Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1986 (2 page)

They had been riding after Wulf ever since the
summer sun had risen behind sacked
Carthage
. Now that sun was a hot disk at the top of the pale sky.
Its rays raked the sullenly scrubby plain and the hammered track that ran west
by south toward remote hunches of mountains. Whenever he urged the tall bay
horse to a canter, they picked up speed two furlongs behind. When he slowed
down, so did they, but not quite to his slowness. They gained. Either their
horses stayed fresher than his or they cared less for their horses than they
cared about catching Wulf.

For the fiftieth time he peered over the broad
cliff of his shoulder. Four of them back
there,
and
somehow they didn’t seem to be Moslems. What did they want of him?

Whatever they wanted, he’d better find out before
his sweating horse fagged out in the hot, dry air. If he must fight four
mounted men, he didn’t want to fight them on foot. Reining around, he sat his
saddle and let the horse breathe gratefully. He’d begun to love that horse
since he had taken it from its Moslem master in a black hour before dawn, had
taken, too, the Moslem’s cloak and turban to look like something other than a
fugitive resident of Carthage. A stolen horse carries you well, Wulf had once
been told by a Hun of Constantinople’s imperial guard. Weary as the beast was
from carrying Wulf’s big body so many miles, it knew a fight was coming and was
not afraid.

Wulf loosened his straight sword in its sheath,
and from a skin bottle he sipped water to churn inside his mouth. He looked
this way, then that. The road had roughened to a sandy track across the rolling
land with its brittle, dry grass. A mile or so to the left
rose
a tuft of palms with a little clay-brown hut beneath it. No hiding place, not
even a big rock to set his back to, nothing except those pursuers coming
nearer, while Wulf listened to his horse breathe. He
squinted
his eyes to see what he must face.

They weren’t
Moslems,
they were Moors, coming at him. Wild Moors, he judged, none of the soft
hangers-on he had seen in
Carthage
. They wore dull-hued capes with hoods thrown back from
shaggy heads. To their left arms were strapped painted shields, and each right
hand poised a javelin. Nearer still, and he saw their roughly made saddles and
their clumsily booted feet stuck into leather stirrup loops. Their bearded
faces scowled. Warriors these, ready for war.

They spread into open order to approach. Wulf
wished he had a shield, too, but felt lucky to have a sword. If only they
didn’t cast their javelins all at once, if only they came to close quarters.
Then a swift spurring charge to their right, outside the flanker’s shield and a
slash or thrust for the life. With one down, whirl at the others. He might get
a second of them quickly and, with luck, a third — he didn’t often need more
than one fair chance at a man. With three down, the fourth would be no problem.

They had slowed their panting horses to a walk.
They meant to take their time with him, savoring what they would do.

“I am Wulf the Saxon!” he shouted in the language
they would know, braving his name at them in their own fashion. They came to a
halt, fifteen paces away.

“He doesn’t talk like a Moslem,” said the swarthy,
spidery man at the left.

“He has a Moslem saddle and Moslem clothes,” said
another.

“I took them to get past the guards around
Carthage
,” said Wulf, glad of any chance to parley. “I’m a Saxon, I
told you. I fought the Moslems at
Carthage
and, after they took the town, I sneaked around like a
snake, looking for a chance to get away.”

“He’s lying,” said the man at the left. “I’ve
talked to people who watched from outside. The only Carthaginians who escaped
were rich ones who got places on the ships before the Moslems closed in. Those
Moslems killed all the men who were left, raped all the women.”

“They didn’t kill me,” said Wulf. “I slung my
sword behind and put a mantle over it, and I moved around carefully. When
Moslems came frowning, I said,
‘Allahu akhbar,’
and they thought I was
a convert. It was like that for two days — no, three. Last night I got over the
wall and started away on foot. A Moslem
came
riding
after me. I got him by the leg and dragged him off his horse and put my sword
into him. This is his horse and these are his clothes and this is his blood on
them. But you’re Moors, and I don’t have to dress like a Moslem among you.”

He raked the turban off with his bridle arm and
shook down his tawny, sweaty hair. It was cut ear-length at back and sides and
banged in front, to frame the flushed rectangle of his face. He shrugged out of
the cloak, showing his embroidered tunic with a torn right sleeve.

“No, he’s not a Moslem,” said a man with red
lights in his beard. “He’s smooth-shaven, or he was a few days back.”

The man nudged his horse’s brown flank and came
closer, staring at Wulf. His hard, bony face was chopped with scars. Its hairy
chin narrowed forward from massive jaws. High cheekbones and heavy brows
clamped blazing blue eyes. His nose was as lean as a knife blade. Jeweled plugs
winked at his earlobes. “I’m Bhakrann,” he said. “Stop calling us
Moors
. The Romans call us that.”

“The Arabs call you Berbers,” said Wulf.

“That means the voice of a lion, and we can be
lions. We call ourselves the Imazighen. That was our name since the world
began. Our tribe of the Imazighen is the Djerwa.”

“I’ve heard some talk about the Djerwa,” said
Wulf, looking from one to another, his hand close to his sword hilt.

“He wears a Greek tunic,” said the gaunt man. “I
don’t like Greeks either. They’re too apt to change sides. I say he’s a spy for
those Moslem bastards, back there burning
Carthage
down.”

“Can a Saxon fight?” inquired Bhakrann, as though
he hoped so, and Wulf spread his hard lips in a grin to show his square teeth.

“Try me,” he invited cheerfully.
“One of you after another, on all of you at once if the Djerwa
don’t fight fair.”

The gaunt man at the left hurled his javelin.

Instantly Wulf rocked to his right. As the javelin
sang past, he shot out his left hand and clutched it in midair. All four of the
Djerwa yelled. Wulf studied the weapon quickly. It was five feet long, and its
wrought-iron head made up a third of that length. The point and both edges were
rigorously whetted. The tough, oiled wood of the haft was clamped with turns of
copper wire, about an inch apart. Into the butt was set a heavy iron spike.
Poising it, Wulf grinned dryly at the man who had thrown it.

“Sell me your javelin.” He spoke the worst insult
a man of that race could hear.

The man’s face knotted in fury, then went blank
and open-mouthed. For Bhakrann suddenly roared with laughter.

“Greek or Moslem or Saxon, he’s not afraid,”
Bhakrann whooped.
“Hai,
ready of hand and tongue!”
His deep-set eyes twinkled. “I might approve of this Wulf — didn’t you say that
was your name? You make jokes in the face of death.”

“That was no joke,” snarled the one whose javelin
Wulf had caught.

“You started it, Cham,” said Bhakrann, still
laughing. “Let’s say he finished it, without feeding your javelin back to you.
Maybe we’ll all be friends yet.” Again the red glint in his beard as he cocked
his head.
“Wulf the Saxon, eh?
You’re right, you’d
hardly be a Moslem spy, wearing Moslem clothes and riding a Moslem saddle.”

“I needed those to help me get away,” said Wulf
again, still poising the javelin. If they made a rush, a quick throw might
pierce Bhakrann, then his sword against the others. But there was no rush, not
while Bhakrann smiled like that.

“Tell us how you did get clear,” Bhakrann invited.
“You only said you killed one of them outside
Carthage
.”

“I killed several inside
Carthage
, while they were taking it.” Wulf began to feel easier,
though not much. “I commanded some half-born, half-bred volunteers —
shopkeepers, porters and so on. The enemy got in and my men ran and I couldn’t
fight all those people alone. So I ran, too, and hid awhile under a heap of
baskets in a shed. Then I came up, holding up a finger and saying
‘Allah.’”

“And stayed several days,” said Bhakrann, holding
his javelin but holding it low. “Did you hear them talk? Do you know Arabic as
well as you
know
Imazighen?”

“I’ve always learned languages quickly. I heard
some officers talking with their general, on the street as I passed by. He said
he wanted
Carthage
totally ruined,
then
he’d lead
his army out to conquer the country. He questioned some prisoners.”

“Their general,” Bhakrann echoed. “Isn’t his name
Hassan ibn an-Numan? What does he look like, and what did he ask about?”

“He’s middle-sized, with a gray beard,” said Wulf.
“He has a green turban — he must have been to
Mecca
. He asked those prisoners who was the greatest prince
among the Moors.”

“The Imazighen,” Cham corrected him sourly.

“He called them Berbers. One prisoner said that
the greatest leader, the most powerful, was a queen called the Cahena.”

“That prisoner told the truth,” said another
rider, a man with a long face and a long beard.

“What else did he tell those Moslems?” asked
Bhakrann.

“He said that the Cahena ruled all the tribes on
Arwa, a mountain some days of travel off yonder.” Wulf jerked his head
westward.
“That if they could conquer her and her people, no
others would give him much trouble.”

Bhakrann gazed at Wulf. “Do you know who the
Cahena is?”

“I couldn’t help but hear about her.”

“Ahi,”
crooned Bhakrann. “What did you hear?”

“Cahena means sorceress in Arabic.”

“It means prophetess in Hebrew,” said Cham.
“Priestess.”

“I’ve wondered about that,” said Wulf. “I’ve never
heard that the Jews had priestesses.”

“We’re the Imazighen,” said Bhakrann. “We know
Jewish beliefs, but we have other beliefs, too.”

“And I’ve heard that she’s more than a hundred
years old.”

“Nothing like that old,” said Bhakrann. “What
else?”

“That she beat and killed other Moslem generals
who came here — Okba ibn Nafa and Zoheir ibn Cais. That she drove the Moslems
out of their holy city Cairouan. I’d heard that before, and the prisoner told
it again. I don’t think the Cahena’s name was new to Hassan.”

“Just what is her name exactly?” challenged
Bhakrann. “She’s called the Cahena — prophetess or sorceress or priestess,
whatever you like — but what’s her real name?”

Wulf shook his head, and his sweaty hair flopped.
“I never heard it.”

“I never heard it either,” said the long-faced
Djerwa.

“Her name isn’t spoken,” explained Bhakrann,
sitting his horse easily by now. “She’s called the Cahena, that’s all. If
anybody says her true name out loud, he dies.” Bhakrann peered under a broad
palm. “I see trees and a house yonder. Let’s dismount and lead our horses
there. They’re tired. They can drink, and we can talk.”

Wulf dismounted with the others and gave the
javelin back to Cham, who grimaced. The four Djerwa slung their shields to
their saddles, and Wulf took time to see that the shields were of thickened
leather, rimmed in iron or brass and painted with geometric figures. The
exposed left arms of the four displayed scabbarded knives strapped to the
forearms. They tramped toward the cluster of palms, leading their horses. Wulf
took time to study these, too.

They were all smaller than
his
own
bay. They were lean and stringy, and would not have been lovely even
if they had been well groomed. The saddles were high-pomeled, with girths both
forward and to the rear. Behind each cantle rode a cloth-bound bundle.

“All right, what
do you
think of our horses?” asked Bhakrann, walking at Wulf’s left. Cham moved at
Wulf’s right. Wulf felt escorted, perhaps guarded.

“I doubt if they could jump a wall or a hollow as
well as a horse from
Arabia
,” replied Wulf.

“But they can last longer on a journey,” said
Bhakrann. “They don’t need much to
eat,
they’ve slept
in the open all their lives. They run well — we kept up with you all the way
from outside
Carthage
. By tonight they’ll have gone about fifty miles, and
tomorrow they’ll be ready to start again. I wonder if yours will feel up to
it.”

Which meant that Wulf and his
horse would be with them tomorrow.