Exiled: Clan of the Claw, Book One

by S. M. Stirling, Harry Turtledove, Jody Lynn Nye, John Ringo; Michael Z. Williamson

  And the folk at the front would be lucky if they could see the folk at the back. “Have to keep the rear guard strong,” Rantan Taggah muttered. So many things for a talonmaster to think about! The Liskash might try to build a wall so the trekking clan couldn’t enter Sassin’s lands at all.

  They might, yes—but Rantan Taggah didn’t think they would. Brothers to serpents as they were, the Scaly Ones were more likely to strike where they reckoned the Mrem weakest, and to hit the column from the flank or from behind. Rantan Taggah did more muttering: “We have to be strong everywhere, then.” He growled, down deep in his throat. How was he supposed to manage that? Too much space, and not enough males to cover all of it.

  A voice from behind him: “What did you say, Rantan Taggah?”

  He spun on his toes. “Oh! Enni Chennitats! I didn’t hear you come up.” Not surprising, that, not when the Mrem were light on their feet—and she especially, being a Dancer. He went on, “I was just trying to figure out everything we’ll have to do once we start moving.”

  “You can’t know everything ahead of time,” the priestess said.

  His mouth twisted wryly. “That’s something I already do know. But the Liskash can ruin us—will ruin us—if they catch us by surprise. So I have to work out as many ways to keep that from happening as I can.”

  “We will know—we may know—some of what they do before they try to do it,” Enni Chennitats said. “Seeing some way into their sorceries is one of the things the Dance is good for.”

  “You dragged the truth out of Grumm, sure enough.” Admiration filled the talonmaster’s voice. Admiration for the Dance, or for this Dancer here? Rantan Taggah wondered. Here, at least, he didn’t need to wonder long. For both, and especially for the lithe, comely priestess.

  When there was time, he ought to do something about that. But there wasn’t, not right now, and there wouldn’t be for quite a while. The Clan of the Claw bubbled like stew in a clay-daubed basket over a big fire. (The clan females still had a few precious proper pots won in trade with the now-vanished city-states of the Hollow Lands, but only a few. You could be as careful as you pleased, but every now and then a pot would break. None of the nomads had the trick to making real pottery—those baskets were as close as they came. If one of the refugees who’d escaped the inrushing New Water knew the art…Rantan Taggah found yet another thing he needed to check on.)

  How was he supposed to remember pots when he didn’t even have the time to think about Enni Chennitats? The clan had carved out this domain south of the Hollow Lands a couple of generations before, grazing their krelprep and other herdbeasts in the flatlands here during the warm season and taking them up into the hills to forage when the weather got cooler and wetter. Now they would have to keep going at all times of the year. The Liskash weren’t likely to let them rest and graze their animals as they pleased. Rantan Taggah swore under his breath. What had Aedonniss been thinking when he made the Scaly Ones?

  Here was a priestess standing beside him. He asked her the question. Gravely, she considered it. “There is no sure answer to that,” she said at last. “Dancers have debated it for…for as long as there have been Dancers, I suppose. Some say the sky lord put them on earth to give us a proper challenge, and to keep us from fighting amongst ourselves so much. Some say they are not properly part of creation at all, but only Aedonniss’ waste, which he forgot to cover as he should have because he’d worked so hard making the things he truly wanted.”

  Rantan Taggah laughed. “Yes, I’ve heard that. Godshit!” He laughed again, louder. “I like it.”

  Enni Chennitats held up a slim hand. She stepped closer to him, which made his heart beat faster. “But there is another possibility. I have never heard that it is forbidden to speak of it with someone who is not a priestess, but I know we hold it close. I will ask you to do the same.”

  “Of course,” Rantan Taggah replied at once, intrigued. “What is it?”

  “It could be that the Liskash truly aren’t part of Aedonniss’ creation,” Enni Chennitats said in a low, troubled voice. “It could be that some other god, a dark and wicked god, made them for purposes of his own, purposes that stand against everything the sky god stands for. We do not talk about this much, even among ourselves. It frightens us. It makes us think the world may be a larger, stranger, more dangerous place than we care to imagine. But it seems to explain some things the simpler ideas cannot.”

  “A dark and wicked god…” Rantan Taggah weighed the notion. After a few heartbeats, he dipped his head to the priestess. “Yes, I can see how that might be so. And he would have made the Scaly Ones in his own fashion, as Aedonniss patterned us, the true people, after himself. That is a very large thought.”

  “Which is why we hold it close,” she told him.

  A smerp hopped by. When the breeze shifted and brought it the scent of the two Mrem, it squeaked in fright and dove under a thornbush. Rantan Taggah felt a great tug of memory. When he was a kit, how many smerps had he chased while he was learning to hunt? How many of them had got away under thornbushes or between rocks or down holes in the ground? How proud had he been when he finally caught one? And how horrified had he been a moment later, when it bit his hand, jumped free, and fled?

  “Are we even smerps to Aedonniss?” he wondered.

  “I doubt it, but he does not hunt us for the sport of it,” Enni Chennitats answered, following his chariot of thought perfectly.

  That was something. Rantan Taggah wondered if it was enough. The Liskash didn’t hunt Mrem for the sport of it, either, but hunt them they did. And when the Liskash did not hunt Mrem, the Mrem hunted them. What else did being blood enemies mean? Liskash and Mrem even smelled wrong, alien, to each other. Like any kit, Rantan Taggah hadn’t hunted only smerps and other mammals. He’d gone after lizards and small snakes, too. (One of the first lessons kits learned—those who lived to learn it, anyway—was how to tell snakes that squeezed from the ones with poison in their fangs.) He remembered how strange their blood and flesh tasted after he made a kill. They were different from him in a way smerps weren’t.

  He hadn’t fully understood the difference then. He did now.

  “Someone coming to see you, Talonmaster,” Enni Chennitats said quietly.

  It was Zhanns Bostofa. Of course it was. Zhanns Bostofa thought himself important enough to see the talonmaster whenever he chose. And he wouldn’t be happy with the dispositions Rantan Taggah had made for his herds and wagons. No matter when Rantan Taggah placed them, Zhanns Bostofa wouldn’t be happy with it. The talonmaster was morosely certain of that.

  And he was right. The heavyset male tore into him as if Zhanns Bostofa led the Clan of the Claw and Rantan Taggah were a lowly herdsmale. Rantan Taggah listened for a little while. Then he said, “That will be enough of that.”

  Zhanns Bostofa stared at him as if he were a krelprep that had suddenly opened its mouth to display a daggertooth’s fangs. “How dare you speak to me so?” Zhanns Bostofa demanded. With his deep, resonant voice, he might have made a better talonmaster than Rantan Taggah—or at least a more impressive one. Rantan Taggah was convinced there was a difference between the two. So was the rest of the Clan of the Claw—with the evident exception of Zhanns Bostofa.

  “How? Because you’re wasting my time, that’s how. You should be getting your bundor and hamsticorns ready to move. The clan decided that was the better thing to do after the Dancers showed how Sassin had magicked poor, sorry Grumm into believing the lies the son of a serpent hissed in his ears. If you don’t want to come with us, you can stay by yourself—but how long will you last against the Liskash with only the handful of fools who stay with you?” Rantan Taggah enjoyed the rare pleasure of being able to say exactly what he thought.

  The snarl of rage on Zhanns Bostofa’s face took in both Rantan Taggah and Enni Chennitats. “The way the two of you seem so friendly, I shouldn’t wonder if the Dance was faked to get the answer you wanted.”

  It had never occurred to R
antan Taggah that a Dance might be faked. Zhanns Bostofa had taught him something, but not something he’d wanted to learn. He wanted to walk away from the black-and-white male and find someplace quiet where he could try to wash himself clean.

  But, shocked as he was, his reaction was as nothing beside that of Enni Chennitats. Her pupils filled her eyes, as they would just before she sprang for a kill. And behind their blackness flamed raw, red rage.

  “Fake…a Dance?” she whispered. “Fake the power we have through Assirra and Aedonniss? Come with me, Zhanns Bostofa. Come tell Demm Etter that you think she told a lie about the word the Dance gave us. Come on. I want to watch while you do that. I want to see how much of you is left afterwards.” She reached out to grab the male’s arm.

  He sprang back before she could. He might carry fat around his middle, but he could be nimble when his hide was on the line. And it was. He knew it was. “Here, now! Watch what you’re doing!” he said in some alarm. “I didn’t say anything about Demm Etter.”

  “You said the Dance was false,” Enni Chennitats answered implacably. “How could it be false unless the senior priestess made it false?”

  Zhanns Bostofa made an unhappy noise down deep in his throat. “I might have been hasty,” he said at last—more of an apology than Rantan Taggah had ever got from him, or ever expected. But Rantan Taggah was a rival, not a priestess.

  And, being a rival, he clawed Zhanns Bostofa while the other male was down: “You might have wanted to piss on things so they’d smell more like you. Next time you need to piss, go find a dry patch of dirt, squat, and cover your piddle with dust the way you’re supposed to.”

  He wondered if that would provoke Zhanns Bostofa to fight. He hoped so. Tearing some strips off Zhanns Bostofa’s hide might let him forget the idea of a faked Dance…for a little while, anyhow.

  Zhanns Bostofa’s ears flattened against the top of his head, as if he were ready to brawl. But the plump male turned and stormed away instead. His brushed-out tail showed the fury he was holding in.

  Rantan Taggah let out a sigh. “Well,” he said, “that was fun.”

  “Wasn’t it?” The fur on Enni Chennitats’s tail rose up, too. “A faked Dance, a lying Dance…I should have torn out his throat for that.”

  “Yes, you should have,” the talonmaster agreed. “When they stood to judge you, I would have sworn he had it coming. By Aedonniss, he did, too.”

  “Do you know what he makes me wonder?” Enni Chennitats said.

  “No.” Rantan Taggah wasn’t sure he wanted to, either. “But you’re going to tell me, aren’t you?”

  She dipped her head. “Remember how I was talking about how there might be another god besides Aedonniss, a god who’s to blame for the Liskash?”

  “I’m not likely to forget,” Rantan Taggah answered. “What about it?” He didn’t see the connection.

  Since he didn’t, Enni Chennitats made it plain for him: “If that god reached out to touch one of us, what would the Mrem be like afterwards? A lot like Zhanns Bostofa, don’t you think?”

  Till she first mentioned the idea, Rantan Taggah hadn’t dreamt there could be any gods but Aedonniss and his gentle mate. Now, watching Zhanns Bostofa’s hunched-over form recede in the distance, the talonmaster found himself a believer—a reluctant believer, perhaps, but a believer all the same.

  * * *

  The driver checked the harness on the two krelprep hitched to the chariot. Only after he was sure all the leather was sound and all the lashings secure did he incline his head to Enni Chennitats. “You can get in, priestess,” he said.

  “Thank you, Tessell Yatt,” she said, and stepped up into the car. The wickerwork of the flooring gave a little under her feet. Everything in the chariot was as light as the Clan of the Claw’s finest shapers could make it. The less weight the krelprep had to pull, the faster and the longer they could run.

  Tessell Yatt stroked one of the beasts on its muzzle before he came back to join Enni Chennitats in the car. Keeping herd animals…That, the Mrem had done for a very long time. The priestess still wondered how her folk had got beasts to draw them and their wagons, though. After all, in a krelprep’s nostrils what were the Mrem but predators?

  And, perhaps just as much to the point, what were krelprep to the Mrem of ancient days but so much walking meat? Whoever first realized the brown-and-white-patched beasts might be more, might do more, must surely have been a male or female of godlike cleverness.

  She looked back over her shoulder. As the trek began, her place was near the front. Behind her, wagon drivers, chariot crews, and warriors on foot snarled at one another. Everyone thought everyone else was getting in his way. Nobody imagined he might be getting in anybody else’s way. Mrem weren’t always right—Enni Chennitats had no doubts on that score. But, right or not, they were almost always sure.

  The driver adjusted the broad shield that would protect them both if—no, more likely when—trouble came. The thick, scaly hide of some mindless hunting Liskash, cured and boiled in wax, would help ward Mrem against the javelins and arrows the more clever Liskash used.

  At the very head of the column rode Rantan Taggah and his driver. He looked quite splendid, his bronze scalemail gleaming red in the morning sun. He pointed to the standard-bearer in the chariot beside his. The standard-bearer raised the pole on which was mounted a hand-long claw cut ages ago from the carcass of a huge, vicious Scaly One. The trumpeter raised his long copper horn to his lips and blew three blasts from it.

  “Forward!” Rantan Taggah shouted in a great voice. “Forward, the Clan of the Claw!”

  Enni Chennitats’s cheer went up to the heavens along with those of the other males and females who could hear the talonmaster. At the back of the column, they would probably be wondering what the fuss was about—if they knew there was any fuss at all.

  Rantan Taggah touched his driver on the shoulder. The junior male flicked the reins. He called to his krelprep. They leaned forward and began to walk. Enni Chennitats exclaimed in surprise. Someone had ornamented with gold leaf the four-pronged horns they bore above each eye, so they shone even brighter than Rantan Taggah’s polished armor. Now that was swank!

  Tessell Yatt also flicked the reins. Enni Chennitats took hold of the rail as the chariot started rolling. A warrior accustomed to the battle cars could stand in one of them without needing to hold on no matter how it jounced. She was no warrior, and didn’t need to make an impression.

  Dust flew up at once. The divided hooves of the krelprep dug into the ground and kicked up the small particles. The rumble of hoofbeats and squeal of ungreased axles all around Enni Chennitats filled her head till her ears didn’t know which way to turn.

  Something small and frightened dashed away from the chariot in which she rode. A lizard? A smerp? She had no idea. She sensed only the motion down there on the ground, not what had caused it.

  Spooked birds flew up from bushes and scattered scrubby trees. Their calls of alarm added to the din. High above them, flying Liskash circled in the sky, riding the columns of warm air that rose from the ground. Enni Chennitats hated being under the leatherwings’ cold, too-clever gaze. Some of those creatures had the native wit to spy for Liskash nobles.

  She might hate it, but she couldn’t do anything about it. The creatures glided high above where spears or even arrows could reach. She’d thought what a marvel it was for the Mrem to have chosen to use other animals as tools. It wasn’t a marvel when the Liskash did it—not to her, it wasn’t. It was a horror.

  She kept looking up every so often. The leatherwings went right on circling overhead. Then, after a while, she saw something she liked even less. One of the flying Liskash stopped circling and sped off toward the southwest, wide wings beating with what seemed to her to be sinister purpose. On and on it flew, its path through the air straight as a spear’s.

  Tessell Yatt spied it, too. “Cursed thing’s heading off to tell Sassin what we’re up to,” he said.

  “I was thin
king the same thing,” Enni Chennitats answered unhappily. “What can we do about it?”

  The driver’s tail lashed back and forth. “Not one stinking thing, not that I can see. You’re a wise female, though. Have you got any notions along those lines?”

  “I don’t feel so wise, not watching the leatherwing fly where it will,” the priestess said, more unhappily still. “I see the problem, but not how to solve it.”

  That made Tessell Yatt shrug. “Sounds like a lot of life, doesn’t it? Well, sooner or later the Scaly Ones’ll try and hit us. Then we’ll give ’em what for. Maybe they know where we’re at, but that doesn’t mean they can do anything about it, right?” He bared his teeth. Whatever lay ahead, he was ready for it—or he thought he was, which amounted to the same thing now.

  Sometimes not dwelling on what lay ahead was wiser. Sometimes. Enni Chennitats tried to make herself believe this was one of those times. “Right,” she said, as firmly as she could.

  * * *

  The axehead perched on the battlement to Sassin’s keep. Its kind nested on cliffsides, so the Liskash noble’s artificial cliff must have seemed a fine landing place to it.

  Sassin held a dead smerp by the tail. He swung the ugly, hairy little body back and forth, back and forth. The axehead swayed with the motion, its enormous eyes avidly following the moving hunk of meat. Sassin might not care for the way smerps tasted. Axeheads weren’t so choosy.

  Had it been in Sassin to like any other living things, axeheads would have stood high on the list. They were clever enough to be useful, but not nearly clever enough to be rivals. As far as he was concerned, that made them perfect extensions of his own volition. No, it wasn’t liking, but it was as close as he came.

  He tossed the smerp into the air. The axehead’s long, toothy jaws opened and closed. For a moment, half a digit’s worth of bare pink tail dangled after they snapped shut. Then the leather-winged flyer swallowed, and the dangling tail disappeared, too. It cocked its head and eyed him, hoping for more.