by Robert Adams
Shortly after nightfall, the three otters took their leave and waddled swiftly into the brush toward the river, the bellies of all three bulging with a surfeit of rich red venison. The two females bore, as well, strips of the deer flesh which Stehfahnah had sliced from the quarter specifically for the waiting kits in the riverbank den.
In the following days, Stehfahnah did her hunting to west and south, studiously avoiding the north. The otters’ information about the trapper had been disturbing to her. He was occupying a “den-of-dead-wood” at some indeterminate distance northward and within sight of the river.
She reflected that since it was imperative that none of the local dirtmen — the nomads’ epithet for farmers and all other folk who lived in one set place — suspect her presence, here, she had been very foolish to spring and upset so many traps without touching the baits. The single bloodstained trap might have left the impression in the trapper’s mind that the animal had managed to pull free of the cruel jaws, and if she had taken away the baits from the sprung traps and smoothed away her footprints, he just might have attributed the deliberate spoilage of his line to a possible wolverine and maybe even moved into another territory.
Now that he, through her unconcerned carelessness, was certainly aware that someone was nearby, Stehfahnah took pains to be extremely cautious in hunting and in everyday living, going so far as to forsake her warm, wind- and weatherproof lean-to for that tree crotch wherein she had spent her first few nights in these woods; though now she slept warmer and in more comfort for the two deer hides over the mattress of pine tips, and the odor of the fragrant needles went far toward masking the reek of her blanket of half-cured rabbit skins.
Fearful of being surprised at night, while sleeping, the girl kept all her weapons aloft with her and within easy reach. But the dreaded confrontation came by light of day.
On that ill-fated day, Stefahnah had, early in the morning, come across a spoor she had long sought in vain — that of one of the cattle whose ancestors had gone feral after the death of the earlier civilization, had in many areas interbred with truly wild bovines and slowly evolved into the long-horned, shaggy-coated and ill-tempered beasts known as “shaggy-bulls” and still roamed the hills and backwoods in small herds or individually.
The girl had first tracked, then stalked the huge old bull for hours, at last getting sufficiently close to drive three arrows almost to the fletchings within a palm-sized space just behind and below the massive left shoulder. After a time of roaring and stamping about, the behemoth sank suddenly to his knees and began to vomit up vast quantities of frothy blood. Then, slowly, the head came to rest on the blood-soaked ground and the mighty beast’s near-ton of hulk thumped onto his right side, chest rising and falling spasmodically, the thick legs driving the deadly cloven hooves in the final agony.
Recalling the words of the hunters of her clan, the slender girl patiently waited until the big animal had ceased any movement, until the urine and dung gushed through the death-relaxed sphincters. Not until then did she approach her stupendous kill and set herself to the long, arduous and singularly messy job ahead of her.
Alone, without an axe of any description, she had known ahead of time that she would be able to take only half the fine, thick hide, but that would be more than sufficient for her purposes . . . if she could get the heavy, unwieldy thing back to her camp.
When she had hung as much of the carcass as she could manage to hack loose high in several nearby trees, she gorged on rich, raw, bloody liver and used her thongs of deer rawhide to tie the half hide into a load she could fasten to her pack frame, with the rest of the liver, the succulent tongue and a kidney stuffed into one of the bovine’s stomachs added to the load.
It was near sunset when she stumbled, bone-weary, out of the brush and down the incline to her camp. Weaving with utter exhaustion under the heavy packload, she was just too tired to take her usual precautions or even to notice that the camp was not as she had left it.
Just as she shrugged out of the straps of the pack frame, something crashed against her temple, and Sacred Sun Itself seemed to explode inside her head. Then there was blackness.
Chapter III
For a week after Stehfahnah’s spectacular and sanguineous escape from the ferry barge, the men guarding the two kidnapped boys moved warily and in augmented force about their charges. Heeding their sister’s wise counsel and their own native cunning, however, the Horseclans boys seemed model captives, successfully giving the impression of an increasing passivity. Therefore, as seasonally hired men dropped off along the way to seek their homes or some winter employment, the boys’ guards grew fewer and far more slack.
A fortnight of travel eastward from the Great River had brought the vastly diminished caravan of wagons, pack beasts and horsemen to within two days’ journey of Pahdookahport — a true metropolis of about five thousand souls, largest river port on the western reaches of that mighty waterway called the Ohyoh River and always bustling center of the east-west trade.
Within and without the towering granite walls which protected the riverside capital of the Republic of Pahdookahport a visitor might see men of almost every race, creed and color — each attended by his hired bravos. Merchants from near and far haggled over bundles of furs, bales of hides of deer and shaggy-bull, bison and elk. A hundred or more forge fires fouled the air around the quarter of the smiths, wherein rusty or corroded metals dug from the ruins of the long-dead Ancients were reconverted to the uses of living men. Factors of the far-eastern kings, princes and archdukes sat in their guarded carriages clad in rich clothing and sipping at richer wines in arrogant disdain whilst their hordes of well-trained agents scurried hither and yon sniffing out the best of the wares of incoming caravans and barges. In other guarded carriages lolled an Ehleen or two — swarthy, big-boned men, their black hair shiny with pomade, their full lips like as not encarmined, their golden swordhilts bejeweled, the nails of their heavily beringed fingers lacquered — sneering at the “barbarians,” any not of their own race.
Urbahnos Kostanis was such a one. A native of the Kingdom of Karaleenos and scion of a noble house of that realm, he had nonetheless — once irrevocably exiled to this assignment in punishment for having killed the son of a powerful man in a duel — applied his keen mental faculties so assiduously that in the bare ten years he had lived among the barbarians he had become a very wealthy merchant and was even now exchanging letters with those who would arrange to purchase his pardon from the Royal House of Karaleenos, King Zenos and his ministers being always ready to see justice done if the price was right.
Unlike the other two Ehleenee resident in Pahdookahport — Pehtros Ziplonos of Kehnooryos Mahkedohnya and Kenos Trindis of Kehnooryos Ehlas — Urbahnos’ knowledge of the merchandise he was offered and sometimes bought was as thorough and as detailed as that of his agents. So it had been a long time since he had been deluded or cheated as his two racial peers often were.
He rendered the other two as much courtesy as their blood heritage entitled them (which was damned little, really, for both young Pehtros and the older, corpulent and flatulent Kenos were, though much darker than most of the barbarians, clearly not kath-ahrohs or Ehleenee of pure lineage, as was Urbahnos), but that was all, for he felt that any man so stupid and stiff-neckedly arrogant as to not learn every facet of the trade or profession which earned him a livelihood was fully deserving of all misfortunes which chanced to befall him.
Puffing at his bejeweled pipe, Urbahnos snorted silent derision. For all that Kenos had been in Pahdookahport nearly twice as long as had he, the old fool still could not even tell the difference between a fisher fur and a mink. While just last year that young ass Pehtros had paid good, silver thrahkmehee for several bales of shaggy-bull hides (from which extra-heavy leather the best boots, bucklers and other war gear were fashioned) which, when opened for repacking prior to shipment, proved to be mostly poor-quality horsehides, interspersed with thin sheets of hardwood to give weight and s
olidity to the bales.
The full lips of the stocky Karaleenosian twisted into a thin, crooked smile at the memory of how the effete, stripling-slender Pehtros had howled. Naturally, an assassin had been retained to put paid to the account of the larcenous agent who had arranged sale and purchase of the spurious bales, but while the barbarian’s well-earned death salved wounded pride and served clear notice to others, his corpse and hovel yielded up precious few of the Mahkedohnyan silver pieces.
Urbahnos snorted yet again. And the ninny would, had he not been there to advise, have sent his own well-known bodyguards to take revenge upon the unwashed flesh of the scoundrelly agent, which action would likely have brought down the wrath of the duke upon not just Pehtros but himself and Kenos, as well.
Observing that the barge he had been eying was now securely moored and that slaves were manhandling into place a broad ramp from deck down to wharf, Urbahnos dismounted from his carriage, shifted his jewel-hilted slashing sword rearward to make for easier walking and, flanked and trailed by four of his scarred, well-armed bodyguards, set his booted feet to the slimy cobblestones of Dock Street.
As the usual dockside crowd of slave stevedores, boatmen, agents, pimps, thieves and idlers from the town, above, grew denser, the largest of Urbahnos’ bodyguards — and Nahseer was large by any standards, towering almost two full meters from pink-soled foot to shaven, dark-brown pate, with a big-boned frame which carried little fat but at least one hundred and thirty kilos of rolling muscle covered with a scarred and callused skin the shade of an old saddle — took the lead, his bulk clearing the way for his employer as the metal-shod prow of an ocean-going warship cleaves the tossing waves.
In the lee of the docked barge, a few swings of Nahseer’s long, brawny arms cleared the foot of the boarding ramp and the party ascended to the deck, whereon the captain, himself, waited to greet the well-known and thoroughly respected Lord Urbahnos.
In the small, cramped cabin, the Karaleenosian sipped once, for courtesy’s sake, at the contents of the copper cup served to him — that vile-flavored distillate of various grains known as “hwiskee” and as much savored by the barbarians as if it had been a decent, civilized vintage wine — then got down to business, speaking the barge captain’s drawling dialect of Mehrikan with the ease and fluency born of long practice.
“To judge by your deck cargo, Hynz, someone must be building a new wharf or refooting an old one. Is timber all you’re carrying, this trip?”
The burly bargeman sighed gustily and shrugged. “Damn near. Lord Urbahnos, damn near. It’s the dang duke. He wants to build him a new pier and all up river, for to take some of the pressure off’n the ol’ port, here, and wouldn’t nothin’ do but bal’ cypruses clear from down to the drownded lands.”
Urbahnos raised his carefully trimmed eyebrows. “You went that far south, friend Hynz?”
The captain rumbled a chuckle and shook his balding head. “Aw, hell no, Lord Urbahnos, only far as Tworiver-town. Some of your kinfolk — Southern Ehleenee — they brung the logs up far as Mehmfisz, and Ol’ Djordj Gaibruhlz he brung ’em inta Tworivertown and then I laded ’em there. You knows how ’tis, Lord Urbahnos, them Southron Ehleenee, they sure lawd won’t come no futher north than they jest has to.”
The Karaleenosian did know how it was, although he really could not comprehend just why the so-called Ehleenee of the vast Southern Kingdom felt cause for being so standoffish, since there had been so shamefully much intermarriage and interbreeding with the indigenous barbarians in those lands south and west of Karaleenos that the folk of that kingdom were all but barbarians. Only in Karaleenos (and, to a lesser degree, in Kehnooryos Ehlas) were kath-ahrohs — Ehleenee of pure lineage — any more in numbers than a rapidly dwindling minority.
“Then this timber is your only cargo?”
The barge captain nodded. “Aye, Lord Urbahnos“, only save fer a dozen barr’ls of hooch, barley hwiskee it be.”
The Ehleen repressed a gag; corn hwiskee was bad enough, God knew, but the distillates of rye and barley were positively nauseous to a civilized man of refined tastes.
“But,” the big bargeman added, with a grin that showed brownish, rotting teeth, “I got me some news I bet will interest you a mite, Lord Urbahnos.” Then he leaned back and applied himself to his hwiskee, resuming his conversation only when his guest had stacked four broad, silver thrahkmehee on the dirt-shiny table between them.
“Ol’ Shifty Stooahrt, the plains trader, he be laid up in Tworivertown, and he won’t be a-doin’ no more plains trading, neither, not never again. Seems as he and his train got them a chance to catch them some Horseclans kids — a gal and two lil boys.”
Urbahnos leaned forward. “The boys — blonds? Redheads? How old?”
Captain Hynz treated him to another rotten grin. “Now, I jest knowed thet would tickle your fancy, Lord Urbahnos. The gal, she’s the one what crippled pore Stooahrt — took his own dang boot knife and cut the tendon ahind his knee, she did, then jumped right off the cable barge ’tween Traderstown and Tworiver, a-draggin’ the pore feller after her by his pore balls! Then when they both was in the river, she shoved him to where a oarblade crushed up his shoulder so bad the doc had to take the whole dang arm off him.
“But the lil bitch got what was a-comin’ to her — leastways, mosta who-all was there thinks she drownded in the river, for all nobody ever foun’ her body.
“But the train’s still got them two boys — one blond and one redheaded, one about twelve and the other about ten — and they only ’bout two three days out from Pahdookahport, too, comin’ in by land, crost the Old High Road.”
Calmly lifting his own cup of the abominable tipple, the Ehleen meshed his keen mind into high gear. Fair-skinned blond and red-haired slave boys brought high prices in all the Ehleen lands of the east, especially were the slaves prepubescent and high-spirited — and in that last regard, he need have no fear if the captives were truly of Horseclans stock. Of course, the men who now held the boys were well aware of these facts, too, and would consequently demand and likely receive a stiff price for their “merchandise,” especially if they went onto the quayside slave block for open bidding by Urbahnos and the other traders, factors and merchants.
However, the Ehleen mused, should an enterprising man act upon privately obtained information and ride out to meet the incoming train . . . hmmm . . .
* * *
Unbeknownst to the two men closed in the tiny cabin, a sailing barge from upriver had furled sails, put out long sweeps and rowed in to berth on the opposite side of the pier. For all that she bore a small amount of miscellaneous cargo, this vessel was basically a passenger boat, but a single short glance at the passengers who lined the rail of the newcomer as the boatmen made bow and stern lines fast to ironbound bollards was enough to send most of the docksider pimps and petty criminals off to seek better-heeled or less dangerous prey.
Within a cabin of the passenger boat, a long-limbed, fair-haired man sat brooding, his big hands clasped about the well-worn hilt of a fine broadsword, his blue-gray eyes seeing not the greasy, soot-stained wooden wall before him but rather the rolling, green leas of the land of his birth, a land now forever lost to him, the County of Geerzburk.
At a tentative rapping on the closed door, Martuhn of Geerzburk gave over his bitter reveries and turned his head to face the closed portal.
“Come.”
At the basso rumble, the battered door swung inward to reveal a stocky, short-legged man known to all the world simply as Wolf. Hideously scarred was Wolfs face, by both blade and flame. Neither ear was intact, and a piece of waxed leather covered the empty socket which once had held the mate to his ebon right eye, while his hairless pate resembled an eroded and deep-furrowed hilltop. The plain steel helm which normally covered the bald head was presently held in the crook of Wolfs right arm, the hand of which had long ago been lopped off at the wrist. The arm was tightly laced into a leather cuff, to the tip of which was affixed a heavy kn
ob of steel.
Wolf fingered his nonexistent forelock, executing a short, jerky bow. “M’lud count, the boat done docked up and they’s a-shoving the planks out. Duke Gutly’s likely a-waiting.”
Count Martuhn smiled thinly. “Wolf, old friend, you’d best watch your tongue, else our employer may have it and your ugly head, as well. Surely you know that there is no man so proud and hypersensitive as a new-made noble? I like the corpulent old pirate no better than do you, but he pays well . . . and punctually, if you will recall.”
The nobleman arose, having to stoop in the low cabin. He was armed — a corselet of finest Pitzburk plate, worn and nicked but polished to a sheen, short kilt of scale mail, arm and elbow guards and the ornate greaves which were the mark of an infantry officer of the far-away Middle Kingdoms. Not until Count Martuhn had buckled on his broad, steel-mounted dagger belt did he settle the even broader leathern baldric onto his right shoulder and snap the links of the sheathed broadsword to it so that the weapon occupied its familiar place at his left hip. That done, he lifted from the table his fine but battered helm and turned to stoop lower and to the side so his height and bulk might pass through the cabin door.
By the time the nobleman-become-Freefighter came on deck, his young ensign, Flairtee, and his six big, burly sergeants had shouted and chivvied and beaten the five dozen recruits into a sort of formation. One brief glance at these fruits of his eastern recruiting trip was all that the exiled officer could bear — thieves, certainly, rapists, likely as not, murderers, more than one he was sure, broken men, outlaws, brigands; all men who, for one reason or another, had found it expedient to put a good thousand miles of territory betwixt them and their homelands.
