by Robert Adams
Bili and Rahksahnah were young—he not yet nineteen, she a few months younger than he. They had been lovers for less than ten days, and so, responding to the driving needs of their bodies, despite the weariness from the week of riding and fighting, they had loved long and hard before sinking into a deep, delightfully exhausted slumber, still locked in each other's arms.
At the first crash of mailed fist upon the door to the princely chamber, Bili sprang up with such force that he almost threw the lighter Rahksahnah off the other side of the broad, long bed. Extending a hand unerringly in the dark, he gripped the wire-wound hilt of the unsheathed battle brand he habitually kept beside his bed of nights.
Swiftly and silently on his bare feet, he crossed the room from bed to door, the sword held at low guard, ready to fend off, to thrust or to slash. The heavy fist slammed against the thick door again, this time accompanied by a voice that Bili at once recognized, so he drew the bolts and opened the massive portal to see in the now-lit hallway Gy Ynstyn, his bugler.
The stocky young man with the full brown beard—all Middle Kingdoms buglers wore beards, that among the generally clean-shaven hosts of warriors they might be easily recognized by commanders at a distance—was obviously very perturbed. His eyes were wide and his lips actually trembled as he spoke.
"Please, my lord duke… they, she… they're going to fight! Arming even now… won't listen to me or anyone… she… no chance, the lieutenant will kill her!"
Bili leaned the sword against the doorjamb, grabbed both of Ynstyn's upper arms in his big, hard hands and shook him savagely. "Make sense, man! Who's fighting? And where?" But not even this seemed to help, so Bili soundly slapped the face of the bugler, then snapped in command tones, "Bugler Ynstyn, report!"
That worked. Years of professional soldiering in the condottas of the north brought the burden of ingrained discipline to order the turmoil in the man's mind. He came to attention and spoke in a controlled voice. "Your grace, Bugler Gy Ynstyn begs to report that Lieutenant Kahndoot and Trooper Meeree of the sub-squadron of Moon Maidens are in the process of arming to fight a duel, this night, in the main armory of the tower keep. Full-armed Maidens guard both the stairways and forbid entry to all men or Kleesahks, declaring that it is Maiden business and will be handled by them and only them."
"All right, then," said Bili brusquely. "You and those two guards bring a light in here and help me and the lady to arm. I'll put a halt to this duel foolishness, and that damned quickly, too. If they're so hot to see blood flow, there're still thousands of Ganiks out in the hills for them to put steel into."
Sir Bili, Thoheeks and chief of Clan Morguhn, with the Brahbehrnuh Rahksahnah by his side, and closely trailed by his bugler, Gy Ynstyn; Acting Captain of Freefighters Frehd Brakit; and Vahrohneeskos Gneedos Kamruhn of Skaht, strode purposefully across the expanse of lea separating the hall of Sandee's Cot from the grim old tower. His armor and weapons clanked and jingled to his stride, and the look on his face was as cold and menacing as the honed edge of the massive axe he bore in one powerful hand.
Up the outer stairs he went, then across the thick plank into the recessed doorway. The door swung open before him and he clanked on, wordless, through the first-floor entry foyer to where a flight of stairs led upward around the inner curve of the tower.
From somewhere above came the clash-clang of hard-swung steel on steel, along with the shuffle-stamp of combatants' bootsoles and the rattling-jingling of their armor as they moved. He did not pause, but put foot at once to the stone steps and started upward, trailed by his entourage, as well as quite a few more men from the first floor.
But around the first turn, his way was barred by a Moon Maiden. Armored, she stood, helmeted, a small, gleaming target strapped to her left arm and her shining saber held diagonally across her chest. "No man passes until we be done with Maidens' affairs, above," she grated in a tone that brooked no argument. But then, finally recognizing just whom she now faced in the dim flare of the torches, she stuttered, lamely, "I… I… sorry, Dook Bili… not even you, you man."
Rahksahnah pushed around Bili. "And what of me, Ahbee? Am I, too, denied?"
Before the young woman could frame an answer, Bili simply reached his right hand forward and upward, gripped her right wrist and began to squeeze, easily fending off her attempts to use the edge of her targe, ignoring the kicks of her booted feet against his armored body.
Encased in that pitiless grip that could—and had—warped steel plates of armor, Ahbee withstood the pain, the grating of bone against living bone, as long as she could, then she was compelled to let go the worn hilt of the saber. At the ring of the weapon upon the stones of the steps, Bili released the Maiden's wrist and, pushing her ahead of him, climbed the stairs toward the sounds of combat.
It had been while Meeree, with the aid of two of the Maidens, had been arming that Gy Ynstyn had entered the small tower room they two shared. Still wearing his gambeson and helm, with his gauntlets thrust under his dirk belt, he reached up for his scaleshirt, where it hung from a wall hook.
"What is it, Meeree? An alarm? Where is my bugle?"
Impatiently, she shook her head and stamped a foot "Fool, keep you out of this affair. None of your man-silliness, this. I go to fight for my name, my honor."
He just stared at her for a brief moment, then lifted down the scaleshirt, worked arms and head quickly through the openings and began to do up the side lacings with sure and rapid fingers.
"What do you, stupid man-thing?" she yelped. "Hear me do you not?"
Having done up the laces of the scaleshirt with the speed of the veteran warrior he was, Gy took down a plate cuishe and began to buckle it in place over his high boottop, speaking even as he worked. "You it is, lady, who said that your honor now is mine own, and mine yours. Has that honor been offended, we redeem it together. For are we not battle companions, now?"
"Senseless piece of masculine offal," Meeree hissed in rage. "Maiden duel, this is to be. To fight Kahndoot I go, and not even to see will you or any other man be allowed, so your armor take off… mow!"
Gy's effort-flushed face abruptly paled above his beard. "Kahndoot? You… you go to fight Lieutenant Kahndoot, Meeree? No! You must not, my lady. She is bigger and stronger than some men. She will kill you! I will fight her, if one of us must; she and I are more of a size."
Both of the assisting Maidens were touched by the bearded man's obvious concern and unquestioning offer to take his lover's place against the undeniably dangerous opponent. But not the bitter, bloodthirsty Meeree.
"Filled with horse turds your misshapen head assuredly is, you fatherless cur-dog!" With deliberate malice, Meeree threw the secret—which he had imparted only to her—of his bastardy at him. "To fight Kahndoot, I go! No help I need, not from such as you, man-thing."
But Gy stepped forward, looking hurt and worried. "Meeree, are you ill? Feverish?"
"Get you out of my way!" she snarled at the concerned man, pushed past him and strode to the door. When he made to follow, one of the other two Maidens spun about, drew her sharp-honed saber and held the deadly edge bare millimeters from his throat.
Her voice firm, but her tone gentle, she said, "Good and most faithful you are, man-Gy, as any woman could be; true you are. But hold—custom served must be, even here. Please, to slay you do not force Ortha."
"Mad!" Gy raged in impotence. "Meeree must have, assuredly has, gone mad! You… I… we must stop her!"
Ortha sighed. "Perhaps mad she truly is become, man-Gy. But forced this fight she did on Kahndoot, so to be it now must."
The main armory, on the second floor, was big and high even for the outsized tower—which had been built by Teenehdjook and Kleesahk, few of whom stood less than eight feet tall and all of whom were of a proportionate breadth and girth. Had it been lower to the ground, in fact, it was of a size to have been almost large enough for a riding hall.
While Meeree and Kahndoot donned their panoplies for the match, the other Maidens ha
d first set guards upon the stairs leading both up and down, then had set about shoving aside racks of weapons, armor and equipment so as to leave a long, wide oval of clear floor in the center of the hall. The broad, ancient flooring planks were gone over carefully to locate and roughen any slick spots on the stained wood, then more torches were fetched up and lighted so that every wall sconce was filled and the dueling-space was as well lit as it was possible for it to be.
Lieutenant Kahndoot was first to arrive, accompanied by the lithe Szehpee, who was her former lover-battlemate, and by Ahbahr, Kahndot's recently chosen sergeant-aide. The big woman seemed as relaxed and confident as she had earlier been. Meeree's reputation for fighting skills did not awe her; she knew herself to be as good or better.
Upon the arrival of Meeree and the pair who had assisted her to arm, Kahndoot again suggested that they two consider that blood had been shed for blood.
Meeree heard the bigger woman out with a sneering smile, then she crowed, "Listen to this, sisters—the great Kahndoot fears Meeree!"
If her purpose had been to anger her soon-to-be opponent, she failed. Kahndoot just sighed tiredly and shook her head, rattling the cheekpieces of her old-fashioned helmet. "You bemused fool, I do not fear you, I simply seek to save you from your own folly. There are few enough of us left alive. Will you then force me to kill or maim another of so few remaining Maidens? Give me your hand and kiss me as I will kiss you, in true, sisterly affection, and let us call this matter settled and done, eh?"
But Meeree coldly slapped aside the proffered hand, snapped, "Here is your kiss, you wallowing sow!" and spat full into Kahndoot's face.
Accepting the cloth offered by Szehpee, Kahndoot wiped the spittle from her skin, then lowered the cheekpieces and stood stock-still while they were buckled tightly under her square chin. When the swordknot was tight enough about her thick wrist, she drew her saber from the scabbard held by Ahbahr, then Szehpee handed the lieutenant her target and fastened the upper strap tightly, as she well knew Kahndoot preferred it done. Lastly, she checked to be certain that both the shortsword and the heavy dirk hung on Kahndoot's waist-belts were loose, easily available, in their scabbards, for were the saber lost or broken through mischance or weakness of blade, these weapons might be necessary.
As there had never been any formal set of rules governing the actual fighting of the duels between Moon Maidens, there was no need of a woman to enforce such a code. When each combatant could see that the other was ready, they moved out, toward the open center of the oval. They would fight until one was killed or too severely injured to continue.
Meeree at once took the offensive, moving in fast, her saber blade but a blur as she hacked and gouged at the bigger woman's defenses. But no matter how rapid her succession of blows and thrusts, no matter how shrewdly delivered, Kahndoot's targe was always there, waiting to turn or deflect them.
Round and round the two women stamped and sidled, Meeree tense and active, Kahndoot seeming almost relaxed, offering a splendid defense, but holding her own offense, awaiting the fatal opening that she knew her opponent would sooner or later afford her.
Absorbed as both were in their deadly pursuit, neither was more than peripherally aware of the sudden stir at and around the wide doors, which had been flung wide for ventilation. Nor did either but barely sense the tall, broad figure that relentlessly plowed a way through the throng of Maidens.
Not until a deep, masculine voice roared, "Hold! Lower your blades and back off, or I'll axe you both down where you stand, damn you!" was either cognizant that men now were within the armory.
Such was the ear-splitting quality of that voice within the confines of the armory that both women were virtually compelled to take pause and look over armored shoulders to the edge of the cleared space, at one side. What they both saw was not in any manner reassuring.
There, towering over and outbulking every other man and woman in the huge room, stood their chosen war leader, Bili the Axe. His suit of Pitzburk plate showed the hacks and dents and blemishes of long, hard campaigning, for all that it had recently been burnished to a high sheen that reflected the flames of the blazing torches.
His feet were planted wide apart, and both of his big, steel-sheathed hands gripped the metal haft of his mighty axe, so that beads of light glittered along the honed edges of the twin blades and upon the tip and fluting of the spike above those blades.
But his handsome face, visible under the opened visor, was what most awed and intimidated the combatants and everyone else who saw it. That face had paled under the tan, great stubs of muscle stood up just below and forward of the ears from the tight-clenching of his jaws, and the pallor had caused all of the many small scars to stand out far more prominently than was usual. His eyes were slitted and the fires of cold rage blazed out from the narrowed openings. Instinctively, veteran warriors—and none in that room were not—backed off from that glare, knowing that it could only presage violence or death.
"Neither of you sought or received my permission for this," Bili grated out. "I should axe you both down where you stand, but since you are but newly come under my command, I choose to grant you the boon of another chance. But I grant that boon only if you both case your steel, drop you targes, doff your helms, make apology to me and this company, then request leniency of me.
"If such courtesy goes against your grain," Bili said and grinned like a winter wolf and with no more humor, "then you both are full-armed and so, too, am I. You want to shed some blood, here, I'll help you shed more than you can afford to lose. Make your decisions, and do it now!"
For a long moment after he fell silent, there was neither sound nor movement in all the hall, so that many men and women started at the noise of Kahndoot's targe dropping to the floor. With the hand thus freed, the big woman unfastened her chin buckle, snapped up the cheekpieces of her helmet and then began to loosen the saberknot from her wrist. As she bent to deposit helmet and saber atop her targe on the floor, Meeree moved.
With an inarticulate scream of pure, blood-lusting rage, the slighter woman flashed forward, her saber high and back for the basic downslash, clearly aimed at the now-unprotected head or neck of her sometime opponent. The blade blurred down.
And shattered like glass against the side of Bili's axeblade! "Lieutenant Kahndoot," he growled, "you've made your choice, the wise one, reinforcing my faith in your sagacity.
"This would-be back-stabber has made her choice, too, so someone give her another saber. If she's determined to kill or be killed, I shall see that she dies honorably, at least."
He took his left hand from off the axehaft and began to lower his visor for combat. And that was when Meeree, not waiting for a fresh saber, drew her broad, heavy shortsword and lunged at him, screeching the bloodcurdling warcry of the Moon Maidens.
It seemed impossible to many of the watchers that any man, even a man as big and powerful as Bili, could easily handle his long, huge and heavy weapon with but one hand; nonetheless, he did precisely that. He brought the head swiftly up, caught the slash of Meeree's blade against the finial spike and let the blow's own momentum propel the edge deep into one of the narrow slots between axebit and haft. The impact momentarily numbed Meeree's hand and wrist, and his practiced twist of the haft tore her hilt from her grip and sent the blade skittering across the floor of the armory.
While she backed away, holding up her metal-sheathed targe for defense and fumbling with still-tingling fingers to draw her dirk, her last weapon, Bili took up the axe in both hands once more and brought it high up for a sidewise decapitation stroke.
And then Rahksahnah's mindspeak beamed, "No, Bili… please, don't kill her. Yes, she deserves it for this night's infamies, but please, for me, don't kill her."
He had already begun his deadly swing, but at the very last moment, he managed to twist the weapon in such a way that the flat struck full on the face of the targe, rather than the knife-sharp edge on the neck. Meeree's stout targe of hardwood, leather and steel c
rumpled like so much rotted parchment under the powerful buffet, and although his axe touched not her flesh or even the chainmail guarding that flesh, still did the irresistible concussion of that blow shatter every bone in her shield arm, springing joints, tearing tendons and lacerating muscles and flesh. Such was the agony of the multiple injury that she lapsed into unconsciousness and sank to the floor in a boneless heap of clashing metal.
"Killed her, you should have, Dook Bili," stated Kahndoot, matter-of-factly. "That one will be trouble as long as live she does."
Eight decades and more of long years into the future, the old man that that young warrior was become could but freely agree with the statement of his decades-dead lieutenant.
"If only I had killed that murderous bitch Meeree then, how much bloodshed and sorrow and suffering I'd have saved, I then knew not."
Tears of loss and mourning flowed from the rheumy old eyes. But then the dying, drug-clouded mind went once more back to those tempestuous days of youth and love and war.
Chapter Eight
The brothers, Lee-Roy and Abner, had impressed upon Erica the fact that she would need far more bullies as leader of the main bunch—at least two score. The men with whom she was riding north to the camp of the main bunch had been, it was true, bullies to the dark man she had shot, but they also were the same men who had acclaimed her a worthy successor to her victim, so she decided that they could all be depended upon to support her. These, plus the brothers, gave her a round score of bullies; the rest she could choose when she arrived.
The plan of escape that she devised while traveling north was simple and, she thought, simple of accomplishment. The impression she had been given of the total numbers of the main bunch was at least four thousand and perhaps as many as six thousand. Of these, only a few hundred would be required to clear away enough of the rubble from the site of the landslide for her to locate and retrieve the Center transceiver and its powerpack; these new transceivers were virtually indestructible, especially so when enclosed, as the parts of this one had been when buried, in their waterproof, shockproof cases.
