by Robert Adams
A little after the noon, keener-eyed members of the party could see a host of black dots moving in slow, lazy circles in the clear sky some distance ahead. Shortly thereafter, they rounded a bend in the road to find three hunters squatting under a roadside tree and munching on cold bacon and corn-bread.
The three were clad almost identically in sweat-stained green shirts, soft leather breeches and low-topped boots. All three were bowmen — as attested by the leather sleeve each wore laced to his left arm from wrist to elbow and by the big horn ring on each man’s right thumb — and they all also bore an assortment of knives of various sizes, as well as slings and pouches of stones.
The trio of hunters were tall and slender, two of them with reddish-tinged brown hair, the third almost bald, but with a thick, dark-red mustache. There was distinct similarity in the casts of all three weather-browned faces and in the crinkle-cornered hazel eyes, big, jutting noses and high cheekbones.
The mustachioed hunter arose as the mounted party came into view, slapped a cloud of dust from his trousers, pulled off a billed leather cap, on the forepeak of which was emblazoned the princely arms, and trotted over to stand beside Prince Djylz’s sorrel stallion, his coordination, speed and ease of movement belying his thin, graying hair and host of wrinkles.
Smiling warmly, Djylz shucked a mailed gauntlet and leaned to clasp the hunter’s hand. “Roy, old friend, it’s good to clap eyes on you again; I trow, you look younger every time I see you. Are you sure you’re not an Undying?”
The hunter pumped the prince’s hand enthusiastically twice, then bore it to his lips and kissed it, before replying, “Not as I knows, Lord Djylz. Thet be a fine, tall horse y’ be a-forkin’; he has more the stamp o’ a warhorse than a hunter though. Wher be yer good old piebald hunter, Stagfleet?”
The prince sighed. “Aye, Stagfleet is good, but he is getting old, too, and I thought this day’s work might be better done with a younger, faster horse.” He absently patted the quilt-armored neck of his sorrel. “Man-lover, here, I bought from the Duke of York-Getzburk, last year at the Harzburk Fair; he was bred for a destrier and has had a good bit of war training, too, but while he’ll savage another horse or any other animal quick enough, he shies from attacking men, so Duke Randee had him retrained for a hunter.
“Now, to business, Roy. How many of the beasts have you seen? How far away are they?”
“The herd bull, o’course.” The hunter ticked off his bow-thumb. “An’ he be the bigges’ I ever seed, too-eighteen han’s at the withers, mebbe more. One young bull he ain’t drove off, yet, but he’s got his full horns. Three old cows, two of em with calves follerin’ and a couple of heifers. One o’ them calfs is a bull calf, an’ he be pure white, my lord Djylz.”
The prince grunted in appreciation. Not only would a white shaggy-bull be a rare specimen for his menagerie, but if taken young enough, shaggy-bulls could often be gentled to the tractability of domestic cattle and, when bred to beef breeds, invariably sired or threw bigger, meatier animals with thicker, stronger, more long-wearing hides.
He turned in the saddle and addressed his nobles and the retainers. “Roy here, says there’re a brace of nursing calves and one of the little buggers is even a white. You, Persee,” he spoke directly to Count Parkzburk, whose wealth lay principally in his fine herds of cattle, “know what that means. I want both those calves alive and unharmed.”
At length, the party came to a narrow track, leading off to the right between fields of thigh-high cornstalks. As the van entered a small, dusty farmyard, the old hunter kneed his big-headed pony forward and banged scarred knuckles on the thick, plank door of the small, log-walled house.
“Djaimos!” he yelled. “Djaimos Poorahbos! It be me, Roy Danyulz. C’mon out, heah. His lordship done come fer to kill them critters.”
Following scraping noises that told of the removal of at least two bars, the door of the windowless house swung open and a short, squat, thick-limbed man strode forth with a noticeable limp. His close-cropped black hair was shot through with white, but his black eyes were clear and alert; his forehead bore the permanent dent which told of years of bearing a helmet, all his front teeth were missing, his nose was mashed and canted far left, one ear was missing entirely and the other lacked a lobe, his olive-skinned face was a mass of old scars and so was every inch of visible body skin.
At sight of the prince, the oldster drew himself up into military posture and marched to within an accurately gauged five paces of the nobleman, then rendered a military salute, snapping, “Poorahbos, Djaimos, my lord. Retired epeelokeeas of heavy infantry of the Army of the Confederation. Would it please my lord that Poorahbos and his sons accompany the hunt?”
Prince Djylz smiled. “Aye, sergeant, get your spear and your lads, you look to have the strength to push a pike clear through a shaggy-bull, lengthwise. But first, tell me, have you seen them?”
The former senior sergeant had not, but reported that he had heard much bellowing and what had sounded like screams from the direction of a neighboring farmstead. So, as soon as he and his sons were laced into homemade cuirasses of boiled leather and he had donned his old helmet and buckled on his shortsword and dirk, he and his twin sons took the lead. There were no mounts for them but they proved to need none, moving easily and as fast as the duke cared to extend the horses in the mile-eating jog-trot of Confederation infantrymen, spears properly sloped over right shoulders.
“That old bastard’s trained his lads well,” remarked Djylz to Giliahna. “They’ll be first-class recruits, given another year of growth.”
Up one grassy hillock and down another, then through a low saddle between two more hills the party wound along a trail through a small bit of forest, then debouched into another stretch of cornfields, with another cabin in sight ahead.
But this farmyard was not deserted as had been Djaimos Poorahbos’, it was alive with movement and sound — the flopping and flapping and pecking and raucous noises of crow and raven and buzzard. That on which they gorged had not been pretty when they arrived and their razor beaks and tearing talons had done nought to improve appearances, but once the carrion birds had been driven off, a tale could still be read in the hoof-trampled, blood-soaked dust of the yard and the gory, horn-mangled and stamped lifeless bodies — six of them, five human and one big hound.
What was left of a man still clenched a hand around the shaft of a wolfspear, the weapon sticky brown to the crossbar with blood; near the body of a youth was a horseman’s saber, gory for half its length. Another lad, younger, looked to have fought his last battle with a hewing axe. There was a burned-out torch near one hand of the dead woman. The corpse of what looked to have once been a slender, pretty girl was sprawled atop the roof of the cabin, dark-tressed head at an impossible angle and guts trailing from the belly torn open by the hooking horn which probably had thrown her there.
The shaggy-bulls had not been content to merely kill, however, they had obviously continued to savage their victims long after life had fled, and the results were hideous. Giliahna could only lean weakly against the high cantle of her saddle when she had retched up her stomach’s contents — nor was she the only one. The prince himself, though he was no stranger to the sight of death and mutilation, was pale of face and grim.
“Sergeant Poorahbos,” the prince called to the old spearman, who stood staring down at what the beasts had left of the man, “should these folk be buried or burned? What would they have preferred?”
Djaimos Poorahbos whirled and trotted over to snap to before the mounted noble, his stance proper and his spearbutt grounded. Tears streamed down his clean-shaven cheeks, but his voice was firm. “My lord, these folk were pawns to no priests. They should go to Wind.”
Prince Djylz’s voice softened. “Stand easy, Djaimos. You knew this man well, didn’t you? He was a friend, and an old soldier, like you?”
Poorahbos’ left foot moved forward and sidewise a precise eight inches and his two big callused hands clamped
about the spearshaft, which he had allowed to cant at a thirty-degree angle from his body. “My lord prince, Imit Dyuh were senior sergeant-major of the Fourteenth Confederation Lancers, and the finest man as ever forked a horse for all the twenty-four years he served, till he took a poison arrer in his lef arm and the flesh-tailors had to lop half the arm oft. An’ t’won’t be another like to him for a High Lord’s lifetime, I trow!”
After having the bodies placed within the empty cabin to protect them from further ravages of the birds and other scavengers, the prince ordered the party on, following the clear trail of the murderous monsters, but more slowly and as silently as possible. The hunters and farmers were fanned out well in advance of the mounted men. Nor did they have far to go.
Less than a mile from the scene of slaughter, one of the younger hunters came sprinting back. “We have found them, my lord.”
From a laurel thicket on the crest of a hillock, the men could look down into a grassy vale, through which tinkled the clear waters of a spring-fed brook. In addition to the shaggy-bulls, the herd had been increased by two orange-and-white milch cows — looking diminutive beside the dark, hairy, wild behemoths.
The old sergeant wormed closer to the prince. “My lord, those be poor Imit’s cows. Most likely that’s why he tried to drive off them damned critters.”
Prince Djylz just nodded, eyeing not the harmless domestic animals but their savage and deadly kidnappers. The big bull was an awesome sight — more than six feet high at the withers, his flaring horns black as crow’s wings and at least two yards from tip to bloodstained tip. An attempt had been made sometime recently to hamstring him, but the blow had been delivered too far back on the ham and without sufficient force to cleave to the tendon. Nonetheless, the massive bovine had sustained a gaping wound; his tail whisked continually at the flies buzzing about it. The pain of the injury certainly had done nothing to improve the bull’s temper, but the consequent loss of blood just might serve to slow him a bit.
The younger bull lay halfway down the slope and appeared to be either dead or very near to death. The face and head looked badly burned, and blood was still seeping from at least two places on the deep chest. Even as they watched, the stricken beast raised its head and tried to rise, then a great gush of blood spouted from gaping mouth and distended nostrils, the head fell with a thump onto the bloody grass, the legs jerked and twitched a few times, and dung and urine gushed from the relaxed sphincters.
The two wild cows and the heifers grazed contentedly on the tender grass. The calves apparently had been twins, since both were nursing from the same cow. She was two-thirds the size of the big bull, though her horns were neither as thick nor as long, even allowing for her smaller size. The barren cow might have been her twin, so close was the armament and overall resemblance. One of the heifers was much like the cows, but the other had no horns at all, only bulbous knots where they should have been.
Back again with the main party, the prince described what he had seen. Some of the younger nobles requested leave to ride down and slay the bull with lances and spearwork, but Prince Djylz curtly denied them.
“Yonder’s no mere boar or stag to be stuck, gentlemen. They’ve already wiped out an entire family of decent, loyal farmers, and they’ll add none of my noblemen to their tally, if I can prevent it. No, our good hunters and my lady will slay or cripple as many as they can with arrows fired from the top of the hill. Then, and only then, will the rest of us descend to dispatch or pursue if the animals flee. Persee, I leave the capture of the calves to you; Sir Hyruhm, Sir Djahn, you and your lads assist the count.”
Giliahna’s first shaft drove into an eye of the horned heifer and pierced to the brain; the beast dropped like a leaden weight and the remainder of the herd continued to graze peacefully … but not for long. In courtesy, the trio of hunters and the two other archers had waited for the princess to loose first. Their own shots, when loose they did, were not so fortunate.
One shaft went completely through the sagging udder of the nursing cow, narrowly missing the white calf beyond-whereupon the prince, sitting his horse a bit behind the line of archers, swore sulfurously. Another went into the nose of the hornless heifer, which then commenced to run about, bawling piteously. One, apparently aimed at the throat of the grazing bull, missed entirely when the beast raised his head; two sank to the feathers into the flank of the great beast, just behind the right shoulder, and bellowing, he slowly sank to his knees and began to exhale bloody froth.
At that point, knowing that his nobles would take ill being denied at least a modicum of dangerous sport, and with the largest and deadliest of the animals down and seemingly lung-shot, Prince Djylz kneed his mount between two of the archers and started down the slope at a slow, careful walk. Not caring to risk the goring of the horse, he dismounted a few yards from the stricken bull, drew his heavy broadsword and limped over to stand beside the creature. Gripping the pommel in his left hand, the old prince brought the battle-blade whistling down with all his strength to thunk into the thick neck and sever the spine.
When he had cleansed and sheathed his steel, he remounted and rode over to watch the younger men do battle with the two shaggy-cows. Count Parkzburk and his helpers had already roped the white bullcalf and were trying to maneuver a clear chance at the darker calf, while Sergeant Poorahbos and his sons had secured the two frightened, lowing domestic cows.
His spear set for stab or cast, young Baron Kairee of Balzburk set upon the biggest shaggy-cow, then standing broadside to him, her head lowered and her wickedly pointed horns aimed at the calf-roping party. He came at a fast trot, but the cow was faster. In a blur of motion, she pivoted her long, wide, thick body with the grace and ease of a deer. Frantically, at the last possible second, the baron reined aside, nearly losing his seat as the long horn tore through the brigandine protecting his horse from breast to where it clanged against the steel greave buckled onto his jackboot. At this point, he lost his spear and so prudently withdrew.
Prince Djylz allowed his nobles their fun until the second calf had been roped, then he ordered an end. It was a long ride back, and the slain beasts must be skinned, cleaned, and butchered and the hides and horns and meat packed onto the mules brought for the purpose, and he did not really feel well. He had been suffering from a peculiar ache in his left arm for a good part of the day and he could not recall having strained or bruised it recently.
With Poorahbos and his sons to help, the skinning and butchering went far faster and more smoothly. The calves bawled incessantly and fought against the ropes; Giliahna suggested that full bellies might improve their mood and attempts were made to set them to nurse on the cows that had been stolen, but the milch cows refused to cooperate; they wanted nothing to do with the two shaggy-calves.
Tired horses and heavy-laden mules made the return slow. At Poorahbos’ farm, the prince called the old sergeant to him, saying, “I thank you for your guidance and help. Take a quarter of meat and a hide.”
The old soldier nodded, and his two sons trotted back to the packline. The prince continued, “You were the dead man’s friend. Make a pyre and do the honors for him and his family and the cows are yours, along with anything else you want from his house and farm. If you and your sons will tend and harvest his crops, I accept a single basket of grain as my tax on it this year. Of course,” the prince grinned, “the tax on your own fields remains the same.”
Despite his iron self-discipline, Djaimos Poorahbos could not repress a grin, but he quickly recovered and thanked the prince formally.
Giliahna wished at that moment that she could kiss Djylz. It was just such acts as this that had so endeared him to his people, the lowly as well as the high. Another lord might have taken those fine milch cows as his own and sent men to watch over and harvest the growing crops, bringing him all, instead of his customary half. But not so her beloved husband. She raised the beaver of her helm, that the others might not see her small, pointed chin quiver with the intensity of her
emotion.
That night, Giliahna shamelessly seduced the prince in his bath. And they did not appear for the night meal, remaining rather behind the closed and barred doors of their chamber until Sacred Sun streamed through the window. Each savored the other, knowing without knowing that this would be the last such night they would have together.
Chapter VIII
Lying snuggled under the White Hawk coverlet as the crackling fire slowly began to warm her bedchamber in her dead father’s hall, Giliahna wept afresh and unashamedly for Djylz, for the loss — hers, the principate’s and the world’s — of the fine, strong, honorable, loving and much loved man that he had been.
At the very end, when the noble Sword Brothers had completed their secret and private rites and she was allowed back into the bedchamber, he had weakly signed her to sit beside him upon that big bed which had been theirs.
His voice was weak, but firm and precise as always. “Giliahna, love, promise me that you will remain in Kuhmbuhluhn long enough to set Gy on the proper path. A reign is molded, for good or for ill, at the ascension of a lord. And see him wedded to a good wife of good stock, not simply for land or wealth — Steel knows, I leave him a surfeit of both.
“Nor are you forgotten, my sweet, young love. All the jewels save only the heirloom treasures are yours. By our law, a dowager princess is Land-Lady of the Duchy of Vaizburk, which holdings remain exempt of principate taxes throughout her lifetime.”
There had been more, much more. And then, suddenly, the old man had said, “My sword! Bring me my sword, quickly!”
Giliahna started to lift the pillow-sword from its place, but he shook his head. “No! My battlesword.”