Exiled: Clan of the Claw, Book One by Michael Z. Williamson, John Ringo Jody Lynn Nye Harry Turtledove S.M. Stirling Page A

leather. Some of the officers decorated their armor with little spikes on helmets and shoulderpieces, so they looked a bit like frillhorns.
    Sassin went unarmored. For one thing, he did not intend to get close enough to the front line to expose himself to the slings and arrows of outrageous vermin. For another, he had confidence in the magic that could, and at need would, turn aside the weapons the vermin carried. If you lacked faith in your magic, it was apt to fail you when you needed it most.
    Surveying the host before him, he told Lorssett, “You did well in taking my commands to my vassals.”
    “My thanks, lord.” Lorssett was also unarmored, which showed his faith in his master. Putting on heavy bronze would have told the world he did not believe Sassin could keep him safe. It would have told Sassin the same thing—and Lorssett would have been sorry immediately thereafter.
    For now, the Liskash noble stepped out in front of the fighters his underlings had gathered. They fell silent; their eyes followed his every move. None of them wanted Sassin’s eyes to light on him. The lord’s notice was much too likely to mean the lord’s displeasure. And the lord’s displeasure was bound to mean far worse displeasure for the average fighter.
    “Males! Fighters!” Sassin’s voice was not especially loud, but neither did it need to be. His followers heard him not only through their earholes but also inside their minds. They couldn’t not listen to him, no matter how much they might have wanted to. That gave him a certain advantage over Rantan Taggah, but it was not one he understood.
    “Lord Sassin!” the fighters cried. He also heard them with his mind and his earholes. When they shouted his name, he knew how much they feared him. Enough to do anything he commanded. That was as much fear as he required: not always as much as he would have liked, but as much as he had to have.
    “The Mrem are coming,” he said. “Those stinking, hairy beasts think they can go where they will and do as they please. Are they right? Shall we let them?”
    “No, Lord Sassin!” the Liskash answered in what might as well have been a single voice. However much they feared him, they hated the Mrem more. Any Liskash noble could always rely on that.
    Sassin knew the upstart mammals loathed his kind every bit as much. He knew, but he didn’t care. All you could do with creatures like that was enslave or kill them.
    “Will they drive off our herds?” he asked. “Will they trample our egg-laying grounds with their stinking, sweating feet?” Dry-skinned himself, he could imagine little more disgusting than perspiration…and his imagination traveled widely in the realm of disgust.
    His fellow Liskash felt as he did. “No, Lord Sassin!” they shouted once more. The fighters who carried javelins brandished them. They were ready to war against the Mrem, sure enough. He could see it. He could hear it. He could smell it with his tongue. And he could feel it in his mind.
    “Forward!” he told them.
    “Forward!” they echoed, brandishing their weapons once more. He basked in their approval, the way an axehead might spread its broad, bare wings and bask in the early-morning sun.
    And forward they went. The Liskash had better discipline than the Mrem. With their mental powers, captains and commanders were better equipped to enforce it than the hairy creatures’ talonmasters. Logic, then, said the Liskash should usually have got the better of the fighting. So it seemed to Sassin; so, indeed, it seemed to every Liskash noble whose views he knew.
    Somehow, logic and the Mrem had but a glancing acquaintance with each other. It wasn’t as if the Liskash couldn’t prevail against the two-legged vermin. They did win their share of victories. But their share always seemed smaller than it should have been, and no noble had ever figured out why.
    Lose confidence and you weaken your magic, Sassin reminded himself again. This would be the worst time