Robert Adams - Madman's Army

What had finally occurred at the environs of that bridge over the Lumbuh River had been almost in the nature of an anticlimax. Starved of supplies and near mutiny upon its arrival, the monstrous force had tried but once to cross the heavily-fortified bridge, been driven back in rout, and then had simply hunkered down in low, unhealthy riverside camps to sicken and die of fever, fluxes, wounds, starvation and the nightly attacks of Horseclansmen, swampers and river-borne pirates.

At last, certain of the higher nobility—the thoheeksee or dukes—of Zastros’ kingdom had had enough and sent a herald to the High Lord by night, offering certain things if they were allowed to march their remaining forces back south, out of Karaleenos and into their own lands in peace.

The High Lord had agreed; however, he had done more than that. He had announced to the herald the imminent merger of his lands with the Kingdom of Karaleenos and the Grand Duchy of Kuhmbuhluhn, the resultant state to be called the Confederation of Eastern Peoples, and he offered the sometime Southern Kingdom a equal place in this state. Upon their acceptance of this astounding offer and the delivery of signed and sealed oaths from every noble landholder still alive and with the army that Zastros had led north, the High Lord had also agreed to send to the fledgling Council of Consolidated Thoheekseeahnee of the Southern Ehleenohee a sub -strahteegos commanding a force of troops about which a new army to enforce the will of Council might be formed.

He had sent one of the relatives of King Zenos, Sub- strahteegos Thoheeks Tomos Gonsalos, with a regiment of mercenary pikemen, a squadron of heavy lancers and a squadron-size of Horseclansmen, this group including a cow elephant captured from Zastros’ force during the single attack on the bridge.

The pike regiment and the heavy lancers still were there, but most of the original contingent of Horse-clansmen had followed Chief Pawl Vawn of Vawn, their leader, back to Kehnooryos Ehlahs, feeling like him that five and more years separated from wives and families was enough and more than enough.

Most of the unit now going into camp just to the south of the Kuzawahtchee River was replacement for that earlier-sent force of Horseclansmen. The bulk of this present lot were of Clans Skaht and Baikuh, and were led by Chief Hwahlt Skaht of Skaht, along with subchiefs from both clans. In addition to these larger contingents, however, there were quite a few young, wanderlusting warriors from some dozen other clans who had heard from Chief Pawl of the vast opportunities available in the far-southerly lands for young men of their race, who were greatly respected by the ruling thoheeksee of the onetime Southern Kingdom of Ehleenohee.

Squatting between the chief of Skaht and the senior sub-chief of Baikuh, all three of them watching the establishment of the night’s camp, while chewing at stalks of grass, was a man who save for his Horseclans garb and weaponry could easily have been taken for a pure Ehleen—tall, larger of build than his companions, with black hair a bit grey at the temples, guardsman-style moustache as black as the hair and eyes that could have been black or a very dark brown, his skin a light olive under the tan and weathering.

But any who took him for Ehleen would have been very wrong, for he was no such thing, for all that he spoke that language as fluently and unaccentedly as he did some score of other languages and twice that number of dialects. His name was Milo Morai and he was a chief of the Horseclans, one of the triumvirate that presently ruled the Confederation of Eastern Peoples, and far, far more, besides.

The carefully selected Ehleen horse guards who made up some third of his personal contingent on this trip called him and referred to him as High Lord Milo. So, too, did some of the Horseclansmen … sometimes, but more usually to them, as to uncounted generations of their forebears, he was “Chief Milo,” “Uncle Milo,” or on occasion “God Milo.”

Although he gave appearance of an age somewhere between thirty and forty years, that appearance was vastly deceiving, and, in truth, not even Milo himself knew his exact age, only that thus far it exceeded seven centuries and that he had appeared just as he now did for all of that vast expanse of years of life.

All of the Horseclansfolk—men, women, children, past and present—venerated this man, for he had always been among them, moved among them, lived among them, fought beside them against savage beasts and savage weather and calamity. He it was who had first succored the Sacred Ancestors—those who became the first Horseclansfolk—guided generation after generation of their descendants in establishing hegemony over all of the Sea of Grasses, far to the west, before he finally had led forty-two Horseclans clans on an epic, twenty-year-long trek to the east and the lands they currently held. In the nearly three-quarters of a century since then, he and they had slowly increased their holdings—for the Horseclansfolk, this was not just necessary but vital, for their natural increase and that of their herds called always for more land, and most good land in the east was already held by one people or another, few of them willing to give it up without a fight.

Therefore, for all that their people were no longer free-roaming nomad-herders and had not been for almost three full generations, still were all in this force proven, blooded warriors, just as had been the force led by Chief Pawl Vawn of Vawn.

The three men squatting in silence were all telepaths and were, despite appearances, deep in conversation. Above eighty percent of Horseclansfolk were, to one degree or another, telepathic, telepathy having been a survival trait on the prairies and high plains which had for so very long been the home and breeding grounds of their race. They called the talent “mindspeak” and used it not only amongst themselves but in communicating with their horses and with the prairiecats—these being jaguar-size, long-cuspided, highly intelligent felines that had been with the Horseclans for almost as long as there had existed folk called Horseclans.

“Uncle Milo,” Chief Skaht silently beamed, “I still don’t know why you are bringing along all of those Ehleenee; yes, the ones from up in Kehnooryos Ehlahs are part of your guards, but it just seems silly to drag along more of the damned boy-buggerers from Karaleenos. When you need them to fight, they’ll probably be off in the bushes somewhere futtering each other, and if you can get them into a real battle, the chances are good they’ll run in a pinch, lest they chance ruining their girlish good looks with a warrior’s scar or three.”

“Oh come now, Hwahlt,” was Milo’s silent reply, “you know better than that. You’ve fought in the mountains and during the Zastros business, six years ago, you’ve fought alongside Ehleenohee, even commanded units of them, on occasion, and you surely know that their warriors—heterosexual, bisexual or homosexual—can be every bit as effective as the warriors of any other people, if properly led, armed, supplied and disciplined.

“As to why I brought along young men of Kahnooryos Ehlahs and Karaleenos, I brought them for precisely the same reason you brought along all those footloose young warriors from half a score of clans; man, these are countless acres of prime land in this former kingdom with no lords to hold and rule them, so many were the noblemen killed in the civil wars and then in Zastros’ Folly. Ehleen customs of inheritance are strictly patrilineal, as you know, all land going to the eldest son of the house. All of the young men I brought down here are younger sons who will all be more than happy to give military service and then willingly swear oaths of loyalty to the Consolidated Thoheekseeahnee and our Confederation of Eastern Peoples in order to receive land on which to raise up a family.”