by Robert Adams
“Hari, as you’re an old hand at warring and, as you have at least minimal farspeak, you’ll command the van. Stay in touch with the cats and with me. If any ambush occurs or if you run into a force unexpectedly, don’t try playing the hero, just fight a sensible holding action until the main body gets up to you. Understand? Pick such men as you want. You’ve your choice of the squadron.”
Bili stood up in his stirrups and looked about him, then, raising his voice, called, “Taros? Taros Duhnbahr? Where are you, man?”
When young Komees Taros came up, his tall sorrel stallion strutting, Bili told him, “You’ll command the rearguards, Taros. I’ll assign a cat to pace you on each flank, but keep your eyes peeled. None of us want to end up well-minced buzzard bait. Agreed?”
* * *
Earlier that morning, away to the. northeast, Aldora and her kahtahfrahktoee had trotted through the nahkhahrah’s village, then eastward, headed for the gap and the Confederation castra beyond. Insisting upon’ bringing Vahrohneeskos Drehkos with her, Aldora joined Milo in the council house, where she was introduced to the nahkhahrah and the assembled dehrehbehee. While beer was being poured for the formal healths of welcome, the woman mindspoke Milo.
“Do any of these Ahrmehnee mindspeak?”
Silently, he replied, “The nahkhahrah does, I’m sure. And the old man has other powers, as well, powers I can’t begin to describe. I don’t think even he understands them. Why?”
“I’ve never understood something about myself, Milo, or about Mara and you and that bastard Demetrios, my dear, departed first husband. At what age do the bodies of the undying stop aging? Do you know?”
Milo shrugged, beaming, “It varies, dear. You look to be about twenty-five, while Mara thinks she stopped at twenty-two or -three. In forty years, Demetrios never looked more than late twentyish, while I’ve always appeared between thirty and forty. Again, why?”
She smiled cryptically. “Do you think . . . would it be possible for someone to age more than you did and be an Undying? Without him even knowing it?”
“What’s all this leading up to, Aldora? Damn it, girl, you can be maddening sometimes. But, in answer, yes, I suppose it would be possible. No one, least of all me, knows enough about our kind to give a definitive answer. And as for not knowing, well, you didn’t know and neither did Demetrios, not at first.”
“Yes, but then I was a child, mentally, emotionally. As for Demetrios, he was . . . well, to be charitable, always somewhat dense. Could an intelligent man live fifty-odd years and not be aware of his differences?”
Milo’s glance shot to Drehkos Daiviz, where he sat sipping Ahrmehnee honeybeer and conversing in broken trade-Mehrikan with a dehrehbeh.
“Precisely.” Aldora mindspoke. Then she opened her mind to Milo.
From the very beginning to the bloody raid, it had seemed that Drehkos was actively seeking death in battle. He had insisted on commanding the van on marches, and there were few charges during which he was not at the very forefront. His former-rebel horsemen died in droves, but death seemed to flee from his grasp like a will-o’-the-wisp. Then had come that dreadful morning when a large force of screaming, bloodthirsty, vengeance-bent Ahrmehnee warriors had taken Aldora’s encampment by surprise.
Suddenly, they had just been there. Rawboned men on foot or on shaggy little ponies, armed with spears and darts, axes and nail-studded clubs, metal-shod targes and wide, straight-bladed, double-edged shortswords. From along the entire southern periphery of the camp they came, wave after yelling, screeching wave of them, grasping brands from the smoldering embers of watchfires and whirling them into full, flaming life, before hurling them into tents or horse lines or among knots of sleep-drugged troopers.
In the rain of darts which followed, many a man died before he even knew the camp to be invaded. Aldora, herself, had been sleeping soundly, but Drehkos had obviously been wakeful, for it was he who organized and led the first resistance. Half-clothed, barefoot, with only a helm and his broadsword, he and a scratch force of camp guards and cats, few of the men fully armed and fewer still mounted, had hurled themselves against three thousand shrieking Ahrmehnee.
While trumpets pealed and drums rolled, while frantic orders were roared and terrified horses screamed even more loudly than the wounded, burning men in the blazing tents, Drehkos and his pitiful few did yeoman service against more than twenty times their numbers. Very few of them lived to see the rise of Sacred Sun, an hour later, and most of those were dead of their many and terrible wounds ere Sun set.
But their sacrifice had saved the camp. Aldora’s losses had been heavy, all told, but more than a thousand Ahrmehnee had fallen within the encampment, slain or too badly wounded to flee, as had the bulk of the attackers when at last a sizable number of armed and ordered men confronted them.
There had been a few knots of resistance, though, a few suicide groups who had remained behind to slow pursuit. Bareback, Aldora and her bodyguards had set their horses toward one such, only to see Drehkos and a bare score of his survivors make first, bloody contact. In the few seconds it took for the mounted contingent to reach the broil, half the score were down, lying still in death or gasping and kicking away their last moments of life. Of the rest, none was engaged against any less than three Ahrmehnee.
Even as Aldora had raised and whirled her steel, screaming the Clan Linszee warcry, she had seen Drehkos cut down an Ahrmehnee at the very moment another barbarian jammed a wolfspear into the nobleman’s back with such force that the knife-sharp blade emerged, dripping, from his chest. Ere the man could free his spear, Aldora had split his skull with her heavy saber.
When the last Ahrmehnee in camp were cut down, the fires were extinguished and losses were being assessed, Aldora had detailed several of her guardsmen to fetch the vahrohneeskos’ body and prepare it for cremation. By this time, she was informed of her debt to Drehkos and was truly regretful of the cool formality with which she had rebuffed his overtures of friendship, first at Vawnpolis, then during the raiding campaign.
Guard Lieutenant Trehdhwai shortly rode back to her looking as if he had been clubbed. “My . . . lady, please . . . my lady, you must come and see. He . . . Lord Drehkos is not dead. He —”
“Damnit, Hehrbuht, of course he’s dead!” she had snapped peevishly. “Sun and Wind, man, I saw one of the swine jam a spear completely through him, back to front. That was over an hour ago. Even if he was not killed at that moment, he’s long since bled to death.”
But she had gone with the officer.
Drehkos Daiviz of Morguhn was sitting, leaning weakly against a pile of stiffening corpses, his shirtfront stiff and tacky with drying gore. As she dismounted and started wonderingly toward him, one of the ring of guardsmen handed him a canteen from which he drank greedily.
Closing her memory, Aldora recommenced mindspeak. “Milo, I still have that spear. It’s got a ten-inch blade, honed as sharp as a sword on both edges. Though they’re fading fast, you can still see the two scars on Drehkos’ body, one on his back, just under the right shoulderblade, and one on his chest, bisecting his right nipple.
“When I asked him what had happened, he seemed as stunned as any of us, but quite candidly said that he had fallen face downward and that the fall had pushed the blade back into his body. He just lay there for a while, expecting to die shortly. But he didn’t. So, finally, because it was so agonizing, he managed to reach behind him and pull the spear the rest of the way out of him. By the time my guards got to him, he’d stopped bleeding, though the wounds still were gaping when I arrived.”
“Who, besides you and them — and him, of course — know of this, Aldora?”
“No one, Milo. I’ve learned at least that much from you in two hundred years or so.”
Milo nodded. “Keep it that way until we’re down at the castra. Yes, dear, you’re learning. It was most wise to keep him by you . . . whatever it develops he is.”
* * *
“Bili.” Hari mindspoke back from
the van, “Whitetip just told me he’s found a horse wandering. There’s a woman on it, an armored woman, wounded and unconscious. He wants to know if he should lead the horse here or wait for us to come up to him.”
“Wait, Hari.” Bili replied; then, on farspeak-level, “Cat-brother, do you think the female two-leg will fall off the horse if you try to bring her to us?”
“Her kak is like yours, Chief Bili.” answered the prairiecat promptly. “She will not fall.”
“Then lead the horse to our brother, Hari, catbrother. I will join you there.” Then, to Hari, “Watch for Whitetip, he’s bringing his find to you. I’ll be there as quickly as Mahvros can bear me.”
When the black stallion pounded up to the van, Hari and some of his men had removed the rider from her spent, lathered, shuddering horse and laid her out on a cloak. Another cloak had been folded and placed under her head, from which they had removed the dented helm. Using a piece of rag dipped in a waterbag, the old komees was gently sponging away the dirt and sweat and blood from her pasty-white face.
Bili had been a warrior for all his adult life and had seen his share of wounds, fatal and otherwise. He shook his head as he strode toward her, thinking that she would not live much longer and that it was a shame, for her features were regular and fair to look upon and her tresses, those not befouled with blood and dirt, were the ruddy black of his stallion’s mane, though far finer in texture.
“Isn’t she lovely, my lord?” said the husky, red-haired nobleman who strode beside the young thoheeks.
Bili didn’t answer, for they had reached the wounded woman’s side. “Has she said anything, Hari?”
Shaking his head, the old man stood up jerkily, his joints popping and creaking protest. “There’s damned little life left in her. She can’t even swallow. I tried to give her some brandy and it just ran out of her throat through that wound under her chin. Even if she were conscious, lad, I don’t think she’d be able to speak. I tried a scan of her mind, too, but . . .” He shrugged his shoulders and turned up his palms.
Sinking down beside the dying woman, Bili raised one of her eyelids, then straightened and slapped her wan cheeks, hard. His thick, horny hand, hardened by axehaft and swordhilt, with the strength of his brawny arm behind it, cracked cruelly against the chill flesh, right cheek and left, back and palm, in a blur of motion.
Komees Hari was aghast. He stepped forward. “Now, damnit, Bili . . . Sun and Wind, man, what are you doing? You’ve no call to so abuse her!” he remonstrated, heatedly.
But Bili had stopped. The sooty-lashed eyelids had fluttered ever so faintly and the colorless lips trembled, then passed a croaking moan. After a moment, the lids opened to disclose bloodshot eyes, already beginning to glaze. Roughly, Bili grasped the small head, raised it, and stared hard into those sloe-black pupils.
Chapter IX
“Who are you girl?” he hurriedly mindspoke, sensing that life was almost sped. “Are you of the Moon Maidens? Who wounded you? How far ahead of this place are your sisters?”
Slowly, wonderingly, “But you’re a lowlander. How can you speak Ahrmehnee? Please . . . my throat hurts . . . hurts so terribly. And I’m so cold. But, no, Moon Maidens must be strong, must serve Our Lady with stoicism.”
Bluntly, “You’re dying, sister, you’ll not suffer much longer.”
A sigh brought dark-pink froth bubbling from her lips and the hole in her throat. Her mind said, “Yes, dying. Soon be one with . . . Lady.”
“Who slew you, sister? Was it Muhkohee?”
“Muhkohee, yes, thousands . . . never heard of so many together. Must reach nahkhahrah, tell Ahrmehnee, raise all warriors in stahn. Brahbehrnuh says . . .”
And she was gone.
“Catbrother?” Bili silently called the crouching prairiecat. “Take another and backtrack the horse, but cautiously, for those who slew this female still may watch or follow. I am easier to range than is our brother, Hari, so I will ride with him. Go now, and go quickly.”
“Whitetip hears his brother-chief.” In one fluid movement, the big, tawny-gray feline rose from his crouch and yawned hugely, his wide pink tongue lolling out between the three-inch-long upper fangs which were a characteristic feature of his species. Whirling, he started off at a distance-eating lope, his thick-thewed legs carrying his several hundred pounds easily over the rock-strewn, steep-graded track. The last Bili saw of him was his bobbing, white-tipped tail, sinking below the crest of the hill ahead.
Remounted, the van continued on, but with intervals of several yards between each four or six riders. They rode fully alert, the nobles — all save Bili and Hari — with beavers raised and visors lowered and locked. Bili rode with his huge double-bitted axe resting across his flaring pommel, the others with swords bared and targes strapped onto left arms. The archers — every fourth trooper — had all strung their short, powerful hornbows and nocked the steel-shod arrows, gripping two or three more shafts in the fingers of the bowhand, their sabers rattling loose in their cases.
A quarter mile behind, but closing, the main column came, led by Djaik Morguhn and equally ready for battle. Obedient to his older brother’s mindspoken command, the deputy quickened the pace until he was within sight of the tail of the van, then slowed to maintain that interval.
One mile they traversed, two, and still the track climbed. Higher, and the footing became treacherous, loose stones atop crumbling rock, all interspersed with had been covered in the Time of the Gods. At one place, shards of that black pebbly substance with which all roads had been covered in the Time of the Gods. At one place, they rode between a double row of ancient columns, cracked and deeply weathered, with rust stains showing through the moss.
Soon after that eerie passage, the footing became firmer and the ascent began to ease, still climbing, but at a more gradual rate. Then the way became level and, around the shoulder of a precipitous hill, they spied a long, wide plateau, beyond which rose another range of dark-green mountains. At that point, Bili halted the column, wary of proceeding into the unknown without foreknowledge of what dangers might lurk there. The word was passed back by mindspeak for the men of the units to dismount but to remain in ranks within easy reach of their mounts.
While awaiting word from the scouting cats, Bili took young Ehrubuhn Duhnkin of Rahbuhtz — the red-haired youngster having ridden all the way from the western marches of the southernmost reaches of the Confederation to join in putting down the rebellion with the Thoheeks Duhnkin, his cousin much-removed — and a handful of Freefighter troopers to climb the flanking hill, from the crest of which they could scrutinize the ground ahead.
The menace struck Bili’s perceptions full force, wave after irresistible wave, crashing upon him, nearly suffocating him. Yet there was nothing his keen eyes could discern, save the black specks that could only be buzzards, wheeling and dipping over some something about a mile distant, toward the center of the lifeless-looking expanse.
The length of the plateau, which was nowhere indicated on Bili’s maps, was, he estimated, at least ten or twelve miles, and the width would probably average half that. Not truly level, it seemed to slope to the southwest, its face furrowed and so deeply eroded that in places it resembled a giant’s washboard. Of the stones and boulders which poked through the brush and laurel thickets and sere grass, those close enough for Bili to see well looked unnatural, looked to be weathered but once-worked stone rather than native rocks.
Down to his left, to the south of his present position, several columns of smoke climbed into the sky, though he could not spy either the fires or their makers due to the jagged ridges which lay between. Taking the chance that that was the place from which the dead woman had ridden, he let his open mind range out, questing, in search of the familiar mindpatterns of Whitetip.
“Brother-chief.” came the cat’s powerful mindspeak, “we just passed through a village. No two-legs live in it. All are dead and headless, even the cubs. It now is impossible to follow the track of the female’s hor
se. Too many horses have passed this way.”
Remembering the thick profusion of pony tracks at and around the site of the ambush and battle, Bili asked, “Cat-brother, big hooves or small? Heavy horses or light?”
After a moment the cat replied. “Both, brother-chief, but most of the small were printed over the large. Brother-chief, noise of fighting comes from the place beyond the next hill.”
“Then go to the hilltop and tell me what you see.” Bili commanded.
Glancing quickly back over the close ground he had earlier scanned, his eyes fixed upon the remembered formation of squarish, mossy rocks and huge-boled old trees which formed a natural fortification atop a small rise and looked about the right size to hold the packtrain.
“Hari.” he mindcalled.
“Aye, Bili.” came the answer.
“From what Whitetip has seen, we may be fighting soon, and I don’t fancy mounting a charge — if we come to that — trailing our trains.”
“We can’t leave them here, Bili.” Hari remonstrated. “This gap could be made a deathtrap, and that right easily, too.”
“Yes, you’re right, old friend, it’s even more evident from here. But about a hundred yards out on the plateau there’s a ring of rocks and trees on top of a little hill. I think it’s big enough to hold the trains, as well as a couple of troops to defend them. If we —”
“Brother-chief.” beamed Whitetip. “Just below me is a big fight.” Then he opened his mind so that Bili might see through his eyes.
There was no color, of course, to the battle Bili was witnessing, only varying shades of gray. Against the bare face of a low cliff were drawn up lines of figures who looked, from their armor and equipment, to be women like the one they had found down the trail. There were at least two hundred of them and, with them, were possibly half a thousand Ahrmehnee-looking warriors. The ground before the defensive line — for such it obviously was — lay thickly cobbled with bodies of men and carcasses of horses or ponies. Some of the bodies wore armor but most of them were shaggy and bearded and were covered by nothing more substantial than tattered rags or the skins of animals. Nor was the source of these bodies difficult to ascertain. Hundreds might lie dead or dying before the hard-pressed women and Ahrmehnee, but thousands — at least two thousand, possibly as many as three — milled about just out of dart range of the line. With Whitetip’s keen nose, Bili was aware of the overpowering, nauseous stench of that mob.