by S. M. Stirling, Harry Turtledove, Jody Lynn Nye, John Ringo; Michael Z. Williamson
“Claws!” he roared. “Claws for the Clan of the Claw!”
The other Mrem raised a cheer. As long as the Liskash couldn’t drag them off their feet, their armor and weapons let them take on numbers far greater than their own. Despite courage, the Liskash began to realize they were feeding themselves into a grinder. Their push forward faltered. Even missile attacks flagged. Rantan Taggah wondered why till he realized the Liskash had to be running short of javelins and arrows.
The ferocious warrior called Ramm Passk’t leaped on a Scaly One who thought he could fight like a Mrem. The Liskash had a spear, Ramm Passk’t only the weapons Aedonniss gave him at birth. That turned out not to matter for long—only until the Scaly One hesitantly thrust the first time. Ramm Passk’t knocked the shaft aside and sprang on him. He tore out the Liskash’s throat with his fangs, then sprang to his feet with his muzzle all bloody. He roared out something in the Scaly Ones’ language.
“What does that mean?” Munkus Drap asked.
Rantan Taggah translated for him: “ ‘Who’s next?’ ”
Ramm Passk’t, gore dripping from his chin, made a spectacle to give pause to the hardiest of the Scaly Ones. All at once, they stopped coming forward against the Mrem. Standing in their place, Rantan Taggah would have been none too eager himself. Ramm Passk’t made the very embodiment of ferocity.
“Let’s draw back,” Rantan Taggah called to his surviving warriors. “If they come after us, we’ll charge them and make them stop. But I think they may let us go.”
“Bring them on!” Ramm Passk’t shouted. He gave the Liskash his challenge once more. No one stepped out of their line to answer it.
Step by weary, painful step, Rantan Taggah and his comrades fell back. He was amazed how far across the sky the sun had traveled. Hadn’t the battle started just a few breaths ago? His exhaustion argued against it. So did the clan’s losses. They’d be a long time replacing chariots. Too many warriors they could never replace.
But they were intact, or near enough. They could fight again. They could go on. And maybe they would be able to serve Sassin as he’d served them, only worse.
* * *
Sassin was not literally a cold-blooded creature, even if the Mrem sometimes called the Liskash sons of serpents. All the same, he was, and could afford to be, a more cold-blooded talonmaster than any Mrem. His fighters were not friends and comrades; by the nature of things, they were only subjects. And, by the nature of things, expending subjects was easier than sending friends and comrades out to die on your behalf.
All the same, the dunes and drifts of dead and dying Liskash around the chariots the hairy vermin had abandoned left him dismayed. As he could stop up his earholes and block most sound but not all of it, so his mind could deflect most but not all the agony the wounded projected.
He glanced toward the west. Maybe it was just as well the sun was setting. Were the day longer, the monstrous Mrem might have murdered most of his males. He’d hoped to crush them absolutely, but not everything worked the way you hoped it would. Everyone, even Liskash nobles, got too many unpleasant tastes of that lesson as the years spun by.
Lorssett came up to him. The lesser male would have done better putting on greaves; he had a wounded leg, and clutched a javelin to steady his step. “I did not think you would be rash enough to go where there was fighting,” Sassin remarked acidly.
“I did not go to it. It came to me,” his aide answered. “I hope this heals. I would not care to limp for the rest of my days.”
“I believe you.” Sassin could feel his pain, too, however much he wished he couldn’t.
Lorssett pointed toward the northeast, away from the sinking sun. “Will you send our fighters after them, to finish them off once and for all while they are weak and off balance?” He swayed in spite of his makeshift staff; he was more than a little off balance himself.
That was certainly how Sassin thought of him at this moment. “If I throw any more fighters at them now, I may have none left by this time tomorrow.”
“You will still have some, lord,” Lorssett said. “And the Mrem will be gone—gone! Is that not what you want?”
It was, of course—but, then again, it wasn’t. “If I have no fighters, what will ward me and my domain from the rest of the Liskash nobles?” Sassin said. “Not all my enemies are hairy beasts. Some are scaly beasts instead.”
“You have the magic to make them keep their distance,” Lorssett declared.
“They also have magic—and they would have more fighters than I do,” Sassin said. “Far more fighters, in fact. I have done enough here, I tell you.” Lorssett only let out a weary, resigned sigh. Angrily, Sassin snapped, “Speak. Come on—out with your worthless thought.”
Lorssett did not want to release it, but Sassin’s power pulled it from him: “You may know how to win a victory, lord, but, having won it, you do not know what to do with it.”
“No? One of the things I can do is make those who doubt me sorry,” Sassin replied in a deadly voice. Lorssett’s sigh turned to a tormented hiss. Sassin could make pain worse, much worse. And if the Liskash noble felt a little of that himself, he paid the price without complaint.
* * *
Night. Defeat. Disappointment. Anger. Anguish. Rantan Taggah had all he could do to make sure the Mrem posted enough sentries out far enough to give some sort of warning if the Scaly Ones tried to attack under cover of darkness.
That wasn’t the usual Liskash way. Night was friendlier to the Mrem, whose eyes adjusted to it better. But Rantan Taggah took nothing for granted now, not when Sassin had just beaten him.
He got his wounds salved and bandaged. Nothing seemed bad, or likely to fester. He was luckier than quite a few warriors. All the same, the sting from cuts and ache from bruises left his temper even shorter than it would have been otherwise.
All that meant he went after Zhanns Bostofa as if he were stalking a wild bundor. The only difference was, he would have gone after a wild bundor with more respect than he felt for the plump male. When the talonmaster had trouble finding him, he hoped the Liskash had killed him. That, at least, would have left the other male with some scraps of his honor intact.
But no. There stood Zhanns Bostofa, not far from a fire, with fewer wounds than Rantan Taggah bore himself. The black-and-white male flinched when Rantan Taggah came up to him, but didn’t try to flee. He might have understood how hopeless that was. Seeming to shrink in on himself, he said, “Do what you will to me. You would anyhow.”
“Why shouldn’t I tear your worthless carcass to bloody rags and scatter them around the camp to warn the others?” Rantan Taggah snarled. “You broke. You ran. You came as near as that”—he slashed his claws through the air, a whisker’s breadth in front of Zhanns Bostofa’s nose—“to dooming the whole clan. Was that what you had in mind? Would it have made you happy?”
“No,” Zhanns Bostofa said. “I can’t stand you—as if that’s any secret. But I’m loyal to the clan.”
In a way, the talonmaster believed him. A Mrem might betray his clan to another. He would have his reasons for that, whether they smelled good or bad to an outsider. But, in all the tale of years since the beginning, had any Mrem, no matter how wicked, ever chosen the Liskash over his own kind? Rantan Taggah couldn’t make himself believe it.
“Are you?” he challenged, furious still. “You pick odd ways to show it.”
“Maybe I do.” Zhanns Bostofa hung his head. “The fear struck—and I ran. I couldn’t help myself. None of us could help ourselves. It was…It was Liskash magic. I see that now. I didn’t then. The only thing I could think of then was getting away to somewhere safe as fast as I could.”
“What about later?” Rantan Taggah said. “Even the Dancers picked up javelins and threw them at the Scaly Ones. How about you? Were you hiding under the blankets in a wagon?”
“I—I came out,” Zhanns Bostofa said. Rantan Taggah’s sneer proved even shrewder than he’d guessed. The plump male held out his arm to
show off a cut. “I did fight. By Aedonnis, I did! That’s how I got this.”
“A hero,” Rantan Taggah gibed. “Why don’t you go brag to Ramm Passk’t? I’m sure he’d be impressed, too. All he did was slaughter a spear-carrying Scaly One with his teeth and claws.”
“Curse it, you posted my followers and me where you did because you didn’t think we’d fight so well. Why are you so surprised when we didn’t rip the Liskash to pieces?”
That had enough teeth to bring Rantan Taggah up short for a moment. “If you could fight the way you talk, you would be the greatest talonmaster this clan has ever known,” he said wearily. “But you’ll fight the next time—see if you don’t. I’ll put you where I can keep an eye on you. And if the Liskash don’t wound you from the front, I’ll make sure our warriors finish you from behind.”
“I suppose I’ve earned that,” Zhanns Bostofa said. “However you please. I won’t let the clan down.”
Rantan Taggah had to hope he meant even so much. Sassin had certainly known just where the Clan of the Claw’s weak point lay. Yet again, the talonmaster wished Enni Chennitats hadn’t made him think about the dark god, the Liskash god, who might or might not exist. That vision was liable to bother him for years. Only too easy to imagine that god reaching a scaly hand out toward the clan…and closing it on Zhanns Bostofa.
That thought sparked another. Of their own accord, his claws shot out. Seeing them, Zhanns Bostofa fell back half a step. He had to be wondering whether Rantan Taggah aimed to kill him on the spot, the way the mighty Ramm Passk’t had slain the Scaly One.
But Rantan Taggah had forgotten all about him. No, not quite: he was thinking of the plump male in a new and different way. “Maybe,” he said, much more to himself than to Zhanns Bostofa, “just maybe, mind you, I deserve to lead the clan in war after all. I can hope so, anyhow.”
“What do you mean?” Zhanns Bostofa asked.
And Rantan Taggah told him…some of what was in his mind, anyhow.
* * *
Enni Chennitats slept hardly at all through a night that seemed a thousand years long. The priestesses were the clan’s healers as well as Dancers. None of them got much sleep. Their talents and their knowledge were too much in demand. She cleaned and stitched and bandaged till she started to hate the stink of blood.
The hale males in the clan weren’t idle in the darkness, either. They butchered and skinned as many of the herdbeasts the Liskash had killed as they could. They wouldn’t be able to smoke or salt or sun-dry all the meat they cut up; some of the hides would go bad before they could be tanned. But the clan was doing what it could to survive and go on. And males and females and kits all stuffed themselves to the bursting point. Somehow, trouble seemed easier to face if you could meet it with a full belly.
Ahead of the sun, the brilliant star called Assirra’s Tear climbed into the sky. Sometimes it shone in the morning before sunrise, sometimes in the evening after sunset. It never strayed very far from Aedonniss’ sun. Before long, morning twilight turned black to gray in the east.
“Priestesses to the wagons,” Demm Etter called in tones that brooked no argument. “We have to rest. The clan will need us again—and all too soon.”
How Enni Chennitats wished she could quarrel with that! But when she opened her mouth to protest, what came out was an enormous yawn. Demm Etter had a way of being right.
Some of the teams drawing the wagons were makeshifts. Everything was going to be makeshift for a while. That was the least of Enni Chennitats’s worries. Off to the south, carrion birds and scavenging leatherwings glided down from the sky to squabble with four-legged prowlers over the feast on the battlefield. The Scaly Ones didn’t care what happened to their bodies once they were done with them; they were even less likely to care about Mrem corpses. They held the field, so there would be no proper rites for the dead. One more thing to grieve over, Enni Chennitats thought sorrowfully.
Rantan Taggah deployed his remaining chariots to the south of the wagons and herds. He might have been telling Sassin, Well, if you want to go on with the fight, we’re ready for you. He might have been, but he wasn’t. Another battle right then would have torn the Clan of the Claw to pieces.
The only consolation was that Sassin didn’t seem ready to start fighting again right away, either. The males who’d got back from the main battle bragged about how many Liskash they’d slain. For once, their brags must have held some truth.
Yawning again, Enni Chennitats climbed into a wagon and curled up into a ball. What if they need magic? What if they need us to Dance? she wondered. Sleep smote her before she found an answer.
* * *
Sassin was coldly furious. By any standards, he’d won a smashing victory over the furry vermin. They should have run back to their old grazing grounds or stayed where they were to try to recover from the thrashing he’d given them. Instead, they headed west, across his lands, as if they’d triumphed in the fighting.
Lorssett had been rude enough to suggest Sassin didn’t know what to do with a victory. Sassin hissed softly; he’d given his aide what he deserved for his presumption. But the Mrem, plainly, didn’t know what to do after a defeat.
Because they didn’t, Sassin would have to beat them all over again. He wondered whether Lorssett had been right even if rude. Doing it when the hairy, yowling pests were all topsy-turvy might have been easier than taking them on now that they’d pulled themselves together.
But, whether Lorssett had been right or not, Sassin knew he had been, too: even in triumph, his fighters had taken a fearful drubbing. His magic might have made them advance against the Mrem in spite of that. It might have, yes, but he’d also wearied himself yesterday. He needed time to recover his strength. And he always needed to look at his fellow Liskash nobles. As he’d told Lorssett, if they sensed weakness in him they would be quick to take advantage of it. Mercy was a Mrem notion, and, to a Liskash, an extraordinarily stupid one.
Getting axeheads up into the air to shadow the hairy vermin wasn’t easy. Self-centered as any Liskash, the flyers thought only of stuffing themselves with freshly dead meat. They weren’t interested in doing Sassin’s bidding.
He reached out toward the Mrem with a cautious mental probe. More often than not, that would have been blunted. Mrem didn’t have much magic, and needed cumbersome swarms of females to work what they did have, but he wasn’t up to using much himself at the moment. Nothing blocked his spying, though. The magic of the hairy pests was in as much disarray as the rest of their establishment after the battle.
Liskash faces were not made to show expressions. Sassin looked the same whether happy or furious. But if he could have smiled, he would have. There was the escaped slave, and there with him the male whose weakness his fighters had exploited. They were in an even more important place now than the one they’d held before.
What was wrong with the Mrem who led that band? Didn’t he understand how he’d come to grief yesterday? Did he think it was only happenstance that the Liskash fighters went in where the weak male was in charge? He’d fought the main battle well enough. More than well enough, Sassin thought. Had the main battle been the only string in his bow, it would have been a disaster.
Well, what did the Liskash say about the Mrem? That they had no sense of the larger struggle, that they could not see farther than the end of their snouts. Clichés became clichés because they boiled truths down to a handful of words. This one certainly seemed to.
Sassin paused. It seemed to, yes. But what if this Mrem commander was playing a deeper game, trying to lure him into a mistake? That was unlikely, but Sassin supposed it was possible.
He would watch. He would wait. When the time came, he would strike. And, this time, his strike would be altogether deadly. If he sensed trickery, he would change his plans to foil it. But he really didn’t think he would need to. These furry nuisances were fierce, yes. They wouldn’t have caused the Liskash so much trouble if they weren’t. But fierceness and cleverness were far remo
ved from each other. A clever Mrem? The mere idea filled Sassin with cold amusement.
* * *
West. Rantan Taggah had known the Clan of the Claw would have a long journey. Till he began it, though, he hadn’t truly understood what that meant. How many more battles would they have to fight? Would anything be left of them by the time they got to where they were going?
If he was going to ask such questions, he should have asked them of Demm Etter. If she wasn’t the wisest of the Mrem in the Clan of the Claw, he had no idea who was. But the idea never crossed his mind. Instead, he waited for Enni Chennitats to come out of the wagon where she’d rested.
Her fur was rumpled, ungroomed. She yawned enormously, showing off her fangs. Her tongue and the roof of her mouth had dark gray patches on them. Rantan Taggah had never noticed that before. He thought they were charming.
He poured out his troubles to her. When he finished, she yawned again—not boredom but exhaustion. “We could go back,” she said. “We were doing…well enough where we were. We could go on…for a while.”
Her hesitations matched the ones that had made him set the Clan of the Claw in motion. “No,” he said. “They’d crush us in the end. It might not happen till after we were dead and gone, but it would happen.”
“I think so, too,” Enni Chennitats said. “That makes the trek our best chance.”
“But it isn’t very good, either,” Rantan Taggah said mournfully.
“Not very good, but still the best,” Enni Chennitats said. Hearing her say the same thing he believed made him feel better. There was no rational reason it should, but it did. She went on, “And if we give Sassin everything he deserves, some of the other Liskash nobles may think three times before they try to block our path. News travels fast among the Scaly Ones. They’ll know they can’t cross us without paying the price.”
“If,” the talonmaster echoed. “Everything we’re doing now, we’re building on a tower of ifs.”
