By Tooth and Claw - eARC

by Mercedes Lackey

  Also luckily, given Jora Ashag’s belligerent nature, the Mrem female was not timid herself. Not in the least—especially when the male warrior made the mistake of trying to bully her. At that point, Yaffa Barak did a fairly good imitation of a gantrak in full fury, and Jora Ashag withdrew into sullen obeisance.

  Good enough, so far as Nabliz was concerned. They had reached the limit of their search, anyway, since Meshwe had ordered him not to travel farther than three days from the Krek’s current location. Estimated current location, rather. By now, Nabliz was not exactly sure where the rest of the Kororo were to be found. They’d probably reached the sea, or were within a day’s march of it.

  So, once the initial antagonism subsided, Nabliz ordered the now-much-enlarged party to start toward the sea also. He was careful, however, to discuss the matter with the older Mrem female first, using Chefer Kolkin as his translator. And then, successfully presented the order as coming jointly from the two of them.

  Yaffa Barak made no objection. Nabliz hadn’t thought she would. With his increasing experience in dealing with Mrem, Nabliz was coming to recognize the mammals’ personal characteristics. A bit to his surprise, he’d found these weren’t really that much different from those of his own folk.

  Yaffa Barak, for instance, was a familiar type. She reminded him of one of his aunts. An older female with considerable status and prestige, of which she was quite cognizant; not stupid, certainly, but not especially bright, either; ultimately rather easy to manipulate so long as you were careful to remain respectful and outwardly deferential at all times.

  Njekwa

  “They’re gone,” Litunga reported.

  “All of them?” Njekwa asked.

  “Yes, all three. And the Mrem and her kits, of course. They even did a good job of clearing away any traces of her presence in the yurt.” The shaman whistled amusement. “One of them—probably Zuluku; she’s headstrong but she’s smart—even thought to let a kessu run loose inside. She must have caught it rummaging in the garbage.”

  The priestess made a little grimace of distaste. Kessu were scavengers who were annoying but harmless enough, except for their noisome odor. The stench was strong enough to overlay whatever traces might have remained of the mammals’ stay in the yurt. The Mrem scent was not especially objectionable, but it was distinctive.

  Njekwa thought the precaution was probably unnecessary, since there were a number of Mrem slaves in Zilikazi’s army. It would be easy enough to explain the smell of a Mrem in the yurt to one of the inspectors, if they even inquired about the matter.

  Still, she was pleased. If Zuluku—and, yes, it had almost certainly been her idea—had been careful enough to use that ploy to cover their tracks, she’d presumably be careful enough to get away from the encampment altogether.

  Njekwa hoped so. She was rather fond of Zuluku, even if the youngster often aggravated her. She would not enjoy disavowing her and her companions if they got caught by Zilikazi’s inspectors.

  She’d do it, nonetheless, and leave them to their punishment, which would certainly be harsh. Whatever else, the Old Faith had to be protected.

  Zuluku

  Zuluku and her party were already far outside the army encampment. Far enough, she thought, to be safe from the inspectors. They’d passed through two groves where they might have tried to hide. Ahead of them was a low ridge, half-visible in the light of a crescent moon. Once they were beyond it, which they should be before sunrise, they would be completely out of sight of the army. Not even the sentries on the outer towers which Zilikazi’s engineers erected every day when the army camped would be able to see them. Thankfully, the towers were not very tall. They were temporary structures—not quite what you could call flimsy, but close—which had to be light enough to be erected and dismantled within a short time. Zuluku had never stood atop one of the things, since they were only for warriors. But they were not much more than twice the height of a tall Liskash, which was certainly not enough to enable a sentry to see over the ridge.

  She was glad of it. They were all very tired by now. By the time they made it over the ridge, they’d be completely exhausted and would have no choice but to rest.

  Rest wherever they could. Blessedly, from what she could see of the sky, it didn’t look as if rain was in the offing. They wouldn’t have to build shelters—which was a good thing, since she wasn’t at all sure they’d have the strength and energy to do so anyway.

  They started climbing the slope of the ridge. It was rather steep, but at least the footing wasn’t too treacherous. And it wasn’t a very tall ridge. Even moving as slowly as they were, they’d be across it well before dawn.

  It was Zuluku’s turn to rest from carrying the litter, so she didn’t have to devote all her attention to her feet. She looked down at the Mrem. The kits were asleep—they did that a lot; more than Liskash of that age would do—but their mother was awake.

  Awake, and looking back up at Zuluku.

  “Thank you,” the mammal whispered. “You are a good friend.”

  Zuluku didn’t know how to respond to that. She supposed it was true, as Mrem gauged such things. But Liskash—adherents to the Old Faith, at any rate—did not think the same way.

  Duty and obligation, not emotion, were paramount.

  She finally settled on: “It is the thrifty thing to do.”

  But she felt good, she suddenly realized. Really good. For the first time in her life, she was doing something.

  Chapter 12

  Sebetwe

  “So who are they?”

  “I have no idea, Sebetwe.” The scout, still breathing heavily from her long run, needed a moment before she could continue. “Three Liskash females—all young, from what I could see at a distance—and they’re carrying somebody on a litter. A Mrem, I think.”

  “Why do you think so?”

  “I think I saw fur. There’s at least one little one riding in the litter also and it’s not acting like one of our younglings. It’s acting…”

  The scout gave Achia Pazik a sidelong glance that was partly apprehensive and partly apologetic. “You know. Weird.”

  Sebetwe rocked back on his heels and considered the matter. It was true that Mrem kits and Liskash younglings behaved quite differently, especially at a very early age. Much more differently, truth be told, than adults did. Mrem kits were all but inseparable from their dams, whereas Liskash younglings started to roam about as soon as they could engage in any sort of locomotion. Crawling, tottering, stumbling, it didn’t matter. The moment a Liskash could do so, it went exploring.

  It was a bit odd, really. As adults, the mammals were generally more inquisitive than sensible Liskash. But not their kits.

  He looked at the dancer. “If the person on the litter is a Mrem, who would it be?”

  Achia Pazik shrugged. “Could be almost anyone. Although, if there are kits, it will almost certainly be female.”

  Her face contorted in that overly mobile way the mammals had. Sebetwe interpreted this particular facial contortion as sarcasm. No, more like derision.

  “You won’t catch a Mrem male anywhere nearby, when kits need tending,” she said.

  That was another peculiar trait of the mammals. There seemed to be quite a bit of tension between the genders, to go along with what—from a Liskash viewpoint, anyway—was an excessive degree of mutual attachment. Sebetwe supposed it wasn’t surprising that creatures with such a surplus of energy would have to expend it in often frivolous and pointless ways.

  He rose to his feet. “Only one way to find out. Let’s go see.”

  Zuluku

  Zuluku was astonished to see the group who accosted them just as they entered a meadow. It was a mixed party of Liskash and Mrem—but unlike their own, the two species seemed to be completely intermingled.

  Seven of them, in all. Five Liskash and two of the mammals. Both of the mammals were female. By now, from tending to Nurat Merav’s injuries, Zuluku could easily spot gender traits, which were more
distinctive among Mrem than they were among Liskash.

  Of the five Liskash, at least three were clearly warriors. She was not sure of the other two. Both of them carried weapons, but no armor, and there seemed to be something…different about the way they carried themselves.

  Could these be the famous Kororo “tekkutu”? Zuluku hoped so.

  Desperately hoped so, in fact. They were becoming very weak. The work of trekking through the mountains was hard enough in itself, without having to carry the litter as well. Worst of all, though, was the hunger.

  Liskash were not often hungry. Not, at least, in the way Nurat Merav said her folk experienced the sensation. Mammals needed to eat often—two, even three times a day!—because their feverish bodies burned energy so rapidly. Liskash could normally go for days without eating much, or anything at all, because their bodies stored fat efficiently whenever they feasted.

  (There was this to be said for those feverish mammal bodies, though. It got very cold here in the mountains, and they’d learned quickly that by huddling around Nurat Merav they could get through the nights much better.)

  But Zuluku had never experienced the sort of strenuous effort this journey through the mountains had required. And it was so cold! None of the Liskash females had any experience with hunting, and even if they had it wouldn’t have done them much good because they hadn’t thought to bring any weapons with them.

  They had knives, of course. Liskash females always had knives. But they were small ones designed for the sort of work needed around a village or camp. They were not really weapons, and they certainly weren’t suited for hunting.

  Raish had tried tying her knife to a long stick with a cord and using it as a spear. She might have scared a couple of small animals with it, when the cast spear landed somewhere in their vicinity. Not much, though. Neither one of them had scuttled or hopped more than a short distance before settling back down.

  They’d tried eating some succulent-looking berries that they’d come across on the second day. Fortunately, Zuluku had insisted that none of them could eat more than two berries without letting enough time elapse to make sure the things were not poisonous before eating any more.

  Fortunately, indeed. Within a short time, all three of them had gotten sick and started vomiting.

  At least they hadn’t lost any food already eaten. Their stomachs had been empty of anything but digestive bile and what was left of the treacherous berries.

  As the party of strangers grew near, Nurat Merav raised her head from the litter and peered at them. Immediately, both Mrem cried out her name and came rushing forward. A moment later they were clustered over the wounded Mrem, jabbering at her in their own tongue too quickly for Zuluku to understand much of what they were saying.

  This much was clear, though: the Mrem were very pleased. One of them even broke off from jabbering at Nurat Merav long enough to give Zuluku a quick embrace.

  A “hug,” she thought that was called.

  Odd creatures, Mrem.

  Sebetwe

  “You’re saying she is the best dancer among you?”

  Achia Pazik shook her head. “No, Sebetwe.”

  “Achia Pazik is our best dancer,” said Gadi Elkin. “Nurat Merav is not really very good at all.”

  “Then why are you so pleased—”

  Achia Pazik interrupted him with a raised hand. “You don’t understand. Nurat Merav is our…” She looked aside, her expression frustrated. “What is the word? It means something like designer of the dance.”

  Sebetwe gaped his jaws a little. “I doubt if we have any such word. We Liskash don’t dance very much.”

  “And thank the gods for that!” said Gadi Elkin. Her own jaws gaped in that manner whereby Mrem showed amusement.

  Sebetwe was not offended. It was a simple truth that Liskash didn’t begin to have the fluid and supple grace—not to mention the sheer energy—that Mrem used in their dancing.

  “All right, then,” said Achia Pazik. “We will use our word for it. Nurat Merav is our choreographer.”

  “Koree—koree…a-gra-fuur?” The word was awkward on his tongue.

  “Close enough,” said Achia Pazik. “She is the best among us—”

  “The best in any tribe!” interjected Gadi Elkin proudly.

  “—when it comes to understanding how a dance must be shaped to accomplish whatever its purpose might be. Now do you see how important it is that she has been rescued?”

  Dimly, Sebetwe did begin to see. If a real expert, someone with great talent, could analyze a dance and see how it might be modified and adapted to do something as unheard of as merging with a great predator like a gantrak…

  He began to feel some of the Mrems’ excitement. So much so that he almost ordered an immediate resumption of the march.

  But he didn’t. They’d taken a rest not simply or even primarily for the sake of those who’d been alternating the duty of carrying the litter. Mostly they’d stopped because the person on the litter was weaker than any of them.

  Person. Not for the first time, it struck Sebetwe how easily that word came to him these days. There was still much about the Mrem that was peculiar, even unsettling at times. But at some point—he didn’t know when, exactly—they had become people, not just intelligent creatures.

  Nurat Merav

  It took her a while before she finally grasped the full extent of the ambition. When she did, she hesitated a moment out of sheer disbelief.

  “With the Liskash?”

  Achia Pazik waggled her hand back and forth. “It would be more accurate to say that we use the dance to provide the Liskash shaman—they’re called ‘tekkutu,’ by the way—and the gantrak with a rhythm that can sustain them both. The tekkutu are really the ones who work directly with the animals.”

  Nurat Merav pondered the matter, for a time. Partly, because she was very tired; but mostly because the concepts involved were so outlandish.

  And yet…

  A wedding dance worked in somewhat the same manner Achia Pazik was describing. What would happen if you modified the chain turns in the middle of a wedding dance and blended them with the insistent, fierce rhythm of the whipping steps that provided the war dances with their basic framework? The end result might be…

  The Liskash they called Sebetwe who seemed to be their leader came up to the little group.

  “How soon will you be strong enough for us to resume the march?” he asked Nurat Merav.

  She waved that question aside impatiently. “How soon will we get there once we do?”

  Zilikazi

  They were almost out of the mountains. Two days’ march, no more than that. Then, another day’s march—perhaps two—down the foothills to the seashore where the Kororo were finally penned.

  “They’re building rafts, you say?”

  “Yes, Lord,” answered the scout. “Big ones, at least seven of them. Too big to go on the river with. They must be planning to cross over to the island.”

  The scout’s jaws gaped with derision. “Crazy plan. You should see the monsters there! Some of them could probably swallow a raft whole.”

  “I will see the monsters there,” Zilikazi stated.

  Personally, he doubted the scout’s assessment that a sea monster, no matter how large, could just swallow a raft in one gulp. It was not impossible, he supposed. He’d seen great snakes swallow prey as large as they were. But by all accounts he’d heard, the really huge predators in the sea did not include snakes.

  There seemed to be three types. One was basically a giant lizard that had adapted to marine conditions. Another was a reptile that had a snake’s head and neck perched on what resembled a turtle’s body. But that was supposed to be the smallest of the big sea predators.

  The one that apparently grew to the greatest size was the strangest of them all. It was said to have tentacles, much like the small squids that were sometimes caught near the shore. But the body was quite different. According to the accounts, the creature’s entir
e body was nestled inside an enormous coiled shell.

  Experience with the sea was rare among Liskash, but not entirely absent. It was said by those who had that experience that the shelled monsters—ammonites, they called them—were rarely attacked by other predators, and never once they reached a certain size.

  Some of them fed exclusively on the tiny shrimp-like creatures that swarmed in parts of the sea. But others were hunters of much larger prey. It was said that the very biggest could even devour the giant lizards.

  Zilikazi was skeptical of all these tales. Not so much because he disbelieved them but simply because he was skeptical by nature. That tended to be true of all Liskash nobles. Having the power to coerce others by sheer force of mind had the side effect of making the wielder of that power suspicious of all claims made by reason and observation.

  Reason was what they said it was, no? And observation was always subject to interpretation—and who but a noble had the final authority to interpret everything?

  No matter. He’d find out the truth soon enough. Three days, maybe four. After that, the Kororo Krek would be just a memory—and it would be Zilikazi who dictated the nature of the remembrance.

  Chapter 13

  Meshwe

  “Can you do it?” asked Meshwe.

  Sebetwe raised a hand in a gesture for silence. His eyes were closed, his mind searching across the water for…

  What would you call it, exactly? Meshwe turned his head and looked at the incredible creatures who had been slowly gathering around the narrow spur of rock—a miniature promontory, as it were—that jutted out into the strait.

  There were five of them, now. Two huge ones and three who would be called huge if they’d been placed alongside any other creatures. In this company, they just seemed very, very big. Half-amused and half-appalled, Meshwe contemplated for a moment the possible necessity of developing fine distinctions with regard to size. Which words should indicate the larger monster? Huge, gigantic or immense?