Eric Flint - Mother of Demons

Lukpudo made the gesture of derision, coupled with a swift yellow ripple across her mantle. The combination expressed exactly the same sentiments that a human would express with a snort.

"Leaving aside that ridiculous spawn's tale you were spreading about the danger of an Utuku sweep through the swamp. So I started watching you closely. You-and Aktako. I knew that if you were planning something, she would be in the thick of it. When I saw the hand-picked flails she assembled, I knew. You have never been one of those battle leaders who wants to be surrounded by a mob of personal guards. So why now? And why those guards?-all of whom I recognized as one of Aktako's old cronies? Who may no longer be the swiftest warriors on the field, but who are certainly the most deadly.

"From then on, I kept an eye on your command circle. Since the battle started I've had one of my warriors watching, to tell me the moment you summoned your battle leaders."

Lukpudo turned and gazed back at the corpses.

"Two only?" she asked. "I expected to see Ufta's body lying there as well."

"She almost was. But-I was not sure. And I have no taste for murder."

"You may regret the decision. Ufta is much smarter than Doroto was. Certainly than Yaua. But I do not think she has their courage." A quick flash of brown/green regret swept across Lukpudo's mantle. "They were valiant gukuy. But valor is no longer enough, in this new and terrible world."

She turned back to Kopporu. "Time presses, battle leader. For the duration of this struggle, the Opoktu will remain under your command."

"And after?"

Lukpudo whistled. "After? Why worry about that now, Kopporu? There may be no 'after.' The swamp, by all reports, is not much less terrible than the Utuku. If at all. But I would rather be eaten by snails than cannibals."

Another whistle.

"And besides, the future is not entirely grim for the Opoktu. There is this much to look forward to-we will no longer be the smallest tribe in the world."

"You have never been small in my eyes, Lukpudo."

For a brief moment, the battle leader of the Opoktu allowed deep green to suffuse her mantle.

"I know, Kopporu. We have always loved you for it."

The green vanished, replaced by black.

"What are your commands?"

When Guo was informed by her battle leader Gortoku to prepare for a retreat into the swamp, she was too dazed to wonder at the order. Dazed, and exhausted.

There was no longer any doubt as to her conduct on the field of battle, although Guo herself had never once considered the question since the battle began. She did not consider it now. Did not even think of it, in fact. There was only room in her brain for the necessities of the retreat. Her place in that retreat would be critical, for it would be she (and her flankers) who would bear the brunt of the pursuit. Kopporu's tactics of drawing the enemy into a trap after feigning a retreat were based upon funneling the charging foe toward the battlemothers. There, unable to avoid the blows because they were penned in by the trap, the enemy would be crushed under the maces of the battlemothers.

The tactics had worked, brilliantly, until the Utuku had finally learned not to charge after fleeing Kiktu. They had learned, after three disasters, that the battle leader of the Kiktu right flank was a shrewd and deadly foe. And the Utuku warriors confronting Kopporu's forces no longer referred to the battlemother in their enemy's ranks as a breeder. They called her, simply, the ghaxtak.

"Ghaxtak" was an Utuku word. The Kiktu equivalent was "kuopto." Every barbarian language had an equivalent term, and all of them were based on a derivative of that language's word for fury.

But the word "fury" does not really capture the essence of the concept. The emotions experienced by gukuy are, fundamentally, the same as those experienced by humans. This is, of course, neither surprising nor coincidental. Human scientists, beginning with Darwin, had long understood that the emotions of animals and people are the inevitable by-product of evolution. An animal must know when to flee; when to fight; when to engage in sexual reproduction; when to hesitate; when to ignore. A biochemist can explain the exact chemical processes by which those patterns of behavior are transmitted through the nervous system. But an animal knows nothing of these formulas. It "knows" simply: fear; rage; passion; indecision; indifference. Those animals which evolve intelligence give these feelings names, and call them "emotions." And, as they evolve in a complex interaction with the evolution of their own intelligence, the emotions themselves become more variegated and subtle. But it is inevitable that animals evolving on two planets separated by light years in space would still arrive at the same basic emotions. There is no mystic truth here; simply the requirements of natural selection.

And yet, nothing is ever identical. In their broad range, the emotions of gukuy and humans are the same-certainly if the entire gamut of emotions, which vary considerably between the different cultures of both species, are taken into account. Still, they are different species; and, with regard to emotions, the biggest difference is that one is chromatophoric and the other is not.

There is an expression, among humans, that an individual "wears his heart on his sleeve." The cultural subtleties behind that expression, the product of a species for whom emotional dissemblance is physically easy, would puzzle a gukuy. All gukuy "wear their hearts on their sleeves" – on their entire bodies, in fact. Humans, of course, also express their emotions involuntarily. They burst into tears; they laugh; those with little melanin in their skins even turn pale; or red. But these involuntary reactions are a pale reflection of the rich pallette of a gukuy.

Hence, two significant differences. Gukuy are far more straightforward than humans in their recognition (including self-recognition) of their emotions. And they are far more sophisticated in their understanding of the subtle complexities of those emotions.

Combinations of emotions which, to a human, are a murky blur, are like crystal to a gukuy. A human warrior, in the midst of battle, experiences a confused combination of emotions (fear, rage, indecision) which he does not perceive clearly himself. Not at all at the time, and poorly in the aftermath.

But to the gukuy, these emotions are not a murky blur. A human observing a gukuy battle would see a vast and kaleidoscopic rippling of colors across the serried mantles of the warriors. Blue and red predominate, of course; for a battle is the epitome of rage and fear. But the ochre hues of uncertainty and indecision are often seen, as well. Gukuy battle leaders learn early to gauge the colors of their opponents. A sudden great surge of ochre across the mantles of the foe signals that the moment is perhaps right to press home the attack. And always, of course, the battle leader looks for the wave of scarlet which indicates that the foe has been beaten into pure terror. The time has come for rout and destruction.

Red; blue; ochre-those, the principal colors of a battlefield. But there are others as well, seen more rarely.

Gray is one. Gray is the "natural" color of a gukuy's mantle. A gukuy whose mantle remains gray in battle is one of those unusual gukuy who have learned to master their emotions even under extreme stress. It is an ability which is given a name in every gukuy language. It is always respected; never more than on the battlefield. Such a warrior is invariably a veteran, and a mistress of the art of war. On occasion, tinges of yellow will ripple across such a warrior's mantle. Contempt for the foe.

Black is another. Black is the color of implacability. Not the absence of color, as is the gray of self-discipline; but the sudden suffusion of all color in a ruthless determination to accomplish a task, regardless of cost.