Robert Adams - Bili the Axe

Streams shown upon Count Steev’s map as narrow, shallow valley rills proved often, under these adverse conditions of weather, to be ten or more yards across at the narrowest and belly-deep to a warhorse, where the Kleesahks found fords.

Horses and ponies fell on the slippery tracks, a few so badly injured that it was necessary to put them down. No men or women died or were seriously injured, but Bili at length ordered all to march dismounted until they had traversed that particular stretch of the journey.

Hardened veterans of war and campaigning though all the men and women were, within a week everyone was sniffling, sneezing, hacking out lung-tearing coughs, feverish, and Bili would have halted for a while could he have found shelter and dry wood enough to last them long enough. But the map told the grim story—they must keep moving for at least a week more, did the weather not change for the better.

It did not. Pah-Elmuh did what little he could, but he freely admitted that head colds did not respond very well to his healing methods, though he could achieve success in clearing congestions from the lungs or binding loosenesses of the bowels.

Tempers became short in the squadron, and it often was all Bili and his officers could do to prevent fights, duels or outright murder. Amongst the suffering troops, animosities which had remained dormant during better times raised their venomous heads—racial, sexual or class distinctions. The Kleesahks proved invaluable in curbing these outbreaks of human violence.

Freefighter Sergeant Loo Haiguhn leaned to stir the stew just beginning to bubble in the pot hung over the tiny fire and, in so doing, chanced to slop a dollop out.

“Clumsy, stupid piece of male offal!” commented his war companion and mate, the Moon Maiden Klahra.

Haiguhn’s head was pounding ferociously, it being a sudden and more agonizing stab of that pain which had caused him to spill the small bit from the pot. Straightening up, he snarled, “If you think you can do it better, you arrogant sow, do it! Cooking a man’s meal is the proper job of a woman, anyhow!”

With an enraged hiss of “Impudent man-thing!” Klahra drove her fist in a short, hard punch square onto his dripping nose, which spurted bright blood beneath her hard knuckles.

But a backhanded buffet from the big, powerful sergeant hurled the slender, much lighter young woman to the squishy ground. Before she could even think of arising, Haiguhn had wiped the back of his hand across his nose, seen his blood and dropped upon her. His knees and weight pressed her shoulders into the sodden loam, and his big hands locked around her throat, tightening remorselessly, all reason fled from him.”

Frantically, her whole being starved for air, Klahra’s short-nailed fingers reached up past his muscle-bulging arms, tried in vain to find his eyes, clawing great, blood-welling gouges down his bristly cheeks.

Before Hohmuh the Kleesahk could reach them, even with the length of his strides and the rapidity of movement of his eight-foot stature, Klahra’s face had become livid, her eyes and tongue protruding horribly. With a sigh of mingled sorrow and disgust at such senseless savagery as the two humans displayed, the massive humanoid picked up Haiguhn by his wide dagger belt and ungently shook him until he opened his hands and let go of the swooning woman’s neck.

And this was but one of the more minor altercations, one involving only two people and no bared steel.

But all things—both the good and the bad—must end, and though it seemed to last for an interminable period, the long, difficult journey finally did come to an end. On a bright, sun-dappled morning, the vanguard passed from narrow mountain track onto the southernmost edge of a vast plateau of level fields and grassy leas crisscrossed with wide corduroy roads and strong stone-and-timber bridges over the watercourses. The column had at last arrived in the longer-settled, long-peaceful portion of the Kingdom of New Kuhmbuhluhn.

As the head of the main column commenced the gradual descent, Pah-Elmuh, mounted high on his huge Northorse, pointed to the northern horizon, mindspeaking to the young thoheeks and Rahksahnah, “Yonder is King’s Rest Mountain. The city lies partway up its southern slope, on a smaller plateau, and is not visible to humans from this distance. The contested lands, those now held by the Skohshuns, lie north and northwest of mountain and city, being generally lower in elevation and sloping down toward the river called Ohyoh.”

The remainder of the march was accomplished in easy stages, an initial encampment of several days allowing the squadron real rest, hot, plentiful, well-cooked food, and time to dry out blankets and clothing and perform much-needed maintenance on weapons and equipment that had remained damp for too long.

The free farmers and stockmen of the countryside through which the column passed proved friendly, generous to a fault and eagerly anticipatory of their needs. Locals were quick to point out the best areas for night camps, and, like as not, when the main column arrived at these sites, cordwood would be all neatly stacked and some cattle slaughtered, skinned, rough-dressed and hung on frames, ready for the butchering.

Bili, himself a landholder and fully cognizant of the costs of such lavish hospitality, protested to the petty nobleman of New Kuhmbuhluhn who stood waiting with the wood and meat on the occasion of the third halt, citing among other things his lack of funds to pay for the provender.

But the bandy-legged knight only smiled good-naturedly, saying, “If nothing else, it would be the least we could do fer you and yer squadron, my lord duke, especially when you come all the way up from Ganikland to help us drive the damn Skohshuns back where they come from. Even was all of the cost to come outen us, it would be but simple thanks, but”—here he grinned widely—“Prince Byruhn, he’ll make up some of it all to us, sooner or later. So eat hearty and fret not. Come to that, me and my fellers, we’ll even help yer folks to set up things, then help ‘em to eat up them steers, too.”

Sir Yoo Folsom—blond, blue-eyed, looking to be just approaching middle age and bearing enough scars to show that he had earned his title the hard way, even if the land was his by right of birth—and his men proved as good as his offer. All pitched to with a will in helping the squadron to do the multitudinous chores necessary to set up camp, lay and start the cookfires, then butcher the carcasses for quick, easy cooking.

Sir Yoo sent back one of the larger wagons with a double team, and before the beef was done, it and another laden wagon had arrived with beer for the bulk of the squadron and wine and brandy for the officers. Apparently sensing new protests from Bili, the knight made haste to justify these new and even*more lavish gifts.

“Look at it this way, if you please, m’lord duke. The lives of you and yer fine force are going to be on the line right along with mine own soon enough. If we all live and win out o’er these Skohshuns, why then there’ll doubtless be many another harvest to refill my cellars, while if we lose, then none of us will be around to quaff. So far better we do so now than leave such good fare for the damned invaders. Eh?”

So Bili gave over arguments and remonstrations, and soon the only wholly sober creatures in the camp—aside from the picket lines and the herd of remounts—were the Kleesahks and the prairiecat, Whitetip, all of whom took up the job of guarding the camp with their nonhuman keen senses, while carrying on a silent conversation concerning the hardly comprehensible foibles of the races of true-mankind.

The high-riding moon had been new when they had departed Sandee’s Cot, far to the southeast; it was once more new when—all polished, burnished, brushed, currycombed and clad in their finest—they clattered through the main gate of New Kuhmbuhluhnburk and thence up High Street, bound for the citadel complex set above the city proper on its own much smaller plateau.