Horseclans Odyssey

by Robert Adams

  Portuh strolled through from time to time, seeing that the beer, ale and cider flowed freely and without stint, collecting his half from the serai whores and now and then stopping by to share a sip of wine with the morose Hwahruhn and the loud, perpetually grinning Custuh. Before long, Portuh, too, was grinning, for the traders and their men were putting down stupendous quantities of the various potables and his profit from the bill he would present ere they departed on the morrow would be most satisfying, even after the duke’s cut was removed.

  There had been one killing so far, a fair fight with foot-long dirks between two wagoners. But these things had a habit of occurring when lusty, violent men got drunk, so no one was surprised or upset, least of all Portuh. He just hoped that the sometime mates of the corpse, now lying out in one of the sheds, would decide to burn rather than simply bury him, for his profit would be higher on wood for a pyre than on the digging of a grave.

  Suddenly, above the raucous disorder, a shrill, womanish scream rang out from the direction of the Ehleen gentleman’s suite. Few of the men gave it any heed, but Trader Hwahruhn came to his unsteady feet so quickly and with such force that he overturned the solid hardwood bench and even set the heavy table teetering onto two legs, sending ewers, cups and mugs crashing to the floor.

  Turning, he staggered on unsteady legs toward the stairs, one hand clenched around the wire-wound hilt of his long, wide-bladed dirk.

  Custuh rushed after his partner, his every step making squishing noises from the liquor that had poured into his rolled-down boottops. Hwahruhn shook off the first hold that Custuh took on him, but then Custuh threw both brawny arms about the other trader’s body, pinning the arms, while shouting over a shoulder to the serai keeper.

  “Goddammit, gimme a hand with ’im, heah? He’s drunk as a fuckin’ skunk an’ plumb loco t’ boot! We don’ stop him, he likely t’kill thet Ehleen up thar.”

  Portuh grimly reflected that putting paid to that particular bastard of a bag of eastern shit might just be a laudable achievement and would sit most kindly in his mind. Nonetheless, he did not care to have the rich and no doubt well-connected turd die in this serai, so he rushed to Custuh’s aid.

  Hwahruhn fought them silently and with every ounce of his considerable strength, until, finally, Portuh drew the small, lead-filled cosh from under his belt and fetched the drunken, berserk trader a practiced blow behind the ear. Hwahruhn dropped like a sack of meal, whereupon Portuh and Custuh bore his limp form out into the drizzle, bedded him down in his own, personal wagon and locked him in.

  * * *

  In his drunken, self-recriminating mental haze, Hwahruhn had, of course, assumed that the scream of undiluted agony had been that of Bahb Steevuhnz. Nahseer, closer, knew better, even before his master began to shout.

  “Help! Oh, please, no! Help me, Nahseer, before this little bitch kills me!”

  A single heave of his thick-muscled shoulder ripped the fabric of the door’s top panel, and Nahseer reached in and drew the bolts, then swung the shattered portal wide.

  The Lord Urbahnos, stark naked save for his finger and arm rings, crouched — trembling, whimpering and drooling in terror — at the head of the bed, seemingly unaware of a deep and earnestly bleeding slash down his left cheek. Both his hands were clutching frantically at his crotch. Dark-red blood poured between and over the beringed fingers to soak into the pillow beneath him.

  Bahb was still fully clad, although both shirt and trousers were torn and both sun-browned cheeks showed prints left by the fingers and rings of the hand that had slapped him. A short-bladed knife in each grubby hand, the fine steel of both blades clouded with blood, he had been engaged in stalking Urbahnos, even while he mindspoke both his brother and the mare in the serai stables.

  Upon Nahseer’s entrance, however, he leaped backward to place his back hard to the outer wall. “Brown man,” he hissed, holding one blade ready for defense and placing the point of the other just under the hinge of his jaw, “if you try to take me again for him, I’ll send myself to Wind . . . but I’ll take you with me, if I can. Beware!”

  Nahseer knew of a certainty that the spindly boy meant every word of it, and he loved him from that moment for his courage in the face of impossible odds — a barely pubescent boy pitted against an armored swordsman four times his size, and the lad with only two little knives.

  “Take him alive!” shrieked Urbahnos. “When I’ve had my will of him, I want him tortured to death, slowly. He hurt me, Nahseer, the little bitch has injured me terribly.

  “Well? Move on him, you ape, draw your sword, but hit him only with the flat or I’ll have out your eyes. Call the hired guards if you’re afraid of him, but take him.”

  Nahseer gazed deeply into the bloodshot, teary, hate-filled eyes of his master. Rage lay in their black depths, rage compounded with pain and the still-fresh memory of cold, crawling terror. He knew that now his master would never sell him, not unless he had his tongue removed first More likely, the Ehleen would have him murdered soon after they returned to Pahdookahport so that the only living witnesses to Lord Urbahnos’ humiliation might be permanently silenced.

  Turning his gaze back to the boy, the sometime warrior of far-off Zahrtohgah saw a fellow warrior, for all his lack of size and his tender years. There was no hate in those blue-gray eyes, only a grim determination. The lad stood stock-still, his wiry body seemingly relaxed, but both daggers held steady and unwavering.

  With a deep sigh, Nahseer drew his heavy dirk and advanced on Bahb.

  Behind him, Urbahnos shrilled, “If you kill him, I’ll have your wormy guts nailed to a post and you marched around it until you bleed to death, you whoreson!”

  * * *

  Drawn by the lights and the noise, all the caravansers who had been assigned to stable duty flitted through the misty drizzle into the warmth and clamorous hilarity of the great hall. All but two of the serai stablehands had soon joined them, “just for one or two pots of beer.”

  Of the two regular hands remaining, the younger was suffering a griping of the guts, and the stables lay nearer to the jakes than did the main building. The other, a much older man, had shed his threadbare breeches and was trying to ease the pains of his arthritic knees by the tried-and-true method of covering the joints with piles of fresh, hot horse manure.

  The younger man had just left on his third or fourth run toward the privy when one of the small, ugly prairie-bred mares began to move agitatedly in her shared stall, kicking and snorting. The oldster, the pains just beginning to ease a bit, tried manfully to ignore the equine uproar. But when one, then another of the horses began to emulate the mare, he sighed and, grumbling curses, pulled himself to his feet and stumbled stiffly down the aisle between the rows of stalls.

  “Dang half-broke ol’ nomad critter. Probly spooked by a goldurned rat, is all.”

  He lifted down a hanging lantern and in the other hand took a grip on a yard-long billet of wood, good for either crushing a rat or dealing with an aggressive equine. At the mare’s stall — shared with another of her kind — he held the lantem high and leaned into the cubicle, his old eyes vainly searching the corners for sight of a scuttling rodent.

  “Shitfire, anyhow!” he mumbled. “Thet dadgummed boy should oughta be here, a-doin’ this — his eyes is a hell of a sight sharper nor mine is.” Taking the stick under his lantern arm, he unlatched the lower half of the gate and swung it outward, but before he could take a single step or even re-grasp his protective club, Windswift was on him with flashing hooves and savaging teeth. Within seconds, he was forever freed of the aches of his arthritis. Nor, when he returned, did the younger hand live much longer. Windswift was a trained and veteran warhorse, and these were not the first twolegs she had slain.

  The dropped lantern, which had bounced into the stall, had eaten its own oiled-vellum covering, and little flames were beginning to lick out at the straw. Windswift quickly kicked and nudged fresh dung onto the device until she could sense no more flame and
little heat. It was not yet time for the stable to take fire.

  She mindspoke Bahb Steevuhnz that her job was accomplished, then she and the other, younger mare set about freeing the other two Horseclans mares.

  Shortly, little Djoh Steevuhnz trotted in, four dirks at his belt and the bulky roll of the other weapons on his shoulder. There was scant need for actual speech; physical contact enhanced even his marginal telepathic abilities to the point that he could easily communicate with all four of the mares.

  He and Bahb had watched from their window as the various wagons were parked for the night, and so he had no trouble in finding those in which the richly decorated Clan Steevuhnz saddles had been stored. The kaks were too heavy for even a strong ten-year-old to lug back to the stables, but the yard lay empty of all humans save him and the rain and mist made visibility poor at best, so he simply bade the mares to come to him, dragged the gear onto the tailgate and from there heaved it onto the low backs of the small beasts, hopping down into the mud to cinch the straps.

  Back in the dryness of the stable, the boy squeezed and wrung the water from his dripping hair, then unrolled the blanket and attached bowcase-quivers and sabers in their customary places on the saddles. The blanket he rerolled and lashed behind the saddle of his own mount, Mousebrown. Horseclansfolk seldom used bridles, except on untrained young stallions, for usually mindspeak and pressure of knee or hand were all that was necessary to guide this breed of equines, who were the partners rather than the chattels of the nomads.

  When all was in readiness, Windswift once more mind-spoke Bahb Steevuhnz. His reply was a surprise to them all, mares and boy alike.

  * * *

  Within arm’s length of the crouching nomad boy, Nahseer flipped the dirk, grasping the broad blade between thumb and a knuckle. Smiling gently, he said, “Take this, my little brother — it will make for you a far better weapon. But give me in exchange one of the little knives you have used to such good advantage this night, for I too have a few old scores to wash out in the diseased blood of yonder perverted pig.”

  After a brief silence he widened his smile and added, “And tell the minds outside to saddle and bridle a good, big horse for me. I admire the spirit of your plains stock but they are just too small for a man of my size.”

  Bahb’s eyes widened in surprise. He beamed, “You mind-speak, man with brown skin? You are that thing’s sworn man, are you not? If you knew of my planning, why did you not tell him? For what purpose do you wish to help me? If you try to do to me what he would have done, I warn you, I will serve you even as I served him.”

  Nahseer shook his hairless head. “Brother mine, even when still I had my man-parts, I utilized them only in the ways that Ahláh intended, not in the unnatural nastinesses in which some infidels debase themselves.” He sighed deeply and aloud, then went on silently.

  “And I am no one’s sworn man, my brother. I am the pig’s chattel, as much a slave as are you. And yes, I can converse mind-to-mind, sense the mind conversations of others and even sense the surface thoughts of those with whom I cannot converse. This talent I was born with; it is not uncommon among the upper castes of my people.

  “Why did I not betray your conversations with those outside, why did I fail to inform yon black-haired pig that you bore the two little daggers in your boots? The answers are many and complex, my brother, and if Ahláh so wills it, we will have time and leisure to speak on these matters. But for now, I believe I smell smoke. I imagine that your former cell is blazing merrily by this time, and so I suggest that we put an end to affairs here and depart . . . quickly.”

  Warily, unsure whether or not to believe, Bahb took both of his little knives in his left hand and snatched the dirk from its profferer, then gingerly laid one of the blood-sticky short blades in the pink palm of the brown-skinned man.

  Nahseer withdrew his sword from its case and leaned it against the wall near the boy, then turned and walked to the bedside of his sometime master. Because mindspeak took far less time than did oral communication, bare seconds had passed since Urbahnos had given the order to stun and capture his newest slave.

  “What are you doing, you dung-hued cretin?” the Ehleen rasped. “I’ll have you flayed and rolled in salt. I’ll —”

  Nahseer interrupted him. The big man’s voice was soft, but the undertone froze Urbahnos to his innermost being. “The only thing you will do now, sweet master, is to hold your flapping tongue . . . unless you had rather lose it, that is. You promised me my freedom whenever you returned to the east, you depraved beast of a liar, yet your true intent all the while was to sell me to the slow, living death of the row-barges.”

  His teary eyes once more wide with terror, his thick lips atremble, the Lord Urbahnos shook his head wildly from side to side, sending a spray of bright blood from his slashed cheek in all directions. “No, Nahseer! No, no, no! You are to be freed, I swear it . . . my word of sacred honor . . . no, I . . .”

  The Zahrtohgahn sneered. “Dear master, we both know that your word is of less worth than a half dram of rat’s piss. The only thing in all the world that you hold sacred is profit As for honor, it surprises me that you even know and can pronounce the word in any language, since you so obviously have never possessed a scintilla of it.”

  While speaking, Nahseer had used the little knife to cut down most of the bedside bell rope, then divide it into two equal lengths. After tucking the knife into the folds of his sash, he grabbed Urbahnos and jerked him suddenly onto his back on the rumpled, bloody bed. He seized first one arm, then the other and used the ropes to bind the Ehleen’s wrists to the bedhead, knotting them cruelly tight. Then he did the same for the ankles, lashing each to a bedpost with strips torn from the linen sheets. Several shorter strips went into a crude but effective gag. Then Nahseer stood back and surveyed his handiwork, while testing the edge of the boot knife on the callused ball of his thumb.

  To Bahb, he said, “Bring me the other little knife, please, my brother. That rope is tough and this one has lost the best of its cutting edge. And bring my sword, as well; this thing cannot grab at it now.”

  “What are you going to do to him?” asked Bahb curiously.

  “I mean to geld him,” stated Nahseer bluntly and aloud, his words setting Urbahnos to squirming and vainly jerking at his bonds, trying to force words and strangled screams through the fabric of his gag, his features almost livid and his eyes starting from their sockets.

  Bahb handed back the Zahrtohgahn’s sword. Though he kept the dirk in his right hand and ready, he sheathed the dulled dagger. This will be the first time I’ve ever seen a man gelded. Is it the same as gelding a bull calf?”

  Nahseer nodded. “Much the same, my brother, much the same.” To Urbahnos, he said, “Master, think you back on how many times you have chided me because I have been deprived of the very man-parts you daily dishonor. Recall how often you have spoken to me and of me in public as ‘your Zahrtohgahn steer’ or ‘a creature of uncertain sex.’

  “Now, I advise that you lie still, master, for this little knife is razor-sharp. The hilt is small and already slippery with your blood, and if you wiggle too much I might slip and take off your yard, as well. You wouldn’t like that, would you, my master?”

  Nahseer did not believe in torture, and the movements of hand and knife were quick and sure. Presently he laid aside the blade, grasped a handful of Urbahnos’ black hair and raised his head that he might better see what the Zahrtohgahn’s other palm held — two bloody, kidney-shaped objects, the Ehleen’s testicles. Urbahnos stared, goggle-eyed, then the pupils rolled up and he fainted.

  The big man tossed the testicles onto the coals of one of the braziers, stooped and rinsed his hands in the tub of cold bathwater still sitting in a corner, then turned back to the brazier. With the iron tongs that hung beneath the bowl, he poked around until he found a coal to his liking. Gripping this coal between the jaws of the tongs, he lifted it and carefully blew away as much as he could of the white ash, exposing the g
lowing, red-orange surface of the charcoal.

  Returning to the side of his unconscious victim, Nahseer used the fingers of his free hand to hold open the Ehleen’s scrotum — now empty of all save the hacked-off stumps of the vesicles and a large amount of blood — then dropped the red-hot, glowing coal directly into the sac.

  Lord Urbahnos revived, screaming through his gag, jerking and thrashing to the limits of his bonds, tears jetting from his eyes and mucus from his nostrils, fouling himself and the bed beneath him with the discharges of both bladder and rectum.

  “Why didn’t you just let him lie there and bleed?” asked Bahb Steevuhnz.

  “He might have bled so much that he died, my brother,” said Nahseer. “And dead he would have robbed me of my vengeance, you see. No, I want him to live, to live in almost the same condition as have I for so many years.

  “Now, let us go into the outer room and gather such things as may aid us in our flight.”

  The big man wrenched both lock and hasp from off his former master’s strongbox, scooped all the coins into the money belt and stowed it inside the breastplate of his cuirass. That done, he stuffed bread, cheese, cooked meats and dried fruits into one set of saddlebags, then filled another set with the metal flasks of brandies and cordials. For want of water, he filled a travel skin with the contents of two jugs of pear cider.

  Nahseer knew that no matter how befuddled were those on the floor below, there would be questions were he to try to pass through laden with saddlebags, blankets, waterskins and cloaks and with the boy in his torn and blood-splashed garments.

  “Brother warrior Bahb, speak you with your brother below, and ask if the yard between this place and the stables be still empty.”

  Aware that Djoh was ever difficult to range, Bahb instead bespoke the mare, Windswift, then replied, “All is well outside. One man came into the stables, but he was no warrior, and besides was so dizzy that he could hardly stand. My brother, Djoh, tripped him, jumped astride him and slipped a dirk blade between his ribs. Windswift says that no grown warrior could have done it more smoothly and effectively.”