JH02. Caravans of Doridia

by Ronald Watkins

  “The most successful go first.” he growled at his men. “The first 10 of them get the woman. The rest will share in there use only after the first ten are finished and give their consent. Remember the reward for success in the coming month of our hunt.”

  With that he himself handed six scalps to me and dropping them to the earth one by one opened his palm before me as I laid six silver coins in it. “I select the blond to be mine,” he announced. Apparently he wanted first pick of the woman but intended to remain where he was until the transaction was completed.

  The next man earned four coins, the next also four, and the following three two apiece. Ten others had one each, but there were many at the rear who had none. These men I learned would not share in the woman that night, the better to motivate them the coming month. The system Danak applied was the most basic imaginable. Each man took the scalp of the outlaw he slew the moment he slew him. If any of his own band wished to claim the scalp he need only challenge the holder to combat.

  Apparently the band had managed to kill many by means of deceit. Outlaws are naturally distrustful of even other outlaws but they are willing to approach such bands when they believe it to be safe to do so. Danak had managed to persuade many of the slain to enter his camp where they were shortly thereafter dispatched. His men had also attacked several hunting parties of Kanchoh but were always certain to make it look as though Sekers venturing far from the road had done the deed. He did not wish for word to spread that outlaws hunted outlaws for silver and woman.

  Ladak and I remained apart from the debauchery that following the exchange of scalps. The slaves were well used and often by many throughout the night. They were required to perform every imaginable act with these vile creatures and I was impressed with the ingenuity of some. Danak oversaw the orgy and forbade any fighting over the woman. Those without a scalp were forced to watch and seeing them huddled together like starving men viewing a feast they were forbidden I knew the effectiveness of Danak’s tactics. When the next new moon arrived they would all be dead or have at least one scalp of their own.

  As the men were sated they wandered off to a display of cutlery and other items which I thought outlaws might wish to acquire. By dawn all of the silver was again in my pouch, but Danak’s band left laden with warm robes, new weapons, sugar, boots and other such items. Ladak and I, accompanied by the slaves, rejoined our men and were able to sleep but a short time before resuming the march. All told Danak and his outlaws had slain 31 men to acquire those scalps and if the men had their way they would bring me 100 the following month.

  As we broke for the march I gave orders for the 10 women to be sent on their way to Lathanah without escort. We could not spare the men. I had a document prepared saying that they were my property and were to remain at the Great House of Kabatoh until my return. The letter would keep them from being seized as runaways and would give them safe conduct through the city walls, for who would steal the property of one of the High Caste and a First Officer at that? The worst that could befall them was capture by outlaws but they would not be slain. Only much used and then eventually sold to some outlaw dealing merchant before the onslaught of winter. It was the best I could do under the circumstances and with that I sent them unhappily on their way.

  We resumed our march along the road but by this evening I anticipated that we would strike out into the forest for we had now traversed the Beerah River and it was the last major obstacle that could thwart our march once we quit the road. Marching, ever watchful, with scouts to the front, each side and a detail bringing up the rear Ladak engaged me in conversation.

  “Those outlaws were certainly something to behold,” he commented in a neutral manner.

  “Yes, they are,” I said.

  A moment or two past. “You actually once led that gang of outlaws?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “I would not care, I think, to spend too much time with them. They appeared to be a most depraved and vicious lot. I must admit that they certainly know how to entertain themselves.”

  “They are almost less than human, Ladak. Do not forget what men like them did to your sister. Danak and his men served my purposes at the time and were instrumental in making my escape from the forest possible, but I never turned my back on them and only once did I trust them. On that single occasion they had good cause to keep the word of their leader.

  “For now these men serve our needs and prey upon others like themselves. I believe it only fitting that they and others like them kill and scalp each other. Do not forget that although these men are banished from their native cities, they are not forced to live as they chose. They could obtain labor on some distant farm from a new city and in time earn a solid reputation and entry into one of the guilds. They could approach a city and seek honest work as some do in fact even though Doridians are reluctant to hire those from other cities. It is done and with perseverance these men could live honest lives but they choose instead to be bandits, thieves and murderers. They wish to live like animals and so I intend to allow them to die like animals.” I held Ladak in my gaze as I said, steel in my words. “We will neither ask nor give quarter. There will be no captives. We are here to kill and kill we shall. You are a good man Ladak and a good friend but you are still young and I fear too emotional about these matters. There is not glory or glamour in any of it. Only death and dying and if we are fortunate survival until next time. Safe within your cities walls you can assume the manners of the High Caste and allow yourself to be as soft as you desire, but once you enter the forest you must be as bronze or you will never see your home again.”

  Ladak thought a moment and then replied. “There is truth in what you say and I will not forget your words. This is no time for the weak or the softhearted. You speak as one many years my senior yet I believe us to be the same age.”

  “In some ways we are, Ladak but in others...” I left it unspoken. I had changed much and I wondered if it were for the better.

  We continued our march and in late afternoon turned our backs to the road and struck out into the forbidding, hostile forest.

  ~

  The site selected for our first night in the forest was ideal in most particulars. A stream for fresh water ran close at hand. We were protected from discovery by slight hills which nearly encircled us and at the foot of which we camped. I organized the men into three groups of 100 and had each establish its own camp, guards and work details although all of the sites where very close together. I permitted small fires of dry wood as outlaws roamed at random in these forests and the sight of fire smoke was not cause for particular concern if observed.

  Lehdah had cut her hair in the manner of a man and assumed the military clothing of one as well. She was armed and the weapons I knew from firsthand knowledge were not for show. She was a bit small for a Seker but except at very close range no one would know her to be a woman. I called a meeting with Ladak, who being High Caste and an officer was second in command, and of each of the Commanders of One Hundred, all tested and experienced men. We assembled to the side of the camp about a small fire and prepared our plan.

  “Our greatest danger lies in ambush or in being spotted and avoided by Kanchoh,” I began, looking about to see if all were in agreement with my assessment of the situation. All were and so I continued. “An ambush will make an end to this action and frustrate our purpose but just as effectively so will being observed and avoided. We cannot destroy an enemy which we cannot engage in battle. From all information which we now possess, Kanchoh’s band numbers roughly 150 men, perhaps more. They are skilled at fighting in the forest and we are not, so we must engage his force from a position of advantage if at all possible.” Once again I looked about and again all seemed in agreement.

  “Lehdah, in which direction do you believe Kanchoh will travel?”

  “He will not stray far from the caravan route. He would pull back from Lathanah, an area less familiar to him and much closer to Runah, his usual territory. He would need
almost immediate prey to keep such a large group together and will strike the first caravan he finds in force.”

  “Then our best course of action is to proceed closer to the foothills, further west then he will go and then march north, paralleling his route. We could sent scouts out to establish his location and once done, plan a night attack.” It was logical and as we had no certain way of knowing what Kanchoh was up to and where he was located, it was as good a plan as any.

  “We must have more information. I suggest that as we march our scouting parties by comprised of more men than we are now employing so that if they come upon a small group of outlaws they can take prisoners for information.”

  All remained in agreement. “Finally,” I continued,” I suggest that our scouts seek to copy the dress and manner of outlaws so that should they be observed undetected to themselves they might be thought only one more small band of cutthroats.” This also met with agreement. Although we discussed various plans and alternatives far into the night we arrived at no further decisions. We needed more information before we could make a positive move.

  After the meeting broke I check each of the guard posts then returned to my place, there to find Lehdah waiting for me.

  “You are tired, Hunter, and not fully recovered from your injuries. You must not drive yourself so.” She looked upon me with concern and obvious affection. She was a most remarkable, and a most beautiful woman, her face lit in amber by the dying flames of the small fire.

  “I am all right, Lehdah. I need little rest and I could not sleep even if I lay down. My mind is filled with too much to allow me to rest.”

  “Lay down, Hunter. You will sleep this night and every night that I am with you. Lay down here with your head on my lap.”

  “Is this not unseemly for a Free Woman, Lehdah? I do not wish anything to happen that would soil your reputation or bring the enmity of your family upon either of us.”

  She laughed at my concern. “You are almost as one of the family and my brother knows how much I owe you. If I chose to help you sleep and stay with you under these conditions nothing harmful will come of it. Now enough. Lie down, here.”

  At last I relented, and wrapping my great cloak about me upon the soft ground beside the dying fire. I lay with my head in the lap of the woman who was once my slave and thought not of her but of Sofeeah. In time I drove her from my thoughts but not my mind with the soft, cooing sounds of the woman Lehdah in my ear and with the gentle caress of her fingers upon my brow I at last slept. The night for me was filled with the demons and monsters of before. I called out in the blackness more than once, seeking to drive the evil ones from me.

  21. Finding an Old Enemy

  The man was scrawny and although still young had no teeth. His skin hung in folds about him and seemed to say that he had once been fat but now was not. Life as an outlaw is most punishing even in the best of times.

  My men had stripped him of his weapons, slain his two companions and then brought him to me for questioning. The three of them appeared to be a hunting party for some larger group. The pathetic creature was thrown, bound at my feet. I felt nothing for him but the desire to extract every morsel of knowledge he possessed from him.

  “I wish to know the location of the band of outlaws led by Kanchoh. Perhaps you are one of his men?”

  “Why should I tell you anything,” he whined, “You will only slay me when you know all that I do.”

  I reached down and seemingly without effort lifted his scrawny body into the air and looked mere inches away from his face. “If you do not answer me you will surely die and at this very moment. There will be others like you, only they will be eager to talk.” I threw him down and waited for my answer.

  “All right. I am not with Kanchoh. My leader, curse his soul, will not allow us to join him. He keeps us apart.”

  “In what direction is Kanchoh?”

  “I heard that his band was seen near the caravan road headed towards Runah, into terrain well known to him.”

  “How far from us now?”

  “I don’t know, two maybe three days march. It depends.” Looking at him I knew that he had nothing more of value to tell me of Kanchoh. “Would that you had captured Evaldor instead of me. Then we would be free to join Kanchoh.” The man spoke almost to himself.

  My attention was once again fixed upon him. “What is this of Evaldor? Where is he?”

  “Why he’s the leader of my band. We number 40 now and he is just over that ridge in the direction my companions and I were taking when you caught us.” He cowered, recognizing the look in my eye.

  “Take him away,” I commanded, “he is of no further use to us.”

  The Seker who had brought him to me said, “What do I do with him?”

  “Slay him.”

  ~

  The camp was well concealed and had taken me some time to find even with the directions of the now deceased outlaw. I had sent a runner back from my location to give the order to Ladak to move the 300 Sekers into place for the attack. I intended to use every man available, for no one was to escape to warn others or avoid the death I planned for all of them.

  Thus far only I knew that Evaldor, the outlaw who had held Lenah in vile captivity for so long, was within our grasp. I hoped that he would be taken alive but considering that my orders were to take no prisoners that did not seem likely. I would be in the thick of the fight and perhaps could spare him an undeserved quick death.

  The trumpeter joined me and I waited for a signal from the other side of the encampment. The Sekers were formed in bright bronze helmets topped with horsehair brushes of florid colors. Before them were the round bronze shields, spears jetting forward, the oversized tips leveled toward the enemy. I lifted my hand, gesturing to sound the charge. The clear, sweet sound of the trumpet rang out over the dense forest and with a mighty roar the Sekers of Taslea and of Lathanah descended from the hilltops upon the unsuspecting and unprepared outcasts below. Pulling my short Doridian sword of fine Khashan bronze said to be tempered in the blood of a man before it is ever sheathed I joined the fray eager to add my weight and skill to the battle. Others beside me leaped to their feet and joined in the speedy charge down the hill, slashing our way through dense vines and brush.

  The first I met was a giant and perhaps in usual time would have presented an obstacle but caught unprepared as he was, as all in the camp had been, he was ill prepared for combat and only partially clad and poorly armed he fell following the briefest of exchanges. As we reached the main body of the outlaws I observed that the plan had been skillfully executed in spite of the inhospitable terrain and all of the enemy were successfully surrounded. A young man threw down his weapon before me and extended his arms above his head in the universal sign of surrender only to register shock and dismay as my blade drove into his throat. He fell in a bright stream of blood.

  I moved quickly along the circle of Sekers seeking out Evaldor. If he was to die in combat then I wished to be the one to end his miserable, double crossing, corrupt life. He owed me much and I intended to collect if humanly possible.

  The Seker line largely held as the warriors slaughtered primarily with their spears, drawing their swords for close quarter killing only when the spear was lost or broken. The two lines had folded their flanks, creating an irregular circle about the struggling outlaws. Men fell before me as I moved, a few victims of my own sword, most dispatched by my Sekers who were making quick work of this band. My men fought with a ferocity heretofore considered the hallmark of the animal outlaws alone. No quarter was given and in the final gruesome moments, the tight knot of men jammed together in the ever decreasing circle of Sekers, jabbing with spears and slashing with swords, the scene more closely resembled a slaughter house then a field of combat. The last desperate fiends fought standing upon the bodies of their comrades but they too fell and joined their vile brothers in the carnage and butchery of the Sekers.

  The sudden stillness was broken only by the labored breathing of t
he Sekers closest at hand. A few began to cheer and hail me as I passed searching among the dead for the face of Evaldor. He would not escape me this time.

  “Here’s one!” a Seker cried, raising his weapon for the death thrust.

  “Stop!” I commanded, rushing to his side. At the man’s feet, barely buried beneath the dead, lay one still living. Clutching at his arms, I jerked the living being from the sea of blood and death and as the outlaw’s face saw light, beheld the countenance of him I sought.

  “Bind his wounds! Assure that he does not die and upon your life see to it that he does not escape.” The Seker to whom I spoke was startled by my apparent leniency, especially considering the coldblooded nature of the engagement, but he stooped to the task unquestionably.