Harry Turtledove - Clan of the Claw

“Then we keep fighting them and keep beating them till they get the idea,” the talonmaster said. “Or they beat us. In that case, you can stand beside Zhanns Bostofa and say, ‘I told you so.’ ”

“I don’t want to stand beside him. Just being near him makes my fur want to twitch,” Enni Chennitats said. She set a hand on his arm. “I’d rather stand beside you.”

Far and away the biggest reason Rantan Taggah hadn’t cut a swath like Ramm Passk’t’s through the clan’s females was that he’d hoped to hear something like that from her-or to work up the nerve to say something like that to her. He hadn’t. Sometimes-often-it was easier to risk his life than rejection from someone he cared about.

“Well,” he said, and then “Well” again. He tried once more: “Where do we go from here?” That was better, but not, he feared, very much.

“West, of course,” Enni Chennitats answered, which startled a laugh out of him. It wasn’t that she was wrong-she was right. “But wherever we go from now on, we go together.”

“Yes,” Rantan Taggah said, and he’d never felt so clever in all his life.

And so Rantan Taggah spoke and the way was open. But he walked in blood and wept. “Why,” he demanded, “have you abandoned us in this forsaken land?” But there was no answer and the call to arms came again. There was no rest for three days and three nights. Then when the demons had been cast asunder, the Dancer Enni Chennitats told Rantan Taggah to sleep and he did. In his dream Assirra appeared. She stood tall with golden fur and eyes that glowed with the green of Spring. Around her the earth sang and stirred, bringing forth an unending vista of great fields of grass and grain in which countless herds grazed. “Lead our people home,” She commanded. “Go West and take them to the promised lands. Lead them and they will be free.” And Rantan Taggah knew that there was not greater need than to be free. So he sharpened his claws and regained his faith. On the next day he told the clan of his vision and Enni Chennitats Danced it until all understood and agreed. And so the people began to be free. – The Book of Mrem, verse forty-two

T he plains baked under the sun, and the long yellow grass hissed like the ghosts of angry warriors as the herds grazed under watchful eyes or paused beneath gnarled, thorny trees. The hills stood blue with forest in the distance, and tendrils of their green followed the watercourses; in season the wings of the birds filled the sky. From time-weathered citadels of stone the magician lords of the Liskash folk waged their wars with swords and spells and poison and knives in the dark, rising and falling in a cycle that changed little but the names.

So it was; so it had always been.

But the wild Mrem were coming, and nothing would be the same. Nothing, ever again.

The great hall of the goddess Ashala had walls of sandstone colored like pale gold, with specks of mica that glittered in the hot sunlight of these lands; it rose to the height of three tall Liskash standing on one another’s shoulders. The timbers that bore the roof were of a hard dark wood that had been hauled laboriously from the far mountains and each one was richly carved in images that told of her power and the legends of her ancestors. The air smelled of fear and ancient death.

The wall behind the throne was stuccoed and inlaid with colored tiles in a design of the rayed sun in splendor, Ashala’s personal symbol. Before the tall-backed throne of wrought night-black wood and beaten gold the stones of the floor had been blackened by fire.

That was where the goddess staged her executions. She could burn anything to ash with her mind and frequently did so, especially those who had displeased her. Sometimes it was a limb or an eye, sometimes the whole of them, depending on the depth of her displeasure.

The hall was high but narrow, and nobles crowded back to make an aisle for Hisshah, the daughter of the goddess.

Hisshah stood, nervously waiting for her name to be called, controlling the impulse to flick her tongue over her fangs and thin narrow lips. The dry, musky scent of the packed nobles made her heart beat faster, but her face was calm. She did not think the ultimate punishment would be hers today. She was, after all, her mother’s only heir.

“Let Hisshah approach the Divinity!”

She walked carefully towards the throne, keeping her stride slow and long and the sway of her head and tail regular. All of the high Liskash of the court were gathered and she would not show weakness before them. Hard enough to do as she was shorn of all the jewels that marked her rank, save those embedded in the scales of her forehead in a sigil that marked her as her mother’s.

She’d been proud of the mark at five summers; now at twenty it infuriated her to be claimed, like a piss-pot or a rug.

Her mother wore no jewelry at all; instead her whole body glittered with tiny embedded gems, one to a scale, a privilege she reserved for herself alone. Ashala sat on her carved throne of ebony and gold still as a statue, her yellow eyes cold and the pupils narrowed to an S-slit.

At her mother’s orders it had been two weeks since Hisshah had fed or, more importantly, drunk. Only a people as strong as the Liskash could endure such deprivation. Now she was to be humiliated as the final, and to her, the worst, phase of her punishment. But she would not stumble, she would not weave drunkenly down the aisle; though her head was swimming. She would show herself to be a proper heir to the throne. Knowing that one day she would be sitting there meting out rewards…and punishments…made it possible to endure this.

Ashala watched her daughter’s slow but steady advance and grudgingly respected her for it.

The the weakest and last of my clutch and very disappointing since the moment she broke the shell, which she barely managed to do without dying of exhaustion. Still, mine, which is to judge by high standards .

Hisshah could move small objects with her mind and perform some basic magic, but her powers were trifling and no training had been able to discover much more. The one thing she could do well was ward her mind. She’d gotten that from her father.

The impossibility of reading his mind was what had made Ashala kill him in the end. There was just no telling what he might be plotting. And unlike his last daughter his powers had been formidable.

It’s time I had another clutch, she thought. Try again for something better while time enough remains for the hatchlings to reach maturity while I can guard them.

But she dreaded the negotiations, as well as the proximity of a powerful male and his entourage.

The last one’s minions had spied on everything and then they’d all refused to leave.

No wonder I killed him, Ashala thought with satisfaction.

It had been cleverly done, too, if she did say so herself. They suspected, naturally, but they couldn’t prove anything, which meant less chance of a feud. Of course, those suspicions might make it difficult to find a new mate. But not impossible. Her domain was rich and she had much to offer in the way of favors. It was always a balance, of course; you wanted a strong heredity for your offspring, but not strong enough to make it likely they’d succeed in killing you, and not from a mate so strong that he’d succeed in doing so himself.

If anything her disappointing remaining offspring might be the sticking point. How her children had all managed to kill themselves or each other, except for Hisshah, was a source of amazement. Perhaps she’d erred on the side of recklessness when selecting the sire. Certainly she had always showed an adequate degree of patience.