by S. M. Stirling, Harry Turtledove, Jody Lynn Nye, John Ringo; Michael Z. Williamson
He raised his loudcone and shouted to Nrao Aveldt. “Now, as we agreed!” Then he raised it to his drillmasters. “Slow retreat!”
This wasn’t a fighting retreat. This was a maneuver for position. They maintained line and spacing, though it was awkward while stepping backward on rough ground.
It was unnerving to see thousands of Liskash moving cautiously, slowly, across the beaten ground, under the mesmerizing spell of their master. However, that made it clear it was Oglut they faced, not some lesser lord.
Next to him, Cmeo Mrist raised her cone and said simply, “Dancers, now!”
Their wailing, resonant song rose instantly to full volume, with a tight chatter of drums that resolved into a strong beat. The borrowed baghorners sounded off, punctuating and reinforcing the song.
* * *
Oglut gritted his teeth. First the shrieks of the beasts, now the wauling song of those cursed Mrem. Was it their death song? He hoped so. Even here, it hurt his mind, made concentration difficult. It must be horrible up close. A quick check into the mind of a forward warrior indicated it was so. Ugh.
His army made it through the obstacles, and had only a quarter gis to go reach them. Soon enough he’d hear them make other noises, ones no more pleasant, but much more enjoyable for him.
Now the fuzzy things changed direction and advanced again. Whatever they were doing, it wasn’t going to help them. With these gone at last, he’d solidify to the north and send Mutal south. It might be time to sire a new brood for the future.
He took a gulp of a good wine for fortification, rose up on his carriage’s dais, and ordered a charge. He’d follow right behind them to enjoy the view.
* * *
Talonmaster Hress Rscil had told Clan Leader Nrao Aveldt he would be surprised. Indeed he was.
The band advanced with precision, for these were not slaves. Each one was a willing, trained Mrem, their minds and actions linked in a joining that could only be called magic.
The Mrem kept the pace and the beat, in a steady, mesmerizing thump of left feet. The warriors advanced in identical, perfect pace, their rows as straight as an engineer’s string. In and among them, the Dancers moved in their own special way, arms punching and flailing at the air in unison, the motions rippling in waves from van to rear. Their unified chant inspired even at this distance. Under it all, the drone of the baghorns buzzed like angry bees, simultaneously adding to the power whilst distracting from anything else.
Those head tosses looked flamboyant and artistic, but meant each Dancer stared down the length of her row every two steps, and did not look long enough at the advancing Liskash to be distracted. For the warriors, the gyrating Dancers were visible peripherally, and gave them reference points for their own lines. It didn’t hurt that they were lithe females, either.
Ahead, the mass of Oglut’s army advanced. They came now in a solid but uncoordinated group, with a little forward swelling in the middle, a dip of less brave or driven to the sides, and a slight swelling at the flanks by those Liskash who almost hesitated. The narrowness of the new beach throttled them into a tighter bunch. They moved well, not hindering each other, and with some shuffling, the braver moved to the front.
The main concern was some flanking maneuver on the high ground to the east. Nrao Aveldt squinted up that way, his pupils narrowing to slits. The slingers, archers and javeliners had been tolled heavily by the leatherwings. He hoped enough remained, though the ground up there seemed inhospitable to most, strewn in boulders and clumps of stalky grass. A few stray beasts and a fistful of Liskash scrambled up, to be shot down. It was the far side of the battlefield, but not far enough.
A good battle was won before it was engaged, by having all avenues accounted for, and good position and movement. This was a good position. The fanning Liskash slipped down the bank and piled up again, sorting themselves out, but wet, muck-sheened and visibly frustrated.
There was always that fear, though, that it wasn’t enough. It only took a wobble in the front to create a gap that became a hole. How would this formation fare? Rscil reported very favorably, but Nrao Aveldt hadn’t seen it in person. Trust fought with insecurity. He gripped his own chariot rim. Oh, to be in the fight. But now as clan leader, he must defer to others. He led them all, not just the warriors. He had the sea flank, Rscil the hill flank. He’d rather they were reversed. The gooey ground underneath hindered the chariot. It might be best to dismount. With a nod to his drover he did so.
It worked well, so far. The warriors in the first two ranks seemed calm, collected, and held the best spacing he’d ever seen. They strode and strode. Diagonally behind them, the Dancers waved those short spears overhead and side to side, keeping a perfect line. Their motion was almost mind magic itself. It drew one in, commanded one to watch. There was good and bad in that, as the enemy approached rapidly, already across the river’s shallows and climbing the bank.
Then it was on.
A wave of leathery reptiles charged forward, swelled out against the Mrem, broke and tumbled and fell. In beautiful, glittering, musical balance, the warriors struck the incoming bodies and tossed them aside to the females. The Dancers’ spears twisted, flashed and resumed their shaking flutters. The scaled beasts thrashed and twitched, their bodies reluctant to release souls already dead.
Forward momentum stopped, each rank pulling up and trying to maintain spacing from the one in front. The ranks stacked up, but kept even for the most part.
With only minor ripples, the Mrem came to a stop and kept a solid, impenetrable front of shields and spears. The oncoming enemy could only advance and try to overwhelm them frontally, past broken bodies and across a pot-holed savanna.
The tactic worked. The reptiles and a handful of sad Mrem under godling control advanced again, as the cajoling demands in their minds fought with their fear. They were many, and directed, but not inspired. They arrived in a ringing clash, and fell in clattering heaps. The Mrem were many, and were inspired and each an eager, thoughtful self building a greater whole. No single death could stop them; were Nrao Aveldt or Hress Rscil to die, the battle would continue. As some few warriors and Dancers fell, others stepped forward. The formation was built of courage, discipline and art.
And magic. Oglut put forth his will. Nrao Aveldt could feel it, a mighty darkness clutching at his mind, his spirit. He shuddered himself, this far away, and watched in fear as a ripple swept through the combined band.
But that was all. A ripple, then nothing. The overwhelming force of a lizard who styled himself a god was no match for the proud minds of cooperating Mrem. His grasp for control evaporated. Then it slipped from those he already held. His entire army could be seen to hesitate, shiver, stop for a moment, then collapse on itself. Some few pressed half-livered attacks. Others cowered down where they stood, trembling in abandonment and fear. Most retreated from a walk to a panicked sprint, ebbing back in a softer, weaker wave than the attack.
The Mrem advanced slightly, but only slightly, holding the perfect dance, the perfect advance and moving forward in step on step across the plain. Hress Rscil shouted, as did the drillmasters. The energy, the power, the motion and sound of the Dance let the bristling spears add to the magic, and nothing Oglut had mattered.
It was time, though. To the west, the lapping waves built, and the gravelly loam between it and the Liskash narrowed quickly.
“Retreat,” Nrao Aveldt ordered the nearest drillmaster, and his flank began to withdraw. Others caught it, and the order flowed forward and through the mass. Hress Rscil nodded and shouted it. The other drillmasters echoed it, and the formation marched through itself, with the lead warriors now holding the face of the V.
It was a struggle to keep aligned as they backed across the river silt. Nrao Aveldt had never been so proud in his life.
* * *
Oglut felt a surge and a shift. That was odd. His power felt suddenly much greater. He seized it and pushed his will, urging all his slaves into the attack. He was sure he’d ac
quired a number of Nrao Aveldt’s warriors, who would sow chaos in that very pretty formation, and bring it to a boiling incoherence the rest could overswarm. His warriors and beasts hesitated, regrouped and charged.
It hit him too late what he’d felt. It was not the sudden gain of the attacking Mrem. It was the recovery of some of his slaves, who had actually broken from his mind. He cursed, and flogged them mentally, demanding they charge or face even greater agony. They slowed, but continued.
That was fine, even for the mindweak, because the Mrem were in retreat. They were pulling back across the river now, and lacked the heart and spleen to face his mind and his warriors. He would press now, then pursue. The muck and water would slow them. Their care for their skins would be their end.
* * *
Talonmaster Hress Rscil felt strangely calm, despite hot sun, sticky mud and the sun beating down on him. Then he sloshed into the river and felt chill. He sought gaps between pebbles with his feet. A fall now would be disastrous.
Even though their plan called for abandoning the carts and chariots, temporarily, his guts flopped as they did so. The drovers and javelin throwers dismounted and ran, to fall into the ranks where they could. Many did not make it to that relative safety.
Ahead, hundreds of soulless eyes stared at him from Oglut’s mind-ravished slaves. They took little care as they slid down the gullied bank, from tangled grass to sodden mud, then onto loose rocks. They crashed through the growth and over downed limbs, to splash into the water.
It was up to his waist now, and he looked around to monitor progress. It went well enough, but the lines grew ragged as bodies fought the current. The water was cool, though, and cleaned his fur. That probably wasn’t fair exchange for hindered movement. He was in a deeper, slower pool at the bottom of some cascades hissing above him. Others were ankle-deep in rocky, tickling shallows. Some were in rapids between the two.
The other problem became apparent. He cared about holding formation. The cursed Liskash didn’t. They high-stepped and waded and dove into the current, eager to reach the Mrem because the monster in their brains told them to. They threw themselves against javelins, to die and drag those into the water in their bodies.
“Darts!” the talonmaster shouted, and a flurry of bronze-tipped and weighted points arced from the front rank.
The water ran red downstream of him.
Then he was knocked under and felt a spear point tear past him, slicing his arm. Some of the Liskash had made it obliquely up the hill and across the rocks above. Rscil felt three or more, and he struck out with his spear, while clutching at his waist for his battle claws. Another jab missed, but he was still under and being held. His arm burned and his lungs started to.
The spear was jammed in the riverbed, so he could only use it for support, as cold water shoved at his nostrils and throat, sloshed in his ears and pulled at him. He got a fist in his battle claws, though, and raised them with a grin that he restrained just in time to avoid choking.
With a firm thrust and shove, he accomplished two things. He pushed his head above water, and he sliced the guts of his rightmost antagonist into tatters that leaked and bled in a boiling surge of color.
The talonmaster swung his battle claws gleefully around and watched for just a moment as a Liskash’s expressionless face shredded like a wind-ripped tent. The thing convulsed and thrashed and at last made a squealing sound as its feet kicked and it fell away. That freed Rscil’s spear, but he left it in the chest of the third, that clutched at it and drooled blood as Rscil swam downstream, spitting gory water.
Quickly, Rscil assessed. There were other melees in progress, as Oglut’s slaves tried to overwhelm them by sheer numbers. The live Liskash used the twitching dead as stepping stones, and seemed determined to catch every Mrem point they could.
It would work, Rscil realized. They’d run out soon enough, and then, regardless of claws and teeth, they’d be buried under revolting lizard flesh. He watched one catapult itself over its predecessors, clear a gap in the First where no one had any longarms left, to land amid the Dancers, who snarled and howled and ripped it apart with javelins and claws.
Three beats later the Dancers were back in formation, panting and glazed red, but singing and waving.
But a glance back showed that Claws Eight and Seven were scrambling up the north bank, reaching down to help the Dancers ahead of them. There were holes in the front, where the bravest had died, but Aedonniss—and especially Assirra—willing, the rest would get up that bank, and have high ground from which to stab the disgusting lizards.
We’ll be heading north soon enough, he told himself.
Then the talonmaster ordered, “Quick now, and even! Thrust and block! and thrust and block! and step! and thrust! and step! and thrust!” His arm hurt, but he ignored the pain. Almost everyone near him showed small wounds.
At least the nearest heard him over the din of dying Liskash, and swung their points in unison. It worked, creating a wall of bodies again that hindered the advance until the water dislodged some into the shifting ripples.
Then they were all on the silt and debris of the north bank. Sharp gravel had never felt so wonderful. The talonmaster pulled at the nearest warrior and Dancer, shouting, “Keep position! And keep dancing!”
He could hear left feet stomping as the retreating claw took back its position. Those farther back passed forward their spears, keeping their javelins for themselves.
Rscil hadn’t heard that roar before, but he knew what it meant.
“Retreat at the double!” he shouted. “Retreat at the double!”
He heard someone echo it before the sound was lost.
If they could only get up that slippery bank…
* * *
Oglut saw victory. A sheer wave of dispensable slaves, petty criminals and mindweak inferiors hurled themselves against the lead Mrem. They might hide it from his sons, but he saw that the front rank had all the stoutest and best. Beyond that were lesser-built males and even females. Crack that façade and the rest would flee.
They were moving faster, already, eager to retreat from him. They slipped and clambered backward up the bank, using their spears for support and traction. He had them, and now for the kill, and once he tasted their anguish, he would draw them into his fold and make them his. They would entertain him, clean the herd beasts, scrub latrines, all the lowest tasks.
He urged his trunklegs on, drawing his high-wheeled chariot, bedecked in its glittering silver and bluestone, in a bumpy ride down the bank and across the mud. It wasn’t dignified, but none would notice. With enough speed, the animals managed not to mire, though they did struggle. His wheels sank, but dragged and rolled, and then he was in the river, up high, looking down on the puny victims. A wounded one waved an arm before him, and he steered to crush it under the left wheel, feeling a rise and crunch as he ran over its ribs.
It was then another distraction on the left caught his attention. He glanced over, and froze in wonder. Was it magic? Some trick of a storm? But the sky was clear and blue, and a rushing wall of water roared toward him, brown with dirt and spitting froth and weeds.
Was their damnable god real?
The far flank disappeared under it, others turned to run even before he gave the order, and a handful of Mrem scrambled farther up the bank, as one slipped and submerged. He had no time to balance that small frisson with the searing hatred and disgust welling up inside. The water was easily twice his height as it rose over the chariot, tumbling him with it and bruising him with heavy river cobbles that smashed and burned. He sealed his nostrils and grasped for support, but the chariot was atop him, the trunklegs thrashing upside down and tangled as they drowned, and he knew he was to follow in moments. He recalled he’d wanted to see the New Sea. It had even come to him.
He pressed forth his will for his surviving slaves to fight in reckless, unending abandon, but knew it was pointless. Stupid creatures. Many had run from the far dry bank right into the path of this floo
d.
He felt them crying, panicking, dying, and a swell of elation from the cursed mammals, then the odd burning of water inside him.
After that, there was only the sighing of the waves.
Cata
JODY LYNN NYE
& JOHN RINGO
They Danced and the minions of evil perished. But the minions were many and they were too few. Finally the Dancer stood assailed in her body and mind.
“Guide my claws,” Cassa Fisook prayed.
And Assirra heard her and entered her. And so filled with the power of Assirra, Cassa Danced as never before, with such grace and purpose that no demon could stand before her. And thus through her the goddess gave all moved to worship her the Dance of Death.
—The Book of Bau, verse ninety-seven
Catas are stories of beauty and pain.
—Ancient Mrem saying
Sherril Rangawo tiptoed softly into the pavilion under cover of the music, careful not to disturb the Dancers’ ritual. As counselor to Their most august Sinuousnesses, he had the privilege to view but not interrupt. He wished they had been resting; how satisfying it would have been to be able to make a grand entrance and fall at their feet exhausted! He had thought about it all the way back from Ckotliss, the stronghold of Tae Shanissi. The very relief he felt at being alive at all, let alone in one piece made him want admiration and sympathy. He promised himself now to be stoic and modest, all the more to make those waiting admire him more. Since he wore no weapons, he made no sound as he slid into a fold of the heavy hide tent. His charcoal-gray fur allowed him to blend with the shadows to await the end of the ritual. The chamber, the center of the Lailah clan’s mobile city since they had left their flooded valley many leagues to the east, was formed of rectangular tents open to a central square that let in the sky. Under the hot sun of noon, the Dancers danced. He breathed the sharp, leather-scented air, and watched.
