By Tooth and Claw

by S. M. Stirling

  “Burn it, Valet,” Sherril said. “Ruin the food. Let them go hungry as we are. Once they are too weak, we can slit these hobbles and run away. Soon they will be in no condition to chase us.”

  “I can’t,” Petru said, with a glance over his shoulder at Unwal. “He’s no fool. He will know if the geese are too long on the spit. Later today I will make them take me to hunt for herbs. I will promise a cure, but I will formulate false medicines. Once they are helpless, we can escape. I need to get back to Lady Cleotra.”

  “Why wait until the fever takes them?” Taadar asked. “Bireena and I have been working hard all morning.” He beckoned to Bireena. The former slave hobbled toward them.

  “Lord Petru, I wish to help you,” Bireena said, her expression carefully blank. She even kept her tail still. “I have herbs to season the meat.”

  “What, did you manage to find spices?” Petru asked. “He opened the huge leaf she handed him. It was full of gripeweed. The grin spread across his black-furred face so widely that it could have touched his ears. “Oh, this will be a most flavorful meal!”

  “Be prepared to flee when the moment is right,” Sherril told the others. “I will give you the signal.”

  “We’ll be ready,” Scaro said. He still looked as though a strong breeze would blow him over, but his determination held him upright.

  * * *

  When the geese were done, Petru arranged a platter with the most tender and perfectly roasted pieces of meat, alongside a salad of green leaves mixed with white and purple berries, and flavored with wild scallions. It looked as delicious as anything he might serve his precious Dancers. With as much grace as the hobbles between his ankles would allow, he presented the platter with a flourish to General Unwal.

  “This is the finest of our produce of the day,” Petru said. “I hope you will enjoy it.”

  “I shall,” Unwal said. He stared at Petru, never looking at the food. “Eat it.”

  Petru blinked.

  “What?”

  “If it is so fine, you won’t mind tasting it for me. All of you,” he said, gesturing the other Mrem forward. Guards surrounded them and forced them forward with the points of their spears. “Come here.”

  “But why, General?” Petru asked. He wondered if the purple Liskash could see into his mind and see him chopping up gripeweed to mix into the salad and the sauce on the meat. The smirk on the dino’s face suggested that he could. Petru felt his insides twist.

  “You are so solicitous of our health and well-being,” General Unwal said, pointing a skinny finger at him. “I do not believe slaves care so much for their masters. My men were not ill before you came. You must be poisoning them. This could be an attempt to poison me. Therefore, you will eat what you have prepared for me.”

  “Oh, no,” Petru said, holding up his hands. “I couldn’t. This is a feast for you, good General.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Unwal said, his eyes fixed on Petru’s. He tightened his fingers. The valet felt the invisible hand tighten on his windpipe. He released the hold and signaled one of his men to bring him beer. A green-faced dino hurried to do his general’s bidding. Unwal took a long drink from his enameled beaker and smacked his thin lips. “Eat, or you all die. I am patient. I can wait.”

  Petru gazed at him, focusing all the hate in his body on the creature before him. His vengeance was coming.

  “So can I.” He reached for the platter.

  * * *

  “I don’t sense Liskash nearby,” Ysella said. The young Dancer stalked along the crumbling path toward the rushing waters of the new sea. Every so often, she glanced at the broad expanse of water, expecting it to reach up and sweep her off the rise. If it was true that the Great Salt grew every day, then they were in danger.

  “Can’t you smell them?” Emoro asked, wrinkling his scarred nose.

  “I can, but there’s something wrong with the smell.”

  The five tawny-coated females following in Ysella’s train, her apprentices, nodded their agreement.

  Emoro had to concur with the females’ opinion, but what else could he do? He had to find Petru and the priestess Nolda and bring them back safely. The trail led in this direction, at least for a while.

  He had set them a rapid march from the camp over the last day and a half. When they reached the marshlands that had been Petru’s stated destination, he had found signs of considerable activity. Threshed paths went off in all directions from that point. Broken branches leading downhill alongside the river to the north made him think that Petru had run into some trouble. Emoro followed traces, spotting a footprint here, a chopped branch there. He listened, but he couldn’t hear any voices, only birds and other creatures calling. Where was Petru?

  The Liskash stink was everywhere. He couldn’t rely upon his nose, but he trusted his eyes, and the Dancers had a way of sensing the presence of the cursed dinos. They chopped and pushed through the thick overgrowth, hoping to discover the route taken by their lost loved ones.

  Downhill to the north, he had come across a discarded bronze claw hand. He recognized it as one of Imrun’s prized possessions. More crushed and torn foliage, being swiftly overgrown by the hungry jungle, told him that there had been a struggle there. Scattered handfuls of fur also decorated the bushes, including thick, plushy black tufts he knew had come from Petru. They had come this way. Were they prisoners? Had they been killed? Emoro felt his soul sink, but he had to press on to discover the truth.

  The young females had the kind of energy that Emoro had once possessed. He was reluctant to risk sending them out as scouts, but they were eager to help. Two of the tawny lasses raced down the path and disappeared over a slight rise.

  They returned almost immediately, looks of horror on their faces.

  “They’re all dead!” one of the girls wailed. “Bodies everywhere, Mrem and Liskash!”

  Ysella let out a little chirp. All the courage she had shown had fled.

  “It must not be true!”

  Emoro pushed them aside and ran down the forest path. His heart pounded. Petru dead? The Dancer lost to them? He could not imagine either of those horrors. The young females and Gilas ran beside him, then outdistanced him. Ysella emitted her peeps of terror, showing again how young she was. Emoro wished he could console her, but he feared what he would see.

  Gasping, he burst through the last hanging branches. With a backwards bound, he caught himself just Mrem-lengths from the edge of a precipice. The path was sheared off as though by an axe.

  “Where are they?” he demanded. One of the girls pointed downward.

  Emoro prided himself on being battle-hardened over his decades of life, but he was shocked by what he saw at the foot of the cliff. The massive tumble of stones and masonry in the lapping water spoke of a horrifying cataclysm. An entire city looked to have perished. Ysella burst into tears.

  As the girls had said, Liskash and Mrem corpses littered the rockfall. Birds and other scavengers worried at the bodies, shrieking their delight at such a bounty. A black shadow stretched over a piece of shattered wall caught his eye. The body was broad enough to be Petru. He couldn’t see the Dancer, but surely she must lie near the valet. He would have protected her to the end. His heart clenched in his chest. He must not weep. He had to rescue the bodies and give them decent burial.

  “We must get down to them,” he said. Desperately, he sought about for a path down to the water’s edge. The broken land started to crumble at his feet. Perhaps he could hug the cliff face and climb. “Stay here,” he cautioned Gilas. “Protect the Dancer.”

  “No, Fistmaster,” Ysella said, catching his arm as he dropped to his belly. Her voice was suddenly steady. “Don’t go down.”

  “That is Petru there. He is dead!”

  She pulled him back from the precipice.

  “Breathe, Emoro. Smell. There is no life here, but these died too long ago to be our kinsfolk. I swear it. Smell.”

  Emoro fought back his grief. He was annoyed that his
nose was becoming clogged with the oncoming fever, but he blew it clear and inhaled deeply.

  The stink of rotting corpses almost knocked him over. He looked down. With new eyes, he surveyed the scene. That poor Mrem on the rocks was not Petru. Its fur was far too short. The skin that showed in rents torn in its coat by the scavengers had turned a dark purple green. He nodded.

  “Thank you, Dancer. You’re right. These poor souls are half a moon dead. When our clan passes this way, we’ll give them decent burial. But now we have to go back again to find . . . to find the priestess. But, where?”

  For answer, Ysella closed her eyes. She began to move backward and forward as the goddess began to speak through her. When she opened her eyes, it was as though another Mrem occupied her body. She turned and began to walk sure-footedly along the cliff to another path, a wide, well-traveled road. It, too, stank of Liskash, many centuries’ worth.

  The females cleared the way for Ysella. She walked, seemingly heedless of the vines that trailed down onto the road. A wide bridge of boards and ropes took them over the roaring falls to the far side of the river. They passed small outbuildings and empty paddocks, a brewhouse and a flour mill, showing that the Liskash had abandoned the area completely when their city collapsed.

  The sun climbed up from their right shoulders, over their heads and descended halfway along their left by the time they heard sounds other than their own breathing. Ysella seemed to be in a trance almost the entire time, not stopping for food or water. Emoro wished he had some of that gods-given strength. His worry was causing him to flag. He needed to rest, but he had to go on. If there was a chance to find the others alive, he had to be alert for it.

  The sounds of voices shouting mixed with screams brought Emoro out of his torpor. He judged them to be about fifty Mrem-lengths ahead. He signed to the youngsters to halt.

  They stepped off the main path and crouched down to arm themselves from their packs. Gilas had full armor, as had Emoro. Each of the young females had a gorget to protect their vulnerable necks and clawed gauntlets on their hands. Each of them had daggers and knew how to use them. Emoro and Gilas took their spears from their packs and held them to stab, not throw. At Emoro’s nod, they crept forward toward the sound of voices. He couldn’t distinguish who was speaking, only they sounded like they were in terrible pain. He was all too aware of what the Liskash did to prisoners. He hoped that he would be in time to save his kinsfolk.

  The smell of death also impinged on his senses. They came upon piles of carcasses, but these were fresh. No Mrem were among these dead. The picked bones were those of frogs, geese and fish, no more than a couple of days old. He also smelled worse odors: blood, vomit and feces. On top of all that was a sweet, familiar aroma. He lifted his upper lip to smell it more thoroughly. His eyes narrowed.

  “What is that?” one of the girls asked, keeping her voice low. “It smells like . . . perfume. Flowers and spice.”

  In spite of his worry, Emoro couldn’t help but smile. “It’s Petru,” he whispered. “I don’t know if he lives or not, but that’s his scent. Come on. He needs us. We need to spy out what is ahead.”

  They crept forward, stopping to listen every other Mrem-length.

  Not far ahead, Emoro heard a terrible moan.

  “That’s Scaro,” he said. “I’ll bet my left foot on it. Come on!”

  As silently as shadows, the Mrem wove in and out of trees and skirted bushes.

  Just short of a huge tree, Emoro stopped. His eyes watered at the sharp, noxious odor. He’d found the dinos’ latrine. Someone else was there. He went on high alert. But the shadow was not a Liskash. Huge gold eyes stared at him out of the shadow.

  “Who is it?” a female voice whispered.

  “Fistmaster Emoro Awr,” he whispered back.

  “Blessed be Aedonniss!”

  He crept closer and recognized Bireena. She was kneeling, not the usual pose to evacuate one’s bowels. He realized she was sitting next to a body. Emoro looked at it in horror.

  Scaro lay sprawled on the ground, his eyes open and staring. They had discarded his corpse on the midden heap! Emoro swore he would have vengeance for that insult!

  Then the “corpse” moaned.

  Emoro ran to kneel beside his drillmaster.

  “What did they do to you?” he whispered, helping him to sit up.

  “They?” Scaro replied. “He!”

  “He? A Liskash?”

  “No! That Petru. His potions are noxious. I’ve grunted my guts out almost hard enough to turn me inside out! The rest of us are no better. Bireena’s been watching over me like gentle Assirra herself.” His eyes were glassy, but they fixed on Emoro’s. “But it worked, Fistmaster. By the gods, it worked. That valet is the smartest Mrem who ever lived.”

  Emoro almost sat down on the pile of leaves and dung.

  “He’s alive?”

  Scaro laughed, then winced as his belly spasmed. Bireena gathered his head into her lap and stroked his face.

  “Maybe you’d better go and see for yourself, Fistmaster. But leave me alone for a while. I’m in no shape to move.”

  The drillmaster curled up around his abused belly and went back to moaning. Emoro chuckled to himself. It wasn’t the way the randy drillmaster would have liked to be alone with a nubile female, but for the moment, he wasn’t complaining. Emoro pushed through the trees and into the clearing.

  Petru sat in the general’s chair with his feet propped on Unwal’s corpse. The clearing stank of excrement, but the only dead were the Liskash general and a couple of the guards. All of the Liskash had leaped upon the food and devoured it, but they had all been exposed to Scaro. In their weakened condition, the Liskash succumbed to the fever in a matter of hours. They had become disoriented and thirsty. Naturally, they had begged for drink. Petru was happy to provide it to them. Nolda, Bireena and Sherril had poured the small beer liberally to one and all.

  The general had been wrong. The gripeweed had not been in the food, but in the beer. Overcome with the illness and the twisting in his guts, Unwal had fallen over dead in between the main course and dessert. Petru kicked the body again. It was beginning to stiffen. It would do as a footrest until it started to stink. The others, all the females and children, and half the soldiers, had become meek and docile, begging him to help cure them of their loose bowels. Only time would do that, he noted with satisfaction. He lifted his lip to take in the stink, even to revel in it. Sometimes triumph smelled bad. He might never drink beer again.

  “Petru!”

  He looked up. Delight shot through him faster than the spasms of pain in his belly. He saw the face of the Mrem he loved above all, and beckoned to him.

  “Emoro! Come and see our triumph!”

  * * *

  Once back in Mrem camp, Petru prepared his new collection of threadvine and water reeds into a strong infusion that he gave to all the sufferers in the camp. The herbs arrested the symptoms and began to reverse them rapidly. Cleotra regained her wits and her appetite after one day, and was beginning to put on a little bit of weight. Cassa, too, was able to retain food. Petru fed her tiny bites and sips of mild foods until she felt well enough to sit up and drink soup on her own.

  “I chopped some lily herbs fine. It gives the broth flavor, but it is also good for your blood,” he said. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  “Oh, I missed you, Petru,” Cassa said with a smile. She was still weaker than he would have liked, but so much better than she had been even the morning they had returned. “I prayed to Assirra to favor you. I am so grateful that she intervened for you with Lord Aedonniss.” She rubbed her ear against his cheek affectionately as Petru arranged cushions behind her back. Thankfully, he could now keep all his beloved patients clean. His own coat had had to be washed many times to get the stink of the Liskash camp out of it. He wore his favorite perfume and a puff or two of silver sparkle powder. How he had missed his adornments while in captivity! “So you defeated an entire village of Li
skash with a handful of leaves and a sick warrior?”

  Petru smiled.

  “Lady Nolda told us she had a vision that this battle would be won with intelligence and patience, not strength,” he said. He couldn’t help being pleased with himself, but he had to bestow credit where it was due.

  “Yes, she told me,” Cassa said. They looked toward the sunny edge of the hide tent, where the slender sable female and Cleotra lay side by side on broad cushions stuffed with sweet grass. Cleotra’s famous temper had been calmed now that she was cured of her fever. Nolda’s kits tumbled and wrestled in the sunshine a Mrem-length away. Cassa beamed on them all with maternal pride. “They will recover very soon, will they not?”

  “Yes, dear lady.”

  “I can hardly believe that Sherril Rangawo was actually of some use to you!”

  Petru could have embellished the truth, but there was no need.

  “He was a true Mrem, although he moaned all the way on the walk back here, a night and a day and another night. If he’d had his way, I would have had to carry him on my back, but there was no chance of that. My duty and my strength were in the service of the Dancers. Young Ysella was a credit to us and your training. Emoro and I want you to know how brave she was. But, Bireena! She showed so much ingenuity and fortitude that she could have been born Lailah.”

  “I will take her into my care,” Cassa promised. “And Scaro Ullenh? He sounded as if he was the sickest of all.”

  “They are already mending,” Petru promised her. “All of them. We will all live to continue our journey.”

  “Under your protection?” Cleotra asked teasingly. “You have the wit and determination to be a great leader. I hope you always shall use your gifts to aid us as Aedonniss and gentle Assirra do.”

  “Oh, I would not put myself on an equal footing with the gods,” Petru said. He looked at her playfully from under half-lowered lids. “They put the ingredients in my grasp. I only prepared the feast.”