Mrem in chariots were faster than Liskash afoot. Scouts could keep an eye on Sassin’s army and bring word back to the Clan of the Claw with enough time left over for the clan to do something about it. When Enni Chennitats heard shouts of “They’re coming!” she knew what she had to do herself.
Had she forgotten, Demm Etter would have set her straight. “Take your places!” the senior priestess called to the Dancers. “All of you, take your places. Hurry, now! No time to waste-and we have to do it right.”
Enni Chennitats’s place was at the center of one ring of Dancers. She wouldn’t be doing much moving herself, not this time. That felt odd: more than a little unnatural. She would serve as the focus of the other Dancers’ exertions.
Grumm loped over from Zhanns Bostofa’s detachment to stand at the center of another circle, not far from her own. He still had the unhappy, hunched-over stance that had characterized him ever since he made his way back to the Clan of the Claw. Even better than the Dancers, he understood what a desperate gamble they were undertaking. But he did stand there, no matter how miserable he seemed. He too was a focus. From him, though, the Dancers in his circle would take. In a way, that seemed dreadfully unfair to Enni Chennitats. Sassin had already robbed him of so much.
They hoped a little more taking would redeem it all. They hoped, yes, but no one could be sure ahead of time. The only way to find out was to try. And so Grumm…stood there.
A male-one of the warriors who followed Zhanns Bostofa-came hotfooting it back to the Dancers. “You’d better start, if you’re going to do it,” he panted. “Looks like all the Scaly Ones in the world coming down on us.”
“I thank you, Mm Kafftee,” Demm Etter answered calmly. She stood between the two circles. At her gesture, the Dancers surrounding Grumm began to spin sunwise. Those around Enni Chennitats Danced deasil. Demm Etter moved in a rhythm of her own, somehow linking the opposed Dances.
In most Dances, Enni Chennitats would have been so busy concentrating, letting energy flow through her, that she would have paid only scant attention to what was going on around the priestesses. But now she heard the yowls and hisses and crashes and clatters of battle not nearly far enough away. Zhanns Bostofa and his warriors were fighting like males possessed, eager above all else to make up for their earlier failure. The Liskash cared nothing for their eagerness. All the Scaly Ones wanted was to kill.
Enni Chennitats formed Rantan Taggah’s image in her mind, as she’d done when the last battle unexpectedly fell to pieces. “Are you there?” she called. “Can you hear me?”
“I hear you, Enni Chennitats.” The priestess was assuredly hearing the talonmaster with her mind, not her ears. Even so, it was his voice, without the tiniest fragment of doubt. Its very familiarity warmed her. So did his usual directness: “Now-where is the stinking lizard’s get?”
“I don’t know yet. I haven’t heard anything from Grumm.” Heard, again, wasn’t quite the right word, but it was the best one she had. The other circle was trying to get knowledge, direction, out of the escaped slave and give it to her so she could pass it on to Rantan Taggah. Whether they could…
Grumm was what he was-lost and damned, in essence-because Sassin had eaten his surname. But what kept him what he was was the Liskash’s possession and retention of that surname. The link between them remained. Up till now, that had worked altogether to Sassin’s advantage. Still, a rope was a rope. You could tug on it from either end.
So the Dancers hoped. So they prayed. If Assirra was kind, she would hearken to them. Otherwise, the only Mrem left on this side of the New Water would be a few scattered halfname slaves like Grumm. Better to die cleanly.
Enni Chennitats cocked her ears toward Grumm. That couldn’t possibly help, but she did it anyway. She didn’t see how it could hurt. Where was Sassin?
Her ears stayed aimed at Grumm, but her body shifted. She hardly realized she was doing it till she finished the move. “ That way!” she exclaimed, as if Rantan Taggah stood beside her.
“ Which way?” he asked irritably, because he didn’t.
She explained. The mind-to-mind link held more than words alone; she made him feel the direction in which she was facing now. And she could gauge how far away Rantan Taggah was, and also, through Grumm, how far away Sassin was. Little by little, directions and distances converged.
Rantan Taggah and Ramm Passk’t stole from one bush, one scrubby tree, to the next. “You’d better know where we’re going,” Ramm Passk’t growled.
“Don’t worry about it,” Rantan Taggah answered. “If I don’t, we’ll both end up too dead to care.”
“You know how to make a fellow feel better, all right,” the other warrior said. Rantan Taggah held up a hand: Enni Chennitats was speaking inside his head, and he had trouble paying attention to her voice and to the one from the outside world-the real world? no, one seemed as real as the other-at the same time.
They’d sneaked around the left wing of the Liskash army. Sassin hadn’t set out so many flank guards this time-he realized he’d hurt the Mrem chariotry in the last fight. That a couple of warriors might come on foot? It was such a mad, smerp-brained scheme, it had never occurred to him.
A good thing, too, Rantan Taggah thought. A squadron of archers around the Liskash noble would have pincushioned his comrade and him before they got close enough to do what needed doing. How they would get back again…Rantan Taggah would worry about that later, if there was a later in which to worry about it.
“If Zhanns Bostofa doesn’t hold them out, I’ll do to him what I did to that bad-tasting Scaly One,” Ramm Passk’t said.
“Someone else will have taken care of it,” Rantan Taggah said. “I made sure of that, believe me.”
“Too bad,” the other warrior said. “I’ve always wanted his blood on my tongue.” His broad shoulders went up and down in a shrug. “Ah, well. It’s not like I’m the only one.”
“Oh, indeed. Everybody loves Zhanns Bostofa,” Rantan Taggah said. Ramm Passk’t laughed. The talonmaster couldn’t remember the last time he’d said anything so funny.
“Can you see him yet?” Enni Chennitats asked inside his mind. “You aren’t more than three or four bowshots away.”
Rantan Taggah peered ahead. “There’s a little knot of Scaly Ones off in the distance,” he reported. Three or four bowshots might not seem like much to the priestess, but at the moment it did to him. “I suppose Sassin is one of them.” He almost asked Enni Chennitats to get a picture of what the Liskash noble looked like from Grumm, but he didn’t see the point. In any Mrem’s eyes, a Scaly One was only a Scaly One.
“Yes. He has to be,” Enni Chennitats said. He’d better be, was what she had to mean.
“All right. We’ll do what we can,” the talonmaster said. He pointed at the little group of Liskash. “He’s one of them,” he told Ramm Passk’t.
“Which one?” But Ramm Passk’t shrugged again. “It doesn’t matter. If we kill them all, he won’t get away.”
“There you go,” Rantan Taggah said. Sometimes Ramm Passk’t’s ruthlessness could be unnerving even to another warrior.
They sneaked toward the Scaly Ones. Before long, they were down on their bellies. Rantan Taggah tried not to think about all the burrs and fleas and ticks his fur would pick up. He’d groom himself later. If he had to shave himself bare to get rid of everything, he would do that. Later hardly seemed real to him, anyhow. He would do his best to save the clan, and after that it would go on without him.
A bare thread of whisper from Ramm Passk’t: “Breeze is blowing from them to us. They won’t smell us coming. Aedonniss gave us one break.”
One of the Liskash stepped out ahead of the rest and pointed north with unmistakable anger-and with an unmistakable sense of command. Sassin had identified himself. Rantan Taggah wanted to thank him. Somehow, he doubted the Liskash noble would appreciate the courtesy.
The talonmaster and Ramm Passk’t stalked Sassin like a pair of somo going after a bundor-or maybe even a frillhorn. Somo reminded Mrem uneasily of themselves, though they were easily twice the size of Mrem. They could rise up on their hind legs, but commonly went on all fours. Even the largest Liskash killers thought twice about challenging them.
