Free Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1986 by Cahena (v3.1)

rattled, it must be
rending its way through chain mail. The man floundered to earth as Wulf tore
his weapon free and got ahead of the Cahena to speed toward the main jumble of
battle.
    Writhing, furious faces came at him, dropped away
as he struck, were replaced by other faces. He saw the
Cahena among a handful of her followers, facing a press of Moslems. He rode in,
with thrust and cut before anyone knew he was there. The Cahena’s men plied
javelins. Moments, and the enemies were cleared away.
    Things had disorganized into swirls and knots of
combatants, but everywhere the Moslems fell back to the mouth of the pass.
Moslems attacked were never as deadly as Moslems attacking. Javelins stabbed
and were wrenched clear. Wulf took time to exult.
    “Hai!”
blared Bhakrann’s voice from somewhere near at hand. “Don’t
leave one of them alive!”
    Others heard him, closed in savagely, striking,
trampling. The Moslems fled, those who could still flee, who had not fallen before
the murderous countercharge.
    “Cahena!” a man bawled. “There is also the
Cahena!”
    Almost as the yell rang out, the fight was over.
Into the pass scampered the defeated remnant. The field was strewn with bodies,
slackly dead or writhing with the pain of wounds.
    And from all sides, a great clamor of triumph.
Wulf dabbed at his streaming face with his sleeve.
    “Quick!” he thundered to those near him. “Hold
everyone back from the pass — we’ve beaten them!”
    ----

VI
    Half a dozen mounted men scurried to carry Wulf’s
orders. They’d begun to obey him, do what he said. Dismounting, he wondered how
long this fight had lasted. Longer than it seemed, probably. His horse breathed deeply. Sweat lathered its flanks. He told it that it was a
good horse, had borne him well, had helped him to
kill.
    Chiefs scolded their warriors away from the pass.
Everyone shouted, exulted. No living enemies could be seen, only bodies. Men
were off their horses, picking up javelins or plundering.
    “Don’t kill any wounded!” Wulf shouted. “There’s a
good reason for letting them live!”
    “See that order is obeyed, Mallul,” he heard the
Cahena say.
    Wulf raked off his helmet and let the wind stir
his soggy hair. Another horse came near. The rider touched Wulf’s shoulder. The
Cahena leaned above him, glowing with a smile, her eyes starlike under the
backflung veil. Her beauty, so close to him, was like a physical impact.
    “We won, Cahena,” said Wulf, catching triumph from
her.
    “You won, Wulf. It was your battle.”
    “I killed only a few of all these,” he said.
    “It was your battle,” she said again. “You planned
it. We had to beat them, and we did. We couldn’t have failed.”
    He put on his helmet again. “Something can always
go wrong,” he said. “If that had happened —”
    “If that had happened,” rumbled Bhakrann, riding
to join them, “we’d have felt that you’d tricked us into their hands.”
    Reining in, he gazed at fallen bodies, at
riderless horses being caught. Wulf and he exchanged grins.
    “If that had happened, several were ready to stick
you full of javelins,” Bhakrann said.
    Wulf wiped more sweat. “Whose thought was that?”
he challenged.
    “Mine,” said Bhakrann, grinning more broadly.
    A warrior came cantering. He saluted with a bloody
javelin.
    “Cahena, we found their commander’s body,” he
reported. “He’s wearing a gold-worked coat and a jewel-hilted sword. He had a
treasure of gold and silver in his saddlebags.”
    “Bhakrann!” cried the Cahena. “Ride and get those
saddlebags, get any money they carried. Let the word go out, each man can take
a weapon, but whatever food the enemy has is to be gathered and shared out to
all of us. The money comes here to me.”
    Bhakrann loped away with the messenger.
    “Wulf,” said the Cahena above him, and he turned
to her. “That was Bhakrann’s thought, Wulf,” she said gently. “About killing you. It wasn’t mine.”
    “Then you