Mercury flicked a hand at Hind Claw’s face, barely nicking the side of his snout. “You know the Naked Ones keep the men and women in separate camps,” he snarled. “The Mother doesn’t know about it.”
“Then what does the Father say?” Hind Claw asked, not to be dissuaded in his search for proper authorization.
This time Bobtail smacked Hind Claw on the back of his head. “You know the Father is kept caged and guarded by the Naked Ones, so none can approach him.”
Hind Claw slowly bobbed his head up and down on its long neck. “So,” he said, “there is no authority for what you propose doing.”
Mercury leaned forward with his knuckles on the ground and his head stretched out, his whiskers close enough to tickle the side of Hind Claw’s face where he’d nicked it: the classic intimidation stance. “Proper authority or not,” he said softly but threateningly, “it needs to be done.”
“If we fail?” Hind Claw asked, unfazed by the threat.
“Then we are dead.”
“And if we succeed?”
“Then we have freed the people of our clan,” Ares said.
Hind Claw nodded again. “And we gain status in our clan.” He looked into Mercury’s eyes. “And you could challenge for the Father. I would like to be allied to the Father.” He drew back far enough that Mercury’s whiskers no longer tickled the side of his snout. He raised his head high, baring his neck in submission. Hind Claw had been the last of the six to be persuaded. They were ready now.
They took turns napping until the early moon set, then squeezed through the bars of the aboveground cage where they were kept at night.
“Where are you going?” a sleep-slurred voice asked, someone awakened by the sounds of their squeezing between bars that were more symbolic of imprisonment than intended to keep them in.
“We’ll be back,” Dewclaw whispered. “Go back to sleep.” He heard a faint rustle as the questioner resettled himself next to his mates.
Hunched over, their narrow shoulders blending into long necks, the six slipped through the prison camp until they reached its edge. Mercury had scouted the way on several nights and he knew where the perimeter sentries were stationed. He also knew that the sentries would not be alert, that they weren’t afraid of other, still-free clans launching a night attack. Besides, the sentries were positioned to watch out, not in.
They found the hidden armory that Mercury remembered preparing during the war against the Moon Flower Clan, a war that was interrupted by the arrival of the Naked Ones and their rapid subjugation of both the Moon Flowers and Mercury’s own Bright Sun Clan.
The armory was well camouflaged; the Naked Ones had not found it, even though tracks on the ground made it clear that their vehicles had come by many times during the year they’d held the Bright Sun and Moon Flower clans in slavery and increased their sphere of control to include all the clans of Bright Sun’s Brilliant Coalition and Moon Flower’s Starwarmth Union. For all Mercury knew, the Naked Ones had conquered part or even all of the world beyond those two nations.
The Naked Ones had come from the sky, roaring down in flaming sky vehicles such as none of the people had ever seen and only the most imaginative had ever conceived of. Their weapons were terrible, advanced far beyond the rifles and artillery of the people, and that, combined with the surprise and speed of their attack, had allowed them to conquer all the clans of two nations quickly and decisively. No one had been able to resist them for long, and none had been able yet to rise against the Naked Ones. At least not so far as Mercury had heard.
But the Naked Ones had become complacent, and Mercury believed it was time to strike at them, to begin to free his people. But to do that they needed weapons.
Getting into the hidden armory was harder than finding it. But get into it they did. They loaded themselves; each took two rifles and four hundred rounds. One carried a mortar tube and another a baseplate. The other four each took two of the canisters displaying the red skull, the mark of weapons that dispensed a lingering death. Each also carried four rounds for the mortar. They also each took four grenades. By the time they were finished, each was carrying his own weight in weapons and ammunition.