Champion of the Last Battle

XV

As they awaited the signal, Sir Djaimz seemed to be experiencing difficulty in controlling his gelding, to the point that finally a brother officer took a firm grip on the section of rein near the bit and lent his weight and strength to prevent the nervous beast from sidling.

Mahvros, on the other hand, stood stockstill, as Bili had telepathically instructed him to do, ready to charge at the first brazen notes of the trumpet.

Both riders had fully extended their stirrup leathers to the point where they actually stood in their stirrups, thighs tight-gripping the barrels of their respective mounts, their buttocks bunched up hard against the high cantles of the tilting saddles, bodies angled forward and shield held high so that it protected all of the torso, nearly the entire length of the left leg and the neck and head right up to the bars of the visors.

The mounted hornman, Gy Ynstyn, raised polished bugle to the lips hidden in his beard. Despite the deadly danger of the impending duel to his young lord, Duke Bili, still Gy could barely contain his joy. Though there had as yet been no chance to seek her out and exchange words, he had recognized among the Moon Maidens following the banner of Sir Geros his lover and battlemate, Meeree.

As his peripheral vision detected the flash of the sun on the brass horn, Bili lowered his lance, couching its butt end between right biceps and body and angling the steel-pointed and slightly tapering longer portion of the twelve-foot ash-wood shaft to the left over Mahvros’ thick, steel-sheathed neck.

Bili did enjoy one distinct and most valuable advantage over his opponent that the Skohshun inspectors could not have suspected. The young thoheeks could devote the full use of his left arm to his shield, disregarding the reins and exerting what little control of his stallion was necessary through means of mindspeak or, occasionally, knee pressure. He and the massive black equine had traveled and drilled and fought as one for long years. A very real love bond existed between them, and in matters of combat the one knew the mind of the other as well as only true telepaths can.

Then, at long last, the trumpet pealed! Jess, the gelding of Sir Djaimz, was startled by the noise and reared, almost trampling the volunteer horse holder before that worthy could loose his grip and scurry clear of the flailing hooves. But Mahvros started smoothly forward, gradually increasing speed and momentum, his rolling muscles bunching and relaxing beneath the horse armor, his gait across the length of the course providing a firm platform from which his rider could fight.

Despite his concentration in aiming his lance and in keeping as much as possible of himself behind the body shield, Bili’s experienced eyes told him a great deal about his onrushing opponent—some good, some possibly bad, but all of it useful.

The chestnut gelding was not so well coordinated as was the black. His gait was choppy and, probably, jarring to the rider, which circumstance most likely meant that Sir Djaimz would aim his point for the larger, surer target of the shield face, rather than essaying the potentially more deadly but smaller and trickier target of Bili’s helm-clad head. This arrangement suited Bili of Morguhn fine, for otherwise, lacking as he did one of the stronger and heavier tilting helms, he just might end with the best part of the lancepoint in his skull.

But another characteristic of that chestnut gelding might make for severe difficulties, injuries, even death. The choppy gait meant that the equine did not always lead with the right forehoof, as did Mahvros and all others of the best-trained destriers. This meant that under certain combat circumstances, an actual collision of the two mounts was a distinct and unnerving possibility. Bili mindspoke this observation to his horse, but Mahvros had, he replied, already noticed and noted the sinister quirk.

But with both big beasts at a flat-out gallop, there was little real time for observing. Suddenly, Sir Djaimz’s point was become a steel flicker just below Bili’s line of vision and the dark-blue—and-silver face of the shield seemed to encompass all of the world.

Bili unconsciously gripped Mahvros’ barrel the tighter, tensed his arm muscles for the coming, powerful thrust and braced his body for the inevitable shock.

Neither man heard the mighty shout that rose up from both sides at the impact. Bili had judged aright, and a shrewdly timed alteration of the angle of his shield sent the Skohshun knight’s lancepoint sliding off the face of the thoheeks’ shield into the empty air beyond, unbalancing Sir Djaimz even as Bili’s hard-driven point took him clean in the helm and bore him far back over his cantle and onto the crupper of the chestnut gelding, his lance clattering from his hand and the man almost following it onto the rocky ground.

Mahvros’ momentum kept him going on westward for several rods before Bili finally could slow and turn him, and by that time Sir Djaimz had more or less regained his seat and his horse control and was hurriedly unslinging a saddle axe only slightly shorter than the Moon Maiden crescent axe that Bili now bore at his own pommel.

Although the Kuhmbuhluhn lines were a tumult of gleeful or bloodthirsty noise and commotion, there was only silence from the Skohshun lines, for matters now looked exceedingly ill for their champion. Bili of Morguhn still remained fully armed, and, did he so wish, there was nothing to prevent him using that long, deadly lance to unhorse, injure, even kill Sir Djaimz well before that worthy was or could be close enough to swing the axe to any effect; and the cheers and shouted bits of advice from his own forces indicated that they all clearly expected him to do just that.

But he did not. Thrusting downward powerfully, he sank the ferrule of the lance into the pebbly ground, then unslung Kahndoot’s balanced, well-kept axe. At sight of this selfless generosity, the Skohshun ranks, one and all, cheered their foemen’s champion, while Sir Djaimz brought up his own axe in a complicated flourish of salute, reflecting that he would not be gladdened by this man’s death. Not that that emotion would keep him from killing when the time came—after all, duty was duty and was not always pleasantly performed.

Neither horse was put to the gallop this time, rather to a fast amble. They met and, for long minutes, circled and feinted. Then Bili’s powerful backhanded buffet came within bare inches of slamming into the section of Sir Djaimz’s helm already weakened by the lance thrust. Barely in the nick of time the officer got his shield into place to block the blow. But the Skohshun returned as good as he got, and for a heartbeat of time, the two strained to wrench loose their axe blades, each sunk deeply in the dense hardwood laminate of the other’s shield.

As the two warily began to circle and feint once more, with a sound louder than a thunderclap, fiery lightning first struck the distant back wall of the Skohshun stockade. Then, with no perceptible pause, equally ear-splitting explosions of sound heralded the virtual disintegration of the front gate of that stout stockade, both of the front-corner platforms and sizable sections of the front wall as well.

From out of a now-cloudless, blue sky, the deadly lightning struck again—among the tightly formed ranks of the Skohshun pikemen and even among the lines of Kuhmbuhluhners. The cheers and shouts suddenly were become screams of pain and terror. Kuhmbuhluhners and Skohshuns, Freefighters, Ahrmehnee, Ehleenee, Kindred, Moon Maidens, men, women, Kleesahks and horses, all surged in one mob this way and the other, seeking an escape, a haven of safety from this mysterious and terrifying new form of death and injury. The duel, the battle, even the war clean forgotten, the resultant thoroughly mixed mob, both mounted and afoot, surged first back to the base of King’s Rest Mountain, then up the winding roadway, through the barbican and across the bridge and into the streets of New Kuhmbuhluhnburk itself, all of the long pikes and the more unwieldy items of weapons and equipment dropped heedlessly along the way in that flight of unthinking terror.

“Cease firing!” ordered Genera! Jay Corbett into his transceiver mouthpiece. “All sections cease firing. Cease firing and dismantle weapons. Horse handlers forward. Out.”

Turning to Gumpner, he said, “All right, Gump, you take over from here. Get the mortars and everything else repacked and get ready to march.”

“There’re a few rockets and some mortar bombs left, sir,” replied the colonel. “It might be interesting to see what the effect of them would be on a stone-walled city ... ?”

“No,” responded Corbett, shaking his head. “I’ve no desire to kill or hurt any more of those poor buggers. The barrage was simply to keep them occupied, off our necks until Dr. Arenstein could get away and join us. We’ve accomplished that and, so far as I’m concerned, the action is over and done.”

He turned to his waiting chief-of-scouts. “Johnny, you and Merle find me the shortest, easiest route back to the site of the landslide. My fondest desire, at this moment, is to get my original mission completed and get us all back to Broomtown in one piece.”

As the scouts conferred one with the other, Corbett strode over to where the three Skohshun prisoners sat and dismissed the armed guards, ordering them to fetch back the prisoners’ mounts and arms.

“Gentlemen, I’m releasing you, as I promised I would do once my mission was accomplished. Where you go now is up to you, but I would imagine they could use your help over in that camp, what’s left of it. There are certain to be wounded men in there.”

Then he turned to the youngest of the Skohshuns, a peglegged boy whose face looked somewhat older than his chronological age. “Ensign Thomas Grey, please convey upon your next meeting with your mother, the Lady Pamela Grey, my sincerest regards and my best wishes for her future happiness. She is a splendid woman, sir, a true lady in every conceivable way. Had I met a woman like her long, long, long ago ... well, never mind. God speed you safely home, gentlemen, all of you.”

In the early evening of the day of that duel interrupted by fiery, deadly thunders, Duke Bili the Axe again occupied his accustomed place at the head of the table of the royal councilors of the Kingdom of New Kuhmbuhluhn, but that table and the chamber itself were both far more crowded than was usual. Extra chairs and stools had been lugged in from hither and yon, space made at the table sides to seat twice as many men, with others ranged against the walls on stools and a brace of benches.

They had all just heard what had really happened to drive them and their followers, willy-nilly, up here into New Kuhmbuhluhnburk that afternoon. Those who had recounted the fantastical tale—a one-legged boy-warrior a few years Bili’s junior and a brace of Skohshun officer-gallopers, all of whom had been prisoners of the strange, alien force which had wrought such havoc—had been sincerely thanked and dismissed from the chamber. The first to speak, then, was Bili.

“Well, gentlemen, at least we now know the truth of that scary business down there today. The Eastern Confederation, of which my Duchy of Morguhn is a vassal state, has suffered much in recent years from the sinister plottings and incursions of those damned Witchmen, and I’m right sorry to see them this far west. But they seem to thrive best where there is warfare and dissension, nor are they at all loath to foment chaotic conditions where none formerly existed. They cannot seem to exist in a land of peace and order, and so, if you Kuhmbuhluhn and Skohshun folk don’t want them back in your laps again, it is imperative that you settle your differences and begin to live amicably, one with the other.”

Noting the dark, sullen glances at each other of the two, previously warring races, the young commander went on to say, “Understand, gentlemen, I don’t give a real damn whether or not you all chop each other into gobbets, once I am gone. It’s none of my affair, to speak true. My contracts all are discharged and as soon as I can gather all my followers and set them on the march, I mean to recross the mountains, collect the cubs—human and feline—that we left in Sandee’s Cot last spring, and return back whence we came.

“You men all are my elders, and, it is bruited about at least, age imparts wisdom. Surely you men are wise enough to see that you must reconcile your differences and merge your two races into one, else you will soon be easy prey to the Witchmen or to any other united and disciplined force that comes your way. Such a race are your eastern neighbors, the Ahrmehnee stahn, nor can I truly believe that you have seen the last of the outlaw-Ganiks, the cannibals.

“I have talked with Sir Ahrthur, Sir Djahn, Sir Djaimz and Captain Baron Devernee, this day, and all agree that this war has been an ill-starred business from start to date. They admit to being as much at fault for the inception of hostilities as were you Kuhmbuhluhners, which is, I trow, a good place to commence the ending of it.

“They have no desire to extirpate the folk of New Kuhmbuhluhn. They are only seeking land to farm and live upon and raise their families on, having been driven from off their own lands by a hostile invader. Now, in the wake of the departures of the Ganiks, there are huge tracts of empty, tenantless, but potentially rich land south of the mountains, and there are nowhere near to approaching enough New Kuhmbuhluhn folk to adequately settle and work them. You know that and I know that, no matter how much you may protest the contrary.

“Now, the House of Mahrloh is extinct, so there is presently no king in New Kuhmbuhluhn, and, barring a miracle, I cannot imagine you councilors soon agreeing upon one of your number for that office.”

Archcount Sir Daifid Howuh sneeringly asked, “And I suppose that your grace expects us to choose and try to live under one of these damned savage brutes of Skohshuns? Methinks your grace today took some stray buffet that addled your grace’s brains. A Skohshun king of New Kuhmbuhluhn, indeed!”

Bili shook his shaven head. “No, Archcount Howuh, a king of any sort—Kuhmbuhluhner or Skohshun—was not really that of which I was thinking.”

“Well, what the hell else is there, sir duke,” demanded Duke Klyv Wahrtuhn, exasperatedly, “save anarchy?”

Bili steepled his thick, callused fingers and gazed over their tips at the men ranged along the two sides of the table. “There is the path that the Republic of Eeree took long ago when faced with similar difficulties; now that republic is every bit as strong and as prosperous as the kingdoms of Harzburk or Pitzburk.”

“Ah, yes,” responded Archcount Howuh, “I think I recall hearing tales from Old Kuhmbuhluhn regarding that strangely governed state. Please, your grace of Morguhn, say on.”

Naturally, it was not as easy as all that. Sectarian differences ran too deep and wide in both New Kuhmbuhluhn and Skohshun, not to even mention the basic hostility of the one race for the other in the wake of the recent unpleasantnesses. It all required the best part of two weeks of almost ceaseless, day- and nightlong discussions, arguments, name-callings, shouting matches, table poundings, wall poundings and other clear evidences of strong wills and adult temper tantrums. And it all devolved into no worse only because Bili wisely barred even the smallest, least innocuous edge weapons from the chamber and tried to see to it that the various factions were lodged as far from one another as was possible in the overcrowded palace and city.

To help in relieving some of this overcrowding, while at one and the same time keeping the former combatants—Skohshun and Kuhmbuhluhner—living cheek by jowl, Bili quartered the larger part of his own squadron and the reinforcements led by Sir Geros and Sir Djim in the much-battered camp of the former besiegers. He justified his actions with the excuse that there simply was insufficient space for so many horses and ponies in the keep stables and that the animals would, in any case, be happier and healthier grazing on the plain.

He retained his staff and that of Sir Geros in the city, along with enough of his veteran cavalry—mostly Moon Maidens and Freefighters of the old Morguhn Company—to provide him a loyal nucleus did the negotiations get out of hand and overt warfare between the Kuhmbuhluhn nobility and the Skohshun officers recommence.

Sight of a Kleesahk in the city confines was a rarity for a week and more after the “battle,” Pah-Elmuh having led the huge hominids down to the battle site and the ruined camp as soon as he had heard that there were hundreds of sick and hurt and wounded men and horses in and about the area, all in crying need of care and healing.

Hard beset as he found himself, Bili saw it imperative to delegate authority and duties. All of the operational and logistical planning of the return march—first to Sandee’s Cot, then through the southern tribal lands of the Ahrmehnee stahn and so on east through the Thoheekahtohn of Vawn into his own Thoheekahtohn of Morguhn—he piled onto the combined staffs. Governance of the fortress city of New Kuhmbuhluhnburk he placed in the capable hands of Sir Yoo Folsom. The overlord of Sir Yoo, Count Djohsehf Brahk, had had the misfortune to have one of the missiles thrown by the weapons of the Witchmen land squarely upon him (had the occurrence not been witnessed, no one would ever have known exactly what had happened to him, so little of him and his horse had remained of an identifiable nature), and, before all was done, Bili intended to see the royal council about the now-vacant peerage.

But even so, the young commander had no free time to devote to his wife and his children. His infrequent visits to his suite could only be for the purposes of snatching a few minutes of sleep, bathing, being shaved, changing his clothing, then returning to the council chamber and the disputatious men it contained.

But Rahksahnah sympathized and empathized with her harried, usually exhausted husband. A sometime war leader herself, she managed the suite and their personal entourage well, saw to it that he was properly served and provided for, that he ate and drank at least once each day and that his short snatches of rest were undisturbed until the time he had designated. Nor did she allow him to be troubled by such petty bothers and ills as her new spate of harassments by her once lover, the Moon Maiden Meeree.

All the way up from Sandee’s Cot, Meeree had done her utter damnedest to poison against the brahbehrnuh the minds of the Moon Maidens who had ridden from the east with Sir Geros and Sir Djim. But her lies, accusations and exaggerations had held them only until they had had words with Rahksahnah herself, and Lieutenant Kahndoot, and had seen just how happy the other Maidens were become with their men and, some, with their children.

But obsessed as she was become, Meeree could not accept the loss of power over the newly arrived Maidens any more than she ever had been able to accept the Goddess-ordained loss of her sworn lover, the brahbehrnuh, Rahksahnah, to Bili of Morguhn and the new order. She continued to agitate, haunting any place where the Moon Maidens congregated.

Then, of a day, as she walked down a palace corridor, a powerful hand grasped the elbow of her good arm and dragged her into a dimly lit and smallish chamber. The door slammed behind her and, before her eyes had as yet adjusted to the gloom, her ears were recipients of the grating of a cold, familiar voice. She turned to behold the strong, stocky figure of Kahndoot.

“You stupid, ever-whining bitch,” snapped the Maiden officer, “did a year of suffering and ostracism teach you no one thing? It is not simply against the brahbehrnuh you speak, but against Her, the Silver Lady, the Will of the Goddess, and that is blasphemy. If any woman—or man, for that matter—doubts mat She will not tolerate or forgive such as your cesspit mouth churns out, they only need think of what you once were and look upon that which you are now become. No, keep silent; open that foul mouth before I give you leave to do so and you’ll need to seek out a Kleesahk to see if he can help you grow a new set of front teeth!

“Look at yourself, Meeree. Once you were the second or, at least, the third best warrior of all the Maidens, but you in your foolish pride incurred Her wrath, Her terrible wrath, and what are you now become? You—”

But Meeree jerked her arm from Kahndoot’s grip and put as much distance as the confines of the small chamber allowed between them, then her good right hand produced from the folds of her clothing a long, slim, double-edged dagger. “Get away from that door, damn you!” she snarled. “What I am now is nothing to do with the so-called Goddess, but the fault of Rahksahnah’s parts itching unnaturally for that lumbering, hairless thing, Dook Bili. He it was smashed and ruined my shield and bridle arm, first took my own lover, then spoiled me for war; but he will pay. Soon or late, Meeree will see him pay with his own misbegotten life. Just as you, you sow, now pay!”

With the last, half-screamed words, the crippled woman lunged, all of her weight a strength behind the dagger she thrust at Kahndoot’s thick body. But, with an audible snap, the slender blade broke off short and tinkled on the stone floor. Off balance, Meeree stumbled against her intended victim, whose strong hands grabbed her and hurled her lighter body into a corner. Then Kahndoot paced to stand over her. She opened her gashed shirt, and the lamplight imparted a rippling sheen to the short hauberk of fine Ahrmehnee mail which had underlain the shirt.

Smiling coldly, she said, “Has hate and envy driven all reason from your mind, woman? Did you think I’d immure myself alone with such a creature as you now are without some sort of protection against such infamy as you just displayed? I’d be thoroughly justified to slay you, here and now, and no doubt I would save much suffering for other people if I did just that. But I say again what I said on the night of that duel at Sandee’s Cot—there are few enough of us Maidens of the Moon Goddess left as it is, and I do not want any of that now-rare blood on these hands of mine.”

Bili had Pah-Elmuh summoned back up to the palace for the penultimate meeting of the new council, which henceforth would not style itself “royal,” but rather the Council of the Aristocratic Republic of Kleesahkyuhn—named after those who had preceded all of the present twoleg disputants to the area. The initial council that Bili would leave behind him when he marched would consist of three Kuhmbuhluhn noblemen, three of the Skohshuns and one Kleesahk, but eventually there would be a total of fourteen men and three Kleesahks to constitute the council, though most of the day-to-day affairs would be conducted by the smaller, seven-chair assemblage.

After seeing them all seated and a surprisingly peaceful meeting commence, Bili departed to his suite and slept for the best part of two full days and nights. He then arose long enough to dine, bathe, make long, unhurried, gentle love to and with Rahksahnah, then sleep for another day. Then he once more arose and threw himself into the preparations for the return to Sandee’s Cot and then, eventually, Morguhn, into which he had not set foot for almost three years.

Things had been far less complicated, he thought, before he had been burdened with a household for which to arrange transport and supplies for the trip. In addition to himself, Rahksahnah, the twins—and, when they arrived in Sandee’s Cot, young Djef Morguhn, now some year old—there were his hornman, Gy Ynstyn, and his woman, Meeree, his bannerman, his three orderlies, his secretary, his cook and that worthy’s two helpers, his three horse tenders, Rahksahnah’s three servants, the wet nurse and her young husband, six Freefighter bodyguards and four muleskinners to handle the household pack train on the march and in camp. Moreover, the prairiecat Stealth—now, once again, pregnant by Chief Whitetip—would be accompanying his personal entourage.

In the usual manner of all of fallible humanity, Hornman Gy Ynstyn had conveniently forgotten the sullen behavior of Meeree when he had departed with the squadron bound for the north and the Skohshun War, near six months agone. Because of her maimed left arm, she had been left behind along with some score of sick, injured or pregnant and near-to-term warriors. Poor Gy, who had come to love the woman, had deluded himself with the unfounded belief that when once more they two were together, they would commence a life of unmitigated bliss.

But from the very first day they were reunited, ail his hopes and dreams were utterly dashed. No sooner were the woman and her gear installed in Gy’s small chamber, which adjoined Duke Bili’s rambling suite, than did Meeree seek out Rahksahnah and spend two hours alternately arguing with and screaming at the young mother. Gy could understand none of the words, since they were couched in the cryptic language of the Moon Maidens, but the tones left no doubt as to the general content of the heated exchanges.

Very soon thereafter, Meeree took to locking Gy out of his chamber for hours, sometimes, whilst she closeted herself with certain ones of the Moon Maidens who had marched north with the forces of Sir Geros and Sir Djim Bohluh. And when these meetings abruptly ceased, when the Maidens would none of them submit to private converse with Meeree, indeed, avoided her if at all possible, still did Meeree deny his access to his room and bed, right often, so that she might sit alone and brood.

And on those occasions when he was allowed use of his bed, Meeree either ignored him completely or hectored him for long, sleepless hours with all that she swore would be done to him and all the other men when the Moon Maidens at last realized the errors into which the forsworn Rahksahnah had led them, cleaved to her—Meeree—and took over the city of New Kuhmbuhluhnburk as a new Hold of the Maidens of the Moon.

Then, of a night, something awakened him from exhausted slumber in time to see Meeree advancing toward him, her good right hand gripping the worn hilt of her razor-edged shortsword, her lips curled back from off her teeth, her eyes as wild and savage as those of any predatory beast. Only his startled, sudden movement saved his genitals from the point and edges of her steel, and she still managed to thrust the broad blade so deeply into his inner thigh that the point grated agonizingly against bone.

Fortunately for Gy, Bili and Rahksahnah were but just closing the main doors of their suite for the night, having bid a goodnight to Pah-Elmuh, when the hornman staggered naked out into the hallway, his wound gushing blood at every beat of his heart.

When once the Kleesahk had stopped the arterial blood flow, cleaned and closed the gaping wound, then instructed Gy Ynstyn’s brain to pump natural anesthetics into the affected areas and to commence the healing processes, he and Bili entered the swooning hornman’s mind and had the entire tale.

When questioned, Rahksahnah just shrugged. “It began while you were trying to persuade the Kuhmbuhluhners and Skohshuns to join together, Bili. You had a full load of cares, and I could see no reason to burden you with more. I’m of the opinion that poor Meeree’s mind is become as twisted and deformed as her arm. Back during the first week after the battle, she tried to put a dagger into Kahndoot’s heart, but with long months of bad blood between those two, it was perhaps understandable. But now this night’s work, to attack and almost kill her own, sworn battlecompanion ... ? Bili, she is not any longer the Meeree I once loved, and it’s too bad, for that Meeree was an altogether admirable woman.”

“Pah-Elmuh,” Bili asked, “lunacy such as this—is it at all responsive to your talents?”

“Yes, Lord Champion,” beamed the Kleesahk in reply. “I have, over the years, brought reason back to more than a few unfortunates through first wakening them to their problems, then showing their brains how to correct them. But it is a long process, Lord Champion—months are required to do it properly.”

Bili thought for a moment, then nodded and mindspoke, “If I leave behind a sum to provide proper maintenance for this woman, Meeree, would you undertake to cure her, old friend?”

Pah-Elmuh smiled and beamed, “Speak not of gold or silver, Lord Champion. You have wrought here in New Kuhmbuhluhn more than a score of our generations could ever repay. Besides, you know that healing is my art and my joy. She will be well maintained, never you fear. Perhaps when once her mind is clear and rational, I can even show it how to restore that arm.”

And so, of a bright morning in early autumn, Sir Bili, Thoheeks and Chief of Morguhn, Lord Champion of the Kleesahks, and last legal ruler of the former Kingdom of New Kuhmbuhluhn, set the steel-shod hooves of his mighty warhorse to the boards of the drawbridge and rode out of that fortress-city he had defended so well. The throngs he left behind in the streets of the mountain city cheered him and his cavalcade, even while bitterly weeping over his departure. One and all, they had come to truly love the brave, astute, just and always courteous young commander and, agreements in council be damned, would have acclaimed him the new King of Kuhmbuhluhn, in a bare eyeblink, had they had but a suspicion that he might have accepted the crown.

Arrived down upon the plain, Bili, Rahksahnah, Hornman Gy, the bannerman bearing the Red Eagle of Morguhn, and Bili’s six bodyguards took their places at the head of the long column and the march toward the central mountain chain commenced.

Excepting some of the servants and muleskinners, all were veterans, so the steady pace of the march did not fatigue them, and when finally Bili called a halt and an encampment was emplaced near to a purling brookside, they were only a day’s additional march from the mouth of the pass that would take them through to the southern counties.

They were moving through a land that was at last enjoying peace, so Bili saw no reason to post guards or establish a perimeter for the camp. Consequently, it sprawled unevenly along both sides of the winding brook and soon became a place of joyous merriment for the homeward-bound men and women. With dinners consumed, barrels of Skohshun beer and Kuhmbuhluhn ale were broached, and wineskins circulated freely. The ever-present Ahrmehnee musicians drew out their instruments, and, to their wailing, drum-thumping rhythms, the other Ahrmehnee first raised a deep-voiced chorus, then began a sword dance.

The drinking and general jollity went on about the leaping fires until well after moonrise, when Bili, reluctantly, ordered all to seek their beds, as he intended to recommence the march at dawn. He and Rahksahnah stripped and washed in the icy water of the brook, then raced breathlessly up the bank to seek the anticipated warmth of their camp bed and blankets.

In his huge great-bed, where he lay dying with the stink of his own suppurating flesh cloying his nostrils, the old, old man that the years had made of young Bili of Morguhn once more castigated himself as he had nearly every lonely day for almost eighty years.

“Why?” he demanded of himself. “Why did I do it? Surely I knew better. I had been a-soldiering for more than half my life, even then. Had I set up a perimeter, posted sentries, had I even placed a brace of my personal guards at the entry of my pavilion ... ”

A protracted sigh rattled out of the throat of the dying old man, bringing the attending physician hurrying to his side to assure himself that the spark of life yet remained. But Bili did not see or hear this old friend. He once more was reliving the saddest moments of his ninety-nine years of existence.

Laughing through chattering teeth, young Bili and his dark, lovely and much-loved wife and battlemate, Rahksahnah, ran gaily into their pavilion, dimly lit by a single small metal lamp slung by chains from the ridgepole. After hurriedly stripping off their damp clothing, they tumbled into the camp bed to lie locked in close embrace until their bodies’ heat reasserted normal temperature and they ceased to shiver.

That same closeness, however, aroused passions that had never been long quiescent in them. Then, after they both were sated, fulfilled one by the other, they lay long in silent, telepathic oneness before sleep finally claimed them.

Bili was never certain just how long they lay in slumber, but suddenly his danger-prescience, which rare talent had so many times before saved his life on the march or in situations of imminent combat, brought him completely awake and wary. He cautiously slitted his eyes and saw, through the scrimlike curtain of Rahksahnah’s disordered black hair, a cloaked and hooded figure moving soundlessly across the thick carpets. The dim lamplight glittered on the watered-steel blade that the intruder held reversed, in the classic down-stabbing position.

Making as little movement as possible, Bili felt for the familiar hilt of his pillow sword ... unavailingly. It was not in its accustomed place! So he mindspoke Rahksahnah.

“Do not move, my dear, not yet, not until you feel me do so. There is an intruder here, in this very chamber, creeping with naked steel toward us. Moreover, the servants forgot again to place my pillow sword in position when they set up the bed. But there’s but the one and that one not very big. Wait.”

Hornman Gy Ynstyn was sitting with a group of old Freefighter cronies around the fire before the tent of Sir Geros Lahvoheetos when oncoming hoofbeats were felt by them all long before they could hear them above the noise of the camp. Then there were shouts across on the northern bank of the brook, followed closely by splashings, and a dusty rider on a foam-flecked horse guided that stumbling beast close to the group of Freefighters.

Despite the mask of mud that copious sweat and trail dust had placed over his features, Gy still could recognize the drawn face of one of the squires of Count Yoo Folsom, so the hornman arose from his place and bore the wineskin they had been circulating over to the newcomer.

“Welcome, Master Pahrkuh. Here, take you a pull at this—you look like a wornout boot.”

Without a word, the horseman accepted the skin and poured a good pint down his working throat before stoppering it and gasping out, “Please, Hornman Ynstyn, I must speak with Duke Bili ... quickly! After your column was well on the march, a patient of Pah-Elmuh’s, a Moon Maiden gone mad, escaped from his care, slew two hostlers, stole a horse and lied her way past the gate guards. Pah-Elmuh fears she means to harm his grace.”

All in a single movement, Bili rose to his knees, threw back the blankets and heaved a pillow at the assassin, shouting, “Hold, now!”

The trespasser ducked barely in time, but so close came the hard-flung cushion that it tore back the hood of the cloak to reveal the dusty-dirty face, dulled hair and wild eyes of Meeree, her lips twisted into a feral snarl. Even as Bili made to quit the bed, the lunatic hurled herself at him, her blade raised high for the stab.

Gy Ynstyn, running toward Bili’s pavilion, with the New Kuhmbuhluhn messenger at a fast walk behind him, heard Bili’s shout and increased his pace, at the same time drawing his long dirk and cursing himself for leaving his saber off this night. Bursting through the flaps of the ducal pavilion and then through the inner flaps that led into the bedchamber, he was unwilling witness to the climax of the tragedy.

Meeree, in her haste to flesh her blade, failed to watch her footing and tripped on an uneven spot in the carpet, and before she could regain her balance enough to strike at the naked, unarmed man on the bed, Rahksahnah had arisen to block her way, pity on her face and one hand extended toward the murderous madwoman.

“Meeree, my Meeree!” Rahksahnah forced her voice to calmness and low, soothing tones. “Meeree, give me the knife, please.”

“No!” snapped Meeree. “He must be killed. He has taken you from me, led you into dark, evil practices. He would prevent us from a new beginning, a proper, natural beginning, a new hold, so I must kill him!”

“Then you must kill me first, Meeree,” said Rahksahnah, softly and simply.

“Then die, you faithless, perverted bitch!” shrieked Meeree, plunging her blade to the very hilt into the full breast of her once lover. “You—gaaarrrgghh!” She shrieked once more and flinched forward across the body of her victim, as her battlemate, Hornman Gy Ynstyn—his face bathed with his rueful tears—buried his sharp dirk in her back.

Furiously, Bili pushed and shoved the cloaked figure from off Rahksahnah and the bed, but Meeree was not yet dead, and she held the hilt of her weapon tight-clenched, so the blade came out from her victim with an ugly, sucking sound, followed by a gush of blood, almost black in the dim lamplight.

Gy Ynstyn held Meeree’s body in his arms, weeping, sobbing unashamedly. “Oh, my poor, dear Meeree, I’m sorry, my love, but ... but I had to. Can’t you see that? I truly love you, but I am Duke Bili’s sworn man.”

“Man-Gy ... Gy?” The voice was little better than a whisper, and a trickle of blood began to trace through the dust from onecorner of Meeree’s mouth. She made as if to snuggle against his body, murmuring almost imperceptibly, “Good man ... Man-Gy. You please ... Meeree, much please Meeree. But tired ... sleep now.”

Meeree’s body became limp, heavy, the knife slipped from her hand, the last breath left her body along with her life. Gy crouched there, still hugging her body to his chest, still sobbing out his explanations for killing her.

The pavilion was fast filling up with men and women, but neither Bili nor Gy noticed any of them. Rahksahnah had spoken but briefly before she died. “My Bili, my poor Bili. Be good I would tell you to our little ones, but no need is, you could not be other ... always good, kind, patient, loving. Send me to Home of Wind, your chosen god ... will wait for you there ...” And she was gone.