Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1986 (24 page)

“I see,” Wulf said after a moment. “Come on, let’s
move ahead and join the Cahena. Guide us, Zeoui.”

Silent again, he rode along. Bhakrann came to his
side.

“Too bad,” Bhakrann said.
“Too
bad about Daphne.
She was a fine girl, a brave girl.”

“She was so good,” said Wulf, striving against his
tears.

Bhakrann glanced keenly at him in the night.
“Yes,” he agreed.

The bloodred sun glowed in the east from which
they had fled when they came to the campground of the Cahena and her surviving
followers.

It was a disorganized camp, men hunched around
little fires, gnawing at scraps of food. Some of them told Wulf about what had
happened on the height above Thrysdus. The Moslems had stormed up and killed and
killed, until those who escaped the killing ran. As for Thrysdus, women and
children and other noncombatants had fled earlier, nobody knew where. The
Moslems had taken Thrysdus back, would call it El-Djem again, would revel in
its plunder.

While Bhakrann and Wulf listened, a messenger came
to say that the Cahena summoned Wulf. He followed the messenger, leading his
horse. Her red banner drooped limply. She rose from beside a little blaze of
twigs.

Inside her blue robe, her figure was noble. Under
her white scarf, her face looked drawn, plaintive. “Wulf,” she greeted him.

“Lady Cahena.” He knelt to kiss her shadow.

“Sit with me,” she said. “Have you eaten? I have
some fruit here. What happened with you and your men?”

“We failed,” he replied shortly. “We crumpled
their flank a little, but we didn’t turn it enough. While we tried, their main
force tackled you, miles away.” He scowled. “We failed. I didn’t do what I set
out to do.”

Her head bowed. “Such hosts of Moslems,” she
whispered.

“Too many for us.”

“My fault.”
She looked up at him again. “I drove my people away with
my mad order of destruction. If I hadn’t, we could have kept Lartius, kept all
those other deserters.
Enough fighting men to drive the enemy
back into
Egypt
again.”

Her hand was on Wulf’s arm. It trembled there.

“You’re all I have left,” she said. “I’ve lost. I
don’t hear voices, see visions. All the gods are gone, except maybe Allah — he
came here with the Moslems. Should we put trust in Allah now?”

“We’d better trust ourselves.” He gazed here and
there across the camp. “They must have killed most of you.”

She took her hand back and cupped her chin in it.
“They killed lots of us, but lots more just wandered off, trying to hide.”

Mallul came and sat down with them. “What now?” he
asked.

“What now?” repeated the
Cahena.

“We keep retreating,” said Wulf. “Get to Arwa.
That’s a rough part of the world, all ridges and hollows, but we know it and
the Moslems don’t. If we can get to where they can come at us only a few at a
time, maybe we have a chance.”

“Not much of a chance,” said Mallul. “They fight
like devils. They think if they die fighting for Mohammed, they’ll go to
paradise, all among their beautiful houri concubines.”

Khalid must have told Mallul about that, but
Mallul had not mentioned Khalid, not before the Cahena.

“I’ll talk to you in private,” the Cahena said to
Wulf, and Mallul got up, bowed, and walked away. The Cahena gazed at Wulf. Her
eyes were weary, darkly circled.

“What if I said I’m sorry?” she asked. “Sorry for
being weak, for what I believed, what I did?”

“You did what you thought was right,” said Wulf.
“Maybe you’ve changed your mind, but at the time you thought it was right.”

“Sorry,” she said again. “I’ve lived long years
without saying I was sorry for anything.”

“You’ve ruled well,” said Wulf.

“Until I listened to a false
voice.”
Her slim, tawny hand was on his
great, dinted one. “There’s been talk about that creature you destroyed and
burned, up there at the Tomb of the Christian Woman. That maybe magic left the
land when she died. But magic left when I turned away from voices I knew and
listened to a voice that lied.”

“Khalid,” Wulf decided to say at last.

“He turned against
us,
after all he said and did to make us think he was with us.” She took her hand
back and clenched it until the knuckles turned white. “I wish he was dead.”

“If I get within reach of him, he’ll be dead,”
said Wulf evenly.

“Wulf!” she cried his name. “Do you remember what
we were to each other?
Back in Tiergal?”

“How could I forget?”

“I was deceived. I was foolish. But can
we
again —”

“Lady Cahena,” he interrupted, “
don’t
talk of it now. We’d better keep retreating. If what followers you brought this
far are rested, if their horses can travel, head for Arwa. I’ll keep my own men
here for another hour and then follow you like a rear guard. Up yonder, we’ll
find another campsite.”

“How wise you are,” she said caressingly. “How
good and strong you are. Why didn’t I remember that? I almost lost you.”

“You and your men had better get started.”

They both rose. He kicked dirt over the fire. She
seemed as though she would say something more, but he bowed and walked away. He
looked back to see Mallul carrying the limp red banner.

Among his own men, he talked to Bhakrann. Some of
the command had drifted away — deserters, Bhakrann called them. Cham was there,
and Zeoui. What had happened to Tifan nobody knew, but Cham thought he had died
in that assault on the Moslem flank. Wulf waited an hour before he ordered the
squadrons to follow the Cahena as a rear guard.

Rain came up suddenly, drenching cloaks. The march
fared on and away from that rain, and again the sun was hot and bothersome. On
they strove, with only brief rest stops, and in the afternoon they caught up
with the Cahena’s followers. Ketriazar and Bhakrann rode on either side of
Wulf. Both scowled gloomily.

“When will we see those Moslems, and how will we
fight them?” Ketriazar wondered.

“Let’s hope we’ll be on Arwa by the time they
come,” said Wulf. “Be on ground we know and can use to our advantage. We’ll be
badly outnumbered.”

“A lot of our people feel they’ve beaten already,”
said Ketriazar. “They keep slipping away. I hate that. I’m staying with the
Cahena — it’s too late for me to do anything else.”

“Too late for almost anything,” said Bhakrann.
“But if we die fighting, that’s a good death and a quick one. I’ve expected it
ever since I was a boy.”

And the red glint was in his beard.

“I’ll say that, too,” said Wulf. “But I haven’t
seen Khro skulking anywhere near.”

“Don’t say that name,” warned Ketriazar.

“Why not say Khro’s name? Why not remind him?”
demanded Bhakrann. “I’m like Wulf — I’m past being afraid of him.”

Djalout came on his mule to speak to Wulf. He
sagged in his saddle, his beard looked limp. “Who could have predicted this
disaster?” he asked. “I couldn’t, and usually I predict better than most.”

“Predictions are in short supply with us,” said
Wulf. “Maybe the Moslems are better at those than we are.”

“They leave everything to
kismet,”
said
Djalout.
“To fate.
Which just now
seems to favor them.
Here, will you have a swallow of wine? I brought a
good article away from Thrysdus.”

He passed a leather bottle across to Wulf, who
drank. Djalout was right, it was good wine. Ketriazar and Bhakrann had
mouthfuls, and Djalout took the bottle back and drank in turn. How gray his
face was, how hollow his eyes.

“It seems shorter, going back,” he said.
“If we get back.”

They marched until sundown and dismounted where
the ground rose away westward toward Arwa. Water was there, and stretches of
grass fit for grazing horses. The Cahena’s standard was
planted,
a sort of tentlike structure of cloaks and saddle blankets was put up on poles.
Messengers summoned Wulf, Bhakrann, and Ketriazar. The Cahena sat by a little
fire, a mantle drawn over her blue robe. Djalout half crouched at her left. She
motioned Wulf to the place at her right. Mallul came also, and several
subchiefs.

“Thank you all for standing by me,” the Cahena
addressed them, clear-voiced.
“Though maybe my thanks isn’t
much anymore.
Wulf, we look to you for advice on what to do now.”

“I’d say, seek some point where the enemy will
have trouble closing in,” offered Wulf at once.
“A rocky
height where we can make our defense.”

“Lady Cahena, we’re a day or so ahead of them,”
said Djalout. “Isn’t that right, Bhakrann?”

“So I hear from my scouts,” Bhakrann replied.

“That’s time enough to find proper ground,” said
Ketriazar.

“Why meet them at all?” asked Djalout. “Why not go
over Arwa, off to the Atlas mountain country? They wouldn’t even know where
that was.”

“No,” said the Cahena flatly, and her eyes glowed
like chips of jet.

They stared. Wulf wondered who had come to stand
behind her, what tall shadowy thing.

“No,” she said again. “I’m through running like a
lost sheep ahead of wild dogs. I won’t run any farther than where we are now.”

Wulf got up. That shape behind the Cahena, it was
towering, its head wore horns. He knew what it was.

“I’ll be back in a moment,” said Wulf, and took a
step. The horned one drew away into a scrub of eucalyptus. He moved after it.

“Khro,” he addressed it in a whisper. It did not
wait. He moved through the eucalyptus after it. In a clear space beyond, it
retreated.

“Choosing those who’ll die, Khro?” Wulf asked. “Do
you choose me?”

Khro vanished, like smoke. Wulf came back to the
gathering around the little fire.

“I thought someone was listening,” he said.

They all waited for the Cahena to speak. She
spoke:

“Maybe some of my sight of the future has come
back. All of you can run if you want to. Go to the Atlas, go anywhere and leave
me alone here. I’ve been a queen. I’ve ruled the lmazighen, the Christians,
even the Moslems here and there. I’ve lived as a queen. I’m ready to die as a
queen. They can kill me. I’ll make them kill me.”

Was Khro back? A shadow flitted. Wulf could not be
sure.

“Maybe the Moslem god, their Allah, is here now,”
said the Cahena. “So go on, leave me here alone.”

“Leave you?” repeated Mallul.

“You, my son Mallul, ride back and meet those
Moslems. Tell them to explain their faith to you, say you’ll be a Moslem like
them. Ride
fast,
carry a white cloth in your hand for
a sign of truth. That’s an order, Mallul. I order you to join them.”

Mallul got to his feet.
“When?”

“Now.
At once.
There’s enough of a moon
to show you the way. Get your horse and go.”

Mallul shrugged. “Good-bye,” he said to all of
them, and walked slowly out of the group.

“You, Wulf,” the Cahena said. “You go, too.”

He actually laughed. “Do you think that they’d
accept me? After they’ve watched me kill so many of them? No, Lady Cahena, I
stay here. I’ll die here, if it’s my time to die.”

“I’ll die here, too,” said Djalout from where he
sat. He crossed his arms on his updrawn knees and put his face down on them.
The Cahena gazed into the coals of the fire.

“How many men do we have left?” Wulf asked.

“I don’t know exactly, but not
very many,”
said Ketriazar. “They’ve
been drifting away from us all the way here. Riding off one by one, or in
little parties, thinking they can pretend to be simple, peaceable native people
if they run into any Moslems. The ones that are staying are mostly my tough old
Medusis, they’re used to trouble.”

“Used to trouble,” repeated Bhakrann. “So am I.”

“You men will need rest,” said the Cahena. “The
enemy will be here tomorrow. Go get some sleep. Wulf, will you wait?”

The others got up, all but Djalout, who sat where
he was, his head bowed. They went away to wherever they were camped. The Cahena
moved to the hanging that made a flap to her makeshift tent.

“Will you come in, Wulf?” she asked him, half
shyly.

He followed her. Inside was only the faintest wash
of light. She stood there, almost against him. He heard a whisper of fabric as
she dropped her mantle.

“Wulf, shall I ask your forgiveness?”

“Who am I to forgive you?” he said. “I’ve loved
you.”

“Loved!” she half wailed the word. “Loved — that
means you don’t love me anymore?”

“It seemed to me that I had your permission to
go.”

“You have my permission to come back. Wulf, we’ve
condemned ourselves to die at the hands of the Moslems. But now, tonight —
can’t we live?”

Her slender hand drew his big one to her. She had
opened her robe. She put his palm to the swell of her naked breast. The nipple
rose tautly. She breathed deeply.