by Robert Adams
Beneath his hurtling body, the night-cloaked mountains rushed by. The nahkhahrah saw twinkling lights ahead, swooped lower and recognized his village and the jagged sprawl of camps surrounding it. He swept on, eastward, over the range which lay between the village and the wind-scoured, flinty waste of the Great Plateau. He blinked in amazement when he saw the huge stone-and-timber fort now rising above the icy plain. It had been reported to him, naturally, by his scouts, but they had failed to impress him with the awesome size and strength of the defenses. Even without wishing a glimpse of the possible outcome, he dismissed all thoughts of hurling his Ahrmehnee against those stout, well-manned walls.
Veering to his left, he plunged northward. Only a few days’ ride from his village, thousands of lowland cavalry slumbered in and around a deserted village. A day behind them, wild creatures scuttled about a battlefield, crouching upon stiff Ahrmehnee corpses and gorging themselves on cold human flesh. And farther north lay horror upon horror of burned villages; the dead-or what the ravenous scavengers had left of them — lay thickly sown and living folk huddled, shivering, in the inhospitable mountains.
Turning about, the nahkhahrah bore to the south. Here, the camped lowlanders were not in one place, but in many, widely scattered. Behind them, forty miles wide, lay a swath of death amid ashes and ruin. The carnage had been fearsome here, and the destruction far more total than that to the north.
“He who wrought this.” the nahkhahrah thought, “must be truly a monster of the Ancient Evil.”
“Monsters of the Ancient Evil are assuredly abroad in these mountains.” Her voice once more enveloped him. “But he who despoiled these, your folk, is not one of them, dear Kohg.”
Recalling his plan to seize the Valley of the Maidens, the nahkhahrah bore about to the northwestward and, presently, he was gliding above the battlemented hills and ridges into a bank of noisome mist. From under the mist shone an eerie, roseate glow. The glow was strongest near the center of the largest vale, and he swept toward it. The air in the valley was warm, almost hot, and as he approached the source of that rosy radiance, the heat increased manyfold.
Something warned him to not come any closer to his objective, so he dove through the mist just shy of a huge fissure in the rocks. It belched forth a steady column of smoke and stench which brought tears to the eyes and acute discomfort to the skin. Waves of unbearable heat bartered at him, and he blinked himself away. The clear menace of that fissure sent a shudder coursing through him.
Rising swiftly, he blinked the future, six moons ahead, and saw a scene of utter desolation. Tumbled rocks surrounded a wide bowl of bubbling, smoking almost-liquid. Nowhere was there any sign of a living creature.
“But. . . but, Lady? How? Why?” he begged silently.
And he felt himself whisked back to the present. Out of the yawning mouth of the entry cavern filed a long line of pack animals. Some bore strange devices strapped upon their backs, others, panniers which he could sense contained gold and silver, tons of the precious metals. The train was guided by strange-looking men and women in stranger garments. At its head rode three he recognized: the People-of-Powers. And though they spoke in a language he knew he had never heard, he could understand them.
“You’re dead certain the charges will do what we planned?” queried Dr. Erica Arenstein anxiously. “Those that the gas didn’t kill, those who only got a whiff of it, are going to be rather angry when they waken and find they’ve been robbed.”
The Ahrmehnee-looking man who rode on her left snorted derisively. “Scant need of fear from that quarter, my dear Erica. Every last horse in their herd is presently roaming about these mountains, if not still running.”
“Don’t be suicidally cocksure, Dr. Corbett.” the woman admonished him. “They are a stubborn race. If need be, they’ll track us on foot, and unless we can get better speed out of these damned mules than we got in bringing them north, we’ll be run down within a day’s ride of here.”
“Not to worry, honey.” assured the other Ahrmehnee, him to whom she had first spoken, now riding a bit behind as the trail had become too narrow for three abreast. He glanced at an odd bracelet on his left wrist, then stated, “The tunnel will be sealed in thirty-two minutes, and before any of them — or many of them, at least — can climb up through those caverns and go down the walls, the main charges will blow. But by that time, well have that mountain yonder between us and the volcano. I calculate that the charges I planted will be just enough to trigger a full-scale eruption.”
The woman, whom the nahkhahrah had known as Sahrah Sahrohyuhn, threw back her head and laughed merrily . . . and the nahkhahrah thought that never had he heard a more chilling sound.
“There, Kohg Taishyuhn, ride those you would term ‘monsters.’ ”
“But . . . but, Lady, they are of You. They possess Powers.”
“Poor mortal Kohg, you have been deceived. Those are not of Me. They are of a cankering sore upon the face of the troubled land. They and their kind honor not Gods but, rather, an abstraction they call ‘Science.’ Long, long ago, when untold millions of the races of man had forsaken the Gods to grovel at the altars of Science, the monstrous creations of that false god almost swept the lands clean of human life. Your people know of this through the tales of ‘The War of the Earth-Gods’ and ‘The Great Catastrophe,’ Kohg.
“Few men survived the holocaust. Even today, the lands are peopled by but a bare shadow of the numbers on whom I once shed My rays. These Ancient Monsters move and breathe only through an unspeakable perversion of the Laws of Nature. And- their future objective is nothing less than the enslavement of all other living creatures. Not many recognize the menace they present, Kohg, and one who does is him they would have had you make war upon, him you call ‘Undying Devil,’ him who calls himself, ‘Milo Morai, High Lord of the Confederation.’ ”
“But, the Devil is my enemy.” protested the nahkhahrah. “He drove my people from our rich lands, drove us into these mountains, and now have his folk soaked the earth with Ahrmehnee blood yet again. He is Your enemy, as well, Lady. He worships Your enemy, Sun.”
The Voice remained cool and soothing in and about him. “He is not My enemy. Dear Kohg, I am all true Gods. I but appear to men in the guise they venerate and expect. To you, I am Moon Goddess, to Milo, am I God of Sun and Wind; some call That which is Me Steel or Rain; in the north I am worshiped as Blue Lady; even farther north, in the Black lands, men call upon Me as Ahláh.
“Nor is Milo your enemy, Kohg. For even as all Gods are but Me, the encompassing One, so too are all men of all races brothers, could you poor mortals but see Truth. Milo attacked your people and seized their lands principally to shorten his border and so protect his people from your raiders. It is his aim to once more unite the lands and races upon this continent-not as slaves beneath his heel, such as would those whom you overheard, but as free, happy and prosperous folk.
“Does this man — for, man he is; mortal man born of woman, for all that some name him ‘god’ — succeed, does he choose the proper combination of alternatives, as little as seven thousand moons may see this land once again as great and mighty as it was twelve thousand moons agone.
“This Milo is only your enemy because first your forefathers, then you, have made him such. If you and your folk choose to freely join with his Confederation, you will be welcomed and heaped with honors. If you choose to fight on I can see no future for the Ahrmehnee, save as scattered, homeless, wandering remnants of a race. But it is you who must now choose, Kohg.”
The nahkhahrah blinked the future and found it just as the Lady had stated; small family groups of Ahrmehnee, thin and ragged, barely existing in caves and makeshift tents, while being hunted like beasts by the Muhkohee, who had taken over Ahrmehnee valleys and rebuilt the war-shattered villages. He did not stay, for this possible future was too terrible to long contemplate.
And again he went soaring over the moon-bathed mountains, north and east this time. Just beyond his own village, he came to gr
ound. Unseen, he passed between the guards and entered the tent of the brahbehrnuh, finding the young woman alone. Slowly, before her frightened and wondering eyes, he blinked his form visible.
“Listen to me, child.” The brahbehrnuh could see his lips move, shape the words. Nonetheless, they seemed more within her head than upon her ears. “Your home is no more, nor your folk. Those whom we knew as People-of-Powers and of Our Lady were not; rather were they Monsters of the Great and Ancient Evil. They it was who slew your folk and despoiled your treasure, then destroyed your hold by means of the smoking fissure.
“Now, they bear their ill-gotten booty south and west upon the backs of many mules. There be but few of them, child, less than a hundred. Avenging the murders of one’s own folk is a Sacred Duty. At dawn you must arm your Maidens and ride. You will ride with Her blessing.”
The brahbehrnuh was not without real courage even in so eerie a situation as this, and she resolutely gathered that courage. “How . . . how came you here, without my guards? And how know you, who are only a man, of the Hoofprint of the Goddess’s Steed, that which you called ‘smoking fissure’?”
“Child, child, how can I make you understand? This night I am as one with Her, I ride with Her across the skies and can see all that She sees. It is only through Her powers that you look now upon my likeness, for my body actually lies yonder, within the council house.”
The brahbehrnuh shivered, despite herself. Then, “If you . . . if you are a . . . a part of Our Lady, I . . . will believe, will do all that you can say if . . . if . . . if you will tell me my name. Tell me my secret name, the name I chose when first I became bahbehrnuh, the name which not even my lover knows, the name I have silently whispered only to the Goddess at Her shrine.”
The nahkhahrah smiled gently. “It is a beautiful name, child. It was the name of my dear mother. It is Rahksahnah.”
All the blood drained from the brahbehrnuh’s face, her strong legs wobbled, and only her grasp upon the table kept her from falling. She tried to speak, but could only gasp and stutter. Then, finally, she found her voice, though it was as weak as her body.
“I believe. It shall be as you, as She commands. The Maidens will ride at dawn.”
The nahkhahrah briefly flickered out, then reappeared to add, “Pass wide of what was your home, Rahksahnah. The entrance now is sealed. To scale the heights and climb the walls would only be to die. And you must not die, for, ere you see my village again, you will find him who will make of you a true woman, give you a future of happiness and ease and children.
“I sense rebellion in your heart, child. Expel it. You must realize that the old ways of the Maidens are dead this night, dead and buried as the land which spawned you all will soon be. You must forget the past and accept the newness of the future, if you are to survive.
“Now I must leave you, for there is still much I must do ere the Lady complete Her journey.”
Again the nahkhahrah swooped east. Over the range to the Great Plateau, then high over the expanse of sere grasses and frozen, rocky soil to the newly raised ramparts-raw earth and green logs and ancient blocks of stone. Unseen, he stood upon the wallwalk while an officer made his rounds. The block of granite beside the nahkhahrah once had been polished and engraved and it still bore ancient letters: NAL BANK OF.
He blinked. He saw the whole of the building of which the stone had once been a part, saw the other buildings about it, saw the odd folk who walked and talked and laughed and ate and loved, saw their black roads striped with yellow and white. He saw the folk conveyed upon their roads in large and small magical wagons, which made fearsome noises and trailed smoke behind. He saw thousands of bright lights, of every conceivable color, shining boldly or flickering in and out of fantastical designs.
He blinked. He saw the buildings and the roads again, but gone were the folk, gone too were the lights., Few were the wagons and they obviously had lost their magic, for they sat smashed and torn and rusting upon the cracked, weed-springing roads. The buildings, also, were dirt-streaked, many were sagging, and their windows gaped like the eyesockets of the skulls in the council-house rafters.
He blinked. He saw the broken block, now forming a merlon atop the battlement of the lowlanders’ fort. He and his folk had pastured goats and cattle on this plateau time out of mind without ever suspecting that a city of the Earth-Gods lay beneath their feet.
“You have not much longer, My love. Hurry, Kohg, for soon I must send you back.”
Milo awakened all in a breath, his hand immediately seeking the familiar hilt of his pillow-sword. At the foot of his couch stood a tall old man, devoid of any clothing. The face, though seamed and wind-darkened, still was handsome and the unbowed, muscular body bore the scars of a warrior. A single glance at the set of the intelligent eyes and the big nose, hooked like a hawk’s beak, told the High Lord the man’s race.
“Ahrmehnee!” he breathed. “How the devil did you get in here, old man? What do you want? If you’ve come to slay me . . .”
The visitor shook his snowy mane. “I am aware that steel cannot harm you, Milo of Morai I am Kohg Taishyuhn, the nahkhahrah of the Thirteen Tribes of the Ahrmehnee. I am come to seek peace with you and a place for my people in your Confederation.”
Chapter VI
Thoheeks Bili of Morguhn felt the first tingling and relaxed his mind to allow for easier farspeak.
“Bili.” beamed the High Lord, “our war with the Ahrmehnee is ended. Send word to all your columns to retire back to the trade road and return to Vawn through Baikuh. Take your own force and ride northwest. You are seeking a muletrain which is led by three of the Witchmen . . . well, one is a woman. If you meet a force of armored, mounted Ahnnehnee women, do not be surprised; they’re after the same quarry.
“I’d like to have at least one of the Witchfolk alive, but remember, what I’ve told you of them and their wiles and take no chances. The treasure they carry belongs rightfully to the Ahrmehnee warrior women of whom I just spoke. They are all virgins but, forgiving them that, the man who’s seeking a rich wife could scarcely do better to my way of thinking. By the by, Bili, the brahbehrnuh, their leader, is reputed to be a proud, long-legged, handsome creature named Rahksahnah. She is of a long-lived, gifted race and should throw good colts, many of them.
“As for the machines they carry, I would prefer that they be smashed or, better yet, dumped in some deep, swift river.
“You’ll be far west, Bili, so it’s possible you’ll chance across Mehrikan-speaking barbarians called Muhkohee. They are sly, savage and treacherous, lad. Even the wild Ahnnehnee fear them, so beware.
“Sun and Wind keep you all, Bili. Come to the nahkhahrah’s village when you are done.”
* * *
Vaskos Daiviz of Morguhn, commander of the city of Vawnpolis, looked briefly at the stiffening corpse and repressed a shudder with difficulty. A veteran of the almost constant border wars of the Confederation, he was no stranger to terrible sights. Nor did a man make the ascent from common spearman to sub-strahteegos without being an exceedingly tough and thick-skinned soldier. And Vaskos was both. Nonetheless, this body and the two found last week had chilled him to the very marrow.
All three had been women, young women. But had neighbors or friends not reported them missing, there would have been no chance of ascertaining the identities of the cadavers. Whoever had butchered them had, in all three cases, used a knife to mutilate their faces so that not even their mothers would have known them. Nor were these horrors the worst, for, after all, wounds wrought by steel were an old and familiar story to the commander.
No, what sent the cold prickling to Vaskos’ nape while nausea churned in his belly were the other enormities perpetrated by the killer or killers. From the knees to the necks, the poor women had been savagely flogged, front and back. And atop the welts and cuts of the whip were the crowning horrors — the tears and gouges of teeth, human teeth, which had gnawed at the victim like an animal, ripping away chunks of flesh.
After the second murder, he had doubled the night patrols, even though that meant putting a sizable number of former rebels back under arms. But this morning’s find had proved even those measures ineffective. So he called his officers into council, inviting as well the few remaining former rebel officers: Captain Kahrlos, Captain Danos and Vahrohneeskos Kahzos Boorsohthehpsees of Vawn, once deputy commander of the rebel city.
It was the half-blinded and hideously disfigured young Ehleen nobleman to whom Vaskos addressed himself after he had succinctly reported the particulars of this most recent killing.
“Lord Kahzos, we must find a way to put a stop to these deaths, and since the victims are invariably from among those who were your people, I felt that you and these other two officers might be able and willing to aid.”
Kahzos nodded gravely. He had given up his once-ready smile since he now smiled perpetually. A catapult stone had struck a merlon during the siege and the resultant hail of stoneshards had taken his left eye and grated all the flesh from the left side of his face.
“I don’t think that it’s a new problem, Lord Vaskos. Similar cases were noted by Lord Drehkos and me during the siege, as well as just preceding it. Always the victims were young women and girls, always were their bodies monstrously mutilated and showing marks of teeth. But after the first few weeks of the siege, the murders sort of . . . well, tapered off. These are the first sign that the murderer or murderers were not, as we had surmised and hoped, dead in the siege.”