Robert Adams - Bili the Axe

Up from the city streets, an inclined ramp led along the face of the elevation on which crouched the citadel. This way was broad for the most of its length—broad enough, thought Bili, for two large wains or wagons to pass abreast—with a balustrade of stone blocks along its outer edge to prevent mishaps and a bed corduroyed for better traction on the grade.

But at the top, where the roadway became almost level, the way narrowed considerably after taking a sharp turn to the right. Directly before them squatted a massive dressed-stone gatehouse, consisting of a brace of thirty-foot towers joined well above road level and housing strong-looking, double-valved gates between inner and outer portcullises of iron-sheathed, massy oaken timbers.

Beyond these outer works, a movable bridge spanned a chasm some twenty feet broad and as deep, seemingly, as the outer works were high. Bili decided that while the chasm might originally have been a natural feature, it had been deliberately broadened and deepened and rendered more regular in form, as was readily apparent to an experienced eye. Even the array of jagged boulders littering its bed seemed too evenly distributed to be entirely natural.

Like those of the city below, the citadel walls were massive but low—little higher than the gatehouse towers, in fact. No towers were built into the walls, and the mighty chains and thick cables for raising the bridge disappeared between merlons atop the walls. Another of the oak-and-iron grilles and another double-valved gate somewhat less thick than that in the outer works gave entry to the bailey of the citadel.

Due principally to the fact that most of the necessary outbuildings were built against or into the inner face of the protective wall, the bailey itself was relatively open and uncluttered. Aside from the palace—a rambling, two-story structure that reminded Bili of nothing so much as a vastly enlarged rendition of the hall at Sandee’s Cot—the most notable features were the commodious stables and the countless stacks of cordwood, piles of charcoal, and covered mounds of baled hay or straw.

The keep itself, the place of final refuge if city, outer works and bailey all had fallen to a determined and overpowering foe, was a half tower, built against and into the very mountain which reared up behind the smaller plateau. Huge as were the worked stones of the walls of city and citadel, they were dwarfed by the mighty courses of the half tower. And high as had been the lakeside tower that dominated Sandee’s Glen and Cot, this one seemed to rear to at least twice that height, soaring up to within bare rods of the summit of the very mountain.

Young Bili thought to himself that if all this—the city and its defenses, the citadel, with its outer and inner works and this patently invulnerable keep—had been the plannings of King Mahrtuhn I, the man had been nothing less than a military genius. Old Sir Ehd Gahthwahlt, High Lord Milo’s siegemaster and senior fortress architect, would die shriveled with envy if ever he saw these masterpieces of defensive architecture and engineering.

Although of more than seventy years, King Mahrtuhn II of New Kuhmbuhluhn showed precious few signs of advanced age and none of senility. A few strands of dark red still were evident in his yellowish-white hair, and intelligence sparkled in his gray-green eyes under brows almost as shaggy as those of his son, Prince Byruhn.

For all that he was seated in a highbacked armchair, it was apparent that the elderly monarch was still both fit and muscular, his sinewy, callused hands resting easily upon his flat horseman’s thighs. He lacked the height and massive breadth of Byruhn, but still, had he been standing, Bili thought that they two would easily have been able to stare eye to eye.

The man who lounged casually against the right side of the heavy carven and inlaid chair resembled the king far more than did Prince Byruhn, matching feature for craggy feature with the king Bili now was sworn to serve. So very close was the resemblance that the young thoheeks felt sure a glance at the lounger showed an accurate picture of the King Mahrtuhn of forty-odd years agone—thin, straight nose seeming to grow directly from the high forehead, shaggy brows and close-cropped hair of a dark red verging on auburn, protuberant cheekbones and broad chin, lips neither overthin nor over-thick but hinting a ready smile, ears large and outjutting with pendulous lobes, hands large and square and the backs of them thickly furred with crinkly red hair.

The body shapes of the two were not the broad-shouldered and thin-waisted and almost hipless ideal so favored by the Ehleenee of Bili’s homeland, but much closer in conformantion to his own powerful young body. The shoulders were broad and thick enough, rolling with muscle even on the elder man, but there was none of the tapering so loved by the Ehleenee; rather were the waists almost as thick as the chests, sitting upon hips almost as wide as the shoulders. Bili reflected that if both the royal personages were not, by choice, axemen, they had missed their calling and wasted nature’s gifts.

Although dutifully respectful of hereditary royalty, Bili was somewhat less than abashed, having been reared in the court of a far more powerful monarch than King Mahrtuhn, having swung steel tooth to jowl beside the very High Lord of the Eastern Confederation, not to mention having been for many months the well-loved lover of the High Lady Aldora Linszee Treeah-Pohtohmas Pahpahs who probably commanded more cavalrymen than the total numbers of every man, woman, child and Kleesahk in all of New Kuhmbuhluhn.

Therefore, as he came to a halt and followed Prince Byruhn’s example by sinking onto one knee before the seated king and inclining his head in momentary deference, he sent his powerful mind questing forth at both the monarch and the younger companion… to run head on into a strong mental shield akin to Byruhn’s own.

King Mahrtuhn showed surprisingly white, though crooked, teeth in an amused smile and said, in a pleasant, full-toned bass voice, “No, sir duke, we are not a telepath; few of our house ever have possessed that talent. But in protection against those who do and might pick our minds to wreak us ill, our good Kleesahks have schooled us in erecting a constant barrier against telepathic intrusion.”

Bili answered grin for grin. “No trespass was intended, your majesty. With those of us who possess the ability, such becomes almost second nature, for mindspeak takes far less time than does verbal intercourse. Moreover”—his grin widened perceptibly—“it is most difficult for mindspeakers to delude those with whom they so communicate effectively.”

King Mahrtuhn threw back his head and gusted forth his rumbling, basso laughter. “Our Byruhn had warned us of your tactful bluntness of speech, Cousin Bili. We think us that you are no stranger to courts and kings and their ways.

You go as far as is permissible and no farther, and with a long life during which we have endured far too many sycophants, we find a young man such as you seem most refreshing. “Arise, cousin. Byruhn, have chairs and wine fetched. Your aged and doddering old sire would have words with this vital young nobleman.”

Despite the singular oddities of their personal habits, Abner and Leeroy were as brave as any Ganik—just so long as they were faced with corporeal foemen—not to mention tough, resourceful, aggressive and utterly ruthless. These sterling qualities, coupled with the untarnished glamour of having been the personal bullies of the second leader of the main bunch of outlaw raiders, fitted them admirably as the leaders of the mob of stragglers from the bunches now based just beyond the southwest borders of Ahrmehnee lands.

When first they had arrived in company with some threescore other deserters from what had been the stronghold of the main bunch, nothing so mundane as physical cowardice had led them and their followers to desert the besieged camp, but rather the creeping, crawling, unnatural and unbearable dread of the unknown—ghosts, specters and maleficent demons.