by S. M. Stirling, Harry Turtledove, Jody Lynn Nye, John Ringo; Michael Z. Williamson
The Liskash had decreed that he was too old, sick and feeble to be worth feeding and so should be allowed to starve. There wasn’t enough food to share with him, so Tral, their healer, had given him a sleeping draught from which he would not wake. The circle would mourn him, remember his life and honor his passing.
And so, they sat silently waiting.
That was where Hisshah and her small group of guards found them. The arrival of the Liskash made all of the Mrem crouch, eyes down and hands flat on the ground.
* * *
Hisshah, known as the lesser goddess to the Liskash and the young goddess to the Mrem, looked them over.
At least they’re reasonably well disciplined, she thought. But how can I turn creatures so cowed and worthless into soldiers? Mrem haul weights and scrub and carry.
“Which of you speaks for all?” she asked.
“I do, young goddess,” Ranowr said.
“Come here and kneel before me,” she commanded.
When he was before her she studied him. He was taller than most Liskash, and broad and sturdy like all of his kind. He looked healthy and strong, and probably wasn’t really tubby; that was the disgusting fuzz. The steward saw to the health of the slaves. And while it was true that a weak slave was a worthless slave, you didn’t want them too frisky.
Still, if they’re to be soldiers perhaps I should increase their rations, she mused. If anything goes wrong, I can tell my mother than it is all her fault.
That thought made her hiss slightly with laughter; blame flowed downward, gain upward; so the world was. She would ask the steward; he was the expert on Mrem. But for tonight, the first night she would be eating after her long fast, she had other plans.
“Which of your fellows can you spare?” she said, with a hiss of command.
She watched Ranowr carefully for any sign he might make, but he remained motionless. Some of the others were less controlled. One toward the back, with nicks in his ears and a grizzled face, looked sharply at Ranowr. It didn’t take a deep knowledge of Mrem to know that he was older than the others.
She pounced.
“That one!”
The guards moved forward and took him by the arms. Hisshah and her party began to move away.
“He’s a good worker,” Ranowr said, still kneeling, his eyes carefully down. “Skilled in the care of bundor and hamsticorns.”
Hisshah paused and turned to look at him in disbelief. “Are you asking me to show…what is it you call it…mercy?”
The word had a rather odd contour, as if it weren’t really suited to the Liskash throat.
“Please, young goddess,” Ranowr said, lowering his whole body.
“I didn’t think it possible, but you have amused me,” she said. “I am pleased. I shall send you some meat later.” Then she turned and continued on her way.
The Mrem captive gave his companions a long last look before the guards hustled him off.
Ranowr and the others, stunned, returned to their circle.
“Fesa was a good Mrem,” Ranowr said grimly.
It was the ritual phrase that opened the mourning circle. He glanced at the departing group of Liskash with Fesa in their midst.
If the gods created us, why do they treat us so cruelly? Why do they hate us so?
Because they did. They must. Yet it made no sense to create something and then to hate it.
And we hate them.
Just being near them made his skin crawl and pelt bristle and tail stiffen and bottle out, his ears flatten themselves as if for battle. But that could be because they had so much power.
“Fesa was a good worker,” said another, bringing Ranowr’s thoughts back to the mourning circle.
“He was good with the kits,” added Krar.
Truth be told they were all good to the kits. Where any one of them might be your own, treating them all well just made sense. Still some were better at it than others and Fesa had been one of those.
“They’ll be missing him,” Ranowr agreed.
Tral entered the circle.
“Sesh will not wake,” he announced. Looking around he asked, “Where’s Fesa, he should be here, he was Sesh’s oldest friend.”
“Fesa is no more,” Ranowr said. “The young goddess took him away.”
The words were bitter on his tongue. Fesa would die a hard death tonight. And the meat Hisshah would send, if she sent it, would be from his corpse. A calculated insult. But they would burn it to ashes and scatter them in the wind. The only freedom any Mrem could hope for.
Stunned, Tral took his place in the circle.
“Sesh was a good Mrem,” Ranowr intoned.
They spent the best part of the night remembering both of them.
* * *
The practice field was hot and silent; the guards on the outer walls moved to look occasionally, and there were bleatings and hootings from the stock pens, and a little twitch of wind flicking sand into eyes.
“Watch carefully,” Hisshah said, feeling loose and confident in the familiar exercise and the welcome heat. “Overhand down-cut, angled right to left.”
She tapped the mock sword on one part of the practice post, then mimed a downward slice that would have struck the neck of an opponent. The sound was muffled, for the training weapon was wrapped in tightly woven grass rope to lessen the jar to the wrists.
“Backhand cut, angled up, right to left.”
She hit the post on the other side, where the gap between the hip-bone and the lowest rib would be—a clear target into the meat, with organs and big veins beneath. Even if it didn’t penetrate, a powerful strike there might rupture something essential; certainly it would knock the wind out of your enemy, leaving them open for a killing blow.
“Then you tie them together with their mirror-image.”
She struck, down, up, down and up, into the space where the angle of the neck would be, letting the blade’s weight carry it down past the target to loop back and up and down at a slant again, like an X.
A muffled clack as padded wooden sword struck the hard pell, then clack and clank again.
She did it again and again, faster and faster until the mock sword seemed to blur and her body as well, weight shifting from one taloned foot to another. When she was finished with her demonstration she tossed it to Ranowr.
“Now you try.”
Ranowr took the practice sword and carefully assumed the stance that Hisshah had taken. Then he swung the sword. He tried going faster and faster as she had until he struck the post square on and knocked the practice sword out of his hand, unconsciously flexing his wrist against the sting. The curved length went end-over-end into the watching group of his fellow Mrem. They dodged aside, and then one caught it and brought it.
“Pick it up,” Hisshah said, “Do it again. Control the location of the strike. You should be able to put it between one scale and the next, as hard and as fast as you can strike. Precision first, then speed, then force. Look into your enemy’s eyes, not at where your sword will strike. See that with your hands.”
The Mrem actually wasn’t bad. She’d done that much sooner during her first try at the post. But then she’d been much younger.
They were working on the small practice field between the outer and inner walls. It held two rows of ten practice posts in a field of clean raked sand and was longer than it was wide; spear and arrow-targets stood at each end. The whole was fenced with rails and it was within smell of the stables.
Hisshah walked back and forth as she watched her first student. She hated being this close to them. Their smell made her sick; a heavy, meaty scent that was suffocating. And the sight of their furred skin was loathsome unless you were hungry. Her mother couldn’t have found a more subtle punishment if she’d tried for seven rainy seasons and a day.
Still, they were strong and supple and reasonably quick, it was just possible that they might be trainable as soldiers. That is if you were looking for troops that were utterly expendable. They’d never have
any finesse, being mere brutes, but they might have some utility.
I hope we won’t regret this, she thought. We might regret it more if they do learn than if they don’t.
Weapons in the hands of slaves struck her as risky at best. Even if your own soldiers were infinitely better than the Mrem would ever be.
Speaking of which, there was Captain Thress leaning against the fence observing their progress, dangling his helmet by the strap in one claw and enjoying the hard dry heat. His other hand rested on the stone pommel of his war-sword, and his long narrow head moved slightly as he followed the action.
“All right,” Hisshah snapped, “all of you pick up a sword and begin. If you drop the sword, pick it up and keep going. Watch this one.”
As the Mrem hurried to follow her instructions she walked over to the captain.
“They’re not as bad as I expected,” he observed. “For absolute beginners.”
Which is exactly what I thought, she noted with some pride.
“What are you doing here, Captain?”
“I came to see Mrem learn to fight,” he said. “Thought I might learn something.”
“Mrem know how to fight,” Hisshah said. “Not all of their scars come from whippings.”
He made a wry gesture with his mouth, showing a line of conical fangs.
“True,” he agreed. “Truth is, it is always a…interesting to see what you are up to, lesser goddess.”
She stared at him. He had been going to say amusing, she knew it. One day he would regret his insistence on emphasizing her lacks every chance he got.
“Have you no duties, Captain?”
He slowly blinked, letting the lids sweep in from either side in an insolent gesture.
“I would have come in curiosity at some point. The great goddess’s notion is so unique.”
He glanced at the Mrem. “I think one of them grows weary of your exercise.”
Hisshah’s head whipped around on her long flexible neck. One of the slaves was pausing between strokes. She started towards him, picking up a practice sword from the pile. Maybe she should demonstrate the strokes on a Mrem.
* * *
Ranowr sat in his place before the dormitory barracks, feeling aches in muscles he hadn’t known he had. The young goddess had instructed them for hours, demanding more and more speed. He thought they’d done well for their first day.
And Mrem are as fast as they, or are so after the first few strokes. Faster if the weather is not hot, though we do not remind them of that. Most of us are larger and stronger, too.
But if he felt this bad now he dreaded the morning.
The young goddess was training ten of them, including Krar, who was something of a rival. Hisshah had told them that they would be responsible for training other Mrem to fight with sword and spear. He wondered if they’d learn to use the bow.
Or will they keep that weapon for themselves?
That wouldn’t surprise him. What surprised him was that the Liskash were training them at all. It was a mystery like much of what they did and said; as if they walked on the ceiling rather than the floor, or walked backwards.
He suddenly smiled to himself. While the males ate their dinner he’d seen the beautiful Prenna in the distance. The only pure white-pelt Mrem amongst them all, with pink kittenish skin around her eyes and lips and a warm sweet scent. She’d seen him as well, and in the way she’d stood had told him that she was pregnant with his kit.
Ranowr grinned with his whiskers forward, feeling a warmth within at the thought. He would know which kit was his, especially if it was as white as its mother. He sighed in happiness. He’d never heard of anyone knowing their own kit. But he and Prenna, in their brief moments in the mating shed had formed a forbidden bond.
They’d been chosen at random to mate, the way the Mrem always were when the Liskash decided they’d need more slaves in the future. When he’d been thrust into the shed he’d been struck by her beauty. White fur, slanted green eyes and a delicacy of form that surely even the oblivious Liskash must appreciate. When he had gently embraced her, he whispered his name in her ear. She’d met his eyes and answered softly:
“I am Prenna.”
“No talking!” the Liskash guard had snarled.
“He hurt me,” Prenna had gasped.
“You animals are disgusting,” the guard had said. “Don’t hurt her,” he added to Ranowr. “I hate this duty.”
Then he’d turned his back and Ranowr and Prenna had made love.
That’s what it was, Ranowr thought. Making love. Not rutting like beasts.
He did love her and now she was bearing his kit. He wanted to tell someone, but who could he trust? Any such relationship was strictly forbidden.
So it will be our secret, he thought, wondering if they’d ever be together again.
A bitter thought, that someone else might lie with her when the Liskash again decided she should breed. It was like a hot coal in his heart. But there was nothing that could be done about it. He sighed, lonely for her and sad at both their fates.
For a moment he imagined them running away together, living in freedom, just them and their kits.
He shook his head ruefully. It could never be; the Liskash owned the whole world. If they escaped the goddess Ashala they’d be swept up by some other Liskash god or goddess, one who very possibly would be even more cruel.
We’d probably be killed outright.
The way the Liskash seemed to hate Mrem made it almost a certainty; they killed even when it wasn’t in their interest. Here at least they got enough to eat. Not as much as they wanted, but enough. In any case, he’d never put Prenna in such danger.
In his youth two slaves had broken the rule and been found out. The female became pregnant and was tortured until she gave up her lover’s name. They were bound together and the young Mrem were made to bury them alive. He’d never forget their struggles as they tried to keep their heads above the dirt; the terror in their eyes.
Afterwards all the females from the oldest to the youngest were whipped to remind them that their bodies belonged to the Liskash. Now you never saw a female alone. Ranowr sighed and rubbed a sore muscle. He heard a sniffling and looked over at a group of kits. One had his arm around the shoulders of another who shuddered with sobs. He rose and went to them, kneeling on one knee before them.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
The one who had been weeping wiped his eyes and straightened up with a sniff.
“No, sir,” he said in a surprisingly steady voice.
Ranowr smiled. “Good. I thought something must be wrong.” He waited a moment. “Is something wrong?”
The little face crumpled at the sound of a sympathetic voice. “I miss my mother,” he choked out.
“Of course you do,” Ranowr said laying his hand on the kit’s head. “We all do. All I can tell you is that it gets easier with time.”
The kit rubbed his eyes, he must be seven summers old; that was when the Liskash separated the male kits from their mothers.
“Why can’t we all stay together?” the kit asked.
“What’s your name?” Ranowr asked.
“Fesa.”
A cold chill touched the back of the leader’s neck at the name. He thought again of Fesa being led away to his death and took a deep breath.
“Well, Fesa, you’re well grown now and have to learn how to be an adult. Since you’re a male you must learn that from males. The Liskash have decided that males and females should live separately. And so we do. If you ask me why that is, all I can tell you is that is the way things are.”
“But why?” the youngster whined.
“Because that is the way the Liskash want things to be. They are as gods to us Mrem and so we must do as they say or they will destroy us and we will not live at all.”
He stroked Fesa’s head. “Better to be sad and sore than dead, don’t you agree?”
Fesa and the other kits nodded, their eyes big.
“
It is something we all must learn,” Ranowr said patiently. “Just as we all must lose our mothers and sisters. You must be strong and learn to find friendships with these your agemates. Do you understand?”
They nodded again, obviously dissatisfied, but knowing they weren’t going to get a better answer.
Ranowr smiled and nodded to them, moving back to his place among the older Mrem.
Such is the path to adulthood, he thought. Full of half explained realities, revealed one layer at a time.
* * *
Four weeks later Hisshah snapped:
“Like this!”
She drew the battle sword at her side; it moved like a living thing compared to the clumsy padded practice weapons, glittering as if scaled. Then she demonstrated the complicated move she was trying to teach the idiot Mrem. Its tongue dangled out, and it dripped.
They were so disgustingly damp.
“The spearhead is coming at you. There is force behind it, enough to split your breastbone. But that means the attacker is committed to the line of his attack. His weight is moving forward and he cannot alter that quickly. Strike so and it will go over your shoulder, and the force will carry him forward so that he cannot withdraw the point and strike again at once. Then turn your wrists and body and cut down the shaft at the hands. So and so. Two movements like one. Do it right this time or I’ll flog the skin off you!”
The Mrem slowly imitated the move and got it right.
“If you took that long to do it to the enemy you’d be dead!” Hisshah shouted. “Unless he stops to laugh and hisses the tongue out of his jaws! Do it faster, you fool!”
The Mrem tried and failed. Before he was halfway through the maneuver Hisshah kicked, her taloned foot thudding in the Mrem’s leather-clad middle. The cheap armor took most of the impact, but he wavered breathless, then fell to the ground as she sheathed her sword and reached for the whip slung at her belt.
“Young goddess,” Ranowr said, greatly daring, “I do not think we can do it the way a Liskash could. We are made differently. Our arms and shoulders do not bend in the same ways.”
Hisshah halted with her whip raised and stared at him. Instantly she saw that he was right. They did move differently. Instead of the short, sharp, efficient motions of her people, the Mrem seemed to…to ooze from place to place. They had speed, but it was of a different quality.