Horses of the North Read online

  The big cat abruptly rolled over onto his belly and began to lick down the chest hairs rumpled by the scratching fingers of the two men, continuing his "speaking" all the while.

  "Nonetheless, I do agree with Subchief Hwahltuh that that young Skaht should learn and show more respect for Crooktail, for she is both a fine hunter and a savage warrior, in addition to throwing consistently strong, healthy kittens."

  Painfully striving to master his righteous anger at this outrage—unsolicited, completely unwarranted criticism of a Skaht by a mere Linsee!—Tchuk spoke aloud and as calmly as he could manage, shrugging. "Well, young Rahjuh is a bit higher-strung than are many . . . but then, so too is his sire. And no doubt the shaking of our esteemed cat sister startled him, eh?" Milo Morai chuckled. "Before that boy learns anything else, he'd be wise to learn to keep his thoughts shielded from those who can sense such in the minds of the untrained or unwary. He may well have been a bit startled by his sudden, unexpected shower, but his outburst was the spawn of something else entirely.

  "Be warned. He means to couple with the girl, Karee Skaht, during this hunt and intends that no one and nothing shall impede that purpose. Just now, her very obvious admiration of the big, straight-shooting Linsee boy has set him aflame with jealousy and jealous rage. You'd best have a word or three with him, Chief Tchuk, else he means to goad Gy Linsee into a death match; his thoughts are just that vicious at this moment."

  Tchuk Skaht but shrugged once again. "Rahjuh is free to think whatsoever he likes, but he and every other Skaht in this camp knows full well that they'll surely answer to me if even anything so serious as a bloodmatch is fought, much less a death match between a proven warrior and a boy still undergoing his weapons training.

  "As regards Karee Skaht, I have known her all her life and I'm here to tell you all that she's as smart as any and a bit smarter than many. She'll know better than to engage in anything more than lighthearted sport with a man of alien blood, no matter how big his muscles, how true his eye or how heavy a bow he can draw.

  "Besides"—although his teeth showed in a supposed grin, the hard, malicious glint in his eyes gave the lie to the humor of lips and bantering tone—"the seed of something like a mere Linsee could no more quicken a true-born Horseclanswoman than could that of a Dirtman, a boar hog or any other beast . . ."

  A low, inarticulate growl was Subchief Hwahltuh Linsee's only reply. He came to his feet as if powered by springs of tempered steel, his scar-furrowed face all twisted and quivering with the intensity of his deadly fury; his eyes were slitted, his knees flexed and his right hand clamped about the worn hilt of the heavy saber he had already half drawn from its scabbard.

  And in an eyeblink, Chief Tchuk Skaht was facing him, bared steel at low guard, ready for slash or thrust or parry, his body crouched for combat, his lips peeled back from off his teeth in a grin of pure bloodlusting anticipation and joy.

  But before either man could strike or even make to do so, Milo Morai was suddenly between them, sneering, his voice dripping scorn, disgust and disapprobation.

  "Now, by Sun and Wind! I asked your clan chiefs for grown men of sound mind to head this hunt, and I'd assumed that that was what they'd given. But what have we here? A brace of drooling, bloodthirsty idiots, the bodies of warriors in which reside the minds of ill-disciplined children. No less than twice, now, have Skahts and Linsees ridden the raid against each other. Kindred shedding the blood of their Kinsfolk! Do you two impetuous fools mean to make it three times? Mean to upgrade it to the status of a clan feud, a vendetta? You both know what that would mean.

  "Have either of you two hotheads ever seen a clan dispersed after a Council of Kindred Chiefs had revoked their kinship? Of course you haven't. Neither of you were born the last time it had to be done. But I saw it, forty-six summers ago, it was.

  "Of a time, there were two Kindred clans, Lehvee and Braizhoor. Their mutual raiding and stock stealing and murdering of each other had progressed to the point where their warriors did battle in the ten-year tribe camp. Around and about and even within the very pavilion of the Chiefs' Council did these lawless, arrogant men hack at and slash and stab one at the other, nor did they, any of them, even hesitate to let flow the lifeblood of those brave Kindred who made to mediate and put a stop to so grave a profanation of that Council Camp. In the end, warriors of other clans had to be called and gathered to disarm these miscreants by force of arms.

  "For many days and nights did the Council ponder the matter, questioning the chiefs of the two clans and exploring any avenue that might solve the matter on a more or less permanent basis. But the warriors, subchiefs and chiefs of Lehvee and Braizhoor foiled the well-meant plans and schemes of the Council at each and every turn. They all thirsted for the blood of each other and meant to allow nothing and no one—Council, custom, Sacred Kinship, even the very Law itself—to stand between them and the slaking of that unnatural thirst.

  "When one of the older, wiser chiefs of the Council made the suggestion that one of the two warring clans be sent far to the southeast and the other far to the northwest, there to stay until time and newborn leaders had smoothed over their differences, the chiefs of both Lehvee and Braizhoor stated that such a plan would only work for as long as it took the two clans to force-march to proximity again.

  "In the end, after much exceedingly painful soul-searching the Council decided on the necessary course. An example was to be made of the lawless clans, an example clear for all to see. They were to be disowned by the Tribe, have their Kinship revoked and be driven out to live or to die upon the pitiless prairie."

  Both Hunt Chief Tchuk Skaht and Subchief Hwahltuh Linsee had paled beneath their tans, horrified by the images of Morai's mindspeak. Slowly, Milo reached forth and took the sabers easily from grasps suddenly gone weak and nerveless before he went on with his sorry tale.

  "Chief Djeen of Morguhn, who headed that Council, ordered first that all boys and girls who were not yet proven warriors be dispersed amongst the other clans there present in the camp, to be adopted into these clans when and if they proved their worth and loyalty. Women and older girls of the two miscreant clans were given the choice of slavery or an honorable marriage into another clan, and, naturally, most chose the latter.

  "The horses and the herds of Lehvee and Braizhoor, the tents and yurts, the wagons and carts, clothing, tools and weapons, indeed, every last thing that any of them owned, ail were divided amongst the gathered clans. All that done, the still-unrepentent chiefs and subchiefs and warriors of those onetime Kindred clans were driven before the Council and the assembled folk and cats of all the clans.

  "A right pitiful-looking lot they were too, as I recall. They went clothed in such poor rags as they had been able to find discarded, mostly barefoot and all weaponless. Their hair had been shorn to the very scalps and their faces all were drawn with pain, for the bowstring thumb of each had but just been broken, smashed with a smith's sledge, that they might never again draw the hornbow of the Kindred.

  "Before all of the folk and cats assembled there, the crimes of Lehvee and Braizhoor were recited and the just punishments decided upon by the Council were pronounced. Gravely, Chief Djeen of Morguhn stated that there no longer existed amongst the true Kindred, the descendants of the Sacred Ancestors, any such clans as Lehvee and Braizhoor, that the gaggle of men owned no protection under Horseclans Law or customs and that if ever, after this day, they should dare to enter any camp of the Kindred, they might be done to death or enslaved just like any other alien.

  "Each of the men then were given a knife, a pouch of jerky and a waterskin. So supplied, they were chivvied through the camps and onto the open prairie at lance points by mounted clansmen, then kept moving farther and farther for days by relentless relays of warriors and cats. All of the bards were ordered by the Council to forget the very names of Lehvee and Braizhoor."

  With the skill born of long practice, Milo Morai's mindspeak had not so much painted a picture as actually put his audien
ce there, at the very scenes of that long-ago happening. The experience had left the men visibly shaken ... as he had intended them to be.

  Sternly, Milo said, "Now, gentlemen, now, Tchuk and Hwahltuh, is that what you two want for your own futures, eh? Your wives all wedded to men of other clans? Your children reared into those clans? The very names of Linsee and Skaht forgot of all the Kindred for all future time, while you lie naked and helpless and starving upon some faraway piece of prairie, there to die miserably and without honor, your bodies rent to shreds by wild beasts? If that is what you both want, gentlemen, here are your sabers—have at it!"

  But the two clansmen recoiled from the familiar proffered hilts as if the weapons were suddenly become coiled vipers.

  Milo nodded brusquely. "Very well, then. Now at long last the two of you are showing some of the intelligence that the Sacred Ancestors bequeathed you and your forebears.

  "Hear me and heed you well my words. As you know, I am here among you at the express behest of the present Tribal Council. The chiefs of that Council are most disturbed at your ongoing mutual hostilities. They—and I, their surrogate—do not care a pinch of moldy turkey dung about what may or may not have begun these hostilities. They simply want them stopped for good and all . . . lest it become necessary to revoke the kinship of your two clans as warning to others.

  "Kindred clans do not war upon Kindred clans, that is all there is to it! Haven't we Kindred enough enemies—Dirtmen to east, west, north and south, non-Kindred savages, predaceous beasts? So Linsee and Skaht must cease the feud, must give over tearing at each other . . . either that, or cease to be Kindred.

  "I put together this hunt as a means to forge bonds of new friendship and kinship between the younger generation of Skahts and Linsees—those who will be the next generation of warriors. You two men are in charge of the hunt and of your respective clansfolk who are on the hunt. As such, you both must set an example. Therefore, you will henceforth cease badgering and slyly insulting each other and you will prevent any extension of this senseless feud amongst the younger folk by whatever means it takes to do it. Otherwise, I will send you both back to your clan camps and Snowbelly and I will take over your erstwhile functions. Do you both understand me?"

  "Oh, prairie, broad prairie, the place of our birth,

  We are the Horseclansmen, the bravest on earth."

  Gy Linsee's singing voice was a very adult-sounding baritone, the envy of those boys and young men whose voices still were in process of changing and so sometimes cracked into embarrassingly childish trebles. A bard's son—though not the eldest—the big, dark-haired boy handled his harp expertly.

  He was a quick-study, too, was this Gy Linsee, Milo Morai reflected to himself. Only once had Milo had to play the tune for the boy—a Clan Pahrkuh song, truth to tell, but with the words identifying clan of origin changed by Milo to encompass all of Kindred descent. Moreover, Gy Linsee had managed to come up with several extemporaneously composed verses that had to do with events of this hunt. He would be a young man to watch, thought Milo.

  All well stuffed with venison and rabbit, fish, wild tubers, nuts and a few late berries, the threescore youngsters and the dozen or so adult warriors lazed about the cluster of firepits, which now were paved with ashes and glowing coals. But few hands were idle.

  There were blades to be honed—knives of various types, dirks, light axes, hatchets, spear- and arrowheads and, for those of sufficient years and experience to carry them, sabers. The skins and hides of slain beasts must be cared for, along with other usable portions of the carcasses—and Horseclansfolk made some use of nearly every scrap of most game animals. Horse gear required constant maintenance. Under flashing blades of knife, hatchet and drawknife, seasoned wood from a tree uprooted and felled and borne this far downstream by some seasonal flood was fast being transformed into tool and weapon handles, axe hafts, shafts for arrows and darts and even spears.

  Around one firepit, this one still being fed with chips and twigs and branches of squaw wood for the light, squatted a dozen Skahts. As fast as half of them could split the tough wood and smooth it into shafts of the proper thickness and length, Karee Skaht would affix a nock carved of bone or antler with a dollop of evil-smelling fish glue from the little pot that bubbled malodorously before her. Then she would pass the shaft on to her brother, Ahrthuh Skaht, for the fletching. Following this, using threads of sinew and more fish glue, Rahjuh Vawn of Skaht would complete the arrows, tipping them with prepared points of bone or flint or antler, for these were intended to be common hunting arrows and only war shafts received points of the rare and costly steel or iron.

  Gy Linsee had again taken up his harp. He still sang of the plains and prairies, but this was a different song. The tune was soft and haunting, and it took Milo a while to recall where he last had heard it and what it then had been—a love song from far off Mexico.

  "Oh, my lovely plains, you are my mother and my father," went Gy Linsee's song, rising above the sounds of water chuckling over the rocks of the streambed, the callings of the nightbirds and the soft whickerings of the horses grazing on the grassy bank above the camp.

  "Kissed each day by Sacred Sun, endlessly caressed by your lover, Wind; the grasses in which you lie clad are as sweet to smell as summer honey, oh, my plains . . ."

  The boy sang with his head thrown back, his eyes closed, his face mirroring the rapture and love that his fine voice projected. Simultaneously, his powerful mindspeak also cast out a soothing broadbeam sending which reached every man, boy, girl and cat to a greater or lesser degree.

  Milo Morai, seated nearby and carving a new stirrup from a chunk of the seasoned wood, remarked, "That boy has the true gift, you know—his fine voice and his abilities with that harp are only parts of it."

  Hwahltuh Linsee smiled and nodded, looking up from honing the blade of his wolf spear. "Our Gy sings and plays songs mostly of his own composition, Uncle Milo, but he never forgets one of them, either. His voice and his harping are even now every bit as good as his sire's—which is why I am certain that my

  brother the chief will insist that Gy, rather than his elder brother, Rik, be named as heir to the office of tribal bard. Poor Rik, alas, could not carry a tune in a wooden bucket."

  He sighed and shook his head sadly, adding, "And then the sparks will surely fly, fly for fair. For Bard Djimi is a man of exceeding strong will, and he truly dotes on his son, Rik."

  Tchuk Skaht's brows rose upward, further crinkling a forehead already lined and scarred. Slowly, incredulously, he spoke.

  "But, man, the matter be simple, on the face of it: the one son is far better qualified for office than the other, their ages or the precedent of birth be damned. And yet you seem to feel that your bard would openly defy his chief? Why, a bard is the third most powerful subchief in a clan, subordinate only to the chief himself, and the tanist."

  Hwahltuh shook his head. "Not so in Clan Linsee, Hunt Chief. We have no tanist, practicing as we do descent through the father rather than the mother. Our next chief will be the eldest son of my brother still living, whole of body and sound of mind . . . and approved by the council of warriors, at the time of my brother's demise."

  Tchuk snorted derisively. "What a stupid way to pass on a chieftaincy! And I had thought that only Dirtmen and other such dim-witted, non-Kindred folk practiced primogeniture."

  Milo's fingers ceased to move, and he gritted his teeth in anticipation of an explosive, probably extremely insulting retort and a probable repetition of the near-bloodletting of earlier this evening. But it did not occur, none of it; apparently, Gy Linsee's lulling broadbeam had done its purpose well, for although Subchief Hwahltuh frowned and his lips thinned a bit, he continued tightening the wetted sinews about the haft of his wolf spear. When they were to his satisfaction, he set the weapon aside, shrugged and bespoke the hunt chief.

  "Some Kindred clans practice descent the one way, some the other way ... as you should well know. Nowhere in the Couplets of the
Law is any one method for choosing a new chief spelled out."

  "But what," demanded Tchuk, "if all of your chief's sons die or be crippled before he himself goes to Wind, eh? What then?"

  Hwahltuh again shrugged. "In so unlikely an event, Hunt Chief, I or my eldest son would be chosen chief ... unless one of the chief's sons had left a son old enough to lead the clan in war. Simple, eh?"

  "Simple, right enough!" Tchuk's voice dripped scorn. "Only a simple-minded folk could devise so silly a scheme."

  Milo's telepathy ferreted out the first stirrings of angry indignation bubbling just below the surface of Hwahltuh Linsee's consciousness, and he decided to put an end to this dangerous discourse before it provoked what otherwise it inevitably must between the hot-blooded pair.

  Starting up work again on the stirrup-to-be, he remarked in a deliberately casual tone, "And yet, Tchuk, although the practice is slowly spreading, still only some score or so of our Kindred clans reckon descent through the maternal line and so pass the chieftaincy to the son of the former chief's eldest sister. And it is perhaps most fitting that you, Tchuk Skaht, should hold and defend the practice, since it was your very forebears who first brought it among the clans of the Kindred."

  Hwahltuh Linsee snapped up this bit of information avidly, crowing, "Then it was true, what my sire used to say, it was all true! These Skahts truly are not come of the true Kindred, are not of the seed of the Sacred Ancestors at all!"

  Tchuk Skaht growled wordlessly and tensed, his right hand pawing behind him in search of the hilt of the saber that now lay across his saddle and bedroll.

  The soothing broadbeam of Milo Morai was far and away more powerful than that of the still-singing Gy Linsee; moreover, all of it was directed squarely into the minds of the two would-be antagonists, below conscious level. Still in his calm, casual voice, he spoke aloud, saying, "Be you not so full with pride and that arrogance of your supposed lineage, Hwahltuh, for neither were you Linsees of the Kindred in the beginning. Both the Linsees and the Skahts did not join the tribe until long years after the Sacred Ancestors and their children came down to the prairies. I'll tell you just how it happened . . ."