Tailchaser’s Song

Fritti was stepping over a twisted root, and missed the expression on the gray fela's face. Stopping for a moment to shake dry a sopping paw, he asked: "What do you mean when you say the place shook itself apart? I'm afraid I don't remember the end very well."

"I'm going to show you," said Roofshadow.

They toiled awhile longer up the sloping plain, wrapped in thought. At last they reached the edge of the valley in which the mound had stood.

Where Vastnir had once pushed its brooding head up through the vallev floor there was now a wide, shallow basin-the ground sunken as if beneath the tread of a league-wide paw. The soil was as black as the wing of a Krauka.

On the way back to Ratleaf, Fritti asked again to see Pouncequick. "He has been with me longer than anyone, "Shadow." he pointed out.

She seemed disturbed by his use of the shortened name.

"I never tried to prevent you, Tailchaser," she said unhappily. "I just suggested what I thought best… He's gotten very strange," she added after a moment.

"Who could blame him, after what he's been through?" countered Fritti. "Who could blame any of us?"

"I know, Tailchaser. Poor Pouncequick. And Eat-bugs, too." Fritti looked at her, wondering, but Roofshadow was shaking her head sadly. "I haven't asked yet, but I suppose I know," she said. "He was… well, you were too late to help him, weren't you?"

Fritti balanced his secret and decided to keep it. "By the time I found him… Eatbugs was gone."

And that is mostly true, he thought.

"Such sad times," said Roofshadow. "I suppose I should take you to Pouncequick. Tomorrow, all right?" Fritti bobbed approval. "I didn't know him," she continued. "Eatbugs, I mean. Understand, I intend no disrespect, Tailchaser, but you have the oddest friends and acquaintances!"

Fritti laughed. "I'll race you back," he said, and they ran like wildfire.

Fritti, pulled taut in a walking stretch, spotted the Prince swaggering through the underbrush, moisture gleaming on his shaggy form. At his side stalked the graceful biack form of Quiverclaw. A cry of pleasure from Tailchaser was followed by warm greetings all around, and the three cats, two large, one small, sprawled contentedly and conversed.

"I hear that Stretchslow's confidence in you was amply filled, Tailchaser."

Quiverclaw's grave words made Fritti want to wriggle with pleasure, but the demands of maturity won out over indulgence. "I am honored that great hunters like the Prince and yourself think so, Thane. I must admit that most of the time I was in that place I would have settled for a quick, painless death. I truly would have."

"Ah, but you didn't, did you?" crowed Fencewalker. "That's the nose-biter!"

"And from what I hear, sent for help by squirrel," smiled Quiverclaw. "Unusual, but effective."

This time, Tailchaser's wriggle escaped suppression. "I thank you both," he said. "The main thing, though, is that you came. I saw it; it was wonderful." Fritti sobered. "I also saw… that thing that Heart-eater called up. Horrible… it was horrible."

Quiverclaw nodded. "Things like that were not meant to be. Already I have trouble remembering what it looked like, so wrong it was. The os given flesh-I suppose that soon I will be thankful I ca

"Did… is Hangbelly… dead?" asked Fritti quietly. Quiverclaw pondered silently for a moment, then lifted his head with a crooked grin.

"Hangbelly? He was grievously injured… but he will live." The Thane chuckled. "It will take more than even that terror to kill old Bounce-Gut."

Fritti was pleased to hear of the fat First-walker's survival. Fencewalker smiled, but looked uncharacteristically morose.

"Many, many brave Folk fell," said the Prince. "The world will not see a gathering of the Folk like that for many seasons-more seasons than the forest has tree trunks. Many good fellows never came up from the ground again… Bah!" Fencewalker's pink nose twitched in sorrow and disgust. "Snaremouse, and young Furscuff… Pokesnout… the Thanes, scrawny old Sourweed and Squeakerbane… Day-hunter and Nightcatcher, my fine lads-they died protecting me. you know-they are all down in the cold earth, and we sit in the sun." Visibly upset, the Prince turned away and curried his tail. Fritti and Quiverclaw stared at the ground between their paws. Tailchaser's nose felt hot and itchy.

"But… but what did Hearteater mean to do?" Fritti finally blurted out. "Why did it all happen? Meerclar," he breathed, the thought occurring to him for the first time, "Lord Hearteater is… gone, isn't he? Dead?" He looked anxiously at the Thane.

"We think so," Quiverclaw said seriously. "We have talked about it, the Prince and I. If nothing else, we must be able to tell the Queen of the outcome. Yes, we think Hearteater is gone. Nothing could have survived that final Hour."

Fencewalker, who had straightened up, said, "Oh, aye, that was a real whisker-bender!"

"What happened?" asked Fritti.

"Well," intoned Quiverclaw, "when the Fikos-thing came up from the pit we tried to fight. It was laying about fiercely, though; we were forced to retreat from the cavern."

"Retreat?" shouted Fencewalker. "Ran! Tail over whiskers like spooked Squeakers! And who could blame you?"

"Some stayed to fight, my Prince… like Squeaker-bane." Chastened, Fencewalker waved a paw for the Thane to continue.

"Anyway, we fell back into the outer chambers. There we met the Prince and his Folk, who had breached the minor gate. The Fikos forced its way out of the cavern, but did not seem to have purpose -it was destroying anything in its path, friend or foe. It seemed mindless. Following some urge, it shambled up one of the main corridors-that was all that saved us from complete rout, I think. Everything was chaos, Folk fighting and dying-"

Fencewalker interrupted, "It began to get dark, don't forget that."

Quiverclaw nodded gravely. "Indeed. It was as though that huge monstrous thing-or maybe Heart-eater himself-was drawing in all the light… taking a deep breath of light… I can't explain. We were fighting in the deepest blackness, then something… something like sky-fire, but underground… shot through the chamber, burning and crackling as it went by. Straight through, and into Hearteater's cavern, as if it had a will. I have never seen the like."

Fritti felt a strong joy deep inside himself. "I wish I could have seen it."

"From where we made our stand we could see the light bursting from Hearteater's chamber as if the sun had rolled down into a hole in the ground. The earth around us began to shake. There were great hissings and boomings, like… like the sky was tumbling down, or the forest was dancing above our heads. Fencewalker shouted out to run, to get all the Folk out-"

"That's true," the Prince inserted.

"-and everyone went racing for the tu

"It was all falling down, then," said Fencewalker. "Falling down, and scalding mist and waters coming up through the floors… what a tumble that was for the Firstborn, eh? Who would have dared think of it?"

Tailchaser reflected on all he had heard. So much to think about. Should he try to explain what had happened to him? Was he even sure what had happened?

"Why?" he asked, finally. "What did Hearteater want?"

"We may never know, really," said the Thane, furrowing his pitchy brow. "Lord Hearteater, we can suppose, wanted revenge on the descendants of Harar. He had been long beneath the earth, and had been brooding since time beyond tail-tips on bringing the Folk under his sway. He must have been wearying of his poor copies of Meerclar's children, and their bobbing and scuttling… but he was of the Firstborn, and I do not think his purposes-or madnesses -will be wholly knowable to us. He called on things outside the earth-dance; it seems that a balance was disturbed. The dance is complicated, and a disturbance on the one side creates counterdisturbance." The Thane laughed. "I can see Fencewalker staring at me as if I had the foaming-mouth sickness. He's right, you know, Tailchaser-there's not much point in singing the song if you have to guess at the words."