Exiled: Clan of the Claw, Book One (26 page)

* * *

Buloth threw a copper pitcher at one of his senior attendants. The Liskash picked it up without a word and took it away with him. The young noble wasn’t happy at losing slaves. The stress of battle had to have done it; he was not as strong as his father yet. That was a good lesson for him. Not just the mind magic, but the ability to retain it in harsh conditions. That would come with practice. Today, he meant to get practice. His gold flecked eyes narrowed with determination. Those retreating Mrem would not find him so easy this time.

He wanted to pretend he wasn’t concerned about the escaped Mrem. He didn’t need to pretend. No one here was aware of it, nor concerned. He enjoyed this lone power. How would he manage that with mates and children? That would be something to think on later.

For now, he didn’t have to worry about the nasty creatures, and he found his mind focused sharper when it only had reptile brains to manipulate. They were cleaner, more advanced, less chaotic. He could control them better, and it felt as if he had more. That might be something to examine, too. If he could select the best, most tractable slaves, he could do more with them. The rest would have to be used for more menial tasks until they broke properly to his control, or be used where they could die heroic deaths for his greatness. Yes, he liked that notion.

There was much to explore here. First, though, he would flank and crush those nasty little vermin.

He selected a wine for his victory, and had his handserver put it aside.

He also decided Mrem did not taste good. No amount of seasoning made that gamy meat palatable.

* * *

Hress Rscil had doubts about his strategy. His warriors didn’t like retreating. He had new, untested weaklings, to be honest about it. He had most of the clan’s Dancers and warriors and their lives or independence to lose. There was no par, no gracious drawing of lines. Either he crushed the helpless slaves of this Buloth, and that creature himself, or he and all his people became mindless shit-handlers for the thing.

Still, it had worked once by accident. Hopefully it would work again by design.

The warriors were drawn up, with the eight and three new recruits mixed among them, and the Dancers. The warriors looked more concerned about the newcomers than they did about the Dancers. Rscil found that a relief.

This time Cmeo Mrist rode with him, with a spear to defend herself in need, and a loudcone like his own for directing her Dancers. All knew it would be a retreat. None yet knew the whole story on why.

It started as before, with a steady march toward the encroaching force that swarmed down the hill at a run.

This time, though, the clash did not cause the Dancers to snarl and panic. Many flinched or fluffed in aggression, but all kept their positions. The line held, and worked, and hordes of enslaved fighters fell squirming in reptilian death. It took so long for them to die. Eights of beats they’d thrash and twitch, long after their blood and their life had left them. Did they have no afterdeath to retreat to? Was that what kept them tied to the dead flesh? Was the mind magic grip that powerful?

He was almost distracted by those thoughts, but a javelin whipped past again, the bronze scarred from edge to edge combat, and bright as it missed his eye. He swore, and Gree galloped them closer to the line as a taunt to the enemy and a salute to his own. He would be closest during this retreat. Cmeo Mrist chittered slightly from nerves, but gripped the bound edge of the chariot and stayed still.

Then his divided attention returned to realize another mass of Liskash was spreading to flank them. Advance, retreat made no difference. There were thousands of them. Possibly an eight of thousands.

He raised his cone and shouted, “Drillmasters, divide the claws at the middle and retreat in two elements! Divide at the middle and retreat in two elements!”

The talonmaster burned and cringed inside. This was a complicated maneuver they’d never trained for, but it might give them enough frontage to save themselves. This was not to be a winning battle. He must just hope that the clan survived this one.

It worked to start with. Claws Five and Six, and Seven and Eight spread out to match the flanking forces. Three and Four split in two and clustered behind the lead ranks. The Dancers stepped aside, and then formed two shallow arcs that deepened into broad Vs. Once again, the slaughter started, a short backstep leaving clumps of twitching bodies for the attackers to maneuver around. That broke their advance and slowed them, and the Mrem butchered them as they came.

It worked so well that there was an even chance to advance, slightly. Hress Rscil flared his ears.
That
was useful. Perhaps that could be developed. Instead of a flat front, a dagged one.

Several Dancers broke from the mass and dragged wounded warriors to the rear, where a wagon waited to haul them far back. Some of them might survive, with herbs and washing and fire.

Then the retreat started in earnest, and it didn’t look as if the warriors were faking fear. They were massively outnumbered, but laying about with claw and shield at any limb offered. Not many Liskash died, but eights of eights were crippled or maimed and would never fight again. He watched a leatherwing beat down, attempting to disrupt the movement with its wingtips. One warrior slashed off a tip with a keen spear, and a Dancer hurled her javelin just right, into its breast. It screeched, beat away just far enough to collapse into the Liskash lines.

Cmeo Mrist hopped down from the chariot and ran toward the formation, leaving him to wonder what had taken her. She didn’t act bespelled, and she ran toward the battle, so he waited to see what happened.

He shouted for more reinforcements on the right flank, which was taking the brunt of the assault directly in front of him. The fighting had pushed close to where Rscil stood. He and Gree hurled their barbed darts into the encroaching mass in rapid succession, scoring an eight of wounds each.

The retreat suddenly erupted, with those cursed refugees turning to strike defending Mrem marching beside them. Hress Rscil snarled. Once a slave, always a slave. His warriors responded instantly to the attack. The refugees were no match for warriors on guard against them. He watched one smashed in the head from behind, another stabbed, others beaten and driven to the ground. The damage was done, though. Brave warriors had been outflanked and died, and the formation damaged. Some claws fought with but a single line of Mrem now. Too many of his warriors’ snarls had turned to pain and fear instead of anger and challenge.

The Liskash were winning, and looked ready this time to press the attack all the way back to the fort. He sensed this was their end, and determined only that they’d all die before being turned into plants waving in something’s mind breeze.

“Shallow the Vs and retreat!” he shouted. That would expose a wider, thinner front, but there was no choice. They couldn’t make it narrower. The nasty Buloth had seen their maneuver and planned to defeat it. He was not so stupid as he seemed before.

“Reinforce the Vs in twos!”

They would also leave many brave warriors wounded or dead on the field. Those who survived would be enslaved. That was too much to think about.

At that moment he felt Cmeo Mrist’s presence.

Courage, warrior,
it said, and he felt it directed at him. The snarling song, the waving javelins, the shifting dance, gave him a calm measure of strength.

He heard her again, giving orders through their minds. Yet it was not unpleasant.

Dancers, heed the Dance, heed me, and advance.

Then something amazing happened.

The clan’s retreat continued, with bloody precision. The Liskash charged into their formation, were slashed, stabbed and tossed into small heaps that became obstacles. Occasionally, a Mrem fell, sometimes in death, but more often from a crippling but treatable wound. The scouts had recovered some of these fallen last battle, but many had been lost. But then the talonmaster worried it was beginning to look like they were all lost.

Hress Rscil stared in bemusement and spine-fluffing appreciation as the reserve line of Dancers chanted and danced right through a portion of one claw’s defensive rank, which drew aside briefly in surprise, then locked behind them. Two warriors made to follow, remembered their orders, and stayed.

But for whatever reason, the magic worked. The Liskash didn’t notice the Dancers walking right through their mass. They even seemed to step aside for them. The Dance wove taillike through them, twisting past wounded Mrem who were offered two shoulders each. The chant continued, while their Dance disrupted a little, but seemed to hold.

They worked their way across the Vs, then the Liskash parted to let them back at the Mrem line. Two warriors stepped aside for them, and they twirled right back through with the wounded in arms, right past his chariot. Eights of warriors had been saved. Cmeo Mrist, her fur stained by the blood of a Mrem she had assisted, flared her nose and spread her ears as she passed.

There was one tragedy, made worse for its uniqueness, as they finished. The spell weakened as they reentered, and some hulking, green-skinned thing noticed them, enough to jam a blade into the spine of the last, and youngest Dancer. She convulsed and died with a shriek.

Then the Liskash weakened again, and drew back. This time it was orderly. They fought their way out of reach, fell back in groups, hurled rocks and javelins, taunted the Mrem, then ran.

“Let them go!” Hress Rscil ordered.

He decided not to discipline a few eights of warriors who hurled javelins into the retreating masses. A dead Liskash was a dead Liskash.

Hress Rscil shuddered in relief that the battle was won. The line had been so thin, so frail. Any rush from the Liskash would have smashed through and destroyed them all. The godling seemed to know only the crudest of tactics. Advance, envelope, reinforce. He lacked any skill in maneuver or strike. It proved they weren’t particularly bright, just possessed of an evil grasp.

However, it would be foolish to assume another wouldn’t be better. This one might have been a child or a fool. The next might not be.

The message dispatched to Nrao Aveldt with his swiftest runners advised of their situation, tactics, supply level and location. The plan to swing around the hills was not sustainable. Instead, they’d have to move north fast, and try for the river valley the scouts found. They’d have to cross between surges of sea, and hope not to be pinned by it if they were attacked. It was like a gate that opened twice a day, and moved along the fence a bit more each day.

With luck, the messengers would intercept the resupply wagons and have them divert. Even with gleaning, javelins had been lost or broken. Wrighting took charcoal and fine clay. They could hammer damaged ones straight, and treat them in the fire, but there were limits to repair.

With all that done he had to address the aftermath of the battle. The warriors fed and drank, as did the Dancers. He heard the discordant snarls of Cmeo Mrist and her senior Dancers performing rites over their youngest dead, and two others. He gave them credit, though: they’d fought well and bravely when death came to their ranks.

Rewards and accolades would come after one uncomfortable matter. Punishment. Outside, the drillmasters, several fist leaders and a fistful of Dancers awaited as witnesses and advisors for him. He stepped out of his tent into the improvised parade field, where Trec and four surviving refugees waited. Refugees? Escaped slaves? Inadvertent traitors? What status should he give them?

For now he settled on name.

“Trec, you and your Mrem betrayed my warriors in the midst of battle. I will hear your argument.”

Trec staggered and shook his head. “Oh, my Talonmaster!” he shouted, and fell to his knees. “Buloth’s power did us caught, into mind squirming beneath and within. I stabbing one of your warriors ere I knew, then to strain against, tried.” He held forward his left leg, lacerated by his own javelin edge. “Resisted, but not enough. Shamed I survive, that your warriors beat me down alive, not dead.”

He turned to address Trec’s appointed commander. “Fist Leader Chard.”

“Yes, Talonmaster.” Chard was stiff-faced, dirty and twitching in the after tension of battle.

“Tell me of Trec’s fight.”

Chard twitched his whiskers as he took a breath, and said, “He fought weakly due to his health, but with eagerness. I know of three wounds he inflicted on Liskash, and perhaps a death. Then he turned on Cysh, and was beaten down with hafts and fists.”

“Fist Leaders, is this true of the other four?”

Nods and ears of assent said that was so. Fist Leader Braghi said, “This one, Cir, killed three and wounded two. We saw him turn and stopped him before he did more than inflict a scratch.” He held up his forearm. The bandage indicated it was somewhat more than a scratch.

Hress Rscil wanted to be diplomatic, and to encourage others to defect, mostly for the information they’d bring. A few more spears, wielded by half-starved, untrained drifters, whose minds were bent to a lizard, were not of much military consequence. He couldn’t have them near him, though.

“Trec, Cir, Gar, Hach, Leesh, stand and hear my ruling.”

The remaining four of them stepped, or rather, limped forward, and stood proudly. They were scared but determined, and would die like Mrem for their shame.

Hress Rscil said, “Your mind was not your own, and you fought to maintain it. I hold no charge against you. I will move you into the van, however, for your courage. At worst, you may earn an honorable death. At best, perhaps you will turn back to yourselves, and put this false godling beneath you. Until then, you will be guarded by others, with respect and in support.”

Trec spoke for them all. “We will honor in live or die, and thankee for mercy and wisdom.”

He nodded, flared his ears, and said, “Priestess Cmeo Mrist, is there anything that can be done to strengthen their minds?”

She spread her ears and said, “Perhaps. I will work with them.”

“Now I will publicly praise you and your Dancers for saving two eights and seven wounded warriors with your Dance through the battle.”