A Woman of the Horseclans

XI

Tim stumbled into the yurt a little after the dawning, half frozen, his knitted face mask stiff with ice rime. Dark blood had hardened on his mittens and in splashes up his sleeves, with blotches here and there on his trousers. His exhaustion was too great to allow him to do the normal things, so Mairee and Chief Dik’s other two wives made haste to fetch his gear from off the horse, then drape the mount with sheets of felt until it had had time to cool properly.

Bettylou helped her husband out of his wet, filthy clothing and into the lighter garb worn within the warm yurts. When she had seen him with a full bowl of last nights stew, she took his bare icy feet into her lap, under the swell of her belly.

Mairee and the other two came in laden with the gear as well as with two stiff-frozen winter wolfskins, each of them of a creamy, almost-white color.

“White wolves are rare, this far south,” remarked Chief Dik. Skillfully assembled, those two will make a fine, warm, heavy cloak, like my own black wolfcloak.”

“There are at least two more of these white ones out there,” said Tim, mindspeaking, so that he might continue stuffing his mouth with cold stew unhindered. “And they are huge, a third again as large as the biggest of the other, more normal-sized wolves, they’re braver, too, and more ferocious and cunning. This brace let the others go after the cattle and occupy our attention while they sneaked into the herders’ yurt and tried to drag out a sleeping stripling—a lad of Clan Skaht. They did kill him, but his shouts alerted those of us who happened to be in that vicinity. I was just riding in off herd guard, so my bow was strung. An arrow was enough for one of them; the other I had to get down and take on my spear, which is why the larger pelt is so ragged in the breast area.”

Shaking his head reprovingly, old Chief Dik said, “You must learn to exercise caution, Tim. You are the last Krooguh in the direct line of the chieftaincy. Were there not other armed clansfolk about who might have faced that wounded wolf in your stead?”

Bettylou felt her husband stiffen then, but when he spoke aloud his voice was controlled. “Uncle Dik, even when or if I am a chief, I never will ask or expect another man to fight for me against man or beast. Yes, there were other armed folk about out there, but I was closest and my bow was strung. You are chief and you bear honorable scars of manhood, marks of your bravery in battle and in the hunt. Would you advise me to not win such, then? If so, then choose another for your successor, for I would far liefer be a common clansman who fought and died in honor than a living but cowardly chieftain of the richest clan on all the plains!”

Bettylou expected rage from the older man at Tim’s words, but Chief Dik only nodded gravely. “A good answer, Tim, and though strongly worded, spoken with all due courtesy. You much put me in mind of my own uncle. He was a very good chief, and I harbor no doubt but that you will be every bit as good a leader of our Clan Krooguh. A chief must be courteous and display a level head even when driven to anger, you have shown us here that you possess right many of the needed attributes of the chief you soon will be. You please me mightily, nephew.”

Hwahlis Hansuhn of Krooguh was born a little later that day, and, of course, the wolves made their attack against the camp that following night. Asleep with her newborn boychild. Bettylou did not really notice Tim, Mairee and the two other women arm themselves and leave the yurt.

Chief Dik, so stiff and swollen and painful were his joints this night, could not even arise from his sleeping-rug, much less arm and fight. But still the old man insisted that a spear be left within easy reach of both him and the sleeping young mother, for with wolves all about the camp, anything might chance.

Starving one and all, the gaunt wolves made frantic efforts to thrust their bony bodies through the frozen, thorny brush that blocked the apertures of the horse stockade, and each one of the few that succeeded not only encouraged their packmates to renewed efforts but heightened the panic of the milling equines within that stockade. Nor did lupine successes make any whit easier the efforts of their human opponents.

As long as the furry shapes were outside the stockades or even worming through them, the combination of bright moonlight and vaunted Horseclans archery was certain to cost the attackers most heavily. But once inside the stockades, flitting hither and yon among the legs of the milling horse herd, it were a dangerous waste of precious arrows to try for the intruders, and the only options were either to leave them to the horses themselves with the probability that they would kill or cripple one or more before being themselves killed, or to send a brave man in after the marauder with spear and dirk; neither choice was one pleasant of contemplation to the Horseclansfolk.

But the hard choice was made, twenty times or more was it made during that hellish night by desperate men against equally desperate beasts. Some of the horses were savaged by wolves, some were wounded or killed by arrows. But, too, some spearmen were trampled by terror-stricken horses or were injured or slain by wolves as they tried to avoid those heedless hooves.

The deadly carnage went on and on, the survivors of the pack not making a withdrawal until the first rays of Sacred Sun were streaking the sky away to the east. Only then did the weary men and women sheathe their steel, case their bows and wend their way back to the yurts.

Fresh horrors there awaited them.

Tim could only stand and stare at the huge dog-wolf that lay stiffening beside the firepit, the bared fangs coated in the blood it had coughed up after the spear blade had pierced its chest. The second wolf—this one the smallest—had the look of having been clubbed to death. The third had taken the spear at the confluence of throat and chest and lay in a wide-spread pool of coagulated blood.

The three women who had crowded in behind him were no less dumbstruck by the grim tableau presented by the bloody, well-dead carcasses littering the floor of the home.

Mairee was the first to recover from the shock, saying to Chief Dik. “Well, old one, is this what must be expected every time we leave you alone with sharp toys?”

He regarded her without speaking for a long moment, then he spoke, gravely. “Had it been me alone, Mairee, I would have been in that dog-wolf’s belly long since, as I cannot so much as close my right hand around the haft of my spear.”

“Then who …?” the chorus began, then all eyes sought out the only other adult human in the yurt, where she now lay in slumber with her day-old infant. “Behtiloo?”

The old chief showed his worn yellow teeth in a smile. “None other! She had but just arisen and hung the babe high—which was fortunate—while she fetched me a sup of water, when that monster forced open the door and entered. She did not even hesitate, but took up the spear that lay by me and, waiting until he rose for her throat, skewered him as neatly as any wolf I’ve ever seen speared.

She had dropped the spear and was retching when the bitch wolf came in and made directly for me. I was able to do no morn than flip a blanket over the beast, but before it could wriggle free of that binding hindrance, our Behtiloo had lit into it with the iron spit; I could clearly hear those wolf bones crack and crunch under those blows, too.

“The third wolf snarled once before he came in and gave her enough warning to be waiting for him with a spear. She missed the heart thrust, but still she managed to hold him on the blade until he’d lost so much blood as to be weak and helpless.”

“And then, Uncle?” demanded Tim.

Chief Dik chuckled. “And then she retched a bit more, but only after she’d secured the door against more uninvited dinner guests. Then she took down her babe and repaired to her sleeping-rug.

“That woman is a rare prize, nephew. See that you always treat her as such.”

As the weather became warmer by degrees and the ice of the stream began to thin to nonexistent except along the shallower verges of the waterway, the stockades were breached and the carts and wagons brought in for overhauls or repairs. Harnesses needs must be fabricated anew or at the least altered, for not many oxen had survived the winter just past, and so many more horses and mules would have to be used for draft purposes until replacement oxen could be bought or lifted from the Dirtmen.

At the first hint of rising water, the entire camp was struck, packed and moved out onto the prairie, then unpacked and reestablished while the work on harness and conveyances continued. Within a bare week after the move to higher ground, the site of the winter camp was under a yard of roiling brown water and those stockade logs not already washed away downstream were all leaning at drunken angles as the soil packed around their bases eroded swiftly before the force of the water.

All of the clansfolk knew and more or less accepted the fact that the two clans would most likely go in separate directions this spring. Chief Skaht wished to go northwest, where the game would be most abundant through spring and summer and early autumn. Dik Krooguh, on the other hand, intended to head either due south or southeast; there might be less game, but better raiding was there to be had, as well as milder, warmer winters, which last was important to an old man plagued by all of his infirmities. Uncle Milo had not yet seen fit to announce just which clan—if either—he would accompany on this migration.

The prairie near to the stream became soggier and soggier. finally resembling just a single endless morass, cut through at countless points with trickling water, and the clouds of flies and midges made life hellish and all but unbearable for two-legs and four-legs alike. With no announced consensus, the camp was once more struck, packed and moved some two miles further east and it was at that location that they were found by the scouts of clans already on the move.

Bettylou clearly overheard the report that the scout, Ben Krooguh—who. like a fairly large minority of Horseclansfolk, did not mindspeak easily or well with humans or horses, although the powerful minds of the prairiecats seemed to be able to range even marginal mindspeakers—rendered to Chief Dik and Tim.

“The two clans coming up from the south, they’re both our Kindred—Clan Makaiuh and Clan Fahrmuh—and they allow as how there’s two more Kindred clans traveling a few days back of them, too—Clan Fraizuh and Clan Lehvin. But this bunch coming in from the northeast. they’re another bowl of stew entirely, Chief Dik, They’re dog-people. Little coyote-sized and -shaped shaggy black dogs herd their cattle, while their scouts ride with war-dogs—beasts bigger than any wolf I hope to ever see, curly-coated and prick-eared, with overlarge feet and long legs. And these dogs of war are fitted out in an armor of boiled leather to protect their throats and chests and necks. The men seem to all be very arrogant and pugnacious, but that might well be simply their fear of us Kindred, their betters.”

“How many warriors do you think. Ben?” asked Tim.

“Between two- and threescore … that I could see, Tim. Few of these dog-tribes teach their women to fight or even to draw a bow, of course, so they’re not to be counted.”

“Which is not to say that their womenfolk can’t fight when push comes to shove, Ben,” put in Chief Dik. “Recall, if you will, that Tim’s wife, with no weapons training at all and but a few hours after having birthed a babe, speared two grown wolves and beat another to death with an iron spit. You give those dog-tribe women a good reason to fight and they will, ferociously, if not too skillfully.”

No one was aware that Chief Milo had entered the yurt until he spoke, saying. “Which last is a very good reason not to give men or women of this alien tribe any pretext for fighting. There are few enough nomads roaming these lands, and the accursed Dirtmen encroach ever farther out onto the prairie each year; be we to save the grasslands for those who use them in the way Sun and Wind intended they be used, and not see them plowed up and ruined again, nomads must cease to fight each other, but rather must unite to drive the Dirtmen back off the grasslands.

“The dog-people are dog-people only because they have not yet become Kindred, have not yet entered into the bond between two-leg and prairiecat. Otherwise, most non-Kindred nomads are not very dissimilar from Kindred nomads; the two are, at the very least, far more similar to each other than is either to the Dirtmen.

“Let us do as has been done many times before, over the years. Let us meet with the chiefs of these non-Kindred in true peace, determine which way they mean to wander, then wander in company with them, as if they truly were a Kindred clan. By the end of the summer, chances are, they will already be related by a marriage or three.”

Joel and Jonathon Dunlap had been secretly pleased—more than pleased, if truth were known—to leave the Abode of their birth and, in company with some score of other young men, ride the several weeks’ journey to the Abode watched over by the Elder Claxton. The party escorted wagons filled with grain and other foodstuffs, weapons (including a few swivel-rifles), two of the infinitely precious, irreplaceable cranklights, and oddments of hardware and harness, as well as the personal effects of the score—and-two of volunteers.

It was not often that young men from the older Abodes-of—the Righteous emigrated from one established Abode to another, most often, they and an equal number of young women along with a soupçon of carefully chosen older folk, would set out for virgin territory to establish a new Abode.

But it also was not often that a single Abode would be so hideously afflicted by the heathen raiders of the prairie. The Elder Claxton and his unhappy flock had not even had a bare chance to recover from the devastating effects of a raid that, but for God’s Will, would have burned them out when the Hell-spawn raiders returned just before the first snows. They had ambushed an unmounted party of herders and murdered many of those godly men, then driven off the cattle.

Then, an ill-advised, worse-led and too hastily mounted pursuit of the raiders and the lifted herd had resulted in a second ambush, more deaths and woundings and the loss of most of the horses and mules on which the pursuers had been mounted.

Following this debacle. Elder Claxton had sent out men bearing messages both to the original Abode, far to the east, and to some of the second-generation Abodes. The messages told of the raids and of the losses they had engendered in human life, stock and supplies.

“I ask not for charity,” his messages ended, for such is not either needed or desired. This land is good: if it be Gods Holy Will, our losses will be replaced of our own efforts. What I do ask of you, my brothers, is young men, for them are many new widows here, as well as girls of marriageable age, while most of the surviving, sound men are either of middle years or not yet mature. Seed grains would, of course, be appreciated if they can be spared, weapons, tools, scrap metals and a wagon or two, if you see fit. Our only remaining cattle are three cows and two heifers; not one single span of draft oxen remains, nor have we a bull. So, send me what God impels you to send along with the young men, but please send the young men—as many as twoscore, total. Are they godly men, untainted by Sin, they will have good lives here on this land.”

So now twenty-two men, ranging in age between sixteen and twenty-seven, were forking horses and mules roundabout the two big wagons and the four spans of oxen that drew each. A young bull, just come into breeding age, plodded on a strong chain tether behind one wagon, occasionally exchanging bawls and lows with the eight cows and heifers being herded along at the rear with the aid of three cow dogs.

For all that the men gave the outward appearance of obeying the man the Elders had designated the leader—dour, ever-serious Enos Penwalt. a twenty-seven-year-old widower whose four children had died the year before from having apparently included the leaves of Dead Men’s Bells in a salad they had prepared and eaten—the real leaders of the score of volunteers were Joel and Jonathan Dunlap, and everyone save Enos Penwalt knew that fact.

Enos was a godly man in every nuance of the word. Prayer was on his lips at waking, on beginning or doing or ending his every act during the workday, at the start and finish of each meal, and before composing himself for sleep of nights. Everyone knew that he would someday become a Patriarch. At the same time, no man liked him, for his brand of holiness was of a sort to put the teeth of the more ordinary man edge to edge.

Joel and Jonathan, on the other hand, would never be considered as candidates for Patriarchs, nor would either of them have craved that office. The whipping post was an old acquaintance of both, as were the stocks; they had been preached at and prayed over in public so often that they had lost count, long since. They had been in trouble from their first toddling steps, and, no matter their distinguished lineage (they were nephews of the Elder of their natal Abode), the Patriarchs were delighted to be shut of the terrible twins and, indeed, would probably have conspired to send them away by force had they not conveniently volunteered.

Coming as he did from the original Abode of the Righteous, Enos did not of course know the unsavory, distinctly ungodly reputation of the tall, strapping, red-haired and bright-eyed young men, and so brusque was his manner that no one bothered to enlighten him on the subject.

Jo and Jon—their names for themselves—had always been as alike as two peas in a pod and had always taken full advantage of the fact that usually their own parents and siblings could not tell the one from the other. Moreover, both born leaders, they had quickly become the focal point of the anti-establishment young men of their Abode … most of whom had also volunteered, and were every bit as rebellious toward their present appointed leader as they had been toward those who had appointed him to rule over them.

This rebellious faction constituted more than half of the party—twelve, out of twenty-two—and the remainder were not in any way organized to deal with them, coming as they did from no less than three Abodes and therefore not knowing much about each other.

Enos’ authority drew its strength from the authority of the Elder and the Patriarchs who had appointed him, but these were authority figures who now were far behind and getting farther in the distance and the past with every turn of the wagon wheels, every plod of the oxes’ hooves. What now was there to fear from the ranting old graybeards? No whip they owned could reach this far.

Had Enos been at least companionable or amiable, even bent enough to show himself to be possessed of bare human warmth. he might have stood to retain the status conferred upon him, at least among the older, steadier men of the party. But Enos had never been an outgoing person, had had precious few close human contacts in his natal Abode and had no one to speak in his support when things came to a head in the volunteer group.

Abode-born and -reared to a man, all twenty-one of the other volunteers were keenly aware of the many facets of public piety, and so a communal prayer led by one of their number before and after meals and work had always been an accepted part of life; but these prayers had always been short. Not so with the prayers of Enos Penwalt, however. It mattered not to him that his time-consuming ramblings might be delaying things better done quickly. To him, there was not and could never be anything so important as a good, full-length, all-inclusive prayer. (And he felt that those back at his natal Abode who averred that his children might not have died had he fetched help immediately instead of praying over them until dawn would likely do with praying over themselves!)

In addition to regularly scheduled prayer times, Enos had a maddening habit of suddenly beginning to pray aloud at the top of his squeaky voice at any time of the day or the night, and he seemed at these times to expect every man to drop whatever he might be doing and drop to his knees on the ground until Enos finally wound down. Jo and Jon Dunlap took to calling the outbursts “prayer fits” and soon most of the other men did too—either aloud or under their breaths.

Although good, well-trained draft oxen are much stronger and more docile than are draft horses or mules, they are much more difficult to shoe properly, especially under the makeshift conditions of a small party on the move.

Of a morning, during yoking, it was discovered that the nearside pointer ox of the first wagon had cast the shoe from the inner claw of his off hind foot. To use him the remainder of the journey without that shoe could end in crippling him. The shoe must be replaced, but although there were abundant spare shoes for the horses and mules in the loads on the wagons, someone back at the Abode had forgotten to include any of the quite different ox shoes.

At this disclosure, Enos fell on his knees and began to pray … loudly and with fervor. But Jo pulled out and began to set up the odds and ends of farrier equipment with which they had been provided, while Jon raked through the metal scrap and old tools; both had spent fairish amounts of time around the Abode smithy and now were willing to undertake the task of helping God to help them out of the present predicament.

Fortunately, one of the cookfires had not been extinguished. Jo lugged the old anvil, then the tools over to the side of that fire, waved over a brace of his cronies to pile warm charcoal from the smothered fire atop the burning one, then to man the small portable bellows, Enos prayed on.

Meanwhile, Jon had found an implement—a broken hoe—with enough Sound metal remaining to be easily refashioned into a fair approximation of the needed ox shoe. Jo examined his brother’s find critically, then nodded once and thrust it into the center of the fire, motioning to the two men to start pumping on the bellows.

Turning to the knot of other men, he said, “You boys want to move out anytime soon, spread out in the woods yonder, and find and break down and bring me back all the squawwood you can. Green wood ain’t gonna burn nowheres near hot enough for this here job to be done soon.”

Still kneeling on the dew-soggy ground. Enos prayed on. Jo Dunlap’s hound wandered by, sniffed at the kneeling man’s thigh, then lifted leg and rendered a hot, pungent opinion. Enos did not stop or even hesitate; he seemed to not be aware of his canine baptism.

But most of the other men still in camp were. The majority—the rebellious faction—were nearly rolling on the ground in an excess of unholy glee. Even a few of the minority were seen to briefly smile and one was heard to chuckle.

“And once again, O Lord God of Israel, Your faithful servant Enos Dunlap beseeches … CLAAANNGG!

Clang! CLANG. CLANG, CLANG! clangclangclangclangclang. CLAANNGG!

Jo had begun to rough-shape the iron hoe, aware that could he but establish the proper rhythm, the metal could be redone cold; and he harbored serious doubts that the men in the woods would be able to find enough dry wood to make a real difference. Wood of any sort was not what was really needed. anyway; Jo needed good blue coal or at least hardwood charcoal.

As for Enos, he gave up trying to outshout the metallic clangor finally, and just prayed on to himself, his thin lips moving, but no sound issuing from them.

When he at last had a rough shoe ready for preliminary fitting, Jo had his twin and several other men tie the ox with his head between the front and rear wheels of a wagon. The ox liked not one bit of it and bawled loudly, over and over again.

This last was just too much for Enos. He arose and stamped over to the well-occupied knot of men, his cadaverous face working in frustration.

“All of you, do you hear me? Stop that noise. Stop doing anything and fall to your knees while I pray God for deliverance. Put down that … ahhAAARRRGGGHH!”

Jon ever after claimed it to have happened by the purest mischance. He and another man, each holding one end of a pole, had placed it forward of the hock and used it to lift the lower leg of the bound ox clear of the ground so that Jo could easily get at it for the first fitting. When Enos Penwalt shouted that everyone should drop everything, he simply let go his end of the pole … which then landed with the full weight of the ox’s leg propelling it squarely across Enos’ broganed foot.

For once, Enos did not pray. The tall, spare man rather rolled on the ground, clutching at his foot and squalling his agony almost loudly enough to drown out the bawlings of the ox.

Within another couple of hours, Jo and his sweating, cursing scratch force had gotten the barely tractable bovine shod. Within that same amount of time, Enos Penwalt’s foot had become terribly discolored and immensely swollen, and the twins had discussed camping in place until the swelling had subsided sufficiently for Enos to at least get his shoe back on, but on being convinced by a couple of the older volunteers that there existed considerably more than a possibility that one or more of the bones in Enos’ foot were broken, the brothers decided that the sooner a real doctor saw the suffering man, the better.

By rearranging wagonloads, by utilizing some of the led stock as pack animals, a space was made to convey the injured man on a bed of blankets and conifer tips laid on the floorboards of one of the wagons. The track they followed was but infrequently used, rough at the best and overgrown in more places than not; moreover the wagon was utterly springless, built for strength and wearability, not comfort, but it was the best type of transport they knew how to provide.

“Ever time them wheels turn, it’s gonna hurt Enos like blue blazes,” Jon opined.

Jo just shrugged. “At least it’ll give him suthin’ to pray for, brother. And that alone oughta make him happy.”

The dog-tribe had not one but rather three chiefs, each the theoretical equal of the others, although the eldest—a short, stocky man of middle years—seemed to do most of the talking for them and the tribe. Clad in gaudy finery, they rode in to meet with Chiefs Morai, Krooguh and Skaht at a meeting ground laid out well away from the clans camp.

For all that few weapons were in evidence to the casual glance, everyone well knew that everyone else was heavily armed, and, consequently, nerves were strung bowstring-tight, while ultimate courtesy was become the order of the day; for everyone there also knew that as often as similar meetings had resulted in friendship and alliance between Kindred and non-Kindred, they had just as often resulted in pitched battles.

The agreement had stipulated that each chief might bring to the meeting, itself, no more than two advisers, although up to a score of his warriors might await him beyond the confines of the meetingplace. So eighteen nomads sat in the council circle deciding their mutual future, while some sixscore warriors squatted near their horses all around the perimeter. caressing their weapons and eying their counterparts warily, alert for any slightest hint of treachery.

Morai had brought along one warrior each from Skaht and from Krooguh as advisers. Skaht had his brother and another subchief, and Krooguh had with him Djahn and Tim Staiklee of Krooguh.

But all fears of imminent carnage were laid to rest when the dog-tribe spokesman—Kehvin Burk—arose and spoke his mind. “We are from the north, have always been, and the only reason we moved south this spring was in hopes of finding tribes of you cat-people to help us … help yourselves, too, for that matter. Problem is these damned farmers. They’re moving farther and farther out into the prairies, killing off, all the game, burning off the grasses and plowing up the land. You may not have seen too many of the buggers down south, here, but up north, they’re becoming thick as flies on a fresh-skinned carcass … and, mark my words, your turn will come, and maybe one hell of a lot sooner than you think. These farmers hate and fear all of us herding people, be we cat-people or dog-people, and no mistaking; so it’s a pure case of either we hang together now or we hang separate and high, later, but not too much later.

“Now, I’ve said what I came to say. Let’s hear from one of you cat-folk chiefs, say I.”

Wearing a broad, very friendly smile, Chief Milo of Morai arose. “Chief Kehvin, you echo my very own sentiments with regard to these abominable Dirtmen, these farmers, these foul despoilers of the prairies and plains …”

The conclave went on for all of that day and well into the night, then for several days and nights after. Before it was done, it had been joined by the chiefs of two more Kindred clans—Makaiuh and Fahrmuh—and a firm, mutually agreed-upon decision had been reached.

Milo Morai, Claim Skaht and Fahrmuh would join forces with the dog-tribe and return with them to the north to deal with the Dirtmen there, to try to persuade the agriculturalists that their attempted westward expansions were unhealthy if not downright fatal.

Meanwhile, Clan Makaiuh, the chief of which had not been excessively keen on trekking north this spring anyway, would move back southeast with Clan Krooguh to explore the possibilities of hunting and raiding in that sector.

Once the decisions were made, they were quickly enacted, for the large numbers of stock had all but exhausted the easily available graze. Within days, the clans were on the move.