Robert Adams - Bili the Axe

Scores, possibly, hundreds, of the deserters had seen—with their own two bulging, horrified eyes—the huge ghost of their long-dead Kleesahk leader, Buhbuh, appear from out of a cloud of mist at various times and places to warn them that their Kuhmbuhluhner foes had enlisted the aid of a vast horde of the murderous specters of dead Ahrmehnee and Moon Maidens; had summoned up another horde of terrible demons to kill sleeping Ganiks in the very midst of tightly guarded camps or to bear them, living, away for an eternity of endless, hellish torture.

Therefore, when monstrous boulders and living fire began to rain down on the camps out of the empty skies of night, the former trickle of desertions became a torrent, with Abner and Leeroy and many another lesser bully riding in the lead, like as not.

With access to the western trails and the interior of New Kuhmbuhluhn blocked by the force of Kuhmbuhluhners and their supernatural minions, each group of deserters had, perforce, hied itself onto the easternmost, southbound trail and thence, naturally, into the Ahrmehnee lands where they had ridden on raids for long years.

At first, they had met with considerable success—loot, a few women, ponies and the like—the particular tribe they faced being weak, with few warriors to face their raiding hundreds. But then, quite suddenly, raiding party after large raiding party were butchered, routed and sent fleeing back across the ill-defined border as fast as their legs or those of their runty ponies would bear them, all swearing most forcefully and profanely that they had been attacked by a mixed agglomeration of Ahrmehnee warriors, Moon Maidens and Kuhmbuhluhners’t Some of the smaller parties never came back at all.

Ganiks, both outlaw and farmer type, continued to trickle in from the north and west, and so the senior bully of this new, composite bunch, Crookedcock Calder, waited a few weeks until this trickle had once more filled out his ranks, then led a huge force of raiders in a fast-riding incursion ending in a dawn attack against the largest Ahrmehnee village. The assault should by all rights have succeeded. Instead, the Ganiks were thrown back after a savage encounter that left a good third of their number dead or dying in and around the partially palisaded village and saw nearly a third more of the defeated men slain during a furious pursuit that was pressed up to and even a bit beyond the border of the Ahrmehnee lands.

Due principally to the fact that they all forked real horses rather than ponies, Crookedcock, Abner, Leeroy and most of the bullies survived the disaster, but once again they had had to wait until more new-come Ganiks had straggled in to give them enough force to make another try. And this they did.

That time, they were careful to choose a smaller village, one with no palisades of any sort, and with only old men and striplings moving about amongst the toothsome women. After splitting off enough Ganiks to throw out strong guards along the several trails that converged on the village, they attacked at dawn—as was their wont—and then it seemed as if the very ground suddenly vomited up armed and armored warriors, while the same toothsome women after whom the Ganiks had lusted as they reconnoitered the village threw off cloaks and outer coverings to reveal the gleaming armor and weapons of Moon Maidens and threw themselves into the fray.

And despite even more meticulous precautions and lengthy observance of another and smaller village, the same lethal subterfuge had been perpetrated only a few weeks later on yet another party of Ganik raiders.

Following the pursuit of the Ganiks after this second ambush of the raiders, the hard-riding and murderous force of harriers had come far enough over the border to attack the very bunch camp itself, panicking large numbers of the excitable Ganiks. In this surprise engagement, Crookedcock Calder, while trying to organize a defense, had his luck finally run out in the form of a spear that transfixed his unarmored chest and a blade that severed head from torso.

During the six weeks that followed the fresh disaster, the Ganiks had first spent considerable time and effort in rounding up the vast pony herd scattered by the attackers. Then had come a round of bully councils, each usually ending in one or more fights to the death between contenders for the vacant post of senior bully left by the violent demise of Crookedcock Calder. The hulking Abner had wisely refrained from voicing claims. Waiting until the preliminary battles were concluded and a single man remained, Abner challenged him, fought him and slew him, messily.

With the best parts of Abner’s late opponent become a comfortable weight within their bellies, while the remainder of the butchered carcass simmered in stewpots about the camp, Abner chose several lieutenants, with his brother-cum-lover, Leeroy, as the chief one, then outlined to the bully council his plans for dealing with the Ahrmehnee and these strange eastern Kuhmbuhluhners.

Abner had both liked and admired Crookedcock Calder, and the plan he outlined was but a rehash of the plans of the deceased (and long since eaten) leader. They would mount no raids of a large enough size to invite any more of these calamitous attacks by the heavy-armed and well-mounted foe, not until they once more possessed numbers large enough to stand a chance of defeating the foe in open combat. They were to see that their small raiding parties left villages strictly alone, preying rather upon herders and charcoal burners and any isolated farms they could find still tenanted.

If they came across far-inferior forces of warriors, they might attack, but under no circumstances were they to do so if said forces were even half their numbers, and should more warriors come up after a fight had commenced, they were to break off, scatter and flee. Abner wanted live Ganiks, not dead ones, and he said so in no uncertain terms.

But the wait for reinforcements turned out to be a very long one, far longer than it ever had been when Crookedcock had still been alive and leading. It seemed that most of the farmer Ganiks who were coming east had already come and that the bulk of them had trekked south or southwest. And such few outlaw Ganiks as did ride in were mostly weary survivors of the final, bloody defeat of the old main bunch, back in New Kuhmbuhluhn; nor were there many of them.

It was full, frigid winter before a group of some two hundred Ganiks trotted their ponies into the environs of Abner’s camp. The leader of this small bunch, one Gouger Haney, had been a bully appointed by Buhbuh the Kleesahk to head up one of the satellite bunches. When his bunch camp had been attacked and burned the preceding spring by the Kuhmbuhluhners, he had quickly recognized the futility of trying to stand and fight the large number of warriors with their superior arms and big horses, and so had led some three hundred of his followers in a breakout to the west.

Although they had won free of Kuhmbuhluhn, they had not ridden far into the completely unknown far west before they had found themselves being preyed upon by a very numerous and unremittingly savage race of people. After many vicissitudes, he and those who now followed him had won back into western Kuhmbuhluhn and headed for the camp of the main bunch, only to find it firmly in the hands of the very foemen who had burned their camp and massacred so many of them long months before.

And so, after a couple of near things which very nearly led to discovery by the superior Kuhmbuhluhner force, they had sought out the easternmost trail and proceeded southward until they encountered the Ganik markers showing the way to Abner’s camp.

Abner freely and warmly accepted the newcomer bully as one of his principal lieutenants, second only to Leeroy, for he shied away from any set of circumstances that might lead to a leadership fight with the older man, some sixth sense assuring him that there could be but one sure outcome and that it would be Abner, not Gouger, who went to the stewpots.