by Robert Adams
So Zastros had two columns of light infantry sent into a particularly troublesome stretch of fenland and no officer or man of them was ever seen again. The harrassment never even slowed. The next unit was a full tahgmah of Zastros’ picked men. Two long weeks later, a bare two hundred of that thousand staggered or crawled out of the fens, and most of those survivors were useless as soldiers, what with strange fevers and festered wounds and addled wits.
And the march route was officially narrowed again, keeping a couple of miles between the eastern flank and the edges of the fens. And Zastros raged and swore at these additional delays. And his young queen, Lilyuhn, whom some named “Witch,” listened to his tirades in heavy-lidded, expressionless silence.
* * *
Captain Portos rode back from the High King’s camp in a towering rage. His quite reasonable request that his battered, now understrength, unit be replaced on the hazardous left flank had been coolly denied. As if that were not enough, his personal courage had been questioned for having the temerity to make such a request, and then the High King had refused him his right to meet the questioner at swordpoints.
How quickly, he pondered, did kings forget. When the High King — then Thohooks Zastros, with only a distant claim to the throne — first had raised the banner of rebellion, Komees Portos had enlisted and armed and mounted a squadron of light horses and taken up the rebel cause. Most of that first squadron had been recruited of his own city and lands. Then, oh, then, Zastros had warmly embraced him, spoken to and of him as “brother,” sworn undying gratitude and rich rewards for such aid.
Portos had watched most of that first squadron extirpated at the Battle of Ahrbahkootchee, and he had fled with Zastros across the dread border into the Great Southern Swamp, within which, somewhere, lay the Witch Kingdom. What with fevers and quicksands and horrible, deadly animals, he had had but a bare score left, when Zastros sent word to him and the other living officers. And Portos and his score, all with high prices on their heads, had returned to the ancestral lands and secretly raised and armed and mounted another squadron.
Then came first the horrifying word that King Rahndos and seven other claimants to the throne had, all in one day, deliberately slain themselves! Thoheeks Fahrkos, who had no more right to the throne than Zastros, had been crowned. Then had the kingdom been well and truly split asunder as a host of pretenders’ warbands marched north and south and east and west, fighting each other as often as they fought Fahrkos. Cities were besieged or felled by storm, villages were burned; noble and peasant alike fled to mountain and forest and swamp, as fire and rapine and slaughter stalked the land in clanking armor.
Portos and most of Zastros’ other captains defended their lands as best they could, stoutly held their cities, and awaited word from the Witch Kingdom, where dwelt their lord.
They waited for three long years, while the once-mighty, once-wealthy Southern Kingdom dissolved around them into a hodgepodge myriad of small, ever-warring statelets. Fahrkos ruled his capital and controlled a few miles of land around it, but a large proportion of his predecessor’s fine army had left with many of his most powerful lords, when they departed to cast their hats into the much-crowded ring. The strong central government that had made the Southern Kingdom what it had been and extended its borders over the years had collapsed into anarchy and chaos; from the western savannas to the eastern saltfens, from the Iron Mountains to the Great Southern Swamp, might made right and the status of men was determined not by their pedigree, but by the strength of their swordarm and the size of their warband.
At last the long-deferred summons came and Portos led his squadron to the rendezvous, leaving defense of his lands and city in the hands of his two younger brothers. By the time Zastros and his Witch Kingdom bride, the Lady Lilyuhn, arrived, there were fifteen thousand armed men to greet them . . . and a full tenth of that force was Portos’ squadron.
Portos and all the rest had expected an immediate, lightning drive on the ill-defended capital, but Zastros marched them west, bearing north, through the very heart of the savannas onto the shores of the King of Rivers; and men marveled at the size of his force — the largest seen under one banner since the breakup of King Fahrkos’ inherited army — and noble and peasant alike came from fen and from forest to take their oaths to so obviously powerful a leader . . . only such a one as he could put things right again.
Then it was north and east for the more than doubled army, and petty claimants — who might have had a bare chance against equally unworthy opposition — saw the death of glorious pipedreams and swore their allegiances to Zastros and added their warbands to his, so that, by the time he camped below the walls of Seetheerospolis, the fifty thousand men under his banner left the Eeyehgeestan of the Iron Mountains no choice but to throw their far from inconsiderable forces and resources into Zastros’ lap. And the massive army marched due south, again bypassing the capital, then east to the fringes of the saltfens.
Only when he had almost seven times his beginning strength did he turn toward the capital and King Fahrkos, whom he considered a traitor, since Fahrkos had been one of his supporters in his first rebellion. As Zastros’ van came within the crown lands, the pitiful remnant of that mighty force that had trampled his aspirations into the gory mud of Ahrbahkootchee only five years agone threw down their battered arms, hailed him savior of the realm, and begged leave to serve him.
King Fahrkos, even his advisors and bodyguard having deserted to Zastros, slew his wife, his daughters, and his young son, then fired the wing that had housed his loved family, and fell on his sword. Only the prompt arrival of Zastros’ huge army prevented the entire palace complex from burning.
So the victorious Zastros was crowned High King of all Ehleenoee, a new title, never before claimed by any other. But to the faithful Portos, the price of victory had been steep. Soon after his squadron’s departure, his city had been stormed, sacked, and razed by some bannerless warband; only the citadel had successfully resisted, but both his brothers had died in the defense. And what with disease and accident and the occasional skirmish, no troop of his squadron could, on Coronation Day, muster more than fifty men.
But when Zastros announced his intention of taking advantage of the war betwixt Karaleenos and Kehnooryos Ehlahs to reunite all the Ehleenoee under his rule, ever-faithful Portos did what he felt he must: he sold his ancestral lands and what was left of his city for what little he could get — and that was little enough; considering the condition of the kingdom, more than he’d expected, really — and he re-armed, re-equipped, and recruited replacements to flesh out the shrunken squadron.
Since then, his men had been first to set hoof upon the soil of Karaleenos, had been first to die from hostile action, had ridden nowhere other than van or scout or extended flank. In five weeks he had lost nearly six hundred irreplaceable men and almost as many horses, all by enemy action or disease. Also, being stationed where they were, his troops were at the very tail of the supply lines; therefore, they wanted for everything. His loyal officers and sergeants drove themselves and their troops relentlessly, but it seemed that each order from Zastros’ pavilion was more stupidly impossible than the last. And Portos could feel it in his bones; there would be a mutiny — and soon! — if something were not done to raise the morale of his battered squadron.
That was the reason he had ridden the dusty miles to the main camp, to ask the lord, for whom he had sacrificed so much for so many years, that what was left of his command be temporarily shifted from their hazardous position, be replaced by another squadron long enough to resupply and restore the morale of the men. And he had been spurned like a homeless cur, been kept waiting for hours — a dusty pariah among the well-fed, well-groomed officers, whose burnished armor bore not one nick or scratch.
Anger had finally taken over and he had forced his way into first the anteroom, then the audience chamber, swatting aside gaudy officers and adjutants and aides-decamp as if they had been annoying insects. The pikemen of t
he King’s bodyguard knew Captain Portos of old and did not try to bar his entrance.
Portos shuddered strongly and his lips thinned to a grim line when once more he thought on the things that had been said to him . . . and of him, a veteran officer, of proven loyalty and courage . . . in that chamber. The only thing of which he could now be certain was that the King Zastros who had not only heaped insult and unwarranted abuse upon him, but allowed — nay, encouraged — others to do the same, was not the Zastros for whom he, Portos, had led more than twenty-four hundred brave men to their deaths and willingly forfeited his last meager possessions! Perhaps that wife he had taken unto himself during the years he dwelt in the Witch Kingdom had ensorcelled him.
But, ensorcelled or not, Portos resolved, ere he reached his own camp, that never again would his men suffer or his sacred honor be questioned by Zastros.
10
The cyclopean masonry of the Luhmbuh River bridge had weathered hundreds of years of floods and at least one titanic earthquake, so Milo had not been surprised when both his artificers and King Zenos’ despaired of doing it any damage not easily repairable. On the fords, however, he was luckier. The more treacherous of the two, thirty miles upstream, was found to be natural; but the better one, only twelve miles west of the bridge, was manmade of large blocks of granite. Milo had both ends dismantled, rafting the stones downstream to help fortify the northern end of the bridge.
With the arrival of Strahteegos Gabos and the main Confederation army, things began to hum. The fledgling castra was completed in a day, then much enlarged and elaborated upon, though compartmentalized for easy defense by a small force.
It had been his idea to send the Maklaud and his horseclansmen to help King Zenos’ mountain irregulars and reports indicated that they made a good combination.
By the end of the four weeks, Milo was heartened. Not only had Zastros’ speed been reduced to a slow crawl that promised precious time, but the first condottas from the Middle Kingdoms were arriving — horsemen all, armored in half suits of plate, armed with lance, sword, shield, and dirk; every fourth trooper being an expert horse-archer and bearing a powerful hornbow. The condottas averaged small — five hundred being an exceptionally large unit — but these Freefighters were the best soldiers of this era. They were versatile, highly mobile, and courageous, if well-led.
The middle of the sixth week brought the gallant old Duke of Kuhmbuhlun, at the head of his own army of six thousand, plus the promised sixty-five hundred from Pitzburk. There was word, as well, from the King of Harzburk. Not to be outdone by his arch-rival of Pitzburk, he was sending his hundred noble cavalry and seven thousand Freefighters . . . as soon as he could find and hire them.
By chance, Milo and some of his staff happened to be standing near the west gate of the castra when another column of light cavalry trotted in . . . with Tomos Gonsalos, who was supposed to be helping lead the harassment in the southern mountains, riding knee to knee with an unknown Ehleen officer at their head. Milo mindspoke Tomos, who spoke a word or two to his companion, then turned his dusty mount toward the High Lord.
“What have we here, Tomos?” Milo spoke aloud, since not all his party were talented with mindspeak. “If that condotta are irregulars, they’re the best armed and disciplined irregulars I’ve ever seen; if they’re Freefighters, they’re a draggle-tailed lot. And I thought you rode south with the Maklaud.”
Tomos grinned engagingly. “I’m not really needed there, Lord Milo. Your Lordship was right, the Horseclansmen and King Zenos’ mountain warriors are of the same coinage; they blend as easily as hot cheese and butter.” But, even while speaking lightly aloud, he imparted more serious information by mindspeak. “There are nearly a thousand veteran light cavalry here, the personal squadron of Captain Portos over there. They are topnotch troops, and I know, my lord, for we’ve been skirmishing with them for over a month.”
“Deserters?” Milo looked his astonishment. “These were Zastros’ troops?”
“Among his best, my lord, Komees Portos has captained cavalry in Zastros’ behalf for six years, since first he raised his banner. He has lost or sold everything he owned in Zastros’ cause.”
Milo shook his head. “At best, turncoats are unreliable, and a thousand possibly hostile horsemen in my camp is more than I care to risk. We’d best have them disarmed. We can put the troopers to work. I’ll send the officers, under guard, up to Kehnooryos Atheenahs with the next . . .”
“Your pardon, my lord,” interrupted Tomos. “But I have reason to believe Captain Komees Portos’ story and . . .”
“And,” snapped Milo, “you are a very young man, but men far older have been deluded.”
“And,” Tomos continued, “I was instructed by the Maklaud to inform Your Lordship that the captain had been subjected to the Test of the Cat and found completely truthful. He also said that Your Lordship should hear the tale and put your own questions to the captain.”
“And so,” concluded Portos, “when I reached my camp, I told my officers what had happened at the High King’s camp and what I intended doing. I did not need to tell them what would happen if the squadron remained under the High King’s orders. Then I mounted a fresh horse and rode into the mountains with a white pennon on my lanceshaft. It required nearly two days for me to make contact. When at last I did, I asked to meet with their chiefs.
“Chief Maklaud seemed to believe me from the start, but Chief Hohlt and Tomos, here, were quite skeptical. Tomos suggested putting me to the torture, that I might reveal my nefarious schemes; Chief Hohlt was in favor of simply slitting my throat.”
“So the Maklaud explained the Test of the Cat, then had you submit to it,” added Milo, smiling, smiling because he knew, as had the Maklaud, that such a test was completely unnecessary with a man like the captain, who, lacking mindspeak, also lacked a mindshield. Milo’s already-high estimation of the Maklaud went up; he had employed his prairie cat and a bit of showmanship to keep secret his ability to read some minds.
“All right, Captain Portos, if you wish to sign on your condotta, I pay good wages. But there will be no foraging; let that be understood now. My supply trains arrive twice a week, it’s plain fare, but you’ll not be shorted by my quartermasters. Under normal conditions, I pay Free-fighter captains half the agreed wages when I hire them, but I saw your squadron when they rode in. So, would you rather have your advance in equipment, Captain?”
Since most Ehleenoee were far less prone to evidencing emotion than were Horseclansmen, Milo was genuinely surprised to see tears come into the big captain’s eyes. But when he answered, his voice was firm. “My lord is more than generous. It has . . . pained me for weeks to see my men suffer for lack of those things that a captain should be able to provide, but the initial expense of bringing my squadron back up to strength took every bit of the gold my lands brought, so I had nothing to bribe the quartermasters. Then, when your horse-archers raided my camp that night and fired our supply wagons . . .”
Milo tentatively probed Portos’ mind, but he hurriedly withdrew with a lump in his throat; in that moment, the High Lord felt real hate for Zastros, that his hauteur and neglect toward one who had served him faithfully and long had reduced that proud and honorable man to what he — Portos — considered the acceptance of charity. For the first time, Milo really noticed the southern nobleman’s appearance — the old and battered helmet with half the crest long since hacked away, the patched and repatched clothing and boots, the cheap scale-mail hauberk, where most officers and nobles wore plate. And he came to a decision that he was never to regret.
He raised his voice, calling, “Lieutenant Markos.” Shortly, a small, heavy chest rested beside his chair. On the tabletop were an ewer of wine and four cups, and another chair had been brought in.
After the aide had left in search of Strahteegos Gabos, Milo turned to Tomos. “I think that Captain Portos and I are about of a size. Go over into my quarters and tell my men to open my chests, then choose some clothing a
nd boots suitable for a captain of a thousand horse, then have them bring your choices and my extra suit of Pitzburk back here.”
As Tomos rose to go, the big captain protested, “But, my lord . . . I ask only for those who depend upon me, not for myself.”
“Because, in addition to being a born leader and true gentleman, you’re a really good officer, and that, my good Portos, is a far rarer combination than you think; too many officers, especially nobleborn officers, remember only that ‘Rank Hath Its Privileges,’ forgetting that ‘Rank Hath Its Responsibilities,’ as well. You gave more than your all to one who betrayed your trust. You must now be very cynical regarding the gratitude of rulers, but I say to you this: serve me as faithfully as you served Zastros in the past, and the rewards for both you and your squadron will be great.”
While Portos sat digesting the unexpected praise, Milo leaned to open the small coffer and extract three leather bags that he dropped, clanking, on the table, then shoved over to Portos.
“Captain, we maintain and enforce high standards of personal cleanliness in our army, especially amongst our officers, so you will need more than a single suit of clothes; the smaller bag is for your own needs. With the two larger bags, I expect you to improve the appearances of your officers, nor will you have to search far, for — impending battle or no impending battle — a host of sutlers and merchants have opened for business along both sides of the road just north of the castra, along with armorers, tailors, whores, pimps, gamblers, bootmakers, horsetraders, farriers, fortune-tellers, and thieves. God help them all if we lose the battle!”
“No, my lord!” Portos shook his head emphatically. “The supplies for my troopers are more important. In honor, I cannot accept . . .”
