by Robert Adams
In the week that it took them to finally cross the Lootrah River and so come into the lands of Ahramos' patrimony at last, Pahvlos' mind was very troubled, and its boiling thoughts cost him several nights of precious sleep.
It was not the tragedies of Ippohskeera, really, although they had a part in it all. No, old Pahvlos was accustomed—if not really ever inured—to personal loss; his wives, his lovers, his sons and his daughters, all had died in their primes, as had full many a one of his dearest friends, while he lived on to mourn them. Ahramos, his grandson out of his youngest daughter, Pehtra, twin sister of Pehtros, was now the only male of his line left to say the rites over his husk when finally he went to join in death all of those others who had been so dear to him.
His first, young, much-loved wife had died in trying to bear the first child of his loins, and now, after all the years, he still could hear in his mind her voice, though he could barely recall exactly what she had looked like. His second wife had died of a great fever that had swept the capital one summer long ago; she had left him with two sons and a daughter, but the pox had taken off the girl and had left both of the boys badly marked with "the devil's kiss." That had been when he had resolved that his next wife would remain in the more salubrious, rural environs of his komeeseeahn, and so it had been, though he often had been lonely for them, despite the lovers he had enjoyed in the capital and on campaigns.
Ehlveera, his third wife, had lived and produced a child per year for eleven years, though of course only four of them had lived to adulthood; she had succumbed to a terrible bout of colic while he had been on that long, hellish campaign in the northern mountains, against the indigenous barbarians. That particular campaign had also cost the dear life of his much-loved eldest son, who had suffered a deathwound while serving as an ensign with one of three companies that had held a pass against the foe until the rest of the army could come up and crushingly defeat them. The lad's body had still been warm when Pahvlos had arrived and been informed, but he had only had enough time to clasp it to his armored breast once and kiss the pock-marked, so-pale cheeks before he needs must dash the tears from his eyes and go on to lead his regiments against the howling barbarians.
His second son had died some years later during a sea fight against pirates; he had been a lieutenant of fleet soldiers and had been thrown into the sea from a catapult platform when his ship was suddenly rammed by a pirate bireme. Both his third and his fourth sons had died in one battle against northern barbarians. The fifth, Pehtros, had died gloriously during the battle that had put paid to one of the earlier rebellions against King Hyamos' senile despotism.
Pahvlos' fourth wife, although she had lived long, and been congenial and an excellent stepmother to his children and wards, had proved barren. As she had matured, she had run heavily to fat, as did many an Ehleen woman, but she still never had failed to be loving and jolly with her family and the husband whose press of duties allowed him to visit her and his bucolic domain so infrequently. At last, bedridden after suffering a seizure that had left her partially paralyzed, she had begun to cough up blood and had died a week later.
By the time of his great victory at the Battle of Ahrbahkootchee, of all Pahvlos' onetime family only one daughter remained alive. This had been Pehtra, wed to the Thoheeks of Kahlkos, with a young son and an infant girl by him. After her husband's death, certain occurrences had led the widowed Pehtra to believe that some of the late thoheeks' advisers were inimical to her and the children, so she and a coterie of still-faithful servants and retainers had, of a night, carried out a carefully planned escape from the city and the duchy that had for so long been her home and fled to the haven offered by her birthplace.
There they had stayed until a wasting fever had carried off both mother and daughter within the space of a bare fortnight, sparing the son, however. By then, Pahvlos had been living in quiet and cautious retirement, having been dismissed from the army he had for so long commanded through triumph after glorious triumph. After wedding the widow of a city-lord, a sometime vassal, he and his new wife had taken over the proper rearing and education of his grandson, Ahramos.
When, some seven months before, his middle-aged "bride" had died suddenly of apoplexy, he had decided that with the new Council of Thoheeksee having established at least a modicum of order to the land, the time had arrived when Ahramos should return to the city of his father and claim the lands and the title that were his patrimony.
Yes, the old nobleman knew well loss and its attendant pain, but these were not what troubled his sleeping and waking thoughts, day after day, night after night. No, it was his open, imaginative and creative mind—that flexible mind the easily adjustable thinking patterns of which had given birth to so many stunning strategies and tactics, often on the very spur of the moment and usually resulting in smashing victories over a host of enemies over the long years.
Now faced with things he had for all of his previous life—some seventy years of it—considered ridiculous, impossible tales, he was being forced to admit to himself that these things not might be but must be possible realities.
From the very beginning, he had scoffed at the Horseclanners' oft-vaunted supposed abilities to read minds, communicate silently with each other and communicate with certain dumb beasts—their horses, their great war-cats and elephants. His certainties had first begun to crumble, however, even before the army had marched, when he had been confronted with the uncanny ability of the barbarian Horseclanner feelahksee to put their three pachyderms through intricate maneuvers that he had never before seen even the best-trained and best-controlled war-elephants perform in either drill or actual combat.
He had not objected overmuch to the horse-archers bringing their war-cats along, even though they had flatly refused to either cage or chain them on the march, for certain of the barbarian tribes of the northern mountains trained and used huge, fearsome war-dogs in battle, so he recognized that could the cats be as well controlled, they just might be a definite advantage. Besides, he truly treasured the Horseclanner barbarians' rare combination of military values, and as they had refused to march without the cats, he had acquiesced as gracefully as he could. Nor had he had any slightest cause to regret that acquiescence since, for there had been not even one attack by the felines against men or beast in camp, column, remuda or ration herd. The huge, toothy beasts had seemed quite content to feast on the lights of slaughtered beeves or, sometimes, hunt their own wild meat, never to his knowledge having harmed domestic stock in the lands through which they had passed on the march.
With more than enough plans and problems and worries to occupy his mind, he had let the business of telepathy with beasts slip far, far down into the depths of his consciousness . . . until that queer business at the ruined hold of Ippohskeera had brought it all bubbling up to the surface again and at a full, rolling boil.
There simply was no earthly way that Chief Pawl Vawn could have known that poor Vahrohnos Iahnos had a crippled leg, a missing eye and a hideously scarred face and was quite mad. Pahvlos knew for fact that the captain of the barbarian horse-archers had not left the camp that night, not even for minutes, much less for the length of time it would have taken a man to cover the distance between camp and hold and do it twice at that. Nor was there any possible way that the barbarian auxiliary could have known, there upon those winding stairs, exactly what lay ahead, that the wounded, dying man's only weapon was a rusted sword with a broken blade.
Therefore, Pahvlos could not but begin to fully accept the patent impossible as existing fact: these Horseclanner barbarians somehow had developed and fully mastered an eerie talent to join their minds with those of animals and each other. Once his mind had accepted it all fully, Pahvlos enjoyed a refreshing, night-long sleep, and when he awakened, resolved to question Chief Pawl, Captain of Elephants Gil Djohnz, and selected others in some depth, then begin to determine just how these new gifts could be made of use to him and to the army and to the state.
At last, af
ter long weeks on the march, the army crossed the Lootrah River and were within the Thoheekseeahn of Kahlkos, though still a couple of days' march from the ducal seat, Kahlkopolis. Because they took the time to reduce two holds along the way, however, it took them a full week to reach the capital. Neither of the holds had been strongly held, but Pahvlos held a belief that bypassed foes could often present unexpected dangers at very untoward moments. The reductions had cost him very little, only a bare handful of casualties, and a certain amount of welcome information had been obtained from the survivors of the garrisons before they had been executed. Pahvlos had never had a reputation for cruelty in warfare, but he could see no point in burdening himself with a gaggle of captive banditti; most had likely owned necks long overdue for the short, sharp acquaintance with a broadaxe, anyway, that or the tight, lingering embrace of a hempen rope.
With his rear and flanks swept clear of potential attackers, old Pahvlos marched his army up to within sight of the walls of the city held by the usurper and began to erect a strong mounded and ditched camp near the banks of a swift-flowing brook. The pioneers and artificiers had just felled and dragged in from a nearby forest a sufficiency of treetrunks to provide lumber for assembling the larger engines when a herald was seen riding toward them from Kahlkopolis. The Grand Strahteegos immediately dispatched his own herald to meet this visitor from the enemy.
After a few minutes, the army's herald—a vahrohnos, one Djehros of Kahktohskeera—rode back at a brisk amble to salute and report, "My lord Strahteegos, a gentleman-officer named Stehrgiahnos desires to come here to the camp and meet with you—he, the herald yonder, and a small attending party."
Pahvlos shrugged and said, "Certainly, I'll meet with him here, just so long as he does not expect me or one of my own officers to return the visit, that is."
As Vahrohnos Djehros rode back out onto the broad, rolling, grassy plain, Pahvlos summoned his staff and ordered, "Throw out strong, wide-ranging mounted patrols all around us and hold every fighting man at the ready, full armed. Something about all of this stinks, and am I to be surprised, I want to be ready for it."
The Grand Strahteegos treated Stehrgiahnos with every ounce of the contempt that he felt the renegade nobleman deserved, and then some more for good measure. No wine was proffered, not even a chair or a stool. Pahvlos and an assortment of his officers sat behind a table—armed, wearing at least half-armor, their sheathed swords all lying on the tabletop near to hand.
"Look you, my lords," began the enemy officer, "this Mainahkos holds the duchy and city and has held them now for years, with no opposition or even a hint of dissatisfaction amongst the people. He has been a good lord and has been fair in all his dealings with his subjects, you see.
"Now it is widely known that this Council of Thoheeksee sitting in Mehseepolis are confirming some unrelated claimants to titles if the original house is extinct, as this one of Kahlkos seems to be. So why should not the Council of Thoheeksee simply list this duchy as Klehpteekos—I mean Klehftikos—rather than Kahlkos and confirm the present overlord-in-fact as the legal overlord?
"My lords, I believe that this solution would be far the simplest, least painful and least costly one, for all concerned. Yes, you lead a fine, large, fully equipped army here; pains were taken to show me its strengths as I was conducted through the camp to this pavilion. Nonetheless, I am of the opinion that our army is from a third to a half again bigger than this one, and although you have more cavalry, we have more infantry, which will serve us far better in the event of a siege than will your cavalry serve you then. Nor would such a siege be short, for the city is well provisioned, well armed with a plethora of engines of all sizes and types, and blessed with more than enough uninterdictible sources of pure water in the forms of natural springs and deep wells.
"So, then, my lords, why not send fast riders to Mehseepolis and have our puissant Lord Mainahkos confirmed new thoheeks! True, he is baseborn, but then I suspect that the progenitors of more than one of our most noble houses were just such, did we but know the truth."
"I take note that you have not named the patronymic of your own house of origin, Lord Stehrgiahnos," said Pahvlos scathingly, "nor can I say that I blame you, for your shameful service to an honorless bandit chief has dishonored you and degraded your house irrevocably. Indeed, did I suspect us two to be even distantly related, I think that I should fall on my sword in pure shame.
"But as regards your proposal, were the House of Kahlkos indeed extinct, there might possibly be a bare nugget of sense in what you have said. But the house is not extinct; here, at this very table, sits the rightful heir, the thoheeks by birth." He nodded his white head down the table in the direction of his grandson, who sat stiffly and blankfaced in his dusty armor and helm.
"Young Ahramos there is the last living son of the late last Thoheeks of Kahlkos and is my own grandson. His just claim far outweighs that of any ruffianly usurper, no matter where he squats, aping his betters and aspiring to their place, nor how long he has been there."
From where he stood before the table, Stehrgiahnos eyed the tall, husky heir critically, then said, "Well, there still is a way in which we might avoid a general bloodletting, my lords, a most ancient and an honorable way. That expedient is to arrange a simple, old-fashioned session in arms between Lord Mainahkos and the pretender to the title you present here."
"Cow flop!" snorted Pahvlos scornfully. "In addition to being an arrant traitor to your class, a disgrace to your house, and personally without enough real honor to make an end to your miserable life, you clearly also lack the wits of a braying jackass or even a slimy corpse worm . . . and I warn you, sirrah, if you make the cardinal mistake of actually trying to draw that blade, I'll see you—truce-breaker that you then will have become—lose that hand at the rate of one joint per hour before you leave my camp!
"To begin, now, Thoheeks-designate Ahramos, far from being some pretender claimant, is the rightful overlord of the Thoheekseeahn of Kahlkos, thoheeks by his birth and lineage. As such, he deserves and is being afforded the firm support of every loyal, right-thinking nobleman of this new Consolidated Thoheekseeahnee, which is precisely why my army and I are here, since upon the occasion of his first visit to his patrimonial lands and city, he barely escaped with his life from the minions of your precious bandit chief.
"The sort of resolution which you have suggested never applied, even in ancient times, to a situation of this sort. It was thought to be legal and binding only for cases wherein both contenders owned an equal birthright or wherein neither owned such.
"Besides which, no gentleman—no true gentleman—of my army is going forth to meet a common, baseborn criminal to fight an honorable duel on terms of a nonexistent equality. I find it indicative of just how far you have descended into the slime that you would even suggest so completely dishonorable a course before me and these gentleman-officers.
"Now, unless you wish to discuss terms of surrender of the city, leave my camp at once and hie you back to your kennelmates; the very sight, sound and stench of you are an affront of my senses. If I should want to see you again, I'll whistle you up as I would any mongrel hound."
Chapter VIII
Some week after the visit of Captain Stehrgiahnos to his camp, the elderly strahteegos and his staff were apprised by a sweating, bleeding galloper that a detachment of his far-ranging lancers had made contact—exceedingly violent contact—with an estimated two thousand men, mixed foot and horse, who apparently were proceeding with and guarding a long wagon train, a large herd of cattle and a smaller herd of horses and mules. These newcomers were on an west-to-east line of march that pointed directly toward Kahlkopolis.
Grinning like a winter wolf, the Grand Strahteegos dispatched Captain Thoheeks Portos with a mixed force consisting of both heavy and medium-heavy horse. As an afterthought, he reinforced the small units of lancers which were ambling just beyond easy bowshot of the city walls, lest someone in there get the idea of riding forth to try to succo
r this column from the western komeeseeahnee—obviously a late-arriving supply and reinforcement column.
At a bit after nightfall, Portos rode back into camp to report most of the foemen dead, the few survivors widely scattered and all running hard, with few casualties in his own force. He also reported that his troopers were bringing in all of the wagons and the horse herd, but that the Horseclansmen who had been a part of his force and were vastly more experienced at moving cattle had advised that the beeves be left at the site of the encounter until men on herding mounts rather than warhorses could collect them and bring them into camp.
Three hours after the dawning of the following day, Vahrohnos Djehros Kahktohskeera, with his white banner, mounted on his creamy-white gelding, was sent forth across the plain in the direction of the city. Some two hours later, Captain Stehrgiahnos and a small party issued from out the main gates and rode toward the spot whereon the vahrohnos waited patiently, slapping at flies and studying the many engines visible from his position upon the walls and towers of the City of Kahlkopolis, sketching in his memory their placements and fields of fire. For, expert herald or not, he was first and foremost a military officer, and he just might, someday soon, have to take a part in an assault upon these very walls, with those very engines hurling death at him.
Only the renegade nobleman himself and Vahrohnos Djehros were allowed to pass the outer lines and proceed into the camp this time, and Stehrgiahnos was escorted directly to the pavilion of the Grand Strahteegos. There, ranged in a line just beyond the hitching rail, a number of peeled wooden stakes had been sunk into the ground, each of them crowned with a livid, blood-crusty head. Paling slightly, the broken nobleman recognized the sharp-pointed nose and the large, prominent, outthrust incisors that had given Ratface Billisos his nom de guerre on one of those ghastly trophies and the thick, almost pendulous lower lip and thoroughly pock-marked face of Horsecock Kawlos on another of them. The silent message was clear, indisputable: there now would be no resupply of the city, no additional troops, no remounts, no matter how long Mainahkos and Ahreekos waited.
