Horseclans' Odyssey

10

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 hide-ous stews and half-burned, half-raw venison and rabbits, Stehfahnah fairly drooled at sight of the offerings of her otter friends.

While the fire burned down to the coals needed for proper cooking, the girl squatted in front of the hearth, using one of the half-dozen skinning knives to skin and clean the two fish. As of old, when she had lived in the woods downstream, the two otters crouched before her, avidly devouring the fish guts and lights, which they preferred even over the firm white flesh. It was not until she gobbled the first mouthful of raw catfish roe that she realized just how ravenous she truly was. Therefore, to take her mind off her growling belly, she asked the otters again about the beast—surely fearsome, for had he not slain a full-grown man?—they had brought down to deliver her from her captivity.

“Where is The-Bear-Killer now?”

The big male otter chewed his way up a rope of roe as he beamed, “Not here; he never stays anywhere for long. If he did, all the meat-beasts would leave, for he will eat any fresh-killed creature, from the greatest to the least.” “Why was he willing to come so far to help me, a twolegs?” asked Stehfahnah puzzledly, knowing that the strange beast’s action had been totally unlike the usual behavior of even the most intelligent of wild animals. “When he was little more than a kit,” the male otter answered, “he was caught in a twolegs’ shiny-leg-biter, then taken to a place where many twolegs denned. He was kept, half starved, in a deep pit and forced to fight other beasts while twolegs watched.

“One night, a tree fell over the pit and he was able to climb up a big branch and escape. He hates all twolegs, but most of all he hates the twolegs who use the shiny-leg-biters. I told him one such denned here and he swam down the water to kill it. He is a mighty killer of twolegs.”

As the Sacred Sun went to rest, Stehfahnah hunkered near the hearth on which a dry log blazed atop the coals of the cooking fire. With the careful, patient strokes of long practice, she was honing new edges onto the spearblade dulled by being thrust through the door at her.

Outside, all around the snug cabin, a cold wind soughed, rattling the branches of the trees and shrubs. All the signs indicated that the first snows were only weeks away, perhaps only days. She had been born and reared on the prairie, and so she knew full well the suicidal folly of setting out now to seek her clan, even mounted on the mare, well armed and equipped and with the ass to carry supplies and a small tent.

Better to winter here and seek Clan Steevuhnz with the coming spring. True, the cabin and its meager furnishings were stinking and filthy, but all could be cleaned. Fresh clay could be brought up from the riverbank to cover the greasy floor, the tabletop could be scoured with sand and water and the greasy sooty walls, as well. She could wash the dirt-shiny blankets and, with fresh deerskins and tips of cedar and the rare pine, she could fashion a new and more comfortable mattress, lashed and sewn with sinew and placed upon a frame of sapling trunks and woven willow switches.

There were several bags of dried grain for the mare and the ass, but while the weather was still good, she would have to fashion travoises for both of them, take the sickle and go west to the prairie verge of this woodland to cut and bear back enough hay to last the two herbivores through the cold time. Far westward, upon the tall-grassed prairie, the Kindred clans were slowly trickling into the huge, sprawled Tribe Camp. Of sheer necessity, the camp moved east a few miles each day, leaving behind it a clear, flat-tramped and close-grazed sign of its passing more than two miles wide. The tribe now numbered forty clans of the Kindred. From the high plains of the west had come Clans Ohlszuhn and Danyuhlz and Kehlee and others. From the far south, Clans Rohz and Morguhn and Rahs and more; and from the northern prairies where winter was already making itself felt, Muhkawlee and Mahntguhmree and Maktahguht and Pahlmuh and Makbeen and Keeth and Stynbahk. A few came from the east, and one of these was Clan Steevuhnz.

Of a sunny autumn morning, a small party of riders wended their way through the vast herds of horses, cattle, sheep and a few goats ringing the tribal camp about. In hair, eyes and features, the leading rider bore a striking resemblance to both Stehfahnah and Bahb, which was perfectly natural, for he was their and Djoh’s father, Chief Henree, the Steevuhnz of Steevuhnz. Henree looked every inch the chief, a leader of men, cats and horses, from the spike of his helmet of mirror-bright steel to the soles of his high boots of red-dyed doeskin. He bestrode a handsome, spirited black stallion, the horse fitted with a tooled saddle the same shade as the boots and inset with hooks and rings and decorations of steel, brass, copper, silver and ruddy gold. The Clan Steevuhnz was a wealthy clan, and part of the duty of a chief of such a clan was to wear clear evidence of that wealth, to richly deck out his mount and to bear fine, expensive weapons.

When at last Chief Henree stood within the circle of chiefs while his clan bard sang his long pedigree, which was also the history of Clan Steevuhnz, replete with all the many deeds of valor of his forebears, Milo of Morai noted that for all the costly and colorful clothing and adornment, the gray eyes of the Steevuhnz were dark-ringed and sunken and his lips were set in a grim line. When, after Blind Hari and Milo and the assembled chiefs had formally recognized that Clan Steevuhnz was indeed of the true Kindred and that Henree was its lawful chief, being the eldest son of the eldest sister of the previous chief—over the years, some clans had adopted this system of inheritance of the chieftancy, while others had clung to the system of primogeniture—and had taken his place in the expanded circle, Milo spoke to him aloud. “Perhaps if my brother Henree Steevuhnz speaks of his sorrows to his brother chiefs, wrongs to him may be put right-Like a summer storm filling a dry streambed, the words rushed out in a flood. A peaceful party of clan hunters set upon in treachery by a caravan of eastern traders. Henree’s third-eldest son murdered, two younger boys and a daughter of his get captured and borne back eastward to what terrible fates no one knew.

“We would have known nothing of any of it,” said Henree sadly, “save that my brave, dead boy had left the cat that had accompanied the hunters outside the camp when he and his brothers and sister rode in, bidding the cat stay hidden lest she frighten those eastern men and the beasts they enslave. So this young cat, Cloudgray, saw it all, every infamy.

“From the descriptions she gave, I can but believe that the caravan was that of the trader Stooahrt, called ‘the Shifty Man.’ Steevuhnz warriors have many times ridden out and back as hired guards for this Stooahrt. “Cloudgray said that all my folk were invited to eat the meal and sleep within the trader camp and then eat with them again at sun birth. But the meal was hardly well begun when first the young boys and then the girl dropped their bowls of stew and fell upon the ground. My brave son arose and, though staggering as if he were drunk, drew saber and dirk and fought his way through the knot of traders to his mount, leapt onto her back and had ridden almost to where Cloudgray crouched, when one of the traders hurled a dart which pierced through my young warrior’s back and burst his mighty heart “Being a young cat, with no war training and little experience other than some hunting of beasts, Cloudgray did not immediately run back to fetch the clan warriors, but rather remained crouched in the grass until the traders packed and hitched and set out eastward at the next sun birth. ‘ “She saw these accursed murderers put the two young boys into one wagon, the girl into another. They stripped the body of their victim of everything of value, then tumbled him into a bole in the ground, rather than sending him decently to Wind.” A foreboding rumble of rage passed around the circle of squatting chiefs. Only dirtmen sank their dead beneath the ground to rot and stink and be consumed by loathy beasts. Horseclansfolk were always sent to the home of Wind, their spirits rising up with the smoke of their pyres. To simply bury a Horseclansman constituted one of the deadliest of insults to his clan. Henree then continued his tale. “When the traders moved on east, Cloudgray set out on the week’s run to my camp, south and west of the spot on which this shameful deed was done.

“Unfortunately, in trying to take a saberhorn fawn for food, the young cat was seriously gored by the herd bull, and so was almost four weeks in stumbling into my camp. But before she died, she told all, beamed detailed descriptions of the evil men and of the country and landmarks between. “Leaving only enough force to guard the camp, I rode forth with my warriors and maiden archers and most of my adult cats. The king stallion followed with two spare mounts for every man, maiden and cat Riding by sun and by moon, as well, we won to that ill-omened spot on the prairie in less than four days.

“We had packed wood and oil with us, and we dug up my son’s pitiful, putrid body and sent him properly to Wind.” Hot tears of grief and frustrated rage cascaded over the scarred and weathered cheeks of the chief of Steevuhnz, and many of his brother chiefs wept with him; for though stoic to non-Kindred, with their own they could be very emotional.

“We camped that night in the spot whereon the murderers and kidnappers had camped the second night after they had done their wickedness against Clan Steevuhnz. Then we rode hard upon their trail and did not pause for longer than a few hours at a time until we came in sight of the fort that lies at the limits of the lands owned by the dirtman chief of Traders-town. “I made to ride in with my sons and my subchiefs to speak to the subchief of that fort, with all bows cased, and all blades put up and even the lance points toward the earth, a bit of white rag fixed at the butts. But they would not even speak. They hid atop the walls and threw stones and loosed many sharp arrows at us, killing two horses and my second-eldest son and injuring two of my brothers.”

Milo looked around the circle of grim-faced men and used his powerful mental abilities to skim their surface thoughts. All were enraged to the point of blood and death by the appalling arrogance of the subhuman dirtmen to so dishonor the most ancient and revered symbol of parley. He knew that should he or Blind Hari of Krooguh call this minute for a discussion and vote upon the matter, within an hour there would be two thousand or more fully armed riders bearing down upon that still distant border fort.

Further, knowing the minds of Horseclansmen as he did, it could be only a matter of time—and a short time, at that— before one or more of the chiefs demanded that some or all of the clans ride forth to mete out punishment to the dirt-men. Milo had no compunction about leveling the tiny fort and butchering its garrison—for, after all, he had personally slain thousands of men and had been responsible for the deaths of numerous other thousands during his hundreds of years of life. But his scheme for getting the tribe over the Great River was to move suddenly and quickly across the lands of the Duchy of Traderstown, overrun or set siege to the city itself, and force out of the rulers of the duchy the use of their cable barges.

A premature attack upon the border of the duchy would but serve to warn those rulers that the prairie nomads were now gathered in unheard-of numbers and grant the dirtmen the time to gather unto themselves allies and mercenary companies and the wherewithal to make Milo’s tasks harder and longer of accomplishment. Henree of Steevuhnz went on to the end. “That night, we camped out of range of their arrows and of the things that throw big rocks. The subchiefs chose a clansman to replace my son slain that day and my wounded brother who died soon after we made camp. Then it was decided that, with the next sun birth, we would simply swing wide, bypass the fort and then swing back to cut the trail of the caravan, for we were gaining on them hour by hour. “But when we tried to carry out our plan the next morning, the dirtmen sent out almost sixscore of mounted fighters to head us off. We drew up in battle line and, when those accursed dirtmen came into bow range, we gave them two loosings from every bow in the party. Then I led the warriors in under the cover of the maidens’ arrow storm, which rained down up to the very minute we struck them. “My brothers, that was a fight! I had ridden from out my clan camp with less than rwoscore warriors, plus a half-dozen war-trained but unblooded boys, so we were seriously outnumbered, but the courage and honor of Clan Steevuhnz has seldom been matched, as any bard can sing you.

“Of course, the volleys and the arrow storm had taken a heavy toll of both men and mounts, and besides, when ever were any four mere dirtmen a match for a full-grown and armed man of our Holy Kindred? My warriors and I, we smote them, broke them and sent those craven curs still able to ride or to run back toward their fort as fast as their legs or their mounts could bear them. “We pursued, harrying and slaying the bastards, sabering and lancing them until arrows and stones from the fort began to fall among us. Then we trotted back to just out of range of the walls, uncased our own bows and dropped many more of those cowards before they could put stone walls between us and them. But not all had been spineless, some had fought hard, well and long, and, in consequence, some Steevuhnz warriors lay dead and red with their blood and others were so seriously wounded that—though it grieved our hearts full sore—we all knew that we must break off the pursuit of the stealers of our much-loved kin and return to the clan camp.

“But before we left that field, we stripped those foemen left lying upon it and had the king stallion and his subchiefs bespeak all the sound horses and mares left outside the fort; of course, most of them joined the Steevuhnz sept of horses.

“This fine steel helmet”—Henree pulled off the spiked headpiece, now decorated with red-dyed horsehair and the bushy tail of a fox—“I took from the chief of the dirtman warriors. With some gentle persuasion,” he explained, with a grin as cold and humorless as that of a winter wolf, “he told us that he himself had seen the trader Stooahrt and his wagons loading onto the barges to cross the Great River two days before we came near the fort. ‘Therefore, my Kindred brothers, let us move quickly to cross that mightiest of rivers, that we may the sooner free from the filthy men of dirt my little sons, Bahb and Djoh, and my daughter, Stehfahnah. It is a duty owed by us all to our Holy Race and to the honored memory of our Sacred Ancestors.” As Milo had known would happen, immediately Chief Henree ceased to speak and sank back upon his haunches, Steev, the Dohluhn of Dohluhn, stood and, while scratching at the sections of scalp bared by his thinning, dark hair, said flatly, “I doubt not that you stung the scum badly, brother Henree, for I know well that Clan Steevuhnz breeds stark warriors. But deeds of such dishonor—if, truly, anything could dishonor a mere dirtman—call for death, not just crippling.

“Now Clan Dohluhn’s full warriors number rwoscore and eleven, and there are ten more unblooded.”

Another balding chief sprang to his feet. Pat, the Kehlee of Kehlee, announced, “Clan Kehlee numbers a full threescore blooded warriors and almost a score of unblooded. All of us will ride with the valiant chiefs of Steevuhnz and Dohluhn.”

“I had better,” thought Milo, “defuse this thing before it gathers more momentum. Once they get the bit in their teeth, these stubborn bastards are going to be hard to handle.”

The war chief arose from his place beside Blind Hari on the dais. “Chiefs, Kindred brothers, vengeance will be taken on this batch of dirtmen, but like a stew of the flesh of a tough, elderly bull, it will be more enjoyable to us if we allow it to cook for a while.

“This fort lies on the way to, in the very lands of, the dirt-men whose ferry we needs must have in order that all our tribe may safely cross the Great River.” Milo talked on at great length. Then Blind Hari stood up and added his not inconsequential powers of persuasion against any rash, early attack. As usual in any “discussion,” the circle of chiefs grumbled and groused, argued and shouted, but finally decided that the war chief and the clan bard were right.