely to his branch. “Is most yes cat, Lord Snap,” she shyly affirmed.
    Tailchaser could not help but notice how the Rikchikchik had protected their leader from him, an untrustworthy cat. Out at the end of this wand-thin limb he had no leverage by which to spring; even if he could manage to, the distance separating his and Lord Snap’s branches was too great. Not that he had the urge to spring at anyone at this particular instant—still, he admired the Rikchikchik’s cleverness.
    “You, cat,” said Lord Snap sharply.
    “Yes, sir?” answered Fritti. What did this old fellow want, anyway?
    “Cat-folk, Rikchikchik not friends. You help Mistress Whir. Why you do, so-strange cat?”
    Fritti had not quite puzzled it out yet himself. “I’m not sure, Lord Snap,” he answered.
    “Could have sheltered with chiknek-stealer under log, under log!” broke in Master Fizz suddenly. “Didn‘t,” he added significantly. Lord Snap lowered his head and gnawed meditatively on a twig, then looked at Fritti again.
    “Always hunt, fight-fight with cat-folk. Moon-last four cat climb great tree. Steal chiklek ... steal younglings. Steal many. Who cats?”
    “I don’t know, Lord Snap. I entered the forest only today. Did you say four cats? All together?”
    “Four so-bad cats.” Snap affirmed. “One each leg Rikchikchik have. Four.”
    “I do not