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On the lip of the smoking fissure known as the Sacred Hoofprint the Witchmen's trap was at last sprung. A small charge exploded, hurling a barrelsized charge into the fissure. Far it fell, deeper and deeper into the very bowels of the uneasy mountain. And then, unheard by living ear, the charge exploded.
Many leagues away, Bill Morguhn felt a sudden, terrible uneasiness. And when a living carpet of small, scuttling beasts broke out of the woods to rocket downslope over the edge of the plateau, Bill let his instinct guide him. "Mount!" he roared, and had barely followed his own orders when the very earth began to shudder.
"That way!" BiIi shouted, pointing to where the animals had disappeared. And as trees crashed around them and boulders shifted, slid, and tumbled, the column sped after Bill in a desperate race to escape the plateau before the entire rocky face dissolved, devouring them in its fall .•••
A Horseclans Novel
by Robert Adams
All rights reserved
SIGNET TRADEMARK IlEG. U.S. PAT. OFF .... ND POllElGN COUNTllD!8 (1) REGISTERED TRADEMARK-MARCA REGISTlI.ADA
BECHO I!N CHJCAGO, u.s.... -
SIGNET, SIGNET CLASSIC, MENTOR, ONYX, PLUME, MERIDIAN AND NAL BOOKS are published by NAL PENGUIN INC.,
1633 Broadway, New York, New York 10019
Fm.ST PRINTING, JANUARY, 1980
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
For Philip Jose Farmer, for Andrew J. Offutt, and for L. Sprague and Catherine De Camp.
For George MacCaulay For Joe Rosenberger
For the members of NYSFS
Most important, for
Mrs. Elnora Adams, my mother.
Death rides all in plate and His tall horse is black,
He leads every charge and His bowstring's never slack.
He stalks every camp, He rides every raid."-
His steel harvests warrior and merchant and maid.
Death rides a tall, black horse and we all are sworn to His service.
A Freefighter rides for Blood and Death.
-ancient Freefighter song
The narrow, winding streets of the city were dark and utter1y deserted, save for the solitary figure whose worn, oft-patched boots crunched through .thefresh-fallen snow. The fine stuff of the hooded cloak which shrouded the walker had commenced to fray in places, but still was thick and warm. The scabbard of a broadsword jutted out at the hooded one's side, thoughof all the folk still alive within the walls of the doomed city, he Was the man least likely to be attacked.
Not that Vahrohneeskos Drehkos Daiviz of Morguhnpolis was universally loved. There were full many who actively hated the short,stocky, middle-aged nobleman, especiallyamong the more religious elements of the population. But there was not a man or woman who would have dared to lift hand against him who commanded the city and its defense, for, harsh and uncompromising as had been his tenure, but few of his schemes and strategems had failed, while each and every one of his predictions had inexorably come to pass.
Most of those few thousands _ remaining in besieged Vawnpolis were common peo_ple-peasantvillagers of this Duchy of Vawn tand its neighboring principality, the Duchy of Morguhn; Vawnpoleejmd Morguhnpolee city dwellers, servant-class types, miners, herders and the like-and all were deeply riddled with __ superstitition, else they would never have become involved in the insanity which had brought them to these sorry straits.
Inflamed by the kooreeoee and priests, who had been abetted by a handful of minor nobles, they had schemed and plotted against their _ rightful lords and finally had risen up and murdered many of them. In Yawn, the rebellion had been an unqualified success. - But, due to a number of factors, in Morguhn it bad failed miserably and, worse, had cost the lives not only of many Morguhn rebels
but of hundreds of the Vawnee who had ridden to aid them. Of the two kooreeoee, Holy Skiros of Morguhn was known to have been captured by the forces of the pitiless thoheeks of Morguhn; Mahreeos of Yawn bad simply disappeared in the maelstrom-rout of the self-proclaimed Soldiers of God, whether dead, captured or in hiding, none of his erstwhile followers could say which.
Few of the rebel nobles lIad survived the debacle in Morguhn, and those few had bolted to the only refuge available to them, the walled city of Vawnpolis, which had been the seat of the now extirpated Thoheeksee of Vawn-descendants of one of the barbarian Horsec1ans whose rule had been imposed upon formerly Ehleen lands for a century and a half.
Though there had been, between the defeat in Morguhn and the investment of Vawnpolis, more than adequate time for every man or woman or child of the rebels to escape, to flee before the avenging forces, there had never been a safe direction in which to flee-Morguhn lay to the east, the loyal Duchy of Skaht lay to the north and the equally loyal Duchy of Baikuh lay to the south; west lay grim death in the terrible form of wild, savage mountain tribes.
Just before harvest time, after a hotly contested march, the army now besieging Vawnpolis had arrived under its walls. Twenty thousand Confederation Regulars had marched under their cat standards, along with almost every loyal nobleman of fighting age, their relatives, retainers and companies of hired Freefighters, most of the latter being natives of the Middle Kingdoms, which lay several hundred miles to the north. This vast host-more than thirty thousand warriors, in all-was led by High Lord Milo of Morai and High Lady Aldora Linszee TreeahPohtohmas Pahpas, two of the Undying Triumvirate who had ruled the Confederation since its inception. Only they were aware that the rebellion, though cloaked in religious trappings, was really sparked by ageless agents of the Witch Kingdom, situated in the huge and trackless Salt Swamp of the farthest south.
With the siegelines drawn and fortified, the bulk of the nobles had been sent home to see to their harvests, while their Freefighter companies and the Regulars maintained the investiture. With the crisp air of autumn, they returned
with reinforcements, swelling the total strength of the army to over forty thousand.
Since then, there had been three assaults on the city walls, all beaten off, but all exacting a high cost not only to attackers, but to the defenders, who could ill afford any manner of losses.
It was, Drehkos ruminated as be walked back to the Citadel, an impossible situation. Due principally to the senseless burnings of standing crops and slaughterings of herds during the first days of the Yawn rebellion, Vawnpolis had not ever been really well supplied with food and had lasted this long only because of the fever which had sporadically raged through the city, taking off mostly the youngest and the oldest and the sickly or wounded. Now, the last skeletal horse had been butchered, most of the hoarded stores were gone along with dogs and cats; even rats and mice were virtually extinct in Vawnpolis. _
Before the outer works fell, it bad sometimes been possible to filter small raiding parties through the lines to prey upon the camps or supply line of the besiegers, but recent attempts in this direction had resulted only in the gruesome return of the raiders by way of the investing army's catapults-s-their headless bodies splatting against the walls or into the streets.
At least there was no lack of fresh water from the three deep wells within the walls. Nor did they lack for fuel. since the miners bad early on .discovered -a wide seam of hard coal beneath the city itself. But these were the only items they did not lack.
The refugee-rebels had fled their homes in haste, in summer, and the dearth of warm clothing, boots and blankets was crippling. The supply of arrows was running perilously low. Since the city's tannery had lain outside the walls, leather was become scarce and even the few green hides were husbanded. Even so mundane a thing as rope was become infinitely precious, "and ordinary linen or cotton thread brought its lucky owner a silver thrahkmeh the yard.
For months now, no- scrap of any hard metal had heen allowed to sit idle. A round dozen master smiths were among the rebels in Vawnpolis, along with numerous apprentices and a superfluity of fuel; "all that was lacking was a decent supply of war _ metals-steel, iron, bronze and brass.
The lack of hom and fishglue rendered the repair of bows almost an impossibility, and stringing those still usable was becoming more and more difficult as the supply of silk steadily dwindled. The few arrows they could find decent wood to produce were, of dire necessity, ftetched with vellum and tipped with fire-hardened bone; also, Drehkos had encouraged experiments in scraping and otherwise processing bone in attempts to devise a substitute for horn, but the results had been, thus far, inconclusive.
If only . . . Drehkos Daiviz could but shake his weary head and sigh. This rebellion, now fast - approaching its bloody, inevitable conclusion, had been pointless and wasteful, and those involved, himself included, had been fools and worse. How can an egg be unscrambled? And it would be as simple to do that as to return any part of the Confederation to its pre-Horseclans condition-Ehleenruled and principally Christian.
How could he and the other nobles have allowed the kooreeoee to so delude them? Poor Myros, at least, was more or less mad and might be excused on that ground. But the rest of them should have known better, should have known their Holy Cause was foredoomed to failure, should have realized that a mere handful of nobles and a few thousands Soldiers of Christ-ill-armed, half-trained peasants and city riffraff-had not the chance of a snowball in Hell against the professional troops they were certain to face.
As the torches at the Citadel gate glowed ahead, he consciously set his face in a smile, that those good men within might not think him either worried or displeased. For he was definitely not displeased, not with them, anyway. They-common and gentle and noble . . . yes, and even cleric-had done more, done longer and done with less than anyone had any right to expect.
And his smile broadened, involuntarily, at the swell of his fierce pride in these, his men. Their bravery, stoicism in suffering privations and self-sacrifice, should, by rights, have bought them their lives and guaranteed their futures; in truth, he and they would all soon be dead. He only hoped that what they had done here would be rem em he red bv those who opposed them, even after the Holy Cause whi-h had brought them all to this pass had been long years relegated to that dungheap from which it should never have been resurrected.
Chapter I
Although the camps scattered about the headquarters hill resounded with the raucous gaiety of the besieging army's celebration of the year-end Sun Festival, the woman and eight men gathered about the board in the commander's pavilion were subdued, drinking little and eating less. Of the ten thoheeksee who had led the march out of Morguhnpolis last summer, seven were left alive, but only five had been hale enough to ride to this feast, and all of them bore either bandages or new scars.
Old Sir Ehdt Gahthwahlt, Confederation siegemaster, tapped the dottle from his pipe, picked up his winecup, then set it back, untasted. "Had one of my officer-students propounded a situation of this sort, even as late as a year ago, I'd have pegged him a madman!" He snorted, feelingly. "The whole damned thing's impossible! A few thousand ill-supplied, ill-equipped, starveling wretches of amateur soldiers simply cannot hold the antique walls of a small hill town against four times their number of professionals-and half of that force, units of the best damned army any of us will ever see. It's completely illogical!"
Ahrkeethoheeks Lahmahnt mindspoke, while sipping thin broth through a copper tube and longingly eyeing the joints of meat-broth and milk and wine having been his only sustenance since the physician, Master Ahlee, had wired shut his shattered jaws after the most recent attack. "Logical or Dot, Sir Ehdt, I face the reality of it every time I shave. It might almost lead one to wonder' at the power of a religion that can give its adherents what it takes to do the impossible .... "
Thoheeks Morguhn set down his silver winecup with a crash. The lamp flames played on his scarred, shaven scalp as he tilted back his head to vent a harsh laugh. "My lord ahrkeethoheeks, men sometimes die for religion, but they don't fight for religion. Men fight fot blood and loot and
Robert Adams
women and great captains. The rebels are fighting for Drehkos Daiviz, not for any blood-drinking, crucified god. When they've beaten us off, do you hear them praising their god or his priests? Of course not! That whole city erupts with cheers for Lord Drehkos. Should they be suddenly bereft of him, they'd fold up like an empty wineskin."
Old Thoheeks Duhnkin belched twice, resoundingly, then nodded. "Aye, Bili, I too have noted that. Ab, Sacred Sun, but it was a bitter and cursed day when so obviously worthy and talented a Kinsman chose to tum against his Kindred and throw in his lot with a traitorous pack of EhIeenee scum." He belched once more, then added, "For, to my way of thinking, our Confederation could well use
such a gifted leader." .
The High Lord, Milo Morai, who had but recently returned from his capital to rejoin the army, agreed. "Yes, thoheeksee, never has any realm a superfluity of good leaders. And I admit to you all, his crimes notwithstanding, I could be quite magnanimous to Vahrohneeskos Drehkos Daiviz of Morguhn, in the right circumstances. And him who delivered me said baronet alive would not go unrewarded, either. In return for the sworn services of a Drehkos, I would even be willing to negotiate generous terms in the surrender of Vawnpolis."
At this, several of the thoheeksee growled and the young Morguhn slammed a callused palm on tabletop. "My liege must be aware that he owns all my fealty and devotion, but such an action would be "wrong. I must tell him so. I well recall a day last summer, in a bloodsplashed cornfield, when my lord spoke otherwise. He then felt that, any other considerations apart, the only way to be sure of no future rebellions was to utterly extirpate this lot of rebels."
Milo shrugged. "Times change, Bili, as do conditions; the wise man will alter his conduct, conceptions and plans accordingly. A good sword is flexible and a good man, adaptable. Admittedly, we still could probably do it your way-batter our way into Vawnpolis, butcher its inhabitants to a man and raze the walls and structures. But such a course is certain to be very costly, in terms of men and in terms of money, both of which will be needed in full measure, come spring, as will all of you and your levies. But more of that, anon.
"With regard to Drehkos and to Sun knows how many more of these rebels, there be this: When I journeyed back to Kehnooryos Atheenahs, two months ago, it was principally for the purpose of personally conducting two very important prisoners, the so-called Kooreeoee Skiros of Morguhn and Mahreeos of Yawn. Arrived in the capital, these two were put to the question, with all that that implies. It was not an easy task, nor a quick one, but eventually I got the truth from them, the whole truth, much of which but reinforced what I had already known.
"And the three men-there was another kooreeos, captured at Gafnee, who chanced to die while being questioned by High Lady Mara, last summer-were not what they seemed. Though their minds occupied the husks of men who had really been ordained priests and confirmed kooreeoee, they were still imposters, intent upon creating as much havoc as possible in the Confederation. Gentlemen, those spurious kooreeoee were as old as I am, maybe even older! But Sacred Sun had not gifted them as the true Undying are gifted. Rather, were they of that hellish breed commonly called 'Witchmen'!"
Several of the thoheeksee grasped at their Sun medallions, while old Sir Ehdt and Thoheeks Bili Morguhn made the Sign of Sacred Steel in the air before them.
Smiling, the High Lord reassured them all, saying, "Despite what you may have heard, gentlemen, there is nothing supernatural about these, our enemies. They are highly dangerous, make no mistake, but they be no sorcerers; rather have they perverted certain disciplines of knowledge, knowledge which first saw light in the days before the death of that world which preceded this one.
"Nearly a thousand years ago, your distant ancestorsover two hundred million of them, of a vast diversity of races-dwelt in a principality which was one though it stretched from the Sea of Sun Birth to another which lies far west of the Sea of Grass. Then was the Great Salt Swamp mostly dry land, full of farms and pasturelands, cities and towns and, probably, more people than now live in all the lands of our Confederation.
"All these manypeople were ruled by men chosen to represent them. These men met in a great city which was almost totally destroyed, the ruins of which now lie beneath the waters of the lakes and bays near the mouth of the North River of Kehnooryos Ehlas. So rich were the
Robert Adams
people and the nation which they ruled that vast sums could be spent on various projects which had little to do with such basic needs as food production, war preparation and the like.
"One such project was the effort to transport men to the stars by means which I'll not even attempt to explain to you. An auxiliarv project, part of the star-journey project, was the need to find a way of prolonging human lifespans, since even the nearer stars lay a distance of years away. The men and women assigned to search out these means were all concentrated in a highly secret place in that subprincipality which now is the Great Salt Swamp.
"Unfortunately for Sun knows how many, they were successful in their search. They found a way to prolong a given number of human minds, almost indefinitely. But intuitively realizing what the most of humanity would think of their answer to the problem, they took every precaution to conceal their 'triumph,' so that it was only bare months before the Great Catastrophe that the Congress-which is what the gathering of ruling representatives was then called-and certain newsmongers discovered just how horrible was that method.
"The outcries of the millions who had chosen those representatives was loud and long and outraged. And those rulers, who wished to remain such -. quickly reacted by ordering the project to prolong life immediately canceled, all its records destroyed and its personnel discharged and
widely dispersed. _
"However. ere their will could be implemented, there commenced the series. of events which led- to the destruction of nations, races and cultures. Because of their still secret and isolated location, the couple of hundred people in the project area, which was called the Kehnehdee Research Center, survived unharmed by firerain or plagues. When the plagues had run their course, they allowed a few, pitiful outsiders to join them as 'breeding stock:
"You see, gentlemen, what they had discovered was a way to transfer the mind and memories from an aging to a younger bodv-man to man, woman to woman, man to woman, woman to man and even, so I understand, man or woman to certain animals! And so thev have continued their parasitic existence down through the centuries. their aged, evil minds using one young, vibrant body after another.
"And their grand design is nothing less than to make the entire world their slaves. They were ready to do it by force of arms four hundred years ago, but the earthquakes and floods, the tidal waves and the subsidence of most of the huge peninsula whereon they dwelt utterly confounded their schemes. Though most of the original parasites survived that disaster, they lost much of their carefully maintained equipment-which was irreplaceable-all save a couple of their population centers and eight of every ten of their serf-soldiers. And virtually overnight their rich, productive lands were become, at the very best, sterile for years from their drenching of seawater.
"They have not yet fully recovered. Even so, they recognize the Confederation as a menace to their eventual intent, standing united on their very border as we do. Therefore they continue to foment trouble from within and without-trying to weaken us, divide us. This rebellion, which started at Gafnee and is ending here, was their third effort against us since the coming of the Horseclans. And we must finish it quickly, even at the cost of some concessions, for we will be face to face with their fourth effort all too soon. To combat this new and awesome threat effectively, gentlemen, the Confederation will need every ann that can swing sword or pull bowl"
Sir Geros Lahvoheetos of Morguhn stood and leaned across the small table to refill his guest's winecup, a completely natural action on the part of a young man who, born of upper-servant class, had spent most of his life as a valet to noblemen.
His guest, however, slapped a horny hand on the tabletop, exclaiming in the harsh, nasal accents of Harzburk, "NoW', dammit, Geros . . . ahh, Sir Geros ... that just is not done! You're noble, now, man. You're a knight of Duke Bili's household, which means you outrank me. You ask if I want more wine; then, since your servant seems to have absented himself, I refill my own cup ... and yours, if you so indicate."
Sinking back onto his seat, the husky, olive-skinned knight sighed and shook his shaven head. "Oh. Pawl, Pawl ... I was so happy before, as a simple color sergeant, as merely a comrade of your troop. I never aspired to nobility. Tell me, Pawl, was I ... did you consider me to be a good soldier, a good Freefighter?"
Robert Adams
The silvery bristles on the guest's pate flashed in the lamplight as his head bobbed. "Sir Geros, I will always feel honored that you learned your craft under me. Yes, you were an excellent Freefighter, none better."
Sir Geros sighed once more. ''Then why, Pawl? Why could they not just leave me where I was so happy? Why was it necessary to thrust nobility on me? Force me to bear a title which I will never be able to live up to? What did I do to deserve such?"
Pawl Raikuh's scarred features registered stunned dismay. "Are you daft, man, to talk so? One who did not know better would think you'd been condemned to some dire punishment. Man, in one day, you saved your lord's life, slew the biggest warrior I've ever seen and performed an act of bravery which, though I witnessed every moment of it, I still can hardly believe! What did you expect? A
pat on the head and, maybe, a new sword?" -
Geros raised his dark, troubled eyes. "I would have been more than happy with such, Pawl." His fingers toyed with the silver cat pendant on his chest. "After all, I but did what any man of the thoheek's would have done during the battle, for he is a good lord and kind. As for the other, well ... " Embarrassed, be dropped his gaze. "I still don't know why 1 did it, didn't really realize 1 was doing it until 1 found myself down there in the fire and the heat. But it's as 1 said, Pawl. The officer was hurt and everyone could see he would soon be burned alive. If 1 had not, another would've."
"Turkey dung!" snorted Raikuh. "I was there, Sir Geros. Remember?"
He could. _
The hilltop salient had been but a trap set by the crafty leader of the rebels. The fortifications, garrisoned by suicide troops, had been undermined, supported only by oil-soaked timbers which had been secretly fired. The stratagem bad failed on the twin hillock, assaulted and taken by troops under the personal command of the High Lord; his mindspeak warning had arrived barely in time for most of the Confederation forces-to quit the dangerous area.
Only a single, rearguard company had been still at the periphery of the trap when it was sprung. When the dust had settled, it could be seen that but a single member of that company had survived. And he was facing a cruel, gruesome death, his legs securely pinned under a huge,
smoldering timber, unable to draw his sword and his dirk missing.
Several men on the lip of the still-settling crater had attempted to throw the unfortunate officer a weapon that he might decently end his life ere the flames reached him, but the distance was too great, and Thoheeks Bili of Morguhn had sent a galloper to bring back an archer from the foot of the hill.
Geros could not recall all of the beginning, could not remember hastily shedding most of his armor or clambering down the crumbling slope of the crater. But he would never forget that heat!
It had lapped over him, enfolded him in its deadly embrace. It had savaged his flesh, set boots and clothing asmolder, made each breath a searing agony.
After an endless eternity of gingerly picking his way over an almost limitless expanse of steaming earth, jumbled stones and splintered timbers, the officer lay just before him, thanking him for his valor, asking for his dirk and urging him to return to safety.
The few moments after that were very hazy in Geros' memory . . . but in no one else's. He recalled, however, half carrying, half dragging the young officer-Captain Lehzlee, heir to Ahrkeethoheeks Lehzlee-to where a host of willing hands assisted them both up to safety.
But from that now cursed moment, the warm and natural comradery which he had so cherished had disappeared with the suddenness of a blown-out candle flame. The hard-bitten Freefighters, who reverenced damned few things, had seemed very uncomfortable in his presence, treating him with a deference bordering upon awe. And he hated it all!
Pawl Raikuh went on, "I was there. I saw what you did . . . though, as I said, I still scarce can credit the testimony of my own eyes. That timber was hardwood, looked to be solid oak, and near two feet thick, so it couldn't have weighed less than a ton and a half, Harzburk measure, maybe two tons. Yet you raised it, man! With your bare hands, you lifted near a thousand kaiee-weight and held the damned thing long enough for the captain to inch his crushed legs from under it! In my near forty years as a Freefighter, I've seen many a wonder, but if Steel allows me that many more years, I'll never again see an equal to my lord's feat in the crater-"
Robert Adams
"Damn it!" Sir Geros' fist crashed onto the table, setting cups and ewer to dancing. "Damn you, Pawl Raikuh! I be nobody's lord, and you know it! I'm the same man I've always been, Geros Lahvoheetos, son of Vahrohnos Luhrnahnt's majordomo. My motber was an herb gardener, who barped and sang at feasts. And I, I was a gentleman's valet, who played and sang when so ordered. It was by purest chance that I found myself tbrust into the role of warrior."
Raikuh grinned. "And you took to it as naturally and easily as an otter kit swims. In short months, you were one of the best swordsmen in my troop."
"Only because I realized there was no way I could wriggle out of the situation ~ .. easily, and being a born coward, 1 wanted to stay alive. And the only way a warrior can be reasonably certain he'll survive his next battle is to make himself a master of his weapons. But I am not, can never be, as you and Thoheeks Bili and those reared to the Sword. I don't like fighting and killing, Pawl. I'll never like it.
"At least, when I was simply a Freefighter, I had the solace that when the rebellion was crushed, I'd be able to return to being what 1 had always been. But now, since they did these unwarranted things to 'me, I'll be expected to swing Steel the rest of my life and to rear any sons 1 happen to sire to pursue like lives.
"I say again, Pawl. I am no one's lord. Rather am I a slave in detested bondage to an undeserved reputation, an unwanted title, a silver bauble and a couple of feet of sharp steel."
A feeling of fatherliness swept over the fiftyish captain.
He reached across the table to pat Geros' clenched fist lightly. "Son, you'll not feel so in a year. Others have been similarly upset by the sudden grant of nobility . . . I've seen such. As for being no one's lord, that-same year will put the lie to that statement, I'll warrant."
"Now what is that cryptic' comment supposed to mean?" snapped Geros.
Tracing designs in a puddle of spilled wine and regarding the new noble from beneatb bushy brows, Raikuh spoke slowly. "Whv just this, Geros. Duke Bili is not so mean as to give a faithful man rank without maintenance. Your present title is but a military one, and as certain sure as steel cuts to bone, you'll be at least a vahrohneeskos of
Morguhn-with a fine town and croplands and kine-by this time next year, mark my words. Nor be that all, I trow .... "
Raising cup to lips, he took a long draught of the fine, strong wine, then continued. "That fiesty little bastard Thoheeks Hwahltuh of Yawn be proud as a solid-gold hilt, and he'll not forsake an opportunity like this. After all, he can truthfully attest that your deeds were done in his service, too, since we all are fighting on what are his lands. And don't you forget the House of Lehzlee, either. There be no richer or prouder house in the south of Karaleenos than Lehzlee, and you saved the life-at great personal risk-of the man who will one day be archduke and chief of that house. They're not likely to let such go unrewarded."
Geros' mind reeled. He had not even considered these possibilities. "But ... but, Pawl, what will I do? I know nothing of farming."
Raikuh chuckled. "Damned few nobles do, son Geros, You'll do what they all do, of course. You'll find and hire a competent provost and a few overseers and a score or 80 over-age Freefighters to see the peace be kept. Then you'll spend your days riding and .hunting and begetting. You'll sit in judgment in your town on market days, meet in council with your overlord and peers once each moon and ride with them once each year to the archduchy council, where you will deliver up your taxes for the previous year to the High Lord's deputy.
"And someday, Geros, when you're a fat forty-odd. and your mind is filled with worry about the weather and the crops and outfitting your sons for the army and dowering your daughters well, then ... mayhap, then, you'll think on this eve. Think how foolishly you then thought. wished to once more be back with the Morguhn troop, swinging steel and taking blows as light-heartedly as you did twenty years before."
Ere Geros could frame an answer, his big servant, Sahndos, entered, ushering in one of Raikuh's lieutenants, Krahndahl, The junior officer slapped gauntlet to breastplate in salute and announced, "My lord Geros, captain, Duke Bili summons all his nobles and officers to his pavilion, immediately, if you please."
Chapter II
"And so, gentlemen," the grave-faced young thoheeks soberly concluded. "we may, even now, be proceeding on borrowed time. Winter has ever been the favorite raiding season of the mountain folk, so the first blow could fall at any moment anywhere along more than five hundred miles of borderlands. That is why ending this siege quickly is so imperative. "
"But Sun and Wind.iBili," burst out old Komees Hari Daiviz of Morguhn, "to grant amnesty to my no-good brother and the rest of those treacherous, murdering swine? Whose harebrained idea was that?" -
"The High Lord's!" snapped the Morguhn. "Present your objections to him, if you wish; Hari. But, 1 warn you, mine own did scant good, nor did those of the Duhnkin or the ahrkeethoheeks,"
Ever the apologist in all matters concerning the Confederation he had so long served, retired Strahteegos Komees Djeen Morguhn. the - thoheeks' sixtyish cousin-german, nodded sagely. stated stiffly, "My lord thoheeks, the High Lord dare not concern himself with but this single. relatively unimportant facet of the overall problem. You see, the entire Confederation be his responsibility. I like pardoning known backstabbers no better than Hari, but I also can appreciate Lord Milo's position."
Vahrohnos Spiros Morguhn, Bili's second cousin, gingerly shifted on the padded litter which had conveyed him here. finally reaching down with both hands to ease his splinted and bandaged left leg into a more comfortable position. "But. dam mit, Bili, how can we be expected to go traipsing off on a campaign into the mountains. or wherever, leaving our lands filIed with unrepentant rebels and a batch of bloodthirstv priests? You've seen. the l-ligh Lord has seen, we all have seen what they did to Yawn. By my steel, they'll not do the like to Morguhn!"
"They'll not get a chance to." Bili shook his head. "It's been decided that most of the rebel fighting men will be dragooned into the campaign force; dribbled out, a few to this unit, a few to that. The amnesty is to exclude the priests and monks; those bastards will spend the length of the campaign enjoying the comforts provided by our Mor-
guhnpolis prison. "
"Noncombatants in Vawnpolis will remain there, as will a garrison of our troops. The city will be base supply for operations immediately west of Vawn."
Pawl Raikuh sighed. "Fortunes of war, I suppose. All us Freefighters had been hopefully anticipatingan intakin« a sack, a bit: of". booty, some old-fashioned rapine. Well, there'll be" other wars ... for some."
"How will we get word to the rebels that We now wish to treat?" This from Djaik Morguhn, Bili's vonnoer brother-war-trained. like Bili and all his other brothers. in the Middle Kingdoms: acknowledged, despite his n'1l'e fifteen years, as one of the three best swordsmen in all the
besieging army. ""
Vahrohneeskos Ahndros Theftehros of Morguhn was but distantly related to Bili actuallv being more rl,,<plv related to certain of the rebels. but, like K omees "Dieen he was a former Confederation Armv officer . . . also he was in love with one of Bili'swidowed mothers Nf'ln,,+hp_ less, he had been occasionally sullen since, disregarding his advices and wishes. Bili and the High Lord had seen fit to honor and enoble his former servant, Geros.
Smoothing back a lock of his raven's-winz hair with a languid gesture, he put in, "Yes, Bili, there is that factor, too. We have been anything but cordialIn our responses to the two or three peace overtures the rebels have made. If, during the High Lord's absence," you and the High Lady had seen fit to heed the expert advice which Komees Djeen and I proffered you . . ,"
Tried to ram down our throats, thought Bili, who sometimes of late bad had to forcefully remind himself that this supercilious man had sat his horse knee to knee. with him and the High Lord last summer at the Forest Bridge, and had suffered grievous wounds in his behalf. Ever since the vahrohneeskos had recovered sufficiently to join the army before Vawnpolis, he had been a divisive element-among the nobles of Morguhn, immediately taking the part of
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any who opposed the young thoheeks and offering his own opposition when none other arose.
"Kinsman," said Bili, with as much forebearance and patience as he could muster, "none of us could have known that affairs would so arrange themselves, and it was the High Lord himself who rejected the first effort of the rebels to parley, ere the siege had even commenced. Him it was who first declared that we were to neither give nor ask quarter-"
"Untrue!" snapped Ahndros coldly. "To the extent, at least, that it was you, with your barbaric, blood-hungry, northern notions of conduct, who put the idea into the High Lord's head."
Bili shook his shaven poll bewilderedly. "Kinsman, I am afraid that you credit me with far more influence over the affairs of the mighty than ever I have owned . • . or wished to own."
"Have you not, my lord?" Ahndros sneered. "Did not the High Lord, on the morning which saw the breaking of the siege of your hall, allow you first to throw a childish temper tantrum and publicly, brutally, humiliate Komees Djeen, when he sagely advised you to await the arrival of Confederation Cavalry ere you pursued the rebels? Did not the High Lord then accompany you on that pursuit, riding as but another nobleman under your command?"
"That was the High Lord's expressed desire, vahrohneeskos;" growled Bili, fighting to control the temper he could feel beginning to fray under the continued insult and insubordination.
"Then what of that morning's butchery, eh?" Ahndros prodded on. "Why, even the barbarian mercenaries. on whom you so dote, call those miles of massacre 'The Bloody Ride'! The High Lord I knew, with whom and under whom I served for so many years, would never have countenanced such inexcusable savageries."
The knuckles stood out whitely on Bili's clenched fists and he grated his reply from between tight-locked teeth. "Lord Ahndros, lowe you no explanation of my conduct or of the High Lord's. You forget your place and station, and you sorely try my patience. Nonetheless, I will tell you this much: I believe that the scope and the suddenness of the rebellion, the depth of the depravaties of the rebels, shocked the High Lord to his very core. On that morning, he admonished me to put down the Morguhn rebels in the
manner of Harzburk, deal with them as would the Iron King, under whose tutelage I served more than half my life."
Ahndros either failed to notice or chose to ignore the young thoheek's rising rage. "And you took Lord Milo at his word, didn't you? You did it up brown! No unwashed, stinking, illiterate, barbarian burk lord could have been more callously thorough. Not only did you and your howling savages chase down and slay hundreds of fleeing men, many of them completely unarmed, that terrible morning, but you hunted the poor bastards for weeks, hunted them as if they had been beasts, dangerous vermin."
Spires Morguhn turned himself enough to see Ahndros, grimacing with the pain of the effort. "Dangerous vermin, is it, Ahndee? Yes, I consider that an apt simile for treacherous, backbiting dogs who turn on masters. I, too, took a most willing part in that hunt. Are you going to name me a burk barbarian, too? And I agree with Bili, you've far overstepped yourself ... for some little time now."
Komees Djeen clashed the brass hook which had replaced the missing hand on his left wrist loudly against his thigh plate, and his single, blue eye flashed fire as he came to Abndros' deferise. "I think me not, Spiros. Ahndee is but stating truths which long have needed airing.
"As I affirmed in the very beginning, that pursuit from Morguhn Hall was a senseless and savage vanity of our young and vastly inexperienced thoheeks. And what followed the reoccupation of - deserted Morguhnpolis was inexcusable, on any grounds.
"Why, man, the Duchy of Morguhn lies more than half depopulated. Whole villages were burned to the ground, after being plundered by the arsonists. There are damned few living common women who are not w_elI-raped widows, damned few Morguhn trees that don't dangle the rotting carcass of Some poor, misled peasant pikeman.
"You all know that I ... uhh, had my differences with our late thoheeks. But Hwahruhn, at least, was loved and respected by all his folk. Bili, his son, will never own anything save their fear and hate."
Bili smiled humorlessly. "Regrettably, my late father was often ill and almost always weak-willed, Komees Djeen. As you have .learned, I am neither. If love and respect bred this damned rebellion, I can well do without both. _
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"As regards the 'airing of truths," had not you and the
yuhl L,filtcc;.;.)/..u.) ~u w~ll b~l v ~J J.l..l~ allJ the Confederation,
of late, I might think you both closet rebels, such is your concern for the gentle treatment and welfare of traitors."
"Why, you arrogant young whelp!" The white-haired nobleman sprang to his feet, his hand going to his swordhilt. "I was serving the Confederation when you were being given suck! How dare you question my loyalty . . . or that of Ahndee, who is a better man than ever you'll be!"
Dark, slender Djaik Morguhn sidled himself to block the direct path between his brother and the furious komees. Nor was he the only one in the pavilion to have risen. Vaskos Daivi:z, son and heir of Komees Han, stood fingering the pommel of his. broadsword; so, too, did all three Freefighter officers .•• and Sir Geros.
Arising suddenly, old Komees Hari Daiviz slapped his son's hand from proximity to his hilt and strode purposefully toward the dais, his rolling gait bespeaking the percentage of his fifty-odd years spent on the back of a horse.
"Now, by Sun and Wind, gentlemen, I never thought me to live to see my own kindred, the nobility of Morguhn, brawling like drunken Ehleenee trollops and pimps!
"Djaik Morguhn, resume your seat, please. Your brother stands in no danger. Djeen, if you draw that blade, you'll be needing a hook for the other hand, as well . . . and you have known me long enough to know I mean it."
"Damn it, Hari!" the one-eyed komees burst out petulantly. "You heard what this young whippersnapper said about me and Ahndee! And we've the right to be heardl" "Just shut up and sit down!" Komees Hari snapped impatiently. ''You've said more than enough already."
Ahndros opened his mouth, but Komees Hari spotted the movement from the corner of his eye and whirled on the vahrohneeskos, barking, "So, too, have you, Ahndee. This be a war council, not a Thirds Meeting. You, all of us, are here to receive our chief's orders, to advise him if he requests such. And I've heard no request.
"Now, I don't much cotton to the idea of granting amnesty to rebel dogs, but the High Lord has no choice; that much is plain as horse turds on snow. Nor have any of us any choice, gentlemen. The High Lord has given his orders to his thoheeksee; our own thoheeks and chief has
dutifully transmitted those orders to us. It be our sworn and rightful duty to learn how best we can obey, not launch yet another senseless round of who-struck-Djahn to the point where tempers rise and swords come clear. We all be supposedly responsible, adult noblemen and officers. Let us act the parts, eh?"
He turned to Bill and offered formal salute of clansman to chief. "What would you of my son and me, Bili?"
Drehkos Daiviz did not really begin to believe it until the third message arrow was brought to him. Carefully, he unrolled the vellum bound behind the hollow brass head, smooth it out and laid it beside the two others on his cluttered desktop. The three were identical, obviously written by the same hand.
In Modem Ehleeneekos, they read:
"Milos Moral, High Lord of the Confederation of Southern Peoples, sends greetings to Vahroneeskos Drehkos Daiviz of Morguhn. The High Lord would confer with said vahrohneeskos, at his earliest convenience, that conditions may be agreed upon for the honorable capitulation of the garrison, inhabitants and city of Vawnpolis, Penned under the direction of the High Lord by Pehtros Makintahsh, Adjutant. Signed: Milos Moral;"
Drehkos rested his head between his hands. his bare elbows on the desk, protruding through his well-worn shirt. Furiously, he massaged his gray-shot temples, then opened his eyes and read the message through again . . . and yet again. And still it was as a dream.
This was exactly what he bad promised his ragtag garrison, never for a_moment deluding bimself that such would ever truly come to pass. He bad felt himself and every other soul within Vawnpolis irrevocably doomed and the rejections of his three attempts to treat, combined with the besiegers' steadfast refusal to suffer prisoners to live, bad but reinforced his conviction. Nonetheless, he had dangled the carrot of hope before his starveling ragamuffins. Over and over, he had assured them that, could they but cost the besiegers enough losses and bold out until planting time, terms would surely be granted to spare at least the lives of the common folk,
And now the impossible dream was become fact . • . hard fact.
As the first rays of the rising sun illumined the small,
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spartan room, the vahrohneeskos' servant entered to find his master slumped over the desk, his body racked with heaving sobs.
Drehkos arrived at the pavilion of the High Lord attended only by a pair of commoner-officers, all three of them astride guardsmen's horses, escorted by Keeleeohstos Sabndros Drubmubnd, commander of the High Lord's horseguards. Inside the brazier-heated pavilion, the rebels were led to where the High Lord, the High Lady Aldora and Ahrkeethoheeks Lahmahnt sat ranged behind a heavy table.
After saluting, the keeleeohstos gruffly reported, "My Lord Milo, here be Vahrohneeskos Drehkos Daiviz of Morguhn. The other two rebels be commoner-officers of the vahrohneeskos', Would my lord be wanting guards within?"
Milo slowly shook his head. "No need, good Sahndros.
Go back and find yourself a brazier and a tipple. I'll mindcall when and if I want you."
From the moment he had been ushered in, Drehkos had stood open-mouthed, staring at the lean, saturnine figure of tbe High Lord. As the keeleeohstos clanked out, the rebel leader suddenly exclaimed, "But . . . what witchery be this? You ... you be the bard ... Klairuhnz, wasn't it? I had wine with you at . . . at my brother's han last spring, before any of this unpleasantness commenced."
A smile flitted briefly across Milo's lips. "I had reason, then, Lord Drehkos, for concealing my identity. A traveling bard is always welcome in village or city or hall, among Kindred or Ehleenee. So, can you think of a better guise?"
Before Drehkos could frame an answer,Milo's smile vanished and his voice cooled and hardened. "But we are not met to discuss the past, vahrohneeskos. Where are your other two nobles, Vahrohnos Myres Deskahti of Morguhn and Vahrohneeskos Kahzos Boorsohthehpsees of Yawn? I had thought that you would bring them to this gathering."
"My lord," replied Drehkos, "I am empowered to speak for all, noble or common, within Vawnpolis. I left poor Kahzos in command of the city, since unhealed wounds have rendered him incapable of sitting a horse."
"And Myres?" prodded Aldora. "Is that thieving murderer also wounded ... I hope?"
"No," Drehkos answered. "Even during the assaults, I have been loath to allow Lord Myros within proximity to weapons, for more and more frequently he lapses into violent and completely pointless' rages; indeed, I have found it necessary to detail an officer and a squad to . . . to look after him." -
Milo nodded once, then turned to Aldora. "It's as I said years back, my dear. The reason I opposed executing him. The man's mad, always has been, and whatever drugs that so-called kooreeos fed him have obviously worsened his
condition. " -
Drehkos looked from 'one to the other in' bewilderment.
"My lord, my lady, I confess I don't understand. Drugs?"
"Just so, vahrohneeskos, drugs." Milo gestured at the empty chairs opposite him. "But it's a long tale. You and your officers sit down and help yourselves to the wine."
Before seating himself, - Drehkos spoke with crisp formality. "My lords, my lady, please allow me to introduce my officers." At Milo's nod, he went on. "On my right stands Captain Pehtros Naimos, commander of the north wall; on my left, Captain Djaimz Trohahnos, commander of the east wall. They are not of noble birth and they are ... ahh,have been your enemies, but they have been unswervingly faithful to me, and I have nev~r met men who more truly epitomize the word 'gentlemen.' "
Aldora watched the two officers, saw tbe younger, fairskinned Djaimz Trohahnos flush red at the unexpected public praise. This man obviously 'had some measure of mindspeak ability, for his mindsbield wasimpenetrahle, even in his embarrassment. The other, dark, middle-aged Pehtros Naimos. was completely unshielded and his mind literally oozed devotion to his leader.
Next, the High Lady turned her attention to Drehkos.
The rebel leader hare a quite striking resemblance to Hari and Vaskos Daiviz, his brother and nephew, respectively-most of his thinning hair was white, but this was the only indication of his age; otherwise, all five and a half feet of his biz-boned. wide-shouldered bodv looked lean and bard and fit. His helm had left a dent in' his high forehead, and beneath it his eyes were bloodshot and darkringed with lack of sleep. his face lined with worry and care. But. withal. he was still a handsome man.
Aldora sent her mind questing forth, recoiled in shocked surprise, immediately beamed to Milo on a rnindspeak
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level unattainable to most. "I thought you said this rebel lordling had DO mindspeak."
"So everyone, all his relatives and former friends, assured me," the High Lord replied on the same level. "Why? Has he a shield?"
"Try him and see."
"Whew!" Milo tried to mask the amazement from his face. "It's like running headlong into a brick wall, isn't it?"
"It's the conscious shield of a very powerful mind, Milo," she assured him. "Yours is that strong, and so is Mara's, but I've never met another such. Not even dear old Hari Kruhguh's mind had such a formidable defense."
As is true of mindspeak "conversations," these exchanges had taken bare microseconds.
Aloud, Milo smiled again, saying, "Very well, Lord Drehkos. I believe you know Ahrkeethoheeks Lahmahnt, of old. On my right sits the Undying High Lady, Aldora Linsee Treeah-Pohtohmas Pahpahs."
Aldora inclined her small head slightly, the light of the lamps picking out bluish highlights in her long black hair. But beneath her slender brows, her almond-shaped black eyes never ceased their careful scrutiny of Drehkos.
"Do we all mindspeak?" asked Milo as soon as all goblets were full.
The older officer shook his raggedly barbered head.
"No, my lord, I be almost kath-ahrohs, and my kind lack such heathenish ... ahb, such talents."
Milo smiled. "Captain, both the High Ladies-my wife, Mara, and Aldora, here-be true kath-ahrohsee, yet they pose high degrees of mindspeak ability. Kindred heritage, or the lack of it, is not the determinant factor in whether a man can or cannot mindspeak. Nor are we Undying and Kindred unique, as you should very well know. Large numbers of your own Ehleenee nobles and commoners are mindspeakers, the Vahrohnos Myros Deskati of Morguhn amongst them."
He looked down the table at the younger officer. "And what of you, Captain Trohahnos?"
The red-haired officer squirmed, uncomfortable to be
seated in the presence of such high nobility. "A a
little, my ... my lord. Papa didn' mindspeak an' an'
Mama died 'fore she could . . . could teach me much,
an' ..• "
"And you, Lord Drehkos?" inquired Milo in a voice smooth as warm honey, guileless as the coo of a dove.
The rebel lord rolled his goblet slowly between his big, scarred, weather-browned hands for a moment, then raised his eyes, grinning. "For most of my mispent life, my lord, I thought that I totally lacked that ability . . . along with many another. But last spring, when we were battling our way through the mountains, I discovered that either I bad acquired it almost overnight or I'd had it all along. Yes, I do mindspeak."
"You were in the western mountains, man? When?
Where? Why?" demanded Milo, leaning across the table, his fists clenched, his voice and manner now intense.
Despite his obvious puzzlement, Drehkos freely answered. "Yes, my lord, I-rather, those of us who escaped from Morguhnpolis after the rout under the walls of Morguhn Hall along with a contingent of Vawnee cavalrycircled through the mountains to get to Vawnpolis. As to where, we crossed the river into the Duchy of Skaht at Bloody Ford, rested for a few days at the old, deserted border fort, then rode west, through Raider Gap, and angled south. Or tried to."
He shuddered strongly. "If I never again hear another Abrmehnee war-screech, it will be centuries too soon, my lord. It was a running battle every day, and nights as well, sometimes. They reverence the moon, you know, and won't fight on nights when it is in the sky. Fortunately, almost the entire hellish journey was made in clear, cloudless weather. Even so, I left nearly a third of my poor, brave fellows dead in those damned mountains!"
The High Lord's brows rose sharply and he regarded the vahrohneeskos with a new measure of respect. "And you won through to Yawn then. You're to be congratulated on that feat, Lord Drehkos, You apparently don't recognize just how lucky you were. Why, man, in the long-ago campaign which won Yawn and Skaht and Baikuh lands for the Confederation, whole battalions of professional soldiers were wiped out to the last man by those Abrmehnee. The fact that you took a mounted column through the very heart of their territory and got out at all is remarkable; that you lost so few men is near miraculous.
"And your brother insisted you'd never soldiered. So,
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where did you learn cavalry tactics?" He gave another tight smile. "Or siegecraft?"
Drehkos shrugged tiredly. "In the mountains,. I but did what seemed right to me, what seemed the best way of extricating my command from our various difficulties and predicaments. Hari was being candid with you, my lord; 1 never had soldiered prior to my involvement in this . • • this insanity."
He sat back and met the High Lord's gaze squarely. "I won through the mountains only because the men who accompanied me were the best and the bravest these lands have ever known. Both Pehtros and Djaimz, here, were among them. Of the rest, alas, far too many are since slain in this beastly, senseless prolongation of what was a lost cause before its inception.
"As regards my defense of the city, 1 discovered some ancient books within the Citadel and applied certain of their contents to the problems confronting me when the overall command of Vawnpolis was thrust onto my shoulders."
All at once, he dropped his gaze to the brilliant carpet.
"I still do not know why 1 ever agreed to take part in this stupid foolishness. 1 can but ascribe it toa temporary insanity engendered by the loss of my dear wife and the ensuing loneliness, for ever have I considered warfare a
- monumental stupidity. Nor did 1 truly crave to possess my brother's lands and title."
He straightened then and once more met the High Lord's eyes. "My lords, my lady, I offer those words not as excuse, only as explanation ... as best I, myself, can understand. Lord Sahndros, my officers and I, all of us admit our crimes and are ready and willing to submit to appropriate dooms, but only on the ironclad condition that our soldiers and the noncombatants within Vawnnolis be spared their lives, and their few meager possessions and be quickly furnished food. As for poor, sick Myres, 1 cannot answer, hut I think my lord must agree that it were pointless to slay a madman for his actions, no matter how heinous."
Drehkos arose and the two officers quickly followed suit. "I am prepared to surrender my person to you now, my lords, if you agree to my stipulations."
Milo shook his head curtly. "But I do not agree, vahrohneeskos. Sit down."
Slowly, Drehkos sank back into his chair. Of course, he bad known from the beginning that his position was not sufficiently strong to allow him to dictate the terms of the capitulation . . . but he had bad his hopes, now dashed. His face and bearing mirrored his disappointment.
The High Lord Once more leaned across the table. "Are any of you three Initiates of the Inner Mysteries of the Faith?"
The two officers just shook their heads, and Drehkos replied, "No. my lord, there never were very many of them, and only the kooreeoee WAO initiated them and their fellow initiates ever knew them. For some reason, I was never approached, nor, I think, was Lord Kahzos."
"Then," said the High Lord, "you may thank whatever gods may be for your good fortune. My offer for the capitulation of Vawnpolis is full pardon and amnesty to all within its walls, saving only priests, monks and those laymen who are Initiates of the Inner Mysteries. Think you my offer fair and acceptable, Lord Drehkos?"
Drehkos could not speak, could not move, could bardly even think or breathe. At the very best he had expected for himself and Iris immediate subordinates a lengthy period of suffering and huiniliation followed by a painful death; at worst, he had. seen a continuation of the agonies of the siege until the city eventually fell by storm and! or starvation, with alI tile .orrors of a sack to be visited upon the survivors of that last battle.
Pardons and amnesties had never even entered bis suppositions, not for himself and the surviving layman-leaders of the rebeIlion, anyway. And a hope leaped wildly into his thoughts, to see good old Brother Hari again, to try to, in some unknown way, make. up for all the ills he had wrought and attempted on botl1 Hari and Nepbew Vaskos. First, he would •••
"Well?" the High Lord prodded. "Can you accept my offer, Lord Drehkos? Or will you need to return to Vawnpolis to confer with your staff?"
By great force ofwill, Drehkos managed to stop the dizzy spinning of his brain and to frame a reply of sorts. "In many respects, my lord, your offer is most generous. But why must you persecute the priests and monks? I know of no one of them who ever has lifted steel against the established order, either bere or in Morguhn."
Milo looked grim. "No, Lord Drehkos, they but set oth-
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ers to do their dirty work for them; consciously aiding and abetting the evil designs of their devilish kooreeoee, they worked upon the minds of their followers, inflamed them with fiery oratory, and cleverly administered drugs when the time was ripe, and set them ona course of murder and destruction which was completely against the best interests of those poor, deluded followers.
"No, Lord Drehkos, I'll not suffer such conscienceless, merciless cowards to roam at large inmy domains. As for the Initiates, I . • . Tell me, what know you of their rites?"
Drehkos shrugged. "Very little, I fear, my lord. After all, had the rites not been kept secret, there would have been no Mysteries, would there?"
"Quite true," smiled the High Lord, then became once more serious of mien, deadly serious. "Know you then, Lord Drehkos, that these Mysteries were a debauched, depraved, hideously perverted distortion of true Christianity. In the foul rites of the Inner Mysteries, men and women were tortured and mutilated, innocent little childrenbabes, even-were hacked apart and the hot blood of their living, screaming bodies mixed with wine and other substances to be greedily guzzled by these same Initiates."
Captain Pehtros had paled visibly. Captain Djaimz looked greenish and ill; Drehkos sat, rigid, in his chair, his big hands clenched together so that the scarred knuckles shone white as new snow. He had, secretly, long suspected that some awful practices were part and parcel of the Inner Mysteries, but it had been simply a gut feeling with no real grounds for its existence. Nonetheless, he found the High Lord's words, terrible as they were, easy to believe.
"Such was the worst," Milo continued to his abashed audience, "but it was far from all. Sexual orgies frequently were the climax to their 'services,' and, since a child to sacrifice was not always available, tbey also filled their communion cup with animal blood, human urine and even women's moonblood."
Captain Djaimz's chair crashed over and the young officer stumbled hurriedly from the chamber, both hands
pressed to his lips. . _
"But ... but, my lord, why?" Drehkos shook his head .• in wonderment. "Such practices are no part of any religion I've ever heard of, and I've read of many, both modem and ancient."
Milo's wide shoulders rose and fell. "There are some similarities to the old Ehleen monster cults which flourished in the last few years before the coming of the Horseclans, a hundred and fifty years ago. But, beyond those, 1 can but surmise that the witchmen-kooreeoee extemporaneously concocted their ceremonies, since there were significant differences between those described by Spiros and those described by Mahreeos.
"As to whyl Principally, because they are evil men to whom tae sufferings and debasements of others mean absolutely nothing. In order to draw one foot closer to their goals, they would cheerfully bring about the deaths of half the population of the Confederation. And such is about what would have happened had their nefarious scheme come to full fruition."
Drehkos looked his puzzlement. "I . . • 1 don't understand •.. " he began, but Milo cut him off.
"Nor will you, vahrohneeskos, until yon city is once more in Confederation hands and 1 have your oaths of fealty. Officially, you're still a rebel, an enemy, and I'm too old a dog to willingly give you an edge."
The rebel commander drained off the last of his wine and stared for a long minute into the empty cup. At length, he set it on the table before him, rose from his chair, unhooked his cased sword from his baldric and laid it on the board, its worn hilt near the High Lord's hand. Following his lead, Captain Pehtros did the same. Captain Djaimz, his face and armor splashed with water, reentered just in time to add his own weapon to the formal surrender.
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the entire Ahrmehnee stahn under the ravening spears and knives of the barbaric Muhkohee: nought but justified fear of the thousands of grim warriors the Thirteen Tribes could muster held their enemies in any sort of check.
No, Ahrmehnee warriors feared neither man nor beast but they, one and all. feared the Maidens unashamedly ... and no one of them could say why.
Vahk and his race knew very little about the Maidens, save that. like the Ahrmehnee themselves, they worshiped the Lady Moon, wore strange and antique-looking armor, were stark warriors and paid for such items as their delegations came to Ahrmehnee villages to buy in silver and gold coins of unusual uniformity which bore likenesses of men and women and beasts as well as legends which not even the wisest Ahrmehnee elders could decipher.
Their valley was very large. virtually inaccessible and well )!uarded having but a single known entry. It was before the yawning. black mouth of this cavern that Vahk's tribesmen now were encamped. The mountains surrounding the Valley of the Maidens presented an almost uniform facade of weathered rock and deep. dusty runnels, Such terrain was difficult for goats or men, impossible for ponies, but even so, the crests of 'the high ridges connecting the mountains showed the viewer - an unbroken stretch of rough-dressed stone walls, crenellated and set with towers, squatting amid the dark evergreens.
The old tales said that Maidens had been inhabiting the valley when the ancestors of the Thirteen Tribes first came to the hills and mountains. They, like the Ahrmehnee, were God-spawned And these two sacred races had lived with peace between them for moons beyond reckoning.
But for all their similarities of worship, their shared glorious ancestry. their relatively friendly relations and the fact that the Ahrmehnee were renowned far and wide for their lustiness and those Maidens who ventured forth from their hold were right often young, comely and toothsome-albeit a mite on the muscular side with breasts invariably concealed beneath armor-there never had been intermarriaoe or even casual fraternization. In the course of the years, hot-headed or drunken Ahrmehnee had, on occasion. sought to seduce or force one of the Maidens; the would-he seducers had met with cold rebuff, the rapists with quick and bloody death.
It was supposed that men did dwell in that mysterious
Valley; for the Maidens were not Undying-they aged like all living creatures and, after a while, came no more to buy goods in the villages, their places being taken by other, younger Maidens. But no one could say for sure, since no one had ever seen a man of the Maidens' race, nor managed ever to-even glimpse of what lay beyond dark entry cavern and wall-crowned summits. The nahkhahrak had always strictly forbidden Ahrmehnee to trespass up the bare, rocky slopes, and those few who had seen fit to disobey bad never been seen again.
The scattering of villages near to the Valley sometimes witnessed weird and disturbing phenomena-sustained and awful rumblings from within the hold, accompanied by
_ roiling layers of thick smoke by day and unearthly radiancesby night: and, for many days after. the cataract which fell from those heights and the mountain river it fed would be oddly hued and fetid to both nose and taste. And the phenomena and mysteries had given rise to a plethora of terrible tales. Some were believed, some halfbelieved, most used only to frighten naughty children. But told and retold over the centuries, they had given rise to the fears and dreads which had made these last three moons so unpleasant for Vahk and his fighters. Like most Ahrmehnee, they normally avoided coming within a mile of the mouth of the cavern. for 'all that the approach was gently graded and wide enough for two horsemen abreast.
Nor. reflected Vahk, would they now be within forty miles of this place. had it not been for the comings of the People-of-Powers The first snows were buried under their successors and the surplus cattle were being slaughtered for salting when the two men and the woman rode into the village of the nahkhahrah, in company with old Dehrehbeh Hahgohn Kohebnyuhn.who was come with his party for the Council of the Kehv Moon,
In the Council : House, lit by fat-lamps made from skuUs. the pock-faced. white-haired Hahgohn. whose tribe occupied the southernmost __ of the lands held by Ahrmehnee arose and -told the nahkhahrah and the other eleven dehrehbehee .of how the three strangers had been brought to him by a village headman. of how they all three spoke to - him- in fluent-if somewhat archaicHahvahs ann told of having been sent by Moon to aid Moon's faithful people in regaining their ancient lands.
"And my father, my brothers," the eldest of the
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dehbehrehee had concluded, "I am convinced that they speak truly, for they surely are wondrous in their ways, commanding strange devices of thunder and lightning which can slay at two and three bowshots' distance and sharing ownership of a pair of chests-each no bigger than a common travel chest-which," he lowered his voice, "contain living menl"
Of course, no one had believed old Hahgohn's preposterous tales ... not at 'first. But the nahkhahralt had been sufficiently titillated to first speak with the leader of the strangers, then with all three, and by the time he brought them to the Council House, he was as fervent as had been Kohehnyuhn, earlier.
Vahk paused in his musings to tuck his sodden cloak more tightly at the neck, shivering at the icy touch of the fabric on his bare throat. He shivered again, then, under his breath, promised a white buck-goat next moonbirth, if only Lady Moon would grant that the Woman-of-Powers rejoin them today ... or even tomorrow.
Sahrah Sahrohyuhn (otherwise known as Erica Arenstein, D. Sc.) stepped onto the back of the kneeling man, and from that human mountingblock bestrode her fine ridinc mule=-everv bit as surefooted as the stunted mountain ponies of the Abrmehnee, yet as big and powerful as the Maidens' warhorses.
Once in the saddle, Sahrah/Erica was more than anxious to be upon her way back to the cold, primitive village of the nahkhahrah. For all that her mission had been crowned with greater success than expected, for all that the Maidens and their rulers had made her more than welcome, she had not been comfortable since she first entered this valley. She knew, could recognize, what its inhabitants could not.
Though cruel winter clamped the surrounding mountains and valleys in its icy teeth, flowers bloomed and grain rippled on the valley floor. Snow or sleet turned liquid as soon as it touched the ground, so that the worst winter weather became only soft mists in the Valley of the Maidens. Only the Watchers, posted on the circuit of walls high above, ever tasted of the sufferings of those who dwelt in the surrounding lands, for Maidens never quitted their comfortable hold in winter. They accepted the bounties of their goddess, appeasing Her with bloody sacrifices
on those frequent occasions when She vented Her anger in fire, choking smoke and shuddering, quaking earth.
But the training and experience of Dr. Erica Arenstein could identify this paradisical-seeming valley for what it truly was, though it would have been foolish-suicidal, even-to attempt to impart this knowledge to the Maidens. It gave Sahrah/Erica the willies to awaken in the morning and see a column of smoke spiraling up from the Sacred Crescent, and the ominous rumbling which often accompanied it 'made her want to scream and run as far and as fast as this body could. So she was overjoyed to be
leaving. .. .. . .
However, her months of well-concealed terror had been worthwhile. Large as it was, the valley was already crowded, and for two generations the Maidens had been forced to buy grain and other foodstuffs in order to feed the burgeoning population. Not much persuasion had been necessary to convince the rulers that the Will of the Goddess lay behind this opportunity to fight in concert with the neighboring tribes andwin .more .land-e-good land, rich nonmountainous land ..
Then, too, there was the Maidens' treasure.which the Center could put to good use, . once Erica and Greenberg
- and Dr. Diamond had perfected a scheme to get it to their advance base. But it was both bulky and heavy, and many, many pack ponies would.be necessary to 'transport it through those hundredsof miles of mountains. And they'd need a stroIlg force to seize and guard the tons of gold ingots and ancient coins; perhaps they could recruit from the Mubkohee tribes, once the-Maidens, Ahrmehnee and Confederation forces were busily butchering each other.
At the head of the long column of mounted and armored warrior women,Sahralt/Erica rode knee to knee with the tall, handsome brahbehrnuh. or warleader of the
. Maidens. And she thought it was too .bad, in a way, that that splendid body would most likely .. be hacked into bloody gobbets before the spring came on the hills. It was a strong, healthy and attractive body, for which she would willingly have traded the one she now occupied.
Milo Moraihad not, in . something less than two centuries, built his Confederation by passively awaiting attacks. In this present world, pacifism was suicidal,if indeed, it had not always been .. Which was why, immedi-
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ately Vawnpolis was surrendered and regarrisoned, he set about preparing for an offensive thrust into the mountains.
They gathered within the largest chamber of the Vawnpolis Citadel-the major nobles of the archduchy, with surrogates taking the places of those thoheeksee dead or incapacitated; the strahteegoee of the Confederation units camped outside the walls, headed by Sir Ehdt, the siegemaster, and High Lady Aldora; Vahroneeskos Drebkos Daiviz of Morguhn and three of his officers, all veterans of his early-summer march through the mountains.
Working from such few maps as were available, Sir Ehdt had constructed a huge sand-table model of the western borders of Yawn, with southernmost Skaht to the north and northernmost Baikuh to the south. Now, he and a couple of Confederation officers were tracing Drebkos' route and altering the model to conform with the former rebels' memories of the terrain through which they had fought.
And, throughout it all, Thoheeks Bili of Morguhn had sat in his place, silently staring his hatred at the grayhaired, emaciated figure of his rebellious former vassal. Only some exceedingly firm language from Milo and Aldora had gotten the young noble into the same room with Drehkos, for BiIi could not forget the siege of Morguhn Hall or that Drehkos had been one of the rebel commanders there. His pride might keep the fact from his c1ansmen, but his peers well knew that pardoning Drehkos and the mad Vahrohnos Myros had been a bitter pill for Bili to swallow.
Sir Ehdt's pointer paused over the serpentine line of light-blue sand which represented the principal nonseasonal waterway debouched by this section of mountains. When he spoke, his voice was tinged with the respect which the vahrohneeskos had earned from those who had fought him so long. "Lord baronet, this blue sand is the main stream of the Peekrohs River, which you must have crossed next. Please try to recall just where you crossed and the approximate depth." He then handed over the pointer.
Fingering his ear with his free hand, Drehkos briefly closed his eyes in concentration, then moved up to the table, scrutinizing the jagged chunks of rock and hummocks of sand. Beckoning his officers to him, he ex-
changed a few low-voiced words with them, then spoke aloud.
"As we remember, my lords, we entered Bitter River about here ... but came out here." He indicated a spot some little distance downstream of the point of entry.
Before he could say more, Vahrohnos Rai Fraizehr, sitting as surrogate for the infant heir of dead Thoheeks Fraizehr, nodded. "Aye, those mountain streams be swift. How many men and horses did you lose in that crossing?"
But Drehkos shook his close-cropped head. "It was only swift in the center _ channel,my lord, though fortunately not too deep. For the length of the. distance, here, it is very wide, but generally shallow. That's why we stayed in it for so long-it's a pebble bed and easier going for tired horses and exhausted or wounded men than the trails which paralleled it."
He frowned. "Besides which something told me to employ that route and-s-"
"And, my lords," put in one of the former rebel officers with a grin, "Lord· Drehkos' hunch was right,as they mostly are. A couple of days after, we took a wounded Abrmehnee and, ere he died, squeezed out of him the information that an ambush was set and waiting for us just where we would have been about an hour after we forded the river had we gone straight across .. Thanks to Lord Drehkos, we outfoxed those barbarian bastards, went near two whole days without having to fight, we did!" crowed Captain Toorkos, exultantly.
Milo, Aldora and Sir- Ehdt had already questioned Drehkos . and almost every other living survivor of that march at great length. This session was being staged for the benefit of the nobles and army officers. Now the High Lord rose from his place.
"As you are aware, gentlemen, it is my intent to invade the Ahrmehnee mountains in force. It will be a savage and brutal campaign, for they must be hit hard and hurt seriously, else we'll soon have them here in our laps."
Striding around the table, he took up the pointer and placed its tip at the Gap of Yawn-where the transmontane trade-road entered the mountains and near to which lay the tumbled ruins of Fort Buhkuh, in which the last of the Vawnee Kindred nobility had resisted to their deaths the Vawnee rebels.
"At this gap.will strike the main body of our force, led
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by me. I will lead most of the Confederation infantry, with three squadrons of kahtahfraktoee, Thoheeks Hwahltuh of Vawn-Sanderz and his clansmen and half of Vahrohneeskos Drehkos' troops. We will strike directly for the heart-the seat of the Stahn Nahkhahrah, himself, the place called Zeese."
He moved the pointer northward, up into the duchy of Thoheeks Skaht. "The force which enters Raider Gap will be led by the High Lady. It will consist of eight squadrons of kahtahfraktoee, two of lancers, Vahrohneeskos Drehkos and all of his remaining cavalry and the Kindred nobility of Skaht, Duhnkin, Lahmahnt and Fraizehr."
Rapidly, he moved the pointer south, into the Duchy of Baikuh. "Through the Gap of Skulls will go the third prong of our attack. All the Freefighters presently with the army, all the Kindred nobility not otherwise assigned, all to be led by Thoheeks Bili of Morguhn."
Months agone, when BiIi had been the youngest and newest duke of the archduchy and an unknown quantity to his peers, there would certainly have been loud and bitter outcry at the High Lord's choice of commanders for the souther-nmost column. But in the wake of several months of brutal combat, much of it commanded by Bili, he was no longer the newest thoheeks and his abilities as both astute captain and stark warrior were well known and unquestioned ... for all his not-quite-nineteen years.
The High Lord continued: "The prairiecats will be evenly divided amongst the three columns, as will the medical personnel. The engineers and selected Confederation Army units will take up garrison duties in Vawnpolis and the border forts. The trains will remain in Vawnpolis, as well, but in readiness, for there may be need of them. Overall command of the defenses of the three duchies will be in the capable bands of Sir Ehdt Gahthwahlt and, after due consideration, I have decided that Sub-strahteegos Vaskos Daiviz of Morguhn will command Vawnpolis, assisted by former keeleeoostos Vahrohneeskos Ahndros Theftehros of Morguhn."
Of all nonmutants present, only Bili understood the hidden meaning of the High Lord's choices-Aldora was a farspeaker, whose mind could range the Vawnpolis base or any of the other two columns at will; using the added power of another mind, preferably that of a prairiecat, Milo, Bili or Ahndros could do the same, and so the far-
flung commands would be in frequent or constant contact, as the situations demanded.
One of- the strahteegoee-a short, chunky, white-haired man, whose helm-creased brow and silver cat pendant served notice that he was a field officer, not an adrninistrator-s-stood, cleared his throat and said, "My lord Milo ... ?"
Milo smiled. "Senior Strahteegos Paidros Kailehb has a question, as usual."
Everyone laughed or chuckled; it was a standing joke.
Even Bili's scowl softened into a smile.
Unabashed, the officer went on. "My lord, if we are to leave the trains behind, how are our necessary supplies to be transported? Mules? If so, we had best commence gathering them."
The High Lord nodded. "A herd of five hundred mules and asses should, even now, be moving down through Skahtand will be here in a few days. Only my column will bear any quantity of supplies, however, The High Lady's 'cavalry and ThoheeksBili's Freefighters will be expected to subsist on game-and the mountains are, we understand, swarming with wild beasts-and what foodstuffs they seize from the Ahrmebnee.
"But, back to the order of march and the responsibilities of the three columns, gentlemen. If the Witchmen are physically present among the AhimeFmeethe logical place for them to be is with the nahkhahrah. This is why my column will strike directly for his village. Only one tribe, aside from the nahkhahrah's own, lies athwart our route, the Tribe of Frainyuhn-or its southern fringes. I anticipate little danger from them, however, since I met' their chief last year and foundllima young hothead, such a one as tends to make a poor defensive wartier."
Under his shaven scalp, Bili's brow wrinkled. "But, my lord,-if-the Witchmen are with the nahkhahrah, will not most or all of the warriors of the Thirteen Tribes be there as we1l?"
- "Just so," grinned the High 'Lord. "And this is where Aldora's work .andyoura begins. The plan of the Witchmen is to neutralize-by hook or -by crook-the nooAhrmehnee tribes to the north and west so that the Ahrmebnee fighters will not need to leave warriors to protect their valleys and mountain villages. For though they bear allegiance to -the nahkhahrah, Ahrmehnee family ties
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are far stronger, and they will desert the nahkhahrali in an eyeblink if their homes are imperiled.
"Now, the lands of eight of the tribes are situated to the south of the nahkhahrah's seat. From one end of this coast to the other, Freefighters are justly renowned as reavers and rapers. And they are to have free rein, Bili. I want every village leveled, every flock butchered or dispersed. Kill the men and rape the women and run the survivors into the forests. But make certain that there are survivors and that they do get away-headed north, preferably on ponyback. When the lands of the first tribe are laid waste, move quickly on to the next.
"The High Lady's column will also be performing atrocities upon the three tribe lands which lie north of the nahkhahrah's holdings, and by the time my column arrives at its objective, I expect that most of the Ahrmehnee warriors will be widely scattered, battling back to their homes ... or what will then be left of them. We should then be able to coerce the Ahrmehnee into handing over the damned Witchmen, as well as hostages for their future good behavior. Then we can move the Regulars north and south to help in scotching the rest of the Witchmen's schemes."
Chapter Iv
Halfway up the last, steep slope, Pehroosz Bahrohnyuhn first heard the terrified bleating of the goats and the snorting-stamping of horses or ponies. Hill-born and bred, for all that her father was village headman and full brother to Chief Moorahd, the proud-breasted, raven-haired girl was immediately suspicious. Dropping the bundle of freshbaked bread she had been bringing to her younger brothers, she forsook the narrow track for the bordering thick growth of evergreens and gingerly crept upward seeking a point from which she might see the whole of the pasture slopes without being seen herself.
It was a scene of horror. Big men on big, lowland horses were cantering about the pasture slopes, sabering or axing the scuttling, bleating goats. The dry winter grass already was speckled with quivering, bloody carcasses. Of her two youngest brothers there was no sign, but
_ Toorkohm-at a hundred and forty-three- moons, thirtyseven moons her junior; big-boned, with their father's craggy face, wide shoulders and quick, sure movementsstood at bay, his back to the dry-stone chimney of the herdsmen's shelter, his wolfspear held menacingly ready, fresh blood glowing on its wide blade.
Pehroosz could not repress a smile of grim satisfaction, even under these conditions, for one scale-shirted raider lay stretched on the sward, his -- throat gaping like a huge second mouth, his chest and shoulders - covered with frothy pink gore. Another sat swaying with agony, while a third labored to stop his life from leaking out the broad stab in his thigh. It was obvious that Toorkohm had fought skillfully and well.
But it could not last, this -Pehroosz knew. No matter how reckless his courage, how strong his arm, how thirsty his spear, he was but a largish, unarmored boy, now ringed by cautiously advancing, - fully armed, full-grown
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raiders. It ended quickly. A long-bladed saber licked out and Toorkohm sought to parry it with his spearshaft. With a practiced drawcut, the raider's upper edge sliced deeply into the seasoned walnut wood. In the moment the spear was immobilized, two more raiders stepped close to Pehroosz's brother and she quickly closed 'her eyes as the blades rose and fell, rose and fell with the meaty tchunnks reminiscent of autumn hog-butchering. Toorkohm's own, thin death wail rose above those of _ the goats he had fought so well to succor.
Her pretty olive face bathed with tears, Pehroosz slowly worked her broad-hipped but lissome body back from the crest, not turning until the bulk of the hill loomed above her. And what she saw then brought a piercing scream from her throat. Then consciousness left her.
The chilI awakened her, and she instinctively sought to flex her body against it, but neither arms nor legs would move. Only when she opened her eyes could she see that she was lying on the packed-earth floor of the herdsmen's hut, her clothing all stripped from her .. and wadded beneath her buttocks. One of the raiders knelt his weight. on her palms, holding her arms extended above her head; two others crouched grinning, their big, dirty hands locked about her ankles, splaying her long legs. Standing between those legs was a fourth raider.- His breeks were tumbled about his boot tops and he was tuckirig up the skirt of his scaleshirt. Pehroosz's first thought had been to show the bravery of her dead brother, _but when she saw the thick, throbbing maleness standing up from 'the raider's loins, terror sent a shudder coursing through her body and a whim-
per bubbling from her lips. ~ _
She was deflowered savagely, brutally. And when the spent raider rose from her ravaged flesh, his place was taken by another. Then, another ••• and another .•.
and yet another. -
Pehroosz lost _ count of the number of attacks. But at Borne point she did rally, did do something other than scream her throat raw. She tried to clench her pain-racked body and, failing that, bit .. at her tormentors, drawing blood from at least one, possibly two. But their buffets dizzied her and they began to hold themselves up and away
from those teeth while they used her. _
- Somewhere close by, Pehroosz could hear the ugly, guttural sounds of some animal's agony. The noises were
harsh, sickening, and she wished that the raiders would saber the poor beast so that the noises would stop. Dimly, from far off, she heard, too, men speaking in one of the Mehruhkuhn dialects, but she had never had cause to master Mehrikan, since Ahrmebnee men did all the trading.
"I know just what Duke Bili ordered," snapped the plate-armored officer shortly, the knuckles of his bridle hand glowing white where be gripped the pommel of his fine broadsword. "But if, Sword forbid, her screams carried as far north as they did south the whole damned village could be alerted by now! You, Grohz, put up your damned dirk! Remember, we want the likes of this poor girl to escape north to the nahkhahrah, All you men get mounted now, put Patuhzuhn's body.on his horse and form up. Komees Hari will soon be at the ford, and we're to meet him there. He wants to be in position to attack the village just at the nooning. Run off the smaller ponies, but leave the big one for her."
With a chuckle, the sergeant commented, "Sir Geros, that chit were a maid, ere my yard rendered her a woman. With the swiving we done give her, her crotch'll be sorer nor a boil for some little while. She'll not be forking no pony this day, I trow!"
His laughter was echoed by most of the others as they strode out to the horses.
Shortly, a jingling and creaking and measured hoofbeats receded into the distance as the patrol went back the way they had come. But it was more than an hour before Pehroosz, once more shivering in her nakedness, managed to drag her bruised, battered body to the hearth, on which a small fire still glowed.
She wished that the raiders had had the decency to slay that still-suffering goat, ere they left. Some time later, she realized that those hurt-animal sounds came not from a
. goat, but from her own throat. Her fierce. Bahrohnyuhn pride had refused to show the raiders her tears, but now they came. In a great racking rush they came, and her abused body doubled upon itself and shook to her sobs of rage and pain and shame.
In his youth, Komees Hari Daiviz of Morguhn had been a Freefighter, soldiering the length and breadth of the Middle Kingdoms, whose two-score-plus principalities had seen precious few years of peace in the four centuries
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since the Great Earthquake bad brougbt tbem into squabbling existence. The passage of more than a score of years had failed to dim his memories of tbose bloody days, nor had the pursuits of peace-marriage and the rearing of a family, succession to his patrimonial .. title and estate, the ordering of his lands and borses and people-softened him or expunged from his mind the hard lessons learned from the particularly savage and merciless brand of warfare peculiar to the kingdoms of the north.
Almost all of the Freefighters who had .ridden into the mountains behind komees' suzerain, Thoheeks Bili·· Morgubn of Morguhn, were men=born and bred and- . blooded in the Middle Kingdoms, and Hari had quickly·reverted to the man be had been twenty-odd years before, finding that he once more was thinking like a professional soldier. He was again relishing the rough banter ana lewd songs; the constant and often senseless profanities and blasphemies fell unnoticed on his ears and unconsciously from his lips. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to end a hard day's march with a bruising session of sword-fencing or staffplay, under the dis-criminating eye of
a weaponsmaster-which breed of noncom tyrannicaIly chivvied exhausted - officers a-nd nienalike into nightly practice sessions in weapons skills.
In recognition of his experience, the thoheeks had given him command of a squadron of dragoons and bad not demurred too vociferously when the old komees chose one of the suzerain's favorites, the valorous Sir Geros Lahvoheetos of Morguhn, to be his seniorcaptain,
At their last meeting, the young thoheeks had stood be- - fore Hari and the other squadron commanders in his three-quarter armor, with a cold wind whipping his oiled cloak about his booted legs and the rays 'of new-risen Sacred Sun glinting on the brass point atop the shaft of the Red Eagle banner, ensign of the House of Morguhn,
The scarred, deeply tanned face which peered from the opened helm gave no indication of the taIt, broad-shouldered nobleman's actual youth. The high forehead was furrowed and a web of tiny wrinkles crinkled the outer comers of the blue-gray eyes. His baritone voice flat and emotionless, he reiterated the High Lord's orders and instructions with regard to their mission and its implementation. Then he drew his broadsword and used it to point
out features of the parchment map which a couple of men held unrolled behind him.
"Gentlemen, Sir Ehdt emphasizes that he cannot claim more than a bare minimum of accuracy for this map. Unlike the northern and central columns, ours will not be traversing lands scouted out by Drehkos-the-traitor last· year. The only references Sir Ehdt had were campaign sketches and notes at least three generations old, plus the questionable information of some traveling merchants. Nonetheless, it is all we have, and so .we must make do with it.
"We are now here, at this crossroads. The column will march west today, dropping off squadrons as it goes. When your squadron leaves the column, you are on your own, gentlemen, on your own. There is little likelihood that you will encounter more than a bare sprinkling of Ahrmehnee warriors, since most of the bastards are up there in the north; but don't forget, these are their mountains. They know every nook, crag and cranny and they are past masters of irregular warfare, so even two or three will cost you heavily if you let them take you unaware.
"If the terrain will permit, do not allow your troopers to ride bunched up, where a volley or a boulder could do real damage, for we'll be covering a forty-mile front and we want at least a peek into every valley and vale. It would not only be disobedient to our orders to leave a single village untouched, but very dangerous, as well, since we need our enemy fleeing before us, not skulking behind.
"You are all seasoned campaigners, else I'd not have placed you in command positions, so I'll not insult your intelligence by lecturing you on dos and don'ts and the merits of basic preparedness. After all," he treated them to a fleeting grin, "you're commanding Freefighters who can forage for necessities, if need be, and don't require the careful spoonfeeding of Confederation Regulars."
Hari 1tad joined in the brief chortling and chuckling. If the siege of Vawnpolis had taught them nothing else, they had all learned the essential superiority of the Freefighter and the Kindred nobility to the vaunted and highly trained Army of the Confederation.
At first, the strict discipline and unquestioning obedience to orders, the machinelike precision of movements and maneuvers, of the serried ranks of Regulars had impressed them. But that was before they had seen the
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other side of the coin. The discipline was exacted at the cost of the men's individuality; the obedience robbed them of any initiative, and the precision had conditioned them into virtually will-less robots. The spectacle of a regiment's even, ordered ranks trotting inexorably against an enemy position, emotionlessly dressing to fill the gaps left by killed or wounded comrades, halting as one man on order to hurl close-range volleys of darts, then raising a guttural cheer and pouring over their objective, was awe-inspiring. But the helplessness of the men of the same regiment in any case not covered by rules and regulations, when no officer or noncom was about to think for them, sickened and repelled the self-reliant eondottieriand most of the freedom-worshiping noblemen, even as the habit of most Confederation officers of treating anyone not of equal or higher military rank as a bull-headed child irked and infu-
riated them. -
"I'll dole out the flesh tailors as far as they'll go," the thoheeks went on. "But there're just not enough of them, and anyone wounded in a squadron lacking them will just have to take his chances with agood horseleech,
"Each squadron will be allowed twelve mules, no more.
And any officer I catch wasting a muleback to pack a tent will get my boot up his arse; this be no pleasure jaunt and, if it's shelter you must have, take it from the Ahrmehnee."
His sword tip traced a course north from the trade road.
"Mark you this route on your small maps, gentlemen. When the last of your squadrons is on the way, I'll set out on this patD behind you with the five reserve squadrons and the remainder of the packtrain, When, eventually, you encounter sizable numbers of Ahrmehnee warriors, send gallopers back for me, then choose a tenable position and hold it until I arrive. On no account is any squadron to attempt either to push through or to retreat before the main Ahrmehnee host! Understood?"
Sheathing his broadsword and signing his men to roll up the map, he smiled wolfishly. "Dispose of loot as you see ~ . fit, catch-as-catch-can or equal division, it's all to be yours, since the High Lord will claim no share, nor will I. Reave and rape and ravage to your hearts' content, put the fear of Sword into these barbarians. And don't stick at slaying children, either; nits make lice, and we want to so .depopulate these mountains that the bastards will be at least another generation recovering.
"I'll probably have a few words with each of you, ere your squadron separates from the column. But for now, let's to horse. Good hunting, gentlemen."
That had been three days ago. Now Hari's main body was. trotting up a long, narrow, twisting vale, towering dark-green mountains on their right and a swift-flowing rivulet on their left. Between broad patches of snow and dark, weathered outcrops of rock, the ground was crunchy with the stubble of sere, yeJIowed grass. Only goats or sheep would have cropped it so close.
Up ahead, nestled in a larger, more sheltered valley, lay the village his scouts had found yesterday. They had reported the only adult males to be either old or crippled, so Hari had elected to proceed at a normal march rate, though as quietly as possible so that the quarry might not be spooked and go to ground, and attack whenever he arrived in position. But since the scouts had also reported a number of flocks of goats scattered about the routes to the village, he had sent several squads on ahead to make certain that the herdsmen carried no warning to the objective.
All had seemed weJI and they had been rapidly advancing when that damned screaming had echoed down the vale, bouncing _off the steep slopes on either hand. The screams had gone on and on and on, and, cursing the carelessness of whoever was -responsible, while hoping that the intervening hills would keep this alarm from reaching ears in the village, Hari had sent young Sir Geros and a squad up to try to still the noise at its source.
As they came to where two smaller streams joined to form the larger, the knight rejoined Komees Hari, while the two squads trotted back to take places in the column.
"What in Sword was going on?" demanded the old nobleman immediately. "What occasioned those fornicating screams?"
"Just that, my lord, fornication • • . rather, a gang rape," Sir Geros replied grimly. "The squad had caught a girl on the trail leading from the village. She must have been a really beautiful girl, too, for she was still pretty even after all they'd done to her."
"Did they slay her?" inquired the komees idly.
"They would've, my lord, but I forbade such and, recalling what you said of the orders of the High Lord and Duke Bili, I had them leave a pony nearby for her. I should imagine that the tale of a raped wife or daughter
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would be most effective in persuading men to come back and defend their homes." -
Hari chewed at his lower lip. "True enough, man, true enough. But it might be better to send a man back up there to cut her throat. What if she alerts the damned village?"
Geros shook his head to the extent his tight-laced helm would allow. "No need, my lord. She was -taken by all twelve of the men, I think, and the sergeant as well. They used her badly, very badly. I doubt me She can even walk, much less mount a pony."
Hari shrugged. "Well, if you say so, lad. And besides, if we can keep up tbis pace, we'll probably be on the village
ere she could get there, anyhow." .
For long and long after no more tears would come, Pehroosz lay huddled near the fire, shuddering and sobbing dry sobs. But as the untended fire began to die, the shudders metamorphosed into shivers and the sobs into gasps between chattering teeth, Once, through the hard-packed dirt beneath her, she thought to .feel the drumming of many hooves. Sure that the dread sounds heralded the return of her attackers, she huddled her aching body more
"tightly and whimperingly awaited the unendurable.-.
When a hairy something touched her and she felt hot, damp breath on her quivering flesh, she tried to scream, _ but her tight, strained throat emitted only a dull croaking sound. Gathering her courage, she" opened her eyes to see what fresh horrors were to be her lot.
Above Pehroosz stood old Zahndrah, most venerable of the Bahrohnyuhn she-goats, her gentle, brown eyes painfilled, mutely questioning the brutality which had been so unjustly dealt her. All along the nanny's right flank, the hair was crusty and brownish, marking the path of a shal-
low saber cut. -
Raising a shaking hand, Pehroosz caressed the . small, neat head between nose and cursive horns. Uttering soft sounds of pleasure. Zahndrah pressed closer, gently nuzzling the familiar-smelling human. Then she turned tail and knelt to display her milk-heavy udders.
Until then, Pehroosz had not realized just how thirsty she was. She looked about her, spotted a small. wooden bowl within easy reach. Reaching for tbe vessel, she sat up . then abruptly rolled back onto her hip, breathless
with pain. After some experimenting, she found a relatively painless position and first filled, then drained off three bowls ofhot, frothy milk. Relieved, Zahndrah arose and ambled back out of the shelter.
With the nanny's departure, Pehroosz began once more to suffer from 'the cold, so, careful not to let the most abused parts of her body come in contact with the hard, bumpy floor, she levered herself erect. But she could not remain so. Groaning at 'the sharp agony of the cramps racking her belly. she fell to her knees and elbows and so remained until. after eternities, the spasms subsided.
On hands and knees, she retraced the few feet to the scene of her defilement and, fighting to hold down the goatmilk, set her bruised and clumsy hands to unfolding the damp, _sticky bundle of her clothing. But, since they had apparently been ripped. from her·· by main force, homespun gown arid shift and woolen overshift were only so much shredded cloth now. Only her cloak was whole. Gratefully. Pehroosz wrapped herself in the stained garment. She at first thought the cursedraidets must have stolen her fine fur-lined felt boots, but-she found thein, fi-
nally. tossed into a dark-corner. . -
Before the small fire died away,she fed it bits and pieces of the stools which had been the shelter's only furnishings. Then, as a cold . wind had commenced to angle in, she crawled to the open side and painfully worked the oiled hides down into placereventually forcing her stiff fingers to properly lace them together and secure their bottoms. By the time she had finished,·· she was exhausted, and, lulled by this .exhaustion, as well as by the warm near-darkness and the physical and emotional stress of the last few hours. she lapsed into a deep sleeJi,a healing - sleep. from which she wakened only enough to feed such fuel as she had to the fire from time to time as needed.
The High Lord and his host camped below the Gap of Yawn, amid the tumbled; ghost-haunted ruins of Fort Buhkuh, until Bili's and Aldora's farspeak told him that the keen steel and fiery torches of their far-ranging forces were hard at their bloody task. Then, of a bitter, snowy morn, drums rolled, trumpets brayed and disciplined ranks of Confederation infantry set bootsole to trade road in the wake of the mounted vanguards and scouts. Each of the four regiments had been brought to Jull strength by the
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addition of able-bodied former rebels from the Vawnpolis garrison, and those officer-grade types not riding with Vahrohneeskos Drehkos trotted their mounts along as supernumeraries with the High Lord's staff. Only the sick or disabled rebels had been left in VawnpoIis; plus, of course, the lunatic Vahrohnos Myros Deskati of Morguhn, and his "bodyguards" commanded by the faithful Captain Danos.
Two days' march into the mountains, the vanguard squadron of kahtahfrahktoee-heavy cavalry-under command of Keeleeohstos Gaib Lihnstahk fought an inconclusive action with an unknown, but certainly small, number of Ahrmehnee tribesmen. Had the ambush succeeded, vanguard casualties would surely have been heavy. But the concealed bushwackers had been spied out by the swift, fleeting prairiecats, who had reported the location to Gaib, then lain in position to take the Ahrmehnee in flank and rear at a critical point in the engagement. Certain articles found on the bodies of the slain marked. them as men of the Ahrahkyuhn Tribe.
The following week saw four additional attempts of _a similar nature, all foiled by the keen senses of the mindspeaking felines who ranged point and flanks and rear of the upward-toiling column. As the Ahrmehnee were crafty, brave and on well-known home ground, their losses were not truly heavy. Nonetheless, with the failure of the fifth ambush, they ceased their attacks and the cats could report no more than a handful, apparently pacing the
column. _
They had been on the march for a fortnight when they came to the charred ruins of the trade-road bridge jutting blackly over the rushing waters of a tributary of the Peekrohs River. Milo cursed himself for not foreseeing such a likelihood and bringing at least a company or two of the engineers. But cross the stream the army did, and safely. Then a few hours' ascent brought them onto the plateau which lay between the mountains of Tribe Ahrahkyuhn-whicb they had just traversed-and those inhabited by the tribe of the nahkhahrah, Tribe Taishyuhn.
Amid the ancient, partially buried relics of a godcity, the High Lord had a night camp erected. But on the morrow the march was not continued. Instead the men and pack mules were put to the tasks of dragging timbers from the slopes above and below, then raising a strong palisade
atop the usual earth mound. Some were even put to digging stones from their ages-old resting places- and manhandling them into such positions as would give added strengtla to the defenses. The ground, hard and flinty under the best of conditions, was frozen and the work strenuous, but by the morning of the fourth day, Senior Strahteegos Hahfos could report the task completed .
. Hahfos was- young fora corps commander, barely forty summers,but such had been the attrition of officers-both senior and junior, company. field and strahteegos grades-at the savage siege of Vawnpolis, that the Morguhn Expeditionary Force wasbecome an army. composed principally of the young, thenimble and the lucky. Third son of a thoheeks whose lands lay far to the south and west near the shores of the vast inland sea. Hahfos Djohnz's appearance always pleased the High Lord, personifying as he did the splendid melding of two fine races=-Horsclans-
man -and Ehleen. _ -
Two dozen years of campaigning had weathered his skin to the shade of old walnut and crosshatched all its visible surfaces with the seamed and puckered cicatrices which were the badgeofliis calling, but the High Lord accepted thesescars and -the permanent tan, unimpressed. Not yet bent by age, Hahfos stood-one-meter and three - quarters; his close-cropped hair _ was almost the same shade as- his face,with flashes of white at. the temples, arid
though his blue-green eyes could chill an object of his displeasure to the innermost core. most occasions .found
them filled with merrimentand joy of life. _ _-
A born leader or men. he had no-need to rant and bellow, bis orders.were never pitched louderthanthe circumstances necessitatedand he spoke either Mehrikan or Bhleeneekostlnged _ with the soft, slurring speech _ patterns of his faraway home. Astute. as ·strategist and accomplishedas tactician, he could be f_erocf~s in personal combat, as was attested by the two Silver Cats he-held; yet, withalvhe was a kindly mae and took rio joy in needless
. suffering. - -- --
In the Fourteenth Regiment.vwhichhe ·baa comriianded for six years prior to his quiterecent promotion, be had been affectionately known as "Old Pussyfoot."He had cared for his men and their response had been to give him not only an unflagging source of pride but their fierce
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love, as well. Not a few grizzled fighting men had openly wept when he left them for corps command.
When he had delivered his report to the High Lord, Milo nodded his thanks, then waved at the vacant chair across from his own. "If you've not something pressing, Hahfos, sit you down and have some of this abominable wine."
Hahfos' ready smile lit his face. "Thank you, mah lord." Milo waited until the officer was seated and had poured and tasted the wine, then asked, "How heavy is your new mantle, good Hahfos? Do you wish you still were simply sub-strahteegos of the fourteenth?"
Rabfos absently rubbed a horny forefinger up and down his short, slightly canted nose. "Yes, mah lord, sometimes. But then, when ah had the Fourteenth, ah sometimes wished ah still was simply a keeleeohstos, too. Ah suppose that all men think back on the days when things were comparatively easy, whenevah we're faced with difficulties we didn't have then."
"How true, how true," Milo sighed. "I sometimes think back to the freedom 1 enjoyed as a Horseclans - chief, centuries ago. But tell me, how are you getting along with the regimental commanders? My staff informs me there's been a bit of friction since this march commenced."
"Only one real bone of contention exists, mah lord. Ah forbade certain gentlemen, whose ideas of discipline are somewhat at variance to mah own, from administering any moab than five lashes to any soldier within a given week. Ah pointed out that, since a man with twenty - or thirty stripes can't mahch in ahmah and as we have no ambulances to carry them, they would weaken owah force were they to abide by their accustomed ways. Ah also pointed out that 1 had only two men flogged in six years, with no noticeable loss of discipline in the Fourteenth."
Milo grinned. "Good for you, Hahfos, Rubbed their noses in your successes, did you? I'd imagine that that galled them more than your order."
Hahfos shook his head. "Ah did not say what ah said to offend them, mah lord. But all ah said is true, mah lord! . Ah know, ah proved mah views! The whip makes good men bad and bad men worse and it is, in any case, completely unnecessary. Advocates of the whip call it the 'Foundation of Discipline,' but it is no such thing, mah lord. If a commander be able and lets his men know that
he cares for their welfare, he can easily maintain all the discipline needed with only rare application of the whip. Ah consider the whip to be the final argument of lazy or
incompetent officers!" -
He had waxed very-vehement, now his tone softened.
"Ah am sorry if ah offended mah lora, but mah lord did
ask .... " _
"No, Hahfos," Milo reassured him. "I was not offended.
I could not agree more-with most of it. But the cult of the Whipping frame is hard to root out. It's a carryover custom from two centuries ago, from the pre-Horseclans Ehleenarmy, in which common spearmen were all peasants-to all intents and purpose, brutish and brutalized military slaves. I inherited that army intact -. and thought it best, at the time, to allow the Ehleenee officers to maintain most of their accustomed practices. When in later years I attempted to inaugurate new customs, I discovered the past ones to be so flrmly entrenched from top to bottom that I would've chanced precipitating 8 virtual mutiny to force my will.
"But I was steeling myself to take that very chance, Hahfos, Then came the Second Kuhmbuhluhn War and, on its heels, the Invasion by King Zenos VIII,and, since, we've seldom been at peace for any length of time."
"Ah understand, mah lord," said Hahfos sympatheti- cally: "It is truly said that crowns and coronets can fast weigh down the spirit.
"But mah lord, ah ••• that is, would mah lord object if
ah were to .•. " ~
Milo smiled once more. "Hahfos, you have free rein, my .earnestprayeraund all my approval. lf you can do what you did with the Fourteenth with this corps, you will succeed old Ehmeekos as lord strahteegos of the armies, you have my solemn word on it." _
Chapter V
Glumly, the nahkhahrah watched the last of the Gahrbehdyuhn Tribe depart his village, the ponies at a stiff trot, headed due south. As his assembled host had melted away, even as the accursed Undying Devil and his army had pressed farther and farther into the mountains, the temper of this chief of chiefs had worsened to the point where few men were now reckless enough to stray within easy reach of his fist or his ready raider's knife, especially when delivering bad news-and there was little news, these days, which was not bad.
The nahkhahrak could cheerfully have strangled each and every man of the departing tribe, but he immediately ruffled when a voice from close behind him said mockingly, "Soon my Maidens will be the only warriors in this dungheap village of yours, my valiant ally. This is the third tribe which has lost its courage and turned tail since the Undying Devil entered the mountains, is it not? Two tribes tied north and this one goes south. Where is the over-vaunted valor if its fierce Ahrmehnee? Or is that valor as much myth as are the tales you use to keep your womenfolk in bondage? Eh?"
Bristling, the nahkhahrab spun about to face bis tormentor, knobby band gripping the bilt of bis big, heavy knife, worn, yellow teeth bared in a snarl of rage.
The brahbehrnuli did not twitch a muscle at his obvious threat. Though tbe two Maidens behind her tensed and fingered their hilts, she stood with her trousered legs spread wide, her arms akimbo. One of ber attendants carried the brahbehrnuh's gold-plated helm, and the tall woman's glossy, black hair fell untrammeled, framing a strikingly handsome face. The full lips showed the even, white teeth in a mocking sneer, while the woman's ebon eyes glittered forth contempt.
There were no Abrmehnee warriors anywhere close by, 52
and the nahkhahrah, though unquestionably brave, was not reckless. Grudgingly, he released his knife, growling. "Now, by Our Lady's Cusps, woman, I would Her emissaries had left you and your arrogant, unnatural breed in your hold! Had I mine own way-"
"But you do not!" snapped the brahbehrnuh, coldly.
"Her dread Curse lies upon her or him who first breaks our alliance. Were It not so, I and mine would long since be back where we belong. Aye; and those of your poor, downtrodden women we could free with us!"
Pale and speechless- with rage, the nahkhahrah brusquely pushed past the brahbehrnuh and her guards, limped into the council house and loudly slammed the thick door behind him, shooting the bolt for good measure. Stumping to his place, he simply sat, cracking his big knuckles, his scarred face working. And seeing the bloodlust shining' from his eyes; no one of the nine dehrehbehee remaining asked any questions of him.
From the moment of entry into the' village . of the brahbehrnuli and her hundreds of armed,' armored and supercilious female warriors, there had been tension of one sort or another. Obviously, the People-of-Powers had expeered the tension' to lessen and so had' all felt free to leave on their mission to the Muhkohee tribes, but it had worsened, if anything. For one thing, burgeoning familiarity with the Maidens hadvirttially dissolved the semi-superstitious awe of them which many Ahrmehrtee bad had; for another, the blatant -attempts of many of the Maidens to foment trouble between the nahkhahrah's tribesmen and their womenfolk - or to seduce nubile maids and matrons into perverted sexual practices-s-which practices seemed to be endemic amongst the strutting, man-despising Maidens-had set all the Ahrmehnee warriors' teeth on edge and had caused the nahkhahrah ceaseless difficulties in-preventing outright massacre of the vastly outnumbered
"allies." - . - _ . . '--
Early on, - he had attempted .to reason - With the brahbehrnuh, had tried to persuade her to draw rein on her crudely antagonistic following, pointing out that unless she did so the only certain. result would be the spilling of blood and that, considering the fact that she and hers were hundreds amidst thousands, a serious session in arms between Ahrmehnee and Maidens could end in but one way. It -had been wasted breath and effort. The sow had heard
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him out, then insulted him, all the dehrehbehee and their Sacred Ancestors, obscenely; further, she had offered disparaging comments on all Ahrmehnee warriors, then on men in general. Then she had stalked from the council house, a mocking laugh floating behind her.
And the foul situation had worsened and worsened to the point at which the Council had had to actually execute three tribesmen who had drawn steel, in order to show the host that they were serious about maintaining the now shaky alliance. The nahkhahrah had taken to praying earnestly each night at moonrise that the People-of-Powers would soon return so that the projected invasion could get under way while he still could exercise a measure of control over his men.
Then, piling one mountain atop another, had corne word that a great army, led by the Undying Devil called Meelohsh, was marching up the trade road, through the lands of the Frainyuhns, and he had bidden Dehrehbeh Hyk Frainyuhn and his tribesmen goodspeed and even reinforced them . . . with the worst of the troublemakers camped about.
But no plan or scheme of the unlucky young dehrehbeh had gone aright. Five times had he and his warriors set out to ambush the van of the invaders, five times had they been discovered, attacked and driven off with losses. The fifth failure had cost the life of Hyk himself, and the Frainyuhns had, predictably, withdrawn to their principal village to choose a new dehrehbeh, since the deceased had no living brothers old enough to lead.
So the nahkhahrah had sent out men to watch over the now unobstructed progress of the invading army, bidding them to keep much distance from the low landers, to flee if attacked and fight only if cornered. His orders had not he en taken well by the Ahrmehnee, but out of respect for him they had voiced their disagreements out of his hearing.
Not so the Maidens, however. The insolent chits took to laughing at the old man whenever he rode at large, scornfully mocking his every word or gesture, frequently instigated and often led by the haughty brahbehrnuh.
But the nahkhahrah had suffered the criticism in silence, for he knew that his way was the right one. He was a very old man, far older than his appearance suggested. He had been chosen nahkhahrah when his aged father was slain
fighting the lowlanders who had driven the Thirteen Tribes from the foothills and, a hundred and thirty moons later, he had led the Great Raid which had ended so disastrously at Bloody Ford.
He knew the fierce bravery of Ahrmehnee warriors and, much as he now hated the Maidens, he suspected that they might possibly be equally fine fighters. But his eyes had beheld thousands of valiant, stubborn Ahrmehnee cut down like ripe grain by the hosts of the Undying Devil. He knew that this present army slightly outnumbered his available forces. He knew that even in his own mountains victory over the invaders might well be a narrow, chancy business, and so he husbanded his fighters, seeing clearly that utter folly of frittering away irreplaceable strength in pointless harassment.
Next had come the refugees, trickling in first from the north, then from the south. At that point his control began to crumble away, Deep in his heart, he could not really blame the dehrehbehee and their tribesmen, for, had the situation been reversed, had he been a mere dehrehbeh with the sure knowledge that lowland raiders were ravaging Taishyuhn lands, he too would probably have led out his tribesmen to avenge former and prevent future inroads.
Nonetheless, with each departing tribe, his self-esteem eroded a bit more as he realized that his ability to stop the invading army became more questionable.
In sheer frustration, he beat his big fists against his muscular thighs. The cursed brahbehrnuh might well be right about her warriors and those of the Taishyuhns soon being the only fighters left here. But he vowed to himself, ere that happened, he would do something. If he could not stop the lowlanders here, he would at least dispose of the cursed Maidens. Maybe those tribes still with bim could even fight or bluff their way into Maiden Valley and hold it against the Undying Devil.
None of the abashed dehrehbehee felt constrained to speak in the presence of the raging leader of their stahn, and in the silence of the familiar Council House, the nahkhahrah was able to muse on his problems undisturbed for some time. Then, as he had known it would, came an insistent pounding on the bolted door. From the sound, he imagined a sword pommel was being used on the polished hardwood.
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Raising his chin from his chest, he calmly ordered, "Let the bitch in ere she splits the door. Or"-he smiled, the first smile any had seen light his seamed face in many a day-"has a tantrum and pisses her breeks."
In the blessed release - from their long tension, the - dehrehbehee all roared their laughter while one of their number pulled back the bolt and the brahbehrnuh swaggered into the dim, smoky room, trailed by ber two
guards, as ever. - _ _ .
Halting at the edge of their circle,·· she hissed at the council members, "You dare to laugh at the brahbehrnuh of Our Lady's Maidens?"
The smile instantly departed the nahkhahrah's countenance and his voice crackled coldly, like river ice. "We are the - men who lead the Thirteen - Tribes of the Ahrmehnee Stahn. We sit in council in 'our own council house and here we weep or shout or whisper or laugh whenever and as we please, asking leave of no man and, certainly, of no woman."
The brahbehmuli stamped her foot petulantly. "I am your ally; it is the will of Her that J am your ally, and you have no right to deny me access to your councils. How do you expect me. to hear what you dirty men are hatching when the door is barred against my entry?"
The nahkhahrali nodded slowly, the lamps making the shadows of his big-nosed, craggy face . resemble the physiognomy of a bird of prey. "Yes, you are an ally, and only because it is Her will. But though it has been used as such in times past, this is not a true warhouse, it is the house of council for the business of the Thirteen Tribes of the Ahrmehnee. -As you have obviously learned, its walls and door are thick and it has no windows for the very purpose of preventing spying and eavesdropping by curious busvbodies and-"
But the armored woman burst- out in interruption.
"Busybody? Why you antique, tuskless boarhog, how dare you!" - - _-
His hours of meditation-and other mental exercises had purged the nahkhahrah. of anger, nor could her discourtesies and insults inflarne ihim anew. "-and any others who would pry into matters which concern them not. I and my dehrehbehee and warriors are not of your valley or customs, so you have rio right to know what is in our minds or of what matters we converse in privacy.
"Now, begone, child. Remain in your camp until I summon you, for I must journey with Our Lady this night." On his last words, he arose and pointed a long finger at the still open door.
A hot retort was on the brahbehrnuh's lips, but it never emerged. For all at once, the nahkhahrah's eyes locked with her own and the tall old man became even taller, larger, huger than any man had a right to be. It seemed this his white-haired bead was truly brushing the sooty skull-bedecked rafters high above, that the width of his shoulders strained against the side walls of the council bouse. And the brahbehrnub whirled and almost ran from the place now resounding with the contrabasso booming of
the giant's voice. -
With the rising of moon, the staccato voices of the doombehgs sounded from within the council house with, now and again, the lost-soul wailing of the reed-flutes rising above: Solid ranks of Ahrmehnee warriors-grimfaced and purposeful, firmly grasping their spears, darts and bared raider knives-barred any approach to the building. Those Maidens sent by thebrahbehrnuh to inquire were told only that the nahkhahrak was in communion with the Holy Goddess and that, should their leader's presence be required, she would be summoned. No amount of "insulting harassment or imperious demands could elicit the women any further information, and those few who sought to force a way through the ranks were either faced with a hedge of sharp and ready steel or hurled back to sprawl before the determined men.
All the brahbehrnuh's emissaries returned with bruised pride, some with bruised flesh as well, and at least one with a bloody nose. Hot words were screeched in the tent of the brahbehrnuh, the other Maiden leaders all being for arming and hacking a gory path through the insolent pigs who denied them their way. No one of them had ever before been denied anything by a mere man, nor had any man ever laid hand to them without being made to suffer for the outrage. But the brahbehrnuh, too, denied them.
Inside the council house, the noise was deafening. The air was thick and close with the heat of many braziers and with the pungent smoke of the herbs and gums regularly heaped upon the coals. Except for the braziers, all furniture had been removed, and the nahkhahralt and the dehrehbehee squatted in a circle in the center of the main
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room, while the drummers and other musicians crouched along the walls.
Though all bad, of course, heard of it, only the older men had ever before been present when their chief of chiefs communed with the' Lady. Despite their total nudity, those in the circle all were sweating heavily and quaffing deeply of the brimming bowls of barley beer. They had all fasted until an hour before moonrise, when each had consumed as much of the foul-tasting Holy Herb as
he could force down. .
None of them now were aware of the dozen warriors who silently glided to and fro, keeping the braziers fed and heaped, seeing that the beer bowls remained full and trimming the lampwicks.
As Moon rose higher and higher in the clear, "old sky, the drums roared on and on, the flutes keened and shrilled and the smoke roiled and billowed about the rapt circle.
At a signal from the nahkhahrah.: someone outside placed before him a large silver bowl, its rim all chased with mystical and holy signs. Placing- it beneath him, he urinated into it, then passed it to Dehrehbek Neeshahn Soormehlyuhn on his left, who' solemnly added the contents of his own bladder to the bowl, then handed the container to the dehrehbeh at his own lefthand.
When alI the circle had voided their water into the bowl, the nahkhahrah placed it before him on the floor, dipped out a half of a smaller bowlful and added an equal quantity of beer, then raised the smaller bowl to his lips and drained it off. Thrice more he did this, ere, a- halfhour later, he slid from his place in the circle, and extend-
ed his body full-length upon the floor. .
_He closed his heavy lids. _
"Once again, my faithful and ever-obedient son travel" my way with me. 'Welcome and thrice welcome. Kohg Taishyuhn, What would you oiHer who loves you?"
As he recalled from before. the unbearably sweet voice was all about the nahkhahrah, - all about him and withinhim. And he opened his eyes to once more _ behold the unearthly beauty and splendor of the Lady. All of silver, She was. A soft and misty-silver She glowed before and about him.'
Then She no longer was all-encompassing, bur=-again, as before-s-a creature no taller than himself. A lissome, silver-haired, woman-shaped goddess, She was become.
She opened her slender arms to him and he entered into Her embrace and he found Her silver-hued flesh cool and pleasing to the touch and the scent of Her was redolent of Moon-washed hills thick-grown with wild thyme. Their lips met, locked, and Her kiss was cold fire, consuming all bis being, leaving nought behind save the aroused and stiffening ardor of bis loins.
And when he had worshiped in the manner She desired, when his loins had freely poured out a measure of their most precious offering, then did the two arise from the billowy, silver couch and stroll, hand in hand, across the springy, silver-bladed turf, to where a silver fountain plashed misty silver water. They sat down on the cool stone verge of the basin-all white marble, veined with the Holy Silver.
She spoke. "Dearest Kohg, the future of your people can be far brighter than you and other mortals now believe. Once more will I allow you to spy out those places and people and events which will shape the good and the ill.
"I need not instruct you, for you have done this before.
Observe the past; see or be one with the present, as you desire; then descry the futures which lie ahead and choose the one you think best for your people .•• our people.
"When, at last, you are done, return to me and I will again send you home.
"Go you, now, loved lover."
Beneath his hurtling body, the night-cloaked mountains rushed by. The nahkhahrah saw twinkling lights ahead, swooped lower and recognized his village and the jagged sprawl of camps surrounding it. He swept on, eastward, over the range which lay between the village and the wind-scoured, flinty waste of the Great Plateau. He blinked in amazement when he saw the huge stone-andtimber fort now rising above the icy plain. It had been reported to him, naturally, by his scouts, but they had failed to impress him with the awesome size and strength of the defenses. Even without wishing a glimpse of the possible outcome, he dismissed all thoughts of hurling his Ahrmehnee against those stout, well-manned walls.
Veering to his left, he plunged northward. Only a few days' ride from his village, thousands of lowland cavalry slumbered in and around a deserted village. A day behind them, wild creatures scuttled about a battlefield, crouching
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upon stiff Ahrmehnee corpses and gorging themselves on cold human flesh. And farther north lay horror upon horror of burned villages; the dead-or what, the ravenous scavengers had left of them-lay thickly sown and living folk huddled. shivering, in the inhospitable mountains.
Turning about, the nahkhahrah bore to the south. Here, the camped lowlanders were not in one place, but in many, widely scattered. Behind them, forty miles wide, lay a swath of death amid' ashes and ruin.. The carnage had been fearsome here,. and theidestruction far more total than that to the north.
"He who wrought this," thenahkhahralJ thought, "must be truly a monster of the Ancient Evil."
"Monsters of the 'Ancient Evil are assuredly abroad in these mountains ... • Her voice once more enveloped him. "But he who despoiled these, your folk, is not one of
them, dear Kohg." ' , -
Recalling his plan to seize the Valley of the Maidens, the nahkhahrah bore about 'to the northwestward and, presently, he was gliding above the battlemented hills and ridges into a: bank' of noisome mist. From under the mist shone an eerie, roseate glow. The glow was strongest near ., the center of the largest vale, and he swept toward it. The air in the valley was warm, almost hot, and as 'he approached the source of that rosy radiance, the heat in-
creased manyfold, ,
Something warned him to not come any closer to his objective, so he dove through the mist just shy of a huge fissure in the rocks. It belched 'forth a steady column of .. smoke and stench which brought tears to the eyes and acute discomfort to the skin. 'Waves of unbearable heat battered at him, and he blinked himself away. The clear menace of that fissure sent a shudder coursing through
him. . ..
Rising swiftly, he blinked "the future, six moons-ahead, and saw a scene of utter desolation.iTumbled rocks surrounded a wide bowl of bubbling. smoking almost-liquid. Nowhere was there any sign of a living creature. .
"But ... but. Lady? How? Why?" he begged silently. And he felt himself whisked back to the present. Out of the yawning mouth of the entry cavern filed a long line of pack animals. Some bore strange devices strapped upon their backs. others. panniers which he could sense contained gold and silver, tons of the precious metals, The
train was guided by strange-looking men and women in stranger garments. At its head rode three he recognized: the People-of-Powers. And though they spoke in a language he knew he had never heard, he could understand
iliem. - - -
"You're dead -certain the - charges will do what we planned?" queried Dr. Er:ica Arenstein anxiously. "Those that the gas didn't _ kill, those who only got a whiff of it, are going to be rather angry when they waken and find
they've been robbed." -
The Ahrmehnee-Iooking maniwho rrode on her left snorted derisively; "Scant need of fear from that quarter, my dear Erica. Every last horse-in their herd is presently roaming about these mountains, if not still running."
"Don't be suicidally cocksure; Dr. Corbett," the woman admonished him. "They are a stubborn race. H need be, they'll track us on foot, and unless we can get better speed out of these damned mules than we got in bringing them north, we'll be run-down within a day's ride of here."
"Not to worry.ihoney," assured iheother Ahrmehnee, him to whom she had first spoken, now riding a bit behind as the trail had _ become too narrow for three abreast. He glanced at an odd bracelet 011 his left wrist, then stated, "The tunnel will be sealed in. - thirty-two minutes, and before any of .them-s-or many of them, at least-can climb up-through those caverns and go down the walls, the main charges will blow. But by that time, we'll have-that mountain yonder between us and the volcano. I calculate that the charges I planted will he just enough to trigger a full-
scale eruption." - -
.The woman, --whom thenahkhahrah bad known as Sahrah 'Sahrohyuhn, fhrew.iback her head • and laughed merrily ,., . - and the nahkhaimihtholight that 'never had he heard a more chilling sound.-
"There, KohgtToishyuhn, ride those you would term
'monsters.' " - - -- - - -
"But ... but,Lady,iliey a~e of YOll: They possess
Powers."_ --
"Poor mortalKohgcyou havebeen deceived. Those are not of Me. They are ofacankeringsoreupon the face of the troubled land. They-and theirklnd honor -not Gods but, rather. an abstraction they call 'Science.' Long. long ago. when untol£ millions of the races oiiman had forsaken the Gods !o grovel at the altars of Sciencei the mon-
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strous creations of that false god almost swept the lands clean of human life. Your people know of this through the tales of 'The War of the Earth-Gods' and 'The Great Catastrophe,' Kohg;
"Few men survived the holocaust. Even today, the lands are peopled by but a bare shadow of the numbers on whom I once shed My rays. These Ancient Monsters move and breathe only through an unspeakable perversion of the Laws of Nature. And their future objective is nothing less than the enslavement of all other living creatures. Not many recognize the menace they present, Kohg, and one who does is him they would have had you make war upon, Min you call 'Undying Devil,' him who calls himself, 'Milo Morai, High Lord of the Confederation.'''
"But, the Devil is my enemy," protested the nahkhahrah, "He drove my people from our rich lands, drove us into these mountains, and now have his folk soaked the earth with Ahrmehnee blood yet again. He is Your enemy, as well, Lady. He worships Your enemy, Sun."
The Voice remained cool and soothing in and about him. "He is not My enemy. Dear Kohg, I am all true Gods. I but appear to men in the guise they venerate and expect. To you, I am Moon Goddess, to Milo, am 1 God of Sun and Wind; some call That -which is Me Steel or Rain; in the north 1 am worshiped as Blue Lady; even farther north, in the Black lands, men call upon Me as
Ahlah. -
"Nor is Milo your enemy, Kohg, For even as all Gods are but Me, the encompassing One, so too are all men of all races brothers, could you poor mortals but see Truth. Milo attacked your people and seized their lands principally to shorten his border and so protect his people from your raiders. It is his aim to once more unite the lands and races upon this continent-not as slaves beneath his heel, such as would those whom you overheard, but as free, happy and prosperous folk.
"Does this man-for, man he is; mortal man born of woman, for all that some name him 'god'-succeed, does he choose the proper combination of alternatives, as little as seven thousand moons may see this land once again as great and mighty as it was twelve thousand moons agone.
"This Milo is only your enemy because first your forefathers, then you, have made him such. If you and your folk
choose to freely join with his Confederation, -you will be welcomed and heaped with honors. If you choose to fight on I can see no future for the Ahrmehnee, save as scattered, homeless, wandering remnants of a race. But it is
you who must now choose, Kohg:" __ -
The nahkhahrah blinked the future and found it just as the Lady bad stated; small family groups of Ahrmehnee, thin and ragged, -barely - existing in _ caves and _ makeshift tents, while being hunted like beasts by the Muhkohee, who had taken over Ahrmehnee valleys _and rebuilt the war-shattered villages. He did Dot stay, for this poss-ible future was too terrible to long contemplate.
And again he went soaring over the moon-bathed mountains, north and east this time. Just beyond his own village, he came to ground. Unseen, he passed between the guards and entered the tent of the brahbehrnuh, finding the young woman alone. Slowly, before her frightened and wondering eyes, he blinked his formvlsible.
"Listen to me,child."~Thebrahbehrntihcould see his lips move, shape the words. Noneth-eless, they - seemed more within her head than upon her ears. "Your home is no more, not yourfolk .• Those whom we knew as Peopleof-Powers and of Our Lady were not; rather were they Monsters of the Great and Ancient Evil. They it was who slew your folk and-despoiled your-treasure.jben destroyed
your hold by means.of the smoking fissure. - _
"Nowvtheybear - their ill-gotten booty south arid west upon the backs of many mules. There be butfew of them, child. less than a hundred. Avenging the murders of one's own folk is a Sacred Duty. At dawn you-must arm your Maidens and ride. You wilIride with Her blessing." _
The brahbehrnuh was not without real courage even in so eerie a situation as this, and she resolutely gathered that courage. "How . .-. how came you here, - without my guards? And how know you, who are only a man, of the Hoofprint of the Goddess's Steed, that which you- called 'smokinz'fissure'?"
"Child,child,how can I make-you understand? This night I am as one with Her,Tride with Her across the skies and can see an that She sees. It is only through Her powers that you look now uponmy likeness, for my body actually lies yonder,within the council house."
The brahbehrnuh' shivered, despite· herself. Then, "If you ., . if you are a . . : a part.of Our Lady. I , . . will
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believe, will do all that you can say if . . . if . . . if you will tell me my name. Tell me my secret name, the name I chose when first I became bahbehrnuh, the name which not even my lover knows, the name I have silently whispered only to the Goddess at Her shrine."
The nahkhahrak smiled gently. "It is a beautiful name, child. It was the name of my dear mother. It is Rahksahnah."
All the blood drained from the brahbehrnuh's face, her strong legs wobbled, and only her grasp upon the table kept her from falling. She tried to speak, but could only gasp and stutter. Then, finally, she found her voice, though it was as weak as her body.
"I believe. It shall be as you, as She commands. The Maidens will ride at dawn."
The nahkhahrah briefly flickered out, then reappeared to add, "Pass wide of what was your home, Rahksahnah. The entrance now is sealed. To scale the heights and climb the walls would only be to die. And you must not die, for, ere you see my village again, you will find him who will make of you a true woman, give you a future of happiness and ease and children.
"I sense rebellion in your heart, child. Expel it. You must realize that the old ways of the Maidens are dead this night, dead and buried as the land which spawned you all will soon be. You must forget the past and accept the newness of the future, if you are to survive.
"Now I must leave you, for there is still much I must do ere the Lady complete Her journey."
Again the nahkhahrali swooped east. Over the range to the Great Plateau, then high over the expanse of sere grasses and frozen, rocky soil to the newly raised ramparts-raw earth and green logs and ancient blocks of stone. Unseen, he stood upon the wal1walk while an officer made his rounds. The block of granite beside the nahkhahrah once had been polished and engraved and it
still bore ancient letters: NAL BANK OF. .
He blinked. He saw the whole of the building of which the stone had once been a part, saw the other buildings about it, saw the odd folk who walked and talked and laughed and ate and loved, saw their black roads striped with yellow and white. He saw the folk conveyed upon their roads in large and small magical wagons, which made fearsome noises and trailed smoke behind. He saw
THE S;l_VAGE MOUNTAINS
thousands of bright lights, of every conceivable color, shining boldly or flickering in and out of fantastical designs.
He blinked. He saw the buildings and the mads again, but gone were the folk, gone too were the lights. Few were the wagons and they obviously had lost their magic, for they sat smashed and torn and rusting upon the cracked, weed-springing roads. The buildings, also, were dirtstreaked, many were sagging, and their windows gaped like the eyesockets of. the skulls in the council-house raf-
ters. _:.
He blinked. He 'saw the broken block, now forming a merIon atop the battlement of the lowlanders' fort. He and his folk had pastured-goats and cattle on this plateau time out of mind without ever suspecting that a city of the Earth-Gods lay beneath their feet.
"You have not much longer, My love. Hurry, Kohg, for soon I must send you back:",
Milo awakened all ina breath, his hand immediately seeking the familiar hilt of his pillow-sword. At the foot of his couch stood a tall old man, 'devoid of any clothing. The face, though seamed - and iwind-darkened, still was handsome and the unbowed, mu-scular body bore the scars of a warrior. A single glance at the-set of the- intelligent eyes and the big nose, hooked like a hawk's beak, told the - High Lord the man's race.
"Ahrmehnee!" he breathed. "How the devil did you get in here, old man? What do you want? If you've come to
slay me .. .-" - - -
The visitor shook his -snowy mane. "I am aware that steel cannot harm you, Milo of Morai. 1 am Kohg Taishyuhn, the nahkhahrahofthe Thirteen Tribes of the Ahrmehnee. 1 am come to seek peace with you and a place for my people in your Confederation."
Chapter VI
Thoheeks Bili of Morguhn felt the first tingling and relaxed his mind to allow for easier farspeak,
"Bili," beamed the High Lord, "our war with the Ahrmehnee is ended. Send word to all your columns to retire back to the trade road and return to Yawn through Baikuh. Take your own force and ride northwest. You are seeking a muletrain which is led by three of the Witchmen . . . well, one is a woman. If you meet a force of armored, mounted Ahrmehnee women, do not be surprised; they're after the same quarry.
"I'd like to have at least one of the Witchfolk alive, but remember what I've told you of them and their wiles and take no chances. The treasure they carry belongs rightfully to the Ahrmehnee warrior women of whom I just spoke. They are all virgins but, forgiving them that, the man who's seeking a rich wife could scarcely do better to my way of thinking. By the by, Bili, the brahbehrnuh, their leader, is reputed to be a proud, long-legged, handsome creature named Rahksahnah. She is of a long-lived, gifted race and should throw good colts, many of them.
"As for the machines they carry, I would prefer that they be smashed or, better -yet, dumped in some deep, swift river.
"You'll be far west, Bili, so it's possible you'll chance across Mehrikan-speaking barbarians -called Muhkohee. They are sly, savage and treacherous, lad. Even the wild Ahrmehnee fear them, so beware.
"Sun and Wind keep you all, Bili. Come to the nahkhahrah'e village when you are done."
Vaskos Daiviz of Morguhn, commander of the city of Vawnpolis, looked briefly at the stiffening corpse and repressed a shudder with difficulty. A veteran of the almost constant border wars of the Confederation, he was
no stranger to terrible sights. Nor did a man make the ascent from common spearman to sub-strahteegos without being an exceedingly tough and thick-skinned soldier. And Vaskos was both. Nonetheless, this body and the two found last week had chilled him to the very marrow.
All three had been women, young women. But had neighbors or friends not reported them missing, there would have been no chance of ascertaining the identities of the cadavers. Whoever had butchered them had, in all three cases, used a knife to mutilate their faces so that not even their mothers would have known them. Nor were these horrors the worst, for, after all, wounds wrought by steel were an old and familiar story to the commander.
No, what sent the cold prickling to Vaskos' nape while nausea churned in his belly were the other enormities perpetrated by the killer or killers. From the knees to the necks, the poor women had been. savagely flogged, front and back. And atop the welts and cuts of the whip were the crowning horrors-the tears and gouges of teeth, human teeth, which had gnawed at the victim like an animal, ripping away chunks of flesh.
After the discovery of the first grisly remains by an early-morning patrol, Vaskos had concluded that none save a maniac could have done such a thing. Therefore he had sought out the keepers of Myres the Mad. But Captain Danos and all six of his men had attested that the former vahrohnos of Deskati had remained locked in his windowless chamber throughout the entire night. And since members of Vaskos'· own staff had heard the madman's howls from time to time during the questioned time period, he had no choice but to scratch the suspect from his mental list.
After the second murder, he had doubled the night patrols, even though that meant putting a sizable number of former rebels back under arms. But this morning's find had proved even those measures ineffective. So he called his officers into council, inviting as well the few remaining former rebel officers: Captain Kahrlos, Captain Danos and Vahrohneeskos Kahzos Boorsohthehpsees of Yawn, once deputy commander of the rebel-city;
It was the half-blinded and hideously disfigured young Ehleen nobleman to whom Vaskos addressed himself after he had succinctly reported the particulars of this most recent killing.
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"Lord Kahzos, we must find a way to put a stop to these deaths, and since the victims are invariably from among those who were your people, I felt that you and these other two officers might be able and willing -to aid."
Kahzos nodded gravely. .He had given up his once-ready smile since he now smiled perpetually. A catapult stone had struck a merlon during the siege and the resultant hail of stoneshards had taken his left eye and grated all the
flesh from the left side of his face. - -
"I don't think that it's a new problem, Lord Vaskos.
Similar cases were noted by Lord Drehkos and me during the siege, as well as just preceding it. Always the victims were young women and girls, always were their bodies monstrously mutilated and showing marks of teeth. But after the first few weeks of the siege, the - murders sort of • . . well, tapered off. These are the first sign that the murderer or murderers were not, as we had surmised and hoped, dead in the siege."
Vaskos sighed gustily. "My sincere thanks, Lord Kahzos. That takes quite a load off my mind. twas fearful that one or more of my Confederation garrison might
have been culpable. .
"Well, gentlemen, this narrows the field a bit for us. To narrow it further, we can eliminate those men who were on patrol last night as well as those who were known to be
here in the citadel. _
"I am posting a reward of orie bundred silver thrahkmehee for any information leading to the apprehension of this animal. EepohlohkahgosLain, you and your detachment will have the task of running down any leads and tips that that reward offer brings in. It might also be a good idea to incorporate some of our late enemies into your operation. I'm certain that -Lord Kahzos would be happy to give you the names of some reliable men, and the Vawnee may find it easier to really open up to a fel-
low reb-uhhh. Ehleen." -
The vahrohneeskos agreed with alacrity. "I certainly would. Eepohlohkahgos, I can have a number of men report to your offices and you then can. pick and choose . those with whom you feel you can best work. In fact, I myself am at your disposal. 1 want to see this criminal on a sharp stake as much as any here."
"My Lord Vaskos," put in Captain Kahrlos.vleader of those former rebels now back under arms, "I'd 'preciate a
part in this here, too. Y'see, it was a young widder, back las' fall, an' me an' her we was kinda close. She was a real fine woman an' • . . then one mornin' they foun' her poor body, what was left of it, Ieastways, in a alley oft High Street. I wouln' of knowed it was her, hadna been she had six toes on her feet. We . . . we was so happy, 'spite of the siege an' all. It'd do my soul good to hear the bastard what done all them things to my Aida scream fer a few days!"
Vaskos gave a brusque nod. "Of course, captain, you may take as much part in these proceedings as your duty allows. Speaking of which, I'm going to want a fifty-percent increase in the size of your force. See to it. As before, I cannot allow you to commission any officers, but you may appoint as many sergeants as you have need for."
Captain Danos, warder of the mad vahrohnos, Myros, listened intently to all that was said but offered neither aid nor advice. Since his responsibility and that of his small detachment was his charge, day and night every day, and since all knew him to be thoroughly dedicated to that responsibility, which had been his even before the siege had commenced, no one really expected him to tender the services of his six men in any other capacity.
For himself, Vaskos Daiviz was vastly relieved that the captain-formerly a hunter on the estate of the commander's father, Komees Hari Daiviz of Morguhn-was keeping his mouth shut, for it would be almost the final straw were he to find himself in any way beholden to the rebel officer. The stocky, powerful heir of Daiviz had but to finger the bumpy scar tissue just over his left ear, under the iron-gray hair, to recall that this same Danos had been a leader of the pack of rebels who had earnestly attempted to murder him last spring. They had slain Vaskos' orderly, brave Frabnkos, and had, like the houndpack they were, driven him and his three half-sisters from their home.
When, last summer, he and his father, with a mixed force of Freefighters and Confederation kahtahfrahktoee, had ridden back into Horse County and retaken their hall, this Danos had escaped the retributive bloodbath. Until the fall of Vawnpolis, none in the loyal forces had known the former hunter's fate or whereabouts.
Vaskos, then a supernumerary on the staff of the High Lord, had found the remembered name among the list of rebel officers turned in by Vahrohneeskos Drehkos Daiviz
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of Morguhn, his hated uncle. He and his father had then demanded an audience with the High Lord, recited the long list of Danos' crimes in Morguhn, and claimed the miscreant's blood •.. all of it. The High Lord had only promised to investigate the matter, pointing out, however, that. the amnesty extended to all the former rebels and covered almost every crime they might have committed
while in rebellion. _ -
When he had given Vaskos command of the city and the attached base of operations for the mountain campaign, the High Lord had covered the case of Danos in his
verbal orders. .
"Vaskos, you're now a sub-strahteegos, but a responsibility such as I am placing in your hands is-or, rightfully, should be-that of a full strahteegos. Therefore, I am breveting you to that rank. Do a good job in Vawnpolis, and the end of this campaign will-osee the brevet rank a per-
manent rank." _
Then, while the officer glowed. with the promise of unexpected promotion, the High Lord had elucidated, where necessary. the written orders and added certain others. Lastly, he had added, "And, regarding this business which you and Lord Hari spoke with file about, this Captain Danos may well be everything of which - you two accused him, and more. But he also was a brave and resourceful soldier, and-his former commander, Lord Drehkos, has only the highest praise "for -him. Too, he is presently fulfilling a most valuable function .in the city. I feel that he should continue in that function and in his current rank. at least until we've scotched these Ahrmehnee and Witchmen.
- "As commander of Vawnpolis, you will find yourself working with and for the former. rebels, and I expect you to get along well with them, all of them, including Captain Danos. Do I inake myself clear,Strahteegos Daiviz?"
There had been no option and Vaskos had given the expected answer. Nonetheless, he had found it most difficult to be barely civil to this hated subordinate. He still did.
Not that he was too stiff-necked to give the devil his due. No man in the garrison or the city envied the captain his job. Vahrohnos Myros' madness was unpredictable and he could be extremelv dangerous. Indeed, in one of his ragings, the lunatic had virtually tom limb from limb the sergeant who had originally been assigned to assist Danos.
At one moment, Myros would be the very epitome of the old-fashioned Ehleen gentleman-cool, poised, a bit arrogant, conversing in cultured accents-then, in a twinkling, he could become a ravening, blood-hungry beast with the strength of a wild bull and the murderous cunning of a treecat. Or, just as quickly, he could lapse into a coma from which he might not awaken for days or even a week.
In his day, the madman had been justly renowned as a master swordsman, and his keepers had early learned the folly of allowing their charge access to steel, no matter how pacific his mood might seem. No less than two men ever attended him, and they always carried long; leather, sausage-shaped cudgels rather than swords or dirks. Nor were they reticent in the use of their weapons when it became necessary to subdue the unfortunate nobleman. And Myros' battered physiognomy bore mute witness to his warders' self-protective impulses.
Soon after the close of Vaskos' meeting, Captain Danos sauntered down a hallway of the Citadel toward a thick, ironbound door, before which squatted a brace of armored men. Their helms laid aside, both were peering intently at the dice one had just cast.
The officer began to speak before he was well up to the pair. "Still at it, eh? Tell me, Sawl, how much does Geedos owe you by now?"
Fingering the place where his right ear-bitten off by Myros-had once sprouted, the brawny, thick-bodied man squinted his eyes and answered; "Well, cap'n, near as I can figure, 'bout twenty-three million thrahkmehee, give 'r take a couple of million." He added a gaptoothed grin.
Halting before the still-squatting men, Danos removed the sword from his baldric and the dirk from his belt and stooped to lay them by the two helms. Casually, he helped himself to one of the heavy, loaded cudgels, tightening its thong on his ' right wrist. Leaning over the gamesters, he slid back a brass panel and gazed through a grilled aperture into the chamber beyond, then slid the panel shut and stepped back.
"Open the door, Sawl. Geedos, make sure his lordship is on short chain. I wish to talk privately with him for a while."
When the officer entered his cell, Myros laid aside tIle book he had been reading by light of the two wall lamps which were kept constantly burning, well out of his reach.
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A sneer twisted his lips as he suffered the guard to lift his feet onto the bed and shorten the chain which secured his left ankle to a finger-thick iron eyebolt let into the granite-block wall.
Few of the noble rebels now rotting in the prison at Morguhnpolis would have recognized the prisoner as the carefully groomed, satanically handsome man who had masterminded and led the rebellion in Morguhn. Blacknailed, filthy,clawlike hands poked from the sleeves of his stained and tattered shirt. The trimmed and oiled black mustachios and chin beard of old now were merged and lost forever within the matted, gray tangle of whiskers which hung almost to his waist. His hair was almost totally white, as full and filth-matted as the beard. Even his fine, patrician nose had been knocked askew in one of the murderous set-tos with his "guards."
Only his glittering black eyes were unchanged, and from them his madness shone clearly. And something else peeked - out as well, now - and again; something which smacked to Danos, each time he . chanced to see it, of dark, sinister, eldritch evil, .which could see to the very core of his soul.
When the guard had adjusted the chain and left, closing the door behind him, Danos waited unspeaking until the muted clatter of the dice came from the hallway. Only then did he draw nearer and speak in hushed tones.
"My lord, I'll not be bringing you any more 'delicacies' for a while ... possibly, a great while. The streets are going to be swarming with men every night for some .time to come and it'll be just too risky to chance."
The vahrohnos showed his stained and broken teeth in a lazy smile. "You are lying, you whoreson. Vaskos-thebastard hasn't enough of a garrison to mount a really effective guard, and I doubt me, with the sweet smell of strahteegos in his. swinish nose, thathe'll appeal for more men. So don't attempt to hoodwink me, you lowborn lout.
"How would you like me to start screaming for you, you personally, one night when you're out about your rather peculiar diversions, eh? How would you like for me to tell them exactly where to find vou, under those -ruins at the northeast comer of • . . I That shook you, didn't it, captain?"
Pale and trembling, his quaking legs scarcely able to support him, Danos had backed as far from his demonic
charge as he could. He leaned weakly against the wall, his nape prickling, while drops of cold fear oozed from his every pore.
The madman went on. "Oh, no, Danos, you'll continue to supply me my wants, for you are my prisoner as surely as I am yours. You'll bring me a quart of fresh blood at least twice each week, and I care not where or how you get it. Woman's blood or man's blood,It matters not. But
you will bring me blood!" .
Using the mind of Whitetip, his prairiecat, to boost his farspeak range, BiIi bespoke those few minds with which he was familiar to alert four of his farflung squadrons to the High Lord's new orders. For the others, he sent out dispatch riders at dawn. Also at dawn,he divided bis personal command, sending the four reserve squadrons back to the trade road in company with the mule-and-pony train of booty, the dozen or so wounded Freefighters and most of the supply train. When he spurred westward, it was at the head_ of a full squadron, made up of the best of five,
Noble and Freefighter, officer - and roan, - they .were, in appearance, a rather unprepossessing lot that chill moming. Nearly a month of unrelieved campaigning up through the inhospitable mountains had given them the look of ruffians-mostly unwashed, untrimmed and unshaven, showy with gaudy bits of looted Ahrmebnee finery, acrawl withvermin. Albeit, there were few glum faces among them, and for two principal reasons: first, they had encountered few warriors and had consequently suffered few casualties; .second, the pickings of the villages had been good, better than most had expected of mountain
.' barbarians, and every rider who arrived back below the walls of Vawnpolis was assured of a jingling share of the loot now being packed south on the long trains of mules and asses and "liberated" mountain ponies. -
But, for all their appalling personal hygiene, or lack of same, all theirweapons were hoped and. bright, their armor-rust·freeand well oiled. - Saddles and other leather gear weresupple andshining, and . every_ horse was in the best possible condition"
Pleased as rtheomercenaries were with the ease and . profits of this campaign, they were even better. pleased - with their young commander, Duke Bili. Too often, within the borders of the Confederation, they had. been forced to
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sell their swords to southern nobles who basically disliked, if not openly despised, Freefighters. But this tall, stark warrior whose Red Eagle banner they now followed not only liked and respected them, he understood them and their customs, shared their grim religion and spoke their language.
Confederation-born, of mixed Ehleen and Horseclans paternity, his dam a daughter of the Duke of Zunburk, he was less than a year come down from the court and many battlefields of the Iron King, speaking the nasal Harzburker dialect better thaan he spoke Ehleeneehkos. Even his Confederation-Mehrikan was tinged with a northern accent which, to the Freefighters, gave his orders a homey sound. Reared amongst northern nobles, he behaved like them, which fact often enraged his Kindred and Ehleen subordinates, but further endeared him to the northern mercenaries, who willingly rendered him the honors due a burk-lord and referred to him fondly as "Duke BiIi the Axe."
Depending on Whitetip, the long-fanged prairie cat, ranging out ahead of the column,to sniff out any ambuscades and farspeak to him of them, as well as on his own rare ability to foresense danger, Bili rode easily; slouched against the high cantle of his warkak. Long inured to the harsher clime of the north, he and most of the Freefighters had suffered less from the rigors of the winter-gripped mountains than had many of the Kindred nobility. And this was one reason he had so few of the latter with him now. Another reason was their inborn penchant for arguing the most minor details of orders under any and all conditions.
It had come as a distinct shock to Bili-and to his brothers too, who, like him, had been reared in various of the Middle Kingdom principalities-that even untitled, minor nobility of the Confederation felt not only free but almost constrained to argue the decisions and commands of major nobles, right up to their own, hereditary lieges. A northern knight or baronet or even the lord of a small burk who took it into his head to do such would part company with that head, and right speedily, too.
And their constant complaints about the rigors and discomforts of camp and march and campaign were not the mumbled grousing expected of all soldiers, but formal protestations, delivered personally and at maddening length. It
had been bad enough during the siege of Vawnpolis, when the most unstinting of the bellyachers could be sent packing, sent .on one pretext or another back, to their desmesnes, er_e their big, active mouths undermined both morale and discipline. But on this present campaign, only large, well-armed-bodies could be sent back through the ravaged and 'highly vengeful tribal lands. so Bili had found himself stuck with a large minority of long-overindulged men who considered themselves his peers and who often behaved as if it was his fault that it was too cold or too wet for their pampered tastes. -
Bili had long been proud of his iron control over his hot temper, but these Kindred nobles had driven him to distraction, and it had frequently been all he could do to keep from bloodina his axeor sword on their miserable necks. Therefore, he had considered it the bountiful blessing of Sun and Wind to rid himself of an the whiners ere setting forth on this .mission to the west. And their howls of protest when he had commandeered their weIJschooled warhorses and vastly superior armor for certain of his Freeflghters had been sweet to his ears. ,
Those few Kindred who now rode west with him were either atypical younger men who had quickly and easily adapted to northern modes or older nobles who had. in their salad days. soldiered in the Middle Kingdoms as free lances. Few were his actual liegemen-e-Morguhn or Daiviz Kindred-but he had come to love them' like brothers. One such. ,KomeesTaros- Duhnbahr of Baikuh, rode knee
to knee with him. -
.. Born a third son,' Taros had never expected to succeed to his father's title and lands, but~two days after his twenty-second birthday, the former komees and both the elder brothers had been slain in that. last attack against the walls of Vawnnolis. Their smoke was not half a day with Wind, before Thoheeks Baikuh had confirmed Taros to possession ',flf his natrirnonv. Even yet. he sometimes seemed startled when addressed as komees or count.
"Lord Bili,"he said respectfullv, "I cantrulv understand why you sent back those querulous old women. and precious young Ehleenee. but you know there's going to he merry hell to pay if any of their horses are lost or any of their nlate either. Aren't you worried about starting bloodfeuds?"
"With such as them?" BiIi's white teeth 'sparkled in !l
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brief, humorless grin. "Hardly. Had they any gumption, they'd have given me the same answer Veetos of Lahmahnt did, that where his horse and armor went, so too went his sword and his body. There's hope for a man that stubborn, no matter how delicate his manner or quarrelsome his nature."
At the midpoint of Sacred Sun's journey, they stopped long enough to chew Ahrmehnee-cured meat while the horses grazed on scant grasses and weeds, frost-sere and partially snow-covered. Then it was into the saddle and face the west again, following whatever tribe or game trails were available. Then the head of the column turned the flank of a wooded slope to see the track ahead blocked by a knot of armored and mounted warriors.
Signaling for a haIt, Bili mindspoke Mahvros, his stallion, to a trot. Trailed by Komees Taros and the trooper who bore the Red Eagle of Morguhn, he advanced to exchange handclasps and greetings with the waiting nobles and officers.
Komees Hari Daiviz of Morguhn looked at least twenty years younger than he had on the day almost a year ago, when he had received Bili in his hail and the young thoheeks told him so.
Hari smiled broadly. "I'd forgotten just how much fun a protracted raid on hostile territory can be, Bili. And you won't believe how much loot we're sending south, either, not until you see the size of your tenth of it, you won't. Who'd have thought these wretched Ahrmehnee could've accumulated such wealth, up here away from everything?"
"Probably," mused Bili aloud, "they got most of it the same way they lost it, raiding the nearer duchies and the other mountain tribes. Have your losses been heavy?"
Hari shrugged. "Ten killed or dead of wounds, maybe thrice that hurt in one way or another, none so bad they couldn't sit a horse. But I fear that some of our columns may not have been so fortunate,BiIi. A warhorse limped into camp, two nights back. The creature's mindspeak is minimal, so I wasn't able to get much information from him, but I'd have recognized him anyhow. It's Pawl Raikuh's gelding, Bili, and the saddle was caked with dried blood."
"Well," the thoheeks sighed, "Pawl would be the first to say that death is nothing more than the rest at the end of the long march. It's a rare soldier who finds it in a bed,
Hari. Let's just hope he died in battle, hope the damned Ahrmehnee didn't Jake him alive."
Hari's fingers sketched the Sun-sign. ~'Double aye to that! Not even on my : .. on the commander ofVawnpolis's rehels would 1 wish such a cruel fate."
Pehroosz Bahrohnyuhn had thought.· she would never spend so horrible a night as that which followed the day of her brutal violation. She had lain upon the greasy dirt floor, her stained cloak wrapped tightly about her. bruised and aching young body, while the creatures of the mountainnight snapped and snarled over . the freezing carcasses of the butchered herd of goats and the corpses of her three little brothers. Carefully, she had husbanded the wood from the meager furnishings so senselessly smashed by the raiders who had raped her, fearful of letting the fire die completely but even more fearful of unlacing or raising the heavy hides which closed the open side of the herdmen's shelter and which were now all that separated her and Zahndrah, the old milkgoat, from the scavengers.
But after the endless dark had come the light of the new day. She had heard no moreanimal sounds for some time, so when Zahndrah commenced to paw and nibble at the hides, she found the courage to flex her stiffened limbs and crawl over. Recalling all too _ well the agonizing cramps which bad racked he-r lower abdomen when, yesterday afternoon, she had tried to stand and walk, she followed the
goat out on bands and knees. -
But once in the sunlight, her pride took over. Since she bad been gone from - the village nearly twenty-four hours, it was certain that someone would soon come seeking her, especially with raiders about. Itwould not do for villagers to see her-naked hut for her cloak and fur-lined bootswhimpering on her knees, no matter what injuries and degradations she had suffered. After all; she was eldest born
to their hetman, .. -. -
Gritting her - teeth against the expectedc_ramping and grasping the low lintel timber" for added support, she pulled herself to her feet. However, after a brief stab or two, the internal pain subsided to but a gnawing discomfort, unpleasant but bearable. That was when she became fully aware of her other pains. Worst was the tender flesh at the base of her belly, smarting as _ if red-hot irons had been pressed against it.
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But the most serious of her injuries appeared to be to her hands. The raider who had knelt on her palms, while his comrades had had their vicious sport of her body, had rested the full weight of his body as well as that of his armor. Now, after a night of stiffening she had but minimal use of her fingers, and the pain which shot up her arms when she tried to close the hands enough to really grip the lintel brought beads of sweat to her forehead and a low moan bubbling from her lips.
So, before trudging back toward the village, she made her painful way up the near slope of the intervening mountain. Clad only in cloak and boots as she was, she shivered almost constantly as the chill increased, and her teeth chattered as she wove her way between clumps of evergreens. But at last, she was before the dark opening of the cave of the Woman of Wisdom, Zehpoor.
So long as Ahrmehnee had dwelt in the nearby valley this cave had been the abode of a Woman of Wisdom. Many said that this same one had been here since the time of the Earth-Gods; others, that she was but the latest in a succession of such healer-priestesses. Pehroosz could not say. She had seen Zehpoor but once-at the time when she and three other pubescent girls had been brought up to be admitted to the Women's Mysteries-and her only memory was of an ancient, frail and withered face mouthing incomprehensible words.
Shivering now as much from awe as from cold, Pehroosz haltingly entered the outer chamber, knelt reverently before the altar of the Lady, then leaned forward to press her lips against the Skystone.
"What would you, Pehroosz Bahrohnyuhn?" The words seemed to come from above, from below, from all about the small, stone room.
Pehroosz scarcely recognized her own voice, issuing from the throat screamed raw yesterday and the lips swollen from buffets and brutal, forced kisses.
"Oh, please, Mother Zehpoor, I have been ... hurt. I . . . I need healing before I can go back home, back to the village."
After a moment, a slender column of smoke arose from a crack in the top of the small altar and that disembodied voice commanded, "Breathe you of the smoke, child. Breathe it deep. Pehroosz."
Obediently, the girl did so. All at once, the icy stone
beneath her knee became as warm as sun-baked rocks. the very air about her, balmy as summer. Gone was all pain, all discomfort, all remembered horror. Both body and mind seemed to be sinking slowly into soft, safe warmth. She closed her eyes, breathing a sigh of relief.
Chapter VII
Afterward, she could only recall a long period of wak-ing slumber, wherein a formless blob of face flitted in to briefly float before her while hands pressed a bowl rim to her mouth and a half-heard voice urged her to drink substances ranging from nauseous and bitter to sweet and soothing. But, mostly, she simply floated, weightless, feeling nothing save comforting warmth.
At last, she openedjier eyes unbidden. Above her, a ceiling of polished hardwood was - almost obscured under untold layers of soot; beneath her body, she felt the warm softness of a feather mattress and, dimly, the feel of the rope supports. It was purest luxury, In the village, only her _ father's great bed boasted so fine and thick a mattress.
"So," chuckled a remembered voice from her right, "my little chicken awakes at last."
The turning of her head brought to her eyes the sight of Mother Zehpoor. The crone sat in a carven chair before a heavy table, on which was a huge stone mortar, surrounded by bunches and bundles of dried herbs arid roots. Gently dropping the pestle back into themortar, she arose from her place and padded lightly over to plump herself down on the edge of the bed.
Seeing her at close range, Pehroosz was shocked. The Mother Zehpoor of 'the rites-less - than sixty moons agone-had been ancient and withered, while this woman, though very slender, looked to be little older than Pehroosz's mother.
The woman's lip and eye corners _crinkled. "Oh, but I am that same Mother Zehpoor, child. You and the others, you saw what you saw because I willed that you see it. My reasons for deceiving your sight rest betweenme and Her
I serve. _
"But come, let us see your hands;Pehroosz." Tenderly, 80
she commenced to unwrap the linen bandages. "The Lady grant they are at last healed, for we must soon begin our journey, if we are to fulfill Her will." She sighed. "It is almost a moon's ride to the place wherein fates will be cast."
"Journey?" Pehroosz interjected, wide-eyed. "Forgive me, Mother Zehpoor, but I don't think my. own mother would ... how long have I been here? Surely, I have been missed by now. Have none come to seek me?"
The woman's face became grave and sympathy shone from her sloe-black eyes. "Pehroosz Bahrohnyuhn, you are descended of brave warriors and wise chiefs; you are descended, moreover, of a proud and most ancient race. Much have the Ahrmehnee suffered, child, yet have their pride and their valor ever sustained them. As you well know, this is not our original stahn, The Horse-devils and the Enleenee now squat upon the fertile lands which once were ours. But-and this you may not know, Pehrooszthere were still other stahns from which we were driven, long, long ago, in the time of the Earth-Gods. Many moons' sail away, they lie, far across the Great Sea.
"Mighty were those stahns, large and powerful and very rich. But, corrupted by - wealth, those ancient Ahrmehnee turned from adoration of the Lady to worship of other gods, false gods. From that moment did fortune depart from our race, Pehroosz. Race after race did harry and hound our ancestors, driving us from our lands and cities and villages, stealing our kine and our goods and our maidens. But, even in those dark times, did our inborn courage and pride bear us up.
"Your blood is as their blood, Pehroosz Bahrohnyuhn, You have suffered most cruelly. Now must I relate that which will cause you still more anguish, yet must you bear your woes as stoically as did your suffering ancestors,
down through the ages." ..
Drawing a deep breath, she stared levelly into the girl's wide eyes. "Pehroosz, those men, the ones who attacked you, who butchered the goats and slew your brothers, were but part of a far larger raiding party. Only an hour after you were ravished, child, more than five hundred men assaulted the vi1lage. Those who escaped their cruelty fled northward. Those who did not lie dead among the ashes and tumbled stones.
"You may be as proud of your mother's memory as you
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are of young Toorkohm's. She directed what pitiful defense could be made and fought as bravely as any warrior could've until she was cut down."
Abruptly, Pehroosz sat up and made to lower her feet to the floor. "Please, Mother Zehpoor. Please, we must bury my mother's body." _
Firmly, the woman pushed her back down on the bed.
"Pehroosz, you must not go to the place that was the village. It has been a long, hard winter, child, and game has been scarce. In the four days since the village was burned, the bears and the wolves, thetreecats 'and smaller animals
will have left very little of those folk slain there." -
"But ... but it cannot have been so long," protested
Pehroosz. "I came to you only this morning." _
The woman shook her head of tightly coiled, iron-gray hair. "Not so, child. In less. than an hour, the sun will rise on the fourth morning you have been with me. I thought it best that you remain asleep while your body's hurts healed, that your mind not be forced to dwell upon the horrors you endured. But now you are once more hale and we must leave."-
"But why, Mother Zehpoor? Why must we leave? This is my home and soon my father will return and rebuild the village. Arid • • . and Hahkeeg, too=-we are to be married soon."-
"Child," said the woman, patientfy,"we must leave because it is the Lady's will. Whilst you slept, I did scry the future. To remain here is death. Far-from here, far to the west, lies your fortune, Pehroosz-e-a fabulous dowry of long-bidden wealth, a strong and brave and gentle husband of another race who will give you a life of ease and comfort and will receive of you fine sons to bring fresh honors to his house and tribe. But we must leave soon and travel cautiously, for the mountains -swarrP_ with bands . of low-
lander raiders." -
The woman arose and smoothed down her skirt. "So, come you, child. You must eat now. I have fawn seethed in goat's milk and oatcakes and honey wine. Then you must help me prepare for our journey. It is commanded that I go, too, for, somehow, my future is tied up to yours."
Quite early in his westward dash, Bili found it necessary
to place his command on meager field rations, since they were no longer assured of the superfluity of supplies which raiding brought. There was some grumbling, but most recognized the need to reserve the grain for the horses, who could not maintain their best form on the scant subsistence of the half-feral mountain ponies; not so, some of the young thoheeks's more vocal, noble critics, however.
As he had progressed, as his path had crossed those of the fanned-out columns of raiders, Bill had rendezvoused with almost all of his Morguhn nobles and the survivors of the original Morgubn troop of Freefighters who had marched into Yawn under his banner. The majority, he had been glad to see again-c-his brothers, Djaik and Gilbuht, Komees Hari, Freefighter lieutenants Krahndahl and Hohguhn-others he would have been as happy to not see. Or hear.
They were; by now, within a few days' ride of their objective, the area wherein the High Lord had thought they should intercept the Witchmen and the booty train. Therefore, Bili bad assembled most of the officers and nobles, that the High Lord's instructions be detailed to all. Along the twisting length of a narrow, steep-sided vale, the Freefighters were laying watchfires, setting up picket lines and caring for their horses; after nearly a week of sunrise-to-sunset forced marches, they were reveling in the unaccustomed luxury of having natural light by which to set up camp.
A cursory glance at his subordinates showed all the Morguhn nobles present with the sole exception of Vahrohneeskos Ahndros. Then, from the summit of the small mound on : which he stood, Bili recognized the baronet's big gray gelding coming rapidly down the length of the vale. For all that the beast was already at full gallop, its rider could be seen to spur-rake the sweaty barrel, while lashing furiously with his crop.
Only good fortune prevented Abndros' steed from tramping the soldiers in his path. Even as Bili watched, grim-faced, the rocketing destrier's shoulder took a Freefighter in the back, sending him spinning to the rocky ground with a mighty clashing of scale armor.
At the periphery of the gathering, the gelding was savagely reined to a shuddering halt. Stiff-legged, the vahrohneeskos stalked through the throng, directly toward
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the thoheeks, His saturnine countenance bespoke illconcealed rage, his dark eyes smoldered, his right hand continually clenched and unclenched and the knuckles of his left hand gleamed white on his swordhilt. Shouldering through the front rank, be came to a haIt and stood,
spraddle-legged, before his suzerain. - - -
Although he had not been with the column. twenty-four hours, Ahndros had already found occasion to be publicly insubordinate, first to Komees Hari, then to Bili. Even a half-blind dolt could have seen another such outburst here aborning, and Bili was more perceptive than most. His eyes like blue ice and his voice as cold, he broke off his conversation with a Freefightercaptain to ask:
"You have yet another complaint, baronet?" _
In tones every bit as glacial, the newcomer replied, "My title is 'vahrohneeskos,' my lord thoheeks. I am not one your precious unwashedburk-lords! And I want to know why your damned barbarian baggage master refused to issue my cook a few. pounds of grain to make flour for my bread. And what right did the lowbom swine have to jettison three packloads of my persona] baggage and drive the ponies away from the march route? Who, just who do you think you are, .you immature jackanapes? How much more of your supercilious contumely do you think I and the other Kindred gentlemen are going to tolerate? Only my love for your mother has restrained me ere this, but it's high time someone took you- and YOUT insufferable ar-
rogance to task!" _ .
Ahndros's face, blood-dark when he first began, had now become pallid with rage, and a patch of froth quivered at his lips' corners, while a.tic twitched bis cheek and eye.
Unmoving, grim-faced Bili heard out the enraged man.
Those about the two perceptibly moved back, sensing an imminent combat. At Ahndros's last word, Bili broke his silence, sneering.
"Don't hide behind you-r supposed regard for one of_my mothers, little man. If anyone's arrogance has made him insufferable since first he joined the siege forces, it is you, Ahndros .Theftehros of_:"Sun and Wind help us a11- Morguhn. I have never fully understood why you joined us _ at all, since you found my judgment, the High Lord's judgment, Aldora's judgment, all wanting. I have never given
you an order that you didn't take exception to some part of, when you didn't disregard it altogether.·
"So littleactual combat did you take part in, at Vawnpolis, that I'd have had adequate reason to question your courage-as did certain of youripeers-e-did J not know better. You fought with and for me against heavy odds last year, took grievous wounds in my service, and I am grateful. Because of-that gratitude, I have been more than lenient, more than tolerant of your flagrant improprieties.
But, no more, sirrah! .. - .
"I am Dot yours to command, rather you are mine. - I am your hereditary lord, Ehleen. Moreover, I am in command of this column. We are oncompaign in the midst of hostile country and I cannot=-dare not-tolerate anything, man, cat, horse or object, that impedes our progress or endangers us or sows dissension amongst us. Therefore, I'll - give you three choices: you can take the five servants you saw fit to bring, along with a small escort, and make your way back to your former posting, then lead them.back to VawnpoIis; you can recognizeyourproper place and station and stay in it, physically and verbally; you can continue to comport yourself as previously and I'll have you
executed as the troublemaker you are. -
"Make your choice, Abndros Theftehros. Now!" Ahndros's full lips curled his .scorn. "Even such a thing as you would not dare-to slay me WIthout a legal hearing
before my peers of Morguhn. The High Lord would bave your hairless head for such highhanded ness, and you know it. Command your stinking barbarians, if you wish and can-s-you .should be able to do that, anyway, sinceyou're a savage, .unlettered burk-lord in all save name, yourself!-but we noblemen, Kindred and Ehleenee, are your puppets only so long-as we allow you to pull our strings. I, fOT one, have-no intentionof slavishly following your stupid whims, of allowing you to. further humiliate me and deny me my lawful tights, norwill I allow you to degrade
me by chasing me outof camp. ..._ . _
.'·So, since r flatly refuse two of _YOUl" magnanimous offers and since we both know that -you dare not carry out the third and, since you seem averse to meeting me honorably, as a gentleman should ... " He allowed his voice to trail away, smiling lazi!y. Ahndros was easily the secondbest swordsman in either Morguhn or Vawn-e-oaly Djaik
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Morguhn possessed superior talent and skill with broadsword or saber-so he was absolutely sure of his ground. Either Bili-hated Bili-would rise to the bait and become a corpse or he would not and lose the respect of all and the command of the column, which latter Ahndros himself craved.
While an officer in the Confederation Army, Ahndros had been lover to Aldora and an honored favorite of the High Lord. Even after he bad succeeded to his father's title and lands and resigned his commission, he had been a person whom the High Lord contacted frequently, and he had been the only soul in all of Morguhn who had known that Milo would visit the duchy in the guise of a traveling bard. Consequently, it had come as an especially bitter pill to find, upon his recovery from wounds and joining of the army before Vawnpolis, that Thoheeks Bili had replaced him in both capacities.
Early on, he had found his relative lack of status unbearable and had tried to rewin his former place with both High Lord and High Lady. He had failed miserably. To Aldora, unashamedly in love with Bili, Ahndros was just one more in the scores of former bedmates she had had over the century and a half she had lived. Milo, for his part, had come to admire, respect and love Bili in his own way; BiIi's astounding mental abilities-not yet fully explored or completely understood-his natural leadership and aptitude for inspiring his followers, his quick and accurate assessments of situations and problems, his personal valor and cleanly habits and blunt candor, all had impressed the High Lord.
Deep within himself, Ahndros had been able to understand, for he too had had an instant liking for the stark young warrior who had ridden 'down from the north to assume his patrimonial duties. Moreover, there was the link of shared combat and dangers, for he and Bili and the High Lord had held a bridge for almost an hour against a horde of mounted rebels. In that springtime skirmish had he taken the wounds which for so .long had invalided him. Lastly, he lusted after one of Bili's mothers, the late Thoheeks Hwahruhn's eldest widow.
Even so, his sickening envy for the stations once his and now held by Bili soon blossomed into hate. Assiduous nitpicking produced no dearth of fuel for stoking the fires
of that hate. Also, he found a willing fire tender in the person of old Komees Djeen Morguhn, whose earlier, overbearing efforts to browbeat Bili had ultimately resulted in his own public humiliation,-an act for -which he could never forgive his youngJoverlord.vThroughout the siege, these two. had been able to. cause Bili and Aldora-the High Lady having been left in charge of the besieging forces during the High LOrd's lengthy absence-s-considerable annoyance arid not a-little real trouble.
Nonetheless, the habitual caution of the elderly komees bad in some measure -restrained Ahndros' less calculating nature from open and violentdefiance. But Komees Djeen had been in command.of the farthest-eastward squadron, and so was presently withdrawing with his force to. the south. Ahndros was now completely on his incautious own.
Though Hili answered the barb as calmly as possible, it was from betwixt .tightlyclenched jaws, above which his eyes blazed blue fire. "When once more we are our own men, Lord Ahridros, withoutmission and orders and responsibilitiesTor those we lead, you will find me mo.re than happy to let Steel' decide our differences. For the nonce, however, we are- all under the High Lord's command to. fu1flll his behests, and, as I have before told you, we are far from the Confederation and in the midst of a hostileIand. It was the High Lord's express wish that I captain this _ special enterprise, and I will not surrender that captaincy to you or anyone else-without the Lord
Milo.'s order. -
"My farspeaksummons to. you instructed you to. join this column atthe specified rendezvous with a half-dozen troopers or officers - and a bare minimum' of equipment, Since we 'were to. move far ahdfast:1 said nothing about bodyservants, yet youappeared with five, plus a half-troop and a packtrain near as long as this entire squadron's, Tents and scents and -oils and fine clothinghaveno place in the High Lord's plans, Lord Ahndros, nor in mine: this is why the baggagernaster dumped your fhree packloads, and I had intended to. so. inform you, though, for your pride's sake, I'd not have done so. in public.
"The grain and dried beans are being retained to. keep our warhorses in proper flesh," since, unlike the ponies, they cannot thrive on dry grass and treebark, Even the
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lowliest trooper seems to understand this, Lord Ahndros. Why can't you?"
During Bili's long reply, Ahndros' blood had cooled enough to allow his brain to register a few very important facts: Bili was not wearing a sword; it hung, along with his axe and helm, on the saddle of Mahvros, his black stallion, some paces to his rear. His sneer intensified and he hitched his swordbelt forward and closed his right hand about the wire-wound hilt.
"I don't think these noble gentlemen and northern officers are willing to follow the lead or orders of a craven, no matter his hereditary rank or who misplaced him in command." He raised his voice and glanced about him. "What say you, gentlemen? The thoheeks of Morguhn has done me injury, yet he refuses to meet me in honorable combat, and such refusal brands him craven, Do you now follow him or me?"
Lord Hari, his face fire-red, made to step forward, but Djaik Morguhn was there before him. "Lord Ahndros, I know not the customs and usages of the Confederation Army, but I had assumed it at least as civilized and well ordered a force as the armies of the Middle Kingdoms. In the Army of Eeree, now, a nobleman-no matter how high his birth-who saw fit to insult his commander, openly question that commander's judgment and tender a challenge which he knew the commander's oaths would not let him take up would be brought before a drumhead court-martial and, most probably, a Steel Cult Council, as wen.
"The Order would likely bid him do combat with a weapons master in full plate and him with but a sword and his bare skin. If, by wildest chance, he survived that encounter-"
"Fagh!" Ahndros burst out. "Your barbarian practices would sicken a hog. Find someone else to yap at, puppy, I have business with grown men."
Grave-faced, the younger Morguhn turned to Bili.
"Brother, I ask Sword-leave. Be it your will?"
At BiIi's mindcall, Mahvros gave over his browsing and paced to BiIi's side, his harness jingling. Feeling the supercharged emotional atmosphere, the sensitive horse mindspoke with rising eagerness. "Do we fight soon, brother?"
"Not me, Mahvros, but possibly you with my brother, Djaik, astride you. Will you serve himas you would me?"
"My brother's brother is my brother," the horse .an- -
swered simply. "-
Bili lifted his baldric from off the pommel, uncased the sword and dropped baldric and sheath to the ground. Turning back to Djaik and the' assemblage, be raised .the broadsword to. bis lips, kissing the' blade just below the
guard. . '.' '.
Djaik drew his own sword and did likewise, then he extended bis hilt to' Bili, accepting Bili's sword in return.
"No, not Sword-leave, my brother," stated Bili formally.
"Rather, this; You areme, until my Steel runs lifeblood."
Stiffly, Djaik nodded. "I will serve yourhonorwell, lord brother. Honor to Steel.v.Once more, the two men kissed
their blades.. . . .
"What are you - two yammering about?" shouted Ahndros, peevishly. "Is the craven thoheeksgoing to fight
me or not?" '. . - ..'
Still gripping Djaik's bare blade,' Hili 'stalked forward, saying, "Count Hari, I beg you- arid Sir Gerosattend and advise Lord Ahndros, as I doubt me he knows aught of
Sword Cult usages." - .- . . .. .
Once again' confronting' Ahndros, Bill vgrounded the point of his brother's sword, crossing his : big, scarred hands. upon its pommel-ball. "You - were insistent on-a duel, . eh? Well, a duel you are to have, sirrah, -Were I free to do so; I'd meet you myself, on horseback, with axes •
. But I'mnot, as you well know. .' . - .
"However, Lord Ahndros, youhave challenged and my surrogate has taken Up that challenge. :YQU will meet my brother, Djaik Morguhn.vas soonas.he has fully _arl!1ed.1t willl:)e a combat conducted by Sword Cult -customs, in which Count Hari and Sir Genis Lahvoheetos of Morguhn
willpresently instruct you. .' . _
"You have been mostprovocative, Lord Ahndros, but, even so, I would prefer reconciliation and comradeship to combat. Therefore,. I offer you the opportunity to withdraw your challenge, apologize' for your insults and rejoin us as a loyal and obedient Kinsman." .
It was not working out as . Ahndros hadhoped .. He did not really fear Djaik, though he respected the boy's. unquestioned expertise: but he Iiadno desire to fight him
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nothing to gain in wounding or killing him, save the enmity of all of Clan Morguhn. He would have been happy to live with that enmity, could he only have hacked the life out of the thoheeks, but, once again, circumstances had conspired to cheat him of his rightful deserts. Utter frustration was compounded with his rage and the mixture suddenly bubbled over, completely out of control.
His sword sang clear of its scabbard, flashing blindingly in the westering sun. "Christ damn you, you heathen bastard! It's not your brother's blood I want, it's yours. You've got a sword. Use it!" And with that he stamped forward, his forehand slash aimed at Bili's helmless head.
Chapter VIII
Ahndros should have known better; he had, after all, seen Bili fight. For all his thick waist and hips almost as wide as his shoulders, the young thoheeks was in no manner clumsy or slow, else he would not have lived through over five years of almost continuous warfare. His quick reflexes had saved his life in more than one fierce encounter. They did again.
Experience told him that he could not get the long, heavy sword up quickly enough to effectively parry the attack. To duck would only make him more vulnerable, and to hop back off the small mound would be to g-ive Ahndros the advantage of highgrourid. Dropping the sword. he threw himself forward. his meaty shoulder striking the center of Ahndros' breastplate, his left hand closing on his adversary's right wrist with bone-crushing force.
Ahndros crashed over backward, his cuirass striking sparks from the rocky ground. They rolled over and over. the gathered men scattering from -their path. The fall had sent Ahndros' helm spinning, but Bili could not spare a fist to batter the exposed head or fingers to gouge the eyes or ram up the nostrils, for he needs must use both hands to protect himself from Ahndros' strength.
Cursing in all the languages or dialects he had ever heard. Komees Hari danced about as close to the combatants as their unpredictable writhings would permit, his blade bared, seeking a safe opening through which to thrust or slice some unarmored portion of Ahndros' anatomy.
As for Ahndros, he knew that to release his grip on his hilt was sure death, yet be also knew that he could not retain it much longer. Bili had actually bent the fine steel cuff of his right gauntlet and his-relentless pressure was collapsing the high-grade plate more and more. slowly crushing the wrist beneath. Then, while their bodies gasped and thrashed and strained, Bili mindspoke him. ~
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"Ahndee, I don't want to kill you or to see you killed on my account. My mother loves you arid I once thought you my friend. What's made you so unreasonable in these last months? Simply that I felt constrained to bring Count Djeen to heel? Why, the High Lord himself averred that the old man had asked for just what he got, and many times over, too."
Ahndros answered telephathically. "You expect me to take your unadorned word on that, do you?"
"If my word isn't sufficient, Ahndee, than why not ask Lord Milo? You have farspeak, he told me, and Whitetip
will be bappy to assist you." -
"I doubt the High Lord would receivemy transmission, since I left Vawnpoliswithouthis august leave, lord thoheeks. And.teven if he did, I'm certain he'd .lie to back anything you chose to say. It must have been quite a strain to keep up with the demands of both of themswiving tha-t slut, Aldora-the-Undying-Whore, then being
poheestos to Milo.". __
For a moment, Bili's shock at the accusations sent his mind whirling, then he beamed back, albeit sadly. "You are surely mad, Ahndee, mad as Vahrohnos Myros, back in Vawnpolis, gibbering in his cellI had been warned that there was madness in your house, that too much inbreeding had rendered your strain rotten. Drop your sword, man, stop fighting me, and I'll send you back- in honor. Mayhap Master Ahlee can help you return to normalcy."
For a few heartbeats longer, Ahndros maintained the, struggle, then he went suddenly limp and his sword clattered from his grasp.
Bili slowly regained his feet, then helped his late opponent to stand. But he missed the feral gleam in Ahndros' black eyes. As the thoheeks half-turned to speak to his brother, now standing fully armed at the forefront of the circle of - watchers, _ the vahrohneeskos drew his heavy dirk and, screaming, lunged at the hated foe.
Komees Hari's powerful thrust entered the temple, spitting Ahndros's head like an apple on a stick. The black eyes bulged out of their sockets, then a torrent Of blood gushed from eyes, ears, nostrils and mouth. The body stiffened, then collapsed bonelessly, the head pulling free of the sword blade with a sucking, popping sound.
During the next few days, Bill took each nobleman and officer aside, separately, and swore them to silence. He loved his mothers and meant to make sure that neither ever would know of how dishonorably Vahrohneeskos Ahndros Theftehros of Morguhn had died. To that end, he knew that the late Ahndros's servants would have to be permanently silenced, but to slay all five so close to the death of their master might cause comment amongst the Freefighters, so he simply dragooned them to his own service, where he and his striker could keep tabs on them.
Late the next morning, the vanguard came up to an old battleground, obviously the site of an Ahrmehnee victory, since most of the hacked corpses had been stripped, beheaded and sickeningly mutilated. Due to the almost total absence of artifacts, no one could say for certain just who the more than five score 0 dead men had been; Bili and the others could only assume that they had found a part of Pawl Raikuh's still missing squadron.
In addition to the man-made disfigurements, animals had been at the bodies, and at least a week of sundrenched days in the open had the dead flesh well on the way to putrefaction; despite the freezing nights. Nonetheless, Bili had troopers examine each cadaver in hopes of establishing his assumption. That was how the odd point was found.
The man who found it, under a reeking corpse, brought it to his captain, and the Freefighter officer immediately rode to the center of the clearing, where Bili and a knot of nobles sat their horses amid the stench.
Captain Krawzmyuh had to almost shout to make himself heard above the angry cawings of the crows and ravens, the flapping of the wings of low-flying buzzards anxious to return to their grisly feasting.
"Duke Bili, Trooper Hweblbehk found this underneath a body, he did. All the years I been a-soldierin', I ain't seen the like. She 'pears too big and long to be no dart point, but nobody's fool enough to forge barbs on the point of a stabbin' spear."
Bili accepted the piece of metal and scrutinized it. It was about as long as his hand, as the captain had said, too long and heavy to have tipped a hand dart. The steel seemed of poor quality and the forging was rough and sloppy, the hammer marks jaggedly positioned on the
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faces. Down each edge ran a row of curved barbs, and a couple of inches of sourwood shaft still remained in the band-socket, held by an iron pin. He decided that,whatever had been its use, it was a crude, savage weapon.
While the nobles passed it about amongst themselves, Bili thought aloud. "Barring evidence to the contrary, gentlemen, I think we are safe to assume that these poor bastards were of Captain - Raikuh's squadron. But that rnissle point, if such it actually is, gives one to wonder if their nemesis was really the Ahrmehnee. I find myself doubting it for a number of reasons.
"First, though Ahrmehnee are known to take weapons and armor, horses and their equipage from slain foemen, as well as heads, I've yet to hear of any tribe stripping bodies of clothing and boots. Any nonmetallic item-one which cannot be purified by - flre=-whlch was worn touching the skin of a dead enemy is taboo to them, since they much fear the spirits of vengeful victims."
"Yet, my lord," mused Airuhn Mahkai of Duhnkin, "they do take heads ... T"
"Which they keep in special, .spell-locked houses. And their very real fear is one reason they take heads, Lord Airuhn." Bili had, at the first mention of this campaign, put his keen mind to the task of learning all he could of Ahrmehnee and their ways, so he now .. spoke with some authority. "Their shamans are of the mind that, so long as they are not unduly angered, maleficent spirits can be kept trapped within their skulls, which never leave the spellhouse. But were a spirit to see an .Ahrmehnee wearing clothing which once had been worn on that spirit's corporeal body, such would -be its anger that it could overcome the spells and wreak terrible vengeance _ on those who took its life.
"But back to the point, gentlemen. We all are by now aware of the excellence of Ahrmehnee metalworking. They have a passionate love of fine artifacts and are masters at fabricating them. If the High Lord can bring them into the Confederation, give them steady and plentiful sources of raw materials, they'll soon be a very wealthy people, without doubt. Therefore, can any of you imagine an Ahrmehnee warrior willingly entering battle against' welI-armed men with so ill-wrought and clumsy a weapon? I cannot."
"But, BiIi," commented Komees Hari, "who else could have mustered the force to slay over a hundred men?"
"Perhaps that tribe the High Lord mentioned, the Muhkohee. They must be powerful if the Ahrmehnee fear them."
"But, my lords," said Vahrohnos Rai Graiuhm of Makintahsh, absently massaging the thick neck of his destrier, "according to the maps, we're still two days' march within the borders of the Soormeblyuhn Tribe."
Bili nodded. "According to the maps, baron, but recall if you will what I said at our last meeting before inaugurating the raids. These maps, especially the western borders of them, are of questionable accuracy. Too, even if we are still within the lands of the Ahrmehnee, consider, the bulk of their warriors are long leagues to the northeast and we are not the only men who ever took it into their heads to raid the lands of folk we knew to be occupied with another foe.
"No, gentlemen, I think we had best assume that we could see action at any moment from here on. Accordingly, we'll tighten the march order of the column, bringing the trains from the rear to the center. The cats will still scout our projected route and our extended flanks. But now, between them and the column, a stronger vanguard will ride and, where terrain will permit, flank riders, as well.-
"Hari, as you're an old hand at warring and, -as you have at least minimal farspeak, you'll command the van. Stay in touch with the cats and with me. If any ambush occurs or if you run into a force unexpectedly, don't try playing the hero, just fight a sensible holding action until the main body gets up to you. Understand? Pick such men as you want. You've your choice of the squadron."
Bili stood up in his stirrups and looked about him, then, raising his voice, called, "Taros? Taros Duhnbabr? Where are you, man?"
When young Komees Taros came up, his tall sorrel stallion strutting, Bili told him, "You'll command the rearguards, Taros. I'll assign a cat to pace you on each flank, but keep your eyes peeled. None of us want to end up well-minced buzzard bait. Agreed?"
Earlier that morning, away to the northeast, Aldora and
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