M’reen’s thought came like lightning as he slapped at a cloud of hungry gnats and mosquitoes. We are coming back! My males have found them! They come from the trees, many, many! Be warned!
Hiero hand-signaled as previously arranged, and the ripple of readiness welled away from him in both directions along the ranks.
The Children of the Wind appeared in a clump, running and dodging like the racers they were. Missiles fell around them, but none hit.
The general bore no lance. His white plume dipped as he bent and drew the long, straight sword from its sheath on Klootz’s saddle. The two Mantan brothers ranged up, one on each side, their slender war axes across their saddlebows. The front of the enemy appeared, Leemutes and humans completely intermingled.
Hiero raised his sword high in his gauntleted right hand, then drove it down, and they were off. Come on, big boy, he sent. This is what it’s all about! Beside the three leading morses, the light pads of the cat people spurned the sedges.
Hiero’s fist clenched inside the basket hilt of the cavalry saber as he held it straight forward like a spear. As Klootz gathered speed, his rider could hear the rising splash and thunder of the charging lines behind. He stole a glance to either side. Good! They had learned the orders!
The left wing, the northern line of the morse riders, was swinging slowly past him, never breaking ranks. The right wing was holding back, so that the line was beginning to show an arc. The left would strike first and then roll the enemy up, cutting them off at the edge of the swamp and driving them into the open, away from any cover.
Now there was no time to think at all, and he concentrated on what lay in front. The days and weeks of planning were over, and he was a killing machine and nothing more. Klootz bellowed with battle rage, and his kin answered from behind, a rolling, swelling roar which rumbled from one end of the line to the other.
The Unclean halted, milling in confusion. The Manrats and the Plague Hounds, those that were left, had made little of the swamp, which hardly slowed them at all. But the men, though disciplined and deadly fighters on solid ground, were floundering, tripping over tussocks and slipping in the pools and mud. A great number of the Howlers were dismounted, and they liked this bog no better than their human allies. As the line of antlered heads and the glitter of the lance points and armor rose before them, many turned to flee. Others, of sterner stuff or with better officers, tried to form a line or at least a shield wall. The result was confusion! Order, counterorder—disorder!
From far left to far right, the terrible cavalry of the North charged home!
Hiero’s sword point split the face of a giant Howler, and he withdrew it as Klootz lunged on. Every lance, seemingly, skewered one of the enemy, front or back, and then, butt lifted high, was withdrawn and leveled once more, seeking fresh prey.
It made no difference whether the Unclean fled or tried to stand. If the riders missed, their mighty steeds did the work, slashing and trampling, pounding the enemy underfoot with their giant hooves, seizing them in their teeth and shaking them off like bits of tattered bark until they fell away, mangled and lifeless.
A monstrous Hound, jaws agape, sprang at Hiero’s bridle hand. Without thinking, he dropped the reins and raised the unbreakable shield, the gift of his strangest friend, to dash the brute aside. A long-handled hatchet swept past his side, and Reyn Mantan’s blow split the creature’s skull.
The impetus of the charge was slowing, but not very much. As all the riders angled to the right, never stopping or allowing the Unclean to form and make a stand, the edge of the deep woods loomed up in front. It was hard fighting now, for the compressed masses of the broken foe were trying desperately to reach that shelter. Enemy crossbowmen and javelin throwers, human and otherwise, shot and hurled their missiles from the trees in a last effort to hold the mounted men back from their quarry. Saddles were being emptied, but the mutated giant moose were no scared beasts when bereft of their riders! They fought on with empty saddles, keeping the lines intact, as they had been taught. If one of the gallant animals fell, the others, with men in the saddle or not, closed the line and kept on to the attack. The extreme left took the heaviest losses, but narrowed in without letup, herding the squalling Leemutes and their fragmented masters out and away from the refuge of the trees.
Hiero was unscathed so far, but his right arm was growing very tired. The beloved creature who bore him bled from a dozen light wounds, of which Klootz took no note at all. His eyes were red with blood lust and he felt no pain. Reyn Mantan and M’reen, her long knife bloody, watched Hiero’s left while the two male cats and Geor Mantan protected his right. The Mantans had produced light oval shields of laminated bark from some pack or other and deftly deflected the missiles of any sort which menaced their leader.
Hiero never noticed, intently only on coldly killing anything that stood before him. He struck and stabbed, hacked and slew, with no compunction at all. Here was the enemy at last, where he could be reached! Here was revenge for the empty months, the loss of his mate, the treachery, and the pain! Death to them! Kill them all in their vileness, until the decent earth was empty of them forever!
It took a strong hand on his bridle to check his pace and a strong voice to penetrate the madness of battle. His lifted sword dropped, and he finally realized that a friend was trying to get his attention. Breathing in great gulps, he saw that Klootz had stopped and was trembling with the aftershock of the melee. Hiero managed to break the fog in his brain and rest, though it was an awful wrench.
“Stop fighting, General! Look, we’ve beaten them. Maybe a quarter got into the woods, no more than that, sir. Look at what is happening now!”
Almost against his will, the Metz turned his head. It was Colonel Lejus who had reined him up, Hiero stared at where the man was pointing, half in disbelief.
The Unclean, beaten back and decimated on the waters of the Lake of Weeping, had been rallied, once they were back on shore and behind the screen of the forest. They were still a hideous and mighty host, and their leaders had turned them into the apparently empty marsh on their right. Here they were supposed to sweep around the defenses of the Republic, turn the long arm of the lake, and strike in the rear of their hated foe.
What had happened was just a little bit different. The wise old Abbot-General and Hiero himself had led the Unclean to conceive of this maneuver, and were waiting with the only cavalry in all the world’s history that could fight in a swamp even better than on dry land! The result lay before Hiero’s sight and was hard to take in, even though he had helped plan it.
Cut off from their rallying places in the woods, harried and shocked by the lances of the morse riders, what remained of the Unclean who had assaulted the marsh was being driven in a grim battle toward the waters of the lake. Stumbling, lurching, and screaming as it was ridden down, the ragged and broken crowd was herded toward the waters. The lines of morse and men had no gaps. The Republic had lost perhaps an eighth of its mounted force, but what remained was more than sufficient. A thin line guarded their backs, but no fresh eruption came from the silent trees to the east.
Out on the waters lay the final death. Silent and watchful, the five steamships waited. Extending their line out of sight, the arrow barges also waited. The late noon sun beat down from overhead on total destruction. Horns blew, and the Metz mounted troops halted and dressed ranks, tightening their formations. They now were a shallow half-moon; within its crescent, the Unclean, a shrieking mob of foul men and foul brutes, were driven inexorably to the place where the shifting foothold of the marsh became no foothold at all.
His lids half-lowered against the glare, Hiero watched, well content. The orders were “No Quarter.” What the enemy would have done in its place was well known. This at least was a clean death. For long years, the attempt of normal and reviving humanity, who wished only to live in peace and happiness, had been frustrated and constricted by these creatures who had been spawned by the Ultimate Dark. This was their reward. They had em
braced the Darkness, and that to which they had given their souls was now upon them. Under the high, golden glow of the sun, let them perish. Forever!
The horns of the mounted men of the Republic sounded the charge for the last time. Lances in place, the crescent went in for the kill. It was slaughter. Pierced and ground underfoot in the marsh, the Unclean died if they took to the water. Should any manage to escape by diving under the line of waiting ships, a second and even more alert line of smaller craft waited for them. There were no survivors. Nor were there meant to be any.
Hiero had turned away when the end became inevitable. He looked now both around him and also at the line of morse riders who watched their backs and fronted the green wall of the forest.
He remembered to return his long sword to the saddle sheath. Both of his colonels were now beside him and looking at him in a way he found disconcerting. Why should they look at me this way? These men both taught me! At his stirrup, M’reen tied a piece of rag around the forearm of Za’reekh, while Ch’uirsh tried to scrape mud off his pelt. They looked at him the same way. The brothers Mantan, apparently unharmed, sat their mounts in their usual stolid fashion at the rear, but their eyes were also aglow!
I did nothing, he told himself. A little planning, but it was mostly Kulase Demero. Maybe I helped a little. But I didn’t earn this adulation! He fell back on prayer, looking off into the distance.
Father, preserve the least of Thy servants from the dreadful sin of pride! Besides, he added in a lower key, I really don’t deserve it!
God, or someone deputizing, brought a most welcome interruption. A mud-spattered morse rider pulled up beside them and handed a dispatch to Saclare. He wasted no time in tearing it apart.
“Hah! What is left of those scum is fighting for its life in the forest. They are being driven—driven, mark you—back on our lines! Your plans, sir, are working beyond all belief. 1 congratulate you. Who else would have had troops that no one knew about waiting to pounce, once they were beaten back? Do you realize, General, we have won everywhere?” His native emotion took over. “By the blood of Christ, Hiero, there are none of them left. We have blotted them out!” He withdrew at once, conscious of a gaffe. “Your pardon, General. I forgot myself in the excitement.”
“Troops that no one knew about,” Hiero said in low tones, almost to himself. “We met the main attack here, but what of the lower lake and the eastern, rivers down to Namcush? What of them, Colonel?”
“I have dispatches, sir.” This was a young man, one of Saclare’s mounted aides. Hiero noted that the boy had one arm in a sling. He had been to the wars.
“Let’s hear it, lad.” The Metz hated to see that glow in the boy’s eyes. How many had died for the cause this morning?
“Sir, the lower crossings were hurled back completely. Our ships and the Dam People stopped every attempt to pass. We had one big warship there. It was enough. The Dam People killed the rest. The enemy sent no more than a light wing in that direction.”
“So none crossed. Good news.” Hiero was physically exhausted, but the second task was unfinished. The Unclean mind shields ought to have been either taken or dispersed. Then where was S’duna?
He brought himself back to what the young officer had said. The Dam People! How many of Charoo’s young males and females had died? The lower lake and the upper reaches of the outflow rivers had cost lives. Which kittens would not see their father or mother come back to the lodge? He wept inwardly, then swept the feeling aside.
Something else, something more important, had been told to him! “Troops no one knew about.” Least of ail himself! But he could guess.
“Colonels! Parade the troops!” His voice blared, and he could see the faces wince as he yelled. He tried to become calmer, new allies are coming from the north. I want them received with all courtesy, all honors. The Unclean scum are driven into the water. I want all the troops available in line to receive our guests.”
Funny, The Unclean mind shields were gone, totally gone. He would have thought S’duna would have guarded himself. No, was nothing of the kind. It was nice to know Gorm was coming, though. Even nicer to feel that emptiness in the rear!
The Metz lances, many still bloody, dipped in salute as three figures came out of the forest and advanced in Hiero’s direction. M’reen knelt, her furry arms outthrust, and her two males followed suit. The Children of the Wind had never done this for Hiero, but he didn’t blame them.
Gorm was barely visible behind the other two presences. Huge and ambling, the two emissaries of the bear people who led were larger even than ancient Kodiak or Kamchatkan brown bears.
Only the high foreheads and the longer, more egg-shaped skulls behind the small, furry ears might have set them apart, Their ambling, rolling gait carried them through the muck of the swamp at an amazing pace.
The leader—there was no mistaking his importance—-reared up on his hind legs at Klootz’ side. Absently, Hiero noted that the morse showed not the slightest sign of disturbance at the titanic proximity. A rank scent came from his silver fur. I have no name, the huge creature sent. At least until I see more of you men-things. The men you call the Eleventh brothers brought us to war, those creatures of peace. What is peace? Being let alone. Yet we came to fight, and I think not mistakenly.
His fellow Brobdingnagian had simply lain down in a wallow and was rolling. Hiero carefully avoided looking at the smallest of the trio. The Metz cavalry still stood at salute, lances raised.
I gather, the ponderous but powerful mind which lowered down at him went on, that these mentalities are standing thus to do us honor? Such is not necessary. You are the one who took our little cousin to the South. We are in your debt. Your march coincides with that of the Great Dens. What we can bring to the mutual contest, that we shall Produce the gift, little one.
Gorm moved forward. Around his neck and slung over his back had been a sack of some bark derivative. Now he spilled out the contents.
The two shining skins, the two bald pates, the two hating faces, rolled through the surface of the wet grass to Klootz’s feet. One was unknown, but the other could never be forgotten. Obviously torn roughly from the torso, S’duna’s head lay before Hiero, the lips drawn back in the agony of death.
The leader of the bear people was still sending. We thought such vermin should be removed from the world. And we owed you a debt. These are the leaders you sought, Red and Blue. Their Circles are both destroyed. We think you had much to do with that, and our young and, unlicked cub agrees. Someday he may attain wisdom. That is up to him and to you. The enormous head swiveled down to stare at him again. You are flighty by our standards. Never mind. You may be the first of your kind to find enlightenment.
‘When Hiero could concentrate next, the two great bodies were vanishing into the woods. He looked down, and Gorm was still there.
They said I could stay, the young bear sent. This is not over. Hiero, where is Luchare?
The unexpected question cut through all Hiero’s fatigue, crumbling the barriers he had forced himself to erect. His brain seemed to gather itself, then to launch a single, explosive thought.
Luchare!
Epilogue
Under her, Luchare felt the exhausted hopper stumble and come to a halt, unable to continue. For a moment, she sat there numbly, before forcing herself to dismount. Her legs were shaking with fatigue, and she; had to lean against the heaving sides of the beast for support. Vaguely, she was aware that one of the three men of her guard was offering help. She shook him off and stood there, trying to gather her energy to survey her surroundings.
Three men—only three now! How long had it been since the count took the others and turned back to protect her rear? Time was a jumble of confusion in her head. How long since they had turned into the forest, trying to lose themselves in its vastness? And to what end? What had all the weeks of endless flight gained them?
She forced her mind back to the present and looked about. Before her, the l
ittle trail they had been following came to an end, and the colossal trees of the forest gave way to a moss-floored clearing. The day must be ending, with the sun already far down in the west; but after the dimness under the great trees, the light from the open sky seemed glaringly bright. She stared about her, suddenly conscious of a curious sense of familiarity. It was as if she had been here before in some other, far happier life.
She saw that the weary men were trying to make camp for the night, gathering moss for their beds and wood to build a fire. Supper, she knew, would be what remained of yesterday’s kill. One man was working with flint and steel to kindle a small mound of twigs. Under him, the ground was blackened with evidence of some previous campfire. Again, familiarity tugged at her mind.
As she stood there, a feeling of something wrong grew in her. Then she realized that the forest had become strangely silent. Even the cries and chattering of the birds were stilled. She strained her ears to listen and her senses to reach out …
Luchare!
Faintly, at the very edge of her awareness, the call came through to her, demanding the answer that welled up in her mind. Then it was gone.
Night had fallen hours before, but torchlight showed a bustle of activity around the dock where the warship lay. Inside the captain’s cabin, a single candle revealed two white-bearded men sitting at a small table. They looked up as the door opened to admit a younger man.
“They said I’d find you here, Father Abbot,” Hiero began. Then he stopped, and a surprised smile crossed his face as Brother Aldo rose to greet him.
“I’ve been hearing about your winning the battle,” the Elevener said. “Too bad I was just too late to witness it. Hiero, you look as if you need a week of sleep!”
“Later. I don’t have time now,” Hiero told him.
Demero indicated a third chair. “Sit down, my boy. Aldo has returned with news from the South—terrible news, but I swore you should have the truth. D’alwah City is lost, the army has been totally beaten. Luchare and the king fled, nobody knows where. And no one knows whether she lives …”
Hiero Desteen (Omnibus) Page 65