Robert Adams - A Woman of the Horseclans

Lainuh had every living soul old enough to reason and walk unaided well organized with assigned tasks, schedules and-deadlines for completion or assigned tasks in and about the yurt. Djahn Staiklee and Tim, were, of course, with the rest of the men and not available for her assignments, and Dahnah’s twelve-year-old son was riding herd guard of nights while undergoing his warrior training of days, and no plea or veiled threat would persuade the subchief in charge to alter the boys schedule so that he might be free to work for her.

“Lainuh, that boy has less than two years left to become a warrior. And the clan stands in need of warriors just now, as you of all people should know.

“He’ll never be better than a middling bowman; he’s just not got the coordination for it. But he’s a fine horseman and promises to be very strong, and I mean to make a lanceman of him, maybe even teach him the finer points of axework. And both of those take time, time and more time.

“So, no, he’s of more and better use to the clan in honing his weapons skills than he could possibly be lugging chests and barrels and the like at your beck.”

Lainuh returned to the yurt in a cold rage, and its other occupants wisely avoided her for a while, knowing of long and often painful experience that a thwarted Lainuh was better left strictly alone until she had had a chance to cool down a bit or at least take the razor edge off her anger, take the murder out of her heart.

It was only two days prior to the announced date of departure that the carts were brought to the yurt for packing. There were two smaller carts and one larger, the larger intended to bear the complete yurt and the two smaller anything else that for whatever reason could not be packed on the back of a horse.

Lainuh ranted and raved almost incessantly until the carts’ arrival, ceaselessly badgering Djahn Staiklee and Tim whenever they stumbled in, half dead with exhaustion for a meal, a bath and change of clothes or a few hours of sleep.

That is, she did so until the evening when her husband, pushed beyond endurance by her tirades, dragged her outside by the hair and soundly thrashed her with a leather strap. This gave those in the yurt an entire night of peace and quiet, most welcome, both of them.

The first scouts returned while the packing of the carts and the wagons were commencing. The route agreed upon had been to strike due west for a week, then to bear southwest until a suitable winter campsite was found. The scouts and the cats that had accompanied them had reconnoitered the first leg of the proposed migration and were back to report to the chiefs.

The four scouts and two cats met with the three chiefs in the yurt of Chief Milo, that home now stripped to little more than felt walls, wooden supports and a few carpets.

Djaimz Skaht, a middle-aged nomad who had led the scouting party, announced. “There’s no reason why the first fifty or so miles shouldn’t be easy, as we’ll be trekking roughly parallel to any really big rivers, nor could we find any traces of a recent movement of bodies of men, mounted or otherwise.

“It’s a good bit of game on the route we scouted, including a fairly sizable herd of small shaggies we saw on the last day west: they seemed to be heading south or southeast, and had a lot of big screwhorns mixed in with them, There were wolves following that herd, of course.”

“And more than wolves, cat-brothers,” put in Steelclaws, one of the prairiecats. “We cats found traces of at least one of the great bears and two different kinds of cat—the shaggy cat and the smaller, running cat.”

“Shaggy cats? My cat-brother is certain of this?” beamed Milo with clear concern. The so-called “shaggy cats” were no less than the species that long, long ago had been known as African Lions, In the aftermath of the disasters that had nearly extirpated mankind on the face of the earth, many of these and other alien animals then kept in zoos, theme parks and even on private ranches scattered about the North American continent had escaped to freedom and, in the case of lions, at least, had adapted, thrived and multiplied over the intervening centuries, The prides preferred open plains and were mostly found near herds of bison, feral cattle or horses and the native or alien antelopes. trailing after them on their great seasonal migrations to north and south.

They were not of much real danger to an armed and mounted Horseclanner, unless they happened to have hungry designs on the horse. And even then a Horseclan steed could outrun the largest of lions with any sort of a lead on the cat to begin. But mere scent of a lion or two could drive cattle, sheep, even the reasoning horses wild with uncontrolled panic, and more than a few nomads had been killed and maimed in trying to turn the leading beasts of stampedes.

The wolves he discounted; they would be well fed this time of the year and traveling in small, family groups rather than in the huge, murderous, ravenous packs of winter. But the bear could be another question entirely.

He had never heard of lions turning man-eater and -hunter, and though winter wolves would tear apart any creature they could get at—two legs or four—most well-fed wolves had a strong tendency to avoid mankind and his camps. But the huge prairie grizzlies often—too often, for Milo’s liking—seemed to relish manflesh and would go far out of their usual ways to get at potential victims, even entering clan camps and tearing through the walls of yurts to come within tooth range of the folk within.

Moreover, they were usually devilishly hard to kill, having immense vitality and continuing to wreak pure havoc even when stippled with so many arrows as to resemble gigantic tailless porcupines.

“Were we trekking due west only,” he beamed to the other two chiefs, “I’d say that we should angle a bit to the north and thus avoid any trouble with the predators following that herd. But since we needs must head south after a week or so on the move, I say set out southeast and take our chances with the bear and cats and wolves, while living well off game. At least, Sacred Sun be praised, we’re a little too far south here for wolverines or blackfoot beasts.”

“Wind be thanked for those favors, at least,” nodded Dik Krooguh. “A wolverine it was maimed my hand, you know. We just will have to start beefing up herd guards, day and night on the march—more Cats, more maiden-archers and some good lancemen with heavy hunting spears.”

“Just so,” agreed Chief Skaht, “and more scouts out ahead of us, scouting in depth, no slipshod stuff. Another thing, too, one that no one is going to like, for all it’s necessary, all things considered: We’d be wise to start keeping enough horses in camp to mount all our warriors quickly, if push comes to shove, because you all know damned well that no lion- or bear-panicked horse is going to respond to a mindcall. This breed of Kindred horses of ours are smarter than the bulk of their ilk and they can even reason, up to a point, but we’d be foolish to not recognize their limitations and guard against the dire results of a panicky herd on a night of need.”

The cat chief sat up from his crouch and yawned widely agape, carefully curling his long, broad, red-pink tongue away from the winking points of his oversized fangs. “Cat brothers,” he beamed, “as always, you vastly overestimate the reasoning abilities and general intelligence of the horse tribe. Our Kindred race is not all that much more intelligent than many another non-Kindred breed of equine. Most mules, in fact, are far and away the mental superiors of most horses, which is why we prairiecats, if ride we must, would do soon the back of a mule.

“The horse king will be displeased that you insist on keeping so many of his best fighters in camp, but I think you are right, brother chief; all you two-legs are so slow without horses, and when fighting bears or shaggy cats, speed can be the difference between living and not living. Besides, your chosen mounts will be far less likely not to bolt if they know that most of the prairiecats and a whole camp full of armed two-legs are around them to protect them.”