Chapter Fifteen
IARZUT’THRUK, BD+56 2966 TWO (“TURKH’SAAR”)
“May our chants speed your way to the Ancestral Host,” hooted Jrekhalkar, “and may you be surrounded by banner-bearers on the Final Day of the Final Battle.” He raised the shallow, double-handled funereal bowl, fashioned from the top of a st’kraag’s domelike skull. “We drink your blood to carry your valor forward in our own veins, brother.”
At which ritual pronouncement, Jrekhalkar dipped the end of his snout into the bowl and sucked deep. Yaargraukh, holding a simple mug, did the same, but was careful to take up only a modest amount of the zhyzh’hakz. This was not the time to let the dark blue syrup affect his thinking or behavior. The timing of this council was particularly unfortunate; tempers would be short, passions high, and veins afire with the musky stimulant. In ages past, zhyzh’hakz had been used before battle as a combat drug, albeit in more concentrated forms. Of course, in times before, they had also quaffed the actual blood of the deceased.
But ritual gatherings such as this were connected to another sacred tradition the Old Families still revered: to combine affairs of state with Family and clan rites, whether of Mate-making, Warrior-naming, or Pyre-burning. It hardly mattered which of these rituals preceded a meeting. The consumption of zhyzh’hakz and elevated emotional state of the attendees assured that bold claims and Challenges were more likely than wise words and decisions. And at this meeting there was a further complication: the mortally wounded father of the dead Warrior whom they honored.
That worthy sucked in long and hard at his own bowl, which was slightly less traditional: shaped like a cup, it was a drinking vessel for the young, the wounded, or the infirm. With one’s snout dipped to the bottom, even a frail Hkh’Rkh could drink long and deep without much effort.
As the haggard head of O’akhdruh the Silent Voice rose up again, his eye folds were less wrinkled by the heavy bags that were one of the diagnostic precursors of death. The zhyzh’hakz was doing its work, restoring vitality briefly but probably hastening the former Voice’s demise by an equal margin. Invigorating to a healthy Hkh’Rkh, zhyzh’hakz taxed the system of a badly injured one—and O’akhdruh’s wounds were beyond the art or tools of the doctors on backward Turkh’saar.
However, the patriarch’s damning glare was undimmed as, in its sweep of the room, it ran across Yaargraukh and those few other scions of the New Families who were in attendance. They were representatives of the upland rovers and Fringelanders who otherwise had no voice in the affairs of the colony, which was dominated by the Old Family clans that populated its towns.
Jrekhalkar’s eyes followed his father’s, narrowed. “If you wish, I will clear the Clanhall of these—”
“No,” O’akhdruh interrupted. “It is their right to be here. Besides, I have need of information from the former Advocate.” He nodded solemnly at Yaargraukh.
Who knew, although the gesture was superficially congenial, that the crippled and dying Silent Fist was far more dangerous than his second, and only surviving, Scion.
Jrekhalkar’s massive shoulders hunched at the word “Advocate.” “He came by his title naturally enough.” Rumbles of assent rose among the Old Family scions who had gathered in response to Jrekhalkar’s summons, his first as both Fist and Voice of his Family on Turkh’saar.
But it was still O’akhdruh who commanded, clearly vexed by Jrekhalkar’s lack of instinct for his new, dual role. Jrekhalkar had been a reasonably able Fist during the war-time absence of both his sire and older brother, and had not taken the title Voice: whether out of respect for his father or silent acknowledgement of his own limitations was unknown.
But with his older brother Uzkekh’gar on his pyre, and his sire soon to follow, he had no choice but to take on both roles and lead his family. All his remaining siblings were females, and none of them had the spirit and drive that the New Families encouraged in their daughters. Not a one of them was a physician, or a scribe, or a technologist; they had been bred to be Mates and nothing else. And that was just what they were: vessels for the sires of other Clans. It was fortunate that Jrekhalkar was large and personally fierce, otherwise he could have anticipated many Challenges. With him defeated, the entire moiety of his Clan and Family on this planet would become the property of the victor, whose right to those gains would be easily solidified by Mate-making any of O’akhdruh’s daughters.
The Silent Voice raised his long, scarred head to glance at his surviving son. “Well? Why do you tarry?”
Jrekhalkar’s smaller-than-normal eyes flinched back into their folds before emerging again. “Sire, to what do you refer—?”
“You are Voice and Fist, now. Who is to call this council to order other than you?” The old Hkh’Rkh almost spat the words; a phlegmy warble of disappointment was loud in his snout.
Jrekhalkar stepped forward—too fast, too anxious, Yaargraukh observed—grabbed his clan’s ceremonially-pennanted halbardiche, and rapped it down against the paving stones of the Clanhall three times. The gathered scions quieted, but their obedience did not radiate commensurate respect. The old Voice was too experienced and canny not to discern the council’s reaction to his son’s accession: decidedly underwhelmed. At best.
His son continued. “Scions, as Voice and Fist of the Family Srenshakh of the Moiety and Great Clan Gdar’khoom, I have called you to Council in the shadow of my brother’s waiting Pyre. As embers, his body shall rise to join the stars. As smoke, his blood shall rise to join with that of Departed Heroes.”
“He joins Departed Heroes,” the gathering chorused in loud ritual affirmation, Yaargraukh’s voice no less than the rest. Old Family or New, death in battle was death in battle. Or in this case, upon revivification: Uzkekh’gar’s ghastly wounds, revealed when the lid of his hibernaculum rose up, had come as a terrible shock.
“But he needn’t have joined them at all,” Jrekhalkar continued. “That was the result of human cruelty.” Jrekhalkar’s eyes flicked over toward Yaargraukh.
Who thought, Or was a consequence of their ignorance and our intransigence. But to say so aloud would seal his fate and whatever chance there was to end the human raiding in the west and avert a potential confrontation with Earth.
But it seemed that holding his tongue was not enough. Z’gluurhek, a troublemaker since the day he was whelped, spiked his crest provocatively. “Of course, there are those who would make excuses for the humans in this matter…as in most others.” He considered. “Well,” he said, now looking directly at Yaargraukh, “there is at least one.”
Careful now. “I made no excuses nor accusations in the matter of Uzkekh’gar’s hibernaculum. I merely pointed out inconsistencies.”
Before wily O’akhdruh could interrupt—and thereby prevent Yaargraukh from presenting evidence that would reveal his son’s overly dramatic accusation to be irresponsible or even misleading—Z’gluurhek thrust his head forward into the open circle that defined the Council space. “What inconsistencies?”
“Inconsistencies in the human handling of our hibernacula. It is true that there was no resuscitation warning icon upon Uzkekh’gar’s unit, although the humans did mark it with our own sigil for indicating that the recipient had received some measure of medical treatment. But from the reports I have read, the humans also did not understand that our cardiosac is a diffuse structure, rather than a single, coherent organ such as their own heart. It is likely that they believed their intervention had stabilized his condition enough for routine treatment upon reanimation.”
“And here is the professional human apologist at his labors once again,” sneered Z’gluurhek. “Has no one told the Advocate of the Unhonored that he is their advocate no longer?”
“I am quite aware of that,” Yaargraukh said quickly, to stifle any laughter that might make it necessary for him to respond to Z’gluurhek with a Challenge. “But I am also aware that my own hibernaculum—and that of our revered O’akhdruh—were both clearly marked as containing severely injured occupants who might require resuscitation when awakened. They also included passable attempts to describe the nature of our wounds in our own language. It would be strange for the humans to be so inconsistent in their handling of our wounded if they were, as you suggest, so determined to be cruel to all Hkh’Rkh. Indeed, if they meant to slay us without exception, how is it that I, and the Silent Voice, stand here at all?”
Almost in unison, the heads of the gathered scions turned slowly to where Jrekhalkar and O’akhdruh stood stolidly before the Uzkekh’gar’s funeral bier. Conspicuous in the failure to do so were Z’gluurhek and several of his cronies, who stared at Yaargraukh as if they meant to attack him. And they probably would have, but for the proprieties imposed by both a funeral and Council.
O’akhdruh waited for Jrekhalkar to speak, but only for a moment. He clearly discerned that his second son was not up to the task of forming an effective response swiftly. The former-Voice’s once-towering form buckled further under the paternal disappointment before he took the tack that Yaargraukh had anticipated. “Fine words…and many of them may be accurate. But this explanation does not bear upon the burning buildings and slaughtered Warriors of Ylogh, or upon the two human spacecraft—for whose else would they be?—which have landed just to the west of that shattered clancote. If there are tolerable, responsible humans somewhere in the reaches of space, that is of no matter to us in this place, at this time. We know the nature of the humans on Turkh’saar well enough; they are invaders, wanton destroyers with an insatiable appetite for inflicting misery wherever their cadaverous, blood-smeared fingers might touch.” His eyes returned to Yaargraukh. “Do you deny this?”
Yaargraukh noted, from the corner of his eye, Z’gluurhek and his cronies edging forward, hands slightly raised, claws tilted up.
In all probability, Yaargraukh conjectured, his answer to O’akhdruh’s pointed question would either be among the most artful of his career as a Warrior-diplomat or his last. He did not speak until he was sure that his voice was not merely calm, but casual. “I deny none of the things you have said about the humans, Revered O’akhdruh. But conversely, while I have seen the destruction the humans have caused, and it is grievous indeed, I think it hasty to presume that they are best understood as invaders. Specifically, I find it strange that the Terran Republic would send an assault force equipped from their museums.”
O’akhdruh waved a silencing hand before Z’gluurhek could fumble out a reply. “I do not understand this. What do you mean, the humans are equipped from their own museums?”
“I apologize, eldest. I was unaware that you have yet to be briefed on the specifics of the humans’ equipment and tactics. Specifically, the weapons and vehicles employed by the humans are illogical to the point of bafflement. If I may give you an example of—”
Jrekhalkar stepped forward. “You may not.”
“He may,” O’akhdruh countermanded irritably. “I require complete information if I am to make a sound decision. And as this decision shall be my last, I wish it to be prudent and well-remembered.”
“My sire, your condition is not so grave that—”
O’akhdruh glared at Jrekhalkar. “Do not dishonor me or yourself with such fantasies. All gathered here know I cannot survive the week, probably not more than three days. The damage to my organs is too great. Had I been sent on to Rkh’yaa and its medical facilities, then, perhaps—” He shook his crest as if casting off a nagging parasite. “What is before us is all that matters. These humans are a grave threat, but I have no specific knowledge of the particulars or history of their operations. So I will hear what the former Advocate has to say of them. And be certain, Jrekhalkar, that I am not so enfeebled that I shall fail to separate partial truths or wishful thinking from the facts of Yaargraukh’s report. Now, Yaargraukh Onvaarkhayn of the Moiety of Hsraluur, I bid you speak of the humans and their strange equipment, leaving out no pertinent detail.”
Yaargraukh felt talons of wariness claw lightly at his bowel. This injunction to speak freely was a singularly fortuitous opportunity. Too fortuitous to be entirely safe. “I shall, Revered O’akhdruh, but the strangeness of their equipment and actions are but a hint to deeper contradictions in their presence and purpose.”
“So you say. But I shall judge. Impart the facts, as you know them. Then I shall hear your hypotheses.”