“It would seem, from what a Ganik that Johnny Skinhead brought in had to say, that up to about a month ago, she was alive and the captive of some group or tribe calling themselves Skohshuns. Their lands are well up to the north and the west of here, somewhere close to the south bank of the Ohio River, I’d say, on the basis of current information. Apparently, they are newcomers to these mountains, invading—migrating, really—from north of the river. Instead of relying on cavalry as do most groups hereabouts, they seem to have developed truly effective infantry, along the general lines of the Swiss or German Landesknechten and—”
“Dammit, Jay,” fumed Sternheimer impatiently, “the very last thing I want to hear right now is your assessment of their culture, military or otherwise. The one, the only thing I want you to tell me is when you are going to move to rescue poor Erica.”
Corbett sighed. “David, which is the most important thing to you, to us, to the Center, just now—salvaging our loot from the Hold of the Moon Maidens or marching off God alone knows how far into completely unknown country on a mission which already may be pointless? If it’s the former, which of my Broomtown officers should I leave in charge of the salvage operation while I take a reinforced company north? If it’s the latter, what would you suggest be the provisions made for Dr. Schiepficker and the other civilians while the rest of us go charging to the supposed rescue with the entire battalion?”
“Oh, God damn you, Jay Corbett!” Sternheimer snarled with intense feeling. “Of all people, you know how I feel about Erica. You also know how important, how very vital that salvage mission is to us at the Center, and I—
“Wait! I’ve got the solution. Why not leave Dr. Schiepficker in charge?”
Corbett sighed once more. “David, David, Mike Schiepficker is a gifted zoologist, he’s even a decent rifle shot, but I doubt if he could easily tell the difference between a blasting cap and an increment charge. Whoever remains in charge, in my place up here, must have a good grounding in explosives and blasting, along with a military background and the ability to command. And, David, I can think of but one man down there who meets the explosives qualifications.
“If you want me to go north after Erica, put Dr. Braun’s mind into a decent body and get him and Colonel MacBride from Broomtown up here to me, yesterday. The sooner they are here with us, the sooner I can leave with a special force. You’d better lay on the biggest copter for the job, too, as I’m going to be wanting MacBride to bring along some additional weapons and equipment.”
“No,” Sternheimer began petulantly. “I don’t think Harry Braun should—”
Corbett cut him off brusquely. “David, I don’t think you understood me. Those are my terms; they are non-negotiable. This is not a mission I really want to undertake, you see. I’m doing it for you, as a personal—a very, very personal—favor. I’d much rather complete this project, here, before undertaking anything else, and unless you immediately meet my conditions, I’ll do just that.” He paused, then added, “Do I make myself clear, this time around, David?”
Now it was Center Director Sternheimer who sighed. “Yes, Jay, your meaning is quite clear. I’ll set things in motion, down here. You can make arrangements with Broomtown Base. Out.”
VI
After the good’ laugh they all had had at thoughts of the probable effects on their besiegers of Sir Yoo Folsom’s explosively cathartic beer, Thoheeks Bili, his officers and their entourages left the palace portion of the citadel complex to stroll the full circuit of the walls of the besieged mountain city of New Kuhmbuhluhnburk, of which he was become de facto ruler, king in all save name.
The existing situation failed to please Bili in the least. He entertained no scintilla of desire for suzerainty over this isolated montane pocket kingdom, his overriding ambition being to get himself, his wife and child, and those lowlanders who had followed his banner so valiantly and so long back east into first the Ahrmehnee stahn, then the lands of the Confederation.
But he was become what he was become simply through unavoidable circumstances. Because his father, then-Thoheeks Morguhn, lay ill and hovering near to death, he had been called to return to his patrimonial lands from the court and army of the King of Harzburk, whereat he had dwelt and trained and served from his eighth through his eighteenth years. That he had ridden back to Morguhn a proven warrior, a Knight of the Order of the Blue Bear of Harzburk, was a most fortunate happenstance, for he had ridden his telepathic warhorse into the very epicenter of a social earthquake. His homeland was being ravaged by a blood-soaked rebellion ostensibly organized around and for the purposes of a long-suppressed religion practiced by the previous owners of the lands, the Ehleenee, but actually plotted and orchestrated by Witchmen, agents of an ancient evil far to the south.
After the rebellion had been bloodily put down in Morguhn, the surviving rebels all fled west into the neighboring duchy, where they completely wiped out the Thoheeks of Vawn and all the loyal Kindred through assassinations, treachery and, finally, blatant atrocities. Aroused noblemen and their retainers from all over the vast Confederation had then marched into Vawn with a large segment of the regular army of the Confederation and quashed the rebels there as well.
But barely was the one war over and done than yet another was of direst necessity begun. This one, too, was caused by the Witchmen. At their scarcely needed instigation, the Ahrmehnee tribes—whose ancestors had once held the lands now comprising the western duchies and had been driven out of them and into their present mountains by the Army of the Confederation—and the Maidens of the Moon Goddess—fierce Amazon warriors who were distantly related to the Ahrmehnee—were massing in previously unheard-of numbers, assembling about the village of their chief of chiefs, the nahkhahrah, for a raid in force against the already devastated western lands of the Confederation.
The Undying High Lord Milo Morai—one of the group of near-immortal mutants who had first formed the Confederation and now ruled it—had opted to strike the Ahrmehnee before they could strike him and his lands. He had launched the forces at his disposal—Confederation regulars, both horsemen and infantry, Confederation noblemen, their retainers and the numerous Freefighters or mercenaries many of them had hired to flesh out the followings behind their various banners.
Bili, a natural commander and leader of men, as well as the owner of rare and infinitely precious extrasensory gifts, had impressed the High Lord early on in the Morguhn rebellion, and so, despite his youth, the Thoheeks and Chief of Morguhn had been entrusted the leadership of the southern tine of the fork on which the High Lord meant to impale the always troublesome Ahrmehnee for good and all.
Bili’s force had been all cavalry, including most of the Freefighters—all of whom practically worshiped him because, having fostered for so long in Harzburk, he seemed more like one of them, more like what they all innately expected a fighting nobleman to be than did the pampered, effete-seeming, luxury-loving Confederation nobles.
He had split his available forces into squadrons, balancing as far as possible the numbers of well-equipped and -mounted but often less than war-wise Confederation nobles with an equal quantity of the hard, lean, scarred Middle Kingdoms mercenaries whose profession was war. Then he had sent these squadrons to reave and despoil their way north and east, through the very heart of the richest, most densely populated of all of the Ahrmehnee tribal areas.
And those squadrons had gone through the hills and dales and vales and villages like the proverbial dose of salts! With few adult males about to oppose them—most of the hale men of fighting age being assembled in the north, ready to invade the Confederation—the squadrons had burned and killed, raped and robbed, butchered livestock and ruined those foodstores they had not the pack animals to steal and bear away. They had despoiled their gory paths about halfway to their northern goal—the village of the nahkhahrah—when Bili was recipient of a telepathic order from the High Lord which halted the depredations and sent most of the force back whence they had come.