"Adams, Robert - Horseclans 01 - The Coming of the Horseclans" - читать интересную книгу автора (Adams Robert)

ЧHorseclans Proverb

The commander of the Gap-fort was a mercenary with a barbarian nameЧHwil Kuk. Manos did not feel that the man was properly subservient and would not have him around the place, insisting he camp with his men. Kuk was a widower and his 12-year-old son shared his life. When first he laid eyes on the towheaded, blue-eyed boy, Manos lusted for him. He suggested to Kuk that he take the boy; back with the army as his page, rear and educate him in the city of the High Lord, make a gentleman of him. Kuk understood; he had served some years in the capital and knew only too well of the unnatural passions of many of the Ehleenoee, wealthy ones in particular. Kuk refused politely, saying he had promised the boy's dead mother that they would stay together.

Manos ordered the noncom from his presence and sulked and brooded for three days. On the morning of the fourth, Hwil KukЧwho knew the country and spoke Old Merikan fluentlyЧwas ordered to take half his command through the Gap. He was to enter the nomads' camp and attempt to estimate their numbers, telling the chiefs that their approach had alarmed the Ehleenoee and that was why the army had been sent; but, if the tribe came in peace, they were more than welcome to come through the Gap, so long as they continued north or south and did not tarry in Kehnooryohs Ehlahs. He was to take along gifts for the chiefs and spend as much time as was required to lull them into the trap Manos' men were preparing.

The night of the fourth day, a detachment of Manos' bodyguard entered the main camp, seized Kuk's son, and bore him back to the Gap-fort.

Kuk and his party were well received by the Council of Chiefs, were honored and gifted and assured that, once through the Gap, the tribe would be bearing south. It had been prophesied that they would return to the Great Water whence they had come, but it was unnecessary to proceed in a straight line. Raids were one thing, but none of the chiefs was especially keen to come up against an army nearly as large as the entire tribe.

Feeling a bit like a Judas-goatЧfor he had truly liked his hosts and had been made to feel truly at home with themЧHwil Kuk led his men back into the Gap after two days. Halfway through, he was met by his second-in-command and the remainder of the Gap-fort garrison, who were mounted on stolen horses. When the first, wild rage of his grief over his son had spent itself, Kuk realized the sure consequences of returning into the clutches of his son's murderer. He decided to seek again the nomad camp. Once there, he would tell the chiefs the truth and, if allowed to do so, join with them. He absolved his men of their oaths to him, bidding them follow or not, as they wished. All forty followed. Their pay was far in arrears and they owed the Ehleenoee and the High Lord no service as they were all mercenaries, indigenous to the mountains of the Middle Domain, Karaleenos. While they served the Ehleenoee for gold, they neither liked nor respected them (for one thing, they felt dispossessed; the rich piedmont having once belonged to their race). They all respected Hwil Kuk and they hadЧto a manЧloved little Hwili, Kuk's shamefully murdered son.

Before the Council of Chiefs, Kuk bared his breast. He freely confessed his duplicity hi his earlier dealings with them, carefully detailing the strengths of the Ehleenoee hostЧand its weaknesses, chief among which was its inexperienced, hotheaded commander, the monster Manos. He told, too, of the preparations for ambushing the tribe as soon as most of it was through the Gap and massacring its warriors.

"Then," Kuk concluded, "it will be with you as it has been before with other Horseclans. After all the men are dead, your women will be raped to death or sold over the sea to brothels; your maidens will be enslaved as well, to receive the tainted seed of the devilish Ehleenoee; and your young boys. . . ." He broke off sharply, tears streaming down his cheeks. Then, clenching his big fists and squaring his shoulders, he forced himself to continue. "Your dear littls sons will be sold to brothels, too; but brothels of a different sort, where their immature bodies will sate the dark lusts of the unclean, unnatural beasts who call themselves Ehleenoee. I speak of certain knowledge, honorable chieftainsЧmy oath to Sun and Wind and Sword, on it My own little boyЧmy HwiliЧlies dead on the other side of the Gap, murdered by this same Lord Manos. When Ij would not give my son to his keepingЧknowing him for what he isЧhe first sent me to lie to you, then had his men to seize the child."

Hwil Kuk hung his head and sunk teeth into lip; blood trickled down his stubbled chin. When he raised his head again, his eyes were screwed shut. His quavering voice was
low but penetrating, and his facial muscles twitched with emotion.

"I have been told that my child's screams could be heard through all the camp. Then they suddenly ceased. The next morning, certain of my followers found Hwili's pitiful little corpse, flung onto the fort midden. They washed it and clothed it and . . . and buried it. Things had been done to my boy's body, terrible things. His . . . flesh had been torn, and my followers think that Lord Manos, uncaring after his hellish lusts were satisfied, allowed my Hwili to bleed to death."

Then Hwil Kuk's eyes opened and the fire of bloodlust-ing madness blazed from them. "Chieftains, if you would to the seaЧyour great waterЧyou must fight long and hard. It is that or return to the plains, for, in all the Ehleenoee lands, you will meet with the same. You owe me nothing, yet would I ask this of you: If it is your intent to fight, allow me and my followers to swing our swords beside you."

Henri, chief of Clan Kashul, was first to speak. "You claim that you lied before; perhaps you are lying now. What think you, War Chief?"

Knowing the Ehleenoee, as he did, Milo believed the man, but only a dramatic vindication would please and convince these chiefs. He arose and advanced to stand before Hwil Kuk. He looked into the ex-mercenary's eyes; they met his unwaveringly.

"Hwil Kuk," said Milo. "Will you submit to the Test of the Cat?"

Kuk cleared his throat. "I will!" he replied in a firm voice.

Horsekiller, who, as Cat Chief, missed but few meetings of the council, padded across the tent. On Milo's instructions, Kuk knelt and placed his head in Horsekiller's widespread jaws.

"You understand, Hwil Kuk, the cat has the power to read your thoughts. If this you have said is truth, you have nothing to fear. If not, his jaws will slowly crush your skull." But even as he spoke, he knew. Through Horse-killer, he too could enter the grief-stricken man's mind, endure with the cat the half-madness of Kuk's tortured thoughts. "Enough!" He mindspoke to Horsekiller.

The big cat gently released his grip and licked Kuk's face in sympathy. Losing one's kittens was never easy to bear.

Milo took Kuk's arm and raised him to his feet. "Kindred, this man has spoken truth. He has suffered much and it is right that he should shed the blood of those who helped to bring about that suffering. When we fight the Ehleenoee, as we must, he and his men will ride with me. As I am clanless, so too are they."

"How can we fight?" inquired Gil, Chief of Clan Marshul. "This man has told us the Ehleenoee lord leads between eighty and ninety hundreds of soldiers. We are forty-two clans, but our warriors number less than twenty-five hundreds. If we were able to surprise them, we would have a chance, but having to fight them at the place of their choosing Х Х ."

"But we won't," replied Milo.

Throughout the course of the next month, Lord Manos was harassed in every quarter. Demetrios' riders came almost every day with inquiries commands, and, as the month passed the halfway point, thinly veiled threats. The Theesispolis Kahtahphraktoee were grumbling; they wanted to get back to their garrison with its wine shops and bordellos. The army's mercenaries were grumbling, many of the units not having been paid for four months. His officers were grumbling, anxious to return to the comforts and civilized delights of the capital. The bulk of his army was heavy infantryЧlevied from the areas lying east and south of the capital, and called out, equipped, and armed by the High LordЧand they were grumbling. Most were peasant farmers and harvest time was near; there was much to do. The barbarians just sat on the other side of the Gap. They grazed their herds on the thick luxuriant grass of the mountain valley, and it seemed as if they never intended to move on, into the fidgeting jaws of Manos' trap.

Manos had waited a week for Kuk to return, then had sent out a dozen cavalrymen under command of a minor noble of Theesispolis, one Herakles, to search and inquire his whereabouts. Lord Herakles possessed a working knowledge of Trade Merikan, and he and his men were well received by the nomads. He was informed that Kuk and his men had come, lived with the nomads a few days, and thenЧafter having been joined by another party of equal sizeЧhad ridden away south, saying nothing to anyone. Herakles and his men saw but few adult warriors about the camp and, when they asked, were informed that most of the fighters had ridden north on a raid-in-force some three weeks before; there had been no word from the fifteen hundred or so men, but no one seemed alarmed, not really expecting them back for at least another moon. The camp and herds were watched over by old men and young boysЧand the grace and beauty of these nomad boys sent the hot blood pounding in Lord Herakles' temples.

His report was pleasing to Lord Manos, who was relieved that the barbarian Kuk would not be back. Head over heels in debt, as were most of the libertine nobles of the capital, Manos had no money for a blood-price and would have had to have executed Kuk on some contrived charge. Besides, it was not his fault anyway! Had the silly little swine not resisted so stubbornly, he'd not have been rent so seriously; he would not have been torn to such an extent that not even the physician and his cauteries could halt the bleeding. Manos did not blame himself. It was the will of the gods, and what was one barbarian boy, more or less. There would always be more to his kind; they tended to breed like rabbits.