By Tooth and Claw

by S. M. Stirling

  A screech somewhere in the distance caused her to tense. That had been made by some sort of animal, not a Liskash scout. A big animal, from the sound.

  What animal? She had no idea. To the best of her knowledge, no Mrem had ever gone into the great southern mountains. There had been no reason to. Mrem were more resistant to cold than the reptiles, but they still didn’t like it—and with the plains available, why go into the mountains?

  But the plains weren’t available now. There might never be again. Not those plains dominated by Zilikazi, at least, and they were the only ones within reach.

  So, up they would go, no matter what dangerous animals might live up there. Achia Pazik didn’t see where they had any choice.

  Zilikazi

  “Kill the injured,” Zilikazi said. “Any who can’t move without assistance.”

  He gave one final glance at the huddled mass of Mrem captives, and then decided he’d better qualify that. His underlings were prone to interpreting his orders excessively. He could hardly complain about that tendency, given that he’d fostered and encouraged it himself. But he saw no reason to waste captives unnecessarily.

  “By ‘assistance’ I mean any who need to be carried on a litter. If they can walk with the support of one or two other Mrem, we’ll keep them alive. For now, at any rate.”

  He didn’t bother to wait for his lieutenants’ gestures of assent before turning away and moving back toward his pavilion. That abruptness was another trait he’d fostered over the years. For him to wait to accept an underling’s sign of obedience would suggest there was a possibility the underling might not obey Zilikazi, which was unthinkable.

  Zilikazi’s dominance resulted mostly from his immense power. But he’d buttressed that innate ability with shrewd methods of rule as well.

  As he moved toward the great pavilion in the distance, his palanquin followed in his wake. The four Liskash who bore that palanquin were lucky that Zilikazi was still young enough to be energetic and chose to demonstrate that vigor publicly on most occasions. The palanquin was already heavy due to its construction and ornamentation, even without someone riding in it.

  As he walked, the Liskash ruler contemplated his next move in the great conflict that had erupted since the sea broke through the eastern mountains and began flooding the lowlands. The migrations of the Mrem clans had unleashed war all across the lands to the north. Wars between Liskash nobles, often, not simply clashes with the furred barbarians. In the nature of things—Zilikazi was no exception—Liskash nobles were always alert to opportunities to enlarge their domains. A noble weakened by Mrem was like a bloody fish in the water, drawing predators from all around.

  Now that he’d crushed the Mrem who had dared to invade his own territory, Zilikazi was tempted to send his army north, to seize what lands he could from other nobles. Keletu was badly weakened, he was sure; so, most likely, were Giswayo and Sakki.

  But, in his cold and calculating manner, he suppressed the urge. Unlike most Liskash nobles, Zilikazi had trained himself to patience. His mental power was greater than that of any noble he knew—or had ever heard of, for that matter. So what was the hurry? He was still young; still had plenty of time to forge the greatest Liskash realm ever known. It was better to continue the path he’d always followed; the patient path, that consolidated gains before adding new ones.

  That meant he had to anchor his position against the southern mountains before he sent his army to the north. The Kororo Krek probably posed no real danger to him, since the religious order seemed disinclined toward conquest. But who knew what ideas might come into the heads of fanatics?

  Their overly complex, phantasmagorical notions belonged in the addled brains of Mrem, not sensible Liskash. If those notions spread more widely, mischief might result. Zilikazi hadn’t been able to make much sense of the prattle of the Kororo disciple he’d had tortured. But one thing had emerged clearly out of the muddle: the Krek placed no great value—perhaps none at all—on the established customs of the Liskash.

  Not even the most powerful noble—not even Zilikazi himself—could rule without those customs. If one had to maintain control by the constant exertion of sheer mental force over each and every underling . . .

  Impossible! One had to sleep, after all. What made orderly rule possible was accepted and entrenched custom. Once a noble demonstrated his or her power, those who were inferior acquiesced in their subordination. Willingly, if not eagerly. Thereafter, the nobles needed only to demonstrate, from time to time or in clashes with other nobles, that their power had not waned.

  So. The Kororo Krek had annoyed him long enough. It was time to crush them and bring those who survived under his rule. The soldiers wouldn’t like campaigning in the mountains, of course. They would complain bitterly in private to each other. But what did that matter? Soldiers always complained. As long as they kept their grievances to themselves, Zilikazi could safely ignore them.

  As for the conditions in the mountains, they couldn’t be that bad. The Kororo had been up there for at least three generations now. And they weren’t a single sub-species which might have become hardened to the environment, either. They were a mongrel breed, accepting Liskash from everywhere. If such could survive up there, so could Zilikazi’s soldiers.

  Njekwa

  “What news?” Njekwa asked quietly, after Litunga entered the cooking tent and came to her side.

  “The warriors I spoke to said we are marching south, starting tomorrow.” The old shaman lowered her voice still further. “Zilikazi plans to crush the Kororo, they think.”

  Njekwa grunted skeptically. Litunga would have spoken only to common warriors, not officers. Such were hardly likely to be in the godling’s confidence. Rumors were generated and spread in the ranks of the warriors like weeds.

  Still . . .

  “What should we do, Priestess?” asked Litunga.

  “There’s nothing we can ‘do,’ and you know it as well as I do. What you really mean to ask is ‘what is our attitude?’ Do we support the godling or stand apart?”

  Which was also a rather pointless way of putting it, thought Njekwa, although she didn’t say it out loud. Zilikazi was barely aware of the Old Faith’s existence. He didn’t care one way or the other whether its adherents considered the Kororo to be heretics—and he certainly didn’t care if they supported him or stood aside when he marched against the Krek. As far as Zilikazi was concerned, the only proper religious belief was the one that recognized him as a god. All others were beneath his contempt.

  Nonetheless, the question mattered to the Old Believers. Ever since the rise of the Kororo Krek, a few generations earlier, they had wrestled with the issue.

  On the one hand, as members of the Krek themselves freely acknowledged, the Kororo creed had arisen from the Old Faith. It rejected outright the pretensions of the nobility to divine status. Spurned the notion with scorn and derision, in fact.

  On the other hand . . .

  The Kororo rejected much of the Old Faith as well. They considered ancestors worthy of respect, but not veneration. They did not seek their enlightenment, much less their intervention in current Liskash affairs. They placed no special status on the female nature of the Godhead—indeed, they argued that the Godhead had no gender at all.

  For them, so far as Njekwa had been able to determine, the Godhead was more in the way of a disembodied universal power than anything she or her shamans would call a deity at all. The Kororo even went so far as to claim that all the goddesses and gods—even mighty Huwute herself!—were illusions. Figments of the imagination; names given to a mystery so vast that no mortal mind could ever grasp more than a shard at a time. And that shard was more likely to be distorted than true.

  Quite interesting concepts, actually. In certain moods—usually after one or another misfortune—Njekwa found herself half-agreeing with them.

  Some of them. The notion of a genderless Godhead was preposterous, of course.

  “So what should we do?”
Litunga repeated.

  Njekwa gave the usual answer. “For the moment, nothing.”

  Meshwe

  “Couldn’t I try first with a huddu?” asked Chello plaintively. “Or maybe a mavalore?” Squatting on her haunches with her hands splayed on the sand, the youngling stared apprehensively at the tritti sprawled a short distance away in the little arena. For its part, the horned lizard stared off to the side. To all outward appearances it seemed oblivious to Chello’s presence.

  But tritti could move very quickly. And their fangs might be short but they were very sharp. As small as they were, their venom was not fatal to a Liskash, even a youngling. But it would hurt. It would really, really hurt. For a long time. And if it bit her in the wrong place, Chello might lose something like a finger.

  Maybe even a foot. One of the older females, Kjat, had lost three toes because of a tritti’s bite—and that had happened in an arena just like this one. True, Kjat was pretty dim-witted and should probably never have tried to become a tekkutu in the first place.

  Still . . .

  “No, you can’t try first on a huddu or a mavalore,” said Meshwe. “It wouldn’t do any good. No animal whose life is guided by fear can serve your purpose. Only in a ferocious mind can you find the strength you need. You know all this, Chello. It has been explained to you often.”

  His tone was patient. The mentor had been through this many times over the years. Most younglings trying to become tekkutu were afraid the first time they went into the arena—usually, many times thereafter too. Tritti bites hurt, sure enough, and the little predators were quite willing to attack creatures much larger than themselves if they felt threatened.

  Which they did, of course, when they found themselves trapped in a small arena whose walls were too high for them to leap over and too smooth to scale.

  “Now, concentrate,” commanded Meshwe. “Find the hunter’s mind and merge with it. From the hunter, take its fierce purpose. To the hunter, give your own serenity. Out of this exchange, surround your mind with impervious walls.”

  * * *

  Fierce purpose, the tritti surely had. Unfortunately, Chello’s serenity was as shaky as that of most six-year-old younglings. She started off rather well, but then got anxious and fumbled the exchange. The hunter reacted as such hunters are prone to do when their little minds are penetrated by strange and unsettling sensations. (You couldn’t call them thoughts, really; not even notions—a tritti’s brain is quite tiny.)

  Strike out—and there was only one visible target.

  “Aaaaah!” Chello began capering about, shaking her leg frantically. “Get it off me! Get it off!”

  Tritti transmitted their venom down grooves in their teeth, not through hollow fangs like serpents. So they had to chew for a bit where a snake would strike and immediately withdraw. But not for all that long. By the time Meshwe could climb over the wall into the arena the horned lizard had already relinquished its hold and fallen back onto the sand.

  The mentor lifted Chello over the barricade and passed her into the hands of a healer who’d been standing by. Then he drew the trident from its sheath on his back and turned to face the horned lizard.

  The creatures were really very ferocious, given their size. The tritti leapt forward again and bit Meshwe on the ankle.

  Or tried to. The mentor, unlike the youngling, was not clad in a light tunic. His upper body was unarmored, but his legs and feet were encased in thick boots that reached almost all the way up to his groin.

  The fangs were unable to penetrate. Frustrated, the monster fell back and gathered itself for another leap. But the trident skewered it to the sand.

  Meshwe waited for a while, as the tough little creature thrashed out its life. It was too bad, really. This tritti was fearless even by the standards of its kind. Had Chello’s attempt been successful, the hunter would have made a splendid familiar until she was ready to graduate to a greater challenge.

  But, she’d failed. And now the tritti would be inured to any further such attempts, either by Chello or any other youngling. It would simply attack instantly if it found itself placed in the position again.

  Chello was still wailing. She had a very unpleasant few days ahead.

  Too bad also, of course. But the Kororo Krek had never found any other way to raise up tekkutu.

  They’d been left in relative peace for years, here in their mountain sanctuary. But it wouldn’t last. Any attentive youngling could learn the basic precepts of the order. Only a few of them, however, would manage the task of achieving tekku. And only tekkutu could hope to withstand the mental domination of the nobility.

  CHAPTER 2

  Sebetwe

  The hatchlings might be too old. That much was already obvious from the volume of sound being emitted from the nest somewhere above and still not in sight.

  “At least two, maybe three,” Nabliz said softly.

  All four of them were huddled together under an overhanding rock on the steep slope. The vegetation was getting very sparse now and there weren’t many places to find concealment.

  “Too old,” grunted Herere. She had the odd quality of being pessimistic as well as aggressive. The combination often irritated Sebetwe—as it did now.

  He started to say something but Aqavo spoke first. “Maybe not, Herere,” she said. “Sebetwe is very—”

  “Powerful,” Herere interrupted, impatiently and a bit sourly. “Yes, I know. This is still not magic.”

  The word Aqavo had actually been about to use was bradda, Sebetwe thought. The term was subtle and while it had much in common with gudru—“powerful”—it suggested more in the way of influence and persuasion, even charisma. The fact that Herere did not understand the distinction was much of the reason she herself had never risen very far in her ranking as a disciple.

  For Herere, all conflict came down to strength against strength. That had served her well enough as a child at establishing her mastery over creatures like tritti and even paqui.

  But today they faced great gantrak of the mountains. No Liskash disciple, no matter how great their gudh, had any chance of simply dominating such monsters. You might as well try quenching a bonfire by force of will.

  There was no point trying to explain any of this to Herere, though. No mentor of the Krek, not even Meshwe, had ever managed to do that. So Sebetwe simply shifted his shoulders in a slight shrug and said: “Maybe I can, maybe I can’t. We’ll find out soon enough.”

  Another chorus of screeches came down from above.

  “They’re hungry,” said Nabliz. “We’d better move quickly.”

  He was right. The mother would be away, hunting for her brood. The father . . . could be anywhere, but there was no point in worrying about that. Male gantrak were every bit as protective of their brood as females, but they had little of the same territoriality. The brood’s father might be a mountain range away.

  Or could be asleep in the nest itself. With males, behavior was hard to predict.

  “Let’s get going,” Sebetwe commanded. “I’ll continue directly up the slope with Nabliz. Herere, you take that little draw to the left. I think that’ll bring you above the nest.” A little diplomacy here. “You’re the strongest, so you’ll have the best chance of handling the mother if she returns.”

  “And me?” asked Aqavo.

  Had he been fully honest, Sebetwe would have replied: “You stay here, because you’re only a novice, not yet a full tekkutu, and won’t be any use to me in the capture. And you won’t be any more use if we have to fight.”

  But he liked Aqavo as much as he disliked Herere, so he coated the answer. “Stay here and make ready the harnesses. We won’t have any time to spare.”

  “How many?” she asked, sounding a bit relieved.

  “Only two. If I can capture any at all, it won’t be more than that.”

  Aqavo started rummaging in the sacks they’d all unloaded when they reached the overhang. Herere was already out, heading for the draw.

  “
Ghammid be with you,” said Nabliz after her.

  Aqavo whistled softly. “Don’t let Meshwe hear you say that or you’ll get a lecture.”

  Sebetwe grunted his amusement. It was true enough. He could hear it already. The so-called “God of Good Fortune” is simply another manifestation of the Godhead as we can perceive it. No more a real deity than the sun or the moon—and you have as much chance of improving your luck by invoking her as you do of changing the dawn or the tides by invoking Huwute or Ishtala.

  Sebetwe didn’t doubt Meshwe’s teaching. Not for a moment. Still . . .

  “Ghammid be with us,” he murmured, and headed up the slope, shaking his catchpole slightly to make sure the noose was not tangled.

  Achia Pazik

  “What is that thing?” hissed Chefer Kolkin. The warrior’s grip on his spear was tight enough for his knuckles to stand out in sharp relief—quite unlike the veteran’s usual relaxed manner when handling his weapons.

  Part of his tension was due to the unearthly shrieks coming from somewhere above them. Most of it, though, was simply due to the uncertainty of the moment. Should they fight? Flee? Hide? And looming behind all of those questions was a still greater one—who was to decide? Which of them was to give the order, whatever that order might be?

  By strict seniority, Chefer Kolkin himself should perhaps be in charge. But as doughty a warrior as he was, Chefer Kolkin had never displayed much in the way of leadership in the past.

  Neither had the other surviving Dancer, Gadi Elkin. Besides, although she was older than Achia Pazik, she did not match her in skill—and rank among the Dancers was based mostly on ability, not age.

  Of the other four soldiers, the half-brothers Tsede Zeg and Elor Zeg generally kept to themselves, to the point of being almost rude. Zuel Babic was too young—not more than two years past Lavi Tur’s age—and Puah Neff was cut from the same hide as Chefer Kolkin. Brave and fierce in battle, capable at other tasks, but not suited to lead more than a handful of warriors.

  So . . . it would have to be Achia Pazik herself who took the position of leader. Until now, she’d been able to avoid that task, because they’d simply been fleeing. The only decision to be made was this way! or that way! and any one of them could do that much.