But the Skohshuns did not countercharge. Bili’s last view of them from the crest of the ridge between the blood-soaked valley and the river showed them still in their place, the forward lines of pikes still at “present.” But the Skohshuns’ rear area was a seething boil of activity, and the constant passings back and forth of riders up and down the western hillock led him to believe that some important person of that alien army had his headquarters thereon.
No sooner were the New Kuhmbuhluhn survivors across the river and back into camp than Prince Byruhn set every sound man and woman to the task of breaking that camp and forming for a march back to New Kuhmbuhluhnburk. There was much grumbling and grousing on the part of the exhausted warriors, but Bili could see the points: to stay here was to invite an attack by the numerically superior Skohshuns, and cavalry was of little account as a defending force; also, there was the matter of the wounded—including King Mahrtuhn—all of whom would be immeasurably better off in the care of Pah-Elmuh and the other Kleesahks skilled at healing, and while a night on the march might kill some of those wounded, so too would a night of suffering on hard pallets in camp under only the rough—and-ready care of their comrades and a horse leech or two. And there were plenty of spare horses to bear horse litters. Over half of the force that had ridden into that ill-conceived attack were now dead, wounded or missing, but only about a fifth of the horses were dead, missing or seriously enough hurt to require being put down or immediately tended.
A litter was fashioned of King Mahrtuhn’s cushioned camp bed, and the still-unconscious monarch—stripped of his hacked and bloody armor, boots and gambeson, his visible wounds cleaned and bandaged—was gently placed therein. Prince Mahrtuhn Gilbuht’s crushed and mangled corpse, wrapped in the silken folds of his personal banner, was securely tied atop the load of one of the wagons, on Prince Byruhn’s order.
They marched through the night, under a bright half-moon, with Bili and the hale members of his condotta providing flank—and rearguards. A bare score of Skohshun dragoons had splashed across the ford when the camp was finally struck, the site deserted and most of the slow-moving column a good mile on the road to New Kuhmbuhluhnburk. But the small unit of cavalrymen never made any attempt to close that distance. Indeed, they deliberately halted several times to maintain it whenever the column found it necessary to slow or pause. It was obvious that they were but a scouting force, not seeking to harry or fight, and none in Bili’s condotta or in the main column had the mind or the energy to try to take a fight to them.
Bili had sent the prairiecat Whitetip racing ahead to the nearest point from which the big, talented feline could farspeak the Kleesahk Pah-Elmuh, in order that the huge humanoid and his ilk might meet the column before it reached the mountain city. With the king comatose, his chosen heir dead and Prince Byruhn in full command of the shattered remnants of the royal army, there was no longer any need to conceal the fact that he had had the big cat accompany the force.
Pah-Elmuh and five other Kleesahks met the battered column at the fourth hour after dawn, still some twelve miles from New Kuhmbuhluhnburk. Pah-Elmuh himself made directly for that litter holding King Mahrtuhn, knelt beside it and, with his eyelids closed, lightly ran his gigantic palm the length of the royal body, from feet to head.
When he finally looked up at Prince Byruhn, there was both pain and sadness commingled in the depths of his oval-pupiled eyes. “King Mahrtuhn no longer lives, Lord Prince. His body is cooling and has begun to stiffen. I grieve with you. He was a good and a just sovran.”
The massive, hirsute creature swiveled his bone-ridged head on his short, thick neck, looking about. “Where is your nephew, Prince Mahrtuhn Gilbuht? He must be told that he now is our king.”
“No, Pah-Elmuh,” Byruhn sighed. “Poor young Mahrtuhn will never wear the crown of New Kuhmbuhluhn, not now. He died on the field, and his body is back there on a baggage wagon. I suppose, Steel aid us all, that that means I must be king.” He sighed again, more deeply, then added, “And I must be the very last of my line, I fear me, for my nephew had not yet sired any sons, and, as well you know, I ... I dare not breed.”
V
Ahrkeethoheeks Hahfos Djohnz, Warden of the Ahrmehnee Marches, looked up from the letter he had been reading and leaned back in his desk chair, his elbows on its arms, his hands idly toying with the leather tube in which that letter had been rolled.
The middle-aged-to-elderly man who stood before his desk did so at rigid, military posture of attention, for all that of all his clothing and equipment, only the plain, functional sword and the businesslike, unadorned dirk he wore looked at all military. True, his clothing, boots and armor were all plain enough, but their rich quality betrayed them—no army ever issued, or could afford to issue, such material.
The shadow of a smile flitted over the lips and eyes of the seated officer. Then he remarked conversationally, “It’s obvious that civilian life agrees with you, Djim Bohluh. So why must you go a-traipsing off into the unknown western mountains, eh? Not that I’m of any mind to refuse you, not with the backing of your insanity that this letter indicates you to have, I’m not.”
His pale-blue eyes fixed on a point above and beyond the head of Hahfos, the older man began, “Sir, with the lord strahteegos’ permission, Bohluh, Djim, has—”
He ceased to speak suddenly, as the seated man began to laugh. “Oh, knock it all off, Djim. I’m no longer a strahteegos and you’re no longer a sergeant. Pull up that chair yonder, help yourself to the ale or the wine and let’s discuss this like the civilians we both now are. There, that’s much better.”
Hahfos poured himself a measure of wine and indicated that his guest should do likewise. The cups were large, of massive, chiseled silver and decorated with the golden bear that was become Hahfos’ personal ensign as well as that of this new sept of Clan Djohnz.
“Djim Bohluh sits because the lord strah ... ahh, ahrkeethoheeks requests it. If it pleasures him, fine ... but it still ain’t right and fittin’ fer a common man to sit and drink and all with a noble off’ser, and Djim Bohluh knows it, sir.”
Again, Hahfos’ easy laugh rang out. “Djim, Djim, times have changed, but I guess that in your stubborn, loyal old heart you never will, and I can’t but respect you for it.
“But look you, man. You are come to me as the official emissary of the tahneestos and acting thoheeks of a Kindred Clan. Your letter of introduction—as if a letter to introduce you to me were needed, hah!—is signed by the High Lord Milo himself, not to mention a prince, two ahrkeethoheeksee, five thoheeksee and a number I’ve not yet counted of komeesee, vahrohnoee, vahrohneeskoee and city-lords.
“Your second letter, this Confederation-wide safe-conduct, is signed by both the High Lord Milo and the High Lady Aldora Linszee Treeah-Pohtohmas Pahpahs. Djim, you have powerful friends in the very highest of places, nor are you exactly a mendicant beggar. Your letter of credit from the Confederation treasury contains no limit as to amount, nor do you seem to be at all impoverished in your own right. That sword, for instance, it’s an Yvuhz, isn’t it? Prince-grade, perhaps?”
The older man shrugged. “No, my lord, duke-grade.”