A Cat Of Silvery Hue (9 page)

Freefighter Lieutenant Bohreegahd Hohguhn ambled up to the nobleman with a crudely made spear—just a knifeblade bound into the end of five feet of sapling, with the bark still on.

“It ain’t no warcamp, my lord,” the mercenary averred in his nasal, mountain dialect. “Ain’t no rhyme nor no reason to these here lean-tos. But they ain’t entirely peaceable neither, else they wouldn’t of been a-makin’ this here sad excuse for a spear. Outlaws, you reckun, my lord?”

Sheathing his broadsword, the old lord took the spear and scrutinized its single-edged blade, answering, “No, lieutenant, I think not. I’d have known of any band this large.”

Vaskos paced up to them with the filled water bottles, adding, “Nor would outlaws have small children in a forest camp. And the mud along the rill has bare footprints so small that only a child of no more than three years could have pressed them.”

Now Hohguhn had, while listening to father and son, snapped up the cheekpieces of his open-faced helm and removed it to vigorously apply dirty fingernails to furiously itching scalp, so the humming sound and its deadly import were clearer than to those whose ears still were covered by steel.

With a shouted “
Down
!” he flung his wiry body against that of the startled
komees
, while violently shoving big Vaskos, who fell forward so that the stone aimed for his unprotected face clanged instead off his raised visor.

But three of the wandering Freefighters were not so lucky, and when at last the
komees’
party had crawled or scurried back to the shelter of the woods opposite those which held the slingers, the bodies of those three still lay where they had fallen. Against men clad in open-faced helms, slingstones can spell instant death.

Briefly Vaskos showed himself, trying to spot the positions of the ambushers, and a subdued humming launched a ragged volley toward him. But the range was too great and only one or two stones bounced off the first treetrunks, most falling in the deserted clearing.

“That be a warnin’ and a sample of more to come, y’ child-stealin’ bastards!” snarled a deep voice from the trees and brush which hid the slingers. “We’uns owe yer mistress nothin’, y’ hear? Make a Ehleenee church out’n ever’ house we left, but you come after us ‘n’ our women ‘n’ our kids ‘n’ well kill ever’ last one of you priest-bound boy-buggers!”

“That,” whispered the
komees
amazedly, “was Ehrik Goontehros, the village headman! What in the world could that witless bitch have done to inflame so even-tempered a man to ambush and murder?”

Before Vaskos or Hohguhn, who were continuing to watch the source of both stones and voice, could divine his intent,
Komees
Hari was already swinging up onto Steelsheen and mindspeaking the stallion out into the campsite, even while he stripped off his gauntlets and commenced to
unbuckle his helm
.

Hohguhn would never have suspected that big, burly Vaskos could move so fast. At a weaving, crouching run, he reached his father’s side just before the older man cleared the last of the screening brush. Gripping the near stirrup leathers, he frantically remonstrated.

“Is my father a fool? They’ve already downed three good men—they’ll not stick at yet another. Wait until Gaib and his men are up to us, at least. A few patterns of shafts will clear that brush in record time.”

The old nobleman lifted off the helm and thrust it down at Vaskos, patting his son’s weather-browned cheek with the other hand. “You need not fear for me, lad. Those poor men yonder are
my
people. They’ll not harm me—not if they can see who I am. Hehrah has obviously wronged them in some way, else they’d be in Horse Hall village, not faring like wild beasts here in the forest. Without doubt, some more of her damned perversion of a religion. You caught what Ehrik said about churches, didn’t you?”

Then the big gray was into the clearing, and Vaskos was left clutching his father’s helm and nursing his apprehensions. He watched the stallion come to a halt, then commence a slow, stately walk across the width of the campsite, tail held high and neck arched in pride. Then came again the sound he had so feared: the humming of a whirling sling.

“
Father
!” he shouted. “My lord, beware!” But when he would have run after his sire, many hands restrained him.

And Captain Linstahk was there before him, saying, “You cannot aid him now, Vaskos. And would your death make his any more meaningful?”

With the abrupt end of the humming, a whistling stone narrowly missed Hari’s head, caroming off his shoulderpiece. But the old nobleman might have been an image, carved of one of those stone outcrops which dotted his lands. He never so much as flinched at the loud clang of stone on steel. He sat his mount easily, erect in his high-bowed warkak, loosely handling his reins, his bare swordhand resting on his armored thigh.

His clear baritone rang out in a merry laugh, followed by the chiding comment, “A bad cast, Ehrik! You missed the mark by at least a handsbreadth. Sun and Wind, man, have we then grown so old and decrepit, you and I? Why, I’ve seen you bring down a stooping hawk with that sling!”

The vicious humming had recommenced. Again it ceased, and Vaskos gritted his teeth, for his father was now closer and, with the westering sun to his back, would provide an unmissable target. But no stone came.

“Ha…Hari…? My lord? Be it really you?” rumbled the hidden basso.

“Aye, Ehrik. Half-deafened by the last loud note of your slingsong, but it’s me. But man, you know my financial state! How in hell am I going to pay the
thoheeks
bloodprice on those three Freefighters of his you just slew?” the
komees said
.

There was a deep whoop of joy from the underbrush, and a black-bearded man of about Vaskos’ age arose from his hiding place, a gap-toothed grin splitting a battered face capped by a handful of blood-caked, dirty bandages. Looking into the brush about him, he crowed, “You see! You
see
! I
told
you all that that woman-stealing, child-stealing, ewe-raping dog of a Danos lied in his mossy teeth! He swore
Komees
Hari lay slain, yet there he sits, you gullible fools. There sits our dear lord! Why bide we here?”

Then they were all about him. The empty-appearing brush poured forth men, women, children, dogs and even a few goats. And Ehrik’s thick arms were lifting up the youngest child of his dead first wife that he might see that
this
rider was truly the old lord, always the protector of his people. And the others clustered as close as possible, laughing, weeping, chattering, reaching forth dirty, broken-nailed hands to touch a dusty boot or a bit of armor, their tears of happiness almost laying the dust raised by their bare feet.

Watching, Vaskos felt both awe and fierce pride. Awe of a man so uncompromisingly good that he could command such love and devotion from his people, pride that he was the son—even the bastard son—of so just and loyal a man.

As it developed, only one of the Freefighters was dead, the stone having taken him in the eye and smashed a splintering path into the brain. The second had a dented helm and a lump the size of a turkey egg on the side of his head. The last had suffered a broken collarbone—but was conscious and jokingly asserting to have suffered worse injuries from hungry mosquitoes.

While villagers and hidden archers guarded a farflung perimeter, Gaib’s troopers lined up to water their horses at the small spring, then hunkered down to share their rations with the ravenous villagers.

Pain and anger in his swollen eyes, Ehrik took another long pull at Hari’s commodious brandy flask, wincing as the strong spirit bit into the raw sockets of knocked-out teeth. Then he went on, “So, when I recovered sommats from that beatin’ they give me an’ got my wits ‘bout me agin, I got ever’body together an’ led ‘em inta the woods. I figgered was the bastards to come in here a-horse, they’d make us damn good targets what couldn’ move fast in the brush. An’ I ‘uz jest hopin’ to Wind the boy-buggers ‘ud come in a-foot!”

“But we didn’t light no fires, cause it ‘uz men with Danos hadn’ none of us seed afore, an’ I couldn’ be sure jest how many men he
did
have…an’ I didn’ wanta lead a whole pack of ‘em to us, an’ us with nothin’ but slings an’ knives an’ a few homemade spears.”

Hari nodded gravely. “You did very well, Ehrik. Your father would be proud of you. It takes real guts to stand off armored men—and Wind alone knew how many of them—with nought save slings.”

Then his face clouded. “But you and your folk must be equally as brave when I tell you what now I must, Ehrik. Do you recall my valet, Kristohfohros? Well, he was one of that pack of cutthroats who attacked the young
thoheeks
, that night at the Forest Bridge.
Komees
Djeen’s men captured him and bore him to Morguhn Hall, where the
komees
and the Undying High Lord and others put the pig to the torture. What he revealed to them has since been detailed to me and my son, and it bodes ill for your missing children.”

A deep moan swelled up from the folk massed about, but Hari went on. “The Ehleen priests have taken to slaying children on their altars, draining them of blood, which is then mixed with wine and herbs and drunk by those swine.”

“As for your dear wife, Ehrik, I think we can be more hopeful. I well know
my
wife’s unnatural traits…and her tastes. She’ll not have done aught to mar her beauty, for such is as important to Hehrah as it would be to a man. With any luck, she should be back with you by this time tomorrow, dear friend.”

Mairee Goontehros lay sleepless near the edge of the broad bed, her azure eyes fixed upon the blue-white flicker of a winking star. She wished,
prayed
, that Wind might whisk her through the narrow window to that faraway star. To anywhere rather than here—naked in her shame, beside the gross hulk of the Lady Hehrah, who having yet again sated her sickening depravity on Mairee’s passive flesh was once more snoring. But it was not the unlovely rasp of the fat woman’s snores which kept the slender girl wakeful; rather was it the pain and the self-loathing that she had so cravenly sacrificed her honor to gain surcease of pain…that and sorrow.

“Poor dear brave Ehrik.” The words were shaped soundlessly and she stifled her sobs, that she might not waken her bloated captor to wreak fresh horrors upon her, but the silent tears coursed from her eyes to trickle amongst the strands of her cornsilk hair.

That day, that cursed day that Captain Danos and his henchmen had come and demanded that she accompany them back to Horse Hall, she had been so very proud of her strong, black-bearded husband. His arguments and questions ignored by the arrogant guardsmen, he had still attempted to be reasonable—until the first Ehleen had grasped her arm to pull her out the door. Then he had exploded into furious action. Ehrik’s first mighty buffet had knocked him who held her sliding, rump foremost, into the cookfire, whence he quickly emerged to run howling from the house, his leathern breeches ablaze.

When the captain made a pass at him with a stabbing sword, Ehrik’s nimble sidestep sent the blade past him, while his big, hard fist actually dented the brass breastplate, driving the breath from the captain’s chest and setting him stumbling backward into the wall. Another guardsman had been lifted bodily and thrown headfirst into the next two to rush through the doorway. He had broken the arm of another swordsman; despite the stamping and shouting and Ehrik’s roaring, she had distinctively heard the bones snap.

But of course it could not last; one lone man, no matter what his strength or his rage, is just no match for a score of bravos. A knot of them forced in and bore him down amid the smashed furniture and two of them held her tightly while, with fists, feet, swordhilts and whipbutts, a dozen of their fellows bludgeoned the life from her husband. And when they at last stepped back from their’ inert victim, Mairee could not recognize even one feature of the bloody deathmask which was all that remained of Ehrik’s smiling face.

They had borne her into the square, screaming and vainly clawing at her captors. After roughly binding her hands and feet, they tossed her across the withers of the guardsman’s horse. Since hard hands explored and fondled her body all the way to the hall, she expected to be raped by them all, to be their plaything…until she could gain access to a knife and send herself to Wind.

Once more, the pale lips moved. “Better their rapes…all of them, one after the other. Far better than this…this
abomination
! It is natural that
men
should lust after a woman, but that a
woman
should…”

A strong shudder of horrified loathing coursed the length of her, then she lay trembling, for a long moment, praying that the movement had not wakened Lady Hehrah.

But at the hall, Mairee had found herself delivered up to the lady’s women. Numbly, she had allowed herself to be led to a bathing chamber and stripped of her torn and dusty garments. While the deep basin was being filled with warm and sweet-scented water, the laughing but hard-eyed women had turned her round and round, squeezing her firm young breasts, running their hands over the slender hips and small buttocks and flat belly, conversing in whispers she could not hear, then sharing gales of raucous laughter. When she had been laved from foot to crown and her fine hair had been dried and arranged, they clad her in a single short garment made of stuff so sheer as to be almost transparent, then conducted her to the suite of the lady.

When she had wed poor Ehrik, three months agone, dear old Lord Hari had generously feasted them in the hall and gifted them and presented them to his king stallion, his daughters and his lady. But on that joyous day, Mairee had been too full of the giddy happiness of the events and awe of the sumptuous surroundings and the old nobleman’s preferential treatment of her and Ehrik to note aught but that the lady was stout, black-haired and aloof, seeming displeased with her noble spouse.

But the lady of the initial phase of her second meeting was all solicitude, tenderly embracing Mairee and kissing her cheek in a motherly greeting, drawing her down to sit beside her on a soft-cushioned settle, insisting she eat of the rare dainties and drink of the strong, brandied wine. The lady’s plump, beringed fingers gently brushed the bruises left on Mairee’s fair skin by the cruel manhandling of Danos and his men, lifting the hem of her sole garment and pulling the low-cut neck even lower that she might see and touch the entireties of the discolored areas, all the while clucking sympathy and promising dire punishments for the guardsmen responsible.