The count frowned again. “Go ahead, Wolf, and while you’re at it, see if any of ours are fair slingmen. There’s no mention of any in the duke’s listings. There’re siege slings, pig lead and casting sets in the lower armory, I noticed. “Oh, and I’ll want all our officers assembled just before the noon hour, except you. His grace feels that they will get more respect from the baron and the rest of his gentry if they are of the same caste, and, now that I’m a nobleman again, I can knight them… you, too, old friend.”
The hairless man just cackled. “That’ll be the day, my lord! All your ofsers, ‘cepting Lootenant Krains, are gennul-man borned; ol’ Wolf, here, his paw was your paw’s servin’ man. Aint no smidgin of gentul blood in him.” Martuhn’s lips flitted into a brief, sketchy smile. He had expected just such a response from his old and faithful retainer. “You would then have me disobey his grace, our overlord, Wolf?”
Wolf looked his discomfort. “Well… mebbe you could just tell his grace and ever’body elst that you done it… and I won’t say no different… ?”
“You would, then, counsel that I lie to his grace, Wolf?” Martuhn chided solemnly. “Have you not always told me that the truth is easier to keep track of than lies? Or was that another man named Wolf, eh?” “Well, dammit, Martuhn-boy, it… it just ain’t right and proper to make a common-borned man like me no ‘sir.’ “ The count became serious. “Not only is it right, my good old friend, you’ve earned and more than deserved a knighting threescore times and more in these last hard twenty-odd yean. Had I but then had the legal rank to grant it, I would have done so long ago. Now I again have that rank and you •will receive your just deserts, but formally and solemnly, after Baron Burklee arrives. “For now, however, I need you for another task. It’s a certainty that the enemy will not try a landing within the range of our engines. The shoreline for miles south of the town is too swampy to make for an easy landing of large numbers of troops, much less horses and supplies, and due north of Twocityport, the bluffs are high and precipitous and march right to the verge of the Great River. However, below the east-west stretch of the bluffs and a few hundred yards eastward of the mouth of the Ohyoh River, his grace’s maps show a long, wide beach of sorts, with a track of some description meandering east along the river for a way, then southeast and over a saddle or a pass to come out some miles northeast of us, here.
“Now, whoever drew these charts was no soldier. I’ve a plan for stinging those bastards, maybe slowing them up a bit and delaying the close of their siege lines for a few days, but in order to use this plan, I’ll need better and more exact maps, and that’s where you come in, Wolf. “Take all of our men you think you’ll need, take any horses in the fortress and take the existing maps. I need to know how long and deep that beach is, how far it lies from the channel, how high and steep are the bluffs just over it and the exact location, directions and condition of the indicated track. Note carefully all locations along the bluffs at which you think a landslide could be easily precipitated or where your experience tells you a small number of slingers and archers might do a maximum amount of damage while sustaining minimum casualties. Take rations and fodder for as many days as you think this will require. If it takes longer, however, don’t hesitate to forage. Remember, not only are we on my lands, but a large-ish number of the folk in and around Twocityport are sworn enemies of Duke Tcharlz. If, however, you should run across a few likely-looking recruits, by all means bring them back.”
8
At Hwahruhn’s brusque command, both boys shed their worn and ragged garments. Then the two traders stood by holding a pair of lamps high while the Ehleen “examined” his new purchases. Custuh seemed not to notice the manner in which their customer’s soft, beringed hands lingered upon the boys’ freckled flesh… but Hwahruhn did, and the sight sickened him.
“You kin see, Lord Urbahnos,” Custuh said, after a few minutes, “it ain’t a earthly thang wrong with the slaves. We’s treated ’em good and fed ’em good, too. They’s as hale as they wuz the day we ketched ’em, out awn the prairie. No worms, no sores, no pus in they eyes, no loose teeth, no runnin’ noses evun. We only carries quality stock, we does.”
Urbahnos made his decision quickly. The elder boy was nowhere near as pretty as the red-blond younger one. Too, the elder was already beginning to sprout genital hair—something which no sensitive Ehleen of sophisticated tastes could or would tolerate, had he the choice, in a love boy. Therefore, the younger would be fed to plumpness, clothed fittingly and sent upriver and across the mountains to Karaleenos and the noblemen whom Urbahnos had now convinced himself would see to the nullification of his unjust banishment. The elder would be Urbahnos’ plaything until he tired of him, at which juncture he would be sold—with luck, at a good profit—to a brothel keeper. The Ehleen also decided that the “education” of this new, blond, exciting love boy would commence this very night, as soon as he could tactfully rid himself of these two barbarians.
Urbahnos was not a mindspeaker. In all of the eastern Ehleen lands, telepathy was considered to be a form of witchcraft and was savagely persecuted by the established religion. Therefore he possessed no mindshield, and his every thought was crystal-clear to the powerful mind of his chosen victim, Bahb Steevuhnz. Though appalled and more than a little frightened at what he read in the roiling mind of his new, degenerate owner, Bahb kept his face carefully blank.
When Urbahnos had announced his satisfaction with the sale, he departed the strongroom, followed by the two traders. Custuh took the lamp he had held with him, but Hwahruhn hung his on a hook let into the wall over the door. “Now, you lads be careful not to knock this down, hear? I’ve seen bales of furs and hides flare up like so much oil, and with that rout going on belowstairs, nobody would likely hear your screams until you were both burned to flinders.” Then he just stood for a moment, eying the two naked boys. He seemed to want to say more, but then he snapped his mouth shut, turned on his heel and walked out, shaking his head between bowed shoulders.
When he could no longer hear footsteps beyond the locked door, Bahb once more turned to the now openable chest. He slowly raised the lid and expressed his delight in a single grunt. The lower section was filled with hornbows, each of them wrapped in waxed vellum sheets and packed into a horn-and-leather quiver along with a dozen arrows. Most of the bows were the plainer variety made by all the Horseclans for trade purposes, but the four topmost sets were finely carved and decorated in tooled leather cases marked with the totem animals of Clan Steevuhnz—the bows taken from them, their sister and their dead half-brother upon the day of their capture.
Nor was this all. The two Clan Steevuhnz sabers lay beside the hornbow sets, and in the tray hinged to the lid of the chest reposed the four Steevuhnz dirks and even the boot knives. Bahb immediately seized one of the latter and filled the empty sheath inside his right boot with it, then he began to dress himself, mindspeaking his younger brother the while.
“Don’t ask questions, my brother, just heed me. The black-hair who has bought us is like no man I have ever heard of. He cares nothing for females, but rather means to use me as an ordinary man would use a woman. And he means to send for me as soon as he is done with the traders, whom he despises for some reason. So I will not be here to help, though I will let you know what passes by mindspeak. “With this,”—the wiry boy slapped at his boottop—“I have no fear of the black-haired man, for he is clumsy and more than a little fat, nor does he seem to be overly strong, for all his size and height. So unless he has help, I doubt he can harm me.