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.