At sight of the prince, the oldster drew himself up into military posture and marched to within an accurately gauged five paces of the nobleman, then rendered a military salute, snapping, “Poorahbos, Djaimos, my lord. Retired epeelokeeas of heavy infantry of the Army of the Confederation. Would it please my lord that Poorahbos and his sons accompany the hunt?”
Prince Djylz smiled. “Aye, sergeant, get your spear and your lads, you look to have the strength to push a pike clear through a shaggy bull, lengthwise. But first, tell me, have you seen them?”
The former senior sergeant had not, but reported that he had heard much bellowing and what had sounded like screams from the direction of a neighboring farmstead. So, as soon as he and his sons were laced into homemade cuirasses of boiled leather and he had donned his old helmet and buckled on his short sword and dirk, he and his twin sons took the lead. There were no mounts for them but they proved to need none, moving easily and as fast as the duke cared to extend the horses in the mile-eating jogtrot of Confederation infantrymen, spears properly sloped over right shoulders.
“That old bastard’s trained his lads well,” remarked Djylz to Giliahna. “They’ll be first-class recruits, given another year of growth.”
Up one grassy hillock and down another, then through a low saddle between two more hills the party wound along a trail through a small bit of forest, then debouched into another stretch of cornfields, with another cabin in sight ahead.
But this farmyard was not deserted as had been Djaimos Poorahbos’, it was alive with movement and sound—the flopping and flapping and pecking and raucous noises of crow and raven and buzzard. That on which they gorged had not been pretty when they arrived and their razor beaks and tearing talons had done nought to improve appearances, but once the carrion birds had been driven off, a tale could still be read in the hoof-trampled, blood-soaked dust of the yard and the gory, horn-mangled and stamped lifeless bodies—six of them, five human and one big hound.
What was left of a man still clenched a hand around the shaft of a wolf spear, the weapon sticky brown to the crossbar with blood; near the body of a youth was a horseman’s saber, gory for half its length. Another lad, younger, looked to have fought his last battle with a hewing axe. There was a burned-out torch near one hand of the dead woman. The corpse of what looked to have once been a slender, pretty girl was sprawled atop the roof of the cabin, dark-tressed head at an impossible angle and guts trailing from the belly torn open by the hooking horn which probably had thrown her there.
The shaggy bulls had not been content to merely kill, however, they had obviously continued to savage their victims long after life had fled, and the results were hideous. Giliahna could only lean weakly against the high cantle of her saddle when she had retched up her stomach’s contents—nor was she the only one. The prince himself, though he was no stranger to the sight of death and mutilation, was pale of face and grim.
“Sergeant Poorahbos,” the prince called to the old spearman, who stood staring down at what the beasts had left of the man, “should these folk be buried or burned? What would they have preferred?”
Djaimos Poorahbos whirled and trotted over to snap to before the mounted noble, his stance proper and his spear-butt grounded. Tears streamed down his clean-shaven cheeks, but his voice was firm. “My lord, these folk were pawns to no priests. They should go to Wind.”
Prince Djylz’s voice softened. “Stand easy, Djaimos. You knew this man well, didn’t you? He was a friend, and an old soldier, like you?”
Poorahbos’ left foot moved forward and sidewise a precise eight inches and his two big callused hands clamped about the spearshaft, which he had allowed to cant at a thirty-degree angle from his body. “My lord prince, Imit Dyuh were senior sergeant-major of the Fourteenth Confederation Lancers, and the finest man as ever forked a horse for all the twenty-four years he served, till he took a poison arrer in his lef arm and the flesh-tailors had to lop half the arm oft. And ‘t won’t be another like to him for a High Lord’s lifetime, I trow!”
After having the bodies placed within the empty cabin to protect them from further ravages of the birds and other scavengers, the prince ordered the party on, following the clear trail of the murderous monsters, but more slowly and as silently as possible. The hunters and farmers were fanned out well in advance of the mounted men. Nor did they have far to go.
Less than a mile from the scene of slaughter, one of the younger hunters came sprinting back. “We have found them, my lord.”
From a laurel thicket on the crest of a hillock, the men could look down into a grassy vale, through which tinkled the clear waters of a spring-fed brook. In addition to the shaggy bulls, the herd had been increased by two orange-and-white milk cows—looking diminutive beside the dark, hairy, wild behemoths.
The old sergeant wormed closer to the prince. “My lord, those be poor Imit’s cows. Most likely that’s why he tried to drive off them damned critters.”
Prince Djylz just nodded, eyeing not the harmless domestic animals but their savage and deadly kidnappers. The big bull was an awesome sight—more than six feet high at the withers, his flaring horns black as crow’s wings and at least two yards from tip to bloodstained tip. An attempt had been made sometime recently to hamstring him, but the blow had been delivered too far back on the ham and without sufficient force to cleave to the tendon. Nonetheless, the massive bovine had sustained a gaping wound; his tail whisked continually at the flies buzzing about it. The pain of the injury certainly had done nothing to improve the bull’s temper, but the consequent loss of blood just might serve to slow him a bit.
The younger bull lay halfway down the slope and appeared to be either dead or very near to death. The face and head looked badly burned, and blood was still seeping from at least two places on the deep chest. Even as they watched, the stricken beast raised its head and tried to rise, then a great gush of blood spouted from gaping mouth and distended nostrils, the head fell with a thump onto the bloody grass, the legs jerked and twitched a few times, and dung and urine gushed from the relaxed sphincters.
The two wild cows and the heifers grazed contentedly on the tender grass. The calves apparently had been twins, since both were nursing from the same cow. She was two-thirds the size of the big bull, though her horns were neither as thick nor as long, even allowing for her smaller size. The barren cow might have been her twin, so close was the armament and overall resemblance. One of the heifers was much like the cows, but the other had no horns at all, only bulbous knots where they should have been.
Back again with the main party, the prince described what he had seen. Some of the younger nobles requested leave to ride down and slay the bull with lances and spearwork, but Prince Djylz curtly denied them.
“Yonder’s no mere boar or stag to be stuck, gentlemen. They’ve already wiped out an entire family of decent, loyal farmers, and they’ll add none of my noblemen to their tally, if I can prevent it. No, our good hunters and my lady will slay or cripple as many as they can with arrows fired from the top of the hill. Then, and only then, will the rest of us descend to dispatch or pursue if the animals flee. Persee, I leave the capture of the calves to you; Sir Hyruhm, Sir Djahn, you and your lads assist the count.”
Giliahna’s first shaft drove into an eye of the horned heifer and pierced to the brain; the beast dropped like a leaden weight and the remainder of the herd continued to graze peacefully … but not for long. In courtesy, the trio of hunters and the two other archers had waited for the princess to loose first. Their own shots, when loose they did, were not so fortunate.