The savage bands of pony-mounted Muhkohee were, of course, another thing entirely, few wearing any sort of armor, but each and every one of them armed to the teeth with a wide variety of weapons—most homemade and primitive, but there wore a few rusty captured swords, spears, axes and dirks or knives.
Had it not been for the fact that the sole defensive items these tatterdemalions wore or bore were the occasional old and battered helmet, leathern caps sewn with bone or horn and crude shields of woven wicker and rawhide, Sir Geros and his force might have sustained far heavier losses than they had. But he and his well-armored and -armed veterans had been able to ride into the smaller mobs of Muhkohee and slay virtually at will the vicious but untrained, undisciplined, unarmored and ill-armed barbarians.
Nor was Sir Geros slow to take note of the reason for the bulk of such casualties as he did sustain; even if a fighter was not pinned or injured when his big horse went down, he had lost a part of his edge over his numerous opponents. Therefore, he had set every available hand to stitching padding between double thicknesses of strong cloth or leather, then sewing or riveting the resultant makeshift horse armor with disks of metal or hom, with scraps of Ahrmehnee chainmail or spare steel scales from the gear of his Freefighters—anything which might turn a blade or help to absorb and spread out the shock of a club or a dull-bladed axe. Furthermore, he saw lighter versions of this makeshift armor fitted to the mounts of the Ahrmehnee as well, and since then there had been fewer battle hurts and fewer still combat deaths, despite the quantity of heavy fighting in which he and the Behdrozyuhns had, perforce, engaged.
The Muhkohee survivors of these frays, however, seemed only to flee as far as they felt was necessary to continued survival; then, as soon as their depleted ranks had been somewhat filled back out by new arrivals trickling in from the north and northwest, they would launch another bloody incursion into Behdrozyuhn lands and the hard-fighting little composite force would find itself once more campaigning in that same once-fertile, now-barren and fought-over area in which they—the leaders—lay this very day, spying out the influx of another and even larger mob of Muhkohee.
In reply to Captain Raikuh, Sir Geros began to slide carefully backward, down from the crest, still upon his belly, muttering, “No, Pawl, some of those stinking bastards down there look very familiar, so I don’t think that the village routine will work a third time—for all they’re savage barbarians, the leaders at least don’t seem to be stupid; they catch on fast, I’ve found.
“Anyhow, I’d liefer discuss these matters when I’m not wet and freezing and hungry, and I’d imagine that most of you are of a like mind, eh?”
On the long, circuitous ride back to the large village that was the base of the force, the sky to the northeast rapidly became an even darker gray, and, with the wind now almost a live and fiercely biting thing, only a fool would have failed to guess that one of the fearsome midwinter blizzards was charging down upon the lands of Behdrozyuhn at full gallop.
Huddled like his companions into the voluminous, thick, hooded cloak which, being of bleached wool, had been camouflage as well as protection from the elements back there on the hillcrest, Captain-of-Freefighters Pawl Raikuh rode deep in thoughts of the last year or so.
“Who would’ve thought it two years ago, that I, Pawl Raikuh, trained to arms since my seventh year and soldiering for close to thirty-five years, would be cheerfully taking orders from a man half my age who had spent the best part of his life as a servant to noblemen—a mere valet and minstrel? Yet I foresaw some of all this… when?… sometime back during the siege of Vawnpolis, I think. Or was it earlier than that, on the march into Vawn? Hell, I can’t recall! Damn this chancy second sight, anyway.
“Oh, yes, our Geros has come far indeed from his humble beginnings, for all that he fights against and complains of advancement every step of the way. He’s going to make a great captain, if he decides to go that way. This past year’s campaigning has been proof of that if nothing else.
“Not that he’ll ever have the real need to swing steel for a living, what with holding rich lands in two duchies of the Confederation, with powerful noblemen his friends and debtors and practically falling over each other to heap more honors upon him. And for holding that Silver Cat the damned Confederation will pay him thirty ounces of silver a year for as long as he lives; no measly annual income, that, even for a belted knight.
“And he’s a rare way of winning people over, that Geros. When first we rode down here, the Ahrmehnee hatred of us was so thick in the air you could’ve spread it on ice with a cold knifeblade, yet now they all love him like a brother.” Raikuh chuckled softly to himself. “And from the looks they give him, not a few of those fine, high-breasted Ahrmehnee wenches would love him as anything but a brother, had they the chance. Hell, for all I know some of them already have. Geros can be damned secretive, comes to his personal life, and he’s got the rank now to make it stick.
“And it’s not just that Geros is a good warrior and very adaptable to new peoples and situations that will stand to make him a superlative Freefighter captain. He’s the ability to quickly see both problems and solutions to those problems at one and the same time whether those problems be of a strategic or tactical or logistic nature. For all his soft voice and disarming manner—or, maybe, because of them—he is damnably adept at getting his own way, at winning sometime opponents over to his side. Turn a man of his talents loose in the Middle Kingdoms with a decent company at his back and he’d likely finish his life as a duke or, at least, a royal count.
“But for all his undeniable genius at it, I fear me that our Geros really detests wars and fighting, as he has right often claimed. When and if we ever find Duke Bili or at least find out what happened to him and the others, Geros is far more likely to hie him back to Vawn or Morguhn or Lehzlee and plump him down on a patch of land to set about siring a family and raising livestock and crops, and a criminal waste of a good captain that will be, too, for all that he’ll likely be far happier at such than he would have been at marshaling troops and laying the groundwork for great, crashing battles for some grand duke or king or other. But such a waste, such a pure and unadulterated waste of a soldier.”
And while old Pawl Raikuh rode on into the gathering storm mumbling and grumbling to himself, the man who was the hub of his thoughts was himself thinking.
“It is beginning to seem that these Muhkohee will never stop coming. I know mat the Lady Nahrda and her Moon Maidens are as anxious to push on and try to find some trace of her brahbehrnuh as am I to find Thoheeks Bili, but we can’t just desert these brave Behdrozyuhns; without the weight of our arms, they’d stand no chance at all against so many. They never were one of the larger, more powerful tribes, apparently, and over the last two years their numbers and strength have been even further reduced… and it doesn’t add to my own peace of mind to recall that I and most of these good men who are down here with me had a bloody hand in the decimation of these Behdrozyuhns, albeit under orders of our suzerain, Milo, the High Lord.