Exiled: Clan of the Claw, Book One (8 page)

And then, little by little, Rantan Taggah’s unreasoning fear also fell away. The first relief came from the Dancers. Sassin’s spell might have taken them by surprise, but not for long. The herd animals’ response also lent him strength, although more slowly. Krelprep and big-horned bundor and hamsticorns had to be able to fight off magic—so many Liskash hunters, both those with Mremlike wits and those without, used it to stun or terrify their prey.

Beasts that had hair and nursed their young were far less adept at making magic than the Scaly Ones. But they had the power to push it off, to keep their own wits unclouded. In the pushing, they also helped liberate Rantan Taggah and the rest of the Mrem warriors.

“Ha!” the talonmaster shouted. “Is that all the famous Liskash noble can do? If it is, now we make him pay for thinking he’s a crocodile when he’s nothing but a skittering little lizard.” The males in his squadron raised a cheer. By Aedonniss, it was wonderful to have his own spirit back!

He looked back and to his left to see how the other bands of charioteers were doing. He didn’t see any of them pounding away from the Liskash. That was the first and most important thing. By the noise and by the dust on the other flank, the Mrem there were already mixing it up with the Scaly Ones.

More dust rose, farther away than he would have expected. Maybe some of the hamsticorns had stampeded in spite of everything the females tending them could do. The big, shaggy beasts had come down from the north with the Mrem. They didn’t care for this hot weather, and they really didn’t care for the Liskash and their magics. Rantan Taggah couldn’t blame them. He was panting and sweating, and just now he too had almost been literally scared out of his mind.

The hamsticorns might want to lumber away. Rantan Taggah wanted to get even. “Let’s go get them,” he told the driver.

“Right you are,” Munkus Drap answered. Rantan Taggah didn’t know whether he was right or wrong. He hardly cared. The chariot was thundering toward the Liskash. The krelprep had their heads down. Anyone or anything that stood in the way of a charging krelprep would get eight holes in the front and hoofprints down the back.

Some of the flank guards carried spears. The Liskash
could
fight the way the Mrem did. They preferred not to, but sometimes they had to. If they thought they could hold off a chariot charge, they were out of their minds. Rantan Taggah readied his axe. Whatever the krelprep didn’t knock over, he would.

And then a shout echoed in his mind: “Rantan Taggah! It’s gone wrong!” It sounded like Enni Chennitats’s voice. It
was
her voice. He hadn’t known the Dancing could do that, but it was her, all right.

“What’s gone wrong?” he demanded, even as he chopped at one of Sassin’s scaly followers. Blood sprayed; the Liskash reek filled his nostrils. He chopped again, at another hissing horror. This one ducked away from the blow. One more stroke, and the chariot was through the enemy line. Somewhere up ahead, Sassin would be watching his host come to pieces. Rantan Taggah had never set eyes on his opponent. He had the feeling he would recognize him even so. And he knew he would kill him if he could.

Except Sassin wasn’t the only one discovering all his plans falling to pieces around him. “Everything!” Enni Chennitats said urgently. “There were more Liskash—there
are
more Liskash. They must have masked their dust—masked themselves—with strong magic, because we didn’t spy it. No one spied it—we were all minding the main swarm. We thought that was everything Sassin had. It seemed like enough.”

An arrow darted past Rantan Taggah, so close that the fletching brushed the fur on his arm. He wished it would have pierced him through the heart. Outthought by a Scaly One…! “Tell me the rest of it.” His voice was harsh. There would be a rest of it. And it wouldn’t be good.

“They hit Zhanns Bostofa’s males,” Enni Chennitats said. “Right when the burst of fear came, they hit them. And Zhanns Bostofa’s warriors…They ran away, Rantan Taggah. Everything’s going to the demons around here.”

He’d known it would be bad, yes. He hadn’t dreamt it would be
that
bad. If he and his warriors destroyed Sassin’s army—no, Sassin’s
main
army—while the Liskash scattered the females and kits and slaughtered the herdbeasts…Even if he did kill Sassin, the Liskash still won. Plenty of other nobles and uncounted hordes of ordinary Scaly Ones lived south of the New Water. The Clan of the Claw was alone—so alone!—here.

“Pull back,” he told Munkus Drap. He shouted to the rest of his squadron: “Pull back, curse it!”

“What? Why?” the driver asked in furious amazement.

The expression the talonmaster used to answer that wasn’t even remotely military, which was putting things mildly. Nevertheless, it got the idea across. “They can’t do that!” the junior male yowled.

“I didn’t think they could, either,” Rantan Taggah said bleakly. “Which only goes to show I’m not as smart as I thought I was, eh?” Yes, if everything you were fighting for went to ruin while you were winning your splendid victory, at what price did you buy it? Too high, too high.

A javelin scraped his ear as the driver extricated them from the crush. He wished his bronze helm didn’t have holes to let his ears stick out. Better that, Mrem had always judged, than to muffle such an important sense in battle. As the small wound stung and blood ran warm, he wondered how wise his folk were. But then, he had all too many reasons to wonder about the wisdom of his folk right then.

* * *

Enni Chennitats had never dreamt of such wild disorder. Mrem and Liskash and herdbeasts ran every which way, all making as much noise as they could. Thanks to the Dancers, she’d got through to Rantan Taggah. She knew that much, anyhow. She would have been happier had she known it would do any good.

Demm Etter handed her a javelin. The shaft was the wrong thickness to feel comfortable in her hand. Demm Etter inclined her head. “Yes, it’s a Liskash weapon. Better than no weapon at all.” The senior priestess held one of her own.

“What are we going to do? What
can
we do?” Enni Chennitats wailed.

“Kill them. Kill as many of them as we can. Try not to get killed ourselves—the clan needs us.” Demm Etter, as usual, was severely practical.

A Liskash wounded a bull hamsticorn with a javelin. The hamsticorn ran toward him, not away. Hamsticorns had no horns. Males rammed heads when they fought in the springtime. Their skulls were thicker than those of any Liskash.
Thump!
The Scaly One went flying. When he hit the ground again—what seemed half a bowshot away—he thrashed like a broken thing that would never be right again. Which, no doubt, he was.

Another Liskash pointed a skinny finger at Enni Chennitats. He seemed astonished when she didn’t fall over dead. She felt something in the bottom of her mind, but this Scaly One would never make a noble. And she had magic of her own. Hefting the javelin, she stalked toward the dismayed Scaly One.

He would never make a hero, either. He turned and ran. She flung the javelin at him, but missed. Then she trotted over and picked it up again. She was much too likely to need it again. If she happened to see Zhanns Bostofa, for instance, she would gladly let the air out of his bluster.

“Here they come,” Demm Etter said, pointing south.

Sure enough, the Mrem chariotry, or most of it, had shaken free of the enemy and was rolling back toward the rest of the clan. And there was Rantan Taggah, waving frantically as he tried to pull some kind of order out of battlefield madness. Enni Chennitats hadn’t tried to touch his mind since her desperate warning; the Dance had fallen into chaos along with everything else. Something inside her unknotted at finding the talonmaster still lived.

Some of the chariots brought warriors up to fight the Liskash who’d hit the column by surprise. Others, Rantan Taggah’s squadron among them, stayed behind to keep Sassin’s larger force from joining up with the rest. If that happened, everything was ruined.

Then again, everything might well be ruined anyhow.

* * *

So much for the gold leaf on the horns of Rantan Taggah’s krelprep. It was splashed—splattered—with blood, and parts of it were peeling loose. As swank so often did, it had proved more expensive than it was worth.

Rantan Taggah’s spear was gone, too. A Liskash had clutched it as it went into his scaly belly, and his dying grasp pulled it out of the talonmaster’s hands as the chariot went past. And he’d broken his axe’s handle. He’d shattered a Scaly One’s shield with the blow, but he still wished he could have it back. A sword was a weapon you used when you had nothing with a longer reach. Rantan Taggah didn’t, not any more. And so—the sword.

He slashed, forehand and backhand, at the Liskash crowding around him. So did the rest of the males in the chariots he’d ordered to stay behind and hold up the swarm of enemies. The Liskash were brave. Though the Mrem had better weapons and better armor for close combat, the Scaly Ones pressed forward as if they didn’t care whether they lived or died. For all Rantan Taggah knew, they didn’t.

Whether or not they valued their own lives, they wanted the Mrem dead. They slew the krelprep, which were not armored, so their foes couldn’t move so fast. That helped them, but perhaps less than they’d hoped. What mattered to Rantan Taggah was keeping the Scaly Ones here from advancing on his vulnerable females and animals. If he had to sell his own life and those of the rest of this rear guard to accomplish that, he would, and he wouldn’t count the cost afterwards. That he might not be in any position to count the cost after the fighting ended was something upon which he carefully did not dwell.

After his krelprep went down, he nodded to Munkus Drap. “It won’t be pretty from here on out, but it’s what we’ve got to do.”

“Oh, yes.” The driver sounded ready. Why not? He carried the big shield. Its leather facing was dented from slingstones. Arrows and the broken shafts of javelins pincushioned it. Munkus Drap had broken the javelins off himself—they made the shield too clumsy to handle.

He had a sword, too. He and Rantan Taggah leaped down from the stalled chariot together. A Liskash ran at Rantan Taggah from the left. The foe was on him before he could slash with his sword. He slashed with his free hand instead. Hissing in anguish, the Scaly One reeled away, clutching at his face. A brief yielding softness under Rantan Taggah’s talons told him he’d torn out an eye.

“Claws!” he roared. “Claws for the Clan of the Claw!”

The other Mrem raised a cheer. As long as the Liskash couldn’t drag them off their feet, their armor and weapons let them take on numbers far greater than their own. Despite courage, the Liskash began to realize they were feeding themselves into a grinder. Their push forward faltered. Even missile attacks flagged. Rantan Taggah wondered why till he realized the Liskash had to be running short of javelins and arrows.

The ferocious warrior called Ramm Passk’t leaped on a Scaly One who thought he could fight like a Mrem. The Liskash had a spear, Ramm Passk’t only the weapons Aedonniss gave him at birth. That turned out not to matter for long—only until the Scaly One hesitantly thrust the first time. Ramm Passk’t knocked the shaft aside and sprang on him. He tore out the Liskash’s throat with his fangs, then sprang to his feet with his muzzle all bloody. He roared out something in the Scaly Ones’ language.

“What does that mean?” Munkus Drap asked.

Rantan Taggah translated for him: “ ‘Who’s next?’ ”

Ramm Passk’t, gore dripping from his chin, made a spectacle to give pause to the hardiest of the Scaly Ones. All at once, they stopped coming forward against the Mrem. Standing in their place, Rantan Taggah would have been none too eager himself. Ramm Passk’t made the very embodiment of ferocity.

“Let’s draw back,” Rantan Taggah called to his surviving warriors. “If they come after us, we’ll charge them and make them stop. But I think they may let us go.”

“Bring them on!” Ramm Passk’t shouted. He gave the Liskash his challenge once more. No one stepped out of their line to answer it.

Step by weary, painful step, Rantan Taggah and his comrades fell back. He was amazed how far across the sky the sun had traveled. Hadn’t the battle started just a few breaths ago? His exhaustion argued against it. So did the clan’s losses. They’d be a long time replacing chariots. Too many warriors they could never replace.

But they were intact, or near enough. They could fight again. They could go on. And maybe they would be able to serve Sassin as he’d served them, only worse.

* * *

Sassin was not literally a cold-blooded creature, even if the Mrem sometimes called the Liskash sons of serpents. All the same, he was, and could afford to be, a more cold-blooded talonmaster than any Mrem. His fighters were not friends and comrades; by the nature of things, they were only subjects. And, by the nature of things, expending subjects was easier than sending friends and comrades out to die on your behalf.

All the same, the dunes and drifts of dead and dying Liskash around the chariots the hairy vermin had abandoned left him dismayed. As he could stop up his earholes and block most sound but not all of it, so his mind could deflect most but not all the agony the wounded projected.

He glanced toward the west. Maybe it was just as well the sun was setting. Were the day longer, the monstrous Mrem might have murdered most of his males. He’d hoped to crush them absolutely, but not everything worked the way you hoped it would. Everyone, even Liskash nobles, got too many unpleasant tastes of that lesson as the years spun by.

Lorssett came up to him. The lesser male would have done better putting on greaves; he had a wounded leg, and clutched a javelin to steady his step. “I did not think you would be rash enough to go where there was fighting,” Sassin remarked acidly.

“I did not go to it. It came to me,” his aide answered. “I hope this heals. I would not care to limp for the rest of my days.”

“I believe you.” Sassin could feel his pain, too, however much he wished he couldn’t.

Lorssett pointed toward the northeast, away from the sinking sun. “Will you send our fighters after them, to finish them off once and for all while they are weak and off balance?” He swayed in spite of his makeshift staff; he was more than a little off balance himself.