known connections in high places as by the seven big, well-armed, tough-looking bravos.

But finally, with the arrogant Ehleen ensconced in a bath of the right temperature, Portuh brought in men and girls to rescrub the floor, scoop up the mess and replace the fouled carpets.

Once bathed, oiled and freshly scented, clad in clean garments from one of his chests and relieved of the chafing weight of the leathern money belt, Urbahnos had Nahseer bear the ham, the veal, a loaf of bread, some of the wine and a couple of the cordials to his bedchamber, and only after his stomach was filled did he allow the hired guards to go down to partake of the serai's evening meal. They were sent two at a time, so that there were never less than four of them and the hulking Nahseer to guard him and his gold.

The Zahrtohgahn was granted no access to the hot meal below, receiving only the leavings of his master.

When the last pair of hired men had returned and when the belowstairs tumult had quieted somewhat, the Ehleen sent Nahseer to summon the master trader to the suite. With luck, only a single night would be spent in this filthy sty of a barbarian pesthole. No matter what he had to pay for the two boys, if the bribe one of them would const.i.tute accomplished its purpose and allowed him to return and live out his remaining days in a clean, decent, civilized land, the expense would be trifling.

As for the other, the less comely boy... well, he would provide sport and release for Urbahnos himself this night and many a night thereafter until the Ehleen tired of and sold him.

An experienced trader, Urbahnos knew men and could quickly and accurately type most of them upon first meeting. The plains trader Custuh, he immediately realized, was, for all his stinking, barbarian antecedents, a man much like himself-avaricious, cold, cruel, cunning and completely amoral. Were enough gold and silver stacked on the table between them, Urbahnos knew that he would speedily have this Cus-run's mark on the bills of sale that he had had drawn up before he left Pahdookahport.

But the other man, Hwahruhn, the Ehleen just as quickly surmised, could easily present problems, make the transaction overly long and force him to spin fanciful lies as to the eventual fates of the little slaves. He silently prayed that Custuh was in charge.

Ahzee, the elder of the two wagoners who had been a.s.signed to supervise the captive boys and care for their needs until they were sold, had moved immediately the food was brought into the main room of the serai. He had chosen foods which he had known from his years of service with Shifty Stooahrt on the prairie and plains would have the appeal of familiarity to his charges-boiled mutton in its broth, hard cheese and soft, chewy chunks of dried fruits, a two-quart beer pitcher of frothy, fresh milk. Before sending a servant to fetch the milk, Portuh had loudly questioned why these slaves could not be content with his good beer or cider. But wise Ahzee knew that even the best grade of beers and wines had a decidedly unsettling effect upon the innards of Horseclansfolk, and he also knew that Mistuh Custuh would be a man to be avoided for some time if the two boys were suffering a bad case of the s.h.i.ts when put up for sale. Before Ahzee and the other wagoner, klahrk, could reach the foot of the stairs with the trays and pitcher, Mistuh Hwahruhn had added choice joints from a roast chicken and chunks of honeycomb to their burdens. The stocky, black-bearded Klahrk groused under his breath about the short delay, but Ahzee gave him a single, hard stare; he liked and deeply respected Mistuh Hwahruhn and thought it a gol-darned shame that Custuh had been appointed head man. In the room, Ahzee set the trays and pitcher atop a locked goods chest and drew a couple of smaller bales from the stack in a corner to seat the boys at the improvised dining table. While the older man so labored, the younger stood idly by the door, sc.r.a.ping his feet and whining that if they delayed longer all die choicer portions would be gone at the long tables belowstairs. Ahzee just snorted, "All you evuh thinks *bout is yore dang belly, Klahrk, an'

it a'ready stickin' out like you's three moons gone, mebbe five! Don't be so dang useless, heanh?

These here younguns is ever bit as much yore 'spons*bility aa they is mine. You jest tek their gut bucket an' empty it an* mek sure it's a good number of hay b.a.l.l.s in't' box. Then you broach one them bales o'

b'arskins, or with no fire, Bahb 'n' lil Djoh here'U plumb freeze't'death or at leas' come down with th'

dang b.l.o.o.d.y croup't'night with them thin pallets an' motheaten blankets." The wooden latrine bucket in hand, the tall but paunchy Klahrk paused at the door, his brows knitted, picking with cracked and filthy nails at a pustulating sore on his chin under the matted beard.

"Sleepin' col' a.s.s one night ain't gonna hurt them lil bastids none, an' I don' think Mistuh Custuh'd be too happy if I broke no bale opuned, an'..." Ahzee straightened up and whirled to stand, arms akimbo, his seamed face revealing more disgust than real anger.

" 'An... ? Dang yore lazy a.s.s, Klahrk, you musta been gone to tek you a p.i.s.s whin they's handin' out brains! Bestest thang fer you's't' let a body's got sumthin more'n rotten ches'nuts in they haids't' do th'

thinkin. Heah me? "You's a wagoner helper, boy. I's a full senior wagoner, with dang near twenny years awn't' plains, an' I knows, boy! Mistuh Custuh, he won' say pee-turkey bout one dang bale, oncet he comes to fin' out why it 'uz broached, cause these here younguns is money, big money. An' evun was he't', he cain't do a dang thang't' me, he wouldn' dast."

Ahzee grinned broadly. "See, boy, this here train is still the Stooahrt Comp'ny's, fer all poor ole Shifty's a-layin' back in Twocityport with jes' one arm an' a legil be gimp fer the resta his life an' his b.a.l.l.s a-tore near off him. Mistuh Custuh's only got charge till we gits back upriver to Looeezfilburkport Then, if Shifty cain't tek the train out nex' spring, mos' likely his brother, Zeek Stooahrt, 'll do it. Don't matter to me none, boy, 'cause both Shifty and Zeek, they's my son-in-laws, see. "Now you jes' shake yore stumps an' git 'long bout whut-all I tol' you f do.

Heah?"

Later, when he had allowed the helper to go back down the stairs to crowd his way onto a bench and begin stuffing his face, old Ahzee sat while the boys ate, chatting with them.

In a casual tone and manner, Bahb shrewdly elicited all that the wagoner knew of the towns, inhabitants and terrain of the duchy, but kept his face blank to hide his deep disappointment from both his little brother and their captor. Short of trying to swim the vast and deadly width of the river, Bahb Steevuhnz could comprehend no possible way to win back to the west bank and even a thin chance to regain freedom. Nonetheless, his resolve was firm to continue on with the plan-better to die in honor, fighting to the end, than to become a possession again.

When the boys seemed replete, Ahzee placed the leftover food in the covered dish. Leaving it, the two cups and the milk in the pitcher, he gathered up the rest of the crockery and the lamp and departed, carefully locking the stout door behind him. The moment they heard the iron lock snap into place and the descending footsteps of the old wagoner, Bahb and Djoh drew forth the three pieces of sc.r.a.p metal they had managed to pick up near the wagon shop and forge during their brief time in the yard. All during the afternoon, while Bahb had held himself suspended by one arm from the sill of the window and picked at the shallow seating of the two bars, Djoh had been absorbed in honing the other, larger pieces to keenness on a flattish stone he had found and secreted. While Djoh, mostly by feel in the dimming light from the small, high window, began to slice an edge of one of the heavy bearskins into thongs, Bahb took the longer, slenderer bit of steel he had used on the bars and commenced to patiently work it into the big iron lock securing the chest. Neither of the boys knew what was in this or any of the other wooden goods chests, but with luck they might find better weapons than three clumsy handleless slivers of metal. Bahb worked the pick deeper, then twisted and turned at it, recalling the movements of the men he had seen thrust similar bits of metal into this and other locks; one bit of metal was as another to him, and he had never heard the words "key" or "lock"

prior to his captivity.

Just as he felt the mechanism of the padlock begin to give under his efforts, there were footsteps beyond the door and a key grated in its lock. Then the door swung wide to admit three men-the two trader sub-chiefs and a tall, plumpish stranger.

Chapter Six.

Lord Urbahnos rapidly gained a grudging respect for the grubby, smelly little barbarian, Custuh, and could easily See just why the injured Trader Stooahrt had appointed the man his senior deputy. Behind the facade of his talented theatrics, his country-b.u.mpkin-fresh-off-the-farm demeanor, the Ehleen could sense now and again the real Custuh-the born merchant, driving straight for the jugular, thinking on his feet, out to and usually able to squeeze out the best price the traffic would bear.

And Urbahnos just as rapidly came to hate the junior deputy, Hwahruhn, who had not made any effort to disguise, by word or by action, the fact that he despised the Ehleen merchant and detested all for which he stood. Had it been Hwahruhn's decision alone, Urbahnos knew that he would never have been able to purchase the boys. As it was, the junior deputy's barrage of attempts to scuttle the deal had made the eventual purchase price inordinately steeper than Urbahnos had antic.i.p.ated. For, naturally, the shrewd, cool, calculating Custuli-having sensed that these little Horseclans boys were unnaturally important to the man he was stalking-feigned to seize upon each of Hwahruhn's well-meant objections and points and take them as yet another way to jack the price several thrakmehee higher.

But after the two traders had abruptly retired outside to have loud and heated words on the gallery, they had returned for Urbahnos to close the deal with Custuh alone. Hwahruhn simply sat silently beside the other trader and stared at the seller with soul-deep disgust and at the purchaser with murderous hatred and bottomless loathing.

The leathern money belt that Urbahnos lifted from the table and handed back to Nahseer was but a bare shadow of its former, well-stuffed self, but Urbahnos had two copies of each bill of sale. He had been surprised to notice that both of the barbarian traders could write their names-not in civilized Ehleeneekos, of course, but that would have been an unadulterated phenomenon in this benighted land.

Lord Urbahnos was, of course, wrong in his belief that he and he alone was the sole civilized and cultured man from the western slopes of the Blue Mountains to the Great River and beyond.

On the prairie, many and many weeks* hard ride to the west of that river, sprawled the largest camp ever seen by any of its inhabitants. No less than a score and a half of Horse-clans made up that camp,and all with their warriors, their maiden archers, their wives, their children, their concubines, yurt wagons, carts, tents, oxen, cattle, sheep, a few clans with goats and dogs, and huge, eddying herds of those mindspeak-ing horses that were equal partners with these folk rather than their chattels. And even above the incredible tumult of the camp, every day the screams of the clan stallions pealed forth as, with teeth and hooves, they went about settling the question of which was to become the king of this tribal herd.

Present also were more than a score of septs of the Cat Clan. Mindspeakers, like the horses and a majority of the hur-mans, and like the horses equals, these prairiecats were ancient allies of all Horseclansfolk. Had Lord Urbahnos ever confronted a specimen face to face, he would likely have died of fright Huge they were, adult males standing nine hands and more at the heavily muscled shoulders, and adults of both s.e.xes bore fangs three to four inches long. The predominant colors of these mighty felines were a tawny brown or a mouse gray, but there were more than a few examples of other hues among them-pure white, jet black, ruddy brown, blue-gray, many shades of yellow and, among the cats of the more southerly clans, traces of the dark spots and rosettes that testified to long-ago breedings with the wild teegrais.

In the very center of this vast a.s.semblage stood a yurt the likes of which few had ever seen before. True, the latticework sides were only half again as high as those of the average yurt-six feet as compared to four-nor did the top tower overly high, but the circ.u.mference of the circular dwelling was stupendous to the clansfolk camped about it. Four hundred and eighty and one half hands was its outer measure; more than sixty-five paces might a man take around the yurt's perimeter before returning to where he had begun. This great yurt was home to Blind Hari of Krooguh-for seventy and more years, the tribal bard-and to his slaves, to the men and women from various clans who had freely joined his household and to one other, the newly chosen war chief of all the Kindred clans, Milo of Moral There was, on the surface, nothing too unusual about this man. True, he was taller than the average clansman, with the heavier bones, larger hands and feet and black hair-shot-with-silver of a dirtman (Lord Urbahnos might have taken this new war chief for a Northern Ehleen, what with his aquiline nose and olive skin tones), but a large minority of clansfolk varied-mostly through concubine mothers captured in raids on the dirtmen-from the short, slender, wiry, blond norm to make Milo of Morai's physical appearance pedestrian. In other ways, there could be no doubt that he was Horse-clans born and bred. His mindspeak was superlative with human, horse or prairiecat; he sat his golden-chestnut stallion as if they two were but one creature; his heavy, ancient saber was clearly an extension of his arm, and he was just as clearly a master bowman. And that he was a natural leader of men, a chieftain in every sense of that word, was clear to everyone who met him. Some sixteen to seventeen winters' agone, he had ridden up from the far south on his palomino stallion, accompanied only by two female prairiecats and a packhorse or two. He had wintered over with Clan Morguhn, where Blind Hari also was wintering that year, and with the rebirth of spring he had ridden north with the aged tribal bard.

The story he told-that he was the only survivor of a clan destroyed by a sudden and deadly pestilence-was tragic but easily believable, for a few clans had been extirpated in just such horrible a fashion over the centuries. Other clans had drifted away-to north, south, east and west-never to be heard of again. The Clan Krooguh, Blind Hari's own clan of birth, had disappeared in such a manner ten or fifteen winters past Blind Hari himself was an incredibly old man. To the best reckoning of the clansfolk he had weathered at least one hundred and thirty winters, yet still he rode hither and yon, reciting the centuries of the history of the Kindred in rhymes to the plucking of his fingers upon the strings of his harp, collecting the new vital statistics from each clan on his years-long circuit-notable births, heroic deaths, mighty deeds of war or raiding or hunting, ascensions of new chiefs' and the like-then weaving the news into his endless rhymes. But these were not the sole functions of the bard. As he was clanless, he was the full equal of any clan chief, while being but very distantly related to any of them or their folk, and as he knew all of the hundreds of Couplets of Horseclans Law, he was often called upon to break off his circuit in order to serve as mediator between clans on the brink of a feud. And for somany years had he served in this role when called upon to do so that he was the one being upon whom every living member of the Kindred freely lavished true reverence. Too, there was a mysterious, almost magical quality about the frail-appearing, white-haired and bearded old man. Blind for as long as any could remember, yet it seemed that often he could see more clearly than any sighted man present, and none knew how this was accomplished. Eerie too was his control over the actions of men. On one notable occasion, he arrived to mediate too late. A vicious little melee between the fully armed warriors of Clans Danyuhlz and Muhkawlee had already commenced; Blind Hari had surveyed the carnage from the back of his weary horse-or so it had seemed to those who watched-then he had dismounted, removed his leathern helmet, his saber and even his dirk and eating knife. And, unarmed, unprotected, accompanied only by his prai-riecat companion, he had walked slowly and deliberately into that pitiless maelstrom of whetted steel and deadly hate.

Full many had been the horrified cries from the noncom-batants begging the irreplaceable old man to come back to safety, but he had not heeded them. He had paced on until he stood in the very center of that small, b.l.o.o.d.y battlefield. Then he had been seen to raise his hands so that his sleeves fell back from his scarred, withered old arms, and then the more sensitive of the mindspeakers there had felt, they later attested, the vague sense of a... a pressure. While horses in the two camps reared and screamed or went running off onto the prairie, while prairiecats not engaged in the fracas yowled and snarled and spat and clawed at empty air and then, finally, slunk off to hide in tents or yurts or in the man-high gra.s.ses, Blind Hari of Krooguh had simply stood, as if carved in stone, he and his cat, with blade of axe and saber and spear and heavy dirk flashing and ringing about them.

Then those gathered about felt that arcane pressure increase, increase until it became well-nigh unbearable, until children began to cry and women to scream. The twoscore combats ceased-not slowly or individually, but all at once and suddenly, as if the motive power to swing steel or to lift shield had been abruptly denied every man on that field. Bleeding men simply stood in place, arms at sides, panting with exertion, hands still gripping hilt and haft and shaft and handle, staring into the eyes of recent opponents. Then the pressure had eased slightly and Blind Hari had begun to speak, not loudly, but loudly enough for all to hear. No one afterward seemed to recall his exact words, but only how telling they were. He had spoken of the Sacred Ancestors, of the Undying G.o.d-Man who had succored those Ancestors and who had, for more than three hundred years, remained with their own forefathers, teaching, guiding and protecting, giving them law and alliance with horse and cat. He had reiterated the close blood and heritage ties of all the Kindred, every clan, of Ehlai-the Holy City, whence had come the Sacred Ancestors, children, fleeing the War of the Old G.o.ds, which had left them the only true men upon the face of the ravaged land.

He had spoken long of their centuries of bitter conflict with the b.e.s.t.i.a.l dirtmen on the verges of the prairies and plains, and of the equally deadly warfare with non-Kindred nomads for control of graze and water. He had reminded them that neither fight was successfully concluded and that since their Undying G.o.d had departed them more than ten-score years agone, their only chance of certain survival lay in firm solidarity of the clans, of brotherly love for Kindred brother.

And all at once, whilst the tribal bard still spoke his words of sad admonishment, steel began to ring once more... upon the hard, dusty ground. Prized and trusty weapons were dropped to clatter unheeded as hardbitten veteran warriors, whose bloodshot eyes were suddenly a-brim with tears, clasped hands with or fondly embraced those whom they had So lately been earnestly endeavoring to kill or maim.

At the next tribal council, this tale had gone far and wide among the Kindred clans, adding a l.u.s.ter to the very real awe with which Blind Hari of Krooguh was viewed.

Therefore, at the most recent tribal council-the gathering held every five years-when Blind Hari hadsung portions of the familiar "Prophecy of the Return of the Undying."

"The Song of Ehlai" and "How Strange our Old Lands", and then had presented Chief Milo of Morai for the benefit of those few who had never before met him, commenting upon how exactly the circ.u.mstances of his arrival at the Clan Morguhn camp upon the Brazos had meshed with those prophecies in the old songs, a fevered excitement had been generated and was still spreading. Due to Blind Hari's immense age, there had been but three in the succession of tribal bards since the departure of the Uncle of the Kindred to seek out his own clan of Undying in some far-off land. So the chiefs could be reasonably certain the three musical renditions of history and prophecy-the most crucial of which was "Prophecy of the Return"-had not been garbled by different bards over many, many scores of winters. Furthermore, upon the summoning of the clan bards to the chiefs' council, not by more than a single word were any of their renditions different from that of Blind Hari. The tribal bard's version stated that Ehlai-"by her shining sea"-lay eastward, and a good half of the versions of the clan bards agreed; the others contended that the Holy City lay to the west. The chiefs eventually decided that Hari's version must be the correct one. Uncle of the Kindred, the Undying G.o.d of them all, had not said that he himself would return, only that "one" would return, "from the south, upon a horse of gold"; just so had this Chief Milo arrived, years back, from the south and astride a big stallion of shimmering golden chestnut. The Undying had said that this "one" would be a leader, and this Milo of Morai most a.s.suredly was, and that he would be one of them, and precious few doubted the Kindred antecedents of the Morai. The Undying had added that, with the t.i.tle of War-Chief-of-the-Tribe-That-Will-Return-to-the-Sacred-Sea, and acting as chief-of-chiefs, this "one" would lead all those clans with unstained honor on a years-long migration back to the ruins of the city of the Sacred Ancestors' birth to reclaim and rebuild.

The tribal council had dragged on and on, far longer than any other council before it, as the chiefs wrangled and chewed over the issue. At great length, they had all agreed to choose Chief Milo of Moral as their first war chief, to be paramount to all until Ehlai was reached, or Morai died or named a successor, who must then be approved by the council before actually succeeding. All the chiefs felt that this final measure was necessary, for the songs clearly indicated that a score or more of winters might see the tribe still on the move eastward. Therefore, few of them would likely see the Holy City, and, as the Morai seemed to be of at least early middle years, surely he too would become old and infirm before the goal had been achieved. Had he so chosen, War Chief Milo of Morai could have eased the minds of the chiefs, at least on the final measure. For his appearance had not altered by one jot through all the time through which his memory stretched... and that was almost seven hundred years!

Where he squatted on a carpet-covered earthen dais, listening to the circle of squatting chiefs planning and discussing the order of march, this one called Milo kept his thoughts well shielded-a thing always necessary in a camp filled with born telepaths, but especially necessary in his own case. For he thought it best that none, not even old Hari, know for a while that he was in reality none other than their deified Uncle of the Kindred, returned after two centuries of tramping and riding and sailing the wide world in search of an island where, it was fabled, all folk were like himself, ageless and almost immortal. "But I never found it," he thought ruefully. "Nearly everyone had heard of it in every land I touched, but it was a chimerical quest, for the information I received was always the same. It lay just over the next range of mountains, in the center of the next sea or in a great lake in a great continent beyond that sea." Deciding at length that he was vainly pur-Suing a mirage, he had begun to retrace his steps, to come back to the only real home and kin he had ever known.

"But haven't they changed?" he thought on. "Who in'h.e.l.l would ever have thought that a bare hundred and fifty or so skinny, frightened, starving, sniveling little kids that I found huddled in an air-raid shelter tunneled into a mountainside could have been the progenitors of these fine men and of all the folk they lead? "They have adapted unbelievably well to a singularly harsh and unrelenting environment Their so-called Sacred Ancestors, during that first spring and summer on the high plains, didn't even know how to wipe their b.u.t.ts properly without toilet tissue, while these, their descendants, are fully capable of supplying their every need from the land alone. "Well, save perhaps the steel for their weapons and a few tools-but Blind Hari avers that very few of the blades came from the east or the south, most being produced by clan smiths who had dug the metal out of ancient ruins. And that's another thing, too. Almost all the easterners and southerners with their anthropomorphic G.o.ds and their superst.i.tions are scared spitless of the ruins, the so-called G.o.d Cities; yet wherever they come across them the clans camp in them-set up their yurts and pitch their tents in the long-dead villages and towns and cities of the late, great United States of America. Nor do they depart until the graze is depleted, or the game, or the diggings are not producing enough in the way of metals or useful artifacts to make the labor worthwhile, or until they just feel the urge to move on. Worshiping, as they do, only Sun and Wind and, to a limited extent, their swords and sabers-this last a rite that seems to have filtered in from the east in the last two hundred years, for / never founded it-these clansfolk harbor hardly any of the debilitating, gruesome superst.i.tions to which most folk in this land and overseas seem addicted, and so they do not fear the supernatural.

"They are truly a feisty bunch, and the few things that they do fear are all completely natural and feared with d.a.m.ned good reason-prairie fire, pestilence, the huge and very dangerous winter wolf packs..."

Fleetingly, Milo recalled a wintry day now more than five centuries past when he and a handful of dismounted clansmen had been trapped in a crumbling ruin in the mountains of what had once been southern Idaho by a combination of a three-day blizzard and one of those packs of a hundred or more starving wolves. "Now that was a d.a.m.ned chancy thing," he mused. "If I hadn't lucked across that sealed room of emergency supplies and that scoped rifle with enough ammo to wipe out most of the pack... "No, these people have good reasons for fearing the few things' that they do, especially the stinkers and the blackfeet. Those predators are always devilish hard to kill. It's just a d.a.m.ned fortunate thing that there're so few of them, and most of those stalk the elk on the high plains or follow the caribou herds hundreds of miles north of here.

"It]s funny, too, back in the days before everything fell apart, a lot of scientific types carried on at length about the mutations of men and animals' and plant life that an atomic war was certain to produce in survivors. But unless the mindspeak in which each new generation of these clansfolk seems to be more proficient is such a mutation, I cannot see where any real change has taken place in men.

"/ am no mutation, at least not of that bit of manmade h.e.l.l, for I was just as I am today, with every one of my... well, oddities... sixty years before the Two-Day War.

"The prairiecats are not mutations, but rather the result of a deliberate, scientific, prewar attempt to breed the sabertooth cats back into existence by that group in the Idaho mountains. And that was the origin, too, of these d.a.m.ned beasts they call s.h.a.ggy-bulls. The journals I read while we were waiting for the rest of the two clans to join us there told it all. Bison primogenus or longhorn bison is what that group was shooting for; I think they got them, too, by breeding back the regular, smaller bison and certain of the more primitive breeds of cattle like the Texas longhorn, the Highland strain and the yak, plus-as I recall-the gaur and the European wisent. "The director of that project who wrote those journals did allude here and there to other, earlier attempts with other species of beasts, and so conceivably those humonguous mus-telids could be an outcome of his breeding pens. But I tend to doubt it, for be was trying to recreate extinct species, and I never heard or read anywhere of twelve-or-fifteen-foot mink or ferrets, past or present.

"They..."

Blind Hari's voice abruptly broke into his musings. "What says the war chief then? Does the tribe bearto the north and cross the Great River where it is not so wide and swift, or do we rather follow the Traders' Trail and cross over as do they?"

Milo shrugged. "Unless we backtrack far west and then north, we still would be faced with a wide, swift and deadly river before we could reach the headwaters of the Great River. Why should we do that and risk the chance of a much harder winter in a northern land? Let us continue on to Trad-erstown and see what transpires there. If the dirtmen of that town will not afford us use of their barges for a reasonable fee, then we shall take the barges, the town and all in it by force of arms. It is the sacred destiny of this tribe to return to the Holy City of our Sacred Ancestors' birth, and neither man nor Nature shall impede us."

Stehfahnah lay on her side with her naked body bunched as closely together as she could to conserve its heat, but still her little white teeth chattered. She had been captive in the trapper's cramped, filthy hut for a week, bound hand and foot each time he left for any reason, and as his traplines ran for many miles up and down the riverbanks and deep into the forests, he and his small but st.u.r.dy a.s.s were usually absent from a bit after sunrise until nearly dark. The girl once more ran her dry tongue over even drier lips, wishing for her captor's return almost as much as she dreaded it. It was purest torture to lie watching the bulging waterskin hanging but a few feet distant and not be able to reach it: and torture, too, was the need to forcibly restrain the needs of her body to empty itself during the long hours alone, but the man's hard-swung belt had drawn blood from her bare back on the two occasions she had lost control and wetted or fouled the mattress of gra.s.s-stuffed hides whereon she lay. For a pitifully short time each night and morning he had made a practice of freeing both wrists and ankles that she might eat, drink and void.

He did leave her ankles unbound all night... but only so that he might easily use her body whenever the mood struck him through the night hours. Once more Stehfahnah had reverted to the behavior pat-tern which had sustained her through the long weeks of her previous captivity, separating her mind from her body during the abuse she could not resist, trying not to show pain or any sign of emotion.

She might have experienced loneliness, had she not been a telepath. But the second room of the hut was stall for not only the little a.s.s but for the trapper's other animal, a mare he had captured from the wild years before, and brutally broken to the saddle. During the third morning of her captivity, whilst she had been silently conversing with the two female otters, the previously uncommunicative equine had suddenly joined the "conversation." Mother-of-Many-Many had just apprised the girl that Killer-of-Much-Meat-in-Water had swum upriver seeking the creature that might be able to help her, the one that they called The-Bear-Killer. Stehfahnah had no idea what sort of beast the otters had in mind.

The only impressions she could glean from them were of a huge (to them, at least), dark, furry creature with longish legs, a mouthful of sharp, white teeth and broad feet studded with long, curved claws.

Stehfahnah had known that the mare was a mind-speaker-else she would have possessed no mindshield-but the girl's earlier attempts to converse had been fruitless. Now the small dun mare said silently, "You are truly, then, a twolegs of the Clans. Long has this one been slave to this brutal dirtman twolegs. Sad day it was when you became such, sister."

According to the mare, she had been separated from her herd-a sept of the Horse Tribe attached to Clan Mehrfee- while fleeing a terrible gra.s.s fire on the prairie seven years past. Stumbling with exhaustion, she had entered the riverside forest belt, having scented water. She had been taken at a small spring, too tired to really offer much resistance to the big, strong man and his hateful rawhide noose.

Knowing or suspecting that his catch was a Horseclans mare, he never took her onto the prairies when he worked for the traders each spring and summer, boarding her and the a.s.s in Traderstown, where the stable owner also rented out their services now and again.

The girl had had but little "conversation" with the a.s.s. The small creature was intelligent enough, but hismindspeak seemed minimal and had never before been employed with humans. As Stehfahnah lay there on the smelly hide mattress, a new but familiar thought transmission nibbled at her mind, and abruptly her thirst, the cold, even the aching of her full and distended bladder were forgotten. "Good-Twolegs,"

announced' Killer-of-Much-Meat-in-Water, "The Bear-Killer swam back down the river with me. He stopped where we came out to eat a muskrat caught in one of Bad-Twolegs's hurt-leg-things. But we must wait until next sun to free you, for Bad-Twolegs and his long-ears are not far." Eely Maidjuhz led his pack a.s.s-the smallish beast staggering under its load-into the small clearing before the log hut, hung the dwarf antelope he had bagged by chance, then began to affix the day's catch of skins to the drying racks. Once the last skin was up and the antelope's small carca.s.s butchered, he cleaned his knives, took up the a.s.s's halter and led him into the hut and through the front room to join the mare in the lean-to addition.

It was only after he had removed the packsaddle and halter, fed and watered both beasts, brought in the antelope carca.s.s, started a fire on the hearth and spitted the minuscule kill in preparation for broiling when the coals became of the right temperature and consistency that he turned to Stehfahnah. "Wai, sweetchips, what-all yew bin doin"t'day? Heheheh! Yew glad fer't' see ol* Eely? Yew wawnt me't'

untie yew so's yew kin gitchew a drank an' p.i.s.s?" Stehfahnah gritted her teeth. "Yes."

The man's grin remained, but his eyes cooled. "Yore mem'ry ain't too sharp, is it, gal?"

Her teeth still gritted, Stehfahnah ground out, "Yes, mas-ter."

The man nodded his s.h.a.ggy head once. "But it don' tek much proddin', does it? Come spring thaw time I tek yew in an' sell yew to Miz Soozee fo' her who' house in Traders-town, yew awta be broke in jest raht." His grin widening, he chuckled. "Then Eely'll jest git word't' pore ol1 Shifty Stooahrt wher'all yew is. Way yew hurted up thet gennamun, he oughta be purt' glad't' git aholt of yew agin. An' he won' fergit me neethuh, I figger." The man kept a slip-knotted thong around the girl's neck while she squatted in the brush, observing her constantly, his steel-shod spear ready in his other hand. Back in the hut, he allowed her to drink her fill from the waterskin before once again retying her, not releasing her again until the antelope carca.s.s was cooked to his satisfaction. Throughout it all and through all the hours that followed, Stehfahnah was aware that Killer-of-Much-Meat-in-Water was crouched nearby, somewhere beyond the log walls. When the man had gorged himself, he untied Stehfahnah to allow her to consume the remains' of the carca.s.s and to drink again from the skin, then tied her for the night, performed his necessary ch.o.r.es, banked the fire and flopped down beside his captive on the hide mattress.

Stehfahnah gritted her teeth, knowing what was surely to happen but as he rolled onto his side and his dirty, greasy fingers began their explorations of her body, there came a deep-chested huffing snuffling at the barred door. Then something began to attack the portal furiously, constantly growling and roaring, striking the door with such force as to slam it back against the bar several times, jar oddments from off the wall shelf near it and even set the items hanging from the wall hooks and rafters dancing and swaying.

Spewing curses, Eely threw off the blankets, rolled out of the bed and, with his spear clasped in one hand, began to stir up the fire with the other, his wide-eyed gaze locked upon the quivering door.

Stehfahnah ranged her thoughts out to the male otter. "Oh, Killer-of-Much-Meat-in-Water, what is happening?" The reply came quickly. "The-Bear-Killer had thought he could get into the log den, but he cannot. Good-Twolegs must get Bad-Twolegs outside. If The-Bear-Killer does not kill Bad-Twolegs tonight, he will lose interest and go away."

For many long minutes after the attack on the door had ceased, the man stood rooted by the fire, breathing hard, his eyes dilated and the unmistakable stink of terror oozing from his every pore. When there had been no sounds from the outer darkness for about a quarter hour, he took down a torch fromabove the hearth and kindled it in the fire, padded over to the door and stood with his ear to it for some time.

Standing back at last, he essayed to lift the bar with the point of his spear, but the shaft proved too long to give him proper leverage. Then he tried to find a way to wedge the torch upright in order to free his left hand... and almost fired the thatch. Cursing sulphurously, he set aside the spear for but a mere eyeblink of time, then firmly grasped it again. After a longish moment of just standing and thinking the matter through, he finally padded over to the bed, laid down the long spear and said, "Looky here, gal, Eely's gonna untie yew fum th' bed frame an' yew gonna git up an' lif th' bar offen th' do'. Heah me? Yew try suthin' an' Eelyll jest run his spear clear th'ough yew an' then th'ow yer carca.s.s out't' whatever critter's awn th' loose." To the waiting otter, Stehfahnah beamed, "I think that Bad-Twoleg is coming outside, but beware, he has a spear and a torch." But another mind answered her, a mind unaccustomed to telepathy with humans. "The-Bear-Killer not fear pointed stick. Kill, eat many twolegs, pointed stick not hurt, twolegs all slow, The-Bear-Killer fast, strong. Get Bad Twoleg outside den, The-Bear-Killer kill, eat"

The girl's bound, numb hands were not equal to the task, however, for the bar was not light and the attacks of the creature upon the door had almost torn one of the bar's supports from the wall, causing it to jam tightly into the other. Finally, she gave up and announced, "I cannot raise it with my hands bound together. Ill need to grasp it at or near each end to get it out." By the dim and flaring, flickering light of the torch, the man could see that his captive spoke no less than the truth, so, leaning the spear against his shoulder momentarily, he drew his razor-edged skinning knife from the belt that hung on a nearby hook and slashed through the tough thongs. As he did, he reiterated his promise to spear her should she either attack him or try to get away into the darkness.

Stehfahnah took a few moments to flex her stiff fingers and rub gently at her raw wrists, then again attacked the contrary bar. But she was at length reduced to hammering it from beneath with a f.a.ggot of firewood until it had been sufficiently loosened to respond to her wiry strength. That done, she stepped back, still holding the bar, and her captor took her place. Holding the torch before him and inching back the leather-hinged door with the point of his spear, the man crouched on his hairy, thick-muscled legs, ready to stab with spear or smite with torch at whatever beast he might confront; brute and lecher he a.s.suredly was, but not coward or weakling.

Slowly he advanced, moving on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet, ever ready to leap forward, to either side or backward, to stab upward or downward or to slash with the knife-sharp edges of the blade of the hunting spear. When the torchlight had a.s.sured him that the immediate area near the door was empty of threat, he raised the torch so that he might closely examine that battered portal and thus perhaps guess just what animal lurked in the darkness outside.

The door hung drunkenly, both central and lower hinges of thick, heavy leather almost sundered from the hardwood. And that dense, well-cured wood was deeply scored and furrowed from lower edge to midway up its height by the down-slashing claws of some powerful beast. In the earth before the hut-earth dampened by the night mist-was a veritable hodgepodge of tracks, mostly one atop the other. However, even those that were a bit clearer than the rest meant precious little to the trapper, for he had never before seen their like. Stehfahnah mindspoke the otter. "Where is The-Bear-Killer? Bad Twolegs is about to come out."

"The-Bear-Killer sees, female twolegs; he waits in the bad twolegs' path, on side of paw that holds fire.

If female twolegs can make Bad-Twolegs look another way for only a moment, The-Bear-Killer can quickly kill Bad-Twolegs." "I shall try," Stehfahnah beamed silently. Ever so cautiously, Eely advanced a few feet. Terrible as had been the damage to the door, that and the strange tracks had at least rea.s.sured him that it was neither bear nor treecat he faced in the shrouding darkness. Both sets of signs had borne a familial resemblance to a badger, though he could not imagine what on earth a badger-even a vastlyoversized badger-would be doing this far from the prairie. Nonetheless, he feared no badger of any size, not with his good spear in his hand. Briefly, his mind dredged up the memory of a beast he had heard described by other trappers at Traderstown in years past. Some called it "devil-wolf" or "badger-bear," but even if it existed-and he had never met any man who could claim to have actually seen one-its usual haunts were well north of this area, close to the headwaters of the Great River.

Rubbish, he thought, dismissing the half-mythical "badger-bear" as but another way of alibing the ill-luck of a bad season for a trapper.

Stehfahnah stood in readiness, her own desperate plan worked out in her mind, and when her ravisher was a few paces beyond the doorway, the girl slammed the door and clapped the heavy bar back into place. "Why... yew lil b.i.t.c.h, yew! Eely tol' yew he'd kill yew!" Momentarily forgetful in his rage at his slave girl of the menace lurking somewhere out of sight, the man spun about and jammed his spear through the door at its midpoint, his powerful thrust easily penetrating the deeply scored wood. Through sheerest good fortune, the sharp blade missed Stehfahnah, but in dancing back from it, her foot struck upon the round f.a.ggot she had earlier used to hammer up the bar, and she fell heavily, her head striking the raised hearth and her consciousness suddenly reduced to a red-black, flame-shot, whirling tightness... and far, far away, she thought that she could hear screaming... and roaring. Then there was nothing.

Chapter Seven.

The morning parade and inspection of his new company done, Captain of Foot Count Martuhn of Geerzburk sc.r.a.ped and stamped sticky mud from his patched boots and climbed the narrow, winding stairs up to the towertop chambers he had chosen as his own in the spanking new fortress the duke had erected in the center of Twocityport, much to the loudly voiced disgust and rage of his wife and her coterie'of sycophants.

When Martuhn had set sail up the Ohyoh to recruit this new company, the land on which the fortress presently squatted had been an expanse of stone-built warehouses. Now the stones and ma.s.sy timbers had been "rearranged" into a fine, small, eminently defensible fortification, its foundations going all the way down to bedrock. The rapacious duke had impressed every able-bodied man-slave, soldier or free-on whom he could lay heavy hand. He had commuted jail time to labor and even taken to shanghaung drunken rivermen. The wealthier or more powerful men of the duchy had been allowed to buy out of the construction crews with gold or foodstuffs, stone or timber, or the loan of boats and wagons and teams. And the seemingly impossible had been accomplished, the fortress completed and ready to serve as1 garrison for the new company upon their arrival.

For all its newness, this citadel of Twocityport felt homey to Martuhn, as it should, for his own big, scarred hands had rendered the plans for the complex, faithfully drawing an exact duplicate of the citadel of faraway Geerzburk. For all his and Wolfs earlier misgivings, the garrison was shaping up nicely, blending in well with the survivors of his earlier companies with a minimum of friction. Few floggings had been needed to establish and maintain the strict discipline he demanded of subordinates.

Including the "cargo" he had brought downriver, he now commanded a force of tenscore pikemen and fourscore archers'. With the lieutenants, sergeants, weapons masters, cooks, wagoners, farriers, smiths and other service personnel, over four hundred men (plus a few women, camp wh.o.r.es, mostly) now called the new fortress home.

As he climbed the stairs to his commodious tower apartments in the chill of the early morning, Martuhn's thoughts strayed back to the sumptuous little private dinner he had shared with his overlord and employer. Duke Tcharlz, on the evening following his morning duel-if the outright butchery of anarrogant but unskilled effeminate could be called such-with d.u.c.h.ess Ann's spy, Sir Djaimz. His strong yellow teeth having stripped most of the meat from the shank of a roasted lamb, the duke had wrenched it from the larger bone and tossed it to the waiting wolfhounds. Then, raising his voice above the racket of the dogs' snarls and argumentative snappings, he remarked with eyes a-twinkle, "You know, of course, Martuhn, that you were under my eyes from the very moment you entered the outer chamber yesterday morning?"

The lean, scar-faced former count laid aside knife and joint, took a sip from his wine cup and replied, "Aye, my lord, I sensed that you had arranged that little farce. No need to ask why, of course." He frowned then. "But, with all, I'd not have taken the miserable creature's life." The duke chuckled, his florid face turning even redder. Absently, his guest noted that the n.o.ble host was beginning to add a second chin and that his jowls were starting to droop somewhat.

"Martuhn, Martuhn, my good friend, when you had down that b.a.s.t.a.r.d's breeks, I thought surely I'd burst with laughter. To think that such things as that strut about with belted weapons and call themselves men!" Weary unkempt, with fresh mud overlaying old dirt, the captain and Wolf had paced into the outer chamber and come to a halt before the table and the Seated Sir Djaimz.

The young man wore his dark-brown hair at shoulder length, the ends curled. The dark lashes over his pale-blue eyes were long and thick, but his lips were pale and thin, with a cruel twist at the corners. His narrow face was pale and unmarked by any of the scars and calluses that most men had acquired by the time they were knighted. His white-skinned, soft-looking, long-fingered hands looked as if they would find the hilt of the light sword lying on the table before him most unfamiliar.

Neither Martuhn nor Wolf knew the fop. He had arrived from Twocityport more than a month after their departure... but both knew his type of old. Nonetheless, Martuhn tried to be polite.

He nodded stiffly. "I am Captain Martuhn of Geerzburk, just returned from upriver with Freeflghters.

Duke Tcharlz will be expecting me." Then he turned to the left and started around the table, his secret telepathic ability telling him that the duke was quite nearby, likely in the next room. "Just one moment, sirrahf" Sir Djaimz shrilled, in a tenor so high that it verged on falsetto. "No one can see the duke without my leave. You hear? Least of all a filthy, smelly, seedy ragam.u.f.fin I've never before seen. Likely, the pair of you are nothing more than mean mountebanks hired by my enemies to humiliate me. How do I know you are what you say you are and not just another ill-born liar?"

Martuhn heard the faithful Wolf growl, but sent a telepathic command for peace... for the nonce.

Turning again to the doorkeeper, he placed the palms of his big hands on the tabletop and leaned until his head was on a level with that of the fop. In a flat, cold, emotionless voice, he said, "Young sir, I have striven to be courteous. I have given you my name and my rank and imparted a modic.u.m of my business with his grace. If you truly require warranty of all I have told you, why simply inquire of any one of the guardsmen here abouts; they all know me of old. Be warned of a few facts, however, young sir. I am at the least as n.o.bly born as you; moreover, / am a full man. I have fought more battles than you have hairs in those girlish lashes, and there are precious few living men who ever have named me inborn or a liar!"

But a single glance into the frigid depths of the eyes of the big-boned, but rapier-thin, stranger gave Sir Djaimz an immediate feeling of looseness in the guts and a raging urge to urinate. However, knowing how little real respect he commanded among either n.o.bles or base in this savage domicile of the duke he had been dispatched to watch, he stubbornly refused to retrench and let the matter lie.

He curled his lips into a sneer, tilting his carefully coif-feured head to keep his eyes on the big man, who once more stood erect. But when he made to speak, his voice at first declined to obey the dictate of hiswill; it cracked, soaring high up into the treble.