by Robert Adams
They circled each other warily, Lord Alexandros talking to himself under his breath. “By God, the bastard came far too close to getting me that time! Whoever taught him to cast a dart knew what he was about. He doesn’t look as fat as I’d remembered and there’s strength in his sword-arm, too. He really looks much like Basil, his father. That barbarian who calls himself Lord Mahrk was right. He is more a man, now, than ever he has been. He’s the kind of fighter, the kind of ruler, he’d have been if his father had taken the time to see to the proper rearing of him. Now, let’s see . . . HAAGGHH!”
Lord Alexandros leapt in, down-slanted shield held before him, and delivered a vicious, backhand slash at his opponent’s neck. Demetrios easily caught it on his own sword and the iron-shod edge of his hard-swung shield slammed agonizingly into Lord Alexandros’ exposed right side. Disengaging his blade, Demetrios hopped backward just in time to avoid the uprushing shield of his adversary. With a speed which was astounding for one of his girth, Demetrios chopped up with the inner edge of his shield, catching Lord Alexandros’ and forcing it even higher, at the same time, stabbing at the spot where the elder man’s hauberk stopped, an inch or so above the knee.
This time it was Lord Alexandros who hopped hurriedly back, thinking, “Sweet Jesus, the boy’s fast as a greased pig! What a fighting High Lord he’d have made. Saints above, with but a few weeks training, he’s come close to killing me twice over!”
After two more attacks, producing nothing more rewarding than lightning counter-attacks from Demetrios, Lord Alexandros settled to a routine of hack and slash, forehand and backhand, high and low, figure-eight and circle; but never did his edge contact other than shield or parrying sword. When he had established an attack pattern and felt the time to be right, he feinted an upslash and ended in a high thrust for the face; Demetrios beat the thrusting weapon against its owner’s own shield, then capped the sword-sandwich with his own close-held shield, immobilizing his opponent’s blade, while his own remained free.
No one of the watchers took breath. Lord Alexandros was momentarily defenseless and all realized it. Demetrios could drive his point into face or back of neck or through the lacings of Lord Alexandros’ jazeran with impunity; and that would be that!
The men’s strained, flushed, sweat-streaked faces were bare inches, one from the other. “Well?” panted Lord Alexandros. “Get it over with! You tortured and butchered the rest of my family. Why do you stick at me?”
“You . . . good fighter . . . good man!” gasped Demetrios. “Too bad . . . couldn’t . . . been friends. Be great honor . . . die by . . . your hand.”
Alexandros started. “You want me to kill you?”
“Many sins . . .” Demetrios went on. “Heavy . . . must pay. Sat and . . . sipped wine . . . laughed . . . when your daughters . . . grandchildren . . . tormented to death. You have . . . dirk. Use it! Had many . . . things . . . done to . . . your kin.” He went on to haltingly describe the gruesome and incredible brutalities which his torturers had inflicted upon the old nobleman’s family until, foaming with rage, the strahteegos let go his hilt, drew his dirk, and plunged it into Demetrios’ neck, just under the left ear! Hilt-deep, he drove the wide-bladed dirk, so that it transfixed the High Lord’s thick neck — a good eight centimeters of the blade protruding from the opposite side.
Demetrios half-screamed at the bite of the steel. Dropping his sword, he wrenched Lord Alexandros’ hand from the dirk. Stepping back, he saluted his slayer, then crumpled to the ground, eyes closed, lips smiling up at the sun.
Demetrios’ descriptions had been accurate and revolting and Alexandros was still half-berserk and the smile further infuriated him. Furiously, he kicked at the dying man’s face, then, picking up his sword, used its edge to sever the shoulder-strap of his shield, slipped free of the arm-bands, and dropped the buckler. Stepping to his fallen foe, he kicked off Demetrios’ helmet, tore away the padded cap, and, raising the High Lord’s head by the hair, he lifted his sword with the obvious intent of decapitating the body.
“NO!” shouted M’Gonda. With unbelievable swiftness, the black quitted his saddle, snatched a javelin from the holder on the side of the chariot, and fitted it to his silver spear-thrower. Just as Lord Alexandros’ blade commenced its hard-swung descent, M’Gonda took three running steps forward and made his cast. The use of a throwing-stick imparts tremendous velocity to a javelin and such was the force of this cast that the entirety of the seventeen-centimeters of blade length penetrated the strahteegos’ exposed right side, the needle-point tearing into his mighty heart!
Seconds after he had thrown his javelin, M’Gonda’s body was pin-cushioned with arrows.
For a long, long moment, there was no movement, in any quarter — all knew that one untoward motion would surely precipitate a pitched battle. Then, above the stillness, sounded a clattering-clanging thud, as Lord Mahrk dropped his round buckler. With his gauntleted left hand, he drew his broadsword and, grasping it by the blade-tip, waved it above his head before casting it down beside his shield. This done, he toed his white charger forward, to rein and dismount beside the bodies of the two Ehleenee. Shortly, he was joined by Milo, Mara, Djeen Mai, and Lord Szamyul; and the watchers relaxed, starting to breathe again.
Lord Alexandros Pahpahs was dead, though a trickle of blood was yet running from one corner of his mouth. Djeen Mai set his foot against his slain lord’s armored side and withdrew the imbedded javelin, then closed the glazed eyes and wiped the blood from the old strahteegos’ chin. Wordless, Mara looked down on this dead, old man, trying to visualize the vibrantly alive boy she had loved so long ago.
Sadly, Lord Mahrk bent over Demetrios’ body and, as gently as possible, pulled out Lord Alexandros’ dirk. All at once, he straightened and reeled back, his face ashen, the dirk dropping from suddenly nerveless fingers.
“He . . . my Lord is not . . . he is still alive! He . . . he moaned when I took out the dirk!” The Lord High Strahteegos gasped, half-unbelievingly.
Milo bounded over to the downed High Lord and hastily ascertained that he was, indeed, yet sentient, not even truly unconscious. Then he noticed something else.
Epilogue
“As nearly as I can calculate, it is mid-December of the six hundred and fifty-second year of my life, 2593 A.D. It is now six hundred thirteen years since man’s own folly plunged this world back to a cultural level of barbarism. What ancient man was it who said that World War IV would be fought with spears and clubs?
“Well, at least mankind will be spared that for a while yet. There just aren’t sufficient people on this earth to man a world-wide war. I’ve no way of determining how many were left after the last of those terrible plagues had run its course; but, on the basis of what I’ve heard and what I’ve seen during my travels and such calculations as I’ve made, I’d say that even now—more than six hundred years after World War III, there’re still far less than half a billion human beings on this old planet.
“I wonder if ever I will find the island and, if I do, what it will be like to live with none save others of my kind. What sort of government have they, I wonder — a democracy like the North Ehleenee or a kingdom like the Karaleenee and the South Ehleenee and most of the barbarians; a loose confederation like my people or a representative republic, such as we helped Demetrios to set up; or is it a dictatorship like that which Backstrom described.
“And, speaking of Backstrom, that’s another project which I must see to. I’ve the feeling that those malicious bastards will never leave us in peace. God help this world if they and their kind ever gain control of any sizable portion of it. And I think that that’s what Backstrom was hinting at when he spoke of their ‘not being ready, yet’!”
“We’ll have to get established here, first, of course; and I’ll have to get my hands on a ship of some sort and some experienced mariners and do some exploring. At one time, I had a fair, Sunday sailor’s knowledge of these waters, but that damned earthquake so rearranged this coast that it�
��s barely recognizable. Demetrios has offered every assistance and building materials to help us build a city here — hell, he’s even named it already, calls it Thahlahsahpolis — but we’re going to have to either drain that bloody swamp or build a road through it first Maybe not, though; maybe we can barge cut stone down the river. Besides, although the ones above-ground are too weathered to be very useful, maybe, if we dig, we can find stones on the spot.
“Getting sleepy, so I guess I’d best call it a night. I’ll have my hands full at first light, what with apportioning no more than twenty square-miles of high ground among forty-three clans. It’s odd that the point of this peninsula rose, while the center sank; but that’s nature for you.
“Took me twenty years to bring these people to the culmination of their dreams. God willing, a couple more hundred years will see their descendants helping me to the culmination of mine. Nonetheless, tomorrow will mark the first day of a beginning.”
—From the Private Journal of Milo Moral
At last, after a migration which had consumed nearly twenty years, The-Tribe-That-Will-Return-To-The-Sea had done so.
Milo and Mara Morai, Blind Hari of Krooguh and the chiefs of all the clans sat their horses on the narrow thread of beach which marked the very tip of the peninsula, surf-foam lapping at the forehoofs of their mounts. Before them, as far as the eye could see, the blue-gray water heaved ceaselessly; the tide was at flow and each curling wave broke closer to the shore. The early-winter sky was overcast and gray as the tumbled, weathered stones of the ancient ruins, which brooded on the hill above the beach. Miles behind, the tribe was still toiling through the swamps, guided and assisted by Ehleenee, who were familiar with the treacherous fens.
No communication, vocal or mental, was exchanged, as the nomads remained stock-still, their eyes drinking in the reality which their dreams and numberless generations of their ancestors’ dreams were become. Milo’s eyes, too, stared, but not at the sea; he strained to see beyond the horizon, hoping past hope to espy that half-mythical island, the search for which had once taken him from these people for two hundred years.
“Now,” he thought, “at the end of this phase, is the beginning of the real task: to mold these fine men’s descendants into sea-rovers, rather than plains-rovers. I must remember to encourage intermarriage between the Clans-people and the Ehleenee, for the latter already possess some tradition and knowledge of seamanship, trading even with Europe. It’ll probably take a few hundred years to do it right, but then, the four of us — myself and Mara and Aldora and Demetrios — have that much time and more.
“Of course, we may be delayed for a bit, here and there. Demetnos has become a real fire-eater, since he got a taste of warfare. He hasn’t said as much, but it’s obvious that he wants to conquer Karaleenos and, since Zenos seems to feel that lack of aggressiveness indicates weakness, I suppose we’ll have to either openly annex his lands or eliminate him and put a puppet on his throne. It would probably be as well to invest a few years in subjugating the peoples to our immediate north and west as well; do to them what we know they’d do to us, but do it first.”
“God Milo?” mindspoke the Cat Chief, Dirktooth (brave Horsekiller’s smoke had resided in the Home of the Wind since the Battle of Notohspolis, some six months agone).
“Soon, the lowest section of the way that we came will be completely covered with this bitter water. I am not as many of the cubs, I do not enjoy immersing myself in water. Can we not, now, return to the higher ground?”
Steeltooth snorted and stamped the wet sand and transmitted his agreement. “Steeltooth say go. Wind and water are cold on his legs.”
“We have seen and will see for the rest of our lives,” Milo broad-beamed the thought to the long line of chiefs. “Let us return and speed the clans, that they, too, may see.”
Then he gave the palomino stallion his head and Steel-tooth’s big hooves spurned the sand as he trotted in the wake of the bounding Cat Chief.
About The Author
ROBERT ADAMS lives in Seminole County, Florida. Like the characters in his books, he is partial to fencing and fancy swordplay, hunting and riding, good food and drink. And when he is not hard at work on his next science-fiction novel, Robert may be found slaving over a hot forge to make a new sword or busily reconstructing a historically accurate military costume.
