And still the High Circle remained in their sealed assembly in the chamber below. Pouncer found it hard to concentrate on the stories the tuskvor travelers were telling of the newcomer. Finally, at general insistence, Far Hunter stood to tell the tale of their search and their arrival. He called Trina up with him to act the kz’zeerkti roles, and Pouncer took the opportunity to speak to Tskombe.
“Come, and talk with me. I have been missing my kz’zeerkti advisor.”
They slipped out into the darkness and walked and talked, taking the high trail back up to the top of the sandstone dome and bringing each other up to date on the events since they had parted. At the top they sat on the smooth rocks, and Pouncer described his campaign as it had unfolded so far while Tskombe listened. He is becoming an experienced tactician.
Tskombe nodded as he listened. “You have done a lot.”
“Not as much as we need to do. Our raids here are just pinpricks. The czrav are ferocious warriors, but even with every pride behind me it will be a close fight. We must fight a single, decisive battle, but Cherenkova-Captain has identified a problem. If we force such an engagement the Tzaatz may transgress their honor.”
“Meaning what?”
“They may employ weapons prohibited in skalazaal. They will not do it if they are certain of victory, with Kzin-Conserver watching, but if they start to lose…” Pouncer trailed off. It was a problem he had avoided mentioning to anyone except Ayla; he hadn’t wanted to dissuade the czrav leaders from supporting him. That didn’t solve the problem though.
“So what can prevent them from doing that?”
“Hrrr. I need the Great Pride Circle to bear witness to the battle, with armed ships in orbit willing to intervene if the rules are broken.”
“How is that arranged?”
Pouncer rippled his ears and twitched his tail. “It is not to be arranged. A Great Pride Circle is not convened lightly, or in haste. Even in my father’s day they were planned far in advance. Now half the Great Prides are locked in Honor-War themselves, and the rest are fighting your species.” Pouncer paused and looked away to the far horizon.
“I didn’t know it had gone so far. We didn’t have much news in the jungle den.” An image of Oorwinnig flashed before Tskombe’s mind’s eye, and the destruction it had wrought on ED1272. Muro Ravalla has his war. Bile welled up in his throat at the thought. How many will die for his vision of power?
“I have agents now, even in the Citadel. It is true, Tskombe-kz’zeerkti. You and I are enemies now.”
“No.” Tskombe shook his head. “We are not enemies. You risked your life for me. What can I do for you?”
“Advise me as Cherenkova-Captain did. The Pride Leaders are deciding now which path to take. If they follow me, where should I lead them?”
“The only place you can lead them is to the Citadel, and the Patriarchy.”
“Hrrrr. I may be leading them all to destruction.”
“There are no guarantees in war. Once you start one, you can’t control it.”
“Some things are more likely than others. We can win, perhaps, if the fight is fair. If it isn’t, if the Tzaatz break tradition, we will be destroyed.”
“What do you need to ensure that, short of a Great Pride Circle?”
“I need support. I need witnesses while the battle takes place, witnesses powerful enough that Kchula will not dare violate the rules. There are Great Prides who oppose him. I am still First-Son-of-Meerz-Rrit. If several of them put warships in orbit, we would be safe.”
“Will they do it?”
“Perhaps, if I ask. I will have strakh with them, if I could reach them, but the Tzaatz guard the spaceports too tightly now.”
Tskombe smiled, being careful to keep his teeth from showing. “I know where I can get a starship.”
Pouncer’s ears swiveled up. “Tell me.”
“I came here with a freerunner named Night Pilot. He’s back in orbit after a trip, and now he’s waiting for me. Far Hunter has arranged fuel for him, and can arrange more. He can take your emissary to the Great Prides.”
“Hrrr. This is good fortune. Can you contact him?”
Tskombe held up his beltcomp. “I have the codes right here, and his orbital data.” He tapped the small screen. “He will be overhead…” Tskombe tried to do the conversion math in his head and came up with a rough answer. “…overhead at midnight. He can come down by direct descent if we need him to.”
“We will have to be careful in contacting him, and in bringing him down. Ftzaal-Tzaatz is actively hunting for us, and the orbital fortresses are always watching and listening.”
Tskombe nodded. “Night Pilot knows how to get in and out without being seen.”
“Hrrr. I will still have to choose an emissary.” Pouncer looked up at the sky, now flecked with stars. Some of the pinpoints moved, satellites or ships or docks or fortresses. Once upon a time only stars filled the sky. “If the Pride Leaders decide to follow where I lead.”
Tskombe nodded. Perhaps it would be better for him if they didn’t. He had Black Saber in orbit, and Night Pilot was actively eager to have kz’zeerkti passengers on board for his passage back to Known Space and out of the way of the United Nations’ onslaught on the Patriarchy. He was almost in contact with Ayla. Best, perhaps, if we just get her and go. That thought had no honor. I owe blood debt to this kzin, who risked his life for me, blood debt to Far Hunter, who lost his father for me. I cannot do less than honor my obligation. All he could offer Pouncer was Black Saber. He would offer it.
Much later they walked back down and Pouncer laid out his plans. Tskombe nodded as he listened. He is bold, I’ll give him that. He was amazed to learn the sheer size of the czrav population, but perhaps he shouldn’t have been. They had half a continent to hide in. The czrav had won the support of the Northern Lesser Prides, and slowly extended their base of support south into the Plain of Stgrat. That gave them a safe corridor, where czrav agents could count on the support of the kzintzag and the nobility together. They had freedom of movement in those areas. The weakness of the czrav was the fierce independence that kept them from combining their power even as they worked toward their common goals.
Pouncer stopped at the lip of the den to look out into the night. “But if they will follow me, no force on this planet can stand against them.”
“Will they follow you?”
“They are debating that now.” Pouncer tried to keep the tension from his voice. Everything depends on this moment. The return of Tskombe-kz’zeerkti could only be a good omen; the availability of a ship at this moment could not have been better timed. But I still need to choose an emissary.
In the den Far Hunter was still relating the tale of their search to the now rapt audience around the pride circle fire. He was a natural storyteller, as good as Swift Claw if less practiced. Inspiration dawned. Yes! He is not of the czrav, he speaks well, he will be acceptable to the Great Pride-Patriarchs. I will send him, if he will go.
A paw on his shoulder, V’rli-Ztrak. She was bleeding badly from a slash that ran from her neck to her arm.
He reached out to her. “You have been…” She cut him off with a raised hand.
“The wound is nothing. Sraa-Vroo challenge-leapt and I killed him. He did not know the single combat form.” She paused. “The czrav are behind you, Zree-Rrit, every pride. We will take our destiny back from the Patriarchy.”
Pouncer found himself wordless. It was his moment of triumph, but he didn’t feel triumphant. I have taken on a vast responsibility. He looked over to where Tskombe-kz’zeerkti had joined Far Hunter and Trina in the center of the pride circle. I must not fail.
There followed a time of frenetic preparation. Agents were sent out to gain information on the state of the Citadel defenses, patrols dispatched to reconnoiter routes and lay up points for the march of the building army. Czrav manufacturing was sophisticated, but not geared for large scale production, and so necessary equipment had to be stolen from the enemy, mag ar
mor for warriors and tuskvor
both, and variable swords, grav belts, combat computers and more. Far Hunter traveled south with a raid, to stay behind and rendezvous with Black Saber for his mission to Churrt Pride and beyond. Pouncer found himself missing the presence of the Cherenkova-Captain, but Tskombe stepped almost unconsciously into that role, bringing his greater ground combat experience to bear. The list of details he carried in his head was tremendous, and every day the plan was refined. These kz’zeerkti are formidable planners. Good planning was essential; there was very little time. Their attack was set for the next High Hunter’s Moon, and already it had half waned from its last peak. I must strike while I can, while the czrav are behind me, while the Tzaatz do not suspect my full strength, while the Lesser Prides and the kzintzag still support us. The experienced warriors of Ztrak and Dziit and Mrrsel Prides became the leadership who trained the others in his tactics. He pushed his followers without mercy, himself harder still. Every day more prides arrived from the migration, and the increasingly crowded tuskvor needed to be managed and fed.
I have unleashed something I can no longer control. He was riding the storm, guiding it as he could, but helpless to prevent its advance. It would carry him to the Citadel, and to victory or death. He had no time to think about that, there was too much to accomplish first.
Honor demands vengeance.
—Creed of the Fanged God
The lighter floated out into the docking frame, thrusting gently onto a rendezvous trajectory. Overhead Kzinhome revolved and steadied against a backdrop of stars. Raarrgh-Captain let the pilot fly while he looked out the window at his new command. Once Patriarch’s Talon had been a battleship, armed and armored for the Long Hunt. Now it was a stripped hulk, the only thing left her powerplants and her massive polarizers. The rest of her hull had been replaced with an open framework that held her new arsenal. It lacked the sophistication of the spinal-mount gamma ray laser and the secondary turrets and the racks of seeker missiles that had once made her a force to be reckoned with, but it was more lethal by far. Patriarch’s Talon now carried launch racks full of simple tungsten spheres half the height of a kzin, wrapped in a thin shell of low albedo coating. With three-quarters of her hull cut away, the battleship’s drives could push her at unheard-of accelerations, and when she was traveling so close to the speed of light that time dilation was the primary targeting factor, she would release those masses to travel on their own. They had no guidance, no warheads, no ability to locate and track a target, or even to maneuver. All they could do was travel as straight as a laser beam until they hit their target or missed it. For any space combat Raarrgh-Captain had ever fought they would be absolutely useless. Even moving at seven-eighths-over-eight-squared times the speed of light, any ship not already crippled could elude them. In fact, the limitations on the ex-battleship’s own sensors and guidance systems meant that they were likely to miss even a target dead in space, given the tremendous lead distance required to align her velocity vector on the target at such speeds. Patriarch’s Talon had once been a weapon of power and precision. Now she couldn’t hope to hit anything smaller than a planet.
Of course, that was exactly the plan, and a projectile of that much mass arriving at just under the speed of light would punch a crater to a planet’s core. A pawful of them would sterilize a world, and it was that task, and that task alone, that Patriarch’s Talon had been stripped for. In days his ship would be ready. It couldn’t happen soon enough. There would be more suffering, more slaughtered kits by kz’zeerkti before he could bring his weapon to bear. Every day brought new reports of colonies wiped out to the last kzin; even long established and well defended worlds were being invested and burned from orbit. The kz’zeerkti had seemingly unlimited resources and their fleets were unstoppable, but they had not been in space long as a species, and they had a fatal weakness that the more established kzinti did not. Their colonies were few and lightly populated, all still at least partially reliant on their homeworld. Eliminate that and their campaign must inevitably collapse. Penetrating the heavy defenses of Sol system would be impossible for a ship, or even a fleet, but Patriarch’s Talon no longer had to get close to strike.
And so Raarrgh-Captain would take his new warship deep into human space, to the borderland of Sol, and with alignment and timing precise to the edge of measurement he would accelerate to his hellish attack velocity and launch his war load at Earth. It was an unheard-of measure and it stood against the Traditions, against the Way of the Hunter, against honor itself to vandalize a living world like that. He would have been justified if he refused the mission, even justified if he renounced his fealty to Tzaatz Pride over such orders. He had considered both those options long and hard. It was true, as he had told Ftzaal-Tzaatz when the Black Priest had issued his orders, that the kzinti had never, in all their Conquests, used even conversion weapons on a world, let alone something like this. But it was also true, as Ftzaal had replied, that the kzinti had never before been faced not only with defeat but extermination. The kz’zeerkti had shown no scruples in their attacks on kzinti-held worlds, assaults designed not for conquest but for annihilation. The monkey war was no longer about spoils and status, it was about species survival, and that changed everything.
Changed everything except the fact of final victory. That would remain a kzinti honor. His mouth relaxed into a fanged smile.
Cleopatra: Sink Rome, and their tongues rot that speak against us! A charge we bear i’ the war, and, as the president of my kingdom, will appear there for a man. Speak not against it, I will not stay behind.
—William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act III, Scene VII
Ayla Cherenkova wasn’t fast enough to run with the kzinti she commanded, so they carried her into battle instead. Her sedan chair was borne by eight kzinretti, her elite guard, each sworn to defend her to the death. It had room for her maps and planning charts, primitive tools long superseded by combat consoles, but they needed no power source. On a rack overhead was the heavy kzinti beamrifle that she was allowed to use because she was neither kzin nor slave, though if she ever had to use it, it would mean that her plans had failed badly. There was also room for Mind-Seer, her telepath, though he marched on his own except in battle, and beside the beamrifle were a series of small vials of sthondat lymph, should Mind-Seer ever need them in emergency. So far he hadn’t; the czrav attacks had all gone perfectly, and his natural talent had been enough to know the minds of their enemies and pass Cherenkova’s orders to her warriors.
And they were her warriors. Ayla smiled at that. Even among her volunteer kzinretti there had been some doubts at first, but now there was no more question about her ability to plan, to command and to lead. They would hit an installation, kill all the Tzaatz and take not just the ears but the bodies before vanishing into the night again. It was a tactic she had developed herself, aimed at striking fear into her enemies. The Tzaatz had a name for them now, pazpuweejw—the death shadows, the malevolent phantoms who haunted the ancient Kitten’s Tales. She liked that name; it meant that her tactics were working.
She stuck her head out the side of the chair as they came to a rise. “K’lakri, stop here.”
“As you command.”
The bearers put her down, and Cherenkova picked up her beamrifle and got out of the chair. With just her beltcomp she didn’t have all the functionality of a combat console but she could move around. Mind-Seer came up beside her.
“I have news from the den, Cherenkova-Captain.”
“What is it?”
“The Tskombe-kz’zeerkti has returned for you.”
“Quacy? He’s back?” It took a moment for the news to sink in, and joy flooded her system. All at once she longed to hold him and be held, to touch him, at least to talk to him. Tears came to her eyes unbidden and she wiped them away. Time for this later. You have a battle to win. Still she couldn’t help smiling. She was due to return to the den soon anyway. Her force had been fighting thrice around the Hunter’
s Moon and they needed a rest. Quacy! It will be good, so good to see him.
She turned to Mind-Seer. “Tell them I’m glad. Tell them, tell him I’ll see him soon.”
Mind-Seer closed his eyes and muttered to himself as he reached out with his mind for that of Ferlitz-Telepath. Ayla watched him, somewhat in awe, as she always was, of the Telepath’s Gift. He opened them a moment later. The message had been sent.
And now focus on the battle. She came up to the hill, slid up on her belly and raised her binoptics to scan the target. It was a rare-earth mine, worked by Kdatlyno, recently confiscated from the minor pride of Vaasc by the Tzaatz as punishment for withholding tribute. It was possible the Vaasc had really done that—the Lesser Prides were growing steadily more rebellious as the limits of Tzaatz control became clear—but it was more likely that Kchula-Tzaatz wanted the mine’s output to feed his fleet construction program and its wealth for himself.
And ultimately it didn’t matter. Another part of Cherenkova’s overall campaign plan was that the Tzaatz themselves would be punished every time they tried to exert control in the northwestern prideholdings. With every heavy-handed move Kchula made, with every rapier-swift reprisal she mounted against them, the forces of the czrav gained credence with those who lived in the shadow of the Long Range. Vaasc Pride were not yet allies of Pouncer’s, but soon they would be, as other Lesser Prides had already pledged fealty to the resurgent First-Son-of-Meerz-Rrit.
She scanned the scene. The mine head was in a valley half full of tailings, and it slanted deep into the planet’s crust to ferret out the scant pockets of rare-earth metals. The Tzaatz had a heavy guard mounted. A few of them had taken to carrying beam weapons as well, a disturbing trend she could do little about. Pouncer refused to countenance the czrav taking similar steps, and though he allowed her to carry her own weapon for last-ditch self-defense, he probably would have rather she didn’t.