The defenders, fighting heavy odds, included a few Freefighters-Rahdzburkers, from the look of them and a few more hastily armed merchants, ebonskmned men garbed in the style of the Kahleefait of Zahrtohgah. That the tiny force were no mean warriors was attested by the dozen or so still or twitching brigands who were scattered about the ground before them. Even as he watched, a helmeted merchant fitted a broadbladed dart to a throwing-stick and sent a hefty robber crashing into the mud, thick fingers clawing at the steel sunk deep in his chest. But in the same time, a Freefighter and two merchants were hacked to earth. The defenders were fighting a lost battle; the odds were just too heavy to allow of aught but defeat and death for the doughty little band. Unless …
Bili’s thoughts raced. Not all the normal patrols were gone from this part of the Kingdom of Harzburk, but they no longer rode on any sort of schedule, for they had too much ground to cover with too few men. Therefore, these bandits were taking a considerable risk to attack a merchant train in broad daylight; that must be the reason for the roadguards below the hill.
Grinning with the seed of a chancy plan, he backed Mahvros a little way back into the woods, then lifted to his lips his silver mounted bullshorn. Filling his lungs, he sounded the familiar call, then again and a third time.
Hefting his axe, he next gave Mahvros the signal to charge, adding, “Make much noise, Brother, as much as a half troop of dragoons!”
Then it was over the crest and out of the woods and barrelling down the steep slope toward the raging battle. The stallion’s hooves were a bass thunder through the swirling groundmist.
Raising his heavy axe and whirling it over his head, Bili shouted, “UP, UP HARZBVRK! UP HARZBURK! FIRST SQUAD LEFT! FOURTH SQUAD RIGHT! ARCHERS TO THE FLANKS! UP HARZBURK!”
From below came a confused babble of shouts, then one cracked tenor rang above the rest, “. . . git t’hell outa here! That there’s Sir Hinree’s Troop, I reca’nize his black horse!”
Then Bili found himself among a milling cluster of brigands. A shaggy pony went down, bowled over by Mahvros’s impetus, and the savage warhorse went at the downed animal and man with teeth and hooves. Bili laid about him with the doublebitted axe, parrying swords on its steel shaft and emptying saddle after saddle. All at once, there were no riders before him, only a couple of groaning, dying bandits on the ground.
The opaque mist which had so far been but patches had thickened and coalesced since he had launched his reckless charge. He almost axed an unmounted man who appeared on his right, before he recognized the armor and gear of a Rahdzburker Freefighter. The stranger stopped long enough to dispatch a wounded brigand, then limped smiling up to Bili.
“I never thought I’d be glad to hear the Harzburker warcry, my lord, not after Behreesburk; but by the Sacred Sword, you and your troop could not have been better come! But . . .” He glanced about him bewilderedly. “… where is your troop, sir?”
Showing every tooth, Bili chuckled, “You’re looking at it, Freefighter. I be no patrol, only a traveler like your employer.”
CHAPTER I
Aside from rare border raids, there had been no real warfare within the boundaries of Bili Morguhn’s homeland for nigh a hundred years, though its armies and fleets were seldom idle. Many hostile peoples pressed upon its borders and the sealanes required constant patrolling. The Confederation, toward which he rode in such haste, was the largest principality in all the known lands. Despite the Traderoads, which were much better maintained there than in other lands, months were necessary for traders to travel from one end of the Confederation to the other. Even messengers of the High Lord, who sometimes covered a hundred miles in a day, could not go from end to end in much under fifteen days.
As a consequence, news was always late, and life moved slowly and unhurriedly away from the capital of the Confederation or the port cities or the archducal capitals. The Duchy of Morguhn was no exception; the peace and ordered tranquility well suited the father of Bili and his eight brothers, giving him the time needed to devote himself exclusively to his lands and his books.