The Horse Barbarians

8

“I speak with the voice of Temuchin, for I am Ahankk, his captain,” the warrior said, throwing open the entrance to Shanin’s camach.

Jason broke off his “Ballad of the Flying Strangers” and turned slowly to see who had caused the welcome interruption. His throat was getting sore and he was tired of singing the same song over and over. His account of the spaceship’s defeat was the pop hit of the encampment.

The newcomer was a high-ranking officer, that was obvious. His breastplate and helm were shiny and undented, and even set with a few roughly cut jewels. He swaggered as he walked, planting his feet squarely as he stood before Shanin, his hand resting on his sword pommel.

“What does Temuchin want?” Shanin asked coldly, his hand on his own sword, not liking the newcomer’s manner.

“He will hear the jongleur who is called Jason. He is to come at once.” Shanin’s eyes narrowed to cold slits. “He sings for me now. When he is through, he will come to Temuchin. Finish the song,” he said turning to Jason.

To a nomad chief all chiefs are equal and it is hard to convince them differently. Temuchin and his officers had plenty of experience and knew all the persuasive arguments. Ahankk whistled shrilly and a squad of heavily armed soldiers with drawn bows pushed into the camach. Shanin was convinced.

“I am bored with this croaking,” he announced, yawning and turning away. “I will now drink achadh with one of my women. All leave.”

Jason went out with his honor guard and turned toward his camach. The officer stopped him with a broad hand against his chest. “Temuchin will hear you now. Turn that way.”

“Take your hand from me,” Jason said in a low voice that the nearby soldiers could not hear. “I go to put on my best jacket and to get a new string for this instrument because one of these is almost broken.”

“Come now,” Ahankk said loudly, leaving his hand where it was and giving Jason a shove.

“We will first visit my camach. It is just over there,” Jason answered just as loudly. At the same time he reached up and took hold of the man’s thumb. This is a good grip at any time, and his 2G-hardened muscles added the little extra something that made the thumb feel as if it were being torn from the hand. The officer writhed and resisted, pulling at his sword clumsily, crosswise, for it was his sword hand that Jason was slowly rending.

“I’ll kill you with this knife that is pushed against your middle if you draw your sword,” Jason said, holding the lute under his arm and pressing the bone pick into Ahankk’s stomach. “Temuchin said to bring me, not kill me. He will be angry if we fight. Now, which do you choose?”

The man struggled for another moment, lips drawn back in anger, then released his sword. ‘We shall go to your camach first so you can dress in something more fitting than those rags,” he ordered aloud.

Jason let go of the thumb and started off, turned slightly sideways so he could watch the officer. The man walked beside him calmly enough, rubbing his injured thumb, but the look he directed at Jason was pure hatred. Jason shrugged and went on. He had made an enemy, that was certain, yet it was imperative that he go to the tent first.

The trek with Shanin and his tribe had been exhausting but uneventful. There had been no more trouble from the relatives of the slain man. Jason had utilized the time well to practice his jongleur’s art and to observe the customs and culture of the nomads. They had reached Temuchin’s camp and settled in over a week ago.

“Camp” was not an apt designation, because the nomads were spread Out for miles along the polluted, refuse-laden stream they called a river, the biggest river apparently in the entire land. Because the animals had to compete for the scant forage, a good deal of territory was needed for each tribe. There was a purely military camp in the center of all these settlements but Jason had not yet been near it. Nor was he in a hurry to. There was enough for him to observe and record on the outskirts before he would be sure enough of hImself to penetrate to the heart of the enemy. In addition, Temuchin had once seen him, face to face, and he appeared to be the kind of man who would have a good memory. Jason’s skin was darker now, and he had used a pilating agent to hurry the growth of a thick and sinister mustache that hung almost to his chin on both sides of his mouth. Teca had inserted plugs that changed the shape of his nose. He hoped it would be enough. Yet he wondered how the war chief had heard, and what he had heard, about him.

“Rise, awake,” he shouted, throwing open the flap of his camach. “I shall go before the great Temuchin and I must dress accordingly.” Meta and Grif looked coldly at Jason and the officer who had followed him and made no attempt to move.

“Get cracking,” Jason said in Pyrran. “Rush around and look like you’re impressed, offer this elegant slob a drink and stuff like that. Keep his attention off me.”

Ahankk took a drink, but he still kept a wary eye on Jason.

“Here,” Jason said, holding the lute out to Grif. “Put a new string on this thing, or make believe you are changing it if you can’t fl.nd one. And don’t lose your temper when I shove you. It’s just part of the act.”

Grif scowled and growled, but otherwise reacted well enough when Jason bullied him off to work with the lute. Jason shed his jacket, rubbed fresh grease into his face and a little onto his hair for good measure, then opened the lockbox. He reached in and took out his better jacket, palming a small object at the same time.

“Now hear this,” he called out in Pyrran. “I’m being rushed to see Temuchin and there is no way out of it. I’ve taken one of the dentiphones and I’ve left two more on top. Put them on as soon as I’ve gone. Stay in touch and stay alert. I don’t know how the interview is going to turn out, but if there is any trouble, I want us to be in contact at all times. We may have to move fast. Stick with it, gang, and don’t despair. We’ll lick them yet.”

As he slipped into the jacket he screamed at them in in-between. “Give me the lute, and hurry! If anything is disturbed or there is any trouble while I am gone, I will beat you both.” He stalked out.

They rode in a loose formation, and perhaps it was only accidental that there were soldiers on all sides of Jason. Perhaps. What had Temuchin heard and why did he want to see him? Speculation was useless and he tried to drop the train of thought and observe his surroundings, but it kept creeping back.

The afternoon sun was low behind the cainachs when they approached the military camp. The herds were gone and the tents were arranged in neat rows. There were troops on all sides. A wide avenue opened up with a very large, black camach at the far end, guarded outside by a row of spearmen. Jason did not need any diagrams to know whose tent this was. He slid from his morope, tucked the lute under his arm, and followed his guiding officer with what he intended to be a proud but not haughty gait. Ahankk went in front of Jason to announce him, and as soon as his back was turned, Jason slipped the dentiphone into his mouth and pushed it into place with his tongue. It fitted neatly over an upper back molar, and the power would be turned on automatically by contact with his saliva. “Testing, testing, can you hear me?” he whispered under his breath. The microminiaturized device had an automatic volume control and could broadcast anything from a whisper to a shout.

“Loud and clear,” Meta’s voice rustled in his ear, inaudible to anyone but him. The output was fed as mechanical vibration into his tooth, thence to his skull and ear by bone conduction.

“Step forward!” Ahankk shouted, rudely jerking Jason from his radiophonic communication by grabbing his arm. Jason ignored him, pulling away and walking alone toward the man in the high-backed chair. Temuchin had his head turned as he talked to two of his officers, which was for the best, for Jason could not control a look of astonishment as he realized what the throne was made of. It was a tractor seat, supported and backed by recoilless rifles bound together. These were slung with leathern strings of desiccated thumbs, some of them just bone with a few black particles of flesh adhering. Temuchin, slayer of the invaders and here was the proof.

Temuchin turned as Jason came close, fixing him with a cold, expressionless gaze. Jason bowed, more to escape those eyes than from any obsequious desires. Would Temuchin recognize him? Suddenly the nose plugs and drooping mustache seemed to him the flimsiest excuse for a disguise. He should have done better. Temuchin had stood this close to him once before. Surely he would recognize him. Jason straightened up slowly and found the man’s chill eyes still fixed on him. Temuchin said nothing.

Jason knew he should stay quiet and let the other talk first. Or was that right? That is what he would do as Jason, attempt to outface and outpoint the other man. Stare him down and get the upper hand. But surely that was not to be expected of an itinerant jongleur? He must certainly feel a little ill at ease, no matter how snow, driven his conscience.

“You sent for me, great Temuchin. I am honored.” He bowed again.

“You will want me to sing for you.”

“No,” Temuchin said coldly. Jason allowed his eyebrows to rise in mild astonishment.

“No songs? What, then, will the leader of men have from a poor wanderer?”

Temuchin swept him with his frigid glance, Jason wondered how much was real, how much shrewd role-playing to impress the locals.

“Information,” Temuchin said just as the dentiphone hummed to life inside Jason’s mouth and Meta’s voice spoke. “Jason, trouble. Armed men outside telling us to come out or they will kill us.”

“That is a jongleur’s duty, to tell and teach. What would you know?” Under his breath he whispered, “No guns! Fight them. I’ll get help.”

“What was that?” Temuchin asked, leaning forward threateningly. “What did you whisper.”

“It was nothing, it was—” Damn, you couldn’t say “nervous habit” in in-between. “It is a jongleur’s… way. Speaking the words of a song quietly, so they will not be forgotten.”

Temuchin leaned back, a frown cutting deep lines in his forehead. He apparently did not think much of Jason’s rehearsing during an audience. Neither did Jason. But how could he help Meta and Grif?

“Men, breaking in!” her shouting voice whispered silently. “Tell me about this Pyrran tribe,” Temuchin said. Jason was beginning to sweat. Temuchin must have a spy in the tribe, or Shanin had volunteered information. And the dead man’s family seemed to be out for vengeance now, knowing he was away from the camp. “Pyrrans? They’re just another tribe. Why do you want to know?”

“What?” Temuchin lunged to his feet pulling at his sword. “You dare to question me?”

“Jason!”

“Wait, no.” Jason felt the perspiration beginning to form droplets under the layer of grease on his face. “I spoke wrong. Damn this inbetween tongue. I meant to say, What do you want to know? I will tell you whatever I can.”

“There are many of them. Swords and shields. They attack Grif, all together.”

“I have never heard of this tribe. Where do they keep their flocks?”

“The mountains… in the north, valleys, remote, you know…”

“Grif is down, I cannot fight them all.”

“What does that mean? What are you hiding? Perhaps you do not understand Temuchin’s law. Rewards to those who are with me. Death

to those who oppose me. The slow death for those who attempt to betray me.”

“The slow death?” Jason said, listening for the words that did not come.

Temuchin was silent a moment. “You do not appear to know much, jongleur, and there is something about you that is not right. I will show you something that will encourage you to talk more freely.” He clapped his hands and one of the attentive officers stepped forward. “Bring in Daei.”

Was that a muffled breathing? Jason could not be sure. He brought his attention back to the camach and looked, astonished, at the man on the litter that was set down before them. The man was tied down by a tight noose about his neck. He did not try to loosen the rope and escape because there were just raw stumps where his fingers should have been. His bare, toeless feet had received the same treatment.

“The slow death,” Temuchin said, staring fixedly at Jason. “Daei left me to fight with the weasel clans. Each day one joint is cut off each limb. He has been here many days. Now, today’s justice.” He raised his hand.

Soldiers held the man although he made no attempt to struggle. Thin strips of leather were sunk deep into the flesh of his wrists and ankles and knotted tight. His right arm was pressed against the ground and one soldier made a swift chop with an ax. The hand jumped ‘off, spurting blood. The men methodically went to the other arm, then the legs.

“He has two more days to go, as you can see,” Temuchin said. “If he is strong enough to live that long, I may be merciful on the third day. I may not be. I have heard of one man who lived a year before reaching his last day.”

“Very interesting,” Jason said. “I have heard of the custom but it slipped my mind.” He had to do something quickly. He could hear the hammer of moropes’ feet outside, and men’s shouts. “Did you hear that? A whistle?”

“Have you gone mad?” Temuchin asked, annoyed. He waved angrily and the now unconscious man was carried out, the dismembered extremities kicked aside.

“It was a whistle,” Jason said, starting toward the entrance. “I must step outside. I will return at once.”

The officers in the tent, no less than Temuchin, were dumbfounded by this. Men did not leave his presence this way.

“Just a moment will do it.”

“Stop!” Temuchin bellowed, but Jason was already at the entrance.

The guard there barred his way, pulling out his sword. Jason gave him the shoulder, sending him spinning, and stepped outside.

The outer guards ignored him, unaware of what was happening inside. Walking casually but swiftly, Jason turned right and had reached the corner of the large camach before his pursuers burst out behind him. There was a roar and the chase was on. Jason turned the corner and raced full tilt along the side.

Unlike the smaller, circular camachs, this one was rectangular, and Jason reached and dived around the next corner before the angry horde could see where he had gone. Shouts and hoarse cries echoed behind as he raced full tilt around the structure. Only when he reached the front again did he slow to a walk as he turned the last corner.

The pursuit was all streaming off in the opposite direction, bellowing distantly like hounds. The two guards who had been at the entrance were gone and all the other nearby ones were looking in the opposite direction. Walking steadily Jason came to the entrance and went inside. Temuchin, who was pacing angrily, was aware that someone had come in.

“Well!” he shouted. “Did you catch, you!” He stepped back and drew his sword with a lightning slash.

“I am your loyal servant, Temuchin,” Jason said flatly, folding his arms and not retreating. “I have come to report rebellion among your tribes.”

Temuchin did not strike, nor did he lower his sword.

“Speak quickly. Your death is at hand.”

“I know you have forbidden private feuds among those who serve you. There are some who would slay my servant because she killed a man who attacked her. I have been near her ever since this happened until today. Therefore I asked a trusted man to watch and to report to me. I heard his whistle, because he dared not enter the camach of Ternuchin, I have just talked to him. Armed men have attacked my camach in my absence and taken my servants. Yet I have heard that there is one law for all who follow Temuchin. I ask you now to declare about this.”

There was the thud of feet behind Jason as his pursuers caught up and stormed through the entrance. They slid to a stop, piling up behind each other as they saw the two men facing each other, Temuchin with his sword still raised.

He glared at Jason, the sword quivering with the tension in his musdes. In the silence of the camach they could clearly hear his teeth grate together as he brought the sword down, point first into the dirt floor.

“Ahankid” he shouted, and the officer ran forward, slapping his chest. “Take four hands of men and go to the tribe of Shanin of the rat dan—”

“I can show you—” Jason interrupted.

Temuchin wheeled on him, thrust his face so close that Jason could feel his breath on his cheek, and said, “Speak once again without my permission and you are dead.”

Jason nodded, nothing more. He knew he had almost overplayed his hand. After a moment, Temuchin turned back to his officer.

“Ride at once to this Shanin and command him to take you to those who have taken the Pyrran servants. Bring all you find there here, as many alive as possible.”

Ahankk saluted as he ran out: obedience counted before courtesy in Temuchin’s horde.

Temuchin paced back and forth in a vile temper, and the officers and men withdrew silently, from the camach or back against its walls. Only Jason stood firm, even when the angry man stopped and shook his large fist just under Jason’s nose.

“Why do I allow you to do this?” he said with cold fury. “Why?”

“May I answer?” Jason asked quietly.

“Speak!” Temuchin roared, hanging over him like a falling mountain.

“I left Temuchin’s presence because it was the only way I coulcr be sure that justice would be done. What enabled me to do this is a fact I have concealed from you.”

Temuchin did not speak, though his eyes blazed with anger.

“Jongleurs know no tribe and wear no totem. This is the way it should be, for they go from tribe to tribe and should bear no allegiance. But I must tell you that I was born in the Pyrran tribe. They made me leave and that is why I became a jongleur.”

Temuchin would not ask the obvious question and Jason did not allow the expectant silence to become too long.

“I had to leave because, this is very hard to say, compared to the other Pyrrans… I was so weak and cowardly.”

Temuchin swayed slightly and his face suffused with blood. He bent and his mouth opened, and he roared with laughter. Still laughing, he went to his throne and dropped into it. None of the watchers knew what to make of this; therefore they were silent. Jason allowed himself the slightest smile but said nothing. Temuchin waved over the servant with a leathern blackjack of achadh, which he drained at a single swallow. The laughing died away to a chuckle, then to silence. He was his cold, controlled self once more.

“I enjoyed that,” he said. “I find very little to laugh at. I think you are intelligent, perhaps too intelligent for your own good, and you may someday have to die for that. Now you will tell me about your Pyrrans.”

“We live in the mountain valleys to the north and rarely go down to the plains.” Jason had been working on this cover story since he had first joined the nomads; now was the time to put it to the Pest. ‘We believe in the nile of might, but also the rule of law. Therefore we seldom leave our valleys and we kill anyone who trespasses. We are the Pyrrans of the eagle totem, which is our strength, so that even one of our women can kill a plains warrior with her hands. We have heard that Temuchin is bringing law to the plains, so I was sent to find out if this were true. If it is true, the Pyrrans will join Temuchin—”

They both looked up at the sudden interruption, Temuchin because there were shouts and commands as a group of inoropes reined up outside the camach, Jason because a weak voice had very clearly said “Jason” inside his head. He could not tell whether it was Meta or Grif.

Ahankk and his warriors came in through the entrance, half carrying, half pushing their prisoners. One wounded man, drenched with blood, and his unharmed companion, Jason recognized as two of the nomads from Shanin’s tribe. Meta and Grif were brought in and dropped onto the ground, bloody, battered and unmoving. Grif opened his one uninjured eye and said “Jason…,” then slumped unconscious again. Jason. started forward, then had enough self-control to halt, clenching his fists until his nails dug deep into his palms.

“Report,” Temuchin ordered. Ahankk stepped forward.

“We did as you ordered, Temuchin. Rode fast to this tribe and the one Shanin took us to a camach. We entered and fought. None escaped, but we had to kill to subdue them. Two have been captured. The slaves breathe so I think they are alive.”

Temuchin rubbed his jaw in obvious thought. Jason took a long chance and spoke.

“Do I have Temuchin’s permission to ask a question?”

Temuchin gave him a long, hard look, then nodded agreement.

“What is the penalty for rebellion and private vengeance in your horde?”

“Death. Is there any other punishment?”

“Then I would like to answer a question that you asked earlier. You wanted to know what Pyrrans are like. I am the weakest of all the Pyrrans. I would like to kill the unwounded prisoner, with one hand, with a dagger alone, with one stroke, no matter how he is armed. Even with a sword. He looks to be a good warrior.”

“He does,” Temuchin said, looking at the big, burly man who was almost a head taller than Jason. “I think that will be a very good idea.”

“Tie my hand,” Jason ordered the nearest guard, placing his left arm behind his back. The prisoner was going to die in any case, and if his

death could be put to a good use, that would probably be more than the man had contributed to any decent cause in his entire lifetime. Being a hypocrite, Jason? a tiny inner voice asked, and he did not answer because there was a great deal of truth in the charge. At one time he had disliked death and violence and sought to evade it. Now he appeared to be actively seeking it.

Then he looked at Meta, unconscious and curled in pain upon the ground, and his knife whispered from its sheath. A demonstration of unusual fighting ability would interest Temuchin. And that ignorant barbarian with the hint of a smug smile badly needed killing.

Or he would be killed himself if he hadn’t planted the suggestion strongly enough. If they gave that brute a spear or a club, he would easily butcher Jason in a few minutes.

Jason did not change expression when the soldiers released the man and Ahankk handed him his own long two-handed officer’s sword. Good old Ahankk: it sometimes helped to make an enemy. The man still remembered the thumb, twisting and was getting his own back. Jason slapped his broad, bladed knife against his side and let it hang straight down. It was an unusual knife that he had forged and tempered himself, after an ancient design called the “bowie.” It was as broad as his hand, with one edge sharpened the length of the blade, the other for less than half. It could cut up or down and could stab, and it weighed more than two kilos. And it was made of the best tool steel.

The man with the sword shouted once and swung the sword high, running forward. One blow would do it, a swing with all of his weight behind it that no knife could possibly stop. Jason stood as calmly as he could and waited.

Only when the sword was swinging down did he move, stepping forward with his right foot and bracing his legs. He swung the knife up, with his arm held straight and his elbow locked, then took the force of the blow full on the edge of his knife. The strength of the swing almost knocked the knife from his hand and drove him to his knees. But there was a brittle clang as the mild steel struck the toolsteel edge, all of the impact coming suddenly on this small area, and the sword snapped in two.

Jason had the barest glimpse of the shocked expression on his face as the man’s arms swung down, his hands still locked tightly about the hilt that supported the merest stub of a blade. The force of the blow had knocked Jason’s arm down and he moved with the motion, letting the knife swing down and around, and up.

The point tore through the leather clothing and struck the man iow in the abdomen, penetrating to the hilt. Bracing himself, Jason jerked upward with all his strength, cutting a deep and hideous wound through the man’s internal organs until the blade grated against the clavicle in his chest. He held the knife there as the man’s eyeballs rolled back into his head and Jason knew thét he was dead.

Jason pulled the knife out and stepped back. The corpse slid to the floor at his feet.

“I will see that knife,” Temuchin said.

“We have very good iron in our valley,” Jason told him, bending to wipe the knife on the dead man’s clothing. “It makes good steel.” He flipped the knife in the air, catching it by the tip, and extended the hilt to Temuchin, who examined it for a moment, then called to the soldiers.

“Hold the wounded one’s neck out,” he said.

The man struggled for a moment, then sank into the apathy of one already dead. Two soldiers held him while a third clutched his long hair with both hands and pulled him forward, face downward, with his dirt-lined neck bare and straight. Temuchin walked over, balancing the knife in his hand, then raised it straight over his head.

With a single galvanic thrust of his muscles, he swung the knife down against the neck and a meaty chunnk filled the silent cainach.

The tension released, the soldier moved back a step, the severed head swinging from his fingers. The blood-spurting body was unceremoniously dropped to the ground.

“I like this knife,” Temuchin said. “I will keep it.”

“I was about to present it to you,” Jason said, bowing to hide his scowl. He should have realized that this would happen. Well, it was just a knife.

“Do your people know much of the old science?” Temuchin asked, dropping the knife for a servant to pick up and clean. Jason was instantly on his guard.

“No more or lessthan other tribes,” he said.

“None of them can make iron like this.”

“It is an old secret, passed on from father to son.”

“There could be other old secrets.” His voice was as hard and cold as the steel itself.

“Perhaps.”

“There is a lost secret then that you may have heard 0f. Some call it ‘flamepowder’ and others, ‘gunpowder.’ What do you know of this?”

Indeed, what do I know of this? Jason thought, trying to read something from the other’s fixed expression. What could a barbarian jongleur know of such things?

And if this was a trap, what should Jason tell him?