Robert Adams - Champion of the Last Battle

Early in the first morning of their encampment in the tiny vale they had found in the smoky dusk of the previous evening, the Silver Lady, the goddess reverenced by Ahrmehnee and Moon Maidens alike, had communicated with the leader of the Moon Maidens and given the order that—since their hold was now destroyed and all their folk dead—they were to give over many of the ways of the hold and choose and mate with the men with whom chance had thrown them. The brahbehrnuh, or leader, Rahksahnah, had chosen Thoheeks Bili.

But hardly had the two young warriors shared the first sweet embrace of their mating than Bili was warned telepathically by a prairiecat that a mixed force of horsemen and infantry was fast approaching the mouth of the vale. It was a near thing, true, but no battle took place there, and, after some discussion on various matters, Prince Byruhn had persuaded Bili to bring his force from the dangerously exposed position he occupied in the vale and partake of the safety and hospitality of one of the New Kuhmbuhluhn “safe glens,” Sandee’s Cot.

During the very first meeting between Prince Byruhn and Bili, both of them sitting their big warhorses in a mutually arranged and sworn Sword Cult Truce, Pah-Elmuh, the leader of those , huge, hairy hominids called Kleesahks, had knelt and hailed Bili as “the Champion of the Last Battle.” Some year or more later, Bili still did not fully comprehend the full import of this title, but he had become accustomed to the reverence with which both he and Rahksahnah were treated by the many Kleesahks and had likewise become accustomed to being addressed as Lord Champion by them.

Bili and his followers had originally only intended to bide at Sandee’s Cot long enough for the forest fires to burn themselves out, then to ride back into the Ahrmehnee stahn, but Prince Byruhn had, by most devious means, prevailed upon him and them to stay in New Kuhmbuhluhn at least long enough to help him rid his country of the despicable race of Ganiks, outlaw elements of which the lowlanders knew as the Muhkohee.

This Bili and his hard-bitten little band had done with the aid of Count Sandee and a few of his men and some score of the huge Kleesahks. They were wintering in Sandee’s Cot, awaiting the spring thaw to make their way back east, when, once again, Prince Byruhn had come to call and, being this time hard pressed by the Skohshuns in the northwest, had once again set about the same devious mode of “persuading” the lowlanders to ride back to New Kuhmbuhluhn and throw their weight and warlike skill against this new foe of the kingdom.

And so they all had ridden north with the spring, and Bili had pledged his and their services to King Mahrtuhn and the House of New Kuhmbuhluhn until the Skohshuns were defeated. Now, King Mahrtuhn and his designated heir, his grandson, Prince Mahrtuhn Gilbuht, lay dead in the rock-carven crypt of the dynasty, deep within King’s Rest Mountain. Poor Prince Byruhn—now King Byruhn, much against his desires and keenly aware of a hoary prophecy that Byruhn would be the name of the very last king of his dynasty—now lay comatose in his old suite in the palace, struck down through accident on the walls during the first attempted storming of them by the Skohshuns.

The prince was not and had never been a mindspeaker, but in order to protect his thoughts from those who did happen to own that gift, the Kleesahks had long ago taught him how to erect and maintain a powerful mindshield. Apparently this shield had been raised into place at the time the catapult missile, a large, heavy, round boulder, had rolled off the rear of an engine platform and fallen to strike the prince and crush his thick helmet. Now, with that impenetrable mindshield firmly locked into its accustomed position, Pah-Elmuh could not reach the stricken monarch’s mind in order to instruct it how to begin repairing the brain’s internal damages.

And so Prince Byruhn lay upon the great bed in his suite, administered thin broths and other liquids through a flexible tube that Pah-Elmuh had somehow contrived to get down his throat into his stomach. Byruhn could not swallow and would soon have died without that tube, but as it was, the flesh seemed to be wasting away from his big-boned frame day by day.

Three days after the tragic accident, those members of the royal council who had survived the costly battle had come to Bili, who, based upon one of King Byruhn’s orders, was already commanding the garrison of the city, and implored him to serve as royal regent during the new king’s recovery and convalescence. Promising them an answer in two days, Bili had discussed the weighty matter with Rahksahnah, the lieutenants of his condotta, those New Kuhmbuhluhners he had come to respect, Pah-Elmuh the Kleesahk, even, finally, with the prairiecat Whitetip; then he had summoned the councilors and informed them that only if both they and the commoners’ council agreed to his tenure and his terms would he accept the regency. They had, all of them, of all stations.

Bili of Morguhn had had a part in sieges before, both in the defensive and the offensive roles, and he often thought that if defend a city he had to do, this city and citadel of New Kuhmbuhluhnburk were ideally suited and situated to make its commander’s task relatively safe, easy and comfortable, while at the same time causing a maximum of discomfort, peril and frustration to the besieging forces.

Despite the vast hoards of foodstuffs for man and for beasts which he had been made aware were stored in the side of the mountain against and into which the city and the citadel were built, Bili had assembled and addressed the native Kuhmbuhluhn landholders—those still alive and active after the battle against the Skohshun pike lines—and told them all to return quickly to their lands. They were, one and all, to strip those lands of all provisions that could be easily carted or herded to the city, butchering or burning or otherwise rendering unusable everything that must perforce be left behind to the tender mercies of the encroaching Skohshuns.

He did not tell them to bury their valuables; he knew that they would do that anyway. Nor did he tell them not to bring their noncombatant dependents behind the walls of New Kuhmbuhluhnburk. He simply pointed out that no matter how well supplied, close-crowded cities under siege were most prone to breed terrible plagues against which there existed little if any protection. Most of the landholders ended by sending their families, servants, some of their retainers and large portions of their herds and flocks up into the surrounding mountains—safe and familiar to them, foreign and potentially dangerous to the Skohshuns.

When the defeated army, bearing their dead royalty and their many wounded, had passed through the gates of the burk, not a one but was certain that the Skohshuns would be under the walls within bare days; but their unanimous assessment had been off by the better part of a month, and by the time the enemy column finally appeared on the plain below the city, it had only been necessary to bring in the herds and flocks then at graze on the nearer reaches of that plain, man the barbican and slam shut the ponderous gates. All else was in complete readiness for a protracted siege.

Two months, or the best part of that amount of time, had now gone by since the arrival of the Skohshuns on the plain, and in the four major assaults essayed against the burk, not a single one of the alien soldiers had gotten farther than the stout, stone-built barbican or the verge of the gorge behind it. The attackers had managed to get all of their wounded back down the mountain each time, but they had left a plentitude of dead bodies to constantly inspire the garrison and the inhabitants of New Kuhmbuhluhnburk. Morale within the beleaguered city could not have been higher, and Duke Bili and his retinue were roundly cheered by populace and soldiers alike each time they appeared on the walls.