Champion of the Last Battle

XIV

The morning of the set battle dawned with a bright glare of sunlight, presaging a hot day to come. Cottony islands of white cloud floated here and there in the pale-blue skies, peacefully sailing the high, airy oceans far above the bloody affairs of men.

But on this particular area of the earth, below that serene, celestial calm and stillness, drums had begun to roll even before the dawning, bugles to peal their imperative notes, men to shout orders, while horses stamped and neighed and snorted, metal rattled and clanked, leather creaked. There was neither quiet nor calm anywhere in the camp below or the city above, as two groups of warriors prepared to do again that which they did best—fight and maim and kill other warriors.

As prearranged, Sir Djahn Makadahm was the first man to ride out from the stockaded camp onto the space between camp and mountain that had been agreed upon as the site of the coming passage-at-arms. Almost immediately, he was joined there by the chosen herald of New Kuhmbuhluhnburk, Freefighter Captain Sir Fil Tyluh.

They two had met before, whilst Sir Djahn was being entertained in the city. Now both shucked gauntlets and clasped hands. “When will his grace of Morguhn arrive?” asked the Skohshun.

“Shortly, Sir Djahn,” Fil Tyluh replied. “What of your own command party?”

“As soon as they see enough of your officers and nobles down here to reassure them that none of your long-range engines are likely to cast a wainload of rock upon them.”

Silently, Tyluh beamed the reply to Bili, who sat his big stallion at the head of his already formed-up column within the passageway of the barbican, and Bili, in his turn, mindspoke the black horse he bestrode, “Now, my dear brother. At a slow walk, proudly, impressively.”

Down the full length of the curving and recurving roadway, Mahvros progressed, his steel-shod neck arched proudly, prancing and capering, lifting his hooves high in a practiced parade walk. In all the cavalcade of New Kuhmbuhluhn noblemen and their mounts, Mahvros knew that he was the biggest, most beautiful, strongest and most dangerous warhorse, and his pride was plain to any man or horse watching his performance along the route of the column.

Bili had flatly refused the strong suggestion of councilors and certain others that he allow the palace smith to alter a harness of the late Prince Mahrtuhn Gilbuht to fit him, instead wearing that same three-quarter suit of plate he had worn when first he met the Kuhmbuhluhners nearly three long years agone. The only concession to their desires he had made was to allow a golden circlet, such as their own dukes displayed, to be affixed around the brows of his helm and a bunch of gold-tipped red plumes to be fastened atop the bowl of the helm.

He carried his own big double axe cased at the off side of his saddle pommel, a selection of Ahrmehnee darts in an open quiver on the near side. The sword he had taken from his downed opponent on the last occasion he had fought Skohshuns hung at his left side, a target hung from his cantle, and a long, broad dirk from his waist belt; a slender dagger was tucked into the top of one boot and a thick-bladed knife into the other. A two-quart skin of brandy-water hung from the off side of the cantle, balancing the target, and between them was lashed a head-sized ball of netting.

Once upon the surer footing provided by the soil of the plain, Mahvros curvetted twice, then settled back into his proud, graceful, strutting walk.

Immediately the column of riders had been seen to be proceeding down the mountainside, the main gate of the camp of the Skohshuns had been gapped and, as Bili led his followers out onto the open ground toward the spot whereon the two heralds awaited them, a similar column of mounted officers and standard-bearers had issued from that open gate.

Even before Sir Djahn introduced them, Bili had recognized Brigadier Sir Ahrthur Maklarin as the armored officer who had attacked him at the last battle.

“So this is the famous Sir Bili, Duke of Morguhn and most accomplished war captain, eh?” remarked Sir Ahrthur, smiling. “You’ve cost us dearly, young sir, dearly indeed, and we hope to reciprocate in greater or lesser measure, this day.”

Bili grinned. “You have an exceeding hard head, apparently, Sir Ahrthur. I’d have thought that I cracked it wide with the toe of my boot, back at that battle in the spring.”

Sir Ahrthur flushed dark red, his eyes narrowed and his lips thinned beneath his mustaches. “Yes, you’re big enough to have been that bast ... ahhh, to have been that man. What do you know of the sword I was using that day?”

Grasping the weapon carefully by the scabbard so as to give no slightest appearance of drawing steel, Bili showed the hilt to the brigadier, whose lividity deepened in hue.

“That was my father’s sword, sir duke. You stole it from me!” There was clear fury in the old man’s tone and demeanor.

But Bili just continued to grin, further infuriating the Skohshun commander. He shrugged, saying, “I’d not call it so, Sir Ahrthur, not at all. I was, shall we say, in dire need of a sword just then, because you had broken mine. I took yours because, as I now recall, you were in no present need of one. Or do I misremember, Sir Ahrthur?”

“Now, damn you, you mercenary bastard,” snarled Sir Ahrthur, “I’ll have my sword back!” He extended his right hand.

Bili just laughed. “If you win, today, you’ll get it back ... one way or the other.”

Led by southern Kuhmbuhluhners who knew the northern plain well, with Whitetip ranged far out ahead to detect any parties or patrols of Skohshuns, Sir Geros’ force had been moving at a slow, cautious, horse-saving pace for two days and nights and now were nearing the chosen battleground. King’s Rest Mountain now loomed close enough to differentiate certain larger details of the city built into its flank.

When the young knight was assured by men who well knew whereof they spoke that his command was within a half hour’s easy, ambling ride of the projected battle site, he ordered a halt and had his command dismount, loosen girths and rest, cautiously throwing out a staggered perimeter guard of keen-eyed Ahrmehnee dartmen and Freefighter archers with orders to loose or cast first and check identities afterward.

Raikuh smiled to Guhntuh, Bohluh and himself at the completely unprompted string of orders, remarking, “Our young war leader is fast learning his trade. Those months in the field against the Ganiks were at least good for that. I think that our dear lord Duke Bili will be pleasantly surprised at how well our Sir Geros has turned out.”

Some miles to the left of Sir Geros’ halted command, yet another warband was on the march, this one completely unbeknownst to Bili, the Kuhmbuhluhners, the Skohshuns or Sir Geros. But there were a few within the Skohshun camp who knew ... and said nothing.

Late on the preceding afternoon, a lone rider had come from the west, reined up at the rear gate of the stockade and, upon being recognized—him and his mount, both—had been admitted.

Disarmed and marched before the grim old brigadier, Counter Tremain had firmly, flatly denied having purposely stolen that officer’s favorite horse or deserted, swearing over and over again that he had mounted the near-hysterical animal in an attempt to calm him down, that the gelding then had bolted and run so far in the darkness of the night that the dawn had found the Ganik with a spent horse in an area with which he had been completely unfamiliar and from which it had taken him this long to find his way back to the camp.

The mere fact that the man had returned with a valuable animal was, to the brigadier, reason enough to believe his story, so he formally thanked Counter, had his arms and effects returned to him and sent him to rejoin Erica Arenstein and her other followers. There, as soon as he was certain that they would not be overheard, Counter took the woman and Horseface Charley aside and told them the exciting truth of the matter.

The transceiver hung to the near side of the saddle pommel of General Jay Corbett’s mount buzzed, signaling an incoming transmission on its wavelength. Lifting it to his mouth and activating it, he answered, “Corbett, here. Over.”

“Oh, Jay, Jay,” came Erica’s well-remembered voice, “you can’t believe how good it is to hear your voice again, to hear the voice of any civilized human being again. Christ, I’ve been afraid I’d live out this body and die in this stinking wilderness, with only gibbering barbarian apes for company.”

“So, Tremain made it back safely, eh? And managed to snocker those Skohshuns, too? Over.”

“Yes, Jay, that old fool of a brigadier is convinced he has a monopoly on brains. Hah! Just because Counter brought his pet horse back, he’s convinced that Counter never even tried to desert, but rather did something almost heroic.

“Not only that, but this tinpot Napoleon thinks he has all but won his asinine little war because he has persuaded a numerically inferior enemy to come down out of a damned near impregnable fortified city and fight him on the plain. He thinks—hell, I don’t think the old fart knows how to think.

“You know and I know that those New Kuhmbuhluhners—who have cost these Skohshuns hundreds of casualties and almost burned down their whole fucking camp some weeks back with catapults throwing fireballs and boulders—wouldn’t just file down out of that city and bare their necks for the sword. They’re bound to have a few dirty tricks in store for Sir Ahrthur and his damned pikemen, you can bet on it.”

“Did you tell your suspicions to this brigadier, Erica? Over,” asked Corbett, thinking that if the senior Skohshun officer happened to feel himself in Erica’s debt, he might let her and the others go without a fight.

“Oh, yes, I tried to,” she answered wryly. “The arrogant old pig, he let me know that he considers war to be an exercise in machismo and that the only function of women is to bear sons to fight wars and, just possibly, nurse wounded soldiers. I hope he gets the ferrule end of a pike jammed up his arse today!”

One good look at the “porcupine” formations in which the Skohshuns were formed this day warned Bili of the folly of once more essaying the dismounted attack with the nets. Not only did the pikes now project in all four directions, the ranks were formed around a spine of men better armored and armed with an assortment of shorter, handier weapons—poleaxes, beef-tongues, partizans, greatswords and various types of flails and war hammers. Such troops would make bloody mincemeat of such an attack as Bili and his squadron had so successfully undertaken at the previous battle.

So he adopted the favored tactic of the late King Byruhn—leading his horsemen at a fast ambling gait along the front of the four schiltrons, while the Kuhmbuhluhn mountaineers cast their deadly little hatchets and the Ahrmehnee of his own squadron cast their equally deadly darts. On those occasions when the Skohshuns armed with the shorter weapons ventured out to close, Bili refused them combat, galloping his force off beyond their range at a pace too fast for them to follow afoot.

When the axes and javelins were expended, he mindspoke Captain Frehd Brakit and the archers commenced their deadly rain on the scantily armored pikemen—Freefighters with their short, powerful hornbows, Kuhmbuhluhners with hardwood self-bows as long as the archers were tall, loosing arrows three feet in length and tipped with tempered steel.

Twice during this phase of the battle, units of mounted and armored Skohshun lancers made to charge the lines of dismounted bowmen who were wreaking such deadly havoc on the helpless schiltrons. But each time these Skohshuns were met and bloodily stopped in their tracks by Bili and a portion of his heavy-armed squadron, reinforced by the Kuhmbuhluhn nobles.

As the archers expended their initial stocks of arrows and slacked off their death-dealing sleet of shafts, an armored man bearing an unpointed lanceshaft from which fluttered a white banner paced his horse slowly forward into the empty, hoof-churned space between the two forces. A brace of other armored horsemen followed him.

Recognizing the horses if not the riders at the distance, Bili sent Captain Sir Fil Tyluh out ahead with a white banner of his own and followed behind him with Lieutenant Kahndoot, who had happened to be the closest officer to hand.

Vainly hoping to stave off another confrontation between the seething brigadier and Duke Bili of Morguhn, Sir Djahn spoke first and fast. “Your grace, Sir Ahrthur is of the opinion that you are in violation of the agreements as regards this set battle. Not only are you deliberately avoiding any contact with our main force, but you are employing most dishonorable means to whittle away at men who have no chance to defend themselves or to strike back at those who are killing them. Do you intend to close, to press a charge through to the pikes? If so, when?”

Bili could scarce credit his ears, could hardly believe that any sane warrior would speak such arrant nonsense to another. “When will I charge, Sir Djahn? When it suits me to do so, that’s when, and not until I can see that it will be to my advantage to press home a charge. Do you seriously believe that I led these men out here to let your pikemen butcher them? Spear them like so many fish? You yourself have admitted that your troops outnumber mine own, I’m simply evening those odds a bit. If that upsets your delicate sensibilities, why, then, I suggest that you form up your men in column and march them all back behind yonder stockade, whilst I and mine return behind the walls of New Kuhmbuhluhnburk. Perhaps you will feel better after you’ve wasted a few more hundreds of men against those walls, in a couple of days ... if I haven’t pounded and burned your camp, meanwhile.

“Now, do you want to fight a battle or sit here talking for the rest of this day?”

The brigadier could abide no more silently; he kneed his gelding forward and stared hard at Bili as he addressed Sir Djahn. “Fagh! I told you it would be an exercise in utter futility. to speak of honor to this puling thief; I doubt me he ever knew the meaning of the word, and I cannot but wonder if this King Byruhn knows just what sort of scoundrel he has hired and placed in command of his army. Perhaps we should declare a truce, Sir Djahn, while you ride up there and try to determine if this cowardly kind of warfare be the will of the true ruler of New Kuhmbuhluhn.”

Fil Tyluh spoke before Bili could. “Sir Ahrthur, poor King Byruhn died of his injuries last night. Until a new king is chosen, since he was the last of his house, New Kuhmbuhluhn’s regent is Sir Bili, Duke of Morguhn. So the royal council has declared this morning.”

Hurriedly, still trying to prevent the inevitable, Sir Djahn said, “Your grace, I never met your late king but the once; nonetheless, I grieve with you and all of New Kuhmbuhluhn.”

“Well, I don’t!” snapped the brigadier hotly. “I hope he’s roasting in hell with the rest of the heathen! And I demand to know why this treacherous, backbiting mercenary bastard never mentioned to Sir Djahn during the negotiations for this so-called battle his intentions to not come to grips and fight breast to breast as honorable warriors should, as the late king’s predecessor did, but to avoid real fighting in a most craven manner, while using the weapons of dishonor—bows, darts, slings and throwing axes—against his betters.”

Bili looked speculatively at the snarling, red-faced old man. At last, he said, “Sir Ahrthur, either you are a complete ass and a fool or you think that I am such. To answer your first question: I told Sir Djahn that I would use every arm, every advantage in my possession or power to command, saving only that I would not employ my engines during the course of this battle, either against your formations or your camp.

“Now, if he or you chose to interpret that answer to mean that I would leave my missilemen—my archers, my dartmen, my axe throwers and my slingers—behind, as did poor, bemused old King Mahrtuhn, such was your choice of possible meaning.

“You carry on and on about fighting breast to breast, yet both King Mahrtuhn and Prince Mahrtuhn Gilbuht died without getting any closer to any of you Skohshuns that the length of an eighteen-foot pikeshaft. What honor in such a death, say I? You were able to delude an aging and nearly senile man and lead him on to his death with such hypocritic claptrap, but not Bili, Thoheeks and Chief of Morguhn and Knight of the Blue Bear of Harzburk.

“If all you spout out is to be taken at face value, then you are at the best a fool and should be locked away with the rest of the madmen, not left to command anyone’s army. War is not a game, to be played by strict rules or not played at all. War is something to be avoided at all costs, except when it becomes a necessity. When it does become necessary, it is something akin to lancing a boil—you do it hard and quick and with all available force, so that it is the sooner done and men can return to the pursuits of peace.

“If, on the other hand, you are the cynical hypocrite I suspect you are—and if you are an average representative of your race—one who mouths the usages of honor in a self-serving attempt to rob war leaders of their natural advantages, warriors of their lives and folk of their lands, then I feel you all to be even more despicable than the Ganiks, the men who eat men, or than certain Ehleen rebels who butchered little children and drank their blood!

“If you truly want to close with my force so badly, Sir Ahrthur, let your schiltrons reform and charge us. Or do you Skohshuns lack the stomach to fight save in close formations and against men whose weapons are shorter than are yours?”

With a roar of inarticulate rage, Sir Ahrthur drew his sword and lashed out at Bili’s face, exposed by the open visor. But quick as the old man drew and struck, Bili brought the huge, heavy axe up faster. Catching the edge of the blurring blade in one of the gaps between axehead and steel shaft, he gave his thick wrist a practiced twist which tore the sword from Sir Ahrthur’s hand so forcefully as to snap the leather sword knot and send the blade clattering to the rocky ground.

The other three men and Lieutenant Kahndoot all held their breath, hands seeking out hilts, awaiting the general melee they all expected and feared would come when Bili axed down the truce-breaker.

Sir Ahrthur’s red face had gone pale, as he sat panting with exertion. His only other weapon was a slim dagger—a mere joke against that monstrous double axe. “Well,” he finally gasped, “kill me, you butcher! Or would you rather send for an archer to do your execution for you?”

But Bili was even as the old man spoke lowering his axe to rest again across the bow of his saddle. “If I meet you in battle, Sir Ahrthur, I’ll kill you if I must, but needless killing or maiming is not a part of my nature. I think that we may consider this in-saddle truce to be done?”

Bili had just reached his own lines when a farspeak from Sir Geros by way of Count Steev Sandee by way of Whitetip beamed into his mind. “We are some quarter mile from the camp of these Skohshuns, Lord Bili. What are your orders for our advance?”

“Pass wide of the camp,” beamed Bili. “There are crossbowmen at the corners of it, and I’ll be unsurprised if they have a few engines, as well, for all that we burned up the last batch they had built. Bypass the pike formations, too. Once past them, ride directly into my lines. I’m hopeful that the mere sight of you and your reinforcements will overawe them enough to allow for a peaceable settlement and their withdrawal, after all; but if not, I’ll let your archers and dartmen and my own nibble at them a bit more, then we’ll all charge and roll over the buggers. With you and yours, we’ll finally have the numbers and the weight to do it up brown.”

Erica’s transceiver buzzed insistently. She picked it up, held it in position and activated it. “Yes, Jay?”

“Erica, I thought you said that that battle was going on somewhere just north of your camp—rather, the camp of the Skohshuns? Over.”

“That’s right, Jay, though it looked damned little like a battle when I was up on the gate platform a little while ago. The Kuhmbuhluhners were riding up and down in front of the Skohshuns throwing darts and small axes, and the damned stupid Skohshuns were standing so close together that I doubt if any of those things thrown had a chance to miss. Anyway, at every circuit those riders made, those poor damn pikemen dropped like flies. Now they’re raining them with arrows; I can see the sun glinting on the shafts from here. What was that battle where the British wiped out a whole German army with bows and arrows? Apparently these Skohshuns never heard that particular story.”

“It was the English, Erica, not the British, fighting the French, not the Germans, and it was two battles—Crecy and Agincourt. But the reason I radioed you again was that my scouts and I have spotted a very large force of cavalry riding in your direction from the southwest. Scads of them, maybe as many as fifteen hundred, and about half look suspiciously like Ahrmehnee warriors, to me. Over.”

Erica chortled gleefully. “That pompous, presumptuous old goat! Sir Ahrthur has gotten his hairy balls in a crack for good and all. He refused to listen to the advice of a mere woman, and he will, no doubt, shortly be in the shit up to his silly mustache. It serves the chauvinist pig right!”

“Well, Erica, in light of these new developments, what do you want us to do about getting you all out of there? Over.”

“Just blow out the back gate, Jay, and come on in. All of the fighters are either out there getting their asses beaten off or standing up at the front corners or above the front gate. The only people left in the camp are cooks, servants of the officers, medical personnel and quite a number of wounded men.”

“I don’t like the thought of getting trapped in there, Erica. Look, I’ll set my mortars up a couple or three hundred meters off and blow that gate, then drop a few mortar bombs in and around the front gate just to put the fear of God into them all, maybe throw in a rocket or two for luck. You and your men hotfoot it out to me. Bring along mounts if you can easily come by them, but don’t waste a lot of time trying to if you can’t. Over.”

“Oh, all right, Jay. Your plan is probably best—after all, you’re the professional soldier, not me. I’ll send half my men up to the picket lines and get them to saddling mules. All of the horses are out there getting their asses peppered as thickly with arrows as their riders are, I’d imagine.”

“Okay, Erica. Just tell your types to stay clear of both of those gates. My Broomtowners are good, but hand-held mortars have been known to be somewhat inaccurate on occasion. Over.”

“I will, Jay. Immediately you blow out that back gate, we’ll be on our way to you, to Broomtown Base and a long, hot, luxurious shower with real soap! Out.”

Brigadier Sir Ahrthur Maklarin and his staff could but sit their horses, gaping in goggle-eyed astonishment, as the hundreds of armored horsemen swung wide around both their camp and their schiltrons to cross the space separating them from their elusive foes and rein about, forming common front with the bare thousand or so New Kuhmbuhluhners.

When the last of the seemingly endless files of riders had joined the Kuhmbuhluhn army, so that the wings of the reinforced host now greatly overlapped both of the Skohshun wings, three riders—one clearly Duke Bili, recognizable by his black warhorse and plumed helm—were seen to ride forward at a slow walk, following the Kuhmbuhluhn herald on his big white stallion.

“All right, Sir Djahn,” the brigadier barked, “get out there. Let’s see what the forsworn by-blow wants this time! Well, Senior Colonel Sir Djaimz, must I issue you an engraved invitation? You and one more, let’s go.”

Bili the Axe wasted no time with polite formalities through the two heralds, but addressed himself directly to Sir Ahrthur. “Old man, you first tried to lure me, then to shame or hector me into a battle to be fought on your terms against your more numerous forces. When I refused to lay my brains on the shelf and accede to your wiles and shameful practices, you attacked me with bared steel in violation of a sworn truce, which goes only to show that no matter how much you prate of a lack of honor in others, you yourself own no shred of it.

“Well now, old, honorless man, the boot is on the other foot, and I lead enough force to make blood pudding of you and your pikemen. But I’ll do that only if you force me to it.

“I hereby extend you three options, more than ever you gave to me. You may agree to immediately lift the siege of New Kuhmbuhluhnburk and the occupation of those lands and the glen you earlier seized from the Kingdom of New Kuhmbuhluhn, and depart with your army and your folk from the kingdom; I would suggest that you lead them due west or southwest.

“Your second option is to let a single combat decide the outcome of this stupid exercise in wholesale bloodletting. I will fight for New Kuhmbuhluhn and you, considering your lack of stature and your advanced years, may choose a champion to ride against me for the Skohshun army and people; I will be armed with axe and sword, your champion may ride with those weapons he prefers or favors.

“Your third option is a full-scale battle, which I now consider futile and pointless, as too should you. But let me warn you well in advance, if this last is the option you choose, there will be no immediate attack on your schiltrons. Rather will I do just as I did before—bleed you, further eat away at your strength from a safe distance with missiles. Then, when I feel your formations to be sufficiently disorganized and shrunken, I will lead my horsemen against you with a cry of ‘Havoc,’ ‘No quarter.’

“I’ll have your choice, old man, now!”

Senior Colonel Sir Djaimz kneed his mount close beside that of Sir Ahrthur and, leaning closer, whispered, “It might be better to withdraw, Sir Ahrthur. We can hold the glen, fight again at a time and a place of our choosing.”

“Never!” snapped the brigadier. “Do you want to kill him? You’re damned close of a size, the two of you. I’d give my eyeteeth to do it myself, but the bastard is right, I’m too old.”

Sir Djaimz eyed Bili critically, then nodded. “Yes, Sir Ahrthur, I’ll fight him. But please understand, it’s not to salve your foolish pride, but rather to save the army that our people need. But I want your sworn oath, sir, that if I die, if that young man kills me, you’ll march the army out of here and straight back to the glen, then turn over your command to whoever the colonels decide should replace you.”

The brigadier looked his hurt puzzlement. “But ... but why, Sir Djaimz? Simply because we lost this battle?”

“No, Sir Ahrthur, because you enjoy the respect of every Skohshun—officers and nobles, other ranks, and civilians—and I want to know that you will retire and, eventually, die with that respect intact, unsullied. While in most ways, at most times, you still are the same brigadier, more and more of late you have been lapsing for varying times into childish rages for little cause or none. You’ve done it twice today already.

“The Sir Ahrthur who received me into the army as a pink-cheeked ensign, who nurtured me and trained me for years, that Sir Ahrthur would never have reacted with such unseemly violence to the good-natured twitting of a man who had fought you, knocked you down and taken merely your sword when he could have had your life as well. Nor would that Sir Ahrthur ever have even thought of baring steel during a sworn truce, much less of attacking another member of the truce party.

“Will you swear as I ask, Sir Ahrthur?”

Bili had never really liked the lance or the common practice of one-on-one tilting—lance dueling—but he had long ago, perforce, mastered that and all of the other martial arts during his years of training at the court of the Iron King, Gilbuht of Harzburk. He had announced his intention of fighting this duel to settle the Kuhmbuhluhn-Skohshun conflict with axe and sword, ahorse or afoot. However, when the Skohshun champion had chosen to run the initial contact of the engagement with lances, Bili, the Kuhmbuhluhn champion, had had no option but to comply.

A party had ridden up to the city and returned laden with necessary weapons and gear from the well-stocked armories of the palace—a selection of battle lances, horse armor, several tilting shields of differing shapes and sizes, additional bits and pieces of plate for strengthening Bili’s own panoply to withstand the tremendous shock of the impact of a steel-tipped lance with the combined weights and strengths of a horse and a strong warrior behind it.

A swarm of men fitted the black stallion, Mahvros, with a combination of plate, mail and boiled-leather armor—a heavier chamfron, a segmented plate crinet to cover the lighter one of mail, peytral to protect chest and shoulders, flanchards on the flanks and the leather—and-plate crupper behind the high and flaring tilting kak to shield the hams and back—all covered with a thick, heavy, quilted bard of red-dyed doeskin. The warhorse was a good bit less than pleased by the additions, constituting as they did a confining and rather uncomfortable additional weight of upward of a hundred more pounds for him to bear even before his rider mounted him.

“Brother,” he mindspoke Bili ominously, “if these twolegs try to burden Mahvros with one more piece of metal or leather, Mahvros will show them how well his teeth tear manflesh, how easily manbones shatter under his hooves. Let them be warned!”

Bili, standing bathed in sweat while extra pieces were fitted to his own harness, beamed as soothingly as he could, “Mahvros, my dear brother, do not harm those men. What they are doing is for your protection, just as the extra armor they are buckling to me is to protect me. It is a hot day, yes, and this extra gear is stifling, but it gives us both a better chance to still be alive in the cool of the coming evening.

“Husband your strength and your proven ferocity for the fight which will shortly commence, dear brother. The man and your brother are about evenly matched, but Mahvros should have little to fear from the mount; for all that he is as big as are you, he is merely a gelding.”

With flaring nostrils, the black destrier snorted and stamped one big forehoof to indicate disgust, beaming, “Never has Mahvros been able to fathom why twolegs all call a sexless creature like that ‘he,’ as if it still had its stallion parts. Why not call it ‘she,’ instead?”

After carefully weighing the offerings, Bili chose a lance, then one of the long, narrow, tapering shields. But when his fitters made to buckle the shield firmly to his armor, he shook his head. “No, I’ll bear this thing only as long as I have to. Once the spear-running be done, I’ll need both hands for my axe, so I’ll need to quickly and easily shed the shield.”

He also refused to trade his battle helm for one of the huge, thick-walled, ornate tilting helms. “I’ve seen men swoon with lack of breathable air whilst wearing those things on far cooler days than is this scorcher. Too, I prefer to see what I’m axing, thank you.”

But he did allow them to cover a good part of his harness with a surcoat of white samite stitched thickly with red and gold traceries, thinking that it weighed little enough, was not at all confining and would at least keep the sun from beating directly upon some of the steel plates.

However, when the Skohshun officers inspected, the barding was ordered stripped from off Mahvros, for there was not one available for Sir Djaimz’s gelding, Jess, and the two champions were more or less expected to possess parity in defensive attire. For this same reason, Sir Djaimz was constrained to shed his oversize helm and redon his own battle helm.

Mahvros both beamed and exhibited great pleasure in being relieved of the weighty, stifling bard, which pleased Bili, especially since loss of the thing was no lessening of real protection for the great horse. Moreover, unaccustomed as the stallion had been to such a thing, there had existed the very real chance that Mahvros might step on the leading edge of the bard and lose his balance or even fall at a critical moment.

The shouting match and near cancellation of the duel came when the Skohshun officers, after all trying the weight and balance of Bili’s great double axe, announced that the champion of Kuhmbuhluhn either must forgo the use of any axe or make do with one of more average proportions and heft.

At length, Bili mindcalled the Moon Maiden, Lieutenant Kahndoot. “Little sister, these Skohshun bastards are determined to weight this contest firmly in the favor of their champion and have, therefore, refused flatly to allow me to use my own axe, obliquely endeavoring to limit the fight to only lance and sword. But I mean to outfox the sharp-eared creatures. Ride over here and trade axes with me for the length of time it takes me to put paid to the account of this Sir Djaimz.”

While the various armings and inspections and disarmings had been occurring, members of both armies had been engaged in the removals of corpses of man and of horse, dropped weapons and equipment and other battle debris from the narrowed space now separating the two armies, that space whereon the duel to decide the outcome of this affair of New Kuhmbuhluhners versus invading Skohshuns would shortly take place. A course of one hundred and fifty yards was decided upon for the tilt, and marker stakes were driven. Then all was declared to be in readiness.

Sir Djaimz, mounted on his big, battle-trained dark-chestnut gelding, took his place at the far western end of the course. Bili, on Mahvros, took the eastern end. Then both men waited for the bugle flourish that would announce the beginning of the bloodletting.