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

trusted me.”
    Down came her slim hands. He put up his own big
ones and she took them and pressed them.
    “Yes,” she said, more gently still. “I was told to
trust you.”
    At the pass, chieftains still shouted their men
back from riding in. Several horsemen came to where Wulf and the Cahena waited,
bringing bags and parcels of bread and dates and raisins, strips of salted
meat, skin bags of water. The Cahena ordered these
things heaped together, with a guard beside them. She was joined by Yaunis and
Ketriazar and Daris, then by Bhakrann. They dismounted and conferred intently.
    Wulf thrust his bloody sword into the earth and
wiped it with a rag tom from his cloak. Sheathing it, he stood with an arm
across his saddle, watching here and there.
    “What’s to be done before we pull back?” the
Cahena asked him.
    “Get word through the pass for them to come get
their wounded,” he said. “Let them have the burden of them.”
    She studied him. “You think of the right things.”
    A close-huddled knot of unhappy men approached on
foot, under guard. One guard sprawled to kiss the Cahena’s shadow.
    “These are prisoners, Cahena,” he said, rising.
“Shall we kill them or keep them?”
    She surveyed the prisoners. They were a score,
sullen and beaten.
    “Neither one,” she replied. “They can carry a
message for us.”
    One of the group shuffled
his feet and tried to readjust his turban, that must have been pulled off to
take his helmet. His striped gown was smeared with dirt, as though he had been
rolled on the ground. From his belt dangled an empty scabbard.
    “Are you an officer?” the Cahena inquired.
    “I led our first squadron into destruction,” he
replied dully, in passable Imazighen. “I’m Ayoub ibn Saud. I should have died.”
    “But you’re alive. Go back and tell your general,
the one who sacked Carthage and sent you here to be slaughtered.”
    “Hassan ibn an-Numan,” supplied Wulf from beside
her.
    “You call him the good old man,” said the Cahena.
“If he’s a wise old man, he’ll pay attention to my words. Do you understand?”
    “I understand,” said Ayoub ibn Saud wretchedly.
    “Say that this is the word of the Cahena, who
rules here. As I defeated your advance party today, I’ll defeat him if he dares
come. Do you hear?”
    “I hear.” Plainly, Ayoub ibn Saud did not like to
hear.
    “He can have that country around Carthage ,” she pronounced. “But here, the land is ours.” She
straightened her slim body. “There’s no room here for as much as the sole of
his foot. If he’d been here today, we’d have killed him.”
    Her eyes stabbed at the captive like weapons.
    “Your friends can come and gather up their wounded
and bury their dead. Now go, you and these others who are lucky to be alive.”
    Ayoub ibn Saud gestured with a trembling hand.
“Kill me now,” he said. “I’d rather be dead than say that to Hassan ibn an-Numan.”
    A silent moment, while the Cahena studied him.
    “Then I’ll give you a letter to carry to him,” she
said at last. “Wulf, you write Arabic. Where can we get a pen and parchment?”
    The things were found. Wulf spread the parchment
against his saddle and wrote the message as the Cahena had spoken it, then
rolled it up. The Cahena issued more orders.
    “Give these prisoners one water bottle and some
bread,” she directed. “Start them for the pass on foot. But give the message
carrier a horse to make speed with.”
    One of Yaunis’s men led up a brown horse. Ayoub
ibn Saud mounted it. Wulf handed him the letter. He rode away, his shoulders
sagging in his dirty striped gown.
    “A javelin thrown from here would straighten his
back for him,” said Bhakrann to Wulf.
    “Ride with him, Bhakrann,” commanded the Cahena at
once. “See that nobody stops those Moslems. Watch them all the way to the
pass.”
    Bhakrann trotted after Ayoub ibn Saud. His
shoulders sagged, too, as though he disliked the assignment. The Cahena smiled, a