Under his shaven scalp, Bili’s brow wrinkled. “But, my lord, if the Witchmen are with the nahkhahrah, will not most or all of the warriors of the Thirteen Tribes be there as well?”
“Just so,” grinned the High Lord. “And this is where Aldora’s work and yours begins. The plan of the Witch-men is to neutralize—by hook or by crook—the non-Ahrmehnee tribes to the north and west so that the Ahrmehnee fighters will not need to leave warriors to protect their valleys and mountain villages. For though they bear allegiance to the nahkhahrah, Ahrmehnee family ties are far stronger, and they will desert the nahkhahrah in an eyeblink if their homes are imperiled.
“Now, the lands of eight of the tribes are situated to the south of the nahkhahrah’s seat. From one end of this coast to the other, Freefighters are justly renowned as reavers and rapers. And they are to have free rein, Bili. I want every village leveled, every flock butchered or dispersed. Kill the men and rape the women and run the survivors into the forests. But make certain that there are survivors and that they do get away-headed north, preferably on pony-back. When the lands of the first tribe are laid waste, move quickly on to the next.
“The High Lady’s column will also be performing atrocities upon the three tribe lands which lie north of the nahkhahrah’s holdings, and by the time my column arrives at its objective, I expect that most of the Ahrmehnee warriors will be widely scattered, battling back to their homes … or what will then be left of them. We should then be able to coerce the Ahrmehnee into handing over the damned Witchmen, as well as hostages for their future good behavior. Then we can move the Regulars north and south to help in scotching the rest of the Witchmen’s schemes.”
IV
Halfway up the last, steep slope, Pehroosz Bahrohnyuhn first heard the terrified bleating of the goats and the snorting-stamping of horses or ponies. Hill-born and bred, for all that her father was village headman and full brother to Chief Moorahd, the proud-breasted, raven-haired girl was immediately suspicious. Dropping the bundle of fresh-baked bread she had been bringing to her younger brothers, she forsook the narrow track for the bordering thick growth of evergreens and gingerly crept upward seeking a point from which she might see the whole of the pasture slopes without being seen herself.
It was a scene of horror. Big men on big, lowland horses were cantering about the pasture slopes, sabering or axing the scuttling, bleating goats. The dry winter grass already was speckled with quivering, bloody carcasses. Of her two youngest brothers there was no sign, but Toorkohm—at a hundred and forty-three moons, thirty-seven moons her junior; big-boned, with their father’s craggy face, wide shoulders and quick, sure movements—stood at bay, his back to the dry-stone chimney of the herdsmen’s shelter, his wolfspear held menacingly ready, fresh blood glowing on its wide blade.
Pehroosz could not repress a smile of grim satisfaction, even under these conditions, for one scale-shirted raider lay stretched on the sward, his throat gaping like a huge second mouth, his chest and shoulders covered with frothy pink gore. Another sat swaying with agony, while a third labored to stop his life from leaking out the broad stab in his thigh. It was obvious that Toorkohm had fought skillfully and well.
But it could not last, this Pehroosz knew. No matter how reckless his courage, how strong his arm, how thirsty his spear, he was but a largish, unarmored boy, now ringed by cautiously advancing, fully armed, full-grown raiders. It ended quickly. A long-bladed saber licked out and Toorkohm sought to parry it with his spearshaft. With a practiced drawcut, the raider’s upper edge sliced deeply into the seasoned walnut wood. In the moment the spear was immobilized, two more raiders stepped close to Pehroosz’s brother and she quickly closed her eyes as the blades rose and fell, rose and fell with the meaty tchunnks reminiscent of autumn hog-butchering. Toorkohm’s own, thin death wail rose above those of the goats he had fought so well to succor.
Her pretty olive face bathed with tears, Pehroosz slowly worked her broad-hipped but lissome body back from the crest, not turning until the bulk of the hill loomed above her. And what she saw then brought a piercing scream from her throat Then consciousness left her.
The chill awakened her, and she instinctively sought to flex her body against it, but neither arms nor legs would move. Only when she opened her eyes could she see that she was lying on the packed-earth floor of the herdsmen’s hut, her clothing all stripped from her and wadded beneath her buttocks. One of the raiders knelt his weight on her palms, holding her arms extended above her head; two others crouched grinning, their big, dirty hands locked about her ankles, splaying her long legs. Standing between those legs was a fourth raider. His breeks were tumbled about his boot tops and he was tucking up the skirt of his scaleshirt. Pehroosz’s first thought had been to show the bravery of her dead brother, but when she saw the thick, throbbing maleness standing up from the raider’s loins, terror sent a shudder coursing through her body and a whimper bubbling from her lips.
She was deflowered savagely, brutally. And when the spent raider rose from her ravaged flesh, his place was taken by another. Then, another … and another … and yet another.
Pehroosz lost count of the number of attacks. But at some point she did rally, did do something other than scream her throat raw. She tried to clench her pain-racked body and, failing that, bit at her tormentors, drawing blood from at least one, possibly two. But their buffets dizzied her and they began to hold themselves up and away from those teeth while they used her.
Somewhere close by, Pehroosz could hear the ugly, guttural sounds of some animal’s agony. The noises were harsh, sickening, and she wished that the raiders would saber the poor beast so that the noises would stop. Dimly, from far off, she heard, too, men speaking in one of the Mehruhkuhn dialects, but she had never had cause to master Mehrikan, since Ahnnehnee men did all the trading.
“I know just what Duke Bill ordered,” snapped the plate-armored officer shortly, the knuckles of his bridle hand glowing white where he gripped the pommel of his fine broadsword. “But if, Sword forbid, her screams carried as far north as they did south the whole damned village could be alerted by now! You, Grohz, put up your damned dirk! Remember, we want the likes of this poor girl to escape north to the nahkhahrah. All you men get mounted now, put Patuhzuhn’s body on his horse and form up. Komees Hari will soon be at the ford, and we’re to meet him there. He wants to be in position to attack the village just at the nooning. Run off the smaller ponies, but leave the big one for her.”
With a chuckle, the sergeant commented, “Sir Geros, that chit were a maid, ere my yard rendered her a woman. With the swiving we done give her, her crotch’ll be sorer nor a boil for some little while. She’ll not be forking no pony this day, I trow!”
His laughter was echoed by most of the others as they strode out to the horses.
Shortly, a jingling and creaking and measured hoofbeats receded into the distance as the patrol went back the way they had come. But it was more than an hour before Pehroosz, once more shivering in her nakedness, managed to drag her bruised, battered body to the hearth, on which a small fire still glowed.
She wished that the raiders had had the decency to slay that still-suffering goat, ere they left. Some time later, she realized that those hurt-animal sounds came not from a goat, but from her own throat. Her fierce. Bahrohnyuhn pride had refused to show the raiders her tears, but now they came. In a great racking rush they came, and her abused body doubled upon itself and shook to her sobs of rage and pain and shame.
In his youth, Komees Hari Daiviz of Morguhn had been a Freefighter, soldiering the length and breadth of the Middle Kingdoms, whose two-score-plus principalities had seen precious few years of peace in the four centuries since the Great Earthquake had brought them into squabbling existence. The passage of more than a score of years had failed to dim his memories of those bloody days, nor had the pursuits of peace—marriage and the rearing of a family, succession to his patrimonial title and estate, the ordering of his lands and horses and people—softened him or expunged from his mind the hard lessons learned from the particularly savage and merciless brand of warfare peculiar to the kingdoms of the north.