by Brian Daley
Reacher answered for him, morosely ignoring the dancers as he played idly with his wine cup, tracing its design with one falciform finger. “The Hetman’s chosen for wisdom and honesty by vote of the tribe members. The Champion is selected by a series of tests and trial combats. Neither process could be used to accomplish what the other does, so warrior is subordinate to Hetman.”
The dancers had just completed their performances to Su-Suru’s enjoyment and Springbuck’s enthusiastic applause, when the sentry returned and whispered in the Hetman’s ear. The leader of the Horseblooded rose majestically to his feet. “Ferrian has anticipated your requisition, Reacher. He’s awaiting you at the contest area even now. Oh, and I’m told that some friends of yours are in camp.”
Flanked by guards, the three left Su-Suru’s tent and walked toward the appointed spot across hard-packed earth streets that were trampled firm by many feet, hooves and paws. Then the crowd, and indeed the sentries, drew aside as three enormous wolves trotted into view. Reacher went to one knee to embrace their chief, a pure albino with a wicked look in his old eye, wrestling with him and growling gently. The wolf, tail wagging, pawed the small monarch, biting softly at his nose. In return and with obvious affection, Reacher nipped the beast’s muzzle, and Springbuck recalled hearing that this was a lupine custom of greeting; Su-Suru’s use of the King’s nickname occurred to him—Wolf-Brother. But what wolves! Big as lions, these monsters and their packs must rule the steppes. No wonder the Horseblooded valued the friendship of the Howlebeau and the resultant treaty with their brother-allies, the wolves.
Reacher exchanged salutations with the other two wolves and the procession was resumed, the beasts trotting at his side, until they came to an open square among the tents, measuring fifty paces on a side. A ring of people had already formed there. With no further word the King went to stand waiting in the center, leaving the Prince, Su-Suru and his furry brothers at its edge.
There came a blast of trumpets and the cry: “Ferrian! Champion-at-arms Ferrian! ’Way, all!”
Pressing through the crowd opposite Springbuck were six husky men, bearing on their bulging shoulders a platform of wood, atop which stood Ferrian, who turned out to be the grim man whom the Prince had noticed when first entering camp. He stood, feet spread and arms at his sides, fists clenched and features composed in that same cryptic stare, not deigning to notice those beneath the level of his gaze.
He rode easily, as if the platform were not moving at all. When his perch had been carefully lowered at the rim of the crowd, he stepped forward, now looking directly at Reacher.
“Who challenges?” he demanded.
“The Lord of the Just and Sudden Reach, Champion of the Howlebeau.”
Ferrian extended his hand behind him and his shield and a long spear were passed to him.
“Won’t Ferrian lose face?” asked the Prince. “Going fully armed against one who bears no sword or shield?”
“You evaluate from ignorance,” Su-Suru replied. “All here know that, as Champion of the Howlebeau, Reacher will be nearly impossible to defeat, however well armed Ferrian is. Yet our Champion goes fully prepared to make his best effort. All here know the truth of the circumstances, and Ferrian’s determination to do his best will be to his credit, win or lose the match.”
He thought for a moment. “He won the ceremonial quirt after some of the hardest striving I’ve ever seen at High Contest. With it he gained his choice of willing women—many with husbands who’d cherish the child of a Champion—and horses, the rarest of honors and plaudits; barring a miracle, all of that will be taken from him now.
“It’s all a greater pity for this—they were both, Ferrian and Reacher, great friends at one tune.”
The two were circling now, the Horseblooded moving easily for a big man. They spiraled slowly closer, the King in a feline, crouching guard and the steppesman poised behind his shield, spear at ready. When they were close enough, Ferrian began to feint as Reacher backstepped, parrying with his cestussed left hand. Then Ferrian shoved forward with his shield, attempting to drive his smaller opponent off balance, and making as if to skewer him with the spear at the same time.
But Reacher dug in his heel and stopped the shield with one hand, brushing the spearhead aside with the other, as he tried to slip around the edge of the shield to strike at Ferrian’s unprotected left. The Champion of the Horseblooded in turn quickly crouched and pivoted on his left foot, the pivot matching Reacher’s move and neutralizing it. Both drew apart then and came at one another again. Fast as thought itself, Ferrian made a long thrust with his spear, which Springbuck thought to see rip through the King’s abdomen. The Wolf-Brother, though, spun to the right; as the spear passed close in truth to his body, he brought his left hand down in a fearsome stroke, thrusting his right knee up at the same tune. The spear shaft broke in two, as the wild boar’s neck had given way before the murderous cestus.
Ferrian hurled the useless stump of his spear aside with an oath and ripped his broadsword from its sheath. Reacher’s fighting attitude, now that he no longer had the spear to contend with, was more erect. He didn’t attempt to meet the vicious cuts, but evaded them, backing nimbly around the circle. Ducking one particularly strong slash, the King took advantage of his opponent’s momentary lack of balance and leaped in, unleashing a fast and powerful stroke with his clawed left hand. More by happenstance than design, Ferrian managed to protect himself with his shield. The taloned glove ripped through the first three plies of the shield, though it struck glancing. Because he was a tried Champion, who could fight by blind instinct when he must, Ferrian somehow managed to launch a backhand blow with his sword, forcing Reacher back while he regained his footing.
Abruptly, the King stooped down to snatch the head of Ferrian’s broken spear, which still had a foot of shaft affixed to it. Just as Ferrian understood what he intended, he drew back and whipped the improvised missile with all his strength. It was fortunate for Ferrian that he’d begun to drop to one knee in face of this new tactic; the flashing spearhead struck the upper part of his shield and stuck there, penetrating all seven plies and throwing it against its bearer’s shoulder.
Now Ferrian came back on guard. Angry at Reacher’s ploy, he advanced with a strong attack of cuts and slashes. The King again backed, evading all blows. But as Ferrian brought his sword down in an arc aimed to cleave the Wolf-Brother’s head, the King revealed his full speed and strength, deflecting the descending blade with one blow of his cestus and with another striking the broadsword from Ferrian’s grasp with such force that the sword loop around the Champion’s wrist snapped and the weapon flew free. There was a gasp from the gathered Horseblooded as Ferrian stood disarmed by impacts which had come so close together as to be practically one, dazed by this sudden turn of events.
Ferrian would have shaken off his shock and fought on with a knife from his belt or bare hands if he must, but the King gave him no chance. Reacher seized the Horseblooded’s shield with both hands and twisted, snaking around behind him as he did so. Ferrian’s arm, trapped by his shield’s enarmes and Reacher’s strength, was twisted in back of him. With a single chop of his left hand, the King rendered Ferrian unconscious. Calmly taking the symbolic horsehair quirt from the belt of his prostrate foe, Reacher slipped its thong onto his own wrist.
“I’m glad that he wasn’t forced to kill the fellow,” Su-Suru said.
* * * *
That evening there was feasting, revelry and the sharing of Faith Cups in Su-Suru’s tent, though the celebratory atmosphere was due more to the tune of tribal assemblage than Reacher’s victory.
When told of Yardiff Bey’s intentions toward the High Ranges and Freegate’s decision to fight, the sub-chieftains had voted unanimously to make common cause against Bey. The complots of Shardishku-Salamá were hated even at the farthest corners of the steppes.
At the Wolf-Brother’s insistence, Ferrian sat at his side during dinner as both were attended to by the six dancing girls from
the afternoon’s entertainment. Though the deposed Champion made a virtuous show of forgotten enmity and good sportsmanship in approved Horseblooded manner, he became silent and made to leave the fete early. But before he left Reacher stood and said to the crowd, “This man whom I fought today is as strong of arm, wise in thought and gentle and brave in spirit as any I could wish for a comrade. For this reason, as I must depart soon, I designate him Champion once more in my absence. Let any who dispute him be prepared to meet me in the most earnest combat.”
This won approval and clapping from the crowd, and was declared a thing worthy of a Horseblooded.
Typically, the party became louder as time wore one. The three wolves sat near, consuming large amounts of raw meat and glancing about with burning, slitted eyes.
Springbuck, now the object of attention of the girls deserted by Ferrian, grew unsteady in his cups. Some streak of ill humor, complicated by Fenian’s obvious depression, made him turn bleary-eyed to Reacher and slur, “Well, pig-killing’s easier than throwing hands with this local lad, eh? Almost halved you, crown to pizzle, didn’t he?”
The King, sober despite diligent drinking, turned a face of stone to the Prince and answered in a voice that none but those two could hear. “I could have killed or humbled him when first we rushed together. But now he’ll be able to say, ‘I lost to Reacher, but as anyone will tell you, it was a near thing.’ ”
He stood and said to Su-Suru, “I go to rest now.” Facing about on his heel, he strode out, followed dutifully by four of the copper-skinned, copper-haired dancing girls.
The Hetman sighed as he left, a minor hurricane. “Ahh, I have lost the spirit of the festivities with my mullings and the wine no longer fills my head. I’m away to bed, young Prince. Your bed is through there; Kishna and Fahna will show you the way.”
The two remaining members of the troupe giggled.
Springbuck smiled, sheepish at his lapse of the moment before. “What’s this? Four girls for the King of a small city-state and only two for the Ku-Mor-Mai?”
Su-Suru yawned. “No, four for the Champion-at-arms of the Horseblooded and two for his friend, a deposed princeling. Be happy at the implication that you’re half the man he is.”
Springbuck thought about this, and was.
At last he let his new companions lead him off, though he leaned rather heavily on them, in search of repose, among other things.
Chapter Seventeen
One can stand still in a flowing stream, but not in the world of men.
—Anonymous Japanese Proverb
Edward Van Duyn sat busily recopying his shorthand into script for duplication by scribes of Freegate’s War Ministry. These were the notes he had taken during the long afternoon he’d spent listening to Gil MacDonald ramble at length on what he knew of warfare. The sergeant had displayed exhaustive knowledge of tactics, intelligence gathering, organization, theory and practice. He had spoken of the principles behind guerrilla fighting as he’d distilled them from many sources, among them standard Armed Forces texts, and this was to serve as the basis of a manual for the irregular army now being raised in Coramonde. For his own purposes Van Duyn saw in this popular movement a tool to be used toward the political revision of the suzerainty, though he knew that this would have to come later.
He sighed contentedly, took another small sip of the excellent brandy with which he’d been supplied and turned to the next topic, the incorporation of guerrillas as auxiliaries for regular troops.
* * * *
The tax collector fingered his medallion of office nervously despite his cavalry escort. The young officer who rode at his side in the quiet woods was blithely confident that no peasant would dare challenge armed, armored men on horseback.
But the tax collector was not so certain. When his predecessor had quit in disgust at the severe new policies instituted by Strongblade he, a former clerk, had moved up to fulfill those duties with a certain relish of power and prerogative. Putting illiterate, base-born yokels in their place and making them toe a stricter line was the sort of work for which he considered himself singularly suited. He had always felt that they were permitted to retain far too much of their income, anyway; now, with new campaigning in the east being planned, more money was needed.
He reached back nervously to pat the bulging satchels on his horse’s croup as he thought of how efficiently he was helping in the collection of that money—with an unofficial honorarium for himself, of course. But there were disquieting rumors, tales of other tax agents being set upon, robbed and killed in a particularly unpleasant fashion. And at that, not being accosted by outlaws or wildmen but some new element which killed with cold precision . . . .
These were his final thoughts as a white arrow, fired by an unseen hand, sprouted without warning from his throat He stared down at it stupidly as the snowy fletchings so close to his eyes were covered by spurts of his life’s blood. Then he toppled from his saddle.
The cavalry officer yelled in surprise and reached for his sword, reining up. Before he could organize his thoughts or his men, however, he was slain by an arrow twin to the first, driven into his chest by a heavy bow at close range.
There was a minute of pure pandemonium as most of those soldiers who tried to flee were cut down. All of those who tried to stand and fight an enemy they could not see met a like fate as the woods suddenly produced a blizzard of white shafts. Then calm returned to the forest once again, while hard-eyed men dressed in dark brown or green slipped from their careful concealment, bows in hand, to approach their victims.
Their leader, a tall, gaunt, scar-faced man, weighed the money satchels so recently in the custody of the collector, and smiled to himself. He said to his waiting men, “You know what to do. Two measures of three go back to the people who paid it, and the third stays with us.” His voice was soft, and he had never been known to speak loudly.
His second-in-command began retrieving the taxing rolls from the collector’s sanguine robes. “They’ll be more careful next time; there will be more dragoons in escort and they’ll soon begin to try to force people to tell who we are.”
The gaunt man—who had once had a son named Micko, the boy tortured and murdered by Eliatim on the night of Springbuck’s escape—was at once happier and grimmer at his lieutenant’s remark.
“Let them,” he said. “The more they abuse people, the sooner they’ll be hated by one and all. You can see our ranks swelling as quickly as Strongblade can send in fresh troops. Let them grieve to learn how we trap them, elude them, torment them, stalk them and remain yet unseen! And it must always be this way; the tax collectors die first of all, with the white arrow in their throats.”
They stripped the soldiers’ bodies of their weapons and departed noiselessly, to hide their scavenged swords and liberated funds along with the quivers of white arrows.
The next day another tax agent heard of the incident. Blanching in indignation and fear, he immediately drafted a request for additional protection and called for reprisals against the population of that area.
* * * *
DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
Headquarters, 32d Armored Cavalry Regiment
APO 96766
SPECIAL ORDERS: 099-6921
MACDONALD, GILBERT A./ US 12732836 SGT/E5: Individual will proceed via transport as directed in subsequent amending orders to Oakland Army Terminal for separation from active duty IAW pertinent regulations.
* * * *
Yardiff Bey, the Hand of Shardishku-Salamá, sat black-robed in the monolithic carven onyx chair in his sanctorum at Earthfast’s central donjon, looking out through the dusk over Kee-Amaine, pondering. This room had once been the retiring place of the Ku-Mor-Mai, but as the sorcerer’s influence in Court had waxed over generations, he had requested and received its use for his own purposes. Now it suited him to sit in his seat where the Ku-Mor-Mai had taken their leisure, anticipating the day when he would sit on the throne itself.
In the center of the chamber, a
giant pentacle was engraved on the stone floor. It had taken him, what with constant interruptions and travels on one mission or another, over twenty years to complete the pentacle, so intricate and efficacious were the runes he forged into it. But this and many other things he had done, always piloting his course through resistance, interference and distractions, gradually putting circumstances into the order in which he wished them. He had used much of his long life conspiring toward the events now culminating; yet the unforeseen had occurred, and for the first time he perceived discrepancies.
An energetic, swarthy man whose handsome face was marred only by the eerie metallic ocular fastened where his left eye had been, he watched the sun set over the city. The deviations suffered to his plans were traceable to the appearance of Van Duyn, the foreigner whom Yardiff Bey, to his own astonishment, could not quite fathom fully. Then there was the Prince’s escape on the night Hightower had been disposed of and the subsequent besting of Chaffinch by those irritating outlanders and their machine and weapons, summoned from somewhere by Van Duyn and the hated deCourteney. The invasion of the Infernal plane had come as the rudest shock of all, and now this bothersome banditry, forcing his hand to acts of repression before he was ready to introduce them.
He had brought all his perception and cold reason to bear on the tidings he’d received and was now convinced that the entire carefully contrived structure of his conspiracies against the Crescent Lands was in jeopardy if he could not mend it quickly.
Still, there was time and there were ways. He had already directed Strongblade to call for more troop levies and soon there would be manpower enough to swamp Freegate and punish the insurrectionists.
But for their leaders, ahh, that would be more difficult. There were the deCourteneys—Gabrielle, of course, being his own daughter—to contend with. Neither might stand against him alone; but in concert they could prove troublesome. Springbuck, disturbingly, was showing more potential than the sorcerer had thought him to possess. And most recently, Legion-Marshal Bonesteel had mutinied to go over to the Prince’s side, taking his legion command with him.