Here's the full jacket.  Definitely wonderful! 

Cover painting by Christian Alzmann, 2007

Jacket design by Tony Sahara

Christian Alzmann's concept art for the Firebird release of Ratha and Thistle-chaser.  This is a rough, but still wonderful..

You can read the first chapter of Ratha and Thistle-chaser.  Click here.

Or here, if you need large type.

This is the original hardback edition cover

Book Synopsis

(Caution, spoilers ahead!)

Ratha and Thistle-chaser - 1990, re-issued September 2007    

Challenged by a severe drought, the Named seek different kinds of animals to add to their herds. During Thakur’s yearly exile, he and Aree go to the coast and find water-dwelling horse-like creatures called “sea-mares” (based on fossil desmostylians.)  He also discovers Newt, an odd little scavenger-cat who lives on the beach and is friends with the sea-mares. She has taught herself to swim in the ocean despite a badly crippled front leg. She doesn’t speak, has a dulled, fogged mind and has fits, falling on her side and fighting with an imaginary tormentor. During one such fit, she astonishes Thakur by saying a few words in the Named language. From what she says, Thakur suspects that she is Thistle-chaser, Ratha’s daughter by Bone-chewer. While teaching Thistle to speak (when she isn’t in a fit), Thakur learns the name of Thistle’s imaginary opponent, The Dreambiter.

  Thakur embarks on an attempt to restore and reclaim Thistle, teaching her how to stretch and heal her crippled foreleg. He continues teaching her speech, which she learns surprisingly rapidly.  

His goal, however, conflicts with Ratha‘s, who wants the Named to capture and domesticate sea-mares, with the idea of adding these beasts to their food supply. She envisions having a small sub-group of herders stationed at the coast, “farming” the sea-mares. Thistle, who wants the sea-mares to remain free, does everything she can to disrupt Ratha’s project.  

Thakur, who continues working with Thistle, suspects that the nightmarish Dreambiter that attacks Thistle during her episodes is a memory of Ratha turning on her and biting her when she was a small cub. He wonders what will happen if Thistle ever learns that Ratha is her mother.  

More of the Named, including Fessran and her grown son, Khushi, move from clan ground to the coast in order to catch and tame sea-mares. During the journey, the Named accidentally flush out an UnNamed female who is carrying a cub in her jaws. The UnNamed one drops the cub and flees.

Khushi, feeling sorry for the litterling, brings the cub to Fessran, who adopts him. Ratha, after inspecting the litterling, sees non of the “light in the eyes” that the Named so value. She tells Fessran to get rid of the cub, but the Firekeeper disobeys. She hides him from Ratha, nurses him and names him Mishanti.  

Things come to a climax when the Named pen sea-mares in a muddy estuary. Unused to the surroundings and longing for their open beach and the surf, the beasts languish. Thistle, realizing that her sea-mare friends will die if imprisoned here, raids the pen, tears one side down and frees her friends in a joyful escape back to their beloved beach.  

Thistle’s interference angers Ratha. Thakur, afraid that the Named might kill or capture Thistle, tries to protect her, but he slips and accidentally tells Ratha who Thistle is. Ratha has to contend with the fact that Thistle’s tormenting Dreambiter is a transformed memory of her mother’s attack on the cub.  

Ratha discovers that Fessran has disobeyed her, keeping the UnNamed cub. Angrily she confronts the Firekeeper, demanding that she get rid of Mishanti or else.  

The thing that Thakur dreaded happens. Thistle-chaser learns who Ratha is. Her knowledge inflames her rage against the Named. She decides to kill Ratha and sets up a trap that will wash Ratha out to sea, where Thistle has the advantage.  

When Ratha discovers that Fessran is still keeping Mishanti, she confronts the Firekeeper. Having learned that Thistle-chaser is Ratha’s daughter, Fessran taunts Ratha with it.

Ratha takes Mishanti from a still-defiant Fessran and leaves, having to do the heart-breaking job of abandoning another cub. She still remembers having to exile Shongshar’s young.  

Ratha is crossing a floating bridge the Named and their treelings have built over an estuary with Mishanti in her jaws when Thistle appears in the water and cuts the bridge free. With Ratha and Mishanti trapped on it, the bridge-raft is swept out to sea. Thistle stays in the water, clinging to the raft. Deliberately she starts ripping the raft apart beneath Ratha.  

Still carrying Mishanti, Ratha escapes to a low rocky wave-washed jetty. Thistle follows and attacks Ratha, who knows this could be a fight to the death. Tiny Mishanti tries to intervene, biting Thistle’s tail. Furious, Thistle strikes and wounds Mishanti.  

In a last-ditch attempt to reach her rage-maddened daughter, Ratha screams that Thistle is a Dreambiter, that Thistle is wounding Mishanti as Ratha wounded her. Thistle-chaser might seek to kill the Dreambiter, but she can’t, since she has become the Dreambiter. Her words penetrate, stopping Thistle’s attack on the cub.  

Ratha slips on the rocks, catching one foreleg in a crevice. Trapped and unable to protect Mishanti from the crashing waves around them, Ratha sees Mishanti swept away. She begs Thistle to save Mishanti, since she can’t.  

The turning point is that when Thistle realizes what she is doing, she stops fighting Ratha and rescues Mishanti. The cub is close to dying of cold. Ratha tries to warm him, but Thistle, saying her fur is thicker, takes on the task while  Ratha, exhausted, falls asleep. Thistle watches her, remembering her words and understanding that she and Ratha are the same, both Dreambiters, cub-maulers. 

 Thakur and Fessran, who have been searching for Ratha, arrive on the jetty. They find Thistle-chaser lying on top of Ratha with Mishanti nestled between the two. Ratha’s foreleg is still trapped and Thakur fears that he might have to bite the leg off in order to free her. It is only when Thistle-chaser uses her smaller once-crippled forepaw, to worm into the crevice and get her claws into Ratha’s trapped foot that they are able to free Ratha, get her off the jetty and back to land.  

Ratha and Thistle begin to reconcile, though the past that they share is a difficult. Ratha admits that she made a hasty judgment of the infant Thistle-chaser. She promises that she will give little Mishanti time to show his gifts. She tells Thistle that the sea-mares won’t work as herdbeasts, so they can stay free. Ratha also wants Thistle to come back into the clan.  

Thistle says that Mishanti is too different from clan cubs. He is like her. She doesn’t want to leave her beach and live on clan ground. She isn’t ready yet. Instead, she wants to take Mishanti and raise him. Ratha agrees. Fessran, although it is difficult, relinquishes Mishanti to Thistle.  

As Ratha reflects on what has happened, she knows that the image of the Dreambiter will slowly fade for both herself and Thistle. She has regained a daughter who is strong-willed, self-reliant and resourceful. She has also found a wiser, better part of herself.