By Tooth and Claw - eARC

by Mercedes Lackey

  He turned and gave the order, which his subordinates began passing through the ranks.

  That took no time at all, on his own raft. But he realized quickly that the orders shouted across the water to nearby rafts would soon become so degraded as to be worthless. There wasn’t much of a wind, but it was enough to make voices blurred and indistinct when they tried to shout against it.

  He’d blundered, he realized. He’d been so impatient to finally settle accounts with the Kororo that he hadn’t thought to develop a system—flags, perhaps—whereby he could transmit orders to his entire fleet once they were at sea.

  No matter. He could guide his own raft where he would. The rest would follow. They would not dare do otherwise, even though he could sense the great fear that was coiled under the surface within all the warriors on those rafts. They were on the very edge of terror. By now, many of them had also seen the ammonites accompanying the Kororo vessel.

  No matter. They were in greater fear of him—and his fury could far exceed that of any pitiful snail, no matter how large.

  Sebetwe

  “Begin the dance,” he commanded.

  Achia Pazik

  It was a strange dance. A wedding dance, in its origins—and it still retained that basic structure. But Nurat Merav had modified it beyond recognition.

  To start with, she’d stripped away any trace of its celebratory and ceremonial spirit. That had all been replaced by a great expansion—to the point of gross distortion—of the sexual aspects of the dance. In essence, a wedding dance had been transmuted into a mating dance. And a crude and coarse one, at that.

  On the first day of rehearsal, Achia Pazik and her dancers had struggled to overcome their own embarrassment. Mrem were by no means prudish, but this dance…!

  Then, Nurat Merav had blended into it elements from various feasting dances—and always the most coarse elements of each of them. The end result had been a dance so grotesque that no Mrem would have dreamed of performing it in front of any audience.

  Except one. An audience of enormous sea lizards. Creatures whose lives were dominated by two simple, crude emotions: hunger and lust.

  Meshwe

  The oldest and still greatest of the Kororo tekkutu would lead now. Meshwe would be the first to agree that in many ways he had been surpassed by his once-pupil Sebetwe. But none of them had Sebetwe’s sense for the Sure Ones, and if he couldn’t keep the ammonites steady, they would be doomed even faster than Zilikazi’s fleet.

  So, Meshwe ignored the Sure Ones. He would let Sebetwe deal with them. He found his tekku, found the minds of his companions in the great art who had joined him on the raft, blended their art with that of the Mrem dancers as they had all now learned to do, and sent that collective mind in search of what were probably the world’s purest and certainly greatest carnivores.

  The lizards ate anything as long as it was meat—and they were instantly willing to tear something apart to find out if it contained meat. Their great jaws could shred sharks and crush sea turtles. No one had yet observed them mating, but it wasn’t likely such beasts would be any more delicate and fastidious in that endeavor.

  How many of them dwelt in the strait? No one knew. But they were about to find out.

  Sebetwe

  His initial fear began to fade. He’d worried—they’d all worried—that the Sure Ones would get swept into the tekku maelstrom along with the lizards. But it seemed he’d been correct in his estimate. The huge ammonites simply didn’t have enough of the emotions being whipped into a frenzy to react to the great surge of tekku that Meshwe was casting into the sea.

  The Sure Ones possessed the urge to eat and the urge to reproduce. But they carried out those activities the same way they did everything: constantly, slowly; most of all, surely. The two emotions that seemed completely foreign to them were impatience and anxiety—without which, frenzied activity was simply not possible.

  The most Sebetwe could detect was what seemed to be a heightened…interest, for lack of a better term. But most of that interest remained focused where it had been since the Kororo first came to the sea—on the Kororo themselves.

  By now, Sebetwe thought he understood why the Sure Ones behaved the way they did. So little ever changed in their world that they were fascinated by anything new. And since they felt little (if anything) in the way of fear, they did not hesitate to indulge their curiosity.

  For days and days on end. A curiosity which, with experience, Sebetwe had learned how to meld with and nurture. In their own placid and cold-blooded way, the ammonites were entranced by him. That was especially true of the one he called Bekezel, the most enormous of them all.

  So, the Sure Ones might have felt a mild urge to increase their feeding; or mate; or simply drift away in search of food or mates. But those urges were overwhelmed by the much greater urge to continue observing these enchanting newcomers.

  Meshwe

  Not so, with the lizards. They had about as much in the way of calm observational instincts as a waterfall.

  On the other hand, they were curious. But their curiosity had a very tight and narrow focus. Basically, their lives rotated around finding the answer to three questions:

  Is this food?

  Is this a mate?

  Is this an enemy?

  For days, more and more lizards had come swimming into the strait between the mainland and the island. They were drawn there, as much as anything, by the simple fact that so many of their kind were gathering there. As a rule, the only thing that drew large numbers of the lizards into one place was an abundance of food.

  Or possible food.

  But they’d been frustrated for all those days, as well. Yes, there was something new in the water. Which might be food and might be mates. Which were almost certainly enemies also; but for the lizards, almost everything animate was a potential enemy.

  But they’d been kept at bay by the Sure Ones. Not even angry and frustrated sea lizards were foolish enough to threaten the giant ammonites. Those tentacles might normally be slow-moving, but they were immensely strong—and somewhere at their center was a beak that could cut through or crush anything a lizard could.

  * * *

  Meshwe began stirring them up—not that they needed much stirring to begin with. Within a short time, the frenzy began to build. And this time, there was a clear and unimpeded target for that frenzy.

  So much food! So many possible mates, too. Although that was a secondary issue for the lizards. Everything was a secondary issue for the lizards, compared to eating.

  Almost certainly enemies, as well. But although the lizards were wary of the Sure Ones, they weren’t given to worrying much about enemies, other than their own kind. Why should they? A large fully grown sea lizard was fifty to sixty feet long and weighed somewhere between twenty and thirty tons. Their mouths held four rows of sharp conical teeth which could be half a foot long and could exert a bite force as great as that of a giant shark.

  Enemies, pfah.

  * * *

  They were circling, now. Dozens of them, ranging in size from ten to sixty feet long. The smallest ones, of course, stayed at the fringe. They had to avoid crowding the larger ones, lest a big lizard decide a smaller one was an easier meal than anything else.

  Nearest to the rafts were seven or eight of the very largest lizards. One of them was sixty-two feet long, measuring from the tips of her snout to her tail, and weighed thirty-four tons.

  In whatever manner thoughts moved through such a brain, the lizard decided it was time to take an exploratory bite. What was this great, bloated body floating on the surface?

  She drove in. Her target was the obvious one. The one in front and more separated from its mates than the rest.

  Njekwa

  No one could have missed or misunderstood the spike of terror that Zilikazi sent screaming through the minds of his subjects. Certainly not a priestess as old and experienced as Njekwa.

  “Start gathering the faithful,” she commanded
Litunga and the other shamans and priestesses gathered around her. There were nine of them, all told. “Quickly!”

  All raced off except Litunga.

  “Gather them where?” she asked.

  Njekwa looked around. Zilikazi had taken fewer than two thousand warriors with him, the most that could be crammed onto the rafts. The rest, somewhere between four and five thousand, were ranged along the beach.

  No, not “ranged,” exactly. They were clustered; and, as she watched, the clusters began tightening.

  She knew what was happening. Zilikazi had long since crushed anyone in his army who might challenge his mindpower. But that still left at least a dozen subordinates who had noble ancestry and might have the potential to develop a noble’s mental control.

  All of them had kept whatever such talents they might have carefully concealed, but it was impossible to conceal them entirely. Zilikazi had been satisfied if they were discreet and made no overt show of their power. He couldn’t kill everyone who shared noble lineage. Some day, the nobles might evolve into a completely different species, but that was not true today. The nobles still could and did breed with normal Liskash. The only way Zilikazi could have prevented the emergence of any possible rivals would have been to kill all of his own offspring and disband his harem.

  He’d considered the first course of action, several times, and might someday do it. But there was no chance he’d dismiss his harem. He was still young and vigorous.

  The Liskash officers in the army with noble lineage who possessed at least some of a noble’s power would have naturally drawn subordinates around them over time. Now, they reacted the same way to Zilikazi’s mental shriek of fear.

  The same way sea lizards reacted to the smell of blood in the water.

  * * *

  Njekwa pointed to a low rise in the shoreline perhaps two hundred yards to the south. “Tell them to gather there. Away from the army, and close to the beach.”

  Chapter 17

  Zilikazi

  Like snakes, the sea lizards devoured their prey whole. Their jaws were double-hinged and their skulls were flexible, allowing them to swallow very large animals. If the prey was too large, though, they were faced with something of a problem. Unlike sharks, their teeth were not well-suited to biting off pieces of flesh. The teeth of the lizards were conical, not serrated. The points were sharp, certainly, but they had no cutting edges.

  So, when attacking prey too large to swallow whole, they use a crude and simple method. They bit down—hard—and then lashed their long and sinuous bodies, using their immensely powerful tail muscles.

  Just to see what might happen, as it were.

  What usually happened was that the prey started coming apart.

  * * *

  In this case, Zilikazi’s raft didn’t—quite—start disintegrating. The logs used to make up his raft had been among the biggest; the ropes used to tie them together had been among the best; and the knots had been well-designed and well-made throughout.

  So, the raft held together when the huge sea lizard clamped down and lashed its body. But the raft was crammed with warriors and it was jolted so hard that fourteen of them were flung completely into the sea and another six barely managed to hang on to the sides of the raft when they went into the water.

  The huge lizard relinquished her mouth’s grip and circled for another bite, still intent on the raft itself.

  Others, however, went after what looked like easier targets. Whatever these things were wriggling and thrashing on the surface.

  Within ten seconds, five lizards had come to the same conclusion.

  This is food!

  It didn’t take even that many seconds for the smell of blood—lots of blood—to transmit that information to twice as many lizards, and within a few more minutes any lizard in the strait knew that a feeding frenzy was underway.

  * * *

  All but one of the warriors who’d managed to hold on to the raft got back aboard before lizards could take them down. But, of the fourteen who went into the sea, only five managed to swim back and climb aboard to safety.

  Such as it was—briefly.

  The second bite-and-lash of the biggest of the lizards began disintegrating the raft. Almost at the same time as she relinquished that bite, two more lizards had taken bites on the opposite side of the raft.

  That side began disintegrating. Twenty-two more warriors had gone into the sea.

  A few seconds later, the big female who’d begun the attack got her first meal of the day. She’d left off going at the raft in favor of something wriggling closer and much easier to swallow.

  Her first meal—but by no means her last. Like most large carnivores, the sea lizards were firmly devoted to gorging.

  * * *

  Zilikazi had managed to keep from being thrown off the raft by holding desperately onto the pole he’d had fixed near the front of the raft to hold up his banner. So, he had time—he certainly had the rage and fear—to bring down a wave of sheer mental force and fury onto the creature he knew was responsible. That hateful tekkutu—oh, yes, he recognized his psychic stench! he was the one who’d inflicted so much grief on the army in the mountains—who was the cause of this horror.

  Zilikazi could slay anyone outright when he applied that much power, so long as he could find and latch onto his mind. Which, he finally could. He could now see his tormentor, for the first time. The tekkutu standing at the very edge of his own raft.

  The wave came down, like a mallet striking an insect.

  Sebetwe

  Sebetwe felt the blow, certainly. But only in the way someone feels a blow when he’s wearing thick, padded armor—and the blow itself is delivered using a padded club. Great pressure, but almost no pain. A powerful jolt, but not a sharp one. It felt more like being suddenly pushed by someone than being hit with a weapon.

  A very big someone, true. But not big enough—not when Sebetwe had such sure and certain footing.

  He was farther into Bekezel’s mind than he’d ever been before; almost communing with the Sure One, insofar as “communing” was a term that could be applied to a consciousness that had neither language nor abstract ideas. It was a mind that had no filters between itself and its environment, because it needed none. It was simply too huge, too powerful, too well-protected to need screens between itself and what it saw, and felt, and tasted, and smelled, and heard. Why bother interpreting reality when it was so engrossing in itself.

  Deep inside that mind, with that mind as his shield and armor, Sebetwe was simply impervious to anything Zilikazi or his ilk could ever do. And his shield and armor were more than great enough to shelter everyone near him as well.

  Zilikazi

  If Zilikazi had been in full possession of his wits, if he’d had the time to ponder and contemplate the problem, he might have eventually come up with a way to insinuate his mental strength past Sebetwe’s protection, in the way a skilled warrior might slip a blade between joints in a suit of armor.

  But he had no time to ponder anything and he was not in possession of his wits. He was in a panic, his mind a chaotic swirl. Having no experience with such a state of abject terror, he was hysterical. The blows he lashed out were furious but completely wild.

  Within half a minute of the first lizard attack, those wild mental blows had killed six of his own warriors. That wasn’t his intent, of course. But just as a fighter who’s lost his bearing in a battle strikes out at anything that moves—not knowing who he struck, and not caring, either—so did Zilikazi.

  The blows against the tekkutu on the raft in the distance were somehow simply being shed by the hideous creature. So, his terrified rage thwarted in that direction, Zilikazi struck at targets he thought he could reach.

  He struck at the lizards first—or tried to. But he had neither knowledge nor understanding of tekku. He tried to strike down giant animal predators in the same way he struck down intelligent beings.

  All he accomplished was to drive the monsters into an
even more furious frenzy. Three more bit the raft and lashed it; a third of it fell away, the logs separating into small clumps. Dozens of warriors were now in the water, being devoured by lizards.

  One lizard—a very large one, if not quite as large as the female who’d begun the attack—came up under the raft, smashing its snout right through the deck before it fell back.

  The lizards had begun attacking other rafts as well. The entire armada except the lead raft bearing Zilikazi was now desperately trying to return to the beach from which they’d launched.

  They were aided by the waves, but impeded by the current, which in this part of the strait seem to run parallel to the shore. They were also impeded, needless to say, by the lizards attacking them.

  Perhaps their greatest impediment, though, was their ruling lord. Seeing them abandoning him, Zilikazi’s fury lost whatever coherence it might have still retained.

  The traitors! They’re dared to defy him? He was their master!

  All the tremendous force of his mind came down on the traitors. They would obey him and return.

  He might even have succeeded, so great was his power. But he had no time left.

  Another lizard smashed into the raft from below and the vessel finally disintegrated completely. Still clutching the flagpole with its bright banner, Zilikazi went into the sea.

  Fury finally vanished. All that was left was terror.

  Njekwa

  “Hurry! Hurry!” The priestess was almost running herself. At least a thousand people were gathering on the rise. Many of them she recognized as adherents, but many others were not.

  Who were they? Most looked to be females and younglings, but there were at least half a hundred warriors in their midst. Looking back as she hurried, Njekwa could see that many more warriors were beginning to drift away from the clusters on the beach.

  None of the noble-lineage officers who were starting to gather little armies around themselves was very powerful. For sure and certain, not one of them would be powerful enough to impose his will on all those who contended against him.

  So, confusion swirled; doubt and uncertainty coursed alongside. Many of the warriors, with no real attachment to any commander, would be looking toward the largest gathering they could see—the one being formed by Njekwa and Litunga. Few if any of them adhered to the Old Faith themselves, but they knew of it. Some of them had mothers who belonged. Or sisters, or cousins, or even daughters.