by S. M. Stirling, Harry Turtledove, Jody Lynn Nye, John Ringo; Michael Z. Williamson
Krar nodded slowly his eyes on a distant thought. Then he met Ranowr’s eyes.
“You know I hate you.”
“You don’t hate me,” Ranowr said with a laugh. “You just want me not to exist.”
“You can say that because you’ve never had to live in your shadow.” He licked his lips. “What do you want me to do?”
“Back us up when we talk to the others. Help me convince them in spite of their fear. And help me make any possible traitors more afraid of us than of the Liskash.”
Ranowr held out his hand.
Krar looked at it, then up at his rival.
“You don’t want much, do you?”
“I want to be free. I want you to be free. Then if you wish, we will take spears or swords or knives and you can see about making the world one where you don’t have to think about me.”
A smoky light came into Krar’s amber eyes.
“Take his hand,” Tral said impatiently. “You know it’s the right thing to do.”
With another deep breath Krar shook his head, but grasped Ranowr’s hand.
“I know I’m going to regret this,” he muttered.
“Maybe we all will,” Ranowr said. “But it’s still the right thing to do.”
* * *
Hisshah approached her mother’s riding krelprep cautiously; it was an unpredictable beast that liked to kick and bite. It pulled its muzzle out of the feeding trough and looked at her across the polished saccar-wood railing, its skin gleaming with health and careful grooming.
It had bitten her, almost trampling and killing her twice while her mother looked on, waiting to see if her daughter could control it. The animal was a beauty though, strong and sinuous with fancy yellow-and-green markings. She hated it. She stood looking at it for a few moments, then she struck.
First a push at the nervecord within the spine, which caused the beast to bellow in confusion as its legs collapsed. That was delightful, but painfully loud, and Mrem slaves would come running to see what the trouble was—they would pay for any injury to the prized beast. So she cut off its air, just a little pinch within the windpipe. She watched it thrash helplessly, its golden eyes rolling in panic. Then she ended it, grasping at the delicate tissues of its brain, like dragging mental claws through jelly.
It collapsed, kicked, voided and died in less time than it took to think the words, so much dead meat, its colors dimming already and its tongue lying out across its teeth.
Hisshah smiled. Her mother would be displeased; she’d been proud of her mastery of this willful beast. But Hisshah was thrilled. This had been the first large creature she’d tried out her new power on. And it had gone exactly as she’d expected. Her whole being was alight with joy. She had a great power. As great as her mother’s if less spectacular.
I feel…I feel so happy. Happy as I have not been since I was a little hatchling.
She looked around; no one had heard the commotion, it seemed. With a soft laugh she turned and walked from the stable. Her mother would be so annoyed.
* * *
The guard struck Ranowr with a couple of light blows, almost for form’s sake. Then he said wearily:
“What’s the password for the day?”
“Mighty is Thress, master,” Ranowr said cautiously.
Three of the closest Liskash warriors hissed uncontrolably. One of them clapped both hands to his snout, covering his nostrils in horrified surprise. Another’s spear clattered on the stones, its steel head clanging with a discordant ring that died into the sudden stillness of the morning. A third was backing away, his lips and nose squeezed tight, his whole head jerking with the need to hiss laughter.
“What was that?”
“Master! I said Mighty is Thress!”
This time he did say it, working to keep his tone hard-edged and crisp like one of the rulers. He was almost as horrified as the guards at the—unintentional—slip. For a moment he thought Thress would die then; veins were visible under the fine scales beneath his throat, and his pupils opened until they were ovals that were almost round.
It was exactly the sort of petty but cunning spite the young goddess would come up with.
“Go,” Thress said, his hands trembling; his voice was beyond rage, almost pleading. “Go, go.”
The Liskash was turning to his subordinates even as the Mrem backed away. Hissing and snapping-stone shrieks rose as he walked away.
Soon, Ranowr thought as he walked away rubbing his arm.
He had everything in readiness; the wagons and tack were arranged for a swift departure under the guise of a new efficiency. Stores of food and blankets and tents were ready to hand, allegedly in the event of a neighbor attacking. So far they’d gotten away with everything and the steward was pleased that they were working so diligently.
It’s easy to work hard when it’s for your own benefit, Ranowr thought grimly. We’d never have shown them how hard we can work, otherwise.
* * *
“You were seen leaving the stable,” Ashala screamed, her voice echoing through the hall. She pounded her fist on the arm of her throne. “Tell me what you did to my krelprep!”
“What makes you think I did anything to it?” Hisshah asked her mother boldly.
Ashala paused. This was most unlike her daughter, who, though on her knees where she belonged, was otherwise upright, instead of her usual cowering posture and was meeting her eyes. She leaned back in her throne. If there was one thing she’d learned in her years as ruler of this domain it was that such a change of attitude could be dangerous.
“What were you doing in the stables?” she asked.
“I merely visited my own krelprep to see how it fared.”
“You never visit your beast,” Ashala reminded her. “You hate krelprep.”
“I’m not fond of them, it’s true. But we’re about to go to war and I don’t intend to walk.”
Hisshah paused. “What happened to your krelprep?”
Ashala glared at her. “As if you don’t know,” she growled.
The younger female returned the glare with a look of innocence.
“You know I would never go anywhere near your krelprep. It’s tried to kill me twice. What could I possibly have done to it without getting in reach of its teeth?”
“It’s dead,” Ashala said through clenched teeth.
“What happened to it?” Hisshah asked.
Hiding her glee was as hard as anything she had ever done. Boldness seemed to be working. At the start of this conversation she’d thought she’d be receiving a whipping by now. Possibly that she’d be a bubbling grease-stain on the stones.
“We don’t know. There isn’t a mark on it,” the great goddess said.
“There’s been some sickness in the barn, the hostlers have been complaining of dead smerp and worrying that whatever killed them will spread to the krelprep. Perhaps that’s what happened to yours.”
Indeed I know for a fact that’s what happened to yours, Hisshah thought. “Perhaps we should clear that barn and burn it down.”
Ashala was still visibly angry, but also thoughtful. What her daughter had said was not unreasonable.
Thress leaned over and whispered in her ear.
“You could have poisoned my beast,” the great goddess said.
Hisshah gave an exaggerated sigh. “If I tried to give food to your krelprep it would have taken off my hand. And if I bribed a stabler to give it food he would report it to you instantly.”
She raised her hands. “Has anyone made such a report?”
It was beginning to feel like she was going to get away with this.
Once again Ashala looked thoughtful, once again Thress whispered.
“Did you kill my krelprep?” she demanded.
Hisshah stared at her for a long moment.
Why not now? she asked herself. Now is as good a time as any.
“Yes,” she admitted. “I couldn’t help myself.”
Her mother’s eyes flared and she knew her
self in danger. She still thought she was safe from burning, but she could see that her mother was thinking about it. She readied herself to strike.
“That thing hated me,” Hisshah said. “It wanted to kill me, but I didn’t want to die. It was me or the krelprep, Mother. Which would you rather have alive?”
Ashala actually blinked in surprise to hear her daughter call her mother in open court. She looked out at the assembled courtiers and then frowned at her heir. If Hisshah was clever enough to be able to kill a beast so much stronger and more vicious than she was then perhaps she was too dangerous to have around. She prepared to strike her.
“You can be replaced,” she said at last.
“No, I can’t,” Hisshah said.
The great goddess stiffened and her eyes rolled back in her head, foam formed at the corners of her mouth and her body bucked three times. Then she slid bonelessly from her throne to lie on the burned spot where so many others had died.
Hisshah licked her lips and brought her breathing back under control. She’d felt a wave of heat just as she struck and knew she’d survived only by dint of the unexpectedness of her attack.
She mounted the dais and sat on her mother’s throne.
She smiled at the stunned courtiers.
“Remove that,” she said to the guards, gesturing at her mother’s body. “But save the gems, I’ll be wanting those.”The guards looked from her to Thress and she felt a flash of anger.
“It is by no means settled that you should take the great goddess’s place,” the captain said. “I demand that you rise from her throne!”
He grabbed her arm and yanked. Hisshah made his legs fail him and he almost dragged her from the throne as he fell. She put her foot on his chest and kicked him over backward. He drew a dagger as he fell and would have thrown it but she struck again, leaving him paralyzed from the shoulders down.
“Stop her!” he shouted. “Strike her down; she can’t get all of us.”
“Oh, yes I can,” Hisshah assured them, though she wasn’t sure herself. “I’m keeping the captain alive because I have a score to settle with him. But any of you who wish to die on his behalf I’m willing to oblige.”
She met the eyes of those she thought might rebel and saw them acknowledge the truth of what she was saying. She looked at the captain’s second.
“What is your name?” she asked, though she knew. She knew everyone in the compound.
“Sheth…great goddess.”
Hisshah smiled at him. “You are now captain of my guard. Have Thress taken to the prison.”
Once again she indicated her mother’s body. “Have that removed.”
“Can’t you see what she’s doing?” Thress screamed. “She’s a murderer, she must be stopped!”
Well, so was my mother, Hisshah thought. Many times over. She killed my father and countless others, often for nothing more than her own amusement. Where was your outrage then, my little captive captain? She considered taking his voice, but no, she wanted him to have a voice. Soon she would hear him in full cry.
“Captain Sheth?” she prompted.
The new-made captain gestured to the guards and they began hauling the two bodies away.
“You will regret this!” Thress warned them. “She’ll kill you all!”
Once the still shouting former captain was gone Hisshah turned to her court.
“I am prepared to accept your oaths of fealty now,” she said kindly.
The scent of fear was dense and sharp, and her nostrils flared. This wasn’t as spectacular as burning, but in its way…
Better, she thought, and smiled.
One of the nobles stumbled as he came forward to grovel and swear.
Much, much better.
* * *
Tral hurried up to Ranowr where he was practicing strokes with Krar.
“I just saw them drag the body of the great goddess from the hall,” he gasped. “It was really her, the body was glittering with jewels and the guards were dragging it by the feet and they were dragging Captain Thress out, too.”
Ranowr stared at him, his breath frozen. This was it. This was what they’d been waiting for.
“Set everyone to gathering the food and the wagons,” he said to Krar.
To Tral he said: “Inform the females and then meet me at the prison with two Mrem and a handcart. Bring your medical kit.”
Then he headed for the guards.
“The young goddess needs you in the great hall,” he told them. “Something terrible has happened. I think Captain Thress has struck down the great goddess.”
Saksh, the head of Hissah’s guard stared at him for a moment, then slapped him.
“How dare you say such a thing?” He pulled out his whip. “I’ll have your back in shreds for that!”
Just then a guard came running up to them.
“The great goddess is dead!” he gasped. “Captain Thress is fallen!”
Saksh stared at him, then at Ranowr. “You and your fellows go back to your dormitory and stay there!” he ordered and ran off with the other guards trailing him.
Ranowr then nodded at Krar who began rallying the other Mrem and then headed for the prison at a run.
“The young goddess has commanded all the guards to report to the great hall,” he told the guard at the prison gate.
The guard looked uncertain, but he’d been given orders by this Mrem before. He immediately turned the problem over to his superior.
“We’ve just been given charge of Captain Thress,” that one said. “Why would she order us to abandon him?”
“Because he’s safely locked up and she needs your support?” Ranowr suggested.
The guard weighed that in his mind and decided that it made sense; everyone knew rewards and punishments flew full and wild during a change of power. He blew a whistle and the other guards came running.
“Fall in,” he ordered and they marched off.
Ranowr watched them go in disbelief. This is going almost too well, he thought and headed into the prison. As he rushed down the corridor he heard Thress’s voice from behind a door. Pausing to glance through the grill he saw the captain lying motionless on the dirt floor.
Seeing him, Thress narrowed his eyes. “You! Her pet! Come to gloat, have you?”
“No, Captain,” Ranowr said. “I have neither the time nor the interest.” And he was gone.
He removed the bar from the door of the Mrem’s cell and entered. Canar Trowr lay panting on dirty straw, no longer chained. Chains were no longer needed. His feet were a bloody mess as were his hands. As was most of him. Ranowr’s heart went cold. If they were too late it was all for nothing. Tentatively he reached out and touched him.
Instantly the prisoner sprang alert, only to sink back again.
“Who are you?” he asked in a voice that grated.
“Ranowr. I’ve come to get you out.”
Canar Trowr laughed weakly. “Surely you could have waited a bit longer?”
“Not if we want to get out of here. Can you walk at all?”
“No. But I will anyway. Help me up.”
He did so. There wasn’t a place he could touch that wasn’t wounded, but aside from a few groans the prisoner kept his pain to himself. Then, when he was upright and leaning heavily on Ranowr they stumbled awkwardly from the cell.
Once outside Tral and the others were there to meet them with a handcart. They stared at the prisoner; the two helpers in amazement to see a stranger Mrem, Tral in horror at his wounds.
“Take him,” Ranowr said, “hide him. As soon as you’re ready head for the gates. That’s where I’m going now.”
* * *
“That is what the new great goddess has commanded,” Ranowr said for the third time.
“But it makes no sense!” The guard said.
“Still, those were her orders. Perhaps it’s a loyalty test,” Ranowr suggested, hoping that would move the stubborn fool.
The guard looked over the Mrem’s shoulder and blinked.
Ranowr followed his gaze. The first wagons were coming in sight and the gate remained closed. He’d been telling the guard that the Mrem were all to gather at the great bundor herd until Hisshah called them back, but the guard persisted in resisting.
Ranowr turned back to him, his face and manner calm. Everything about him proclaiming, “I am following orders. What about you?”
At the wagons’ inexorable approach the guard’s resistance crumbled and he shouted to his fellows to open the gates.
Watching them go through Ranowr saw Prenna sitting in one of the wagons. She met his eyes and raised a hand shyly. He smiled and gave the barest nod and ruffle of whiskers, then she was gone.
Now his people were on their way, he had one last thing to do. Towards the end of the slow-moving column he found Tral.
“The sleeping draught that kills,” he said, “does it work on Liskash?”
“Even better than it does on us,” Tral said. “They’re so much smaller.”
“Give me what you have,” Ranowr said. “And give my love to Prenna for me.”
Tral handed over the flask. “What are you saying?” he asked.
“It may be some time before I catch up. Don’t wait for me,” Ranowr told him. Then he turned and trotted away.
* * *
Hisshah was glowing with pleasure. She had accepted the oaths of all of her mother’s court, her court now, and had just finished deciding a case that her mother had been neglecting in favor of the plaintiff she hated least.
Suddenly Ranowr was there, offering her a goblet of wine.
“You must be thirsty, great goddess,” he said, smiling.
She was parched, but also suspicious. How had he gotten into the great hall? And whence this good will?
But then…he has been very useful. Dangerous, but useful. A cunning Mrem could be even more useful in the future. I must sleep. If I make him hated enough, he will help guard me…perhaps a Mrem guard? I need never fear their trying to overthrow me…
“It is the custom here,” she said, “for the one who offers wine to taste it first.”
He took a sip, then offered the goblet again.
“You might as well drink it all,” she told him. “I won’t drink from the same cup as an animal.”