By Tooth and Claw

by S. M. Stirling

  “And just how do you propose to get the water to stop rising, hmm?” Ssenna asked. “You’ve seen it for yourself. When we backtrack, the water is right at our heels and our side. It would be foolish to stay here; before we could even begin building a permanent camp, the water would be up to our ankles. I don’t know where it’s coming from, but I do know this; it isn’t stopping.”

  “The water can’t keep coming forever. I’ve seen floods before. This one was costly, and bigger than the others. But that’s how things are; the next worst thing is always the end of the world, until the thing after it comes along.” Miarrius glowered. “It’s just a flood.”

  “The water, you moron, is salt. Have you ever been to the Great Salt?” Ssenna smirked. She had. She knew very well that Miarrius hadn’t. “The Long Valley always was lower than the Great Salt. What if the land that held it back broke? The water will pour in forever until the valley is full.”

  “And what if Aedonniss thought that it would be a fine time to take a long piss on us? You can guess and wonder what did it until your fur is as gray as mine.” Miarrius pointed one finger at her face. “It still doesn’t change the fact that our clan dies if we join with the Clan of the Claw.”

  “And you can flaunt your ignorance as well as your stupidity, but that won’t change the fact that we’ll drown if we try to stay here. Unless you plan on growing fins and gills.”

  Arschus Mroa had been stirring the fire with a long stick, gazing into the flames while he listened to his two friends argue. Finally, he straightened up and took a breath to speak. The others stopped talking to listen; whenever Arschus chose to talk, which was rarely, it was usually for a good reason. “You know—”

  “Are they at each others’ throats yet? It’s been a rather dull day, and I could use some entertainment.” Rrerren Rras chose that moment to make his entrance. He shook himself mostly free of the rain on his hide just out of range of the fire, which was only polite, then ducked under the leaf-canopy to get as close as possible to dry off. He was carrying a large folded leaf in one hand. “Found something on my way over.” He unfolded the parcel, revealing a chunk of meat. “Mind, if you’re fighting, please continue. If I can’t have a brawl with the Liskash, I’d like to watch one between you.”

  Ssenna leaned forward, licking her lips. “You bloody fool, How in the world did you get that?” Everyone’s eyes were on the unexpected treat; with so little meat for so many in their clan, every morsel was added to a stew or dried out and rationed out. Freshly cooked meat was as rare as mercy, these days.

  “With my good looks and charm. How else?” Rrerren picked up a dry stick from the pile of firewood, brushing it off before he used it to skewer the meat. “Oh, don’t give me that look. The major share went to the common pot.” Rrerren was lithe for a warrior, but not in a lanky way. He didn’t need bulk; whenever he moved it was with a casual grace that belied his bravado. In the Clan of the Long Fang, there were no males so handsome as he was, and he knew it. Wherever he went and whatever he did, he always seemed to be wearing the same perpetual smirk, as if there was some joke that only he was privy to. It infuriated some—and made all of the available females of the clan swoon—but that expression never seemed to leave his face. “So, what are we arguing about tonight? The color of the sky?” He cocked an eyebrow at Ssenna. “You know that the only way to get him to admit that it is blue is to declare it is the color of sand.”

  Miarrius crossed his arms in front of his chest. “The fate of the clan, and our talonmaster’s vision of what that ought to be.”

  “Oh, so nothing too troubling, then.” Rrerren’s smirk was back. He waited for the old warrior to take his bait while he made a show of carefully skewering and roasting the meat over the cookfire.

  It was Ssenna’s turn to speak. “No, it isn’t troubling. Sartas Rewl has always put the Clan of the Long Fang first, in all things. He’s never led us astray, never taken us down an evil path in the years that he’s been talonmaster.” She unsheathed a claw and poked at the meat on the skewer, checking to see how it was cooking.

  Miarrius nearly exploded. “How can you say that? How can you say he puts the clan first, if he takes us to join another and there is no clan? Have we endured all of this to be swallowed up and vanish?”

  “You don’t know that will happen,” Rrerren countered. “Unless you’ve turned Dancer on us. Turn around, let me look under your tail and see if you still have your old equipment. After all, they say miracles can happen.” His little smirk turned to a grin as Miarrius flicked a small piece of wood at him. “You’d make a lovely lady. A bit beefy and ancient for my taste, but lovely.”

  “And you call me a moron,” Miarrius growled to Ssenna.

  “I think . . .” Arschus said slowly, and they all turned towards him. “I think, for I have been there, that the New Water comes from the sea, and I do not know how to swim.” He reached for the meat, gently taking the stick from Rrerren’s hand. He picked off a small piece, popped it into his mouth, and chewed thoughtfully. “And I also think, that if everyone dies here, the clan dies too, and you can bury my heart with it.” Arschus gazed into the fire once more, then nodded solemnly before standing up and walking to his tent.

  The three warriors sat around the fire in silence, gazing after Arschus. Rrerren was the first one to speak. “You know . . . he has a good point.” He sat for a few moments longer, deep in thought. Suddenly, his eyes widened, and he sat up straight. “And he just stole my dinner!”

  * * *

  It was still raining when the camp roused, which made for a miserable start to the day. But Sartas reminded himself that the fires had been kept burning, so at least their scant breakfast was going to be warm, and they’d been mostly dry while they slept.

  It was just around sun-high—not that you could see the sun, given the rainclouds and the trees—when Ssenna came looking for him. The clan was still packing up to resume the trek. She didn’t have the sense of urgency about her that would have indicated her scouts had found something dangerous—but her hackles were a little raised, and her scent told him she was profoundly disturbed about something.

  “We’ve found a Mrem camp,” she said shortly. “I don’t know exactly how to explain it, but I know that you need to see it.”

  “Are there other survivors?” Usually Ssenna wasn’t this guarded about a scouting report; something was wrong, and she didn’t want to say it in front of the others.

  “You’ll just have to come and see, Talonmaster. And I suggest we bring a lot of help, along with a couple of the arx.” Sartas called out, gathering some of his warriors. He instructed four of them to stay with the camp and guard the perimeter, while the rest were tasked with rounding up the able-bodied to follow him. Ssenna walked with him when the gathered Mrem were ready to leave.

  “I was checking on the progress of the New Water before we moved out,” Ssenna explained. “Miarrius and I were having a . . . discussion . . . about the water rising last night, and I wanted to verify something.”

  “You mean you were fighting about how fast it was rising, and wanted to use the patrol as an excuse to prove him wrong. Again.” Sartas had no illusions about that, nor why they were fighting. Miarrius wasn’t precisely rebellious, but he was very conservative, and very protective of the clan, and consequently of the clan’s heritage. He was afraid that for all intents and purposes, once they joined with Clan of the Claw, Long Fang would vanish.

  He could be right. But if we stay in the valley, or what’s left of it, we’ll die anyway. And if we strike out on our own, we’ll die off. We don’t have enough females. And we don’t have enough warriors to fend off the Liskash on our own forever. Hard to have a clan identity if you’re all dead, after all. And, of course, they didn’t have any Dancers. Without the Dancers, a clan had very little it could call a soul.

  It took the group about the same amount of time it would take to boil water four times to get to where Ssenna had left Rrerren and Arschus. When they reache
d the village, Sartas almost immediately saw why Ssenna didn’t want to say anything at first. The village was in perfect condition, aside from being a couple of hand-lengths underwater. Truly perfect condition; the entirety of it looked untouched. Sartas motioned for his warriors to spread out and be vigilant; nearly silent save for the light splashing of their hands through the water, they moved through the village.

  “I observed this place until the sun was halfway to midday, Talonmaster. Nothing was moving here, except the water. There’s no one here, at all.” Ssenna was back to her usual stony demeanor, her eyes still scanning the settlement. Sartas decided it was time to see for himself. He walked through the water into the village proper, and several things immediately stood out to him. A kettle sitting over an extinguished fire outside of a hut, still full of food; by the look and smell of it, it couldn’t have been left out for more than a day. There was a sitting mat next to another tent, and in the water next to it, scattered, as if the project had just been dropped in a hurry, were arrows, half-fletched. More such projects were around the village; hides stretched on frames, half-scraped. Toys dropped carelessly, or tossed aside. Grain half-pounded in a mortar, or only partially husked from stalks. Even swords, spears, and shields were left behind; something no warrior would ever abide. The oddest—and the one that put his hackles up—a skewer of cooked meat just under the surface of the water, half of it gone, and a bite torn from one of the pieces still on it.

  It seemed that everything was left here but the Mrem that once owned and lived in this place.

  Sartas’s ears perked up when he heard a cry from the far side of the village. Snatching up his spear, he started to run towards the sound. As he got closer, it became apparent that it wasn’t a scream or a yell; it was whooping and excited shouting. He turned the corner of one building when he saw two of his warriors, standing in front of an open hut with their teeth bared in grins.

  “What is it? What have you found?” They were both so busy jumping up and down and clapping each other on the back that they didn’t realize it was their talonmaster talking to them at first. When they finally recognized Sartas Rewl, they sobered up somewhat, but kept smiling.

  “You won’t believe it . . . food!” The one that spoke went inside and came back out with a large pot. He opened the covering on top, and then pulled out a handful of grain. “There’s so much food! Some of it is wet, but most of it was in pots or hung on the rafters. Fresh food!” By this time the rest of the party had arrived to see what the commotion was about. It didn’t take long for the rest to join in the celebrating; after so many weeks of being hungry every day, food had become the only thing that some thought about.

  After allowing some time for his people to enjoy the discovery, he held up a hand for quiet, and eventually got it. Ssenna was again at his side.

  “What do we do, Talonmaster?” Ssenna asked quietly.

  He thought about it. In a few more days, all this was going to be underwater—wasted. “Did you look for the clan this belongs to?” he asked. Miarrius, Arschus, and Mreiss all walked to the front of the group to face him.

  “We did,” said Rrerren, as Arschus nodded. “We did a fast running-scout, covering as much territory as we could. We went a long way, Talonmaster, and there was nothing. Not so much as a tuft of fur.” He reached into a bag of jerky—presumably from the storage hut—and began chewing on a piece. “Not even any tracks. Though, with all of this rain and the flood, that isn’t so surprising.”

  Sartas nodded. “All right then. In a day, no more than two, this will be ruined. If we run across the clan it belongs to, we can share it back, but for now, we take everything that is still useable. It will do no Mrem any good underwater.”

  While the rest of the group were merrily grabbing baskets, pots, and hanging meats, Sartas held Ssenna back. “This troubles you the same as it troubles me. Tell me why.”

  “The things left here . . . no clan can survive very long without them. We had no choice; much of what our clan owned was washed away while many of us were out, either hunting or foraging. These ones . . . this place wasn’t swept away by the flood. It’s only now starting to get a taste of the water; it couldn’t have started any earlier than last night for this part of the land.” She bit her lip and furrowed her brow. “I don’t know what happened here. I’m not sure I want to know, Sartas.”

  He looked into her eyes for several very long moments before turning back to the group. “I don’t know what happened here, either. I just hope we don’t find out what happened to these Mrem the hard way.”

  His hackles wouldn’t go down. He had, perhaps, too good of an imagination to feel easy about this situation. Had one of those monsters from the Deep Salt survived and attacked the village? Was it some new Liskash deviltry? Did the clan become hysterical when the floods came, run off in every direction and been lost that way? Kits wouldn’t survive alone for long . . . but why wouldn’t their mothers have taken them? Look how Reshia’s group had done! Could it have been something else? Some new madness or plague?

  Had the gods themselves simply come and taken everyone?

  And his conscience still bothered him about his order. This all had belonged to someone, and they were taking it. But necessity dictated he looked to his people first. And as he had said, in a day, it would be so far under water that it would all be useless. Wasn’t it better for Long Fang to have it, than have it go to waste?

  There was only so much ground left, anymore, that the Mrem who lived here could be on. If they were found, they would be returned their goods, with the hope and understanding that they share with his clan. If they weren’t—somehow, Sartas knew instinctively that they would never find the Mrem that lived here. That thought frightened him more than the New Water ever had.

  * * *

  There was too much to take in one trip. Sartas was forced to tell the clan to make camp again as soon as they found a secure spot, and prepare to divide up the . . . well, he could only call it “loot” . . . and dry out what needed to be dried. He didn’t want to stop, but he didn’t have a choice. What was the point of rescuing all this stuff if half of it spoiled or rotted or went otherwise bad because it hadn’t been properly dealt with? “Fires for drying, fires for more smoking,” he decreed, because if they re-smoked the wet tent hides, they had a very, very good chance of saving them even if they couldn’t completely dry them out.

  Miarrius was happy, or at least as happy as he ever was; Sartas knew why. He thought, once the clan had settled for a day or two, it would be easier to get Sartas to agree to stay and give up on the march to find the Clan of the Claw. But the land here was different than where they had their village, and things were still shifting. They hadn’t seen a Liskash in a number of days, but that could change at any time. And there were still the flood waters to worry about; each day, the water rose, and the clan would be forced to go higher. The camp they had made for now was nowhere near as “permanent” as Miarrius fondly hoped. Soon, they wouldn’t have the cover of the forest to help keep them hidden.

  Sartas saw signs that some of his people shared Miarrius’s desire to end the march. It had been a long and hard path, and it had cost them dearly. Compounded with the fact that they still had so very far to go to reach their goal, it was almost too much for most of them to bear thinking about. They wanted a place to stay. They wanted a home. A home where they needn’t worry about drowning, starving, or being killed by the Liskash at any given moment. While only a few were vocal in their desire to end the march, many behaved in a way that showed how ready they were to accept that decision. An older smith that had joined them from another clan was starting to plot out a new forge for himself. Sartas almost didn’t have the heart to point out that his fires would be underwater in seven or eight suns.

  But weavers were setting up their weighted looms again, and some were sending kits out to forage, not for wood for the fires he had ordered, but for reeds and whip-tree branches for basket-making. And the potters were conside
ring a kiln. Not good. Not good at all.

  But at the same time . . . the kits were playing again. They hadn’t even gotten more than their first meal out of the bounty, and already one good meal had revived them so much that he was shocked. He hadn’t noticed how worn down they all were. That was especially worrisome; he hadn’t recognized how badly deteriorated his people were becoming. Sartas tried to rationalize it away, thinking that he had to keep focused on getting as many to their destination alive and quickly. His doubts weren’t quieted, however.

  Or was it only that he’d been forced to think about other things? True, he hadn’t been with the main part of the march since it began.

  But he should have noticed. Shouldn’t he?

  Sartas sensed Reshia walking up behind him before she even spoke. No matter how quietly she moved, he always knew it was her, always knew she was there; partly it was that he had honed already keen senses to be some of the sharpest in the clan, partly it was the closeness they had.

  “You are unhappy,” she stated. “I, too, am concerned. It is good that we rest for a little, and better that we have had this gift of food and goods. I am no Dancer, but I have tried to thank the gods for it, and if the clan that left these things behind is truly lost, I have tried to thank their spirits. It means life for us. But . . . I am concerned.”

  He turned to face her, studying her features. Reshia was a few fingers shorter than Sartas, and with a figure that would have made her a fine Dancer if she had chosen that path. Leaner than the norm for Long Fang females, her fur was fine and not as dense, more gray than sand. The tufts at the ends of her ears were longer than the usual, which would have given her features a kittenish cast, had they not been so severe. This was not to say she was not beautiful, certainly she was the most lovely Mrem he had ever seen, but she had none of the softness, the roundness, that most males seemed to prefer. And she had a trait he had only ever seen in Ssenna’s face; the tips of her fangs showed, ever so slightly, all the time, instead of being hidden by her lips. It made her look just a little dangerous, just a little feral. The thing that Sartas loved the most about her, however, was that they shared the same heart; in her own way, she was every bit as much the warrior that he was.