By Tooth and Claw by Bill Fawcett

Author:Bill Fawcett [Fawcett, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781476780405
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2015-04-07T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

Nurat Merav

Nurat had watched the quick and efficient slaughter of the badly wounded Liskash soldier carried out by the females in the yurt. She’d also observed the encounter between the females and the male who’d briefly entered the yurt afterward. He’d seemed to be an official of some kind.

Her view of the incidents had been limited, just what she could see through the small opening—no more than a slit—she’d created in the pile of hides and thrushes the females had hastily piled on top of her and her kits. She’d understood none of their speech, either. She thought she recognized two of the words they’d used, although she wasn’t even sure of that.

But, by now, one thing was clear to her. For whatever reason, the female Liskash were protecting Nurat and her kits. They’d not only provided her with healing treatments but they’d gone to considerable length—and considerable personal risk, she suspected—to keep the Mrem hidden.

Hidden from whom? She didn’t know, precisely. But whatever Liskash officials they were hiding them from, ultimately they were hiding them from Zilikazi himself.

How could they be doing that? Nurat had felt herself the Liskash noble’s incredible might. She wouldn’t have thought a small group of female Liskash could counter that mental power.

But, then, she understood very little of the way that mind control worked. Perhaps it could be evaded, if not directly countered.

If you knew how to do it, which she didn’t.

And why hadn’t Zilikazi detected her, for that matter? He’d seemed to have no trouble finding the minds of the Dancers and the warriors in the battle and crushing them like so many eggs.

Everything was a mystery, everywhere she looked.

She would have to learn the Liskash language, as fast as she could.

This Liskash language, she reminded herself. Unlike the Mrem, the Liskash had a vast array of tongues and speech.

Nurat Merav had always been adept at learning different Mrem dialects. Hopefully, that skill would apply here as well.

Zilikazi

Something was stirring up the females. Zilikazi could sense their unease—and what seemed to be unrest, perhaps even a small amount of resistance. But his mental powers did not enable him to understand the actual thoughts of others, only their emotions—and those, only blurrily.

The ability of a Liskash noble to force others to do his (and very occasionally her) bidding rested, ultimately, on the noble being able to grasp the emotions of those he would subordinate. But the grasp was that of a hand—and a gloved hand at that—upon a crudely-felt object, not that of delicate fingers probing the subtle texture of a surface. A noble could crush an egg, so to speak, but he could not really feel it or even give it a slight crack.

Besides, Zilikazi was preoccupied with the campaign against the Kororo, which was proving to be considerably harder than he’d anticipated. So he gave little thought to whatever might be happening with the females. Why bother? There would be plenty of time after the campaign to deal with any problems that might exist.

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