Bostofa’s hide might let him forget the idea of a faked Dance…for a little while, anyhow.
Zhanns Bostofa’s ears flattened against the top of his head, as if he were ready to brawl. But the plump male turned and stormed away instead. His brushed-out tail showed the fury he was holding in.
Rantan Taggah let out a sigh. “Well,” he said, “ that was fun.”
“Wasn’t it?” The fur on Enni Chennitats’s tail rose up, too. “A faked Dance, a lying Dance…I should have torn out his throat for that.”
“Yes, you should have,” the talonmaster agreed. “When they stood to judge you, I would have sworn he had it coming. By Aedonniss, he did, too.”
“Do you know what he makes me wonder?” Enni Chennitats said.
“No.” Rantan Taggah wasn’t sure he wanted to, either. “But you’re going to tell me, aren’t you?”
She dipped her head. “Remember how I was talking about how there might be another god besides Aedonniss, a god who’s to blame for the Liskash?”
“I’m not likely to forget,” Rantan Taggah answered. “What about it?” He didn’t see the connection.
Since he didn’t, Enni Chennitats made it plain for him: “If that god reached out to touch one of us, what would the Mrem be like afterwards? A lot like Zhanns Bostofa, don’t you think?”
Till she first mentioned the idea, Rantan Taggah hadn’t dreamt there could be any gods but Aedonniss and his gentle mate. Now, watching Zhanns Bostofa’s hunched-over form recede in the distance, the talonmaster found himself a believer-a reluctant believer, perhaps, but a believer all the same.
The driver checked the harness on the two krelprep hitched to the chariot. Only after he was sure all the leather was sound and all the lashings secure did he incline his head to Enni Chennitats. “You can get in, priestess,” he said.
“Thank you, Tessell Yatt,” she said, and stepped up into the car. The wickerwork of the flooring gave a little under her feet. Everything in the chariot was as light as the Clan of the Claw’s finest shapers could make it. The less weight the krelprep had to pull, the faster and the longer they could run.
Tessell Yatt stroked one of the beasts on its muzzle before he came back to join Enni Chennitats in the car. Keeping herd animals…That, the Mrem had done for a very long time. The priestess still wondered how her folk had got beasts to draw them and their wagons, though. After all, in a krelprep’s nostrils what were the Mrem but predators?
And, perhaps just as much to the point, what were krelprep to the Mrem of ancient days but so much walking meat? Whoever first realized the brown-and-white-patched beasts might be more, might do more, must surely have been a male or female of godlike cleverness.
She looked back over her shoulder. As the trek began, her place was near the front. Behind her, wagon drivers, chariot crews, and warriors on foot snarled at one another. Everyone thought everyone else was getting in his way. Nobody imagined he might be getting in anybody else’s way. Mrem weren’t always right-Enni Chennitats had no doubts on that score. But, right or not, they were almost always sure.
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
