Survival! If I were to survive the immediate future, and there might be little chance of that, it was better to fix my thoughts on what was immediately around me and not strive to read the future as certain women were supposed to have the gift of doing.
Dawn came at last and there was light enough that I could look upon the wound of the cat and see it well. The swelling was down. In two places the ragged tear was knitting, I noted, as I replastered the hurt for the second time.
I had emerged from the cave and was standing, striving to set in place once again my cloak and staff shade against the coming heat when I heard it—and from behind me—the menacing growl with which the cat had announced the coming of the rats—and yet this was not from the animal I tended!
Chapter 6
I SCHOOLED MYSELF against any hasty action, knowing well that such might bring attack at once. Why had I accepted so easily that the beast I tended was the only one of his kind on the isle? It was well known that the sandcats lived in small family groups.
Very slowly I moved and at the same time I hummed that soothing sound I had made when I had first found the hurt one.
Crouched on one of the higher lifts of rock was indeed another sandcat. Now I heard growling, was sure I saw a tenseness of shoulder and leg which suggested that the newcomer was well ready to spring and bring me down. My staff I had just wedged into a crevice to support my improvised tent. I had only my knife—my opponent was too close for me to use my sling.
This was a female. Rounder of body, amber back in striking contrast to the white spots, the clump of white fur growing longer between her ears and along her spine, about her broad muzzle and underparts, she was majestic. Her club of tail was held spear straight, and her great eyes centered on me. She was but slightly smaller than her mate.
For what seemed to me far too long a time we faced each other eye to eye. Then my senses were acute enough to see that tenseness begin to leave her. If she would attack, it would not be at that moment.
Still humming and continuing to face her, I sidled around until I could reach for some of those strips of rat meat I had laid out for the sun’s drying. With several of these in hand I edged back towards her.
“Great One,” I kept my voice as low and as even as possible, “to your lord I mean no harm, nor any to you. Accept this guesting gift.”
Suppressing all my unease I ventured to the very foot of the short height on which she was still in crouch and there laid down the meat, edging once more well away. She had growled warningly when I approached her but she had not sprung.
Now, having eyed me intently, she did leap lightly from her perch to sniff my offering. She took a long time at that as if she were still suspicious of my good will and distrusted the gesture. Then, apparently having satisfied herself that I had indeed presented her with no more than it seemed, some meat, she took up two of the pieces and in a bound was at the side of her mate.
As he bent his head to sniff at the meat and then bolt it, she in turn dropped her nose to only inches from his hurt and then put out a tongue to lick at the poultice I had smeared upon the wound. From that examination she raised to tongue her mate’s head, grooming his fur between his ears. I could hear again the rumble of his purr.
The feeling grew in me that they had some form of communication. Yet when I took a step towards them she was instantly on her feet, her lips drawn back to show fangs, warning me off.
She was well away from the path I must follow down to the algae bed and there was a need to gather more of the crop there, shape it into cakes to be sun-dried like the meat. I felt it safer to have a supply of food to hand than to continue to risk more and more separate descents. We had certainly not accounted for all the rats, and their knowledge that we were here would bring them again. Of that I had no doubt at all.
The female cat watched me go towards the cliff. She did not stir from the side of her mate. Still I felt as one might when trying to slip by a horned oryxen, as if I dared my way past an unsprung trap.
Two trips down and up I made, transporting masses of algae. The second time I came to my improvised camp I saw that the female was stretched out beside her mate, but still she watched me with what I believed was a lively suspicion.
I set about fashioning cakes of the algae, separating that which I had brought for the tending of the other cat’s wound. Selecting a fairly flat section of rock I spread out my supply. Though I kept some for this day’s food.
As I leaned forward to pat the last of these cakes into shape, my cat pendant swung free into the sun. There was a brilliant spot of light dancing across the rock near the mouth of the cave, the sun reflected from that metal.
The heads of both cats turned, were watching that dance of beam. From the female came a sound which was not a growl, rather something close to a mew. Her eyes were now on me as she sat up, or rather fixed on what I wore that gave that ray of light birth.
Now she arose. I made myself remain where I was as if any fear of her was forgotten. Those great paws, either of which could tear the very features from my skull, as had been done with some unwary hunters, were lifted and replaced deliberately.
However, she was not heading in my direction but rather for the rock where lay the already leather-stiff meat. One strip she picked up by its very end, then she did turn in my direction. Coming to within a distance which would allow a blow of her powerful forepaw to flatten me, she sat again, and with a slight movement of her head tossed her meat so that it fell half across the toe of my nearest boot.
So—
Almost I could not believe. From all that I heard about the sandcats, I knew that they were wily opponents and that they could match men often by some act of intelligence which caused the older people to whisper of demons and the like. For generations beyond generations my kind and this beautiful beast before me had been enemies to the death. Now of her own wish she had made the same peace offering to me that I had earlier made to her.
I picked up the strip of meat and set tooth to the toughness, striving to worry off a mouthful which had the consistency now of a dried melon vine, almost beyond my dealing with it.
Grimly I chewed and swallowed and hoped that the brittle fiber of it would not abrade my throat as it went down.
“My thanks. Great One, so we share upon share—” Of course she could not understand me but I hoped that the tone of my voice would make clear that there was peace between us. On impulse then I slipped the chain of the cat mask over my head and held it out, letting the pendant touch down upon the rock not too far from her.
Instantly her attention was all for the mask, now a blaze of fire in the full sun. She inclined her head and her tongue came out. Delicately she touched the pendant with its tip.
Memory came to me of that dream—of how the girl who shadowed Ravinga had made something of the same gesture towards the doll her mistress held. There was no resemblance between that slender girl and this massive cat form—save they were both female—but somehow my thought linked one to the other.
The sandcat drew away, back to the side of her mate. Him she nuzzled and then, without warning, she leaped outward from the mouth of the cave, was past me like a stream of bronze fur. To the top of the same height from which she had first viewed us she went, but not to linger—instead she disappeared almost instantly from view.
I went to pick up the pendant and restore it to its place. The heat of the day was advancing quickly; it was time to take to such shelter as I had. And that I did. The sandcat had withdrawn farther into the cave and I thought he was asleep, an example it might be well for me to follow.