by Robert Adams
In the chambers of the Champion, Pah-Elmuh and his Kleesahks wasted no time, shooing out all humans save only the Champion himself, and a brace of trusted, experienced palace midwives.
Alter resting the palm of his hairy hand briefly, lightly, on the young woman’s distended abdomen, he smilingly reassured both her and Bili, mindspeaking, since such was far easier to his kind than trying to shape human speech with tongue and palate ill suited to that task.
“Nothing is amiss. The two babes simply are ready to emerge.” Bili’s cornsilk eyebrows rose in the direction of his shaven scalp. “Two babes, Pah-Elmuh? You are certain?”
The Kleesahk kneeling beside the wide bed smiled, then beamed, “Oh, yes, Lord Champion, two babes — one male, one female! both perfectly formed, alive and healthy. They each are, of course, smaller than was your son, born last year; but, even so, as ill suited to proper childbearing as is the Lady Rahksahnah’s body as much as was her suffering last year ere I was able to come to her, I think it were better that the two babes be removed as I finally had to remove your son from her body.”
Bili nodded, wordlessly, beaming, “You know best, Pah-Elmuh. What benefit needless suffering, say I?”
* * *
Once more, Erica sat with Brigadier Sir Ahrthur Maklarin. Anger, disgust and a tinge of embarrassment were mirrored on the old man’s lined face as he spoke.
“Madam, you have my deepest apologies for the actions of Colonel Potter. Most reprehensible. He will suffer dearly on account of what you and Reserve Surgeon Devernee have here recounted this day. My orders to him regarding you, your men and the New Kuhmbuhluhn prisoners were explicit and written out in plain English, so it will be on his head, alone, that he chose to so flagrantly disobey them.
“The suffering he inflicted upon your men was senseless and cruel in the extreme. Moreover, there was no cause for their injuries in the first place, for he might have asked, determined that they owned inappropriate footwear and had them all issued pikemen’s boots to replace their own riding boots, did he intend to march them rather than follow his original orders.”
His tone became softer, then, as he gently asked, “The . . . the injury to your face — more of Colonel Potter’s work?”
Erica’s fingers went involuntarily to the scabbed-over cut running almost from ear to chin across her cheek. “No, not Potter,” she grimly replied. “That supercilious little bastard Ensign Hollister. He was supervising the beating of one of my men who had fallen, lay already senseless on the road. This beauty mark was my punishment for objecting to that beating; the fledgling sadist did it with that riding crop he carries for a swagger stick.
“I’ll tell you, Sir Ahrthur, if he hadn’t had armed, grown men at his beck and call, I’d have killed the little son of a bitch right there!”
The Brigadier riffled through the stack of notes made by his adjutant during the questionings of the woman and the reserve surgeon earlier, then asked, “That was the man who was beaten to death?”
Erica Arenstein shook her dull, dirty, matted head. “No, the man they beat to death was not one of mine, Sir Ahrthur. That was one of the Kuhmbuhluhners, an older man, and from the look of him, not in the best of health to begin. No, all they did to my man was to break his upper arm and crack some ribs. But another of my men is now blind in one eye, thanks to another bite of Hollister’s whip.”
The brigadier sighed sadly. “What could have gotten into that boy? Beating, tormenting, maiming helpless, unarmed prisoners! That is not, has never been the Skohshun way. Were you or your men mistreated, in any way ill used whilst you all were held in the glen, up north?”
Again, she shook her head. “Not once, Sir Ahrthur, not by anyone, for all that we had killed a good number of your cavalrymen before we were captured. Aside from the facts that we were disarmed and our movements restricted, we might well have been your guests rather than your prisoners.”
The old man nodded slowly. “Just so, madam, just so. I can but imagine that Potter’s evil poison infected young Hollister to his detriment, for I have known many Hollisters over the years and never have I found one to be aught save a decent, honorable gentleman. Immediately you have departed, I think I must have a few serious words with the boy. Potter can wait, he’s under strict arrest in his tent. He’ll keep for the nonce.
“But now, madam doctor, to the reason I had in mind for having you and your men wagoned up here. These rifles of yours — how far can they cast a projectile and still kill a man with it? Understand, we Skohshuns had such weapons at one time, but that was centuries ago, at the least, and our old legends don’t really impart much of a serious, military nature with regard to our ancient firearms.”
Erica shrugged. “I know of kills that have been made with rifles of this type at ranges of two thousand meters. You see, Sir Ahrthur, the bullets have a small but most effective explosive charge incorporated in them. A hit almost anywhere on a human body will kill quickly from shock alone, while the chunk of flesh that would be blown out of an arm or a leg would lead to almost certain death from loss of blood. But as I have already told you, I could no more make or show you how to make these weapons and ammunition than I could flap my arms and fly. Nor are there enough rifles to arm even a squad of your troops, and I think that there’s all of some hundred rounds of ammunition left for the rifles we do have.”
The brigadier said dryly, “One hundred and fourteen of the longer, slenderer ones. And I take it that that man of yours I had armed, mounted, supplied and released never returned from his journey to this place wherein he might find more of the projectiles for these rifles?” At her negative headshake, he asked bluntly, “Do you think, then, that he deserted you and his mates? That he went hotfooting back to wherever you all came from?”
She replied, “No, I don’t think so, Sir Ahrthur. For one thing, there’s no longer any place for him to return to. The New Kuhmbuhluhners exterminated those of the Ganiks they did not or could not intimidate into moving south, out of New Kuhmbuhluhn. No, I’m more of the opinion that Bowley is dead. After all, it offered to be a very dangerous trip, especially for one lone man, no matter how well mounted and armed. He was a brave man, a very brave man, to undertake the trip at all.”
“It may be as you say, the man is dead,” nodded the old officer. “Then I must make such use of you and your men and rifles as the limited number of projectiles will allow. If you agree to my plans, you will no longer be prisoners, but rather my allies. Remember, we Skohshuns are at war with the very kingdom that drove out or slew your own folk.”
It was on the tip of Erica’s tongue to state flatly that the bestial Ganiks certainly were not her folk, thank God, but instead she asked, “What did you have in mind, Sir Ahrthur?”
* * *
The creature’s eyes were of no use in the stygian dark of the labyrinthine corridors. Claws clicking on the stone pave, it followed the conmingled scents of the various twolegs — human and humanoid — that had trod these ways before it. It was weak with hunger; its long-empty stomach rumbled and growled. At last, there was a dim glow of light from far up the corridor, light and an odor of fresh blood.
Softly whining in starved anticipation, the creature padded in the direction of that light, following the mouth-watering scent of the blood, only to stop in frustration bare yards from where its sensitive nose told it was the source of the delightful odor.
Not only was the way obstructed by a pair of massive metal-bound and -studded doors, but on this side of those doors stood no less than six big twolegs. Their bodies, their heads and parts of both pairs of their extremities were all sheathed in shiny metal, while their forepaws held the shafts of deadly-looking spears and poleaxes.
Snarling its disappointment, the creature finally found a way to pass these big, dangerous twolegs unseen. Within its primitive mind, it harbored but the one image: food, hot spurting blood and tender, quivering flesh to fill the gaping, demanding emptiness of its shrunken belly, to give renewed strength to its pi
tifully weak body and legs. Mayhap the very next twolegs it encountered . . . ?
But there seemed to be no small, weak, vulnerable twolegs anyplace the creature went, only more and more of the big, strong, metal-sheathed ones, always several of them together. It was getting desperate enough to attack even one of these, could it find a single one, alone. At last, it did find a lone twoleg and was upon the very verge of rushing in for a quick kill when the twoleg victim-to-be suddenly opened one of the movable wooden barriers, took two short steps into the dark night beyond that barrier and abruptly began to swiftly ascend a wooden device that quickly put him beyond the reach of the creature’s jaws and teeth. But the barrier had not swung shut and the creature was quick to slink through the opening.
* * *
Bili of Morguhn and his entourage did not go their usual route on the morning after the birth of his twins; rather did they follow the city guardsmen through the streets to the spot whereon what was left of a body had been discovered. And there was not much of it left — the partially defleshed and tooth-gouged skull, a few vertebrae, the pelvis, the still-shod feet, a gnawed and incomplete femur and the scattered, shredded, blood-soaked clothing.
Although many guardsmen and curious citizens had tracked about the area since the grisly discovery just after dawn, some few of the presumed killer’s paw prints, stamped on the smooth stone in dried blood, still were in evidence. Bili and two of his officers squatted around one of these.
“Wolf, right enough,” said the young thoheeks. “But did ever you see wolf spoor so large? I’ve hunted the most of my life and I’ve never seen such. Why, that beast’s feet are more than a hand in length!”
Freefighter Captain Fil Tyluh nodded agreement with his leader. “But how does my lord suppose the thing got over the walls, and them both lit and patrolled, then out again without someone seeing it?”
“I don’t know . . . yet,” said Bili grimly. “But I mean to find out, and that soon. Send a runner up to the palace and fetch back a brace of the late king’s tracking hounds. We’ll find out what part of the walls that damned wolf went out over, at least.”
But he did not. The veteran hounds refused to track. After a brief, tentative sniff or two of the ensanguined area, they both tucked tails between legs and huddled close together, their sleek bodies trembling, hackles raised, whining in clear terror.
“What the hell kind of mongrels did you bring me?” Bili demanded of the royal hunter who had fetched the canines to the scene.
The grizzled hunter shook his head in obvious puzzlement, “M’lord Champion, Bearbiter and Bruindeath, here, they be King Mahrtuhn’s favoritest bear dogs. It’s many a big bear — sixhunnerd-, seven-hunnerd-pounders, too — they’s held till the hunt could come up to them. Afore this here today, l’d’ve laid my life that they wasn’t no critter in all these mountains neither one of them hounds was afeered of.”
Bili shrugged his armored shoulders. “Well, take them back to their kennels, They’re no good for my purposes.” Then he mindcalled, “Whitetip, cat brother?”
The powerful mindspeak of the prairiecat responded. “I have just seen and mindspoken your new kittens, brother. If they had the proper amount of fur, I could possibly admire them, for they are assuredly big enough. The Lady Rahksahnah is learning, at least. This time she had only the two, but that still is better than one. Maybe next time she will throw you a respectable litter — three, four, perhaps five.”
“Whitetip, a very large wolf got into the city last night and killed and ate a young woman, The hounds seem afraid to try to track the wolf from the place where it slew and ate. How is your nose this morning? I need to know just where it came across the walls.”
“I come, brother,” beamed the cat.
But when the monstrous feline had sniffed at the place whereon the killer had obviously lain — this fact attested by the presence of several coarse, reddish-brown hairs stuck in a thin smear of dried blood — he wrinkled his nose and beamed, “Are you certain this was done by a wolf, brother chief? It smells like no wolf I’ve ever scented. Like no other animal, for that matter.”
“Could it have been a man, cat brother, laying false paw prints, perhaps?” In Hanburk, Bili recalled, a man had once tried to conceal a murder by dumping the body in a forest, then stamping around and about the corpse while wearing a pair of wooden-soled boots cunningly carved to resemble the feet of a bear. But that malefactor had been apprehended before he could burn the telltale boots, had confessed under torture and was then impaled in the central square of the burk.
“No, brother,” the big cat demurred, While there is the vague hint of man smell to it, there is mostly something else, not really twoleg, not Kleesahk at all, but not really an animal smell, either. It is simply beyond my experience.”
“Well, can you at least follow it, cat brother?” asked the young commander, “Scent it to where it left the city?”
“I think I can,” agreed the cat, “unless there is more than the single flail to follow.”
But the prairiecat did lose the trail at a point near the palace kitchens where some scullions had recently dumped pails of inedible slops and soapy water to allow them to run out the drain that pierced the corner of the curtain wall.
Bili gazed up at the nearly nine feet of smooth wall critically. “Well, I suppose it’s possible — just barely possible — that the beast, whatever it is, could have jumped that high, gotten onto the battlements. But where could it have gone from there? Nowhere, unless it has wings. That’s a good hundred-foot drop, and the cliffs too sheer for anything bigger than a lizard or maybe a mouse to find purchase.”
Once again, there was no answer.
* * *
The big Ganik bully, Horseface Charley, had crept into the spot earlier decided upon just before dawn. Now he lay well concealed beneath an overhang of rock, his hands, face, hat, beard and clothing all oiled, then heavily sprinkled with rock dust and streaked with soot, his rifle similarly dulled. With him in his burrow under the overhang were a skin of watered wine, a quantity of Skohshun hard bread and jerked beef, a handful of dried fruit and a plug of chewing tobacco. But aside from his rifle and forty rounds of ammunition, he had brought along only its hanger-like bayonet and his belt knife — he was not there to fight, only to kill.
The slope on which he was situated was steep and the rocks he had piled before him not only helped to conceal him and his burrow but provided a rest for the rifle that was rock-steady in every sense of that phrase. As the sun rose, those piled rocks and the overhang combined to keep the burrow relatively dim and cool for the big man who lay on his belly, the rifle stock cradled against his right shoulder, sighting up the length of the barrel at one of the armored figures standing on the battlements of the main wall some five hundred meters distant up the steep hill.
The upper part of a body clad in cuirass and open-faced helmet leaned out in the crenel between two massive merlons, apparently to shout something to someone of the garrison of the barbican, then lingered as if awaiting an answer. In the interval, Horseface Charley settled the rifle’s buttplate solidly against his clavicle, pressed his bearded cheek to the dusty stock, sighted carefully and slowly squeezed the trigger. The rifle roared and slammed the butt into his shoulder with considerable force. Horseface kept his keen eyes fixed on his target while he rapidly operated the bolt of the rifle, ejecting lie smoking brass case and jacking a live round into the chamber of the piece. For a long moment, it seemed that his shot might have missed, but then the distant figure disappeared from the crenel far more quickly than it had appeared, as if jerked by a hidden rope.
Horseface Charley smiled contentedly to himself, worked his wad of tobacco around into another spot and began to sight up at another target.
* * *
Bili had barely returned to his palace office when the frantic mindcall came from Lieutenant Kahndoot. “Brother, one of the engineers, here on the top of the gate tower, has been killed. There is a smallish hole over one o
f his eyes and it seems that his head for some reason flew into pieces inside his helmet.”
Half out of the sweat-soggy canvas pourpoint, Bili worked his arms back into the sleeves and thrust his head through the neck opening, called back the serving men to help him back into the just-removed armor. Two mysterious deaths in one morning, he thought wryly, were more than he cared for.
Accompanied by Sir Yoo Folsom, Captain Fil Tyluh and two guardsmen. Bili strode the length of the west wall and was just putting foot to the stairs that would take him up onto the top of the corner tower, when Kahndoots mindspeak came again.
Brother, two more have been slain in the same manner as was the first. Take care when you come not to expose yourself anywhere on the front wall. Both of these others died there.
Bili briefly recounted what he had been told by Kahndoot’s telepathy, then he and the other four men entered the door to the low-ceilinged tower room, squeezed their way between the piles of catapult boulders, commodious siege quivers of darts, arrows and quarrels, racks of assorted poleanus, bags of slingstones, forked shafts for pushing over scaling ladders and other impedimenta, to emerge at the similar doorway that opened onto the front or south wall. At a crouching run, they crossed to the open door to the gate tower and the waiting Lieutenant Kahndoot.
After Bili had carefully examined the three still-warm corpses, he shrugged, looking up at Kahndoot and his other subordinates.
“I would think that we can safely assume that this is the foul work of the Skohshuns, who clearly are up to something down there and so want us to keep our heads down, be less alert than usual. As to precisely what weapon did the actual killing, I can’t say, not without delving into that mess inside those helmets, but I imagine, since no one seems to have seen a slinger, that it was a prod — one of those crossbows that throws stones or leaden pellets. Now, true, I’ve never heard of or seen one of them powerful enough that its projectiles were capable of striking, penetrating with such power as this, but that is not to say that such weapons don’t exist, for upgrading the effect of weapons is — as all of us know — a constant, ongoing process.”
