by Robert Adams
But the other rider sat unmoving, unresponsive. His steel-plated shoulders rose and fell jerkily to his heavy, spasmodic breathing. One gauntleted fist gripped the hilt of his broadsword, its blade red-smeared from point to quillions; the other held a hacked and splintery ashwood shaft, from which the tattered and faded Red Eagle of Morguhn rippled silkily in the freshening breeze.
Sir Geros had once borne this very banner to glory and lasting fame while serving as a Freefighter with the troop of Captain Pawl Raikuh, but since his well-earned elevation to the ranks of the nobility, a common trooper had been chosen standardbearer, while the new knight took his expected place among the heavily armed nobles.
Bili tried mindspeak. “Did you piss your breeks, as usual, Sir Geros?”
Shame and contrition boiled up from the knight’s soul and beamed out with the chagrined reply. “I always do, my lord. Always wet myself in battle.”
Bili chuckled good-naturedly, and his mirth was silently transmitted, as well. “Geros, every man jack in this squadron knows that you’ve got at least a full league of guts. When are you going to stop being ashamed of the piddling fact that your bladder’s not as brave as the rest of you? None of the rest of us give a damn about it, man. Why then should you?”
“But . . . but, my lord thoheeks, it’s not . . .” he paused. “Not manly!”
Bili snorted his derision. “Horse turds, Sir Geros! You are acknowledged one of the ten best swordsmen in a dozen duchies and you fight like a scalded treecat. So why waste worry about a meaningless quirk of yours? I assure you, no one else is bothered by it.”
“Yet I am the joke of the squadron, my lord,” grated the young knight. There is never any sort of alarm or fight but that someone mentions my weakness, my shame, and asks of it or openly lays hand to my saddle or my breeks. Then they all laugh at me.”
Bili extended his bridle hand to firmly grip the knight’s shoulder, chiding gently, “Oh, Geros, Geros, the laughter is not at you, man, it’s at your evident embarrassment. And it’s friendly, Geros, just well-meant joshing among peers. In truth, there are few men in all the host who are so deeply and widely respected as are you. Everyone knows you’re a very brave man, Geros.”
Geros just shook his helmeted head, tiredly, resignedly. “But I’m not really brave, my lord, and I know it, even if no one else does. I fight for the same base reason I strove to master the sword and other weapons: only to stay alive. And I’m frightened near to death in a fight, nearly all the time, my lord, and that’s not valor.”
“Not so!” snapped Bili firmly. “It’s the highest degree of true valor that you recognize and accept your quite legitimate fears of death or maiming and then do your duty and more despite them. And don’t forget what poor old Pawl Raikuh told you the day that we stormed the salients outside the city of Vawnpolis. Fear, consciously controlled fear, is what keeps a warrior alive in a press. Men who don’t know fear seldom outlive their first, serious battle.
“And I’ll add this, now, Geros: Self-doubt is a good thing in many ways, for it teaches a man humility; but you can’t allow yourself to be carried too far by such doubts, else they’ll unman you.
“But all that aside. Tell me, how’d you chance to be bearing my banner again? Can’t keep your hands off it, eh?”
Geros was too exhausted and drained to rise to the joke. “My lord, I was riding at Klifud’s side through most of that ghastly mess back there, and I thought me I had guarded him and the eagle well. Then, just at the fringes of the horde, a barbarian axeman crowded between us and lopped off poor Klifud’s forearm. I ran the stinking savage through and barely caught the eagle ere it fell. Then I was in the open, here; I don’t know what happened to Klifud, my lord.”
Bili nodded brusquely. “Well, man, you have it now. How’s your throat? Dry as mine, I doubt me not.”
Feeling behind his saddle, be grunted his satisfaction at finding his canteen still in place and whole. With numb, twitching fingers, he unlatched and raised his visor. Lifting the quart bottle to his crusty lips, he filled his mouth once, spit the fluid out, then took several long drafts of the tepid brandy-and-water mixture. The first swallow burned his gullet ferociously, like a red-bot spearblade on an open wound, but those which followed it were as welcome and soothing as warm honey. Taking the bottle down at last, he proffered it to Sir Geros.
“Here, man, wash out your mouth and oil that remarkable set of vocal cords. If we’re to really clobber those unwashed bastards, we must rally the squadron and hit them hard again.”
For the impetus of that first smashing charge had been lost, as Bili could plainly see, and the majority of the lowland horsemen were fighting alone or, at best, in small groups, rising and falling from sight, almost lost in a roiling sea of shaggy, multitoned fur.
Bili realized that where mere skill at arms and superlative armor could not promise victory or even bare survival against such odds, the superior bulk and weighty force of the troop horses and destriers were his outnumbered squadron’s single asset. To take full advantage of that sole asset, the horde must again be struck by an ordered, disciplined formation. charging and striking at the gallop. But before he could deliver another crushing charge, he must rally such of his scattered elements as he could.
On command, Sir Geros’ clear tenor voice pealed like a trumpet above the uproar, while Bili himself, gripping the brass-shod ferrule in both his big hands, raised the eagle high above his head and waggled the shaft.
For a long, breathless moment, it seemed that none could or would respond to the imperative summons. But first a pair of blood-splashed Freefighters hacked their way from out of the near edge of the press, then a half-dozen more appeared behind a destrier-mounted nobleman, and slowly, by dribbles and drops, the squadron’s ranks again filled out and formed up behind the Red Eagle of Morguhn. Not all who had made the first charge returned, of course; some were just too hard pressed to win free of the horde, and some would never return.
Bili took a position some two hundred yards off the left flank of the milling mob that was his target — the absolutely minimal distance cavalry needed to achieve the proper impetus in a charge. He had just gotten the understrength units into squadron front when, the beat of hundreds of drumming hooves sounded from somewhere within the narrow, winding defile to his own left flank.
The veteran troopers were already preparing to wheel in order to face the self-announced menace when the riders swept down from out the mouth of that precipitous gap. In the lead rode Ehrbuhn Duhnkin, followed by the bowmasters of the Freefighter troops. But their bows were all unstrung and cased; their sabers were out and flashing in errant beams of sunlight.
While the archer-troopers took their accustomed places in the shrunken ranks, Ehrbuhn rode up to Thoheeks Bili, mind-speaking. “We had to miss first blood. Lord Bili, but I mean to be in at the kill. So too do some others, incidentally; they it was showed us the way down from up there atop the cliffs. So, in all courtesy; my lord, I think we should not begin this dance until the arrival of the ladies.”
With the Maidens and the Ahrmehnee warriors riding in a place of honor — the exposed right flank of the formation — and with the grim-faced brahbehrnuh beside Bili in the knot of heavily armed nobles and officers at the center of the line, the reformed and reinforced squadron struck the confused, reeling barbarians almost as hard as had the first charge. And human flesh could endure no more; the savages broke, scattered before the big horses and armored warriors and streamed southwest in full flight.
Some few escaped, but not many. The destriers and troop horses were tired, true, but so too were the ponies, and superior breeding and careful nurturing told in the end at a cost of the ultimate price to the bulk of the mob of barbarians. To the very terminus of the long, narrow plateau were the shaggy men pursued ridden down and slain. At length, Bili forced a halt, recalled and rallied his now heterogeneous force before commencing the slow, weary march back to the battlefield below the cliffs.
Bili tr
udged beside Mahvros at the head of his exhausted command, having allowed only the seriously wounded to remain mounted. The big black stallion was spent; he looked as tired as Bili felt, hardly able to place one hoof before the other, his proud head hung low and his glossy hide was befouled with drying lather and old sweat, with horse blood and man blood, all thickly overlaid with dust. Nor were the other horses of the much-battered squadron in better shape; many were, in fact, worse.
The brahbehrnuh helped a reeling Freefighter onto the back of her relatively fresh charger, saw him secure, then paced up to stride beside Bili. After a silent moment, she addressed the towering young man in accented but passable Trade Mehrikan. “What is the polite form of address for you, lowlander?”
“The Confederation Ehleenee say ‘thoheeks’.” replied Bili, “while my Freefighters say ‘duke’ . . but my friends call me simply Bili. My lady may feel free to use whichever comes easiest to her lips.”
With a brusque nod of her head, she asked bluntly. “You and your ilk are the born enemies of the Ahrmehnee and so, indirectly, of me and my sisters. So why then do you fight and bleed and die for us? Was there not enough loot in the vales for both you and the cursed Muhkohee? Think you that even this will earn you Ahrmehnee forgiveness for your many and most heinous crimes, Dook Bili?”
A woman of spirit, thought Bili with approval. No polite. meaningless words for her; she spits it all right out and be damned to you if you don’t like it.
“Because, my lady, me and mine no longer are the enemies of the Ahrmehnee. Even now does the great chief — this nahkhahrah — treat with the High Lord. Soon all these Ahrmehnee mountains and vales will be as one with our mighty federation of peoples; your folk too, probably.”
“Never!” she spat, her dark eyes blazing. “Since the time of the Earth Gods have the Moon Maidens been sensibly ruled by wise women, rather than by stupid, clumsy men. Never will we submit to such utter debasement.”
Then did Bili of Morguhn show an early spark of that genius which was to secure him a high place among the ruling caste of his homeland. “But, my lady . . . did my lady not know?”
“Know what, lowlander?”
“Why just this, my lady: the true rulers of the Confederation are women — the Undying High Ladies Mara Morai and Aldora Linszee Treeah-Pohtohmahs Pahpahs.”
Her ebon brows rose and her jaw dropped, but her recovery was quick, and she demanded, “Then what of your infamous Undying Devil, this Milos?”
Bili answered glibly, constructing the tale as be went along. “Lord Milo commands the Confederation armies, especially in the field, on campaigns. You see, my lady, our armies are all of men.”
Her olive forehead wrinkled. “But Dook Bili, how can your High Ladies trust this Milos to not bring this army of mere men against them, slay them both and usurp their rightful place? The men of my own folk foolishly tried such treachery many times over the centuries until, finally, in the time of my mother’s mother’s grandmother, men were forbidden to carry weapons or to know their uses. Since that time, the Wise Women have ruled us, unquestioned and unopposed.”
Bili shook his helmeted head. “Such harsh measures have never yet been needed in the lands of the Confederation, my lady. For one thing, the Undying High Ladies cannot be slain with weapons, but, more important, the High Lord would never do aught which might harm or divide the Confederation. Moreover, it is said that he loves the High Lady Mara, to whom he is wed, and I have seen his great respect for the High Lady Aldora. Thus has it been for six generations and more.”
They two walked on in silence for a quarter-hour. At last, the brahbehrnuh announced her decision by asking, “When and where can I meet with one or the both of these High Ladies, Dook Bili? With the Hold of the Maidens destroyed, we — my few remaining sisters and I — are cast adrift in a hostile world, owning naught save the little we bear and wear and the horses we ride.
“But I must be certain that we — this last, pitiful remnant of my race — will receive land in return for our allegiance and service to your lady rulers and that we will be allowed to practice our ancient rites and customs unmolested. These things must your lady rulers avow to us who serve Her, the Supreme Lady.”
Bili mused, trying to guess the proper answer to give to this strange, handsome young woman. But, abruptly, the conversation was rendered of no importance.
Many a league to the north and west, in what once had been the Hold of the Moon Maidens, a defective timing device at last fulfilled its long-overdue function. A small charge exploded, hurling a barrel-sized charge over the lip of the smoking fissure which the Maidens had known as the Sacred Hoofprint.
Far and far it fell, bouncing from rock to hot rock, deeper and still deeper into the very bowels of the uneasy mountain. Within bare seconds, it fell from regions of hundreds, of degrees of heat to regions of thousands, and its steel casing began to melt, dripping away. Then the tight-packed insulation burst into brief flame and the immense explosive charge roared out, unheard by any living ear.
A sense of unbearable unease suddenly gripped Bili. His every nerve-ending seemed to be silently screaming, “DANGER! DANGER! DANGER!”
Even tired as they were, all the horses were uneasy, too. Weary equine heads came up to snort and nod, nostrils dilated and eyes rolled. Aching muscles forgotten, they danced with nervousness.
Beside Bili, Mahvros half reared and almost bolted when several deer and a pair of foxes broke cover, dashing out of a dark copse to rocket downslope and over the edge of the plateau. Hard on their heels came a living carpet of small, scuttling beasts, and up ahead of the men and horses a huge, gaunt gray wolf and a treecat raced in the same direction, almost side by side.
Recalling that the High Lord had once remarked that the prairiecats were closely related to treecats and that many of the latter could mindspeak, Bili attempted to range the fleeing feline, but he encountered only a jumble of inchoate terror.
Having long ago learned the folly of ignoring his instincts, Bili suddenly roared out. “MOUNT! Mount and form column!” Then his weariness clean forgotten in the press of the moment, he obeyed his own order, flinging himself astride Mahvros and finding his stirrups.
He had but barely forked the black stallion when the very earth and rocks beneath the horse’s hooves shuddered strongly. Horses along the column screamed in terror; so too did some of the men and women. The brahbehrnuh stumbled against the flank of Bili’s dancing destrier, frantically clutching at his saddle skirts and stirrup leathers for the support her feet could no longer find on the rippling ground.
With no time to care for the niceties and formalities, Bili leaned to grasp the back of the woman’s swordbelt and, lifting her effortlessly, plunked her belly down on his crupper.
Komees Hari came alongside, his big gray stallion tight-reined and seemingly half mad with fear. “It can only be an earthquake, Bili. I thought me there was something odd, something disturbing about this damned plateau. We’ve got to get off of it fast!”
Biti nodded once, turned in the saddle to face his column and shouted. “THAT WAY,” pointing an arm in the direction taken by the fleeing wildlife. Mahvros was too submerged in his terror to respond to mindspeak, so Bili reined him over to the right. His booted heels beat a tattoo on the black barrel and evoked a more than willing response; exhaustion clean forgotten, the big horse raced flat out toward the track of the game beasts.
The column followed as best they might while trees crashed around them, and huge boulders shifted, slid and tumbled. After their young lord they went, heedlessly putting their panic-stricken mounts at the impossibly narrow, suicidally steep descent down the precipitous face of the plateau.
Had that plateau been higher at this its southern edge, none could have survived; but since it was much lower than in the north, all save the very tail of the column were galloping east and south and west on comparatively level ground when, with an awesome, grinding roar, the entire rocky face dissolved and slid down upon itself.
<
br /> It was not until they were a birdflight mile from what had so recently been the foot of that small plateau that Bili brought his command first to a walk, then a full halt on the brushy slope of a long, serpentine ridge. Not even there was the earth completely still, but the occasional tremors were quickly forgotten, erased from their minds by the awesome and terrible wonder of the northern horizon.
Looming so huge that it looked close enough to touch, a roiling cloud of dense, opaque, multicolored smoke shot through with flame towered. Then, even as they watched, came a clap of sound of such a magnitude that horses shrieked and repeatedly reared, while men and women slapped hands to abused ears and rolled on the heaving hillside in agony. Some nameless force shredded the cloud, and among the remaining tendrils a vast host of smoking, blackish shapes could be seen rising high into the air. Of irregular conformation were the black objects, and no two of the same size. Some rose faster than others, farther, but all that could be followed with the eye soon plunged back toward earth, trailing smoke like impossibly huge pitchballs from the giant catapult of a god. And wherever they struck among the forested mountains and vales, red flame sprang into being.
One of the shapes narrowly missed Bili’s party: falling, it bounced heavily in the narrow vale between their ridge and the one beyond. It finally came to rest within the bed of a tiny rill, and when the last tendrils of steam had dissipated, Bili and the rest could see that it was naught but a boulder.
But what a boulder! It was a boulder big enough for two destriers to have stood upon, uncrowded. And upon its broad face, certain cryptic carvings were plainly to be seen.
At sight of the boulder, the brahbehrnuh uttered a single piercing shriek. Then her eyes rolled back in their sockets and she collapsed, bonelessly, at Bili’s feet
Chapter II
A westering sun cast its last blaze of light over the gray rock and the dark-green growth of the mountain fastnesses. To the north and south and east of a certain small, steeply walled valley, a pall of smoke filtered that sunlight, and here and there under that smoke blazed fires wrought of the red-hot stones flung far and wide in the explosive death of a distant mountain.