Free Ratha’s Challenge (The Fourth Book of The Named) by Clare Bell

her attack, as if she were too small to bother with. It was too intent on the wounded hunter, and even the attacks by the other cats could not turn it away. The bright ribbon of blood on his side was a flag that drew the beast to him. The trampling feet were right above him, and his squall of terror filled the air.
    Something whiplike yet heavy struck Thistle’s side, sending her tumbling. As she sprang back to her feet she saw that the face-tail had spun away from the wounded hunter and was thundering at her, trunk raised for another blow. She jumped, flattened as it flailed over her back. Her mind was whipping around as fast as the beast’s trunk, seeking an escape.
    Pure panic made her run for a bluff and sail off the edge. With a bellowing roar, the face-tail came crashing down behind, and she was sure that it would land right on top of her, crushing her. But she landed clear, splashing into a mud puddle.
    She shook herself, casting a wary glance at the face-tail, tensing as if she expected the beast to come charging out of the morass beneath the bluff. But the creature was down on its side, thrashing, beating its great trunk against the ground. A fall that was nothing to her had crippled it.
    Her fur still on end, she watched the face-tail struggle to rise. The hunters were already appearing on the bluff. She could see their faces, their hunger. The first one leaped down, landing on the heaving mound of the face-tail’s body. She heard claws start to rip through woolly hide.
    Soon all of the hunters were on the creature, swarming over it as if they had downed it themselves. Thistle felt hungry, but she knew she dared not venture among the horde that was already stripping off the face-tail’s flesh.
    But one was missing from among them. The young male the face-tail had stabbed with its tusks.
    Above the noises of eating, she heard a low moan. It came from up above, where she and the face-tail had gone off the bluff. Her ears flattened.
    They leave one of their own to bleed while they feast.
    She skirted the great corpse with the hunters tearing at it. Ears still flat, tail low and twitching, she circled back up to the top of the bluff. Where was the wounded one?
    There. Under a bush. A trail of blood on the trampled ground told her he had dragged himself there to die hidden. She halted in midstep, one forefoot lifted. Why should she go to him? There was nothing she could do, and he might just attack her.
    It was cruel of them to leave him to suffer while all the others filled their bellies. If he died his life would have paid for that meat. Among the Named that act would have been acknowledged.
    Thistle tried to turn aside. Every step that might have taken her away instead brought her closer, until she was within nose-touch of him. Crumpled beneath the low branches of the bush, he looked dead, until she caught the fine tremor of his whiskers and the slight movement of dry leaves before his muzzle that told her he was still breathing.
    A shudder went through the wounded hunter. He gasped and cried out like a cub. But there were words in the cry, and Thistle understood them.
    “Away ... from True-of-voice. Dying away ... alone ...”
    She glanced nervously at the bluff, at the sounds of feasting. Hunters of this same tribe had chased her away. If she had any sense, she would be gone by now. But they seemed engrossed in their prey. She could stay beside the wounded one at least for a little while, offer him warmth and words, if they helped. She knew how it felt to be hurt and alone.
    As she crouched down beside the wounded hunter, his head lifted and his eyes opened. They were a molten gold and seemed to swirl, like water draining inward through a hole.
    Inward, thought Thistle. Always inward. These ones dream as they die, dream as they suffer. Aloud she said, “Don’t be frightened. I will stay with you as long as I can.”
    The wounded one’s head jerked. The eyes went to her, yet never seemed to fix on her. Thistle