by Robert Adams
Seating himself on a pile of horse gear, Bili addressed himself to one of the older Ahrmehnee, asking politely, “You’re. Panosyuhn, aren’t you? The most western of the Ahrmehnee tribes?”
The graying warrior nodded and replied in atrociously accented Trade Mehrikan, with long pauses here and there as he sought to mentally translate his own language into one that this young warleader could understand. “Yes, I’m Vahrtahn Panosyuhn, hereditary headman of a valley northeast of the Great Plateau.”
Bili nodded brusquely. “Well then, this is your country. Where is the nearest village? How far, do you think? We need food, and the wounded fighters and horses need rest and care.”
The elderly Ahrmehnee shook his head vigorously. “No, Dook Bili, this is not my country. This all about this place Muhkohee country, whence came that horde you saved us from; we have been in their savage land for many miles, now.
“The west edge of that plateau that was has ever been the . . . the border between civilized Ahrmehnee and barbarian Muhkohee. If any villages or hovels lie hereabouts, they are assuredly Muhkohee nests and we’d do well to stay clear of the filthy holes.”
Aware that the Ahrmehnee were noted for quick tempers and leery of precipitating even a hint of trouble in this volatile and ill-matched force he now led, Bili was careful to cast no slightest aspersion upon this headman’s courage. “Why should we be fearful of a few barbarian villagers, Lord Vahrtahn? The wounded aside, we mount some eight score swords, so why should we not simply take what supplies we need from a village . . . if we find one?”
But it was one of the subcommanders of the Moon Maidens who answered him, her Trade Mehrikan no better than that of Vahrtahn Panosyuhn. “Were we so rash as to do so, and no woman would be so stupid . . . though it is easy to see how you childish man-warriors could be . . . dead would we all be before leave this terrible land we could, leader of manwarriors. Wait we must until dead are the fires and cooler the ground, for the way we came we must go; death or worse than a quick death in any other riding lies.”
Chapter III
Old Vabrtahn Panosyuhn nodded once, his gray beard rippling over the face of his battered cuirass. “The Maiden is right, Dook Bili. In this little valley we are as safe as we can be in this accursed land. What with all the ground-shakings and mountain tumbling, and the fires, as well as the heavy slaughter we all wrought upon the savages, perhaps we will not be noticed before we can retrace our steps and be gone. At least, let us all now pray that the Radiant Lady so ordains it.”
Bili watched as each of the grim Maidens, each of the hardbitten Ahrmehnee, nodded their agreement and fumbled silver crescents from beneath breastplate or hauberk.
He shook his shaven head forcefully. “No. To stay here will be to see many of our wounded die needlessly; they need unguents, healers, potions to ease their pain and let them sleep. We all need decent food, and the big horses need grain and hay, for the grass here will not last long and they cannot subsist on treebark and moss as do the ponies. I’ve seen damn-all game hereabouts, and even were this place aswarm with such, our archers used all their shafts to quill the damned Muhkohee, back there.
“No, to remain here will weaken all and kill some. If die I must, I’d rather do it sitting my stallion and swinging my axe. What say the rest of you?”
Nods and smiles and wordless grunts of assent answered him . . . but only from the lowlander nobles and the Freefighter officers. What Bili read on the firelit faces of the others, Maidens and Ahrmehnee alike, was not fear but. rather, a crawling horror.
“Ride out if you wish, you thing of male foolishness,” snapped the Maiden who had earlier spoken. “And take with you all your followers of stupidness. But first allow us, who reason have, the time to win free of Muhkohee lands.”
There was a low but concerted growl from the lowlanders and mercenaries. They all had seen the Moon Maidens fight and unanimously respected the arms skills and clear courage of them; but these armored girls were still mere females, and the nobles and Freefighters intended to tolerate no abuse or contumely from an overweening pack of man-aping women.
Bili knew that growl and recognized its meaning. He knew full well that aching muscles and near-empty bellies had already gone far toward honing a cutting edge on pride and hot tempers, crafting a weapon which could rend apart this shaky alliance of traditional enemies, further decimate their thin ranks and add to the numbers of the wounded. He made to step into the breach, but another forestalled him.
From out of the surrounding darkness, into the shifting wavering circle of the firelight, came the brahbehrnuh, the chieftainess of the Moon Maidens. She moved slowly, a bit unsteadily. She had shed helm and armor, and her loosened hair cascaded in ebon waves about the high collar of her long cloak of soft, green-dyed leather. Her black eyes were deep-sunk, her face pale under her tan, but her voice was firm, and it contained the natural authority of the born leader.
“Kahndoot,” she addressed the Maiden standing with arms akimbo, “sit down and shut up! These men are not as are . . .” Her contralto voice nearly broke as she corrected herself. “As were the males of our blood. Accuse such as Dook Bili, there, of foolishness or cowardice and you’ll shortly have a bared sword to face.”
“But, honored one,” protested the Moon Maiden hotly, “this stupid lowlander male wants to raid a Muhkohee village, can he find one; and you know what that will likely mean, there being so very few of us.”
The brahbehrnuh nodded slowly. “Yes, Kahndoot, I know and you know, but he probably does not. Remember, he is not an Ahrmehnee, not even a cursed Ehleen, by the looks of him. You should have explained to him the danger before you so railed at him.”
Kahndoot’s brows shot up in amazement. “Me? Me, honored one? Explain my reasons to a mere man? Why, that’s silly!”
Shuffling over to stand before the Moon Maiden, the brahbehrnuh placed her palms on the woman’s armored shoulders, saying, softly and sadly, “Yes, love, explain. Remember the Hold is no more, it is gone, utterly. We few here are likely the very last of our race. Are we to survive, we must learn to adapt to the customs of those with whom our lot be cast.
“Mere man though he be, this Dook Bili has proved himself to be as brave and as wise as any woman here, when he knows where lies danger; moreover, he is the unquestioned leader of these lowlanders. Even the Ahrmehnee seem to have accepted his war-leadership, for all that until less than a single Moon agone, he and his men were burning and looting Ahrmehnee villages and steadings, maiming and slaying and raping Ahrmehnee tribesfolk.
“But now you sit you down, love, and hold your tongue, you and our sisters. I will explain the awfulness of our common danger to Dook Bili.”
Because she had spoken in the secret language of her race, no male present had understood a single word; this was as she had intended, not wishing to shame one of her sisters before menfolk.
While the outspoken Moon Maiden sank back onto her mailed haunches, the brahbehrnuh began to make a slow way around the fire. Her unsteadiness was no less obvious than was her stubborn intention to carry on despite it. This very stubbornness touched Bili, touched him as fully and as deeply as had her reckless courage in the battle which had proceeded the earthquake. He felt a strange oneness with this scarcely known, mannish young woman.
Most of the hunkered or sitting officers and nobles made way for the staggering woman, arising, and only reseating themselves when she had passed. But not so one Tsimbos of Ahnpolis, third son of the lord of that Kehnooryos Ehlas city. Deliberately, grinning insolently up at her, he kept his place and even went so far in his discourtesy as to extend his legs when she made to move around him.
But, suddenly, an immensely powerful hand clamped onto Tsimbos’ shoulder and, for all his two and eighty keelohee and the added weight of his clothing and armor, he found himself savagely jerked erect, raised until only his booted toes still contacted the ground. Held thus, he was subjected to a thorough shaking, while from behind him a cold voice snapped
short, brittle phrases.
“On your misbegotten feet, damn you! She is a chief, a full queen, among her own. And, too, she is ill, as any man can see. She has obviously just used her authority to get us all out of what could have quickly become a very sticky situation. So would you deign to render her less honor than you would me; you young cur?”
Swaying a half-step forward, the brahbehrnuh laid her calloused palm on Bili’s big, scarred knuckles. In stilted Trade Mehrikan, she said, “No, Dook Bili, please to put down your fighter. His actions but bespoke his anger at the thoughtless provocation of my sister’s words. Please, so tightly squeezing his shoulder may do injury to his sword arm. Besides, no offense did I take.”
Bili was as stubborn as any, but it seemed now entirely natural to gently ease his chosen victim back down onto his feet, slacking off the armor-crushing grip of that hand through which the cool, wondrous fire now suffusing his body and mind had entered. Stepping around the trembling and terrified Tsimbos of Ahnpolis, he took the elbow be could feel through the brahbehrnuh’s cloak and guided her to the seat his striker had fashioned for him of war saddles and other gear.
When she had partaken icy brook water laced with fiery brandy from Bili’s own silver cup, she commenced to speak. To her surprise, she found that for the first time in all her two hundred and forty Moons, she was not only addressing a man as an equal, she actually felt this Dook Bili to be her full equal. She felt more, also, but the thoughts were very strange and they tumbled about inchoate in her mind, and she knew that this was neither the time nor the setting to try to sort them out.
Slipping over, she patted the makeshift couch beside her, saying, “Enough room there is here for us both, Dook Bili.”
When he was perched beside her she began, pitching her voice that all about the big fire might bear, as well. “Dook Bili, you well know that we Moon Maidens and the Ahrmehnee are stark and fearsome fighters. Why then do you think It is that, between us, we never have been able to drive those evil beasts we call the Muhkohee from these our mountains? They are many, true, but the most of those many are very poorly armed, as you saw; in a fair fight, no five of their warriors can stand against even one fully armed Ahrmehnee, much less a Moon Maiden.
“When first they came, those foul monsters who eat folk, they set to storm Maiden Valley, our Hold. Of course, they failed, but she who then was the brahbehrnuh took council with the Ahrmehnee chiefs — the nahkhahrah, Behdrohz, and his dehrehbeh — and it was agreed that, lest another attack on a less well-defended place prove successful and give these human beasts a firm foothold in our lands, the newcomers should be driven farther away or at least taught a hard and a bloody lesson.
“Near fifteen score of Moon Maidens rode out from the Hold, Dook Bili, to join three hundred score of Ahrmehnee warriors. They did not then, you see, think that such primitive savages would require more than half the available strength, so that was just how many fighters were committed. For the future of the races — Ahrmehnee and Maidens, alike — that decision was far wiser than any could then have suspected.
“Five hundreds of Ahrmehnee were left to guard the gap through which the force entered these western lands, and they received, after about a week, a few dozens sick and wounded who told glowing tales of a huge battle in which the Moon Maidens and the Ahrmehnee had smashed and utterly routed a vast horde of the shaggy barbarians. Then the wounded and their pony loads of loot and heads rode east with a few of the five hundred as an escort.
“Dook Bili, there were only some fifty men in all that party, yet they were the largest single body to ever return from that accursed campaign. Over the next few months, ones and twos and threes of Moon Maidens and Ahrmehnee trickled out of those dread mountains, all sick of mind and of body and mostly afoot. Many had been driven mad by the unspeakable horrors they had seen and been forced to endure, and, one and all, they implored that none others of their races attempt to penetrate into the Muhkohee lands.
“In all, something less than thirty of our Moon Maidens returned to the Hold out of the near three hundred who rode out so proudly, and those who did return were all broken women, Dook Bili. Waking they shook and shuddered and cast glances of constant and fearful wariness from eyes deep-sunk with horror and the terrors of being hunted like game animals; sleeping, they shrieked and moaned and writhed in private and hideous torments. Few of those poor women lived long after their return, and some died by their own hand, unable to longer bear the torture of their memories.
“When the pitiful survivors could be persuaded to speak of what had befallen, they told of strange, unnatural things — of giant, very hairy men, of loathy monsters haunting dark caves and rushing out to slay warriors whose weapons could not defend them, whose fine armor was seen ripped like so much thin cloth by those far enough away to flee safely from the monsters.
“Also, they told of whole villages, filled with people, which appeared and disappeared in the blinking of an eye, of swords which slashed and spears that stabbed out from empty air, of showers of deadly darts which flew from among rocks too sheer and exposed to give cover or concealment or even bare purchase to any living creature.
“Since those terrible days, Dook Bili, we Moon Maidens and the Ahrmehnee have never again willingly entered Muhkohee lands. Muhkohee raids have been infrequent, and most of the raiders have died fighting. Such little as we know of them and their nauseating habits has been torturously wrung from the unwilling lips of the handful who have been taken alive. The few eastern traders who have ignored our warnings and pushed on westward have never returned to tell us if the captives spoke truth. But most of us fully believe the little we know. I do.”
Bili spoke with grave courtesy. “My lady, since I myself saw and slew a man more than three Harzburk yards high and so huge that he made his Northorse look like a mere pony under him, I would be foolish to try to deny that giants, at least, truly do dwell among these Muhkohee. But surely they are few in number, for there was but the one back there on that plateau, among thousands of men of normal size.
“As for being invulnerable to weapons, that one surely was not. When his Northorse stumbled and fell with him, he lost his helm and sword and ran on west, afoot. I slew him, and I attest that my axe clove his bare head to the eyes as easily as it would the head of a smaller man. The brains and blood that gushed from that skull looked to be no different from any other brains and blood I’ve seen.
“As for the rest of the tale — disappearing villages, invisible attackers and cave-dwelling monsters — I suspend judgment until such a time as I have seen such with my own two eyes.
“Now, my lady, tell me, are these Muhkohee all one tribe, or have they several, like the Ahrmehnee?”
Her raven tresses swirled about her robed shoulders as she shook her head. “No, Dook Bili, they have no tribes or clans, and not many real villages. They live mostly in family groups of no more than a bare score of folk, farming only enough land to support themselves. Muhkohee is not the name of a tribe, it is rather the name of the family — or families, I don’t know which — of the giants.”
“They are the chiefs, then, my lady? The leaders of these barbarians?” prodded Bili.
“No,” she replied, her voice perceptibly weaker than at the beginning. “They have no real leader, I think. The individual families are ruled, like packs of wild dogs, by the strongest male. He kills any challengers until age or infirmity presages his own defeat and death. The ruler of these families has unquestioned access to any female of the family he may fancy at any time — be she his sister, his daughter or even his mother.
“You see, they are very primitive and uncouth, rabidly hating anything which smacks of the decent or the civilized. Even so, their own legends try to name them a very ancient race, saying that their forebears fled the Places of Light long before the Old Gods fought and destroyed those fabled places and themselves. And so . . .
“But I am very tired now, nook Bili. Besides, the Panosyuhn and Soormehlyuhn tribes hav
e, over the years, taken and questioned more of the cannibals than have the Moon Maidens. I see men of both tribes here. Let them answer such further questions as you have; belike they can do it better than could I.”
After the brahbehrnuh, assisted by two of her officers, having courteously declined Bili’s offer of personal help, had returned to the Moon Maidens, the young duke asked if one of the Ahrmehnee warriors would finish informing him about their mutual enemies.
Vahk Soormehlyuhn’s vitality flashed through his dark eyes above the great, sharp beak of his nose. He seated himself crosslegged, on the ground before Bili, the older man, Vahrtahn. Panosyuhn, squatting beside him.
“A filthy and brutish people they are, Dehrehbeh Bili. From birth to death, they never bathe, and since, summer and winter, they wear mostly pelts and ill-cured hides, the foul reek of them is unbelievable. More than a few of their raiders have been slain or taken by Ahrmehnee simply because the rotting-flesh stench of them betrayed their presence to our warriors; and that be pure truth.”
Bili found this fact easy to believe, recalling the awesome stink of the shaggy savages against whose thousands he had thrown his squadron of lowlanders. Compared to that gagging odor, the commonplace battle smells of sweat and blood, splattered brains and burst entrails, had seemed almost sweet.
Old Vahrtahn Panosyuhn took up the story, “As for the Muhkohee, huge as they are, they are not chiefs, rather shamans, sorcerers. There were never very many of them, and we assume that they must not breed true, for each succeeding generation sees fewer of them, and those with weakened powers, or so the barbarians we have taken from time to time said before they finally were allowed to die. The Silver Lady grant that all the giants soon be dead, for then and only then can we normal folk stamp out the last of these foul, unnatural eaters of manflesh and make these mountains once more safe for decent; civilized folk to dwell in.”
Bili heard several scornful snorts from the group of lowlander nobles and turned his head to loose a venomous glance in their direction. Although, like his nobles, be personally considered the head-hunting and -collecting practiced by the Ahrmehnee tribes about on a par with the cannibalism that they and the brahbehrnuh said was among the brutish practices of these Muhkohee — or whatever their true name was — now was no time to stir up discord with the only allies available in this sinister land.
