The Felines of Pern Chapter 15

We hunted tunnel snakes together that night. We tried hunting as a pair, but the snakes were too small to team up on. So we divided the Weyrhold between us, and we each brought back two dead snakes by the time the sun rose. It was a good beginning to our partnership.

The next day, many of the dragons and their riders left Honshu. Tai explained that the Monaco Bay Weyr had been cleaned and repaired enough that the dragons who lived there could finally return. Bringing Arwith's unhatched eggs back to the Monaco hatching sands was a major project in itself, but they managed to do it without loss. This left Honshu much less crowded, which suited Oclo and me. Also, although I wouldn't admit it out loud, I was still nervous about Mirrim and her plans for my fur. I felt happier knowing that she was far away now.

For the next few days, F'lessan and Tai didn't have much time for us. I gathered, from what Golanth and Zaranth translated for us, that they were very busy reorganizing their Weyrhold, now that its population was back to normal. Workers who had been busy preparing extra food, or keeping the extra resting places clean, were put back to work on their original tasks, like cutting down trees and cleaning the abandoned rooms. Oclo and I went about our own routine, eating in the morning, sleeping in the afternoon, hunting vermin in the late evening, and then sleeping some more.

That routine was broken on a cool evening by harsh shouting. Someone yelled the human words that meant a hunter was loose in the area. "Oclo, hide yourself!" I shouted as I jumped for the nearest tree branch. "If a hunter is attacking this place, then the humans will strike back against any hunter they see, collar or no collar." We wound up on the same tree branch, waiting for the uproar to end. Then we cautiously came down from the tree where we were hiding.

A group of humans had gathered around something. As we watched, some of them helped a bloody human out of the group and inside the building, where he would probably get care from their Healers. His wounds looked painful but not fatal. We approached the group of humans to see what they were looking at.

It was Dess, with four spears in her. We both turned away; we were no strangers to violence and death, but we couldn't bear to look at this sight.

Tai came running up to us. "Do you know that feline?" she demanded.

"That was Hunter Dess," I told her. "She was from our hunting band. She was second to Woo in her hatred of humans and her desire to attack you as soon as possible."

"Is she the one who attacked Toresk?"

"No, that was Woo's doing. Dess did whatever Woo told her to do."

"I suspect," Oclo added, "that Woo is sending each of the hunters in turn to probe us for weakness, and to strike if the opportunity arises. Today, it was Dess' turn. Tomorrow, it will be someone else." I nodded; it was a sound tactic, and it was probably what he would have ordered, had he meant to make war on the humans. I glanced at Dess again and felt very glad that Oclo had chosen my path instead of Woo's.

"Thanks for the warning," Tai said. "We'll be extra vigilant." F'lessan finally arrived, and his mate told him what had happened.

He glanced at Dess' mangled form. "I hope she wasn't part of your family."

"We shared a grandsire," I said.

"I'm sorry," he replied.

"I'm sorry that I couldn't reason with her," I said. "She was a good hunter and a good mother, but she was too impulsive. She always pounced first and made a plan afterward."

"I don't know a pleasant way to ask this," he said, "but… what do the hunters do with the bodies of your dead?"

"We do nothing with them," Oclo replied for me. "In the forest, the scavengers make quick work of the dead. If they were good, then we take our memories of them with us. If they were bad, then they are quickly forgotten."

"So if we just take this one into the forest and leave her there," F'lessan said, "that wouldn't offend you?"

"Can I suggest something?" I spoke up. "If you have to just… dispose of her, then can you carry her into the forest with a dragon, and leave her where the hunting band meets, spears and all? It would send a powerful message to the band."

"Would that stop Woo from attacking us?" Tai asked.

Oclo answered, "Probably not, but it would undermine her support from some of the others. It might buy us some time." I didn't miss the fact that he called the humans "us" rather than "you."

"Zaranth can easily carry her," Tai said, "but we have no idea where we should drop her."

"Would you have to go between to get halfway to the river?" I asked nervously.

"No, that's a straight flight of a little over an hour."

"Then I'll fly with you, and I'll show you where to drop her," I said.

Oclo laid his ears back. "Rit, you're choosing to fly?!"

"As long as I don't have to go between, it's not bad at all. Do you remember the view from the top of the Weyrhold? The view from the back of a dragon is even more amazing. This won't be a happy flight because of Dess, but there are parts of it that I'm going to enjoy very much."

He shook his head. "Just when I think I've got you figured out, you come up with something I never even thought of. Are you going to come to me tomorrow and tell me you've Impressed a dragon of your own?"

I had to laugh. "I very much doubt that. F'lessan told me that the dragons were made to pair off with humans and no one else. As for figuring me out, I'm a female! No male has ever figured out a female, so don't go thinking that you'll be the first." I paused. "But if you want to fly along with us, I'm sure Zaranth can lift both of us easily. We don't weigh much, compared to a human."

I could see the fear in him, warring with his pride. Would he admit to being afraid of something that a female had already done? No, he wouldn't. "If it's all right with Tai and Zaranth, then I'll go. I'd like to see what my old hunting grounds look like from the air."

It took a few minutes for Tai to find a second set of straps to keep Oclo from falling off. I showed him how to partially wrap himself around a neck ridge. Are you both ready? Zaranth asked. We said "yes" out loud, and she understood that word in our tongue.

Up we went! As I'd hoped, Oclo showed no fear once we were in the air, only curiosity. That curiosity was soon mixed with dismay. "Everything looks the same from up here!" he exclaimed. "All I can see is the tops of the trees. How are we going to find a specific place on the ground?"

"There are landmarks that we can use," Tai explained. "For instance, do you see that unusually tall tree ahead of us? There's nothing like it for a mile or more in any direction. There are gaps in the tree cover where the ground is rocky, or where a tree fell over. Sometimes we can see a pond or a stream. We navigate by those features. Now, where should we go?"

"We should aim a bit to the left of where the large moon is rising," I told her, and Zaranth altered her course. "A little bit more to the left. That's good. Now we should fly straight until we find six of the white-bark trees growing in a circle. That circle is where we meet to talk about things that affect the hunting band. When they meet in the morning and find Dess there, I think it will… how do you say it? It will shake them up very much."

We got to the general vicinity of the circle in about an hour. Then it took another half hour to find the circle, because it was hard to tell a white-bark tree from other kinds of trees from above in the dark. When Oclo and I agreed that we'd finally found the place, Zaranth swooped down and released her inert load. We heard a thump, followed by several surprised snarls.

"They must have been having a nighttime meeting," Oclo observed, "and we definitely shook them up." We returned home without incident.

We got a surprise three days later. Ballora brought us our morning meal and said she wanted to examine us one last time. "Rit's injuries are healed," she told us, "so my Hall wants me back home to deal with more pressing problems. You don't need me anymore."

"Will they send another Healer to take your place?" I asked.

"Only if you injure yourselves," she said. "Healers are for the sick, not for the healthy." She checked us out and found nothing wrong.

"But you feel like you're gaining a little weight," she added. "You used to be all muscle and bone. Now, you're adding a little bit of mass here and there."

"Is that bad?" Oclo wondered.

"It just means you aren't getting enough exercise," she said. "You won't be able to run as fast as you did when you were leaner. If it becomes excessive, it could shorten your lives, but you're nowhere near that point. Try to run around a little more. If you have any problems, F'lessan or Tai can send me a message at the Beastcraft Hall. I'll always be glad to hear from you, and if you have any health problems, I'll be here as fast as a dragon can take me." She paused. "That might not happen for months, or even years. I've gotten used to talking to you by dragon every day. You've become my favorite patients. I don't know how to say goodbye."

"Say, 'I wish you good hunting,'" I told her.

"All right. I wish you both good hunting." She wrung her hands for a second, then turned and left.

I turned to Oclo. "'Good hunting,' she said. I think she has the right idea. We're gaining weight because, on most days, we eat our food off a plate instead of chasing it down. I think we need to hunt more often."

"You know I won't complain about that," he nodded. "I love hunting almost as much as I love eating. But will F'lessan complain if we hunt his captive beasts more often?"

"We could try hunting in the forest," I suggested.

"That will bring us into contact with Woo and her band," he countered. "They outnumber the two of us, and you know I hate to get into a fight I can't win. I think we should stick to hunting the humans' beasts if we can."

"It's just a matter of time until Woo's band finds the humans' beasts and starts killing them," I realized.

"That's a problem for the humans to solve," he said. "You and I can't do anything about that. The best thing we can do is to get back into our best physical condition, so if we do have to fight, we can do a good job of it." I couldn't argue with that logic. All we could do was wait until we could talk to F'lessan about our plans for his livestock. It took two more days before that happened.

He wasn't happy at the thought. "The Monaco Bay dragons were eating me out of house and home for weeks!" he complained. "They're finally gone, and now you tell me you want your bellies to take their places? My herds may never recover!"

"Oclo and I together hardly eat as much as a dragon," I pointed out.

"No, but you're cleaning out my wooly herdbeasts, which the dragons seldom touch because they're too small for a dragon," he retorted. "Those herds were bred to provide us with wool and some meat now and then; they don't breed fast enough to satisfy the daily appetites of two hungry carnivores. Pretty soon, I won't have enough to meet my needs or yours. Can't you eat the bigger herdbeasts? I have plenty of those; I need them for the dragons anyway."

"Those are far too big for us to eat," I told him. "More than half of the meat would go to waste."

"What about a wherry?" F'lessan asked. "They aren't much bigger than a wooly herdbeast, and I've got lots of those."

"They're still kind of big for us," I said.

"But not if we both catch and eat one together," Oclo said suddenly.

"That's true," I nodded, and turned back to F'lessan. "May we hunt a wherry from your herds?"

"Be my guest," he said, relieved. "Just try not to run the legs off of them. They panic easily."

"We know," Oclo said dryly.

"Can they fly away?" I asked.

"No, their wings are clipped so they'll stay in their pens. Otherwise, they'd never stay around for the dragons to feed on."

He took us to the wherry pen and told the guard that we should be allowed in, once a day. We stepped inside and looked around.

"Now that's what I call prey!" Oclo exclaimed. "The wild wherries aren't nearly as well-fed and fat as these." The wherries in question had seen us, and they were packing themselves tightly against the far fence, trying to stay away from us.

"If we just charge them, they'll run in random directions and one of us could get trampled," I observed.

"I'll creep along the left side of the pen," Oclo decided. "Then I'll make a quick jump to startle them, and their tight group will break up in twenty directions at once. That's when you can select one and make your kill."

"I'm ready," I said grimly. I watched him crouch and slink toward the frightened wherries. Then he suddenly stood up and snarled, and they all ran in a panic.

I was picking out a victim when Oclo shouted, "No, this one!" One of the foolish creatures had tried to run in two directions at once and had broken one of its legs. He sprang and killed it quickly. Together, we laboriously dragged it out of the pen so we wouldn't keep stressing the other wherries, and then enjoyed our meal.

"We didn't get much exercise from chasing that one," I commented.

"But we got plenty of exercise from dragging it afterwards," he said. "I overheard F'lessan talking to his chief herdsman about us. I asked Golanth to translate, and he used the term 'fat cats.' It sounded like an insult. I, for one, want to stay lean and fit."

"I'm with you," I nodded. We returned to hunting our meals daily, and two things happened: we felt slimmer and more energetic, and we refined our tactics for hunting as a pair. We got quite good at it, in fact.

It was about a week later that F'lessan approached us with some kind of thin rolled-up object. "I've gotten a message from Lord Jaxom," he told me. "He understands that you're all healed from your injury, and he wants to know if you're ready to go to Ruatha and race his runnerbeast."

Oclo didn't understand that, so I explained it to him. Then I turned to F'lessan. "I'm ready, but will it cause problems for you if I win?"

"Hardly!" he smiled. "In fact, I hope you do win. You'll take Jaxom down a peg, and you'll feed on his livestock instead of mine for a week. For me, that's a win-win."

"Can I go along and watch?" Oclo asked. "I want to learn as much about humans as I can, and visiting another human place sounds like a good way to do it."

"I'm sure you can go," I told him, "but there's one problem. We'll have to go between to get there. I don't like it, and I know you won't like it, either."

F'lessan sent a message back to Jaxom, telling him that Rit was ready for their big match race, but her arrival would be delayed because they had to make a warm between-coat for her mate. Oclo hated his coat every bit as much as I hated mine. He nearly started clawing at it.

"I'm trapped! I'm stuck inside this thing!" he hissed.

"Endure it for just a few minutes," I begged him. "Please believe me when I tell you, between is even worse than the coat."

He didn't believe me, and F'lessan and Tai had to take the coat off of him as soon as they they had finished putting my coat on. "We'll bring it with us," he promised.

"Is it going to be like this with every feline we encounter?" Tai wondered.

"They're hunters, not felines," her mate corrected her. "They call themselves hunters, so that's what we ought to call them."

"I've been calling them 'felines' all my life," she protested.

"We have to adapt to their ways a little if we want to make peace with them," he replied. "I'm sure they've had to adapt to our ways, now that they're living with us. Fair is fair. As for whether every hunter is going to throw a hissing fit when we put a heavy coat on them, the answer is 'probably yes, but they'll learn quickly.' That seems to be their pattern."

When we emerged from between over Ruatha Hold, my mate was visibly shivering. "Believe it or not, the coat is the lesser of the two evils," I told him.

"Now I believe you," he said through chattering teeth. "I had no idea…"

This was my third trip between, and while it was still very unpleasant, it wasn't as jarring as before. Ballora had assured me, before she left, that my unborn cubs were old enough that the trip between wouldn't harm them. I was free to enjoy the view once we arrived, and it was spectacular! The cliffside buildings of Honshu were partially hidden by the surrounding forest, but Ruatha was far from the nearest significant plant growth and easy to see. The humans' ability to turn bare rock into living spaces was impressive.

We landed next to a wooden building that smelled heavily of dragon. F'lessan told me this was Ruth's weyr. I wondered why he didn't live in a stony cave, the way the other dragons seemed to prefer, but I didn't ask. There were too many unfamiliar sights, sounds, and smells to process. We were greeted by a busy man named Brand, who told us that Lord Jaxom would join us soon, and would we like to eat anything while we waited?

"No, thank you," I said. "I don't know when I'm going to run my race, and I don't want to do it on a full stomach."

Brand whispered something in F'lessan's ear. F'lessan laughed. "No, they won't eat you if they get hungry! These are civilized hunters. Treat them just like you treat people and dragons." We wandered around, looking at the different kinds of animals that Lord Jaxom kept in stalls and pastures, until we saw Ruth spiraling down to land next to Zaranth.

"Welcome to Ruatha Hold," Jaxom said as he dismounted. "Hunter Rit, I'm glad to see that you've recovered from your injuries. I hope you wore your running shoes!"

"I hope your pastures are well-stocked for the coming week," I replied.

"We still haven't decided what happens if the feline loses," Jaxom said to F'lessan.

"She's a hunter, not a feline," Tai cut in.

"As for the wager, I'll make you an offer," F'lessan said. "I'll personally bet five marks on the hunter, and I'll give you two-to-one odds."

"You seem pretty sure of yourself," Jaxom replied. "Make it ten marks."

"Deal." They shook hands. Jaxom sent Brand off to prepare the runnerbeast who would oppose me, and to find the man who would ride him. I examined the proposed race course, and I was dismayed.

"That's a very long course," I told Jaxom. "I don't think I can run that entire distance."

"That's the standard course for runnerbeasts," Jaxom shrugged. "Take it or leave it."

F'lessan protested. "You're not being fair, Lord Jaxom! This is a runnerbeast track, but Rit isn't a runnerbeast. Also, this is your home turf; your rider knows every raised spot and every divot on the track. I don't think Rit has ever run a competitive race before. Make the race fair by making it shorter."

"Okay, if we only race half the distance, is that acceptable?" the Lord asked.

"I can run that distance," I told him. Jaxom sent servants to mark the new finish line.

I walked the course. It was bare dirt, packed fairly hard; I could get good traction when running here. I wasn't worried about my own speed, as long as my paws didn't slip. The course was a large oval, and we'd be running half of it, so there was only one broad curve to worry about. Other people began to gather around the track as news of the match race spread throughout the Hold. Many of them were trading small wooden disks with each other. F'lessan explained that they were "gambling;" some thought I would win, others thought the runnerbeast would win, and they all hoped to gain something from the outcome of the race. This was another unfamiliar human concept. I paced back and forth, staying loose, until a shaggy, long-legged runnerbeast trotted up to us with a small man on its back.

"This is Fergal, my best runner," Jaxom told us. "He's named for a handler of runners from long ago. His rider is Moram, and he comes from a long line of runnerbeast riders and trainers." He grinned wickedly at F'lessan. "They're about to make you twenty marks poorer."

"The one who puts his saddle on shouldn't boast like the one who takes it off," Tai warned him.

"Yeah, like she said," F'lessan added. He sounded like he had no idea what she meant. I thought I understood her principle – a participant in an upcoming contest should not act as though he had already won. I had seen so many improbable events in my own life recently that I readily agreed with her.

"All right!" Brand shouted. "Racers, to your marks!" I took my place at the starting line. I wasn't just running for a week's worth of good meals; in a sense, I was running for the good name of my home of Honshu as well. The runnerbeast was nervous about standing next to me. It took a few minutes to get him into position. As soon as he was ready, Brand stood beside us and held up a fist-sized rock that had been painted bright green. "When this rock hits the ground, that means go," he told us. He held it over his head for a moment, then tossed it up. It fell and hit the ground with a thud. That meant go!

I went.

My kind are fast runners, but we are even faster when accelerating. I put on a burst of speed and quickly got well out in front of the runner, and dug into the curve. I could feel my feet sliding on the hardened dirt, and I heard the runner closing the distance behind me. But then we were out of the curve and on the final straightaway. There was no prey at the end of this race; it was the sheer joy of running that propelled me onward. I could hear the runner's pounding hooves sounding fainter and fainter behind me. A few more strides, and it was done. Some of the humans raised a cheer; those must have been the ones who were hoping that I'd win. I slowed down to a walk, found a place in the shade of a small stone building, and leaned against it as I caught my breath. That would take a while.

F'lessan pumped his fist and turned to a wide-eyed Jaxom. "I told you she was fast!"

"You didn't tell me she was that fast!" he countered. "Can we try again, double or nothing?"

"Rit is done for the day," Tai told him. "Look at her puffing for breath! You can't ask her to run like that again."

"My best runner is also done for the day," Jaxom said, "so how about your second-fastest feline – I mean hunter against my second-fastest runner? I took the precaution of getting both runners ready, just in case I needed the second one."

F'lessan turned to Oclo. "What do you think? Can you outrun a Ruathan runnerbeast like Rit just did?"

Oclo snorted "yes," and F'lessan understood that word. He turned back to Jaxom. "He'll race you. Double or nothing, you say?"

"Double our wager, and the hunters can gorge themselves at my expense for two weeks instead of one week," Jaxom said. "But we've established that your hunters accelerate faster than any runnerbeast. To make it fair, my runner will start fifty feet behind the starting line, and the race will begin when he crosses that line."

"You're letting your runner run a course that's fifty feet longer than the hunter's course?" F'lessan asked.

"My runners are used to running the full oval," Jaxom replied. "That extra fifty feet won't tax him, but it will let him get closer to full speed by the time the race really begins."

Ruth passed on the new rules to Oclo, who accepted them. As I gasped for breath after my race, I watched him take his place at the starting line. I had never seen him really run before. He was a hunter, of course, and he was in fine shape, but this race would be harder than the race I had just run.

Brand dropped his green stone, and the runner leaped forward. He covered the distance to the real starting line in no time at all. As he passed that line, Oclo… exploded into motion. I have no other words to describe how he went from motionless to full speed in such a short time.

When he went into the turn, he was about two runner-lengths ahead of his opponent. I could see the dirt flying off his paws as he leaned into the curve. The runner was slowly reducing the distance between them, right up until they hit the final straightaway. That was when I realized that Oclo had been holding back in the turn, and now, he gave it all he had. His two-length lead became a three-length lead, then four, and it was at least five lengths when he shot past the finish line. He joined me in the shade, panting hard but well satisfied. It would take us at least half an hour to catch our breath.

"That was fun," he gasped.

Jaxom just stared, his mouth hanging open. Finally, he said, "What do you feed those felines? I mean hunters."

"Wherries, wooly herdbeasts, and the occasional slow-moving kitchen drudge," F'lessan replied. At Jaxom's shocked expression, he grinned and added, "No, I'm kidding! I'm kidding!"

The Lord Holder shrugged resignedly. "Well, you just won yourself some marks. Can I ask your friends to stick to feed-quality animals, and to leave my best breeding stock alone?"

"You can ask," F'lessan told him, "but whether they agree or not is up to them. After all, they're the winners, so they set the terms."

Lord Jaxom grimaced. "I feel like I've let down my Hold and everyone who ever lived in it! Ruathan runnerbeasts are supposed to be the fastest things alive, and today, I lost two races in a row! This has never happened in this Hold before. Could anything be worse?"

"Well," Tai said slyly, "did we mention that Rit ran her race with cubs in her belly?"

Lord Jaxom just hid his face in his hands and moaned.

o

A/N
At some point on November 2, 2021, this story received its 5000th view. Thank you to all of the viewers.