by Robert Adams
Bending close to the indicated section of stonework, even Bili’s far less sensitive nose could detect the rank odor of animal urine . . . and he resisted the impulse to rub at his flesh to lay the goosebumps, for just here the narrow stairway led upward into the wing of the Kleesahks and the chamber wherin lay the helpless, comatose King Byruhn; downward, three flights of stairs would deliver the person or the thing which descended them only bare yards from the suite which now housed him, the infant twins and Rahksahnah.
“You are certain that this mark is that old, brother?” he beamed to his big, furry companion. “It was not done last night?”
The cat’s beaming bore a touch of impatience. “You sniffed at it yourself — did that smell like a recent marking to you?”
Bili sighed. “Brother, you have again misremembered, we twolegs do not have such keen noses as do you and the Kleesahks. I can smell that the spot has been pissed upon, but that is all that my nose tells me of it.”
“I am sorry, cat brother,” apologized the prairiecat, “but so well developed is your mind that I sometimes forget how retarded are others of your senses. Yes, I am indeed certain that this is not fresh scent. It is at least one day old, maybe even two.”
Bili nodded to himself. “Then it surely must be denning up back there in the caverns, whether we found traces of it or not.”
The cat wrinkled his nose, then suddenly dropped onto his haunches and began to scratch vigorously at his neck with one hind paw, mindspeaking all the while. “Unless it is denning here, in the keep or the palace, cat brother.”
“Then why have you not smelled it out long ago?” Bili beamed inquiringly.
Reversing paws, Whitetip went savagely at the other side of his thick, muscular neck, eyes closed to mere slits. “For a very good reason, cat brother: Before it began to kill in the town, I never before had sniffed a scent like this one, so if I had chanced across it here in the palace, I would most likely have dismissed it as just an unpleasant variant of the usual twoleg stench. For, as I have said before, there is a tone of twoleg stench to this scent although the cleanlier, animal scent predominates, Sacred Sun be thanked.”
“Well, after tonight’s sally,” decided Bili, “I mean to set you and some of the younger Kleesahks to prowl these corridors and stairways every night until the creature is apprehended, or tracked down and scotched for good and all.”
The cat’s reply bore a tinge of sulkiness. “But cat brother, Whitetip enjoys spying upon the camp of the men-of-the-long-long-spears. Besides, their cattle are most tasty. Why cannot he continue at that which he does best?”
Bili rubbed a hand across the top of the cat’s big head, between his ears, and kneaded the neck muscles, eliciting a deep, deep purr in response. “Brother, you will be continuing to keep track of what the Skohshuns are up to on most nights. Only on a couple of nights in each six-day will you be here.
“Understand, please, brother, there will be times when I must be absent from my suite for long periods and I need to know that a strong, fierce and dedicated brother will be about to competently protect my female and our cubs.”
“My brother-chief need not fear,” replied the huge feline. “His female and his cubs will be as safe as any cat could keep them.”
* * *
Bili kept his sally force small, for their principal aim was not to kill large numbers of Skohshuns, but to reach and destroy the assault devices and regain to the burk with as little wasted time and effort as would be possible. Pah-Elmuh and Oodehn were the two Kleesahks he finally had chosen, for their mighty thews would be necessary to silently remove the cyclopean stones blocking the particular hidden sallyport he had decided was best situated for this excursion, immediately the stones were removed and the way cleared, Bili mindspoke Fil Tyluh and Frehd Brakit, each of whom was, for this night exercise, commanding two of the oversized engines constructed under the supervision of Brakit; too large to be mounted on the walls, they squatted in cleared areas just behind the front wall.
In receipt of Bili’s telepathic command, the two officers issued their own orders and triggering devices were released, almost as one. There were four tooth-jarring, contrabasso thumps of massive beams against equally massive, thickly padded crossbars, and four fiercely blazing pitchballs — each bigger than a bushel basket — sailed up and out in a parabolic flight that came finally to ground in the highly flammable canvas-and-wood camp of the Skohshuns.
Assisted by teams of draft animals, as well as several of the preternaturally powerful Kleesahks, the crews of the engines quickly recocked and reloaded their throwers, this time with bushels of fist- to head-sized stones, of which a goodly supply was ready to hand, each load premeasured out in strong wicker containers.
When Bili, standing in the now-open mouth of the previously concealed tunnel, saw the first tongues of yellow-red flame spring up, high overtopping the wooden palisades of the Skohshun camp, he took a fresh grip on the steel haft of his axe and mindspoke his score and a half of fighters; “All right, let’s go.”
Instead of keeping watch into the darkness which was the west, Pikeman Edgar Makellahr was, naturally, watching the blazing camp and scurrying dark figures, thanking God that he was not over there this night and keeping a wary eye out for the sergeant of the guard or a wandering officer. Therefore, the sixteen-year-old junior pikeman’s very first intimation that anything might be amiss closer to his post than the camp was when, all at once, a hard hand — big and stinking of garlic — clamped over his mouth, a rocklike knee slammed into the small of his back and something traced a line of agonizing fire across his throat. Abruptly the hand was removed and Edgar tried to scream, hut he could not, nor could he draw in the air for which his lungs were clamoring. Then infinite blackness closed about him.
Vahk Soonnehlyuhn carefully eased the still-twitching body of the big blond boy to the rocky ground, taking pains that no portion of his victim’s equipment clang or rattle. The soot-blackened Ahrmehnee warrior briefly regretted that so fine a head would have to be left to go to waste, then he moved on in a cautious stalk of his next victim, this one also observing the ongoing fires rather than keeping the watch to which he had been assigned.
The sentry killer reflected that Dook Bili had again been proved correct. When old Vahrtahn, among others, had questioned the wisdom of alerting any portion of the Skohshuns by loosings of fire and boulders upon the sleeping camp, the young leader had said, “Look you, gentlemen, precious few humans possess really decent night vision under even the best of circumstances. But all of us twolegs — even the Kleesahks — are cursed with an abiding curiosity. Now if their main camp is all ablaze and the garrison is milling about and taking casualties and screaming shouts and curses, just how many of the sentries guarding that work area do you imagine are going to be able to resist the natural, normal human impulse to steal at least a glance or three in that direction, eh? And each time they look at the blazes, they are going to weaken what little night vision they may normally possess, lessening the likelihood of our small sally party’s being apprehended until we are ready to be seen.”
When the last sentry was down, his lifeblood pouring out to soak the ground beneath him, Sergeant Eethah led her eight Moon Maidens toward the spot beneath the overhang of rock where the carpenters and joiners lay rolled in their blankets, while Tsimbos of Ahnpolis and his largest contingent — all of them save him laden with huge, bulging, heavy skins of oil — raced to the long contraptions of wood, wicker and hides.
Most of the carpenters and relief sentries were dispatched while still asleep by the dripping dirks and shortswords of the grim Maidens. One only of them escaped, to run naked and shrieking in the direction of the distant, fiery camp; that is, he ran for the few steps he was able to take before Sir Yoo Folsom’s spinning, hard-flung francisca took him betwixt his shoulderblades and split his spine, at the same moment that an Ahrmehnee knife sank hilt-deep between two ribs.
Satisfied that no noise that they might make, no ma
tter how loud or sharp, could be heard above the furious pandemonium emanating from the Skohshun camp, Bili set most of his band to work with the enemy’s own tools hewing and splitting and smashing what they could of the long, weighty devices before soaking them well with oil, throwing among them those tools and weapons they themselves were not taking back into the burk, then heaving the earthenware pot of live coals that Tsimbos of Ahnpolis had carried onto the site.
Bili held them until he was certain that the fire was well on the way to becoming an uncontrollable conflagration, then led them all back around the cliffline and into the tunnel. All helped the patiently waiting Kleesahks to replace the huge stones, the outer faces of which were so cunningly disguised as to make detection of their true purpose most unlikely.
* * *
Red-eyed and grouchy with lack of sleep, his hair, eyebrows and even his flaring mustaches fire-singed, Brigadier Sir Ahrthur Maklarin assessed the reports littering the top of the partially charred table before him. Occasionally, he squirmed in another attempt to find a really comfortable seat on the section of sawn log which now was the best that still existed in the near-ruined camp to serve him for a chair. At length, he summoned old Sir Djahn Makadahm, the herald.
“Sit down, Djahn,” the brigadier growled, indicating another sawn section of treetrunk, the bark still on. “If you brought anything to drink, I’ll have a bit of it.”
Unbuttoning his tunic, the herald drew forth a flat silver flask and proffered it, not speaking until after the brigadier had uncorked, upended, then recorked the flask and passed it back.
“I know it was a very bad night, Ahrthur, but just how bad was it?”
Maklarin huffed once or twice, demanding, “What the hell is that stuff you’re passing out, anyway? It’s as rough as a frozen corncob, I trow!
“Bad enough, old friend, and worse than that. Every single regiment lost men last night, killed or wounded. The surgeons and Dr. Arenstein are clearly like to drop of exhaustion, so long and hard have they been at it. At least we still have the most of our supplies, and we can thank the Kuhmbuhluhner who cast the load of stones on the supply tents, early on, for that fact; the barrels at the tiptops of the stacks were holed, and with everything soaked with beer and vinegar and brine, the fires never had a chance to get at anything more substantial than the tents.
“Am I rambling? It seems that I am old friend. Blame it on lack of sleep and overmuch care, Whilst the Kuhmbuhluhner engines were wreaking their worst — or should I say their best? — on us, here, it seems that a sally was made from somewhere — though not out of the main gate and down the slopes, for the Ganik rifleman still was in his hole and he swears that no single man came out from the city in the normal way. I’ve had the idea all along that there must be two or three other means of egress from New Kuhmbuhluhnburk, and if only we could find even one of them . . . But that’s neither here nor there and I’m rambling again. The bastards slit the throats of all the pikemen on sentry duty, then went on to murder the poor carpenters and the others, before hacking the ladder-bridges apart, then soaking them with oil and setting them alight. This morning, there is nothing more left of them than there is of our new batteries of catapults and spearthrowers, alas.
“And there will be damnall fresh beef for a while, too, Djahn. The herd is scattered to hell and gone, and if I could blame that on the bloody Kuhmbuhluhners, I surely would; but eyewitnesses aver that that huge mountain cat that has been plaguing us periodically spooked them on last night of all possible nights. Moreover, four of our herders were killed trying to turn that stampede, too.
“As of about an hour agone, there were one thousand, one hundred and fifty-two other-ranks casualties, twenty-three officer casualties — of course, that figure includes the dead, the missing and all classes of wounded.
“In addition, three entire battalions lost all their polearms — long pikes, short pikes, axes, hammers, everything. We are going to have to find a new way to stack our weapons, possibly stack them in company lots or smaller, for battalion stacks are simply too large and dense to allow for saving many if any once they are well afire. All the pike carts were lost, too, damn it, burned to the axles and beyond.
“And in the confusion of getting the draft stock out the rear gate last night, no less than four of our good lady doctor’s wildmen disappeared along with two mules and two good horses, one of them my riding horse, True. One of the bastards was that fellow Tremain.
“Let me have another taste of that foul rotgut, Djahn. then I’ll touch on why I sent for you this morning.”
The brigadier again upended the flask and took a long pull. A shudder shook his whole body. “Saints preserve us all, Djahn, that is truly devil’s brew. Where did it come from, pray tell?”
Sir Djahn shrugged. “I’m sure I have no idea, Ahrthur. My batman bought a half gallon of it — at a whopping price, I might add! — from one of that fellow Potter’s people. I usually have brandy, as you know, but my keg blew up when my tent burned last night, and all that was available this morning was this . . . this decoction. Sorry, old man. Can’t say that I’m overfond of the stuff m’self. but it’s better than water.”
“All right, Djahn, back to business. It’s thankful we should all be that there are no more of those New Kuhmbuhluhnburkers than there are up there, for had they had the force available to attack this camp last night on the heels of that hellish bombardment, the siege would’ve been broken then and there and no doubt the most of us would be dead this morning. We might not be so fortunate a second time around. In fact, if there weren’t so many wounded to transport. I’d move the camp, now, this morning, lay out a new one out of range of those damned Kuhmbuhluhn engines . . . if that’s possible. I never heard of engines that could throw such weights of missiles so far, ere this — why, that boulder that came down atop my own tent must weigh a good four hundred pounds or more.”
“You intend to lift the siege, Ahrthur? It might not be a bad idea, considering all the losses, and it’s purely your decision to make,” said Sir Djahn.
The brigadier shook his singed head. “Oh, no, Djahn, not yet. Even with our losses of men and materiel, we still outnumber the enemy by a goodly edge. I mean to make good use of that fact, and that’s where you and your good offices enter upon the matter.
“We’ll give it a few days. I don’t want them to have any inkling of just how badly they hurt us last night — such knowledge might give then, ideas which could breed further unpleasantnesses for us. Maybe the first of next week, I want you to ride back up there and shame that king and that duke to march out of that city and meet us in open battle here on this plain.
Sir Djahn shook his head slowly. “I cannot credit it that I heard you say what you said, Ahrthur. Those men are not fools, you know none of them. They can count as well as can you or I, and you can be certain that they know their only edge is those unassailable walls.”
“But you did it once before — shamed the late king into leaving this abomination of an invulnerable city to meet us in open battle at a place of our choosing,” said the brigadier stubbornly. “You did it after the autumn battle, last year.”
“That was then and this is now, Ahrthur,” Sir Djahn replied, tiredly but patiently, to his old friend. “I was able to nose out the hidden weakness of an old monarch who was verging on senility and use it against him and the best interests of his people and I can’t say that I’m proud of what I then did, Ahrthur.
“But, be that as it may, this King Byruhn is purely a practical man, No old-fashioned ideals to trip him up with — he would most likely laugh in my face, if he even deigned to take me seriously, to commence. He strikes me as the kind of man who probably talks much of honor, but honors that honor more in the breach than in the observance . . . unless, of course, he can see possible advancement of his various schemes in such an observance.”
“Well,” the brigadier went on doggedly, “perhaps this condottiere, this Duke Bili, could influence his patron?”
The brigadier’s shoulders sagged. “You refuse to go, then, old friend?”
“Oh, no, Ahrthur, I’ll go.” Sir Djahn grinned. “If for no other reason, to enjoy a few decent, well-cooked meals and all enjoyable tipple though I think weedwine would likely be a distinct improvement on Potter’s rattlesnake venom here.”
“Thank you, sincerely, Djahn,” said the brigadier humbly.
“This cast of the dice I am planning will be for all or for nothing. I am sending back to Skohshun Glen for the two reserve regiments and all of the light cavalry, along with every gentleman who can still sit a horse and swing steel. It will probably take them two weeks to get here, so take your time in talking the New Kuhmbuhluhners around and make that allowance in setting a date for the battle.”
* * *
When he arrived at last back in his suite in the palace, half a dozen servants divested Bili of his arms, armor, pourpoint and outer clothing, while yet another bore away his huge axe to be cleaned, rehoned and oiled. He sent one of them down to the palace kitchens to fetch back hot water that he might lave off the soot from his face and the sweat from his body.
The man returned, white-faced, with an empty bucket and a stuttered story that set Bili to rearming far faster than he had disanned, all the while mindcalling certain of his officers and Whitetip, the prairiecat.
The palace kitchens were at ground level and, because of the ever-present danger of fires, were not really a part of the palace structure, being connected to the serving rooms and the commodious pantry below the great hall by stone-built tunnels, all of which could be easily and completely closed off to prevent the spread of flames but were usually left wide open to facilitate the comings and goings of the various staffs of meat cooks, bread bakers, pastry cooks, confectioners and such.
