The Savage Mountains

VIII

Ahndros should have known better; he had, after all, seen Bili fight. For all his thick waist and hips almost as wide as his shoulders, the young thoheeks was in no manner clumsy or slow, else he would not have lived through over five years of almost continuous warfare. His quick reflexes had saved his life in more than one fierce encounter. They did again.

Experience told him that he could not get the long, heavy sword up quickly enough to effectively parry the attack. To duck would only make him more vulnerable, and to hop back off the small mound would be to give Ahndros the advantage of high ground. Dropping the sword, he threw himself forward, his meaty shoulder striking the center of Ahndros’ breastplate, his left hand closing on his adversary’s right wrist with bone-crushing force.

Ahndros crashed over backward, his cuirass striking sparks from the rocky ground. They rolled over and over, the gathered men scattering from their path. The fall had sent Ahndros’ helm spinning, but Bili could not spare a fist to batter the exposed head or fingers to gouge the eyes or ram up the nostrils, for he needs must use both hands to protect himself from Ahndros’ strength.

Cursing in all the languages or dialects he had ever heard, Komees Hari danced about as close to the combatants as their unpredictable writhings would permit, his blade bared, seeking a safe opening through which to thrust or slice some unarmored portion of Ahndros’ anatomy.

As for Ahndros, he knew that to release his grip on his hilt was sure death, yet he also knew that he could not retain it much longer. Bili had actually bent the fine steel cuff of his right gauntlet and his relentless pressure was collapsing the high-grade plate more and more, slowly crushing the wrist beneath. Then, while their bodies gasped and thrashed and strained, Bili mindspoke him.

“Ahndee, I don’t want to kill you or to see you killed on my account. My mother loves you and I once thought you my friend. What’s made you so unreasonable in these last months? Simply that I felt constrained to bring Count Djeen to heel? Why, the High Lord himself averred that the old man had asked for just what be got, and many times over, too.”

Ahndros answered telephathically. “You expect me to take your unadorned word on that, do you?”

“If my word isn’t sufficient, Ahndee, than why not ask Lord Milo? You have farspeak, he told me, and Whitetip will be happy to assist you.”

“I doubt the High Lord would receive my transmission, since I left Vawnpolis without his august leave, lord thoheeks. And, even if he did, I’m certain he’d lie to back anything you chose to say. It must have been quite a strain to keep up with the demands of both of them—swiving that slut, Aldora-the-Undying-Whore, then being poheestos to Milo.”

For a moment, Bill’s shock at the accusations sent his mind whirling, then he beamed back, albeit sadly. “You are surely mad, Ahndee, mad as Vahrohnos Myros, back in Vawnpolis, gibbering in his cell. I had been warned that there was madness in your house, that too much inbreeding had rendered your strain rotten. Drop your sword, man, stop fighting me, and I’ll send you back in honor. Mayhap Master Ahlee can help you return to normalcy.”

For a few heartbeats longer, Ahndros maintained the struggle, then he went suddenly limp and his sword clattered from his grasp.

Bili slowly regained his feet, then helped his late opponent to stand. But he missed the feral gleam in Ahndros’ black eyes. As the thoheeks half-turned to speak to his brother, now standing fully armed at the forefront of the circle of watchers, the vahrohneeskos drew his heavy dirk and, screaming, lunged at the hated foe.

Komees Hari’s powerful thrust entered the temple, spitting Ahndros’s head like an apple on a stick. The black eyes bulged out of their sockets, then a torrent of blood gushed from eyes, ears, nostrils and mouth. The body stiffened, then collapsed bonelessly, the head pulling free of the swordblade with a sucking, popping sound.

During the next few days, Bili took each nobleman and officer aside, separately, and swore them to silence. He loved his mothers and meant to make sure that neither ever would know of how dishonorably Vahrohneeskos Ahndros Theftehros of Morguhn had died. To that end, he knew that the late Ahndros’s servants would have to be permanently silenced, but to slay all five so close to the death of their master might cause comment amongst the Freefighters, so he simply dragooned them to his own service, where he and his striker could keep tabs on them.

Late the next morning, the vanguard came up to an old battleground, obviously the site of an Ahrmehnee victory, since most of the hacked corpses had been stripped, beheaded and sickeningly mutilated. Due to the almost total absence of artifacts, no one could say for certain just who the more than five score dead men had been; Bili and the others could only assume that they had found a part of Pawl Raikuh’s still missing squadron.

In addition to the man-made disfigurements, annuals had been at the bodies, and at least a week of sundrenched days in the open had the dead flesh well on the way to putrefaction, despite the freezing nights. Nonetheless, Bili had troopers examine each cadaver in hopes of establishing his assumption. That was how the odd point was found.

The man who found it, under a reeking corpse, brought it to his captain, and the Freefighter officer immediately rode to the center of the clearing, where Bili and a knot of nobles sat their horses amid the stench.

Captain Krawzmyuh had to almost shout to make himself heard above the angry cawings of the crows and ravens, the flapping of the wings of low-flying buzzards anxious to return to their grisly feasting.

“Duke Bili, Trooper Hwehlbehk found this underneath a body, he did. All the years I been a-soldierin”, I ain’t seen the like. She ‘pears too big and long to be no dart point, but nobody’s fool enough to forge barbs on the point of a stabbin’ spear.”

Bili accepted the piece of metal and scrutinized it. It was about as long as his hand, as the captain had said, too long and heavy to have tipped a hand dart. The steel seemed of poor quality and the forging was rough and sloppy, the hammer marks jaggedly positioned on the faces. Down each edge ran a row of curved barbs, and a couple of inches of sourwood shaft still remained in the band-socket, held by an iron pin. He decided that, whatever had been its use, it was a crude, savage weapon.

While the nobles passed it about amongst themselves, Bili thought aloud. “Barring evidence to the contrary, gentlemen, I think we are safe to assume that these poor bastards were of Captain Raikuh’s squadron. But that missel point, if such it actually is, gives one to wonder if their nemesis was really the Ahrmehnee. I find myself doubting it for a number of reasons.

“First, though Ahrmehnee are known to take weapons and armor, horses and their equipage from slain foemen, as well as heads, I’ve yet to hear of any tribe stripping bodies of clothing and boots. Any nonmetallic item—one which cannot be purified by fire—which was worn touching the skin of a dead enemy is taboo to them, since they much fear the spirits of vengeful victims.”

“Yet, my lord,” mused Airuhn Mahkai of Duhnkin, “they do take heads … ?”

“Which they keep in special, spell-locked houses. And their very real fear is one reason they take heads, Lord Airuhn.” Bili had, at the first mention of this campaign, put his keen mind to the task of learning all he could of Ahrmehnee and their ways, so he now spoke with some authority. “Their shamans are of the mind that, so long as they are not unduly angered, maleficent spirits can be kept trapped within their skulls, which never leave the spell-house. But were a spirit to see an Ahrmehnee wearing clothing which once had been worn on that spirit’s corporeal body, such would be its anger that it could overcome the spells and wreak terrible vengeance on those who took its life.

“But back to the point, gentlemen. We all are by now aware of the excellence of Ahrmehnee metalworking. They have a passionate love of fine artifacts and are masters at fabricating them. If the High Lord can bring them into the Confederation, give them steady and plentiful sources of raw materials, they’ll soon be a very wealthy people, without doubt. Therefore, can any of you imagine an Ahrmehnee warrior willingly entering battle against well-armed men with so ill-wrought and clumsy a weapon? I cannot.”

“But, Bili,” commented Komees Hari, “who else could have mustered the force to slay over a hundred men?”

“Perhaps that tribe the High Lord mentioned, the Muhkohee. They must be powerful if the Ahrmehnee fear them.”

“But, my lords,” said Vahrohnos Rai Graiuhm of Makintahsh, absently massaging the thick neck of his destrier, “according to the maps, we’re still two days’ march within the borders of the Soormehlvuhn Tribe.”

Bili nodded. “According to the maps, baron, but recall if you will what I said at our last meeting before inaugurating the raids. These maps, especially the western borders of them, are of questionable accuracy. Too, even if we are still within the lands of the Ahrmehnee, consider, the bulk of their warriors are long leagues to the northeast and we are not the only men who ever took it into their heads to raid the lands of folk we knew to be occupied with another foe.

“No, gentlemen, I think we had best assume that we could see action at any moment from here on. Accordingly, we’ll tighten the march order of the column, bringing the trains from the rear to the center. The cats will still scout our projected route and our extended flanks. But now, between them and the column, a stronger vanguard will ride and, where terrain will permit, flank riders, as well.

“Hari, as you’re an old hand at warring and, as you have at least minimal farspeak, you’ll command the van. Stay in touch with the cats and with me. If any ambush occurs or if you run into a force unexpectedly, don’t try playing the hero, just fight a sensible holding action until the main body gets up to you. Understand? Pick such men as you want. You’ve your choice of the squadron.”

Bili stood up in his stirrups and looked about him, then, raising his voice, called, “Taros? Taros Duhnbahr? Where are you, man?”

When young Komees Taros came up, his tall sorrel stallion strutting, Bili told him, “You’ll command the rearguards, Taros. I’ll assign a cat to pace you on each flank, but keep your eyes peeled. None of us want to end up well-minced buzzard bait. Agreed?”

Earlier that morning, away to the. northeast, Aldora and her kahtahfrahktoee had trotted through the nahkhahrah’s village, then eastward, headed for the gap and the Confederation castra beyond. Insisting upon’ bringing Vahrohneeskos Drehkos with her, Aldora joined Milo in the council house, where she was introduced to the nahkhahrah and the assembled dehrehbehee. While beer was being poured for the formal healths of welcome, the woman mindspoke Milo.

“Do any of these Ahrmehnee mindspeak?”

Silently, he replied, “The nahkhahrah does, I’m sure. And the old man has other powers, as well, powers I can’t begin to describe. I don’t think even he understands them. Why?

“I’ve never understood something about myself, Milo, or about Mara and you and that bastard Demetrios, my dear, departed first husband. At what age do the bodies of the undying stop aging? Do you know?”

Milo shrugged, beaming, “It varies, dear. You look to be about twenty-five, while Mara thinks she stopped at twenty-two or -three. In forty years, Demetrios never looked more than late twentyish, while I’ve always appeared between thirty and forty. Again, why?”

She smiled cryptically. “Do you think … would it be possible for someone to age more than you did and be an Undying? Without him even knowing it?”

“What’s all this leading up to, Aldora? Damn it, girl, you can be maddening sometimes. But, in answer, yes, I suppose it would be possible. No one, least of all me, knows enough about our kind to give a definitive answer. And as for not knowing, well, you didn’t know and neither did Demetrios, not at first.”

“Yes, but then I was a child, mentally, emotionally. As for Demetrios, he was … well, to be charitable, always somewhat dense. Could an intelligent man live fifty-odd years and not be aware of his differences?”

Mile’s glance shot to Drehkos Daiviz, where he sat sipping Ahrmehnee honeybeer and conversing in broken trade—Mehrikan with a dehrehbeh.

“Precisely,” Aldora mindspoke. Then she opened her mind to Milo.

From the very beginning to the bloody raid, it had seemed that Drehkos was actively seeking death in battle. He had insisted on commanding the van on marches, and there were few charges during which he was not at the very forefront. His former-rebel horsemen died in droves, but death seemed to flee from his grasp like a will-o’-the-wisp. Then had come that dreadful morning when a large force of screaming, bloodthirsty, vengeance-bent Ahrmehnee warriors had taken Aldora’s encampment by surprise.

Suddenly, they had just been there. Rawboned men on foot or on shaggy little ponies, armed with spears and darts, axes and nail-studded clubs, metal-shod targes and wide, straight-bladed, double-edged shortswords. From along the entire southern periphery of the camp they came, wave after yelling, screeching wave of them, grasping brands from the smoldering embers of watchfires and whirling them into full, flaming life, before hurling them into tents or horse lines or among knots of sleep-drugged troopers.

In the rain of darts which followed, many a man died before he even knew the camp to be invaded. Aldora, herself, had been sleeping soundly, but Drehkos had obviously been wakeful, for it was he who organized and led the first resistance. Half-clothed, barefoot, with only a helm and his broadsword, he and a scratch force of camp guards and cats, few of the men fully armed and fewer still mounted, had hurled themselves against three thousand shrieking Ahrmehnee.

While trumpets pealed and drums rolled, while frantic orders were roared and terrified horses screamed even more loudly than the wounded, burning men in the blazing tents, Drehkos and his pitiful few did yeoman service against more than twenty times then—numbers. Very few of them lived to see the rise of Sacred Sun, an hour later, and most of those were dead of their many and terrible wounds ere Sun set.

But their sacrifice had saved the camp. Aldora’s losses had “been heavy, all told, but more than a thousand Ahrmehnee had fallen within the encampment, slain or too badly wounded to flee, as had the bulk of the attackers when at last a sizable number of armed and ordered men confronted them.

There had been a few knots of resistance, though, a few suicide groups who had remained behind to slow pursuit. Bareback, Aldora and her bodyguards had set their horses toward one such, only to see Drehkos and a bare score of his survivors make first, bloody contact In the few seconds it took for the mounted contingent to reach the broil, half the score were down, lying still in death or gasping and kicking away their last moments of life. Of the rest, none was engaged against any less than three Ahrmehnee.

Even as Aldora had raised and whirled her steel, screaming the Clan Linszee warcry, she had seen Drehkos cut down an Ahrmehnee at the very moment another barbarian jammed a wolfspear into the nobleman’s back with such force that the knife-sharp blade emerged, dripping, from his chest. Ere the man could free his spear, Aldora had split his skull with her heavy saber.

When the last Ahrmehnee in camp were cut down, the fires were extinguished and losses were being assessed, Aldora had detailed several of her guardsmen to fetch the vahrohneeskos” body and prepare it for cremation. By this time, she was informed of her debt to Drehkos and was truly regretful of the cool formality with which she had rebuffed his overtures of friendship, first at Vawnpolis, then during the raiding campaign.

Guard Lieutenant Trehdhwai shortly rode back to her looking as if he had been clubbed. “My … lady, please … my lady, you must come and see. He … Lord Drehkos is not dead. He—”

“Damnit, Hehrbuht, of course he’s dead!” she had snapped peevishly. “Sun and Wind, man, I saw one of the swine jam a spear completely through him, back to front. That was over an hour ago. Even if he was not killed at that moment, he’s long since bled to death.”

But she had gone with the officer.

Drehkos Daiviz of Morguhn was sitting, leaning weakly against a pile of stiffening corpses, his shirtfront stiff and tacky with drying gore. As she dismounted and started wonderingly toward him, one of the ring of guardsmen handed him a canteen from which he drank greedily.

Closing her memory, Aldora recommenced mindspeak. “Milo, I still have that spear. It’s got a ten-inch blade, honed as sharp as a sword op both edges. Though they’re fading fast, you can still see the two scars on Drehkos’ body, one on his back, just under the right shoulderblade, and one on his chest, bisecting his right nipple.

“When I asked him what had happened, he seemed as stunned as any of us, but quite candidly said that he had fallen face downward and that the fall had pushed the blade back into his body. He just lay there for a while, expecting to die shortly. But he didn’t. So, finally, because it was so agonizing, he managed to reach behind him and pull the spear the rest of the way out of him. By the time my guards got to him, he’d stopped bleeding, though the wounds still were gaping when I arrived.”

“Who, besides you and them—and him, of course—know of this, Aldora?”

“No one, Milo. I’ve learned at least that much from you in two hundred years or so.”

Milo nodded. “Keep it that way until we’re down at the castra. Yes, dear, you’re learning. It was most wise to keep him by you … whatever it develops he is.”

“Bili,” Hari mindspoke back from the van, “Whitetip just told me he’s found a horse wandering. There’s a woman on it, an armored woman, wounded and unconscious. He wants to know if he should lead the horse here or wait for us to come up to him.”

“Wait, Hari,” Bili replied; then, on farspeak-level, “Cat-brother, do you think the female two-leg will fall off the horse if you try to bring her to us?”

“Her kak is like yours, Chief Bili,” answered the prairiecat promptly. “She will not fall.”

“Then lead the horse to our brother, Hari, catbrother. I will join you there.” Then, to Hari, “Watch for Whitetip, he’s bringing his find to you. I’ll be there as quickly as Mahvros can bear me.”

When the black stallion pounded up to the van, Hari and some of his men had removed the rider from her spent, lathered, shuddering horse and laid her out on a cloak. Another cloak had been folded and placed under her head, from which they had removed the dented helm. Using a piece of rag dipped in a waterbag, the old komees was gently sponging away the dirt and sweat and blood from her pasty-white face.

Bili had been a warrior for all his adult life and had seen his share of wounds, fatal and otherwise. He shook his head as he strode toward her, thinking that she would not live much longer and that it was a shame, for her features were regular and fair to look upon and her tresses, those not befouled with blood and dirt, were the ruddy black of his stallion’s mane, though far finer in texture.

“Isn’t she lovely, my lord?” said the husky, red-haired nobleman who strode beside the young thoheeks.

Bili didn’t answer, for they had reached the wounded woman’s side. “Has she said anything, Hari?”

Shaking his head, the old man stood up jerkily, his joints popping and creaking protest. “There’s damned little life left in her. She can’t even swallow. I tried to give her some brandy and it just ran out of her throat through that wound under her chin. Even if she were conscious, lad, I don’t think she’d be able to speak. I tried a scan of her mind, too, but …” He shrugged his shoulders and turned up his palms.

Sinking down beside the dying woman, Bili raised one of her eyelids, then straightened and slapped her wan cheeks, hard. His thick, horny hand, hardened by axehaft and swordhilt, with the strength of his brawny arm behind it, cracked cruelly against the chill flesh, right cheek and left, back and palm, in a blur of motion.

Komees Hari was aghast. He stepped forward. “Now, damnit, Bili … Sun and Wind, man, what are you doing? You’ve no call to so abuse her!” he remonstrated, heatedly.

But Bili had stopped. The sooty-lashed eyelids had fluttered ever so faintly and the colorless lips trembled, then passed a croaking moan. After a moment, the lids opened to disclose bloodshot eyes, already beginning to glaze. Roughly, Bili grasped the small head, raised it, and stared hard into those sloe-black pupils.