“Chief Bili,” beamed Whitetip formally, “this retarded, deformed number-cat cannot remember simple orders for long, it would seem. She was told to remain with her cubs at the den of Count Sandee, yet I found her wandering the plain near to the mountains, trying to find a way to sneak past the Skohshuns.”
“We’ll get to Stealth in a minute,” Bili replied sternly. “Chief Whitetip mentions the obeying of orders, yet he chose to be gone for three days in utter disobedience of his orders. I had feared him slain by the long-long-spear-men.”
Leaving the big cat to squirm and stew for the nonce, Bili beamed to the newcomer, “Greet the Sacred Sun, Stealth. How is my cub, and your own?”
Her delight was obvious; she paced to Bili’s side and laid her neat head against his knee, purring her joy while beaming, “Greet the Scared Sun, chief of cat brothers. Your cub is well, though not yet ready to join mine own in hunting lizards and voles. As for your orders, all the other fighters you left at the den of Count Sandee were marching north to join you, so I asked the advice of Count Sandee himself, and that of my wise twoleg cat sister, Zainehp, and they both assured me that you would assuredly welcome even one more proven fighter, beset as you were by enemies. Were they wrong in their counsel, cat brother? Should I have stayed behind and let them ride to aid you without me?”
Bili ruffled the cat’s neck fur reassuringly. “No, my sister, they were not wrong; when the horn is winded, all charge as one. How many horsemen and Maidens ride with Count Sandee?”
“Almost as many hundreds as I have claws on all my paws, cat brother,” she replied.
“Sun, Wind and Sacred Steel!” beamed Bili in consternation. “Where did old Sir Steev come up with almost two thousand men?”
“Those of Count Sandee and the others of Kuhmbuhluhn are but half or less, cat brother. The others are strange Moon Maidens and strange Ahrmehnee, many, many of them, along with certain of your fighters I remember from the long march and the battle before the earth moved and the burning rocks set the forests all ablaze. They are led by a twoleg called Sir Geros.”
“Geros! Sir Geros Lahvoheetos? Here, in New Kuhmbuhluhn? But how? Why? No, no need for you to try to answer, Stealth. I think I know the answers to those questions, though what I ever did to deserve such a degree of loyalty ... I wonder just how many long months that brave, faithful man has ridden these mountains in search of me.”
He beamed again to Whitetip. “This will teach you, I hope, brother chief, not to jump to erroneous conclusions ... if that’s what you did, this time. Nor shall I inquire further as to the reason for your lengthy absence from your assigned duties. For now, your assignment is to see Stealth here well fed and furnished a comfortable place to rest until I am ready to again meet with you two. A Skohshun herald is due this day, and I must welcome him and entertain him. When I am free to do so, I’ll mindcall you. Dismiss.”
Thoheeks Bili’s mindcall, however, came far sooner than either the sulking Whitetip or Bili himself had expected. It was issued hard on the heels of the young commander’s initial meeting with the Skohshun herald, Sir Djahn Makadahm.
“Chief Whitetip,” Bili beamed urgently, “immediately it is dark enough to hide you, hie you down to the Skohshun camp and bring me back a report on the following: how badly the camp was damaged, if there are significantly fewer twolegs, and how many of those twolegs seem to be seriously hurt—that is, unable to easily stand or walk about without help.
“When you return, I’ll probably still bet at meat with Skohshun, the old one. Don’t come into our presence. I still don’t wish him to know that the bane of their herds is one of my valued warriors. Instead, beam the information to me. Then stand ready to cross the plain into the southern mountains. I need to be in communication with Sir Geros as soon as possible, and only my loyal cat brother’s mind is powerful enough to allow for such distance.”
“Must Whitetip take that useless number-cat with him on his scouting tonight, cat brother?” inquired the prairiecat.
“No,” Bili replied, “Stealth lacks your endurance for long-distance travel. Tell her she is to go up to my suite and bide therein with my own female and our cubs until I return abovestairs. That strange killer still stalks, it seems—it killed and ate a man on two of the last three nights, despite a bad wound it suffered on the night you left to stampede the herd of the Skohshuns.”
The great furry brown beast slowly, softly approached the cradle wherein lay the two youngest Morguhns. Cruel, sparkling white fangs gleamed as the two infants were sniffed thoroughly from end to end. Olfactory investigation completed, Stealth gently licked those skin surfaces she could easily get her wide tongue at.
“They are good-sized cubs, cat sister,” she mindspoke Rahksahnah. “But still are they both smaller than was your first cub, last year. It is not the usual for your kind to birth more than one at the time?”
Forgetting that she was mindspeaking, Rahksahnah shrugged, beaming, “That varies with strains and individuals, I think, my sister. My own mother, who was the brahbehrnuh before me, never bore more than one child at the time, but one of her blood sisters bore three, although two later died before reaching maturity. Another of their kin bore two sets of two; so I suppose that the possibility of bearing more than one is a part of my bloodline.
“But what of your own little cubs, sister? My Bili tells me that they are said to be well on the way to putting Count Sandee’s stoats out of business.”
With sharp knife and strong teeth, Sir Djahn Makadahm stripped the tender meat from off the bones of the young goat, repeatedly complimenting the consistency and delicate flavor of the whole-roasted kid.
“Meat of any fresh kind, not full of brine and pickling, is pleasing to me just now, Sir Bili, mightily pleasing. On the very night of your shrewd attempt to damage our camp, a huge mountain cat which has plagued us intermittently since first we went into camp stampeded our entire beef herd. The bawling bastards scattered to the four winds, and since then fresh meat has been rare and dear, leaving us usually with only salt pork and suchlike, that and the occasional stringy wild hare.”
“We have our own animal problems, here, Sir Djahn,” Bili remarked morosely, “but of a somewhat more serious nature than yours. Near every night for over a week now, a lean, reddish wolf has killed and eaten a man or woman in the burk.”
Sir Djahn leaned closer, saying excitedly, “Perhaps, Sir Bili, it is the same creature? This cat hunts only by night, too, as I think I said.”
“No.” Bili shook his shaven head emphatically. “No, there was clear spoor at the first kill we discovered, and there has been more since, as well as sightings, and it is truly a wolf. But such a wolf—a wolf as big as a small bear, that leaves paw prints a hand and a half long and at least a hand broad.
“And tough! Why, Sir Djahn, the beast slew and was eating a baker’s apprentice—a grown man, sizewise—one night last week when a party of cooks and bakers surprised him at it. One of them gashed the monster deep in the neck with a hard-flung cleaver and another ran a steel spit a good inch and a half in thickness some two feet into the creature’s body, yet still he not only managed to get away, but killed and ate again on the very next night, seemingly none the worse for being hacked and pierced. What do you make of that?”
The herald laid down the bone and the knife, dipped his fingers in the bowl of warm water and floating rose petals, then carefully wiped them on the cloth provided to the purpose, before answering softly and in a most serious tone.