by Robert Adams
Beti’s eyebrows rose. “You exchanged horse-oath with our Aldora? I thought that you retired after Chief Djahn of Kahnuhr was killed?”
“Djahn was my brother, Chief’s-wife. So close were we that we might have been dropped by the same dam on the same day. Until today, I had never thought that there would be another two-leg for Ax-Hoof; but this one is different from most of you. Her mind is different. I have spoken but one other like it, so she is now my oath-sister; care for her well . . . or fear you my hooves and teeth!”
“Threats are unnecessary, Horse-King,” Beti reassured the serious stallion. “She is as dear to her clan as to you.”
When Aldora had slipped down behind Beti, the big horse advised both woman and mare. “Go not near the flowing water. One-Fang fears that a Blackfoot is about. He and one of the cubs smelled where it had been, below the lip of the cut.”
Smiling, Beti slapped her bow case. “Never fear, Horse-King, though no longer a maiden, still I can draw a bow.”
Though he was galloping toward a knot of young stallions, he beamed back, “Be not oversure of yourself or the value of your bow, Chiefs-wif’e. You have never hunted the Blackfoot as I have!”
14
Body to body, mind to mind;
Horse and rider shall be as one.
Close as blood, the oath shall bind,
Till death has come and life is done.
—From “The Couplets of the Law”
At the very moment Beti had been first greeting the Horse-King, Milo, Mara, the Chief of Mercenaries, Hwil Kuk and Horsekiller were closeted with four other mercenaries of Milo’s following. It had taken days to find three of these men, as Aldora’s mind retained no clear image of them, and the fourth — Djo-Sahl Muhkini — had, at the time, been too drunk to remember to whom he had traded his Ehleenee child-captive. Finally, after each and every man of one hundred-fifteen had denied any connection with the incident, Milo and Hwil became mildly exasperated and commenced subjecting the mercenaries to the Test of the Cat. They so tested twenty-eight before they struck pay dirt. Now they had them all — Pawl and Deeuee Shraik and Hahnz Sahgni — three northern barbarians from the Kingdom of Harzburk and former troopers of the Theesispolis kahtahfrahktoee. Inseparable, they referred to themselves as “The Triple Threat” (though no man could remember ever having seen them in the van of any charge or battle).
“Now heed me well!” Milo commanded. “Despite the fact that when you swore oaths to me, you placed yourselves under the jurisdiction of tribal law, I’ll not quote it to you here; there’s no need to invoke it, as — so your chief informs me — in all lands, sexual abuse of children is as heinous an offense as it is with us. You must have known that what you did was wrong, else you’d not have lied when Hwil and I questioned you.
“My wife and Hwil would like to see your blood — here and now — but I am going to free you. On this table are four purses of silver, your wages for the time you have served me. You may retain your armor and gear and weapons, but not the war horses you now use. Outside are a number of horses and mules who are anxious to return to the dominion of man. They cannot stomach true freedom and slavery appeals to them. Of them, you may take your choice. By the time that the Sacred Sun goes to rest, I expect you all to be a long day’s ride from this place.”
* * *
Shortly, the four — secretly happy to have escaped with even their lives — clattered out of the Citadel-barrack and trotted their animals through the city streets. All were well mounted, even though the horses they bestrode were not war-trained, and Djo-Sahl led a fifth animal — a mule, on which were packed their food and waterbags, plus a small tent and cooking pot. Even the youngest of them had been a mercenary for nearly ten years and all had long ago learned to accept the bitter with the better, so no recriminations — self or otherwise — were voiced.
They left the city by way of the south gate, passed through the charred ruins of the outer habitations, and wove a way between the haphazardly located tents and wagons of the nomad encampment. When they were finally clear of the camp, they cut cross-country in a westerly direction, so as to strike the north-south Traderoad. All were familiar with the road, having often patrolled it as kahtahfrahktoee, and as they were headed for Karaleenos to enlist under Lord Zenos’ green and crimson banner, it was the logical road to take.
After about a half mile, Djo-Sahl’s mount began to limp. Cursing, the brown-bearded trooper dismounted and, finding a pebble firmly lodged between hoof and shoe, began to work at its removal, telling his companions to ride on ahead. It was for this reason that he was not with the three northerners when their path crossed that of Beti and Aldora.
The Triple Threat — Pawl, Deeuee, and Hahnz — did not need to communicate, nor did they hesitate!
* * *
Only Aldora’s frantic pleas had prevented the adventurous Beti from riding the creek bank in search of the mysterious animal. Grudgingly, the nomad woman turned back toward the camp. Nonetheless, she continued to grip her strung bow, a barbed hunting-shaft nocked and ready.
Morning-Mist had crested a low, rolling hill and was loping down its eastern face when the three scale-armored men came into view. Few of the nomads liked or really trusted any of Milo’s renegade mercenaries, so Beti urged Morning-Mist slightly northward, out of their path. They had been riding abreast, but when Beti’s course deviated, they extended their interval, cantering in file with the obvious intention of cutting her off.
Where another might have waited or even ridden on to see what the men wanted, Beti — nomad-born and bred and trusting nothing, especially a male not of the Kindred — whirled her little mare and galloped back to the crest she had just crossed. There, she turned her left side to the oncoming men and extracted two more arrows from her case, clenching them with the fingers of her bow-hand.
“Aldora,” she said urgently in a tone that brooked no argument, “I will hold them here for as long as I can. Run! Back to the horses. Mindcall Ax-Hoof. He will protect you. Now, go!”
Obediently, Aldora slipped from the mare’s low crupper and raced down the western slope, broadbeaming, without being aware of it, a mindcall for help.
Old Hari sat in a sun-drenched court of the Citadel. Beside him was a small brazier in which were heating a half-dozen short daggers. Horsekiller and Old-Cat were with him. Employing Old-Cat’s eyes, the hot daggers, and a pair of tiny pincers, the bard was engaged in removing ticks from the Cat Chief’s hide, having just done the like for Old-Cat.
With a ghastly yowl, Horsekiller suddenly leapt ten feet, his mind filled with language he had heard Milo’s troopers use. Hari dropped the hot little knife, with which he had singed the Cat Chief, and he and the two cats raced toward Milo’s suite.
* * *
At that moment, Milo was astride Steeltooth and trotting through the south gate, trailed by the faithful Hwil Kuk. Brave and battlewise his mercenaries might be, but Milo was sure that none of them had ever hunted or confronted a giant ferret. Even under the best of conditions, it would not have been an experience to look forward to; but, if it had to be, Milo wanted men around him who knew what they were doing. So he was riding to gather a group of middle-aged nomads, who had faced the sinister creatures on the plains and prairies.
When the mindcall came to him, he at once recognized the sender; and, as her call was directed at Ax-Hoof, the Horse-King, she must not be far from the herd. Shouting for a clear passage ahead, he kneed Steeltooth into a gallop and turned his head in the direction of the Linszee clan-camp.
* * *
Mole-Fur had not mindspoken with Aldora, so, did not recognize the source of the call; but it could only be a cat-friend in dire straits. She left off her preening and jumped down from her knoll and tore off for the source of the amazingly powerful call.
* * *
Ax-Hoof, three or four horse-chiefs and a dozen young war horses were trotting along the edge of the creek-cut, following the mind-patterns of One-Fang and his cub assistant, as
they scent-trailed the Blackfoot creature upstream.
Two-Color-Tail — a six-year-old who was horse-oathed to a warrior of Clan Hahfmun — was nowhere as intelligent as Ax-Hoof or many of his peers, but his mind was such that cat-calls could range him much more easily than most of the other horses and men. So, though they were a good three miles from the vicinity of the herd, he received the call and communicated it to his king. Leaving the party in charge of Armor-Crusher, one of the horse-chiefs, Ax-Hoof took to a ground-eating gallop — the Horse Oath took precedence even over the excitement of a hunt.
By the time he reached the fringes of his herd, they were milling about and a thousand or so were trotting along the path that Mole-Fur had taken — they, like her, all-but-mind-blasted by the powerful urgency of the call.
* * *
When Hari and the cats reached her, Mara was just dropping her baldric into place.
“I know!” she said cutting them off abruptly. “I too have a mind, you know. I expect that every mind within ten square-miles has picked up that call. When next we council, Hari, you have my voice. Her mind has got to have training! Such power, uncontrolled, could be deadly.”
As Milo and Kuk came within sight of the Linszee chief-tent, Hwahlis was just swinging leg over horse. His sons and nephew-sons were already mounted and, like their chief, armored and fully armed. When his seat was firm in his kak, Tsheri passed up his shield and Gairee handed him a heavy wolf-spear.
“You heard?” shouted Milo, reining up. “Who didn’t?” came Hwahlis’ quick retort. “We — all of us — heard, even Kahl, and ere have the cats remarked him difficult to range. By my sword, that girl has power!”
“We may need more fighters than this,” said Milo. “She’s calling old Ax-Hoof, which means she’s probably near to the herd; and One-Fang sent a cub in to say that he suspected a Blackfoot was nosing around out there.”
Hwahlis’ weathered face paled. “Blackfoot, you say? By Sun and Wind, I’d hoped I’d never hear that name again!” He turned to his eldest son. “Erl, raise all the clan, the maidens, too! Plenty of arrows, with spears as well, mind you. Then ride for the herd.
“Fil,” he said to his second-eldest nephew-son, “my compliment to Chief Sami of Kahrtuh, tell him . . .”
“Tell me what?” Chief Sami drew up near them; at the edge of the clan-camp he had left a score of full-armed Kahrtuh clansmen.
As Milo and the two chiefs commenced to lead their contingent of Linszee and Kahrtuh clansmen through the other clan-camps, they found that their numbers were growing. Apparently the terror-stricken girl’s mind-call had reached every nomad capable of receiving it. Most had no idea who was calling, but only one of their Kindred would call Horse-King, and Kindred never called Kindred in vain. They did not wait for their chiefs, they simply armed, mounted and rode. By the time Milo reached the edge of the tribal enclave, there were six chiefs and at least six hundreds of warriors behind him — and there would have been more, except for the fact that most of the horses were grazing with the herd.
“This,” Milo thought wryly, “is going to be a Blackfoot hunt to remember!”
Beti stole a glance to be sure that Aldora was well on her way. As she looked back, one of the ironshirts was starting up the hill, the other two close behind him.
She raised her bow and hooked thumb ring to string. “Halt, money-fighters!” she shouted. “Halt, or feel an arrow from the bow of Beti, wife to Hwahlis of Linszee!”
Hahnz Sahgni experienced a brainstorm — or so he thought. Reining up, he said pleasantly, “Yes, they told us we’d find you out here. We are from Kuk’s squadron, serving your war chief, Milo. He sent us to fetch you.”
“Liar!” retorted Beti. “If the war chief desired to see me, he would send a cat-brother to my husband, the Chief. I warn you, lying ironshirt, come closer and you die!”
The three men had been slyly sidling their mounts closer. Now, Hahnz clapped spurs to horse-barrel and, bending low over pommel and neck, charged up the hill.
Beti’s first shaft caromed off the scales of his hauberk’s back, but her second skewered his right biceps; as his head came up, her third, an iron-headed war arrow, thunked solidly into his forehead between his bloodshot eyes.
Before she could get another shaft out, however, Pawl and Deeuee were upon her. A back-hand buffet of Pawl’s iron-shod gauntlet knocked her from the mare’s back, senseless.
15
Hear, oh Wind, the cry of a clan, bereaved; of how Linszee mourns the loss of one held dear. . . .
—Clan Linszee Death Chant
Aldora was panting up another of the rolling hills when she fell. In the second that she lay on the ground, it communicated a swelling vibration to her flesh. Then Mole-Fur bounded up and commenced to lick at her dusty face.
“What threatens, black-haired Cat-sister? Why did you mind-call?”
“Did I?” asked Aldora. “I must have done so unconsciously then.”
“Indeed you did, Cat-sister,” Mole-Fur affirmed. “And if that was an unconscious call, Sun and Wind preserve my poor mind from one of your conscious calls!”
Then Aldora recalled the reason and waved an arm in the direction from which she had come. “Oh, please, Mole-Fur, it’s Beti . . . three men are after us and she’s trying to stop them all alone, with only a bow.”
Taking a layout of the topography of the area in which Beti was making her stand from Aldora’s memory, the young cat raced to the rescue.
* * *
Djo-Sahl, having finally dislodged the stubborn pebble, had just remounted when he saw — at about a half-mile’s range — Milo and his body of warriors.
“Gawdayum!” he ejaculated as he hurriedly untied the mule’s leadrope. “I thought they let us go too easy! Now they comin’ for us!”
Discarding his lance, he spurred off at a tangent to his original course, heading due-west. The Triple Threat were not really friends and he saw no need to warn them of the approaching nomads.
“The hell we’ll kill ’er!” was Pawl’s reply to Deeuee’s stupid suggestion. “You jes’ go down there an’ get the silver off of ol’ Hahnz. He ain’t gonna be needin’ it no more. I’ll tie ’er up and get ’er on ’er horse. The both of ’em should bring right fair prices, down Karaleenos way.”
By the time his dim-witted brother regained to the top of the hill — having relieved their former comrade’s body of the purse, a couple of silver arm-rings and a handsome Ehleenee dirk — Pawl had Beti tied securely over Morning-Mist’s back and had remounted his own horse.
As Deeuee mounted he called, “Which way’d the other one go?”
His brother shrugged. “I dunno, and it’d take too long to hunt ’er. Let’s go.”
“Hey,” yelped Deeuee, “how ’bout ol’ Djo-Sahl? We oughta wait for him . . .”
Pawl shook his head and hooked a thumb at their unconscious captive. “You wanta have to take thirds on ’er all the way down to Karaleenos, and then split her price three ways?
“B’sides, he’s prob’ly took off with the mule and stuff anyhow.”
Deeuee was known to be quite a trencherman. Now, he looked as if he was about to cry. “But that means he’s got all of the food. We’ll starve!”
Pawl laughed harshly and slapped the two purses hung under his hauberk. “Damfool boy, I don’t know why Pa didn’ drown you, anyhow! You got no more brains ’n a houn’-dog. We gonna be trav’lin through farming country, ’tween our silver and our swords, we won’t have no trouble fillin’ our bellies.”
They were half-way to the next fold of ground when, voicing an unearthly battle-screech, Mole-Fur came bounding toward them. Cursing mightily, Pawl couched his lance and charged to meet her. Mole-Fur avoided the glittering point easily. As the horse tore past her, her long fangs ripped through horse-hide and horse-flesh and horse-muscle.
Screaming, the hamstrung gelding went down, pinning his stunned rider beneath his barrel.
Deeuee had never been very adept at the us
e of the lance, so he discarded his and unslung his ax, then dropped Morning-Mist’s lead and spurred toward the inexperienced Mole-Fur who was attempting to get at his downed brother’s throat. But just as he reined beside the young cat and whirled his heavy ax aloft, he was violently propelled out of his kak, to join his brother on the ground. He had time for but half a scream, before Old-Cat’s fang-spurs all but severed his neck.
Old-Cat’s borrowed armor rattled, as the venerable fighter shook his head forcefully in an attempt to clear the bad-tasting blood from the razor-edged steel. “Idiot!” he mind-snarled at Mole-Fur. “Had I not come when I did, the two-leg would’ve chopped you in half! Can’t you remember your battle-training, stupid female? You did a beautiful job of hamstringing, especially, as you had no fang-spurs. But why in the world didn’t you then go after the other one? With a crippled horse on his leg, this one is going nowhere.”
Mole-Fur endured the mental tongue-lashing in silence; then, her eyes downcast, she replied humbly, “Mole-Fur is very sorry that she displeased so strong and handsome a fighter, and she is very grateful that so valiant a cat-warrior saw fit to save her worthless life. This stupid young female has never fought two-legs before, and . . .” She trailed off disconsolately.
Her unhappiness was very real and very apparent and, for some reason that he could not fathom, it disturbed Old-Cat. “Never mind,” he told her gruffly, lightly nuzzling her shoulder (soft-furred and tinglingly delightful to the touch). “You’ll remember this and learn from it. We always learn from our mistakes.”
When she buried her velvety muzzle under his chin, Old-Cat felt anything but old. “Oh, Mole-Fur is so glad that she is forgiven. She could not bear to have so wise and powerful and virile a cat angry at her.”
Old-Cat extended his tongue and licked the young female’s neck, suppressing an urge to lightly bite it. None other of the females of Horsekiller’s clan had aroused him like this. Perhaps the Ancient Wise One was right and . . . He shook himself and drew away from the seductive young cat; there was work to do. “Mole-Fur, there was a mind-call from Aldora Linszee. Have you seen her?”
