by Robert Adams
Within thirty-six hours after the deposing of Zastros, all of the organized warbands were on the march southward and the Green Dragon Banner atop the pavilion waved over a scene of desolation. Outside the still-guarded royal enclosure, precious few tents remained erect or whole. Only discarded or broken equipment was left, and a horde of human scavengers flitted through swarms of flies feasting on latrines, garbage pits and scattered corpses of men and animals.
Grahvos was the last thoheeks to depart, having seen most of the troops on the march before dawn. Leaving his personal detachment at the foot of the hill, he rode up to the royal enclosure and, when admitted, rode on to dismount before the pavilion.
"Any trouble so far, Mahvros?" he asked of the captain.
The younger nobleman shook his head. "Nor do I expect any, my lord. Oh, my boys had to crack a few pates and wet a few blades before they convinced the scum that we meant business here, but we've been avoided since then."
"But what of after the rest of us are well down the road?" asked the thoheeks skeptically.
Mahvros shrugged. "My lord, there're damned few real soldiers—men trained to arms—left down there. And anyway, none of the skulkers are organized, it's every man for himself. No, I assure my lord, everything will remain just as it now is here, when the Confederation troops come."
"What of Zastros, Mahvros?" inquired the thoheeks. "Has he awakened yet?"
"No, my lord." The captain shook his head. "He still lives and breathes, but he also still sleeps. But I ordered the Lady Lilyuhn . . . ahhh, disposed of. Her death-wound was acrawl with maggots, and it was a certainty she'd be too high to bear by the time the High Lord came."
Grahvos sighed. "It couldn't be helped, you know. That guard most likely was the one who killed her. There was fresh blood on his spearbutt, and that butt fitted perfectly the depression in her skull. Nonetheless, please tell the High Lord that I'm sorry.
"Also, Mahvros, tell him that I'll see the Thirty-three all convened in the capital whenever he so desires. I am certain that he and King Zenos will want some form and amount of reparations—they deserve it and I'd demand such in their place—but please emphasize to them that some few years are going to pass before we can any of us put our lands back on a paying basis."
Walking back over to his horse, he put foot into stirrup, then turned back. "One other little thing, Mahvros, my boy. The Council met for a very brief session just before dawn, this morning. Thoheeks Pahlios was your overlord, was he not?"
Brows wrinkled a bit in puzzlement, the vahrohnos nodded. "Yes, my lord, but he was slain nearly two years ago at—"
"Just so," Grahvos interrupted. "He and all his male kin in the one battle. We're going to have to affirm or reaffirm or replace the Thirty-three rather quickly, and, quite naturally, we want men that we know in advance will loyally support us and the Confederation. That's why we chose you, this morning, to succeed the late Pahlios."
Delving into the top of his right boot, Grahvos brought out a slender roll of vellum and placed it in the hand of the stunned captain, saying, "Guard this well, Thoheeks Mahvros. When you're back home, ride to the capital or to my seat and you will be loaned troops enough to secure your new lands, if that's what it takes.
"Now, I must be gone." He mounted and, from his saddle, extended his hand. "May God and His Saints bless and keep you, lad. And may He bring you safely home."
Reining about, Strahteegos Thoheeks Grahvos rode down the low hill to where his personal retainers awaited him.
After turning over the onetime-royal enclosure and ail that it contained to the High Lord, Milo Morai, Mahvros dutifully delivered the package of documents and the oral messages to the great man. That much done, he showed him the smaller document, shyly accepted the congratulations heaped upon him by the High Lord and the others of his retinue, then gave his own oaths of loyalty, in person, witnessed by all then present.
Then that night, while Confederation Army infantry guarded the hilltop enclosure in their places, Thoheeks Mahvros saw his retainers treated to all that they could eat from off the broiling carcasses of a brace of fat cattle, several casks of pickled vegetables, rounds of army bread and watered wine. He himself sat that night at a groaning feast-board with the High Lord and a select company.
That night saw his initial introductions to three men who were to become his lifelong friends and whose names were to be writ large upon the pages of the early history of the Consolidated Southern Duchies of the new Confederation of Peoples.
Sub-strahteegos Komees Tomos Gonsalos was the first. The red-haired half Ehleen, half mountain Merikan was a full first cousin of none other than King Zenos of Karaleenos himself. He was, announced the High Lord, to be commander of the mixed force of Confederation troops he was sending along with Mahvros and his retainers to be turned over toThoheeks Grahvos, his for as long as he needed them to help restore order to the lands of the Thirty-three Thoheeksee.
The second man was a Kindred chief of one of the Horseclans, the Merikan race from off the faraway Sea of Grass who had, thirty years agone, conquered Kehnooryos Ehlahs. Pawl Vawn, chief of that ilk, was typical of his ancestral stock—blond, blue-eyed, small-boned and very wiry, with flat muscles and great endurance. Under Tomos Gonsalos, he would be leading some hundreds of Horseclans horse-archers and a small contingent of the leopard-sized felines called prairiecats.
Another squadron of cavalry—lancers, this time— was to be in Tomos' force. After deserting High King Zastros' army for good and sufficient cause, Captain Komees Portos and his men had been taken, entire, into the Army of the Confederation; now they were all to go back to their original homeland on loan from their new sovereign. Press of duties had kept Portos from that dinner that night, but Mahvros knew of the tall, silent, saturnine cavalry leader and had even met him a few times. His reputation had been one of leadership, rare ability and, prior to his desertion from the Green Dragon forces, unmatched loyalty; indeed, such had been his well-earned name in that army that upon the disappearance of him and his force, the general assumption of his superiors and his peers had been that he and his had been wiped out by the partisans, no one even suspecting that such a paragon of faithfulness would desert, much less go over to the enemy.
The infantry force was to be a mercenary or Freefighter unit of the Middle Kingdoms, the condotta of a redoubtable veteran Freefighter captain, Guhsz Hehluh, he and his company presently under long-term contract to the High Lord of Kehnooryos Ehlahs.
The third man "commanded" the last "unit" that would make up Tomos Gonsalos' brigade of mixed troops. Gil Djohnz was a Horseclansman, like Chief Pawl Vawn, but compared to that magnate, his "force" was minuscule—only some half-dozen mounted men, a small remuda of spare horses and a few pack mules were almost all of it. But the word "almost" was most important in this instance, for the entity that the word covered was rather large and the presence of that entity imparted a sizable addition of threat to any foes that Gonsalos' force might face. That entity was a cow elephant, self-named Sunshine, ridden and handled and cared for by Gil Djohnz.
"I was not aware, Lord Milo, that any save us of the Southern King—ahh, of the Consolidated Duchies, that is, used elephants in war, ere this," Mahvros remarked at that point.
The High Lord smiled. "We don't ... or, rather, didn't, when all of this started. Sunshine is spoils of war, or, to be more accurate, like Portos and his squadron, Sunshine defected from Zastros and joined with us.
"On the day of the attack on the bridge fortifications, it was. When we fired the bridge roadway, one of the two elephants leading the assault, you may recall, burst through the downstream rail and fell into the river. That was our Sunshine. She came wading ashore a bit downstream from the bridge, and I was summoned to the spot along with a few Horseclansmen I had by me just then.
"I am telephatic, you know, and I instantly discovered that I could communicate—actually converse— with Sunshine as easily as I converse with my horses or with other telepathic humans. Al
though frightened, she was in no way vicious, and as soon as she knew that we meant her no ill, she indicated that her armor was very uncomfortable and begged us to relieve her of it. Stripped of armor and padding, she was an appalling sight. She was literally skin and bones—you could count her every rib and vertebra."
Mahvros sighed and nodded. "Yes, my lord, your partisans were all damnably effective in denying the Green Dragon Army the supplies and sinews of war we needed so desperately then. Indeed, most of the real war-elephants were slaughtered on the march because there was nothing to feed them. The two we had remaining upon our arrival were still alive only because they had been used to draw High King Zastros' pavilion."
"Well, I am returning her to the south, to the land she came from, Mahvros," stated the High Lord. "For all that she expresses unlimited devotion to me and would stay near to me, were it up to her, I think she'll be better off in a warmer, less humid environment than the lands around Kehnooryos Atheenahs, much less in the western mountains where 1 mean to eventually remove my capital."
Mahvros shrugged. "My lord, permit me to say that elephants seem to work as well in snow and cold as any other domestic beast, nor do mountains seem to affect them adversely; indeed, they are reputed to be almost as surefooted as goats. True, most of ours come from the flat plains of the far west, around the shores of the New Gulf, yet the thoheeksee of Iron Mountain have bred their own war and draught elephants for generations high in the northern mountains.
"However, I, for one, am overjoyed at my lord's decision to release this one, for elephants of any sort, if properly managed and utilized, can be invaluable to any army, and I am certain that Thoheeks Grahvos will be most appreciative of this kind generosity added to the other loan of trained troops. News of such unasked magnanimity is certain to go far toward guaranteeing the continued loyalty and respect and love of your high-iordship's new subjects in the south.
"It has been my experience that the pattern of the reign of a new king is often set—both for ruler and ruled—quite early in that reign by acts which denote generosity or selfishness. Your high-lordship has begun his tenure well, I would say."
Milo Morai pursed his lips and regarded the young thoheeks for a moment in silence, then said, "My boy, you are wise beyond your actual years, in addition to being brave, loyal and loquacious. Continue to serve me as well as you serve Thoheeks Grahvos and the late Zastros and you will not remain a mere captain thoheeks for long, I vow. Such a mix of valuable talents in a man so young as are you is a rare and precious find for any state or ruler, and I am not known for dismissing or for wasting such talents and men."
Chapter I
Uttering a deep, deep groan of pleasure, Sunshine gathered her thick legs under her, sat up and then stood up, streaming water back into the wide, shallow brook. Next, she lowered herself back down onto her now-scrubbed right side, that Gil might scrub the left as well. All the while that the short, wiry Horseclansman worked on the vast expanses of skin, pausing now and again to remove ticks and deposits of insects' eggs from folds and nooks and crannies in that skin, he and the elephant "conversed," mind to mind, in the silent, telepathic way that his people called "mindspeak."
"You are the best, most caring brother that Sunshine ever has had," the pachyderm had assured him over and over. "Not even Kalizos, who was my brother for as long as I can remember, understood me and cared for me as well and as tenderly as do you, Gil-my-brother. Yohnutos, who tried to become my brother after Kalizos ceased to live, meant well and was a good man, but by then he had his real sister and me as well to care for and very little to feed us, ever, so that we were always hungry. Sunshine believes that it was because he fed so much of his own food—little as it was—to us that he sickened and then he too ceased to live.
"When the life had left him, my sister and I were so very hungry that we ... we ate his husk, all of it, even the tiniest morsel. After that, we were cared for by the men who also cared for horses, but those always stank of fear when they were around us. You do not fear Sunshine, do you, Gil-my-brother?"
Folding one of her ears forward, Gil began to carefully remove a line of fat white ticks from the crease thus exposed, popping them between his nails, then swishing off the blood in the flowing water.
"Of course I don't fear Sunshine, my sister," he assured her. "If life should leave me, for whatever reason, Sunshine has my permission to eat my husk, too; better her than a horde of little sharp-toothed beasts or a bushel of slimy, shiny worms. Furthermore, I am certain that this late Yohnutos must have felt just that same way, too."
After a while, he tossed the brushes onto the pile of gear on the bank, then slid from off the elephant and waded a few yards upstream to where the water formed another pool as deep as that in which she lay.
"I am done with you, Sunshine. Stay there and enjoy the water while I wash myself, then we will go back to camp. Perhaps the stores train arrived while we were away."
Sunshine did not answer him, she just rumbled another groan of pure pleasure from the cooling, soothing water gurgling around her. Idly, she filled her trunk and then sprayed the fluid onto those expanses of her body not submerged.
Once he had bathed and dressed, his clothes still damp from their washing, the pachyderm grudgingly quitted her pool and assisted him in resaddling her and hanging the equipment back in place. Then he guided her back to the upstream pool, on a bank of which he had discovered a dense growth of the plant called fen cabbage, much relished by the elephant. It was while she was using her trunk to tear out the plants, roots and all, and stuff them into her mouth that she once more mindspoke him.
"Gil-my-brother, there is a man lying in the tall grass just above the other bank. He has one of the long, hollow things that throws tiny arrows and it is pointed at your face. When I hear him take his deeper breath and propel that arrow, I will spray him with a trunkful of water and you must then attack him before he can set himself to take another breath. Sunshine has heard of these tiny arrows; the brother of one of her sisters ceased to live after being only scratched by one."
Across the stream, motionless in the thick grass, his deadly blowpipe extended before him, Benee moved his left arm ever so slowly, gradually raising the pipe, meticulously adjusting the aim of the tricky weapon. Although hardly more than a child by the standards of most inland folk, among his own people—the fen dwellers of the coasts, called swampers by Merikan speakers and baltohtheesee by Ehleenoee when not being called by cruder, more obscene names—Benee was both a hunter of long standing and a well-proven warrior, having taken the spears from off no less than three inlander warriors and the head off one of those men. This latest victim did not have a spear, but he did have a head to add to Benee's collection that hung in the rafters of a certain stilt-supported hut deep in the salt fens.
True, he and all of the others had received word from the Men of the Sea Islands that the great inland war was now done and that they now were no longer to slay alien warriors along the edges of the fens. But Benee and all of the others of his kind had silently, grimly laughed at the words, for war or no war there never had been a time in living memory or legend when his folk had ceased to slay any who chose to encroach too closely to the peripheries of the salt swamps. All inlander folk were the enemies of the fen folk, this had always been so and would ever be so, and it was the duty, the right, the privilege and the joy of Benee and every other man of the fens to kill every inlander that happened to stray within range of his blowpipe.
The long tube aligned to his utter satisfaction now, Benee drew in a deep, deep breath, for the range was a few yards farther than he would have preferred, but the best he had been able to accomplish in the particular circumstances. He drew the air in through his nostrils, for his lips already were pressed to the mouthpiece of the pipe, the fluffy down of the deadly dart only a couple of centimeters beyond his mouth.
But a split second before he released the powerful puff that would send the envenomed dart sailing at the unprotected flesh
of Benee's chosen victim, a vast quantity of icy-cold brook water inundated him with some force, spoiling his careful aim so thoroughly that the dart buried itself deep in the muddy mire from which the huge singular beast had been tearing up and eating plants. And even as he dashed the water from his eyes, Benee knew that despite his caution in the stalk, he must have been observed, for his intended victim had waded or swum the width of the pool and was now clambering up the near bank, a long, wide-bladed dirk shining like silver in his right fist.
The swamp killer was wrong. Even at a distance of less than thirty feet, Gil Djohnz did not see the small, slight man—his body, limbs and head all streaks and daubs of mud, with dead leaves, clumps of grass and other vegetable trash stuck to it here and there—until he stood up from his place of ambush and drew a brace of single-edged knives from sheaths fastened to his skinny shanks.
Benee figured that his death would be quick in the coming, now, for not only was the inlander bigger and stronger-looking than was he, with a two-edged weapon that was obviously made and balanced for fighting, but surely the inlander must often have actually fought breast to breast, man against man, something that Benee never had done—fenfolk fought thus only as a last resort, as in this instance, when cornered, otherwise doing all of their man-killing from a distance with fiendish traps or with the poisoned darts from their blowpipes, the knives they carried being tools rather than weapons.
Gil knew fen-men of old, numerous families of the unsavory breed having inhabited the fens to the north and east and south of Ehlai before the cooperative efforts of the Ehleenoee and the Kindred had rooted them out, killed them or driven them farther south and north to pose an ever-present threat to other peoples. He knew that deadly as they all assuredly were at short distances with their pipes and poisoned darts, at ranges beyond the reach of their pipes they were craven, and without those pipes they posed about as much real danger to any determined fighter as so many swamp rabbits.
