By Tooth and Claw

by S. M. Stirling

  Sartas heard the outriders approach; those at the back of the clan’s line stirred at their sighting. The rearmost guards were led by Arschus Mroa and Miarrius Srell, two seasoned warriors. Sartas hoped that there had been no trouble, but he also knew it was probably a vain hope. Both warriors were riding behind by the clan’s lead scout, Ssenna Errol, a rare female warrior. Sartas sometimes wondered if she was part lizard; she was almost as cold and as calculating as a Liskash. That trait was what made her perfect for her role, however. Her face betrayed no emotion as she and the other two warriors pulled their mounts up to him, jumping from their saddles to lead the krelpreps beside their talonmaster.

  Ssenna was the first to speak. “We encountered another patrol of roving Liskash. Survivors from the flooding, no doubt. These ones were a mixed bunch, with one of the bigger lizards leading them. We dispatched them before any could escape.” Sartas could see some of the blood matted into each of their pelts; none of them looked injured, so it followed that it could only be Liskash blood.

  Arschus Mroa was the next to speak. He was by far the largest Mrem that any in the clan had ever seen in recent memory, fully two heads taller than most, and a head taller than Sartas himself, with a slightly darker shade of fur than the rest of his clansmates. “We lost two while fighting them. Sirroc Prell and Nischan Royara. The first fell to a flight of arrows at the start, and we sent the second off at his request after he was laid low with a stinking gut wound.” Arschus Mroa hung his head; it was easy to forget how sensitive the warrior could be sometimes, given his immense size and strength.

  Miarrius Srell was not nearly as gentle with his words. “Better than bleeding out or having dung-eating Liskash at you while you’re down. He went out well, and we’d all best choose that way if it comes to it.” Miarrius was the oldest warrior left in the band, and had been even before the flood. His disposition never seemed to change; he was consistently dour and had a scowl that never seemed to leave his face. His fur had long ago started to go gray. He was further distinguished by his missing left ear and the mass of scars that ran down that side of his face, trophies for living through a hard battle long ago. “The Liskash that got those two didn’t have such a good end.” A smirk curled his lips ever so slightly, as he remembered exactly the end the Liskash they encountered had come to.

  Sartas nodded. “Any other injuries? Signs of more Liskash?” Two more warriors gone . . . it was two too many. The clan’s scouts were already stretched thin, trying to find safe passage in the now seemingly crowded woods; the floods had driven out everything into the forest, with much of the traffic concentrated near the new—and ever-encroaching—shore. They would miss Sirroc Prell and Nischan Royara in the coming days, and miss their spears.

  “Nothing significant. Those that are hurt are being tended to, Sartas Rewl.” Ssenna nodded once. “I’ll take another group of riders out to see if there’s more to find, however.”

  “Rotate your complement to the front; send those already at the front to the rear,” he ordered. “If you head out again, borrow a fresh mount from someone.”

  “No need,” said Miarrius, “when we have Sirroc Prell and Nischan Royara’s. We dismounted to fight; the beasts didn’t get much of a workout.” Arschus winced ever slightly at the harshness of his friend’s words, but said nothing.

  “Make it so. We need to find an appropriate place to make camp, somewhere that we’ll at least have some cover from prying eyes. Get some drink and then get to it.”

  The two led their mounts up into the van of the group. Reshia must have seen them and spoken to them, for it was not that long after they left that she made her way back to him.

  “I have a little good news to add to your bad,” she said, and cheek-rubbed him for comfort. “The kits have been lucky, and we have added much more to eat, enough so that some of our weak have regained the strength to take to their own feet again.” She made a face. “At least we do not lack for water. Even if the New Water is salt, there is plenty of fresh water streaming towards it.”

  “I’ve never wished for a desert so fervently as I do now. Rather that we had lived in one.” He shook his head. “We’ll need to keep close watch on the kits, maybe even let them forage once camp has been made; but never on their own. We’re not alone in these woods. We lost two more. Sirroc Prell and Nischan Royara. Another group of stranded Liskash.”

  “We have been lucky. So far we have only encountered those Liskash whose homes were also destroyed. Eventually—”

  “I do not think we will continue to be so lucky. At this rate, losing so many so fast . . .” Sartas laughed bitterly to himself. “At this rate, I’m going to turn into another Miarrius.”

  “Do, and I shall beat you into good nature again myself,” she half-threatened. “Not that such a thing is likely. You are far too handsome to become another Miarrius.” This time Sartas laughed honestly.

  “We still have far to go, love. We’ll see what the forest brings; hopefully, Aedonniss isn’t in too bad of a mood.”

  “You have done what few talonmasters could have, beloved.” This time she briefly caressed his ear. “You took a shattered clan with no Dancers, herded it into unity again, and got it moving. If you had asked me before the flood if such a thing was even possible, I would have told you that not even the heroes of an epic could have done it.”

  Her eyes darkened with too-recent memory; Sartas fell briefly into the same dark place himself.

  * * *

  Sartas thought back. Had it only been a few hands of days? It had all begun with something that only the gods could have caused. Strangely, it had been a fine day. Cool, by the standards of this tropical forest, and the Dancers had elected to take advantage of the weather to make an entire day of practice and prayer. That was fine; Clan of the Long Fang had more than enough hunters that they could afford to do so. Sartas himself had led one of the two hunting parties upland, driving the dangerous root-diggers before them, away from the camp and into a funneling trap. Reshia had taken the kits out to learn foraging techniques, from her wealth of experience in what was edible, what was medicinal, and what was dangerous.

  She had been a little concerned that the weather was too good, and had been keeping half an ear cocked for the sound of distant thunder. Nothing was harder to deal with than a mob of wet, miserable kits. She saw two playing with each other in the distance, throwing handfuls of grass at each other. A boy and a girl, running and pouncing without a care in the world. It brought joy to her heart, and reminded her of her own upbringing.

  It had been during a season when the clan was changing grounds, and had been a great trek. She and Sartas were of an age together, with him only being slightly older. They were like brother and sister as they grew up, inseparable most of the time, twins in mischief. He hadn’t been nearly as tall then, of course, but was certainly was on the smaller side compared to the other kits. It colored his demeanor; he always had to prove to others that he was just as good, just as strong and fast. In those days, she was the one that defended him. As time passed, he grew from a boy into manhood; no longer was he teased for his size, since he was taller than almost any other male in the clan, with the speed and reflexes of a seasoned warrior instead of the awkwardness of adolescence. He also had a clarity of vision and purpose that few seemed to possess; when Sartas set his will to a task, nothing could sway him.

  When Sartas Rewl decided to take her hand as a mate, nothing and no one could sway him then, either. Not that she wanted him swayed. The clan had newly settled—in the same spot where they rested to this day—and Sartas came to her in the light of the new moon. Up until then, she had been the perfect maiden, and had turned down plenty of suitors; some were young, some old, some wealthy, others strong or brave. She would always rationalize that each one had some flaw, but secretly she knew; she was waiting for Sartas Rewl. No one else was her match.

  Her pleasant reminiscence had been interrupted by a distant rumble. It wasn’t the thunder that she had been hal
f expecting, however. This was deeper and somehow . . . more sinister. Then the ground had begun to tremble, only a little bit at first and then growing in intensity, and she knew that something was horribly wrong.

  It had been instinct that had saved them; her instinct, that said “This is not rain, it is not earthquake, it is something else, get off of the ground” and sent her racing around the group, scolding and swatting and sometimes throwing the kits up into the trees. “Climb!” she had yowled at them. “Climb! Higher! As high as you can!” The Clan of the Long Fang was blessed with many things by Aedonniss; one of them was deep forests with towering trees. Not just high, but huge in girth, some so big that it took several Mrem with their arms outstretched to ring them. More blessings came in the form of the long water-vines, tough enough for adults to climb and swing from, not just kits, vines that wreathed the trunks of the larger trees and made them trivial to climb.

  It was painfully slow progress; first, to get everyone to realize the danger, and second, to get everyone climbing. Many scrambled up the trees, but there were some that could not; the youngest kits that had to cling to their mothers, the elders needed help from the older kits. Meanwhile the distant mutter grew to a growl, the growl to a rumble, and the rumble to a roar. The earth trembled and the trees swayed, and there was a wind rushing through the forest carrying the scents of wet earth and salt. By this point everyone’s instincts had kicked in, and danger! thrilled along every nerve. Reshia herself swarmed up a huge tree at last, moving as fast as hands and claws could take her, her eyes on the distant top of the tree, her mind fixed on that goal.

  Somehow and somewhere along the way she had picked up two mewling kits, both of them clinging to her back, their tiny claws pricking her through the leather of the working-tunic she always wore to forage to protect her from thorns and stings. The kits were terrified at this point, silent rather than crying in terror, digging in like little burrs. More instinct; it would have taken a strong Mrem to pry them off her now, and a good thing as well.

  She saw the trees swaying and toppling before she saw the wall of water itself. By that time the roaring was so loud it would have drowned out any other sound. It certainly drowned out the noise of the trees being broken off and crashing down just ahead of the flood.

  Reshia didn’t recognize it at first for what it was. It looked—it looked like a wall of churning earth, dark brown, roiling with splintered trunks, tossing with broken branches. She had just a moment between sighting it, and when it hit her tree, and the huge tree shook like a sapling in a windstorm. She clung to it as the kits were clinging to her, claws locked into the bark. Some were not so lucky. The impact shook some of her clansmates from their trees, sending them to fall into the water below. Others hadn’t climbed up high enough, or were even still on the trunks near the ground. And others still hadn’t found a strong enough tree; the force from the oncoming water was enough to topple thinner trees as if they were saplings in the path of an arx. It was all that Reshia could do to hold on to her tree with all of her might as it swayed with the power of the flood.

  The power of the water, the horror of what was happening, had bludgeoned her into a state of numb mindlessness. She had only been able to close her eyes and hold with claws that cramped into position, whimpering, until long after the worst was over.

  * * *

  The flood had caught the hunters in a relatively “good” place; somewhat higher ground, and a grove of the largest trees in their part of the forest. It made a good channeling trap.

  The rooters they had driven into the trap had given them their first warning; before any of them even heard the first noise, the creatures suddenly went absolutely insane with terror. Insane enough to forget their fear of the Mrem and literally try to run over them . . . insane enough for some of them to try to climb the trees themselves.

  Later, Sartas learned that his instinctive reaction had been the same as Reshia’s: to climb the trees. He screeched the order; his battle-trained hunters followed it. The grove stood, although on the side that took the first impact, there was a virtual island of debris piled up against the trunks.

  Sartas’s first thought, when the initial wave was past and they were stranded in the treetops in a slow-rising flood, was for the rest of the clan. Reshia and the foragers were nearest them—if they survived—

  They survived! Reshia is smart! He had to tell himself that, or he would have gone insane, right there and then. He knew where they were going to be, and aside from the water everywhere, he thought he could still find the place. And almost all Long Fang Mrem knew how to travel tree-to-tree. Learned first as kits as a part of playing games, and later honed for survival. There were plenty of Liskash-relatives that were more than big enough to take out a small hunting party, much less a single hunter, and often the only way to escape one was to take to the trees.

  “Report!” he snarled, pitching his voice to carry. One by one, the names of his hunters came back to him through the branches. Some, impressively enough, came from higher in the trees than he was. “Gather on me!” His tree was enormous, and a little higher than he had managed to get there was a huge limb that was more than enough to take the weight of the entire party without even bending a little. Once everyone had joined him on the massive tree, he called out to them, steeling his voice; any sign of weakness, and panic might overtake them all. “We travel together! We need to find the rest of the clan, get to the kits and elders!” He extended a claw in the direction that Reshia had told him she would take the others to forage. “We will go this way! Use the vines, and only go to a tree that looks sturdy!”

  The vines provided a network that strung trees together. While it wasn’t precisely easy, his hunters knew how to hook their legs over a vine and pull themselves along to get to another tree. If trees were close enough together, it was also possible to leap from limb to limb, extending the claws in midair so that the Mrem could sink them deep into the bark on landing. Twice, his hunters weren’t as nimble or sure of themselves as they could have been; two different hunters fell, crashing into the water. Both were able to be saved, but one had a broken arm.

  “We can leave you here and come back for you, take you with us and go slower, or leave you to catch up with us however you can,” Sartas told the injured warrior, as one of the others bound his arm to a couple of sticks after it had been pulled straight. The Mrem’s nose and lips were almost white with pain, but he nodded his understanding. “You might be able to pole yourself along one-handed on a log.”

  “Go. Save as many as you can. I will manage.” Sartas nodded curtly to him as the others finished binding him. The clan—family—always came first, always before oneself. Every warrior understood this, and Sartas was proud to see one of his being so selfless without even a second thought.

  “We’ll be back for you, along this path. If you aren’t here, mark the direction you went; we’ll find you.” Without another word, Sartas was off again, leading the other hunters swarming back up the trunk and into the treetops.

  And he would never forget the moment that he knew that Reshia and the kits were still alive—when he heard them, singing valiantly, their voices cutting through the leaves, her voice rising above all the others. And then, her chiding. “Sing! Sing louder! The hunters will hear us and come for us! Sing!”

  Clever. She’s always been sharp. The hunters all gave a cry as soon as they heard the singing. After the confusion and biting worry, some wept with relief as they swung to their loved ones. Others were not so fortunate, finding that their mates or kits were not among those in the trees. Sartas, for the moment, had no thoughts for either. His heart was near to bursting as he enveloped Reshia in his embrace. It didn’t matter what happened to this world; whether it drowned or burned or was rent to pieces; so long as he had her, there was hope.

  * * *

  There was more heartbreak to come, when they found nothing but a rippling sheet of brown water where the camp had been, and no sign of the Dancers. By this po
int it was obvious that whatever danger there was, it wouldn’t be from the great predators, so taking their cue from Reshia, they had all begun to sing, hoping for some response, any response, from those who had been left in the camp. They did pick up a few stragglers; a couple of agile kits, a handful of adolescents, and one shockingly spry elder, and finally, the injured warrior that had been left behind. When it was painfully obvious that there were no more to be found, they made their first camp of the flood-times in the tree, using vines to tie themselves in place so no one would fall in his sleep.

  It was hard living, and it took the clan several days to find good ground at the edge of the flood waters. Sartas Rewl was surprised to find others as they descended from the trees; stragglers and survivors from other clans. Too few, in his estimation; how far had these waters gone? What was left of their world after such destruction? That was when they started scavenging. Some was taken from what had washed up on the edges of the water; very little of it was usable, and much of it had to be repaired. The rest had to be remade from scratch, which was no easy task with almost all of the tools and materials that the clan owned having been swallowed up in the floods. There were trickles of good news as, one by one, some of their mounts and even a few of the pack-beasts came back to them. The snapped reins and broken halters told the tale; like the forest animals, the mounts had sensed the danger, fought their tethers until they broke, and made a run for higher ground. But the water rose with every day, and Sartas began to fear that it would not stop until the entire valley was under the churning, brackish waves.

  He wondered where the water had come from. Then, unexpectedly, the kits found the answer one morning. A small group that had been out foraging had strayed a little farther than they were supposed to. In doing so, they had found a small pool of water that had been left behind after the initial rush of the flood. What was left in the pool, however, was not small. They ran back into the temporary camp, breathless and half-terrified. “It’s a monster, a real monster!” Sartas’s first instinct told him that it was what he feared most: Liskash. His clan was in no state to fight off even a loosely organized attack at this point. Grabbing a spear and gathering the warriors, he set off with one of the kits leading him.