Exiled: Clan of the Claw, Book One (15 page)

“Captain Thress,” a cold voice called. And called again before it was heard. Hisshah stepped between the guards, her hands on her hips. “How dare you beat my messenger?”

“He was overbold in his delivery of your message, Hisshah.” The captain wiped spit from his chin. “I felt discipline was in order.”

“And I feel that you have overstepped yourself, Thress.”

She deliberately drew his name out in a hiss, equally deliberately choosing to omit his title.

Glancing at the bruised and bloody Ranowr, she tsked.

“You will be useless today. Go and find some light duty. But be on the practice field tomorrow morning.”

She waved a hand in dismissal. Ranowr struggled to his feet, bowed his head and staggered off.

“Now, Thress,” Hisshah said turning back to him. “Let me instruct you in how you will treat my messengers in future.”

She drew a small, sharp knife and carefully put a point on one of her claws until the tip was nearly invisible, holding it up and turning her head this way and that to examine it.

* * *

Ranowr went to get a drink and to wash his face, splashing the stale warm liquid out of the stone trough and then rubbing at the fur with his wrists. Then he found Tral.

“The skin is broken,” the healer said after examining him. “But not too deeply.” He gently applied an ointment. “You’ll be stiff for some time, and will have to watch how you move or the wounds will open again.”

Ranowr snorted; how he moved was not his choice.

“Who’s doing latrine duty at the prison today?” he asked.

It was a chore for which they all drew the short straw at some time. Lately he’d been exempted because of his training. It was time he took on the unpleasantness. Light duty, the young goddess had said.

“Sigowr is to empty the piss pots today,” Tral said. “He’s chopping wood right now by the smithy.” He gave Ranowr a searching look. “Are you going to try to talk to the prisoner?” he whispered.

“Why else would I volunteer?” Ranowr asked with a pained grin.

“It is forbidden.”

“Everything is forbidden that is not an order. I will talk with him. It’s lucky the Liskash are so fastidious about waste and so are giving me the opportunity.”

That was true; it was an oddity of the Liskash. Leaving the waste buckets to overflow would be yet another indignity they could visit on their prisoners, but even the torturers wouldn’t stand for it.

He slapped Tral on the shoulder and went to find Sigowr to tell him of his reprieve.

I hope they’re not busy torturing their prisoner,
he thought.

* * *

There weren’t many prisoners locked up at this time and Ranowr quickly found the one he wanted by the smell of his bucket. He walked slowly through the cool dimness of the half-underground prison, beneath the arched stone ceiling that made this like a tunnel. Iron grills showed to either side.

“You there! You’re a Mrem?” he asked softly, turning his face away to keep an eye in either direction and letting the wooden buckets in his hand clatter a little to cover the words.

“I am,” came a tired voice; the words were oddly accented, but easily understandable.

“Who are you? How did you come here?”

“My name is Canar Trowr, I am a scout. Your soldiers captured me. That’s all I’ll tell you.”

“My soldiers?” Ranowr said with a laugh. “Do you think I’m a Liskash? Do I sound like a Liskash? Do I
smell
like a Liskash?”

“You sound funny,” Canar Trowr answered. “But any Mrem who works willingly for the Liskash is an enemy and I would kill you as soon as I’d kill them. Traitor,” he added.

“Willingly! None of us work willingly for the Liskash. We work so they won’t kill us or starve us or burn us with their minds or eat our kits. I was born here, all of us were and we were told that we were created by the Liskash and only tolerated because we work. If we don’t work, if we try to fight we are killed.

“But where are you from?” Ranowr demanded eagerly. “How did wild Mrem come to be? Did you escape from the great goddess’s domain?”

The prisoner laughed outright, not a sound often heard here.

“Your great goddess lied,” he said flatly. “Hard to believe of the noble Liskash, but they lied. They’re not gods. They never created us. There are thousands of free Mrem and I am one of them.”

Ranowr thought for a moment, stunned.
Not gods, the Liskash are not gods.

He forced the thought away and bent his mind to more practical matters.

“I don’t know how many thousands would be. I know hundreds, how many hundreds is that?”

“Ten hundreds is a thousand,” the prisoner said. “And we are more than ten times that many. We journey toward a land of Mrem hundreds of thousands strong.”

Ranowr caught his breath. So many, unimaginably many. He heard the prisoner shift his weight and chains clinked.

“Can you get me out of here? I will lead you to them. You could come with us.”

“Get that dung cart moving!” a guard shouted.

Ranowr hastily emptied the bucket and shoved it back through the hole.

“I’ll try,” he whispered and moved on.

Through his shock and the whirling awe of a world huger than he could have imagined, resolve hardened in him. He would free the prisoner, and Canar Trowr would lead all of them to freedom. Now that they had a place to go.

* * *

“Today when you deliver my message you are to stand straight and look Captain Thress in the eye,” Hisshah commanded.

She was smiling, quite happy at the thought of Thress’s reaction to such boldness. She’d have to be hard on Ranowr’s heels to make certain the captain didn’t kill him, because she intended the slave to be her messenger every day.

Her message was much the same as the previous one, his orders were approved with minor changes. But, oh! how he would burn.

The damn smerp means to kill me,
Ranowr thought bitterly.

He blinked. This was the first time, even in his thoughts, that he’d been so disrespectful. But he felt justified. Thress would undoubtedly beat him again.

“Yes, young goddess,” he said aloud. He took the wax tablet from her and trotted off.

This time Thress went at him with claws and teeth. Ranowr dodged and backed, covering his face with his arms and letting a swipe knock him down; then the kicks started, the killing claws poised.

It was
almost
worth it to hear the frustrated rage in Thress’s hisses, the rage that could not be assuaged. Would still scorch like lava even if Ranowr died.

Once again, more quickly this time, Hisshah intervened; Ranowr coughed cautiously, felt no broken ribs grating, and stood blinking in the bright dry sunlight. As they returned to the practice field Ranowr could tell that she was elated by the captain’s humiliation.

“Tonight you will deliver a message to the gate guards, I’m changing the password. You will do this every night.”

“He will kill me, young goddess,” Ranowr said.

“No, he won’t,” she said blithely, with a lithe flex of tail and neck. “He wouldn’t dare. If he were to displease me so much the great goddess would punish him. He is being disciplined and he knows it. He would be very unwise to resist his punishment. Don’t worry, I won’t let him go too far. It is my plan that he should come to recognize you and dread your coming. That should please you, Ranowr. That a Liskash will dread your coming.”

She laughed gaily. Ranowr throttled a snarl with a massive effort of will that left his male ruff bristling; thankfully a Liskash wouldn’t know what that meant. The hideous thing was that it
was
almost worth it to think of the guard captain trembling in fear at the sight of a Mrem face.

Nevertheless, Thress will kill me.

Necessarily, slaves were better at reading their masters than the reverse, and Thress was on the verge of madness. Ranowr would have to find a way out soon. First he must find a way to kill the great goddess. She had the power to burn out their eyes if they were anywhere near her. If she didn’t just set them all alight. He glanced at Hisshah. She was so full of hate, perhaps she hated her mother, too?

“Perhaps the great goddess would not want him too humiliated,” he ventured.

Hisshah pressed her lips together. “He will not show weakness by complaining,” she said, with notably false confidence, and added:

“Be silent now.”

And she hastened her pace. Ranowr’s heart smiled within him. She didn’t trust her mother. And that probably meant she hated her.

Though she probably feared her, too. How could you not fear the great power of fire born from the mind? In a way, it was a pity that the younger Liskash had only the small power of—

Ranowr blinked. A thought scurried, like a little seed-eating beast in dry grass. His mind stalked, ready to pounce.

* * *

That night Ranowr cornered Tral away from the others.

“You can talk to the females’ healer,” he said. “I need to know how many females and kits there are. Also I need to know what supplies they have charge of, where such are located and how much they have. I will find out how many of us there are.”

“Are you trying to take over the steward’s job?” Tral asked, puzzled.

“No, I am preparing us to leave. I will free the prisoner and he will lead us to thousands of free Mrem. He doesn’t know that yet, but if we come with our own supplies I don’t think he can complain.”

Tral was aghast. “Free?” he said and went silent. “What are thousands?” he asked at last. “Are they soldiers?”

“Thousands is a number. But I think they all are soldiers; if they were not, would not the Liskash have killed them or made them slaves?”

Agreement dawned in the healer’s eyes, and his astonishment-slack face firmed.

“We just have to find them and we’ll be too many for the Liskash to attack.”

Shaking his head the healer warned, “It could never work, Ranowr. The Liskash are armed and they are more than we are. We can’t just all decide to go, it’s impossible. Think of what the great goddess will do! Think of the kits!”

“I am,” Ranowr said grimly. “I’m thinking of them growing up thinking the Liskash are gods and therefore impossible to fight. I am thinking of something we’ve never known, Tral. Freedom! We can do it, I know we can. If I can work it right they’ll be too busy to worry about us. But first I need to know how many wagons we have, how many krelprep, how much food we can carry. Where are the bundor and hamsticorn herds and how many of them can we take with us. And we need to know all of this soon.”

“What makes you say that?” Tral was clearly frightened.

Perhaps by the size of the idea, perhaps thinking his friend had gone mad.

“They’ve sent out a scout, the one the Liskash have captured. The Liskash have moved our training forward. Why else have these things happened if not because the free Mrem are close and coming closer every day.”

Ranowr clawed the air before his own face and lashed his tail. “We must act!” He put a hand on Tral’s shoulder. “Are you with me?”

The healer took a deep breath and held it, then nodded.

“Maybe freedom is worth dying for,” he muttered. He looked up at Ranowr. “Can I tell the female healer why we’re doing this? She’ll want to know; she’s not stupid.”

Ranowr thought about it; it was a danger, but Tral was right. He was going to have to trust people if this was going to happen. Hard to do; the Liskash had raised them all to watch one another and to report any strange behavior. But for this to work it couldn’t just be him and the healer.

“Yes,” he said. “And she should tell those she trusts.” He smiled. “Be convincing, my friend, be very convincing.”

When they got back to the circle before the dormitory Ranowr began to question Retys, who supplied the herders. Asking him what exactly he did and how many he served.

“There are eighteen herders for the hamsticorns, we have less of those, only about three hundred or so. Twenty-three take care of the bundor, four hundred of them at least and they’re more frisky. I just bring them supplies and take their count of the herds for the steward’s records. What I mostly do is stare at the back end of my krelprep as I go from one herd to another.”

“What’s it like to drive a krelprep?” Ranowr asked. “Are they difficult to manage?”

“Why do you ask? Are you angling for my job, Ranowr? Being the young goddess’s favorite too hard on you?”

They all laughed, for by now the others were listening.

“No,” Ranowr said casually. “I was just curious. Sesh once said to me that knowledge is never wasted.”

He shrugged. “And I’ve always had an interest in krelprep. Did you ever ride one?”

Retys burst our laughing. “Me? Do you think the Liskash would let a slave mount their precious riding beasts? They’d whip me for thinking of it, and you too, so you’d better watch out.”

Ranowr decided to take that advice and watch out. Tomorrow he’d ask someone else something just as casually. The need to hurry was on him. Who knew what shape the Mrem prisoner was in by now or would be in a few days?

And the great crowd of free Mrem were on the move; he couldn’t risk his people being left behind.

* * *

Thress had taken to carrying a club for the sole purpose of using it on Ranowr. He could always get in at least a few solid hits before Hisshah stopped him.

“Why do you persist in annoying me?” Hisshah asked the captain after once again catching him at beating her messenger. “You know I’m the great goddess’s only heir. One day I will sit on her throne and your life will be in my hands.”

“In your hands?” Thress sneered. “What would you do to me? Pout me to death? You will never sit on her throne, never! She could still have a clutch. And then you would have a whole new set of young rivals to worry about.”

He stopped short as though shocked at his own temerity. But he didn’t back down. Hisshah felt as though she’d been doused in icy water. She glared at him.

“One day,” she said softly, “you will regret those words.”

Then she turned on her heel and walked away, Ranowr following.

“Young goddess,” he asked, “why do they think you have no powers?”

“Because it’s true,” she snapped. “I can move small objects with my mind and that’s it.”