Robert Adams - Bili the Axe

“What means my lady?” asked the Kleesahk.

“Only this,” she replied. “I have… have had and still have a presentiment. Such is neither rare nor even unusual to women of my race and stock—my mother foresaw and foretold the exact circumstances and almost the exact day of her death. So too did her grandmother and many another brave woman of revered memory amongst the Maidens of the Silver Lady.

“I know that I must stay by Bili, for my time of living with him is short now, and growing ever shorter. So, yes, I will fight beside him for as long as the Goddess allows it.”

The huge being’s not quite human facial features twisted in what Rahksahnah had learned to recognize as a frown. “It could well be, my lady, that ill-advised, strenuous activity carried on for too long could result in a miscarriage. And such might well kill you were I or another skilled Kleesahk not near to prevent what nearly happened to you last winter, at Sandee’s Cot.”

But she shook her head again. “No, Pah-Elmuh, I know how I will die—it will be of the bite of steel. It is in most ways very cloudy, this scene I presense. Bili is there, but I do not think it happens in a battle, though there are… will be… three deaths, in all—me, another woman and a man, but not Bili. My Bili will live on and on, a very long life for a human man.”

“Yes,” the Kleesahk agreed, “I have seen this, too, in the Lord Champion. He will live nearly eighty more summers— long and long for you short-lived true-men—and fully many will be the high and the mighty who-will mourn his passing.”

“That last, that is more than I could scry out.” Her sloe-black eyes narrowed. “If you could read so much of Bili, then how much have you read of me, Pah-Elmuh? How much time is now left to me? Tell me!”

The massive, furry shoulders rose and fell once, a thoroughly human gesture of the hybrid humanoid. “Not even I can be certain of exact times, my lady,” he hedged, breaking off eye contact with her.

“Please tell me, Pah-Elmuh.” There was no mistaking the sincerity and firm resolve in her silent beaming. “I’ve got to know —can’t you see?—for… for my Bili.”

Still he kept his eyes averted, shaking his craggy head and beaming, “No, my lady, please, some things it… it is not good for true-men to know, it… it does things, terrible things sometimes, to their minds.”

Mindspeaking still was a new way of communicating to Rahksahnah and now, in her rage, she forgot it completely.

“ Tell me !” she hissed aloud from between clenched teeth. “ Damn you, tell me !” The knuckles of her right hand shone out white as snow, so fiercely did she grip the wire-wound hilt of the dirk that hung from her belt.

Once more the Kleesahk looked into her blazing, angry eyes with his own infinitely sad ones. “Very well, my lady. No more than another year from today… perhaps not even that long. There are… reasons? things?… which prevent me from being more certain. Does my lady understand?”

Rahksahnah shuddered strongly and was very glad that she had learned to mindspeak, for she did not think that she could just then have forced cooperation from her lips and tongue.

She beamed, “Yes, yes, I think so, Pah-Elmuh. It… I think it—the whatever that beclouds your ability to see exactness and detail—must be akin to the… to this thick, misty, smoky something that hinders my own foreseeing of my death. Surely it is all but the mysterious Will of Her, the Lady, and who among us is fit to question the ways of the Goddess?

“Yes, I understand, Pah-Elmuh, and I thank you for that which you were able to reveal to me. The sum of your scrying and mine own will guide me in the scant time I have remaining.

“And Pah-Elmuh… please.” She stepped closer and laid her hard, callused palm on his enormous, furry arm, tilting her head far, far back to maintain eye contact with the humanoid. “Bili, the Lord Champion, is to know none of this—not of the two babes within me, but especially not of… of this other. Please.”

His massive chest expanded and contracted in a last, deep sigh. “Very well, my lady, it shall be as you wish. For my part, I shall reveal naught of these matters here discussed to the Lord Champion.”

“It’s because I know of your interest in odd animals that I mention this, David. We’ve run into two specimens of the oddest I’ve ever seen or heard of.”

The transceiver crackled briefly, then Sternheimer’s voice was asking, “Do they seem to be mutations of some preexisting species, Jay?”

“It’s possible,” Corbett agreed. “I just don’t know all that much about reptiles and the lower orders to tell with anything approaching certainty. What we really need is Mike Schiepficker or one of your other zoology types up here. If you could have him coptered up from Broomtown Base, I could have a party there waiting for him at prearranged coordinates in a few days.”

“Is it worth the expense and the difficulties, Jay?” the Director asked. “Do you, in your considered judgment, think so?” The doctor paused, then added, “At least give me some idea what these things look like, eh?”

There was a wondering tone in Corbett’s answer. “As best I can describe them, David, like a cross between a snake and some humongous earthworm. The biggest of the two we’ve thus far had to kill—and damned devilish hard they are to kill, too, even with the best part of their bodies blown away or apart with explosive bullets; the only sure way you can be certain the bastards won’t take a sizable plug out of you is to cut off their heads—was around three and a half meters long and about sixteen or seventeen centimeters thick.

“There was very little tapering at either end, although there was a definite point on the tail. The head—I have one on the table before me right now—is broad and flattish with a rounded snout; it looks fairly reptilian, David, separated from the body, except that it has two rows of teeth.

“What about its skin?” asked Sternheimer. “How are the scales arranged?”

“It had no scales, David,” was Corbett’s reply. “As I said, it looked like a huge earthworm. Except for the head, the epidermis consisted of rings, just like a worm, but it was no worm. It had a bony spine, ribs, the works, including what looked like vestigial legs front and back. Another thing, David, every millimeter of the thing apparently secreted a sticky, viscous, mucuslike substance. Everywhere the damned thing crawled, it left a trail of slime like some gigantic garden slug or a snail. So, do you want to send me up an expert or not? Does this beastie sound worth it?”

“I’ll let you know by tomorrow night, Jay, after I’ve had a chance to get together with O’Hare and Schiepficker. Do you need any additional supplies or personnel up there, for the primary mission? Arms, munitions, explosives or whatnot?”

“Not really, David,” replied Corbett. “If anything, we have an overabundance of ammo just now, since the only use we’ve made of our weapons is killing animals for food… plus, of course, one bear and those two whatchamacallits we had to kill in self-defense. There’ve been no contacts of any sort with living humans, Ganiks or otherwise, since Johnny found that dead one back down the track.

“He and I took a patrol over as far west as what used to be—or so he avers—the camp of the overall leader of the Ganik raiders, and the only living things we found up there were a herd of scrubby ponies.

“However… look, David, if you do decide to send Mike up here, why not have the copter bring as much extra fuel as it can and still get decent range? I’ll have the party I send down there pack spades and picks and dig a hole big enough to cache the fuel. I have a feeling that if we do suddenly need resupply or reinforcement, we’re going to need it in one hell of a hurry and may not be able to spare the men to send down to pack them back up here. Okay?”