by Robert Adams
The prince opened a belt purse and withdrew from it a greenstone pipe and a bladder of tobacco, then began to carefully fill and tamp while he went on with his history. He was an accomplished storyteller, and Bili listened in silent fascination.
“With the help of both Harzburk and Pitzburk, Leeahn’s great-grandnephew, King Byruhn the First, established and fortified the marks of Ransuhnburk and Rahmneeburk and Frahstburk, then went on to build the great fortress at Buhnkuhburk, to guard the Western Trade Road into the mountains.
“So, with the greater powers of the Middle Kingdoms resolved to peace with Kuhmbuhluhn, if with no other states, least of all each other, and with strong salients guarding our border marches against attack from south or west or southeast, settled pursuits such as farming and stockbreeding became profitable enterprises; and that is the period when the renowned Kuhmbuhluhn Chargers, of which strain both your stallion and mine own are such matchless specimens, were developed and refined.
“As more and more Kuhmbuhluhners were required to return to work the lands, it became necessary to replace these yeoman-soldiers with more Freefighters, that the various fortresses and smaller strongpoints be adequately manned and that the marches be regularly patrolled; this was done. Then, as the kingdom waxed richer from the fruits of peace, my ancestors were able to increase the size of their armed bands and slowly add more bits and pieces of land to their kingdom. Not wishing to risk a violation of the Sword Council Edicts which protected them from the vastly more powerful kingdoms of Harzburk and Pitzburk, they look almost all of be added lands from the Ehleenee and the mountain tribes.”
The pipe now packed to his satisfaction, Prince Byruhn extracted a small coal from the edge of the glowing nest between his horny thumb and forefinger, blew white ash from around the red-orange core and then placed it atop the tobacco. With the stem between his teeth, he began pulling, talking around the stem, in between puffs, as he continued his recital.
“And so the kingdom prospered and grew, fighting only when pressed or openly attacked, carefully keeping clear of the rivalries of the larger and smaller states to the north until the coming of the plains barbarians, the Horseclans.
“At the time that the Horseclans fought their way into Kehnooryos Ehlas, that wretched kingdom had been for some five years under the misrule of a weak and a cowardly High Lord. This wretch placed more value upon gold than upon honor, unlike his sire, who, Ehleen or no, had still been a stark warrior and had pressed Kuhmbuhluhn hard throughout his life, campaigning with his troops in good weather or foul, fighting at their van and winning the respect of every foe he faced.
“Early on in his reign, the craven and pleasure-worshipping son of that unusual Ehleen, having emptied his treasury and lacking the means to buy the luxuries to which he was addicted had sold back to Kuhmbuhluhn lands which his sire’s sword had won. Seeing the way the wind blew, my great-grandsire seized both the opportunity and still more Ehleen lands, routing every force that this faint-hearted High Lord sent against him.
“When my great-grandsire chanced to hear that not only was Kehnooryos Ehlas beset in the west by a migrating horde of nomads, but that King Zenos of Karaleenos was ravaging the southern borders and that a renegade Ehleen nobleman was raising a force hostile to the High Lord within the very heart of the unhappy kingdom as well, my ancestor scraped together every uncommitted man in the Kingdom of Kuhmbuhluhn who could fork a horse or swing a sword or push a pike, reinforced this motley with a few stray units of Freefighters and marched due south, in search of lands and loot and glory.
“Alas.” The big prince blew a stream of bluish smoke into the fire pit. “Poor old Great-Grandfather found none of them, but rather ended by losing everything he owned, save only his honor.
“Foolishly, beyond doubt, he split his force, riding well ahead with his nobles and most of the Freefighter dragoons and leaving the foot and trains to follow down the Eastern Trade Road
. Just beyond the Suthahnah River, a mixed horde of nomads and the heavy cavalry of the renegade Ehleen noble ambushed the foot and extirpated the light infantry and the rear guard of lancers, then looted and burned the trains.
“By some miracle — or, as I’ve always believed, the raiders saw no need in losing men by attacking a force that couldn’t pursue them anyway — most of a largish condotta of Freefighter heavy infantry survived the disaster. They salvaged what they could by way of supplies from the burning wagons, withdrew to a defensible position near the liver they’d just crossed and then sent gallopers to the van.
“The first messenger who reached my great-grandsire related that not only had the renegade Ehleen nobleman — who had been a general in the armies of the then High Lord’s brave sire, and a damned good one, or so I have been told — joined with the nomads, but be had sent word to the more hostile of our neighbors that the bulk of our earstwhile defenders were deep within Kehnooryos Ehlas, perilously far from their own lands.
“Therefore, my great-grandsire sent his brother — his own, dear, loved and trusted younger brother — Duke Hehrbuht to first succor the remains of the infantry, then return posthaste Kuhmbuhluhn and secure it against attack. Trustingly, my ancestor gave his brother the pick of the Kuhmbuhluhn nobility along with three full squadrons of first-rate dragoons.”
Chapter IX
“This foul and detestable traitor arrived in the kingdom to discover that there was no danger looming, that no one of the kingdom’s spies and agents had heard aught of any word of any nature having been passed to Kuhmbuhluhn’s enemies. It all bad been, it developed, but a clever ruse designed to force my ancestor to do just what he had done, what he had felt compelled by his hereditary responsibility to do; split his forces further.”
The prince selected another small coal from the firepit, blew it free of gray ash and pressed it into the bowl of the greenstone pipe.
“At that juncture, young cousin, a decent and honorable man would have speedily returned to his brother and lawful sovran with his nobles and condottas. But not the treacherous, backbiting Hehrbuht; oh, no, not he.
“Hehrbubt and certain other self-serving traitors who had ridden north with him lied and deceived and cajoled through the length and the breadth of the kingdom. They magnified the ambush of the foot and the trains, vastly overemphasized the few, unimportant skirmishes of the van, and combined both sets of prevarications into the proportions of utter and unrelieved disaster for the bulk of the Kuhmbuhluhn field army. Then they proceeded to their real purpose: placing total culpability for all of this supposed havoc squarely upon the head of my great-grandsire, King Mahrtuhn, deliberately leaving the impression that he was, at his very best, utterly incompetent as a leader of men!
“By the time that a few loyal men had gotten down to my great-grandsire and be had headed back for Kuhmbuhluhn with his remaining forces, it was already too late. The foresworn and evil Hehrbuht had twisted words and arms until the Council of Kuhmbuhluhn had declared him true king, thus deposing my ancestor, whom Hehrbuht immediately declared to be an outlawed exile. With the usurper squatting in the new capital, Haigehzburk, King Mahrtuhn led his loyal followers to Kuhmbuhluhnburk, the old capital, in the west of the kingdom. There he prepared for war and issued a summons to all loyal Kuhmbuhluhners to rally to the just cause of their rightful king.
“Before the year’s end, all of the members of the council were aware that they had been hoodwinked and chivvied into the perpetration of a calamitous crime. To a man, and to their everlasting credit, they deserted the usurper and reassembled in Kuhmbuhluhnburk, where they did reconvene and attempt to right the great wrong they had earlier done my ancestor.
“But the traitor, Hehrbuht, refused to recognize or to heed this new mandate, not only continuing to illegally style himself King of Kuhmbuhluhn, but robbing the kingdom’s treasury to hire on more condottas loyal only to him. And he continuously called upon his brother, my ancestor, the rightful king, to surrender the western lands and cities and fortresses which be and
his held, unconditionally!”
The prince drained off the last of the contents of his cup. refilled it with water and brandy, then offered both bottles to Bili and Rahksahnah before going on with his tale.
“Quite naturally, since the right was his own, not that of his scheming brother, good King Mahrtuhn did no such thing, rather did he rally his available loyalists and redouble his efforts to marshal them and gird for the attack, which now was a sure and looming certainty.
“Because he had not enough men to both adequately defend the old capital and field a decent army — not without stripping the frontier fortresses, which he would not do, since such would seriously endanger Kuhmbuhluhn from alien enemies — he declared Kuhmbuhluhnburk an open city, that it might thus evade the ruination and attendant horrors of a sack, and he moved his headquarters and his court — such as it was become — to the impregnable fortress at Buhnkuhburk. Then he and his army marched northeastward against the hosts of the usurper.
“To shorten a longish tale a mite, young cousin Bili, poor, brave King Mahrtuhn met with defeat in a great, crashing, day-long battle, near a ford on the Blue River Plain. But for the devilspawn usurper, it was a truly pyrrhic victory; he lost over half of his army, so there was no meaningful pursuit or harassment of my great-grandsire’s withdrawal with his own survivors to Buhnkuhburk.
“Now, understand the usurper’s army had vastly outnumbered that of King Mahrtuhn’s loyalists and the ruinous costliness of his ‘victory’ had been in large part due to his bumbling, ill-conceived strategy and his hotheaded tactics on the actual field. Moreover, his Freefighter officers easily recognized the incipient folly of his deadly mistakes well before the fact and had remonstrated with him, only to be one and all reviled and insulted by the headstrong ‘monarch.’ And so, immediately they had buried their dead and reorganized their condottas to some extent, they all demanded and received the payment balance on their contracts, then they all marched out of Kuhmbuhluhn in search of an employer who might offer something other than certain death.
“Now, since the usurper had already stripped the treasury bare to the very walls and floor, he could hire no more Freefighters to continue armed support of his unnatural pretensions. Frantically casting about for any device or stratagem which would serve to keep his ill-gotten crown upon his head and that evil head upon his shoulders, be fairly leaped at an offer of military and financial aid proffered by the ambassador of the King of Harzburk.
“Nor, in his terror of losing that which was never rightfully his to own, did my craven great-granduncle even pause to consider the steep price Harzburk was sure to demand and assuredly receive: nothing less than the vassalage of the whole of Kuhmbuhluhn, reduction in the ranking and status of both kingdom and king and the probable appropriation of northern borderlands not to mention the dire possibility that poor Kuhmbuhluhn would become a battleground for Harzburk against its many enemies.
“For no sooner did this preternatural misalliance of Harzburk and Kuhmbuhluhn’s usurper become common knowledge than was my valiant ancestor’s court at Buhnkuhburk visited by a high-ranking and powerful plenipotentiary of the King of Pitzburk, who then was a Sworn and a deadly rival of the House of Harzburk.”
Bili nodded and said, “And still is, for all that both kingdoms now are ruled by new dynasties.”
“Yes, I know, the prince answered, then just sat for a few long moments, puffing at his pipe and staring into the firepit. It was obvious that his thoughts were far away . . . or of very long ago. Then at last he looked up with a new and strange look in his blue-green eyes, a look at once sad and regretful, but, albeit, savagely proud.
“My gallant ancestor, the noble King Mahrtuhn, was not simply hereditary ruler of the Kingdom of Kuhmbuhluhn, my young cousin; no, he was one with his kingdom and all who dwelt therein — from the mightiest to the humblest. He was an integral part of the plowlands and grassy leas, of the forests and waters and mountains. Unlike the selfish and greedy usurper, King Mahrtuhn had suffered real pain to see Kuhmbuhluhner hack, maim and kill Kuhmbuhluhner, to see the trade roads clogged with marching, warring hosts, the rich fields and lush pasturelands ridden over and trampled down by warhorses and watered all too well with gallons of the best and richest blood in the realm.
“Too, this wise, generous and sensitive man could clearly see those harsh facts to which his traitorous brother was so obviously blind, that to allow the ages-old and endless conflict between Harzburk and Pitzburk to spill over into that which had been his loved kingdom and his birthplace Kuhmbuhluhn, would be to serve the death sentence on the kingdom and, most likely, on most of the folk, as well. And so, honorable King Mahrtuhn of Kuhmbuhluhn, last legitimate king to sit upon that throne, did the only thing which a man of honor and compassion for his lands and people could do under such bitter circumstances.
“With all his household, with all other loyalists who wished to stay by him and share his self-imposed exile — noble and common, soldier and farmer and stockman, men and women and little children — some three thousands, in all, King Mahrtuhn set out to the southwest, on the Mountain Trade Road. His destination was unknown to him or to any other, and the only surety was that there would be much hard fighting against the mountain tribes and months or years of suffering and privation before they reached some strange place they might claim as their own . . . if ever they did so.
“But they were a people no less brave and honorable and self-sacrificing than my revered great-grandsire, their leader, and set out into the outer darkness they did. Since that day of grim sacrifice and of the service of dark honor, none of my house has set foot in or clapped eyes upon that dear land of such precious memory, that kingdom — now almost legendary to my folk — which its last, rightful king willingly gave up so very much to preserve and protect.”
“I am most glad. Prince Byruhn.” said Bili slowly and gravely, “to know at long last the truth of the ending of that long-ago struggle. It always has been difficult for me — and for many another — to credit sudden cowardice to a man who had fought so bravely and so often before. Yet, that is just what was then and has often since been declared in official records and histories that King Mahrtuhn suddenly turned craven at the mere thought of facing the King of Harzburk and his Iron Majesty’s armies.
“I rejoice to learn, here, that King Mabrtubn’s supposed flight was rather the very apex of bravery, for he must surely have known what his enemies would say of that flight . . . and of him. There are no words in any language sufficient to praise or even to measure or plumb so deep and utterly selfless an amount of courage and honor, my lord prince.”
Byruhn inclined his head and said simply, but with clear and intense feeling, “I thank you for those words, sir duke.”
Bili went on, “But I would know more, Prince Byruhn. Elmuh there says that he is not a man. Then what, pray tell, is he? Why do he and the others of his kind address me as ‘champion,’ and what is this Last Battle of which he has spoken?”
Byruhn tapped his pipe on his bootheel, then began to work at the inside of the bowl with the rounded point of a tiny jeweled dagger. “As to your initial question, at least, you are telepathic and so is be, so let him tell you, mind to mind, cousin. That way will take far less time than spoken words, and it were wise we all were far away from this little deathtrap of a valley. There is yet more apple spirit — will not you and your lady again join me?”
“I am about half man, lord champion,” Master Elmuh began, silently. “My father was a full-blood Kleesahk, but my mother was a Ganik.”
“Ganik Master Elmuh?” The term was yet another new one, to Bili and also to Rahksahnah.
“The folk you think of as ‘shaggies,’ lord, and you as Muhkohee, lady. Not all of them are so small as those hereabouts; to west and north, near to my lord prince’s stronghold, dwell families of Ganiks who grow much larger, though still smaller than pure Kleesahks. It has been with these few man-families that my father’s species have interbred over the years. M
ost Kleesahk-Ganik hybrids have been sterile, for the relationship of the two species is very distant; I often have grieved that I, too, was not sterile, during all the long years that poor little Buhbuh suffered so much and wrought such evil out of that suffering. But now, lord champion, your kind act has ended both his sufferings and mine own.”
It was the first time Bili had ever been thanked — and very profusely and repeatedly thanked, at that — by a father for killing in battle that father’s only son . . . and such thanks made him feel strange and not a little uneasy.
Still, he questioned on. “But whence came your father’s kind, these Kleesahk? If he and they are not true men, then that matter of creature are they, Master Elmuh? If not true men, neither are they, from what little I’ve so far seen of them, true beasts.”
“My father came from the mountains to the north, along with his own father and mother, his brothers and his sisters and a few other kin. Where my kind originated, I know not, nor did my father, wise as he truly was. We had dwelt in the mountains for scores, at least, of our generations, and we Kleesahk live longer than do most men, true men.
“Before ever the first true man set foot in the mountains, Kleesahk were there. As to exactly what we Kleesahk are, I do not know that, nor did my father or his fathers. In Some few ways, we are like to true men, but in many other ways. we are more akin to beasts; although our shapes are roughly manlike, our minds are much more alike to your prairiecats.”
