The Savage Mountains Read online

  “One such project was the effort to transport men to the stars by means which I’ll not even attempt to explain to you. An auxiliary project, part of the star-journey project, was the need to find a way of prolonging human lifespans, since even the nearer stars lay a distance of years away. The men and women assigned to search out these means were all concentrated in a highly secret place in that sub-principality which now is the Great Salt Swamp.

  “Unfortunately for Sun knows how many, they were successful in their search. They found a way to prolong a given number of human minds, almost indefinitely. But intuitively realizing what the most of humanity would think of their answer to the problem, they took every precaution to conceal their ‘triumph,’ so that it was only bare months before the Great Catastrophe that the Congress — which is what the gathering of ruling representatives was then called — and certain newsmongers discovered just how horrible was that method.

  “The outcries of the millions who had chosen those representatives was loud and long and outraged. And those rulers, who wished to remain such, quickly reacted by ordering the project to prolong life immediately canceled, all its records destroyed and its personnel discharged and widely dispersed.

  “However, ere their will could be implemented, there commenced the series of events which led to the destruction of nations, races and cultures. Because of their still secret and isolated location, the couple of hundred people in the project area, which was called the Kehnehdee Research Center, survived unharmed by firerain or plagues. When the plagues had run their course, they allowed a few, pitiful outsiders to join them as ‘breeding stock.’

  “You see, gentlemen, what they had discovered was a way to transfer the mind and memories from an aging to a younger body — man to man, woman to woman, man to woman, woman to man and even, so I understand, man or woman to certain animals! And so they have continued their parasitic existence down through the centuries, their aged, evil minds using one young, vibrant body after another.

  “And their grand design is nothing less than to make the entire world their slaves. They were ready to do it by force of arms four hundred years ago, but the earthquakes and floods, the tidal waves and the subsidence of most of the huge peninsula whereon they dwelt utterly confounded their schemes. Though most of the original parasites survived that disaster, they lost much of their carefully maintained equipment — which was irreplaceable — all save a couple of their population centers and eight of every ten of their serf-soldiers. And virtually overnight their rich, productive lands were become, at the very best, sterile for years from their drenching of seawater.

  “They have not yet fully recovered. Even so, they recognize the Confederation as a menace to their eventual intent, standing united on their very border as we do. Therefore they continue to foment trouble from within and without — trying to weaken us, divide us. This rebellion, which started at Gafnee and is ending here, was their third effort against us since the coming of the Horseclans. And we must finish it quickly, even at the cost of some concessions, for we will be face to face with their fourth effort all too soon. To combat this new and awesome threat effectively, gentlemen, the Confederation will need every arm that can swing sword or pull bow!”

  * * *

  Sir Geros Lahvoheetos of Morguhn stood and leaned across the small table to refill his guest’s winecup, a completely natural action on the part of a young man who, born of upper-servant class, had spent most of his life as a valet to noblemen.

  His guest, however, slapped a horny hand on the tabletop, exclaiming in the harsh, nasal accents of Harzburk, “Now, dammit, Geros . . . ahh, Sir Geros . . . that just is not done! You’re noble, now, man. You’re a knight of Duke Bili’s household, which means you outrank me. You ask if I want more wine; then, since your servant seems to have absented himself, I refill my own cup . . . and yours, if you so indicate.”

  Sinking back onto his seat, the husky, olive-skinned knight sighed and shook his shaven head. “Oh, Pawl, Pawl . . . I was so happy before, as a simple color sergeant, as merely a comrade of your troop. I never aspired to nobility. Tell me, Pawl, was I . . . did you consider me to be a good soldier, a good Freefighter?”

  The silvery bristles on the guest’s pate flashed in the lamplight as his head bobbed. “Sir Geros, I will always feel honored that you learned your craft under me. Yes, you were an excellent Freefighter, none better.”

  Sir Geros sighed once more. “Then why, Pawl? Why could they not just leave me where I was so happy? Why was it necessary to thrust nobility on me? Force me to bear a title which I will never be able to live up to? What did I do to deserve such?”

  Pawl Raikuh’s scarred features registered stunned dismay. “Are you daft, man, to talk so? One who did not know better would think you’d been condemned to some dire punishment Man, in one day, you saved your lord’s life, slew the biggest warrior I’ve ever seen and performed an act of bravery which, though I witnessed every moment of it, I still can hardly believe! What did you expect? A pat on the head and, maybe, a new sword?”

  Geros raised his dark, troubled eyes. “I would have been more than happy with such, Pawl.” His fingers toyed with the silver cat pendant on his chest. “After all, I but did what any man of the thoheek’s would have done during the battle, for he is a good lord and kind. As for the other, well . . .” Embarrassed, he dropped his gaze. “I still don’t know why I did it, didn’t really realize I was doing it until I found myself down there in the fire and the heat. But it’s as I said, Pawl. The officer was hurt and everyone could see he would soon be burned alive. If I had not, another would’ve.”

  “Turkey dung!” snorted Raikuh. “I was there, Sir Geros. Remember?”

  He could.

  The hilltop salient had been but a trap set by the crafty leader of the rebels. The fortifications, garrisoned by suicide troops, had been undermined, supported only by oil-soaked timbers which had been secretly fired. The stratagem had failed on the twin hillock, assaulted and taken by troops under the personal command of the High Lord; his mindspeak warning had arrived barely in time for most of the Confederation forces to quit the dangerous area.

  Only a single, rearguard company had been still at the periphery of the trap when it was sprung. When the dust had settled, it could be seen that but a single member of that company had survived. And he was facing a cruel, gruesome death, his legs securely pinned under a huge, smoldering timber, unable to draw his sword and his dirk missing.

  Several men on the lip of the still-settling crater had attempted to throw the unfortunate officer a weapon that he might decently end his life ere the flames reached him, but the distance was too great, and Thoheeks Bili of Morguhn had sent a galloper to bring back an archer from the foot of the hill.

  Geros could not recall all of the beginning, could not remember hastily shedding most of his armor or clambering down the crumbling slope of the crater. But he would never forget that heat!

  It had lapped over him, enfolded him in its deadly embrace. It had savaged his flesh, set boots and clothing a-smolder, made each breath a searing agony.

  After an endless eternity of gingerly picking his way over an almost limitless expanse of steaming earth, jumbled stones and splintered timbers, the officer lay just before him, thanking him for his valor, asking for his dirk and urging him to return to safety.

  The few moments after that were very hazy in Geros’ memory . . . but in no one else’s. He recalled, however, half carrying, half dragging the young officer — Captain Lehzlee, heir to Ahrkeethoheeks Lehzlee — to where a host of willing hands assisted them both up to safety.

  But from that now cursed moment, the warm and natural comradery which he had so cherished had disappeared with the suddenness of a blown-out candle flame. The hard-bitten Freefighters, who reverenced damned few things, had seemed very uncomfortable in his presence, treating him with a deference bordering upon awe. And he hated it all!

  Pawl Raikuh went on, “I was there. I saw what you did . .
. though, as I said, I still scarce can credit the testimony of my own eyes. That timber was hardwood, looked to be solid oak, and near two feet thick, so it couldn’t have weighed less than a ton and a half, Harzburk measure, maybe two tons. Yet you raised it, man! With your bare hands, you lifted near a thousand kaiee-weight and held the damned thing long enough for the captain to inch his crushed legs from under it! In my near forty years as a Freefighter, I’ve seen many a wonder, but if Steel allows me that many more years, I’ll never again see an equal to my lord’s feat in the crater —”

  “Damn it!” Sir Geros’ fist crashed onto the table, setting cups and ewer to dancing. “Damn you, Pawl Raikuh! I be nobody’s lord, and you know it! I’m the same man I’ve always been, Geros Lahvoheetos, son of Vahrohnos Luhmahnt’s majordomo. My mother was an herb gardener, who harped and sang at feasts. And I, I was a gentleman’s valet, who played and sang when so ordered. It was by purest chance that I found myself thrust into the role of warrior.”

  Raikuh grinned. “And you took to it as naturally and easily as an otter kit swims. In short months, you were one of the best swordsmen in my troop.”

  “Only because I realized there was no way I could wriggle out of the situation . . . easily, and being a born coward, I wanted to stay alive. And the only way a warrior can be reasonably certain he’ll survive his next battle is to make himself a master of his weapons. But I am not, can never be, as you and Thoheeks Bili and those reared to the Sword. I don’t like fighting and killing, Pawl. I’ll never like it.

  “At least, when I was simply a Freefighter, I had the solace that when the rebellion was crushed, I’d be able to return to being what I had always been. But now, since they did these unwarranted things to me, I’ll be expected to swing Steel the rest of my life and to rear any sons I happen to sire to pursue like lives.

  “I say again, Pawl, I am no one’s lord. Rather am I a slave in detested bondage to an undeserved reputation, an unwanted title, a silver bauble and a couple of feet of sharp steel.”

  A feeling of fatherliness swept over the fiftyish captain. He reached across the table to pat Geros’ clenched fist lightly. “Son, you’ll not feel so in a year. Others have been similarly upset by the sudden grant of nobility . . . I’ve seen such. As for being no one’s lord, that same year will put the lie to that statement, I’ll warrant.”

  “Now what is that cryptic comment supposed to mean?” snapped Geros.

  Tracing designs in a puddle of spilled wine and regarding the new noble from beneath bushy brows, Raikuh spoke slowly. “Why just this, Geros. Duke Bili is not so mean as to give a faithful man rank without maintenance. Your present title is but a military one, and as certain sure as steel cuts to bone, you’ll be at least a vahrohneeskos of Morguhn — with a fine town and croplands and kine — by this time next year, mark my words. Nor be that all, I trow. . . .”

  Raising cup to lips, he took a long draught of the fine, strong wine, then continued. “That fiesty little bastard Thoheeks Hwahltuh of Vawn be proud as a solid-gold hilt, and he’ll not forsake an opportunity like this. After all, he can truthfully attest that your deeds were done in his service, too, since we all are fighting on what are his lands. And don’t you forget the House of Lehzlee, either. There be no richer or prouder house in the south of Karaleenos than Lehzlee, and you saved the life — at great personal risk — of the man who will one day be archduke and chief of that house. They’re not likely to let such go unrewarded.”

  Geros’ mind reeled. He had not even considered these possibilities. “But . . . but, Pawl, what will I do? I know nothing of farming.”

  Raikuh chuckled. “Damned few nobles do, son Geros. You’ll do what they all do, of course. You’ll find and hire a competent provost and a few overseers and a score or so over-age Freefighters to see the peace be kept. Then you’ll spend your days riding and hunting and begetting. You’ll sit in judgment in your town on market days, meet in council with your overlord and peers once each moon and ride with them once each year to the archduchy council, where you will deliver up your taxes for the previous year to the High Lord’s deputy.

  “And someday, Geros, when you’re a fat forty-odd, and your mind is filled with worry about the weather and the crops and outfitting your sons for the army and dowering your daughters well, then . . . mayhap, then, you’ll think on this eve. Think how foolishly you then thought, wished to once more be back with the Morguhn troop, swinging steel and taking blows as light-heartedly as you did twenty years before.”

  Ere Geros could frame an answer, his big servant, Sahndos, entered, ushering in one of Raikuh’s lieutenants, Krahndahl. The junior officer slapped gauntlet to breastplate in salute and announced, “My lord Geros, captain, Duke Bili summons all his nobles and officers to his pavilion, immediately, if you please.”

  Chapter II

  “And so, gentlemen.” the grave-faced young thoheeks soberly concluded, “we may, even now, be proceeding on borrowed time. Winter has ever been the favorite raiding season of the mountain folk, so the first blow could fall at any moment anywhere along more than five hundred miles of borderlands. That is why ending this siege quickly is so imperative.”

  “But Sun and Wind, Bili.” burst out old Komees Hari Daiviz of Morguhn, “to grant amnesty to my no-good brother and the rest of those treacherous, murdering swine? Whose harebrained idea was that?”

  “The High Lord’s!” snapped the Morguhn. “Present your objections to him, if you wish, Hari. But, I warn you, mine own did scant good, nor did those of the Duhnkin or the ahrkeethoheeks.”

  Ever the apologist in all matters concerning the Confederation he had so long served, retired Strahteegos Komees Djeen Morguhn, the thoheeks’ sixtyish cousin-german, nodded sagely, stated stiffly, “My lord thoheeks, the High Lord dare not concern himself with but this single, relatively unimportant facet of the overall problem. You see, the entire Confederation be his responsibility. I like pardoning known backstabbers no better than Hari, but I also can appreciate Lord Milo’s position.”

  Vahrohnos Spiros Morguhn, Bili’s second cousin, gingerly shifted on the padded litter which had conveyed him here, finally reaching down with both hands to ease his splinted and bandaged left leg into a more comfortable position. “But, dammit, Bili, how can we be expected to go traipsing off on a campaign into the mountains, or wherever, leaving our lands filled with unrepentant rebels and a batch of bloodthirsty priests? You’ve seen, the High Lord has seen, we all have seen what they did to Vawn. By my steel, they’ll not do the like to Morguhn!”

  “They’ll not get a chance to.” Bili shook his head. “It’s been decided that most of the rebel fighting men will be dragooned into the campaign force; dribbled out, a few to this unit, a few to that. The amnesty is to exclude the priests and monks; those bastards will spend the length of the campaign enjoying the comforts provided by our Morguhnpolis prison.

  “Noncombatants in Vawnpolis will remain there, as will a garrison of our troops. The city will be base supply for operations immediately west of Vawn.”

  Pawl Raikuh sighed. “Fortunes of war, I suppose. All us Freefighters had been hopefully anticipating an intaking, a sack, a bit of booty, some old-fashioned rapine. Well, there’ll be other wars . . . for some.”

  “How will we get word to the rebels that we now wish to treat?” This from Djaik Morguhn, Bili’s younger brother-war-trained, like Bili and all his other brothers, in the Middle Kingdoms; acknowledged, despite his bare fifteen years, as one of the three best swordsmen in all the besieging army.

  Vahrohneeskos Ahndros Theftehros of Morguhn was but distantly related to Bili, actually being more closely related to certain of the rebels, but, like Komees Djeen, he was a former Confederation Army officer . . . also, he was in love with one of Bili’s widowed mothers. Nonetheless, he had been occasionally sullen since, disregarding his advices and wishes, Bili and the High Lord had seen fit to honor and enoble his former servant, Geros.

  Smoothing back a lock of his raven’s-
wing hair with a languid gesture, he put in, “Yes, Bili, there is that factor, too. We have been anything but cordial in our responses to the two or three peace overtures the rebels have made. If, during the High Lord’s absence, you and the High Lady had seen fit to heed the expert advice which Komees Djeen and I proffered you . . .”

  Tried to ram down our throats, thought Bili, who sometimes of late had had to forcefully remind himself that this supercilious man had sat his horse knee to knee with him and the High Lord last summer at the Forest Bridge, and had suffered grievous wounds in his behalf. Ever since the vahrohneeskos had recovered sufficiently to join the army before Vawnpolis, he had been a divisive element among the nobles of Morguhn, immediately taking the part of any who opposed the young thoheeks and offering his own opposition when none other arose.

  “Kinsman.” said Bili, with as much forebearance and patience as he could muster, “none of us could have known that affairs would so arrange themselves, and it was the High Lord himself who rejected the first effort of the rebels to parley, ere the siege had even commenced. Him it was who first declared that we were to neither give nor ask quarter —”

  “Untrue!” snapped Ahndros coldly. “To the extent, at least, that it was you, with your barbaric, blood-hungry, northern notions of conduct, who put the idea into the High Lord’s head.”

  Bili shook his shaven poll bewilderedly. “Kinsman, I am afraid that you credit me with far more influence over the affairs of the mighty than ever I have owned . . . or wished to own.”

  “Have you not, my lord?” Ahndros sneered. “Did not the High Lord, on the morning which saw the breaking of the siege of your hall, allow you first to throw a childish temper tantrum and publicly, brutally, humiliate Komees Djeen, when he sagely advised you to await the arrival of Confederation Cavalry ere you pursued the rebels? Did not the High Lord then accompany you on that pursuit, riding as but another nobleman under your command?”