by Robert Adams
There was work of some sort in progress in the kitchens from sunrise to sunrise, and Bili had often remarked, only half jokingly, to his own staff that the senior palace chef, Master Blakmuhn, could probably give them all needed lessons in proper divisions of labor and available resources, so smoothly and effortlessly did his kitchens seem to operate.
But the kitchens into which Bili and his trailing, half-armed and -clothed staff stalked that night were a very study in disorganization, rather, a howling chaos, with Master Blakmuhn howling as loud as or louder than any. It required most ungentle shakings and slappings of the howling staff to obtain some quiet and a report, and, at last, Master Blakmuhn led them to a space between an outer wall and one of the immense ovens, where lay what was left of a baker’s apprentice.
Keeping his eyes averted from the incomplete body of the once-rotund young man, the chef told the horrifying tale to Bili and the rest. “Young Nehd had done been sent in here for to sweep up from the last bakin’. He be . . . he was almightily afeered of eny kinda snake, so when be screamed thet oncet, we all jest laughed, thinkin’ he’d done seen one the big black rat snakes we keeps in the kitchens. But he dint come a-runnin’ out, he jest stayed and stayed and stayed, so I sent one of my journeymen, Hwil Dukhwai, to hurry him up. Then Hwil, he yells and comes a-runnin’ back to say it’s a big critter has kilt Nehd and is eatin’ him.
“Hwil has been knowed to joke and josh around a lot, but you could look at him and tell he was scairt plumb shitless of sumthin’ So I grabbed up a steel boar spit — there it lays, right there.” The chef gestured at a six-foot shaft of sharp-pointed steel smeared with blood for a good third of its length.
“And told everbody elst to git them a knife or a hatchet or suthin’, and we all went back here and . . . and, m’lord duke, it wuz plumb awful! I never seed any critter big as thet one. He jest layed there a-lookin’ at us, and a-snarlin’, even while he still was a-tearin’ off chunks of pore young Nehd and a-swallerin’ them. Them eyes was terrible, jest like fiery coals, they wuz.
Then sumbody behint of me chucked a cleaver at the critter, hit it, too; the edge went deep and stuck in its neck. But the critter jest jumped up, shook the cleaver out and come dead straight at us . . . at me! Well, in my time I done dressed out a plentynuff beasts for to know where you spose to spear them, so I crouchted down and jammed my spit square betwixt the critter’s front legs and he run right up on it. Well, I could tell he’d be right at me in a blinkin’, so I let go of the spit and jumpted back and slammed the door and shot the bolt, then we all went a-runnin’ like everythin. And that be all I knows, m’lord duke.”
With Whitetip still not returned from his part of the evening exercise, Bili and his armed gentlemen took up the hunt, but the bloodtrail ended halfway through the stone corridorway leading into the palace. More men were summoned and the ground level searched thoroughly, but the seriously wounded beast had again vanished.
Chapter XII
Whitetip did not return for three full days. When at last he did, he was not alone. With him was a female of his species, this cat some half his weight and less than two thirds his height; her coloring was that of the native treecats and her cuspids were not much larger than theirs, mere shadows of the huge, cursive dentition of the male prairiecat.
“Chief Bili,” beamed Whitetip formally, “this retarded, deformed number-cat cannot remember simple orders for long, it would seem. She was told to remain with her cubs at the den of Count Sandee, yet I found her wandering the plain near to the mountains, trying to find a way to sneak past the Skohshuns.”
“We’ll get to Stealth in a minute,” Bili replied sternly. “Chief Whitetip mentions the obeying of orders, yet he chose to be gone for three days in utter disobedience of his orders. I had feared him slain by the long-long-spear-men.”
Leaving the big cat to squirm and stew for the nonce, Bili beamed to the newcomer, “Greet the Sacred Sun, Stealth. How is my cub, and your own?”
Her delight was obvious; she paced to Bili’s side and laid her neat head against his knee, purring her joy while beaming, “Greet the Scared Sun, chief of cat brothers. Your cub is well, though not yet ready to join mine own in hunting lizards and voles. As for your orders, all the other fighters you left at the den of Count Sandee were marching north to join you, so I asked the advice of Count Sandee himself, and that of my wise twoleg cat sister, Zainehp, and they both assured me that you would assuredly welcome even one more proven fighter, beset as you were by enemies. Were they wrong in their counsel, cat brother? Should I have stayed behind and let them ride to aid you without me?”
Bili ruffled the cat’s neck fur reassuringly. “No, my sister, they were not wrong; when the horn is winded, all charge as one. How many horsemen and Maidens ride with Count Sandee?”
“Almost as many hundreds as I have claws on all my paws, cat brother,” she replied.
“Sun, Wind and Sacred Steel!” beamed Bili in consternation. “Where did old Sir Steev come up with almost two thousand men?”
“Those of Count Sandee and the others of Kuhmbuhiuhn are but half or less, cat brother. The others are strange Moon Maidens and strange Ahrmehnee, many, many of them, along with certain of your fighters I remember from the long march and the battle before the earth moved and the burning rocks set the forests all ablaze. They are led by a twoleg called Sir Geros.”
“Geros! Sir Geros Lahvoheetos? Here, in New Kuhmbuhluhn? But how? Why? No, no need for you to try to answer, Stealth. I think I know the answers to those questions, though what I ever did to deserve such a degree of loyalty . . . I wonder just how many long months that brave, faithful man has ridden these mountains in search of me.”
He beamed again to Whitetip. “This will teach you, I hope, brother chief, not to jump to erroneous conclusions . . . if that’s what you did, this time. Nor shall I inquire further as to the reason for your lengthy absence from your assigned duties. For now, your assignment is to see Stealth here well fed and furnished a comfortable place to rest until I am ready to again meet with you two. A Skohshun herald is due this day, and I must welcome him and entertain him. When I am free to do so, I’ll mindcall you. Dismiss.”
Thoheeks Bili’s mindcall, however, came far sooner than either the sulking Whitetip or Bili himself had expected. It was issued hard on the heels of the young commanders initial meeting with the Skohshun herald, Sir Djahn Makadahm.
“Chief Whitetip.” Bili beamed urgently, “immediately it is dark enough to hide you, hie you down to the Skohshun camp and bring me back a report on the following: how badly the camp was damaged, if there am significantly fewer twolegs, and how many of those twolegs seem to be seriously hurt — that is, unable to easily stand or walk about without help.
“When you return, I’ll probably still be at meat with Skohshun, the old one. Don’t come into our presence. I still don’t wish him to know that the bane of their herds is one of my valued warriors. Instead, beam the information to me. Then stand ready to cross the plain into the southern mountains. I need to be in communication with Sir Geros as soon as possible, and only my loyal cat brother’s mind is powerful enough to allow for such distance.”
“Must Whitetip take that useless number-cat with him on his scouting tonight, cat brother?” inquired the prairiecat.
“No,” Bili replied, “Stealth lacks your endurance for long-distance travel. Tell her she is to go up to my suite and bide therein with my own female and our cubs until I return abovestairs. That strange killer still stalks, it seems — it killed and ate a man on two of the last three nights, despite a bad wound it suffered on the night you left to stampede the herd of the Skohshuns.”
* * *
The great furry brown beast slowly, softly approached the cradle wherein lay the two youngest Morguhns. Cruel, sparkling white fangs gleamed as the two infants were sniffed thoroughly from end to end. Olfactory investigation completed, Stealth gently licked those skin surfaces she could easily get her wide tongue at.
&
nbsp; “They are good-sized cubs, cat sister,” she mindspoke Rahksahnah. “But still are they both smaller than was your first cub, last year. It is not the usual for your kind to birth more than one at the time?”
forgetting that she was mindspeaking, Rahksahnah shrugged, beaming, “That varies with strains and individuals, I think, my sister. My own mother, who was the brahbehrnuh before me, never bore more than one child at the time, but one of her blood sisters bore three, although two later died before reaching maturity. Another of their kin bore two sets of two; so I suppose that the possibility of bearing more than one is a part of my bloodline.”
“But what of your own little cubs, sister? My Bili tells me that they are said to be well on the way to putting Count Sandee’s stoats out of business.”
* * *
With sharp knife and strong teeth, Sir Djahn Makadahm stripped the tender meat from off the bones of the young goat, repeatedly complimenting the consistency and delicate flavor of the whole-roasted kid.
“Meat of any fresh kind, not full of brine and pickling, is pleasing to me just now, Sir Bili mightily pleasing. On the very night of your shrewd attempt to damage our camp, a huge mountain cat which has plagued us intermittently since first we went into camp stampeded our entire beef herd. The bawling bastards scattered to the four winds, and since then fresh meat has been rare and dear, leaving us usually with only salt pork and suchlike, that and the occasional stringy wild hare.”
“We have our own animal problems, here, Sir Djahn,” Bili remarked morosely, “but of a somewhat more serious nature than yours. Near every night for over a week now, a lean, reddish wolf has killed and eaten a man or woman in the burk.”
Sir Djahn leaned closer, saying excitedly. “Perhaps, Sir Bili, it is the same creature? This cat hunts only by night, too, as I think I said.”
“No.” Bili shook his shaven head emphatically. “No, there was clear spoor at the first kill we discovered, and there has been more since, as well as sightings, and it is truly a wolf, But such a wolf — a wolf as big as a small bear, that leaves paw prints a hand and a half long and at least a hand broad.
“And tough! Why, Sir Djahn, the beast slew and was eating a baker’s apprentice — a grown man, sizewise — one night last week when a party of cooks and bakers surprised him at it. One of them gashed the monster deep in the neck with a hard-flung cleaver and another ran a steel spit a good inch and a half in thickness some two feet into the creature’s body, yet still he not only managed to get away, but killed and ate again on the very next night, seemingly none the worse for being hacked and pierced. What do you make of that?”
The herald laid down the bone and the knife, dipped his fingers in the bowl of warm water and floating rose petals, then carefully wiped them on the cloth provided to the purpose, before answering softly and in a most serious tone.
“Have you considered the possibility, Sir Bili that you might be dealing not with a proper, natural beast, but with a werewolf?” At Bili’s blank stare, he asked, “Does this wolf ever slay and eat other beasts?”
“No. Sir Djahn, and that has been an almighty puzzlement to us. The creature will pass directly in front of, leave spoor all around, a pen of helpless sheep or goats, then go into a house to kill and eat a grown man. Certain chambers back in the mountain, wherein we think he dens — for all that a thorough search failed to turn up trace of him — are all stacked high and hung with smoked flesh of all descriptions, yet he has never touched one fitch, that we could tell. He seems to crave only fresh-killed human flesh.”
“Just so, Sir Bili,” the elderly Skohshun nodded sagely. “When in his beast form, human flesh is all that a werewolf will ingest. And I find it understandable that you could not discover his lair, for he has none and needs none; in daylight hours, he passes freely and unsuspected among you, as one of you. Perhaps he even trod that dark warren beside you, or behind you, secretly laughing as he aided you in your search for that which he well knew did not exist.”
Bili did not try to repress or hide his shudder. “Then, Sir Djahn, is there no way to recognize, to detect, such a murderous monster in daylight?”
“A few,” answered Sir Djahn, “but they are not hard and fast or accurate in all cases, I have been informed; quite often, in fact, one or more of them will be possessed by men and women who are as normal as are you and I, so be most exceeding careful lest you make a hasty and erroneous judgment.
“When in their human guise, werewolves often are excessively hairy of body and limbs, with fast-sprouting beards and thick, coarse hair on their heads. More werewolves, it is said, have red or auburn hair than any other coloring. Their teeth are large and the upper cuspids are said to be noticeably longer than the other front teeth, and sometimes they are sharply pointed, as well. Often the two eyebrows of a werewolf will, when he is in his man form, grow thickly together above the nose, so that he appears to have but a single eyebrow. Men and women who are secret werewolves are exceeding strong and agile. The ears of these human monsters are said to be always small and laid flat against the skull, and sometimes they are pointed at the upper tip, as well. The third finger of their hands is right often as long or even longer than the middle one, whilst the nails of all the fingers are rounded rather than flat and very strong.
“Please understand, Sir Bili, I have never that I know of met or even seen a true werewolf. The knowledge that I pass on to you here is but a compendium of the ancient legends of my folk. The Skohshuns, long centuries agone. lived for a few years in a far northern land where real wolves were a constant menace and werewolves a hidden threat. But in my own life, I have known or at least met men and women bearing one or more of those supposed telltale traits who were no more werewolves than am I.
“I wish you luck, Sir Bili, whether you discover your manslayer to be natural or unnatural beast. But that discussion is not, you must know, the reason why my superior sent me back to enjoy your most generous hospitality.”
When the Skohshun herald had stated his case, he sat back and waited for what he was certain would ensue — probably polite refusal, possibly a refusal verging upon insult. He had been steeling himself for this latter possibility since he had ridden across the booming timbers of the bridge, for what he was here proposing was, indeed, ludicrous, all things considered. And so he was shocked to the innermost core of his being when his host answered.
Rolling the stem of his gold-washed silver goblet between his broad fingers, Bili regarded Sir Djahn for a longish moment, then nodded brusquely. “That which you suggest is not out of all reason, sir. Certain of my garrison, especially so the noblemen of New Kuhmbuhluhn, are become quite bored with the dragging aspects of siege warfare, and our sally the other night seemed rather to increase their thirsts than to slake them. What would you say to planning this set battle for next week?”
Old Sir Djahn felt as if the flat of a poleaxe had crashed upon his balding pate. But as it had been years in the forging, his steely self-control immediately asserted itself and his voice and outward demeanor rang calm and assured in tone and appearance.
“I believe that Sir Ahrthur was thinking more in terms of two weeks hence, Sir Bili, or perhaps even three.”
Bili shook his head. “Two weeks, Sir Djahn, no more. The autumn is short hereabouts, as well you should know, and the winter snows follow quickly upon autumn’s heels. Are my noble New Kuhmbuhluhn officers who are landholders to get back to their fiefs and properly prepare the earth for next spring’s planting, it must be done soon.”
Sir Djahn’s white eyebrows rose a careful half inch. “You assume that New Kuhmbuhluhn arms will triumph over somewhat superior numbers, then, Sir Bili?”
“Why not?” grinned Bili. “You obviously assume that your quantity will triumph over our superior quality. Expect you not a near rout of Kuhmbuhluhn arms such as you Skohshuns enjoyed when last we met at swords’ points, either. Sir Djahn. The late King Mahrtuhn in his dotage and senility deliberately crippled that field force, denying us t
he use of what are the most effective means of dealing with schiltrons and similar formations. Neither his present majesty nor I will be so foolish and deluded in our own choices of strategy and tactics, you may believe that. We will meet you armed with every advantage we may possess. expecting no less from you and your army.
“So, where shall we fight, Sir Djahn? On the plain between the base of the mountain and your camp, perhaps? I think me that that would be the logical place.”
Sir Djahn smiled fleetingly. “Logical, maybe, but not a safe place for Skohshun regiments to group, you must admit; not with the range of your engines to be considered or the weights they can throw for that range. No, let us meet on the other side of the camp.”
“I march my men into the jaws of no traps” Bili stated flatly. “Nor do I commence a battle with foemen both before and behind, not if I have the ordering of it.
“But, too, I can empathize with you, so let us plan it in the following way. . . .”
* * *
“That was the very best that I could do, Ahrthur,” Sir Djahn told the brigadier immediately he returned to the Skohshun camp. “It is not the three weeks I know you would have preferred, but it is not either the bare single week that Duke Bili originally suggested; we compromised on that as well as on other matters.”
The brigadier just sat listening and fingering idly the small, blunt-ended dagger he used to ream out his pipes. When Sir
Djahn was done, he said, “You seemed so certain when you departed that those New Kuhmbuhluhnburkers would refuse at the very least, might even laugh you out of the city, yet this so canny war leader of theirs apparently accepted our outrageous — patently outrageous, all things and conditions considered, and I’ll now be the first and the foremost to admit that fact — proposal. Now I want to know why, Djahn. Wby did this man willingly toss away a brimful basket of real advantages and agree to meet our regiments openly, on the plain, where the clear advantages are ours?”
