Bili the Axe

6

With the skill and rapidity of long experience, Gy Ynstyr the “Furface” or bugler of the squadron as well as the senior orderly of Duke Bili of Morguhn—packed his spare clothing and meager personal effects into his saddlebags and blanket roll. While doing so, he tried to pretend that he did not see the glowering scowls cast in his direction by the other occupant of the small tower chamber, who sat on a stool and clumsily attempted to hone an even keener edge on her already knife-sharp, crescent-bladed light axe.

The last storm of the long, hard winter was now but a memory and its final, remaining traces were fast melting to swell the icy streams cascading down the flanks of the mountains. The season of war was nearing; therefore, most of Duke Bili’s lowland squadron was preparing to take road toward the north of the Kingdom of New Kuhmbuhluhn, where Prince Byruhn and the Skohshuns—the foemen of this new season’s war—awaited them.

Earlier, Gy and his two assistant-orderlies had packed the chests of the duke and his lady, snapped the locks in place, then borne them belowstairs to the point at which the train of pack ponies would be assembled. Now there remained only his own gear to quickly pack or don, that he might speed to the commander’s side and be readily available to bugle orders or changes to orders as the occasion might demand.

He had known full well for the two weeks since the announcements of assignments that his war companion—the sometime Moon Maiden, Meeree—had taken hard this matter of being left behind in the Glen of Sandee while the bulk of the squadron marched north to war. But he knew that she knew why as surely as did he and the officers who had made the decision, so he was hurt that she seemed to be blaming him—who had had no slightest choice or voice in the matter— and thus was making his leavetaking even more unpleasant.

Those being left behind fell into several categories: the farmer-stockmen of the glen, those under sixteen or over fifty, at least; the women and children of the glen; a skeleton force of sound warriors to help the young or old or crippled to adequately man the almost invulnerable defenses of the glen; those of the former Moon Maidens who chanced to be too far along in their pregnancies to be safely aborted by the skills of the Kleesahks, Pah-Elmuh and Ahszkuh; the handful of crippled warriors; and two of the Kleesahks.

There was one other category: some two dozen of the once Maidens of the Moon had given birth during the winter months, and those infants, each of them now fostered with a wet nurse from one of the resident farm families, were all being left in this, the safest spot in all of embattled New Kuhmbuhluhn, until the invading Skohshuns were defeated and their parents could return for them.

Meeree—former lover of the hereditary leader of the Moon Maidens, the Lady Rahksahnah, who now was Duke Bill’s consort—had seldom lain with Gy and never conceived of him. That was not the reason she was to stay behind. Nor was she listed amongst the thin ranks of the warriors to man the formidable defenses of the glen; had that been the case, she might, just might, have been a bit less disagreeable. No, Meeree was on the short list of cripples, and she had alternately raged and sulked since first that list was published, for most of two full weeks, now. —

“But, dammit, she is crippled!” Gy said under his breath, while securing his rolled blanket with lengths of thong, his frustration causing him to jerk so hard on one length that the tough rawhide snapped like rotten twine. “She has been for almost as long as we’ve been here, has been since that night that she first forced Lieutenant Kahndoot into a death-match duel, then attacked Duke Bili when he brought the duel to a halt.”

The bearded man sighed, thinking, “She must have been mad, that night, to attack Duke Bili—and him in full armor and armed with his big axe. He could easily have killed her then. All of us expected him to do it… though I hoped against hope that he wouldn’t, of course. But it might have been better for poor Meeree if he had. Her arm has never been sound since the side of his great axe shattered it through the thicknesses of her target and armor, both. Nor has Pah-Elmuh’s healing art been successful for Meeree, much as he has helped others.

“He claims that there is some something deep in her mind that negates his instructions to the other parts of her mind to properly heal the arm. That sort of thing is beyond my poor powers of understanding, of course, but I do know that as she is now become, it were suicide for her to attempt to ride into battle. Her left hand no longer seems to have strength; too weak and unsure it is to handle the reins or even to grasp the handle of a target.

“But she cannot or will not recognize this as the reason she is being left here. She insists that it is because Duke Bili distrusts her and Lieutenant Kahndoot hates her, and I know for fact that neither accusation is true. But she, she hates the two of them so fiercely that she will hear nothing good of them from me or anyone else, not even the Lady Rahksahnah.”

Gy remembered he had borne Meeree’s furious sulks and towering, screaming rages for more than a week before he had, in frustration that his efforts had been completely unavailing, humbly beseeched the aid of the Lady Rahksahnah. But if he had thought that her close relationship to Meeree in times now past would help, he had been wrong.

Almost immediately, taking time from her own many and most pressing duties, the hereditary war leader of the Moon Maidens had come to the lakeside tower keep, climbed the nine flights of winding, stone stairs, and called upon Meeree in friendship. But all had been for naught.

Every soul on that level and many on those levels above and below had heard the crippled woman’s shrieking tirade— the verbal filth, abuse, insults and baseless accusations, the blasphemies of the Silver Goddess Herself. In the end, her movements stiff with the tight control of her grief and her anger, Rahksahnah had departed room and level and tower, speaking to no one. Back at Sandee’s Cot—the palatial lodgelike residence of Count Sandee, wherein the lowlander nobles were lodged—she had taken Gy apart and spoken to him gently, quietly, in her still-accented but more fluent Mehrikan.

“Man-Gy, know you that with you I, too, grieve, grieve for the Meeree that once was, not so very long ago. But I fear me that that Meeree who so loved and was loved by me inhabits no longer the fleshly husk that we still call by her name. Face that fact, we must, and also the harder one, that never again will she—the old Meeree—return to us who love her.

“I have mindspoken Ahszkuh the Kleesahk and opened my mind and recent memory to him. It is his opinion that this needless, pointless hate she has harbored has poisoned and infected her poor mind as bad, dirty blood will poison and infect a wound. He has promised me that while we all are gone on this season’s campaign, he will spend as much time as he can by her, try to reach and cleanse of the infection those portions of her mind wherein it festers. But he also warns that he may be no more successful in the healing of her poor mind them was Pah-Elmuh in healing her arm.”

“My lady… ?” breathed Gy hesitantly.

A smile flitted across her dark-red lips. “Fear you not to speak, to interrupt me if your words have bearing. Man-Gy. We, the Maidens of the Silver Lady, never knew or practiced very much of rank; all proven warriors were with us of equal standing, none inherently greater or lesser. Amongst the host of other differing newnesses, I have found such servility by stark fighters most difficult to understand and accept. But Dook Bili attests that such is necessary to the maintenance of discipline and order, so I give the appearance of adherence… in public, at least.

“But we two are not in public, now, Man-Gy. You are a well-proven warrior; I have seen you fight more than once. Too, we have much in common, so speak.”.

“My lady, Pah-Elmuh told me several times that something deep within Meeree’s mind was… was nullifying the effects of his healing of her arm. Could… could hate do such a thing?”

Rahksahnah sighed. “Possibly, Man-Gy. No, probably. Hate can be very powerful, and it is a sword of two edges and no hilt—it cuts the wielder as deeply, often, as it wounds her at whom it is wielded, or so said the Wise Women of the Hold. Yes, her soul-deep hate it probably was that obstructed the healing of Pah-Elmuh from poor Meerec’s arm.

“Her hate is truly a sickness, for she hates not just Dook Bili and me, but every sound woman and man in the entire squadron, in the glen, in all this world. She hates even our Silver Lady, the Goddess, hurls terrible blasphemies against Her and Her sacred Will. She swears that the day will come when she will see Dook Bili’s blood, and mine, and will impale our little babe on her spear before our dying eyes.”

Gy shook his head forcefully. “No man or woman will harm you or the duke or your noble son, my lady, not even Meeree, not while still Gy Ynstyr lives and breathes! I do now forswear.”

With his blanket roll firmly lashed and the ends tied for carrying down to the stables, Gy similarly rolled and secured his fine cloak, then slipped his padded jerkin over his head and rapidly did up the points along each side. They would all ride forth armed, but most of the armor for men, women and horses would remain on the pack saddles until and if it should be found needful to don the hot, uncomfortable stuff.

Around his slim waist he clasped his dagger belt, then slipped his sheathed dirk into the frog and shrugged into his wide baldric. When his saber was securely buckled on, slung high, for walking, he looped the braided, red-dyed lanyard of his bugle over his left shoulder so that the instrument hung within easy reach of his right hand.

Throughout all of his packing, Meeree had breathed not a single word to him, had grunted curses only when the chancy grip of her left hand had caused the honestone to slip and so interrupt the established rhythm of her task.

When Gy had shouldered his packed saddlebags and the rolls, he picked up his helmet from the strawtick mattress that had been his bed and, turning, spoke his first words of this day of departure to Meeree.

“I must leave now, Meeree. Soon it will be dawn. I wish… may you bide well until we meet again.”

She dropped the stone from the fingers—now suddenly all aquiver—of her left hand, but clenched the haft of the axe so fiercely that the knuckles of her right hand stood out as white as virgin snow. The dark eyes that looked up at him were no longer dull with sullenness, but were become bright and sparkling with purest malice.

“You fear to tell me what you truly wish, eh, cowardly man-thing? Well, Meeree fears not any woman or man and so says as she wishes to say always. Meeree wishes you a slow and exceedingly painful death in the north, you and all of the rest… but, no, not all. Meeree wants the killing of your precious, woman-stealing Dook Bili and his new brood mare, that fickle sow Rahksahnah, all to herself.

“Now go, you stupid, sireless curdog! Get out of Meeree’s sight before you feel the bite of her axe!”

With a deep sigh and a wordless shake of his head, Gy stepped through the doorway and closed the wooden portal behind him. But before he could lift his hand from the iron ring, the rough boards shuddered as if struck by a ram and, slicing its way completely through the tough, age-seasoned old oak, the bright, glittering edge of Meeree’s crescent axe burst out to reflect the flames of the torch in the nearby wall sconce.

Below, in the stables that took up the entire ground floor of the massive old tower keep, Gy and the two assistant-orderlies—like him, both Middle Kingdoms Freefighters, Ooehl Abuht and Zanbehm Kawluh—joined forces to rapidly saddle and equip their own mounts, then do the like for first the riding mounts, then the warhorses of Duke Bili and his lady.

While the mounted assistants held the bridles of the four saddled horses, Gy entered the area wherein the pack ponies were picketed, paced down the long rows with his torch held high and selected three of the larger, stronger-looking ones, then waited while hostlers removed his selections from the lines, bridled them and fitted on the special pack saddles used to transport armor and weapons. Then he, too, mounted and led the way up to Sandee’s Cot, its environs now cluttered with traveling gear, carefully wrapped items of armor and spare weapons.

The sprawling residence blazed with light and a hubbub of voices emanated from the main hall, wherein the noblemen and officers were enjoying a predawn breakfast.

After setting his assistants to the job of packing the three big ponies, Gy entered the building to seek Duke Bili.

Even at this, the eleventh hour, Count Steev of Sandee still was fuming. Not that said fuming did or could accomplish anything other than to serve as a vent for his feelings, for such a man as he neither could nor would disobey a royal order, the will of his sovran.

“Now, dammit, Bili, if I’m truly the Count of Sandee, it’s me should have the right to say who rides out of here for the north and who doesn’t. Don’t you possess that right on your own lands, back east?”

Having been hard by the old count for most of a year— riding knee to knee and often fighting beside him on the Ganik campaign of last year, as well as using his glen and his home as base and headquarters for the lowland squadron— Bili and all of his officers had come to like, admire and deeply respect the gruff, bluff, outspoken old warrior. Although he admitted to over sixty winters, he had campaigned as hard as any man or woman of a third his years. He knew the lay of the lands surrounding his glen as thoroughly as he knew the scar-seamed, liver-spotted backs of his hard, square hands, and that deep knowledge had right often been of immeasurable aid in flushing out the rabid packs of outlaw Ganik raiders.

But Bili and his officers all also knew and admitted to themselves and each other that which the elderly count either did not realize or, more likely, refused to admit to himself— his very age and the exceedingly hard life he had led for almost all of those sixty-odd years were at long last beginning to catch up to him, a fact which the keen-eyed and -eared Prince Byruhn had noted during his brief midwinter visit.

There had been many, many days during the winter just past when the old count’s knee joints had been so stiff and swollen that he barely could hobble about, all the while grinding his worn, yellow teeth in agony. Even the simple act of mounting a horse had been an impossibility. It had been for this reason, principally, that the decree had come down from King’s Rest Mountain that, in this time of dire crisis for the kingdom, the king felt that Count Steev could better serve him and the interests of the kingdom by remaining in his glen and holding it securely for the Crown of New Kuhmbuhluhn. Although the bearer of the message had been one of Prince Byruhn’s noblemen, the beribboned document itself had been signed in the bold scrawl of his father, the king, and impressed with the royal cipher.

Nonetheless, old Count Steev had taken it hard. Like an aged warhorse, he heard the trumpet blare and he longed to gallop out to its brazen summons. But for all that he felt himself to be unjustly hobbled and penned, he was a loyal New Kuhmbuhluhner from top to bottom and the habit of firm obedience was too strong a fetter to break. He obeyed… but no one had ever called grumbling disloyalty.

The question he now put to Bili was the same that he had asked of every man of hereditary rank in the lowland squadron one or more times since the unsavory directive had first arrived, so Bili was just as glad, upon seeing Gy approach the dais from the direction of the outer door, to forestall the need to again carefully frame an answer.

“Your pardon, Sir Steev, but I needs must have immediate words with my hornman yonder.”

Count Sandee nodded. “Name’s Gy, isn’t it? Yes, Gy. He’s a singularly brave lad, as I recall. Were he one of mine own, his spurs would be gilt, long since. You’re sure to take losses in the north, losses of all ranks and standings; yon’s a fine replacement, say I.”

As Bili pushed back his chair and arose from the board, the old man turned to one of the Ahrmehnee lieutenants, saying, “Vahk, good friend, you were there that day last summer when, with my good sword, I clove that Ganik bastard to the very teeth, right through his brass helm. So what say you—is a man who still can do such too old to ride to war?”

In her place beside Bili’s now-empty chair, Rahksahnah was glad that Count Sandee had chosen Vahk Soormehlyuhn as his sounding board upon Bili’s departure. Like the others, the warrior part of her respected the old man’s ferocity in close combat, his sagacity in command, but there was more than this. There was the infant son, Djef Morguhn, she had borne to Bili and must so shortly leave behind in this glen for who knew how long.

Steev, Count Sandee, had been full with pride to entertain, to serve beside, a duke through the Ganik campaign; but his pride could only be described as fierce that that same duke’s firstborn son had first seen light in Sandee’s Cot. He had showered all sorts of valuable and sometimes ridiculous gifts upon the small morsel of humanity—everything from a bigboned colt out of his own destrier’s get to a tiny but very sharp bejeweled dagger in a sheath of purest gold.

Therefore, although she grieved for and with him, the war leader of the Maidens of the Moon was at the same time very glad that Sir Steev would remain in command of the glen. Anyone or anything that threatened her little son would have first to pass the savage old warrior, and even she, at less than a third of his age, knew that she would think twice before she set herself against the old but still deadly fighting machine that was Sir Steev of Sandee.

Besides, she knew from personal experience that there was no answer to the posed questions really satisfactory to the old nobleman. When, some weeks back, the other Ahrmehnee lieutenant, Vahrtahn Panosyuhn—who was almost ten years the count’s elder—remarked in answer to the perennial query that the king showed a distinct dearth of judgment to force an old and wise and valiant warrior into an unwanted and unwonted retirement from active campaigning, Sir Steev immediately rose to the defense of his sovran.

“Der Vahrtahn, had a New Kuhmbuhluhner or even one of the lowlanders so impugned the sagacity of my king, Steel be with him, that man would shortly be facing me at swords’ points. But you, you are an Ahrmehnee; I know that your customs differ vastly and that you never have had a king or any real nobles.

“But know you now, it is the sworn—nay, the inborn— duty of an honest and honorable subject of whatever rank to obey the dictates of his sovran and of those placed in positions of authority by his sovran. While I do not feel my sovran to be right in this instance, right or wrong, he still is my liege lord and I will obey, will see to it that those under me obey his decrees so long as breath remains within me.”

Rahksahnah had, that day, seen old Vahrtahn walk away shaking his white-haired head in bewilderment. Blind obedience to the will of any mortal man was not a survival trait and thus was utterly foreign to the nature of the Ahrmehnee, who individually and racially were nothing if not survivors.

* * *

The light drizzle which had commenced at about midnight continued on, and because of it dawn was very late in its appearance, though then it was only a bare lightening of the misty gray. And regardless of this natural respite, still was the column more than two more hours late in having the ponderous gate gapped enough for the vanguard to commence a negotiation of the narrow, twisting defile that led out of the safe-glen called Sandee’s Cot.

The big man of twenty winters called Bili the Axe—Bili, Thoheeks and Chief of Clan Morguhn, Knight of the Blue Bear of Harzburk, commander of the two hundred-odd men and women making up the Lowlander Squadron of the Army of the King of New Kuhmbuhluhn—cursed and snarled and fretted at the delays—one or two of them major, but mostly minor and all completely unavoidable, in any case—even while he reflected that he had never in all his six or seven years of soldiering known or heard of a movement of a body of troops that proceeded on time and in the order preplanned, not that such rationalizations helped his temper.

Even ahead of the vanguards, the huge prairiecat Whitetip had leaped easily to the ground from the stone archway over the gates and now was at the place where the trailside fortifications ended, mindspeaking back to all of those whose minds could range him his personal reassurance that the way was clear, with no foemen to contest it.

Where two cats had served through the Ganik campaign, only the big male would accompany the march to the north. There were wet nurses in the glen for human babies, but none for kittens of such size as the litter that the female, Stealth, had so recently thrown. Therefore, she would stay behind to nurse and care for them through their weaning. But Bili had promised the bitterly disappointed young cat that should this present campaign spill over into another year, Stealth and her brood could certainly make their way north and join him and the rest of the squadron. He and Rahksahnah also had set the nursing queen a task within the glen—she was to guard the infant, Djef Morguhn, as zealously as she guarded her own get, being especially wary of the crippled Moon Maiden, Meeree.

Rahksahnah rode out with Bill’s staff in the main column, but Bili himself stood beside Sir Steev until the last of the lengthy pack train had exited the glen and Lieutenant Kahndoot was beginning to mount her rearguard troops to follow. Then he turned to bid a last farewell to that doughty old nobleman who had for so long been his host, his friend and his ofttimes adviser.

“Sir Steev, thank you again for all your host of kindnesses to me and to mine. I hope that when next I stand here, it will be that we have come back for our babes and our companions that we may ride back eastward. But should this Skohshuns matter be too tough a nut to crack in one season, will you allow us yet another winter here with you in Sandee’s Cot?”

The count showed every worn tooth in a warm smile. “Aye, Sir Bili, and right gladly. Unless I hear aught otherwise, I shall watch for your banner in the autumn. And fear you not, none of you, for the safety of your babes, for so long as I can draw breath and swing sharp steel, they are safe.”

The boar bear burst from out a trailside copse and charged down the trail, moving as fast as a running man, his muzzle and bared teeth covered in bloody foam as red as his deep-sunk eyes. The point man’s mule, however, did not need the snarls of mindless fury to give warning, for the wind brought the dilated nostrils the deadly scent and the animal first reared, screaming, then bolted, unseating its rider and leaving him, stunned and helpless, directly in the path of the oncoming ursine fury.

But the bear ignored the motionless man and charged on at the brace of riders behind. Had these soldiers—for such they were—been armed as primitively as were all other soldiers of this world and time, the maddened bear might well have had the satisfaction of fleshing claws and fangs before death. Instead a heavy-caliber rifle bullet smashed his spine and dropped him flopping in the weeds and dead leaves; the fierce snarls became a pitiful whimpering just before a second bullet blew out one side of his skull and ended his life.

A quarter mile back, with the main column, General Jay Corbett heard the closely spaced pair of gunshots and spurred forward, trailed by Major Gumpner and Old Johnny Kilgore, their pistols out and armed. Halfway up to the van, they met the runaway mule, its wide eyes rolling in fear, galloping flat out, but Old Johnny adroitly blocked the animal with his own mount and secured the loose reins.

By the time the old, bald Ganik caught up to the two officers, they had dismounted and joined the group in the vanguard who had alit to tend their semiconscious comrade and examine the dead bear. Passing the reins of the still highly agitated mule to one of the mounted troopers, the chief of scouts kneed his beast closer to the officers, then slipped his feet from his stirrups and slid down the off side to the ground to stride with a loose-limbed gait over to where lay the dusty-black carcass of the bear.

Wrinkling his pug nose, he remarked, “Suthin’ shore do stink, Gen’rul Jay. Rackun some yore boys is a-trainin’ fer to be Ganiks?”

A grin flitted across the senior officer’s olive, Ahrmehnee countenance; most Ganiks never washed and often went clothed in poorly cured or raw skins and hides. “Not quite, Johnny, not quite. I think it’s the bear we smell. Here, some of you men, let’s get him turned on his other side. Christ, but he’s big! If he was in full flesh, I’ll bet he’d weigh in at six, seven hundred pounds, easy.”

The dead bear’s ribs and spine were clearly visible through his wrinkly skin and dull, lifeless coat. The reason for his insensate fury, starved condition and the gagging stench he emanated was clearly evident when the limp carcass was manhandled over onto its near side, however.

Most of the off side of the thick torso had been rubbed down to a nauseating mess of oozing flesh and crawling maggots. Heedless of the circle of men, a black cloud of flies descended to resume interrupted feedings immediately the bear was turned, and all of the men waved hands to keep strays from their sweaty dusty faces.

“Johnny,” Corbett asked above the droning of the flies, “what in hell happened to this bear? Have you ever seen the like of this?”

The old man squatted beside the crawling carcass, lifted the stubby tail and considered the anus, then reached over the ham to poke about with a forefinger in the area between the short ribs and the pelvis. Slowly, he arose, wiping his finger on the leg of his trousers.

“Gen’rul Jay, it’s boun’ fer to be suthin’ in that there bar’s innards hurtid him plumb fierce. ‘Pears he done been a-shittin’ blood fer some time naow. I guesses a-rubbin’ up ‘ginst trees and rocks musta eased him some, so he jest kep’ at it till he’d wore awf awl the hair an’ the skin, too. An’ then th’ dang flies went at Mm, o’ course. It’s suthin’ in his belly, but ain’ no way fer to tell whut, ‘lest we’s to cut ‘im opuned an’ look… ?”

Twenty minutes later, Corbett, Gumpner and Johnny Kilgore passed around and examined the object the old man had dug out and removed from the dead bear’s terribly inflamed abdominal cavity—a deeply barbed bronze weapon point a good seven and a half centimeters long and five wide; socketed into the base of the crude point was a bit of hardwood dowel about two centimeters in diameter by a bit less than ten long, the unshod end being mashed and splintered.

Seeing Johnny first frown, then shake his head, Corbett snapped, “What is it, man? You recognize the origin? Is that it?”

Johnny nodded, the sunlight glinting on his bald head. “I shore Lawd does, Gen’rul Jay. Thet there be Ganik work. It useta be the end piece awf a Ahrm’nee sword sheath—they ushly makes up good p’ints fer darts an’ they ain’ so hard fer to work up as ir’n or steel is. Looks as how thet ol’ bar, he bit awf the resta the shaf’, then the p’int jest workted awn in futher.”

During his weeks with Erica and Braun in the Ahrmehnee stahn, Corbett could recall having seen many a wood-and-leather sword case with handsomely decorated throat, bands and chapes of cast bronze, and now, after Johnny’s identification, he could detect the ghost of the one time art object in the hammered, defaced and sharp-honed point. But that was not what sent an icy chill coursing the length of his spine or set the hairs on his nape aprickle.

“Johnny,” he said slowly, “I thought you said that Ganiks never, ever came this far south. How far could a bear travel, wounded that seriously? Ten miles? Maybe twenty, at the outside? But by your reckoning, we’re still nearly a week’s march away from the southernmost Ganik areas.”

The old man shrugged, palms outward. “Lawdy, Gen’rul Jay, I nevuh said I knowed everthin ‘bout everthin, did I? The bunch I ‘uz runnin’ with whin you come to club me daown, it ‘uz the futhes’ south Ganik bunch that wuz. An”t’placet where yawl kilt everbody ‘cept of me, that were as fer south as eny of us’d ever rode afore. That be awl I knows ‘bout it.”

He looked and sounded hurt, so Corbett forced a smile and a soothing tone. “All right, Johnny, all right—I’m not doubting you. I’ve never known you to lie about anything.”

Then, turning to Gumpner, he said, “All right, Gump, we’ve got an iffy situation now, with a possibility of hostiles around the next turn. Two- or three-man points from now on, nobody to ride alone, in van, column or rearguard, for any reason; no one to break column for any purpose without the okay of his superior and without a couple of other men to accompany him.

“The van will maintain the same interval from the main column, but put a full squad halfway between the rear of the van and the head of the column; same thing for the rearguard, too. I want to know the very second a Ganik is sighted by anyone.

“Make certain that all those civilian packers have their weapons loaded and ready for action. And by tonight’s halt, I want a damned good reason for why the leader of the van didn’t at least try to contact the head of the column by transceiver to let us know precisely why those shots were fired.”

He came erect, then added, “When we camp tonight, Johnny, we’ll rig you up as planned, give you the worst-looking pony we can find, then let you start riding advance point, two or three kilometers ahead, anyhow. If you still want to, at least. I won’t order you to—it could easily be your death.”

Kilgore’s head bobbed in a short nod of assent. “Shit, gen’rul, I ain’ a-scairt of no livin’ Ganiks. ‘Sides, they awl knows me; I rid with the bunches fer a passel of years and them as ain’ nevuh seed me has shore Lawd heerd of me. So shore I’ll ride out termorrer, but afore we-awls leaves here, I wawnts me whut hide thet bar’s got lef awn ‘im, an’ iffen a couple the boys wuz to help me, I c’n skin ‘im a helluva lot quicker.”

Foot to stirrup, Corbett turned and demanded, “In the name of God, man, why would you want that stinking, verminous thing, Johnny?”

The reformed cannibal showed gapped, yellowed teeth in a broad grin. “Wai, Gen’rul Jay, suh, if I means fer to pass fer a wil’, bunch Ganik, lahk I wuz, I’m way too clean, me an’ my clo’s too. Smelly as it be, I figgers thet bar skin’ll be jes’ the thang fer to cover up haow purty I smells.”

Gulping down the bile raised at thought of actually wearing the rotting, maggoty hide, Corbett swung up onto his mount and told Old Johnny, “It certainly will do that, and you know best in that regard. Get any help you need, here. But just stay downwind of me, please.”