All the more reason, then, for proceeding slowly and carefully, Fralk thought. Otherwise, he might run the army into a krong’s nest before he found out the beast was there. He remembered how Tolmasov’s rifle had riddled the krong back on the west side of Ervis Gorge. What would have happened, though, had the krong had a rifle, too?
“Hit them now!” Ternat shouted. His males cried “Reatur!” and rushed through the brush toward Dordal’s waiting warriors. They yelled back. The snorts and whistles of the massi Ternat’s band had already freed only added to the din.
This time, Ternat thought as he drew near the enemy, his warriors lacked the advantage of surprise. They had just finished smashing one half of Dordal’s would-be ambush and sent the survivors fleeing to warn the other half. Ternat wished Dordal’s warriors were like humans, blind to half the world around them. Were that so, none of the first batch of males might have escaped.
As it was, Reatur’s eldest was happy enough with himself. Because people were as they were, surprise attacks were hard to pull off. But Dordal’s males had been surprised, sure enough, when the war band came crashing through the undergrowth at them. A good three out of every eighteen had turned blue and thrown down their spears; Ternat’s warriors had some of them back with the massi. Even the ones who hadn’t turned craven also had not fought well, most of them.
Then Ternat had no more time for reflection. Spears were flying, out toward his males and from them back at Dordal’s. This second band was larger than the one his warriors had already smashed and better situated, too, with several large boulders giving Dordal’s males almost the protection of a wall. If they stayed back there, they would have an edge.
Some did. More did not. As was true of the band Ternat led, most of Dordal’s warriors were young males with more temper than sense. They charged to do battle with their southern neighbors.
Along with Reatur’s name, the war band also shouted, “Thieves!” Dordal’s males screamed insults back at them.
“Why aren’t you hiding in the chambers under your castle, waiting for the Skarmer?” one of them yelled.
Ternat froze and almost took a spear in the gut because of it. But he had heard that voice before. “That’s Dordal himself!” he cried. “Get him and we bring a lot more than massi home!”
The warriors surged forward. Now fewer spears were in the air, and more clutched tight between males’ fingerclaws. One of Dordal’s warriors thrust at Ternat. He turned the stroke aside with his shield, tilting it upward as he had been drilled. He thrust back, low. The male managed to get a shield down to block that spear but left himself open for Ternat’s other one. He wailed as Reatur’s eldest drove it home and bled like a mate when Ternat pulled it free.
Ternat and another warrior engaged one of Dordal’s males from three arms apart. The beset male was good, but not good enough to resist for long two foes attacking from opposite directions. He went down, briefly yammering.
A rock grazed Ternat, just below one arm. He swore, twisted an eyestalk so he could look down at himself. He wasn’t bleeding or swelling up too badly. He decided he would live.
He looked around for another male to take on. There weren’t any, not close. The bravado that had fed that first rush from Dordal’s warriors faded as they found Ternat’s war band meant business-and had more males than their own force. Even the chance to gain glory by excelling where the domain master could see them was not enough. The northern males gave ground.
“This is harder work than stealing massi that can’t fight back, isn’t it?” Ternat shouted.
Dordal’s males were less interested in returning taunts now, more concerned with finding safety behind their heap of boulders. For a moment they made a stand there, but the rocks proved an insufficient barricade. One of Ternat’s males-Phelig, he saw it was-killed a warrior in the gap between two stones and then took control of it for himself. His fellows swarmed after him into the breach.
Then Ternat’s warriors forced their way through another opening. That proved too much for their foes. Some surrendered, others fled. Dordal was one of those who tried to run. When three of Ternat’s males dragged him to the ground, the last fight went out of his warriors.
“Get their spears and other weapons, and see to the wounded,” Ternat said. As his warriors began to obey, he walked slowly over to Dordal. That bruise he had taken started to hurt. He had forgotten all about it till now.
As Reatur’s eldest had remembered, Dordal was a large, imposinglooking male, very much the opposite of Elanti the massiherder: even standing tall, he was so well fed he looked widened. His eyestalks, however, were at the moment drooping dispiritedly. He raised one eye a little to see who was coming up. He did not widen himself, though Ternat saw that he recognized him.
“Domain master, you made a mistake,” he said, giving Dordal the courtesy of a title he knew his captive might not enjoy much longer.
“What are you doing here, Ternat?” Dordal’s voice was still proud but confused-he hadn’t changed much since the embassy, Ternat thought.
“I would think that was obvious, domain master-we are taking back what is ours. If you hadn’t crossed the border, we wouldn’t have come. Since you did-“ Reatur’s eldest let Dordal draw his own conclusions.
Those, as was characteristic of the northern domain master, were bizarre. “I think you were lying about the Skarmer this whole time, to lure me into raiding you without enough males.” Dordal sounded thoroughly indignant.
Ternat thought Dordal was a fool, but then he had thought that for a long while. “I’m afraid your greed made you stretch your eyestalks further than your arms would reach,” he said.
Dordal started to turn yellow. Ternat’s eyestalks twitched. Dordal quickly greened up again. Even he was not so stupid as to show his captor he was angry. “What will you do with me?” he asked.
“Take the lot of you back to our domain, I suppose,” Ternat said. He hadn’t thought much about that; he hadn’t expected to win such a complete victory. “Reatur will decide in the end. If I had to guess, I’ll say he’s likely to let you go back home after your eldest pays enough ransom to remind you not to trifle with us again.”
He waited for Dordal’s reaction. It did not disappoint him. This time Dordal turned yellow in earnest. “My eldest!” he shouted. “Grevil won’t pay a strip of dried meat for me! Let that grabby budling loose among my treasures and mates and he’ll want to keep everything for himself.”
Maybe Dordal did have some sense: that confirmed Ternat’s impression of the northern domain master’s eldest. It also confirmed that Grevil was his father’s budling. Dordal, Ternat was certain, would have done exactly the same thing in Grevil’s place.
“Well, we’ll just let Reatur sort that out,” Ternat said. “Perhaps if Grevil doesn’t grant you the respect and obedience a clanfather deserves, Reatur will send some males north to help you reclaim your domain-after the Skarmer are settled, of course.”
“I don’t care a three-day-old massi voiding about the Skarmer,” Dordal howled. “And if I get my domain back with help from Reatur’s males, there will be cords running from his arms to mine forever after.”
“Yes, there will, won’t there?” Ternat agreed cheerfully. “Maybe you should have thought about that before you decided to go massi-raiding. As it is, you’ll have some lovely three-day-old voidings to look at as we travel back to my clanfather’s domain.”
Dordal twisted all his eyestalks away from Ternat. Reatur’s eldest did not care how petulant Dordal felt. While the northern domain master was not looking, he walked away. Dordal started to talk again. He abruptly fell Silent when he turned one eyestalk back and noticed that no one was listening to him.
Ternat didn’t care about that, either. He was shouting to his own warriors now, getting them back into some kind of order so they could lead their prisoners and the re.c. aptured beasts home without half escaping in the process. Ternat did not have three eighteens of plans for overthrowing his clanfather. His time would come one day. Until then, he was content to wait.