“No, we have nothing to fear from the Kuhmbuhluhners this year… unless they manage to come up with more of that damned heavy horse. I wonder if they have. Is that why they’re so damnably confident, why they rebuffed the earl’s heralds with such scorn and contumely? It would help vastly in my plans and calculations if I had the advantage of some decent reconnaissance, but no matter how skillful and experienced the scouts I send out, they’ve never come back to me with anything of true value.” He grimaced and then muttered regretfully, “Hell, most of the poor sods have never come back at all.”
Major Wizwel Teague sat his shaggy pony at the forefront of the knot of the pony-mounted company officers at the edge of the field whereon the brazen-throated sergeants were engaged in putting his battalion of pikemen through the intricate maneuvers of close-order drill. From the distance, it appeared to him that the formations were shaping up well, despite the autumn and winter and early-planting season when most of these men had devoted their time exclusively to necessary civil, rather than military, pursuits.
He was tucking the oiled cloak more tightly around his throat in hopes of halting the drip of the cold drizzle from the cheekplate of his helm down his neck and under his gambe-son when a sudden rattle of pikeshafts caused him to look up. From Number Two Company, some of whose ill-angled pikes could be seen to make X’s against the gray, overcast sky behind them, emanated the screamed curses and verbal abuse of several enraged noncoms, punctuated shortly by the solid thwacks of the sergeants’ sticks brought down with force upon the unarmored backs of the recalcitrant pikemen.
Teague simply went back to tucking in his cloak. Things were always so during the first few drills after the months of none, but he had chosen his sergeants carefully, and all were good, tough, experienced men. They soon would have the battalion moving in the certain and precise order demanded.
During the three weeks that it took to move his column up from Sandee’s Cot to the more thickly populated country just south and west of New Kuhmbuhluhnburk, the capital and only walled city of the Kingdom of New Kuhmbuhluhn, the young commander was exceedingly glad that he had so stoutly resisted the well-meant advice of old Count Steev to convey his gear and baggage and supplies in wagons and wains.
Throughout the long years when the huge bunches of the outlaw Ganiks had ravaged and harassed the environs of the scattered safe-glens of the southeasterly portions of the kingdom, there had been a dearth of funds, manpower, peace or opportunity to maintain existing roads or to construct new ones, so Bili of Morguhn had more than sufficient delay and difficulty in establishing and continuing a decent rate of march for his squadron, pack trains and the unwieldy herd of horses, ponies and a few mules and asses.
But move northward they did, despite slippery, sucking mud as a constant deterrent, since every day on the journey saw either rain or at best a misty drizzle. It was hellish and miserable. Within the first half week, there was not a single square inch of dry cloth amongst them all, nor could clothing be dried, for there seldom was much sun and, since not even the Kleesahks could find much dry wood, many nights saw cold, cheerless camps. The cold, biting winds that scoured the heights and whipped through the vales might have served to at least dry some of the sodden woolens and linen and cotton cloth, had not each frigid gust borne upon it unneeded additional moisture.
Streams shown upon Count Steev’s map as narrow, shallow valley rills proved often, under these adverse conditions of weather, to be ten or more yards across at the narrowest and belly-deep to a warhorse, where the Kleesahks found fords.
Horses and ponies fell on the slippery tracks, a few so badly injured that it was necessary to put them down. No men or women died or were seriously injured, but Bili at length ordered all to march dismounted until they had traversed that particular stretch of the journey.
Hardened veterans of war and campaigning though all the men and women were, within a week everyone was sniffling, sneezing, hacking out lung-tearing coughs, feverish, and Bili would have halted for a while could he have found shelter and dry wood enough to last them long enough. But the map told the grim story—they must keep moving for at least a week more, did the weather not change for the better.
It did not. Pah-Elmuh did what little he could, but he freely admitted that head colds did not respond very well to his healing methods, though he could achieve success in clearing congestions from the lungs or binding loosenesses of the bowels.
Tempers became short in the squadron, and it often was all Bili and his officers could do to prevent fights, duels or outright murder. Amongst the suffering troops, animosities which had remained dormant during better times raised their venomous heads—racial, sexual or class distinctions. The Kleesahks proved invaluable in curbing these outbreaks of human violence.
Freefighter Sergeant Loo Haiguhn leaned to stir the stew just beginning to bubble in the pot hung over the tiny fire and, in so doing, chanced to slop a dollop out.
“Clumsy, stupid piece of male offal!” commented his war companion and mate, the Moon Maiden Klahra.
Haiguhn’s head was pounding ferociously, it being a sudden and more agonizing stab of that pain which had caused him to spill the small bit from the pot. Straightening up, he snarled, “If you think you can do it better, you arrogant sow, do it! Cooking a man’s meal is the proper job of a woman, anyhow!”
With an enraged hiss of “Impudent man-thing!” Klahra drove her fist in a short, hard punch square onto his dripping nose, which spurted bright blood beneath her hard knuckles.
But a backhanded buffet from the big, powerful sergeant hurled the slender, much lighter young woman to the squishy ground. Before she could even think of arising, Haiguhn had wiped the back of his hand across his nose, seen his blood and dropped upon her. His knees and weight pressed her shoulders into the sodden loam, and his big hands locked around her throat, tightening remorselessly, all reason fled from him.”
Frantically, her whole being starved for air, Klahra’s short-nailed fingers reached up past his muscle-bulging arms, tried in vain to find his eyes, clawing great, blood-welling gouges down his bristly cheeks.
Before Hohmuh the Kleesahk could reach them, even with the length of his strides and the rapidity of movement of his eight-foot stature, Klahra’s face had become livid, her eyes and tongue protruding horribly. With a sigh of mingled sorrow and disgust at such senseless savagery as the two humans displayed, the massive humanoid picked up Haiguhn by his wide dagger belt and ungently shook him until he opened his hands and let go of the swooning woman’s neck.
And this was but one of the more minor altercations, one involving only two people and no bared steel.
But all things—both the good and the bad—must end, and though it seemed to last for an interminable period, the long, difficult journey finally did come to an end. On a bright, sun-dappled morning, the vanguard passed from narrow mountain track onto the southernmost edge of a vast plateau of level fields and grassy leas crisscrossed with wide corduroy roads and strong stone-and-timber bridges over the watercourses. The column had at last arrived in the longer-settled, long-peaceful portion of the Kingdom of New Kuhmbuhluhn.
As the head of the main column commenced the gradual descent, Pah-Elmuh, mounted high on his huge Northorse, pointed to the northern horizon, mindspeaking to the young thoheeks and Rahksahnah, “Yonder is King’s Rest Mountain. The city lies partway up its southern slope, on a smaller plateau, and is not visible to humans from this distance. The contested lands, those now held by the Skohshuns, lie north and northwest of mountain and city, being generally lower in elevation and sloping down toward the river called Ohyoh.”