Harry Turtledove: Clan of the Claw

Sassin went unarmored. For one thing, he did not intend to get close enough to the front line to expose himself to the slings and arrows of outrageous vermin. For another, he had confidence in the magic that could, and at need would, turn aside the weapons the vermin carried. If you lacked faith in your magic, it was apt to fail you when you needed it most.

Surveying the host before him, he told Lorssett, “You did well in taking my commands to my vassals.”

“My thanks, lord.” Lorssett was also unarmored, which showed his faith in his master. Putting on heavy bronze would have told the world he did not believe Sassin could keep him safe. It would have told Sassin the same thing-and Lorssett would have been sorry immediately thereafter.

For now, the Liskash noble stepped out in front of the fighters his underlings had gathered. They fell silent; their eyes followed his every move. None of them wanted Sassin’s eyes to light on him. The lord’s notice was much too likely to mean the lord’s displeasure. And the lord’s displeasure was bound to mean far worse displeasure for the average fighter.

“Males! Fighters!” Sassin’s voice was not especially loud, but neither did it need to be. His followers heard him not only through their earholes but also inside their minds. They couldn’t not listen to him, no matter how much they might have wanted to. That gave him a certain advantage over Rantan Taggah, but it was not one he understood.

“Lord Sassin!” the fighters cried. He also heard them with his mind and his earholes. When they shouted his name, he knew how much they feared him. Enough to do anything he commanded. That was as much fear as he required: not always as much as he would have liked, but as much as he had to have.

“The Mrem are coming,” he said. “Those stinking, hairy beasts think they can go where they will and do as they please. Are they right? Shall we let them?”

“No, Lord Sassin!” the Liskash answered in what might as well have been a single voice. However much they feared him, they hated the Mrem more. Any Liskash noble could always rely on that.

Sassin knew the upstart mammals loathed his kind every bit as much. He knew, but he didn’t care. All you could do with creatures like that was enslave or kill them.

“Will they drive off our herds?” he asked. “Will they trample our egg-laying grounds with their stinking, sweating feet?” Dry-skinned himself, he could imagine little more disgusting than perspiration…and his imagination traveled widely in the realm of disgust.

His fellow Liskash felt as he did. “No, Lord Sassin!” they shouted once more. The fighters who carried javelins brandished them. They were ready to war against the Mrem, sure enough. He could see it. He could hear it. He could smell it with his tongue. And he could feel it in his mind.

“Forward!” he told them.

“Forward!” they echoed, brandishing their weapons once more. He basked in their approval, the way an axehead might spread its broad, bare wings and bask in the early-morning sun.

And forward they went. The Liskash had better discipline than the Mrem. With their mental powers, captains and commanders were better equipped to enforce it than the hairy creatures’ talonmasters. Logic, then, said the Liskash should usually have got the better of the fighting. So it seemed to Sassin; so, indeed, it seemed to every Liskash noble whose views he knew.

Somehow, logic and the Mrem had but a glancing acquaintance with each other. It wasn’t as if the Liskash couldn’t prevail against the two-legged vermin. They did win their share of victories. But their share always seemed smaller than it should have been, and no noble had ever figured out why.

Lose confidence and you weaken your magic, Sassin reminded himself again. This would be the worst time to do that. He cast his thoughts ahead, toward the enemy. Now they would all be in one place, all bunched together. Now he and his fighters could rid the world-or, at any rate, the world south of the New Water, which was world enough-of them once and for all.

And then there would be peace: peace in which the Liskash nobles could lay and hatch their plots against one another, as they were meant to do.

Sassin could hardly wait.

Now that the Clan of the Claw had entered lands the Liskash called their own, Enni Chennitats and her fellow priestesses Danced every morning at sunrise, before the Mrem began to travel. They Danced to thank Aedonniss for bringing the light for yet another day, to thank Assirra for letting mercy come into the world, and, more practically, to spy out traps and dangers that might lie ahead.

It was a tricky business. Just as the Liskash’s cheating hides helped conceal them out on the plain, so their cheating hearts often masked their sorcery. Knowing what was nothing and what was a deceptive nothing often took both native skill and long practice.

Often, but not always. On the third morning of the Dance, the priestesses had hardly begun to move before they swung in unison toward the southwest. Demm Etter spoke the name they all sensed: “The Scaly Ones!”

“They are on the move,” another priestess agreed.

“Straight towards us,” yet another said. No one tried to contradict her.

“I had better take the news to Rantan Taggah,” Enni Chennitats said.

“Yes, why don’t you do that?” Demm Etter sounded-amused? Enni Chennitats thought so. Her ears tingled and twitched. Was it so obvious she liked the talonmaster? To ask the question was the same as to answer it: evidently it was.

Rantan Taggah was talking with Grumm when Enni Chennitats found him. That made sense: the escaped slave was likely to know this territory better than any free Mrem did. But how far could the Clan of the Claw count on what he said he knew? The Dancers couldn’t sorcerously test every word that came out of his mouth. If Sassin had set more snares inside him than just the one, he might do a lot of harm.

Without preamble, Enni Chennitats pointed in the direction to which she and the other Dancers had been drawn. “The Liskash are coming. I don’t think they’re very far away,” she said.

When Grumm saw where she was pointing, he shuddered as if in the grip of some strong fever. “Sassin’s castle lies over there,” he said in his ruined voice.

“Sassin lies whether he’s in his castle or outside of it,” Rantan Taggah said, and laughed more than the joke deserved. Of their own accord, the claws on his hands came out. A moment later, they slid back into their sheaths once more. He went on, “But if he’s coming out, he’ll be easier to kill. Easier to get at a turtle after it takes off its shell.”

“Turtles don’t take them off,” Enni Chennitats said.

“Well, if they did,” Rantan Taggah said indulgently.

“What are you going to do about it?” Enni Chennitats demanded when he didn’t seem inclined to say anything more.

“Fight them-what else?” the talonmaster answered. “They aren’t on their way over to play catch-the-string with us. Or if they are, I’ll be surprised.”

“Are we ready?” Enni Chennitats asked.

“We’d better be. One way or the other, we’ll find out pretty soon, won’t we?” Rantan Taggah sounded infuriatingly cheerful. Enni Chennitats realized he wanted a fight with the Liskash. If anything would get the whole clan behind him, a battle against the ancient enemy ought to do it. After a moment, he added, “Are the priestesses ready to Dance away whatever magic Sassin hurls at us?”

“I hope so.” Enni Chennitats spread her hands, palms up. “You never know beforehand. What we can do, we will.”

“Well, you’d better go back and do it, then.” Rantan Taggah pointed in the same direction. The sky was lighter and brighter than it had been even a little while before. Enni Chennitats could see the smudge of dust low on the horizon there. “You’re right-we don’t have long to wait.”