A Woman of the Horseclans

XV

Hot and furious words had flown between Elder Elijah Claxton and Captain-of-dragoons Roger Gorman in the blood-red wake of Tim Krooguh’s assaults upon the farmer-guards, The Elder had demanded instant delivery of the Horseclans boy, at the same time announcing his intention of seeing the “Devil’s spawn” slowly whipped to death for the edification of his, the Elder’s, “flock.”

The captains refusal had been flat, unequivocal and most obscenely worded, whereupon the wild-eyed old man had ordered the assembled farmers to take the boy by force. This very unwise order had resulted in several more wounded farmers and one dead one. It also had resulted in Roger and his men seizing anything they considered a weapon, including the precious, irreplaceable rifles, to forestall any recurrences.

But even with his teeth drawn, Elder Elijah Claxton still growled ferociously, demanding that all of the easterners forthwith quit the Abode of the Chosen of God. That had been just a short time before the Elder was made aware that an unknown—but, presumably quite large—number of Horse-clansmen had already run off most of the pastured cattle and sheep captured or slain the herdsmen and some hunters who had had the had luck to be out at the wrong time, and were offering to trade their captives and booty for their little kinsman.

Had Claxton begged, or even politely requested, that the boy be exchanged then and them, Roger would probably have complied, since such would have gone far toward defusing a definitely explosive situation. But on the Elder’s arrogant demand that the boy be at once taken out and exchanged for men Roger did not know, did not want to know and cared for about as much as for so many dried-out horse buns, the old soldiers hackles rose and he replied in a firm negative.

He took great pleasure in adding to the refusal a bluntly worded suggestion that the venerable Elder Elijah Claxton publicly perform upon himself a physiologically impossible sexual act. At this, the raging old man ordered his god to strike down Captain Gorman with a bolt of lightning, and, when this event did not immediately occur, he fell on the ground in a raving, foaming-mouthed fit; so Roger had him fettered and thrown into the other slave wagon.

From that day, Roger and his force were in command, easily exercising undisputed control of the besieged Abode, everyone and everything within it. Having learned a bloody lesson at the hands of the hard-faced professional soldiers and bereft of the guidance of their hereditary leader, the sullen farmers did as they were told.

However, on that first day, by the time Roger was ready to take out the boy and, he hoped, have a meeting with the chief, the small knot of mounted Horseclansmen was nowhere to be seen. Nor had any of the farmers he had driven out at swordpoint to find the nomad warriors—not wishing to risk the lives of any of his own troopers or officers—ever yet returned.

Some half a moon after Behtiloo Hansuhn of Krooguh had departed the clan camp, an excited herdboy on a lathered horse came pounding through camp and up to the chief yurt, flung himself from out of his saddle and ran up the steps. Moments later, Chief Sami and his subchiefs were saddling quickly available horses, mindcalling others and bawling for their gear. Mounted and arrayed in their showy best, they all rode out headed west.

“And so,” said Chief Gil Kabuht of Kabuht, his crookedly healed nose affecting his speech adversely, “when we had heard the old lady out, we all agreed that there was naught for it but to ride. My son’s second wife is a Krooguh, as you know, and there still are pledges of marriage between our two clans, of course, and blood has always been thicker than water.

“Now, true, Clan Kabuht is not so large and wealthy as is Clan Krooguh, but then Clan Danyuhlz, Clan Esmith and Clan Morguhn are here, too; they came immediately, they had heard the old lady’s tale, so we number near sixscore sabers among us all. Nor will there be a limit on the time we can stay. Brother Sami, for our clans march only two or three days behind us. So treat us here to a good old-fashioned feast of fine fat Dirtman beef and mutton, then let’s get busy at putting paid to the former owners of that meat, hey?”

During the very night of that feast, a Kambuhl clansman rode a trembling, heaving, foam-streaked horse into the Krooguh camp to announce that Chief Bili Kambuhl of Kambuhl had been visited by Chiefs-widow Behtiloo Hansuhn of Krooguh and was even now on the march with all the warriors of the main clan, plus those of no less than three septs. The messenger, who was every bit as spent as his nearly foundered horse, estimated that Clan Kambuhl would be arrived from the north in two days or less and opined that Chief Bili just might be a wee bit put out should the party start before he and his clansmen came.

“Now how in hell could Grandmother be in two places at the same time?” Chief Sami demanded to know. “How could she appeal to you Kambuhls and to the Danyuhlzes, Kabuhts, Morguhns and the Esmiths separately and all within only a few days?”

The Kambuhl clansman shook his head slowly, tiredly. “I only do the bidding of my chief, Chief Sami. Ask your questions of him; he’ll be here soon enough, I’ll warrant.”

But before even the vanguard of the Kambuhls could appear on the horizon, up from the south, driving their skinny herds before them, came Clans Linszee and Sanderz. Between both clans, they numbered only forty-six warriors; nonetheless, they were true descendants of the Sacred Ancestors and were fairly burning to avenge the blood of murdered Kindred.

Sami Krooguh brought most of his own warriors back to his clan camp for a much-needed rest and continued the encirclement of Three-House with the fresh and eager men of the other clans, all under the nominal command of war-wise Hwahlis Hansuhn of Krooguh, with such other chiefs and subchiefs as happened to be there to assist him.

With so many sabers and bows now behind them, Hwahlis, Buhd and the rest saw that the lines were drawn tighter, though the men of the assembled clans rapidly learned deepest respect for the droning projectiles thrown by the smoke-lances that could maim or slay a man or a horse at half a mile or more.

By day, the nomad warriors wormed their way in on their bellies, close enough to fire the fields of ripening grain. Twice in the first week after the reinforcement of Clan Krooguh, soot-blackened men on dark-colored horses swept in close enough on moonless or cloudy nights to loose flight after deadly flight of arrows to sweep the tiers of long porches and stockade platforms of the sentinels who manned them.

On other nights, Horseclan drums throbbed and boomed, bagpipes droned and wailed, hunting horns blatted, men shouted at intervals and screeched clan warcries, while the prairiecats raised their hideous, unearthly, yowling screams from sundown until dawn. And at any moment, by day or by night, a single fire arrow could be expected to arc up from some sheltered point to thud into one of the palisade logs, the gates or over the stockade palings and in among the parked wagons.

The length of the shallow valley along the rill was become but a single vast encampment, with the herds spread out for actual miles on either side. And still they came! Clans Daiviz, Kehlee and Rabs arrived together from the southwest, with a total of ninety warriors; Clans Bahrtuhn and Duhgliz with fifty-six; Rohz and Oneel and Higinz between them counted over a hundred more ready blades.

A stray caravan of traders accompanied Clans Kahrtuh and Baikuh, and their pigs of metals were most welcome to the hard-working smiths of the various clans. Soon booths were set up and a note of gaiety was added, though anyone could clearly perceive that this was no ordinary clans gathering, not with the constant comings and goings of fully armed and often mounted warriors, not with forge fires glowing, sending up showers of scintillating sparks by day and by night as well, not with the occasional bearing in of a dead or gravely wounded clansman from the scene of the siege, to the east, at Three-House.

Because the graze was becoming sparse and the game was now nonexistent, the council of chiefs decided to move the huge, sprawling camp closer to their theater of military operations, and over a period of hectic days marked by incredible amounts of unbelievable confusion, this was at last accomplished.

Even as they moved the camp and herds, however, more Kindred clans made their appearance; all claiming to have been fired by the words of old Behtiloo Hansuhn of Krooguh. Some were entire clans with their herds, others were war parties of warriors, maiden-archers, prairiecats and spare horses with pack trains. Another caravan of traders wandered in just in time to replenish the flagging supplies of metals and good eastern-made wines and hwiskee.

And on a day, two lone men rode in from due west. One of them was of advanced years, and a tooled-leather harp case was strapped across his back. The second man was much bigger and looked to be of no more than early middle years; he was armed and accoutered as a Horseclans warrior, and he bestrode a big, handsome red-bay stallion.

As the two men’s mounts ambled into the fringes of the camp, a subchief of Clan Kahrtuh recognized the younger, bigger, war-equipped man.

“Uncle Milo!” he breathed softly, then he wheeled his mare about and set off for the circle of chief yurts at her best gallop.

Captain-of-dragoons Roger Gorman came running at the first call of the lookout and the sentries on the palisade platforms, buckling on his scale shirt as he ran. There had been the unmistakable signs and sounds of the movements of large numbers of mounted men out yonder, all through the preceding night, and he had been dead certain of and prepared his group for a dawn attack in force.

But when he reached the ground level, no massed formations of mounted clansmen were in sight, though of course any number might still be concealed by the pea-soup-thick ground mist out there. Rather, four horsemen were moving slowly and deliberately in the direction of the palisades main gate.

“Roger,” said Lenny Knapp, his senior lieutenant and oldest living friend, unless I went blind overnight, that man in the lead there, that be Big Bob Fairbanks, cap’n of Old Homer Potts’ caravan guards And that sum resembles Old Homer hisself, behint him, too. I dunno who them other two is, prob’ly Horseclansmen. Chiefs, by the way they’re gussied up and all.”

Thirty yards from the gate, the mounted party drew rein. The scale-shirted man in the lead snapped up the cheekpieces of his open-faced helmet and slid up the nasal. Drawing his long, straight-bladed sword and grasping it by the point, he began to wag it at arms length over his head.

“Sword Truce!” snapped Roger and Lenny together. Then the captain turned and roared at no one in particular, “Bring me my horse, and one for Lieutenant Knapp, at the double, you fuckers! Immediately we’re mounted, unbar that main gate and swing it open … wide!”

When the two Freefighter captains had exchanged swords, kissed the Sacred Steel and engaged in the other elaborate mutual formalities that inaugurated a binding truce on the field of battle under the terms of the eastern-based Sword Cult, Fairbanks said solemnly. “Roger, Lenny, yawl done got yourse’fs in a shitstorm for sure, this time. Yawl may not know, probly don’t, but it’s more Horseclans warriors than anybody’s ever seed at one time out there.” He waved at the mist-shrouded fields. “It’s thousands of ’em, hear me, from near thirty diffrunt clans. They all done come here for to git the bugtits whut kilt them kids. I shore hope to hell it won’t you and yourn done thet, Roger.”

Captain Roger Gorman shook his head. “No, I had no part in that sorry business. Bob, nor did any of my men: those poor lads were dead before we got to them. That demented old braying ass Elijah Claxton and his prize crew of village idiots killed those boys, then mutilated the bodies, like the savages they are. If Claxton had had his vicious way, he’d have had the one boy we captured tortured to death in public, for amusement, I suppose. But I clapped the old ninny in irons and took over his dungheap yonder.”

One of the two Horseclansmen, the older, more flamboyantly attired one, moved his horse forward and spoke without preamble or introduction. “Chief of scale shirts, I have just mindspoken with my son, Tim. He says that you are a brave, decent and honorable warrior, and that you and yours have treated him well, shedding blood to protect him from those who would have harmed him. Release him now and I will spare you your lives.”

Roger sighed in relief. “Right gladly, my lord Chief. I’d have made just that trade weeks ago, but none of the riders I sent out to find you and offer it ever came back. But come you all; we are Truce brothers, for the nonce. Let us all ride in and sip some fine honey-wine and talk these matters through in comfort.”

It was decided that those women and girls of the Chosen not already spoken for by womanless troopers of Roger’s force would be divided among the assembled clans, and so too would the babes and children. Because blood cried out for blood, the Elder Elijah Claxton would be executed before the gathered clansfolk, a case of letting the chief take most of the guilt.

The council of chiefs, augmented by the recent arrivals of three more clans, had at first demanded the lives of every male of the Chosen over the age of thirteen, but Chief Morai, Uncle Milo, had talked them around.

The plains trader, Homer Potts, had bid quite good prices—to be paid partly from presently available goods and partly from goods he would bring in next spring—for the men and the bigger boys from the Abode of the Righteous, for while the Horseclansfolk had no use for male slaves, most of the peoples to the east, beyond the Great River, certainly did. If all else failed, Potts knew that he could earn a two- or three-hundred-percent profit from selling the big, strong, healthy farmers to the captains of the river galleys, who were in constant need of fresh oar slaves. And when Milo had the trader detail the lives of such row slaves for the council of chiefs, all agreed that immediate death would be far kinder … had any of them felt any degree of kindness toward the wretched murderers of children.

The chiefs had also wanted to burn Three-House to the ground but again Milo dissuaded them. He had talked long on the matter with the Freefighter officers and the traders. The two plains traders had been quick to comprehend the advantages to them and their ilk of a trade center located at the very edge of the Sea of Grass, rather than weeks away by wagon. With no more danger to be feared from the Horseclans, Roger and his men could dismantle the stockade, build more houses and soon have a new trade town—a convenience for both traders and nomads.

Before the clans dispersed, Chief Milo Morai sought out the Krooguh clan bard. “The old woman who brought about this unprecedented gathering of our Kindred—sing me of her.”

Halfway through the many verses, Uncle Milo slapped his bootleg and exclaimed, “Yes! The little pregnant girl that Tim Krooguh, Djahn Staiklee’s boy, took. I rode that raid with him and … damn! She was lifted from this very place, from Three-House!”