Robert Adams - The Witch Goddess

The tall young nobleman took a sip of ale and went on, “Now, I know that the men and women are getting a bit tired of digging pits and ditches and felling trees and hacking at brush.”

There was a chorus of grunts and other indications of a fervent agreement. Bili waited for the noise to subside, then continued, “I know they’re wondering just when we’ll get in some fighting. Well, I shouldn’t think it will be long now. We’ve stung them cruelly, we’re doing more of it at this very minute, we’ll do still more tomorrow. More Ganiks will ride south, undoubtedly, and at that juncture I feel certain that whoever is commanding will see the necessity of striking us while he still has the strength to give him a chance of victory over us. Another week, at most, will see it done, one way or the other, that’s my feeling.”

All the while that Bili spoke, the assembled men and women could hear from the near distance the creaking of ropes, the solid-sounding thunnks as massive, hard-swung timber met equally massive thickly padded crossbeam, indicating that one of the oversize siege engines had sped yet another load of stone to arc down upon the main camp of the unhappy Ganiks.

Lieutenant Frehd Brakit and his hard-working engine crews kept at it through most of the night, only halting when they had expended the last of their stones. Then they sped off one more load—another well-charred corpse—and stood down for a few hours of much-needed rest.

Erica, Merle Bowley, Horseface, Lee-Roy, Abner, Owl-eyes Hewlitt and a dozen more of the bullies rode from end to end of the shelf the next morning, assessing the damage… and the carnage. It was not until they were riding back that they saw the corpse floating in the lake. At Bowley’s command, two of the better swimmers went out and towed the burned and much-battered thing back to shore.

“Enybody thank they knows ‘im?” asked Bowley. “Be he anothern of ole Crushuh’s bullies?”

“Yeah,” nodded Horseface slowly. “I thank he be the one called hissef Bawlbustuh Engel. Looks lahk sumbody he done burnt thet pore man’s bawls raht awf, his peckuh, too.”

“Shitfahr!” exclaimed Bowley angrily. “Sumbody jes’ tell me how in tarnashun is them Kuhmbuhluhn bastids and them fuckin’ Kleesahks a-gittin’ tortured-to-death bodies and a half a mountun wortht of rocks a night to come down awn us?”

“They’ve obviously got a battery or two of catapults—rock-throwing devices that are usually used against besieged cities—out there somewhere on one of those ridges,” said Erica. “They must be the world’s biggest catapults, too, to heave rocks the size of some of the monsters we’ve seen back there. And that’s probably what the Kuhmbuhluhners and the Kleesahks were felling trees for when they first arrived, to build those catapults. Engines that big couldn’t have been easily dragged overland to get here—it would’ve been far less trouble and labor to build them on the spot they were to occupy.”

Merle nodded glumly. “I done heerd ‘bout thangs lahk thet afore—thangs whut thows rocks and fahrbawls and big ole spears and awl. Probly ain’t none the scouts seed ’em cawse of them damn Kleesahks a-hidin’ ’em fum ’em. But why in hell ain’t we-awl seed ’em fum up heah?”

“They probably have them camouflaged during the day,” Erica said, then, noticing the blank looks, elucidated, “Have them covered with leafy branches, things like that, so the positions look just like part of the ridgeline from this distance. That also may be why they only use them by night. That way, we can’t see where exactly the rocks are coming from and so we won’t know which area to send our men against.

“That’s what is going to have to be done, you know, Merle. We’re going to have to send a strong force out there to find and to burn those catapults before the damned things pound every living thing on this shelf into blood pudding.

“If whoever did it only hadn’t managed to thoroughly bollix up my rifle scope, I might be able to do some terrorizing of my own against those sons of bitches, but…” She shrugged.

Merle turned in his saddle. “Owl-eyes, Horseface, yawl git back down ther and git three, fo’ hunnert mens— good mens, too, none of them shithaids, heanh. Don’ brang nobody whut cain’ see good at naht, neethuh. I wawnts ’em strung out awl lowng of the top edges of the shelf, tonaht. Moon’s damn neah full,‘t’naht, so sumbody they oughta see wher them fuckin’ rocks and awl’s a-comin’ fum.

“We comes to know wher they a-settin’ at, we’ll tek us the whole dang bunch and go burn ’em up, then we’ll stomp them fuckin’ Kuhnbuhluhn bug-tits flat. Naow git!”

They got, and at moonrise Bowley’s commands had been carried out, with nearly four hundred Ganiks standing or kneeling or sitting or squatting all along the winding, uneven edges of the cliffs. Nor were these inordinate numbers of sentries unnoticed by watchers just inside the forest beyond the track.

“Cat brother Chief,” Whitetip farspoke Bili of Morguhn, “smelly ones beyond the counting are atop the cliffs, at least one of them to every two-leg length for all of the distance. But they do not seem armed for fighting and no ponies are with them. They simply stare out across the ridges.”

“Someone over there has finally dusted off his brains,” Bili smilingly mindspoke Pah-Elmuh and Rahksahnah. “Whitetip says that there’s at least one Ganik to every couple of yards of the cliffs, and you can safely bet that with a full moon, or almost that, tonight, their orders are to spot our engines.”

Rahksahnah sighed. “Then they’ll probably attack the engines tomorrow. I wonder how many Maidens will die defending them?”

“None, if I can help it, my dear, and none of the men or the Kleesahks, either. I have other sights than those of operating siege engines planned for the hundreds of eyes on those cliffs tonight,” Bili beamed into her mind.

“But I thought… thought you wanted them to attack, my Bili.” There was puzzlement in her return beaming.

He nodded. “Oh, but I do—no war has ever yet been ended finally and completely without a battle. But there are still too many of them for our slender force to take on with any hope of success. I trust that the little entertainment tonight will substantially reduce those numbers, send some hundreds more of them fleeing southward.”

At Bill’s word, Pah-Elmuh and all seventeen of his Kleesahks left at a ground-eating lope faster than the trot of a horse, weaving easily between the treetrunks and other obstacles of the nighttime woods. They soon were ranged in a single line facing the cliffs, just inside the woods that bounded the other side of the track at the base of those cliffs.

Pah-Elmuh hated bloodshed, thought all of mankind to be born hurters and killers, incredibly savage toward each other as well as toward beasts. Knowing of old how easily misled and frightened were the common run of Ganiks, it had been his original idea to use the esoteric powers of the Kleesahks to so terrify the cannibals that many if not most of them would flee rather than fight. Bili, seeing in this scheme his duty served with minimum losses from his small squadron, had approved the stratagem, making sure that his men and women cooperated to the fullest possible extent with Pah-Elmuh and the other hybrid semihumans. At the same time, however, the young commander had continued his preparations for the eventual attack by the hard core of the Ganiks. He felt that attack was inevitable, no matter how many cannibals, terrified by Pah-Elmuh and the rest, were sent fleeing as fast as their ponies would bear them down the tracks to the south.

The Kleesahks had carefully rehearsed the events which then unfolded before the gazes—fixed in awe and horror and gut-wrenching terror—of the Ganiks. Even the bullies there found their skins acrawl, while their minds dredged up the shuddery legends that had frightened them as children.