By Tooth and Claw

by S. M. Stirling

  “We should call them the Sure Ones,” Sebetwe interrupted. “It’s how they see themselves, I think. That, or maybe the Constant Ones.”

  “As you wish. Once Zinzile and Tofar can take over with the Sure Ones, you and I need to make plans. I have come up with an idea.”

  The old tekkutu’s jaws gaped. Sebetwe felt himself grow wary. He remembered that look of amusement well. Meshwe’s jaws had gaped just so the day long past when he’d half-tossed a then-little and very scared Sebetwe into the enclosure to face a tritti.

  The little monster had bitten him. It hurt. But Meshwe’s jaws had only gaped wider.

  On the other hand, they’d gaped wider still a few days later when another tritti—not the same one; Meshwe had killed that nasty wretch and good riddance—had come to sit placidly on Sebetwe’s outstretched forearm.

  CHAPTER 14

  Zilikazi

  After all this! Zilikazi was so furious he had to restrain himself from shattering the scout leader’s mind. The effort was almost physical, so great was the urge.

  And then, as his thoughts cooled a bit and he realized what his only course of action could be, he did strike down the scout leader. Terror now had to be marshaled. Great terror. It was the only thing that would drive his army to do what had to be done.

  It would have been simple to crush the scout’s mind. Fear, then unconsciousness, then death. All in less than a minute. There were not many nobles who could kill that easily just with the use of their minds.

  But while that would produce fear and dread, it would not produce the sort of near-gibbering terror that Zilikazi needed to instill in his troops. So, he spent the time and effort to force the scout leader to shatter his own body. The terror he sent coursing down every channel in that body caused muscles to spasm so ferociously that they snapped bones and ruptured vertebrae.

  When it was over—the scout not quite dead, but his body a mass of broken flesh that would not survive more than a short time—Zilikazi fixed his subordinates with a basilisk gaze.

  “Henceforth, this will be the punishment for failure.” He paused briefly, allowing time for anyone who dared to point out that by no reasonable criterion could the scout leader be said to have “failed.” Failed at what? He’d sent warning to Zilikazi that the Kororo were crossing the strait as soon as he realized himself, had he not? What was he then supposed to do? Swim out into the strait with his handful of scouts and somehow capsize the great rafts they were using to make their escape?

  No one spoke, of course. He’d have been astonished if they had. He’d simply paused to allow all of them to contemplate the fact that Zilikazi was being completely unreasonable.

  As he was, indeed. The time for reason was now past. Against all expectations, the Krek had continued to elude his grasp.

  Now was the time for will.

  He pointed to the woods and groves on the lower slopes. They came almost right up to the beach.

  “If they can build rafts, so can we. And we will build many more of them, and we will build them faster.”

  Again, he paused. Not long.

  “Do as I command.”

  Zuluku

  Zuluku was almost gibbering with terror herself. So were Raish and Selani. The only thing keeping them steady enough not to was the close presence of Nurat Merav. Much as they had during the cold nights of the mountain crossing, the three young Liskash females were huddled around the Mrem’s pallet.

  Zuluku would have been happier if that pallet had been positioned in the very center of the raft, instead of against a railing. She could perhaps then have been able to ignore the horrifying creatures that were themselves clustering nearby. But the center of the raft was empty, so that the Mrem dancing there—Achia Pazik, she was called—had the room she needed for a dance that was insanely acrobatic.

  It didn’t look like a dance at all, to Zuluku. Dancing was not unknown, among Liskash. But it was a slow and ceremonious affair, usually done as part of solemn rituals, not this mad whirling and capering and leaping about.

  And screeching! The Mrem shouted and cried out as they danced. The noise was almost as chaotic as their movements.

  It helped—a bit—that Nurat Merav’s kits were completely oblivious to the peril of the situation. Both of them were peering about with keen interest. By now, they were quite unafraid of their dam’s Liskash companions. Indeed, one of them—that was the female kit, whom Nurat Merav called by the name of Abi—had climbed onto the low railing that had been placed on the sides of the pallet and was balanced there precariously, steadying herself with both hands on Zuluku’s left shoulder.

  For some odd reason, Zuluku found the pressure of the tiny hands reassuring. Perhaps the innocence of infants would protect them from madness.

  For madness this surely was. The rafts the Kororo were using to make the crossing to the island were big, true, but they were hardly what anyone would call sturdy. There had been no time for anything but crude designs and even cruder workmanship. The rafts were just piles of logs roped together with piles of more slender rods—stripped branches, half the time—roped on top at a perpendicular angle to make what was laughingly call a “deck.”

  They’d made crude sails, too, but so far those had proved useless. The sails were much too primitive to do anything but run with the wind—and the wind was blowing from the wrong direction. Sails would have just driven them along the shore toward the great rocky cliffs to the north where another river entered the sea through a deep gorge.

  So, they were forced to row their way across, with oars that were every bit as crude and clumsy as the sails. Basically, they were just big poles swiveled against upright posts. The paddles at the ends of the oars had been made from the dismantled parts of wagons. They were also attached with nothing better than ropes, and already one of the paddles had disintegrated from the pressure.

  Which—this was the one bright feature—was considerable. Since every raft was packed with people, there were plenty of arms and backs able to strain at the oars, with plenty of replacements whenever someone got too tired to continue.

  They’d kept rowing with that oar, by just attaching a pile of brambles to the end. It made for a heavy load when the rowers had to lift it out of the water for the return stroke, but it was better than nothing.

  Needless to say, their progress was slow. They’d launched at dawn, but they’d be doing well to make landfall on the island by sunset. If need be, she’d been told, the Krek’s leaders planned to keep rowing through the night. Luckily, there was enough of a moon to be able to see the island even after sundown.

  Assuming it didn’t rain, of course. Zuluku had no idea if that was likely or not. The sky looked clear—bright blue and almost cloudless, in fact—but she had no experience with the weather here by the sea. For all she knew, bright blue skies by day meant terrible storms at night.

  She heard Raish issue a little hiss of fear. Glancing toward her, she saw that one of the ammonite monsters had come almost to the side of the raft. The hideous thing was looking right at her!

  With that huge, unblinking eye. Then, one of its tentacles looped lazily out of the water and curled over the railing.

  They were doomed! It was going to capsize the raft and eat them all!

  Little Abi squealed with excitement and tried to reach the tentacle tip with her hands completely extended.

  The gruesome tentacle—it had suckers! with teeth in them! in every single one of them!—rose from the railing and extended itself to meet those hands. For just an instant, before Zuluku could snatch her back, Abi’s fingers touched the tip of the tentacle.

  The tentacle curled away; and a moment later it fell back into the sea. The great eye just kept staring at Zuluku.

  If only it would blink.

  Meshwe

  “It’s going quite well, I think,” said Meshwe. He and Sebetwe were taking a break. They’d found that mindmelding with the Sure Ones, while it lacked the acute stress of merging with a predator, produced
its own form of psychic fatigue. Liskash—Mrem even less—were just not well-suited by nature to maintain a constant equanimity.

  Profound equanimity. It was now clear to Meshwe that the minds of the Sure Ones were completely unlike any minds he’d ever encountered.

  Reptiles he knew, mammals he knew. There was even a carnivorous giant frog that he’d melded with on a few occasions. But those minds were all closely akin to his, practically cousins, compared to these. Meshwe knew that some of the shamans who specialized in the study of nature thought that squids and ammonites were actually related to such things as clams and oysters.

  He’d been doubtful of that claim in the past, but he was doubtful no longer.

  Cold, cold, cold minds. There was no fear in them; nor fury, either. But he knew that should they choose to kill, they would do so with an implacability every bit as sure as everything else about them.

  The Sure Ones, indeed. They named themselves well—so well that the name was accepted by Liskash and Mrem, even though the Sure Ones had no language with which to speak that name. Nor any way to even think it. They simply were. The Sure Ones.

  So well named, happily, that even the great lizards of the sea understood their nature. It was obvious that the lizards were feeling frustrated. They were now swarming in the strait, surfacing constantly and sometimes even leaping half out of the water. Circling and circling the flotilla of rafts and its ammonite convoy, but never approaching too closely.

  The huge, scaly predators didn’t know—exactly—the nature of the peculiar beasts that were floating through their waters toward the island. But theirs were simple minds.

  There was food. There were mates. There were competitors for food and mates. All creatures large enough to be noticed at all fell into those three categories. So what were these?

  They were frustrated; in their own way, curious; and always prone to aggression. But they were not mindless. The strange beasts were surrounded by the shelled ones, and those could be dangerous. For one thing, they were almost impossible to kill. Not even the greatest of the sea lizards could bite through that armor. And while the tentacles could be attacked, the reverse was just as true—the tentacles were the shelled ones’ own teeth and claws. Attacking them was akin to matching bites with another sea lizard.

  Risky. There wasn’t room in the tight and narrow minds of the sea lizards for many concepts, but that one was well understood.

  Risky. So, they kept their distance.

  The turtlesnakes didn’t come anywhere near the rafts. The river delta and its immediate environs seemed to be their natural habitat. They were great and fearsome predators in their own right—as any land animal discovered, even the largest, if they came too close to the water. But their normal diet was the fish and amphibians that dwelt in the delta. They would not last long if they tried to match themselves against the lizards or ammonites of the open sea.

  “Yes,” Sebetwe said. “It’s going well. But . . .”

  He glanced at the island, slowly drawing near, then looked back at the shore. His eyesight was very good and he could easily see the advance elements of Zilikazi’s army. Some of them had already reached the beach and he was pretty sure of the activity of those farther back, in the woods.

  They’d be building their own rafts.

  He glanced now at the tekkutu who were taking his place and Meshwe’s for the moment. Chikwe and Kudzai, those were. Neither was especially talented but both were solid and experienced. They would manage for a while.

  “We need to talk to Nurat Merav again,” he said.

  “I agree.” Meshwe’s jaws opened a bit. “She’ll be delighted to discover we want a new dance from her.”

  Nurat Merav

  “Are you joking?”

  CHAPTER 15

  Zilikazi

  Zilikazi had eventually realized he had no choice but to command the lead raft. Despite his power and his ferocity in using it, the morale of his army had deteriorated so much that his troops were still balking at making the passage across the strait to the island.

  Not openly, no; to all outward appearance, his orders were being obeyed. But resistance can take many forms. Knots poorly tied, logs poorly chosen, vessel designs mismanaged—always with the claim they’d been “misunderstood”—it went on and on. He’d soon realized that the creeping pace at which his troops were preparing the fleet of rafts was itself undermining their morale.

  Decisive action had to be taken, and it was. He announced to the whole army that he would be in personal command of the first raft to be launched into the sea and he expected all of his subordinate officers and warriors on the other rafts to launch with him.

  Failure to do so would be severely punished.

  That was enough. The pace of the work picked up; more importantly, so did the quality of the work itself.

  But the time they’d wasted! He had expected to start the crossing in three days. It was now the fifth day after his army had reached the shore—late afternoon of the fifth day. They’d have to wait until the next morning to make the crossing. He begrudged that reality, but there was no getting around it. The moon was waxing and was now better than half full, but he still couldn’t take the risk of trying to cross the sea except in full daylight. Leaving aside the risks of the passage itself, forcing his army to make a night crossing would shatter the morale he’d just succeeded in patching back together.

  Tomorrow morning, then. Standing on the same small rock spur that Meshwe and Sebetwe had used as an observation perch days earlier, Zilikazi glared at the island in the distance. He’d made another decision over the past few days and announced it to the army also. The only captives they would take would be younglings. Anyone old enough to have been infected in any way by the beliefs of the Kororo Krek were to be slaughtered out of hand.

  If there was any doubt, force the younglings to speak. Use torture, use any means of duress to put them to the test. Any youngling who could speak a complete phrase—even a short one—was to be killed.

  He made an exception for the Mrem who had taken refuge with the Krek. He didn’t understand how they had done it, but it was now clear to him that the Mrem dancers had greatly enhanced the so-called “tekku” of the Kororo shamans.

  All Mrem were to be butchered. Each and every one down to the least kit.

  By tomorrow night—well, perhaps not quite that soon; the island looked to be big and some would try to flee into its interior—this would finally be over.

  Achia Pazik

  “I should go with you,” insisted Nurat Merav.

  “Don’t be silly,” Achia Pazik chided her. “You’ve done all you can. Designed the new Dance, and modified it as our rehearsals suggested. It may not be good enough, but there’s nothing you will be able to do tomorrow that will change anything. We can’t risk losing our best choreographer.”

  Her mouth twisted into a semblance of a smile. “Also our only choreographer.”

  Nurat Merav had recovered enough from her injuries to be sitting up straight with no assistance. She was even able to throw up her hands in a gesture of frustration.

  “And so what? All of our Dancers—each and every one—will be on that raft tomorrow. If we lose, there will be nothing for me to choreograph.”

  Standing next to them, young Lavi Tur grunted with amusement.

  “And no time either, even if any Dancers were left,” he said, using his chin to point to the mainland. “If that huge army gets across, they’ll just overrun us. Cut all of our throats for sure and probably hack off our limbs for good measure. They’ve got to be in a rage already—and if they aren’t, they certainly will be after the crossing.”

  Again, he grunted amusement. He did that a lot. It was annoying. But Achia Pazik saw no point in chiding him about it now.

  Maybe later. If there was a later. She was sure he was right in his assessment. Zilikazi and his warriors would be furious with the Kororo Krek and any who were associated with it. If they got across, they probably would
kill everyone.

  She almost grunted with amusement herself, then. Zilikazi’s army would be even more furious after crossing, when they discovered most of the Kororo had fled into the interior. If they thought they’d have nothing to do but quick and easy butcher’s work, they’d soon discover otherwise.

  There was no point in most of the Kororo waiting on the beach. What could be done tomorrow would be done by the tekkutu and the Dancers on the one raft that would be going out to meet the invaders. The rest of the Krek except a few staying behind to help launch the raft had already started moving inland.

  Not quickly. The island’s terrain was mountainous, for the most part, especially further into the interior. They still didn’t know for sure, in fact, whether it was an island at all. The scouts had not yet reached the crest of the mountains to see all that might lie beyond. What they had been able to see suggested they were on an island, yes. But there was still perhaps a tenth of the coastline that remained unknown.

  And even if it was an island—now, she did grunt with amusement, although not as loudly as the brash youngster—the aggravation of Zilikazi’s warriors would still not be at an end. There were caves in those interior mountains, as it turned out. Some of them seemed to be quite large and deep as well as convoluted.

  Enough of the tekkutu would remain on the island to keep the gantrak under control. (That had been an adventure! Keeping those temperamental and belligerent beasts from tearing apart the raft that had brought them over to the island had been a close thing. If anyone but Sebetwe had tried to control them, they’d mostly likely have failed.) They could hide at least some people deep in those caves for days, possibly many days.

  Possibly even until Zilikazi’s army gave up the search altogether. Who could say?

  But there was no point in dwelling on that. Achia Pazik was quite confident the new Dance would do what it was designed to do. She’d played no small part in designing it herself, from the experience she’d gained in their rehearsals.

  Four days of rehearsals, starting before dawn and not ending until sunset—and the only reason she’d ended then was because the Dancers were exhausted and needed their rest. Never in her life had she been so well rehearsed with a new Dance.