by S. M. Stirling, Harry Turtledove, Jody Lynn Nye, John Ringo; Michael Z. Williamson
“Not everything,” Enni Chennitats said. “Sassin will hit us again. Chances are, his fighters will strike at Zhanns Bostofa again. That’s why you’ve got Grumm traveling with Zhanns Bostofa’s warriors for now—just to make it more tempting. And I can touch your mind in the Dance. I’ve already proved that.”
“Well, yes.” Rantan Taggah remembered the intimacy of that touch, even if it had brought bad news. His blood heated. He willed himself to relax—no time for that now. No time for anything but the fight ahead. He forced a laugh. “You’re right. What else could we need?”
“Luck,” Enni Chennitats said seriously. “All the luck we can find, and a little more besides.”
“That’s what I said,” Rantan Taggah replied. “A tower of ifs.”
“It sounds better my way,” Enni Chennitats told him, and he didn’t feel like arguing with her.
* * *
Sassin methodically readied his new attack. This one must not fall short. If he’d pressed the last one…That would have been the same as admitting Lorssett was right. No self-respecting god could have done any such thing. Sassin was more than self-respecting: he was self-worshiping. That being so, he didn’t worry about what might have gone wrong. He did his best to make sure everything would go right this time.
He made sure his borders were protected, too. The other Liskash nobles wouldn’t thank him for delivering them from the trouble these Mrem could cause. As he’d told his steward, they would look at him with grim golden eyes, wondering whether he’d cost himself too dear in the deliverance. And, if they decided he had, they would fall on him and destroy him. Then, no doubt, they would quarrel among themselves over how to divide the spoil.
Yes, I was right all along, Sassin thought: the only conclusion a self-worshiping god could possibly reach.
The weak male and his followers still protected the wagons that housed the hairy females and kits. If the Mrem wanted to hand Sassin the game, he would take it. He made very sure they were not setting a trap. Spying axeheads—he’d got them flying for him again—and his own magic convinced him they weren’t.
Lorssett was still limping from his wound. Sassin thought about sorcerously boosting the pain the lesser Liskash felt once more. Not without regret, he decided against it. He needed the things Lorssett could do.
“We are well supplied?” Sassin asked. “Plenty of meat? Plenty of water? We have enough arrows and javelins?”
“Yes, lord,” Lorssett said. “All is in readiness, just as you have commanded.”
Idly, Sassin flicked a mental probe at his aide. Lorssett was not altogether without magic; he would have been much less useful if he were. But he couldn’t hope to shield himself from Sassin’s far greater power. And Sassin saw he wasn’t lying to please his lord, as aides had been known to do. Things were as ready as anyone could want.
“Come tomorrow, then, we will finish the Mrem,” Sassin said. “And, after that, the New Water will wall us off from them for a long time.” He wanted to say forever, but he didn’t. He knew better. Still, the new sea should keep the hairy pests away till after he was dead. That was as close to forever as would make no difference…not to him, anyhow.
“And we will take all that is theirs.” Lorssett understood what victory meant. “And we will have more slaves.” With a master set above him, he wanted as many slaves below him as he could get. They reminded him he wasn’t so futile a creature as he seemed when viewed from Sassin’s perspective. They did, at any rate, when he wasn’t face-to-face or mind-to-mind with his overlord.
“Just so. And I will eat their names.” Sassin looked forward to that. It was a strange sort of sorcerous pleasure he could not take from his own kind. For whatever reason, Liskash were less intimately connected to their names than were the Mrem. Sassin shrugged. He cared nothing for the whys and wherefores. He only recognized and took advantage of weakness. “When the sun grows hot, when the furry beasts start to sweat”—he packed the word with all the loathing it roused in him—“we will put an end to them.”
“As you say, lord, so shall it be,” Lorssett replied.
“Well, of course,” Sassin said complacently.
* * *
Mrem in chariots were faster than Liskash afoot. Scouts could keep an eye on Sassin’s army and bring word back to the Clan of the Claw with enough time left over for the clan to do something about it. When Enni Chennitats heard shouts of “They’re coming!” she knew what she had to do herself.
Had she forgotten, Demm Etter would have set her straight. “Take your places!” the senior priestess called to the Dancers. “All of you, take your places. Hurry, now! No time to waste—and we have to do it right.”
Enni Chennitats’s place was at the center of one ring of Dancers. She wouldn’t be doing much moving herself, not this time. That felt odd: more than a little unnatural. She would serve as the focus of the other Dancers’ exertions.
Grumm loped over from Zhanns Bostofa’s detachment to stand at the center of another circle, not far from her own. He still had the unhappy, hunched-over stance that had characterized him ever since he made his way back to the Clan of the Claw. Even better than the Dancers, he understood what a desperate gamble they were undertaking. But he did stand there, no matter how miserable he seemed. He too was a focus. From him, though, the Dancers in his circle would take. In a way, that seemed dreadfully unfair to Enni Chennitats. Sassin had already robbed him of so much.
They hoped a little more taking would redeem it all. They hoped, yes, but no one could be sure ahead of time. The only way to find out was to try. And so Grumm…stood there.
A male—one of the warriors who followed Zhanns Bostofa—came hotfooting it back to the Dancers. “You’d better start, if you’re going to do it,” he panted. “Looks like all the Scaly Ones in the world coming down on us.”
“I thank you, Mm Kafftee,” Demm Etter answered calmly. She stood between the two circles. At her gesture, the Dancers surrounding Grumm began to spin sunwise. Those around Enni Chennitats Danced deasil. Demm Etter moved in a rhythm of her own, somehow linking the opposed Dances.
In most Dances, Enni Chennitats would have been so busy concentrating, letting energy flow through her, that she would have paid only scant attention to what was going on around the priestesses. But now she heard the yowls and hisses and crashes and clatters of battle not nearly far enough away. Zhanns Bostofa and his warriors were fighting like males possessed, eager above all else to make up for their earlier failure. The Liskash cared nothing for their eagerness. All the Scaly Ones wanted was to kill.
Enni Chennitats formed Rantan Taggah’s image in her mind, as she’d done when the last battle unexpectedly fell to pieces. “Are you there?” she called. “Can you hear me?”
“I hear you, Enni Chennitats.” The priestess was assuredly hearing the talonmaster with her mind, not her ears. Even so, it was his voice, without the tiniest fragment of doubt. Its very familiarity warmed her. So did his usual directness: “Now—where is the stinking lizard’s get?”
“I don’t know yet. I haven’t heard anything from Grumm.” Heard, again, wasn’t quite the right word, but it was the best one she had. The other circle was trying to get knowledge, direction, out of the escaped slave and give it to her so she could pass it on to Rantan Taggah. Whether they could…
Grumm was what he was—lost and damned, in essence—because Sassin had eaten his surname. But what kept him what he was was the Liskash’s possession and retention of that surname. The link between them remained. Up till now, that had worked altogether to Sassin’s advantage. Still, a rope was a rope. You could tug on it from either end.
So the Dancers hoped. So they prayed. If Assirra was kind, she would hearken to them. Otherwise, the only Mrem left on this side of the New Water would be a few scattered halfname slaves like Grumm. Better to die cleanly.
Enni Chennitats cocked her ears toward Grumm. That couldn’t possibly help, but she did it anyway. She didn’t see how it could hurt. Where
was Sassin?
Her ears stayed aimed at Grumm, but her body shifted. She hardly realized she was doing it till she finished the move. “That way!” she exclaimed, as if Rantan Taggah stood beside her.
“Which way?” he asked irritably, because he didn’t.
She explained. The mind-to-mind link held more than words alone; she made him feel the direction in which she was facing now. And she could gauge how far away Rantan Taggah was, and also, through Grumm, how far away Sassin was. Little by little, directions and distances converged.
* * *
Rantan Taggah and Ramm Passk’t stole from one bush, one scrubby tree, to the next. “You’d better know where we’re going,” Ramm Passk’t growled.
“Don’t worry about it,” Rantan Taggah answered. “If I don’t, we’ll both end up too dead to care.”
“You know how to make a fellow feel better, all right,” the other warrior said. Rantan Taggah held up a hand: Enni Chennitats was speaking inside his head, and he had trouble paying attention to her voice and to the one from the outside world—the real world? no, one seemed as real as the other—at the same time.
They’d sneaked around the left wing of the Liskash army. Sassin hadn’t set out so many flank guards this time—he realized he’d hurt the Mrem chariotry in the last fight. That a couple of warriors might come on foot? It was such a mad, smerp-brained scheme, it had never occurred to him.
A good thing, too, Rantan Taggah thought. A squadron of archers around the Liskash noble would have pincushioned his comrade and him before they got close enough to do what needed doing. How they would get back again…Rantan Taggah would worry about that later, if there was a later in which to worry about it.
“If Zhanns Bostofa doesn’t hold them out, I’ll do to him what I did to that bad-tasting Scaly One,” Ramm Passk’t said.
“Someone else will have taken care of it,” Rantan Taggah said. “I made sure of that, believe me.”
“Too bad,” the other warrior said. “I’ve always wanted his blood on my tongue.” His broad shoulders went up and down in a shrug. “Ah, well. It’s not like I’m the only one.”
“Oh, indeed. Everybody loves Zhanns Bostofa,” Rantan Taggah said. Ramm Passk’t laughed. The talonmaster couldn’t remember the last time he’d said anything so funny.
“Can you see him yet?” Enni Chennitats asked inside his mind. “You aren’t more than three or four bowshots away.”
Rantan Taggah peered ahead. “There’s a little knot of Scaly Ones off in the distance,” he reported. Three or four bowshots might not seem like much to the priestess, but at the moment it did to him. “I suppose Sassin is one of them.” He almost asked Enni Chennitats to get a picture of what the Liskash noble looked like from Grumm, but he didn’t see the point. In any Mrem’s eyes, a Scaly One was only a Scaly One.
“Yes. He has to be,” Enni Chennitats said. He’d better be, was what she had to mean.
“All right. We’ll do what we can,” the talonmaster said. He pointed at the little group of Liskash. “He’s one of them,” he told Ramm Passk’t.
“Which one?” But Ramm Passk’t shrugged again. “It doesn’t matter. If we kill them all, he won’t get away.”
“There you go,” Rantan Taggah said. Sometimes Ramm Passk’t’s ruthlessness could be unnerving even to another warrior.
They sneaked toward the Scaly Ones. Before long, they were down on their bellies. Rantan Taggah tried not to think about all the burrs and fleas and ticks his fur would pick up. He’d groom himself later. If he had to shave himself bare to get rid of everything, he would do that. Later hardly seemed real to him, anyhow. He would do his best to save the clan, and after that it would go on without him.
A bare thread of whisper from Ramm Passk’t: “Breeze is blowing from them to us. They won’t smell us coming. Aedonniss gave us one break.”
One of the Liskash stepped out ahead of the rest and pointed north with unmistakable anger—and with an unmistakable sense of command. Sassin had identified himself. Rantan Taggah wanted to thank him. Somehow, he doubted the Liskash noble would appreciate the courtesy.
The talonmaster and Ramm Passk’t stalked Sassin like a pair of somo going after a bundor—or maybe even a frillhorn. Somo reminded Mrem uneasily of themselves, though they were easily twice the size of Mrem. They could rise up on their hind legs, but commonly went on all fours. Even the largest Liskash killers thought twice about challenging them.
Closer. Closer still. The rank Liskash scent filled Rantan Taggah’s nostrils. It made him want to be stupid, to charge too soon so he could rend and tear and kill. By himself, he might have done just that. So might Ramm Passk’t, by himself. Stalking together forced hunt discipline on both of them.
“You’re almost there. So close!” Enni Chennitats said. Rantan Taggah froze the beginnings of a start. He was briefly surprised the Liskash couldn’t hear her, then remembered he wasn’t really hearing her himself.
Sassin was saying something. Rantan Taggah understood only bits and pieces of it: as much of the Scaly Ones’ language as any Mrem bothered—or had the stomach—to learn. Something about victory. Something about killing. Something about eating. What else would a Liskash go on about? One of the lesser Liskash turned his head. Rantan Taggah and Ramm Passk’t froze. After a few heartbeats that lasted an eternity, the Scaly One looked away.
Rantan Taggah breathed…just barely. One of Ramm Passk’t’s ears twitched…just barely. The two Mrem glanced towards each other. Ramm Passk’t moved first. It was silently understood that Sassin belonged to Rantan Taggah, and keeping the rest of the Liskash from thwarting him was the other warrior’s task. Only if something went wrong—as something might very well do—would Ramm Passk’t turn his fearsome attention on the chief Liskash noble. When none of Sassin’s hangers-on hissed an alarm, Rantan Taggah wormed closer, too.
He didn’t know how he decided to stop worming and charge. It seemed more beastlike instinct than reasoned choice. One instant, he was calculating talonmaster; the next, with seemingly no time passing between them, he was raging somo.
One of the lesser Liskash had the presence of mind to throw something at him. He never found out what it was; he only knew it missed. Sassin half-turned toward him. Even across lines of race and hatred, Rantan Taggah read the Liskash noble’s horrified astonishment.
The talonmaster felt a tug at his own spirit: magic, hurled his way. But, like the javelin or dagger or whatever it was, the magic missed. Or maybe it hit, but too late. For Rantan Taggah smashed into Sassin, knocked him to the ground, and tore at his belly with hind claws and at his throat with fangs and front talons.
Sassin had claws of his own, and tried to fight back. But one Mrem was commonly worth more than one Liskash in a claw-to-claw fight, and Rantan Taggah was a trained and practiced warrior while Sassin was not. The Liskash noble also tried throwing more magic at his unexpected assailant. Some other Scaly One might possibly have been able to form and hurl a spell in time to keep from getting his throat torn out. Again, Sassin was not. Rantan Taggah felt the charm try to bite him. Then Sassin lost consciousness and died, and the threat died with him.
Rantan Taggah sprang to his feet, ready to help Ramm Passk’t against the Liskash noble’s henchmales. But Ramm Passk’t needed help from no one. He’d already slaughtered two of them, and the rest were running every which way, as fast as they could go. They might not have been eager to stand and die for Sassin even if he still lived. With him down, all they cared about was getting away.
And, with his will no longer driving them, the ordinary Liskash javelineers and archers and slingers up ahead were suddenly much less eager to mix it up with the Mrem. Clouds of dust hid most of what was going on up there from Rantan Taggah’s eyes, but his ears were quick to catch the changed note from the fighting. The talonmaster hadn’t been sure that would happen, but he’d hoped.
Ramm Passk’t lifted his arm and licked at a bite one of the Liskash had given him. Then he said, “I don�
�t think we ought to stick around here—know what I mean? The Scaly Ones’ll be heading back from the fight up there pretty cursed quick, and they won’t be glad to see us.”
That would do for an understatement till a bigger one—say, one about the size of a frillhorn—came along. “Right,” Rantan Taggah said, not about to admit out loud that the formidable warrior could also be dangerous with words.
They trotted away. As they had before, they could circle around the Liskash army’s flank. Please, Assirra, Rantan Taggah thought. The prayer couldn’t hurt. He’d made this attack not expecting to come back from it. He hadn’t resigned himself to death, but he’d come close. Now that he’d succeeded against the odds, all at once he overwhelmingly wanted to go on living.
Enni Chennitats’s voice exulting in his mind gave him part of the reason why: “He’s dead! He’s dead! Grumm felt him die!”
“Now that you mention it, so did I,” Rantan Taggah answered. Nobody was going to be dryer than he was, not today.
* * *
Enni Chennitats eyed Grumm with a priestess’s curiosity. She sometimes thought that wasn’t so far removed from the curiosity of a kit poking a bug with a stick to see what it would do. Sometimes nothing happened. Sometimes you learned something interesting. Every once in a while, you picked the wrong bug and got stung—which was interesting, too, but not in a way any kit enjoyed.
She’d thought that, since Sassin held Grumm’s surname, it would be released when the Liskash noble perished. That would make Grumm his old self again…wouldn’t it?
Evidently not. The escaped slave had let out a fierce, triumphant yowl when Sassin died, almost as if he’d killed the Scaly One himself. But then he shrank in on himself again. He wasn’t quite so distressed as he had been before, but he wasn’t anything like a normal male Mrem, either.
She almost asked him why he wasn’t. Unlike a poked bug, he could answer. But, no matter how curious she was, she didn’t want to be cruel. She might not worry about a bug’s suffering, or a Liskash’s, but she did when it came to one of her own kind.
