The Coming of the Horseclans

6

The commander of the Gap-fort was a mercenary with a barbarian name—Hwil Kuk. Manos did not feel that the man was properly subservient and would not have him around the place, insisting he camp with his men. Kuk was a widower and his 12-year-old son shared his life. When first he laid eyes on the towheaded, blue-eyed boy, Manos lusted for him. He suggested to Kuk that he take the boy; back with the army as his page, rear and educate him in the city of the High Lord, make a gentleman of him. Kuk understood; he had served some years in the capital and knew only too well of the unnatural passions of many of the Ehleenoee, wealthy ones in particular. Kuk refused politely, saying he had promised the boy’s dead mother that they would stay together.

Manos ordered the noncom from his presence and sulked and brooded for three days. On the morning of the fourth, Hwil Kuk—who knew the country and spoke Old Merikan fluently—was ordered to take half his command through the Gap. He was to enter the nomads’ camp and attempt to estimate their numbers, telling the chiefs that their approach had alarmed the Ehleenoee and that was why the army had been sent; but, if the tribe came in peace, they were more than welcome to come through the Gap, so long as they continued north or south and did not tarry in Kehnooryohs Ehlahs. He was to take along gifts for the chiefs and spend as much time as was required to lull them into the trap Manos’ men were preparing.

The night of the fourth day, a detachment of Manos’ bodyguard entered the main camp, seized Kuk’s son, and bore him back to the Gap-fort.

Kuk and his party were well received by the Council of Chiefs, were honored and gifted and assured that, once through the Gap, the tribe would be bearing south. It had been prophesied that they would return to the Great Water whence they had come, but it was unnecessary to proceed in a straight line. Raids were one thing, but none of the chiefs was especially keen to come up against an army nearly as large as the entire tribe.

Feeling a bit like a Judas-goat—for he had truly liked his hosts and had been made to feel truly at home with them—Hwil Kuk led his men back into the Gap after two days. Halfway through, he was met by his second-in-command and the remainder of the Gap-fort garrison, who were mounted on stolen horses. When the first, wild rage of his grief over his son had spent itself, Kuk realized the sure consequences of returning into the clutches of his son’s murderer. He decided to seek again the nomad camp. Once there, he would tell the chiefs the truth and, if allowed to do so, join with them. He absolved his men of their oaths to him, bidding them follow or not, as they wished. All forty followed. Their pay was far in arrears and they owed the Ehleenoee and the High Lord no service as they were all mercenaries, indigenous to the mountains of the Middle Domain, Karaleenos. While they served the Ehleenoee for gold, they neither liked nor respected them (for one thing, they felt dispossessed; the rich piedmont having once belonged to their race). They all respected Hwil Kuk and they had—to a man—loved little Hwili, Kuk’s shamefully murdered son.

Before the Council of Chiefs, Kuk bared his breast. He freely confessed his duplicity hi his earlier dealings with them, carefully detailing the strengths of the Ehleenoee host—and its weaknesses, chief among which was its inexperienced, hotheaded commander, the monster Manos. He told, too, of the preparations for ambushing the tribe as soon as most of it was through the Gap and massacring its warriors.

“Then,” Kuk concluded, “it will be with you as it has been before with other Horseclans. After all the men are dead, your women will be raped to death or sold over the sea to brothels; your maidens will be enslaved as well, to receive the tainted seed of the devilish Ehleenoee; and your young boys… .” He broke off sharply, tears streaming down his cheeks. Then, clenching his big fists and squaring his shoulders, he forced himself to continue. “Your dear littls sons will be sold to brothels, too; but brothels of a different sort, where their immature bodies will sate the dark lusts of the unclean, unnatural beasts who call themselves Ehleenoee. I speak of certain knowledge, honorable chieftains—my oath to Sun and Wind and Sword, on it My own little boy—my Hwili—lies dead on the other side of the Gap, murdered by this same Lord Manos. When Ij would not give my son to his keeping—knowing him for what he is—he first sent me to lie to you, then had his men to seize the child.”

Hwil Kuk hung his head and sunk teeth into lip; blood trickled down his stubbled chin. When he raised his head again, his eyes were screwed shut. His quavering voice was

low but penetrating, and his facial muscles twitched with emotion.

“I have been told that my child’s screams could be heard through all the camp. Then they suddenly ceased. The next morning, certain of my followers found Hwili’s pitiful little corpse, flung onto the fort midden. They washed it and clothed it and … and buried it. Things had been done to my boy’s body, terrible things. His … flesh had been torn, and my followers think that Lord Manos, uncaring after his hellish lusts were satisfied, allowed my Hwili to bleed to death.”

Then Hwil Kuk’s eyes opened and the fire of bloodlust-ing madness blazed from them. “Chieftains, if you would to the sea—your great water—you must fight long and hard. It is that or return to the plains, for, in all the Ehleenoee lands, you will meet with the same. You owe me nothing, yet would I ask this of you: If it is your intent to fight, allow me and my followers to swing our swords beside you.”

Henri, chief of Clan Kashul, was first to speak. “You claim that you lied before; perhaps you are lying now. What think you, War Chief?”

Knowing the Ehleenoee, as he did, Milo believed the man, but only a dramatic vindication would please and convince these chiefs. He arose and advanced to stand before Hwil Kuk. He looked into the ex-mercenary’s eyes; they met his unwaveringly.

“Hwil Kuk,” said Milo. “Will you submit to the Test of the Cat?”

Kuk cleared his throat. “I will!” he replied in a firm voice.

Horsekiller, who, as Cat Chief, missed but few meetings of the council, padded across the tent. On Milo’s instructions, Kuk knelt and placed his head in Horsekiller’s widespread jaws.

“You understand, Hwil Kuk, the cat has the power to read your thoughts. If this you have said is truth, you have nothing to fear. If not, his jaws will slowly crush your skull.” But even as he spoke, he knew. Through Horse-killer, he too could enter the grief-stricken man’s mind, endure with the cat the half-madness of Kuk’s tortured thoughts. “Enough!” He mindspoke to Horsekiller.

The big cat gently released his grip and licked Kuk’s face in sympathy. Losing one’s kittens was never easy to bear.

Milo took Kuk’s arm and raised him to his feet. “Kindred, this man has spoken truth. He has suffered much and it is right that he should shed the blood of those who helped to bring about that suffering. When we fight the Ehleenoee, as we must, he and his men will ride with me. As I am clanless, so too are they.”

“How can we fight?” inquired Gil, Chief of Clan Marshul. “This man has told us the Ehleenoee lord leads between eighty and ninety hundreds of soldiers. We are forty-two clans, but our warriors number less than twenty-five hundreds. If we were able to surprise them, we would have a chance, but having to fight them at the place of their choosing • • .”

“But we won’t,” replied Milo.

Throughout the course of the next month, Lord Manos was harassed in every quarter. Demetrios’ riders came almost every day with inquiries commands, and, as the month passed the halfway point, thinly veiled threats. The Theesispolis Kahtahphraktoee were grumbling; they wanted to get back to their garrison with its wine shops and bordellos. The army’s mercenaries were grumbling, many of the units not having been paid for four months. His officers were grumbling, anxious to return to the comforts and civilized delights of the capital. The bulk of his army was heavy infantry—levied from the areas lying east and south of the capital, and called out, equipped, and armed by the High Lord—and they were grumbling. Most were peasant farmers and harvest time was near; there was much to do. The barbarians just sat on the other side of the Gap. They grazed their herds on the thick luxuriant grass of the mountain valley, and it seemed as if they never intended to move on, into the fidgeting jaws of Manos’ trap.

Manos had waited a week for Kuk to return, then had sent out a dozen cavalrymen under command of a minor noble of Theesispolis, one Herakles, to search and inquire his whereabouts. Lord Herakles possessed a working knowledge of Trade Merikan, and he and his men were well received by the nomads. He was informed that Kuk and his men had come, lived with the nomads a few days, and then—after having been joined by another party of equal size—had ridden away south, saying nothing to anyone. Herakles and his men saw but few adult warriors about the camp and, when they asked, were informed that most of the fighters had ridden north on a raid-in-force some three weeks before; there had been no word from the fifteen hundred or so men, but no one seemed alarmed, not really expecting them back for at least another moon. The camp and herds were watched over by old men and young boys—and the grace and beauty of these nomad boys sent the hot blood pounding in Lord Herakles’ temples.

His report was pleasing to Lord Manos, who was relieved that the barbarian Kuk would not be back. Head over heels in debt, as were most of the libertine nobles of the capital, Manos had no money for a blood-price and would have had to have executed Kuk on some contrived charge. Besides, it was not his fault anyway! Had the silly little swine not resisted so stubbornly, he’d not have been rent so seriously; he would not have been torn to such an extent that not even the physician and his cauteries could halt the bleeding. Manos did not blame himself. It was the will of the gods, and what was one barbarian boy, more or less. There would always be more to his kind; they tended to breed like rabbits.

During the time of waiting, he amused himself with a trio of peasant boys, kidnapped by his bodyguard which was experienced and skilled at such abductions. None of the three chunky-bodied lads had an iota of the beauty that had attracted him to darling Hwili, but there were compensations. A mere touch of the whip put an end to their resistance, and once broken in, they proved enjoyable and not one of them had the effrontery to die.

But as the month wore on and Demetrios’ messages became more vicious and the grumbling of mercenaries, spearmen, and officers became louder, Manos’ minions, with their dark hair and coarse features, began to bore him. Their never-ending whining and pleading for their parents, and their bodies’ limp acceptance of his usage got on his nerves. He could think only of the wild, spirited, blond and red-haired beauties that Herakles had described in such glowing terms.

The last message Manos received from the High Lord left him shuddering. It described in sickening detail what was to be done to him should he delay any longer in securing the slaves, animals, and loot for which he and his huge, expensive army had been dispatched. When Manos regained his composure, he sent for Herakles.

That officer’s news, upon his return from his second visit to the camp of the nomads, cheered Manos considerably. The warriors were still absent, and furthermore, most of the older men had gone into the western mountains to hunt, expecting to be away for at least three days. The nomads had been made to feel secure, and the rich, sprawling camp was all but defenseless.

That settled it in Manos’ mind. At the next dawn, mercenary trumpets brayed and the drums of the Ehleenoee rolled. Manos formed his army La the usual Ehleenoee march column—Kahtahphraktoee in the van, then nobles and officers in their chariots, and then the massed spearmen on an eight-man front in the rear eating dust, their iron-soled sandals squishing the horse-droppings into the interstices of the logs which paved the steep Trade road of the Gap. Manos took far more men than he felt he’d have need of, leaving a mere six hundred of his least effective spearmen and sixty cavalry to guard camp and fort from the thieving peasants of the area.

Nearly a thousand horsemen, seventy-three chariots, and close to seven thousand spearmen pantingly negotiated the eastern half of the winding Trade road. The route was incredibly ancient—said to have been used by the creatures who trod these mountains before the gods. At noon, the column drew to a halt in a brushy but sparsely wooded area near the crest. Here and there, bits of weathered masonry poked through the sparse soil. One of the mercenary non-coms claimed that they stood atop the ruins of one of the Cities of the Gods. The site, he went on, was called Hwainzbroh by the indigenous peoples.

When the officers had completed their meal, the column again took to the road and started down the western face to the Gap. So cocksure was Manos of the invincibility of his army, that he had vetoed a mercenary leader’s suggestion that outriders be posted at van, flanks, and rear. It would have required more time to see to such unnecessary details, and Manos was in a hurry. Therefore, when the first fours of the Theesispolis Kahtahphraktoee rounded the last curve of a winding cut and came up against a high, road-filling rock slide, disaster set in. Because the officers could not signal with bugles or drums—for fear of causing more rock slides—by the time they got the snakelike column halted, fully nine-tenths of it were solidly jammed into the cut. At the site of the obstruction the troopers were so wedged together that not a single man could dismount, much less go about clearing the road. Screaming threats, shouting imprecations, promising horrible punishments, making vicious use of whips and sword-flats, Manos and the other Ehleenoee officers began trying to force the mass of spearmen back; but their efforts were unavailing. The bulk of flesh and bone behind them stopped the infantry’s withdrawal as surely as the bulk of rock and earth before had stopped the cavalry’s advance.