by Robert Adams
Lord Alexandros had regained his composure. Both Milo and Mara were surprised at the speed with which he had done so, considering the severity of the emotional shock he had just undergone. Keeping his eyes fixed on Milo’s face, he heard him out.
“You know, Lord Milos, strange as it may sound, I had never connected the ‘Undying God’ legends of the western barb . . . nomads with the well-known facts that certain persons existed who were all but invulnerable to most forms of death. Knowingly, I had never met one of you — your kind — and knew but little of you save what the priests say, ‘evil, unnatural, creatures of the Antichrist, agents of the Devil.’ Truly, I knew not what to believe. Had you alone confronted me with your . . . peculiarity, I should probably have bade you a courteous farewell, promised to think on this matter of an alliance, then gathered my mercenaries and marched against you to crush your evil before it could spread.
“But, with Mara, too . . . Husband or not, I’ll tell you, Lord Milos, that forty years agone, we were much in love and there was such between us that I know her as I know myself! No army of priests could ever convince me that there is aught evil or unnatural in her! So, by your leave, I’ll put my questions to her.”
* * *
After Lord Alexandros was satisfied, he, Milo and Mara came to an unofficial agreement. Then they and the two mercenary captains went before the Council of Chiefs.
Some seventy-odd of Milo’s personal troop had agreed to assume the surname Kuk and had elected Hwil Kuk to be their chief, whereupon, the council — in session two weeks a gone — had unanimously welcomed Clan Kuk to the tribe. So now, forty-three chiefs sat in council.
After a certain amount of orderly debate — which to Lord Alexandros, Djeen and Sam appeared to be a but barely controlled state of chaos and set them to nervously fingering their hilts, expecting a pitched battle to erupt at any moment, as furious rhetoric and deadly insults flew thick and fast among the chiefs — the agreement became official. Mara produced documents setting out the provisions of the alliance, in both Ehleeneekos and Old Mehrikan. Milo, Lord Alexandros, Djeen, Sam and five of the chiefs signed it; the other chiefs made their marks.
In partial payment for aiding Lord Alexandros to ascend to the throne of his ancestors, the tribe was to receive clear title to whatever site Wind chose for their city and its environs. In addition, High Lord Alexandros and his people were to render them every possible assistance in the construction of said city. While in no way subjects of the High Lord, the tribe willingly accepted the responsibility of continuing to provide troops for the High Lord’s armies. These troops were to be armed and mounted at tribe expense, but to be paid regular wages by the High Lord or his paymaster. In the present campaign, the tribe’s fighters were to function as skirmishers, shock-troops and/or a screening-force of horse-archers, while the Maiden Archers were to provide concentrated covering-fire where needed. Though the bulk of them were not to penetrate Kehnooryos Atheenahs when it fell (a wise precaution, both Milo and Mara agreed, as not even Milo himself could predict how the Horseclans-men would behave), they were to be paid their fair shares of whatever loot might have been taken, had the city been properly sacked — something Lord Alexandros did not care to countenance, knowing that only Demetrios and certain of the nobles were truly his enemies. Another provision was that, from the signing of the alliance henceforth, the nomads were to desist despoiling the countryside and killing or enslaving its inhabitants. Lord Alexandros saw no need in attempting to forbid them to fight, if attacked, but they were not to initiate hostilities in the future.
The moment formalities were completed, Lord Alexandros and his escort enhorsed for Lintchburk to begin preparations to move his camp and men to Theesispolis; as well as to dispatch certain trusted individuals to Kehnooryos Atheenahs, Petropolis, Nohtohspolis, Leestispolis and certain other ports and cities, to sound out the various elements of the population and place the word of Lord Alexandros’ imminent arrival in the proper ears. Within a fortnight of Lord Alexandros’ condottas’ appearance at Theesispolis, Milo had the chiefs pass the word to break camp. All spies were back and had made favorable reports, all conferences were completed and it was time to begin the final advance.
20
As a gesture of good will, the Council of Chiefs agreed to free all their Ehleenee captives before the march began. Freed men were given the choice of joining Lord Alexandros’ condottas or remaining at Theesispolis until the conclusion of the campaign; most chose the former. Freed women were given the choice of honorable marriage into a Horseclan or simple freedom; very few chose to leave the camp. Children were given no option, they were simply adopted into the clans which had held them. As Lord Alexandros seemed quite pleased by this unasked favor, Milo saw no need to persuade the chiefs to make any further reparations.
Of course, Milo did not free his own two prisoners, Lord Manos and Theodoros of Petropolis. He was unsure just what to do with them for they were useless as hostages. Milo had had a free trader pass on a communication regarding them, and the High Lord’s answer had been short and blunt: So far as he was concerned, the two were already dead. The barbarians could hold them until they both sprouted long, gray beards, and they’d not see anything resembling a ransom for them! Both men were in a state of constant terror and had long since supplied Milo with detailed and carefully drawn sketches of the wall plans of Kehnooryos Atheenahs and Petropolis, as well as with copious notes on subjects relative to the cities’ defenses and the plans of every level of the High Lord’s palace.
Finally, during one of his last pre-march conferences with Lord Alexandros, he brought the subject up. The strahteego’s face became a grim mask and, from between clenched teeth, he said, “Suffer the swine to live a bit longer, I say. For there are those in the capital whose souls would rejoice at sight of them, living.” Then, he adroitly changed the subject before Milo had the opportunity to question him further.
* * *
Having insisted that she be allotted a stint at guarding the cattle, as did all others of her age group, Hwahlis had had Aldora given a crash-course in the use of the wolf-spear and the sling. The morning of the day before they were to march, she was slowly riding her old mare along the section of perimeter which was her assigned area.
The mare mindspoke. “Oath-sister of the Horse-King, Soft-Whicker is thirsty and the water of the pond smells good.”
Reining up, Aldora stood in her stirrups and waved her spear until she attracted the attention of Djak Kamruhn, a thirteen-year-old who had the next post west of her. When he waved acknowledgment, she mindspoke him. “My mare thirsts, tribe-brother. We are going to the pond to drink.”
The boy, though he could receive, had not the mind-power to transmit, so he simply bobbed his spear up and down and ended by pointing it toward the pond.
When they got down to the water level, it was to find several dozen cattle clustering around the edges of the pond. Smiling, a nomad girl rode up, her spear, like Aldora’s, slung diagonally across her back. When she was close enough, she spoke. “Tribe-sister, before these witless beasts are done, there will be more mud than water here. If you want a drink that you won’t have to chew, you’d better ride up there.” She waved her arm toward the debouchment of the creek which fed the pond.
Thanking her advisor, Aldora rode up to the clearer water, dismounted and led Soft-Whicker to the water’s edge, then began to walk upstream along the creek bank. Finding that the wolf-spear had a tendency to catch on branches, she shrugged out of the sling and leaned the weapon against the bole of a tree before continuing on.
It was not until she had rounded the next turn, however, that she realized she was in mortal danger. Terrible thoughts beat against her mind. Without thought she mindspoke the source.
“But why? Why would you want to kill me, who would be your friend?”
For a moment, the thought-transmission ceased, then came the answer. “Because I am hungry. It is long since I ate. I am starving. My foot hurts and makes m
e too slow to catch deer. You look slow. I think I could catch you.”
Aldora’s heart went out to the starving, hurt creature. “Oh, poor hungry thing. It is bad to be hungry, but there’s no need for you to kill me. Wouldn’t you rather have a sheep? If you’ll wait here, I’ll bring one to the mouth of the creek and, after you have eaten, I’ll see if I can do something to stop your poor foot from hurting. Would you like that?”
Her sincerity was easily discernible and, as her unseen “companion” had never really cared for man-flesh, anyway, he acquiesced.
Aldora rode to her adoptive brother, Sami Hwahlis, who was herd-master-of-the-day, and explained her promise to the hungry thought-source. He heard her out, then grinned and shook his head.
“Sister, your mind is a source of constant amazement. Though your ‘friend’ is probably a wild Tree-Cat — some of them can mindspeak, so I’ve heard — I’ll give you a sheep. For one thing, promises should always be kept, no matter why they’re made or to whom. For another, what with all the inferior stock we’ve captured, the herds will need some winnowing soon.”
At his order, three boys quickly caught, threw, slew and skinned an old ram, which had been taken from some Ehleen farm. As soon as they had taken the horns, they wrapped the carcass in the hide and laid it across Soft-Whicker’s withers. “Mind you, sister,” Sami told her, in parting, “the cat is more than welcome to that tough old carcass, but I’ll be wanting the skin back.”
As Aldora again neared the creek’s small delta, Soft-Whicker shuddered and mindspoke urgently.
“Oath-sister, there is great danger here. I can smell it and feel it. I am not sure just what it is, but. . . .”
“It is what we have brought the sheep for.” Aldora patted the mare, reassuringly. Then she mind-called, “Are you there, hungry one? I have a sheep for you.”
There was no threat in the answer, only anticipation and respect for the provider of food. “I am here, two-leg. I can smell the blood.”
“I will come as far as the horse can go,” said Aldora. “I’ll leave the sheep but after you’ve had time to eat, I’ll come back and see what I can do for your hurt foot.” So saying, she urged the mare to the fringes of the brush and laboriously off-loaded the bloody ram. Before she remounted, however, she remembered her spear. Sighing, she walked the few paces to where it leaned against the tree. As she did so, there was a crackling of the brush and, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a something — huge and dark-colored — fade back into the brush.
* * *
She returned about two hours later. The sheep carcass was gone and there were no marks to indicate its being dragged. Whatever had taken it, had carried it clear of the ground. What might have been huge tracks had now filled with seepage-water and were undefinable depressions in the soft ground.
“It was good, two-leg,” the formerly hungry creature mind-spoke from the wooded area. “Do you think that you can now do something for the hurting in my foot?”
“I can try,” replied Aldora. “Come out here, where the sunlight is good.”
The creature beamed a strong negative. “If I do, I will frighten you. You will make loud noises and run, if you see me. All other creatures do, when they see or smell me.”
“No,” said Aldora. “I won’t. Why should I? Aren’t we friends? I cannot help you, if I cannot see you.”
“I do not truly know what means ‘friend,’” said the creature, wonderingly. “All things either fear or hate me. Even those who used to feed me, feared me. And those two-legs who trapped me and took me from my swamp and brought me here, they both feared and hated me. When you see me, you, too, will fear and hate me.”
“Why should I fear you?” queried Aldora. “There is nothing of threat to me in your mind.”
“Then, you will hate me!” stated the creature. “For I have killed many two-legs. I was so hungry that I ate the last ones.”
Aldora indicated the negative. “I cannot hate you for that You did what you had to do to stay alive. I cannot remain here long, I must get back to the herd, it is my duty. So, come out, so that I may see to your foot.”
After a few moments, she could see the shadow of a low-slung bulk, just beyond the fringe of the copse. Then it stopped.
“Do you promise,” the creature queried, “that you won’t try to hurt me with the long thing you carry?”
“Wait,” came Aldora’s reply. Walking quickly over to her mare, she slipped the ferrule of her weapon into the lance-socket and looped the rawhide sung around the pommel to hold the spear erect “Now,” she begged. “Please come out.”
Lutros did! With a scream of pure terror, Soft-Whicker quitted the proximity of the pond, at a hard gallop. Her scream panicked the cattle near the pond and they, too, pounded up the slope in her wake.
Only because she was prepared for a shock, Aldora did not scream. Her only movement was to extend her hand toward Lutros, reiterating her request that he come and allow her to examine his injured member.
Lutros was truly awe-inspiring! To some extent, he resembled Ax-Hoofs description of the dreaded Blackfoot though he was larger — his body being about eighteen feet long and his thick tail adding another six feet — more chunkily built and bis fur was a uniform dark-brown color, becoming a few shades lighter on his underparts. He was possessed of relatively short legs, which bore his heavy body low to the ground. His rear toes were webbed. His head, too, was carried low, on a comparatively long neck, and the highest part of his body — just forward of his rear legs — was about at Aldora’s eye level, some five feet above the ground. A thick fringe of light gold-brown whiskers graced his sharp muzzle and his stubby claws were shiny black. He exuded a strong, musky odor.
As he slowly approached, he asked, “How is it, two-leg, that you can understand me and I, you? You are not of my kind.”
“I have been told that my mind is different from most, stronger in some ways,” was Aldora’s reply. “I am become sister to many four-legs.”
“Stop my foot from hurting,” Lutros stated, “and you will be sister to me, too.”
When she examined the foot, Aldora soon saw what was causing the creature such agony. He had been shot with an arrow, a barbed-head arrow. The shaft had obviously been deflected or almost spent, for only the head had penetrated. But it lay lodged between the metatarsals, inducing pain whether the foot was in use or not. He had managed to bite off the shaft, but, due to the barbs, extraction of the agonizing point had been beyond his abilities.
“I can get what is hurting you out of your foot,” she mind-spoke him. “But I am going to have to hurt you to get it out.”
“If I let you hurt me and you get it out, will I be able to get food?” he asked.
“After a few days, I think you will. Tonight, before I go, I’ll see that you get another sheep, too. Do you want me to take it out?”
“Yes,” Lutros affirmed. “Go ahead and hurt me, I promise I won’t bite you.”
Cutting with her sharp little knife only when she had to, Aldora soon had the arrow-head free. Immediately she informed her “patient,” he plumped down and fell to licking the injury.
After renewing her promise of another sheep, she climbed up the slope toward the herd. At the top, she stood in wonder, watching a score of fully armed clansmen gallop toward her. They reined up at the rim of the depression.
“Wind save us!” exclaimed their leader, pointing at Lutros, who was zipping back into the woods. “Did ever you see one so big?”
Rapidly, he nocked an arrow and drew.
“NO!” screamed Aldora. Leaping, she grasped his extended bow-arm and his shaft sished into the depths of the pond.
The tribesman regarded her with amazement. “Are you daft, child? Though oddly colored, that was a Blackfoot — a damned big one, too! How in the world did you ever manage to escape him? They’re fast as lightning and vicious as snakes.”
Aldora stamped her foot. “He is not! He was hungry and hurt. I gave him a sheep and this” �
�� she hurled the arrow-head against the man’s cuirass — “I took from his poor foot. Lonely and scared, he is; and bad men, who hated and feared him, took him from his home and brought him here. And he was so afraid that I would fear him too and run from him, the way that silly mare did, or try to hurt him with my spear. He wanted to be my oath-brother, and now you’ve scared him away! Shame!”
The nomad cased his bow, dismounted and picked up the arrow-head. Bits of flesh still clung to its wicked barbs, and it was obvious that the inch or so of shaft had been bitten through, not cut. “Child,” he said, gravely, “do you mean that you cut this out of that beast’s foot?”
“He is not a beast!” Aldora stated, vehemently. “He can mindspeak. And he is not a Blackfoot. From plains come the Blackfoots; he came from a great large swamp. The only reason he stayed here was because men fed him. No more now do they feed him, and he hungers. I promised him another sheep and told him it would hurt to get that thing out of him and not to bite me. He promised and he did not and he wanted to be my oath-kin and you tried to hurt him more! You are a terrible, terrible man!”
The man leaned against his mount’s withers and shook his head several times, hardly able to believe what he had heard. Though silent, the other men exchanged wondering glances.
“Child,” the dismounted leader said at last, “I have seen nearly fifty winters and never have I heard of man or woman mindspeaking other than man or woman, cat or horse. Your mind must be of such a power as man has never dreamed. Even to be able to mindspeak such as that Bla. . . .” Stopped by the angry flash of Aldora’s black eyes, he corrected himself. “That big, brown creature. Who are you, girl? What is your clan?”
Aldora drew herself up, proudly. “I am Aldora, daughter to Hwahlis, Chief of Linszee.”
The nomad whistled softly and there was a rumble of muted comment among the mounted men. He nodded sagely, then stated, “Indeed? Then you certainly have such a mind as what you did would require. Some of us here,” he gazed around his group and chuckled, good-naturedly, “have had some small experience with the power of your mind.”