While awaiting word from the scouting cats, Bili took young Ehrubuhn Duhnkin of Rahbuhtz—the red-haired youngster having ridden all the way from the western marches of the southernmost reaches of the Confederation to join in putting down the rebellion with the Thoheeks Duhnkin, his cousin much-removed—and a handful of Freefighter troopers to climb the flanking hill, from the crest of which they could scrutinize the ground ahead.
The menace struck Bili’s perceptions full force, wave after irresistible wave, crashing upon him, nearly suffocating him. Yet there was nothing his keen eyes could discern, save the black specks that could only be buzzards, wheeling and dipping over some something about a mile distant, toward the center of the lifeless-looking expanse.
The length of the plateau, which was nowhere indicated on Bili’s maps, was, he estimated, at least ten or twelve miles, and the width would probably average half that Not truly level, it seemed to slope to the southwest, its face furrowed and so deeply eroded that in places it resembled a giant’s washboard. Of the stones and boulders which poked through the brush and laurel thickets and sere grass, those close enough for Bili to see well looked unnatural, looked to be weathered but once-worked stone rather than native rocks.
Down to his left, to the south of his present position, several columns of smoke climbed into the sky, though he could not spy either the fires or their makers due to the jagged ridges which lay between. Taking the chance that that was the place from which the dead woman had ridden, he let his open mind range out, questing, in search of the familiar mindpatterns of Whitetip.
“Brother-chief,” came the cat’s powerful mindspeak, “we just passed through a village. No two-legs live in it. All are dead and headless, even the cubs. It now is impossible to follow the track of the female’s horse. Too many horses have passed this way.”
Remembering the thick profusion of pony tracks at and around the site of the ambush and battle, Bili asked, “Cat-brother, big hooves or small? Heavy horses or light?”
After a moment the cat replied. “Both, brother-chief, but most of the small were printed over the large. Brother-chief, noise of fighting comes from the place beyond the next hill.”
“Then go to the hilltop and tell me what you see,” Bili commanded.
Glancing quickly back over the close ground he had earlier scanned, his eyes fixed upon the remembered formation of squarish, mossy rocks and huge-boled old trees which formed a natural fortification atop a small rise and looked about the right size to hold the packtrain.
“Hari,” he mindcalled.
“Aye, Bili,” came the answer.
“From what Whitetip has seen, we may be fighting soon, and I don’t fancy mounting a charge—if we come to that—trailing our trains.”
“We can’t leave them here, Bili,” Hari remonstrated.
This gap could be made a deathtrap, and that tight easily, too.”
“Yes, you’re right, old friend, it’s even more evident from here. But about a hundred yards out on the plateau there’s a ring of rocks and trees on top of a little hill. I think it’s big enough to hold the trains, as well as a couple of troops to defend them. If we—”
“Brother-chief,” beamed Whitetip. “Just below me is a big fight.” Then he opened his mind so that Bili might see through his eyes.
There was no color, of course, to the battle Bili was witnessing, only varying shades of gray. Against the bare face of a low cliff were drawn up lines of figures who looked, from their armor and equipment, to be women like the one they had found down the trail. There were at least two hundred of them and, with them, were possibly half a thousand Ahrmehnee-looking warriors. The ground before the defensive line—for such it obviously was—lay thickly cobbled with bodies of men and carcasses of horses or ponies. Some of the bodies wore armor but most of them were shaggy and bearded and were covered by nothing more substantial than tattered rags or the skins of animals. Nor was the source of these bodies difficult to ascertain. Hundreds might lie dead or dying before the hard-pressed women and Ahrmehnee, but thousands—at least two thousand, possibly as many as three—milled about just out of dart range of the line. With Whitetip’s keen nose, Bili was aware of the overpowering, nauseous stench of that mob.
He had never seen the like of this horde—hardly any wore helms and their greasy hair hung well below their shoulders, the matted beards of most covered their chests, few looked at all well fed and the majority seemed only bone and sinew and tight-stretched skin; skin long unwashed and scabrous.
Almost all seemed to be big, tall men, their skinny shanks depending amid the thick winter coats of their ill-tended ponies and their largish feet—generally bare, even in this bitter weather—almost dragging the ground. It was obvious that the well-armed men and women would have had little to fear in an open contest with the ruffianish throng had there not been so many of them, for their armament was mostly pitiful—here and there was a sword or an axe or a real lance, but the bulk were furnished only with crude-looking wickerwork targes and a few darts or a stabbing spear or a thick club.
They were formed into no recognizable formations, simply swirling in an aimless manner about several figures looking exactly like themselves, but mounted on full-size horses and fractionally better clad and armed. The cat’s ears could register the incessant babble welling up from them. Bili thought that it sounded somewhat similar to some dialects of Mehrikan, but with a whining, twangy quality the like of which he had never before heard. He decided it was as unlovely a language as its speakers.
Then, cantering from out a small patch of bushy evergreens, came another party of the strange barbarians. At the distance, the Northorse at their van looked like a big gray rat leading a herd of mice. Bili was frankly amazed to see a Northorse here in this nameless wilderness, for they were rare enough in more settled lands. The outsize creatures were bred somewhere far to the north of any known lands. The breeders were most astute in maintaining then—monopoly of the fabulous and fabulously expensive animals, for they sold but few and then only geldings. In size, they ran from about nineteen hands to as much as twenty-two, and most people saw them only bearing the commodious panniers of traders or in pairs, drawing the huge wains of itinerant merchants.
Northorses were mostly too even-tempered and docile to make good warhorses; nonetheless, some of the wealthier personages of the Middle Kingdoms kept one in their stables. Bili could recall how the king of Harzburk, massive as he was, had looked like a mere toddler astride a destrier on the bay Northorse he used for parades. But not so the man—if man born of woman he truly was—who bestrode yonder Northorse.
Bili knew that he had never seen a man so huge, and he doubted if anyone else, even the High Lord, had. Standing on his gigantic feet, the barbarian would surely overtop nine feet! Some unidentifiable fur enwrapped his barrel-thick torso, concealing any armor the giant might be wearing, but head and face were covered by a shiny helm, beaver and visor. Over his left shoulder, its hilt lost in his gargantuan left hand, rested the wide, heavy-looking blade of a broadsword, and that blade was no less than six feet long. Across his back was slung a sheaf of what, to him, were probably hand darts, but Bili thought he had seen shorter boarspears.
The moment he came within sight of his motley throng, thousands of throats commenced a deep roar of “BUHBUH! BUHBUH! BUHBUH!”
The treetrunk-thick arm raised and nourished the immense sword, then pointed it at the few hundred armored figures at the base of the cliff. But Bili had seen enough. He withdrew from Whitetip’s mind, first admonishing him, “Cat-brother, stay hidden where you are until we arrive. One or two cats, no matter how strong and valiant, could accomplish little against so many two-legs.”