Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1986 (22 page)

“Maybe he associates with me too much,” said
Djalout, with one of his rare laughs. “Or
can
he associate with me too
much?”

The Cahena summoned Wulf, to tell him to make a
new survey of the land, to see if people obeyed her. Obediently he set out,
with Susi and Cham. Daphne begged to go, and Wulf hugged her close and would
not permit it.

The year out there was a dry one. The felling of
orchards, the burning of crops, had had their effect. Wulf found bands of
people haunting old farming areas in hopes that volunteer stalks of barley
would grow and be worth reaping. Again, women looked tired, children looked
unhappy and hungry. Men hunted every
day,
and brought
back little.

“The
world’s
dead out
here,” said one.

“If the Moslems come, they’ll find it so,” Wulf
replied as he knew he must, and the man grinned mirthlessly.

“I wish they would come,” he said. “We could
capture their food.”

“At least they wouldn’t get food from us,” said
Wulf, and the man narrowed his eyes.

“Nobody can get food from us,” he grumbled. “Not
even us.”

An arid winter came. Wells and streams dried up.
People wandered here and there, for water and for what wild food they could find.
Those who fared best were Ketriazar’s Medusi and Daris’s Nefussa, with their
traditions of roaming and hunting. Coming back to Thrysdus with his findings,
Wulf met the Cahena and saw that she was almost hysterical with worry.

“It’s Khalid,” she said. “He’s sick, lies on his
bed and won’t eat, won’t talk. And I can’t make him well.”

Wulf went with her to Khalid’s quarters. Khalid
did not seem to
he
in a desperate condition. He
drooped languidly on a couch draped with embroidered silk, nibbled at a fig,
and drank clabbered camel’s milk. He seemed petulant when the Cahena asked him
how he felt. “Only tired,” he said.
“Only bored.”

“Bored?” she cried, as though that were a
particularly dire symptom. “Wulf, why can’t I cure him? You’ve seen me heal the
blind, stop the flow of blood from wounds. This is strange.”

“It was strange when you healed the sick,” said
Wulf. “This is natural, no magic in it. If you let him alone, maybe he’ll get
better.”

“Maybe!” she echoed.
“Maybe!
What can we do?”

Djalout answered that. He came and peered at
Khalid, felt his forehead and the pulse at his wrist, then went to fetch back
an array of dried plants to brew in hot water. Khalid drank this, complaining
at the bitterness, and then Djalout wrapped him in heavy rugs until sweat
streamed on his doleful face. At last Khalid deigned to sit up and say that he
felt stronger, would have some food. The Cahena brought a basin of mutton soup
and spooned it to his mouth with her own hands.

When Khalid was well, the Cahena spent hours alone
with him. Yet again she sent Wulf on a long journey, with Mallul to accompany
him, all the way to Cirta. Lartius received them, but complained about the
Cahena’s orders.

“How can we destroy Cirta?” he challenged them.
“It’s a natural fortress on this dome of rock. If we had food enough, we could
hold off all the Moslems who would come, but we don’t have food enough. Your
men have wrecked our orchards and fields and driven our cattle away to be wild.
Tell the Cahena we’re not happy.”

“I’ll take that to her as your message,” said
Mallul. “I’m her son, I can do that.”

Wulf and Mallul rode away, dissatisfied. They went
on westward to the village near the Tomb of the Christian Woman. The old
priestess gave them a welcome that was not much of a welcome.

“Nothing happens here,” she told Wulf. “I can’t
advise these people, can’t cure them when they’re sick. Some of them go out to
that tomb and mope around the place where you killed her and burned her. Maybe
they ask her for help. If so, she doesn’t give any. What was it you called
her?”

“
Lamia
,” said Wulf. “Do you think she had all that power and that
when her power went, all the magic went?”

“I only know it’s gone. And I wonder if what you
did was a good thing for us.”

“At least nothing drinks your blood,” Wulf reminded.

“I wonder about that, too.”

Wulf and Mallul went back to Thrysdus.

Things went on like that, all the year and into
spring of the next. Scouts told that the Moslems mustered, mustered, all along
their line of forts. The Cahena held councils. Khalid did a great deal of the
talking. When Hassan made his move, he said, let the Imazighen choose a good
ground of battle, meet the Moslems with spears, counterattack with horsemen,
score another victory.

“We’ve good ground to the north of here, where
they’d have to tire their horses, advancing up a long slope,” said Wulf.

Bhakrann, away from his scouting to attend the
council, squinted at Khalid. “You count yourself one of us,” he said.

“My Lady Cahena has made me one of you.” Khalid
smiled. “She granted me mercy, let me kiss her shadow. She trusts me.”

“I trust you,” said the Cahena, with music in her
voice.

It was summer. Trusty scouts roamed through the
great Moslem force, pretending to be volunteers. They estimated that Hassan had
assembled sixty thousand warriors, from every Moslem nation from
Persia
to
Egypt
, and that he had swarms of camels to bring along supplies.
Hassan seemed to know how the Cahena had destroyed farms and dispersed herds so
that he could not count on capturing rations. It was Bhakrann who brought news
that the enemy was marshaling for an advance. The Cahena called Wulf and Mallul
and Djalout to hear this.

“The most men and horses and camels I ever saw,”
Bhakrann reported.

“I’ve sent swift riders to call Ketriazar and
Daris,” said the Cahena. “For Yaunis and Lartius and every man they can bring.”

But a visitor from Cirta said that Lartius had
sent messages to Hassan, had offered to go and capture
Carthage
for the Moslems. The Cahena’s eyes blazed.

“Lartius has signed his own death warrant,” she
said to her council members.
Before the Cahena lay a great
tray of sand, such as diviners used to read the future.
She drew in it
with her forefinger.

“Where’s Khalid?” she asked. “I want his
viewpoint.”

A messenger hurried to Khalid’s quarters and hurried
back.

“He’s not here,” he said breathlessly. “They say
he rode away early this morning, on the best horse he had. That he carried food
and water for a long journey.”

“Which way did he go?” demanded Wulf.

“To the east.”

They looked at each other, all of them.

“Back to Hassan,” said Djalout.

The others sat and looked at Wulf. Not at the
Cahena, whose hands hid her face. It was at Wulf they looked, all of them.

“He’s deserted us,” said Djalout. “And I’m not
really surprised. Should I be?”

“He meant to spy on us and betray us,” said
Mallul. “He’ll tell our plans to Hassan.”

“And Hassan will profit by his mistakes in the
other battle,” added Djalout. “What must we do, Wulf?”

“Make new plans,” said Wulf at once.
“Where is Hassan starting, Bhakrann?”

“From about ten days away toward
Egypt
,” judged Bhakrann. “What’s your word, Wulf? Change our
position from that high ground?”

“No, some of us must wait to bring him there. And
others, our best riders, can head north and then come back, strike his right flank.
Hit
him,
roll him up like a rug.”

The Cahena stared. Tears shone in her wide,
wounded eyes. “When did you think of that?”

“Right now,” said Wulf. “It’ll need lots of
organization. We’ll clarify it while we wait for Daris and Ketriazar to get
here — say five or six days. Then, if we move the right way and strike the
right way, perhaps we can bring it off.”

“Desperate measures,” muttered Mallul.

Djalout nodded.
“In a desperate
situation.”

“You take command, Wulf,” said the Cahena,
fighting to steady her voice. “I put you in command — you’d never betray us.”

“Of course not,” he said. “Let me go away and
think.”

In his quarters he mused frowningly. He thought of
the men, the horses, how he must depend on them. He thought for hours. At last
Daphne stole in at the door and cuddled beside him.

“They say a battle’s coming,” she said. “Will I be
in it?”

“Everybody will be in it,” he said, his arms
around her, and they made love.

“I’ve been training some of us in archery,” she
said afterward.
“Mostly boys, big boys who can draw strong
bows.
They’ll help.”

When she was gone, Wulf lay long into the night,
thinking, pondering. In the morning he fetched Bhakrann for a talk.

“I’ll tell my plan to nobody but you,” Wulf said.
“It’ll be secret between us. Khalid’s gone, but there may be other spies. I’ll
take a strong, well-mounted force off and around the Moslem flank, with another
force here to meet their advance. You know this country better than I do — how
should we move?”

They found a tray of sand, such as the Cahena had
once used to read the future. Bhakrann set a pebble to represent Thrysdus and
modeled a landscape with the slope to the north of town and, back of that to
westward, a succession of ridges and plains and valleys. Here and there, he
said, were ponds and water holes, and he marked them with the point of a twig.
A march could advance in those hollows, out of sight of any observers to the
east.

“How far can we go there?” asked Wulf.
“Forty miles, two days of riding?
We’ll need to do that;
they’ll have an extensive front.”

“We can come to here and head out over this
height,” said Bhakrann, pointing. “With luck, we’ll flank them.”

“Luck,” repeated Wulf. “Nobody can live two
minutes without luck.”

“Your plan’s good,” Bhakrann said. “So far as I
can see, it’s our only chance, and we’ll have to take it.”

Yaunis rode in that evening. He had no more than
two dozen hard-faced companions with him. His usually neat beard drooped. He
joined a council summoned by the Cahena.

“My people turned traitor,” he announced bitterly.
“The subchiefs voted to stay neutral — not go over to the enemy like Lartius —
but they won’t join us. I have only these few true men.”

“You’re welcome, Yaunis,” the Cahena said. “What’s
that you say about Lartius?”

“He’s heading for
Carthage
, to hold it for the Moslems.”

“That’s not where we’ll fight them,” said Wulf.

“Where, then?” asked the Cahena. Her confusion at
Khalid’s desertion seemed gone, or at least conquered. She spoke like a queen.

“I’m going to divide our forces,” said Wulf.

“Divide?” repeated Djalout. “Is that good
tactics?”

“
It’s
desperation
tactics,” replied Wulf. “I won’t go into details now. Wait for our loyal tribes
to get here, and I’ll explain.”

He went to talk to warriors and subchiefs, to
examine horses. Days passed, and Ketriazar came, with his best riders. The rest
of the Medusi would follow, and behind them Daris’s Nefussa.

“What’s the condition of your horses?” was Wulf’s
first question to Ketriazar.

“Good,” was the
reply.
“We came on the best mounts we had. There hasn’t been much straggling.”

“We’ll make a long march, almost at once,” Wulf
told Ketriazar. “When Daris gets here, he and I and you will talk about it at
dinner with the Cahena.”

Daris arrived. His squadrons and Ketriazar’s made
camps outside the walls. “Now,” said Wulf, “I’ll tell you everything at
dinner.”

Bhakrann, too, came to the Cahena’s big room. It
was a simple meal, roast mutton and barley cakes and a flagon of wine passed
from hand to hand. In a subdued voice, the Cahena called on Wulf to explain his
proposed campaigu.

He spoke simply. By now, Khalid would have told
Hassan of the plan to meet the Moslems on high ground. Part of the Imazighen
force would take that position, resisting but falling back. Meanwhile, the best
riders would slip north and behind the enemy flank, striking hard. All listened
intently.

“How long a march?”
Daris asked Wulf.

“Bhakrann thinks two days, maybe part of a third,
and a hard fight at the end of it.”

“How many men?” was Ketriazar’s
question.

“Maybe twelve or thirteen thousand, depending on
what men are trustworthy and what horses will last.”

“What chiefs?” asked the Cahena, who had not been
talking
much.

“Ketriazar and Daris, to command their tribesmen,”
Wulf replied. “Bhakrann will guide us. Lady Cahena, I’ll leave Yaunis with you,
and most of Bhakrann’s scouts, and some ten thousand warriors.”

“What do we do on that slope above here?” she
prodded.

“Face them, stick them full of javelins, and fall
back. Don’t close with them. Pray that our flanking movement succeeds.”

“Pray?” she repeated.
“To what
gods?
The gods don’t answer prayers anymore.”

Wulf said nothing, but he felt that she spoke the
truth. He himself would put no reliance in any god he had ever heard of. He’d
trust only in himself, Wulf the Saxon, prone to errors, limited in vision, but
himself
. All he had to trust.

He and Ketriazar and Daris went out to speak to
men and examine horses. They chose those who seemed fit for the march and the
battle. They wound up with more than twelve thousand, and organized them in
troops and squadrons, under petty chiefs. From the stores of Thrysdus were
issued rations of smoked meat and barley bread and dried fruits. No wine, said
Wulf flatly. Each man would sling two leather water bottles to his saddle. Susi
would lead along the best of Wulf’s spare horses, with his mail jacket and
helmet and shield hung to it.

Daphne came, begging to go along. Wulf shook his
head. “Command your archers here,” he said. “We’ll meet again when the fight’s
over.”

“If we’re still here.”
She hugged his neck and kissed his bearded face. He took
off a gold chain he wore. “Here,” he said. “This will bring you luck.”

Bhakrann reported no evidence of enemy in the
region. At dawn, Wulf ordered his following into four columns of fours. Someone
came to where he stood by his horse. It was the Cahena, blue-robed,
white-coifed.

“Yaunis will help me command here,” she said. Her
face was drawn, her eyes deeply circled. “How will you fare, Wulf?”

“That’s all to find out. Pray for me.”

“I can’t pray, I can only hope. Wulf, I haven’t
been fair to you. Forgive me for being weak. Think well of me.”

“Of course,” he said evenly.

She went away. He mounted and gave the command to
march and heard it echo along the formations.

The close-drawn columns moved a hundred yards or
so apart. Each man carried a sheaf of javelins. Many wore captured Moslem
swords. Scouts strung out a mile or so to the right. Bhakrann rode with Wulf,
pointing the march to low land with sparse grass. Ketriazar and Daris joined
them. Both were eager for the venture.

“Where will they strike?” wondered Ketriazar.

“Our spies report that they’re passing Cairouan to
concentrate on the area where they expect us,” said Wulf. “Khalid will have
told them about that.”

“Bring me in stabbing distance of Khalid,” grated
Daris.

“Or in stabbling distance of Lartius,” said
Ketriazar. “I’d like that. He never was a true man and not much of a fighter,
either.”

Three hours of marching brought them to a string
of ponds. They watered the horses, squadron by squadron. When they left again,
Wulf sent along an order for the men to walk and lead their mounts. Everyone
was in good spirits as they went behind a sheltering range of hills far to the
right. At
noon
they stopped to eat and rest. Wulf conferred with Bhakrann
and Ketriazar and Daris.

“We can camp tonight in a valley with streams and
good grass,” promised Bhakrann.

“A valley,” repeated Wulf. “That means high ground
to both sides. We’ll bivouac a strong force on the right. I hope we have enough
food.”

“We started with enough, but some of the men were
eating as they rode,” said Daris. “I spoke unpleasantly to them.”

After an hour, all mounted again. Bhakrann guided
them, and scouts still struck out to the east. That evening they camped among
more scattered ponds. Wulf ordered that no fires be lighted and told the
subehiefs to set up a series of watches. The men ate and talked. Some of them
sang. When they lay down to sleep, muffled in their cloaks, they were scattered
over acres of ground. How many acres, Wulf did not try to guess. He commanded a
considerable host. But Hassan’s numbers would be much greater.

Again a conference with Bhakrann
and Ketriazar and Daris.
They had
accomplished something like twenty-five miles that day, and the horses seemed
to be in good condition as they slouched in their picket lines. Bhakrann
explained the next day’s route, with more hills to screen them from possible
enemy observers. They speculated on the way Hassan would approach. Probably
some Moslems would occupy Cairouan. Hassan could leave a garrison there and
still march to a main battle in tremendous numbers.

“If he heads for the high ground where the Cahena
and Yaunis will be, he’ll be close by midafternoon tomorrow,” said Bhakrann.
“We can move about fifteen miles eastward and get to close quarters. There’ll
still be hours of light to die by.”

“Let’s get some sleep and start early,” said Wulf.

He lay down with his head on his saddle. Almost at
once he slept and dreamed of the Cahena. Of her bared skin softly golden, her
hair like a black banner,
her
face close to his. Her
voice murmured his
name,
her hand was on his arm so
strongly that he woke. But it was Bhakrann’s hand, shaking him.

“Word of the enemy,” Bhakrann said. “Cham came
with it. Our scouts have ridden for hours to bring it.”

Wulf scrambled to his feet. “Bring Cham here, and
send somebody to wake Ketriazar and Daris and fetch them.”

Cham came to salute the chieftains. He described
how two scouts had spied the Moslem host as it went into camp less than a day’s
journey from Thrysdus. Relays of other riders had brought the news. The Moslems
advanced in a great line of battle, close-drawn, miles in extent. Wulf thanked
Cham and gave orders.

“Everybody up and in the saddle before dawn,” he
said. “We’ll ride as soon as there’s light to ride by. Columns again, but as we
get close to them we’ll spread for a charge. A line of squadrons in front, more
in columns close behind. When we get to where we can hit them, I’ll signal and
whatever trumpets we have will blow.
Any questions?
Then go do as I say.”

Bhakrann lingered with him. “You seemed happy
while you slept. I hated to stir you up, but I had to. Maybe you were having a
good dream.”

“It was just a dream,” said Wulf, and thought
again of the Cahena, her last words to him when he mustered for his march. Could
she have meant to call him back to her?
But no time to think
of her, or of Daphne, or of anything but fighting tomorrow.

Bhakrann went away. Wulf paced among sleeping
warriors in the dark. He was glad they slept soundly. Many might never sleep
again. But someone else moved among them.