Revenge of the Horseclans

V

Once they were clear of the gate, Ahndros trotted his silver grey gelding up abreast of Bili and mindspoke. “Komees Djeen is a fine old man, Bili. I love and respect him more than any living man.”

“It is clear that he returns your love tenfold,” replied Bili.

Ahndros continued, “That’s why it pains me to say what I now must. Uncle Djeen dearly loves all aspects of soldiering, especially the fighting. He is constantly expecting-eagerly looking for, really-brigands or would-be assassins around every turn and behind every tree.

“Now true, things are not all sweetness and light in our lands. But it is my opinion that we let them strap us into these ‘Pitzburk steamers’ and are a party to robbing the sleep from those Freefighters back there, to no just purpose.”

“You expect no attack tonight, then?” Bili inquired.

Ahndros sighed aloud, though still mindspeaking. “Oh, anything is possible, I suppose. Sure it is that the roads aren’t so safe as once they were … not for Kindred, at least. Perhaps Uncle Djeen is right. After all, bis intuition won many a battle for the Confederation.”

The little party rode on, between the mile or more of roadside fences, intended to keep deer and wandering livestock out of the choice pasturage reserved for Komees Hari’s herds. The black-on-black outlines of the rails made it easier to stay on the road, for only rarely did a winking star or a slice of moon manage to find a way through the squadrons of scudding clouds.

At a horsesaving walk, the double column followed the well kept road up and down the gentle, rolling hills it traversed. Bili found the fresh night air a pleasant contrast to the thick smokiness of Komees Hari’s study. The cooling breeze which blew across their path bore away most of the dust the hooves raised from the roadway.

Bili sent his reception ranging ahead and to the flanks, striving to pick up any trace of hostile mindpatterns, but the conversations of the four men riding behind him proved too distracting. Gefos and Klairuhnz were swapping anecdotes and bawdy tales, while the two big, raw-boned troopers chattered continually in some alien tongue. It sounded, to Bili, a bit like the nasal language called Kweebehkyuhn, spoken by some tribes of those odd folk who dwelt north and west of the Sea of Eeree … but perhaps it was really Nyahgraheekos, which sounded similar.

Other than the conversations, the creak of the saddles, and jingling of spurs and bridlechains, the rattling of armor and the thudding of the hooves were all the sounds which disturbed the nightshrouded land. Far away, across the lea, a dogfox barked, and closer at hand came the cry of a hunting owl. But Bili could range no nearby danger, so he relaxed and mindspoke Ahndros.

“Komees Djeen sometimes calls you ‘Ahndee.’ May I do so?”

“Why, of course, Bili, I much prefer the Kindred form to the Ehleen.”

“Thank you then, Ahndee,” said Bili silently. “Let me ask you, when you have your city and lands in order, do you intend to return to the Army? You could have a splendid career, you know; a Subkeeleeohstos of your age could reasonably expect to be strahteegos by his fortieth year, if not before, and even I know that’s a damned rare accomplishment.”

But Ahndee shook his head. “No, Bili, that phase of my life is done forever. I may journey to the capital occasionally, for I’ve many friends there; but mostly I want to attend to my lands and people and lead as quiet and nonviolent a life as circumstances will allow. I don’t enjoy soldiering, Bili.”

“Then why did you join the Army at all?” queried Bili.

Ahndee breathed another sigh. “I’ll try to explain.

“Bili, my Uncle Djeen was worshiped by me and my two brothers for the most of our lives. He was our ideal as we were growing up, the very epitome of stalwart manhood. For some reason, none of his wives or women could ever give him children-his present daughter is adopted, his new wife’s by her first husband-and he undertook the virtual rearing of Oomros and Gaibrios and me, when he was home between campaigns or to recover from wounds. He was patient and gentle and loving, honorable and honest, cleanly in his habits, temperate in his few vices, and capable of astounding feats of self-discipline.

“Bili, what know you of my late father?”

Bili squirmed uncomfortably in his saddle. In the eight years before he had left for the north, he had heard more than he now wished to remember of Vahrohneeskos Ehlmos. “Well, uh … Ahndee, I, uh … Let’s see … your House follows the Old Ehleen ways, but, ahhh … as your grandfather had no sons …”

“Oh, Bili,” Ahndee expostulated impatiently. “Spit it out! You’re not going to offend me by repeating truths known to all the Duchy. Yes, my House followed the Old Ehleen practices-both the good and the bad, the tasteful and the distasteful, the honorable and the dishonorable. My grandfather wed very late, and then only because the Council and your grandfather forced him to it. It is far from certain that he actually sired my mother. And I rejoice in that uncertainty, Bili, for I’d hate to be sure that the old degenerate’s tainted blood runs in my veins. Sun and Wind know the mere suspicion that I am my father’s son is hard enough to live with.

“As for the thing who called himself my father, Bili, what know you of him?”

“Right little, Ahndee,” Bili answered, and could not help adding, “And none of that little good, I’m afraid.”

Ahndee immediately reassured him, saying, “I meant what I said before, Bili. Unpleasant as it is, the truth does not offend me. Now, what do you know of the late Vahrohneeskos Ehlmos?”

“If you insist, Kinsman.” Bili set his jaw. “It is said that right often he appeared in public garbed in your mother’s clothing and jewels, with his lips and eyes and cheeks painted. It is also said that, after your mother’s death, he coerced an Ehleen priest into reciting marriage rites over him and … and a blacksmith’s apprentice, that the Vahrohneeskos’s bridal costume cost near five hundred thrahkmehs. It is said that all his court were compelled to witness the events of his bridal night and … and that … that your father wept and wailed and… and whimpered like a maiden, when first the apprentice took him.

“But, Ahndee,” he hurriedly added, “these are but things I have heard said over the years, mostly servants’ gossip, probably.”

“No, Bili, truth, all of it excepting the first part. My mother was a tiny woman, her clothing would never have fitted the Vahrohneeskos. No, his female clothing was all made expressly for him, tailored to his measure. You see, he …” Ahndee broke off as Bili suddenly halted Mahvros.

They were at the crest of a low hillock, beyond which the road ran arrowstraight to the wagonwide, wooden bridge. Beyond the bridge, crouching like some monstrous beast of nightmare, loomed the black forest.

And danger lurked within that forest, this Bili knew! Although that danger’s emanations lay just beyond the range of his perceptions, still could he sense its presence. But his far-range perceptivity was very tricky; Bili would have been the first to admit to that fact. The hostile impressions given him by some something lodged amongst that gloomy host of thickholed trees could easily be a short-tempered boar or a hungry bear or both together.

Bard Klairuhnz walked his highspirited mount up to the slope, reining in beside Bili, and the three battlewise veterans briefly studied the bridge, its approaches, and the deep, swiftflowing stream whose high banks it joined. The moon had once more freed herself of the shrouding clouds and her pale radiance allowed Bili his first glimpse of the Bard since they had quit the torchlit courtyard of Horse Hall. Though Klairuhnz smiled warmly-supposedly at Bili-his black eyes were on Ahndee, and Bili once more had that weird feeling that the two were somehow communicating … and that feeling did nothing to detract from his general uneasiness.

Partially to soothe himself, he uncased his axe, for he always felt secure and happy with the hidewound haft in his hand. That done, he hung the bared weapon from a heavy hook let into the flaring pommel of his kak, dismounted, and loosened, then lengthened, his stirrup leathers. When he remounted, he was no longer sitting Mahvros—the great beast, recognizing the familiar preparations for imminent combat, stamping and snorting his joyful anticipation. Most of his weight was now on his booted feet.

Ahndee’s handsome face mirrored his incredulity. “Why in the world did you do that, Bili? It looks to be damned unsteady and uncomfortable.”

Bili laughed merrily. “You’re a swordsman, Kinsman. Were you an axeman now-and with your build, you’d be a natural axewielder, you know-you’d not need to ask.” Seeing that his companion still did not understand, Bili went on patiently, “What’s the weight of your sword, Ahndee? Three pounds? Five? My good axe weighs thirteen Harzburk pounds, the equal of more than a dozen of your Ehleen keelohs, so the arms and shoulders are not enough. To use it properly, to get a swing powerful enough to stave in armor, requires the muscles of the lower back and the legs as well.”

Ahndee still looked a bit dubiously at Bill’s “seat.” “If you say so, Bili. But how do you manage to stay astride, if you have to move faster than a slow trot?”

Bili’s white teeth flashed in the moonlight. “That, Kinsman, takes practice!”

The young axeman would have taken the lead into the place of danger, had not Ahndee, Klairuhnz, and the two Freefighters argued him down. So when the column trotted toward the bridge, Bili was third in line, with Klairuhnz ahead and Dzhool, the younger of Komees Djeen’s troopers, at point; behind rode Ahndee, then Geros, then the trooper Shahrl.

The more closely they approached the forest, the stronger grew Bili’s dreadful apprehension. Now he knew that they were certainly riding into a battle, and he so mindspoke both Ahndee and Klairuhnz.

Awe in his voice, Ahndee silently asked, “You can far-gather, then, Bili? That’s a rare and precious ability. We were told of it at the Confederation Mindspeak Academy, of course; but not even the instructors had ever met a man or woman who actually possessed it! Can you tell how many foemen, and how far ahead they be?”

“No,” Bili admitted. “Never have I been able to judge numbers, but we are near and drawing nearer.”

The thick old planks of the bridge boomed hollowly under ironshod hooves; then they were into the forest. Bili found it far less dark within than it had appeared from without. Except for the oakgrown fringes, the growth was principally tall, old pines, unbranching for many feet above roadlevel. The wan moonlight filtered through the needles, making for a dim visibility.

The road ran straight for a few dozen yards, then began a gradual ascent and slight curvature to the right, following the lower reaches of a brushgrown hillock. They splashed through a tiny rill, which fed down into a small swamp before it joined the larger stream. Beyond the rill, the road commenced another slow curve, this one to the left. As they descended the reverse slope, the moon dove for cover, and Bili’s hackles rose. The unseen danger was near, terribly near!

“SOON!” he urgently mindspoke Ahndee and Klairunz, while bringing his axe up, so that its fearsome, doublebitted head rested against his armored right shoulder. Dropping his reins over the pommel knob in battle, he guided Mahvros solely by mindspeak and kneepressure, not that the battlewise stallion required a great deal of guidance he lowered and securely locked into place the slitted halfvisor which protected the eyes and nose. By that time, the peril lay so very near, pressed so heavily, that he could hardly bear it.

“NOW!” He beamed with mindblasting intensity. “IT IS ALL AROUND US!”

Ahndee and Klairuhnz drew their blades, and the zweep of steel leaving scabbard alerted the troopers, who bared their own weapons. Geros awkwardly gripped and regripped the shaft of the widebladed boarspear in his sweaty hand. He knew next to nothing of arms and their use, and showed it.

Up the slope to their left, the trees abruptly began to thin … and the fickle moon chose that moment to commence a slow emergence.

There was a scuffling noise at the head of the column, a strangled grunt, followed almost immediately by a horse’s shrill scream of pain and terror, then the unmistakable clash-clanking of an armored body falling to the ground. And the moon came fully out.

Bili could see the trooper, Dzhool, twitching on the roadway. A stocky, blackbearded man had a foot on the dying Freefighter’s chest, frantically striving to jerk his spearpoint from the body. He never got the weapon free, for Bard Klairuhnz kneed his chestnut forward; his long saber swept up, then blurred down. The bearded head, still wearing its oldfashioned helmet, clattered across the road and into the weeds. The trunk stood a brief moment, then pitched forward over its victim’s body, shortened neck spouting ropy streams of blood.

From around the far side of the screaming, hamstrung lead horse rushed another of the attackers, lacking either helm or armor, but swinging up a short, widebladed infantry sword. This man was as stocky as the first, but beardless and greyhaired, his thin lips peeled back in a grimace which revealed his rotten teeth. There was fresh blood on his swordblade and he ran directly at Bili, shouting something in Old Ehleeneekos.

Ahndee watched Bili-with seeming effortlessness handling his long, massive weapon with one hand-catch the slash on the steel shaft of his axe and allow the blade’s own momentum to propel it into the deep notch between head and haft. A single twist of Bili’s thick wrist tore the hilt from the old man’s grip and sent it spinning. The spike above the two axebits was jammed deep into the ancient’s chest, ere that sword had come to ground.

Dead Dzhool’s crippled mount was still screaming. Geros, too, began to scream, so terrified that he could form no words, but wail and point the boarspear up at the brushy slope. There a rank of riders, at least a dozen of them, armed and armored, was coming from the trees which had concealed them.

“BACK!” roared Klairunhz. “There’s too many to fight here! Back to the bridge!” Setting words to actions, he reined his mount about and set off in the wake of Shahrl, Geros, and Ahndee.

Bili stayed only long enough to split the skull of the suffering horse. Then he set off toward the bridge, just as the line of mounted ambushers came tilting down the rise. This granted Bili a closer look; his experienced eyes informed him that though numerous-nearer a score than a dozen—the charging horsemen were not nearly so well armed as they had at first seemed.

All had swords of one kind or another, and a few even bore them as if they understood them, but the uniformity ended there. A big man in the lead had a full panoply of threequarter armor and it looked to be decent-quality plate. The remainder might have been outfitted from a hundred years of battlefield pickings. Their helms were of every description. One man wore nought save a dented breastplate, another had squeezed into a shirt of rusty scalemail. Two or three went in loricated jerkins, one in a cuirass of boiled leather, another in an old, threadbare brigandine. Bili thought that the ruffianly crew looked the part of the brigands they probably were.

Mahvros’s powerful body responded to Bill’s urgings and big steelshod hooves struck sparks from the pebbly roadbed. The black stallion splashed through the little rill, and then they were descending the road’s first curve. Suddenly, twenty yards ahead, riders emerged from among the treetrunks to block the way. A shaft of moonlight silvered their bared blades.

At a walk or a trot, Geros Lahvoheetos’s big mule was a good mount, but the animal’s ragged gallop was a jarring, toothloosening ordeal. Despite this, Geros was spur-raking the roan barrel and screaming for greater speed.

The bridge now lay behind them and the road traversed was the well kept one, flanked by Komees Hari’s fences. From back there, came the sudden commencement of a blacksmith symphony of steel on steel, the metallic clangs punctuated by the shouts and shrieks of man and horse. Geros’s own screams then froze in his throat and he could only sob out his terror, while great tears furrowed his dusty cheeks.

His employer had bidden him ride hard for Horse Hall. He was to inform Komees Djeen that the party was under attack from at least half a score of armored and mounted bravos, and they were withdrawing to make their stand at the bridge. He was to add that one mercenary was slain; and that Thoheek’s son Bili had lingered at the original ambush site to dispatch a wounded horse and was now missing.

Had his overwhelming fear not occupied every nook and cranny of his mind, Geros would have been thanking every god he had never heard of that he had been chosen messenger and sent away from the scene of battle. For though he had quickly come to love his gentle, patient, softspoken young employer, he knew himself sufficiently to realize that in an actual fight, he would probably have deserted him.

He would have consoled himself, of course, by rationalizing that he had not been retained on account of his weapons skill, of which he had none, but simply as a bodyservant and occasional musician, at both of which trades he excelled. But he could have continued neither with an arm lopped off or a foot of sharp steel rammed into his body. And this last thought would have brought up his gorge and he would have silently damned himself for a despicable craven. He had always secretly feared that he was a coward, never having been in a position to prove himself one way or another.

He heard approaching hoofbeats ahead, and as he crested the second hillock from the hall, he saw the source a galloping horse and three armed men, one astride and the other two grasping the stirrup leathers and running alongside. Before he could think of what to say or do, even rein his mule, the mounted man shouted.

“It’s the renegade Vahrohneeskos’s lackey. Kill him!”

Geros still bore the spear, despite his terror and flight, principally because he knew it to be the property of a nobleman and was afraid of the consequences of losing it. But he was completely ignorant of how such a weapon was employed. So, gripping the thick ash shaft near the ferrule, he let go his reins and aimed a twohanded swing at the oncoming horseman, seeking but to knock the man out of his saddle, that he might have a clear road to the safety of Horse Hall.

The mule careered downslope, at a flatout run. And the other rider spurred forward, leaving the two footmen behind. This man had been clandestinely drilling for over a year and had absorbed enough to extend his ancient saber at arm’s length, seeking to spit Geros on the point. But the spear was more than twice as long as his curved saber and, thanks to the moonlight and the flitting shadows and swirling dust, he never saw that spear until it was far too late.

Poor, frightened Geros had completely forgotten that his long cudgel mounted a wide, leafshaped steel head. His wild swing missed his adversary-he had swung too soon-but that deadly point chanced to be in just the proper place at just the proper time for the swordsman to spit himself upon it. It would be fair to say that neither was the more surprised!

The combined impetus of mule and horse lifted the pierced man shrieking from his saddle, and his horse ran from under him, dropping him to the roadway. The shock of the unexpected impalement almost drove Geros over his own cantle; only his fear-locked thighs retained him his seat. Unable to release his grip on the spearshaft, he thought his shoulder must be disjointed, in the splitsecond before the bloodslimed blade came free of its lodging with a sucking sound.

The two footmen just stood in the road, their weapons dangling beside them, shocked beyond words at what they had witnessed. Secret drills in benighted meadows and brave words spoken in the dark were one thing, but coughing up your lifeblood on a moonlit roadway was something entirely different! They still had not ordered their benumbed brains sufficiently to run, when Geros was on them.

The big mule’s shoulder struck the foremost, sprawling him backward, directly in the animal’s path. The last thing he ever saw was the immense, looming hoof that shattered his face and crushed his skull.

The second man stood on Geros’s right. Clumsily, he brought up his old sword, wishing less to fight than simply to fend off that horrible spear, already wetly gleaming with his friend’s blood. Again swinging twohanded, Geros’s spearshaft again missed its target … but the tip of the knife-edged blade connected. The footman dropped his sword and clutched at his slashed throat, his last screams bubbling out his severed windpipe.

Reins flying free, its rider in a state of shock, the mule pounded into the brightlit courtyard and would probably have kept going until it struck a wall, had not one of Komees Djeen’s troopers run and leaped to grasp the curbchain and halt the beast. Geros let go the spear and slid from the mule’s back, but had to clutch tightly at the saddle when his legs refused to support him.

Komees Djeen crossed from the hall at a limping run. He was encased in a suit of plate, a golden cat crouched atop his helm and another enameled on the wide baldric supporting his heavy broadsword. His gauntleted hand crushingly gripped Geros’s trembling shoulder.

“What is it, man? What has happened? Dammit, speak!”

But the trooper who had stopped the mule spoke first. “He’s been fighting, My Lord Count. Look at this spear, there’s fresh blood half down the shaft.”

“Brandy!” The old man snapped over his shoulder, to no one in particular. Then turning back to Geros, his tone became solicitous. “Had to fight your way through them, did you, comrade? I must confess I misjudged you earlier, thought you a man of no mettle. Glad to see I was wrong.

“It requires a high degree of courage to do what you did, lad-ride off alone, though hostile forces, to fetch succor for your comrades. I always feel privileged to meet men of your rare kind. The Confederation never has enough of you.”

Had Geros been able to let go his hold on the saddle, he would have pinched himself. He was certain that he must be dreaming. Such accolade for Geros-the-coward, from so great and famous a noble warrior, must surely be a dream. He opened his mouth, tried hard to speak, but his still-constricted and brickdry throat emitted only a croak.

“No, no, comrade,” Komees Djeen gently patted his shoulder. “Don’t try to talk ‘til you’ve had of your tipple.”

As soon as he had recovered from the coughing fit engendered by the strong, hastily gulped brandy, Geros gasped out his message, and the courtyard began to buzz like an overturned beehive. Already saddled horses were led out and the girths tightened, bows strung, weapons hefted, and last-minute adjustments made to belts, stirrups, and armor.

Shortly, Komees Djeen’s small command galloped out of the gate. Intensive search had failed to find any of Komees Hari’s servants, so there were but nineteen riders in the column—the four noblemen, the orderlies of Djeen and Vaskos, Drehkos’s bodyservant, and his big, mountain-barbarian bodyguard, ten scaleshirted Freefighters … and Geros.

“We’ll surely need every fighter, comrade,” Komees Djeen had declared, while two troopers buckled Geros’s cuirass, draped a baldric over his shoulder, and handed him a fresh spear. “Especially a gutsy man like you. Were you a soldier, I’d see you wear a Cat for this night’s work!”