The Savage Mountains

IV

Halfway up the last, steep slope, Pehroosz Bahrohnyuhn first heard the terrified bleating of the goats and the snorting-stamping of horses or ponies. Hill-born and bred, for all that her father was village headman and full brother to Chief Moorahd, the proud-breasted, raven-haired girl was immediately suspicious. Dropping the bundle of fresh-baked bread she had been bringing to her younger brothers, she forsook the narrow track for the bordering thick growth of evergreens and gingerly crept upward seeking a point from which she might see the whole of the pasture slopes without being seen herself.

It was a scene of horror. Big men on big, lowland horses were cantering about the pasture slopes, sabering or axing the scuttling, bleating goats. The dry winter grass already was speckled with quivering, bloody carcasses. Of her two youngest brothers there was no sign, but Toorkohm—at a hundred and forty-three moons, thirty-seven moons her junior; big-boned, with their father’s craggy face, wide shoulders and quick, sure movements—stood at bay, his back to the dry-stone chimney of the herdsmen’s shelter, his wolfspear held menacingly ready, fresh blood glowing on its wide blade.

Pehroosz could not repress a smile of grim satisfaction, even under these conditions, for one scale-shirted raider lay stretched on the sward, his throat gaping like a huge second mouth, his chest and shoulders covered with frothy pink gore. Another sat swaying with agony, while a third labored to stop his life from leaking out the broad stab in his thigh. It was obvious that Toorkohm had fought skillfully and well.

But it could not last, this Pehroosz knew. No matter how reckless his courage, how strong his arm, how thirsty his spear, he was but a largish, unarmored boy, now ringed by cautiously advancing, fully armed, full-grown raiders. It ended quickly. A long-bladed saber licked out and Toorkohm sought to parry it with his spearshaft. With a practiced drawcut, the raider’s upper edge sliced deeply into the seasoned walnut wood. In the moment the spear was immobilized, two more raiders stepped close to Pehroosz’s brother and she quickly closed her eyes as the blades rose and fell, rose and fell with the meaty tchunnks reminiscent of autumn hog-butchering. Toorkohm’s own, thin death wail rose above those of the goats he had fought so well to succor.

Her pretty olive face bathed with tears, Pehroosz slowly worked her broad-hipped but lissome body back from the crest, not turning until the bulk of the hill loomed above her. And what she saw then brought a piercing scream from her throat Then consciousness left her.

The chill awakened her, and she instinctively sought to flex her body against it, but neither arms nor legs would move. Only when she opened her eyes could she see that she was lying on the packed-earth floor of the herdsmen’s hut, her clothing all stripped from her and wadded beneath her buttocks. One of the raiders knelt his weight on her palms, holding her arms extended above her head; two others crouched grinning, their big, dirty hands locked about her ankles, splaying her long legs. Standing between those legs was a fourth raider. His breeks were tumbled about his boot tops and he was tucking up the skirt of his scaleshirt. Pehroosz’s first thought had been to show the bravery of her dead brother, but when she saw the thick, throbbing maleness standing up from the raider’s loins, terror sent a shudder coursing through her body and a whimper bubbling from her lips.

She was deflowered savagely, brutally. And when the spent raider rose from her ravaged flesh, his place was taken by another. Then, another … and another … and yet another.

Pehroosz lost count of the number of attacks. But at some point she did rally, did do something other than scream her throat raw. She tried to clench her pain-racked body and, failing that, bit at her tormentors, drawing blood from at least one, possibly two. But their buffets dizzied her and they began to hold themselves up and away from those teeth while they used her.

Somewhere close by, Pehroosz could hear the ugly, guttural sounds of some animal’s agony. The noises were harsh, sickening, and she wished that the raiders would saber the poor beast so that the noises would stop. Dimly, from far off, she heard, too, men speaking in one of the Mehruhkuhn dialects, but she had never had cause to master Mehrikan, since Ahnnehnee men did all the trading.

“I know just what Duke Bill ordered,” snapped the plate-armored officer shortly, the knuckles of his bridle hand glowing white where he gripped the pommel of his fine broadsword. “But if, Sword forbid, her screams carried as far north as they did south the whole damned village could be alerted by now! You, Grohz, put up your damned dirk! Remember, we want the likes of this poor girl to escape north to the nahkhahrah. All you men get mounted now, put Patuhzuhn’s body on his horse and form up. Komees Hari will soon be at the ford, and we’re to meet him there. He wants to be in position to attack the village just at the nooning. Run off the smaller ponies, but leave the big one for her.”

With a chuckle, the sergeant commented, “Sir Geros, that chit were a maid, ere my yard rendered her a woman. With the swiving we done give her, her crotch’ll be sorer nor a boil for some little while. She’ll not be forking no pony this day, I trow!”

His laughter was echoed by most of the others as they strode out to the horses.

Shortly, a jingling and creaking and measured hoofbeats receded into the distance as the patrol went back the way they had come. But it was more than an hour before Pehroosz, once more shivering in her nakedness, managed to drag her bruised, battered body to the hearth, on which a small fire still glowed.

She wished that the raiders had had the decency to slay that still-suffering goat, ere they left. Some time later, she realized that those hurt-animal sounds came not from a goat, but from her own throat. Her fierce. Bahrohnyuhn pride had refused to show the raiders her tears, but now they came. In a great racking rush they came, and her abused body doubled upon itself and shook to her sobs of rage and pain and shame.

In his youth, Komees Hari Daiviz of Morguhn had been a Freefighter, soldiering the length and breadth of the Middle Kingdoms, whose two-score-plus principalities had seen precious few years of peace in the four centuries since the Great Earthquake had brought them into squabbling existence. The passage of more than a score of years had failed to dim his memories of those bloody days, nor had the pursuits of peace—marriage and the rearing of a family, succession to his patrimonial title and estate, the ordering of his lands and horses and people—softened him or expunged from his mind the hard lessons learned from the particularly savage and merciless brand of warfare peculiar to the kingdoms of the north.

Almost all of the Freefighters who had ridden into the mountains behind komees’ suzerain, Thoheeks Bili Morguhn of Morguhn, were men born and bred and blooded in the Middle Kingdoms, and Hari had quickly reverted to the man he had been twenty-odd years before, finding that he once more was thinking like a professional soldier. He was again relishing the rough banter and lewd songs; the constant and often senseless profanities and blasphemies fell unnoticed on his ears and unconsciously from his lips. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to end a hard day’s march with a bruising session of sword-fencing or staffplay, under the discriminating eye of a weaponsmaster—which breed of noncom tyrannically chivvied exhausted officers and men alike into nightly practice sessions in weapons skills.

In recognition of his experience, the thoheeks had given him command of a squadron of dragoons and had not demurred too vociferously when the old komees chose one of the suzerain’s favorites, the valorous Sir Geros Lahvoheetos of Morguhn, to be his senior captain.

At their last meeting, the young thoheeks had stood before Hari and the other squadron commanders in his three-quarter armor, with a cold wind whipping his oiled cloak about his booted legs and the rays of new-risen Sacred Sun glinting on the brass point atop the shaft of the Red Eagle banner, ensign of the House of Morguhn.

The scarred, deeply tanned face which peered from the opened helm gave no indication of the tall, broad-shouldered nobleman’s actual youth. The high forehead was furrowed and a web of tiny wrinkles crinkled the outer corners of the blue-gray eyes. His baritone voice flat and emotionless, he reiterated the High Lord’s orders and instructions with regard to their mission and its implementation. Then he drew his broadsword and used it to point out features of the parchment map which a couple of men held unrolled behind him.

“Gentlemen, Sir Ehdt emphasizes that he cannot claim more than a bare minimum of accuracy for this map. Unlike the northern and central columns, ours will not be traversing lands scouted out by Drehkos-the-traitor last year. The only references Sir Ehdt had were campaign sketches and notes at least three generations old, plus the questionable information of some traveling merchants. Nonetheless, it is all we have, and so we must make do with it.

“We are now here, at this crossroads. The column will march west today, dropping off squadrons as it goes. When your squadron leaves the column, you are on your own, gentlemen, on your own. There is little likelihood that you will encounter more than a bare sprinkling of Ahrmehnee warriors, since most of the bastards are up there in the north; but don’t forget, these are their mountains. They know every nook, crag and cranny and they are past masters of irregular warfare, so even two or three will cost you heavily if you let them take you unaware.

“If the terrain will permit, do not allow your troopers to ride bunched up, where a volley or a boulder could do real damage, for well be covering a forty-mile front and we want at least a peek into every valley and vale. It would not only be disobedient to our orders to leave a single village untouched, but very dangerous, as well, since we need our enemy fleeing before us, not skulking behind.

“You are all seasoned campaigners, else I’d not have placed you in command positions, so I’ll not insult your intelligence by lecturing you on dos and don’ts and the merits of basic preparedness. After all,” he treated them to a fleeting grin, “you’re commanding Freefighters who can forage for necessities, if need be, and don’t require the careful spoonfeeding of Confederation Regulars.”

Hari had joined in the brief chortling and chuckling. If the siege of Vawnpolis had taught them nothing else, they had all learned the essential superiority of the Freefighter and the Kindred nobility to the vaunted and highly trained Army of the Confederation.

At first, the strict discipline and unquestioning obedience to orders, the machinelike precision of movements and maneuvers, of the serried ranks of Regulars had impressed them. But that was before they had seen the other side of the coin. The discipline was exacted at the cost of the men’s individuality; the obedience robbed them of any initiative, and the precision had conditioned them into virtually will-less robots. The spectacle of a regiment’s even, ordered ranks trotting inexorably against an enemy position, emotionlessly dressing to fill the gaps left by killed or wounded comrades, halting as one man on order to hurl close-range volleys of darts, then raising a guttural cheer and pouring over their objective, was awe-inspiring. But the helplessness of the men of the same regiment in any case not covered by rules and regulations, when no officer or noncom was about to think for them, sickened and repelled the self-reliant condottieri and most of the freedom-worshiping noblemen, even as the habit of most Confederation officers of treating anyone not of equal or higher military rank as a bull-headed child irked and infuriated them.

“I’ll dole out the flesh tailors as far as they’ll go,” the thoheeks went on. “But there’re just not enough of them, and anyone wounded in a squadron lacking them will just have to take his chances with a good horseleech.

“Each squadron will be allowed twelve mules, no more. And any officer I catch wasting a muleback to pack a tent will get my boot up his arse; this be no pleasure jaunt and, if it’s shelter you must have, take it from the Ahrmehnee.”

His swordtip traced a course north from the trade road. “Mark you this route on your small maps, gentlemen. When the last of your squadrons is on the way, I’ll set out on this path behind you with the five reserve squadrons and the remainder of the packtrain. When, eventually, you encounter sizable numbers of Ahrmehnee warriors, send gallopers back for me, then choose a tenable position and hold it until I arrive. On no account is any squadron to attempt either to push through or to retreat before the main Ahrmehnee host! Understood?”

Sheathing his broadsword and signing his men to roll up the map, he smiled wolfishly. “Dispose of loot as you see fit, catch-as-catch-can or equal division, it’s all to be yours, since the High Lord will claim no share, nor will I. Reave and rape and ravage to your hearts’ content, put the fear of Sword into these barbarians. And don’t stick at slaying children, either; nits make lice, and we want to so depopulate these mountains that the bastards will be at least another generation recovering.

“I’ll probably have a few words with each of you, ere your squadron separates from the column. But for now, let’s to horse. Good hunting, gentlemen.”

That had been three days ago. Now Hari’s main body was trotting up a long, narrow, twisting vale, towering dark-green mountains on their right and a swift-flowing rivulet on their left. Between broad patches of snow and dark, weathered outcrops of rock, the ground was crunchy with the stubble of sere, yellowed grass. Only goats or sheep would have cropped it so close.

Up ahead, nestled in a larger, more sheltered valley, lay the village his scouts had found yesterday. They had reported the only adult males to be either old or crippled, so Hari had elected to proceed at a normal march rate, though as quietly as possible so that the quarry might not be spooked and go to ground, and attack whenever he arrived in position. But since the scouts had also reported a number of flocks of goats scattered about the routes to the village, he had sent several squads on ahead to make certain that the herdsmen carried no warning to the objective.

All had seemed well and they had been rapidly advancing when that damned screaming had echoed down the vale, bouncing off the steep slopes on either hand. The screams had gone on and on and on, and, cursing the carelessness of whoever was responsible, while hoping that the intervening hills would keep this alarm from reaching ears in the village, Hari had sent young Sir Oeros and a squad up to try to still the noise at its source.

As they came to where two smaller streams joined to form the larger, the knight rejoined Komees Hari, while the two squads trotted back to take places in the column.

“What in Sword was going on?” demanded the old nobleman immediately. “What occasioned those fornicating screams?”

“Just that, my lord, fornication … rather, a gang rape,” Sir Geros replied grimly. “The squad had caught a girl on the trail leading from the village. She must have been a really beautiful girl, too, for she was still pretty even after all they’d done to her.”

“Did they slay her?” inquired the komees idly.

“They would’ve, my lord, but I forbade such and, recalling what you said of the orders of the High Lord and Duke Bili, I had them leave a pony nearby for her. I should imagine that the tale of a raped wife or daughter would be most effective in persuading men to come back and defend their homes.”

Hari chewed at his lower lip. ‘True enough, man, true enough. But it might be better to send a man back up there to cut her throat What if she alerts the damned village?”

Geros shook his head to the extent his tight-laced helm would allow. “No need, my lord. She was taken by all twelve of the men, I think, and the sergeant as well. They used her badly, very badly. I doubt me she can even walk, much less mount a pony.”

Hari shrugged. “Well, if you say so, lad. And besides, if we can keep up this pace, we’ll probably be on the village ere she could get there, anyhow.”

For long and long after no more tears would come, Pehroosz lay huddled near the fire, shuddering and sobbing dry sobs. But as the untended fire began to die, the shudders metamorphosed into shivers and the sobs into gasps between chattering teeth. Once, through the hard-packed dirt beneath her, she thought to feel the drumming of many hooves. Sure that the dread sounds heralded the return of her attackers, she huddled her aching body more tightly and whimperingly awaited the unendurable.

When a hairy something touched her and she felt hot, damp breath on her quivering flesh, she tried to scream, but her tight, strained throat emitted only a dull croaking sound. Gathering her courage, she opened her eyes to see what fresh horrors were to be her lot.

Above Pehroosz stood old Zahndrah, most venerable of the Bahrohnyuhn she-goats, her gentle, brown eyes pain-filled, mutely questioning the brutality which had been so unjustly dealt her. All along the nanny’s right flank, the hair was crusty and brownish, marking the path of a shallow saber cut.

Raising a shaking hand, Pehroosz caressed the small, neat head between nose and cursive horns. Uttering soft sounds of pleasure, Zahndrah pressed closer, gently nuzzling the familiar-smelling human. Then she turned tail and knelt to display her milk-heavy udders.

Until then, Pehroosz had not realized just how thirsty she was. She looked about her, spotted a small, wooden bowl within easy reach. Reaching for the vessel, she sat up … then abruptly rolled back onto her hip, breathless with pain. After some experimenting, she found a relatively painless position and first filled, then drained off three bowls of hot, frothy milk. Relieved, Zahndrah arose and ambled back out of the shelter.

With the nanny’s departure, Pehroosz began once more to suffer from the cold, so, careful not to let the most abused parts of her body come in contact with the hard, bumpy floor, she levered herself erect But she could not remain so. Groaning at the sharp agony of the cramps racking her belly, she fell to her knees and elbows and so remained until, after eternities, the spasms subsided.

On hands and knees, she retraced the few feet to the scene of her defilement and, fighting to hold down the goatmilk, set her bruised and clumsy hands to unfolding the damp, sticky bundle of her clothing. But, since they had apparently been ripped from her by main force, homespun gown and shift and woolen overshift were only so much shredded cloth now. Only her cloak was whole. Gratefully, Pehroosz wrapped herself in the stained garment. She at first thought the cursed raiders must have stolen her fine fur-lined felt boots, but she found them, finally, tossed into a dark corner.

Before the small fire died away, she fed it bits and pieces of the stools which had been the shelter’s only furnishings. Then, as a cold wind had commenced to angle in, she crawled to the open side and painfully worked the oiled hides down into place, eventually forcing her stiff fingers to properly lace them together and secure their bottoms. By the time she had finished, she was exhausted, and, lulled by this exhaustion, as well as by the warm near-darkness and the physical and emotional stress of the last few hours, she lapsed into a deep sleep, a healing sleep, from which she wakened only enough to feed such fuel as she had to the fire from time to time as needed.

The High Lord and his host camped below the Gap of Vawn, amid the tumbled, ghost-haunted ruins of Fort Buhkuh, until Bill’s and Aldora’s farspeak told him that the keen steel and fiery torches of their far-ranging forces were hard at their bloody task. Then, of a bitter, snowy morn, drums rolled, trumpets brayed and disciplined ranks of Confederation infantry set bootsole to trade road in the wake of the mounted vanguards and scouts. Each of the four regiments had been brought to full strength by the addition of able-bodied former rebels from the Vawnpolis garrison, and those officer-grade types not riding with Vahrohneeskos Drehkos trotted their mounts along as supernumeraries with the High Lord’s staff. Only the sick or disabled rebels had been left in Vawnpolis; plus, of course, the lunatic Vahrohnos Myros Deskati of Morguhn, and his “bodyguards” commanded by the faithful Captain Danos.

Two days’ march into the mountains, the vanguard squadron of kahtahfrahktoee—heavy cavalry—under command of Keeleeohstos Oaib Lihnstahk fought an inconclusive action with an unknown, but certainly small, number of Ahrmehnee tribesmen. Had the ambush succeeded, vanguard casualties would surely have been heavy. But the concealed bushwackers had been spied out by the swift, fleering prairiecats, who had reported the location to Gaib, then lain in position to take the Ahrmehnee in flank and rear at a critical point in the engagement Certain articles found on the bodies of the slain marked them as men of the Ahrahkyuhn Tribe.

The following week saw four additional attempts of a similar nature, all foiled by the keen senses of the mind-speaking felines who ranged point and flanks and rear of the upward-toiling column. As the Ahrmehnee were crafty, brave and on well-known home ground, their losses were not truly heavy. Nonetheless, with the failure of the fifth ambush, they ceased their attacks and the cats could report no more than a handful, apparently pacing the column.

They had been on the march for a fortnight when they came to the charred ruins of the trade-road bridge jutting blackly over the rushing waters of a tributary of the Peekrohs River. Milo cursed himself for not foreseeing such a likelihood and bringing at least a company or two of the engineers. But cross the stream the army did, and safely. Then a few hours’ ascent brought them onto the plateau which lay between the mountains of Tribe Ahrahkyuhn—which they had just traversed—and those inhabited by the tribe of the nahkhahrah, Tribe Taishyuhn.

Amid the ancient, partially buried relics of a godcity, the High Lord had a night camp erected. But on the morrow the march was not continued. Instead the men and pack mules were put to the tasks of dragging timbers from the slopes above and below, then raising a strong palisade atop the usual earth mound. Some were even put to digging stones from their ages-old resting places and manhandling them into such positions as would give added strength to the defenses. The ground, hard and flinty under the best of conditions, was frozen and the work strenuous, but by the morning of the fourth day, Senior Strahteegos Hahfos could report the task completed.

Hahfos was young for a corps commander, barely forty summers, but such had been the attrition of officers—both senior and junior, company, field and strahteegos grades—at the savage siege of Vawnpolis, that the Morguhn Expeditionary Force was become an army composed principally of the young, the nimble and the lucky. Third son of a thoheeks whose lands lay far to the south and west near the shores of the vast inland sea, Hahfos Djohnz’s appearance always pleased the High Lord, personifying as he did the splendid melding of two fine races—Horsclans-man and Ehleen.

Two dozen years of campaigning had weathered his skin to the shade of old walnut and crosshatched all its visible surfaces with the seamed and puckered cicatrices which were the badge of his calling, but the High Lord accepted these scars and the permanent tan, unimpressed. Not yet bent by age, Hahfos stood one meter and three quarters; his close-cropped hair was almost the same shade as his face, with flashes of white at the temples, and though his blue-green eyes could chill an object of his displeasure to the innermost core, most occasions found them filled with merriment and joy of life.

A born leader of men, he had no need to rant and bellow, his orders were never pitched louder than the circumstances necessitated and he spoke either Mehrikan or Ehleeneekos tinged with the soft, slurring speech patterns of his faraway home. Astute as strategist and accomplished as tactician, he could be ferocious in personal combat, as was attested by the two Silver Cats he held; yet, withal, he was a kindly man and took no joy in needless suffering.

In the Fourteenth Regiment, which he had commanded for six years prior to his quite recent promotion, he had been affectionately known as “Old Pussyfoot.” He had cared for his men and their response had been to give him not only an unflagging source of pride but their fierce love, as well. Not a few grizzled fighting men had openly wept when he left them for corps command.

When he had delivered his report to the High Lord, Milo nodded his thanks, then waved at the vacant chair across from his own. “If you’ve not something pressing, Hahfos, sit you down and have some of this abominable wine.”

Hahfos’ ready smile lit his face. “Thank you, mah lord.” Milo waited until the officer was seated and had poured and tasted the wine, then asked, “How heavy is your new mantle, good Hahfos? Do you wish you still were simply sub-strahteegos of the Fourteenth?”

Hahfos absently rubbed a horny forefinger up and down his short, slightly canted nose. “Yes, mah lord, sometimes. But then, when ah had the Fourteenth, ah sometimes wished ah still was simply a keeleeohstos, too. Ah suppose that all men think back on the days when things were comparatively easy, whenevah we’re faced with difficulties we didn’t have then.”

“How true, how true,” Milo sighed. “I sometimes think back to the freedom I enjoyed as a Horseclans chief, centuries ago. But tell me, how are you getting along with the regimental commanders? My staff informs me there’s been a bit of friction since this march commenced.”

“Only one real bone of contention exists, mah lord Ah forbade certain gentlemen, whose ideas of discipline are somewhat at variance to mah own, from administering any moan than five lashes to any soldier within a given week. Ah pointed out that, since a man with twenty or thirty stripes can’t march in ahmah and as we have no ambulances to carry them, they would weaken owah force were they to abide by their accustomed ways. Ah also pointed out that I had only two men flogged in six years, with no noticeable loss of discipline in the Fourteenth.”

Milo grinned. “Good for you, Hahfos. Rubbed their noses in your successes, did you? I’d imagine that that galled them more than your order.”

Hahfos shook his head. “Ah did not say what ah said to offend them, mah lord. But all ah said is true, mah lord! Ah know, ah proved mah views! The whip makes good men bad and bad men worse and it is, in any case, completely unnecessary. Advocates of the whip call it the ‘Foundation of Discipline,’ but it is no such thing, mah lord. If a commander be able and lets his men know that he cares for their welfare, he can easily maintain all the discipline needed with only rare application of the whip. Ah consider the whip to be the final argument of lazy or incompetent officers!”

He had waxed very vehement, now his tone softened. “Ah am sorry if ah offended mah lord, but mah lord did ask… .”

“No, Hahfos,” Milo reassured him. “I was not offended. I could not agree more with most of it. But the cult of the whipping frame is hard to root out It’s a carryover custom from two centuries ago, from the pre-Horseclans Ehleen army, in which common spearmen were all peasants—to all intents and purpose, brutish and brutalized military slaves. I inherited that army intact and thought it best, at the time, to allow the Ehleenee officers to maintain most of their accustomed practices. When in later years I attempted to inaugurate new customs, I discovered the past ones to be so firmly entrenched from top to bottom that I would’ve chanced precipitating a virtual mutiny to force my will.

“But I was steeling myself to take that very chance, Hahfos. Then came the Second Kuhmbuhluhn War and, on its heels, the invasion by King Zenos VIII, and, since, we’ve seldom been at peace for any length of time.”

“Ah understand, mah lord,” said Hahfos sympathetically. “It is truly said that crowns and coronets can fast weigh down the spirit.

“But mah lord, ah … that is, would mah lord object if ah were to …”

Milo smiled once more. “Hahfos, you have free rein, my earnest prayers and all my approval. If you can do what you did with the Fourteenth with this corps, you will succeed old Ehmeekos as lord strahteegos of the armies, you have my solemn word on it.”