No one called him out. A few males answered, “We hear you!” Most stood silent, waiting for what would come.

Rantan Taggah raised the scepter again. Eyes and ears not already pointed toward him swung his way. “Warriors!” he said. “Most of you were kits like me when the Old Water finally poured over the Quaxo Hills and started flooding the Hollow Lands. Some of the folk who listen here today fled before the great wave whelmed them. Honor to the memories of the males and females who could not get away.”

“Honor,” the assembled males echoed.

The talonmaster pointed north. “Now the New Water separates us from our fellow Mrem. The Clan of the Claw was always boldest. We were the ones who came out of the Hollow Lands and drove the Liskash before us, even though these warm southern lands suit the Scaly Ones well. We won broad plains for grazing. We won great glory, too.”

He lifted the scepter higher yet. The hollow eye sockets of the Liskash skull that crowned it stared blindly out at the Mrem. The warriors growled approval.

“And we won our own salvation,” Rantan Taggah went on. “Had we stayed down in the Hollow Lands, we likely would have been swept away like so many others. But we were bold. We pushed on. And so we lived.”

He took a deep breath. Now was the time to get down to business. “I know the Clan of the Claw will never be less than bold. Boldness, though, offers us two trails now. We can stay here where we are, cut off from all cousins and kin, and fight the Liskash who surround us on every side but the north for as long as we can. This we have done, and bravely, since the New Water thundered past us.”