by Robert Adams
The road beyond the ford was muddy for several hundred yards, deeply indented with impressions of hoof and wheel, of bootsole and sandal and bare foot. Even after the mud had given way to choking dust, the discarded weapons and equipment gave clear evidence of retreat bordering upon rout.
Then, from the far side of a small patch of woods around which the road curved, came the rippling snarls of the huge cats, immediately followed by a veritable chorus of screams and wails of terror.
When Bili galloped around the turn, Mahvros had to make a quick, jarring jump, lest he trample Steelclaws and the writhing, black-bearded man into whose shoulder the cat had sunk his long fangs. Whitetip and Lover-of-Water had corralled the other four-and-twenty priests into a tight, shrieking bunch as neatly as might a pair of veteran herd dogs with an equal number of sheep.
A glance back at the blood-spurting man under the youngest cat told Bili that he could not live out the hour bearing such terrible wounds, so he mindspoke Steelclaws, "You may kill him, Cat Brother. But wait until all the horses are past you; then do it messily. We'll put fear of Sun and Wind into these bastards!"
Bili had his warriors ring the knot of clerics, but made certain that all the prisoners had an unobstructed view of Steelclaws and his still-flopping victim. At his silent command, the huge cat rolled onto his back, the claws and teeth sunk into the gory flesh, bringing the priest over atop him. Then muscles rippled and bunched under dusty fur as the powerful hind legs were flexed, their needle-sharp talons sinking deep, grating on the hapless man's lowest ribs. The preceding shrieks had been as nothing to the ear-shattering scream of ultimate agony emitted by the dying man when the cat abruptly thrust backward, tearing eight great, ragged wounds from chest to crotch and then flipping the eviscerated creature three yards up the road, trailing gouts of dark blood and coils of pinkish-white guts.
The packhorses were relieved of enough manacles to secure each of the living priests to a tree, and Steelclaws, his coat soaked and clotted with blood, was left to guard them while the grim little band rode on.
Out of the wooded patch, they cantered between fields of burgeoning oats, maize and rye, billowing like green lakes in the morning breeze. Between fields of flax and tobacco, they spotted the first of the rebel pikemen where he sat on the edge of the ditch, repairing a sandal strap. But when, alerted by the pounding hooves, he spotted the body of horsemen and identified the Morguhn banner, he forsook sandal, pike and shield and ran for his life. A couple of the clansmen uncased bows and hastily nocked arrows, but Bili mindspoke.
"No, save the shafts. Let our Cat Sister take this one."
In a flash of gray-brown fur, Lover-of-Water's big, sleek body hurdled the ditch and coursed through the flax, bringing down her quarry before he had run two hundred yards. The man screamed just once, when the razor-edged steel fang-spurs—originally designed for hamstringing horses or large game—sliced the tendons behind a knee. Before he could get out another utterance, he was dead. His killer effortlessly loped back through the flax, feeling that she had certainly demonstrated her age and expertise at the art of slaying two-legs to this nice young chief.
In a high-walled cut, they found grisly evidence of the recklessly rapid passage of several wheeled vehicles, or, rather, of those unfortunate pikemen too slow to get out of the way. Broad, iron-tired wheels had severed limbs and mangled bodies and crushed skulls, grinding shreds of flesh and bits of shattered bone into the blood-muddy dust. In a buzzing black-and-blue-green cloud, the flies rose up from their feasting before the advance of the Morguhn column, while a mouse-gray opossum scurried up a bank and into the low brush, dragging his scaly tail and a chunk of mangled forearm.
A few hundred yards farther on, a heavy coach lay canted drunkenly, partially blocking the road. An exposed boulder had bent the iron tire and splintered the hardwood felly beneath. Some few of the cargo of wounded men had attempted to drag themselves in the wake of the driver and the three wounded officers he had mounted on the horses before he cut them loose. But the arrival of Bill's column ended their sufferings—permanently.
They had been on the road for most of an hour before they at last closed with the rearmost gaggle of infantry, completely leaderless and most of them lacking armor or weapons of any description. And it was then, just as Lieutenant Hohguhn had foretold, a butchery, the horsemen riding down and spearing or sabering or axing their fleeing, screaming prey, until horses were foam-flecked and blowing, until men's arms ached with deadly effort.
And then they rode on.
The broad blades of Bill's huge axe were no longer shiny, being dimmed with clotted blood and dust, like every other bared weapon in the column. But the steel was soon rinsed— with fresher blood, as they overhauled another few hundred rebels. This time, however, perhaps half of their victims made good an escape, for men and cats and horses, all were tired, and Bili still insisted that the arrows and darts be husbanded against more pressing need.
The notes of the recall still were sounding when the High Lord led his weary mount through the trampled cornfield toward the limply fluttering Morguhn banner. He carried his bare saber, not wishing to befoul its case with the gory steel. While walking, tugging at the plodding horse, he was in telepathic contact with Aldora, whose troops had finally reached Morguhn Hall.
"Sorry, dear, to have had you put your men to a needless forced march, but none of us—I, least of all—had any idea that things would work out so well or so quickly."
"Damn you, Milo!" she raged. "You just tell that to the horses I've foundered this blasted night and morning. And you and the young duke had better not bite off too much out there, either, because I'll not bring any more men than I can find remounts for. And I doubt there're a hundred horses here."
Aloud, Milo sighed. "All right, Aldora, I'll suggest a halt to rest and clean our weapons. As I recall, the road crosses a sizable rill just ahead. But send the troops, don't come yourself—there're two witchmen in the cellars of Morguhn Hall and you're the only person I'm willing to entrust them to. They're drugged now and I want them kept that way until we can get them up to Kehnooryos Atheenahs."
"Tired and filthy as I am, I'll not protest that order, Milo. Besides," she added, "it will give me a chance to see sweet Ahndee again. You did say that he's recuperating here, did you not?"
Milo grinned broadly at the bloody ground and broken cornstalks before him. "Lord Ahndros is being tended by the woman he loves, Aldora, and I don't think the lady would appreciate your overtender solicitude for the welfare of the man she will wed. Why don't you save yourself for that woman's son, eh? Thoheeks Bili Morguhn is your kind of man—strong, brave, outspoken, ruthless toward his foes, virile and handsome. And he's every bit as bloodthirsty as you are, my dear. He only spares the lives of those men he means to see tortured to death."
"If you don't like what he's doing, Milo, why don't you stop him?" Aldora asked.
He sighed again, shaking his steel-encased, sweating head. "No, I don't like it, sweetheart. What's left of my twentieth-century conscience cringes at this morning's work. But I also recognize facts, no matter how unpalatable to a man of my century. What Bili is doing is brutal, but it will be as effective as was the Gafnee affair. If he's allowed to put down the rebellion in his way, he'll provide a meaningful example to every thoheekahtohn in the Confederation, for one thing; for another, if he manages to net all the rebellious nobles, the commoners will never again dare to even think of rebellion within his lifetime. Nor will he need to worry about the Ehleen priests inciting any more of this kind of trouble."
"Sacred Sun be praised!" the woman exclaimed feelingly. "Mara will be pleased to know that you're finally going to scotch those black-robed vultures."
"I've never liked them any more than have you and Mara, Aldora, but they do happen to have a following, both noble and common. Proscribing their hierarchy without damned good cause would have been tantamount to bringing about a Confederation-wide rebellion… and the directors of that goddam Cente
r knew the fact and used it against us.
"Gafnee was simply not enough provocation, unfortunately. You heard that mealy-mouthed Ahrkee'ehpeeskokpos Grehgohreeos whine and grovel and avow that it was an isolated incident of which he'd had no prior knowledge."
"Yes," agreed Aldora. "I recall his performance and I wondered, at the time, if he might not sing a different tune under the skillful direction of good Master Fyuhstohn. Do you want me to tell Mara to have him arrested?"
Leading his drooping horse around a fly-buzzing huddle of hacked bodies, Milo shook his head again. "No, not yet, not until this present business is more widely publicized. Just tell her to make damned sure the old buzzard doesn't leave the city—for any reason!"
"You think then that he, too, is a witchman?" Aldora inquired.
"No," he assured her. "Our precious archbishop isn't clever enough to be one of those vampires. Oh, he's shrewd, I grant you that, but he's made errors of judgment of which a really intelligent man would never have been guilty. Nonetheless, I'm damned sure that he knows far more of this conspiracy than he would have us believe. After all, it was he who appointed our three murderous witchmen-cum-kooreeohee at Gafnee, Vawn and here in Morguhn."
She questioned sadly, "All of the Clan Vawn kindred are truly gone to Wind, then, Milo?"
"It appears so, I'm sorry to say, for the get of brave old Djoh have been good men and quite valuable to the Confederation, over the years. But, from all I've heard of their passing, I think he'd have been proud of them. They took more than a few of the rebels with them. It's said they held the entire mob at bay for weeks, holed up in old Fort Brohdee. And they'd probably still be there, had they faced steel alone.
"And that reminds me, Aldora. Place a heavy round-the-clock guard on that big, gilded wain. Keep it well away from any fires and see that no one touches it or any of its contents. According to what I can comprehend of the instructions, those bombs are all safe to handle and transport, but we dare not take chances, since there're enough explosives in that wain to vaporize the hall and the hill and every living creature in or on or around it.
"But I've got to speak to Duke Bili, now. I'll resume contact when we halt. About a half-hour, I'd say."
The stallion, Mahvros, was not as done in as Milo's horse, but he too was obviously tired, standing docilely while cropping half-heartedly at a patch of weeds. He had lost his white stockings; they were now red—blood red. His cheeks and spiked faceplate, his massive barrel and the mail protecting his neck and withers, all were liberally splashed with crimson gore.
Astride the stallion sat an apparition of death incarnate. From sole to crest, Bili's boots and armor were besplattered with large splotches of dusty, crusty blood, the whole being sprinkled with gobbets of flesh and chips of winking-white bone. His terrible axe rested across the saddlebow, dripping slow, clotting droplets onto the steel cuishe which covered his left thigh.
But, beneath the raised visor, his blue eyes sparkled and a smile of grim satisfaction partially erased the lines of fatigue in his weather-browned face. When he sighted the High Lord approaching, his smile broadened and he raised his blood-slimy gauntleted hand in greeting.
"Ho, my lord! It's a good morning's work thus far. I doubt that an equal number of Blue Bear Knights could have done as well. Why, there must be near on a thousand of the would-be pikepushers dead in this field alone!"
A shadow glided across Milo's path and he glanced up at a wide-banking turkey buzzard, one of an increasing number that were awaiting the departure of the living from the cornfield which was to be their feasting ground. The buzzards, at least, were silent. Unlike the brazen black carrion crows who were already flocking to the tons of still-quivering man-flesh, while filling the air with harsh cries.
"My only regret," added the young thoheeks, frowning for a moment, "is that there were just too few of us, so far too many of those murderous swine got away. But"—his smile returned—"I warrant they'll not stop running until their damned legs will no longer bear them; then they'll crawl for a while—and it will take more than a gaggle of demented priests abetted by a pack of perverted nobles to persuade them to again bear arms against their lawful lord!"
Though he made his lips return the young warrior's smile, Milo thought that he had not pictured his thoheeksee ever ruling their demesnes as Bili must now rule this one in years to come—owning not his people's love but their fear and hatred. That fear and hatred engendered by the brutal butchery, the victims of which lay stiffening in this field, as well as by the ravagings and savageries which must surely come ere the witchmen's poison be rooted out of Morguhn and Vawn.
It was a surface thought and unshielded, so easily grasped by Bill's sensitive mind. "But what other course can be taken, my lord? What else can I do?" came his powerful mindspeak. His own thoughts were a roil of disappointment and sorrow that he had so displeased his respected overlord, simply by doing that which his instinct and training assured him was right.
"But you are right, Bili," Milo beamed gently. "You have followed the best course available to you, are pursuing the only choice that this time, this place, this world will allow you. It is your lord who is truly in the wrong!
"Just last night, I chided the witchman who calls himself Skiros for attempting to apply the standards of a long-dead time and world to the here and now. This morning, I find myself guilty of the same folly.
"If any erred, it was me, young Bili; and that was long years before ever your grandfather's grandfather first saw Sacred Sun. I should have realized that the Ehleen Church would never forget, never forgive me for weakening their stranglehold on their adherents, for discrediting their motives and for depriving them of most of their ill-gotten gains.
"I should have known that they would always provide a chink in the Confederation's armor and than, sooner or later, some enemy would discover and utilize that opening. And now we know that an enemy did just that.
"Bili, do you recall the conversation we had at Horse Hall? How I compared rebellion to a festered wound?"
Unconsciously, the thoheeks moved his head in an affirmative, the blood-draggled plume nodding above the blued-steel bear which surmounted his helm. "Yes, my lord," he beamed.
"Then you are aware that that evil infection has all but gobbled up Vawn and is deeply seated in Morguhn. So, regrettably, our surgery must be most extreme. You and I and the Undying Lady Aldora must be the physicians, Bili. Your brave Kinsmen and retainers, Chief Hwahltuh and his clansmen, and the Confederation troops must be our instruments,
"The initial cuts were made last night and this morning, but we must cut far deeper, deeply enough to be certain that we have excised the last trace of the infection. So heed you not those who would gainsay you in this, the work you know best. Sacred Sun was watching over our Confederation on the day you were sent to the court of King Gilbuht, for he has made of you the man whom I need in the present unpleasantness.
"I am displeased, Bili, but by the circumstances only. All that I have thus far seen of you is very pleasing, and when Morguhn and Vawn are both cleansed and again at peace, you shall experience the gratitude of the High Lord."
Chapter Two
Sweat-soaked and dust-coated. Lord Drehkos Daiviz came within sight of the City of Morguhnpolis and vainly spur-raked his mount's heaving, foam-flecked barrel. Valiantly, the well-bred gray gave his best remaining effort, little as that was; but both he and his rider might have saved their exertions, for the east gate remained tightly closed, even when the weary vahrohneeskos drew his sword and pounded its pommel upon the thick old timbers.
Kneeing the staggering, trembling horse out from the gate arch, the rebel nobleman craned his neck until he could see to the top of the gate tower.
"Damn your eyes, Toorkos!" he roared at the gate sergeant, who was leaning on a merlon. "You know who I am! Open the goddam gate! It is imperative that I see Lord Myros at once!"
But the dark, chunky man shook his balding head. "We dare not raise a single bar, Lord D
rehkos. Were we to so much as crack any of the gates, we'd never get them closed, we wouldn't, ere most of the esteemed citizens of this city were gone, and Lord Myros says that we'll need them all for either defenders or hostages."
Drehkos shrugged. "Then drop me a rope, man."
From atop the wall, the city streets resembled nothing so much as an overturned anthill. Women and children, girls and boys and a few men scurried to and fro, seemingly aimlessly. The cacophony of shouts and screams and wails smote painfully upon Drehkos' ears and helped him to understand why the gate guards appeared so surly and vicious. Half a dozen arrow-studded corpses lay sprawled on the bloody stones just shy of the gate, and, ignored by the throngs, a middle-aged woman dragged herself, slowly, painfully, up High Street, a heavy iron dart shaft standing out from the small of her back.
"The cowardly pack tried to rush the gate, my lord," offered the sergeant, Toorkos, when he saw Drehkos eyeing the carnage. "Tried to shift the bars by brute strength, they did. But Lord Myros give us our orders when he posted us here. And we persuaded them to leave them gates be, we did!"
"Rather sharp persuasion, I'd say," remarked Drehkos wryly. But the witticism was lost on the sergeant. Drehkos then ordered, "I'll need a horse, Toorkos, and, from the look of things, probably an escort, as well."
But, ignoring alike importunings and orders, Toorkos flatly refused to part with even a single archer or spearman. And of horses he had none, but he at least gave Drehkos a hooded cloak to cover his armor and, hopefully, conceal his identity from the ugly, dangerous mob, until he might win to the city governor's palace.
When at last he stood before the huge, ornate, brass-sheathed doors of the building, he was presented with another problem—how to rap loudly enough to gain the attention of those within without also bringing the mob, which he had thus far largely avoided. But he had only put hand to swordhilt, when a small door set within one of the larger ones swung open to reveal the beak-nosed visage of Gahlos Gahlahktios, Lord Myros' guard captain.
