Harry Turtledove: Clan of the Claw

“He knows your plan,” Grumm answered. “He knows it, and he laughs at it. He wants you-he wants the Clan of the Claw-to try to cross his lands. He has been readying himself for the fight for years. All manner of scaly monsters await you: everything from snakes on the ground to crocodiles in the rivers to the terrible hunters of the plains to countless thinking Liskash, all moving under a single controlling will: his.”

“There!” Zhanns Bostofa said. “Do you see? Do you hear? Do you smell? Only death and destruction will meet us if we set forth. You said the Scaly Ones would not be ready for us. You said it, but that did not make it true.”

He was more careful of his speech when he wasn’t holding the scepter. More careful, but maybe not careful enough. At another time, Rantan Taggah might have decided he’d bent the rules and call him out. Not now. Now there were more important things to worry about.

The talonmaster pointed a clawed forefinger at Grumm. For an instant, Rantan Taggah seemed, at least to himself, the literal embodiment of his clan. Whether anyone else felt the same way…Again, he had more important things to worry about. “You have heard what you say from Sassin himself, I gather?”

“I have,” Grumm said.

“And you know it is true because…?”

“Talonmaster, he let me-no, he made me-see through his eyes, feel through his hands.” Grumm shivered at the memory. Rantan Taggah wanted to shiver with him. Mrem were not made to be subjected to minds like that. The Liskash were too horribly different. Gathering himself, Grumm added, “He showed me the truth. I saw it as he saw it. I felt it as he felt it. If the Clan of the Claw tries to cross Sassin’s land, the scavenger birds and leatherwings will gorge themselves on our carcasses.”

“There!” Zhanns Bostofa said again. “Who knows more of what this Liskash intends than one who has seen and felt for himself?”

“What the Liskash intends is to put us in fear,” Rantan Taggah replied. “Plainly, he has done what he intends with you, at least.”

“Sometimes being afraid is sensible,” Zhanns Bostofa said. “We have to teach our kits to be careful, or none of us would live to grow up.”

“They don’t need to jump in the air at every passing shadow, though,” Rantan Taggah said. “That is what you…may be doing.” He left it there. He could have said something stronger, but he might have been wrong. Sassin might really be as strong as he claimed.

Or, no matter what Grumm had seen or felt, the Scaly One might not.

“Will you risk the clan on the strength of your whim? Will you risk our hangers-on?” Zhanns Bostofa’s wave took in the males who’d made it out of the Hollow Lands alive. “Will you risk all the Mrem on this side of the New Water? That is what we are-you said so yourself. Is your whim alone so strong?”

“Not my whim alone, by Aedonniss,” Rantan Taggah said. The other male talked too much, and gave him time to think. “Let us test poor Grumm here. Let the Dancers see if they can undo whatever magic Sassin worked against him. If they can, if the Liskash was lying, we go forward as I proposed. If not…If not, let it be as you say, Zhanns Bostofa.” The words tasted like rotten meat in the talonmaster’s mouth.

The plump black-and-white male inclined his head. “Agreed.”

Rantan Taggah would have agreed in his place, too. Zhanns Bostofa had by far the better half of the bargain. If Sassin was telling the truth, the plump male would get what he wanted, and the Clan of the Claw would stay where it was. Even if Sassin was lying, if he was a strong enough sorcerer his spell would prevail against everything the clan’s Dancers could do to oppose it. Only if he was lying and they had the power to beat down his lies would Rantan Taggah get to do what he was convinced needed doing.

Why Aedonniss had made the world so one Liskash noble had at least as much magic at the tips of his scaly fingers as a clan’s Dancers could muster all together, why Assirra hadn’t softened her divine mate so he showed the Mrem more mercy…Rantan Taggah shrugged yet again. Wonder why the gods had done what they’d undoubtedly done and you headed straight down the track to madness.

Enni Chennitats eyed Grumm with pained sympathy as the escaped slave took his place in the center of the clan’s Dancing ground. The male left with half his name exuded misery just standing there. Even with the Dancers all around him, he looked more alone than anyone else the priestess had ever seen.

He gnawed on a scrap of smoked meat. He seemed to eat all the time. If he kept it up, before too long he wouldn’t be skin and bones any more-he’d get as remarkably fat as Zhanns Bostofa. And then…And then he would be fat and miserable instead of scrawny and miserable. Maybe that was better. More likely-or so it seemed to Enni Chennitats-it was only different. Confusing better with different was likely to make a new misery.

She wondered whether Rantan Taggah’s plan to set the Clan of the Claw on its great trek was better or only different. She wanted to think it was better. Priestesses traveled from clan to clan, bringing news and sharing knowledge (males called it gossiping, but what did males know?). Like most of her sisters here on the Dancing ground, she felt trapped by being confined to a single clan. She craved the trek in a way most of the clansfolk would never understand.

Even so, it might prove a dreadful mistake. There was Grumm, who’d already spent too long under Liskash bondage. Maybe all the Mrem on this side of the New Water were doomed to slavery or death if they persisted in Rantan Taggah’s scheme. Or maybe they were doomed if they clung to these grazing grounds like a snail clinging to its rock.

If the gods were kind, the Clan of the Claw was not doomed at all. If.

The senior priestess was a brindled female named Demm Etter. She raised her hand with the same authority Rantan Taggah used in holding up the clan scepter at a warriors’ assembly. “Are we ready?” she asked. She wasn’t only brindled; she was grizzled as well. But her voice belied her years.

None of the two dozen other priestesses said no. Enni Chennitats would have been astonished if any of them had. If they weren’t prepared for what lay ahead, they would not have come to the Dancing grounds. Still, the question had to be asked. Ritual demanded it, and ritual helped forge in the Dancers the strength the Liskash had straight from Aedonniss.

Demm Etter dipped her head. The priestesses Danced in a circle around Grumm, first sunwise and then, at a signal from Demm Etter, deasil instead. They began slowly; they did not want to-did not dare to-spill out their power before it was fully formed. Grumm watched them circle. His jaws worked as he went on chewing.

At first, Enni Chennitats was aware only of the ground under the pads of her feet, of her rhythmic breathing, of her need to hold her place and to keep in time. This was not magic; this was only motion. But out of motion sprang magic. Sometimes. When magic felt like springing. When the Scaly Ones’ hot, nasty sorcery wasn’t too strong. You could only try. Trying was a magic of its own-so priestesses often said.

Sunwise. Deasil. Faster. Sunwise. Deasil. Faster yet. The world around Enni Chennitats began to blur into unreality. The Dance was the only thing that mattered. Out beyond the edge of the Dancing ground, warriors would be watching, though none would presume to set even a clawtip on the hallowed earth till the Dance was over. Enni Chennitats knew they were there. They faded from her consciousness, too. She knew how much Rantan Taggah had riding on the Dance, and how much she had herself. She knew, but she stopped caring. The Dance was what it was. It would do what it did. And then the clan would decide where to go from there, or whether to go.