“I have caused you all much time and funding and distress, but in like circumstances, I must admit that I would behave in no other way, for ties of blood are close among us Slavs. I can in no way correct that which I have done and allowed to be done; therefore, I must tender my resignation from the group.”
While Stekowski had been speaking, recounting in his low, slow, sad voice the cruel choice he had been forced to make, Ruth Marberg had begun to cry softly, but at his final words, she had dashed away her tears. “Oh, you dear, sweet, gentle, gallant, honorable old fool,” she said, “you are the very heart and soul of our group, you cannot resign, for lacking you, there is no group, can be no project.”
Bedford nodded, swallowing earnestly to clear the massive lump from out his throat. “Forget any thought of resignation, Dr. Stekowski, do you hear me? Why you did what you did can be easily understood by any compassionate person. Under like circumstances, faced with so bitter a choice, I’d like to think that I, too, would place loved ones first. Let us put hatred where hatred and disgust are clearly due: upon the filthy swine who did it to you, that thing down there.” He waved in Harel’s direction, then looked at his hand, and slowly wiped it on his coat.
“But … but, you don’t understand, any of you,” spluttered Harel. “You see, I too had no choice, they had threatened all of my family still living in Russia unless I—”
“Shut up!” snapped Bedford, adding, “Just save your desperate lies, Comrade Vladimir Markov. I had you investigated in great detail, investigated very thoroughly by a number of people and agencies in several countries, going back for years. Those investigators and I probably know about as much about you now as anyone living does, and presently I’ll be reading the salient points of the full report for the edification of the group, and then you can spin your fables and lies. I’ve always enjoyed skeet and trap shooting, and I think I’ll derive great pleasure in the shooting down of whatever misrepresentations you cast out before us.”
VIII
After so long a time that Milo had all but given him up for dead of cold or wolves or misfortune, Dik Esmith arrived below the plateau with five other Horseclansmen, a half-dozen packhorses and a small remuda of remounts. When once the newcomers and Milo’s party had set up the yurt and set to constructing a protective corral for the horses against a spot at the base of the plateau, Milo squatted with Dik and a sub-chief of Clan Linsee, one Alex.
“How far behind you are the main party? demanded Milo. “How many more days until they arrive, Dik?”
Dik remained silent, deferring to the Linsee sub-chief, but looked uncomfortable. It was Alex Linsee who replied.
“Uncle Mio, my brother and the other chiefs met in council on this matter and they decided that, all things considered, they dare not send out any more warriors than those with me here. But after the thaw commences, they will come up here, all four of the clans together. This clansman you sent back averred that game was to be easily found up here, but still the chiefs sent some packloads of hard cheese, dried herbs and roots, smoked fish and fat-paste for your party and for us, who will remain with you until after the thaw begins and the clans are come.”
“Now what’s all this about four clans, Alex Linsee?” demanded Milo, “When my original hunting party left camp there were but the two—Linsee and Esmith. And just why do the chiefs feel that they dare not send out a larger party of warriors than your measly six? What has happened down them on the plain since I left?”
Both the sub-chief and Dik Esmith sighed. “It’s a bitter hard winter, Uncle Milo,” said Alex Linsee in preamble. “Game is scarce on the plains, and the wolfpacks run large and very fierce with their hunger. So dangerous are they in their numbers that not only folk and kine must be protected from them but even the largest and strongest of our hounds, are any to survive until the thaw.
“As if all that were not enough and more than enough, though, shortly after you and your hunters left, the very clan camp was attacked of a night by rovers not of Kindred ilk. Silently, they crept in upon us, silent as serpents in the snow, and only mere happenstance revealed them to one of the herd guards in time to save cattle and camp and clans. They were driven off with losses, in the end, but the fight was hard and long and costly to us, as well.
“As for Clans Makawlee and Baikuh, they were encamped miles to the southeast of us. Attacked as were we, but by vastly more numerous foemen, they broke camp and fled toward the higher country until their scouts chanced to meet a party of our hunters and decided to make common camp with us for mutual protection from these non-Kindred marauders. As the poor Makawlees and Baikuhs had lost all of their sheep and most of the goats and cattle and even some of their horses, no difficulties in combining camps was seen by my chief or the Esmith.”
“There were too many nomads to fight, then?” asked Milo.
Dik Esmith shook his head. “Oh, there has been fighting and killing and dying, too, Uncle Milo. Immediately the stockade and brushwalls had been expanded, enlarged to hold the new folk and kine, my chief set the eldest and youngest and the matrons to guard it, then took out almost all the warriors and the maiden-archers. They found those who were pursuing the Makawlees and the Baikuhs, ambushed them and put to scattered flight those who survived the ensuing battle.
“Then some of the younger warriors and the maidens backtracked the non-Kindred to an ancient, ruined Dirtman town. They fired the wagon-tents and thatched roofs with arrows ran off all the few animals there, slew some of the folk but rode back without taking the time or risk to pillage.
“It was as well that they acted just so, for my chief and his victors arrived back at the clans’ encampment to find it under heavy assault from another aggregation of non-Kindred rovers—those who had earlier tried that night attack, along in company with certain others of their unsavory ilk. With many of his own victors wounded already, he and they were hard pressed to even hold their own against so many, but the timely arrival of the party of maiden-archers saved the day for the right … but not quite in time to save the life of my chief.” Dik’s voice caught in his throat and he paused, his pale eyes swimming in unshed tears.
Milo reached across to grip the young man’s arm hard, in wordless expression of sympathy and shared grief. “He was a good man, Dik. I will miss him. But he now rides the boundless plains of Wind. And, knowing him as I did, I am certain he went to Wind in great glory, glory which will be long recalled and bard-sung to generations of Esmiths whose great-grandparents are not yet born.”
Sub-chief Alex Linsee attested, “That he did. Uncle Milo, that he assuredly did. The Esmith was already sore hurt when he rode into that fight, yet he slew two of the enemy with his spear before it lodged in a body and he had to let it go; then he turned a spear on his target and sabered off the arm that held it above the wrist. Next, faced by two opponents, he took one hard in the face with the boss of his buckler, even while all but decapitating the other with his saber. He was turning to deal with the one he had stunned, who sat reeling in the saddle, when one of the byblows, afoot, stabbed up under his shirt of boiled leather with the long blade of a spear. It was Dik, here, who split that baseborn bastard’s lousy head from pate to chin, but his chief’s mighty heart had already been pierced and burst.
“Ever since that bloody fight, though there have been no more real raids against us, not by men, at least, the chiefs feel that we do not longer number enough sound warriors to send any larger numbers than those I lead up here, away from the camp.”