Horseclans Odyssey

by Robert Adams

  With men, animals and equipment at last ashore, Duke Alex saw the wagons and carts assembled and loaded, the teams hitched and the men in column. Then he sent a strong advance guard of mounted men ahead and set out along the beach, bound for the track that Duchess Ann’s people had sworn would serve to place his army over the bluff line and within a short march of Tworivercity.

  At the place where that narrow, winding track mounted upward, the van met the battered remnants of the advance guard, most of them wounded and only a few still mounted. After hearing their tale, Duke Alex realized his error in sending cavalry into such ugly, broken terrain and dispatched, instead, three companies of light infantry, stiffened by a detachment of his marines, to scout the route of advance.

  The wounded he sent back to the beachhead, to be rowed out to a ship and returned to Traderstownport. With them went a nobleman messenger with orders to come back with reinforcements, supplies to replace those lost or ruined during the landing and more horses. Then, after allowing time for the slower infantry to gain an interval from the main body, he advanced.

  Captain Barnz was the fifth-eldest son of the Archduke of Tehrawtburk — a principality that lay a month or more east and north of Pahdookahport — and had had to swing steel for a living for most of his life. From his beginning as a pink-cheeked ensign in the condotta of a renowned captain, he had advanced to the command of a full regiment of light troops — six companies of infantry, two troops of lancers and a large support company of artisans and the like; a total of nearly a thousand men.

  He had enjoyed a fair measure of success in recent years, choosing the proper contracts and managing to emerge from each of them with his full wages and usually a bit of loot besides. Shrewd investments in his homeland had by now assured him a comfortable retirement whenever age or wounds necessitated such, so now he fought for the sheer love of campaigning, and a large part of his profits went to recruiting the best men and officers and fitting them all out with the finest in weapons and equipment. Such had become his fame that he had not had to seek out contracts for years, while younger sons of noble lineage came from as far away as the Middle Kingdoms — far to the east, on the shores of the salt sea — to vie for places in his companies.

  Rather than detailing the dangerous chore to a lieutenant, he was presently leading these three companies with a spirit of vengeance. It had been one of his troops of lancers that had been chewed up while serving as advance guards, and he meant to see blood for it. He did, more than he would have preferred.

  They had marched more than a mile from the beach, the track mounting ever higher, the scale-shirted men sweating, envying the officers and sergeants their horses. For all that the drums were covered and mute and the column proceeded at a route step, every man was a blooded veteran and knew that he was in enemy-held territory and in imminent danger. They marched with targets strapped and gripped, one dart ready in hand and the other five loose in the quiver. The archers, every fifth man, marched along with their infantry bows — heavier and longer-ranging than the cavalry horn-bow — an arrow nocked and an additional two shafts in the fingers of the bow hand. The officers and sergeants rode with bared blades.

  Even so, the wickedly planned and well-executed ambush took a heavy toll of Captain Barnz’s prize companies.

  In a place where generations of smugglers had improved upon and shortened the former game trail through the expedient of digging a cut through a knob and deeply ditching on each side to prevent erosion from restoring the natural contours, a deadly chorus of twanging bowstrings and the hissing hum of whirling slings heralded the descent of a shower of death from within the woods atop the slope to the right.

  Looking back to see dozens of his men flopping and screaming or lying still, sprawled unnaturally in the dust, Barnz waved his long sword horizontally and roared to his subordinates, “Ditch to the right flank. Get them into it, the dartmen. Get our archers into the left-flank ditch and get them returning fire at the bastards.” But then, as the first men to obey his orders hurled themselves into the brushy ditches, Barnz and those men received another painful surprise.

  Dartman Seth of Libberyburk had just been remarking to his marching companion, Dee Lainee, that the brush-filled ditches would make splendid habitats for snakes. But now Dartman Dee lay in the roadway, coughing out his life with an arrow transfixing his throat, and Seth forgot the possibility of snakes diving into the protection offered by that same ditch.

  Seth began to scream, however, even before his body struck the ground. He screamed with the white-hot agony of some something piercing through his leather trousers into and then through the flesh and muscles of his thigh. And his was but one in a veritable chorus of screams and shrieks from up and down the lengths of both roadside ditches.

  Those men unhurt cleared away the brush to find that it concealed a thick sowing of solid wooden stakes, the sharp ends of which had apparently, from the look and the stink, been soaked in fermenting dung.

  With at least half of his command dead or wounded from arrow or slingstone or the devilish stakes, Captain Barnz halted his survivors where they lay. Let the main column catch up with him. His contract with Duke Alex committed him and his regiment to siege warfare not the steady and costly attrition of counter-guerrilla combat.

  But the noble nincompoop in command of the detachment of Duke Alex’s marines profanely insisted that the wounded be left behind for the main column to collect if the enemy had not slowly butchered them by that time, while the hale men pressed forward into the forbidding country ahead. When Barnz, no less profanely, had made it clear that where he and his much reduced three companies were was where they were going to stay until the arrival of the main force, the fuming young officer formed up his detachment and went marching up the road. No one ever saw any of that detachment again.

  * * *

  That night, in one among the labyrinth of bluff caves, Count Martuhn squatted, his eyes smarting at the smoke of the fire before him but showing a rare grin withal.

  “We’ve slowed them and stung them, which is about all that I aimed for to start We just lack the strength to do more.”

  Nahseer nodded. “Were all the lands between here and the city broken, hilly and wooded with but a single, narrow track, we might continue to nibble away at them until they broke and mutinied or, at least, lost heart for a protracted war. But once they are through the saddle there, it were suicide to attempt opposition. We are far too few and mostly unmounted, and their horsemen would ride us down at will.”

  When, shortly after he and the boys rode in with Wolf, the Zahrtohgahn had lowered his mindshield that Martuhn might survey his training and experience, the new-made Count of Twocityport had quickly realized just what a treasure had fallen into his hands and had willingly entrusted the delaying action to his newest lieutenant, leaving him and Sir Wolf free to attend to the multitudinous minutiae attendant to preparing the fortress and its garrison for a siege of uncertain length. But when, after the first messenger to deliver word that the enemy fleet was standing off the beach below the bluffs was not followed by another, Martuhn had taken a small escort and ridden up to the cave that had been marked on the maps to serve as Nahseer’s headquarters.

  The Zahrtohgahn had simply said, “I sent you word that they were about to land, my captain, and they landed, although we made that landing difficult, time-consuming and costly to them. But nothing untoward happened after that and I had suffered no casualties, so I could see no reason to afflict you with a horde of riders who could only have told you that our affairs here were proceeding as planned. Did I displease you, sir?”

  “You displease me?” Martuhn shook his head vehemently. “Anything but, my good Lieutenant Nahseer. But it has been so long since I have had any officer save Sir Wolf who was capable of thinking on his feet and properly handling a protracted action without seeking my help or advice that it is difficult for me to reaccustom myself to one such as you.”

  Changing the subject, he asked, �
�And how are our little nomads faring? I was loath to send boys so young on this mission. Wouldn’t have, had not you and Wolf been so insistent.”

  Nahseer smiled. “Bahb and Djoh, for all their tender years, are the best archers I command and better field soldiers than men two and three times their ages. They both have shown a quick, sure grasp of tactical principles, and the fact that they are telepaths, as am I, allows me far better view over and control of an ambuscade than any nontelepathic commander could have.”

  Martuhn nodded. “I know that feeling well, my friend. The fact that Wolf and I can communicate silently and over a distance has been vitally useful on more than one occasion over the years.

  “But getting back to the subject that brought me up here, you do plan to withdraw before the enemy reaches the plain and traps you with cavalry? I could ill afford to lose so many archers and missilemen out of my garrison at the citadel.”

  “And I,” replied Nahseer, “have no slightest desire to die trying to digest a lance point. For all the joy it has given me to once again command warriors independently, when the van of the Traderstown army comes within sight of the gap, my rear guard and I will assuredly spur for the citadel; the main body should be there by then. I doubt me not that the wagons bearing those engines that served us so well are at the gates even as we speak.”

  Martuhn, much relieved of mind and feeling even more blessed in Wolfs finding of the huge, tough and intelligent Zahrtohgahn, rested men and horses through the rest of the night and set out for Twocityport with the first light of the new day. While he would have enjoyed the acceptance of his new subordinate’s offer to stay and watch the last big ambush of the enemy, he had ever been a slave to duty and he knew that there was much yet to be done in the citadel.

  Chapter X

  Stehfahnah awoke shivering lying on the floor beside the cold hearth, but her first instinctive movements set off such waves of blinding red agony in her head that she sank sobbing back onto the icy floor of packed earth. It was some time before the twin forces of her will and the cold enveloping her naked body could force her to risk again the crippling effect of that hellish pain. And it was even longer before she could will herself to rise to a huddled sitting position, the lowest part of her back pressed against the mortared stones of the hearth, her arms hugging her small breasts, rocking and moaning softly with the rhythm of the splitting pains in her head, even while her white teeth chattered and the rest of her shuddered with the agony of the cold.

  Finally, after what seemed to be eons of time wherein a third force, that of raging thirst, commenced to drive her, she commenced a snail-like crawl to where the water skin hung. It required every ounce of her strength to pull her body up onto her wobbling legs, but the first cool gush of water into the dry desert her mouth and throat had become revived and revitalized her to a great extent, though it did nothing to alleviate the pain.

  She wisely decided not to try walking yet. Rather did she sink back as gently as possible onto her haunches, then crawled over to the bed and the precious warmth of its thick blankets. Hardly had she wrapped herself against the cold than consciousness again left her and awareness of the pain with it.

  Thump, came the loud noise. Thump thump thump, THUMP.

  Stehfahnah slowly came awake, dragged back to awareness by the insistent thumpings. Then the adrenalin rush of fear brought her upright on the bed. The man, he was trying to break down the door!

  But a quick glance at the battered door showed it unmoving, and even in the gloom of the hut she could see that the steel spearhead and at least a foot of hardwood shaft still projected from it.

  The pain still throbbed in her head, but it was become a bearable agony. The renewed thirst was not bearable, however, nor was the aching of her bladder.

  THUMP, thump thump thump thump!

  She crawled back over to the water skin and again pulled herself erect. Once she was upon her feet, her legs seemed far more willing to hold her than the last time. She greedily guzzled the tepid water, then allowed some of the stuff to cascade over her face and chest. This proved even more of a refreshment than had the drink.

  In no way willing to go out the door naked and unarmed when the man might be waiting just beyond it, she half-squatted over the ashes on the hearth and emptied her aching bladder.

  THUMP THUMP THUMP! Then a splintering crash from the rear room of the cabin. Arising from the hearth, Stehfahnah lifted down one of her own finely balanced horn-tipped spears from a wall rack and, lightfootedly and silent as her condition allowed, she approached the closed door leading into the shed, her weapon ready for either stab or throw.

  Bracing herself for immediate combat, she threw open the door and drew back her spear arm, then sank back against the frame of the door, pouring out her tension in a flood of tears and laughter.

  Working as a team, the mare and the little ass were backed up to the outer wall of the shed and were well on the way to kicking out a section of it. But at sight of the girl, the mare ceased to flail at the wall. She mindspoke petulantly.

  “Well, what did you expect us to do, twolegs female? Starve or die of thirst?”

  “You’d hardly starve, horse sister — the male twolegs fed and watered you both last night.”

  The little mare snorted angrily and stamped a forehoof. “You are wrong, twolegs. This is the second sun since the cruel twolegs male has seen to our needs. There is no more grain, no more hay and no more water. I first tried to reach your mind but I could not, so there remained nothing more to do except free myself. Will you now feed us? Will you give us grain and hay and water? Or are you truly as uncaring as the other twolegs?”

  Setting aside her spear, but keeping it near to hand just in case, she emptied the second, larger water skin which hung near the door to the horse shed into the section of hollowed-out log that served as a trough, tried to lift a sack of grain and pour the feed bucket full as she had watched the man so often do, but ended by scooping out the grain a double handful at the time. While the mare and the ass avidly munched the grain, she gathered an armful of dried grass from the corner pile and dumped it in the wicker rack.

  “Are you now satisfied that I am not as the cruel twolegs male, dear horse sister?” inquired Stehfahnah.

  Her sarcasm was lost on the mare. “I never truly thought that you were, clanswoman, but I was so very hungry and in need of water and . . .”

  But another message beamed into Stehfahnah’s open receptive mind. “We all thought you dead, twolegs sister. We could not reach your mind, so we thought the male twolegs had slain you when he thrust his big, long, pointed stick through the moving-dead-wood at you.” The girl recognized the mind-speak of the female otter, Mother-of-Many-Many.

  “Where is the male twolegs, my sister?” she demanded. “Is he near to this place?”

  “He is in many places,” the otter answered. “After The Bear-Killer slew the twolegs, he ate the best parts, laid up for one sun, then went away. Then the eaters-of-old-kills came and ate and bore pieces of him away to their dens. What is left of him lies where The-Bear-Killer dragged it, in a copse near the side of the water.

  “But you would not want to eat of it now, sister. It is old carrion and stinking. Wait, I will catch you a good fish.”

  Scarcely able to believe that she was really free of the man, the girl moved to the door, used the same cudgel to knock loose the bar and swung it wide, letting a wealth of golden sunlight in to flood the fetid dimness of the tiny cabin.

  Just at the verge of the clearing, she could see the sleek, brown form of Mother-of-Many-Many moving toward the river with the humping scuttle which was the gait of otters on land.

  When she had assured herself that nothing threatened her from without, she went back inside and searched until she found her boots and clothing, for despite the sunlight there was a distinct nip in the outer air. Dressed for the first time since the man had captured her, she took the monogrammed dirk from where it hung from a hook on the man’s belt and
reaffixed it in its proper place on her own belt. Then she set about worrying the steel-bladed spear out of the door.

  Before she left, she drained the smaller water skin into the trough in the horse shed, then slung both skins over her shoulder and headed for the river. By the time she had rinsed out and refilled the two skins, the sun had sufficiently warmed so that she suffered scant discomfort when she stripped and swam briefly in the river. Its waters were bitingly cold a bare two hands beneath the surface, but she felt a driving compulsion to lave the stink of the man from her body.

  For all her wiry strength, Stehfahnah Steevuhnz soon discovered that she simply could not carry both filled skins at once, and, while making the two trudging trips, she was considering fashioning a small travois from one of the man’s drying frames; for, given the wealth of skins and hides, supplies and gear to which she was now heir, there would be no need to kill animals except for food, even if she found it necessary to winter here.

  Then she thought of the ass, once the man’s and now hers. For all his minuscule size, the little beast was amazingly strong, capable — so the man had once assured her — of bearing the carcass of a full-grown buck deer, which in life had weighed more than the ass. He would be perfect for bearing back the filled water skins, in future.

  She had just rehung the larger water skin when Mother-of-Many-Many humped through the open door, bearing in her sharp white teeth a silvery, feebly flopping fish a third as long as her own sinuous body; behind her humped the. larger Killer-of-Much-Meat-in-Water, his own teeth impaling a big catfish, swollen with roe.

  Fish of any description had ever been classed as a treat by Horseclansfolk. After a week of subsisting on the man’s hideous stews and half-burned, half-raw venison and rabbits, Stehfahnah fairly drooled at sight of the offerings of her otter friends.