By Tooth and Claw

by S. M. Stirling

  “Our customs are not the same as yours, General,” Sherril said, cutting off Petru’s retort. “We Mrem live more simply than you do. We hold our females to be our equal because they are able to give birth. But let us not argue over cultural differences. We have no intention to offend. All we wish is your forbearance. If you would allow us to pass unmolested through your land, we would do you a service in return.”

  General Unwal glared at Petru.

  “You let your servants speak before you? I would beat him if he was mine!”

  Sherril’s mouth dropped open in shock. Petru felt unholy glee swell in his heart. He would take advantage of that misapprehension. But not now, dear Assirra, while the Dancer is in mortal peril.

  “Why do you think he outranks me?” Sherril snapped.

  “I do not converse with those of lowly bearing,” Unwal said, not even bothering to address the diplomat. He frowned at Petru. “I never let my servants speak. Why do you tolerate such nerve?”

  “He has his uses,” Petru said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. In spite of the dire circumstances, he enjoyed the moment. “As you see by his filthy fur, he was searching out birds’ nests to provide food for us. But might I ask, Great General, if you recognize me as a person of quality, why you continue to hold us prisoner? We are few.” He pointed to Scaro and Golcha. “I have only these bodyguards to protect my elegant person from harm. We could not possibly do you harm.”

  To prove that Aedonniss had a sense of irony that would have pleased any Dancer performing a tale, at that moment, two of the enormous beasts of burden lumbered into the clearing. The Liskash riding just behind the broad, horned skulls jerked up on the loose end of ropes. Freed by the motion, two huge hunting nets tumbled to the ground. Cries erupted from the tangled mass of twine. Petru was both dismayed and relieved to see the other warriors, Taadar and Imrun. They were alive, but the timing of their reappearance could not have been more unfortunate. Petru had hoped they had managed to remain at large in the jungle to effect their rescue. That faint hope had been extinguished.

  “And what are these, then?” General Unwal demanded. “What is the true number of your party? Answer!”

  Petru held his chin up.

  “These are all. I had assumed that these two whom you have just restored to me had fled into the wilderness. Our supplies are nearly gone, as you must know from your brutal search of our baggage. They were hungry, as were the rest of us.”

  “You don’t look as though you have gone without for very long,” the Liskash said, lowering his scaly eyelids halfway over his flat black eyes. If he had been a Mrem, Petru would have thought he indulged in irony.

  “Naturally,” Petru said, refusing to take the bait. “Among our kind, my shape is considered to be desirable.”

  “All it means to me is that you have plenty of meat on your bones,” General Unwal said. “We, too, seek comestibles. I think we need look no further for a time. It is well. We will take one of the less valuable of your number first. That female has well-molded muscles.” He pointed at Nolda. “They will be well-flavored, if tough.”

  Petru was so horrified at the notion that he sputtered.

  “Eat Nolda? She is a priestess of my people! I would sooner offer myself to your knives!”

  “That would be acceptable. We hunger. Which of you sates it, slave or master, makes no difference.”

  “No!” Scaro exclaimed, springing to the end of his bonds. “They are all under my protection.”

  The guards surrounding General Unwal lumbered forward, wielding the butts of their spears as bludgeons. They weren’t as quick as the drillmaster, but they had him outnumbered. Scaro fought to avoid them. The heavy wooden staves rose and fell again and again, impacting him upon every part of his body. Petru cringed. The drillmaster fought bravely until a glancing blow took him in the side of his head. He dropped to the ground, moaning. Golcha pulled his senior officer back toward the stake to which they were tethered and tended to Scaro’s bruises. Unwal watched the interplay with as little emotion on his face as if he was watching clouds pass.

  “You have no power here,” Unwal said. “My will is law. Take the female.”

  “Never!” Petru said, interposing himself between the guards and Nolda. He could sense her muscles tensing to defend them both. It would be a brief victory because the Mrem were such a small group in the midst of the enemy. “Do not touch her! I . . . I . . . I command it!”

  “I do not listen to the commands of chattel,” Unwal said. At last he evinced an emotion. It was boredom. His indifference inflamed Petru. He felt his chest swelling with indignation.

  “Calm, calm,” Sherril said in an even voice, though Petru sensed he was as frightened as the rest of the Mrem. “None of us want to be eaten, Great General. You speak from desperation, unbecoming to one of your rank. Let us help you. The Dancer would be too tough for your palate, and my lord Petru here would give you indigestion. You are hungry, as we are. Let us seek out better food for you, much more to your taste.”

  “Your servant speaks before you again, fat one,” Unwal said.

  “But in this case he makes good sense,” Petru replied. “Forgive the outbursts of my retinue. We would be glad to forage on your behalf, in exchange for our lives. Why kill a hunter instead of making use of her skills?”

  “That does make sense,” Unwal said, after a moment’s thought. Assirra’s paws, but Liskash were slow! “Go, then.”

  * * *

  The two younger warriors, Imrun and Taadar, kept their heads down in shame as the Mrem were marched north again to the green bog, burdened with nets and baskets. Scaro’s voice was hoarse as he chided them for their carelessness in being captured.

  “Making mistakes a half-grown kitten would laugh at!” he snarled, then sneezed vigorously. His bruises didn’t seem to slow him down. He strode ahead with as much vigor as a considerably younger Mrem. The others hurried their pace to keep up. “You let them sneak up on you! Lizards, who stomp like trees falling! I could have heard them coming fifty Mrem-lengths off. But not you! Oh, no! They come right up on you, close enough to throw a net over your stupid furry heads. Serve you right for being so unaware of your surroundings if they did eat you!”

  “Sorry, Drillmaster,” one murmured.

  “Won’t happen again, Drillmaster,” said the other.

  “You are thunderstorming right it isn’t going to happen again!” Scaro said. He sneezed again, spraying green mucus on the ground. Petru regarded the mess with distaste as he stepped over it. “You’re on guard rotation from now until next winter, do you understand?”

  “Yes, Drillmaster,” they said dolefully.

  “I can’t hear you!”

  “Yes! Drillmaster!”

  “Huh,” Scaro said, and sneezed so hard he barked his chin on his neck guard.

  “Quiet!” ordered Captain Horisi, the most senior of the Liskash guard accompanying them. He commanded two fists of four lizards each, who prodded the Mrem on the northbound trail with the stone points of their spears. Their uniforms were as putrid in color and design as the general’s had been, tabards of a bruiselike plum overlaying scale mail in a burnt ash gray that did nothing to flatter their ridiculous rainbow-hued complexions. No two of the dinos were the same color. On their backs they carried packs made of the skin of some scaly creature and jugs containing small beer that smelled as though it was already going off. “No talking in ranks!”

  “I will, I will,” Scaro assured him. “Once I finish giving these two adolescents a piece of my mind! If this is how they defend themselves, I fear for the lives of anyone else in their care! You wouldn’t let a recruit behave so badly! No more would I!”

  Petru, listened with half an ear, but he fretted at every step. Could they find enough food to satisfy the Liskash so they would not attempt to prey upon the Mrem? The Dancer must return safely to the tribe! Oh, how he wished he had never permitted her to join them!

  Nolda must have sensed the worry in his soul.
She came to walk beside him and laid a gentle hand on his arm.

  “We will be all right,” she said. “There is no death in the air. Gentle Assirra pleads for our lives every moment from her husband. We will succeed by wit and determination.”

  “I add my humble prayers to yours, dear Nolda,” Petru said. “I wish that you were back . . .” He glanced over his shoulder warily at the armored lizards following them only a pace or two off their twitching tails and listening as closely as their limited hearing allowed. He raised his voice dramatically. “. . . Back in our homeland, on the highest ground possible.”

  Ahead of them, heavy-bodied marsh birds flew back and forth among the hanging vines and thick-leaved branches of the trees. He watched where they stooped for food, and where they deposited the fruits of the hunt. Bright-blue, thin-skinned amphibians seemed to be plentiful as well as frogs in every shade of green. When they reached the boggy shore, the guards put short-handled, almost dull harvesting knives in their hands and pushed them forward.

  “Work!” the captain said.

  “There is plenty here,” Petru said. “Why aren’t your foragers at work? I could feed our entire clan—that is, when we were at home—on what I can see within three Mrem-lengths of where I am standing!”

  “We don’t wallow in mud like you Mrem,” Captain Horisi said with a sneer. “Hurry up! You have until the sun’s at its peak. Then we go back. If you don’t have enough for the general’s nooning, the meal will be you.”

  Petru shot him a peeved look.

  “Let us do our job. There is no need for threats.”

  For answer, the senior pulled a dagger from his belt and ran a thumb up and down the short, curved blade. Petru shivered when he realized that the hilt had been cut from a Mrem’s thighbone. If Aedonniss was kind, he would have revenge for that lost kinsman.

  Petru turned to the others.

  “There are birds’ nests in the roots of the biggest trees,” he said, pointing. “There, there and there. I’ve watched the males feeding the brooding females.”

  Bireena nodded, her large eyes watchful. “I will gather eggs,” she said.

  “Help her,” Scaro ordered Taadar and Golcha. “Take frogs and birds, too. Fish if you can get them.” They saluted and trudged into the shallows after the female. Imrun stayed by Nolda’s side, helping her to pull roots and plants from the sucking wet soil.

  * * *

  “No, Councilor, that way.” Scaro grabbed Sherril by the arm and pulled him toward the patches where they had been picking vegetables before.

  “Hands off me, Drillmaster,” Sherril said, straightening his back and brushing his fur smooth again. It wasn’t easy, considering how much mud was trapped in his coat. “Remember your place! My rank is loftier than any you will achieve in your life.”

  “With respect, Councilor, time is fleeting,” Scaro said, keeping his voice as level as he could. They were badly outnumbered. Aedonniss only knew what would happen if he was the only one to return to the camp without the Dancer. Sherril Rangawo’s ego was the least of his problems. He sniffed mightily, trying to clear his nose, and glanced over his shoulder at the Liskash guards following them. “Well, Captain, what do you want us to look for? What tastes good to you?”

  The guard, by no means a captain, looked startled to be addressed directly by a Mrem.

  “Don’t grows about here,” he said curtly.

  Sherril picked up immediately on Scaro’s approach. The drillmaster was a clever one, appealing to the vanity of the guards, who occupied the lowest stratum in Liskash society.

  “Well, what did you call them, Captain? Though my pronunciation may sound incorrect to one such as you, I spent some time in the citadel of Ckotliss, and I know the tastes of the satrap there.”

  The scaly blue brow ridge rose toward the pink crest.

  “You knows Tae Shanissi?” the Liskash asked. Sherril didn’t doubt he was impressed.

  “Oh, yes,” Sherril said. “You may say I was very close to him for a time.” He glanced at Scaro, admonishing him with a look not to tell the truth about that encounter.

  “Well, we calls them marsh plums, but they isn’t fruits. Exactly. But juicy eatings.”

  This was a slow thinker, Sherril realized.

  “I know marsh plums. We call them ‘racano.’ They’re vegetables, but very juicy. You know, Tae Shanissi never got fresh marsh plums, as you call them. They only came to him dried. So you were getting better food than Lord Tae himself.”

  The guard looked pleased.

  “Well, hurry up and finds them! Hasn’t ate in days. Don’t want stringy meat.” He plucked at Sherril’s arm. Sherril withdrew it hastily.

  “Yes, Captain. As you say, Captain.” He glanced around for Petru. The valet stood with his hands on his broad hips, barking orders. The big oaf had managed to conscript the three Liskash who were supposed to be guarding him into picking caltha, a flowerlike pod that contained succulent seeds like those in a pomegranate. He did not so much as deign to hold a bag open for them to throw the fruits into. “Oh, my lord Petru!”

  Petru glanced back, startled at the title, then undulated toward Sherril, enjoying the moment. Oh, that big fool was going to pay once they returned to the camp!

  “And what do you want, Sherril?” he asked, without a courtesy title of any kind.

  Sherril held his tongue. He assumed a humble expression such as he would wear when addressing Bau Dibsea.

  “The good captain here would like to eat racano. This ignorant servant of yours knows not where to seek them. From your vast knowledge, tell me where they are to be found?”

  “They shelter, as my ignorant servant ought to know,” Petru said, “under the leaves of their parent plant, which looks like the folded wings of two doves placed side by side, just above the water of this lifegiving region.” He pointed to a flattened, bushy shrub the size of a mature Mrem. Its broad leaves had two rounded edges on either side of the stem, and terminated in a sharp single point. “There is one, and several more beyond. You can just see the rounded shapes of the fruits beneath. If the skin gives slightly under pressure, they are ready to eat. Unripe ones are too sharp of flavor.”

  “Yes, Lord Petru,” Sherril said. He beckoned to the guards to follow him. They did, but when he handed a green-faced subordinate a net to receive the racano, it dropped the seine to the ground.

  “Pick!” the green guard ordered. He grabbed Scaro by the scruff of his neck and shoved him down next to Sherril. “Both!”

  Scaro bounded to his feet at once, glaring at their captor, but he was met by a circle of sharp flint spear points.

  “Come help me, Drillmaster,” Sherril said. He handed the discarded bag to the soldier. “At least we don’t have to dirty our paws to take these. They are above the water.”

  Scaro nodded and began to gather fruit as Petru had instructed them. He cleared the first plant of all the ripe ones and moved onto another bush nearby. Sherril felt gingerly at the first one he encountered, wondering if there was enough give in the flesh to ensure it was ripe. He had no wish to endure the kind of mistreatment that he had heard of from the captive Mrem they had freed from the citadel of Ckotliss. The Liskash were horrifically creative in their torture of those who displeased them. At least underlings such as the guards were not capable of the kind of magic of their superiors. Perhaps even General Unwal lacked that mental control. He glanced back at the green-faced guard.

  “How did all of you end up here in the midst of this forest, Captain?” he asked, in polite tones. “It is not usual for your kind to live in wild settings. I thought you preferred stone houses. You must have a very fine home somewhere, Captain.” It was purest flattery, as the wrist flashings on the gaudy uniform indicated this Liskash was barely above recruit rank.

  “Gnopsmal was walled on a cliff,” the guard said, with an expression that might almost have been nostalgic. He took the jug from his shoulder strap and poured some of the yellow liquid into his mouth. “Not as big as
some, like Ckotliss big. Saws the floods. Lord says no fear, stays, we ups high. The waters ates the cliff and all falls down half a moon ago on top of port. Ships sinks. Three in four dies. All Mrems still alive ran away. Lord Oscwal takes half army and workers see to rebuild it in the south, high dry. If you lives, you wills become part of the labors on the new walls.”

  “We would be honored,” Sherril said. This was not the time to argue. “I am sure it will be a great city once again. And all of your cropland?”

  “Gone first in waters rush,” the soldier said curtly. He waved a scaly hand. “Hurry. I hungers!” He withdrew to stand with his captain on a hump of land that rose a mere Mrem’s height above the marsh. It was not tall, but it provided a vantage point from which they could see all the Mrem. They didn’t need to be swift on their feet; their bows would take down fleeing prisoners. Sherril reached for a racano, judged it to be too hard, and threw it over his shoulder. It landed with a plop on the water and sank. Scaro sneezed, spraying pale green slime over the plant before him. Sherril jumped back, brushing at himself.

  “Ugh, Drillmaster, that’s disgusting!”

  Petru suddenly loomed over them.

  “And why are you not working?” he asked.

  “You need to gather plants and food, too,” Sherril said sourly. Petru shook his head.

  “I must maintain my subterfuge of being your liege lord,” Petru said. “General Unwal finds me impressive. To surrender that position now would only confuse matters.”

  “He only seeks to eat you,” Sherril said.

  Scaro sneezed again.

  “Gah!” he said. “My guts are rumbling, even though there’s nothing in them.”

  Petru regarded him with worried eyes. The slender Mrem’s eyes had filmed over with their nictitating membrane, but also by a thin layer of mucus. If their strongest arm was falling ill, they were doomed.