The Savage Mountains Read online

  The Savage Mountains

  The Horseclans

  Book V

  Robert Adams

  A SIGNET BOOK

  Copyright © 1979 by Robert Adams

  First Printing, January, 1980

  Content

  Synopsis

  Excerpt

  Dedication

  Ancient Freefighter Song

  Prologue

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Epilogue

  About The Author

  Synopsis

  The army of the Confederation is on the move again. For the Undying High Lord Milo Moray is ready to take the next step in his master plan to reunite all the tribes which centuries ago formed a single, powerful nation known as the United States of America.

  Before the Confederation forces lie the Armehnee Mountains, the home of savage tribes that constantly raid the lowlands, bringing with them destruction and death. But Milo’s forces are about to face an even more dangerous enemy than the Armehnee. For the Wichmen — twentieth-century scientists who have achieved a kind of immortality by stealing the living bodies of men while destroying their souls — have long been at work in the mountains. And unbeknownst to Milo, his troops are marching into much more trouble than they bargained for — trouble that could spell the end of the Confederation!

  Excerpt

  WHEN THE EARTH WALKS . . .

  On the lip of the smoking fissure known as the Sacred Hoofprint the Witchmen’s trap was at last sprung. A small charge exploded, hurling a barrel-sized charge into the fissure. Far it fell, deeper and deeper into the very bowels of the uneasy mountain. And then, unheard by living ear, the charge exploded.

  Many leagues away, Bili Morguhn felt a sudden, terrible uneasiness. And when a living carpet of small, scuttling beasts broke out of the woods to rocket downslope over the edge of the plateau, Bili let his instinct guide him. “Mount!” he roared, and had barely followed his own orders when the very earth began to shudder.

  “That way!” Bili shouted, pointing to where the animals bad disappeared. And as trees crashed around them and boulders shifted, slid, and tumbled, the column sped after Bili in a desperate race to escape the plateau before the entire rocky face dissolved, devouring them in its fall. . . .

  Dedication

  For Philip José Farmer, for Andrew J. Offutt, and for L. Sprague and Catherine De Camp. For George MacCaulay. For Joe Rosenberger. For the members of NYSFS.

  Most important, for Mrs. Elnora Adams, my mother.

  Ancient Freefighter Song

  Death rides all in plate and His tall horse is black.

  He leads every charge and His bowstring’s never slack.

  He stalks every camp, He rides every raid.

  His steel harvests warrior and merchant and maid.

  Death rides a tall, black horse and we all are sworn to His service.

  A Freefighter rides for Blood and Death.

  Prologue

  The narrow, winding streets of the city were dark and utterly deserted, save for the solitary figure whose worn, oft-patched boots crunched through the fresh-fallen snow. The fine stuff of the hooded cloak which shrouded the walker had commenced to fray in places, but still was thick and warm. The scabbard of a broadsword jutted out at the hooded one’s side, though of all the folk still alive within the walls of the doomed city, he was the man least likely to be attacked.

  Not that Vahrohneeskos Drehkos Daiviz of Morguhnpolis was universally loved. There were full many who actively hated the short, stocky, middle-aged nobleman, especially among the more religious elements of the population. But there was not a man or woman who would have dared to lift hand against him who commanded the city and its defense, for, harsh and uncompromising as had been his tenure, but few of his schemes and strategems had failed, while each and every one of his predictions had inexorably come to pass.

  Most of those few thousands remaining in besieged Vawnpolis were common people — peasant villagers of this Duchy of Vawn and its neighboring principality, the Duchy of Morguhn; Vawnpolee and Morguhnpolee city dwellers, servant-class types, miners, herders and the like — and all were deeply riddled with superstition, else they would never have become involved in the insanity which had brought them to these sorry straits.

  Inflamed by the kooreeoee and priests, who had been abetted by a handful of minor nobles, they had schemed and plotted against their rightful lords and finally had risen up and murdered many of them. In Vawn, the rebellion had been an unqualified success. But, due to a number of factors, in Morguhn it had failed miserably and, worse, had cost the lives not only of many Morguhn rebels but of hundreds of the Vawnee who had ridden to aid them. Of the two kooreeoee, Holy Skiros of Morguhn was known to have been captured by the forces of the pitiless thoheeks of Morguhn; Mahreeos of Vawn had simply disappeared in the maelstrom-rout of the self-proclaimed Soldiers of God, whether dead, captured or in hiding, none of his erstwhile followers could say which.

  Few of the rebel nobles had survived the debacle in Morguhn, and those few had bolted to the only refuge available to them, the walled city of Vawnpolis, which had been the seat of the now extirpated Thoheeksee of Vawn — descendants of one of the barbarian Horseclans whose rule had been imposed upon formerly Ehleen lands for a century and a half.

  Though there had been, between the defeat in Morguhn and the investment of Vawnpolis, more than adequate time for every man or woman or child of the rebels to escape, to flee before the avenging forces, there had never been a safe direction in which to flee — Morguhn lay to the east, the loyal Duchy of Skaht lay to the north and the equally loyal Duchy of Baikuh lay to the south; west lay grim death in the terrible form of wild, savage mountain tribes.

  Just before harvest time, after a hotly contested march, the army now besieging Vawnpolis had arrived under its walls. Twenty thousand Confederation Regulars had marched under their cat standards, along with almost every loyal nobleman of fighting age, their relatives, retainers and companies of hired Freefighters, most of the latter being natives of the Middle Kingdoms, which lay several hundred miles to the north. This vast host — more than thirty thousand warriors, in all — was led by High Lord Milo of Morai and High Lady Aldora Linszee Treeah-Pohtohmas Pahpas, two of the Undying Triumvirate who had ruled the Confederation since its inception. Only they were aware that the rebellion, though cloaked in religious trappings, was really sparked by ageless agents of the Witch Kingdom, situated in the huge and trackless Salt Swamp of the farthest south.

  With the siegelines drawn and fortified, the bulk of the nobles had been sent home to see to their harvests, while their Freefighter companies and the Regulars maintained the investiture. With the crisp air of autumn, they returned with reinforcements, swelling the total strength of the army to over forty thousand.

  Since then, there had been three assaults on the city walls, all beaten off, but all exacting a high cost not only to attackers, but to the defenders, who could ill afford any manner of losses.

  It was, Drehkos ruminated as he walked back to the Citadel, an impossible situation. Due principally to the senseless burnings of standing crops and slaughterings of herds during the first days of the Vawn rebellion, Vawnpolis had not ever been really well supplied with food and had lasted this long only because of the fever which had sporadically raged through the city, taking off mostly the youngest and the oldest and the sickly or wounded. Now, the last skeletal horse had been butchered, most of the hoard
ed stores were gone along with dogs and cats; even rats and mice were virtually extinct in Vawnpolis.

  Before the outer works fell, it had sometimes been possible to filter small raiding parties through the lines to prey upon the camps or supply line of the besiegers, but recent attempts in this direction had resulted only in the gruesome return of the raiders by way of the investing army’s catapults — their headless bodies splatting against the walls or into the streets.

  At least there was no lack of fresh water from the three deep wells within the walls. Nor did they lack for fuel, since the miners had early on discovered a wide seam of hard coal beneath the city itself. But these were the only items they did not lack.

  The refugee-rebels had fled their homes in haste, in summer, and the dearth of warm clothing, boots and blankets was crippling. The supply of arrows was running perilously low. Since the city’s tannery had lain outside the walls, leather was become scarce and even the few green hides were husbanded. Even so mundane a thing as rope was become infinitely precious, and ordinary linen or cotton thread brought its lucky owner a silver thrahkmeh the yard.

  For months now, no scrap of any hard metal had been allowed to sit idle. A round dozen master smiths were among the rebels in Vawnpolis, along with numerous apprentices and a superfluity of fuel; all that was lacking was a decent supply of war metals — steel, iron, bronze and brass.

  The lack of horn and fishglue rendered the repair of bows almost an impossibility, and stringing those still usable was becoming more and more difficult as the supply of silk steadily dwindled. The few arrows they could find decent wood to produce were, of dire necessity, fletched with vellum and tipped with fire-hardened bone; also, Drehkos had encouraged experiments in scraping and otherwise processing bone in attempts to devise a substitute for horn, but the results had been, thus far, inconclusive.

  If only . . . Drehkos Daiviz could but shake his weary head and sigh. This rebellion, now fast approaching its bloody, inevitable conclusion, had been pointless and wasteful, and those involved, himself included, had been fools and worse. How can an egg be unscrambled? And it would be as simple to do that as to return any part of the Confederation to its pre-Horseclans condition — Ehleen-ruled and principally Christian.

  How could he and the other nobles have allowed the kooreeoee to so delude them? Poor Myros, at least, was more or less mad and might be excused on that ground. But the rest of them should have known better, should have known their Holy Cause was foredoomed to failure, should have realized that a mere handful of nobles and a few thousands Soldiers of Christ — ill-armed, half-trained peasants and city riffraff — had not the chance of a snowball in Hell against the professional troops they were certain to face.

  As the torches at the Citadel gate glowed ahead, he consciously set his face in a smile, that those good men within might not think him either worried or displeased. For he was definitely not displeased, not with them, anyway. They — common and gentle and noble . . . yes, and even cleric — had done more, done longer and done with less than anyone had any right to expect.

  And his smile broadened, involuntarily, at the swell of his fierce pride in these, his men. Their bravery, stoicism in suffering privations and self-sacrifice, should, by rights, have bought them their lives and guaranteed their futures; in truth, he and they would all soon be dead. He only hoped that what they had done here would be remembered by those who opposed them, even after the Holy Cause which had brought them all to this pass had been long years relegated to that dungheap from which it should never have been resurrected.

  Chapter I

  Although the camps scattered about the headquarters hill resounded with the raucous gaiety of the besieging army’s celebration of the year-end Sun Festival, the woman and eight men gathered about the board in the commander’s pavilion were subdued, drinking little and eating less. Of the ten thoheeksee who had led the march out of Morguhnpolis last summer, seven were left alive, but only five had been hale enough to ride to this feast, and all of them bore either bandages or new scars.

  Old Sir Ehdt Gahthwahlt, Confederation siegemaster, tapped the dottle from his pipe, picked up his winecup, then set it back, untasted. “Had one of my officer-students propounded a situation of this sort, even as late as a year ago, I’d have pegged him a madman!” He snorted, feelingly. “The whole damned thing’s impossible! A few thousand ill-supplied, ill-equipped, starveling wretches of amateur soldiers simply cannot hold the antique walls of a small hill town against four times their number of professionals — and half of that force, units of the best damned army any of us will ever see. It’s completely illogical!”

  Ahrkeethoheeks Lahmahnt mindspoke, while sipping thin broth through a copper tube and longingly eyeing the joints of meat — broth and milk and wine having been his only sustenance since the physician, Master Ahlee, had wired shut his shattered jaws after the most recent attack. “Logical or not, Sir Ehdt, I face the reality of it every time I shave. It might almost lead one to wonder at the power of a religion that can give its adherents what it takes to do the impossible. . . .”

  Thoheeks Morguhn set down his silver winecup with a crash. The lamp flames played on his scarred, shaven scalp as he tilted back his head to vent a harsh laugh. “My lord ahrkeethoheeks, men sometimes die for religion, but they don’t fight for religion. Men fight for blood and loot and women and great captains. The rebels are fighting for Drehkos Daiviz, not for any blood-drinking, crucified god. When they’ve beaten us off, do you hear them praising their god or his priests? Of course not! That whole city erupts with cheers for Lord Drehkos. Should they be suddenly bereft of him, they’d fold up like an empty wineskin.”

  Old Thoheeks Duhnkin belched twice, resoundingly, then nodded. “Aye, Bili, I too have noted that. Ah, Sacred Sun, but it was a bitter and cursed day when so obviously worthy and talented a Kinsman chose to turn against his Kindred and throw in his lot with a traitorous pack of Ehleenee scum.” He belched once more, then added, “For, to my way of thinking, our Confederation could well use such a gifted leader.”

  The High Lord, Milo Morai, who had but recently returned from his capital to rejoin the army, agreed. “Yes, thoheeksee, never has any realm a superfluity of good leaders. And I admit to you all, his crimes notwithstanding, I could be quite magnanimous to Vahrohneeskos Drehkos Daiviz of Morguhn, in the right circumstances. And him who delivered me said baronet alive would not go unrewarded, either. In return for the sworn services of a Drehkos, I would even be willing to negotiate generous terms in the surrender of Vawnpolis.”

  At this, several of the thoheeksee growled and the young Morguhn slammed a callused palm on tabletop. “My liege must be aware that he owns all my fealty and devotion, but such an action would be wrong. I must tell him so. I well recall a day last summer, in a blood-splashed cornfield, when my lord spoke otherwise. He then felt that, any other considerations apart, the only way to be sure of no future rebellions was to utterly extirpate this lot of rebels.”

  Milo shrugged. “Times change, Bili, as do conditions; the wise man will alter his conduct, conceptions and plans accordingly. A good sword is flexible and a good man, adaptable. Admittedly, we still could probably do it your way-batter our way into Vawnpolis, butcher its inhabitants to a man and raze the walls and structures. But such a course is certain to be very costly, in terms of men and in terms of money, both of which will be needed in full measure, come spring, as will all of you and your levies. But more of that, anon.

  “With regard to Drehkos and to Sun knows how many more of these rebels, there be this: When I journeyed back to Kehnooryos Atheenahs, two months ago, it was principally for the purpose of personally conducting two very important prisoners, the so-called Kooreeoee Skiros of Morguhn and Mahreeos of Vawn. Arrived in the capital, these two were put to the question, with all that that implies. It was not an easy task, nor a quick one, but eventually I got the truth from them, the whole truth, much of which but reinforced what I had already known.

 
“And the three men — there was another kooreeos, captured at Gafnee, who chanced to die while being questioned by High Lady Mara, last summer — were not what they seemed. Though their minds occupied the husks of men who had really been ordained priests and confirmed kooreeoee, they were still imposters, intent upon creating as much havoc as possible in the Confederation. Gentlemen, those spurious kooreeoee were as old as I am, maybe even older! But Sacred Sun had not gifted them as the true Undying are gifted. Rather, were they of that hellish breed commonly called ‘Witchmen’!”

  Several of the thoheeksee grasped at their Sun medallions, while old Sir Ehdt and Thoheeks Bili Morguhn made the Sign of Sacred Steel in the air before them.

  Smiling, the High Lord reassured them all, saying, “Despite what you may have heard, gentlemen, there is nothing supernatural about these, our enemies. They are highly dangerous, make no mistake, but they be no sorcerers; rather have they perverted certain disciplines of knowledge, knowledge which first saw light in the days before the death of that world which preceded this one.

  “Nearly a thousand years ago, your distant ancestors — over two hundred million of them, of a vast diversity of races — dwelt in a principality which was one though it stretched from the Sea of Sun Birth to another which lies far west of the Sea of Grass. Then was the Great Salt Swamp mostly dry land, full of farms and pasturelands, cities and towns and, probably, more people than now live in all the lands of our Confederation.

  “All these many people were ruled by men chosen to represent them. These men met in a great city which was almost totally destroyed, the ruins of which now lie beneath the waters of the lakes and bays near the mouth of the North River of Kehnooryos Ehlas. So rich were the people and the nation which they ruled that vast sums could be spent on various projects which had little to do with such basic needs as food production, war preparation and the like.