By Tooth and Claw

by S. M. Stirling

Scaro shot him a deadly look.

  “How could she know that?” he said. “Take Imrun and go spy out that position. Golcha and I will remain with the gatherers. I hate surprises.”

  The two young Mrem gathered up their packs and moved silently through the marsh toward the gap.

  Petru watched them go with dismay. Two sets of hands that were not gathering plants and food meant more delay before he could return to his Dancers. As much as young Ysella promised that she would see to Cleotra’s well-being, he was certain she would neglect small details he would never miss.

  Peevishly, he returned to the workers he still had. Sherril was picking through the golden reeds as slowly as a kit trying to keep from eating a distasteful dish. Petru surveyed the pile of shoots on the big leaf beside him.

  “Hurry up there,” Petru snapped. “Bireena has gathered three times the plants you have.”

  “I am not a field worker,” Sherril replied in annoyance. He raised dripping hands from the muck and flicked a clump of earth at Petru. The valet sidestepped to avoid being splattered. “And as you keep saying to me, I don’t work for you.”

  Petru smirked. “In this case, you do. Move faster. I want to harvest that second clump of plants before the sun is fully up. More! No, not that purple-tipped one! That is gripeweed. It will twist your belly in knots.”

  Sherril grunted, but moved his hands to a patch of the correct herbs. Not satisfied but resigned, Petru went on to supervise the others. Bireena was the best worker. She showed Nolda and Scaro which plants to choose, picking the most mature of the reeds that would contain the greatest concentration of the healing sap. The threadvines she stored in a separate leaf. Petru praised her lavishly, which made her lower her head in modest protest and Scaro growl under his breath.

  Petru shook his head. Silly fighter! Scaro should know by now that he had no interest in the drillmaster’s conquests. He was contented with his own love.

  The wind began to rush onshore from the sea, bringing with it scents of fish, salt, and an indefinable bitterness that made Petru lift his upper lip to taste it. Definitely Liskash. Scaro rose to his feet. He dropped handfuls of weed and reached over his shoulder for his spear.

  “Do you smell that?” Petru asked.

  “Been smelling it all night,” the drillmaster said, rolling his own upper lip to smell more accurately. “It’s getting strong. We ought to get to cover.”

  “I want to finish gathering these herbs,” Petru protested. “The lives of the others may depend upon them!”

  “Valet, that’s your job,” the lean Mrem said, frowning at Petru. “Mine is to make sure you get home to deliver them. Come on. You others, too! Leave the plants. We’ll come back when we’re safe.”

  Sherril looked pleased to leave the marshy clumps. He cast away the leaves he was holding and stood up.

  “I agree,” the gray councilor said. He brushed himself off. It was a futile gesture, since the mud clung to his fur. “Hurry. I don’t wish to be left out in the open when the Liskash arrive. Such a prize as I would make would cause a breakdown in morale in the camp.”

  Petru shook his head.

  “I very much doubt that,” he said. He turned to Nolda and Bireena. “Come on, then, my ladies! Let’s move to safety.”

  “We’ve got to cover our tracks first,” Scaro said. “Drown everything you’re not carrying with you. Try to leave it as natural-looking as you can. Good thing we didn’t light a fire.”

  The first faint hues of orange peeped over the jungle to the south. Petru fretted as he oversaw the burial of one parcel of leaves after another, but he was wary of attack. The drillmaster kept looking at the sky, then scanning the jungle. Now that Petru thought of it, it had been a long while since the two fighters had gone to scout out the riverbank. Why had they not returned?

  He took Nolda’s burdens and escorted the Dancer carefully over the steadiest footing. Bireena crept along close behind, picking her way with the ease of a native. Sherril, resentfully, brought up the rear with Scaro, who kept the spear at his shoulder in case he needed it.

  Mrem could move silently when they needed to. Petru prided himself that not a single blade of grass whispered at his passage. He could do nothing about the frogs that leaped across his path, nor the birds that dived at them, calling out. The increasingly unpleasant smell of Liskash seemed to come from all directions at once.

  They made back toward the eastern desert. With sunrise, dew that had settled overnight began to rise in a shimmering haze that obscured the ground. Petru squinted at the rippled landscape.

  “Head for the ravine where we slept yesterday,” Scaro ordered, pointing to the dark slit between the dunes far ahead. “We’ll find a defensible hole inland.”

  Petru picked up the pace, keeping his arm around the slim Dancer. Nolda protested that she was steady, but he could feel the weakness in her. It was still a good, long walk to the walls of stone. They had worked hard after a long night’s march. He could do with a good rest once he had the Dancer bedded down safely.

  He was weary, but was his eyesight playing tricks on him? The shadows near the entrance to the craggy pass seemed to move by themselves. Were they animals?

  The stink rolled toward them like an oncoming storm. Petru jerked to a stop.

  “Liskash! Back! Back!” Scaro shouted.

  The shadows jerked into motion. Dozens of bodies rose up out of the sands. Liskash, ranging in size from the behemoth beasts of burden to the small and very dangerous magician race, let out a roar and rushed toward the Mrem.

  Where had they come from? Petru threw himself between Nolda and the oncoming horde. He pushed her and Bireena before him and headed back the way they had come. Sherril let out a squawk. He shot past them, regardless of the sodden footing and sloshed his way downstream. Urged on by Scaro and Golcha, Petru followed. They were not far from the advancing Great Salt. He did not wish to have himself or his Dancer trapped between the wide sea and an army of dinos. He looked for a bolthole they could hide in, but the sloping land offered no openings.

  “Keep going!” Scaro shouted. “We’ll hold them off!”

  He unsheathed his sword from the back scabbard and brandished it. He and Golcha ran backwards, trying to keep close to the sound of the threshing as the Mrem fled through the heavy undergrowth. He scanned the rising bodies. Thank Aedonniss that the lizards moved more slowly than Mrem, especially in the cool of dawn. Come the day’s rising warmth their natural torpor would wear off, but Scaro hoped they would be safely out of reach by then. There had to be fifty or sixty of them!

  The swift-moving ones recovered from the cool of the night before the others. They began to outdistance their fellows. Golcha loosened the throwing knives that he wore in a bandolier across his chest.

  As the ravine narrowed, the water increased in velocity. Scaro feared being thrown off the slender path into the rushing stream. None of them knew how to swim. If they were washed out to sea, they were lost, as would be the cure for those back at the camp. All he could do was try to hold off the pursuers until Petru led the Dancer and the others to a place where they could hide. He believed in the valet’s knack for self-preservation.

  The first dinos, fine scales of a light gray-pink under their short fabric tunics and loose trews, loped toward them on long, thin legs with huge feet. Their skinny snouts opened to show rows of thin, sharp teeth. They hissed greedily, their long pink tongues darting in and out of their mouths.

  “They’re going to eat us, Drillmaster,” Golcha shouted. “Hope I make them choke!”

  “They’ll choke on their own blood,” Scaro vowed. He glanced back over his shoulder at the increasing slope. The vines crowding the sheer stone faces were so thick he couldn’t see the others. The water roared as it poured over a cataract. Stones larger than a house stuck up between the rapids. Scaro scanned them with an eye to try to guess if he could jump to the nearest one and make his way across.

  No. They didn’t have a chance of escape that way. Bett
er to die fighting.

  The lightly boned Liskash were almost upon them. Golcha let loose with one of his deadly missiles. It hit the first loper in the eye. It let out a high-pitched squeal and fell backwards, writhing. The four behind it leaped effortlessly over the body. Two of them bounced off the slope and landed just Mrem-lengths away from Scaro, brandishing spears tipped with gleaming bronze. The drillmaster gathered himself and bounded at them.

  In spite of their nimbleness, they were as slow to react as the rest of their kind. They missed Scaro with their initial blows. Instead, the drillmaster managed to plunge his spear down into the chest of the nearest one, then turned to rake his rear claws down the throat of the next one. The one with the blade in its eye tried to grab for him with long, skinny paws. Scaro freed his spear with a jerk, then jabbed it downward through the blinded Liskash’s other eye. The Liskash fell limp.

  Golcha whirled past him, cutting and jabbing at the two lopers that challenged him.

  “Taking left,” Scaro said. Golcha nodded sharply and concentrated on holding off the right-hand beast. The left-hand loper narrowed its black, beady eyes at him and lumbered backward, trying to figure out an advantageous attack. It jumped at him. Scaro sidestepped it easily and whacked it in the back of the head with the butt of his spear. It righted itself, shaking its narrow head. It turned and jabbed for Scaro’s throat with its own spear.

  The creatures couldn’t be too smart. Even taking into account the slowness of their attack, they missed obvious chances to strike. No, Scaro decided. Their job was to hold the prey in place until the rest of the hunting party could catch up.

  Which they did. Liskash riding spindly-legged dinos with long muzzles spurred toward them. Scaro counted four fists’ worth. He and the others couldn’t stand against a force that large.

  “Retreat,” he ordered Golcha. The fighter nodded curtly as he grappled with the remaining loper. The hissing dino knew it could not beat him on speed, so it relied upon strength. It wrapped its forelegs around the gray-striped Mrem and held onto him, kicking him with one sharp-toed foot. Golcha bellowed. Blood welled in gouges on his thigh. He fought to free his arm. The dino bent to bite his neck. Golcha brought his head up into its lower mandible. It bellowed. He raked his bronze claw-glove down the dino’s upper arm. The bellow turned to a scream. It clamped its limbs about Golcha and crushed him to its skinny chest. The Mrem grunted in pain.

  The lizard that found itself facing Scaro made to grasp him in the same fashion. Scaro didn’t want to leave his warrior’s side, but he had no choice. The creature lunged at him again and again. Scaro dodged and leaped. He had to stay out of its grasp. With his superior speed, he jabbed it again and again with his spear. It was well-armored, and its hide was tougher than he thought. He thrust at its eyes through the slits in its ugly helmet. It retreated, roaring in fury.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the others advancing. They were far too outnumbered to do anything. He had sworn to return the Dancer safely to the clan. He must not fail in his duty. Emoro counted upon him! He spun in and kicked the dino in the throat. It fell backward, but caught itself against the vine-covered stones. The blow had been blunted by the dino’s gorget. Curse all lizard-kin!

  “Aaaagh!” Golcha bellowed. The cry was cut off. Scaro could not spare a glance backward. More of the long-legged dinos had sprung up from the riverbank. He drew a deep breath and stalked toward them, swinging spear and sword. Every step felt heavier than the last one. He forced himself to listen for every sound, pay attention to every move, but his limbs betrayed him. They felt numb, as though they didn’t belong to him. He watched the sword rise. Its blade chopped into Liskash armor, bounded off. The spear point thrust toward flat black eyes, was turned aside. The heavy, wet air choked him. He fell back, and the thick greenery swallowed him. Hands, thousands of them, closed on every one of his limbs and tail. He was too weak to throw them off. He tried to catch his breath, but felt as though he was drowning in the very mud around their feet. He gasped, spat, and gasped again.

  Curse and curse again! He had caught the fever. Scaro watched as though from a great distance as he and Golcha were wrapped up in hunting nets, stripped of all armor and weaponry, and bundled onto the flanks of enormous dino beasts of burden.

  “I’m sorry I failed you, my drillmaster,” Golcha said, his voice shaky from the bumps on the path.

  “At least they won’t have us long,” Scaro said. He sneezed, expelling a gout of mucus onto the dino’s back. The explosion just barely cleared part of his stuffy head. “We’ll die on them and rob them of their victory.”

  * * *

  One could tell at once that the scrawny, purple-skinned lizard was the most important Liskash present. His clothes were more disgusting than anyone else’s. The Liskash’s overly ornate armor and sumptuous fabrics had been painted or dyed in a riot of clashing oranges and greens woven in patterns combined to present a horror of design that offended Petru’s artistic sensibilities. He could hardly bear to look at the creature.

  A scabrous, whiskery, itchy rope around his ankle tethering him to a post in a clearing hastily hacked from the surrounding forest with scythes and machetes, Petru still maintained his dignity. He would not show fear in the face of the pathetic excuse for a leader of the force that had kidnapped him.

  “Release us at once!” he demanded. The smell of which Nolda had complained was stronger than ever before, and he realized the other effect that he had noticed when they had entered Ckotliss, the Liskash stronghold, months before. His own voice sounded alien to him. It sounded weak and mewling, like a kitten’s, in his ears. He cleared his throat. “We do you no harm. We are merely passing through this place on our way to rejoin our kin in the far north on the other side of the Great Salt.”

  “Kin? How many of you are there?” the Liskash demanded. “Answer!”

  “I do not owe you an answer,” Petru said, raising his nose in the air. “You assail us from several directions, without explanation and without reason. Why should I trust you with information?”

  “I am General Unwal Nopli. My brother the Lord Oscwal Nopli holds these lands as his satrapy. I have every right to hold you and question you. You are trespassing. Your lives are forfeit for coming here.”

  Petru looked around. To him it looked as though a hasty camp had been set up on the grassy fields of what remained of rolling countryside. The Great Salt encroached upon all but the highest lands. According to the Mrem who had once lived in this region, the streambed down which he and the others had just run opened out into a fertile delta, the end of which must have been drowned in the rising waters. Evidently, the flood came so swiftly it caught the dinos by surprise.

  He surveyed the Liskash who occupied the camp. There were females and young huddled near the trees under makeshift shelters of hides and woven cloths. Their clothing, although just as horrible in terms of color and design as the soldiers’ uniforms, suggested that they were among the wellborn. Yet, even though the garments were expensive, they had seen a lot of hard wear and little cleaning. He guessed that Oscwal and Unwal were as homeless as the Lailah. Their lack made them more dangerous than Liskash ensconced in a comfortable home.

  “What is this?” one of the guards asked. He had upended Petru’s personal pack. In his scaly fist, he held two out horn vials of the sparkle powder that Petru wore daily on his fur and with which he adorned the Dancers when they performed rituals. “Some kind of magic?”

  Petru made a grab for them, but the lizards at his side held him back.

  “They are my property. Give them here!”

  Unwal signed to the soldier, who put the stoppered tubes into his palm. Unwal opened first one, then the other, spilling ruby and sapphire powder onto the ground in glittering heaps. Petru struggled against his captors.

  “No! You fool!”

  “You dare to call me a fool, when I hold your lives in my hand?” Unwal asked. He closed his fist and squeezed. The fragile bottles shattered. He dro
pped the shards and ground them into the dirt with his heel. Petru swallowed. Now was not the time to voice his outrage, but he vowed the lizard would pay for his loss.

  “We do not wish to cause any trouble, Great General,” Petru said, switching to his most unctuous and wheedling tones. “Please release us, and we will be on our way.”

  “No. I require answers. What are you doing here? How many of you are there?”

  Petru thought quickly. He would never reveal the true reason for their presence. In spite of Bau’s insistence that those who remained behind could defend the camp, the number of Mrem remaining healthy was small and diminished every day. But the Liskash need know nothing of them, not when he had a Dancer at his side. To his surprise, Nolda and Bireena had not been tied up as the males had been. Surely the Liskash knew that the Dancer was far more dangerous than any of them.

  “Our home was drowned by the coming of the great flood,” Petru said. He spread out his hands to indicate the few of them there. “We few were cut off from our kinfolk in the north. All we wish to do is rejoin them. We are all that is left of a great city. All we wish to do is make our way to the north. We will be out of your realm by evening.”

  “Why were you in the Broadleaf Marsh?”

  “Foraging. This great lady,” he added, indicating Nolda, his voice falling into a persuasive purr, “has found the journey difficult. She is not feeling her best. Our journey rations have not been kind to her digestion. I thought to supplement her diet with soft foods from the marshlands. You would not begrudge her a frog or two? Perhaps some eggs?”

  “Bah,” General Unwal said, with a dismissive wave. “A female? She should be grateful for whatever scraps you throw her way. She is of no importance except to give pleasure to her owners and bear sons.”

  Petru felt outrage rise in his ample belly. He lifted a talon and aimed it at the Liskash’s nose.

  “You! You do not understand!”

  Sherril Rangawo cleared his throat meaningfully and lowered his ears in Petru’s direction. As little as he liked the diplomat, Petru had to admit that he probably knew more of Liskash customs than he did. His primary concern was the well-being of the Dancers, not petty bureaucracy, but the Liskash ought to know how wrong he was. He opened his mouth to say so.