Grouped about each stack Of polearms and pikes, in orderly lines, the pikemen rolled in their cloaks, their heads pillowed on their marching packs. Their breastplates, helmets, shortswords and dirks lay ready to hand for any sudden nocturnal alarum, though properly covered from the damp dews of the night. Every man’s heavy boots stood in their assigned place, flanked by his horn—and-hide greaves.
Within five minutes or less, a regiment of sleeping Skohshun pikemen could be up and fully armed and in their ordered formation to repel attack. Within twenty minutes, all save the rearguards could have struck camp and been on the march. Inured almost from birth to fast, cross-country hiking, the Skohshun regiments could and often did cover better than twenty-four miles in a day’s march.
Atop the ridge just south of those hilltop camps, a very damp and disgruntled prairiecat huddled as deeply as possible into the hollow beneath the rock overhang. The drizzle was finer than mist but persistent, and now and then a stronger gust of wind would bear it and its cold, wet discomfort in upon the big furry body.
Though Whitetip’s amber eyes were closed, his every other sense was fully alert. Vainly, he tried to imagine himself where he should be this night, after having dutifully scouted all day and most of the night before that, too. He tried to will himself to well-deserved, well-earned comfort in a warm, dry tent, possibly with a couple or three nice saddle blankets on which to curl up. Once or twice, he could almost seem to feel the solid comfort of his reveries, but each time he was cruelly distracted. Once, a stronger gust of wet lashed in upon him. The second distraction came in the guise of an especially loud and protracted splashing down in the stream, followed immediately by the scream of a man in pain and an excited babble of shouts.
Chief Whitetip decided that this particular gaggle of twolegs were clearly far less rational than most others of their inherently irrational species. To willingly splash about and immerse their bodies in cold water on a hot, sunny day were a silly enough thing to do, but to do so of a distinctly chilly, almost moonless night ... such clearly retarded twolegs should not be allowed out without a keeper.
Both Bili and Rahksahnah were young, neither yet twenty years of age. Moreover, they were deeply in love and mutually reveled in the intense joy that their two vibrant bodies were capable of bringing each other. So, despite the long, saddle-weary day’s march, despite his hours in attendance upon King Mahrtuhn, despite the late-night conference with his officers, when at long last Bili and Rahksahnah sought their blankets, they made gentle, unhurried love, then fell soundly asleep still wrapped in each other’s embrace, all of their youthful passion spent, for the nonce.
It was not yet dawn, however, when Rahksahnah awakened to the feel of life moving within her body. Bili had no idea of her condition, else he never would have allowed her to ride out on this present campaign. Only Rahksahnah and Pah-Elmuh, the Kleesahk, held the sure knowledge, and she had pledged him to silence. Her reasoning made sense—to her; she had strong presentiments that she had not very long to live and she wished to spend every possible moment of what little life she had remaining by her Bili’s side. That by riding out to war she was risking her life as well as those two new ones that the huge humanoid-physician had been able to recognize within her womb did not seem in any way contradictory to her.
Now, lying in the darkness of the tent, with the warmth of her man’s body beside her and the dear, familiar smell of him all about her, she fleetingly wondered if ever another brahbehrnuh or any other Moon Maiden had ever cherished so strong and valiant, daring and loving a man.
“Probably not,” she thought. “For in the Hold there had been no equality of the two sexes since ... since the time of the Brahbehrnuh Nohdeva, anyway. Her it had been who had firmly established the new order of things in the Hold by killing or blinding the stronger, more stubborn men and first intimidating, then subjugating the weaker, so that the males of the race became little more than domestic beasts of burden, used periodically to propagate new generations of the Sacred Race.
“But now the Hold is gone, destroyed utterly, and all who dwelt therein—female and male alike—are dead, snuffed out like so many drowned torches. Only we few Moon Maidens are left of all our race, we and the children so recently sired of these Lowlander men. The Goddess, our Silver Lady, knew what was best for us when She bade us give over our lovers from the days of the Hold and choose as our new lovers and battle companions these fine, strong, brave men of an alien race. It has worked out well for us, as She surely knew it would, and precious few of my sisters would willingly return now to the ways and usages of the Hold.
“Only poor, crippled Meeree, once my own lover, and the bare handful of women she has gathered about her would try to go back to the old ways. But they are self-deluded; there will now never be another Hold of the Moon Maidens in these mountains or anywhere else. We few remaining can but mourn our dead mothers ... and our fathers, too. But She has seen to it that our own lives will be cast from a far different mold.”
Once again, she felt the new life inside her. Fiercely grasping the silver pendant that hung from the worn silver chain about her neck, she silently, fervently prayed.
“Oh my dear Lady, I have done all that You instructed me to do. I have seen to it that the most of Your Maidens obeyed Your Holy dictates, as well. The new ways were strange, exceeding strange, and for some of my poor sisters they brought pain and misery for a while, but now almost all are living new lives according to the new pattern.
“As for me, I have come to love this man, Bili, more than ever I have loved any living creature. I have borne him one child and now my body is filling with the growth of two more. I should be more than happy, Lady, save that I cannot escape the dire presentiment that my days of life and Bili are numbered and decreasing in quantity with the passing of each and every Moonrise.
“Pah-Elmuh was right, I should not risk these precious lives within me by riding out to war and close combat, but I feel that I must be by my Bili every possible moment that I can for as long as still I live. Oh, if only I knew the real truth of what is to be for me ... ?”
“My child, My lover, My dear, devoted Rahksahnah.” The never to be forgotten voice seemed to come from everywhere, from all about her and within her at the same time.
Rahksahnah opened her eyes to find the darkness gone, and gone as well were the tent and the blankets. She now lay nude upon the soft, silver-hued sward which surrounded Her Abode. Where Bili had lain in slumber, the Lady now lay upon one hip and elbow, facing her, sympathy and concern in Her silver-gray eyes. Extending one hand, the Goddess laid a cool palm upon Rahksahnah’s fevered forehead.
“My own, not even I know all that is to be. The pattern is never so tightly woven that it cannot be slightly, infinitesimally altered. Yes, death hovers close to you, my dear, your presentiment is accurate. But I can discern no immediacy, nor is it a certainty that you will be the one taken when the time is fully ripe. The two children you now carry will be safely delivered of you and will lead long, full lives.”
“And ... and my Bili, Lady? He will live to rear our little ones, even though I do not?” queried Rahksahnah hesitantly.
“Oh, my dear Rahksahnah, I am not omniscient. You ask more than even such as I know ... for a certainty. The pattern of what is to be, what might be, what must be is fluid. Slight alterations can appear in bare moments, dependent upon so many variables—actions of humans, of other creatures, of the very fabric of your world itself though most often of the actions and reactions of humans.”