By Tooth and Claw

by S. M. Stirling

  What did bother Zilikazi—not quite concern, but close—was the method used by the Krek’s warriors. The Kororo had been able to trigger the rockfalls while staying far enough away to nullify Zilikazi’s mind power. He could detect them, but their mental auras were somehow obscured as well as dimmed by distance. Trying to impose his will upon them, at this range, was like trying to catch fish swimming in a murky stream with your bare claws. He might be able to move fast enough but he couldn’t detect their location well enough.

  How were they doing that? And how were they causing the rockfalls? Presumably his soldiers would discover those secrets once they advanced farther into the range. In the meantime, there was nothing to be done but heal those who could be healed and euthanize those who would never recover.

  Zilikazi did not maintain a medical corps, as such. He relied on the females who still adhered to the Old Faith to serve him in that capacity, since the witless creatures insisted on maintaining their silly beliefs and rituals. They might as well be good for something. He did, however, keep a cadre of medical inspectors who would ensure that the females did not waste valuable resources tending to those injured soldiers who were doomed anyway.

  The Old Faith’s notions of khaazik and duzhikaa were not absurd, in and of themselves. Any sensible and capable ruler understood the principles of thriftiness and obedience to norms. But the relative weight that the Old Faith assigned to those beliefs was impractical at best. Why keep a soldier alive who was so badly injured that he would never again be able to serve his purpose? That was simply a waste of food and healing supplies. Better to put him down quickly and efficiently—and painlessly, so far as possible, there was no need to be cruel—in order to concentrate resources on those who might someday be able to rejoin the ranks and be of use to Zilikazi.

  But he spent little time musing on the matter. The medical inspectors would take care of the problem for him.

  Zuluku

  “What should we do?” asked Raish, peering through the slightly open flap of the yurt. Her anxiety was plain in the timber of her voice. “The inspector will be here soon. If he comes in, he’s bound to discover . . .”

  She nodded toward the far side of the yurt, where they’d hidden the Mrem and her kits under a mound of hides and thrushes. That had been enough to fool the soldiers who’d carried in their terribly injured comrade and given him over for treatment. They’d been in a hurry, since Zilikazi’s officers didn’t tolerate slackness when it came to minor tasks like tending to the wounded. But it wouldn’t be enough to fool the inspector. Adherents to the Old Faith had been known to hide severely damaged soldiers and the inspector would be on the alert for that. He’d poke through any piles that were big enough to hide a large body.

  Zuluku wasn’t worried about the wounded soldier himself. He was barely alive and certainly wasn’t conscious.

  What to do . . . ?

  Raish drew back from the open flap, a look of surprise on her face. A moment later, Njekwa came through into the yurt, pushing Raish aside not by physical force but by her sheer presence. When she chose to be, the priestess could be intimidating.

  Njekwa cast a quick, knowing glance at the pile of hides and thrushes, and then looked down at the wounded soldier.

  “Idiots,” she said, her tone calm and even. “Did you give any thought to what might happen?”

  The priestess knelt and gave the soldier a quick and thorough examination.

  “He has no chance,” she said. “Not once the inspector sees him. Bring over the blade and the bowl.”

  Zuluku, realizing her intent, hesitated.

  “Now,” Njekwa commanded.

  Whatever her qualms and doubts might be, Zuluku had obeyed that voice since she was a youngling. She and Raish moved quickly to bring over the implements.

  “Hold up his head,” Njekwa said. “Over the bowl. You know—”

  She didn’t need to say anything further. Zuluku had done this before, on three occasions. She lifted the soldier’s head, as gently as possible, and brought it over the wide bowl that Raish held in position.

  Neatly, quickly, efficiently, Njekwa severed one of the great veins in the soldier’s neck, being careful not to slice the artery. The cut was as small as possible for the purpose, not a great gash that would allow fountains of blood to spill everywhere.

  It didn’t take long for the soldier’s life to drain away. Thanks to Brassu, the goddess of tranquility, he never regained consciousness.

  When it was done, Raish removed the bowl and Zuluku lowered the soldier’s head back onto the hide he’d been resting on. After cleaning the blade, Njekwa assisted her in rolling the hide around the corpse.

  Zuluku was about to finish the process, covering the face and tying the laces, when Njekwa said: “Wait.” The priestess’s head was turned toward the entrance flap.

  Listening, Zuluku could hear footsteps approaching. A moment later, the medical inspector came into the yurt. He took two steps within, gazed down at the corpse and the three females—one of them still holding the bowl full of blood—and grunted with satisfaction. Then, without a word, he turned and left the yurt.

  Sighing, and trying not to quiver from tension, Zuluku said softly: “Thank you, Priestess.”

  Njekwa’s responding grunt held more in the way of sarcasm, perhaps, than satisfaction. But she said nothing further and a moment later, she too had left the yurt.

  Meshwe

  “Now I understand,” said Meshwe to Sebetwe. “The Mrem dancing gives us strength—say rather, finer control—at the same time as it confuses—say rather, confounds—the gantrak.”

  Sebetwe issued the throaty Liskash version of a chuckle. “I’m still groping for the right words. I think we may have to invent some. But, yes, that’s about my sense of what happens also.”

  Both of them studied the gantraks. They had to look up to do so. It had taken the better part of the afternoon, but the family of predators had now settled down, more or less. Working hard under Meshwe’s commands, members of the Krek had erected a fair imitation of a gantrak nest atop a small hillock on the edge of the town.

  Then, they studied the Mrem. The mammals had been given three yurts not far from the hillock. They were supply yurts, not personal dwellings. But they were clean and had been emptied of their former contents.

  Most of the Mrem were inside the yurts, no longer visible. But their leader, the young female called Achia Pazik, was squatting outside one of the yurts and returning their scrutiny.

  Calmly. And there was obvious calculation in that gaze.

  Good signs, both.

  “We will need to find more Mrem dancers,” Sebetwe said.

  Meshwe made no reply. The conclusion was also obvious.

  The scouts had come back with their reports. Zilikazi was coming. The traps would damage his army, but not enough.

  CHAPTER 7

  Nurat Merav

  Nurat had watched the quick and efficient slaughter of the badly wounded Liskash soldier carried out by the females in the yurt. She’d also observed the encounter between the females and the male who’d briefly entered the yurt afterward. He’d seemed to be an official of some kind.

  Her view of the incidents had been limited, just what she could see through the small opening—no more than a slit—she’d created in the pile of hides and thrushes the females had hastily piled on top of her and her kits. She’d understood none of their speech, either. She thought she recognized two of the words they’d used, although she wasn’t even sure of that.

  But, by now, one thing was clear to her. For whatever reason, the female Liskash were protecting Nurat and her kits. They’d not only provided her with healing treatments but they’d gone to considerable length—and considerable personal risk, she suspected—to keep the Mrem hidden.

  Hidden from whom? She didn’t know, precisely. But whatever Liskash officials they were hiding them from, ultimately they were hiding them from Zilikazi himself.

  How could they be doi
ng that? Nurat had felt herself the Liskash noble’s incredible might. She wouldn’t have thought a small group of female Liskash could counter that mental power.

  But, then, she understood very little of the way that mind control worked. Perhaps it could be evaded, if not directly countered.

  If you knew how to do it, which she didn’t.

  And why hadn’t Zilikazi detected her, for that matter? He’d seemed to have no trouble finding the minds of the Dancers and the warriors in the battle and crushing them like so many eggs.

  Everything was a mystery, everywhere she looked.

  She would have to learn the Liskash language, as fast as she could.

  This Liskash language, she reminded herself. Unlike the Mrem, the Liskash had a vast array of tongues and speech.

  Nurat Merav had always been adept at learning different Mrem dialects. Hopefully, that skill would apply here as well.

  Zilikazi

  Something was stirring up the females. Zilikazi could sense their unease—and what seemed to be unrest, perhaps even a small amount of resistance. But his mental powers did not enable him to understand the actual thoughts of others, only their emotions—and those, only blurrily.

  The ability of a Liskash noble to force others to do his (and very occasionally her) bidding rested, ultimately, on the noble being able to grasp the emotions of those he would subordinate. But the grasp was that of a hand—and a gloved hand at that—upon a crudely-felt object, not that of delicate fingers probing the subtle texture of a surface. A noble could crush an egg, so to speak, but he could not really feel it or even give it a slight crack.

  Besides, Zilikazi was preoccupied with the campaign against the Kororo, which was proving to be considerably harder than he’d anticipated. So he gave little thought to whatever might be happening with the females. Why bother? There would be plenty of time after the campaign to deal with any problems that might exist. As long as he controlled his army, what difference did it make what got females agitated? Like eggs, they too could be crushed.

  Another rock slide came crashing down the slope of the mountainside. Once again, Zilikazi’s mind tried to find and destroy the will of those who opposed him, but he could not find them. It was as if his gloved hand groped at slippery fish wriggling down a fast-moving stream. He could sense them but not their precise locations.

  This, he now realized, was what the Krek meant by their concept of “tekku.” He had thought it to be nothing much more than twaddle, but he’d been mistaken. Somehow the Kororo were using an attunement to certain animals—predators, he thought, with clear and simple purposes—to provide them with a shield against him.

  Tekku was a real mental ability, then, albeit subtle and certainly nothing compared to his own in terms of sheer force. Eventually he would pin them down and force them to submit.

  Sebetwe

  “They’ve reached Nesudi Pass,” reported the runner from the Krek warriors trying to resist Zilikazi’s advancing army. “We can probably fend them off for two more days, but no longer.”

  Despite the distance he’d traveled as fast as he could, Khuze was not breathing hard. He’d had to rest for the night before reaching the Krek, and had taken the time in the morning to warm up before resuming his run. That last stretch had taken only a short time, as runners measured such things.

  Watching Khuze as he spoke, Sebetwe found himself—as he did quite often of late—envying the ability of the Mrem to handle cold temperatures as well as they did. There were major disadvantages to being a mammal, to be sure. The amount of food the creatures needed to consume was astounding! How did they get anything done besides eating? But he still envied them, every time he or the Krek had to wrestle with the drawbacks of living in the mountains.

  Khuze’s statement had been greeted with silence. A bit belatedly, because he’d gotten distracted by his musings, Sebetwe realized the Krek guiding council was waiting for him to respond.

  Why? He was the most skilled of the younger tekkutu—more skilled than any of the older ones except Meshwe, for that matter—but he was not a war leader. Like any adult Kororo he was proficient in the use of weapons and knew the basic principles of tactics. That was as far as it went, however. There were three or four people squatting in the command yurt who would have a far better notion than he did of how to handle the current situation.

  Once Zilikazi’s army forced its way through Nesudi Pass, there would be no obstacle to their further progress until they reached the next range of mountains, where the Krek eyrie was located. They’d be passing across a broad and fairly flat plateau which provided little opportunity for the sort of long-distance ambush that had been the Krek’s most successful tactic thus far.

  Let Zilikazi get close enough . . . as was bound to happen if Kororo warriors had to fight the noble’s army at close range . . .

  There would be no way to resist him. Not even with the help of the gantrak. Sebetwe could only control one of the creatures, and then only with the assistance of the two Mrem dancers. He could not be certain, of course, without making the attempt. But he didn’t think he could withstand Zilikazi’s power at close range.

  If they had more dancers, the situation might be different. Although even with the help of two gantraks, Zilikazi couldn’t be held off indefinitely.

  If they had more gantrak . . . which would require still more dancers . . .

  He came to his reluctant conclusion.

  “We must leave the eyrie and retreat through the mountains,” he said. “In the ranges, we can slow down Zilikazi. Even without rock falls prepared ahead of time, we can improvise traps and barriers. On the plateau, we can’t. It’s as simple as that.”

  He looked around the circle. “And we need to find more Mrem. Without more dancers, we can’t control enough gantrak to make a big enough difference.”

  One of the Krek’s two main war leaders grunted. Logula, that was. “If we can find enough gantrak in the first place. The beasts are not plentiful, and not easy to catch.”

  There was that, too. But Sebetwe still didn’t think they had any choice.

  “Perhaps Zilikazi will turn back . . .” That tentative musing came from Nokom, the oldest of the females on the council. “There is really nothing here worth his while.”

  Meshwe make a sharp gesture of negation. “That’s an idle fancy. If Zilikazi were going to turn back he would have done so already. And there is something here worth his while to destroy—the Krek itself. So long as we exist, he will consider us a threat to his rule.”

  He swiveled his head and gazed at the wall on the southeast side of the yurt beyond which, still a considerable distance away, was the Dzundu Sea. There were rumored to be lands on the other side of that sea, but its far shores had never been observed by any of the Kororo scouts who had ventured that far. Their reports only spoke of a large island a fairly short distance from the mainland.

  “Fairly short” was an abstract measurement, however. The span of water between the mainland and the island was quite large enough for the huge monsters who swam in the seas. The scouts had seen them coming to the surface.

  Needless to say, no scouts had ever made the attempt to cross over to the island. Swimming would be simple suicide, even if anyone were strong enough to get all the way across, and using a boat wouldn’t be much safer. It might be possible to build a raft big enough to withstand the assault of a sea monster. But no one knew for sure.

  With the exception of a few clans, neither Liskash nor Mrem were skilled at sea travel. Whenever they did venture onto the sea—even very large lakes—they generally used simple skiffs and coracles and stayed very close to shore. Marine and aquatic predators were much bigger and more powerful than even the largest land carnivores.

  “We will have to hope that one of two things is true,” Meshwe continued. “First, that once we retreat far enough Zilikazi will be satisfied that we no longer constitute a danger to him and will turn back.”

  Logula issued another grunt. “Not li
kely. There is no more persistent noble in the world.”

  Meshwe nodded. “Still, he can’t pursue us forever. We can travel faster than he can, with that huge force he has. Which brings me to our second hope, which is that we can continue retreating once we reach the sea.”

  Nokom looked up with alarm. “We don’t know?”

  “I am afraid not. Our scouts never followed the shore for any distance to the south. We have no idea what might lie in that direction.”

  “What about following the shore toward the north?” asked Logula.

  “Not possible,” said Meshwe. “Not for the whole Krek, at any rate. A few particularly hardy individuals might manage to do it. There is a very deep canyon with a swiftly moving river at the bottom. Almost sheer cliffs, according to the scouts who discovered the canyon some years ago.”

  “Canyons can be crossed, even ones with swift rivers,” said Logula.

  “Yes, certainly. But not without building bridges and laying guide ropes—and how long would that take? We can’t move that much faster than Zilikazi. Long before we finished constructing what we’d need to get through the canyon, his army would have arrived—and we’d be completely trapped.”

  Again, Logula grunted. The sound, this time, conveyed agreement, if not satisfaction.

  Meshwe now turned back to Sebetwe. “And that brings us to the next and perhaps most difficult questions. Can we find more Mrem? And would they agree to help us?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Find out.”

  Achia Pazik

  “I don’t know the answer to either question,” Achia Pazik said to Sebetwe. “But since the answer to the second question depends upon answering the first, we should make plans to that end.”

  “Yes, that makes sense,” said Sebetwe. “Where are more Mrem from your tribe most likely to be found?”

  Achia Pazik had to restrain herself from throwing up her hands in a gesture of futility. “I don’t know the answer to that question either,” she admitted.

  Sebetwe got an expression on his face that resembled a yawn. Achia Pazik thought was the Liskash equivalent of a smile. It was hard to tell. The features of the reptiles were stiffer and less mobile than those of her people.