Robert Adams - Bili the Axe

The ensign had had only to choose men he knew to be good riders, plus a trio of keen-eyed and experienced hunters, plus a Corporal Gregory to convey his orders to the other ranks.

They rode out in the chill and damp of the dawning, all close-wrapped in thick, warm cloaks. The ponies moved out placidly, when once the ponderous gates of the captured safe-glen had been gaped, but Justis’ horse showed his fine, hot blood and his joy to be out of the confines of the glen in an attempt or two at misconduct the curbing of which required a tight hand on the reins. Behind the ensign and the first dozen pikemen, the cutters and their rumbling wagons proceeded, they being followed by the corporal and the second dozen pony-mounted, spear-armed pikemen.

As the column issued out from the fortified gap that led into the glen-approach, the three hunters with their missile weapons peeled off from the column and set out at the best gallop the mountain ponies could muster under the weight of the big, solid humans. When they had gained something over a quarter mile on the van of the column, they reined up, spread across the width of the trail into the verges of the forest and so proceeded at a fast walk, their weapons cocked and ready for whatever game might pass near enough for a shot.

When the scouts came breathlessly back with the news of the strangers on the trail, both Bowley and Horseface Charley went back with them to see for themselves. Before long, Bowley returned to the night camp, having left Horseface with the scouts to mark the progress of the strangers.

“More Kuhmbuhluhners?” Erica was quick to ask.

Wrinkling his forehead, Bowley shook his shaggy head slowly. “Naw, Ehrkah, leas’ wise I don’ thank so. It’s a whole passel of littul thangs makes me thank they ain’ Kuhmbuhluhners. Boots, fer one thang. I ain’ nevuh seed no Kuhmbuhluhner in no boot lank thet. They belt knifes is made funny, too, V so’s they hats. The closes’ one to me said some words, low-lahk, when his pony come to stumble; it ‘uz Mehrikan, raht enuff, but it ‘uz a kind Mehrikan I ain’ nevuh heerd afore.”

Erica’s hopes leaped suddenly. Broomtown trqopersl Could it be? Could it possibly be? But she kept her voice calm as she asked the necessary question.

“How are they armed, Merle?”

He shrugged. “Knifes, shortswords, crossbows—one of ‘em a reg’lar one and two whut shoots rocks; prods, they cawls ‘em, I thank. They looks lahk hunters, acks lank it, too, but I done lef Charley and them boys back ther fer to see if eny more is a-comin’.”

Erica sighed softly. No, not Broomtown men. They’d have been armed with sabers and axes and rifles, not crossbows and shortswords. They were most probably Kuhmbuhluhners after all, despite Bowley’s assurances to the contrary; likely they were just a northern type he had never before seen.

As for the oddly inflected language, she and others at the Center had never ceased to be amazed at how quickly so many, vastly differing, frequently all but incomprehensible dialects had sprung into being in various portions of what had once been the United States of America—all of them based on the one language of that vanished nation, Standard American English. The only people anywhere who still spoke the original language were occupants of the Center and its bases, plus that evil, murderous mutant, Milo Morai.

She went on to reflect that the present commercial tongue used by the traveling traders—most of them now hailing from the Aristocratic Republic of Eeree, though a hundred years ago, before a succession of long, bloody wars had completely disrupted formerly stable governments, the majority of the traders had been spawned by the various kingdoms of the Ohio River Valley—was about as close to the original language as any of the dialects came. But even this so-called Trade Mehrikan was tinged with numerous loan words, phrases, pronunciations and inflections from the disparate areas they touched in the years-long rounds of commerce.

Erica’s reflections on language were violently interrupted by the sudden, crashing report of a rifle.

Out of the huge, hundreds-strong raiding party he had led into the Ahrmehnee lands, something less than thirty bullies rode out behind Abner. And those who did escape only did so because they were all horse-mounted and their fresh mounts’ strength and longer legs allowed them to outdistance those grim pursuers who rode down and slew every one of the pony-mounted Ganiks, few of whom had been armed anyway.

Throughout the first leg of their flight, Gouger Haney had unceasingly and profanely railed at him for keeping the common Ganiks disarmed, although the decision had been as much his as it had been Abner’s or Leeroy’s. Abner had known with a cold chill of certainty that the older, deadlier man would force him into a death duel for full leadership immediately they were out of harm’s way. It was far from pleasant to ride with the firm conviction that certain death lay both behind and ahead.

Fully aware of the sensitivity of Sir Geros, but also fully aware of what must now be done in the ruined village, Captain Pawl Raikuh slyly worked it so that it was the young knight who led out the pursuit of the knot of armed Ganiks who had broken through a weak point in the cordon of fighters that surrounded them. With the mixed force of Freefighters, Moon Maidens and Ahrmehnee well underway behind a sizable pack of the big, savage hunting hounds bred by the tribes of the stahn , Raikuh and Dehrehbeh Ahrszin set the bulk of their force to the work which must be done were they to forever rid these lands of the Ganik threat.

It was incredibly brutal work. Into the open space between the wrecked buildings which once had been the village square, the Freefighters would drag screaming, pleading, sobbing, struggling Ganiks. When the scale-armored men had forced the victims to their knees, one would grasp a handful of matted, verminous hair to hold the head as still as was possible while one of the Ahrmehnee warriors hacked through the neck of the ancient and detested enemy with sword or axe.

Before very long, the spaces between the standing walls were fast filling with stiffening, headless bodies, stacked like so much cordwood, while the pile of grisly trophies at one end of the square was growing faster than the Ahrmehnee could pack them into the sacks brought for the purpose.

The entire square, it seemed to Pawl Raikuh, streamed and steamed and stank of spilled blood, and even with above thirty years of soldiering and hard fighting behind him, the veteran officer still felt more than a little queasy as his boots sank almost ankle-deep in bloody mud. But he swallowed his rising gorge and kept his face blank. Necessity must be served, duty must be done.

Moreover, that duty must be completed before Sir Geros returned from the pursuit. Pawl knew his young, ennobled commander well—fierce as a scalded treecat in battle, still did this knight of the Confederation deeply detest all which smacked of violence and bloodshed, and he would never have condoned this cold-blooded execution of hundreds of completely unarmed, helpless men, even cannibal shaggies.

That they had not enough strength to take and guard so many prisoners would not have mattered to Sir Geros. Nor would the fact that were the shaggies to be freed and escorted out of the stahn , they would assuredly have been back immediately they were rearmed. Not even the certainty that the Ahrmehnee would never have sat still in the face of such foolishness would have persuaded Sir Geros that what Raikuh had here ordered performed was necessary.

“Hohguhn,” the tight-lipped captain called to one of his Freefighter lieutenants, “it took Ahdohm there three hacks to do for that last shaggy. See he has a sharper sword, eh? Let’s us git this butcher business over with.”