by Robert Adams
Leaving the grisly discovery where it lay, Bili led his five troopers in a wide cross-country sweep to the south and west. At the crest of the first hill, they spied a mounted party laboring up its south slope—half a dozen appeared to be women and twice that number well-armed men. As the party neared Bili's concealed position, he recognized the leader and trotted downslope to meet him.
"Thoheeks' son Bili, you are a welcome sight to clap eyes to!" Vaskos reined up knee-to-knee and gripped Bili's hand with fierce geniality. The thick-thewed man had a few fresh cuts on his face, a bulky wad of bandage protruded from under his helm, and he rode somewhat stiffly, as if his armor might conceal other wounds, but he greeted Bili with a smile. "And how fares my father? Have you seen aught of him?"
The smile was infectious and Bili found himself sharing it. "Komees Hari is at Morguhn Hall, Vaskos, and he's well enough, physically; but sight of you will do wonders for his spirit. Your loving uncle, Drehkos, swore that he'd had you murdered, you know."
"Aye!" Vaskos' grin faded and his dark eyes clouded with anger. "His dogs and those of Hehrah-the-bitch very nearly did slay me, would have, but for the warning of my half sisters, bless them. My poor Frahnkos gave his life that the four of us might get away. We arrived at Komees Djeen's hall just after the Clan Bard had left. Lady Ahnah and her women bandaged our hurts and provided me with armor, then they took over the care of my sisters and I took command of the mercen . . . uh, Freefighters."
After formally greeting the ladies of the party—Lady Ahnah, Komees Djeen's vivacious wife, her daughter, and the three Daiviz girls—Bili detached one of his troopers to guide Vaskos on the quickest route to the Hall, commandeering a brace of Vaskos' Freefighters to fill out the patrol.
When he had seen the refugees on their way, Bili instructed the troopers in the location of their rendezvous point, then all set out in a wide-spreading crescent. They rode on and on through the deserted fields, meadows, and woodlands. At the beginning, the westering sun bore upon their right, then directly into their faces, finally bathing their left sides. Bili allowed the new horse his head in walking across a freshly plowed field, then warily traversed a narrow strip of woods. He mounted grassy knolls at the trot, galloped over the rolling leas, leaping lichened fences and the deep-cut brooks which chuckled amongst rounded stones.
Then, all at once, the cold prickling began in Bili's far-gathering mind and he knew that he was approaching a danger. Though it seemed imminent, it lacked the strength of human minds, so he did not uncase his axe, unslinging his boarspear instead.
He never had an opportunity to use that spear, however. Beneath the spread of a thick-foliaged old tree, a heavy form hurled itself down upon Bili, driving him from the saddle, smashing him to earth. The last sound he heard, ere darkness claimed him, was the terrified screaming of his horse.
——«»——«»——«»——
It was with a sense of mild satisfaction that Hwahltuh Sanderz of Sanderz withdrew his hand from inside the waistband of his loose, filthy trousers. That pestersome flea would never again taste of blood. Absently, he wiped his thumbnail on a grimy shirtsleeve and ruminated on the journey so far.
True, the lands lay fair enough, but there were far too many people on them. It virtually teemed with people, and almost all of them were Dirtmen too, living—if such a life could be truly called living—in immovable lodges amid their own stink from birth to death. And the way that all of them stared and stared at him and his clanmen, especially at the Cat Brothers. Why, one might think that they had never before even seen Prairie Cats!
Even those who claimed the ancient Kinship with him—claimed descent from the Horseclansmen of Ehlai—dwelt in stonewalled lodges. Of course, he ruminated, he was not sure but that some of these had lied in their teeth, for only two of them had even looked like Kindred. One of these two, who had represented himself as the Kahrtuh of Kahrtuh, had had so little mindspeak that it would have been a great compliment to call his talents marginal—and what clan would have for Chief a man who could not mindspeak Cat and Horse and other Chiefs? As for the other, he had been fat, his hands as soft as a woman's breast.
But, Hwahltuh thought on, so much soaking in water the temperature of fresh blood might very well make a man that soft. And that was yet another thing that set the Sanderz's teeth edge-to-edge, the washings and scrubbings and senseless—and certainly unhealthful—bathings which seemed to so obsess these strange people. Although all the clanspeople made use of a sweat lodge on occasion, they seldom immersed their bodies in water more than a couple of times a year, and then it was in a river or lake. But the odd people of this weird land sometimes bathed twice in one day, and in heated water at that!
Hwahltuh had been born with a better than average nose—thank Sacred Sun for that gift! With eyes and ears hooded and stopped, he could identify each of his warriors by smell, alone. So it made him distinctly uneasy when he was confronted by persons who bore so little odor that he could rarely even distinguish the women from the men, without seeing or hearing them.
One of the clansmen riding behind him suddenly guffawed and it was picked up by several of the others; then came a snarled curse. He glanced back over his shoulder in time to see his sister's youngest son, Rik, leap from his kak, his hands working frantically at the drawstring of his trousers and his snub-nosed face twisted in distress.
Hwahltuh halted the column, for it was not good to leave a Kinsman alone in unknown territory. Rik squatted beneath a tree, glaring at his Kinsmen from under his thick, reddish-blond brows and grunting insulting comments on their appearances and personal habits, while they serenaded him with a chorus of jeers, laughter, and ribald suggestions.
The Sanderz shook his graying head in sympathy, for he too had suffered from that violent griping of the guts, as had they all, many times since they began to traverse this land. After discussion of the matter, they had decided that the problem was the dearth of decent food and the overabundance of wine. All their lives, they had been nurtured principally on the produce of their herds—milk and its products, flesh of cattle and sheep and goats. Although they sometimes traded (or raided) for dried beans or grain and the occasional pig, most of their accustomed plant foods had been wild, hunted as a matter of course, like game. The Chief could have counted upon the fingers of one hand the number of times he had tasted of wine, ere they had come to this land. Not that he and his did not like the stuff, but, Sun and Wind, it roiled the guts!
Rik had finished his business and was about to remount when Hwahltuh received the mindspeak of one of the three Cat Kindred who had been ranging ahead.
"Keep cased your bows, Brothers-of-Cats, for Whitetip comes with another Brother, a Chief!"
——«»——«»——«»——
Bili was bereft of consciousness for but a moment, but his vision remained blurred longer, and he could not immediately tell just who or what had unhorsed him and was presently pinning him down with its considerable weight. He could hear points of some description rasping on his armor and there was a hot, acrid smell close to his face.
Abruptly, his vision cleared to disclose a cavernous red pink expanse of open mouth, equipped with a rough-looking tongue of incredible width and a full complement of big white teeth, crowned by a pair of glistening fangs at least three inches in length. Bili had never seen the like, but he knew from the very presence of those fangs that it could be no other animal but that one described in the ancient bardsongs.
Confidently, he mindspoke. "You would slay your Kinsman, Cat-brother?"
The heavy body started in surprise. "You mindspeak, then, Dirtman-who-wears-steel? This is truly a land of wonders."
"I must have erred," retorted Bili. "I had supposed you of the Cat Clan. A one of the true Clan of Cats would not seek the life of a Morguhn. So you most certainly are just an animal!"
The attacker rippled a snarl and the claws rasped again across Bili's breastplate. "Whitetip is no animal, Dirtman! He is a Cat of the Sept of Sander
z. But how is he to know that you are a Cat-brother?"
After a long moment of cudgeling his memory, Bili beamed, "I will care for your kittens and nursing females, and vouchsafe you a clean death when your teeth have dulled and the pains of age rest upon you."
The crushing weight lifted from Bili, while a four-inch width of sandpaper tongue gently scraped over his sweaty face. Stiffly, he sat up and stared at this creature of bardsong and legend.
The Cat's paws were large, as was the head, and intelligence sparkled in the amber depths of the eyes. The pelt was short-furred, of a golden chestnut hue, with the ghosts of slightly darker rosettes speckling the graceful, muscle-rippling body. Whitetip stood a good nine hands at the withers and Bili estimated the weight at possibly three hundred pounds, for the Cat was big-boned, with a deep chest and forelegs much more thickly muscled than those of Treecats or lynxes. The white-tipped tail was short, its two feet or so giving him an overall length of some seven feet.
Seating himself nearby, Whitetip raised a paw to his fearsome mouth, licked it, and commenced leisurely washing his face, mindspeaking the while. "Ah, Kinsman, ever is it heartening to find a new Brother-of-Cats, especially so in such a new, strange land. But you are certainly the biggest Kinsman Whitetip has ever mindspoken . . . near nineteen hands, anyway. Are all of your Clan so large? How big is your Chief?"
"I am Chief," Bili informed the curious Cat. "I am Chief Bili, Morguhn of Morguhn."
Bili readily agreed to allow Whitetip to conduct him to his Chief, but pointed out that thanks to the big cat, he no longer had a horse. Contritely, the feline offered to find Chief Morguhn's mount and bring him back. Bili consented, though he doubted that such would come to pass, suspecting the gelding to be halfway to Kehnooryos Deskati by that time.
Therefore, he was rather surprised to see his horse trot placidly over the nearest hill less than ten minutes later, with Whitetip crouched awkwardly on the kak and two similar Cats loping along behind.
On introduction, the newcomers were disclosed to be: Lover-Of-Water, a female and three years older than Whitetip, though only some two-thirds of his size and weight; and Steelclaws, two years old and already nearly adult-size, a son out of the first litter sired by Whitetip.
After Bili had opened his mind to Clan Bard Gil Sanderz, that middle-aged warrior solemnly informed his Chief and clansmen, "All that has been mindspoken is true, Brothers. He is Morguhn of Morguhn of the Tribe of Ehlai and ruler of this land through which we now ride. But it is not so peaceful a land as we had thought. Chief Bili's stonelodge must soon be attacked by Dirtmen; he has need of every arm that can pull a bow!"
This last delighted the bored clansmen and the decision to ride with and fight for Chief Bili was unanimous. The whole of the ride to the tiny village of Geertohnee, at which the patrol had arranged to rendezvous, they laughed and joked and boasted and roared out warsongs, keeping time by clanging their saber blades against their target bosses and twanging bowstrings over helms.
Not knowing who might choose to tap his thoughts, Bili sought to bury certain of them deeply—as deeply as possible—for he knew well that he needed the help these men offered; the addition of more than a dozen expert archers was indeed a gift of Sun. But he was appalled, shocked to the very core of his being, at the appearance of these latter-day Kindred Horseclansmen! He had known, of course, that his ancestors had been short men, but he had always supposed them to have been short as Komees Hari and the treacherous Duhkos were short—very broad and big-boned and thick-thewed. Everything about the Sanderz men was small though—hands, feet, even heads—and he doubted if even the heaviest of them could possibly weigh more than sixty Ehleen kilohee. Furthermore, his new allies were undoubtedly the filthiest men he had ever seen—or smelled!
However, regardless of their heights or weights or degrees of cleanliness, they all handled and exuberantly tossed their well-kept weapons like men who had cut their teeth on such hardware. Their sabers were wide, single edged, thick-bladed, and averaged some two-and-a-half feet around the slight curve. All bore the short, powerful, composite hornbows which were a hallmark of Horseclansmen; several had light axes dangling from the pommels of their beautifully worked and highly decorated kaks, and about half of them carried odd, almost uniform pole arms a seven- or eight-foot shaft, mounting a knife-edged blade like the point of a boarspear at both ends. All the Sanderz's cuirasses were wrought of boiled leather, reinforced with strips of horn and metal, and lacquered. The helms of a few of the younger men were also of reinforced leather, but most wore steel helms of various shapes and patterns.
As for the "horses" of the clansmen, Bili thought that "ponies" would be a more accurate description of the ugly, shaggy, bigheaded little steeds. The very tallest was no more than thirteen-two and some of them stood a full hand less! But their mindspeak talents were the best Bili had ever encountered and most seemed even more intelligent than Mahvros. And their size notwithstanding, they could clear any obstruction as easily as Bili's big bay hunter; nor did they indicate strain at maintaining the stiff pace.
The kaks were works of art. The wood and bone trees, covered with the finest leather, were set atop cured sheepskins and gorgeous blankets. Every visible inch of the leather was tooled and tinted and lacquered, the outside surfaces of the high, flaring cantles and pommels set with strips, studs and hooks of brass, silver, and polished steel. Bridles were nonexistent, since the mounts were guided solely by mindspeak and knee pressure.
The heel of Sacred Sun had sunk into the line of bluish haze which was the foothills of the Kahpneezon Mountains, when Bili had Hwahltuh and his clansmen halt within the concealment afforded by the woods which flanked the ploughlands of Geertohnee. At the older Chief's command, the three Cats set out to reconnoiter the village and its environs.
Presently, Whitetip was beaming back to both Chiefs, "Five men in this place. They wear steel, but it is not the same as Chief Bili's, being small pieces on leather shirts, like the scales of a fish. Whitetip thinks they have seen or smelled you, for they have hidden their horses and strung their bows and now face you across the open space. Shall we stampede their mounts and take the men in the rear, while you attack?"
"No!" Bili hastily mindspoke. "For they are almost certainly my fighters, Cat-brother, though there should be six, not five." Then to Hwahltuh, "They are watching for me alone, so let me ride in first. I will signal you." With that, he rode out into the open.
Only the tiniest, copper-hued arc of Sacred Sun still showed above the western mountain haze when the Thoheeks and his band came within sight of Morguhn Hall. The stout little bastion lay already invested by the rebellious rabble, whose broad track the three cats and eighteen horsemen had cautiously paralleled for near two hours.
Forty yards from the main gate sat a wagon-mounted ram blazing merrily, while the slope roundabout the front and the west side of the hall was randomly littered with discarded shields, weapons, scaling ladders, and some two score arrow-quilled bodies, very few of these within fifty yards of their objective. And Bili breathed a sigh of relief. At least the initial assault had been rebuffed . . . bloodily rebuffed.
Just beyond bowshot of the walls and towers, mounted nobles were slowly and painfully reforming their heterogeneous mob for a second attack. That it was a difficult job was attested by the shouted obscenities, screams of profane rage, and the thwacks of riding whips and sword flats which were clearly audible to the watchers.
The rebels were an army in name only. They had just seen friends and neighbors and relatives suffer or die on the now gory path to those forbidding walls, and their priests and officers had yet to convince them that another sally against those bristling fortifications would result in aught save ever more wounds and deaths. Those who had for so long secretly drilled them and taught them weapons usage, they now felt, had unjustly kept from them the hard facts of warfare—the utter exhaustion and dry-mouthed terror which so weighted a man's limbs when he saw of what horrors arrows and darts and cata
pult stones were capable.
Thick black smoke roiled up from within the walls and the lowing of cattle could be plainly heard, along with the creaking of ropes and groaning of timbers as a catapult was wound and set. After a brief pause, there was a wheee-WHUNNK and a head-sized blob of burning pitch traced a high, smoke-trailing parabola across the darkening sky, to fall squarely into the milling midst of the rebel 'formation'! It was all that the priests and nobles could then do to prevent an outright rout. Wisely, they elected to form several hundred yards farther away.
Bili, Hwahltuh, Gil, and one of the Freefighters slid down from their observation point at the brushy summit of a hill. The Sanderz snorted his disgust at the quality of the men opposing them.
"Kinsman Bili, a stand of prairie grass would slow us more than cowards like those. Let us ride through them now."
But Bili shook his shaven head. "No, we are too many to just ride up to the walls, especially since it is now almost dark. My clansmen and Freefighters are expecting no more than seven riders. When they spied a party of this size, they surely would bring us under their bows. We must find a way to let them know that we are friends. Are any of your clansmen far-speakers, by chance?"
"Ask anything but that, Kinsman," groaned Hwahltuh. "I heard that that talent is common amongst the folk of some clans, but our last far-speaker went to Wind when I was yet a lad. Whitetip can far-speak, to a limited extent, but only, alas, if he knows the mind to which he is to beam."
Gil spoke up. "If there are mindspeakers in the stone lodge, why not wait until full dark and let a Cat-brother go close enough to range them?"
——«»——«»——«»——
Atop the front wall, amidst the archers and catapult crews, old Komees Djeen limped stiffly up and down, snapping and snarling at all and sundry out of his worry over the fate of Thoheeks Bili. The wagons were long since returned before even the van of the rebel host had appeared. Since Vaskos was the last man to have clapped eyes on Bili, he had suffered questioning and requestioning by the retired Strahteegos, until at length the Keeleeohstos—grumpy anyway at being bedridden by order of Master Ahlee—had bluntly inquired as to which his questioner was actually losing, his hearing or his memory. And the Lady Ahnah and Komees Hari had had to be fetched, ere the shouting and insults were done, to persuade the two officers to keep their steel cased!
