Eric Flint - Mother of Demons

They saw-and know. Good.

"Things will be-confused-at the assembly. We have lost all our clan leaders. I must-it will be necessary that I-"

Suddenly, one of her flankers raised her greatfork above her cowl, held crossways like a horizontal bar. It was the traditional salute of the flanker to her battlemother. Traditional, but hardly ever seen. The Kiktu were not, in truth, given to frequent displays of ceremony.

A moment later, the other seven flankers followed suit.

"We are yours to command, Great Mother," spoke the flanker who had first raised her fork. Her name was Kolkata, and she was the leader of the squad of flankers. A moment later, the others echoed her words.

The black tinge in Guo's mantle darkened.

"I may be forced to harshness."

This time, the words came as one, loudly:

"We are yours to command, Great Mother."

Guo stared at them. She was-surprised. She had thought it would be more difficult. (For all her unusual capacity for combat, Guo was not really a warrior, and did not fully understand the minds of warriors. On the day after the Battle of Lolopopo, Guo's flankers would have stood with her against the Kraken itself.)

The black in her mantle faded. For a moment, a green wave rippled across. Then Guo turned, and resumed the march.

Hours later, they entered a huge clearing in the swamp. Many other warriors were already in the clearing. Still more were trickling in from several directions-all in small groups, led by a swamp-dweller guide.

The word was passed along by couriers:

We rest here tonight. Tomorrow the tribe assembles.

Before they slept, Guo and her preconsorts dug a little grave, into which they lowered the body of Abka. It was strange, then, the anguish which she felt, for the loss of a husband she had never known.

Yet she grieved, and deeply; and found, in the pain, a well of courage and resolve.

The assembly began early in the day, and raggedly. There were no clan leaders to begin the deliberations with the customary religious rituals. Those rituals were brief and, in truth, not much more than perfunctory. But they had always served, in the past, to allow the assembly to come to order in a set and certain manner.

Guo saw that Kopporu was going to make no attempt to substitute herself as the leader of the rituals. The infanta thought Kopporu's decision was wise. Better to begin the assembly by bluntly demonstrating the truth to all.

Kopporu herself was standing toward the center of the clearing, on its northern side. She was weaponless, and her personal guard were not nearby. Guo was relieved. She had been concerned that Kopporu might attempt to intimidate the tribe. Such an attempt would not have worked; it would simply have inflamed the hotheads. Instead, by taking her stance, Kopporu was making clear to one and all that she accepted the authority of the tribe.

Still, Guo noted that Kopporu had subtly weighted the situation. Her personal guard was not standing nearby, true. But they were not all that far away, either.

Guo examined them. As hard-bitten a collection of old warriors as you could find anywhere on the Meat of the Clam. The scars crisscrossing their collective mantles were literally beyond counting. There could be no doubt in any gukuy's mind that Aktako and her group would deal ruthlessly with anyone who tried to take matters into their own palps. Not even the rashest young warrior would casually match flails with them.

But there was more. Guo saw that the Opoktu warriors were gathered not far from the center of the clearing, on the same side as Kopporu. The Opoktu were still outnumbered by the surviving Kiktu, by a factor of four to one. But the Opoktu had saved their entire tribe, except for those warriors who had fallen in combat. Their own two mothers, and four clan leaders, were standing prominently to the fore. In every nuance of the Opoktu stance, a subtle but clear set of messages was being conveyed to all who observed:

We are still a tribe with leaders, united.

We are so, because we chose the course of flight.

We stand with Kopporu.

Then, there were the swamp-dwellers. There were many eights of them, gathered together some little distance from Kopporu. Again, not near the battle leader. But near enough to come to Kopporu's aid, if necessary. And while the swamp-dwellers were not warriors, the still-healing scars on their own mantles demonstrated that they lacked neither courage nor willingness to fight. They were clanless outcasts, but their status had inevitably risen in the eyes of the Kiktu over the past days. Whatever their prejudices, the Kiktu were warriors-for whom courage counted much.

And, there was this: Any Kiktu had but to look about them, to see that they were in the middle of the Lolopopo Swamp. Lost, without their guides. And the guides were making clear, without effrontery, that they too would stand with Kopporu.

There was a last group, whom Guo had not expected. They would not be a direct factor in the assembly, but their presence was not insignificant. Scattered around the clearing, in small huddled groups, were refugees from every tribe which had fought the Utuku on the plain. The refugees had been found scattered through the swamp, and brought along with the retreat. Many were Kiktu; but the majority, thought Guo, were members of the five other tribes (besides the Opoktu) which had joined in alliance with the Kiktu. Whose clan leaders had also led them to disaster.

All of them were warriors, except for a single young Datga mother and her consorts. Most of them bore recent battle wounds. Each of them was silent, their pinkish-brown mantles giving testimony to their own fears and feelings of guilt. Each of them had chosen, as individuals, to take the same course that Kopporu had chosen for the left flank as a whole-salvation in the swamp. They, too, bore the burden of treason. Hence they would not speak at the assembly-even those of them who were Kiktu and had the right to speak. Their own conduct would be examined, and judgement passed.

Yet-their very presence was perhaps the strongest, if most indirect, reinforcement for Kopporu's position. For Kopporu alone was not on trial here. So were the ghosts of the clan leaders who had been responsible for the greatest single calamity in the history of the Kiktu and their allied tribes. The miserable, huddled shapes of the refugees was silent testimony to the ghastly scope of that disaster.

The assembly was slow in coming to order. Kopporu stood alone, making no attempt to impose her authority. She had apparently decided that it was best to allow the tribespeople to mill about for a time, pondering the situation.

Guo thought Kopporu's tactic was wise. And it gave her time to settle an important question. She looked for, and quickly found, the other two surviving Kiktu battlemothers. Loapo and Oroku were standing together nearby, with those few of Loapa's flankers who had survived. (Oroku's flankers, Guo would later learn, had all died in their frenzied efforts to save their badly wounded battlemother.)

Guo lumbered toward them. She was glad to see that Oroku was present. She had feared that the lamed infanta would not have been able to keep up with the tribe in its flight.

She was also relieved to see that Oroku's wounds were healing well enough, under the circumstances. There seemed to be no sign of the parasitic infections which so often accompanied bad wounds, especially eye-wounds.

The reason for the lack of infection was obvious, once Guo came near. The wounds-the entire left eye, in fact-had been savagely cauterized by fire. Guo was deeply impressed with Oroku's courage. The pain of that cauterization must have been incredible. But the treatment had killed any parasites-even though the infanta would be horribly disfigured for the rest of her life.