Tailchaser's Song Read Online Free PDF Page A

dirt settled, an excited shock ran through those watching—in the last battling, quantities of white dust had been knocked free from the coat of the challenger. His muzzle was no longer gray, and his paws and legs shone the color of flame. ‘You see me revealed, Ninebirds,’ he said. ‘I am Lord Tangaloor Firefoot, son of Harar, and it is by my command that there is no King of Cats.’
    “ ‘You are a brave cat, O Prince,’ he continued, ‘but your insolence may not go unpunished.’ With that, Firefoot caught the scruff of the Prince’s neck and pulled, stretching his body and legs until they were thrice as long as a cat’s are meant to be. He then pulled the Prince loose from the tree root and said: ‘Tailless and hairless, long and ungainly have I made you. Go now, and come never more to the Court of Harar, you who would have usurped his power. But this doom I lay on you: that you shall serve any member of the Folk who commands you, and so shall all of your descendants, until I release your line from this bane.’
    “And with that Lord Tangaloor went away. The Folk drove the misformed Ninebirds from their midst, calling him M‘an—meaning ’out of the sunshine‘—and he and all of his descendants went ever after on their hind legs, and do today, for M’an’s forelegs have been stretched too far away to touch the ground.
    “Ninebirds the usurper, punished by the Firstborn, was the first of the Big Ones. They have long served the Folk, making us shelter from the rain and feeding us when the hunt is bad. And if some of us now serve the disgraced M‘an, that is another story, for another Meeting.
    “We are the Folk, and tonight we speak in one voice of the deeds of all. We are the Folk.”
     
     
    His song finished, Bristlejaw leaped down from the Wall with a strength belying his many summers. All the assembled Folk respectfully bowed their heads down between their forepaws as he left.
    The Hour of Final Dancing was drawing to a close, and the Meeting broke up into small groups—the cats saying their farewells, discussing the Song and gossiping. Tailchaser and Thinbone hung on for a while, discussing plans for the next evening with Fleetpaw and some of the other young hunters, then took their leave.
    As they frisked back across the fields they stumbled on a mole stranded away from its burrow. After they chased it a bit, Thinbone broke its neck and they ate. Bellies full, they parted at Fritti’s porch.
    “Mri‘fa-o, Tailchaser.” said Thinbone. “If you need my help tomorrow I’ll be in Edge Copse at Unfolding Dark.”
    “Good dreaming to you, also, Thinbone. You are a good friend.”
    Thinbone gave a flick of his tail and was gone. Fritti hopped into the box left for him by the Big Ones, and sank into the sleep-world.

2 CHAPTER
    It is the Vague and Elusive.
Meet it and you will not see its head.
Follow it and you will not see its back.
    —Lao-tzu
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Fritti Tailchaser had been born the second youngest of a litter of five. When his mother, Indez Grassnestle, had first sniffed him, and licked the moisture from his newborn pelt, she sensed in him a difference—a subtle shading that she could not name. His blind infant eyes and questing mouth were somehow more insistent than those of his brothers and sisters. As she cleaned him she felt a tickle in her whiskers, an intimation of things unseen.
    Perhaps he will be a great hunter, she thought.
    His father, Brindleside, was certainly a handsome, healthy cat—there had even been a whiff of the Elder Days about him, especially when he had sung the Ritual with her on that winter night.
    But Brindleside was gone now—following his nose toward some obscure desire—and she, of course, was left to raise his progeny alone.
    As Fritti grew, she lost touch with her early perceptions. Familiarity and the hard day-to-day business of raising a litter blunted many of Grassnestle’s subtler sensitivities.
    Although Fritti was a bright and