Robert Adams - Bili the Axe

“And it’s not just that Geros is a good warrior and very adaptable to new peoples and situations that will stand to make him a superlative Freefighter captain. He’s the ability to quickly see both problems and solutions to those problems at one and the same time whether those problems be of a strategic or tactical or logistic nature. For all his soft voice and disarming manner—or, maybe, because of them—he is damnably adept at getting his own way, at winning sometime opponents over to his side. Turn a man of his talents loose in the Middle Kingdoms with a decent company at his back and he’d likely finish his life as a duke or, at least, a royal count.

“But for all his undeniable genius at it, I fear me that our Geros really detests wars and fighting, as he has right often claimed. When and if we ever find Duke Bili or at least find out what happened to him and the others, Geros is far more likely to hie him back to Vawn or Morguhn or Lehzlee and plump him down on a patch of land to set about siring a family and raising livestock and crops, and a criminal waste of a good captain that will be, too, for all that he’ll likely be far happier at such than he would have been at marshaling troops and laying the groundwork for great, crashing battles for some grand duke or king or other. But such a waste, such a pure and unadulterated waste of a soldier.”

And while old Pawl Raikuh rode on into the gathering storm mumbling and grumbling to himself, the man who was the hub of his thoughts was himself thinking.

“It is beginning to seem that these Muhkohee will never stop coming. I know mat the Lady Nahrda and her Moon Maidens are as anxious to push on and try to find some trace of her brahbehrnuh as am I to find Thoheeks Bili, but we can’t just desert these brave Behdrozyuhns; without the weight of our arms, they’d stand no chance at all against so many. They never were one of the larger, more powerful tribes, apparently, and over the last two years their numbers and strength have been even further reduced… and it doesn’t add to my own peace of mind to recall that I and most of these good men who are down here with me had a bloody hand in the decimation of these Behdrozyuhns, albeit under orders of our suzerain, Milo, the High Lord.

“Therefore, I feel strongly that both Lord Milo and Thoheeks Bili would be the first to agree that we owe far more to these poor, valiant folk than ever we can repay and that the small service we render this one, weakened tribe will possibly go far to strengthen the alliance that the High Lord and the nahkhahrah , Kogh Taishyuhn, are hoping to effect.

“Not that I enjoyed frightening away those poor, peaceable families of farmers, but it is clear that they are of the very same race as these savage raiders, so I can understand why the Behdrozyuhns insist that they, too, be driven hence.

“This latest mob of shaggies is the largest we’ve ever had to face down here, the largest aggregation of them I’ve seen since those thousands that Thoheeks Bili led us against just before the earthquake and the fires separated us… Was it only a year agone, and not quite that? It seems like several years.

“Of course, Thoheeks Bili may be long dead, gone to Wind in the fiery aftermath of that volcanic eruption that caused the earthquake, but Pawldoesn’t think so and everyone knows that Pawl has second sight. And the nahkhahrah’s new wife, the witch woman, Mother Zehpoor, averred before we left the lands of the Taishyuhn Tribe that both Thoheeks Bili and the brahbehrnuh still lived and that I would find them, though the way would be long and dangerous.

“Well, it’s assuredly been long and these damned Muhkohee have made it dangerous enough, true. But withal, it has been good to experience these Ahrmehnee as friends and allies after having known them for so long a time as victims or as enemies.

“These Behdrozyuhns are a remarkable folk—hardworking, but jolly and caring and generous to a fault with their own or with those they call friends, even former enemies like me. I’m not any part Ahrmehnee, yet the elders keep hinting that when once I find Thoheeks Bili, nothing would please them more than that I return here and become their dehrehbeh . And, oddly enough, I think I could be very happy here, among them.

“But, of course, I’d be happy anywhere that I didn’t have to swing steel—to hurt and maim and kill, to shed the blood of other men day in and day out.

“Yet that is just what Pawl wants me to do, expects me to do for a good part of the rest of my life. He’s already hard at the planning of a condotta for me to captain with him as my principal lieutenant, when once Thoheeks Bili is found and our commitment to him and the Confederation is at an end. Old Pawl has done much for me these last years, and I would hate to disappoint him, but…

“Oh, dammit! I just don’t enjoy my life anymore. Why couldn’t they just have left me the servant that I was? Why did they have to start ruining my prospects for happiness? After all, I did nothing that any other man of the Morguhn Troop wouldn’t have done in like circumstances. If they had to foist titles and lands off on someone, why not Pawl instead of me? He’s noblebom and a professional soldier, to boot; he’d have taken to these added burdens like a stoat kit to fresh blood. When I was just a sergeant, I could have easily slipped back into my servant’s life after the rebels were scotched and the duchy was again at peace. Komees Hari Daiviz of Morguhn would’ve hired me; he said so, once.

“But now, even if I don’t feel constrained to give in to Pawl and become a Freefighter captain, even if I don’t come back here to the Behdrozyuhns and let them make me a chief, still will there be little peace and quiet for me in Morguhn. Holding title to lands in two widely separated duchies, as I do, Sir Geros Lahvoheetos of Morguhn and of Lehzlee will most likely spend half of every year in a saddle rather than a chair, even if the Confederation doesn’t exercise its option to force me to serve a few years as an officer in the western armies.

“And even if I sold the damned baronetcies, both of them, no nobleman would hire on a belted knight as anything but the one I’m trying to avoid—a soldier or bodyguard or castellan. So what am I to do? Perhaps, when once I’ve found him, Thoheeks Bili will have an answer to my problem.”

Then he wrinkled his brows over the more immediate, more pressing problem—that large band of Muhkohee raiders. “Hmmm. There’re two hundred and twelve of us, at least there were as of this dawning, but twenty-nine are recovering from wounds or are too sick to sit a horse in this abominable weather, which leaves me with a total of one hundred and eighty-three. The Behdrozyuhns number one hundred and thirty-four prime warriors, and if I could take all of mine and all of theirs, there’d be no question of making a quick bloodpudding of those raiders.

“But, unfortunately, we can’t be sure that that mob is all of the buggers; they’re prone to splitting off smaller groups for any reason or none, and we’ve had a few near things when we were unexpectedly flanked by returning units. And so, young Ahrszin will insist—and I will concur; I’d order it even if he didn’t, in fact—that at least a good third of our effectives be left behind to guard the village.

“Consequently, any way you hack it, we’ll be riding against at least three times our numbers, and likely in snow of such a depth as will slow down our mounts and largely nullify the shock value of a full-blown charge. Of course, one saving factor is that those shorter-legged ponies of theirs will be more hampered by deep snow than our taller mounts. The same might be said for the ponies of the Ahrmehnee, except that these Ahrmehnee warriors prefer to fight on foot and usually use their ponies only to get them to where the fighting will take place.”