Half-conscious, Pehroosz’s mind registered the cool moisture on her abraded face, but also the warmth of Hahfos’s breath. Then hard hands were rubbing and kneading her body and, through slitted lids, a scarred, bristly face loomed waveringly above her. And she snapped into full consciousness. Screaming, sobbing in terror, she writhed to free herself from the man’s grasp, her broken nails clawing at his eyes and cheeks, her small fists beating at his head and shoulders.
Thinking, naturally enough, that he was dealing with a simple case of post-combat hysterics, Hahfos deftly pinioned her lashing arms in one big hand and, rumbling calm, soothing, meaningless sounds, sought to enter her mind as he would have entered that of a frightened horse.
He entered Pehroosz’s mind, entered as cleanly as a swimmer dives into still water, and what he found in her roiling, half-formed thoughts and in the murky depths of her memory shook the sensitive man to his innermost core. For Hahfos was a deeply sensitive man, feeling the sufferings of others even more keenly than he might his own, unswervingly believing in the innate goodness and dignity of men … and women. Not even a lifetime spent among scenes of harsh discipline, suffering and violent death had coarsened his basically gentle soul. The agonies and horrors the girl in his arms had endured tore at him, now, bred full-grown within him the resolve to shield her from further fright or pain so long as Sacred Sun continued to shine on his living body.
It was nearing dusk when Hahfos led the two ponies—Pehroosz and her strange casket on the one, the other tottering under the combined weights of the deer and the bear—into the square of the main village. Willing hands took the piebald’s reins and set about unloading the carcasses, treating the officer to polite, but heartfelt, exclamations of joy at the sizes of the beasts, all couched in broken trade Mehrikan. Hahfos pleased them by using his steadily improving Ahrmehnee to thank them, then led Pehroosz’s mount to the house she had indicated, in the doorway of which stood the sorceress who had saved Captain Raikuh.
The moon rode high when he delivered his charger to the horse handlers and strode the distance to his small pavilion. Fil, his orderly of many years, was there to take his commander’s cloak, even while he eyed askance the bark-scraped jerkin under it.
“My lord had good hunting?” he inquired, draping the cloak over one arm, before reaching around Hahfos’s trim waist to unbuckle the weapons belt. “Where are my lord’s darts and spear? They will be in need of honing and greasing.”
“Yes, Fil, the hunting was good. I bagged a deer and a bear. The darts I loaned to an Ahrmehnee gentleman. I’ll bring them back tomorrow, after the wedding. The spear I left up in the hills—the bear chewed it to pieces.”
Hahfos hurriedly unlaced his jerkin and, while pulling it over his head, mouthed a string of muffled orders. “Knowing you, old friend, you’ve had a great kettle of water seething since the last of day. Set up the trough, if you haven’t already, and, while I’m bathing, you can lay out my second-best uniform, and the cat-helm, too. And send a guard to request an audience with the High Lord one half hour hence. Well, what are you waiting for, man? Let’s hear those creaky bones moving!”
The High Lord left his place to stride over and wring Hahfos’s hand, grinning merrily. “Of course you have my leave, Hahfos! And I wish you every happiness. Intermarriage has proven the only way to weld bonds between new lands and old. I had felt certain that some of the soldiers I’m going to leave to garrison this fort would wed Ahrmehnee girls, but that you, one of my best officers …” He suddenly smote fist in palm, exclaiming, “And I’ll gift you a wedding present, son Hahfos. You may have personal choice of the men who make up the two battalions I’m leaving here. You’ll command them, this fort and the stahn as Lord Warden of the Ahrmehnee Marches.”
Hahfos reeled on suddenly weak legs, feeling a little as if a warclub had smashed his helm. March wardens were nobles of the Third Rank, the peers of ahrkeethoheeksee, army marshals and lord councilors. He had never dreamed of aspiring so high!
“And,” the High Lord continued, “I’ll even give you the chit’s brideprice.”
Hahfos’s color deepened. “Please, mah lord, no, man … mah lord is too generous.”
“All right then,” chuckled the High Lord, “call it a loan. I’ll hold your house and effects at Goohm as security.”
The wedding of Kogh Taishyuhn to Zehpoor Frainyuhn was completed in less than a quarter-hour, but the festivities stretched on for more than a week—dancing and eating and dancing and guzzling and dancing and ritual mock combats and dancing and a few deadly-serious combats and dancing and pony racing and dancing and more gorging and guzzling, followed as a matter of course by more dancing. Over the long centuries, Milo had been exposed to many different peoples and cultures, but he could not recall another so obsessed with dancing. The village and the sprawl of camps surrounding it resounded by day and by night to the throbbings of Ahrmehnee drums, the wails of flutes and the rhythmic stampings and clappings and shouts of dancers and those who had stopped long enough to cram their mouths with food or drain off gourds of thick beer and tankards of wine.
Milo had thought it wise to keep most of his soldiers in the castra, bringing no more than a score of officers and men from each regiment. He still knew relatively little of the Ahrmehnee, but he knew his soldiery in great detail and had no wish to in any way endanger this unexpected godsend of final peace with the fierce mountaineers who had for so long plagued his border duchies. But as it turned out, most of the Confederation troops got to enjoy a bit of Ahrmehnee hospitality, since few of them—all hardened guzzlers and tough specimens in top physical condition—could take more than a full day of the “party,” many only half that time … or less. And Milo began to understand a little better the things which he had found hard to fathom in years past—how parties of middle-aged or even older raiders could hike units of pursuing Regulars into the ground, then suddenly turn and assault the exhausted troops with all the savage ferocity of a treecat.
As he drifted off into a much-needed sleep on one of those nights—his ears still assailed by the wild, rhythmic music, still seeing in his mind’s eye the bright bonfires and the circles of sinuously weaving women, the long lines of leaping, stamping, whirling warriors—he thought, “Hahfos and that Ahrmehnee girl will be a start. What a mixture that will be! Horseclans stock and Ehleen and now Ahrmehnee, and more than a few dashes of the Middle Kingdoms—in another hundred years, this Confederation should be home to an unbeatable race!”
Epilogue
Dr. Sternheimer had been admiring his fine new young body when his intercom buzzed. He strode quickly across his bedroom, reveling in the lack of those arthritic pains which his previous body had begun to develop, and depressed the button, looking up at the screen, but prudishly keeping his own nudity out of range of the video-camera.
“Doctor,” announced the caller, “the Armenian Expedition is back at the Broomtown Base. Dr. Braun is on the radio now. I… I think perhaps you had best speak with him yourself, doctor.”
Hurriedly, Sternheimer slipped into a coverall and zipped it while stepping into a pair of canvas shoes, left his suite and jogged down the hall to the lift, then changed his mind and took the stairs, three at a time. He arrived at the top of the seven flights sweating lightly, breathing normally and inordinately pleased at the overall fitness of this most recent body.
On the roof of the main tower, the shielding had been rolled back and a cool breeze with the tang of the sea brushed his face and ruffled his dark, wavy hair. As he began jogging toward the distant penthouse which was the communications center, the distant, booming roar of a bull alligator drew his gaze to the north.