A Cat of Silvery Hue

IX

None of the noble Vawnpolitan rebels had known Drehkos Daiviz well. There was not that much contact between the minor nobility of neighboring duchies—this was a long-established custom which was designed to prevent inbreeding of noble houses and to assure the certainty that komeesee, vahrohnoee, vehrohneeskoee and city lords owned allegiance to but a single thoheeks.

But, of course, ill gossip always traveled like wildfire, so most of the surviving noble rebels had heard of the ne’er-do-well wastrel scion of the House of Daiviz, who had offended both Kindred and Ehleenee by marrying a woman of common blood whose kin worshiped neither Sun nor Son, then had spent the most of his life squandering her fortune on harebrained commercial ventures. But they had difficulty in seeing anything of the luxury-prone, self-centered profligate of rumor in the person of the frighteningly competent, masterful man who led them now.

Before Drehkos’ fortuitous arrival, the three nobles of Vawn had been at an utter loss as to how to even try to defend the city they had so recently wrested from its rightful owners, while instigated and led by Kooreeos Mahreeos. Word of his disappearance—dead or captured, no one could say which—during the frightful debacle under the walls of Morguhn Hall and, even worse, of the entrance into Morguhn of Confederation Regulars had sapped their resolve and rendered them almost as panic-stricken as the commoner Vawnpolitans and the hordes of refugees flooding in from Morguhn. They had been promised and had expected instant and continuing victory. For was not the only True God with them? But the Holy Crusade had been broken in Morguhn, with the very flower of its forces extirpated. And, facing unbeatable odds, their backs were truly and irrevocably to the wall, with now hostile duchies to north, east and south, and grim death to the west

A bare seventy years prior to the ill-starred rebellion, Vawn and its neighbors to north and south, Skaht and Baikuh, had for the most part been the uncontested domains of certain fierce tribes of mountain barbarians, whose constant and bloody raids on the lands of Morguhn, Duhnkin and Mahntguhmree had at last impelled the High Lord’s armies to advance along a wide front, driving the mountain men, foot by bloody, hard-fought foot, out of their ancestral hill country—which, because it was difficult to farm and because the Karaleenos Ehleenee had been sowers and reapers rather than herders, had never been previously subdued.

Subsequent to the conquest, recently arrived Horseclans had been settled in the three duchies carved from most of the conquered lands. These clans were every bit as fierce and warlike as the mountain tribes, as the raiding parties which eluded the patrols of troops and strongly garrisoned western forts learned to their sorrow. But the dispossessed were a stubborn breed, and nearly twenty years of frequent and disastrous defeats were required to convince them that the foothill lands were irredeemably lost.

But they had neither forgotten nor forgiven. Their descendants crouched now in their mountains, laired up like savage beasts; seldom did they raid in force, but in winter—especially in hard ones—bands of lanky, bearded, ragged men would drift down from the high fastnesses to butcher a cow or horse or steal a few sheep. And the Vawnee simply wrote off such small depredations, and even some of the larger, for they had learned that attempts to pursue into those mountains were infinitely costly in time, effort and lives.

Only the addled or suicidal ventured near to the line of mostly deserted forts now, for the mountain men were wary, watchful and always athirst for lowland blood. When the Yawn Kindred had made their last, doomed stand at one of the forts, countless of the besieging Crusaders had wakened of a morning to find a comrade’s head severed and propped before him, while several men had disappeared completely from within tents full of sleeping men—days later, the savagely mutilated bodies of these same unfortunates would just as mysteriously reappear close by the points from which they had been snatched, the marks of the hideous agony in which they had died clearly stamped on what was left of their faces.

That Vahrohneeskos Drehkos had led his column into these dreaded mountains, and had, more astoundingly, led more than two-thirds of his original force out, was considered something of a miracle by the Vawnpolitan nobles. The feat heartened their flagging spirits, briefly cheered them with the belief that, blessed with the resourcefulness and courage of such a paladin, there still might be some way of wriggling out of the straits into which greed, envy and an excess of religious zeal had led them.

Drehkos, on the other hand, never so deluded himself. He knew that all the noblemen and priests and most of the commoners were surely doomed, but a hitherto hidden pride compelled him to prepare for and deliver the fiercest battle of which he and the others were capable. For himself, he had no fear of death. It would be the last, deferred sharing with his dear Rehbehkah. But, naturally, no one else knew this, so his followers mistook the evidences of his longing for final surcease from the heartsickness he had suffered since his wife’s death as but another Indication of his matchless bravery.

Through purest happenstance, Drehkos discovered in an unused room of the labyrinthine Citadel a small library of treatises on various aspects of land warfare, penned by such diverse authorities as Strahteegos Thoheeks Gabos, who had commanded the armies of the Confederation a good hundred years agone; Strahteegos Ahrkeethoheeks Greemnos, legendary general to the last King of Karaleenos; the Undying High Lady Aldora’s work on cavalry tactics; and, most important to Drehkos’ present problem, two encyclopedic discourses on the defense of walled cities, one by Ahnbahr Nahseerah, eighth Caliph of Zahrtohgah, the other by Buhk Headsplitter, first King of the ancient dynasty of Pitzburk, he who had defended his city against the combined armies of Harzburk and Eeree for nearly three years until dissension in the besiegers’ ranks broke the siege. And Drehkos shared with the never-to-be-known collector of these masterpieces the ability to read the various archaic languages. He lost no time in doing so, fully aware of his own deficiencies in the military arts.

So it was that soon Drehkos was the very brains of the defense efforts, the Vawnpolitan noblemen cheerfully deferring to a man who at least gave an appearance of knowing what he was about. And soon it was far more than appearance as Drehkos’ quick mind absorbed and digested the contents of the tomes, and just as quickly fitted these new skills to the existing problems. Though he kept to a large extent the patient humility which had won him the love and respect of the men he had led on that terrible march, he had never before either merited or received the awe and adulation which his peers and retainers now afforded him, and he privately reveled in it. Therefore, he kept his finds a secret, kept the books locked in a campaign chest in his quarters and perused them during—the night hours, when most of the garrison lay sleeping.

But as more and more tasks devolved upon his shoulders and the days lengthened into weeks, he admitted to himself the utter impossibility of essaying so many different tasks and doing them all as well as they must be done. Consequently, he one day sought out Vahrohnos Myros, finding the down-fallen nobleman earning his daily ration as did all the other citizens and refugees—laboring upon a new salient; one of a pair being constructed at a very weak point in the defenses of stones and bricks taken from demolished structures.

Drehkos himself found it hard to recognize in this gaunt, bearded, sun-darkened figure in dusty rags the effete, fashionably pale-faced, spike-bearded, masterful man who had plotted and led the rebellion in Morguhn, and he was shocked to see that the remembered raven’s-wing curls of the former Lord of Deskahti were almost uniformly dirty white. Straining to propel a granite boulder with a thick crowbar clenched in work-roughened hands, he seemed unaware of Drehkos’ presence until the vahrohneeskos spoke.

“Myros, if you please, I would have words with you.”

Slowly the hunched noble straightened his body, allowing the boulder to ease back. Then his dull black eyes briefly met Drehkos’ gaze before he dispiritedly mumbled, “I have known, my lord vahrohneeskos, that sooner or later you would come to gloat. Were our positions reversed, I would have done so much sooner.”

Drehkos shook his helmeted head. “Not so, Myros, not so. I am come to ask your help.”

Myros’ answer was a harsh cackle. “My help? You have stones to be moved at the Citadel? Or, perhaps, a privy to be cleaned?”

“You there, lordy boy!” came a hoarse shout from behind Drehkos, along with the snapping of a whip. “You ain’t here to chat with passersby. Or mayhap you wants no rations this night”

Drehkos turned his head and the stocky overseer almost dropped his whip and crimsoned under his tan, stuttering. “Y-your p-pardon, my l-lord. I-truly—I did not kn-know who ’twas.”

Drehkos’ warm smile came with his reassurance. “Never fear, good Klawdos, you were but doing your job, and I’d not fault you for such. But you’d best find another pair of hands for this task; this gentleman will be leaving with me.”

In Drehkos’ office-sitting room, Myros’ cracked lips sipped delicately at his third brass cup of watered wine. “Let me see if I truly understand you, Drehkos. You want me, a man who foolishly did his damnedest to undermine your leadership, to help and advise in preparing this city to stand off what is coming? How could you trust me, eh? You know me well enough to be aware that my life has been but one betrayal after another.”

Drehkos’ powerful hands cracked a couple of nuts, a helmetful of which had been the shy gift of a recently returned scouting party. Separating the shells, he pushed half the meats over to his guest, chuckling ruefully, “If we are to bring up the bones of the past, Myros, my deeds, too, will exude the stench of offal. I can take damn-all pride in most of my accomplishments. But today is not yesterday, Yawn is not Morguhn, and I, for one, mean to die more honorably than I lived.

“What you said of me in those wretched mountains, Myros, much of it was true.”

Myros colored and dropped his gaze, his hands clenching until the cracked broken nails dug into his newly callused palms. In a low voice, he husked, “I … I don’t really know why, Drehkos. Don’t know what came over me. But for some reason nothing was of more importance than discrediting you, supplanting you in those men’s eyes. And, what’s worse, I can’t say that I’d not do it again, not knowing what prompted it.”

“As I said, Myros, yesterday is not today.” Drehkos cracked two more nuts. “And again I say, much of it was fact. Prior to that march, I was unskilled in aught save folly and debauchery. I am still painfully aware of my own shortcomings, especially as regards the arts of strategy, tactics and fortification.”

“Whaaat?” Myros set down his cup with a thump. “Why, Name of God, man, you’ve wrought no less than miracles along those lines. True, my station has been rather lowly of past weeks: nonetheless, I have heard and seen what you are doing, for all the city is a-babble with your exploits.”

He shook his shaggy head in wonder. “Just take that pair of salients, for example. A man with one eye and half a brain could have noted the inherent weakness of that stretch of wall, and it virtually infiladed by those two little knolls, but the quickest thought to most minds would have been to either raise the level of the wall, lower the heights of the knolls, or both together. Drehkos, I have school training and much experience at fortifications and siegecraft but I would never have conceived of so brilliant an answer to that problem.

“You are heightening the wall, yes, but you are also making two trusty little strongpoints of those knolls. Strongpoints, furthermore, which can be safely supplied and reinforced from within the city, via the tunnels you had those refugee miners sink. And when the strongpoints fall—as fall they must—you’ll be able to get any survivors out, then, still from within the city, and fire those oil-soaked supporting timbers so that tunnels and strongpoints will come crashing down into a heap of rubble useless to the enemy for aught save engine missiles!

“It is a stroke of sheer genius, Drehkos. But more than that, it indicates the workings of a mind well versed in the intricacies of defensive warfare. I had thought that I knew all about you, but obviously I was wrong. Now, I know that you never served the Confederation, so where did you acquire such superb knowledge of siegecraft?”

Drehkos smiled slightly. “From King Buhk Headsplitter of Pitzburk and Kahleefah Ahnbahr Nahseerah of Zahrtohgah.”

Myros froze, sat stockstill, a glimmer of fear flitting in his eyes. Then he hastily signed himself, whispering, “Are … are you then one of them, an Undying? Such you must be if you are speaking truth, for King Buhk has been dead at least four hundred years, while the Nahseerah Dynasty was deposed more than two centuries ago!”

When Drehkos had brought out the books and Myros had examined mem, he again shook his head. “These are real treasures, Drehkos. I’m familiar, of course, with Gabos’ work, and the High Lady’s book is a standard text for cavalrymen. Greemnos’ is much rarer, however. I have never seen a copy outside the Confederation Library in Kehnooryos Atheenahs. As for the other two, I was unaware that King Buhk had ever made record of his views and experiences. Do you think it authentic?”

Drehkos shrugged. “Who can say, Myros? But that parchment is very ancient, and whoever wrote it certainly knew his business. So, too, did the author of this one.” He tapped a nail on the worm-eaten binding of the last book.

Myros picked it up and, opening it, once more peered helplessly at the flowing, esoteric characters in which it was penned. “As to that, Drehkos, I’ll have to take your word, since such barbaric hentracks are beyond me. Where did you learn to decipher such?”

Smiling sadly, Drehkos answered, “Along with his fortune, I inherited my father-in-law’s library, which was large and varied since he and his kindred do business in many lands. My dear Rehbehkah taught me how to read this script, which is called Ahrahbik, as she had learned from her sire along with the writing, though that last I could never get the hang of.”

“A most wise and erudite folk,” commented Myros. “I once heard the Holy Skiros attest that our Faith was in very, very ancient days, an outgrowth of theirs. Did your wife ever discourse on such matters?”

Drehkos sighed. “Alas, no. I think me she thought not well of her father’s religion, since she so soon cleaved to Sun and Wind—or perhaps she did such for love of me. Her love, unlike mine, flowered quickly, and that blossom flourished grandly all her life, Wind bear her gently. You know, cousin, often of late I—” He broke off with a “Harumpf,” straightened in his chair and stared across at his seedy guest.

“Well, what say you? Will you help me—us? After all, the young thoheeks wants your head and balls every bit as badly as he wants mine.”

“There’s that, true enough,” nodded Myros. “And God knows, I’d much prefer a soldier’s existence to that which I’ve recently led. But with these wondrous books and the knowledge you’ve gained from them, what need have you of me? Compared to such as authored this library, I am amateurish, indeed. Or is your overgenerous request but charity? Even humbled as I am now, I do not think what pride remains mine could bear to accept such a sop—not of you.”

“Let’s not fence,” snapped Drehkos. ‘Time is the one commodity we all lack. I have always detested you, Myros, and the decadent Ehleen perversions which you embody. But that is neither here nor there. I need your help; it is only incidental that, in order to make use of your help, I must help you to regain your previous station and grant you a degree of power. But be forewarned, Myros, none who were there—Vawnee or Morguhnee—have forgotten that night under the walls of Morguhn Hall or your craven conduct; with or without my order, you’ll be closely watched and every word you utter will be borne back to me.

“I ask your help for but one reason. With your training, you stand to gain more, and more quickly, from these books than can I, and while you are supervising the fortification projects, I can better occupy myself with the multitude of other necessities now weighing upon me. I need an answer now, Myros. Will you say ‘yea’ or ‘nay”?”