Bili the Axe

11

General Jay Corbett stood beside Old Johnny Kilgore in the center of what had obviously T>een a temporary camp for some group of some nature. The layers of ash and charcoal from last year’s horrendous forest fires had been removed down to bare earth and a half-dozen rude shelters had been constructed of saplings and brush brought in from less-damaged areas, and there was an arrangement of fire-blackened stones surrounding a shallow pit containing fresher charcoal.

But it was equally clear that this was not the site of a recent camp, for the green shoots of plants were now thrusting up from beneath the old, soggy coals in the firepit, and all of the shelters showed the effects of long disuse.

“It ‘uz Ganiks, fer sure,” averred Old Johnny baldly.

“How so?” inquired Corbett, though not doubting the oldster for a minute, having seen his judgments prove right too often during the last year or so. “What makes you think so,Johnny?”

“Way the lean-tos is scattered awl roun’, fer one thang, gen’nil. The Kuhmbuhluhners, whin they sets them up a camp, they does it a lot lahk yawl Broomtowners does—straight ‘n’ purty V awl. Ganiks, they puts they lean-tos up wherevuh it pleasures ‘em, ushly the placet it’s easies’ fer to dig the posties in, mos’ly. Won’ meny of ‘em though, mebbe twenny, thutty fellas.”

Corbett removed his helmet and scratched at his scalp. “But why, in God’s name, would they have camped here, I wonder? There’s no graze to speak of for a good mile, and the only reliable source of potable water is farther than that, I think. They’d have,had to pack in their firewood, too, and even the materials for their shelters and bough beds. It all makes no sense to me.”

“Simple, gen’rul.” Johnny shrugged and spat. “They ‘uz a-minin’ loot fum unduh the edges of thet rockslide, is whut.”

“Jesus H. Christ!” Corbett softly swore. “I never thought of that, Johnny. Are you sure they were?”

The head of the bearded bald man jerked a brusque affirmative. “Shore they wuz. It’s been a whole heap of them rocks a-shifted at places awn thet slide, and the raw poles they used fer to shift ‘em is awl still up ther, too. Thang I can’t figger is, if they’d come crost suthin’ worth thet much hard work, how come they din’t brang’t’ whole bunch with ‘em? Two, three hunnert boys coulda done it quicker an’ a damn sight easier.”

The officer whistled softly between his teeth. “David Stemheimer is not going to like tonight’s report one damned bit. Let’s just hope those Ganiks didn’t get away from here with too much. Any idea just when they might have been here?”

The old cannibal walked over to one of the tumbledown shelters and poked around for a few moments, then answered, “Early las’ fawl, gen’rul, enyhaow; mebbe evun afore thet, sumtahm inna summah.”

While speaking he arose and came back to the officer’s side, adding, “But whin they did come fer to leave, they did ‘er in a hellashus hurry, elst they’da took thisheanh with ‘em, shore.”

He passed to Corbett a dagger in a scratched and battered gilt case. The finely balanced weapon had surely been a highly prized possession at one time, and even now, with its still-sharp acid-etched blade all discolored and pitted with rust, its crossguard bent and deeply nicked and most of the semiprecious stones missing from their settings, it still felt good in the hand. Clearly, no fighter, not even one of the savage Ganiks, would have left so fine a weapon behind by intent.

Tapping the scarred pommel of the dagger absently into the callused palm of his hand, the officer reflected that this latest find fitted neatly into the pattern they had been encountering since first they returned up here into Ganik—well, formerly Ganik—lands. The untenanted farms where someone had planted crops but had not been around to harvest them, the deserted bunch camps, and now this once lovely little weapon, left to deteriorate in a hurriedly evacuated temporary campsite.

Someone—some thing?—had either completely exterminated the Ganiks or driven them out of and far from their ancestral homelands within a space of less than a calendar year, that was all that could be assumed from the evidence. But who? What? No need to ask why, he thought. Take all of the most detested and heinous abominations of conduct despised and almost universally prohibited by races or communities of civilized man and you had the mundane, everyday practices of your average, run-of-the-mill Ganik, were Old Johnny and that earlier Ganik prisoner, Jim-Beau Carter, to be believed, and neither had had any reason to stretch the plain truth or to lie, especially in light of the fact that none of the Ganiks considered their rather outre customs and practices to be in any way wrong or even unusual.

They commonly practiced bestiality on both living and dead animals, nor was incest—of every possible form, both heterosexual and homosexual—unusual in Ganik families. Their singular religion forbade them to consume the flesh of any warm-blooded, furred or feathered creature save mankind, so they were all cannibalistic. They would eat captured or kidnapped neighbors of non-Ganiks or even members of their own immediate families, always subjecting their still-living entrees to bestial tortures and sometimes roasting and eating portions before they killed the whole. Jim-Beau Carter had chortled, in fact, over his own family’s specialty—forcing maimed and tormented wretches to partake of broth made of their own flesh.

No, there was no need to wonder why any decent folk hated and feared and despised the race of Ganiks. One could only wonder that the stinking savages had not been dispersed or butchered years ago instead of last summer.

But that still left the question of who. Whoever they were, they must have been numerous, determined and well armed, and even with his large force with their advanced weapons technology, Corbett still would prefer to avoid any martial confrontation with whatever race or people had so recently purged these mountains of Ganiks. All he wanted to do was perform his assigned task and get the hell back to Broomtown with the same number of officers and men he had led up here.

Which was why, despite his veiled orders from David Sternheimer, he had no slightest intention of leading or sending any parties out to search for Dr. Erica Arenstein. Regardless of the Director’s dreams, Corbett himself was almost certain that the woman was dead, long dead. She had probably become a Ganik feast, if those two-legged beasts had gotten to her body before the four-legged ones did.

No, he would send out security patrols, of course, once the permanent camp was established. But they would be small and fast-moving and with orders to try to avoid discovery or combat, especially by or with superior forces.

Although Old Johnny pooh-poohed the idea, Corbett felt that the nemesis of the Ganiks had most probably been that folk who were said to inhabit the mountains just to the north, the New Kuhmbuhluhners. From Johnny’s descriptions of them, they sounded like burkers, from the Middle Kingdoms, and that there truly was a principality—once, long ago, a kingdom in its own right—up east there called Kuhmbuhluhn, he knew. He had been through it a few times over the centuries.

Recalling the fierce nobility and the Freefighter dragoons of the Middle Kingdoms, he could entertain little doubt that a few hundred such men on their big, war-trained horses would go through a mob of pony-mounted, unarmored, ill-armed and completely undisciplined Ganiks like the proverbial dose of salts.

It had been a great temptation to lay out the camp around the already partially cleared area on which the preceding Ganiks had camped, but Corbett had resisted that temptation. For one thing, the site was just too damned close to the tumbled rocks beneath which lay the remains of the pack train, and, when blast they finally did, who could say but what some portion or even all of that rockslide might start moving westward again; the low, crooked ridge which lay between the site he did choose and the area of operations would serve to protect the camp from accidents caused by the explosives. At least, Jay Corbett fervently prayed it would.

Another factor was that along the western slope of the ridge were no less than four spring-fed pools, all of which fed a streamlet that went angling southwestward through the desolate, burned-over landscape to probably eventually become a tributary of the larger stream some kilometers back to the south along the track. He immediately designated the pool farthest north for drinking and cooking water only; the three downstream ones could be used for watering stock, bathing or whatever else required water.

Once the site was chosen and paced out and stakes driven, the entire command—both troopers and civilians and only excluding sentries and a small, mounted patrol force—were set to the task of first clearing off the ash and old charcoal, then ditching and mounding the camp perimeter, adding the quantities of soggy ash and partially carbonized tree trunks to the earthen mound to increase its height and help in retarding erosion.

As soon as the perimeter was completed, latrines and offal pits and firepits dug and cookfires started in them with some of the better-quality charcoal, Corbett had Gumpner set every third man to pitching the two-man shelter tents. Most of the remainder rode off in details to the nearest stretches of un-burned forest to fell and fetch back wood for fires and a multitude of other purposes, although the general was resolved to get as much use as was possible out of the charcoal so prevalent hereabouts in the wake of last year’s horrendous conflagrations. When once dried out, it would burn slower and more evenly and with far less revealing smoke than even the best-seasoned hardwood, and he still was nagged with worry about the possible near proximity of whoever had driven out or slain the thousands of Ganiks who used to call the areas roundabout home.

Bili did not again approach the king directly, but went instead to seek out Prince Byruhn. He found that royal nobleman with some of his staff on the plateau-plain under the city walls engaged in overseeing the selection of replacement warhorses from the herds driven up from the lands of the civilized Ganiks and from several of the safe-glens.

Miscomprehending Bili’s motives at first, the huge man said exasperatedly, “Look you, cousin, had the matter been allowed to come to a vote, you would’ve had mine and no mistake, for I’ve scant stomach for putting horses and gentlemen at those damnable rows of pikepoints again. But it did not and it will not and, although I strongly disagree with both him and my nephew, King Mahrtuhn is not only my sovran but my father, as well, and he commands both my loyalty and my obedience. I am like any other faithful subject.

“Now, tell me true, cousin, did ever you see so much ambulatory crowbait in one place in your life?” The prince waved a ham-sized hand at the herd of remounts, scathingly, contemptuously. “Our tame Ganiks own the best pasture-lands in the entire kingdom, and they therefore also own the responsibility for breeding and training and maintaining a herd of decent warhorses as the best part of their due to the king. Now, when that due is needed, this, this, this conglomeration of equine abortions is what they provide! Half of the herd are too light of build or too clumsy to do more than draw a wagon or a plow, and less than one in five has had any modicum of war training. And I am expected to put gentlemen up on these dogs for imminent combat? PfaaghV

Bili did not think that most of the herd looked all that bad, though not one was a match for his own big destrier, Mahvros— but then, few horses anywhere were that. However, he thought it politic to say nothing if he could not just then agree with the angry prince, so he shook his shaven head—a noncommittal gesture that could have meant anything or nothing.

But the prince took the silence and gesture as he wished to take them, firmly gripping Bill’s shoulder and nodding down at him. “Aye, no horseman of good sense but would have to agree with me, cousin, and I always knew you were a most sensible young man.”

His hand still on the shoulder, he steered the Thoheeks of Morguhn a little away from the knot of New Kuhmbuhluhn noblemen and, when the distance was enough to suit him, halted and said in a lower tone, “Look you, Cousin Bili, someone has to command the city whilst the rest ride out—to our deaths, likely enough, but so be it, it’s but our duty— behind the king. So why not you, eh? My power is enough here to work that much. Now, true, we have a hereditary castellan for the citadel, but the young fool who presently holds that sinecure is a frothing fire-eater, a hothead who would be much happier and fulfilled forking a horse in armor than carrying out his inherited functions.

“Of course, I’d have to take part of your squadron, the Confederation noblemen and the Middle Kingdoms dragoons, at least; but I could leave you the Moon Maidens and the Ahrmehnee, perhaps, plus the regular garrisons.”

Bili chose his words carefully, his keen mind working apace. “If your grace truly believes that the city would be better served with or by replacement castellans during the coming field operations, then please hear the following recommendations.”

He paused. When the prince raised his single, bushy eyebrow and nodded once, he went on. “Both Free fighter Captain Fil Tyluh and Freefighter Lieutenant Frehd Brakit are cadets of noble Middle Kingdoms families, as your grace surely knows.”

Prince Byruhn nodded again. That he was slyly working at both of these Freefighter officers to either wed widows of his vassals slain at last autumn’s costly battle or, if they wished not to set aside their Moon Maiden battlemates, to at least swear homage, accept lands in fief and settle down in New Kuhmbuhluhn was an ill-kept secret within the low-lander squadron.

Bili continued again. “But what your grace may not know is that both of these noblemen are skilled at certain aspects of siegecraft, Brakit in particular being a consummate and most innovative engineer, while Fil Tyluh’s skills and his experience are so notable that he was personally chosen for staff work by the great Sir Ehd Gahthwahlt—perhaps the foremost living siegemaster in all of the eastern lands—and served under him for almost a year at the siege of the rebel-held city of Vawnpolis, in the Confederation.”

Byruhn’s white-flecked, red-roan eyebrow rose perceptibly over his blue-green eyes. “Say you so, young cousin? Now that is truly information of importance. I had known, of course, that both are valuable men, but I had not been aware of just how valuable they are.

“I take it then that you wish to ride out to war with your squadron and the rest of us, whether you agree with my father, the king, or not? Let me warn you, though, my father is a most hidebound and stubborn man, and my nephew no less. They both were cast of the same mold in all ways, and they will likely get themselves and the majority of the rest of us killed out there. The Skohshun herald who rode into the city a month or so after my disaster pricked at the king’s pride, pricked deeply, and he and my nephew have been honing the blades of their axes and swords ever since the departure of that supercilious man.

“And if you think that your Freefighter archers and your Ahrmehnee dartmen might be used to soften up the pike hedge, don’t so illusion yourself. The king is most contemptuous of missile warfare—save in conditions of siege—which is why we of New Kuhmbuhluhn own so few trained archers or slingers or dartmen. He means to keep charging that pike hedge until either it breaks or there are not enough of us left to throw upon it.” The big prince paused and sighed deeply, his barrellike chest rising and falling. “And to be frank, young cousin, barring some last-minute miracle, it is my considered opinion that the latter will take place long before and rather than the former. But a man cannot but do what duty and honor and his love of king and country bid him.”

Smiling, Bili said, “Your grace, I just may have a spare miracle in my quiver. A certain one of my maternal ancestors, a duke of Zunburk, developed and perfected a way to break a pike hedge in depth without the use of missiles. But I will need the overt support of your grace… ?”

The big man’s grip increased to a painful intensity and his eyes sparkled. “Now, by Steel, I knew there was a good reason why I failed to have you… ahhh, eliminated, months ago at Sandee’s Cot. Cousin mine, you show me an honorable way—honorable by the king’s lights, that is—to get our heavy-armed horse through those goddam pikes and you’ll have every scintilla of support I can muster!” Then he matched Bili’s grin with one of his own. “Or does my young cousin want my sworn Sword Oath on this matter as well?”

“No, your grace, not this time,” Bili said bluntly. “I think that you have as much regard for your life and well-being as I have for mine own.”

Erica and Merle Bowley stood beside an abashed and rueful Horseface Charley and regarded the dead man sprawled on the roadway, part of his head blown away by one of the large explosive rifle bullets.

“I shot afore I knowed I’d done it,” stated Horseface baldly. “But one them fellers had jes’ done shot his ruckin’ prod in ‘mongst us, heanh, fust thang.”

Bowley sighed, shaking his head. “Hell, man, them fellers won’t troopers, they ‘uz hunters. They probly heerd ol’ Snuffles thar an’ took him fer a pot critter is awl. Wher’d them othuh two go to?”

“Back up the road, the way they awl come from, lickety-split, thet ‘un’s hoss, too,” answered Horseface.

“Caint say I fawlts ‘em none.” Bowley nodded. “Theseheanh ryfuls does make a hellaishus racket. But, buddyboy, we is awl in the shit fer fair, naow!”

“How so, Merle?” asked Erica. “With four rifles, I hardly think we need fear any party of hunters.”

Bowley shook his head. “It ain’ hunters I’m afeared of, Ehrkah. Thisheanh is thick-settled country, jes’ look at it— look at the shape the road is in and haow meny trees has done been chopped down, and not long ago, neethuh. Wher it’s they many fowks, you bettuh bet it’s gonna be troopers, too. It ain’t lahk we wuz a-raiding in a real bunch, Ehrkah. Ryfuls ‘r no ryfuls, it ain’t thutty of us, awl toll, and thisheanh ol’ boy he don’t lahk bein’ hunted lahk we awl wuz las’ fawl, back thar. ‘Sides, haow many of ‘em could we drop afore we dint have us no more bullits? And then who’d be big dawg?”

Erica frowned. “You’ve made your point, Merle. So what would you suggest we do? Go back the way we came?”

Again he shook his head. “Aw, naw, Ehrkah. Country mosta the way back is jest too flat; they’d run us daown, fer shore, ‘fore lowng. Naw, I thank we best crowss the road and head up inta them hills, thar. It’ll shore be rough ridin’, but it’ll be a lot rougher fer troopers, you bettuh b’lieve.”

He turned to the other Ganiks. “Sumbody tek thet feller’s prod and awl. Prod ain’t nowher near good as a ryful, but it shore Lawd’ll thow a rock futhuh nor enybody c’n heave a dart.”

Immediately he was apprised of the killing of one of his hunters by the other two, young Ensign Justis dispatched a galloper to so inform Lieutenant MacNeill. After halting the column, he left it in charge of the corporal and himself rode forward with half his spear-armed pikemen and the two remaining hunters—one of them with a prod, one with a cross-bow. Wounded game did not shoot back when loosed upon; the only things he could think of that did were men, likely Kuhmbuhluhners, scouts or spies. He led them at a slow walk, his barred visor still open, but his sword blade bared and sparkling with a silvery sheen for all of its well-honed length.

As they neared the site of the attack and slaying, the pink-cheeked officer spread his baker’s dozen pikemen out in a crescent-shaped line that spanned the road and overlapped on both flanks into the roadside brush and saplings. Wisely, he kept his only two missilemen at the southward-bowed center of the line and rode just behind them.

The pikemen rode forward in grim silence, hefting and rehefting the short, broad-bladed hunting spears, feeling very vulnerable and wishing strongly that the familiar, comfortable formation was arrayed on either side and in front and behind, in place of so much dangerous emptiness. Approaching this someone or ones who had already slain one of their number, they all longed to be on their own two feet, supported by their sturdy legs instead of astride the small, shaggy, shedding ponies. They longed to be grasping their heavy pikes, three man lengths long, rather than these overshort, overlight spears which would not be, could not be at all effective until they were much closer to the unknown, not yet sighted enemy than they had the slightest wish to be. Even the sergeant’s roared threats as he drilled and redrilled them and their mates would have sounded homey and comforting in their ears as they kneed their scrubby mounts forward toward the possibly deadly unknown.

The center of the line came atop a rise just in time to see a knot of riders—a score or more of them, mounted on full-sized horses, some ponies and a few mules and with a handful of led animals, as well—burst from the edge of the forest on the right-hand side of the road and, crossing near to where the dead hunter lay, urge their mounts up the sharply rising, wooded slope on the other side.

Justis halted his line just where they were. Leading a probing patrol was one thing, but attacking an armed force of at least twice his own numbers was another thing entirely. He would stay and observe the progress of the enemy as long as they remained visible, of course, but nothing was to be gained by moving closer and risking loss of more men. Let the armored horsemen take up the pursuit when and if they arrived.

They did, only an hour or so later, under the command of Major Sir Hugh Parkinson. He returned the ensign’s stiff, formal, by-the-book salute with the casual gesture which passed for such amongst veteran cavalrymen.

“All right, youngster, what happened here worth the saddle-pounding of our poor backsides all the way out from the glen, not to mention taking us from a smashing good breakfast?”

“Sir,” began Ensign Justis, sitting stiff as a pikestaff in the saddle of his horse, his head erect and his eyes set levelly ahead, for all that the major was a bit to his left, “last night, Captain MacNeill issued orders that—”

“Never mind your life history, young man!” the cavalry leader snapped brusquely. “Just tell me what occurred out here to cause you to send that galloper back into the glen, and please try to be brief about it. And for God’s sake, look at me when you speak to me!”

When he had at length gotten the junior officer’s report, the nobleman nodded. “Kuhmbuhluhners, no doubt, bound for the glen to wreak on us what damage they can before we march out for the season’s campaign. Foolish ones, at that. They should never have let you see where they were headed, but God be thanked they did. Now we can see to it that they receive as warm a welcome as they deserve.

“As for the report your pikeman rendered, that a crack of thunder and lightning slew yon man”—he waved an armored arm up the road, toward where the body still lay—“I should hope that he’s no dimwit who believes in fairies and wizards and witches. But sounds can be tricky amongst these hills and vales, ensign. Mayhap a clap of thunder or the echo of one did coincide with the dart or slingstone or prod pellet that downed that man, I’ll not say that such couldn’t happen.”

He turned to one of his followers—a lieutenant, but a noble officer like himself, to judge by the equipage—and said, “Percy, ride you back and tell the colonel all of what you have here heard. Assure him that I shall maintain some slight pressure on this group of Kuhmbuhluhners. Perhaps I can speed them on their way into the glen, wherein I should hope that the ‘colonel and the earl will have a suitable reception awaiting them. Understood?

“Oh, and as you pass by that sorry agglomeration back there, tell that corporal to turn them all about and head them back into the glen. There’ll be no timber cutting today.”

Then, back to Ensign Justis. “Young man, you and your force will ride with me and mine; that will help to even out the numbers. We’re going up into the hills after those scum.”

“Sir, I’ll certainly accompany you, if you wish,” said Justis, then protested, “But my men are just common pikemen, not dragoons. Their ponies are small and will never be able to keep up with the horses. Besides, none of them are armored and they’re armed only with shortswords and hunting spears.”

The major threw back his helmeted head and laughed gustily. “Never you mind about those ponies’ size, ensign. Up in those hills, these little buggers can easily outstrip any horse. Your men will most likely have to hold them back, see if I’m not right. As for the armament, or rather lack of it, don’t worry. I have no intention of running this lot to ground, only of driving them out of the hills and into the glen where they can be more easily dealt with.

“Now let’s be at it, eh? You and that crossbowman will ride with me. The rest of yours can fall in at the rear of my force.”

Ensign James Justis had no available option. With many misgivings, he issued orders to his men, then joined the major. As matters developed, his misgivings were well founded.

They had been at it for hours, up and down the steep wooded or brushy slopes of the increasingly high and precipitous ridges and hills that walled in the glen, and the supercilious major had proved right about the ponies, at least. Despite their size and the solid bulk of their riders, they had easily kept up with the bigger, longer-legged horses and, being far more nimble-footed, could be safely ridden in places where horses had to be led by dismounted riders.

The brace of hunter-pikemen had had scant difficulty in following the track of the band of marauders, who apparently were exerting little if any effort to conceal signs of their passage. At one point, Sir Hugh crowed exultantly that they were gaining on the quarry. He shortly was proved to be far more correct in his assumption that he would have preferred to be… had he lived to prefer anything, one way or the other.

They had just successfully descended a steep, shaly hillside and were proceeding at a fast walk along a more or less flat, more or less level stretch of slightly marshy ground so narrow that no more than two horsemen abreast could easily negotiate it. Suddenly, from within the concealment afforded by the dense brush covering the flanking hillsides, a sleet of deadly missiles inundated the leading elements of the column—darts, a few prod pellets and twenty rounds of rifle bullets!

Never having been in real combat with them, Ensign James Justis had been completely unaware of just what fine, stolid, dependable men he commanded, not until then and there in that narrow defile suddenly filled with chaos and death.

While cavalrymen fought to control wounded or panic-stricken horses, the beasts driven into temporary madness by the succession of earsplitting explosions, the shrieks of man and animal and the reek of fresh-spilled blood, Ensign Justis=— providentially neither he nor his horse had been so much as scratched—forced his mount through the press back toward his own command.

At last he made it, to find that the veteran infantrymen had dismounted, leaving the nervous mountain ponies to their own devices, and were formed into two neat ranks. Handling the boar spears like pikes, they stood staunch against the unseen menace, presenting a double row of broad, knife-edged spearheads.

The pikeman who had obviously taken command in his absence—to his sudden shame, James realized that he did not know the name of that man or any of the others—saluted briskly and said, “Sir, beg to report the unit formed for attack or defense. Do we go up there after them, sir?”

Ensign Justis was no fire-eater. There had been no missiles for the length of time it had taken him to get back here from the head of the shattered column, and he was strongly in favor of letting well enough alone, guessing more accurately than he realized that the primary purpose of the ambush had been to slow or to halt the pursuit, not to exterminate them all.

He shook his head vehemently, started to speak, then remembered to gape the visor he had automatically closed in the first moments of the attack. “I commend your nerve, corporal, but no, we’ll not attack them and, were they going to attack us, they’d have certainly done so by now. I doubt me not that having so well accomplished their purpose, they’ve gone from up there, anyhow. So have your men see what they can do for the wounded cavalrymen and collect all the sound mounts. We’re going back down to the road and then into the glen. What’s your name, anyway, corporal?”

“If it please the ensign, sir, I be no corporal, only a common pikeman, Phillip Simpson.”

Justis just nodded. “Well, so far as I’m concerned, you’re a corporal as of this minute, and you’ll be so in fact as soon as I speak to Lieutenant MacNeill and the captain. / didn’t form up those men so quickly and neatly, you did, and a man possessing such quick wits and proven qualities of leadership not only deserves promotion within the ranks but will do the army far more good in a position of authority.

“Now, let’s to it, Corporal Simpson. The sooner we’re out of these accursed hills, the better.”