Robert Adams - Horseclans' Odyssey

Although the traders assumed them brothers and although they addressed each other frequently by that term, the two boys were not that closely related. Bahb Steevuhnz was a full brother of Stehfahnah—both having had the same mother and father—but little Djoh’s mother had been a concubine, not of Horseclans stock but rather taken in a raid somewhere up on the far northern plains. However, this alien woman had died in his bearing and he had simply been added to the other baby then being nursed by another of his sire’s women—this one a third wife of Horseclans blood—and at his current age of ten winters he considered himself to be a Horseclansman, for all that he almost totally lacked mind-speak and had darker skin tone and bigger bones than most Horseclans folk, with brown eyes and hair that was coarse and, when not bleached by sun, a light ruddy brown.

On the other hand, Bahb looked his heritage, was a true scion of the Sacred Ancestors in all ways. His telepathic abilities were great and well honed; he could mindspeak horse and prairiecat and the more intelligent of wild beasts as well as he could carry on everyday silent communication with others of his clan and tribe. And from his crosslegged Seat on the thin pallet in a corner of the chilly room in which he and Djoh were immured, he was using this talent to “chat” with the horses on which he and Djoh and Stehfahnah and their now dead older sibling had ridden into the trader camp. Al-though too small for the majority of the big traders to ride, the wiry horses had proved fine for load-packing and so had been retained. But, according to the plans of the traders, they too would go on the block at Pahdookahport. But Bahb Steevuhnz had other plans, and it was the implementation of these that he was discussing with the most intelligent of the four mares, Windswift “Sister, Djoh and I have been working at the two bars of iron that block the wall opening in the place where we are. The opening is far too small for a man’s shoulders to go through anyway, so whoever set the bars did not set them deep and now only a hard tug is needed to clear them away. Little Djoh can slip through easily, and I can make it, too, and one of the trader wagons is against the wall but a spear length below. But do you understand what you must do? Everything depends on you, horse sister.”

The middle-aged mare beamed assent, adding, “But such a ruse could work only with stupid twolegs such as these who have enslaved us—twolegs lacking mindspeak. who have no real understanding of my kind. My brother will bespeak me when to begin?”

“Yes, horse sister, and it will be well after Sacred Sun has gone to His rest. No moon or stars this night, and just as well, too—the darker the better, for our purposes.”

“But, brother twolegs, if this plan fails,” added the mare grimly, “my sisters and I, we will not be taken alive by these ignorant, brutal twolegs. At your behest and at your twolegs sister’s we have been meek and spiritless as so many silly sheep. But no more—after this night we fightl” Bahb agreed just as grimly. “Belike, this night, we all will fight, sister; we shall regain our freedom or go to Wind.”

After the serving of the evening meal—plain food, but plentiful—there was a brief period when the traders and their employees simply lolled on the benches and stools about the fires, chatting desultorily, picking at teeth, belching and otherwise going about the early stages of digestion. A bit apart from hoi polloi, Hwahruhn—who had been chosen as his successor by the wounded and crippled Shifty Stuart, whom they had had to leave in the home of a physician back in Tworivertown—and Custuh held their own, low-voiced discourse. “It’s boun’t’ be them boys,” averred Custuh firmly. “I done had lotsa truck with them damn Ehleenee. City borned an’ bred, all of the shaved an’ oiled an’ sweet-smellin’ bastids, an” it takes suthin’ more’n jest extry fine furs ’r the like fer to mek ’em leave ther dang houses an’ towns, even in good weather. So, fer thet there fancy-dan Ehleen asshole up there to shuffle his stumps long a muddy road this far from Pahdookahport, he’s jes natcherly got him a dang good reason, Hwahruhn, ol’ buddy; an’ it ain’t but one lot we got would set a dang Ehleen to itching. Ever’wdy knows ’bout how they dotes on pretty lil boys.” Setting mug to lips, Custuh drained off the last mouthful of beer from it, then nodded and stated, “You jest watch what I says, buddy boy—afore long, thet there Ehleenee be down here or, likelies’, heil’ve sent one of his bodyguards down to fetch us up there to his rooms. An’ you bet it’ll be them boys he’s after, an’ we play him right, we’ll mek us as much off’n them as ever’thin’ elst put’t’gether.”

Trader Hwahruhn said nothing at once, sipping at a beaker of fine wine and sinking his gaze into the darksome depths of the vintage. He still felt strongly, had indeed felt so from the very beginning out on the prairie, that only calamity would be the result of the cruelty and treachery with which Shifty Stuart had enslaved the three nomad children and slain their elder brother. He had seen the maiming and crippling of the senior trader as but the beginning of this doom.

He had been pondering upon the subject much of late. The poor abused girl was dead, as likely as not, and the boys could definitely not be released to return to their clan. If such were done, no trader would be safe out there until that clan’s thirst for blood was slaked. But neither was it really needful to sell the lads into slavery—especially not for the hideous, unnatural bondage for which Ehleenee were infamous.

Hwahruhn had begun to wonder if the fearsome doom he could feel pressing upon them could be averted if he took the boys home with him and reared them as sons. He had meant to look in on the boys this night to explain realities, broach his plan and give them the ways and means to appear so weak and sickly that the auctioneer in Pahdookahport would most likely not even accept them in his holding pen, much less put them on the block. But now, with that damned, odious, effeminate easterner in the very serai, both time and opportunity had flown. And he felt ill, queasy in the face of a dire and certain danger—apparently sensed by none other, but nonetheless now hovering so near that he could feel prickling hairs or gooseflesh over every inch of his body. Custuh had arisen and stepped over to a beer barrel to refill his flagon, and so rapt was Hwahruhn that be nearly jumped out of his skin and did slop out half his wine when a throat was loudly cleared just behind him. He turned to behold the dark-skinned chief bodyguard of the Ehleen. Although he had shed both his armor and sword, Nahseer looked—and was, in truth—no less dangerous with the long, wide-bladed dirk depending from his belt. But his manner and his tone were formally polite and deferential.

“How is the master trader called… ?”

Hwahruhn shook his head. “I’m not a master trader, nor is Custuh, over there; the master of this train was badly hurt a few days back, and we two sub-traders are simply acting as agents in his interest until he recovers enough to catch up with us.”

Nahseer probed, “But you do have authority to sell goods?” Hwahruhn nodded again. “Of course. In what might you be interested? We have some very fine hornbows for sale, real Horseclan-made. Three or four of them are of much better quality than you normally see offered.” The Zahrtohgahn shook his own scarred, shaven head. “I am a slave, sir. I have no money to buy weapons or anything else. And my master is interested only in two boy slaves he has learned you hold. He would speak with you and your associate… at once, please; I will escort you.” Upon being ushered into the suite that was to be his, as long as he could bear to remain, Urbahnos bad not hesitated to voice his extreme displeasure loudly and insultingly. The rooms were, by his lights, small, smelly, dirty, drafty and musty. The bed was lumpy and sour-smelling and the blankets were thin and stained. The filled bath was too hot, scalding; but yet the addition of but a single full pail of spring water rendered it “too cold.” The Ehleen dumped the tureen of mutton broth in the middle of the fresh-scrubbed floor and topped the mess with the hot hwiskee punch, then heaved the punchbowl at—and but narrowly missed—Portuh’s head. Had one of his usual guests done even a quarter as much, Portuh’s well-honed knife would have brought forth some blood to add to the other liquids on that floor. But he now restrained his temper, intimidated as much by Lord Urbahnos’ known connections in high places as by the seven big, well-armed, tough-looking bravos.