The dehrehbeh shrugged. “This all is hereabouts flat land— well, as flat as in these southern mountains likely you are to find. Only croplands or pastures or forest here nearby is, nor thick is the growth of the forest; the few tiny herder huts or dugout shelters scant help to a force so large would be, none at all, unless scatter widely they did. No caves there are for the ride of many days in any direction, and even these small are. Perhaps to be of lightness Sir Geros is, perhaps they even now are dying of cold and exposure. The Silver Lady grant that true it be!”
“Ahem’t Your pardon, please, honored Dehrehbeh Ahrszin,” said an elderly Ahrmehnee crouched near the hearth, speaking slowly and with deference.
Behdros Behdrozyuhn had been a mighty warrior in his long-ago day, adding many Muhkohee and lowlander heads to the impressive collection in the tribe lodge. Now, for all that he was aged, infirm and almost blind, he still was valued for his wisdom and had attended this meeting as the ears and the voice of the Council of Elders.
Now, at his utterance, all gazes turned onto the place where he squatted with his big-boned but withered body wrapped thoroughly in a thick woolen cloak lined with rabbit fur, his two eyes—one still dark and piercing, the other covered over with a thick film the color of thin milk—fixed on Ahrszin.
The dehrehbeh was, if anything, even more deferential in his reply to the old man. “Of what would my honored father speak?” He spoke, however, in stilted, accented Mehrikan, as too had the old man, that all present might understand.
Straightening his body a bit under its wrappings, old Behdros said gently, “With so many weighty cares upon your shoulders, Der Ahrszin, I fear you have forgotten the one place the Muhkohee raiders were certain to find, did they come up that valley. It is of the village of the headman Mahrzbehd I speak; it lies at the very top of that valley, with enough buildings to shelter most of a force that size even if not all. True, the distance is too great for them to easily attack this village from there, but that is where they should be sought first, say I.”
No less gently, the young dehrehbeh replied, “Honored father, that village was burned while still my honored uncle lived, along with the croplands surrounding it. All of its folk and most of their kine are now here, with us in this village. Of what protection are roofless walls even for the Muhkohee?”
The wrinkled lips of Behdros parted to reveal teeth wom down almost to the gum line. After the brief smile, he said, “Der Ahrszin, you have not fought over, raided in, alien lands earlier despoiled. I have. Even a roofless wall gives protection from most of the wind, and, with desperation and time, a roof of a sort can be fashioned from saplings, pine branches and hides, for that matter. Far better that than to try to backtrack, to-run long miles before the storm back to the camp beyond the border; I doubt any Muhkohee would be so stupid… and I know that breed well; I fought them the most of my life.”
Raikuh nodded, asking no leave to speak. “He’s right, you know. In the Middle Kingdoms wars, 1 and my mates have seen ruined villages and hamlets with jerry-rigged roofs just like those he describes, have done some of it our own selves at various times. They ain’t palaces, mind you, but they sure beat sleeping cold and wet. And that many Muhkohee working together for their common good could likely do a heap of work, fast.
“Yes, son Geros, I think that there village is a good bet for us to check out as soon as this weather lets up enough for patrols to ride again.”
When once they had gotten fires going on the hearths of the ruined cottages and the few larger houses, the snow that the heat had melted on the makeshift roofs of interlaced conifer branches and long sapling-rafters had frozen to a film of ice and, when once more snow had accumulated on the surfaces, the rude coverings became almost windproof, though inclined to drip steadily in the warmer interiors.
Nonetheless, Abner and Gouger and their Ganiks were damned glad to be out of the deadly storm that surrounded the rude shelters wherein they crowded with their ponies. During the few, short spells of windlessness when there was a modicum of light, the hobbled and guarded ponies were allowed to forage under the snow blanket in the woods and burned-over fields, while as much of the accumulated dung—animal and human—as could be easily reached was tossed out the doors and other groups of Ganiks cut down and fetched in firewood from the nearest growth of woodland.
Food for the mob of Ganiks was, of course, no problem, not when there were so many other Ganiks about to be murdered and butchered and cooked and eaten. Abner hated to see this loss of fighting strength, but he knew that without food they would all be too weak to fight even did they survive. Besides, his stomach growled as loud as any man’s when empty. So, as had ever been the Ganik way, the weaker and sickly went to feed the stronger and healthier.
There was no thought of killing and eating the ponies, of course. Not only did the little beasts constitute the only means of transportation, but Gouger and his crew and many another of the other lesser Ganiks were strict adherents of the old-time religion, and one of that creed’s most powerful gods—Ndaindjerd—forbade the consumption of the flesh of any furred or feathered animal.
Abner, Leeroy and a minority of others were not so strict in observance of traditional Ganik dietary laws—or of any other aspects of the singular religion of the Ganiks, for that matter—but there was no denying that human flesh was tenderer, sweeter and more succulent than the stringy, tough and sinewy pony flesh would likely have been.
Aware that there existed a terrible need to keep the raiders busy at something in this crowded and enforced confinement, Abner, Gouger, Leeroy and the other bullies set the lesser Ganiks to scrounging, even digging up floors in a search for any bits and pieces of metal to be honed and made into dart points; any hard metal would do—steel, iron, brass, bronze, pewter, even hardened copper—the Ganiks were not and had never been picky in that regard. Because another of their ancient gods—Plooshuhn—forbade them the smelting or casting of metals, they always had had to take any worked metal objects from their neighbors, cold-hammering and reshaping their acquisitions to their needs, where necessary, by any method that did not entail fire-heating of the metals, which would surely have called down upon them the awful wrath of the gods.
Pieces too large for dart tips were fashioned expertly into knife or dagger blades, for no Ganik outlaw ever felt himself to have enough knives, the bullies often carrying a dozen or more, large and small, scattered about their persons.
Not that the thrifty Ahrmehnee had actually left that much valuable metal when they hurriedly abandoned the site, but the search’ alone was an effective means of keeping the minds—far too many of which were, at best, ill balanced—of the lesser Ganiks occupied with something basically constructive.
The lesser Ganiks did not need to be actually driven to the hunt for and work upon metal. But they certainly did need to be so driven to and constantly supervised at other most necessary chores, such as the procurement of and the fetching back of food for the penned ponies.
For this was hard, cold work. It required digging beneath the icy snow with makeshift wooden spades to find grasses or herbaceous plants or even small bushes—mountain ponies were far less fastidious in their choices of food than were true horses—then hacking off armloads and bearing them back to the places wherein the snorting, stamping animals waited in ravenous impatience. And, like as not, the vicious winds or a loss of footing would see the hard-garnered loads torn from the grasps of the freezing Ganiks long before they reached their destinations.