Liskash faces were not made to show expressions. Sassin looked the same whether happy or furious. But if he could have smiled, he would have. There was the escaped slave, and there with him the male whose weakness his fighters had exploited. They were in an even more important place now than the one they’d held before.
What was wrong with the Mrem who led that band? Didn’t he understand how he’d come to grief yesterday? Did he think it was only happenstance that the Liskash fighters went in where the weak male was in charge? He’d fought the main battle well enough. More than well enough, Sassin thought. Had the main battle been the only string in his bow, it would have been a disaster.
Well, what did the Liskash say about the Mrem? That they had no sense of the larger struggle, that they could not see farther than the end of their snouts. Cliches became cliches because they boiled truths down to a handful of words. This one certainly seemed to.
Sassin paused. It seemed to, yes. But what if this Mrem commander was playing a deeper game, trying to lure him into a mistake? That was unlikely, but Sassin supposed it was possible.
He would watch. He would wait. When the time came, he would strike. And, this time, his strike would be altogether deadly. If he sensed trickery, he would change his plans to foil it. But he really didn’t think he would need to. These furry nuisances were fierce, yes. They wouldn’t have caused the Liskash so much trouble if they weren’t. But fierceness and cleverness were far removed from each other. A clever Mrem? The mere idea filled Sassin with cold amusement.
West. Rantan Taggah had known the Clan of the Claw would have a long journey. Till he began it, though, he hadn’t truly understood what that meant. How many more battles would they have to fight? Would anything be left of them by the time they got to where they were going?
If he was going to ask such questions, he should have asked them of Demm Etter. If she wasn’t the wisest of the Mrem in the Clan of the Claw, he had no idea who was. But the idea never crossed his mind. Instead, he waited for Enni Chennitats to come out of the wagon where she’d rested.
Her fur was rumpled, ungroomed. She yawned enormously, showing off her fangs. Her tongue and the roof of her mouth had dark gray patches on them. Rantan Taggah had never noticed that before. He thought they were charming.
He poured out his troubles to her. When he finished, she yawned again-not boredom but exhaustion. “We could go back,” she said. “We were doing…well enough where we were. We could go on…for a while.”
Her hesitations matched the ones that had made him set the Clan of the Claw in motion. “No,” he said. “They’d crush us in the end. It might not happen till after we were dead and gone, but it would happen.”
“I think so, too,” Enni Chennitats said. “That makes the trek our best chance.”
“But it isn’t very good, either,” Rantan Taggah said mournfully.
“Not very good, but still the best,” Enni Chennitats said. Hearing her say the same thing he believed made him feel better. There was no rational reason it should, but it did. She went on, “And if we give Sassin everything he deserves, some of the other Liskash nobles may think three times before they try to block our path. News travels fast among the Scaly Ones. They’ll know they can’t cross us without paying the price.”
“If,” the talonmaster echoed. “Everything we’re doing now, we’re building on a tower of ifs.”
“Not everything,” Enni Chennitats said. “Sassin will hit us again. Chances are, his fighters will strike at Zhanns Bostofa again. That’s why you’ve got Grumm traveling with Zhanns Bostofa’s warriors for now-just to make it more tempting. And I can touch your mind in the Dance. I’ve already proved that.”
“Well, yes.” Rantan Taggah remembered the intimacy of that touch, even if it had brought bad news. His blood heated. He willed himself to relax-no time for that now. No time for anything but the fight ahead. He forced a laugh. “You’re right. What else could we need?”
“Luck,” Enni Chennitats said seriously. “All the luck we can find, and a little more besides.”
“That’s what I said,” Rantan Taggah replied. “A tower of ifs.”
“It sounds better my way,” Enni Chennitats told him, and he didn’t feel like arguing with her.
Sassin methodically readied his new attack. This one must not fall short. If he’d pressed the last one…That would have been the same as admitting Lorssett was right. No self-respecting god could have done any such thing. Sassin was more than self-respecting: he was self-worshiping. That being so, he didn’t worry about what might have gone wrong. He did his best to make sure everything would go right this time.
He made sure his borders were protected, too. The other Liskash nobles wouldn’t thank him for delivering them from the trouble these Mrem could cause. As he’d told his steward, they would look at him with grim golden eyes, wondering whether he’d cost himself too dear in the deliverance. And, if they decided he had, they would fall on him and destroy him. Then, no doubt, they would quarrel among themselves over how to divide the spoil.
Yes, I was right all along, Sassin thought: the only conclusion a self-worshiping god could possibly reach.
The weak male and his followers still protected the wagons that housed the hairy females and kits. If the Mrem wanted to hand Sassin the game, he would take it. He made very sure they were not setting a trap. Spying axeheads-he’d got them flying for him again-and his own magic convinced him they weren’t.
Lorssett was still limping from his wound. Sassin thought about sorcerously boosting the pain the lesser Liskash felt once more. Not without regret, he decided against it. He needed the things Lorssett could do.
“We are well supplied?” Sassin asked. “Plenty of meat? Plenty of water? We have enough arrows and javelins?”
“Yes, lord,” Lorssett said. “All is in readiness, just as you have commanded.”
Idly, Sassin flicked a mental probe at his aide. Lorssett was not altogether without magic; he would have been much less useful if he were. But he couldn’t hope to shield himself from Sassin’s far greater power. And Sassin saw he wasn’t lying to please his lord, as aides had been known to do. Things were as ready as anyone could want.
“Come tomorrow, then, we will finish the Mrem,” Sassin said. “And, after that, the New Water will wall us off from them for a long time.” He wanted to say forever, but he didn’t. He knew better. Still, the new sea should keep the hairy pests away till after he was dead. That was as close to forever as would make no difference…not to him, anyhow.
“And we will take all that is theirs.” Lorssett understood what victory meant. “And we will have more slaves.” With a master set above him, he wanted as many slaves below him as he could get. They reminded him he wasn’t so futile a creature as he seemed when viewed from Sassin’s perspective. They did, at any rate, when he wasn’t face-to-face or mind-to-mind with his overlord.
“Just so. And I will eat their names.” Sassin looked forward to that. It was a strange sort of sorcerous pleasure he could not take from his own kind. For whatever reason, Liskash were less intimately connected to their names than were the Mrem. Sassin shrugged. He cared nothing for the whys and wherefores. He only recognized and took advantage of weakness. “When the sun grows hot, when the furry beasts start to sweat ”-he packed the word with all the loathing it roused in him-“we will put an end to them.”
“As you say, lord, so shall it be,” Lorssett replied.
“Well, of course,” Sassin said complacently.
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.