“South of here by seven or eight days’ ride,” he had told the chiefs and subchiefs when he asked for young men to ride the raid with him. “The harvest is just in, and do we want a fresh supply of grain and beans, now is the time to strike and that is the place, for you can rest assured that any new attempt at the place from which Tim Krooguh got his wife so soon after would result in a certain battle with those very peculiar Dirtmen and possible injuries or deaths, even, for some of the raiders.”
Chief Skaht shook his head dubiously. “Uncle Milo, no man here doubts your wisdom and war skills, but as I recall, that pack of Dirtmen are tough, some of them really war-trained. We—Clan Skaht, that is—raided them years agone, when I was a younker of some sixteen winters, and though we did drive them out of their place, take loot and burn part of that place, we lost near half our warriors in so doing, and it has taken this many years to again become a sizable clan.”
Milo frowned. “Yes, I’ve been told of that raid and its bitter consequences, years ago, by some of the men who led it. They owned their biggest error was in riding a raid with a friendly but non-Kindred warband, who attacked precipitately and long before all was in readiness for the planned attack. They also held that there just were too many of them for the task, too many to be adequately controlled. Also, they had but one prairiecat, and he was killed early on.
“I, on the other hand, intend to take only the best of the young, but blooded, warriors, enough cats to do the job and enough horses to allow for a speedy escape from the wrath of however many Dirtmen are left when we’re done.”
“Who will you be wanting for subchiefs?” demanded Chief Skaht, that being his way of announcing that he was dropping his understandable objections of the mounting of the raid.
In deference to his ill health, the council had been held in Chief Dik Krooguh’s yurt, and, immediately all the rest had departed, the ailing man shuffled his way over to the tanist yurt to tell his sister of all that had so recently transpired.
At the conclusion of the recountal, Chief Dik said, “He wanted, would have taken, all of my sons and Dikee and Tim, as well. But I said no.
“Our Djahnee has gone riding off hunting with your husband, and that’s bad enough. I’ve had a worrisome foreboding about that since they all left; Djahn is a fine fellow, a tough fighter, a splendid bowman and all that, but any who know him well will also know that he—like every Staiklee man—has a tendency to be reckless on occasion. As if that were not bad enough, he has on more than one hunt done downright dangerous things and gotten some men who tried to emulate him hurt, since few other men own his lightning-fast reflexes. I’ve already lost two boys I’d chosen to succeed me as chief; I don’t like the thought of losing another.
“Worse, I like even less the possibility of the loss of all your Sons and the chaos chat that would breed in the Clan Council upon my demise, so I allowed Chief Morai to take only Dikee on his raid. Tim will stay here as surety that come what may, there will be one living legal heir to the chieftaincy of Clan Krooguh.”
VI
Chief Dik Krooguhs looming presentiment was well founded, tragically well founded. The hunting party came back early, fast and with precious little game. There was one fewer rider to return than had gone out, too. Young Djahnee—or his lifeless husk, at least—returned stiff, roped onto the back of his horse.
No one saw Djahn Staiklee’s face as he rode into camp, halted before the yurt he called home and dismounted, then commenced the task of untying his eldest son’s corpse from the trailing horse could doubt the depth and severity of his grief. So no one attempted oral or telepathic communication until he had freed and lifted down the heavy, awkward burden.
Then, many hands took over the task of bearing the body to the bath area for cleansing. Other men, of both clans, hitched horses to carts, collected axes and mounted other horses before setting out to the nearest wooded area to collect fuel for a pyre.
Bettylou expected the very worst when Staiklee came face to face with his wife, Lainuh, but she was surprised. Cognizant of the sincerity of the man’s grief and suffering, the sister of the chief was the very soul of consideration and comfort to the returned hunter, quietly ordering others to unsaddle his mounts and bring in all gear that belonged in her yurt.
When he had been relieved of his gear and outer clothing, had had his riding boots replaced with the felt boots worn in camp, when he had been seated in his accustomed place and had been offered herb tea and milk (both of which he drank) and a bowl of curds (which he refused), he finally told the sad, simple tale of tragedy and death. He opened his mind that all capable of such might share in his memories.
The scouting cats had spotted a herd of those herbivores that Horseclansfolk called smaller screwhorns. These creatures, for all that they stood at most some nine hands at the withers, could easily outdistance a horse for a long enough time to lose themselves in the high grasses to the south, so Djahn had had the best bowmen—himself and young Djahnee included—dismount and take well-separated paths through the shorter grasses and brush to attempt to get within certain bow range of the prized quarry.
That phase of the hunt had been successful. No less than five of the antelopes had been arrowed, two of them shot by Djahn Staiklee. It was not until the diminished herd was tiny with distance that young Djahnee was missed and searched out.
They found him lying on his back in the grass, already dead. A smear of blood on his neck and two tiny puncture wounds just behind the angle of the jaw told the grim story of snakebite.
The tableau also told the tale of bravery unto death. For the boy might have been doctored and saved had he cried out, but that same cry would surely have spooked the antelope herd too, and this the stricken lad would not do … not even though he knew full well that his continued silence would cost him his young life.
Tears streaking her lined cheeks, Lainuh withdrew from her husband’s mind and beamed an urgent call to her brother, the chief, and to old Djef Krooguh, the clan bard. The chief must know immediately of the death of his nephew and the bard must know the full extent of the act of lonely heroism of the dead boy, that he might compose the verses for the funeral and add appropriate lines to the Song of Krooguh so that her son’s honorable deeds would be recalled and reverenced by the generations that would follow.
That evening, the woodcutters came back with their carts heaped high, and early the next evening Djahnee was sent to Wind—a simple ceremony, followed by cremation of the body. Tim was often to remark sadly in later years that they might have better made a larger pyre and waited a few days.
Actually, it was somewhat longer a period—nearly three weeks—before Milo and his raiders returned, all dusty and exhausted some wounded, but all heavy-laden with assorted loot and wildly exuberant. But not all of them came back from that raid; there were a handful of empty saddles. There was also a litter swung between two mules, and in that litter lay what was left of Dikee Staiklee of Krooguh, barely alive.
When she got her first close look at what the litter bore, Lainuh Krooguh mindspoke Tim, saying. “My son, go at once to your uncle. Tell him to begin with you immediately, for only you now are left to be chief in his stead.”
Turning back to Dikee, she tried to enter his thoughts, but found only the confusion of intense pain and semi-consciousness, and she felt even more strongly that his spirit was upon the very edge of taking flight from his tattered, battered husk.
“What happened?” she demanded of no one in particular.
Milo himself answered tiredly. “The Dirtman village is surrounded with a palisade. We had set afire the gate tower and three others and were battering in the gate with a trimmed treetrunk slung between armored horses, all supposedly ready to rush in immediately the gate sundered or fell.