Eric Flint - Mother of Demons

Nukurren spun about and, without even looking, rolled to the side. The demonlord's spearthrust missed her completely. She lashed with the flail and then, pleased beyond measure, saw that Yoshefadekunula had again avoided it by that impossible upward spring.

But I know it now, demonlord.

She could not deny the satisfaction it gave her to swat the demonlord in midair, with a stroke of the fork which was, perhaps, excessively harsh.

She spun about. Three of the demons were beginning to rise, but Nukurren stilled them with quick touches of the flail. These were not blows, simply touches. But they were enough to drive home the lesson. All were now at her mercy, and there would have been nothing, had they been using real weapons in a real battle, to prevent her from slaying them.

She stepped back and set down her fork and flail.

"That is the first lesson. There will be no other today. Tomorrow I will begin teaching you the Utuku way of war, so that you may learn how to combat them. But today's lesson is the most important lesson of all, and you must think upon it."

She rolled up her instruments in the reed-bundle and carried them back to the hospital.

Late that night, Dzhenushkunutushen came to the hospital and sat by Nukurren's pallet. He said nothing for a time, nor did Nukurren.

At length, Dhowifa spoke.

"Are you hurt?"

Dzhenushkunutushen's face crunched. The ummun crunched their faces many different ways, but Nukurren thought this was the gesture of ruefulness.

"I hurt all over."

"Good," said Nukurren. "It will prepare you for tomorrow. Where you will hurt again, but will be wiser."

Again, the crunch. Slightly different.

"Some friend you are!"

Only her long years of shoroku kept Nukurren's mantle gray. For some time, she did not trust herself to speak. Dzhenushkunutushen rose and began to leave.

Softly, to his back, Nukurren said: "I have never had a friend. Except Dhowifa."

The demon stopped in the doorway. He turned around and came back to Nukurren's pallet. As always, she was struck by the strangeness of his colors, the white passion of his skin and the blue fury of his eyes.

"I have never known loneliness," he said. "I think you have never known anything else."

"That is true. Except Dhowifa." She felt her lover's soft touch.

Dzhenushkunutushen lay down on the floor next to the pallet. "Tonight I will sleep here, Nukurren. There are lessons which you need to learn also."

Soon, Dzhenushkunutushen fell asleep, as, shortly thereafter, did Dhowifa. Nukurren remained awake long into the night. Never once did her shoroku waver. But the time came when one of the great palps which had brought terror and death to so many over the years reached out. Reached out, and gently touched the soft yellow hair of the demon lying next to her.

In the days after the shocking defeat which the huge new gukuy had delivered to Joseph and his lieutenants, Indira found herself, much against her natural inclination, visiting the training field. She said nothing to anyone, simply watched as the new arrival-Nukurren-began showing the human warriors the Utuku methods of combat.

On the second day of the new training regimen, Ushulubang arrived. She was accompanied by Dhowifa, riding in her mantle cavity, and a large number of Pilgrims. Indira immediately knew, by some subtlety in their bearing, that these Pilgrims were former warriors. They were carrying reed-bundles laden with unusually designed weapons, including shields. From descriptions she had heard, Indira realized that these were replicas of Utuku weapons. After a brief consultation between Ushulubang and Nukurren, the Pilgrims donned the Utuku armament and began acting as the mock opponent for the human platoons.

Ushulubang then came to Indira's side. With Ushulubang was one of the Pilgrim warriors, older than the others. Although Indira could not interpret specifically the clan carvings on her cowl (which had all the arcane intricacies of medieval heraldry), Indira was sure that this new gukuy was of some high-ranked Ansha clan.

Ushulubang immediately confirmed her guess.

"Inudira, this is Ghodha. She is a new Pilgrim. Until our flight from Shakutulubac, she was a high commander in the Ansha legions. She is the most experienced war leader amongst the Pilgrims."

Ghodha made the gesture of respect. More properly, since the gesture of respect was generic, she made that specific version of the gesture of respect which signified respect by a high subordinate of one realm toward the august ruler of another.

In return, Indira bowed. Her bow contained none of the subtleties of Ghodha's gesture, however. Indira had realized that the humans would have to develop appropriate gestures with which to respond to gukuy, and so she had instituted the bow. The bow given to gukuy as a gesture of respect, however, was different from the one given to the owoc at the time of feeding. Much shallower-closer to an exaggerated nod than a deep bow. And she had insisted that there be no gradations in the bow.

But, as she had known would happen, the gradations were creeping in regardless. And she had immediately noted the different gesture which Jens Knudsen was using toward Nukurren, and which was almost immediately adopted by the other human warriors. The fact that the gesture resembled, in its outward appearance, the humble hand-clasping of a medieval monk toward an abbot did not fool her for a moment.

Within a generation, she thought wearily, we'll be a proper bunch of samurai and mandarins.

"You are distressed, Inudira," commented Ushulubang. "May I ask why?"

Indira stared. She had already come to recognize that Ushulubang was easily the most intelligent person-human or gukuy-that Indira had ever met in her life. But she was still astonished by the old sage's uncanny ability to interpret subtle nuances of human body language.

"I-it is difficult to explain."

Ushulubang gestured toward the training field.

"Would it ease your spirit if we desisted from this action?"

Indira immediately shook her head. "No, no. You will be a big help for my-children. I should have thought of it myself."

Then why didn't you? she asked herself. The idea was obvious.

But she knew the answer. Because I cannot bear the future I can see-no matter where I look.

"It is what will come of this that disturbs you," said Ushulubang.

Indira nodded.

"I believe I understand. Some day we must speak on this matter, Inudira."

Again, she nodded. But her nod contained, in some subtle way, the implication of hopeless resignation; and she knew the sage recognized it.

She tried to shake off the black mood.

"What is your opinion?" she asked the war leader Ghodha, pointing to the training field.

Ghodha hesitated.

"I would prefer to reserve my opinion, for the moment. I am not familiar with the tactical methods and abilities of dem-ummun."

Indira turned and gazed back onto the training field. By now, the human platoons were fully engaged in maneuvers with the Pilgrims. The Pilgrims were arrayed in a tightly knit formation. In essence, it was a phalanx. But Indira saw that the phalanx was much shallower in depth than the formations of the ancient Greeks and Macedonians. The difference, of course, was due to the weapons involved. The many-ranked phalanxes of Hellenic warriors had been designed to take advantage of the great reach of their long spears and pikes. The Utuku, using flails, were limited to a three-deep formation.

"Is that how the Utuku fight?" she asked Ghodha.

"Yes. It is very crude and primitive, and allows for no subtlety of maneuvers. But if the discipline is sufficient-and Utuku discipline is like bronze-then their-" Ghodha hesitated. "I do not know the Enagulishuc word. The Utuku call this formation a kabu buxt. We Ansha call it arrut kudh pakta. "