Tailchaser’s Song

A great black cat-like a slender, supple Claw- was laying about in spitting fury in the midst of gnashing Toothguard. Who was that? Why should it matter to him? He felt it important that he remember. Nearby a second torn, crisscrossed with thin scars, wrestled and tore at a Clawguard far bigger than he was. Another one. Should he know him, too?

A huge striped cat thundered through the entranceway, scattering guards before him. As he looked across the cavern from the summit of his detachment, Fritti felt an urge to smile-despite the fact that the swag-bellied torn was fighting for his life,

Why? he wondered. Why am I smiling?

Because it's Hangbelly, and Hangbelly is fu

Hangbelly. Hangbelly, and Squeakerbane, and… and… Quiverclaw! His friends. His friends had come!

The frost melted from his soul. The Folk had come at last! They had come!

Fritti climbed to his paws with a weak cry of happiness. The fighting was spreading, moving closer to where he stood-and gradually surrounding the pit where the Master lay in inscrutable power. Tailchaser staggered back toward the wall of the cavern, taking the slight refuge of a recess in the stone. The guards had already sprung past him toward the fray.

Slowly, as if by unspoken command, the mound-creatures were edging backward until at last they formed a ring around the misty, violet-lit hole in the cavern's center. The attackers massed and charged, but broke against the line of the pit guards. Struggling shapes plunged howling over the rim, to vanish into the fogs that floated about the Master's throne. The attackers withdrew, poised to throw themselves forward once more. There was a heartbeat of stillness, in which fur could almost be heard to bristle… then the mud-and-thunder voice of Hearteater boomed through the cavern.

"STOP!"

Shocked silence, and for a moment nothing but the echoes of that terrible sound reverberated in the air. Quiverclaw, who had scrambled partway up the base of the chamber wall, stared into the dimness of the pit. His raspy whisper, charged with superstitious fear, fractured the stillness.

"Dugs of the Allmother!" Hisses of fear boiled up from the other Folk, and hundreds of backs and tails arched as one.

The voice of Hearteater welled up once more. "I wondered if the lackeys who worship the memory of my departed brothers would eventually gain the courage to try to take me in my den. Hear me, then, you Firefoot-sniffers and Whitewind-chasers: the last of the Firstborn is not to be dealt with by a mewing rabble like yourselves. You are beyond your depth, surface-crawlers."

The pressure of his words weighed the attackers down like a tangible thing, but the mound-creatures did not move either, so great was the force of Hearteater.

Finally Squeakerbane stood, his battered old face firm, whiskers straight and proud. "Words!" cried the Thane of the Rootwood First-walkers. "We have brought more true Folk than there are stars in the sky, Lord of the Ant Heap-even now they swarm down your Praere-hole. Your day is over!" All around the attackers shook their heads, and purred with wonder and pride, so that a great humming filled the rocky vastness. "You may sit like a toad on your imitation Vaka'az'me until the end of time," cried Squeakerbane, "but ve shall never rub our chins on the ground for you! Your power is broken!"

The laughter of Grizraz Hearteater rolled down like the grinding of an avalanche. "FOOLS!" he boomed. "You speak to me of power, with your tiny lives like the tumbling of leaves! What a mockery!" His laughter swelled again. There was a rumbling beneath, and Hearteater's throne-mound pitched sharply. "You speak of the Vaka'az'me," he bellowed, and the rumbling grew louder. "You think you see the throne of Hearteater, but you see nothingU" The Master of the mound shouted with mirth, a noise as chilling as freezing rain. The Folk quailed, and would have run, but Squeakerbane stepped forward, and the line held.

Before the Thane could say a word, Hearteater's dark, swollen body began rocking and pitching atop the carrion mound. "Do you think I perch here to frighten the pitiful, scurrying things that serve me?" the Fat One demanded. "To put otherworldly fears into the minds of such as you? HA HA HA HA HA!" Hearteater's voice rose to a deafening pitch. "Like Fela Skydancer who bore me, I am bringing warmth to this pile of squirming flesh. I am giving it POWER!"

The rumbling noise from the pit became a tearing, sucking sound. The lights beaming up from the earth flickered crazily. The assembled creatures, Free Folk and Clawguard alike, began to yowl in fear and scramble away from the pit.

A huge shape emerged from beneath Hearteater, as if hatched, or as if forming itself from the vapors of the pit. It made a sound like the crying of uncountable dying things-myriad voices in one soulless cry. Howling and screeching, all who surrounded the pit scattered to the walls of the cavern as the vast thing clambered ponderously forth.

The sickly purple light touched on something monstrous and deformed, dark and unrecognizable. There was a vague, lunatic suggestion of some demon-hound in its slavering muzzle and red eyes. It was formed of the melting, twisted bodies of the pit-dying, piteously suffering beasts melded into the shape of a single great one.

Some of the Folk, courageous to the point of madness, tried to stand and fight. It was on them in a moment, shambling and deadly.

"I have brought it forth!! The Fikosl I have brought it forth!" The cavern was full of cries, dead and dying, shouting chaos. As the dog-thing flailed and slew, the voice of Hearteater rose above all: "Fikos! Your bane! The bane of all that walk on the surface of the world!!"

Tailchaser turned from the awful sight and fled the Cavern of the Pit.

CHAPTER 29

The fox has a bag of tricks,

the hedgehog one very good one.

–Archilochos

Vastnir was in pandemonium. As Fritti ran through the near-darkness he saw cat-shapes careening by, shrieking and bounding like so many maddened bats.

Tailchaser could think only of his friends; the horror and death behind him were too great. It seemed to be the end of all things-all life, all reason, all hope. He wanted to face it with his companions.

No one heeded him in his flight. Clawguard and Toothguard fought with one another, as well as with the advancing host of Free Folk. Prisoners lured up from their caves by the sounds of chaos swarmed in confusion, scuffling, crying, searching desperately for exits. The thundering, mindless voice of.the Fikos rolled through the mound, singing devastation and madness.

Fritti tried to remember the ill-attended directions given him by Skinwretch. Several times in the confusion of sounds and bodies he feared he had lost his way. Finally, he recognized the downward turn. Ears flat, he sprinted down the sloping tu

Roofshadow and Pouncequick were crouching, hackles raised, at the back wall of their cave. At their feet lay Eatbugs-but now his eyes were open. He stared with odd, quiet interest at Tailchaser as he appeared at the doorway. Roofshadow did not appear to recognize Fritti for a moment, then, with a headshake of amazement, she bounded forward, calling his name.

"Tailchaser! You're here! What is happening?" She drew near him, sniffing, but he moved past her to Pouncequick.

"Pounce!" he cried. "It's me, Pounce! Are you all right? Can you walk?"

Pouncequick stared up at him for a moment as if he did not understand, then a soft smile spread over the kitten's features. "Nre'fa-o, Tailchaser," he said. "I knew you would come back."

Fritti turned around to see Roofshadow staring apprehensively up the shaft. "Terrible things are happening, Roofshadow," he said. "The Folk have come, but they have been met by great danger. We can do no good here. Our only chance is to get out-now, in the confusion. Help Pouncequick up. I'll get Eatbugs."