by Robert Adams
“Around them, to the right!” Tim broadbeamed to all the boys. “Fast, brothers, before they can extend enough to block us off!”
Obedient to Tim’s command, the knot of riders swerved. Then they were in the clear . . . or so they thought. But another of those horrendous. thunderlike. roaring cracks bellowed behind them and Tim’s packhorse mount went down by the nose, sending the boy tumbling over the head of the stricken animal. The arrow case was torn from off his back, but he stoically bore the inevitable bruises and abrasions, refusing to release his grips on either spear or bow or the three arrows between the fingers of his bow hand.
Leaving the wounded in the care of the other unhurt boy, Gil Daiviz of Krooguh. Peet wheeled his clumsy, overburdened horse about to ride back to where his brother was just arising from the ground.
“NO!” Tim shouted and mindspoke, both at once, then added in mindspeak only. “No, brother, there are just too many of the bastards for three of us to fight . . . for long, anyway. And your horse has too much of a load already. Tell Father that I died as befits a Krooguh. Now, ride, brother mine, and bring back the clan to avenge my blood and life.”
The Dirtmen were now running toward the lone boy and the dead horse, and Peet lingered just long enough to speed a bone-headed hunting arrow which thunked into the chest of the big brown-bearded swordsman in the lead. Then the boy reined about and galloped in pursuit of his comrades, his little white teeth set in, drawing red blood from his lower lip, and his unashamed tears flowing freely over his dusty cheeks.
His mind still locked with Tim’s, he saw what followed through his brother’s eyes. Considering the man with the long thing that he assumed correctly had somehow killed his horse to be his most dangerous opponent, Tim sent his first shaft winging on its goose feathers and took grim pleasure in noting that the tall, gangly man dropped the long thing, a rod that resembled an unfletched arrow and a decorated cow horn, to clutch frantically with both big hands at the short arrow now sunk to its fletchings into his body just below the short ribs.
Tim’s second loosing dropped a spearman ten yards away, and his third and last arrow sank into the eye of a smooth-shaven blond man armed with one of the long, straight swords. Then the little boy dropped his now useless bow and crouched with his spear grasped in both small hands for his last stand, breast to breast, hugely outnumbered, but unafraid.
The first Dirtman to reach Tim was fatally overconfident. He stamped in, shouting and swinging a powerful slash with his broad-bladed sword, Tim simply ducked under the hissing steel and used the knife-edged blade of his wolf spear to slash his unarmored opponent’s throat. It was all over so fast that the man immediately behind the first had that same bloody spear blade between his ribs before he could even set himself to fight.
Unable to jerk his own spear free, Tim armed himself with the longer, heavier, less well-balanced weapon of his second opponent. He was carefully maneuvering, weighing the unfamiliar spear to locate points of balance and watching the three big Dirtmen warily stalking him, when, with a sudden, intense and unbearable pain all along the left side of his head, all the world became a single, impenetrable blackness.
Chapter XIV
When he had had the full story from the open memories of Leenah and Behtiloo (for little Peet. utterly drained, both physically and emotionally, was sunk deep in an exhausted sleep). Chief Sami look only long enough to exchange his boiled-leather hunting armor for his inherited steel scale shirt and his game-wise hunting horse for his big roan stallion, Bonebreaker, king of the Clan Krooguh herd.
Then, summoning all the warriors, maidens and matrons, he gave them a brief rendition of the events — the completely unprovoked sneak attack upon a party of peacefully hunting Krooguh boys by adult Dirtmen. He related the murders from ambush of the first three children to die, told of the two who had suffered grievous wounds and lived barely long enough to get back to camp and of one of his own young sons and a brave cat brother who now lay in the chief yurt, sorely hurt.
Lastly, he spoke with grim pride of the glorious death of little Tim Krooguh, who had Slain at least five adult men, then willingly given his own young life that his brothers and his wounded comrades might escape. Speaking, as he was to Kindred Horseclansfolk, he did not need to stress the inherent baseness of Dirtmen or the depthless evil of men who would coldly slay innocent little children.
Leaving the clan camp guarded by the maidens, the matrons and a few superannuated warriors under the command of his uncle, subchief Buhd Hansuhn of Krooguh, Sami, at the head of seventy-two fully armed warriors and twenty mature prairiecats, shortly rode out, on the trail — the very real blood trail — by which the battered party of boys had returned.
They rode out fully prepared for a raid in force or whatever else might befall them: four spare horses for every rider, more horses fitted with the special saddles needed by the prairiecats, packhorses and mules laden with case on case of arrows, bundles of war darts, spare weapons, coils of braided-rawhide rope, pitch and oil for fire arrows, dried herbs and prepared ointments and soft cloths for dressing wounds, many pounds or hard cheese, jerked meat and pemmican, waxed-leather bags of water.
Behtiloo Hansuhn of Krooguh rode behind Chief Sami and beside her eldest son, Hwahlis Hansuhn of Krooguh. Rant and rave and shout as they might, not one of her sons or her grandsons had been able to dissuade her of her intention to ride with the war party. Finally, and as gracefully as the circumstances made possible, Chief Sami had caved in, able to console himself and his pride somewhat by thinking aloud that his grandmother, for all her advanced years still could pull a heavier bow than could some of his warriors.
Blackback, the prairiecat, had gleaned some useful facts regarding the topography of the route the boys had taken toward the east from the minds of Peet and Kills-elk, and that, combined with her keen senses and those of the other cats, plus the plain splashes of blood here and there, allowed the war party to travel fast and confidently; therefore, it was more than an hour before sunset when they spotted from afar the numerous black specks wheeling in the sky.
That the dead horses had been skinned, their hooves and the larger of their sinews removed, was not upsetting to the Horseclansmen, who were themselves of a thrifty nature. But the savage, depraved, singularly hideous mutilations which had been perpetrated upon the dead flesh of the three little boys was sufficient to drive even the soberest the most phlegmatic clansman into a true killing rage.
Far back from the scene of the major atrocity, within the tall grasses that had screened the cowardly attack, the cats found the corpse of Whitepaws Like the horses, he had been skinned; also, his head had been hacked off and all eighteen of his claws had been wrenched out of his paws.
But of brave little Tim, there was no sign, anywhere.
* * *
“Come out of there, you accursed heathen spawn!” growled eighteen-year-old Micah Claxton, very brave in the knowledge that the captured pagan boy had been disarmed.
Tall, fair and handsome, in a sullen way, Micah was the very apple of his grandfather’s eye. Possessed of a splendid physique and far stronger than average, he misused that strength to bully younger or weaker men of the Abode of the Righteous, while against those whom he sensed might best him physically, he always invoked the dread power of his doting grandsire, the Elder of the Lord, Elijah Claxton. Micah was universally and most cordially despised by his peers.
“Come out, child of Satan!” he repeated from just outside the doorway of the tiny cell. “The Elder, the blessed Elijah, would see you, would have converse with you and begin to teach you of the glories of God.”
Tim had awakened alone in utter darkness. His head had ached abominably, the whole side of it and his face had been caked with dried blood and dirt and there had been a metallic taste in his dry mouth. His first attempt to stand on his feet had been disastrous, so he had explored in the darkness on his hands and knees.
He had discovered that floor and walls were constructed of broa
d wooden planks, smooth and slightly greasy to the touch of his fingers. Tim had instantly realized that they would take fire quickly and burn nicely, had he only flint and steel, but of course his belt with its pooch and knives was gone from around his waist. The door he finally found was wooden, too, and it seemed to be both solid and heavy, at any rate immovable to his boy’s strength.
The furnishings were spartan — a wooden frame strung with strips of hide which supported a canvas bag stuffed full of dried, crackly cornshucks, an empty but foul-smelling wooden bucket and another bucket, this one half full of tepid water. Tim cautiously sniffed the water, gingerly tasted it, then drank down half of it avidly. His raging thirst slaked for the nonce, he wetted the baggy sleeve of his shirt, laved most of the clotted blood from off his face and, working more carefully, from off his head. His fingers told the tale of a long split in his scalp just above his right ear, of that and of a hard, very painful and quite large bump.
After taking stock of his clothing and possessions still remaining, Tim decided that whoever had disarmed him had either been hurried or inexperienced at such a task or both together. Not only had he been left a bone-headed iron pin in his right braid, the small dagger — flat-hilted and guardless but with three inches of razor-sharp steel blade — was still sheathed in place between the layers of felt that made up the leg of his boot.
Squatting against the back wall of his prison, Tim was thinking of how best to make use of his available weapons to the detriment of his captors when the door was opened to admit a blinding burst of sunlight. Then a big man with a loud voice began to yell at him.
Stepping aside, so that his bulk did not block out the daylight, Micah Claxton peered into the tiny windowless cell. The captive child was not on the cot, but was rather squatting or crouching back next to the rear wall, head sunk on his chest, arms hung at his sides. He looked to be smaller than Micah had remembered and utterly helpless, and so, emboldened, he strode in and roughly shook the boy’s shoulder.
“Don’t you hear me. you piece of filth? Get up and come with me.”
And Tim uncoiled like a steel spring! The bone-headed pin was driven its full two inches of length into Micah’s belly even as the edge of the boot dagger laid open from temple to chin the handsome face in which Micah had taken such inordinate pride. Screaming like a woman in labor, Micah Claxton stumbled backward out of the cell to slump against the guardrail of the porch, staring stupidly at the blood running from his chin onto the palms of his big hands.
Tim made to follow his victim out the door, but his way was obstructed by two more Dirtmen, who crowded into the cell. One made a grab for the boy’s knife hand, but his hand closed around the knife instead, and Tim’s reflexive jerk sliced through palm and fingers to grate upon living bone. With a breathless gasp, the farmer backed away cradling his hurt, bloody hand with the other.
His comrade stamped forward, arms wide, meaning to enfold the little captive in their crushing grasp. But Tim ducked under the sweep of those arms and jammed the blood-tacky dagger up between the man’s meaty thighs with all his might.
The second man’s deep roars abruptly metamorphosed into a piercing shriek, and he rose onto his very toetips in his vain attempt to raise his suffering body up off the punishing steel. Tim indulged himself, giving the imbedded blade a vicious twist and withdrawing it in a savage drawcut. As the grunting, groaning man slid down the wall, Tim Krooguh once more made for the door and freedom.
* * *
Captain-of-dragoons Roger Gorman was a good nine hundred crowflight miles from the country that had given him birth, which — all things duly weighed and considered — could have been deemed a definite plus factor in his continued life and health. He had left his homeland most precipitately and had never returned, for all that his half brother (Roger was the illegitimate outcome of a nobleman’s drunken night of dalliance with a taverner’s daughter), the Count of Rehdzburk, had offered repeatedly to pay quite handsomely for a sight of Rogers head . . . with or without the body.
Roger Gorman was not a basically evil man, despite the fact that he was rightfully charged with brigandage, highway robbery, maintenance of an illegal armed band, horse theft, cattle rustling, sheep stealing, poaching, arson, extortion, kidnapping, maiming, rape and a goodly number of murders. These were only the major charges. The lesser ones filled two large pages and spilled over onto a third. They included the unlawful display of the arms and devices of the Most Noble House of the Counts of Rehdzburk (Roger always and hotly contended that he had as much inherent right to display those arms as did his half brother, the present Count of Rehdzburk), aiding and abetting a jailbreak, and flight to avoid prosecution. To these latter charges Roger answered that it was a poor sort of a man who would simply ride away and leave good comrades to a harsh and merciless fate, adding that any man who would willingly linger to make the short, sharp acquaintance of a headsman’s axe had not the brains of a privy-worm.
Immediately he left the environs of Rehdzburk, he had taken a nom de guerre which resembled his real name not even faintly. Under this nom, he had served as a Freefughter for a few years, first in the army of the Duke of Eeree when he revolted against the king. When the duke made peace with his sovereign at Harzburk and agreed to honor the warrants of other principalities, Roger thought that a change of scenery might be beneficial to his health and fled to the Duchy of Pitzburk, where another rebellion was arming against Harzburk and the king.
But following a trivial dispute wherein he was forced to slay a minor nobleman in a fair fight. Roger found the general atmosphere of the ancient City of Steel oppressive and somewhat less than salubrious, and so he rode out into the western mountains to first join, then soon command a jolly group of kindred souls and continue with them in the greenwood the life he had learned to love so in Rehdzburk.
As the long-drawn-out war between Pitzburk and the king wound slowly down, more and more former Freefighters found their way into the ranks of Rogers band, until he was leading a force of over half a thousand seasoned, veteran soldiers. A century earlier, he might have hacked himself out a holding and a patent of nobility with so many good swords to do his bidding, but instead he lost seventy percent of them when his stronghold was surprised and overrun by the strong force sent to crush him by the king and his dukes. Roger and the couple hundred of his men who managed to fight their way out rode west as fast as honest horseflesh could bear them.
They served the Archduke of Kluhmbuhzburk for a while, then his overlord, the King of Ohyoh. But the king proved to be slow in paying due monies and he fought too few wars to deliver any meaningful amounts of loot into his Freefighters’ slim purses, so the condotta rode on west again.
In slow, erratic stages, halting here to fight for hire and there to fight for plunder until driven on by armed might, the hundred or so survivors eventually found themselves on the very uttermost fringe of civilization, with the hue and cry raised for them a stretch of a good hundred leagues behind and only the Sea of Grass before them.
Roger and his hard-pressed lieutenants had been on the verge of trying to trade a few of their precious warhorses for the condotta’s passage down the Great River to one of the score of little independent kingdoms that lined its eastern bank when they were approached by Dick Gruenberger, a plains trader. In better times or another location, Roger would have spit upon the paltry sum offered per armed and mounted man to ride along with and guard the wagon caravans on the Sea of Grass, but after a brief conference with his starving officers and men, he had accepted.
And so, for five long years, sometime Captain-of-dragoons Roger Gorman and his aging, shrinking force had ridden out from Tradertown each spring beside the huge, high-wheeled wagons, each drawn by as many as a dozen and a half big mules or twelve span of oxen and creaking with their loads. They carried vastly diverse cargoes — bar iron, sheet steel and brass and copper, ingots of copper and alloys of silver, semiprecious gemstones, bolts of various cloths, spools of threads and fine wires
, hanks of dyed yams, steel and brass needles, nails and tacks and other small items of hardware, whiskeys and wines and female slaves, anything and everything that might tickle the fancies of the scattered bands of nomads or the few, isolated communities of farmers.
And each autumn, the wagons roiled back to Tradertown. By then they were packed with bales of hides, bundles of rich, dense furs, intricately worked and profusely decorated leather goods, fine examples of the felter’s art, thick blankets and deep carpets, small treasures that the nomads or even the traders themselves had dug out of the various ruined and overgrown cities which the prairie was fast reclaiming for its own, all these plus enamelwork and weapons of Horseclan manufacture. (Horseclan hornbows were unsurpassed, and there was an insatiable market for them in the east, while the blades wrought by Horseclans smiths were unexcelled by any save the very highest grades of Pitzburk steel.)
Long ago, on their very first meeting, Roger had disliked and thoroughly distrusted Dick Gruenberger, and five years as that trader’s employee had borne out to him the perspicacity of his initial judgment. Gruenberger and his son shared certain traits in common; both were mean, grasping, unrelievedly avaricious and cruel.
Little as they had originally agreed to pay the men who put their lives on the line to guard the wagons and their contents, father and son still came to the autumn accounting with long faces and even longer lists of their “justifications” for paying far less than that paltry sum.
Consequently, even living communally, the condotta seldom had enough to see it through the winter and so was obliged to draw advances against next season’s wages and work for Trader Gruenberger yet another year. Roger had long consoled his dwindling pride with a promise to himself to someday see every last drop of the thin, watery stuff that the Traders Gruenberger — père et fils — called life’s blood.
Then, this past spring, after some inexplicably delayed but most important shipments had necessitated a very late start of the plains caravan, members of the condotta had discovered that the nineteen slaves chained in the slave wagons were all war captives from the Pitzburk-Ohyoh marches, and despite strict supervision maintained by the four big brutal women Gruenberger was maintaining to make certain that only he, his son, David, and his nephew, Aaron, could get at the women until the train split up farther out on the prairies. Roger could smell an incipient mutiny on the first occasion the traders should try to sell one of the slave women.