by Robert Adams
Getting fresh ponies up north was seldom a problem. Not only were there many Ganik farm families from whom ponies could be obtained by trade or force, but there were usually strays from the various Ganik bunches roaming the hills and valleys in ones or twos or small herds.
But as far as Johnny Skinhead knew, there were no Ganik farmers this far south, and, of bunches, Long Willy's was the most southerly of all. Nor had he seen any traces of equines since they had left, other than along this track.
Bully Johnny did not ride on much farther, for at the same time the trail petered out, no less than three of the drooping ponies saw fit to collapse, their prominent rib cages working like bellows, jerkings and kickings and cursing availing nothing toward getting them back onto their hooves.
"Piss awn it!" announced Johnny Skinhead. "Them strangers mos' prob'ly cut ovuh the ridges fer to hit the main track; I would, wuz I them—it ain' nowheres near's rough nor thisun be. And thesehere ponies wouldn' mek a hunnert yards up thet firs' ridge, by Plooshuhn. They may not evun mek it back up to wher we kin figger awn gittin' sumore."
"Long Willy, he ain' gon like us jes' comin' back, th'out ketchin' us summa them stranguhs," muttered one.
"You jes' let me do any worryin' 'bout mah boy Long Willy, Eskuh," snapped old Johnny peevishly. "Him an' me, we got us more brains in owuh peckers, nor you'll evuh hev in your haid!"
Bully Johnny Skinhead's very close relationship to the leader of the bunch would have been considered both most singular and shameful in the extreme among races of normal folk, although it was less than an unusual one among the Ganiks. He was Long Willy's father, but as he had gotten this son—as well as at least two other children—on Crosseyed Kate, his own mother, old Johnny was also Long Willy's half brother.
Some years back, old Johnny, one of his more natural brothers and Long Willy had returned from a raiding sojourn with Buhbuh the Kleesahk's huge bunch to find that during their absence, some other bunch had visited their family steading, killed and eaten or taken away all of their kin and driven off the livestock, then partially burned the buildings.
If not for that latter fact, the three men might have continued to live there between raids, eventually stealing a few women to get brats on and to do the heavy work of farming, but with matters as they had been, the three had simply turned their ponies' heads about and taken up full-time residence with the bunches, finally being included in a few hundred sent by Buhbuh to form a southern bunch.
Then, five years ago, when Long Willy had attained to his full growth, he had challenged, fought and killed the biggest of the then-leader's bullies—which was one way of becoming a bully himself. A few weeks later, he had called out and slain the leader, Horsecock Coates, then the one other bully unwise enough to indicate his antipathy toward this new leadership.
Few of the original leader's pack of bullies were still around, after five years. Old Johnny had killed one in order to take his place, and his other brother—he who had held the muzzle of the captured loaded rifle to his belly while holding a torch to its breech and chamber—had emulated Johnny's murderous actions. One-ear Carson had died at the defile, and now the only bully not of Long Willy's choosing was Strong Tom Amory.
Back in the Ganik camp, Strong Tom lay as one dead for hours after Long Willy had clubbed him senseless. At length, i the massive man commenced to whimper, then to moan, and, with immense effort, finally got back onto his feet. He stood, swaying, however, and pitched back down on his face at the first step he essayed. At the end, sobbing noisily like a whipped child, the bully crawled on hands and knees across the camp to his hut.
Far to the south and east of that camp, old Johnny Skinhead and his men left the dying ponies where they lay, after stripping off their gear, and led the party back up the track to that place he recalled where a shallow streamlet crossed it. He had decided that they would camp there for the night and rest the ponies before setting out for camp on the morrow.
But even before they traveled that relatively short distance, more ponies became unable to bear their riders, so that when they arrived at the projected campsite, some dozen of his Ganiks were trotting along afoot, while a handful of nearly foundered ponies trailed along far behind.
Corbett had pushed his command hard along the clear track, allowing only short rest periods for man or beast. They found the place where Jim-Beau's body had been butchered and eaten, but between the thirty-seven cannibals and the no less voracious wildlife, not enough remained to give them even a clue as to the being's identity, other than that it had been human.
.Slightly relieved that the feast site indicated no trace of having been also a battleground, Corbett and his force pressed relentlessly on southward, down the hoof-scarred track. The larger, deeper impressions of the bigger, steel-shod mounts of Gumpner's group were everywhere overlaid by the smaller, shallower, but far more numerous ones of the Ganiks' unshod little ponies. And, ominously, the former seemed barely older than the latter.
Old Johnny Skinhead did not need to be told that a good number of equines were coming rapidly down the track from the north. He had felt the distant vibrations in the ground whereon he and the others lay, so he did not bother to even sit up when called to, saying only, "Cain' be nobody but thet slowass Strowng Tom, him and the fellers as come 'roun''t'othuh side. Somebody wake me up whinevuh they gits here. Heahnh?" Then he settled back down to sleep.
Dead certain that the only strangers were by now well east of his temporary encampment, the bully had posted no men to stay awake and watch the position—squarely athwart the track, on either side of the stream—nor had he set up a picket line, only hobbling the ponies and his horse that they might not stray, grazing, too far away.
Corbett's point riders did not return to the main column, they just waited in the middle of the track until the others came up to them. At their word, Corbett halted his command and, afoot, went up to view what they had discovered. On the day before, he had begun to nurture a grudging respect for the Ganiks, but most of it evaporated when he saw the careless disposition of the party of snoring cannibals.
Back with his force, he held a low-voiced conference with Corporal Cash and some of the others, accurately describing what he had seen up ahead.
"The whole damned passel of them are asleep, scattered up and down the track itself for some yards, and not a guard to be seen, anywhere. The ponies are hobbled, but they're even more scattered, grazing and browsing, and they all seem to have been unsaddled, too.
"Now we couldn't have gotten as close as we are to them without them being aware of it, especially since they were lying on the ground. So I suspect that they think we're the other horsemen, the ones that rode off to the east of that defile, then came back into that valley, back there.
"I counted about three dozen of the buggers, so order the men to save their rifles and ammo—after all, we have no way of knowing what dangers lie ahead of us, still. We'll keep up a fast trot until we come in sight of them, then charge. Sabers, axes and darts should be all we need on this bunch, unprepared as they are, and dismounted, to boot Questions? All right then, let's get about it, men."
Chapter Five
When the assigned troopers got Dr. Braun out of his saddle and laid out on a pallet of saddleblankets and sheepskins, one of them fetched over Gumpner, who set about examining the scientist as gently as possible.
He was truly gentle; nonetheless, Braun was screaming full-throatedly and gasping between screams, with tears bathing his face, before the examination was done.
Finally, the old noncom hunkered back, frowning, thinking, while the patient shuddered and sobbed. It was bad enough. The protracted cross-country trek in the saddle had not done the doctor a bit of good, and the more recent two full days and one night, almost without pause, had put the tin hat on it.
The entire leg—from crotch to toes—was immensely swollen and discolored. In several places, it was oozing clear or pink-tinged serum through the dirty, crusty bandages, while all of th
e toes and part of the foot looked to Gumpner to be in the earliest stage of black rot—gangrene. Harry Braun clearly needed the surgeon the party no longer had. A bright, multi-talented man, Gumpner could bandage wounds and set and splint broken bones, remove smashed teeth and their stumps, cut out missile points and stop the bleeding of wounds with fair consistency. He had done these various things many times, over the years, but he knew that he simply was not qualified to set about the procedures here required, and he deeply regretted the loss of Dr. Arenstein.
He had closely observed physicians in Broomtown, Major Corbett and, more recently, Dr. Arenstein administer the different types of injections—subcutaneous, intramuscular and intravenous—and he therefore felt certain that he could successfully administer drugs or antibiotics, but he could not differentiate among the host of small bottles and glass ampules which were labeled only with combinations of letters and numbers, nor was he in any way certain just what amounts should be injected or how frequently.
As soon as he had quieted somewhat, the noncom matter-of-factly explained the situation and his own impotence in alleviating it to the scientist, withholding only his diagnosis of the lividity and lack of warmth in Braun's toes and foot.
"And so," he finished, *T11 be happy to give you something for your pain, Doctor, if you can show me which of the bottles to draw it from and how much to draw. But I'm afraid to try to open your leg and drain it, as it should be drained, I know. The condition it is now in, in fact, I'm even afraid to try to change those bandages."
The grizzled noncom's sincerity and concern were patent, and Braun was just then in too much agony to affect the open arrogance with which he usually masked his multitudinous fears of the world and most things and people in it Weakly, he pointed out to Gumpner the bottles Erica had used before she had ceased dosing him against pain, then he indicated the dosage line on the barrel of the hypodermic syringe. He only whimpered once when the needle entered his flesh and, shortly, sank gratefully into the warm, feather-soft embrace of the drug.
Gumpner had placed a man among the rocks over the hidden entry to the narrow defile, another partway up the mountain, and a third up beyond the second; therefore, he had been aware that his pursuers had passed, headed south along the track, and then returned, and he knew that they were camping almost on the doorstep of his hideaway.
Consequently, he had slept but lightly, despite his own exhaustion, and was out of his blankets and pulling on his boots before the sentry who had dropped from the rock wall had trotted up to him.
"Sarge," panted the trooper, "Gibson flashed up a message that said that at least a score of men, not Ganiks, have come down the track from the north and attacked the cannibals that were camped at the stream. He couldn't be sure, of course, but he said that most of them looked like they had rifles on their backs, and they were all armed with sabers or axes."
Gumpner stamped the rest of the way into his boots, checked his pistol and rifle, slung the latter, then picked up his axe. Then he turned to the other sergeant.
"Cabell, you're in charge here until I get back. Have a pony saddled for me, quickly, I don't want to risk the horse down that streambed in the dark. And one for Allison here, too; he's coming with me."
Corbett and his men came down the gradual curve of the track on a three-rider front that spanned the trace from one brushy shoulder to the other, sabers and axes—and, in Jay Corbett's case, a nicely balanced steel mace out but at the low-guard position, lest a glimmer of moonlight reveal that these riders were approaching the sleeping Ganiks on the attack.
At the place where the curve ended, where the track straightened out and widened, more than doubling in width, the officer waved the mace over his head. With practiced ease, the veteran troopers went from a three- to a seven-man front, roared a deep-voiced cheer and charged down the track upon the unprepared foemen.
A tall, large-framed man suddenly stood up directly in the officer's path. His bushy beard was either white or very pale blond—Corbett could not tell in the moonlight—but his bare head was completely bald and he was frantically tugging to get a sword free from an ill-fitting sheath or scabbard.
Although he could as easily have crushed that bare-skinned head with the heavy mace, Corbett slightly altered his aim and brought down the Middle Kingdoms weapon with all his might and all its not inconsiderable weight on the bald man's right shoulder. He rode on as the Ganik shrieked and began to crumple.
His reasoning had been simple and instantaneous. If the Ganik had a sword, he must be one of the leaders, and a leader of any group or race could be expected to have a better and more complete knowledge of events and peoples and territories than most of the followers, and Corbett still stood in dire and pressing need of reliable intelligence concerning • the country that lay between this area and Broomtown base.
The action was bloody, savage and very shortly concluded. Corbett's force's casualties were negligible—one pony had been hamstrung and one trooper had taken a dart through his bridle arm, just below the elbow. Three or four Ganiks had gotten away, afoot certainly, and possibly wounded as well. With the exceptions of the bald Ganik and one another, the remainder of the cannibals lay dead on the track and along the stream, most of them never having gotten farther up than their knees before flashing saber blade or axehead hacked the life from their bodies and tumbled those bodies in the dust.
Corbett had fallen in love with the mace and resolved to carry it or one like it by preference in future. Unlike axe, saber or sword, there was no microsecond of dire danger while freeing a cutting edge from a body, and where stabbing was necessary, the short, broad finial spike provided ample utility for the purpose.
The officer dismounted a third of his force and himself joined them, leaving another third mounted as horse holders and the other third as security. The bald Ganik was on his knees in the middle of the track, rocking to and fro, barely conscious, his right arm hanging limp and useless from his crushed shoulder. With slashes of his field knife, Corbett cut away the man's baldric with its old, Ahrmehnee-style sword, and the waist belt containing a profusion of sheathed knives of varying lengths and shapes. After jerking out another knife peeking from the top of the Ganik's rawhide boot, the officer went to join his dismounted men in finishing off the rest of the Ganiks.
Corbett had just dispatched an already-dying Ganik near the stream and was swishing the gory point of his saber blade in the swift-flowing water when he sensed more than heard movements in the holly thicket to his left. Before he could turn, a stocky shape mounted on a pony emerged and from it came the zweeep of steel leaving scabbard, quickly followed by the flash of the moonlight along the length of a bared blade.
Corbett tossed the saber into his left hand, drew and cocked his big pistol, whirling to face this new attack.
It was well into the second week before Long Willy began to harbor any worries about the missing party and their leader, his father-brother, Johnny Skinhead. Even then, the worries were more for the thirty-seven Ganiks who had ridden out with the elderly bully than for the man himself, for the losses in the attacks against the strangers had been little short of catastrophic; Long Willy had left a good half of his men dead before that cursed gap.
All of the bullies, saving only old Johnny and Strong Tom, had been among those mangled corpses, but that had been no lasting problem; Long Willy had simply chosen the requisite number of bigger, stronger, meaner Ganiks from the remaining ranks of his depleted bunch and publicly announced that they were now his bullies and would remain so as long as they continued to please him and support him. Everyone knew, of course, that any man who felt himself capable of openly fighting and killing one of these bullies could expect to take his victim's place; that was one of the few laws of the Ganik bunches.
But although Long Willy was all-powerful in his own bunch, commanding the life or death of every man and woman in his camp, he, too, had and grudgingly recognized a suzerain, the Kleesahk, Buhbuh, whose bully he was by right of combat
. And Long Willy knew well that Buhbuh's expected reaction to his loss of so many fighters for so negligible an amount of gain could be—and, he feared, would be—dangerous and deadly to him, personally.
Nor could Long Willy really blame the huge humanoid for his anticipated rage, for by halving his smaller bunch, he had also weakened by just that many fighters the larger bunch of which they all were a part. The attack on the strangers had seemed like a sure victory—considering how few their numbers had been—with promise of much loot, at least a dozen big horses or mules, and the thrill of prisoners to torture slowly to death, then eat.
However, despite the care he had lavished on the planning of everything, he had met with unmitigated disaster in all save the taking of the Ahrmehnee woman and her firestick. The pursuit party under Strong Tom had turned back because of that capture, and now Long Willy was sorry that he had not sent a rider to call back Johnny Skinhead, as well.
For there had never been anything approaching friendship between Long Willy and Buhbuh, for all that the Kleesahk ' had not disliked him enough to' force him into a stand-up fight and kill him—as he well knew that Buhbuh could anytime he wished, for the partly human creature stood half again Long Willy's not inconsiderable height and was massive in proportion—he also knew that there were certainly Ganiks in this camp whose job it was to watch him for Buhbuh and report to that overall-bully any serious transgressions against the good of the bunches.
That Buhbuh had not already moved against him Long Willy ascribed to the fact that he had forbidden anyone to ride out of camp for any reason until the return of Johnny Skinhead's party, and had put his new bullies to the bloody enforcement of that edict. He wanted to face Buhbuh the Kleesahk in his own good time, and that time would not be until he knew himself capable of surviving the certain combat with the huge creature, which meant not until he had been instructed by the Ahrmehnee woman in all the niceties of the use and recharging of his captured firestick. Long Willy knew well that only that marvelous, deadly, esoteric weapon of the oldest Ganik myths and legends could give him the needed fatal edge over the monstrous, otherwise undefeatable Buhbuh.