Robert Adams - Champion of the Last Battle

And on those occasions when he was allowed use of his bed, Meeree either ignored him completely or hectored him for long, sleepless hours with all that she swore would be done to him and all the other men when the Moon Maidens at last realized the errors into which the forsworn Rahksahnah had led them, cleaved to her—Meeree—and took over the city of New Kuhmbuhluhnburk as a new Hold of the Maidens of the Moon.

Then, of a night, something awakened him from exhausted slumber in time to see Meeree advancing toward him, her good right hand gripping the worn hilt of her razor-edged shortsword, her lips curled back from off her teeth, her eyes as wild and savage as those of any predatory beast. Only his startled, sudden movement saved his genitals from the point and edges of her steel, and she still managed to thrust the broad blade so deeply into his inner thigh that the point grated agonizingly against bone.

Fortunately for Gy, Bili and Rahksahnah were but just closing the main doors of their suite for the night, having bid a goodnight to Pah-Elmuh, when the hornman staggered naked out into the hallway, his wound gushing blood at every beat of his heart.

When once the Kleesahk had stopped the arterial blood flow, cleaned and closed the gaping wound, then instructed Gy Ynstyn’s brain to pump natural anesthetics into the affected areas and to commence the healing processes, he and Bili entered the swooning hornman’s mind and had the entire tale.

When questioned, Rahksahnah just shrugged. “It began while you were trying to persuade the Kuhmbuhluhners and Skohshuns to join together, Bili. You had a full load of cares, and I could see no reason to burden you with more. I’m of the opinion that poor Meeree’s mind is become as twisted and deformed as her arm. Back during the first week after the battle, she tried to put a dagger into Kahndoot’s heart, but with long months of bad blood between those two, it was perhaps understandable. But now this night’s work, to attack and almost kill her own, sworn battlecompanion ... ? Bili, she is not any longer the Meeree I once loved, and it’s too bad, for that Meeree was an altogether admirable woman.”

“Pah-Elmuh,” Bili asked, “lunacy such as this—is it at all responsive to your talents?”

“Yes, Lord Champion,” beamed the Kleesahk in reply. “I have, over the years, brought reason back to more than a few unfortunates through first wakening them to their problems, then showing their brains how to correct them. But it is a long process, Lord Champion—months are required to do it properly.”

Bili thought for a moment, then nodded and mindspoke, “If I leave behind a sum to provide proper maintenance for this woman, Meeree, would you undertake to cure her, old friend?”

Pah-Elmuh smiled and beamed, “Speak not of gold or silver, Lord Champion. You have wrought here in New Kuhmbuhluhn more than a score of our generations could ever repay. Besides, you know that healing is my art and my joy. She will be well maintained, never you fear. Perhaps when once her mind is clear and rational, I can even show it how to restore that arm.”

And so, of a bright morning in early autumn, Sir Bili, Thoheeks and Chief of Morguhn, Lord Champion of the Kleesahks, and last legal ruler of the former Kingdom of New Kuhmbuhluhn, set the steel-shod hooves of his mighty warhorse to the boards of the drawbridge and rode out of that fortress-city he had defended so well. The throngs he left behind in the streets of the mountain city cheered him and his cavalcade, even while bitterly weeping over his departure. One and all, they had come to truly love the brave, astute, just and always courteous young commander and, agreements in council be damned, would have acclaimed him the new King of Kuhmbuhluhn, in a bare eyeblink, had they had but a suspicion that he might have accepted the crown.

Arrived down upon the plain, Bili, Rahksahnah, Hornman Gy, the bannerman bearing the Red Eagle of Morguhn, and Bili’s six bodyguards took their places at the head of the long column and the march toward the central mountain chain commenced.

Excepting some of the servants and muleskinners, all were veterans, so the steady pace of the march did not fatigue them, and when finally Bili called a halt and an encampment was emplaced near to a purling brookside, they were only a day’s additional march from the mouth of the pass that would take them through to the southern counties.

They were moving through a land that was at last enjoying peace, so Bili saw no reason to post guards or establish a perimeter for the camp. Consequently, it sprawled unevenly along both sides of the winding brook and soon became a place of joyous merriment for the homeward-bound men and women. With dinners consumed, barrels of Skohshun beer and Kuhmbuhluhn ale were broached, and wineskins circulated freely. The ever-present Ahrmehnee musicians drew out their instruments, and, to their wailing, drum-thumping rhythms, the other Ahrmehnee first raised a deep-voiced chorus, then began a sword dance.

The drinking and general jollity went on about the leaping fires until well after moonrise, when Bili, reluctantly, ordered all to seek their beds, as he intended to recommence the march at dawn. He and Rahksahnah stripped and washed in the icy water of the brook, then raced breathlessly up the bank to seek the anticipated warmth of their camp bed and blankets.

In his huge great-bed, where he lay dying with the stink of his own suppurating flesh cloying his nostrils, the old, old man that the years had made of young Bili of Morguhn once more castigated himself as he had nearly every lonely day for almost eighty years.

“ Why ?” he demanded of himself. “Why did I do it? Surely I knew better. I had been a-soldiering for more than half my life, even then. Had I set up a perimeter, posted sentries, had I even placed a brace of my personal guards at the entry of my pavilion ... ”

A protracted sigh rattled out of the throat of the dying old man, bringing the attending physician hurrying to his side to assure himself that the spark of life yet remained. But Bili did not see or hear this old friend. He once more was reliving the saddest moments of his ninety-nine years of existence.

Laughing through chattering teeth, young Bili and his dark, lovely and much-loved wife and battlemate, Rahksahnah, ran gaily into their pavilion, dimly lit by a single small metal lamp slung by chains from the ridgepole. After hurriedly stripping off their damp clothing, they tumbled into the camp bed to lie locked in close embrace until their bodies’ heat reasserted normal temperature and they ceased to shiver.

That same closeness, however, aroused passions that had never been long quiescent in them. Then, after they both were sated, fulfilled one by the other, they lay long in silent, telepathic oneness before sleep finally claimed them.

Bili was never certain just how long they lay in slumber, but suddenly his danger-prescience, which rare talent had so many times before saved his life on the march or in situations of imminent combat, brought him completely awake and wary. He cautiously slitted his eyes and saw, through the scrimlike curtain of Rahksahnah’s disordered black hair, a cloaked and hooded figure moving soundlessly across the thick carpets. The dim lamplight glittered on the watered-steel blade that the intruder held reversed, in the classic down-stabbing position.

Making as little movement as possible, Bili felt for the familiar hilt of his pillow sword ... unavailingly. It was not in its accustomed place! So he mindspoke Rahksahnah.

“Do not move, my dear, not yet, not until you feel me do so. There is an intruder here, in this very chamber, creeping with naked steel toward us. Moreover, the servants forgot again to place my pillow sword in position when they set up the bed. But there’s but the one and that one not very big. Wait.”