Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1986 (5 page)

“Now let’s have our supper,” she said.

As though the others had been waiting for her
word, they all reached for the twigs with meat skewered on them. Someone passed
a loose-woven basket of flat cakes.
Wulf.
took
meat — it was goat, he saw — and a cake of.
barley
bread. Ketriazar offered him a leather bottle and a
brass cup, and he poured wine for himself. It was sharp but good. All ate
hungrily, except the Cahena.

She took no meat. She barely nibbled at a handful
of dried figs and broken morsels of bread, and sipped slowly at her cup of
wine. Silence all around while they ate. At last the Cahena wiped her hands on
a white cloth and spoke.

“Two scouts have come back,” she said. “They say
that three thousand or so Moslems are camped at the eastern end of that pass,
with their own scouts into it. We don’t have as many as that, but we’ll face
them.”

“Yes,” agreed Mallul, as though dutifully.

The Cahena turned to Wulf. “I knew you’d come to
us,” she addressed him. “I have voices to tell me things. I want to hear more
about the Moslems. Meanwhile, you’ve seen a little of us Imazighen. What do you
think about us?”

“I ask myself about your weapons,” he said
carefully.

“What about our weapons?”

“I haven’t seen all your men, of course, but those
I did see haven’t enough javelins.”

“Not enough javelins?” Yaunis half cried. “Every
man has two and hits what he throws at.”

“Which leaves him only one javelin to stab with,”
said Wulf. “The Moslems have bows, and they’re good with them. But one missile
to a man doesn’t seem enough to me.”

“We’ve always fought or hunted with two javelins,”
said big Ketriazar, shifting his pitted face in the fireglow. “We’ve beaten the
Moslems with two javelins apiece before this.”

“If I’m allowed to advise you —” began Wulf.

“You’re here to advise us,” the Cahena assured
him. “You seem to know various fighting methods.”

“I say that each man should have several
javelins,” insisted Wulf.
“Four, perhaps five.”

“Five?” repeated Bhakrann. “When we all hit our
marks?”

“You don’t all hit your marks,” Wulf said flatly.
“Yesterday we fought those scouts. Four of you threw javelins, and only two
went home. That’s only half of you hitting the mark.”

“Hai!”
cried Bhakrann. It might have been agreement, it might have been embarrassment.

“It takes time to make a javelin,” put in
Ketriazar. “It needs as much skill to make it as to use it. We can’t make more
just now.” He drank wine. “You say they have bows and arrows. What else?”

“Swords,” said Wulf. “Good swords.”

“Here’s a Moslem sword,” said Mallul, baring his
weapon to gleam in the firelight. “We’ve taken a number of their swords.”

“How well do you use them?” Wulf inquired.

“None of us as well as you
do
,”
answered Bhakrann for them all. “My brothers, this Wulf’s sword strikes like a
snake. I’ve seen him at work.”

“It will be javelins against swords,” said Wulf.
“Again I say
,
I wish we had more javelins to strike
them and leave fewer to bring their swords close.”

“You talk like one of us.” Yaunis smiled. “You’ve
been here just long enough to eat and drink, but you sound Imazighen.”

“You want to beat the Moslems and so do I,”
returned Wulf. “That makes some kind of kinship.”

“I’ll vouch for Wulf,” said Bhakrann. “I’ve liked
him from when I first saw him handle weapons and heard him speak.
Cahena,
let me say that whoever distrusts him does the same
to me.”

“You don’t have to say that, Bhakrann,” her soft
voice replied. “We need Wulf, to help destroy as much of this advance party as
we can, leave only a few to run back and tell
Carthage
how badly they were beaten, and give us a chance to gather
our own big army. I’ve already sent messengers to alert the men from everywhere
on Arwa, from Thrysdus south of here, from the towns on the coast. Because the
Moslems think that if they wipe us out, there’ll be no more danger to them.”

“I was there when Bhakrann killed Okba,” said
Ketriazar, deep in his chest. “I was there when we killed Zoheir. I’ll be there
when we beat them this time.”

The Cahena’s burning eyes roved around the circle.
“If we’re through eating, I’ll say good night.”

They got to their feet, Wulf among them.

“Stay here, Wulf,” she bade him. “I want to talk
more.”

The others filed out without speaking. The Cahena
motioned for Wulf to sit down again. She leaned intently toward him.

“Some of those chiefs were slow to believe you,
but I believe you,” she said. “My voices say that you are wise and brave. You’re
right about the javelins, though we can’t get those just now. But tell me about
the Moslem horses.”

“You know by now that their horses are good,” he
said. “Horses from
Arabia
, better in most ways than yours. I know that your horses
live hard and can travel, but the Moslems have bigger ones, stronger in a
charge. I got out of
Carthage
on a captured Arabian horse, and it’s better for war than
any of those in Bhakrann’s party that found me.”

“What’s the Moslem way of battle?”

“In the open, they like to form a long line of
horsemen and charge, with more close columns behind, ready to gallop for any
point where they can help the most. They close on the flanks if they can, to
crumple the enemy formation.”

“We’ll keep them from doing that,” she said.
“We’ll choose the ground this side of the pass and let them ride out to us.”

“You’re right, Cahena,” said Wulf.

She smiled at him. “Then we’ll start when the moon
is high.”

She rose. Her shadow fell close to Wulf. He bowed
on his hands and knees and kissed the earth where her shadow was.

“Get up, Wulf,” said her voice above him.

He did so. She smiled radiantly. He saw how white
and small and even her teeth were, how beautiful she was.

“You didn’t do that when we first met,” she said
with a hint of a laugh. “I knew you didn’t know our customs.”

Out came her slim hand. He took it, wondering if
he should kiss it, too, but she laid her other hand over his, pressing gently.

“That’s a warrior’s hand,” she said.
“Strong for fighting, sure for thinking.
You’ll ride beside
me when we fight the Moslems.”

“Ride with you? You’ll be in this battle?”

“I always lead my men.” Her eyes swam in their own
brilliance. “I’ve led in many battles, ever since I was a young girl. And I’ve
always won.”

“Bhakrann and the others say you have more than
human wisdom, Cahena,” he said.

“I can judge situations, foresee problems, and
decide how to meet them.” She looked at him all the time. “You speak Imazighen
well, better than most foreigners.”

That, he judged, was to stop his talking about
her. “I learn languages quickly,” he said. “Frankish, Greek, Latin, Arabic,
Hebrew. And I can write those languages, too.”

“You’re a learned man. Good night, Wulf.”

She turned and paced toward the makeshift tent.
How gracefully she moved. He walked out of the enclosure.

She was like no woman he had ever seen. She had
deliberately shown him her womanness, to awe him, maybe to overwhelm him. That
must be part of why her men worshipped her, for the woman she was as well as
for the queen and prophetess and commander she was. She had turned her light on
him because she wanted him with her.
For what?

The moonlight softly bleached the land. Wulf
passed the silent sentinels. Up the slope to westward sprawled the little camps
of the men. Someone was singing.

“Wulf.”

Bhakrann came striding. Wulf turned his steps that
way. Bhakrann stopped, half leaning on his javelin. His eyes caught a glitter
from the moon.

“They picketed our horses where those Djerwa
subehiefs are making ready to sleep.” He pointed, and Wulf went with him in
that direction. “What did she say to you?”

“Among other
things, that
we’d march when the moon is high.”

“Didn’t I say she’d order that? What else, if
you’re allowed to talk about it?”

“She didn’t tell me to keep still about anything.
She wants me with her when we fight. That pass where they’ll come through,
that’s where she thinks to meet them.”

“She’s always right. She can choose a battleground
better than I can.” Bhakrann chuckled over that.
“Maybe
better than you.
What else, now?”

“She said I was a warrior and a thinker.”

“I told her that, but she’d know it anyway.”

Wulf thought about the Cahena. “Does she always
fight alongside her men? And doesn’t she have women to tend her in camp?”

“At times like this, on a fast move, she looks
after herself. She cooked that supper. She can do everything for herself. She’s
worth following. You’ll find out.”

“I’m finding out,” said Wulf.

They came to where five men lounged, wrapped in
their mantles against the cool of the night. Horses were picketed where there
was grass to munch. Beyond that gathering, other men sang.

“What do they sing?” asked Wulf. “I can’t hear.”

“Who knows?” said one of the reclining men. “We
make up our songs as we sing them.”

“Maybe they sing about you, Wulf,” said another.
“About how the Cahena trusts you.”

“Suppose we stop talking and get some sleep,” said
Bhakrann. “We’ll move out around
midnight
.”

Wulf tugged off his Byzantine half boots. He
unbuckled his sword, cleared it from the sheath, and laid it where he could put
a hand on it quickly. The others lifted their heads to study the weapon, but
said nothing. Nobody had said anything since Bhakrann had called for silence.

Bhakrann lapped himself in his cloak, put his head
on a saddle wallet, and seemed to go to sleep at once. Wulf lay with his hands
clasped behind his head and gazed at where the moon swam among the stars, round
and pale, with shadowy flecks. It might have been an Imazighen shield, complete
with design. Wulf wished he had a shield.

How soon
would the camp
be awakened and marshaled, how many miles would be accomplished by the light of
that moon? Those scouts who had been sent out, were they adroit enough to keep
from being seen? How war-wise were these men he had joined, obeying the
slightest soft word of the Cahena?

He could see her smile, could feel the touch of
her hands on his. She had called him a warrior and a thinker, as if she knew
what the words meant. She was beautiful in what she said and did. Thinking of
her, Wulf wondered if sleep would come to him.

As he wondered, sleep came.

He half wakened in the moonlight, to what seemed
the thud of heavy feet. He gazed to where, at another group of sleepers, moved
a misty something. It was dark; it stood tall and knobby-armed. Its massive
head seemed to have horns like a bull.
A helmet?
He
could not be sure. He watched the shape tread heavily away, vanish. A dream, he
told himself, and closed his eyes again.

The stir of the camp roused him. He was awake
swiftly. He knew who he was and where he was. The moon blazed at the top of the
sky. Near him, men pulled on boots or laced up sandals, buckled belts. Wulf
carried his gear to where his horse drowsed, threw the cloth across its back,
and set the saddle on that and drew the girth snug. Bhakrann was there beside
his own mount.

“Here, maybe this headpiece will fit you,” said
Bhakrann.

An old Roman helmet, Wulf saw, rusted and dented,
with a comb on top and worn felt padding inside. It went all right on his head.

“And here.”
Bhakrann handed him an oval leather shield faced with
a gridlike
iron netting and a brass rim.

“Thanks,” said Wulf. “I had a strange dream.
A sort of giant with a bull’s horns, walking through the camp.”

Bhakrann gazed at him. “Maybe that wasn’t a dream.
Did it stop beside you? No? That’s good. That thing’s name is Khro. He comes
before a battle and picks out the men who’ll die.”

“A dream,” said Wulf again.

“I’ll show you it wasn’t. Where did you see him?”

Wulf pointed to where other men roused. Bhakrann
led him there and studied the ground. “Look,” he said.

Wulf saw cloven prints in the earth. “An ox?” he
said.

“We haven’t a single beef animal with us,” said
Bhakrann, “and the prints are fresh as of last night. Khro was here.”

They walked away again. Wulf shrugged off
an uneasiness
. “What are the marching orders?” he asked.

“Scouts went out an hour ago,” Bhakrann told him.
“The main body will
follow,
three columns about half a
mile apart. We ride with the Cahena at the head of the middle column.”

Wulf slung the shield to his pommel and mounted.
He and Bhakrann rode toward the stream. Elements of the force splashed across.
Murmurs of conversation rose. Wulf checked his horse to let it drink a few
gulps, then pulled up its head and sent it wading over. Bhakrann and he trotted
to where a string of mounted figures moved eastward in the half-light. A
standard fluttered above the foremost rider.

“Bhakrann,”
came
her
voice.
“Wulf.
Ride at my right and left.”

They took their places. The party moved at a brisk
walk. Wulf recognized Mallul among the others, but nobody else.

“The chiefs are with their peoples,” said the
Cahena, as though she read Wulf’s mind. “We’re all Imazighen here, no Greeks,
no
Vandals. We didn’t have time to prod them into coming
along.”

She wore her blue robe. The scarf was drawn back
from her face. She looked young in the moonlight. Two javelins were slung
behind her shoulder. She sat astride, confidently, like one who has ridden from
childhood. Wulf saw her small boot in the stirrup.

“How far to that pass, Bhakrann?” she asked.

Bhakrann peered. “We’ll be there before dawn,
Cahena. We can push in — be right in their faces before they expect us.”

“Won’t they expect us?” asked Wulf.

Bhakrann looked across at him. “They don’t know
this country. Oh, maybe a few were here with Okba, but that was years ago. They
won’t know what to expect.”

“Then they’ll expect anything,” said Wulf. “Try to
prepare for anything. Especially prepare for us to come into the pass.”

The Cahena smiled sidelong at Wulf. “How do you
know they’ll do that?”

“I only know that, before a battle, you prepare
for anything the enemy might do.”

“Ahi,”
said Bhakrann. “How can we know, or they know?”

Wulf stroked his horse’s mane. “I’m trying to
think like their commander. You’re right, Bhakrann, they aren’t sure of the
pass or the country this side, so they camped on the far side. But they’ll have
sent men up on the heights, scouts and observers and probably archers. He’ll
want to hold those points all the way along, while his main body comes through
below. He doesn’t want us up there, throwing javelins down on him.”

“We could send advance parties to right and left,”
said Bhakrann, half impatiently. “It’s easier to climb up from this side.”

“They’d expect something like that,” insisted
Wulf. “Very likely they climbed up as soon as they stopped at the pass.”

The Cahena gazed back at the column of horsemen.
Then she looked to one side and to the other. Shadowy blotches paced out there
to either hand.

“You think this Moslem commander is wise,” she
said gently.

“Hassan ibn an-Numan won’t have sent a fool, Cahena.
These people have fought all the way from
Egypt
to here. They’re seasoned. Whoever leads them was chosen
for competence and experience.”

“So you don’t want us up on the heights,” said
Bhakrann, “and you don’t want us to meet them in the pass. Maybe you want to
wait for them to come all the way out on this side.”

“I think that’s exactly what Wulf has in mind,”
said the Cahena.

“Not exactly, Cahena,” said Wulf. “Not let them
come all the way out. Let maybe half of them into the open. Then, before they
can deploy for either a charge or a stand, strike them, demoralize them, before
they can spread out into a proper line of battle.”

“The other half would wait for us to come into the
pass,” objected Bhakrann.

“I don’t think that will happen with those Moslems,
chosen for a thrust into unknown country,” said Wulf. “That sort goes to a
battle like boys to a game. When the fight starts with half of them out on our
side of the pass, the other half will rush to get out into it, come to close
quarters. But by the time their rear elements get into the open, we can settle
accounts with the first elements,
then
handle the
rest.”

The Cahena tilted her lovely head, smiling.

“I hadn’t made a decision. But now I’m building on
what you say, Wulf. Keep talking. Bhakrann and I will listen.”

“Hai!”
muttered Bhakrann. It didn’t sound quite like agreement.

Wulf elaborated. He explained why he thought that
the Moslems would explore the pass by night, in gingerly fashion, while the
main body might well start slowly. No prudent commander, he said again, would
emerge into strange and dangerous territory until there was light enough to see
and fight by. He remembered that the opening of the pass toward which they now
marched had jutting rocks and scattered boulders to each side.
Even when the Moslem van could see, it could not change formation
from column into line with any great speed.

“They’ll rush us,” declared Bhakrann. “Then we’ll
countercharge and drive them back in.”

“Is that your advice, Wulf?” asked the Cahena. She
looked at him with her full lower lip caught in her teeth, as though to keep
from smiling. It gave her an expression almost coquettish.

“Not exactly,” he said. “If they retreat into the
pass, they can hold us off. Let our three columns come along. This middle one
faces the
pass,
the others lie out to either side. As
the enemy comes out, let this middle column retreat.”

“Retreat?”
Bhakrann barked his protest.

“It’ll fall back but keep formation and spread
into line as it retires. Those Moslems will gallop at us, calling on Allah
almighty.”

“There is also the Cahena,” breathed Bhakrann,
like a prayer.

“If we fall back, what then?” the Cahena prompted
Wulf.

“Out
come
their first
squadrons, thinking they’ve already won,” said Wulf. “Our other columns strike
from the sides, charge in close order, and, when they’re almost there, throw
javelins. This central force will charge, too, drive in,
fight
hand to hand.”

“That sounds good,” said the Cahena, nodding.
“When did you think of all this?”

“While we rode,” said Wulf. “Considered our
possibilities and theirs, and tried to choose the best one. And you asked for
my opinion.”

“I did, and you gave it.”

She laughed. It was her first real laugh that Wulf
had heard. It was musical, like a flute.

“Bhakrann,” she said, “did you hear what Wulf
explained?”

“Very clearly, Cahena,” replied Bhakrann.

“Then ride to the left column there. Yaunis leads
it. Tell him and his subchiefs what’s been decided. They’re to approach the
pass, not directly, but within sight and signal of us. When we, here at the
middle, draw them into the open, Yaunis is to charge. Understand?”

“Very clearly,” said Bhakrann again, and cantered
away.

“Mallul,” the Cahena called.

Her son hurried from behind. He listened as the
Cahena told him the orders to carry to the right. “Ketriazar commands there,”
she said. “Say that this is my word, then come back to tell me that he will
obey.”

Mallul rode away, and Wulf and the Cahena
continued side by side across a grassy level. Scraps of pallid mist showed, and
Wulf had time to remember his dream, perhaps his vision, of the striding
creature with its bull’s head. Bhakrann had said he had seen something actual.
He could still see it, in his imagination.

“Tell me what you’re thinking of,” the Cahena bade
him, and he told her. She listened seriously.

“Yes,” she said, “we know that one. He smells
blood before a battle. We call him Khro.”

“Do you worship him?”

“Not exactly, but we fear him. Yet you say he
didn’t come near you.” Wulf heard the hoofs of their horses, stirring the
grass. “Now, your plan sounds perfect. If we win, it’ll be your doing.”

“No plan’s ever perfect,” said Wulf. “They’ll have
the advantage of the rising sun in our faces. We’ll have to make up for that by
a quick, hard blow that will disorganize them.”

“You think of everything,” she said, not quite
mockingly.

“Nobody thinks of everything. Any battle plan has
mistakes. The side with the fewest mistakes will win.”

“That’s true. What’s the worst mistake a commander
can make?”

“Not having enough men at the right place and time,”
he said.

“If we could always have that.”
She smiled, but only faintly. “Maybe they have more than
we do just now, but if we use your plan? You must have been a good commander,
Wulf.”

“I never had more than two squadrons at once, but
I’ve always read whatever I could about battles. Julius Caesar, Tacitus, the
reports of Belisarius — whatever came to hand.”

“You can read and write,” she said, impressed. “I
never learned to do either. When we’ve won this battle, you can talk to my
councillor Djalout. He’s at home on Arwa — he’s too old to come on campaigns.
Sometimes I’ve thought him the wisest of men.”

“As you’re the wisest of women,
Cahena.”

“You talk like a courtier. Warrior and courtier,
that’s a
combination
. Luck rode into our camp with
you.”

“You overwhelm me,” he said, and her laugh
trilled.

“I doubt if you’ve ever been really overwhelmed,”
she said.

A scout trotted to them to report a stream just
ahead.

“Stream?” repeated the Cahena. “Tell the other
scouts to stop where they are and send to the other columns. We’ll pause at the
stream. The horses can drink and the men can eat breakfast, if they have food.
Later, we’ll have dinner from whatever we take away from the Moslems.”

She sounded as if she counted it already done.

At the crawling thread of water, the horses dipped
grateful noses. Wulf did not choose to drink where they drank, and sipped from
his water bottle and ate morsels of stale barley bread. The Cahena talked to
another scout, who said that the pass was directly ahead.

“It’s not far from dawn,” the Cahena said, gazing
expertly at the stars. “Now we move forward slowly. Send to Yaunis and
Ketriazar to come close, but keep distance for their flanking movements.
Bhakrann?
Wulf?
Ride with me
again.”

Up ahead, the starry sky had a wash of paleness.
The jagged, dark hunch of the high ground rose against it.

“We’re almost there, and probably the Moslems are
almost there, too,” said the Cahena. “How do we maneuver now, Wulf?”

“Draw closer still, but not so close that we can’t
retire. When we fall back,
do
it quick in column, then
spread out in line.”

“Forward again,” she commanded over her shoulder.
“Bhakrann, ride to the rear and pass the word of what’s to be done.”