Harry Turtledove: Clan of the Claw

The driver adjusted the broad shield that would protect them both if-no, more likely when-trouble came. The thick, scaly hide of some mindless hunting Liskash, cured and boiled in wax, would help ward Mrem against the javelins and arrows the more clever Liskash used.

At the very head of the column rode Rantan Taggah and his driver. He looked quite splendid, his bronze scalemail gleaming red in the morning sun. He pointed to the standard-bearer in the chariot beside his. The standard-bearer raised the pole on which was mounted a hand-long claw cut ages ago from the carcass of a huge, vicious Scaly One. The trumpeter raised his long copper horn to his lips and blew three blasts from it.

“Forward!” Rantan Taggah shouted in a great voice. “Forward, the Clan of the Claw!”

Enni Chennitats’s cheer went up to the heavens along with those of the other males and females who could hear the talonmaster. At the back of the column, they would probably be wondering what the fuss was about-if they knew there was any fuss at all.

Rantan Taggah touched his driver on the shoulder. The junior male flicked the reins. He called to his krelprep. They leaned forward and began to walk. Enni Chennitats exclaimed in surprise. Someone had ornamented with gold leaf the four-pronged horns they bore above each eye, so they shone even brighter than Rantan Taggah’s polished armor. Now that was swank!

Tessell Yatt also flicked the reins. Enni Chennitats took hold of the rail as the chariot started rolling. A warrior accustomed to the battle cars could stand in one of them without needing to hold on no matter how it jounced. She was no warrior, and didn’t need to make an impression.

Dust flew up at once. The divided hooves of the krelprep dug into the ground and kicked up the small particles. The rumble of hoofbeats and squeal of ungreased axles all around Enni Chennitats filled her head till her ears didn’t know which way to turn.

Something small and frightened dashed away from the chariot in which she rode. A lizard? A smerp? She had no idea. She sensed only the motion down there on the ground, not what had caused it.

Spooked birds flew up from bushes and scattered scrubby trees. Their calls of alarm added to the din. High above them, flying Liskash circled in the sky, riding the columns of warm air that rose from the ground. Enni Chennitats hated being under the leatherwings’ cold, too-clever gaze. Some of those creatures had the native wit to spy for Liskash nobles.

She might hate it, but she couldn’t do anything about it. The creatures glided high above where spears or even arrows could reach. She’d thought what a marvel it was for the Mrem to have chosen to use other animals as tools. It wasn’t a marvel when the Liskash did it-not to her, it wasn’t. It was a horror.

She kept looking up every so often. The leatherwings went right on circling overhead. Then, after a while, she saw something she liked even less. One of the flying Liskash stopped circling and sped off toward the southwest, wide wings beating with what seemed to her to be sinister purpose. On and on it flew, its path through the air straight as a spear’s.

Tessell Yatt spied it, too. “Cursed thing’s heading off to tell Sassin what we’re up to,” he said.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Enni Chennitats answered unhappily. “What can we do about it?”

The driver’s tail lashed back and forth. “Not one stinking thing, not that I can see. You’re a wise female, though. Have you got any notions along those lines?”

“I don’t feel so wise, not watching the leatherwing fly where it will,” the priestess said, more unhappily still. “I see the problem, but not how to solve it.”

That made Tessell Yatt shrug. “Sounds like a lot of life, doesn’t it? Well, sooner or later the Scaly Ones’ll try and hit us. Then we’ll give ’em what for. Maybe they know where we’re at, but that doesn’t mean they can do anything about it, right?” He bared his teeth. Whatever lay ahead, he was ready for it-or he thought he was, which amounted to the same thing now.

Sometimes not dwelling on what lay ahead was wiser. Sometimes. Enni Chennitats tried to make herself believe this was one of those times. “Right,” she said, as firmly as she could.

The axehead perched on the battlement to Sassin’s keep. Its kind nested on cliffsides, so the Liskash noble’s artificial cliff must have seemed a fine landing place to it.

Sassin held a dead smerp by the tail. He swung the ugly, hairy little body back and forth, back and forth. The axehead swayed with the motion, its enormous eyes avidly following the moving hunk of meat. Sassin might not care for the way smerps tasted. Axeheads weren’t so choosy.

Had it been in Sassin to like any other living things, axeheads would have stood high on the list. They were clever enough to be useful, but not nearly clever enough to be rivals. As far as he was concerned, that made them perfect extensions of his own volition. No, it wasn’t liking, but it was as close as he came.

He tossed the smerp into the air. The axehead’s long, toothy jaws opened and closed. For a moment, half a digit’s worth of bare pink tail dangled after they snapped shut. Then the leather-winged flyer swallowed, and the dangling tail disappeared, too. It cocked its head and eyed him, hoping for more.

Instead, he caught its gaze with his own. The axehead twisted on the battlement, trying to break free of his will, but found itself unable. The foolish Mrem said snakes could mentally master their prey and make it stand still to be devoured. For almost all serpents, they were mistaken. But Sassin had that power-that and more.

He reached inside the axehead’s mind. What it had seen was as clear to him as if he’d seen it himself. What it had felt was every bit as clear, but he ignored that. The sensation of flying might have fascinated a hairy Mrem. It left Sassin utterly indifferent. He wanted to know what he wanted to know, and everything else could go hang.

As if from high overhead, he looked down on the outsized smerps-so he thought of them. Oh, Mrem were more clever than smerps, but that only made them more annoying and more dangerous. Sure enough, they were moving west, into his lands. They would pay for that. He would make sure they paid. Yes, indeed!

He studied the formation their leader had chosen. His tongue flicked out, tasting the air as he considered. Reluctantly, he decided that the miserable Mrem had some notion of what he was about. The vermin wouldn’t be easy to attack-unless they could be provoked into making a mistake.

And that probably would not prove so very hard. Mrem weren’t calculators like Liskash nobles. They acted on impulse, like the animals they basically were. Getting them to move the way he wanted them to move shouldn’t be much harder than tricking a hatchling still wet from the juices of its egg.

Somber satisfaction seeped through Sassin. He mentally pulled away from the axehead, leaving it alone again inside its long, narrow skull. It glared at him, as if it could presume to believe he’d had no business violating its privacy so. More often than not, he would have punished it even for such tiny presumption. A god, after all, was not inclined to brook opposition from anyone.

But Sassin found himself in a mood as generous as he was likely to know. So what if the leather-winged flyer resented his mental invasion? It had served him as he needed to be served. That was the only thing that really mattered.

He tossed the axehead another dead smerp. Resentment vanished as it devoured the mammal. As long as he fed it, he could do as he pleased. So it thought afterwards, anyhow. It had had a different view of things while the mental violation was going on. But, again, so what?