AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION

The following tale is a fantasy, pure and simple. It is a flight of sheer imagination. It contains no hidden meanings and none should be read into it; none of the sociological, economic, political, religious, or racial "messages," with which far too many modern novels abound, are herein contained. The Coming of the Horseclans is, rather, intended for the enjoyment of any man or woman who has ever felt a twinge of that atavistic urge to draw a yard of sharp, flashing steel and with a wild war cry recklessly spur a vicious stallion against impossible odds.

If I must further catagorize, I suppose this effort falls among the sci-fi/fantasy stories which are woven about a post-cataclysmic age, far in our future. In this case, the story is set in the twenty-seventh century. The world with which we are dealing is one still submerged hi the barbarism into which it was plunged some six hundred years prior to the detailed events, following a succession of man-made and natural disasters which extirpated whole nations and races of mankind.

For the scholars and just plain curious: Yes, the language of the Blackhairs or Ehleenoee is Greek. I have, indeed, indulged in a bit of literary license with regard to spelling, both in that language and in Merikan or English. I tender no apologies.

—Robert Adams



PROLOGUE

Out from the caves, onto arid earth, the Kindred trod. There, were they found by the one Vndying God. He did teach the Kindred all of life and the Law, How the Horse to ride, how the bow to draw, Work of iron, work of leather, work of bone, Work of wood, work of fire with steel and stone, Did teach of how to mindspeak Horse and Cat. Three hundreds years and more he did remain, And leaving, promised One would come again, To lead the clans whose honor bore no stain Back to the sea, their City to regain.

—Chorus of "The Prophecy of the Return"

After two hundred years of roaming over most of a strange, altered world, I came back to the area from which I had begun my fruitless quest, the high plains of what had once been the United States of America. Search as I might, I had been unable to find that fabled isle, said to be peopled exclusively by men and women like myself.

Near the headwaters of the Red River, I rode into the camp of Clan Morguhn. They had summered in the mountains and were moving toward the Llano IJstacado to meet with other clans and establish a winter camp. I represented myself as a clanless man, dropping vague references to a mysterious plague which had wiped out my clan-of-birth, and I was granted the hospitality of Chief Djimi's tent.

We wintered at a bend of the Brazos River, along with four other kindred clans. As the river was beginning to swell with spring snow-melt, our camp became host to Blind Hari Kruguh, the tribal bard. He remained with us until New-grass-time. When the clan dispersed, both he and I rode north with Clan Ohlsuhn. From that day to this, he has ever remained near to me and we have become the closest of friends.

It was the exercise of his not inconsiderable powers which prevented the tribe from separating three years after my return, following the Tenth Year Council and feasts. Bidding the chiefs into yet another sitting, he introduced me. As sole survivor of my clan, I was automatically Morai of Morai, their peer. He recounted the manner of my arrival, sang the entire "The Prophecy of the Return," then pointed out the host of similarities between my coming and the verses of that ancient song. The upshot was that I was acclaimed War Chief of the tribe. The clans began to prepare for the long awaited return to the Sacred Sea, to rebuild their Holy City, Ehlai.

From my travels, I knew better than to attempt a trek to the true place of origin of their ancestors, what had been southern California. The worldwide seismic disturbances of some three hundred years before had tumbled most of that nuclear-scarred area into the Pacific Ocean. Therefore, I led them east....

—From the Journal of Milo Morai

Chapter 1

Ax and saber, spear and bow. See the craven Dirtmen go. Ride them down, lay them low. Each and every maiden catch, Put fiery torch to bone-dry thatch. From Dirtman shoulders, heads detach.

—Horseclan Riding Song

The farmers were big men. They outnumbered the small contingent of nomad raiders by more than two-to-one and they fought with desperation, but it was the desperation of hopelessness and this counted against them. Also against them were the facts that their opponents had been born in the saddle and had cut their teeth on their sabers and axes. Their cuirasses of boiled leather turned aside the agriculturists' hastily snatched weapons. Besides, most of the farmers were drunk.

The arrow-volley which preceded the first charge had dropped more than a dozen of the olive-skinned dancers. Most of the remainder fell, as had the ripe grain whose harvest they had been celebrating, beneath the keen edges of the riders' steel or the churning hoofs and ravening teeth of their mounts.

Cut off and alone, a flashily dressed, beefy man swung a ppleax with such force that it severed the foreleg of a passing horse. But he dropped his well-used weapon and staggered back, clutching at the coils of his intestines which spilled through the abdominal slash dealt him by the crippled horse's wiry, towheaded rider. Another second found the nomad kneeling by his victim, choking on his own blood, an arrow transfixing his throat.

As Milo Morai jerked his saber free from the body of his latest opponent, a hunting arrow caromed off the side of his spiked helmet. Glancing in the direction whence the shaft had come, he saw the archer shoot the tow-headed man. He urged his palomino stallion, Steeltooth, toward the gangling teen-ager, who loosed one more shaft at Milo, dropped his longbow, and turned to run. Milo leaned from his saddlelike kak and, with a single slash of his heavy saber, sent the boy's wide-eyed head spinning from his body. The headless trunk, spouting twin cataracts of blood, ran several more yards before it fell, twitching and jerking, to the firelit dust of the village square.

After the riders' third sweep across the village, nearly all the Dirtmen lay dead or dying in the bloody, hoof-churned mud of the dancing ground. Only one point of resistance remained: A knot of six or eight fanners, plus two men whose garb, armor, and fighting skill attested them professional soldiers, had formed a semi-circle, their backs to the front wall of the headman's house. They were holding their own; in the space before them lay the bodies of four nomads and one horse.

The riders were drawing up to charge yet again, but Milo pulled a shinbone whistle from within his cuirass and blew the signal to halt, then nudged Steeltooth over to the bunched raiders.

"Arrows," he said shortly. "No honor to be gained by allowing scum like this to send more of you to Wind's Home. Drop all but the money-fighters."

Grinning, three of the horsemen uncased their short hornbows. When the last of the farmers had been felled, Milo toed Steeltooth to a point midway between his riders and the two armored soldiers, each armed with a three-foot broadsword and a long, wide-bladed dirk.

"Meelahteh Ehleeneekos?" Milo inquired. "Or can you speak Merikan?"

The bigger of the two, a man a couple of inches taller than Milo, couched his answer in a drawled, very slurred dialect of the second tongue. "I talk 'em both, you murderin' son of a bitch, you!"

Milo's white teeth flashed startlingly against the background of his weathered face as he smiled his approval of the defiant words.

"You're a brave man, soldier. Are you free-fighters? If so, I've always employment for men with guts."

Raising his head, snorting his scorn, the big man stated, "Yes, I'm a free-fighter, but I'd fight for the Witch King - first. Besides, we are sworn bodyguards to the Lady Mara of Pohtohmahs."

"So be it," Milo declared, turning the stalh'on and riding back to his nomads. As he approached, two of the archers raised their bows, but he waved them down. He mind-spoke Steeltooth and the big horse sank onto his muscular haunches. Milo stepped from his mount and unslung his iron-rimmed shield, then he stalked toward the soldiers.

When he was closer, he waved his blood-smeared saber at the arrow-quilled bodies of the farmers, saying, "They were treacherous Dirtmen and deserved no better than they received. You two, I'll grant a soldier's death. Singly or both together against me, you choose."

Side by side, the two swordsmen attacked. While fending off the larger with his shield, Milo first feinted at the smaller's exposed face, then brought the back edge of bis saber up into the unarmored crotch, recovering with a vicious drawcut. The smaller man let go both sword and dirk and dropped, screaming and clutching at his mutilated masculinity.

The larger man was an excellent swordsman, but Mflo had had superiority when the soldier's grandfather's grandfather's great-grandfather had been but a whining babe. After a brief flurry of stroke and counterstroke, he found an opening and rammed the center spike of his shield through the mercenary's eye into his brain. Then a quick signal brought a mercy-arrow to end the sufferings of the smaller man.

After they had fired the emptied stables, Milo galloped ahead of the procession of captured animals—horses, mules, and a huge, twenty-five-band Northorse gelding. House by house, the larger element of the raiding party had rooted out the surviving villagers and herded them into the body-littered, blood-splotched square. As he approached, Milo could hear the women keening over their dead.

The woman caught Milo's eye the moment he reined in beside the men who were guarding the huddle of prisoners. Although obviously of the same race as the people around her, she constituted a distillation of their good physical qualities, unpolluted by any of the bad. Her features were fine-boned and her light-olive skin, flawless. Her eyes were black and slightly almond-shaped; black, too, was her long, thick hair, so black that the flaring torches gave it bluish tints. Her hands were narrow and long-fingered, her body slim-hipped and graceful. She was quite small for an adult woman of her race, standing but a bare finger over fifteen hands, but the proud upthrusting of her well-formed breasts made it clear that she was no child.

Holding Steeltooth's head high (the war horse would bite any human he could get his teeth to unless that human looked and smelled like a nomad), Milo rode over to the small, dark woman. Lounging hi his kak, he studied her for a long moment. She met his gaze, no fear in her eyes or her bearing, only hate and ill-suppressed anger.

Suddenly Milo grinned, commenting in Old Merikan, "Mad as hops, aren't you, you little vixen? You'd be highly dangerous to bed, probably claw my eyes out, if you couldn't lay hand to a knife. But for all of it, I think you'll be worth the effort."

He mindspoke the horse and, once more, the golden animal sank onto his haunches. Standing astride the glossy steed, Milo curtly beckoned her. "Ehlahteh thoh!" he commanded, then repeated himself in Old Merikan, "Come here, woman!"

By way of answer, she quickly stooped, her right hand going to the top of one of her felt traveling boots. When she straightened, the torchlight glinted on the steel blade of a small dagger. Still unspeaking, she launched herself directly at Milo. But she had reckoned without Steeltooth. As she came within range, the killer's big, yellow teeth clacked, missing her by but half a fingerbreadth. Shocked, she swerved, planted her foot in a slimy puddle of congealing blood. The foot shot from under her, and she fell heavily . . . directly under the head of the palomino stallion!

Steeltooth felt well served. His head darted down with the speed of a stooping falcon and it required all of Milo's strength to halt that deadly lunge.

In falling, the little woman had lost her knife. She lay, supported on hip and elbow, immediately in front of Steeltooth's huge, chisellike incisors. Her wide eyes had become even wider. She, who had shown no fear of Milo or the other nomads, was quite obviously terrified of the blood-hungry horse.

Milo spoke in a low, calm voice. "Do not attempt to rise, woman, that would put you in range of him, despite the reins. It's only my strength against his, for he has no bit. Do exactly as I say and you have a chance. If you understand me, blink three tunes, rapidly."

Her long, sooty lashes flicked once, twice, thrice, and he went on, "Now roll onto your belly, very slowly . . . Good. Keep your head and your rump down, use your arms to drag yourself to me. If you try to go the other way, he'll think you're fleeing from him, and I'll not be able to hold him; so come here, but do it slowly, very slowly."

She followed his instructions and, at length, lay at his right, her fine clothing filthy with dust and grime and well smeared with the blood through which she had had to crawl. Wordlessly, she obeyed his gesture and, when she was mounted before him, he eased up on the reins and signaled the horse to rise. Once erect, the palomino looked about for the small two-leg he had almost had, but it was nowhere to be seen, although its scent was still present. He shook his head and stamped, snorting his disgust.

Milo had one of his raiders bind the captive and place her in the cargo-pannier of the Northorse, while he saw to the systematic looting of the village. Custom required that a slave be returned for each man killed or seriously wounded, so he selected seven of the strongest-looking girls, then two more for Clan Kahrtr. When these had been bound and lashed to kak or packsaddle, when the Northorse and mules had been loaded with loot and the weapons and armor of the dead, when the corpses of the slain kindred had been placed beside Djimi Kahrtr's mutilated body, Milo allowed shifts of raiders to "test" the remaining Dirtwomen and thus decide which of them they wished to take with them.

While the shrill pleas and sobbing screams of outrage and pain attested to the strenuous activity of the first shift, Milo and the others herded the laden animals to the outskirts of the village. When the third shift had chosen and its well-raped choices were tied across packsaddle or crupper, the remaining villagers—old men, children, and old or ugly or crippled women—were chased far into the stubbled fields. ITien, beginning with the headman's house where lay their late comrades and the two dead soldiers, they fired every structure in the village—sparing not even the privies.

The cross was the only thing of wood left standing, that same cross on which they had found the body of their scout. Onto the bloodstreaked timbers, they bound the cadaver of the village headman. Standing on his kak, Milo gripped a handful of the stripped body's hair and held its head erect. One of the archers then drove an arrow through eye and brain and skull, pinning the head to the upright.

Milo hung a weatherproof case on the jutting arrow. It contained a roll of parchment on which he had printed a message in three languages—Ehleeneekos, Horseclan Mer-ikan, and the trade language, Old Merikan: This Dirtman and his pack took a man of the Kahrtr Clan by guile and murdered him by torture. Dirtman, behold and be warned! The cost of the life of one Horseclansman is a village and every man in it! By the hand of Milo Morai, War Chief of the Tribe-that-will-return-to-the-Sacred-Sea.

Chapter 2

Man and Cat and Horse are Kindred, one,
"Neath high domain of Wind and Sword and Sun.

—From "The Couplets of the Law"

The party had not been riding more than an hour when a savage storm struck. The windy gusts came horizontally, the rain accompanied by peasize hailstones which rang on helmets like sling missiles. But Milo led his men on despite the dark and storm, glad of them, hi fact. For they were but a small group and uncomfortably near to the High Lord's capital, with its well-armed soldiery, and the sheets of water would surely wash away the traces of their passage, making things more difficult for the patrols that were certain to be after them by daybreak, if not already. Burdened as they were, they could look forward to at least twenty hours of travel.

From their present position, it was some fifty miles to the tribe's sprawling encampment around the hilltop town which the Ehleenoee called Theesispolis, and nearly every one of those miles lay through little known, hostile country.

Throughout the rest of the night, Milo drove them on westward. When it became too light to travel safely and the rain slackened, they found a dense copse and made a cold camp. After the animals were all fed and picketed, the captive women were untied and, under close guard, allowed to eat and attend their bodies' needs. Then the strongest of the men cold-fitted an iron cuff to each woman's right ankle, the cuffs bearing the mark of the clan to whom the slave-woman now belonged. Threading an iron chain through the cuffs, the raiders picketed then- captives on the other side of the clearing from the horseline, and the first shift of sleepers flopped down and were soon snoring despite soggy earth and wet clothing. A group of equal size watched over them, the slaves and the horses, while the other third guarded the perimeter of the copse and watched for signs of pursuit. All were seasoned warriors, old hands at raiding.

Milo's cuff was of hardened silver rather than iron, and he fitted it to his captive himself. Then, taking a leathern flask and a brace of small horncups from among his gear, he poured out measures of a clear liquid and offered one to the dark woman, who stared at it for a moment before accepting. She watched him toss down his own and attempted to follow suit; gasping, spluttering, choking, her eyes streaming, she dropped the cup. Milo laughed until he was forced to hold his sides.

When she had regained her powers of speech, she angrily demanded, "What in hell is that stuff?"

"Distilled grain mash," Milo answered smilingly. "When you're accustomed to it, you'll find it quite pleasing. We call it "water of life'."

At his instruction, she sipped her refilled cup, deciding after a moment that she could truly learn to enjoy the fluid.

While packing flask and cups away, Milo regarded her closely. "Two sleep warmer than one, woman. Give me your word you'll not try to escape and I'll not chain you with the others."

She shrugged. "Where could I go? I've no idea where we are and only the vaguest idea in which direction Kehnoor-yohs Atheenahs lies. You or one of your barbarians will probably rape me shortly, but at least you've not tried to kill me. My next captor might not be so merciful." Reaching down, she tapped a fingernail against the silver ring. "I suppose this means I'm now your clan's slave. Am I allowed to ask your name and the name of your clan,

Master?"

"My name is Milo Morai. I am clanless as a War Chief must be; that way, there's less chance that hell play favorites."

"I guess you expect me to feel honored that my master is so important a man." She gave him a hard, cold stare before continuing. "Well, I don't feel honored. All that I feel is relief. You see, I have some knowledge of your disgusting customs, barbarian. I'm relieved that, clanless as you say you are, you're the only man to whom I'll have to submit. At least, I'll not be the common property of half a hundred of your stinking kinsmen. You are a strong and handsome man and, for what you are, you seem kind. Perhaps I can come to enjoy coupling with you. Time will tell."

He shook his head brusquely. "Sorry to disillusion you, but you're no common Dirtwoman to be taken for slave or bed-warmer. For you, I'll expect a ransom."

It was the woman's turn to shake her head. "There's no one to ransom me, Master. I, too, have no family; they are all long dead. As for my own wealth, my jewels were the bulk of it, and your raiders have them all now. No, my Master, slave-woman or concubine is the only use that Mara of Pohtohmahs can ever be to you."

"So, you take another female, Friend Milo. For your kind, she is unugly. Perhaps this one will present you with kittens." The mindspeak wakened Milo and he sat up. A great, gray form loomed at his right. It sat in the classic feline posture, tail curled to cover forepaws. Milo reached out to gently scratch the underside of the lower jaw, between the wicked points of the long cuspids. Venting a rumbling purr, the cat extended his massive head to enable Milo to scratch the throat as well.

"You know how to please, don't you, Friend Milo?" The thought was clearer now that Milo was awake and they were in physical contact.

"What have you been up to, Horsekiller?" asked Milo silently. "There's still some blood at the left corner of your mouth, you know. Man blood?"

"Thanks for telling me." The creature raised one huge paw, licked it, and began to wash his face, while he thought-conversed with Milo.

"No, not your kind, Friend Milo. Understand, I've no objection to killing them, but the mere thought of having to actually eat one makes me gag; you wouldn't believe how awful they taste. No, the cub and I shared a small deer." He had finished his ablutions, but now extended his big pink tongue again, licking his furry lips in memory of the gastronomic pleasure. "Delicious. The cub killed it."

"Cub!" The thought was faint with distance. "7'm no cub! You may be Cat Chief and you may be older, but if you insult me so another time, this will be a day of claws."

"Cub, you are!" thought Horsekiller. "You are barely larger than your mother. Be impudent and you'll have toothprints on your haunches. I've nipped you before and I can do it again. Bear that in mind."

The thought was closer now, stronger. "You and what clan of two-legs, Mousekiller?"

Aloud, the Cat Chief ripped out a muted snarl. Every horse and mule on the picket line commenced to whinny and pull at the moorings, eyes rolling white.

"Easy, old friend, easy," thought Milo. "Can't you see that your son is teasing you? The clanshorses know you, but the others over there don't. Look what your snarl did. For sun's sake, let them know you've a full belly, before they stampede."

Obediently, the big animal stood and slowly strolled toward the picket line, beaming soothing thoughts ahead of him. Milo sensed Steeltooth and others of the clans-horses greeting the wanderer.

The huddled girl had not moved, and, thinking her yet asleep, Milo began to draw on his short boots. However, when he chanced to glance down, he could see that her eyes were wide open and fixed on the massive bulk of the cat, who was now working his way along the picket line, touching noses with each animal unacquainted with him.

"Master," she whispered, "what is that? It's as big as ... as a pony!"

Milo smiled reassuringly, squatted, and patted her grubby hand. "His name, in speech, would be Horsekiller. He's a Prairie Cat, Chief of the Cat Clan and an old friend. You've not seen him earlier because he and one of his sons have been scouting our rear to determine the numbers, speed, and route of the pursuit. When he's done mindspeaking the new animals. I'll introduce you."

Mara's brow wrinkled. "I have heard of these Prairie Cats. Is it true that you barb . . . uhh, nomads can really converse with them?"

"Quite true," Milo nodded. "He and I were just discussing, among other things, you; he feels that, for a human female, you are not unattractive and will throw healthy kittens. I agree."

"Naturally." Horsekiller projected his thought as he ambled back to Milo, picking a path among the sleeping raiders. "Any intelligent creature would agree with me, Friend War Chief. I don't know what it is to be wrong." "Nor," came the other thought which was now quite near, "what it is to be modest."

Milo mindspoke. "Horsekiller, can you reach this female's mind?"

After a moment, the cat replied, "Only the surface, Friend Milo. She has a mind-shield. I've touched but one other like it and . . . ahhh, pardon me." The Cat Chief stalked around Milo to Mara. He licked the little woman's hand, then crouched and laid his big head in her lap. The cat's demeanor was one of adoration, nothing less. Milo was shocked; he had never seen the Cat Chief behave so toward any two-leg.

"Friend Milo," Horsekiller chided him, "you have not yet mounted this female. You should. She wants you to." He had not personalized the transmission and Mara flushed.

So, thought Milo to himself, she can mindspeak; now I wonder.. ..

But Horsekiller went on. "Ah, you foolish two-legs, sometimes I wonder how I can bear to be around you. You waste so much of your lives. Life should be lived, Friend Milo, not frittered away on trivialities."

"My, my," thought Milo, "Horsekiller is become a philosopher in his old age."

The Cat Chief ignored the sarcasm. "Were you truly wise, Friend Milo, you would push this female onto her belly and sink your teeth into her neck and enter her body and . . . ahhhh . . . there are few things so enjoyable." The cat sighed. "It is on a plane with crouching in the snow on a crackling cold morning and feeling hot, fragrant blood spurt onto your nose as you tear your first mouthful from a new-killed fawn; or catching delicious little mice on a flower covered prairie under a warm, spring sky; or .. ."

Milo chuckled aloud, then mindspoke. "Horsekiller, you're a hedonist."

"He's a duty old cat!" announced the third mindspeak-er. "All he can think of is eating and making kittens, and then he wonders that I fail to respect him."

Horsekiller's ears went back in folds against his brawny neck and smoldering anger purged his mind of sensuality. Prairie Cats were every bit as hot-blooded and quicktempered as the human clansmen, this Milo knew well. And the last thing needed at this juncture was a spitting, squalling, cat fight, so Milo quickly interjected, "We're still in the land of the Blackhairs, with much danger behind and ahead. Horsekiller, as Cat Chief, you know better than to carry family squabbles on a raid."

Then he turned to the "smaller" cat—the cub weighed over 150 pounds, and his paws, larger even than his sire's, attested to the fact that he had yet to fill out. "Stop harassing your chief, Swimmer, or you'll be eating cold beef on herd-guard with your fellow kittens, until your mental maturity matches your physical. Understood?"

"I was only teasing." The yellow-brown cat sulked. "Can't I have any fun, Friend War Chief?"

"On a raid? No, definitely not, Swimmer," Milo affirmed. "Unless you want your pelt pegged out for curing behind some Blackhair's cabin."

The young cat shuddered. "Stop, please! I'll regurgitate all that fine venison. That was an obscene thing to suggest."

"But true, nonetheless," put in Horsekiller. "It is said that the king of the Blackhairs has his seat of ruling covered by a large robe made of pelts of Prairie Cats."

Swimmer shuddered again. "He must be a monster."

"No, Swimmer, just of another race. Few of his people can communicate with your kind. To them you are just animals—dangerous animals."

Deeply shaken, the adolescent feline crouched close to Milo, who stroked his head soothingly. "Are two-leg Blackhairs pursuing us, Horsekiller?"

"Yes, Friend Milo, but it will be night before they are near to this place."

"How many two-legs?"

"As many as a clan—males and females and cubs. Some on horses, some on two-wheels. Far behind them are many clans without horses, but they and the two-wheels are a long run south of this place on the flat-way."

So, Milo mused, it's as I thought. The chariots and the infantry are sticking to the road—what was Route 250, six hundred years ago. Even so, it may be a tight race. Laden with the loot and the slaves, we'll be hard put to outrun their cavalry. What I should do is dump the packs and the women here, but if I did, there'd be hell to pay. The men fought hard and well for this booty and won't give it up easily.

"Horsekiller, if you leave now, how long will it take you to reach tribe-camp?"

"One of your time periods, maybe less."

"Then go. Go fast, both of you. Horsekiller, go to Lord Bili of Esmith. Tell him that I said to ride at once with all his males and as many others as he can gather quickly. Then leave Swimmer to guide them. As for you, gather the Cats—as many as are not on duty—get them battle-armed, and speed back to me. Damn that cavalry! Why couldn't they have stayed on the road as well?"

Chapter 3

Clanswomen shall be taught the skills of war, To draw bow and to cast the spear afar; For valiant woman, valiant horse, and valiant man Do live and die in honor of their clan.

—From "The Couplets of the Law"

As the two giant cats sped westward, Milo strode among the sleepers, nudging them into wakefulness. Few words were required; the worry on his face said enough. Those who had removed their cuirasses re-donned them, then slapped saddles to horses. Once Steeltooth was saddled and accoutered, Milo assisted with the captured animals. With amazing speed, the little column was again underway, the captives' wrists lashed to pommel or packsaddle— all, save Mara; for some reason, Milo believed her, didn't think that she would try to escape. She rode beside him, astride dead Djimi Kahrtr's horse, her long hair stuffed under the late scout's peaked helmet.

This time they bore southwest toward the road. On it, they would make far better tune than cross-country and, now, speed was more important than concealment. It had been a 50-50 chance that all the pursuers would adhere to the road hi which case Milo might have swung wide to the north and missed the pursuit entirely. Dropping to the tail, he urged the riders on. He had lost his gamble, but had no intention of losing more than that.

It had been midday when they struck camp. The sun was low on the horizon when Milo sighted his objective. About three hundred years after what Milo thought of as the Two-Day War, there had been an earthquake of considerable proportions somewhere in the Eastern Ocean. This section of the piedmont, though not visited by the tidal waves which had devastated the seaboard, had been racked by sympathetic quakes. Now a result of this geologic turmoil confronted them—a sixty-foot-high upthrust of earth and rock and ancient asphalt shards, thickly grown with trees and undergrowth. The original path of the road bisected its hundred yard length, and the Sea-invaders had laid their replacement road under its thickly forested southern brow.

Milo waited until his party had rounded it before he halted them.

"Kindred, Blackhair cavalry rides close behind. After them are war-carts and spearmen. Just before we rode again, I sent Horsekiller and Swimmer to fetch help from the tribe, but it will take time for them to reach us. Saving this booty means much to you who fought for it and more to the clans of our kindred who died. Therefore, some must continue west, while the others of us delay the Black-hairs. Since we will not be enough to fight them sword-to-sword, I shall only take the bow-masters. The others leave your quivers behind. Now, ride!" Milo turned and led his nine bow-masters into the forest that fringed the hill. They had ridden but twenty yards when the pitch abruptly mounted, too steep for the horses. Mentally enjoining thek steeds to silence, the nomads dismounted, took their bows and quivers, and started to pick a way to the slope which overlay the road.

Burdened with several extra arrow cases, Milo was about to follow his men, when he heard two riders galloping from the west. He quickly nocked a shaft and crouched just below the hill. Careless of the low-hanging branches, Mara clattered into view, close-pursued by one of the booty-guard nomads, his saber out.

Milo stood and Mara leaped from her mount and raced to stand before him.

"What hi hell... ?" he began.

Flushed and panting, the girl stood with Djimi Kahrtr's cased bow in her hand. "Please, Master, let me stay with you. I'm a good archer and I've no love for the Eh-leenoee—Blackhairs, you call them. If I am to be one of your women, let me fight beside you, as Horsewomen do. Please allow me to stay."

"Horses! Many horses near, galloping." Steeltooth's thought beamed out.

"Oh, alright." Milo said hi exasperation. "It's too late to send you back now. Brother." He addressed the mounted clansman. "Go back to your duty and tell them to ride like the wind!"

Walking over to Mara's trembling, blowing horse, Milo untied the bundle of Djimi Kahrtr's weapons and gear from behind the kak. Fortunately, the nomad had been small, even for his race, and his armor was a fair fit for Mara.

"Can you use a sword, too, woman-of-surprises?" Mara nodded briskly. "If it becomes necessary, Master." So he slung the Kahrtr-crested baldric over one of her shoulders and the strap of an arrow case over the other. "Give me the bow, Mara. I'll string it for you."

She drew back. "I am capable of stringing my own bow, Master, thank you."

"Then do so, woman, and come on. Leave the case here. You'll not need it up there."

Urged on by repeated thought-messages from Steel-tooth, he placed his men just in time. He'd only just hunkered down when three scale-armored scouts galloped into view, the setting sun glinting from their lance points and oiled, black beards.

Beside him, Mara whispered, "Kaatahfrahktoee, the Mahvroh Ahloghoh. A Black Horse squadron. Most of them are from the southern lands, only the officers are Ehleenoee. They are mercenaries, but hard fighters."

Milo allowed the scouts to pass his position; the two archers around the hill would take care of them. Sure enough, there was soon a twanging of bowstrings and a strangled half-scream, then silence. Milo was sure that the approaching squadron had not heard any sounds, not above the clatter of their own advance.

Four abreast, they swept around the hill, pressing hard, their black horses well lathered. Behind the first troop was a knot of Ehleenoee officers, the gold-washed scales of their hauberks sparkling in the setting sun. As the dark-visaged, flashy group came into effective range, Milo placed a bone-tipped shaft hi their leader's right eye. At this, other bowstrings twanged around him. Mara's did as well, and, following the shaft, Milo saw it thud into a blue-cloaked Ehleen's throat—the girl could handle a bow at that!

Noisy confusion prevailed as the squadron commander and his staff went down. Horses became difficult to control for Milo and two nomads who were also mindtalkers were —even as they nocked, drew, and released, nocked, drew, and released—beaming warnings of imminent agony and death at the cavalry mounts. When both the first and second troops started to take casualties and the nerve-shattering screams of a wounded horse suddenly rent the air, the van wavered, milling uncertainly. Milo prayed to every god he'd ever heard mentioned that they'd break; panic is contagious, and if these two troops were routed, the entire squadron might be swept back with them.

But such was not to be. The Ehleenoee officers might be dead, but at least one effective noncom—always the backbone of any military body—had retained his life and, more importantly, his head. Milo could hear his hoarse bellow rising above the din. He was not shouting Ehlee-neekos words, but Southeastern Merikan. Milo could understand him easily, as could most of the nomads; the language was not that different from the Old Merikan of the plains.

"Hoi! Hoi! Stand firm! Boogluh! Hweanhz th fuggin boogluh?"

All at once a bugle signaled "Fours left." As it repeated the call, other buglers took it up, and—with or without human guidance—the well-drilled horses executed the indicated maneuver. Before the last of the cavalry had cleared the road, Milo saw a large, chunky man wheel his mount and, spurring hard, bear toward the hill at a dead run. Though the plates of his scale-mail were of plain, serviceable iron, his helmet decoration was that of a mercenary sergeant-major—the highest rank a non-Ehleen could hold in the territories of the Sea-invaders. His scar-seamed, weathered face was clearly visible as, heedless of the feathered death all around him, he bore down on that section of road where his officers had died. The horse galloped in on a wide arc and, a second before he reached his objective, the big man kicked free of his stirrups and slid to the off-side of the thundering animal. With his right leg gripping the underside of the horse, his left knee hooked onto the saddle's high cantle, and his left hand locked on-the forward strap of the double girth; he leaned down to tear the squadron standard from the dead hand which still held it. Throughout the courageous episode, the only arrows which struck the big man bounced harmlessly off the scales of his well-worn hauberk. As the sergeant regained his seat, he turned and flourished the standard at Milo and his men. If there were any three things the nomads appreciated and respected, they were bravery, defiance, and horsemanship; they cheered, shouting their approval of this valiant foe. Nothing but honor—for both individual and clan—could come from the killing of such a man!

Even Milo felt admiration, despite his realization that retrieval of that standard had probably sealed the fates of Mara and his nomads. As he and his companions watched, the squadron rallied and re-formed, its archers dismounting and advancing in a widely spaced line of skirmishers. Just behind them, at the walk, rode a triple-rank of cavalry —lances left behind, shields slung, to free both hands—at least two hundred of them.

"Twenty-to-one," thought Milo. "Good, hard, experienced soldiers, too, with a battlewise mind directing them. None of these showy Ehleenoee pantywaists. When the archers are close enough, they will lay down a covering fire and the horsemen will come in under it. They'll ride as far as the horses can go, then they'll dismount and climb up to us. And that will be all. You can't but admire that old bastard, but I wish to hell he had been killed!"

At three hundred paces, the archers halted and commenced to arch shafts onto the area occupied by the nomads. But Milo had chosen his position well, if hurriedly, with just this possibility in mind. Realizing that most of their arrows were being stopped or deflected by the overhanging branches of the thick old trees, the skirmishers picked up their quivers and paced closer. When they had halved their original distance, they again halted and their bolts came straight and true, to clatter among the rocks and tree trunks or sink into the rich loam. After a few minutes, they stopped, allowing the cavalry time to canter to a point out of the line of fire. When the bowstrings were twanging again, a bugle call commanded and the canter became a gallop. Abruptly, the two rearmost lines reined up on the opposite side of the road, the foremost continuing on to the foot of the rocky slope, where three men of every four dismounted and ran—zigzagging —up the slope. The moment the horse-holders were out of the way, the second line repeated the first's maneuver. Then the third followed suit and Milo shook his head in wonderment and awe. Gods, there went first-class soldiers. What couldn't he do with troops like that?

Sometime within the last twenty years, the original forward face of the south slope had slid down toward the new road, leaving the area on which Milo's nomads were making their stand. Before them was a sheer drop of twenty-odd feet. The soldiers would be able to scale it, but with difficulty. From the foot of this scarp was a thirty-degree, pebble-strewn slope, culminating in a jumble of rocks and smashed and uprooted trees. There was no cover worthy of the name on the pebbly slope, so Milo and his men saved their dwindling supply of arrows until the first line had reached this ready-made deathtrap.

A few of the men in the first line reached the foot of the scarp where they crouched helplessly, safe from the arrow-hail but too few in number to mount a frontal attack against who knew how many Western barbarians. Most of the first wave lay twitching or dead between their line-of-departure and their objective. A few had made it back to the questionable safety of their original position, where they awaited the reinforcement of the second wave. Atop the scarp, most of the arrowcases were empty and —as the cavalry archers had ceased fire for fear of felling their own—the nomads were scrabbling among the rocks, searching for undamaged shafts to supplement then- own meager supply. Then came the second wave and, though they broke it, too, Milo knew with certainty that they'd not break the third. He had one arrow, Mara had two, and the others had less than a dozen among them. To save time later, he drew his saber and buried its point in the leaf-mold within easy reach. Then he turned to Mara.

"You have fought well, Mara. It is not right you should die a slave. Move your leg so I may reach your ankle."

"Wait, Master." She laid her hand on his arm. "Horse-killer is coming. He and many, many of his kind and . . . and there is a ... another very near, but. . . but different." Her brow wrinkled.

Milo started. "Do you wish, woman, or do you . . . ?" Then, faint with distance, "I come, Friend Milo. The female's mind is even easier to range than yours. I come with many cats. Swimmer is with Friend Bill, while the young ones and the pregnant or nursing ones guard the camp. The rest are with me. I come."

Milo closed his eyes and devoted every ounce of concentration to the beaming of one word. "Hurry!"

Then, his mind relaxed and receptive, he caught the vague shadow of a thought. Slowly, it gained strength. "The female ... and the one called Milo . . , you are truly the friends of cats?" The mindspeaker was close.

When Milo affirmed his friendship with the Cat Clans, the mindspeaker went on. "Then, I shall try to aid you. I, too, hate Blackhairs. They killed my kin. I am the last. It is good to mindspeak again. It has been long and I was beginning to become an animal. I am old now, and not so fast as once I was, but what I can do, I will do. Wait."

Chapter 4

Arrow fly far, arrow fly true,
Strike   and  pierce   the  foeman   through.
Saber, slash, lay open throat.
Target, guard thy bearer well,
Spear-blade, all before you fell.
Heavy ax, with keen edge, rend.
Helm and cuirass, life defend.

—Horseclan War Song

Only there was no more time for waiting. The third wave had formed and, leaping the bodies of their predecessors, were pouring up the hazardous slope. Sure of reinforcement, the handful of men at the scarp-foot were already beginning to seek handholds and pull themselves up toward their quarry. Milo loosed his last arrow, dropped the now-useless bow and picked up his heavy saber.

An arrow hissed by his ear and he instinctively ducked. The archers had advanced to the moraine and were once more bringing them under fire. Further down, at the very lip of the scarp, two of the nomads stood and began to heave at the huge, jagged rock which had been sheltering them. It gave a little, then abruptly slipped from its centuries-old niche, to drop straight down the scarp-face, hurling a couple of climbing soldiers to their deaths and crushing another as it bounced toward the moraine. When it struck the base of the rock wall, two hundred cubic yards of earth and stone dissolved and began to pour after it with frightening speed, taking three nomads and an undeterminable number of soldiers with it. The entire scarp quivered and Milo started to call his surviving men to quit it, but at that moment, the first cavalryman pulled himself over the rim, almost directly before Milo and Mara.

She struck first and, as the bearded trooper parried her blow, Milo severed the man's right arm, just below the elbow. Holding the bloody stump and screaming, the soldier turned and stepped into space. When he struck the ground, his screams ceased. Then it was a maelstrom of hack and slash and thrust, of kicking the faces which came into view and stamping the hands, feeling the bones crunch under the boot heels.

For a moment, there was respite, even from arrows, for the archers had run out and had to send back to the horselines for more. While Milo and Mara and the four surviving nomads watched helplessly, their attackers reformed behind the moraine and a troop-strength contingent separated from the distant squadron to trot toward the scene of conflict. Meantime, the unemployed archers occupied themselves by dragging or carrying the wounded that lay on the slope back beyond the moraine.

After a brief pause to get their breath, Milo and the others hastily scrounged for arrows, being rewarded with a score of relatively undamaged shafts. The nomads thought to save them for the coming attack, until Milo pointed out that, except for those lost in the landslide, all thek companions had been slain by those same archers, who were presently busy on the slope and well within range of Horseclan bows. When the archers had fled—leaving fourteen of their number dead or dying on the blood-slimed avenue of attack—Mara sped a shaft which spitted both cheeks of a junior noncom, who had been shouting instructions to the massing survivors of the earlier assaults. At this, they elected to form farther down the embankment, nearer to the horselines, which thek reinforcements were quickly approaching.

All at once, the riderless horses commenced to mill and stk, nervously tossing thek heads and stamping, thek eyes rolling in fear. Then, with a blood-chilling snarl, two hundred pounds of grizzled feline fury launched itself from the lower reaches of the forest and landed atop the nearest cavaky mount. Though the cat attacked the animal viciously, it made no attempt to kill. The screams of the stricken horse panicked the others and, jerking their reins from the grasps of the horse-holders who were trying to remain on thek own bucking mounts, they sped to the four winds. Some half-dozen bore through the formation of dismounted men, bowling them over and stamping out lives beneath heedless hoofs. Most of the frantic herd, however, careened into the ordered ranks of the advancing troop. The cat was still riding the leader of this herd and the sight and smell of him was enough to plunge most of the troop's horses into a state of equal panic. Beyond the disordered troop, the cat adroitly turned his gashed and bleeding "mount" and "rode" through them a second time, now headed back toward the road. At the road's edge, a dismounted archer loosed a hurriedly aimed shaft at the cat. It took the horse at the base of the throat and, as the stricken beast stumbled, the cat launched himself onto the stupidly-staring archer, slamming him onto his back as the long, cruel teeth crunched out his face. Bounding from his kill amid a hail of arrows, the cat sailed twenty feet to disappear into the woods from which he had emerged.

"I have done what I could, Cat-friend-called-Milo."

"And well was it done!" replied Milo. "I will care for your kittens and females and vouchsafe you a clean death, when your teeth have dulled and age rests upon you." Milo recited the ancient cat-human alliance formula.

The emotion which was beamed into Milo and Mara brought tears streaming down the gkl's dirty cheeks. "Oh, my Friends," the cat mindspoke, "my kittens and my dear females and all my clan are long years dead, murdered by the Blackhaks. Nearly forty Cold-times have come and gone, since I opened my eyes and saw the sun. Age already nibbles at me with cold, hateful teeth. Though I shiver far from the plains of pleasant memory, in your mind, Friend Milo, I find the warmth of youth and home. I have no wish to suffer the slow death of an old animal, so, as you have given the words, I shall come up. It is a good death, to die fighting beside Cat-friends."

Horsekiller's thought broke in. "I too, have heard, Friend Milo, but there is no need for the old one's death, or for yours. I am just behind the hill where the Blackhak road becomes straight. My clan-brother, Long-Ears, and most of the clan are in a stream bed and have almost reached a spot which will put them behind the Black-hair soldiers. So, you and the brave old one sit and wash yourselves. Now it is my clan's turn to fight the Black-hairs."

Then arrows clacked and hissed again among Milo and the group. The dismounted troops, impatient to get the job done, lumbered up the slope, shouting. On Milo's right, beyond the moraine, a man screamed in pain and terror. There was another scream, in a different voice, then another and another. The arrow rain became an ill-aimed trickle, then ceased altogether. A few of the rearmost assaulters half-turned. Then, bounding over the rocks and bodies which marked the path of the landslide, came Horsekiller and a dozen other cats—snarling and spitting, their boiled-leather armor rattling and their razor-edge toothspurs throwing evil, metallic glints.

As he passed behind one of the troopers, Horsekiller's great head dipped and swung in a smooth, practiced motion. The man yelped and his hauberk's scales struck sparks from the slope as he fell, hamstrung. The cats were outnumbered by more than five-to-one, but their fantastic speed and agility and the unexpectedness of their attack stood them in good stead. Some were content to cripple, as had Horsekiller, others bore individual men to the ground, slashing at arms and legs, at faces and throats. Expecting to have to climb before they fought, the troopers had had their weapons sheathed and their baldrics hitched up and around, so that the swords hung between their shoulder-blades. In the time it took them to awkwardly draw the long swords, they took numerous casualties. Even when the steel was out, men continued to go down beneath tearing fangs and rending claws, for few swordsmen possessed the speed to counter a Prairie Cat.

The troopers attempted to form a shoulder-to-shoulder defensive semi-circle at the foot of the scarp, but were treated to such a shower of rocks from Milo and the nomads that, in the end, they broke rank to sprint for the moraine. On Mile's left, Horsekiller leaped onto the back of a trooper, crouching over the screaming, struggling man, but unable to make a quick kill because of his armor. Another trooper ran back to bring his saber down on the cat's already-cracked cuirass. Heavy as the blow was, it still failed to break the tough leather, but its force drove Horsekiller down, stunned. Gripping his hilt with both hands, the trooper whirled his blade up for another try. But just as the heavy steel whooshed downward, a bolt of unarmored, brown fury shot from the brush to knock the sword-wielder to his back. His helmet spun off and his attacker sank long cuspids into the top of his skull. Behind the newcomer, Horsekiller straightened up, shook himself, and with a forepaw flipped his own victim over, then, tore out his throat. He and the newcomer exchanged no communication, but raced after the other cats, on the trail of the terrified troopers.

Before the first archers had raced back across the road, the cavalry commander had already started the bulk of the squadron forward. At that distance, he could not discern the cause of his men's withdrawal, but he surmised that his objective had been reinforced. Barely had the serried ranks started forward—four-deep, presenting squadron-front— when the earth behind them erupted with Long-Ear and over fifty of his clan. Emitting their horrific battle cries, they sped along the rearmost rank, slashing the horses' haunches or hamstringing them or rearing to sink long claws into men's arms or legs and drag them from the pitching backs of their crazed mounts. As only the rear rank had been attacked, all might have been saved, had the other three ranks turned and dealt with the small bank of felines; but these were warhorses, not hunters, and they refused to be turned. Long-Ears had chosen the proper angle of attack and the wind was right, carrying the horrible stink of predators and spilled blood to the quivering nostrils of every equine in the squadron. Those who did not first rid themselves of their human burdens, bore them —impotently. sawing tooth-held bits—on a wild gallop for the supposed safety of the road.

The troop which the stranger-cat had stampeded had just more-or-less re-formed when the fear-mad squadron rode into it, creating a tangled welter of downed men and horses. The screams of men and horses, the sick-soggy impact of flailing hoof on flesh, and the sharp cracks of snapping bones sped the still-erect on their way. But at the road, leaping ahead of the hapless assault troops, came Horsekiller at the head of his furry demons. At that point, Mahvroh Ahloghoh Squadron ceased being a unit! East and west raced a few mounted men and many riderless horses or horseless riders. The Cat Clan converged upon a field covered with discarded lances and smashed saddles and dented helmets. At its center squirmed the screaming, sobbing, writhing tangle of horse-man horror. Around and beyond it, as far as the retreating dust of the widely scattered survivors, lay the dead, dying, or stunned cavalrymen, and among them, others crawled or staggered aimlessly. Efficiently, the cats worked outward from their rallying point, slashing or tearing at any man-thing who moved or showed signs of life.

Milo, Mara, and the four nomads had not seen the rout of the bulk of the Kahtahphraktoee, but from the cacophony in the meadow, it had not been difficult to imagine what was taking place. Climbing down, they had picked their way across the unsure footing of the landslide and hurried back to the horses. As soon as the others were mounted, Milo urged them on their way and set about freeing the mounts of those who would not be coming for them. Because his cuirass, which had been split and was dangling, hampered his movements, he sheathed his saber and began removing the useless armor. At the mouth of the trail, Mara sat her fidgeting horse, Steeltooth's reins looped over her right arm.

With a sudden crackling of underbrush, a wild-eyed, helmetless soldier tore into the tiny glade. He had lost his sword, but he gripped a broad dirk hi one hairy hand. Bellowing, he raced toward Milo, big boots thud-thudding on the loam.

As he had but one arm free, Milo was unable to protect himself from the snarling, berserk man whose rush knocked him down. With a shout of triumph, the soldier eluded his victim's grasping left hand and plunged a leaf-shaped blade toward the side of his unarmored chest.

In the second required for the trooper to cross to Milo, Mara had dropped Steeltooth's reins, drawn her saber, and spurred after the dirk-man. But even as she swung the blade up, towering over the combatants, she saw that she had arrived too late. The dirk was already hilt-deep hi Milo Moral's chest. No man ever survived a wound like that, so the extra impetus of revenge was with the blade which split the soldier's close-cropped skull. As the corpse rolled off Mile's body, the dirk was wrenched out and a flood of frothy blood gushed from the hole it had made.

Mara shook her head sadly. For a barbarian, this man had been unusual, and something about him had attracted her. He could have made a few of the long years happier.

While she sat musing, Steeltooth trotted up and shouldered her mount away from Milo's body; now he stood nosing at the inert form. When she dismounted and attempted to approach the motionless body, still half-encased in the shattered cuirass, the big stallion raised his head and bared his sharp teeth, rolling his eyes and stamping a warning. Mara tried to reach the horse's mind, but reason had fled before the necessity of protecting his fallen master. She could discern little movement in Milo's chest, so there appeared to be no good reason for braving the killer-stallion's wrath. Retreating back to her own horse, she mounted and rode down the forest path.

Chapter 5

And it is meet, the old should teach the young of how the ax is heft, the saber's swung.

—From "The Couplets of the Law"

Most of the east-bound cavalry eventually made it to safety, but the west-bound unfortunates rode directly into Chief Bili Esmith and his blood-hungry kindred. A viciously fought, running battle swept back to lap around the western foot of the hill. Mara emerged into it and, before she was aware that a battle was hi progress, she found herself engaged in a horseback saber duel with a big mercenary.

Her saber-skill matched her bow-mastery. Lacking the strength needed for a hacking attack, she had become a point-fighter—a skill entirely absent from the repertoires of many opponents she had faced—and, adroitly parrying, she soon saw an opening and spitted the cavalryman's hairy throat. As the man plunged off his horse, something crashed against the backplate of her cuirass and hurled her, too, down amid the stamping hoofs. While Mara struggled to rise, a horse thundered past and a blade rang on her helmet. She dropped back, her head filled with a star-shot red-blackness. At the edge of consciousness, she screamed as a horse stepped on her right hand; then, oblivion took her.

As the darkness cleared from her mind and she opened her eyes, she thought that she saw dead Milo's face swimming before her. Sure that she was hallucinating, she closed her lids again, softly moaning. Then a man's strong arm was around her shoulders, lifting and supporting them, and she felt the run of a horncup on her lips and her nostrils registered the odor of the raw alcohol. She looked again. The hallucination was still there; then it spoke.

"Drink this, Mara. Do you hear me, woman? Drink it!" Not waiting for compliance, Milo forced open her jaws and poured a measure of the fiery liquid into her mouth. With a gasp she became fully conscious, Milo squatted on his heels beside her, smiling at her reaction to his "restorative."

Her eyes wide, she just stared for a long moment. "But . . . but you're dead! I saw you slain! You. . . ."

Still smiling, Milo shook his head. "You thought you saw me killed, Mara, but the tip of the dirk only tore my shirt and scratched my side—not deeply at that—and. . . ."

"No, no!" She shook her head violently. "It ... it went into you, to the hilt! There were airbubbles in the blood you bled! Your . . . your shirt is still blood-wet. You must be dead!"

Instead of replying again, Milo shifted his position and opened his soggy, reddened shirt. While streaks of blood were drying on his smooth, sun-darkened skin, the wound from which they had come was all but closed. Mara's eyes looked upon it and a tingling, prickling chill coursed through her and she knew. Then, she knew!

But her carefully trained features did not .reveal her knowledge. It was not the time or the place for that. Flexing the fingers of her right hand, she said, "It... it all happened so dreadfully fast, Master, that . . . And then that stroke I took on my helmet, too. I'm sorry. I had no intention of death-wishing you."

The full moon had all but set before the victorious nomads started their return to the tribe-camp. Tons of armor and weapons and clothing were lashed to the backs of the hundreds of captured horses, who traveled westward, having been reassured by mindspeak that if they were unhappy with the tribe, they would be quickly freed. They were eastern-bred horses and, having always considered themselves and been treated as beasts of burden, being spoken to as an equal by a two-leg was a fascinating novelty and imbued them with a happy, heady feeling of being where they belonged.

Her many travels had put Mara in occasional contact with Horseclans, but she had never before been in a camp of this size. Round about the sacked town, clustered in clan-groups, were well over a thousand wagon-lodges and tents. South of the encampment, watched over by adolescent cats, grazed many thousands of horses. To the north, the cattle and sheep—neither of which species had the intelligence to realize that the Prairie Cats would not harm them—were guarded by mounted striplings of the various clans, armed with bows and wolf-spears.

Between cattle and camp, half a hundred pubescent boys and girls took turns loosing arrows at a straw-packed manikin, under the one good'eye of a white-haired but tough-looking old man. Older boys and girls, afoot and mounted, practiced with saber and ax and spear and javelin, learning or polishing their skills under the direction of old or maimed warriors.

In the camp, itself, warriors and unmarried girls lazed hi the sun, gaming and laughing and talking, caring for their gear or sharpening their weapons, ignoring both the incredible din of camp life and the swarms of flies. Naked children ran screaming among the tents while married women gossiped and slaves bustled about their chores. The arrival of the caravan excited but little notice; returning raiders were too common a sight among these people.

Uphill from the camp, they passed through the charred ruins of the outer town and entered the smashed and sagging gates of the inner town. The cats had deserted them in the camp, loping off to have two-leg Mends remove their uncomfortable armor and fang-spurs. In the courtyard of the citadel, Chief Bill entrusted the bootytrain to the care of one of his sub-chiefs, then he dismounted and needlessly stood at Steeltooth's head while Milo slipped from his kak—it was but a way of rendering homage to the tribe's War Chief. He started to precede his superior into the building, but halted when Milo did.

Mara was still mounted and Milo looked up at her. "Mara, you fought for the tribe and have earned your freedom. Come, I wish the chiefs to hear of your valor, so that the honors and booty you have won will be unquestioned among the clans." Raising his arms, he grasped her slim waist and lifted her down from her mount.

The citadel complex, through which they threaded their way, had been begun shortly after the Great Quake had leveled what had remained of the ancient city (said to have been a temple of learning in the days when gods had walked the earth). Most of the present structure and the town walls had been fashioned of a lovely gray-green stone, cut from an ancient quarry miles away, and transported here to construct the westernmost outpost of the principality known to Ehleenoee as Kehnooryohs Ehlahs and to most other eastern peoples as Vuhdjinyah. In ancient times, the town had been called Charlottesville; to the Ehleenoee, it was Theesispolis; but to the nomads, it was simply the Place-of-Green-Walls.

Green-Walls had been a rich city, a city of commerce with trade routes from the mountains and beyond converging on it. Its garrison had consisted of a squadron of Kahtahphraktoee to ride the frontier and guard and police the road; there hundred spearmen to man the gates and the citadel; three hundred more to perform the function of civil police. In addition, there was the six-hundred-man town levy—every male between the ages of sixteen and sixty had to provide his own equipage and weapons; the quality of the force ran the gamut from fair to worse than useless. When word reached them that an entire tribe of nomads were just the other side of the nearest range of mountains, every man was alerted and a dispatch was posted to the High Lord at Kehnooryohs Atheenahs seventy miles southeast.

The High Lord was young and had ascended to power only five years before, but he knew what to do and, as he was already deep in debt, was pleased at the prospect. At irregular intervals over the course of the centuries that the Ehleenoee had held this land, Horseclans—one or two at the time—had drifted across the mountains and into his domain. They had always been dealt with in the same way since they were an excellent source of horses, cattle, and slaves—the fair-skinned, generally blond or red-haired girls and women and young boys bringing especially high prices from private citizen and brothel-keeper, alike.

High Lord Demetrios had been delighted, an entire tribe of them! Since all slaves were automatically the property of the High Lord, if captured by his troops, he quickly dispatched an army under command of his cousin, Manos, Lord of the West. (After all, being the nominal capital of the Western Lord's lands, Theesispolis was Manos' responsibility, though Demetrios privately doubted that the man had visited the primitive little place more than a dozen times in his entire life; and why should he when everything which made life worth the living lie in the city of the High Lord?)

So Lord Manos marched west at the head of some eight thousand men, and High Lord Demetrios sat back and waited for the thousands of slaves whose prices would lift all his financial burdens. "But 111 not glut the market," he thought. "I'll pen them here and only dribble them out a few at the tune. That way, I should be able to have a new boy every day for a long, long while, break the little dears in for the brothel-keepers." Closing his bloodshot eyes, he sat back and began to fantasize, smacking his thick lips. Already his hairy hands seemed to be gripping the smooth-skinned body of an untried darling of a blond boy, who screamed and struggled, deliriously. . . . The High Lord shuddered in anticipation.

Lord Manos' army was light on cavalry, so when he marched past Theesispolis, he dragooned the entire Kahta-phraktoee squadron. Thirty-two of the wealthier citizens, who could afford to maintain chariots and a full panoply, drove out to his column and requested they be allowed a place in his array and a consequent share in the sure rewards of his venture. As all were his theoretical equals— pure Ehleenoee of noble lineage—he graciously consented (though he could not, for the life of him, understand why any civilized man would deliberately seek the all but unbearable discomfort of a war-camp without direct orders). So he marched on west. The Trade Gap was the only feasible route for the large wagons, so Manos camped his army at its eastern mouth and waited, appropriating the Gap-fort for his headquarters and residence and adding its small garrison to his army.

Chapter 6

One valiant wolf will attack a guarded herd, But, even in packs, jackals fear any save a hornless calf.

—Horseclans Proverb

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hwil Kuk hung his head and sunk teeth into lip; blood trickled down his stubbled chin. When he raised his head again, his eyes were screwed shut. His quavering voice was
low but penetrating, and his facial muscles twitched with emotion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"But we won't," replied Milo.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 7

Kindred, list' while I sing of the slaughter, the Gap-of-Burning-Men, ere we marched to the Water.... —From the Telling-harp of Blind Hari

With his head and face wrapped in bandages, Milo had received Lord Herakles on both visits, and had attended to his guests's accommodations and entertainment. The bandages supposedly covered the terrible injuries he had sustained in an unexpected encounter with a gigantic Tree Cat. Not only did the "injuries" explain why he was not in the north with the tribe's warriors, but Milo felt that Manos' emissary would probably be less attentive to facial expressions and the thoughts which bred them when in conversation with a "blind" man. This proved true, and—-through Horsekiller, who, despite repeated rebuffs, was constantly fawning over the foppish Ehleen in order to maintain bodily contact, which made mind-entering easier—Milo was able to glean much useful information from Lord Herakles. Both he and the cat had to force themselves to their work, however, for entering the mind of the perverted man was as nauseating as a swim in a cesspool.

After the departure of the Ehleen and his party, Milo rode Steeltooth up the Trade road. He took only Horse-killer with him and was gone for three days. When he returned, he informed the chiefs that the Wind, which had guided them eastward, had spoken to him on the mountain and had told him how the horde of Ehleenoee might be exterminated at but little cost to His people. The Wind had further informed him that He had blown His people here for a purpose: In regaining their homeland by the Great Water, they were to free this land from the evil sway of the Ehleenoee who were an abomination in the sight of the gods. They were to purge the land of these human monsters and fulfill the ancient prophecy by rebuilding the paradisical city of their origin, Ehlai, on the site to which He would guide them.

Milo drew Hwil Kuk aside and explained what he had in nrind, then he and Kuk rode north with a score of Kuk's followers. The pass to which Kuk guided Milo lay about fifteen miles north of the Gap and Trade road. Sometime in the dim past, the path might have been paved, but today it was little more than a game trail, partially blocked here and there by old tree-covered rock slides: but Milo, Kuk, and the others found it passable, and they came down about eleven miles north of Lord Manos' camp. Milo was satisfied and, on his return, set every able-bodied member of the tribe to "work on his plan.

After all the officers were hoarse from shouting, their arms aching from vainly wielding their whips and swords and lance butts, Manos disgustedly suggested that the spearmen be instructed to relay back the order to withdraw from the impassable pass. The embarrassed and exasperated officers jumped at the suggestion, and a score of dusty spearmen were given the command simultaneously. It soon sounded as if every one of the thousands of sweaty, iron-clad levymen was shouting over and over again, "Rock slide ahead. Move back. The Lord Manos commands to move back!"

Because of this highly dangerous noise, few were surprised to see rocks fall from the mountains; it was natural that rocks should fall from the frowning cliffs above the compact mass of the column. But then these rocks were followed by more and yet more rocks, and by pots of flaming oil and resin, and by blazing logs, and by sheet after deadly sheet of hissing arrows. What followed could not by any stretch of the term be called a battle—it was a slaughter, a butchery, pure and simple. In the press, few men were able to move their arms even to clutch at the wounds which killed them. They could but scream or croak and die, and even when dead, they could not fall. The din was indescribable, and none who heard it ever forgot the unbelievable sounds of men and horses as their flesh,  covered  with flaming oil  or pitch,  crisped  and crackled; the shrieks of those men who, while not afire themselves, were suffering unguessable agonies as their bodies slowly roasted in white-hot armor. Some made frantic attempts to climb the smooth rock walls, only to fall back to a comparatively merciful death, impaled on the carpet of spearpoints below. Their cut-off screams but blended with the hellish  a capella and,  above it all,
crowing exultantly, skirled the war-pipes of the Horse-clans.

At the outset of the bombardment, those cavalrymen nearest the rockslide pulled themselves onto the barrier, climbed to the top, and dropped from sight. Seeing this, hundreds tried to follow, some dozens made it including a few of the Ehleenoee officers—Lord Manos among them—by sliding and crawling and skipping over the packed mass of burning men, over blazing saddles and sizzling horseflesh, dodging the snapping teeth of pain-maddened horses, through the unceasing rain of death. Few of the fugitives bore any sort of weapon when they fell to the far side of the rockslide. Those who did were quickly relieved of them by a detachment of leather-armored women, who soon had all those men fortunate enough to escape the blazing carnage stripped of armor, wrist-bound, yoked in coffles of twenty head and jogging campward, spurred by judicious pricks of saber or wolf-spear.

Twenty mercenary cavalry commanded by a half-Eh-leenoee junior officer had brought up the rear of the long column of spearmen, acting as file-closers. They and the five or six hundred spearmen who had not been able to wedge into the pass had not known what to make of the confused shouting. But a trained ear is not necessary to fathom the unmistakable. It was not necessary to see the blazing, arrow-quilled men clawing their way out of the pass in order to know what was happening.

Apparently overlooking the fact that the road was impassable, Petros, a half-breed ensign, drew his sword and waved it. "Forward, men! The column's been attacked." The horsemen didn't even look at him. Realizing that twenty men would not make a particle of difference to the eventual outcome even if they could force a way into the pass, and remembering that their pay was long overdue, they whirled their mounts and galloped back uphill. After a moment of indecision, Petros shrugged, sheathed his sword, and clattered after his command. Behind him—throwing away spears, shields, swords, and helmets—raced the remaining few hundreds of the spear-levy. None of them felt that the service due the High Lord included or should include broiling to death for him. By the time Petros managed to spur his foaming, staggering horse onto the plateau on which rested the site of the ancient city, the twenty mercenaries had already given their god-oaths and were walking their heated horses behind the five hundred hard-eyed, battle-ready Horse-clansmen. Petros died well, everyone said so.

When the first fours of the Kahtahphraktoee set hoof to the Trade road, Milo was informed of it by the cats who were scattered at even intervals all along the road leading to the army's encampment area. Then he and Kuk and Kuk's followers guided fifteen hundred nomad warriors over the pass they had scouted. While Manos sat among the ruins of Hwainzbrdh, sipping warm wine and cursing everyone and everything in sight, maddened by the discomfort of dust and flies, Milo was pacing Steel-tooth among the bodies and wreckage of the Ehleenoee camp.

"My lord Milo. . . ."A horseman, one of Kuk's men, galloped up to him. "Lord Milo, please . . . Hwil requests you come to the fort... it... it's horrible. ... He wants you should see it...."

The three bloodstreaked little bodies hung by the ankles. Before leaving that morning, Manos had gouged out their eyes, raggedly emasculated them, and left them to bleed to death. Two of the little chests bore the wide mark of a saber thrust. Hwil Kuk's ashen face was tear-tracked, and there was precious little sanity in his eyes.

"I ... I was searching . . . anything that had been little Hwili's . . . remember him by ... heard something in here. Oh gods! Two of them were still alive . . . begged me to kill them. I... I..." His quivering hand fumbled at his sword-hilt. Abruptly, he began to claw at his face, and mouth wide open, the tortured man began to scream mindlessly.

Milo grasped Kuk's shoulder, spun him half-around, and slammed the side of one hard fist behind the screamer's ear. In mid-scream, the ex-mercenary slumped to the floor. Two of his men tenderly carried him out of the chamber of horrors.

Milo mindcalled and Horsekiller responded. Soon he was at the fort and, working together, he and Milo did what they could to ease the mind of Hwil Kuk, tormented almost beyond endurance. When they had finished, they carried him out to a resting place in one of the officer's tents. Awakening in that fort might have undone their therapy, too many memories, good and bad, lodged within its sooty walls.

On the morning of the sixth day after the massacre of the Ehleenoee army, as the last wagons of the tribe were toiling up the western grade of the now-cleared Gap, Milo sat Steeltooth, watching the eight hundred-odd survivors of the spear-levy disappear in the distance, trudging the Trade road toward Theesispolis. Milo had promised these men their freedom at the completion of the hard horrible labor he required of them: clearing the Gap of the debris—mineral, human, animal, and unidentifiable—which clogged it. He had more than kept his word, giving each of the peasants clothing, a knife, a scrip of food for the journey, a waterbag, and either a silver com or a handful of bronze ones, in addition to his freedom. In council, some of the chiefs had grumbled, but Milo had won them over. His reasons were many and sound. The peasants, who had contemplated death or a life of slavery, grasped eagerly at the promise of freedom. Considering the size of the undertaking, they performed the grisly, hideous work quickly aad-tben went to work on the rockslide. Milo was amazed that they could do it at all, for after a couple of hot sunny days, few of the nomads could bear to ride within a mile of the carnal-reek. Aside from this easy method of disposing of the Gap's highly odiferous blockage was the fact that Milo could see and fear what the nomad chiefs, in the beginning at least, could not: the terrible dangers involved in marching so large a number of able-bodied male slaves through their native country. Also to be considered was the propaganda effect. The returning peasants would spread news of the army's disastrous defeat far and wide. Considering mankind's penchant for exaggeration, each of the tribe's hundreds of warriors would, in the telling, become thousands and untold thousands, each man would be eight feet tall, mounted on a Northorse, and cleaving a dozen men at a time with a six-foot saber. Lastly, if the tribe was to conquer and hold this land, they would need to win the confidence and support of the humbler Dirtmen. Cattle and horses could wax fat on grass alone, and the cats could do the same on meat, but men needed a more varied diet which called for farmers and these peasants were farmers. They would remember the generosity of the nomads—the clothing and food and money, especially the money. They would remember it and speak of it often and each tune they or those they told were abused by the Ehleenoee master, they would ponder the thought that some masters might prove less harsh than others.

Chapter 8

The blood in the streets ran fetlock-deep. And the flashing sabers did sweep and weep, Red tears for the Kindred who in death did sleep, Torn and maimed by the treacherous foe— Dirtmen, without honor, who reap and who sow And who fell beneath arrow and hard-swung blow.

—From "Revenge at Green-Walls"

The tribe had remained at the eastern outlet of the Gap only for one sleep. The next morning, the tribe—wood-thrifty from their years on the prairies—had laid all their dead on one pyre and, as the Wind bore the souls of their kindred back to His home, the wagons commenced to creak eastward, along the Trade road to Theesispolis.

A migrating tribe does not move fast. It took them five days to come under the walls of that unhappy city, already in dire straits.

It had been well before dark on the day they had been freed that most of the anxious-to-get-home peasants had poured through the outer city. Their richly embroidered accounts of the huge army's annihilation at the hands of the stupendous horde of grim (but just) nomads precipitated such a panic that many families of the outer town had fled east, so many that Simos, Governor and Commander of the city, had all the remaining citizens herded willy nilly within the walls and barred the gates behind them. Next, he drafted and dispatched a message to the High Lord. He informed the suzerain of the disaster which had befallen the army and gave the names of the only three noblemen to survive the massacre: Lord Manos, Theodores of Petropolis, and Herakles of Theesispolis —all captives of the barbarians, ft not by now slain (though he didn't say so, Simos sincerely hoped the barbarians had killed Herakles, slowly; he'd had no use for the arrogant young swine since he'd outbid him for a truly stunning young slave-boy two years before). He gave the facts as he knew them: The barbarian horde numbered in the neighborhood of forty thousand, at least twelve thousand of whom were warriors or maiden-archers, and was moving east along the Trade road. He went on to point out that Lord Manos had ordered out the Theesispolis Kahtahphraktoee, and that squadron had fallen with the army—as too had above thirty Theesispolis aristocrats and their hundred or so retainers. He prayed the High Lord to send reinforcements for his tiny garrison as the levy was ill-trained, ill-armed and unreliable, and the four hundred dependable troups were far too few to adequately defend the citadel, much less the walls of the city.

Demetrios' answer was prompt. He assured Simos that a relief army would soon be up to him—a patent lie, but Simos had no way of knowing it—and that the city was to be held at all costs, pending its arrival. He gently chided Simos' lack of faith in his citizen-levy, pointing out that the levy had been the strong spine of Ehleenoee arms. With the Theesispolis levy, beefed up by the civic guard and the remaining nobility, he went on, he could not imagine so well-situated and fortified a city falling to a band of mere barbarian marauders in the short tune it would require a field army to march from the capital. He closed with an order. Since all that befell men lay in the lap of the gods, hi the final analysis, the Theesispolis city treasury was to be rushed to Kehnooryohs Atheenahs, along with the valuables of the temples, to be held in trust until the crisis was ended and Theesispolis was safe again. Such private citizens as wished were to be allowed to send their own valuables along and Simos was to give them receipts in return. Because the road might be unsafe, considering the present emergency and the massing of troops, the treasure should be well guarded; three hundred mercenaries should be sufficient. He closed the letter with lavish promises of honors and rewards upon the victory of their arms. The moment the letter was sealed, Demetrios dismissed from his mind all thought of the lost city and the walking dead men who commanded it and concentrated upon devising ways to raise money to raise troops to secure his capital.

As soon as the tribe was encamped around the city, Mi-lo sent two nomads to escort Lord Herakles back to the city of his birth. The Ehleenoee nobleman was to deliver a message from Milo to the governor; and the nomads, both chiefs' sons, were to return with the answer. Milo's offer was quite generous, all things being considered. All soldiers, nobility, and their families were to evacuate the city; where they went was up to them. All slaves of Horseclan stock and all weapons and armor must be left behind; all other possessions were theirs, if they wished to and could transport them. Any other citizens who wished to leave the city were welcome to do so and the tribe guaranteed their safety as far as a day's ride from the capital, as did it guarantee the safety and possessions of those who chose to remain in Theesispolis. As proof of his and the tribe's good will, Herakles bore a bag containing the family signets of the thirty-one Theesispolis nobles slain with the army of Lord Manos. At Lord Herak-les' word, the city gates opened and the Ehleen trotted his horse through them, followed by the two chiefs sons, who sat their horses proudly, fully aware of the gravity and honor of their mission, brave in their best lacquered armor.

Some hours later, one of the gates was gapped sufficiently for the two barefoot, near-nude nomads to be thrust through it, to make their way back to the tribe as best they could. The once-handsome men had been hideously mutilated, one of them had been left his tongue, to deliver Lord Sunos' reply.

Brought to the council tent, the suffering man relayed what he had been told. Lord Sunos did not treat with barbarians. Were the tribe's leaders wise, they would pack their putrid tents, gather their wormy children, and haste as fast as their bow legs or spavined horses would take them back to the mountains and swamps where they and all other animals belonged. The High Lord and all his forces were, Simos said, only a short day's march from Theesispolis and would make bloody hash of any barbarians in evidence upon their arrival. As for the city, it was heavily garrisoned and well supplied, and the nomads would attack it at their peril.

"But War Chief," said the senselessly savaged man, "the Ehleenoee chief lies. The walls are thinly manned by ones who are not soldiers. Most have no armor and seem unused to the weapons they hold. Those who seized us and did these things to us were true soldiers, but there are very few of them. From what I saw when still I possessed eyes, it did not seem to me that there were more than six hundred fighters in all the city.

"And now, War Chief, we suffer greatly, Hermun and I. Please allow our chiefs to put an end to suffering."

At Milo's nod, the fathers of the two stepped forward, drew sabers and with tears of grief and rage on their cheeks, heart-thrust their agonized sons.

And so the blood-mad tribesmen swept against the city.

They burst open the gates and then- axes and sabers slashed a bloody course through the screaming mobs of helpless non-combatants. The levymen died under or ran from the arrow-rain which fell upon the walls, so those who scaled them were unopposed. Horseclansmen did not normally slay strong or pretty women or young children, but Theesispolis was a sanguinary exception! On their ride out of the camp, all the nomads had been led past the biers on which rested the bloody, mangled, incomplete remains of the tribe's heralds. Once within the walls, they showed no mercy, regardless of age, sex, or station.

While the bulk of the nomads butchered the bulk of the population, Milo rode with his eight score mercenaries—a total of one hundred twenty troopers who had survived the massacre. Having no love for the Ehleenoee and an understandable aversion to slavery as well as a yearning for loot and/or hard money after months of being paid in Ehleenoee promises, they had signed on with Milo and were now being commanded by Hwil Kuk. With Horsekiller and a score or so of his clan, they all rode toward the citadel, to which had fled most of the nobility and the fleetest "fighters." Atop the flat roof of the central portion, Lord Simos, Lord Herakles, and four other officers shrieked a sextet series of orders and counter-orders at soldiers who were straining and fumbling at something.

Even as Milo turned to inquire, one of Kuk's squadron, a former noncom of Theesispolis' Kahtahphraktoee, muttered, "Dung! Greedy and cruel, Lord Simos certainly is, but not stupid; he should know better than that. Those catapults were useless fifty years ago! All they are now is wormy wood and rotted ropes and rusted iron, covered with gilt paint. In the condition those fornicating abortions are in, even if they put fresh ropes on them and get them to working, they'll be more dangerous to the crews than they'll be to any fornicating thing they are aimed at!"

A moment later the man's words were vindicated, as one of the war-engine's half-wound ropes snapped and the gilded iron basket's edge virtually decapitated one unfortunate soldier who happened to be leaning over it. As for the other, it was wound, loaded with a sixty-pound stone, aimed at the largest visible group of nomads, and fired. The arm shot up to slam into gilt-flakes and splinters and dust against its stop-timbers; the stone-laden basket never budged! The half-hysterical officers were screaming invective at the hapless soldiers when, preceded by a trio of huge blood-dripping cats, Hwil Kuk and half his squadron poured up the stairs.

But that had been over five weeks before and, aside from the empty and frequently charred houses or the all but deserted streets, the city through which Mara had ridden had given little indication of the bloodbath which had attended the end of its Ehleenoee phase. The citadel showed none, as little fighting had taken place there. The soldiers of the civic guard, offered a choice between pain and death or freedom and honorable employment—the promisors being men known to them, fellow mercenaries —had surrendered almost to a man and they now served with Hwil Kuk's squadron. The only significant fight had taken place in the wing housing the households of the Ehleenoee nobility. There, driven to the wall, the hastily armed Ehleenoee men and boys belied their effete appearance by fighting with the reckless courage which had earned their ancestors this land centuries before. Though they all died well, die they certainly did, under the businesslike cuts and thrusts of their own former mercenaries. The noble ladies of the ruling race—young, pretty ones, at least—were the only survivors of the taking of Theesis-polis (as well as several hundred former slaves who emerged from hiding after the blood-lusting madness had abated and now constituted the first citizens and only full-time occupants of the city). Old or ugly or very young Ehleenoee were stripped of their valuables and, along with half a hundred disarmed levymen, hurled out of the citadel to the tender mercies of the berserk nomads. The mercenaries took full enjoyment of thek captives for a week or so, then got good prices for them from the cooled-down nomads.

Keenly aware of how the father of the two dead young nomads must feel, Hwil Kuk saw to it that Lord Simos and the treacherous Herakles were taken alive. At Milo's order, Kulk personally delivered them to the clans of their victims. The chiefs and kinsmen received the two Ehleenoee gravely, thanked Kuk graciously, then gave the nobles to the young men's mothers and wives and kinswomen. It was four days before Lord Simos, no longer capable of screaming, croaked bis last; the younger and stronger Herakles lived an amazing day and a half longer!

Chapter 9

In level circle, shall sit the Chiefs, None the highest, none the least, For all are equal, Kindred one, And thus it shall be, till time is done.

—From "The Couplets of the Law"

Before the assembled chiefs, in the spacious, lofty chamber which had been the citadel's reception and banquet hall, Milo and Bili recounted the events and tremendous profits of the village raid and the subsequent battle. They detailed the names and clans of men killed or maimed so that blood-price or suffering-price might be properly allotted prior to the equal division of the spoils among all the clans. Toward the end of the barrage of comments and questions which marked the conclusion of the reports of the War Chief and Chief Bili, old Chief Djeri Hahf-mun addressed Milo.

"Most-successful-of-all-War-Chiefs-m-the-memory-of-all-the-clans-of-men, I will give two hundred cows, two bulls, and a jeweled Ehleenoee sword for your slave, yonder."

Milo grasped Mara's arm and drew her forward and the heavy blade struck sparks from the polished floor, the well-tempered steel ringing like a bell. Bili's recovery was lightening-quick, but his vicious upthrust was struck aside by Chief Djeri's blade.

"How dare you try to kill Chief Sami!" the Hahfmun roared. "I have prior claim to his blood! He was looking at me when he spoke his blasphemous lies. Of course, perhaps he meant nought by it; to a Kahrtr, lying is inborn."

No man, unfamiliar with the life-long fighting-trim of the Horseclansmen, would have believed that men of the ages of Chiefs Sami and Djeri could have moved so fast. Sami's yard of keen steel lashed horizontally from left to right—the classic backhand decapitation stroke—hissing bare millimeters above Djeri's shaven poll and then looping down and across to counter his opponent's disemboweling attempt with such force that both blades were slammed up against the breastplate of Bili's cuirass.

"Enough, children! Enough!" Mile's voice, pitched to battle volume, preceded him as he sprang from the dais. "The tribe is not in sufficient danger, does not have more than enough fighting before it, but that three supposedly wise chieftains . . . pardon, 'brawling brats' . . . must precipitate a three-way blood-feud between clans?"

"But..." chorused the three chiefs.

Blind Hari set down his telling-harp, rose from his place, and slowly made his way toward the sounds of rasping breath. He was the oldest tribesman—some said as much as one and one-half hundreds of years had passed since his birth into a clan of which he was the last living member, and the most respected. Geneologist, chronicler, sage, and bard he was, and the closest thing to a priest the tribe had. In his day, he had been a mighty warrior, as his scars attested. When Blind Hari spoke—an infrequent occurrence—all men humbly attended him. He spoke now," his old voice firm and grave.

"The War Chief is right, my sons, there can be no argument. The Sword's curse lies on men who use Him to draw the blood of kindred, unasked. My dear sons— Djeri Hahfmun, Sami Kahrtr, Bili Esmith—each of you is well proven a brave and honorable man, otherwise you would not be chiefs, your birth notwithstanding This is Law, all know, it needs not retelling There cannot be cause for any of you to establish your bravery upon the flesh and bone of your kindred or to wash out thoughtless insults hi blood. You have shown all the people the bravery and honor of chieftains-born, now show the equally necessary wisdom and greatness of heart. Let each recall his words and show his love for his kindred."

The transition was abrupt Tears appeared on Djeri's scarred and weathered cheeks He sheathed his sword and opened his arms, extending a hand to each of the other two men. Within seconds, all steel was cased and the three late-combatants were hand-locked, sobbing tearful apologies and renewing vows of brotherhood as they went back to then- places in the council circle. All the chiefs were moved; there were few dry eyes among them.

Milo shook his head. The very real powers of this old man had been amazing him for years.

With eerie precision, Blind Hari turned and "gazed" directly into Mara's eyes. To Milo he said, "Go to your accustomed place, War Chief."

Milo did so, shivering despite himself at the force of Blind Hari's will.

Sightless eyes still locked on Mara, the ancient extended one withered hand. "Come here, my child," he commanded gently.

When she stood before him, Blind Hari placed a hand on each side of her face and tilting it, pressed his dry lips to her smooth brow. He was seen to start once, but he held the kiss for a moment longer, then turned back toward the chieftains.

"My sons, it is the Law that a woman of the tribe be not unmarried by her twentieth year and this is right and proper. It is man who chooses her who he will marry; but, though this practice bears the patina of years, it is not Law, it is custom and not truly binding. Right often, in the tunes of your grandfathers—as I rode from clan to clan—have I seen woman choose man and it is done today. Though her wiles leave him convinced that it was he who chose." He showed his worn teeth in a smile.

"We camp in a hostile land, confronted by evil enemies, my sons. This is not the time for dissension between clans or tribe-kindred. We have seen dissension and near-bloodshed bred by adherence to custom. There must not be more.

"Before the council is ended, this woman will choose he who is to be her husband. In order that she may choose wisely, each man here shall rise as I call his name. He shall tell her the number of fighters in his clan and the amount of the clan's wealth. If he wants her for himself, he shall tell her the numbers of his wives and concubines and what her place would be in his tent. If he wants her for a son, he shall tell her of all his marriageable sons and the numbers, of wives and concubines of each. Before he returns to his place, each man will, before us all, swear his sword-oath that he and all his clan will abide by the choice of this woman. When the time comes, I will set her bride-price, and—never fear, Djeri Hahfmun—it will be high!"

Blind Hari commenced with the chief at Milo's immediate right, Fil, Chief of Djordun. When the red-moustachioed chief had named his assets and sworn and sat down, the man at his right began and, by the time they had worked around the circle and Milo too had sworn and resumed his seat, the sacred Sun was westering.

Blind Hari kept to his seat, fingering the turning-keys of his telling-harp, and an odd smile flitted before he spoke.

"Mara of Pohtohmahs, how say you? Which of the offered men will you have? By what clan-name would you be known?"

"Moral, Wise One. I would be Mara of Moral, wife to Milo of that name."