Way Of The Clans

Next they went into the cemetery and searched out Gly

Standing silently by the grave, Aidan thought of Gly

Aidan remembered lying on the ground, his hand tightly clutching the low-powered laser pistol that had become standard issue for the sibko after its tenth birth-noting. It could not kill, but it could cause extreme discomfort, as Aidan learned when Peri, the sneaky little runt of the siblitter, had shot him during a mock infantry exercise. The beam caught Aidan in the neck, sending a steady pain through it that was worse than any headache or muscle spasm he had ever endured. The pain made his eyes tear up and he fell to the ground. Peri, fearful that her toy had been set too high, ran over to him. When she saw that he was still alive, she laughed triumphantly. That was Peri's way; she exulted in her victories and let her victims know that she was happy to have defeated them.

In spite of his pain, Aidan had grabbed Peri about her legs, tipped her over, and disarmed her of the toy laser pistol, which he then held to her head. At that moment he had wanted to give her a headache the equal of the pain she had inflicted upon him. Fairness won out, however. Aidan accepted the skirmish victory as his due, sending the now-frowning Peri back to the assembling area with other defeated child-warriors, all waiting for their next turn in the battle game.

Aidan watched the bandits come toward the entrenched sibko. He could hardly make out the features of their faces, so begrimed were they with the dirt of the road that it looked as though they'd been wallowing in mud. Their clothes were mostly old and ripped, though here and there a bandit wore relatively clean, new-looking garments, probably booty from their most recent raid. The hair of the man at the head of the pack was tightly wrapped in a trio of short pigtails that bounced against his forehead with each step. Three pigtails identified him as the antikhan, a title that marked his rebellion against the warrior caste (he had no doubt been a disgraced warrior or failed warrior cadet). The word itself showed contempt for the rigid political structure of the Clans, each of whose leaders was called a khan, while the leader of all the Clans was given the exalted title of ilKhan.

Each member of the attacking horde seemed to grow in size as he or she came nearer. It was an optical illusion, Aidan knew, but the front ranks of the bandits were nevertheless populated by bulky, thick-muscles brutes who looked like warrior caste flush-outs.

Aidan, remembering Gly

He would have fired, and he would have stu

At any rate, Gly

The leader watched Gly

A few steps in front of the leader, Gly

The bandit leader's killing move was nearly undetectable. His right hand had rested in front of a scruffy vest, quite casually, then suddenly he had drawn a knife from somewhere in his clothing and raked it across Gly

The bandit came at him. He, too, had found a knife somewhere on his clothing and was brandishing it like a tiny sword. Knife or sword, no conventional weapon could frighten Aidan. In their hand-to-hand combat training lessons, he and the other sibko members had been well-drilled to respect a weapon but not to fear it.

Switching the pistol to his left hand, Aidan used it to deflect the downward arc of the bandit's knife. Before his adversary could recover, he grabbed the man's wrist with hands whose muscles had been strengthened by long calisthenic drills supervised by sibparent Go

As the bandit straightened up, he made a quick lunge at Aidan, who neatly sidestepped the man, sending him plunging forward and down, his face in the dirt. Ironically, it was Gly

Aidan stepped backward. He sensed, out the corner of his eye, a movement toward him. Another bandit, a short, thick-legged woman with fire in her eyes, raced toward him. Her fighting skills were no better than those of the man on the ground, and Aidan was able to strike the side of her head with the barrel of his pistol. He could have stabbed her, but he was saving the bandit's knife for its owner. She collapsed and he saw, as the fire in her eyes went out, that she would be at least momentarily unconscious.