Free Hunted by James Alan Gardner Page B

the flimsy bits aren’t at all vital. If they break or get mangled during a fight, it scarcely hurts a bit. The warrior just can’t hear or smell as well for a few days, until the damaged part grows back.
    The one indispensable part of a warrior’s face is the spike on his pointy snout. It’s sharp and bony, only as big as a human thumb, but perfect for use as a bayonet—in an emergency, the warrior can use his spike to stab an enemy in the eye. Of course, it has to be a big emergency. All Mandasar castes have a finicky sense of smell, and they absolutely hate the stink of someone’s blood gucking up the tip of their noses.
    The warrior charging toward me had a shell so fiery red, I knew he had to be young, in his twenties—the color fades as warriors get older, not to mention that they learn not to attack people at first sight. You never know when you’ll meet someone who spent years on the Mandasar home-world, learning all kinds of tricks to show overeager youngsters that humans aren’t as soft as they look.
    All the same, I didn’t want to hurt an impetuous kid just because he was short on common sense. Fast as I could, I crossed my hands over my chest in the high-court submission posture and hollered, “ Naizó! ”…short for Nai halabad tajjef su rellid puzó, which means I yield to your queen and her rightful hegemony over these, her duly apportioned lands. (A thousand years ago, old-time Mandasar warriors got their kicks by trying to recite the long form of the phrase before they got a pincer rammed through their guts. They did it as a test of nerve—to show how cool-headed they could be, speaking calm and slow while an opponent raced straight at them. The flowery words got collapsed to Naizó about the time firearms were invented, when it suddenly became important for surrenders to be short and snappy.)
    Of course, if someone barrels down on you, either with guns or with pincers, there’s always a chance he won’t stop, even when you yell uncle. The warrior charging toward me didn’t slow a bit when I Naizó’d him—he pounded on like a thoroughbred stallion, intending to gallop down my throat at trampling speed.
    I’d have been pee-in-the-pants scared if he were a real horse; horses have hammer-hard hooves, and real good instincts when it comes to kicking. Lucky for me, Mandasar warriors are built all wrong for horsy maneuvers like rearing up, and they can’t kick worth a darn unless they practice for years. Nature designed them for using their waist pincers and nose spikes; get around those, and they don’t have much left to throw at you.
    I kept shouting, “Naizó!” as long as I could, in case the warrior was just putting on a show to impress the rest of his family—four other Mandasars, three workers and a gentle, had come out of the dome behind him and were watching his every move, all excited and worshipful. But when the warrior got so close I could see he really planned to run me over, I dropped the submission stance and faked a move to my left, as if I were dodging out of the way. The warrior swerved in the same direction…which showed he had zero training in actual fights. He spread his waist arms wide to prevent me from going around, and opened his claws to catch me; but I was already slipping back to the right, outside the reach of his pincers.
    The warrior charged straight past me, with way too much momentum to stop. If he’d had any experience fighting humans, he would have kept going; but he dropped his lobstery tail as a brake, dragging it along the ground like Mandasars always do when they want to slow down fast. For sure, he intended to swing around and take another grab at me…but I was right behind him now and his tail was close in front of my feet.
    So I ran up his tail and threw myself flat onto his back.
    Mandasar warriors can jump, but not nearly as much as a bucking bronco. Like I said, they’re built wrong for horse tricks—eight legs just can’t hop as wildly as