Chapter 10

And, in His time, the God shall come again From the south, upon a horse of gold And greet the Kindred, camped upon the plain Or, so the sacred ancestors were told.

—From "The'Prophecy of the Return"

Milo snapped into wakefulness, a dagger-point was pricking the flesh, just below the right corner of his jaw. Though Mara was weeping, her dagger-hand was rock-steady.

"Forgive me, Milo, but I must know!" she whispered, then pushed the sharp, needle-tipped weapon two inches into his throat and slashed downward.

As his blood gushed from the severed carotid, Milo rolled and lunged, his hands grasping at her slim nude body. But fast as he was, she eluded him, leaping up and back. She just stood there, her eyes locked on the gaping wound she had inflicted.

"Why, Mara?"

"Poor Milo," she replied. "Death will come quickly and there will be no more pain if I was wrong, but I don't think that I,.. ahhh!"

The initial gush of blood had rapidly dwindled to a slow trickle and her sigh announced its total cessation as what should have been a death-wound began to close. Milo's eyes, too, closed, and he clenched his teeth, saying between them, "I should have slam you, Mara. You guessed, didn't you, back there, below that hill? Well, now you know! What intend you to do with that knowledge, the knowledge that Milo, the War Chief, bears what your people call the Curse of the Undying?"

She did not answer, but he felt her weight return to the Ehleenoee bed, and he opened his eyes just as she lowered icr face on his and pasted her dark red lips onto his half-open mouth. Both their faces then became shrouded from the world in the blue-black luxuriance of her musk-scented hair.

When she at last raised herself, she was weeping again, but now there was joy in her sloe-black eyes and a whole plethora of inexpressible emotions played over her lovely features as she began to speak.

"What do I want? Why, dear dear Milo, all that I want is you. I wanted you, simply as a man, before I was aware you might be aught else. It has been so very long and I have been so terribly lonely, but. . . you too know of that kind of loneliness, don't you? Now, we are together and we shall never know of that loneliness again, my love."

Milo bolted erect, his every nerve tingling. "Mara, you mean... you, too ... ?"

The smile never left her lips or her eyes as, again picking up the bloody dagger, she placed that point which had so recently drunk of Mile's blood in the crook of her left arm. She thrust, slowly; thrust so deeply that steel grated against slender bone and the thick, red richness of her life fluid gushed high, upon the already bloody blade.

Milo jerked a wadded sheet to him and reached for her, but she drew back, still smiling. "Oh no, my Milo. Wait and watch. There is no danger."

Her bloodflow ceased as quickly as had his and, within a half-hour, both their wounds had become only pinkish-red scars.

Blind Hari smiled to himself, humming a snatch of a bard song, as he fitted a new string to his telling-harp. The tribe should succeed to all the prophecies, now—if prophecies, they truly were—with two "gods" guiding and directing them.

"And our Holy City, reborn shall be," he sang softly "Ehlai, washed by Wind, beside the Sun-lit sea."

"Of course," he muttered to himself as he tightened the new string, "Ehlai, if it was ever aught than a paradisical dream, lies far and far from this place; beyond another range of mountains, higher mountains, with snow forever on them. God Milo has convinced all the others that the key word in the 'Bard Song of Prophecy' is wrong, became twisted over the years, but Blind Hari knows better. The march toward the true Ehlai should be the path of the setting, not the rising Sun; but, why should old Hari say aught to gainsay God Milo, for he means the clans no ill. To him, we all—even I, who have seen the coming and going of seven score and seven winters-—are yet but his children and he loves us well. He, it was, who succored our ancestors, gave to them the knowledge and skills necessary to sustain life, taught them partnership with cat and horse and instilled in them, and those who came after, respect and regard for Brotherhood and Honor and Law.

"And, compared to him . . . and now, her, we are as children. One direction is as another to the tribe, so long as there be rich graze for the herds and good hunting for the cats and fighting and loot for the kindred; while He has a purpose which none could fault, he seeks his own kind, fellow Gods, of his sacred clan. This is meet, even Gods should sometimes visit with their own, share the cooking fire of their dear kindred."

Suddenly, a great and agonizing loneliness pervaded the being of the old, old man. He closed his unseeing eyes and sat back, reliving the happy and joyous days of his youth and young manhood—before he lost his sight, found compensatory "powers," and became a bard—riding and hunting and wenching with his clan-brothers.

"It is said," he mused to himself, "that Clan Kruguh came east, along with Clan Buhkuh and a part of the Cat Clan ... perhaps, somewhere on this land . . . ?"

A thought was beamed into his mind. "Not so, wise Cat-brother. All that this land holds of them is their scattered bones."

"I know not your mind," Hari mindspoke in reply. "How is my Brother-cat called?"

"You may call me Old-Cat, Cat-brother. For one of my race, I am nearly as old as are you for yours, and it is meet that the name of my prime—given and borne in honor—should be as dead as my kindred and yours, for he of that name fled in dishonor, when the treacherous Blackhaks tricked and slew or enslaved all with whom he crossed the mountains. The pelts of his brothers and sisters, of his females and his kittens, adorn the stone tents of the Blackhairs and, if he had been of honor, his would hang among them."

"Not so, Old-Cat," retorted the bard. "Needless death is not necessarily honorable death. If one does not live, how will the dead be avenged, to whom will their killers pay the blood-price?"

"But, he who fled was Cat Chief, wise Cat-brother. He should have died with his clan."

Old Hari sighed. "To allow pursuit of honor to lead one to a certain death, which does not benefit the clan, is the act of a fool, Old-Cat. The clan which has a fool as chief has no chief at all!"

The cat licked at the snow white fur of his muzzle. "Wise Cat-brother, you mindspeak words of comfort to one long years in need of such. If I can but live a bit longer, long enough to wreck vengeance upon the murderers of my kin and yours...."

Hari placed his harp on the floor at his feet and extended a hand. "Come, Old-Cat, let our bodies touch and mayhap I can tell something of what is to come for you."

The cat advanced toward the proffered hand, awed reverence in his mind. "You are older than I'd thought. I know you now, Kin of Power. You are Blind Hari of Kruguh. I'd thought you long years in the Home of Wind, yet still you live. Are you then an Undying God?"

Hari touched the shaggy head, then placed his palms on either side of it. "No, Old-Cat, I am but a man, though an exceedingly old one. By men who have not the Power, the Undying God is called Milo Morai, he is our . . ."

"War Chief." The cat finished the thought. "Yes, I fought beside him and your Cat Clan yesterday. We slew many Blackhairs, he and I and the Blackhair-female-who-mindspeaks."

Hari nodded. "She, too, is of the Race of the Undying Gods; and now She is mated to our God. Nought but good for all the clans can come of such a union."

Raising the old cat's head and bending to it, Hari placed his lips just above its eyes. After a long long moment, he sat back and stroked Old-Cat's grizzled neck.

"Never fear, Brother-Cat, you will live to revenge your murdered clan. More, you will beget kittens and, when they are as old as you, still will they be filled with pride that their sire—a Cat Chief, of fame and honored memory —bore the name of Dirktooth."

Though barely eleven years, Aldora Ahpoolios' little olive-skinned body was as well developed as that of any Horseclan girl half again her age, and this had saved her life on that terrible day Theesispolis had fallen. Huddled with the other women and girls and boys in the south wing of the citadel, she had watched  in horror as the methodical  mercenaries  coldly  cut  down  her  father— grown so stout that he'd been unable to buckle his hauberk properly—and her uncle and both her brothers. Then rough hands had torn her, screaming, from Aunt Salena— her dead mother's older sister—and she had become the property of Djoh-Sahl, he of the brown beard and the rotten teeth who, when she had told him her age, had wept drunken tears and humbly apologized for having deflowered her; then had traded her for an older woman to a trio of less discriminating soldiers. Aldora could not call to mind one of the men's names; as for their faces and bodies, they all ran together into a one who had brought only a dayless, nightless time of constant pain, shame, and terror. When, at the end of the week, she was dragged to the slave mart, stripped and placed for sale, the girl had been certain that the worst must now be over, but she had been wrong.

Her nomad purchaser—Hwahlis Linsee, a natural brother of the Chief of Linsee—was not a cruel man, and he treated Aldora as he treated his other two concubines— possibly even a little better, for she was new and novel and as dark as the others were fair. Hwahlis had chosen his wives well and the two women saw to it that the work was equally divided amongst Aldora and the two older bondswomen, one of whom was a girl called Neekohl. Of brown-red hair and blue eyes, she spoke the trade language with an odd accent and sang strange songs in an unknown tongue and had been taken on a raid in the distant north. The other was a more recent captive, a blond, mountain barbarian named Bertee. Among three, the work was neither long nor hard. Though the food was strange to Aldora, it was plentiful; all shared the contents of a common pot, morning and evening, and if one hungered at other times, milk or curds or jerked meat was always available. The clothing too was strange and rough, but practical and serviceable—a loose shirt which pulled over the head and tucked into a pair of equally loose trousers, tightened by a drawstring, and a pair of ankle-length boots. Aside from the iron cuff on her leg, her alien hair and skin were all that indicated her not to be of the Horseclans.

As Hwahlis took good care of his possessions, he expected good service of them. Still in his prime and lusty, he waited but precious few hours to begin making use of his latest possession—long and strenuous and frequent use. She cried, but that was to be expected, cjaptive females always cried the first few times they were used. Also, the chit seemed to be trying to tell him something, but he spoke no Ehleeneekos and her command of trade language was almost non-existent, so he ignored her; when she learned Merikan, she'd tell him whatever it was. Despite his fascination, Hwahlis lived by clan customs and had never been accused of tight-fistedness. He willingly shared his latest acquisition with his two oldest sons, his brothers, nephews, and cousins. None could say he had been denied the sampling of Hwahlis' new Ehleenoee girl!

Aldora tried once to kill herself; but apparently she failed to cut her wrist deeply deeply enough, for the blood soon ceased to flow, and she couldn't bring herself to try again. Then, with the onset of her time of the moon, she gained a brief respite.

Several hours after Old-Cat left Hari Kruguh, he lay hidden in tall grass, some hundred yards from the outermost tents of the encampment. Tired of playing with kittens and cubs not his own, he had loped to this spot to snooze. Beyond, at the foot of a hillock, a small brook chuckled over worn stones between mossy banks; and, under the near bank, he sensed life as he awoke. Hoping to perhaps cozen some unwary wild creature within reach of tooth or claw, he opened his_mind.

The unexpected shock caused him to sit up sharply. An inchoate mass of thought-messages smote his receptive senses—a compound of sorrow, fear, shame, and helpless resignation; of hopeless terror and abysmal loneliness. These would have been terrible enough for an adult mind, but Old-Cat realized that the sufferer's mind was that of a cub, a female, two-leg cub.

Chapter 11

Worship Wind and Sun and you need no priests; And heed well the Law or become as beasts.

—From "The Couplets of the Law"

\ldora had come to the stream to wash the pouch vhich one of her master's wives had given her the week before and to change its stuffing of the dry moss that had received her body's discharges. But today, she had found it unnecessary, yesterday's moss being still almost fresh, She knew what that meant, had indeed been dreading it and terror consumed her. Sobbing, death-wishing herself, she was stretched, trembling on the cool moss, when first she heard the firm and gentle voice. At first, it seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere and something about it was as wonderfully soothing as had been her old slave-nurse's, when, as a much younger child, she had awak-ened from a bad dream. No reassurance was needed; Aldora knew that the strange speaker meant her no harm.

"Why do you fear and mourn, little kitten?"

Aldora raised her tear-streaked face and answered aloud in halting Merikan. "You are who? You are where?'"

She could sense the tender smile. "No, little female, mouthspeak is wasteful of Wind and only necessary with your two-leg kindred. Open your thoughts to me, my dear."

"M ... m ... my thoughts?" stuttered Aldora. "I . ., please master . .. how? ... don't know."

"It will be easier if I touch your head. Wait there; I will come down to you."

Old-Cat heaved himself up and paced to the edge of the narrow valley. As he started down the shady bank in her direction, the girl didn't scream, she'simply fainted.

When Aldora awakened, the sun was westering and Old-Cat was licking her face with a tongue wide enough to cover it. But she no longer feared him or any cat, and wondered why ever she had. She no longer feared anyone, in fact. Here, close to Old-Cat, was safety and comfort and ... and peace.

Then, suddenly, she was not safe. The comfort was shattered, the peace fled. The Linsee men would come for her again tonight, and . . . and . . . Aldora whimpered.

The voice called yet another time. "Aaallldorraaa!" If was Beti, Hwahlis Linsee's second wife, and she sounded almost to the top of the bank.

"Aalldorraa, are you down there, girl?"

In weary resignation, Aldora opened her mouth to answer, only to have one of Old-Cat's big paws placed ove! it.

The cat's thought beamed out, menacing as a draws bow. "I, Old-Cat, am down here with a female, meddle some two-leg! Just because your shameless kind have n regard for  the privacy of  others,  will not  save youi haunches from my teeth. You proceed at your own peril!"

Beti's high soprano laughter pealed out. Then, witl obvious amusement, she mindspoke. "Old-Cat, indeed! That's an alias, if I ever heard one. Enjoy yourselves, the tribe needs the kittens. Nevertheless, if either of you see a Blackhair slave-girl, chase her back to Clan Linsee. Mind you though, don't hurt her. I don't think she has run away. She's a good girl and probably just asleep somewhere." Hoofs thud-thudded as her mount cantered back toward the camp.

Milo and Mara sat at what had been Lord Simos' council table. Across from them sat Blind Hari, flanked by Old-Cat and Horsekiller. As all were capable of mind-speak, only the rasp of their breathing broke the stillness.

"How long have you known of me?" inquired Milo, still somewhat stunned at Hari's revelation.

The old man smiled. "Almost from the day of your return, God Milo. Though I could not see you, others could and I could use their eyes. My father was a young man when you left us, and you were just as he described you to me. Eighteen years agone, God Milo, I tried to read you, then I knew! I could but barely see the beginning of your life—lying, as it does, so many hundreds of years in the past—and I could not even sense an end. Who could have such a mind, save a God?"

"Then, you've known for nearly twenty years, Bard Hari. Why have you not spoken before this time? Why wait until now?"

Blind Hari settled himself against the backrest of his chair, regarding Milo's face through Horsekiller's eyes. "Though you, unlike mere men, God Milo, can shield off portions of your mind, I sensed that you knew or suspected my knowledge, yet you said nothing. I am a very old man, God Milo—nearly one and one-half hundreds of ivinters—and age has vouchsafed me two things: patience and wisdom. How much greater than mine must be the wsdom of one who has lived four times my age and nore, who knew birth at a time when all men were as ;ods? Though but a man, yet could I perceive that—when he time was as it must be—either the God would tell the nan or the man would tell the God. That time is now, iod Milo."

"And you, Cat-brother?" Milo questioned Horsekiller. "I have known since kittenhood that your mind was not as other men's, God Milo."

Milo had had more than enough. He slammed one fist upon the tabletop and both cats blinked. "That's sufficient subservience. I'm no Ehleenoee, dammit! If you must give me a title, let it be War Chief or Cat-friend or, better yet, none at all."

"The God speaks, His servants obey," replied Blind Hari aloud. He was broadly smiling and a hint of gentle sarcasm tinged his over-humble voice.

Mara had been watching and listening, and now her laughter trilled. "You speak with all the conviction of an Ehleenoee priest, 'Father' Hari. But you must have a very good reason for disclosing your knowledge at this time. What urgency has impelled you, Man of Powers?"

". . . and so, keeping under the cover of the creek bank, I brought her here, to my Cat-brother, Bard Hari."

After Old-Cat had recounted his portion of the tale, Milo shrugged. "I lived among the Northern Ehleenoee foi some years. While mindspeak is rare among their race, it is not unheard of. Over the course of years and centuries, races tend to mingle. I suspect that many who think of themselves as pure embody more than a trace of the blood of the fair races.

"As for the fact that the girl dislikes her lot. . . ." He shrugged again. "Few slaves do, not in the beginning. And you have probably earned her a beating, Old-Cat, by keep ing her this long from her owner's clan-camp."

Old-Cat bared his teeth and gave vent to a hair-rasing snarl of unadulterated menace.

"The cub has suffered enough! Much more suffering and her thought-mind will depart her little body. She has neither the maturity nor the training to control or prevent such. By my fangs and claws, the two-leg who seeks to hurt her more shall be found intestineless! Beware, Old-Cat makes not false threats!"

"If such is your feeling," replied Milo, "the answer is simple: buy her. I am sure that your personal shares from the Black-Horse battle would be more than enough to pay a fair price for her, and if they are not, borrow from your clan; Chief Horsekiller is both generous and understanding."

"That has been attempted, Friend Milo," interjected Horsekiller. "Clan Linsee refuses to sell her. Chief Rik and his brother, Hwahlis, became quite angry when my emissary, Black-Claw, would not tell him where she was."

Milo grimaced. "That, I don't doubt, Cat Chief! Men like not to lose a new and but half-tried female."

Mara turned on him bristling. "Sometimes, you are disgusting, my husband, and I can but wonder that I chose to marry you!"

Hari beamed his thought at her. "It is meet that you should defend the poor slave, Lady Goddess, for, though she has yet to see her twelfth year . . ."

"What?" Milo shouted aloud. "Has Clan Linsee, then, ceased to honor the Law? Slave-girl or clan-girl, I set the age of taking at fourteen!"

"And the Law, like all your Law, has proven just and good for clan and tribe." Hari nodded sagely. "Little Aldora—for that is her name, Aldora Ahpooh'os—says that she has tried ceaselessly to tell her ravishers her age and beg them to leave off abusing of her body, but she has only a few words of Merikan and could speak only in Ehleeneekos. The mercenaries who first raped her understood; but she is quite womanlike for her age, and they convinced her buyer, Hwahlis Linsee, that she was older, I am sure, for Hwahlis is a brave and honorable man and a respecter of the Law."

"Then, when he is made aware of truth, he . . ." Milo broke off at the shake of Bard Hari's old head.

"Hwahlis is not the problem, nor is he the Law-defiler, War Chief. It is Ms brother Chief Rik of Linsee. He fully understood and took her anyway, often and brutally! She knows he understood, for when they were alone once, he spoke to her in her own tongue, told her that as soon as she began to learn to speak Merikan, he would have her killed.

She did not know the reason for this or why her death should be necessary, but we do!

"It has been long and long since a chief of the Horse-clans has defied the Law. Rik of Linsee must not go unpunished. He knows the extent of his crime and is frightened—Black-Claw said that he reeked of fear. Though Hwahlis likes Aldora, he would have sold her; but Rik convinced the clansmen to refuse to sell.

"Also, War Chief and War Chief's wife, there is another thing that you must know: Though Ehleenoee-born, this child is of your sacred race, the Race of Gods!"

Horsekiller and Old-Cat strode into the Clan Linsee chief-tent. Chief Rik neither rose in deference to Horse-killer as Cat chief nor gave greeting. His mindspeak was flat and more than a little hostile. "Well, yet two more flea-factories today! Has the Cat Chief come to return my clan's property that they took away? Where is she?"

"I come," said Horsekiller, trying hard to keep his lip down and his claws in, "to summon you and one of your clansmen, Hwahlis Linsee, to the War Chiefs stone tent, within Green-Walls. If you refuse to come, Old-Cat and I have orders to hamstring you and drag you there! The council sits and will judge you and your clansman for deliberate defilement of the Law."

Though obviously stunned by the pronouncement, Hwahlis was just as puzzled; Rik, on the other hand, paled to ashiness and his hand crept toward his saber-hilt reflexively. His self-admitted guilt gave evidence that all could easily see and, muttering, gripping at Sun-talisman or the hilts of their sacred steel, his clansmen tightened their circle, edging away from him.

Arm cradling his telling-harp, Vinz Linsee, the clan bard, rose and mindspoke Horsekiller. "How speaks Blind Hari, Tribe-Bard and Sage of the Law, on this, Cat Chief?"

The big cat replied with ominous solemnity. "It is he who brings the charge, oh, Clan-Bard."

Bard Vinz hung his head in shame. Such a charge from such a man was dishonor enough; but if, as he suspected from Chief Rik's appearance and behavior, it were adjudged true, then the clan could claim no honor, past, present, or future.

"Well?" snarled Chief Rik. "Speak up, useless-maker-of-useless-songs. Must I go or do we fight?"

Those clansmen who had been grasping hilts let them go, as if red hot, and hastily averted their eyes from their accused chief.

"You and Hwahlis must go," answered Vinz with as much dignity as he could muster. "Under such a charge, it were further Law-defilement to draw steel against sum-moners or council."

"And, raper-of-kittens," put in Old-Cat, who had moved quite near to Chief Rik, "if your hand does not depart from your saber hilt quickly, it will depart from your arm immediately!"

At the beginning, Chief Rik denied all: threatening the slave's life, understanding her tongue or speaking to her in it, even having had knowledge of her flesh. He swore sword-oath that the charge was false, calling on Sun and Wind to witness his oath's verity, but the Test of the Cat, administered by Horsekiller's delegate, Old-Cat, broke him. As the teeth pierced his scalp and grated on bone, he screamingly admitted his deceptions and the blasphemies with which he had attempted to cover his misdeeds.

Bard Vinz and Hwahlis hung their heads and wept that their chief should so dishonor his clan. All the Linsee warriors were summoned to hear the foresworn man's re-recital of his crimes. When he had finished, Milo rose and addressed the council.

"Kindred, at the fight on the hill, when there were no more arrows in our cases and all seemed lost, two brave men rose amid the foemen's arrow-rain and precipitated a falling of rocks which, though it killed them, stopped the charge of the iron-shirts and preserved their kindred. Both those valiant ones bore the clan-name of Linsee. "The heinous misdeeds of Rik, Chief of Linsee, should be broadcast among all the tribe, to the irreparable dishonor of his clan. You Chiefs know what this will mean. As a dishonored clan has no place in the tribe, they will be banished. The kindred will drive them out of tribe territory, that their dishonored blood may never pollute that of the other clans."

While he had been speaking, the weeping Linsee warriors had begun to voice a low moan. Clan dishonor and banishment from the tribe were the worst things that could befall them. After such, death would be a mercy.

"But, Chiefs," Milo continued, "to save the honor of such a clan as produced the Heroes of the Rock, I ask that the council grant a boon."

Several of the chiefs growled at once. "What would you, War Chief?"

"Allow Rik—who is clan-chief as well as chief malefactor—to personally expiate his clan's dishonor. Allow him to reject his chiefhood, divorce his wives, give up his title to any clan-property, save only some clothing and a little food and a mule. Then allow him to ride away, bearing only dirk and ax and spear, for he has lost, by his blasphemies, the right to bear sword or bow or shield. And let him be declared outlaw, to be slain if ever he returns."

No longer moaning, the Linsee warriors looked up, hope glimmering in their teary eyes; but Rik shattered their hopes.

Chapter 12

A chief, with two sons,
Gained three more and a daughter.
Two score and two chiefs
The bastard did slaughter.
And the God led the Kindred
To the east, to the Water.

—From "Return of the Undying God"

"No!" Rik shouted hoarsely, his two fists clenched until the knuckles shone as white as his face. "No, no, I'll not go alone. They all are as guilty as I of Law-defilement! Every one of them has had the slave-bitch, too. Let the clan be banished! I'll not go alone!"

Where she sat on the dais, between Milo and Aldora, Mara rapidly mindspoke to her mate. "Why don't you just have the lying pig killed and end this business rapidly and permanently, darling?"

"I can't," his answer beamed back to her. "The Law forbids it. To slay a fellow of the kindred in cold blood is a crime worse than Rik's. Kindred may only be slain on their request or in defense from unprovoked attack. I hate to do what I now must, but..."

Aloud, Milo spoke slowly and solemnly. "Sobeit. Chiefs, you must assemble your warriors and all your free-women and all children older than eight winters at the second hour of the Sun tomorrow, that they may see and hear and remember."

Blind Hari came abruptly to his feet. "War Chief, may I be heard?"

Milo nodded and resumed his seat. "Kindred," began the bard, "from my earliest memory,. , have I heard of the bravery and honor of Clan Linsee. Though their valor has brought them honor and more honor over the hundreds of years, it has cost them dearly, for honor of clan and tribe has ere meant more to their warriors than limbs or life. These are good memories. They sing well and I have no wish to forget them."

The oldest chief, Djeri of Hahfmun, stood. "But Tribe-Bard, the Law is the Law. You yourself brought the charges and they have—after much false-oathing—been admitted true. The honor of a clan is carried by its chief and, if that chief be not only criminal but craven, the clan must suffer. None here deny that Clan Linsee has long possessed honor, but by the Law-defilement of all the warriors and the perjury of Chief Rik, all the centuries of honor are dissipated. If the chief will not go and bear the dishonor away with him, what is there to do but drive off the clan?"

Hari's reply was quick. "There is this, Chief Djeri: Rik is chief by birth, but, if his father were to declare him ill-got and not a true Linsee, his dishonor would be his alone and not of the clan."

Chief Rik had regained some of his arrogance. He laughed harshly.  "You'll grow wings before then,  old -Dung-face. My father is dead these seven years!"

"Chiefs," asked Hari, "who among us bears the clan-name sacred of prophecy? Who was affirmed 'Father of the Tribe' when we began this march nearly twenty winters past?"

Almost as one the council members murmured, "Milo, Milo of Moral, our War Chief, he is 'Father of the Tribe.'"

Hari nodded. "So as 'Father of the Tribe' is he supposed father of the man, Rik."

Milo recognized his cue. "Him called Rik, I declare ill-got! Such a one cannot be of Linsee or any other honorable clan, his attributes are got of dirt; he stinks of swine."

As Milo slowly pronounced the ritualistic words which declared Rik's bastardy, that man commenced to tremble and, when all was said, he screamed, "No, no, what you do is unnatural! I... I am my father's son!"

Milo shook his head. "I suppose you are, strange man, but none knows who your father might be, or what." He addressed the Linsee warriors. "Kindred, if aught is unnatural, it is that a clan should be without a chief— especially, a clan so ancient and honorable as Linsee. Who is your oldest chief-born?"

Bard Vinz replied, "Hwahlis, brother to ... to Haenk, who is next oldest."

"Then, kindred," asked Milo, "can any Linsee say good reason why the clan should not have chief-born Hwahlis for the Linsee of Linsees?"

"But," shouted Rik ragingly, "he brought the Ehleenoee shoat in the first place, and te was first to use her, too!"

"Horseclansmen of true purity of blood," declared Milo shortly, "need not listen to the rantings of a perjured man-thing of doubtful lineage. If yonder dog-man yaps again, teach him respect for his betters."

Before the Council of Chiefs, Hwahlis was declared successor to his father, Haenk. The new chief paced the circuit of council, stopping before each chief who then rose to declare his recognition of Chief Hwahlis and to exchange with Hwahlis sword-oaths and blood-oaths of brotherhood. Meanwhile some of the Linsee clansmen threw Rik and stripped him of everything which bore the Linsee crest (and everything else"of value), so that, at the last, he was left barefoot, wearing his sole possessions—drawers and a badly torn shirt.

The moment that Clan-Bard and Tribe-Bard had finished reciting his genealogy and the more spectacular exploits of his family and his clan, and he had been invested with the trappings and insigniae of his new rank, Hwahlis set about his duty as he saw it. Striding to the dais, he took Aldora's small ankle and removed the ownership cuff from it and dropped onto his knees before the wide-eyed Ehleen.

"Child," he said, meeting her eyes steadily, "I have caused you much to suffer and have allowed others to do the same. Your face and your body are good to look upon and we thought you woman, not child. So, being men, we behaved as men will. This is not excuse, only statement.

"For the price of your blood, spilled by me and by my clan, will you accept your freedom as payment?"

Patient and silent, he waited until, in a tremulous voice, the girl answered. "Yes,-Master."

Hwahlis shook his head. "Master no more, child. If any be master, it is you, for I and all my clansmen owe you suffering-price. We will send word to your father, your kin, that he and they may come to set the price and collect it. Mine is not a wealthy clan, but all that we have, if necessary, will go to pay your suffering-price. Until your kin and your noble father arrive, our tents are yours. You are Clan Linsee's honored guest and every
clansman and clanswoman is your . . . Why, child, what now, have I done to . . ."

Aldora's great mental powers—and later years were to see just how great they truly were—had been awakened for but a few hours, yet already could she feel the emotions of others with painful clarity. So sincerely sorry was her former master, such utter goodness of spirit and true repentance did his mind radiate, that she could not but weep. But what began "as weeping for the soul-agony that Hwahlis was suffering, merged into weeping for herself, for her aloneness, with no kin to come for her.

"My . . . my f . . . father, he ... come . . . never," she sobbed in halting Merikan.

Hwahlis took Aldora's tiny hand and patted it, roughly but gently. "Why, of course, he will, child! What sort of father would not come a thousand thousand days' ride to fetch his loved daughter?"

Her eyes closed, she shook her dark head and lapsed into Ehleeneekos. "Ohee, ohee, Ahfendiss, ohee. Eeneh nehkrohs, nehkrohs. Aldora eeneh kohree iss kahniss."

Seeing Hwahlis' honest ignorance of Aldora's pitiful protestations, Mara leaned down and softly translated, "She says 'no,' Chief Hwahlis. She says that her father is dead, that she is nobody's daughter."

The Chief of Linsee thought for only a moment, then he placed his calloused hand under the girl's chin and raised it. Gazing deep into her swimming eyes, he said, "Child-I-have-wronged, you are a daughter without a father. I am a father without a daughter. It is not meet that children should be without parents. Would you consent to be a child of my tent and clan? Aldora, will you be my daughter?"

Aldora entered his mind. All that she could find were his innate goodness and his honest concern for her welfare. She searched for signs of lust, but there were none. Its place had been completely usurped by a protective solicitude.

"Oh, Lady Mara," she mindspoke, "what shall I do?" Having had far wider experience with men and, consequently, trusting their motives even less than Aldora, a part of Mara's mind had been in Hwahlis' from the beginning.

"He is an honorable man, Aldora, and, for what he is, a very good and a gentle man. He truly wants to adopt you and he would be a fine father to you. It is but a question of whether or not you want a father."

"Well, child," Hwahlis prodded tentatively. "Will you grant my clan the honor of becoming its chief's daughter? Mine?"

"Pahtehrahss . . ." was all that Aldora could get out before the intensity of her emotions closed her throat. Sobbing wildly, she slid from the chair and flung her slender arms around the grizzled chieftain's neck and rested her head on his epaulet, her tears trailing down the shiny leather of his cuirass.

Hers were not the only tears in that place. Horseclans men never sought to restrain their emotions—not among the kindred, at least—and there were few dry eyes as Hwahlis lifted her easily, cradled her in his thick arms, and strode to the center of the hall.

His own eyes streamed as he declared loudly, "Clan-brothers, Chief-brothers, Cat-brothers, hear me! The slave-child is free! The free-child is my daughter and your kin! She is as a Linsee-born. She is of the tent of a chief and all shall soon recognize her as such! Next year, she will commence her war-training and, when she is a maiden, she will wear my crest and draw my mother's bow. Let any man who would take her for wife come to me, and let him know that Aldora, daughter of Hwahlis Linsee of Linsee, will be well-dowered by her father and her clan!

"Gairee." He called to the youngest of his two living sons—who, though but eighteen, had already killed three men in single combat—and, after disengaging her arms, handed Aldora to the younger man, "This child is now your sister. Bear your sister to your mother and so inform her and all my tent-dwellers.

"Kahl, Fil, Sami." He addressed those who happened to be the sons of Rik, the deposed chief. "You are now my sons and will hold the chief-tent and all it contains for my return to the clan-camp.

"Erl, as my eldest son, I declare you sub-chief. See that your clan-brothers, on their return, bid their women to begin preparation of the chief-feast."

Addressing the remainder of the clansmen, he said. "Brothers, you may return to our clan-camp. When the council is ended, your chief will join you." Then he strode over to his place in the circle and seated himself.

When the last of the Linsee men had filed out, Milo commanded, "Let the man of unknown lineage be brought before me."

The two nearest chiefs rose and ungently hustled the all-but-naked former-chief forward, to stand before the dais, clenching and unclenching his fists in his frustrated rage, his face starting to puff as a result of the blows dealt him by his former clansmen.

Shoulders hunched, as if about to spring at Milo, he snarled, "This . . . this thing that you are trying to do is ... is ... is. ... All here know who I am, who my father was, know that I ..."

He got no farther. The hard-swung buffet from the chief on his right split his lips yet again and finished knocking out an already loosened front tooth.

"Silence, bastard! No man gave you leave to speak," said the chief on his left.

Milo treated the disgraced man to a look which bespoke icy contempt. Then he stated, "Though you yap like a cur, and conduct yourself like a swine, yet you are a man. All my kindred know that there are two kinds of men: true men and Dirtmen. Since you are not the one, you must be the other. So, Dirtman, you shall be served in the same fashion as were the Dirtmen the tribe took at the Ehleenoee camp.

"You are wearing all the clothing a Dirtman needs. In addition, you shall receive a silver trade-corn, a knife, a water bottle and a wallet of food. Take them and journey far and fast, for—as you are a Dirtman—you are the enemy of all true men."

Unconsciously, Rik wiped the back of his hand across his bloody chin and looked down at his red-smeared knuckles. With a bellow, he went berserk! All in the blinking of an eye, his right foot lashed—heel foremost—between the legs of the chief who had struck him and, as that man clutched his crotch and doubled in agony, Rik's left fore arm smashed the bridge of the other's nose while his right tore saber from its sheath. Before Milo's blade was half-drawn, more than a foot of Rik's weapon was protruding from the War Chief's back, just below the shoulder blade! Then, Mara's dirk found the berserker's throat and he released his sword hilt to clutch at his gush ing wound and stumble backward, off the dais. Within fractions of seconds, all that lay beneath the dripping sabers of the vengeful chiefs was a bundle of bloody rags and raw bone and hacked flesh.

Panting, the chiefs of the council looked to the dais. Several dropped their swords! Their War Chief, whose last words they had expected to soon hear, was not only still on his feet, but was presently engaged in carefully pulling the sharp saber out of his chest!

The forty-two chiefs were typical specimens of their rugged race. Born to frequent privation and casual violence, they were weaned to weapons-skills and they were a-horse more often than afoot; armed with bow or spear or ax or saber, they knew fear of neither man nor beast. But this . . . this watching of a man, who should be dead, still standing and withdrawing the steel from his heart, was more than unnerving. The sensation evoked by such an unnatural occurrence was terror, icy-cold, crawling, nameless terror!

As many appeared on the very verge of precipitate withdrawal—not to say, flight—Blind Hari stood, raised his arms to draw attention to himself, and began to broad-beam a soothing reassurance. Sensing it, Milo and Mara, Horsekiller and Old-Cat added their own efforts. Than Hari spoke, softly but aloud. "Kindred, my children, draw near and put up your steel. There are great and good tidings for you and your people. For many reasons, the telling of them has long been delayed, but now the time is come that you should know."

Chapter 13

Horse shall choose and man shall choose Be, neither, slave nor master. . . .

—From "The Couplets of the Law"

Later, Milo and Mara and Hari and the two cats were once more closeted in the small meeting chamber. On the table were three drinking cups, an ewer of Ehleenoee wine, a slab of cheese, and a bowl of wild apples.

As he accepted a hunk of cheese from the point of Hari's knife, Old-Cat mindspoke Milo. "Though she cannot be slain or injured, it is true, do you think it was wise to allow the God-child to return to the people who so ill-used her, God Milo?"

Milo halved an apple, passed one piece to Mara, and bit into the other. "I can think of no better nor safer place for her, Old-Cat. My race is not completely immune to death, you know, there do exist ways to kill us and the Ehleenoee have learned them all. I cannot imagine how she managed to live among them undetected, as long as she did. What the Horseclans call God-kinship, the Ehleenoee and many other peoples call 'curse'—the Curse of the Undying. They all hate and fear my kind. To them, we are incredibly evil devils, to be sought out and slain slowly and horribly, for we feel pain quite as keenly as do other living creatures.

"No, Old-Cat, of all the many races of man, only among the men of the Horseclans can little Aldora expect life. Since her future lies with them, it were well that she came to know them. It is unfortunate that she had to learn first of the bad of Horsepeople; but let her, now, learn of the good."

After Hari had fulfilled Horsekiller's request for a bit of the sheep-cheese, his hand moved unerringly to his wine cup. While sipping, he mindspoke, "Still, Milo, you might have kept her here. Her mind needs training, if she is too advance to her full powers. Good and well-meaning as they are, what can Hwahlis and his clan provide that we could not?"

Milo concentrated his gaze on the surface of the resinous wine in his cup. "Did you ever sire and rear children, Hari?"

There was a twinge of ancient pain the bard's mind. "No. When I was a young man, I took as wife a lovely maiden of the Clan Koopuh, one Kairi. In the two years before she conceived of me, she became all things, all that ever I could want or need. When she died a-borning —she and the child together—I never again felt desire for, and never took, another woman—wife nor slave."

While Old-Cat nuzzled Hari's thigh sympathetically, Milo went on. "You have never reared a child, Hari, nor has Mara. I have, but it was centuries ago and in another world. Aldora is of, and must learn to live in, this world. For all that she is, she is still a child and she needs the love and guidance and companionship of parents and a family—and she needs them now. As for training her mind, that can come later, one thing that my clan never lacks of is time!"

One morning about two weeks after the event-filled day of her adoption, Aldora Linsee awakened to the realization that she had never in her life felt happier or more secure. All her icy fears of these people, acquired by dint of the sufferings experienced at their hands, she found to have completely dissipated in the warm glow of the very real and oft demonstrated love which her new family and clan —all members of them—lavished on her; and, thanks to " her daily-increasing mental abilities, she was keenly aware of the verity and depth of their feelings.

She had not yet been a year old when one of the contagions, which swept the cities of the Ehleenoee every summer (being especially virulent in dry summers), had carried off her mother. So, having been reared almpst entirely by slave-women, she had never known what it was to have a mother. Now she had two—Tsheri, Hwahlis' eldest wife, and Beti—on a full-time basis, in addition to every matron in the clan, part-tune. Also, there was the eldest of Hwahlis' concubines, Neekohl.

Aldora's natural father had never really liked females, considering them a necessary evil. He married and begat only because it was expected of him. After his wife's un-mourned death, he devoted very nearly all his waking hours to his minions, his peers, his commercial enterprises, and his sons—in descending order. In the few scraps of time he grudgingly allotted to his daughter, he was coldly correct and stiffly formal—even for his tightly controlled and undemonstrative race. He did not like to have to touch females anyway, and if any had ever suggested that he hold or kiss his little girl, he would very probably have vomited.

Hwahlis, on the other hand, was a typical nomad warrior—volatile, uninhibited, emotional, intense. He was open-handedly generous, not only with his personal effects and possessions, but with his love, of which he seemed to have an endless supply. For the first few days, he had been scrupulously careful to neither touch nor kiss this concubine-become-daughter, lest his motives be misunderstood—a thing that his sensitive soul could not have borne, so filled with repentance was it already. And, to a man to whom visible demonstration of love was an integral and necessary part of life, this torture was unbelievably severe. It could not last and it didn't.

By the third morning after the day-and-night-long chief-feast, most of the tribe had more-or-less recovered and camp-life had resumed near-normality. Aldora did not know how to ride and for one who was to be a horseclanswoman, this was a calamitous condition which could not be allowed to continue. So, mounted behind and clinging tightly to Beti, she arrived at the tribal horse-herd to choose and be accepted by two or three horses. As they drew near to the herd, they were mindspoken by a late-adolescent female cat, preening herself on a hummock, from which she was afforded a clear view of the portion of the herd to which she had been assigned.

"Greet-the-Sun, Cat-sisters. Have the two-legs at last recuperated from the sickness of cloudy minds and shaky legs and bad bellies?"

"Yes, we have all recuperated, sister-mine, and it only took two days. But if you make yourself anymore beautiful, it will take you the best part of three moons to 'recuperate' from your 'bad belly'!" replied Beti, laughingly.

The cat gave vent to a shuddering purr. "Wind and Sun grant that that kind of sickness come quickly. Already poor Mole-Fur is nearly twenty-four moons, and she has no desire to die a maiden."

Beti's delighted laughter trilled again. "Small chance of that, Cat-sister." Then she cantered on around the outskirts of the wide-spreading herd.

At what appeared a likely spot, Beti slid from her mare's back and helped Aldora dismount. Then, after removing saddle-pad and halter, she mindspoke her mount and the mare trotted into the herd.

Bewildered, Aldora regarded the thousands of horses— whites, grays, bays, chestnuts, sorrels, roans, claybanks, and blacks with occasional pintos, piebalds, and that flax-en-maned and tailed variety of golden-chestnut known as palomino.

At last, she burst out, "But Beti, how can I tell which ones are Linsee, which ones belong to us?"

Beti smiled and patted the child who stood nearly as tall as she. "It is simple, Aldora. None of them are ours. No man owns a horse, not in this tribe. The horses are with us because they choose to be. Other races enslave horses. They have to because they're incapable of communicating with them. It has never been thus with us. Since first the Undying-God came to the Sacred Ancestors, the horse has been our partner and equal. It is a partnership older even than that of the Cat.

"Though not as intelligent as our Cat-brothers and sisters, the horses have their own tribes and clans and, over all, a king-stallion. It was him that I sent Morning-Mist to . seek. King Ax-Hoof will mindspeak you—he is far more intelligent than the bulk of his kind—and then conduct you through the herd, introducing you to you to those he feels would best suit your mutual needs and temperaments. I think . . . wait, here they come now."

Aldora looked to see Beti's long-barreled, short-legged little mare trotting back. Beside her was a huge, scarred, red-bay stallion.

Beti was first to mindspeak. "Greet-the-Sun, Horse-King. I am Beti, wife to Chief Hwahlis of Linsee. This other two-leg female is the adopted daughter of the Linsee and she has come to exchange the horse-oath. None of your hellions, mind you, Ax-Hoof, this female is not born of the tribe and knows nothing of horses or riding."

The big, rangy, horse stepped closer. "Do you mind-speak, Chief's daughter?"

"Yes," Aldora answered him. "I ... I am called Aldora, Horse-King."

"And you fear me, little two leg," stated the red-bay.

"Why?"

"You're . . . you're so tall," Aldora replied. "So big and . . . fierce and dangerous-looking."

Morning-Mist snorted and stamped one hoof. Though she did not mindspeak, her amusement was discernible.

"Little black-haired female," said the Horse-King gravely, "I was foaled on the Plains. For twenty years have I carried clansmen into battle. My forehooves are as sharp as a steel ax-head. They gained me my name and have sheared full many a helmet and the skull beneath. My teeth, too, know well the feel of man-flesh. But man-flesh, little one, only ma«-flesh. I am neither as bull nor bear nor wolf. I do not war on females and foals. You need fear neither horse nor man, not when Ax-Hoof the Horse-King is near."

With that, the speaker sank onto his haunches that Aldora might more easily mount him, bidding her not fear falling as, if fall she must, the grass was soft and thick and she would come to no harm.

When Ax-Hoof bore her, who was now his oath-sister, back to where he had met her, it was settled. She had oath with a presently-barren brood mare named Soft-Whicker —a patient, easy gaited, motherly one Ax-Hoof felt would be a perfect learning-mount for the gentle, likable little two-leg. He had had her oath an as-yet-unnamed filly of his own line as well, promising that if the filly had not finished her war-training by the time Aldora had finished hers, he personally would serve as her war horse until the white-stockinged sorrel proved ready.

For Aldora, it had been a long and highly informative ride. She had met, exchanged greetings and compliments and idle chitchat with all of Ax-Hoof's wives and with a number of the King-Horse's progeny as well.

Ax-Hoof and Aldora were within sight of the place they had left Beti when an elderly male cat and two younger ones raced up to them.

Without greeting or preamble, the elder cat addressed the stallion. "Horse-King, keep your kind away from the hidden portions of the east-flowing creek. It is possible that danger lurks there."

"What kind of danger, One-Fang?" queried the horse. "Lop-Ear, here," the cat indicated one of the younger males—about twelve moons and all paws and head, but beginning to fill out—"became suspicious of a strange thought-pattern and went to investigate. He found no creature, but he did find a strong bad odor and some odd tracks. He called me and I don't like the looks of it. Both the scent and the tracks are too much like those of a very large Blackfoot to suit me! I am sending Lop-Ear to Green-Walls to fetch the Cat Chief and some two-leg Cat-brothers with bows and spears. So, warn your kind away from anyplace a Blackfoot might hide."

The cat then mindspoke Aldora. "Have you bow or spear or even sword, Cat-sister?"

"No," replied Aldora, "only a small dirk." "Then," the cat went on officiously, "you, too, would be well advised to keep away from streams or low, hidden places; the Blackfoot tribe aren't choosy; meat is meat to them."

As the three cats bounded off, the older and one of the younger in the direction of the cut of the creek; the one called ^op-Ear flat-racing for Green-Walls, Aldora asked Ax-Hoof, "What does he mean, Horse-King? What is a Blackfoot?"

Ax-Hoof, who was now moving as fast as he felt he safely could considering the state of Aldora's horsemanship, did not answer in words, but the picture which reached her mind was of a furry—albeit, snaky-looking— body, about the color of dry dead grass, with four black feet and a black mask-like across its eyes. Its face looked like a cross between that of a cat and a fox. When it opened its mouth, she shuddered, for it was supplied with a plenitude of long sharp teeth. It was built low, so its height was unimpressive, but from nose-tip to base of tail, it was a good fifteen feet in length and the tail was close
to five!

Then Ax-Hoof spoke. "That, Aldora, is a Blackfoot. Added to the fact that they are ever-hungry, they are as fast as a cat for short distances and strong enough to drag off a full-grown horse. And, they are very hard to kill. Years ago on the Plains, I saw one so filled with arrows that he looked like a porcupine, and still not dead! None have been heard of since we crossed the Great River. Everyone had hoped that their kind did not inhabit this land."

By that time, they were up to Beti, who had seen them coming and was sitting Morning-Mist, waiting. "Well, Horse-King, what took so long? Did you have her horse-oath half your tribe?"

"No, Chiefs-wife, she oathed only me and an old mare and a filly of my get," he answered her curtly. Aldora had discovered that he took all things seriously and had little sense of humor.

Bed's eyebrows rose. "You exchanged horse-oath with our Aldora? I thought that you retired after Chief Djahn of Kahnuhr was killed?"

"Djan was my brother, Chiefs-wife. So close were we that we might have been dropped by the same dam on the same-day. Until today, I had never thought that there would be another two-leg for Ax-Hoof; but this one is different from most of you. Her mind is different. I have spoken but one other like it, so she is now my oath-sister, care for her well... or fear you my hooves and teeth!"

"Threats are unnecessary, Horse-King," Beti reassured the serious stallion. "She is as dear to her clan as to you." When Aldora had slipped down behind Beti, the big horse advised both woman and mare. "Go not near the flowing water. One-Fang fears that a Blackfoot is about. He and one of the cubs smelled where it had been, below the lip of the cut."

Smiling, Beti slapped her bow case. "Never fear, Horse-King, though no longer a maiden, still I can draw a bow."

Though he was galloping toward a knot of young stallions, he beamed back, "Be not oversure of yourself or the value of your bow, Chiefs-wife. You have never hunted the Blackfoot as I have!"

Chapter 14

Body to body, mind to mind, Horse and rider shall be as one. Close as blood, the oath shall bind, Till death has come and life is done.

—From "The Couplets of the Law"

At the very moment Beti had been first greeting the Horse-King, Milo, Mara, the Chief of Mercenaries, Hwil Kuk, and Horsekiller were closeted with four other mercenaries of Milo's following. It had taken days to find three of these men, as Aldora's mind retained no clear image of them, and the fourth—Djo-Sahl Muhkini—had, at the time, been too drunk to remember to whom he had traded his Ehleenoee child-captive. Finally, after each and every man of one hundred-fifteen had denied any connection with the incident, Milo and Hwil became mildly exasperated and commenced subjecting the mercenaries to the Test of the Cat. They so tested twenty-eight before they struck pay dirt. Now they had them all—Pawl and Deeuee Shraik and Hahnz Sahgni—three northern barbarians from the Kingdom of Harzburk and former troopers of the Theesispolis Kahtahphraktoee. Inseparable, they referred to themselves as "The Triple Threat" (though no man could remember ever having seen them in the van of any charge or battle).

"Now heed me well!" Milo commanded. "Despite the fact that when you swore oaths to me, you placed yourselves under the jurisdiction of Tribal Law, I'll not quote it to you here; there's no need to invoke it, as—so your chief informs me—in all lands, sexual abuse of children is as heinous an offense as it is with us. You must have known that what you did was wrong, else you'd not have lied when Hwil and I questioned you.

"My wife and Hwil would like to see your blood—here and now—but I am going to free you. On this table are four purses of silver, your wages for the time you have served me. You may retain your armor and gear and weapons, but not the war horses you now use. Outside are a number or horses and mules who are anxious to return to the dominion of man. They cannot stomach true freedom and slavery appeals to them. Of them, you may take your choice. By the time that the sacred Sun goes to rest, I expect you all to be a long day's ride from this place."

Shortly, the four—secretly happy to have escaped with even their lives—clattered out of the citadel-barrack and trotted their animals through the city streets. All were well mounted, even though the horses they bestrode were not war-trained, and Djo-Sahl led a fifth animal—a mule, on which were packed their food and waterbags, plus a small tent and cooking pot. Even the youngest of them had been a mercenary for nearly ten years and all had long ago learned to accept the bitter with the better, so no recriminations—self or otherwise—were voiced.

They left the city by way of the south gate, passed through the charred ruins of the outer habitations, and wove a way between the haphazardly located tents and wagons of the nomad encampment. When they were finally clear of the camp, they cut cross-country in a westerly direction, so as to strike the north-south Trade road. All were familiar with the road, having often patrolled it as Kahtahphraktoee, and as they were headed for Kara-leenos to enlist under Lord Zenos' green and crimson banner, it was the logical road to take.

After about a half mile, Djo-Sahl's mount began to limp. Cursing, the brown-bearded trooper dismounted and, finding a pebble firmly lodged between hoof and shoe, began to work at its removal, telling bis companions to ride on ahead. It was for this reason that he was not with the three northerners when their path crossed that of Beti and Aldora.

The Triple Threat—Pawl, Deeuee, and Hahnz—did not need to communicate, nor did they hesitate!

Only Aldora's frantic pleas had prevented the adventurous Beti from riding the creek bank in search of the mysterious animal. Grudgingly, the nomad woman turned back toward the camp. Nonetheless, she continued to grip her strung bow, a barbed hunting-shaft nocked and ready.

Morning-Mist had crested a low, rolling hill and was loping down its eastern face when the three scale-armored men came into view. Few of the nomads liked or really trusted any of Milo's renegade mercenaries, so Beti urged Morning-Mist slightly northward, out of their path. They had been riding abreast, but when Beti's course deviated, they extended their interval, cantering in file with the obvious intention of cutting her off.

Where another might have waited or even ridden on to see what the men wanted, Bed—nomad-born and bred and trusting nothing, especially a male not of the kindred —whirled her little mare and galloped back to the crest she had just crossed. There, she turned her left side to the oncoming men and extracted two more arrows from her case, clenching them with the fingers of her bow-hand.

"Aldora," she said urgently in a tone that brooked no argument, "I will hold them here for as long as I can. Run! Back to the horses. Mindcall Ax-Hoof. He will protect you. Now, go!"

Obediently, Aldora slipped from the mare's low crupper and raced down the western slope, broadbeaming, without being aware of it, a mindcall for help.

Old Hari sat in a sun-drenched court of the citadel. Beside him was a small brazier in which were heating a half-dozen short daggers. Horsekiller and Old-Cat with him. Employing Old-Cat's eyes, the hot daggers, and a pair of tiny pincers, the bard was engaged in removing ticks from the Cat Chief's hide, having just done the like for Old-Cat.

With a ghastly yowl, Horsekiller suddenly leapt ten feet, his mind filled with language he had heard Milo's troopers use. Hari dropped the hot little knife, with which he had singed the Cat Chief, and he and the two cats raced toward Milo's suite.

At that moment, Milo was astride Steeltooth and trotting through the south gate, trailed by the faithful Hwfl Kuk. Brave and battlewise his mercenaries might be, but Milo was snre that none of them had ever hunted or confronted a giant ferret. Even under the best of conditions, it would not have been an experience to look forward to; but, if it had to be, Milo wanted men around him who knew what they were doing. So he was riding to gather a group of middle-aged nomads, who had faced the sinister creatures on the plains and prairies.

When the mindcall came to him, he at once recognized the sender; and, as her call was directed at Ax-Hoof, the Horse-King, she must not be far from the herd. Shouting for a clear passage ahead, he kneed Steeltooth into a gallop and turned his head in the direction of the Linsee clan-camp.

Mole-Fur had not mind-spoken with Aldora, so, did not recognize the source of the call; but it could only be a Cat-friend in dire straits. She left off her preening and jumped down from her knoll and tore off for the source of the amazingly powerful call.

Ax-Hoof, three or four horse-chiefs, and a dozen young war horses were trotting along the edge of the creek-cut, following the mind-patterns of One-Fang and his cub assistant, as they scent-trailed the Blackfoot creature upstream.

Two-Color-Tail—a six-year-old who was horse-oathed to a warrior of Clan- Hahfmun—was nowhere as intelligent as Ax-Hoof or many of his peers, but his mind was such that cat-calls could range him much more easily than most of the other horses and men. So, though they were a good three miles from the vicinity of the herd, he received the call and communicated it to his King. Leaving the party in charge of Armor-Crusher, one of the horse-chiefs, Ax-Hoof took to a ground-eating gallop—the horse-oath took precedence even over the excitement of a hunt.

By the time he reached the fringes of his herd, they were milling about and a thousand or so were trotting along the path that Mole-Fur had taken—they, like her, all-but-mind-blasted by the powerful urgency of the call.

When Hari and the cats reached her, Mara was just dropping her baldric into place.

"I know!" she said cutting them off abruptly. "I too have a mind, you know. I expect that every mind within ten square-miles has picked up that call. When next we council, Hari, you have my voice. Her mind has got to have training! Such power, uncontrolled, could be deadly."

As Milo and Kuk came within sight of the Linsee chief-tent, Hwahlis was just swinging leg over horse. His sons and nephew-sons were already mounted and, like their chief, armored and fully armed. When his seat was firm in his kak, Tsheri passed up his shield and Gairee handed him a heavy wolf-spear.

"You heard?" shouted Milo, reining up. "Who didn't?" came Hwahlis' quick retort. "We—all of us—heard, even Kahl, and ere have the cats remarked him difficult to range. By my sword, that girl has power!" "We may need more fighters than this," said Milo. "She's calling old Ax-Hoof, which means she's probably near to the herd; and One-Fang sent a cub in to say that he suspected a Blackfoot was nosing around out there."

Hwahlis' weathered face paled. "Blackfoot, you say? By Sun and Wind, I'd hoped I'd never hear that name again!" He turned to his eldest son. "Erl, raise all the clan, the maidens, too! Plenty of arrows, with spears as well, mind you. Then ride for the herd.

"Fil," he said to his second-eldest nephew-son, "my compliment to Chief Sami of Kahrtr, tell him . . ."

"Tell me what?" Chief Sami drew up near them; at the edge of the clan-camp he had left a score of full-armed Kahrtr clansmen.

As Milo and the two chiefs commenced to lead their contingent of Linsee and Kahrtr clansmen through the other clan-camps, they found that their numbers were growing. Apparently the terror-stricken girl's mind-call had reached every nomad capable of receiving it. Most had no idea who was calling, but only one of their kindred would call Horse-King, and kindred never called kindred hi vain. They did not wait for their chiefs, they simply armed, mounted, and rode. By the time Milo reached the edge of the tribal enclave, there were six chiefs and at least six hundreds of warriors behind him—and there would have been more, except for the fact that most of the horses were grazing with the herd.

"This," Milo thought wryly, "is going to be a Blackfoot hunt to remember!"

Beti stole a glance to be sure that Aldora was well on her way. As she looked back, one of the ironshirts was starting up the hill, the other two close behind him.

She raised her bow and hooked thumb ring to string. "Halt, money-fighters!" she shouted. "Halt, or feel an arrow from the bow of Beti, wife to Hwahlis of Linsee!"

Hahnz Sahgni experienced a brainstorm—or so he thought. Reining up, he said pleasantly, "Yes, they told us we'd find you out here. We are from Kuk's squadron, serving your War Chief; Milo. He sent us to fetch you."

"Liar!" retorted Beti. "If the War Chief desired to see me, he would send a Cat-brother to my husband, the Chief. I warn you, lying ironshirt, come closer and you die!"

The three men had been slyly sidling their mounts closer. Now, Hahnz clapped spurs to horse-barrel and, bending low over pommel and neck, charged up the hill.

Beti's first shaft caromed off the scales of his hauberk's back, but her second skewered his right biceps; as his head came up, her third, an iron-headed war arrow, thunked solidly into his forehead between his bloodshot eyes.

Before she could get another shaft out, however, Pawl and Deeuee were upon her. A back-hand buffet of Pawl's ironshod gauntlet knocked her from the mare's back, senseless.

Chapter 15

Hear, oh Wind, the cry of a clan, bereaved;
of how Linsee mourns the loss of one held dear. . . .

—Clan Linsee Death Chant

Aldora was panting up another of the rolling hills when Ishe fell. In the second that she lay on the ground, it communicated a swelling vibration to her flesh. Then Mole-'     bounded up and commenced to lick at her dusty face.

"What threatens, black-baked Cat-sister? Why did you mind-call?"

"Did I?" asked Aldora. "I must have done so unconsciously then."

"Indeed you did, Cat-sister." Mole-Fur affirmed. "And if that was an unconscious call, Sun and Wind preserve my poor mind from one of your conscious calls!"

Then Aldora recalled the reason and waved an arm in the direction from which she had come. "Oh please, Mole-Fur, it's Beti . . . three men are after us and she's trying to stop them all alone, with only a bow."

Taking a layout of the topography of the area in which Beti was making her stand from Aldora's memory, the young cat raced to the rescue.

Djo-Sahl, having finally dislodged the stubborn pebble, had just remounted when he saw—at about a half-mile's range—Milo and his body of warriors.

"Gawdayum!" he ejaculated as he hurriedly untied the mule's leadrope. "I thought they let us go too easy! Now they comin' for us!"

Discarding his lance, he spurred off at a tangent to his original course, heading due-west. The Triple Threat were not really friends and he saw no need to warn them of the approaching nomads.

"The hell we'll kill 'er!" was Pawl's reply to Deeuee's stupid suggestion. "You jes' go down there an' get the silver off of ol' Hahnz. He ain't gonna be needin' it no more. I'll tie 'er up and get 'er on 'er horse. The both of 'em should bring right fair prices, down Karaleenos way."

By the time his dim-witted brother regained to the top of the hill—having relieved their former comrade's body of the purse, a couple of silver arms-rings, and a handsome Ehleenoee dirk—Pawl had Beti tied securely over Morning-Mist's back and had remounted bis own horse.

As Deeuee mounted he called, "Which way'd the other one go?"

His brother shrugged. "I dunno, and it'd take too long to hunt 'er. Let's go."

"Hey," yelped Deeuee, "how 'bout ol' Djo-Sahl? We oughta wait for him ..."

Pawl shook his head and hooked a thumb at their unconscious captive. "You wanta have to take thirds on 'er all the way down to Karaleenos, and then split her price three ways? B'sides, he's prob'ly took off with the mule and stuff anyhow."

Deeuee was known to be quite a trencherman. Now, he looked as if he was about to cry. "But that means he's got all of the food. We'll starve!"

Pawl laughed harshly and slapped the two purses hung under his hauberk. "Damfool boy, I don't know why Pa didn' drown you, anyhow! You got no more brains 'n a houn'-dog. We gonna be trav'lin through farming country, 'tween our silver and our swords, we won't have no trouble fillin' our bellies."

They were half-way to the next fold of ground when, voicing an unearthly battle-screech, Mole-Fur came bounding toward them. Cursing mightily, Pawl couched his lance and charged to meet her. Mole-Fur avoided the glittering point easily. As the horse tore past her, her long fangs ripped through horse-hide and horse-flesh and horse-muscle. Screaming, the hamstrung gelding went down, pinning his stunned rider beneath his barrel.

Deeuee had never been very adept at the use of the lance, so he discarded his and unslung his ax, then dropped Morning-Mist's lead and spurred toward the inexperienced Mole-Fur who was attempting to get at his downed brother's throat. But just as he reined beside the young cat and whirled his heavy ax aloft, he was yiolently propelled out of his kak, to join his brother, on the ground. He had time for but half a scream, before Old-Cat's fang-spurs ail-but severed his neck. . Old-Cat's borrowed armor rattled, as the venerable fighter shook his Tiead forcefully in an attempt to clear the bad-tasting blood from the razor-edged steel. "Idiot!" lie mind-snarled at Mole-Fur. "Had I not come when I did, the two-leg would've chopped you in half! Can't you remember your battle-training, stupid female? You did a beautiful job of hamstringing, especially, as you had no fang-spurs. But why in the world didn't you then go after the other one? With a crippled horse on his leg, this one is going nowhere,"

Mole-Fur endured the mental tongue-lashing in silence; then, her eyes downcast, she replied humbly. "Mole-Fur is very sorry that she displeased so strong and handsome a fighter, and she is very grateful that so valiant a cat-warrior saw fit to save her worthless life. This stupid young female has never fought two-legs before, and . . ." She trailed off disconsolately.

Her unhappiness was very real and very apparent and, for some reason that he could not fathom, it disturbed Old-Cat. "Never mind," he told her gruffly, lightly nuzzling her shoulder (soft-furred and tinglingly delightful to the touch). "You'll remember this and learn from it. We always learn from our mistakes."

When she buried her velvety muzzle under his chin, Old-Cat felt anything but old. "Oh, Mole-Fur is so glad that she is forgiven. She could not bear to have so wise and powerful and virile a cat angry at her."

Old-Cat extended his tongue and licked the young female's neck, suppressing an urge to lightly bite it. None other of the females of Horsekiller's clan had aroused him like this. Perhaps the Ancient Wise One was right and ... He shook himself and drew away from the seductive young cat; there was work to do. "Mole-Fur, there was a mind-call from Aldora Linsee. Have you seen her?"

"She is well and safe, brave one. I left her on the neat slope of the next hill. The Horse-King and his fighters should be there by now. Does Mole-Fur's hero wish to kill this two-leg, or shall she?"

"Neither," he told her. "The ironshirt can't get away. Let him live. There are clansmen coming. It will be interesting to see what Chief Hwahlis of Linsee performs upon the flesh of this would-be female-stealer."

Walking over to Morning-Mist, he employed his left fang-spur to sever the thongs which held Beti on the mare's back and, carefully, he reared up until he could grasp the waist-rope of her trousers and pull her from horseback to ground. After he deposited the blond woman's limp form on the sward, he slashed wrist and ankle lashings, then turned her over and began to clean the blood and dust from her face.

When he had done all of which he was capable, he left Mole-Fur to look after Beti and loped over the hill to see to Aldora.

Djo-Sahl had not ridden far when, to his right, he saw a mounted nomad and one of the great, fearsome cats bearing down on a course which would cross his path. Sobbing with fear, he further lightened his mount's load by throwing off shield and ax and, digging spurs deeper, pulled the horse's head around and fled southward. As his hard-driven steed galloped across the face of a slope, he was ail-but deafened by the thunder of thousands of hoofs on the opposite slope, beyond the crest to his right.

Then, immediately in front of him, an unmounted nomad female suddenly rose from the grass. His lips skinned back from his teeth and, drawing his sword, he charged down on her.

Aldora had heard the horses coming and bad mind-informed Ax-Hoof that she was well and safe. He had advised her to stand where the leaders of the thousand or so horses could plainly see her. But she had only just come erect, when a horse passed behind her, a bright object flashed in the periphery of her vision and, with paralyzing force an agonizing something sliced into the angle of her neck and right shoulder. As the grass rushed upward at her face, she felt the hot gush of her blood, then, nothing.

Just as the first horses came over the crest of the hill, they saw an ironshirt saber a female of the kindred. Carefully avoiding Aldora, the herd swept down the hill, bowling over both horse and rider. When the herd had passed, they left only a pulpy, red paste behind them.

Milo and the chiefs reined up around Mole-Fur who sat beside the still unconscious Beti and snarled at the whimpering Pawl, straining to pull his leg from under his feebly twitching, almost-dead horse.

"Beti?" Hwahlis mind-questioned.

"She lives, Cat-brother," Mole-Fur reassured. "One of these ironshirts must have stunned her before they tried to carry her away. But she is uninjured. She will bear you many more fine kittens."

"What of the younger one, the black-haired female, Sister-cat?" queried Milo.

Mole-Fur began to lick Beti's face again while she answered. "The new cat—that handsome, older one, who came in from the Battle of the Black Horses—has gone to see to her. She is two hills west and was well when Mole-Fur left her, before she met these two ironshirts." Raising her head, she bared her teeth and rippled a low snarl at Pawl, who shuddered and moaned.

Hwahlis dismounted and strode over to the soft-gray cat. Resting his hand on her head, he said, "Sister-cat, are you cat-oathed?"

"Oh, no, Cat-brother. Mole-Fur is only twenty-four moons and has not yet been battle-trained," she replied. "No clan would want so worthless a female."

Slipping his hand under her chin, between the sharp tips of her projecting fangs, Hwahlis raised her head and looked deeply into her eyes. "Trained or not, my clan will oath so fierce and brave a female, and will be honored to go to battle with her! So courageous an . . ."

Without warning, Mole-Fur interrupted, "God Milo, the black-haired two-leg female, she is where I left her, • but Old-Cat says that another ironshirt has sabered her, and . . ."

Hwahlis heard no more. Spinning, he sprinted to and leaped astride his horse and, before Milo could shout the rest of the message to him, was over the crest of the hill. So disturbed was the chief, neither Milo nor Mole-Fur could contact him mentally.

Mara had just finished binding a strip torn from her shirt over Aldora's rapidly closing wound (mostly, to keep the flies off), when Hwahlis pounded up, leaped, running, from his lathered horse and raced to the side of his "daughter." Tears and sweat had mingled to plow shiny furrows through the thick dust covering his features. Mara tried mindspeak but the begrieved chieftain's mind was closed, so she spoke.

"Chief Hwahlis, Aldora will soon be . . ." But then she was aware that he didn't hear her voice either. He could only hear the voice of his own self-recriminations and his eyes only registered Aldora's closed eyes and pale face and blood-soaked shirt and the bandage only partially concealing the still-gaping wound.

Dropping to his knees, he gathered her, whom he thought dying, into his arms and covered her face with kisses, tears, and dust. Then, sobbing, rocking back and forth, he raised a keening wail.

Aldora, who had simply been following Mara's instructions to lie quietly until the bleeding had entirely ceased and the wound closed, opened her eyes, then, and gazed up into Hwahlis' sorrow-twisted face.

"Mara, what.. . why .. . ?" She mindspoke. "That doleful noise is his clan's death chant, child." Mara answered. "He thinks you are dying and grieves for you. I told you that he was a good man. This barbarian loves you, Aldora; not as a man loves a woman, but as a parent loves a daughter."

"So accept the spirit of her we love, oh Wind," Hwahlis sang, his eyes screwed shut, tears bathing his cheeks. "For she is of your people. Bear her smoke to Your home. . . ." He broke off at the sound of Aldora's voice, the touch of her hand.

She wiped ineffectually at his face. "Why do you weep, Father? I am not bad hurt. Lady Mara say soon well I will be. True father, who I love, weep no more. Please?"

Chapter 16

Milo would not have allowed the tribe to tarry so long at Green-Walls had he been aware of the exact depth of High Lord Demetrios' dilemma. That unhappy man's father, the late Basil III, had left richly productive lands, a generally wealthy nobility, and a well-stuffed treasury. But his son had squandered his patrimony as if gold and silver were about to become valueless. He had robbed his nobles, his people, the priests, and everyone else within his grasp. What could not be immediately spent or converted to cash was mortgaged to the hilt—usually several times over. As the saying went, "He robbed Petros to pay Pavlos," and when Petros was stripped, the High Lord had hounding creditors quietly murdered, then seized their books and possessions to be held "in trust" until someone appeared to claim them. But the first few persons rash enough to register claims all either disappeared under mysterious circumstances or met with invariably fatal accidents; word traveled fast and no more claimants appeared.

Throughout most of his long reign, Basil III had conducted wars against the host of small barbarian principalities to his north and west and against his southern neighbor, Zenos VII, High Lord of Karaleenos. Therefore, a part of Demetrios' inheritance had been several thousands of seasoned, hard-bitten, veteran mercenaries and many times that number of experienced, disciplined Ehleenoee spearmen. Many of these troops had worn the azure-and-silver and the crest of Kehnooryohs Ehlahs for half-a-life-time. In addition, his estate included some few dozens of really effective Ehleenoee staff and field officers, these latter being men who, over the years, had not been too pompously stiff-necked to learn from the professional soldiers with whom they had served. Within half-a-year of Demetrios' ascendency, these atavistic Ehleenoee were to a man giving serious consideration to the elimination of their dangerously inept ruler and then sending back to Pahlyohs Ehlahs for a warlike man of noble lineage who might help to restore them to their ancient glory. However, in his spy-ridden court, Demetrios soon became aware of these sentiments and moved first and quickly. Four and a half years later, the few atavars still alive were in exile or in hiding.

With the barbarian horde camped upon and about the shell of Theesispolis, the High Lord had but few of his I father's powerful army remaining. Early in his reign, Demetrios had dissolved all save a tiny fraction of the spear-levies, sending them back to the mortgaged land to produce already sold crops. Despairing of ever collecting their back wages, many of the mercenaries had left to seek employment from a lord who payed in something more substantial than promises. The lives of others had been frittered away in ill-planned "campaigns," conceived and commanded by the High Lord's totally inexperienced but suicidally self-confident sycophants and favorites. Of the ten full squadrons remaining, seven had been lost with Lord Manos' ill-fated expedition and another virtually wiped out at what the nomads called the Black Horse Battle.

Now—in addition to the eight hundred ax-men of the city guard, who had originally been mercenaries, but who Bow were resident civil servants, having acquired wives and families in Kehnooryohs Atheenahs over the years; and his personal guard of two hundred and fifty black-skinned spearmen—Demetrios had but two one-thousand-man squadrons to his name! The White Horse Squadron's lot was irrevocably cast with that of Demetrios, like it or not. They had treacherously deserted Zenos of Karaleenos at the crucial point of the battle some ten years before, having been bribed to do so by the present High Lord's father, and now they knew better than to seek employment elsewhere. They had not been paid in years and were, in effect, military slaves, who cursed the day that ever their greed had brought them into the clutches of the foresworn and dissolute House of Treeah-Pohtahmohs.

Though the Whites were trapped, the Grey Horse Squadron was more fortunate. When what was left of their Black Horse compatriots came straggling back to the capital, Demetrios—in the grip of one of the screaming, tooth-gnashing fits, which had possessed him since childhood whenever he was thwarted or disappointed—ordered the common troopers killed and the surviving noncoms thrown into his dungeon to await his pleasure. At that point, Sergeant-Major Djeen Mai, the actual commander of the Greys, once more presented a request for the back pay due for his men's services for six months, some eighty thousand ounces of silver. When two more weeks went by without even a token payment, the entire squadron packed, armed, mounted, and, after freeing the Black Horse noncoms, rode out of Kehnooryohs Atheenahs unopposed.

Demetrios raged insanely for three days after the desertion of the Greys and the aided escapes of the men he had been looking forward to having slowly tortured to death. Then, swallowing his overweening pride, he dispatched pleas for assistance to the other three Ehleenoee High Lords of the mainland principalities.

If nothing else, the answers he received were prompt. Hamos, High Lord of the Northern Ehleenoee, profusely and abjectly apologized for being unable to send either monies or troops, reminding Demetrios how closely pressed was the northern realm by the warlike Black Kingdom to its south and west. Ulysses, High Lord of the huge and fabulously wealthy land of the Southern Ehleenoee, pled poverty. Zenos of Karaleenos did not deign to reply to his ancient enemy; he merely sent troops to seize and occupy all Demetrios' south and southwestern border themes—from the mountains to the Great Swamp—and tentatively probed farther north.

Even with the harvest in, the spear-levy was responding very sluggishly to then: summons and, as for the supposedly loyal nobility, many were selfishly husbanding both resources and personal forces to defend their own cities. It was at that juncture that the harried High Lord realized that he had no option. He sent a message of appeal to the one remaining Ehleenoee who might render him aid—the pirate, Pardos, Lord of the Sea Islands.

Portions of the domain of Pardos were said to have existed in the time of the gods, and the presence of certain ruins on the three southern islands tended to substantiate this supposition. However, when first the Ehleenoee set foot on the Sea Islands—lying over one hundred sixty leagues due east of the Principality of Karaleenos—the only indigenous creatures were sea birds, seals, a few wild swine and goats, several varieties of lizards, and some rats and mice. It was obvious to all that the central island and seven of the ten major outer islands had not been long out of the sea, most being still but bare rock, splotched with the lime of the birds; and the archipelago-to-be was still rising, each year the winter tides' point of furthest advance was a little lower on the beaches and the central, twenty by thirty-two mile lagoon now averaged nearly three feet shallower than it had in the time of Pardos' great-grandfather.

Demetrios' messenger had returned from the Sea Islands to say that Lord Pardos was willing to discuss the rendering of aid to Kehnooryohs Ehlahs; but that, since it was Demetrios' plea Pardos thought it meet that the High Lord come to him. Demetrios raged! He screamed, swore, foamed, slew three slave-boys, and seriously injured a member of his court; he had the messenger sought out, savagely and purposelessly tortured and then crucified with an iron pot of starving mice bound to his abdomen. Shoutingly, he laid curses on all of Pardos' ancestors and the man himself, gradually broadening his sphere to include the whole of the world and every living thing in it. Toward the end, he commenced to tear at himself with teeth and nails, roll on the floor, pulling out handfuls of beard and hair, beating fists and head upon floors and walls.

At the same time High Lord Demetrios was raging, a meeting was taking place in the haunted ruins of another of the god-cities, Lintchburk.

Four men were seated in a small stone chamber. Outside, it appeared but a tiny hillock with grass and trees. Within, it was presently lit by odiferous, smoky fat-lamps and their wavering luminesence flung huge, distorted shadows upon the ancient walls. Imperfect as was the light, nonetheless, it was enough to have driven out the small, scuttling creatures of darkness who were this chamber's usual inhabitants, and who now crouched in crevices, voicing bitter complaints at this unwonted invasion of their territory.

Three of the chamber's occupants were barbarian mercenaries: Sergeant-Major Djeen Mai, captain of what had formerly been the High Lord's Grey Horse Squadron; his second-in-command, Normun Hwebstah; and a man that Milo and the other survivors of the hill fight would have recognized as he who had retrieved the standard of the Black Horse Squadron, former Sergeant-Major Sam Tchahrtuhz. Though they bore a racial similarity to the nomads, these men were bigger and heavier, and Hweb-stah's dark beard and hair proclaimed more than a tinge of Ehleenoee heritage.

Though the fourth man's hair and beard were snow white, his features and his black eyes proclaimed him pure Ehleenoee stock. Aside from these and his dress, however, he bore as little resemblance to the mincing ef-fetes of Demetrios' court as would a boar-hound to a lap dog. His arms had not been depilated in all his life and they and every other visible portion of his body were crisscrossed with old scars. His gaze was piercing, his bearing dignified, and his voice firm.

"I am that touched, gentlemen. So you—all of you— knew percisely where to find me all these years, and you breathed no word of it. When last I'd word, Demetrios had placed a bounty of one hundred thousand ounces of silver on my head. Didn't that even tempt you?"

Sam spoke for them.  "We swore sword-oaths and blood-oaths and god-oaths to you, Lord Alexandras. Though I have lived and fought more than twenty years among the Ehleenoee, I have picked up precious few of their habits and customs. I have not the ability to swear falsely, to violate a trust, nor has Djeen or Normun. We are but crude, uncultured barbarians and, in our ignorance, were unable to acquire such sophisticated traits."

The old Ehleen hung his head. "Would that I could throw the lie at you, my dear friend. But all you say is true. The old values are dead and their memory is mocked, as memories of childish stupidities, among my race. Our ancestors would never recognize us, what we have become.

"Four hundred years ago, when my race came to these shores, the Hellenoi were a strong, fierce, hard, resolute people. Though all of a definite type, we did not then consider ourselves a race, being, as we were, Greek and Turk and Albanian and Italian and Sicilian and French and Moor and Spaniard. We landed in successive waves and, though our numbers were small, our courage and perseverance enabled us either to slay your ancestors or drive them into the swamps and mountains, even though their far greater numbers were augmented by the fact that they had horses and we did not. Despite repeated and savage counter-attacks by your ancestors—whose reckless courage very nearly equaled our own—despite earthquake and tidal wave and famine and plague, we retained our hard-won lands, because we were one and one in our purpose.

"Then, in the time of my father's grandfather, it all began to change. We had been too successful and, with success, had come decadence. War had been the delight and avocation of our people, now our young men found it beneath their dignity, unnecessarily dangerous folly and, above all, too uncomfortable for their pampered bodies to endure. The old religion, which had endured for thousands of years and had been brought here by our fighting prieste, began to die, to be replaced by polytheism and the unnatural worship of monsters. As the pursuit of money took precedence over the pursuit of honor, our free-farmers were tricked and deluded into their present state-ruthlessly ground peasants, virtual slaves of the land, no longer decent material for soldiers as they have nothing for which to fight anymore.

"In our days of glory, Sam, the spine and body of our arms were the spear-levy, the head and limbs, the swords and axes of my class. Now, alas, three-quarters of the body has forgotten how to fight and nine-tenths of my class have become too soft and craven to risk life or limbs or pretty looks in the forefront of a battle. What was once an honorable relationship of brotherhood and love of warrior for strong warrior, has become a sick rapine of smafl slave-boys. The sacred quality of marriage has evaporated, and I would wager much that fully half of our women who bear children are unsure of those children's true paternity.

"For nearly one hundred years, now, Sam, the bulk of the truly effective troops in the armies of the Ehleenoee states has been of you and your kind. To your credit, your people have learned from us, learned selectively though. You have taken the good grain that we were and rightly discarded the poisonous chaff that we are become. Could your people but unite, you could easily sweep all this coast clear of the useless parasites called Ehleenoee, regain your ancient holdings, and—pray God—prove yourselves better masters of land and peoples than those you dispossess. For long have I said that your folk needed but a strong and resolute leader, perhaps this man you name, this western barbarian with his uncanny battle-skill, he whom our friend Hwil Kuk now serves, is the man I have prophesied and you have awaited.

"In any case, I think that, can it be arranged, we four should quickly meet with him and decide for ourselves whether to enlist in his service."

The three mercenaries exhibited broad smiles. "You witt join us then, Lord Alexandras?" queried Djeen Mai anxiously. "You will be our Strahteegohs once again?"

Lord Alexandras smiled. "Why, of course. I've been champing at the bit, since first I laid eyes upon you all again."

Chapter 17

Within a fortnight of Lord Alexandras' fateful meeting with his three old friends, the god-haunted ruins of Lintchburk were beginning to come to life again. His ready acceptance of the proffered generalship had been all that was required to send messengers at the gallop north, south, east, and west. Their guarded communications had been whispered into just the proper ears, ears which had been awaiting such a communication for nearly five years.

And the word spread like wildfire. In ones and twos and dozens and occasional scores, old soldiers—-those who remembered and some who had only heard—dodged roving bands of Horse clansmen or probing patrols of Kara-leenoee to ride or tramp into the growing camp. But there were more. Before the new moon, Rahdnee, Prince of Ashbro, rode in with two hundred troopers, apologizing that he could not bring more, but the bulk of his fighting men were already contracted to the High Lord of Kara-leenos and their contracts would not expire for six months yet. The next large arrival was that of a contingent of veteran mercenaries—one and one-half thousands of heavy infantry, the mercenaries of Djim Brawuh, dusty and tired from over two weeks of forced marches, which had brought them from the vicinity of Pitzburk. These were put to immediate work, training the spear-levy caliber peasants who kept wandering in—all having heard of Lord Alexandras' resurgence and drawn by the un-dimmed luster of his name and fame.

By the time that Hwil Kuk arrived to emotionally greet his old Strahteegohs and conduct him, Djeen Mai, and Sam Tfflhartuhz to Green-Walls and a meeting with Milo Morai, the well-built castra had become home to some thirty hundreds of foot and nearly eighteen hundreds of cavalry. The nomads with Kuk's escort were visibly impressed

"Understand," said Milo, "that my last contact with the Ehleenoee was some two hundred years ago, a«d that was with the North Ehleenoee, not with these people. If I'm to deal with this man—and, along with Hwil Kuk, you seem almost in awe of this Alexandras, dear wife—111 want to know as much as is possible about him."

Mara drew a puff from the stem of her jeweled pipe. "My love, before the chaos which resulted from the Great Earthquake, all these lands—from the barbarian kingdoms a few days' ride north of here to the very borders of the ill-omened Witch Kingdom—was one domain called Kehnooryohs Ehlahs; the Ehleenoee with whom you lived were, even then, a separate state and the Sea Islands had not yet been settled.

"Though located upon the Blue River, the capital of this huge realm, Kehnooryohs Atheenahs, was only some twenty miles from the sea. It was all but obliterated and thousands of its population died when the first huge wave struck in the middle of the night. Of the entire ruling family, only the High Lord and two of his sons survived the disaster—and they, only because at the time of the calamity, they happened to be campaigning in the mountains with their troops; his second wife and two younger sons, also, because they were in a villa near here.

"It was weeks before the High Lord and his forces could win back to the location of the capital. Passes had been partially or completely blocked, rivers had changed theu: courses, inland cities had been shaken down, and almost every coastal city had been drowned. Stretches of coastline had sunk many feet, creating the Salt Fens of today, and much of the richest and most productive farmland in the realm had been rendered sterile by saltwater. More than nine-tenths of the then sizable fleet was destroyed and the only army left was the twelve thousand or so who had been campaigning with the High Lord. "Then in his early forties, Pavlos of the House of Pahpahs was a man of tremendous vitality and purpose and, had he lived longer, he might have held his shattered realm together despite all that had happened and all that was to come. He established his military headquarters in the relatively undamaged area some fifty miles up the Blue River from the ruins of Kehnooryohs Atheenahs at the place where the river ceased to be generally navigable—the Kehnooryohs Atheenahs of today occupies that same site. There, he began to gather together the salvage of this portion of the realm, began to reorganize the government and reestablish lines of communication with the other provinces.

"Most members of the hereditary ruling families of Karaleenos and the Southern Province had been extirpated along with their capital cities, both of which had been located on the ocean coast, lacking the relative protection of headlands and bays and rivermouths enjoyed by Kehnooryohs Atheenahs. The disaster had taken place a month or so prior to harvest time, so—in addition to the chaos resulting from a total breakdown of the central authority and ever more punishing raids by the mountain barbarians—the gaunt specter of starvation was approaching with the winter.

"It only required some three months for Pavlos to restore some semblance of order to the capital and its province. When it was secured, he left it under the co-regency of his young second wife and one of his ablest strahteegohee, Vikos Pohtahmohs; he left them half his army, and he and his two sons marched south with the other half, reinforced by two thousand mountain barbarian horsemen—these being the first mercenaries ever hired by an Ehleenoee lord—who were with his army not so much because he felt he needed them, as because he preferred to have them with him than behind him.

"He marched right through Karaleenos, leaving only Hamos, his youngest adult son and a thousand troops at Kehnooryohs Theevahs to establish a temporary capital and do what they could to re-institute some semblance of lorder. This was necessary because the Southern province —the largest and, formerly, by far the richest of his principality—was being severely menaced from two sides. Within three months of his arrival, Pavlos cornered and exterminated no less than five barbarian hosts, each as large as or larger than his own! By late winter, the Southern Province was secure in all ways and well along the road to complete recovery. So, he left Petros Eespahnohs, another of his strahteegohee, as trial-Lord and marched back to Karaleenos.

"Once in Karaleenos, he discovered why he had never been sent a messenger by his son and why none of his messengers had ever returned. Hamos Pahpahs, twenty-two and headstrong, cocksure of Ehleenoee arms and his own prowess and abilities, had over-ridden the advice and objections of older and wiser heads and allowed himself and his small command to be tricked into open battle against far superior barbarian forces and annihilated, less than a month after his father had left him. When Pavlos arrived, the few strong points still holding out were under constant and heavy siege by the barbarians and over most of the devastated province, Ehleenoee were being hunted like rabbits by troops of whooping barbarian horseman. Memories of this time is why barbarians, and especially horse-barbarians, are so hated and ill-used by the Ehleenoee today.

"If his campaign hi the south had been a whirlwind one, what he did in Karaleenos could be likened to the speed and destruction of a tornado! Not content with simply driving the barbarians back into their mountains and hills and swamps, he and his avenging army pursued them, slew them and their families, and burned or pulled down their hovels and villages and forts. Such havoc did they wreak that full many a barbarian kingdom or principality required two or three generations to recover and some never did! Only one of the nearer barbarian domains escaped—Ashbro, the principality from which Pavlos' two thousand mercenaries had been hired—and, seeing what had been done to his neighbors, the Prince of Ashbro was more than happy to sign a long-term treaty with this terrible Ehleen. Pavlos selected a site for a new capital for Karaleenos and left his eldest son, Philos, as regent, along with the survivors of his two thousand mercenaries and another thousand of his Ehleenoee troops, leaving himself a force of just over two thousand veterans.

"He arrived back in the new Kehnooryohs Atheenahs almost six months to the day from the date he had quitted it to find his wife about five months pregnant, conditions in Kehnooryohs Ehlahs even worse than they had been when he left, the army racked by desertions and mutinies, and the treacherous Vikos Pohtahmohs to have decamped with all that was left of the treasury.

"The steadying influences of his and his veterans' arrival and presence settled the bulk of the army's problems overnight. It did not take him long to discover the paternity of his wife's bastard, and but a little more to learn that Vikos Pohtahmohs was in Petropolis, attempting to repair and refurbish a partially wrecked ship in which to flee. With the speed of the swooping falcon, he and two hundred of his veterans were in Petropolis and had taken Vikos and his followers and the stolen treasury.

"Hardly had he and his prisoner returned to Kehnooryohs Atheenahs, however, when he received word that three barbarian kinglets and their armies were in coalition and despoiling the northern themes of his capital's domain; whereupon, he had Vikos' eyes burned out and threw him into the new city's jail, had all his officers and men swear loyalty to the young twin sons his second wife had borne him before she became adulterous, then marched out to his death.

"In the fury of the first charge, a barbarian's arrow pierced his breast-mail, but few observed and he plucked it out with a jest on the lack of strength of barbarian bows. He led two more charges before he crashed from his chariot, dead. After completing the slaughter, his men marched back to Kehnooryohs Atheenahs, bearing his body.

"When informed of his father's death, Philos, leaving his new wife in Kehnooryohs Theevahs, rode to claim his patrimony. He was duly installed as High Lord and was on the point of sending for his bride, when he was mysteriously poisoned. At this, a clique of strahteegohee took over. Their first step was to have the blind prisoner, Vikos, strangled, then they imprisoned Pavlos' unfaithful wife in seclusion—they were loath to kill her openly, but fully intended doing so, should her bastard prove a son.

"Next, they designated themselves regents for Alexandras and Nikos, Pavlos' twin sons, then aged seven years, and right well they ruled. Philos' bride bore a son, six months after his death, him the regents confirmed as Lord of Karaleenos, despite his tender years and he was the direct ancestor of Zenos, the present Lord.

"Pavlos' widow's bastard was a female and so, rather than slaying her, the regents simply banished her and her spawn, regardless of her plea that the child had been gotten on her in rape. They felt that there was division enough in the empire without adding one more dissident element in the form of a girl, marriage to whom might give some ruthless and ambitious man ideas.

"When Alexandros was eighteen, he was confirmed as] High Lord and the regents gracefully stepped back into the position of advisers. He was married to a female of the ruling house of the Southern Province, whose loyalty had become rather shaky after Pavlos' death. For all else that he was and was not, Alexandros was a first-class stud! By the time it became frighteningly obvious that he was too mentally and emotionally erratic to rule, he had sired three legitimate and the gods alone know how many illegitimate children, most of them sons. He was not quite twenty-three when he fell in a battle against the mountain barbarians.

"Now, Milo, allow me to explain something. Among the Ehleenoee, inheritance is strictly by primogeniture, the oldest son, no matter how unfit he may be, falling heir to everything. Pavlos had had four sons: Philos, Hamos Alexandros, and Nikos. Hamos died before his father Upon Pavlos' death, Philos was confirmed as High Lord though murdered shortly thereafter; so, by law and custom, his son, not his younger brothers should have fallen successor to him. But the regents had—for a number of very laudable and highly practical reasons—circumvented law and custom some fifteen years prior to Alexandros' death.

"While Nikos—who wanted confirmation as High Lord, not simply as regent until the majority of Alexandros' oldest son, Pavlos, then aged three years—was disputing with the aging strahteegohee, who had been regents for Alexandros, a messenger arrived from Kehnooryohs Theevahs bearing a communication which struck with the impact of a thunderbolt.

Chapter 18

"When the Lady Petrina—she who had been the wife of the High Lord, Pavlos—had been exiled, all had assumed that she had journeyed to Kehnooryohs Makedonia in the north as she was a noblewoman of that land. Such, however, had not been the case. A branch of her house resided in Karaleenos and to them she had flown, to reside there for nearly fifteen years, she and her bastard daughter. Not quite a year before Alexandros' death, Lady Petrina took seriously ill and, when she realized that she was dying, she had her relatives send for Paiohnia, widow of Pavlos' son, Philo, and mother to Zenos—he who had at birth  been  confirmed  Lord  of  Karaleenos  by  the strahteegohee-regents. In return for a promise that the Lady Paiohnia would take in and provide for her bastard daughter, Lady Petrina gave her certain information and swore her death-oath as to its veracity. On the basis of this information, Zenos' mother dispatched agents to begin lengthy and exacting investigations in various quarters. Of course, as years had passed and men had died and records had been destroyed or lost, and Paiohnia and Zenos—whose mind had been that of a man, even while his body had still been that of a boy—were fully aware that any hope of success lay in the provision of overwhelming proof at the outset, and the received information must needs be sifted and weighed and placed in order. Some thirteen moons were required to effect their purpose. When all was collected and arranged, they entrusted copies of their documents to a noble of their court, a man but newly arrived from Pahlyohs Ehlahs, Lukos Treeah by name. As he was unrelated to any of the principals, they felt that he would tend to- make a better emissary than a member of any of the older families.

"When received privately by the strahteegohee, Lukos' skillfully delivered message—backed, as it was, by irrefutable proofs—first shocked and stunned, then overjoyed the driven-to-distraction old men. Harried by Nikos, who insisted that, as they had once set precedence over custom in the case of Philos' son, they not only could, but should do so again and set aside the claims of Alexandras' legitimate issue, in favor of confirming him, Nikos, to the position of High Lord. Furthermore, he had broadly hinted that should they be so unwise as to foil him, he was not above raising sufficient armed might to take what they would not give! The strahteegohee had, in recent times, oft repented their rashness in disinheriting Zenos, however good an idea it had seemed at the time. Now, Lukos Treeah had saved them.

"The painstaking efforts of Zenos and his mother and their agents had produced solid substantiation of one earth-shaking fact: Alexandras and Nikos had been born bastards! On her deathbed, the Lady Petrina had sworn that never had she conceived of her husband, Pavlos, and that the true paternity of Alexandras and Nikos had been the same as that of her girl-child—namely, the Strahtee-gohs, Vikos Pohtahmohs. One of the strongest proofs of the brothers' bastardy was the fact that never—never hi any living person's memory and never in any existing records—had a Pahpahs man or woman sired or produced twin offspring, and the same was true in the noble house of which the Lady Petrina had been a scioness; on the other hand, four of Vikos' brothers had been twins, as had his mother, his maternal grandfather, and other near relations, and his father's father had been one of triplets. In addition, the Pahpahs stock had been mentally and physically sound, until Alexandras; but many of Vikos' ancestors were known to have been rather peculiar. Therefore, the strahteegohee commenced preparations to announce all this to the Council of Nobles and to pave the way for exiling all of the spurious Pahpahs and inviting Zenos—proved to be Pavlos' only legal heir—to assume his rightful status.

"But Lukos Treeah moved first! His initial lightning-maneuver was to marry the widow of Alexandras, then to have every one of the old strahteegohee murdered. As first one, then another of Alexandras' illegitimates met with a variety of fatal 'accidents,' Nikos saw how the wind was blowing and took certain measures of his own. When his attempt on the lives of Lukos and his wife and adoptive children failed, Nikos took his household and retainers and possessions aboard a speedy ship and fled. " "Now Zenos and his mother were unaware of the murders of the strahteegohee and the other developments in Kehnooryohs Ehlahs, so Lukos was able to continue putting them off for some little time—at least until all conditions were to his satisfaction. When at last he saw fit to apprise his erst-while employers of the radical changes he had effected, their forseen reactions were such as to play directly into his hands.

"Lukos Treeah was gifted with a silver tongue. It is said that he could have talked a viper out of biting him and, after a few more minutes, have persuaded said animal to make him a present of its skin! So it was that, by the tune Zenos and his mother awakened to the fact that they had been duped and bamboozled out of the game, Lukos had both the Council of Nobles and the Army and Navy solidly on the hip. When Zenos and his Karaleenoee marched across the border, Lukos had himself declared Dictator, imposed martial law, and set about jailing or killing, as suspected supporters of Zenos, all those who had opposed him in his meteoric ascent to power. Feeling his position to be secured, he then led his troops to meet Zenos' advancing host.

"And this same Lukos, who had never before commanded troops, proved to be a military genius of the first magnitude! For nearly two weeks, he maneuvered his numerically inferior force—marching and counter-marching—until he had Zenos just where he wanted him; then he struck. In a six-hour battle, he soundly trounced the Karaleenoee. When his troops would have pursued, he held them back, re-formed them, and, after an all-night march, struck again. The orderly retreat of Zenos' army became, after that attack, a rout. At the head of his victorious forces, Lukos pursued to and across the border, turning back only when arrows and stones, shot from the walls of Kehnooryohs Theevahs, began to fall among his vanguard.

"After that victory, there was no stopping him. By acclamation, the Army proclaimed him High Lord and the cowed Council of Nobles could only add their own acclaim in compliance. At Lukos' death, Alexandras' eldest, Pavlos, succeeded him, as he had been childless. Pavlos had virtually worshiped Lukos—who had indeed proved a good ruler and had been the only father Pavlos could remember—so, at his own accession, he declared his surname to be Treeah-Pohtahmohs and his family and descendants have been so known.

"Never again in his lifetime did Zenos Pahpahs of Karaleenos—truly the rightful heir to the title of.High Lord—attempt a full-scale invasion of Kehnooryohs Ehlahs, but, in the centuries since, the wars between this province and that have been frequent, bitter, and intense, though never very rewarding for either antagonist.

"Then, about a century and a half ago, there was a fratricidal struggle hi the House of Karaleenos. The losers fled to Kehnooryohs Atheenahs, where they settled under the protection of the then High Lord, Petros Treeah-Pohtahmohs. Since then, there has seldom been a time when a Pahpahs was not a high officer in the armies of Kehnooryohs Ehlahs.

"That Lord Alexandras who is coming to speak with you served the present High Lord's father, Basil, for nearly all his life. He was a tremendously popular Strahteegohs— not only with the Ehleenoee, but with every manjack of the barbarian mercenaries, who seldom have any use for any Ehleenoee officer. When Basil died, however, Lord Alexandras' luck ran out. Basil's son and heir, Demetrios, could not have been less interested in affairs military; in fact, everything in his domain was considered in value only as it was useful in the promotion of his personal pleasures. A covey of officers and high nobles, Lord Alexandras among them, commenced a conspiracy to replace Demetrios with a High Lord at once less hedonistic and more militaristic. They were, in some way, found out— some say that Lord Alexandras' own son betrayed them on a promise of leniency for his father and family. If such a promise was ever made, it certainly was not kept. Deme-trois had the would-be conspirators and their kin hunted down and put to death with incredible savagery or immured under his palace to be dragged forth and further tortured or maimed whenever he became bored. Some few escaped, fled to Karaleenos or the barbarian kingdoms or oversea, and Demetrios placed huge rewards for their capture and return to him—alive. It had been generally held that Lord Alexandras was dead, but now it seems that he never even left Kehnooryohs Ehlahs and has indeed been in hiding within less than forty leagues of Demetrios' very capital!

"As regards the man himself, he is a throwback, almost as different from most of the Ehleenoee of today as would be Hwahlis Linsee or Djeri Hahfmun or any other of our people. As a young man, at the court of Basil—who, though infamous for his cruelties and dissipations, was all man, something his son is not—Alexandras Pahpahs stood out like a sore thumb. He was ever the direct antithesis of the fop, affecting plain clothing and unadorned, serviceable weapons and gear. He is fluent in every language and dialect used on this coast, and has a phenomenal memory for names and faces and dates and events. They say that he never forgets anything that he reads and he reads not only Ehleenokohs, but Old Merikan as well. The numbers of his defeats may be counted on the fingers of one hand and, though he is wont to make quick decisions, they are invariably sound decisions. Though he has been known to encourage or condone some rather gruesome practices in warfare, in command he is fair and eminently just. He is honest to a fault, brutally frank, and worships personal and family honor as a god. He is clean and decent and his tastes are simple and natural. He is now sixty or thereabouts."

Milo soon discovered that Mara had been right about Lord Alexandras Pahpahs. He was so bluntly frank as to be almost disconcerting. The moment that the amenities preceding their private meeting had been attended, he launched into a series of probing questions.

"My Lord Milos [from the start, he had Ehleenicized Milo's name], for what possible reason did your people come to this land? You are horse-nomads, you need plains and prairies, endless expanses of graze for your herds and flocks, and you'll not find them hereabouts. This is farming country. If your purpose is simply one of despoiling this land, then moving on to another, you'll find no ally hi me, quite the contrary, sir. The rulers of this land and people have served my kin ill; but only the rulers, never the land or the people who live on it. The people are one with me. They are as my flesh and I shall defend them to the last drop of my blood! So, then, tell me why you are come to Kehnooryohs Ehlahs."

Milo told the old fighter as much of the truth as he felt he should know. "Lord Alexandros, for many hundreds of years has this tribe been nomadic, but no more. In the time of the gods, the sacred ancestors came from the sea —from 'the Holy City of Ehlai beside the shining sea'— and it was long ago prophesied that, in due time, they should return to the sea and rebuild their city. When the tribe comes within sight of the sea, they shall cease to be nomads. They will but wait there for a sign, a sign that will tell them where Wind, Who blew them here, wishes them to begin their rebuilding."

The old Ehleen nodded. " The Prophecy of the Return'? Yes, I've acquired some little familiarity with the customs and legends of the western peoples, Lord Milos. However, as I remember having heard, your tribe was to be led back to the sea by an immortal god. Are you then a god, Lord Milos?"

"No, Lord Alexandros," replied Milo. "I am but a man like you."

The Strahteegohs eyed him shrewdly. "What is your family name, Lord Milos?"

"Though I am clanless, in my capacity here," responded Milo "my clan is Morai."

Lord Alexandros shook his head. "That is your name, among the nomads, Lord Milos. But you are no nomad, that much is obvious. For one thing, you're too tall and big-boned; for another, there's your coloring, had you a beard and civilized clothing, you could walk the streets of any city of this realm without drawing a second glance. It is quite clear, to me, you are an Ehleen! Judging by the idioms of your Ehleeneekos, I should say that you came from Kehnooryohs Makedonia and that you are noble-born. You have no need to feel shame for your present status, you know. Whatever dishonor caused you to leave your homeland has apparently been long expunged, for a stranger who lacked for honor could not have risen to your present exalted position among these people. I greatly admire the western nomads, Lord Milos. I admire their bravery, their honesty and then- inflexible code of honor. These are qualities which my own ancestors possessed, which—to my shame—their descendents have lost. I could not watch this land despoiled and its people extirpated; but even a barbarian king could rule it better than the present kakistocracy. That the new ruler should be an Ehleen of noble lineage is even better. This is why I ask you your family name, Lord Milos."

It was Milo's turn to shake his head. "I reiterate, Lord Alexandros, no matter what I may appear, I am no Ehleen! I am Milo Morai, War Chief of this tribe."

The old nobleman's features darkened and his lips became a tight line and the words which next issued from between them were clipped, short, and sharp as a new-honed blade.

"I do not believe you, Lord Milos! For some cryptic reason, you wish to delude me. And you obviously take me for a fool. I am not! Until you decide to be candid with me, I can discern no point in continuing discussion of an alliance. Now, will you tell me your Ehleen name?"

"Oh, 'Lekos, 'Lekos, ever were you pig-headed! With a bone in your teeth, you're stubborn as a hound. I should have thought that age might have vouchsafed you some measure of wisdom," said Mara as she advanced into the room.

She was garbed as an Ehleen noblewoman, jeweled and cosmetized, her hair elaborately coiffed. Milo had never seen her like this.

But Lord Alexandros obviously had! He paled and rapidly crossed himself with a trembling hand. "Dear sweet God!" he whispered. "Lady Mara! Lady Mara of Pohtahmohs! Am I mad? Was the wine drugged? Or are you a ghost out of the past, come to haunt me?"

Chapter 19

It is told, that in the days
When Gods bestrode this earth, The Sacred Ancestors of our clans
Did have their birth, In the God-built city of Ehlai,
By the blue and sunny water; Whence they fled, when evil Gods
Their own good Gods did slaughter, In God-made wingless birds,
They flew above the mountains, To bide within the ancient caves,
Until the fiery fountains Had ceased to blossom, where

The Gods' death-arrows fell. . . . —From "Song of the Beginning," Clan-Bard Song

A half-smile curled Mara's lips. "No, 'Lekos, you are not mad." She glided to a point beside his chair, lifted his wine cup and took a long draught of its contents. Then she laid the warm palm of one smooth hand on his scarred, gnarled knuckles and, gazing into his bewildered eyes, said, "Nor was the wine drugged, 'Lekos, nor am I a ghost."

Lord Alexandros' mind was whirling madly. He felt as if he had been clubbed. He shook his white-maned head vigorously. "But.. . but. . . Mara ... my love ... it... it's impossible! Impossible! You . . . not one white hair .. . no change at all ... and . . . and it's been nigh to forty years! It's impossible, d'you hear me? You cannot be her!"

Her voice became tender. "Poor 'Lekos, I could not tell you then; so you do not understand now. 'Lekos, long years ago I gave you a token. It was a cameo executed in the milk-stone with the gem for its setting. In the gem, which is an amethyst, is a tiny cavity filled with liquid. On the back of the stone was carved a single word."

"Remember," whispered Lord Alexandros with awe and reverence. "Then, impossible as it is, it must be. None other, even my wife, ever knew of that stone. Many years ago in a battle, the chain which held the golden case in which it was sealed was torn from my neck. After the battle, I went back and scoured the bloody ground until I found it. Something—horse-hoof or chariot-wheel —had crushed the case flat against a rock and ground the stone within to dust. Since then, my only links with you have been my memories and ... my love."

Bending over him, Mara tilted back Alexandros' head and kissed his lips. Then, leaning back against the table, she said, "Oh, God, I had almost forgotten! I loved you so much, my 'Lekos, loved you more than I have ever loved another man in all the years of a long, long life."

"And I, you," replied Lord Alexandros. "And I waited, hoping against hope, long after all my old comrades were wed. At last, bowing to familial pressure, I married. For twenty years was I wedded to Katrina and, though I got children upon her and the fondness of familiarity inevitably developed, I never loved her. It was ever you, my love, you who inhabited my dreams or fantasies, you whose name I called in sleep or delirium. Oh, why, why Mara? Why did you go away? Why did you never return to me?"

She took his old hand again, and stroked it as she an-' swered him. "Because I could not, 'Lekos. You'll never know how every fiber of my being wanted to stay with you. For years, each time I thought of you or heard of your exploits, I ached to be with you once more. But to have done so, 'Lekos, to have surrendered to my desires would have been wrong, terribly wrong.

"For one thing, 'Lekos, I could never have given you children..."

When he opened his mouth to retort, she gently placed her finger athwart his lips. "Wait, my love, hear me out

"The second thing is this: I could not have borne watching you grow old and finally die, while I remained as I am; and I could not have left you a second tune."

Lord Alexandras' eyes seemed to be bulging from their sockets. "No!" he gasped vehemently. 'Wo, 111 not believe it! You? My Mara . . . one of the Cursed? No, there is nought of evil or devilishness in you. For some reason, you're lying to me! Can't bel-----"

Mara shook her head. "Milo, give me your boot-dagger and come around here to restrain him, if necessary. I'm going to have to give him proof that he will believe."

Before he rose, Milo drew his short-bladed sgain dubh and handed it to her, then came around the table to stand close behind Lord Alexandras' chair. The old man was wonderingly glancing at first one then the other of them.

Mara handed the Ehleen the small knife. "'Lekos, assure yourself that this weapon is genuine, that it is sharply pointed and that the blade will not retreat into the hilt." Then, she set about dragging over another of the heavy chairs and placing it so that she could sit facing him. That done she held out her hand to Lord Alexandras.

"The knife, please, 'Lekos."

Taking the blade, she laid it on the chair-arm and began to undrape the upper portion of her torso, not ceasing until her entire left side—shoulder to waist—was exposed. Then she picked up the sgain dubh and tested its point on her fingertip.

"You are satisfied that the knife is genuine, 'Lekos?" she inquired.

All but frozen by what he suspected was to come, the white-haired man could only nod dumbly.

Mara used one hand to lift her brown-nippled left breast, then placed the needle-tip of the little dagger in the flesh just below the breast's proud swell. Gritting her teeth and tightening her lips, she commenced to slowly push the short, broad blade into her chest.

"NO!" shouted Lord Alexandras, starting up. Only Milo's powerful hands, gripping the elderly nobleman's biceps, restrained him from his purpose.

When the guardless hilt was pressed against her skin, Mara said, "Dear 'Lekos, you were but twenty years of age when I fell in love with you; and at that time, I had lived over two hundred and fifty years already! Now, I am nearly three hundred."

Gathering a handful of the stuff of her gown, she held it in readiness as she slowly withdrew the steel from her chest, being careful not to cut the sensitive breast in so doing. When she was sure that the Strahteegohs had gotten a good look at the wound, she pressed the bunched cloth against it, nodded at Milo to release his hold and started to speak again in a slow, gentle tone.

"Lekos, I've no idea how that terrible myth originated —the 'Curse of the Undying.' For the only thing that makes our lives cursed is the unremitting persecution of us by those who believe that ancient fable. Fortunately, these Horseclansmen don't share that murderous misbelief and, for the first time in more years than I care to remember, I've been able to relax, be myself, let down my guard and live at peace with others of my kind. The tribesmen all revere us, you see.

' 'Lekos, now you see why I could not marry you, why it would've been so terribly wrong. I never married anyone until quite recently. When I did, it was to the god of these people, one like myself." She extended her right hand to Milo, who took it and came to stand beside her.

"So," Lord Alexandras nodded. "You did lie to me after all. You stated that you were not a 'god.'"

Milo shook his head. "I am not a god, only a man like yourself. That I differ from you, hi some respects, is the norm, for in nature no two things or beings are or can be precisely similar. I did not ask to be what I am, nor did Mara, nor did little Aldora. Both of them were born as they are, perhaps I was, too, I don't know; I was born nearly six hundred and fifty years ago, which makes it difficult, sometimes, to remember. Until about two hundred years ago, I had thought that persons like me were a by-product of that man-made catastrophe of over half a millenium ago, which came quite close to exterminating man. Now, I am not so sure but what we are a superior mutation of man. We have probably been cropping up, here and there, since long before the catastrophe of which I spoke. But in a world of several billions we were not so noticeable as we are and have been in the more recent past. Too, it is logical that a larger proportionate number of us should have survived, where most of the races of man did not, for—as is well known—we are much harder to kill than our non-mutant kindred—nature's recompense, I suppose, for the fact that we are sterile.

"You state yourself to be one flesh with the people whom your house should, by right, be ruling. I can understand this, Lord Alexandros, for I am as one flesh with the kindred, my people, too. Hundreds of years ago— realizing that, hi the world as it was then, a nomadic existence offered my people's ancestors the best chance of survival—I established among them the rudiments of their culture and way of life. Though rude and barbaric and cruel in some respects, it has been a good life for them. From a beginning of a few dozens of terrified, pre-ado-lescent children—the orphaned remnant, who were all that was left of a city which had died of all-consuming fire—the Kindred are become a strong, independent, self-reliant people.

"Because I knew that, without it, they had little chance even of life, I gave them the Law and taught them to reverence their gods. Although I was absent from them for over two hundred years, they never wavered in that reverence, and not even I could sway them from its path today."

Lord Alexandros had regained his composure. Both Milo and Mara were surprised at the speed with which he had done so, considering the severity of the emotional shock he had just undergone. Keeping his eyes fixed on Milo's face, he heard him out.

"You know, Lord Milos, strange as it may sound, I had never connected the 'Undying God' legends of the western barb . . . nomads with the well-known facts that certain persons existed who were all but invulnerable to most forms of death. Knowingly, I had never met one of you—your kind—and knew but little of you save what the priests say, 'evil, unnatural, creatures of the Antichrist, agents of die Devil.' Truly, I knew not what to believe. Had you alone confronted me with your . . . peculiarity, I should probably have bade you a courteous farewell, promised to think on this matter of an alliance, then gathered my mercenaries and marched against you to crush your evil before it could spread.

"But, with Mara, too . . . Husband or not, I'll tell you, Lord Milos, that forty years agone, we were much in love and there was such between us that I know her as I know myself! No army of priests could ever convince me that there is aught evil or unnatural in her! So, by your leave, I'll put my questions to her."

After Lord Alexandros was satisfied, he, Milo, and Mara came to an unofficial agreement. Then they and the two mercenary captains went before the Council of Chiefs.

Some seventy-odd of Milo's personal troop had agreed to assume the surname Kuk and had elected Hwil Kuk to be their chief, whereupon, the council—in session two weeks agone—had unanimously welcomed Clan Kuk to the tribe. So now, forty-three chiefs sat in council.

After a certain amount of orderly debate—which to Lord Alexandras, Djeen, and Sam appeared to be a but barely controlled state of chaos and set them to nervously fingering their hilts, expecting a pitched battle to erupt at any moment, as furious rhetoric and deadly insults flew thick and fast among the chiefs—the agreement became official. Mara produced documents setting out the provisions of the alliance, in both Ehleeneekos and Old Meri-kan. Milo, Lord Alexandras, Djeen, Sam, and five of the chiefs signed it; the other chiefs made their marks.

In partial payment for aiding Lord Alexandras to ascend to the throne of his ancestors, the tribe was to receive clear title to whatever site Wind chose for then: city and its environs. In addition, High Lord Alexandras and his people were to render them every possible assistance in the construction of said city. While in no way subjects of the High Lord, the tribe willingly accepted the responsibility of continuing to provide troops for the High Lord's armies.  These troops were to be  armed and mounted at tribe expense, but to be paid regular wages by the High Lord or his paymaster. In the present campaign, the  tribe's   fighters  were  to  function   as  skirmishers, shock-troops and/or a screening-force of horse-archers, while the Maiden Archers were to provide concentrated covering-fire where needed. Though the bulk of them were not to penetrate Kehnooryohs Atheenahs when it fell (a wise precaution, both Milo and Mara agreed, as: not even Milo himself could predict how the Horseclans-i men would behave), they were to be paid their fair shares of whatever loot might have been taken, had the city been properly sacked—something Lord Alexandras did; not care to countenance, knowing that only Demetrii and certain of the nobles were truly his enemies. Anoth provision was that, from the signing of the alliance hei forth, the nomads were to desist the despoiling the coi tryside and killing or enslaving its inhabitants. Lord Alexandros saw no need in attempting to forbid them to fight, if attacked, but they were not to initiate hostilities in future.

The moment formalities were completed, Lord Alexandras and his escort enhorsed for Lintchburk to begin preparations to move his camp and men to Theesispolis; as well as to dispatch certain trusted individuals to Kehnooryohs Atheenahs, Petropolis, Nohtohspolis, Lee-stispolis, and certain other ports and cities, to sound out the various elements of the population and place the word of Lord Alexandras' imminent arrival in the proper ears. Within a fortnight of Lord Alexandras' condottas' appearance at Theesispolis, Milo had the chiefs pass the word to break camp. All spies were back and had made favorable reports, all conferences were completed, and it was time to begin the final advance.