Robert Adams - A Woman of the Horseclans

From that day, Roger and his force were in command, easily exercising undisputed control of the besieged Abode, everyone and everything within it. Having learned a bloody lesson at the hands of the hard-faced professional soldiers and bereft of the guidance of their hereditary leader, the sullen farmers did as they were told.

However, on that first day, by the time Roger was ready to take out the boy and, he hoped, have a meeting with the chief, the small knot of mounted Horseclansmen was nowhere to be seen. Nor had any of the farmers he had driven out at swordpoint to find the nomad warriors—not wishing to risk the lives of any of his own troopers or officers—ever yet returned.

Some half a moon after Behtiloo Hansuhn of Krooguh had departed the clan camp, an excited herdboy on a lathered horse came pounding through camp and up to the chief yurt, flung himself from out of his saddle and ran up the steps. Moments later, Chief Sami and his subchiefs were saddling quickly available horses, mindcalling others and bawling for their gear. Mounted and arrayed in their showy best, they all rode out headed west.

“And so,” said Chief Gil Kabuht of Kabuht, his crookedly healed nose affecting his speech adversely, “when we had heard the old lady out, we all agreed that there was naught for it but to ride. My son’s second wife is a Krooguh, as you know, and there still are pledges of marriage between our two clans, of course, and blood has always been thicker than water.

“Now, true, Clan Kabuht is not so large and wealthy as is Clan Krooguh, but then Clan Danyuhlz, Clan Esmith and Clan Morguhn are here, too; they came immediately, they had heard the old lady’s tale, so we number near sixscore sabers among us all. Nor will there be a limit on the time we can stay. Brother Sami, for our clans march only two or three days behind us. So treat us here to a good old-fashioned feast of fine fat Dirtman beef and mutton, then let’s get busy at putting paid to the former owners of that meat, hey?”

During the very night of that feast, a Kambuhl clansman rode a trembling, heaving, foam-streaked horse into the Krooguh camp to announce that Chief Bili Kambuhl of Kambuhl had been visited by Chiefs-widow Behtiloo Hansuhn of Krooguh and was even now on the march with all the warriors of the main clan, plus those of no less than three septs. The messenger, who was every bit as spent as his nearly foundered horse, estimated that Clan Kambuhl would be arrived from the north in two days or less and opined that Chief Bili just might be a wee bit put out should the party start before he and his clansmen came.

“Now how in hell could Grandmother be in two places at the same time?” Chief Sami demanded to know. “How could she appeal to you Kambuhls and to the Danyuhlzes, Kabuhts, Morguhns and the Esmiths separately and all within only a few days?”

The Kambuhl clansman shook his head slowly, tiredly. “I only do the bidding of my chief, Chief Sami. Ask your questions of him; he’ll be here soon enough, I’ll warrant.”

But before even the vanguard of the Kambuhls could appear on the horizon, up from the south, driving their skinny herds before them, came Clans Linszee and Sanderz. Between both clans, they numbered only forty-six warriors; nonetheless, they were true descendants of the Sacred Ancestors and were fairly burning to avenge the blood of murdered Kindred.

Sami Krooguh brought most of his own warriors back to his clan camp for a much-needed rest and continued the encirclement of Three-House with the fresh and eager men of the other clans, all under the nominal command of war-wise Hwahlis Hansuhn of Krooguh, with such other chiefs and subchiefs as happened to be there to assist him.

With so many sabers and bows now behind them, Hwahlis, Buhd and the rest saw that the lines were drawn tighter, though the men of the assembled clans rapidly learned deepest respect for the droning projectiles thrown by the smoke-lances that could maim or slay a man or a horse at half a mile or more.

By day, the nomad warriors wormed their way in on their bellies, close enough to fire the fields of ripening grain. Twice in the first week after the reinforcement of Clan Krooguh, soot-blackened men on dark-colored horses swept in close enough on moonless or cloudy nights to loose flight after deadly flight of arrows to sweep the tiers of long porches and stockade platforms of the sentinels who manned them.

On other nights, Horseclan drums throbbed and boomed, bagpipes droned and wailed, hunting horns blatted, men shouted at intervals and screeched clan warcries, while the prairiecats raised their hideous, unearthly, yowling screams from sundown until dawn. And at any moment, by day or by night, a single fire arrow could be expected to arc up from some sheltered point to thud into one of the palisade logs, the gates or over the stockade palings and in among the parked wagons.

The length of the shallow valley along the rill was become but a single vast encampment, with the herds spread out for actual miles on either side. And still they came! Clans Daiviz, Kehlee and Rabs arrived together from the southwest, with a total of ninety warriors; Clans Bahrtuhn and Duhgliz with fifty-six; Rohz and Oneel and Higinz between them counted over a hundred more ready blades.

A stray caravan of traders accompanied Clans Kahrtuh and Baikuh, and their pigs of metals were most welcome to the hard-working smiths of the various clans. Soon booths were set up and a note of gaiety was added, though anyone could clearly perceive that this was no ordinary clans gathering, not with the constant comings and goings of fully armed and often mounted warriors, not with forge fires glowing, sending up showers of scintillating sparks by day and by night as well, not with the occasional bearing in of a dead or gravely wounded clansman from the scene of the siege, to the east, at Three-House.

Because the graze was becoming sparse and the game was now nonexistent, the council of chiefs decided to move the huge, sprawling camp closer to their theater of military operations, and over a period of hectic days marked by incredible amounts of unbelievable confusion, this was at last accomplished.

Even as they moved the camp and herds, however, more Kindred clans made their appearance; all claiming to have been fired by the words of old Behtiloo Hansuhn of Krooguh. Some were entire clans with their herds, others were war parties of warriors, maiden-archers, prairiecats and spare horses with pack trains. Another caravan of traders wandered in just in time to replenish the flagging supplies of metals and good eastern-made wines and hwiskee.

And on a day, two lone men rode in from due west. One of them was of advanced years, and a tooled-leather harp case was strapped across his back. The second man was much bigger and looked to be of no more than early middle years; he was armed and accoutered as a Horseclans warrior, and he bestrode a big, handsome red-bay stallion.

As the two men’s mounts ambled into the fringes of the camp, a subchief of Clan Kahrtuh recognized the younger, bigger, war-equipped man.

“ Uncle Milo! ” he breathed softly, then he wheeled his mare about and set off for the circle of chief yurts at her best gallop.

Captain-of-dragoons Roger Gorman came running at the first call of the lookout and the sentries on the palisade platforms, buckling on his scale shirt as he ran. There had been the unmistakable signs and sounds of the movements of large numbers of mounted men out yonder, all through the preceding night, and he had been dead certain of and prepared his group for a dawn attack in force.

But when he reached the ground level, no massed formations of mounted clansmen were in sight, though of course any number might still be concealed by the pea-soup-thick ground mist out there. Rather, four horsemen were moving slowly and deliberately in the direction of the palisades main gate.