Exiled: Clan of the Claw, Book One by Michael Z. Williamson, John Ringo Jody Lynn Nye Harry Turtledove S.M. Stirling Read Free Book Online Page B

axehead another dead smerp. Resentment vanished as it devoured the mammal. As long as he fed it, he could do as he pleased. So it thought afterwards, anyhow. It had had a different view of things while the mental violation was going on. But, again, so what?
    * * *
    The Mrem had a core territory where they and their herds roamed unchallenged. Beyond that, on all sides (save only the north, lost now and forever to the New Water), was a debatable land. They could hold it and use it if they came forth in strength. Then again, so could the Liskash nobles against whose domains theirs abutted. Beyond the debatable lands lay terrain unquestionably belonging to the Scaly Ones. The Mrem had entered those lands only as raiders…or as slaves.
    Now, proudly, Rantan Taggah led the whole of his folk into the lands Sassin had ruled since he overthrew the Liskash noble whose seat they’d been before. At first glance, Sassin’s territory seemed little different from that in which the Clan of the Claw had dwelt since coming up out of the Hollow Lands.
    Only at first glance, though. Yes, the grass beginning to yellow under the warm sun was the same here as it had been there. Yes, the same kinds of low, scrubby trees grew in the lowlands and along the banks of the streams cutting across the plain. And yes, the same kinds of birds and leatherwings perched in those trees.
    But off in the distance grazed a herd of frillhorns. They were unmistakably Liskash, their bare hides irregularly striped in shades of gold and brown and green. Those stripes broke up their outlines and made them much harder to recognize at any distance than they would have been otherwise.
    The wind swung round, bringing their scent to Rantan Taggah. His driver’s nose wrinkled. “Faugh!” exclaimed the junior male, whose name was Munkus Drap. Mrem could eat Liskash flesh if they got hungry enough. They didn’t care for it enough to want to herd frillhorns—which was putting it mildly.
    Not only that: Liskash herders directed their beasts by mental command. Mrem lacked that power. Maybe a group of Dancers could make a magic that would reach a frillhorn’s mind, if it was not too alien for such a reaching. But, once more, to what point?
    Something ran toward the advancing Mrem from the direction of the herd: not a frillhorn, even a young one, but something that came on two legs rather than four. For a moment, Rantan Taggah thought the Scaly One watching the frillhorns had gone mad and was attacking the Clan of the Claw all by himself.
    But no. As the creature got closer, the talonmaster saw it was only a zargan. The Liskash tamed them and used them to help guide the herds and to fight off predators that might harm their meat animals. Zargan were smaller than thinking Liskash, and ran with their bodies more nearly parallel to the ground than did their masters. A long, stiff tail counterbalanced the weight of head and torso.
    This zargan hissed out a challenge as it charged. It threw its mouth open, displaying row on row of sharp teeth. Absently, Rantan Taggah wondered whether the Liskash nobles had bred them for great jaws or they’d had them before being tamed.
    The krelprep pulling Rantan Taggah’s chariot bugled forth challenges of their own. They would have reared if they weren’t harnessed. A Mrem in another car whirled a sling above his head. The stone hissed through the air. It caught the zargan in the side of the head. The beast swayed, then toppled. Creatures of the Liskash kind had uncommonly thick skulls, and often uncommonly small brains inside them. All the same…The zargan kicked feebly. Rantan Taggah didn’t think it would get up again.
    “Well shot!” he called to the slinger.
    “I thank you, Talonmaster,” the other male answered.
    The standard-bearer’s chariot passed right next to the zargan. In fact, the krelprep would have trampled it if the driver hadn’t steered them to one side. The standard-bearer leaned over the rail and shoved a javelin