Harry Turtledove: Clan of the Claw

“You are no smerp. You are the lord here. You are the power here. You are the god here,” Lorssett declared. Pleasure trickled through Sassin; he couldn’t have put that better himself. His aide went on, “When you go to war against the furry beasts, victory is assured.”

That also pleased Sassin. But he remembered that victory was assured only after it was won. “We will need to summon all our strength to beat them,” he said. “Set that in motion at once. See to it. Use my name in all you do.”

“As you say, lord, so shall it be.” Lorssett hesitated. “So it shall be from me, I should say. But what if…certain others…do not care to follow my commands given in your name?”

He was not the only Liskash near-noble through whom Sassin ruled his domain. Very often, it suited Sassin’s purposes to leave his subordinates in doubt about which of them held the greatest part of his favor. Very often-but not today.

“Use my name,” Sassin repeated. “Tell them that, if they doubt, I will visit them mind to mind. After that, they will doubt no more, but they will not be the happier for it.” He would put the fear of their god-of himself-in them.

Lorssett recoiled half a step in fear. “As you say, so shall it be. Our archers, our spearers, our fierce beasts-all shall be in readiness before the accursed Mrem commence to move.”

“See that it is,” Sassin said. “When those hairy creatures move, they move. We cannot act like frogs and turtles and sleep through the cold season at the bottom of a pond. See to it that no one misunderstands or goes slack.”

“In your name, lord, all will be done,” Lorssett said. It was, once more, the right answer. Which meant…how much? Sassin studied his underling. Did Lorssett dream of snapping with Sassin’s teeth one day, despite his sorry lack of sorcery? If he did, he would pay for his presumption.

Again, though, not today. Today, Sassin had to arrange things so the Mrem did the paying.

The wind blew hot and dry out of the south. Rantan Taggah smelled the dust it carried. The transparent third eyelids flicked across his eyes again and again, clearing them of grit.

Get used to it, he told himself. How much dust would there be when the whole Clan of the Claw got moving? Herdbeasts, chariots, wagons, males, females? The folk at the back would be lucky if they could see the folk at the front when the whole long column started west.

And the folk at the front would be lucky if they could see the folk at the back. “Have to keep the rear guard strong,” Rantan Taggah muttered. So many things for a talonmaster to think about! The Liskash might try to build a wall so the trekking clan couldn’t enter Sassin’s lands at all.

They might, yes-but Rantan Taggah didn’t think they would. Brothers to serpents as they were, the Scaly Ones were more likely to strike where they reckoned the Mrem weakest, and to hit the column from the flank or from behind. Rantan Taggah did more muttering: “We have to be strong everywhere, then.” He growled, down deep in his throat. How was he supposed to manage that? Too much space, and not enough males to cover all of it.

A voice from behind him: “What did you say, Rantan Taggah?”

He spun on his toes. “Oh! Enni Chennitats! I didn’t hear you come up.” Not surprising, that, not when the Mrem were light on their feet-and she especially, being a Dancer. He went on, “I was just trying to figure out everything we’ll have to do once we start moving.”

“You can’t know everything ahead of time,” the priestess said.

His mouth twisted wryly. “That’s something I already do know. But the Liskash can ruin us- will ruin us-if they catch us by surprise. So I have to work out as many ways to keep that from happening as I can.”

“We will know-we may know-some of what they do before they try to do it,” Enni Chennitats said. “Seeing some way into their sorceries is one of the things the Dance is good for.”

“You dragged the truth out of Grumm, sure enough.” Admiration filled the talonmaster’s voice. Admiration for the Dance, or for this Dancer here? Rantan Taggah wondered. Here, at least, he didn’t need to wonder long. For both, and especially for the lithe, comely priestess.

When there was time, he ought to do something about that. But there wasn’t, not right now, and there wouldn’t be for quite a while. The Clan of the Claw bubbled like stew in a clay-daubed basket over a big fire. (The clan females still had a few precious proper pots won in trade with the now-vanished city-states of the Hollow Lands, but only a few. You could be as careful as you pleased, but every now and then a pot would break. None of the nomads had the trick to making real pottery-those baskets were as close as they came. If one of the refugees who’d escaped the inrushing New Water knew the art…Rantan Taggah found yet another thing he needed to check on.)

How was he supposed to remember pots when he didn’t even have the time to think about Enni Chennitats? The clan had carved out this domain south of the Hollow Lands a couple of generations before, grazing their krelprep and other herdbeasts in the flatlands here during the warm season and taking them up into the hills to forage when the weather got cooler and wetter. Now they would have to keep going at all times of the year. The Liskash weren’t likely to let them rest and graze their animals as they pleased. Rantan Taggah swore under his breath. What had Aedonniss been thinking when he made the Scaly Ones?

Here was a priestess standing beside him. He asked her the question. Gravely, she considered it. “There is no sure answer to that,” she said at last. “Dancers have debated it for…for as long as there have been Dancers, I suppose. Some say the sky lord put them on earth to give us a proper challenge, and to keep us from fighting amongst ourselves so much. Some say they are not properly part of creation at all, but only Aedonniss’ waste, which he forgot to cover as he should have because he’d worked so hard making the things he truly wanted.”

Rantan Taggah laughed. “Yes, I’ve heard that. Godshit!” He laughed again, louder. “I like it.”

Enni Chennitats held up a slim hand. She stepped closer to him, which made his heart beat faster. “But there is another possibility. I have never heard that it is forbidden to speak of it with someone who is not a priestess, but I know we hold it close. I will ask you to do the same.”

“Of course,” Rantan Taggah replied at once, intrigued. “What is it?”

“It could be that the Liskash truly aren’t part of Aedonniss’ creation,” Enni Chennitats said in a low, troubled voice. “It could be that some other god, a dark and wicked god, made them for purposes of his own, purposes that stand against everything the sky god stands for. We do not talk about this much, even among ourselves. It frightens us. It makes us think the world may be a larger, stranger, more dangerous place than we care to imagine. But it seems to explain some things the simpler ideas cannot.”

“A dark and wicked god…” Rantan Taggah weighed the notion. After a few heartbeats, he dipped his head to the priestess. “Yes, I can see how that might be so. And he would have made the Scaly Ones in his own fashion, as Aedonniss patterned us, the true people, after himself. That is a very large thought.”

“Which is why we hold it close,” she told him.

A smerp hopped by. When the breeze shifted and brought it the scent of the two Mrem, it squeaked in fright and dove under a thornbush. Rantan Taggah felt a great tug of memory. When he was a kit, how many smerps had he chased while he was learning to hunt? How many of them had got away under thornbushes or between rocks or down holes in the ground? How proud had he been when he finally caught one? And how horrified had he been a moment later, when it bit his hand, jumped free, and fled?