A Cat of Silvery Hue

I

Vahrohneeskos Drehkos Daiviz had gotten the last contingent of his peasant-pikemen across the stream and jogging toward Morguhnpolis before the Vawnee scouts galloped in to report the Confederation cavalry’s van to be no more than some two miles distant. He was distractedly rubbing an unshaven cheek and wondering whether he should try to cover the retreat of the hapless infantry with his mere handful of mounted men when the senior of the remaining sub-priests intruded upon his reverie with a demand.

“Lord Drehkos, if it be true that the hordes of the cursed Undying be not a mile away, I must insist that our coaches be returned to us, for the lives of those who do God’s work are certainly of more importance than are those of the wretches you have ordered our conveyances filled with!”

Drehkos was not at all religious. He had joined the rebellion for the avowed purpose of gaining his brother’s landa and title. His answer was heavily larded with studied irreverence. “Reverend Father, if you and your fellow ‘servants of God’ expect to reach Morguhnpolis other than on your well-shod feet, perhaps you had best start praying that God quickly grant you wings. You can blame Lord Myros and Father Rikos for the fact you have to walk; for had they not taken the last of the sound and usable wagons when they—ahhhh, shall we say, “proceeded” our departure last night—you’d be able to ride in the style to which you feel entitled. But III be damned if I intend to leave behind wounded officers and men, simply so priestly feet might be spared a few honest blisters!

“Now, go away and leave me alone! I’ve weightier things to consider than your possible discomforts.”

With the departure of the glowering priest, Drehkos returned to his ponderings. For the first time in his life, he regretted not riding north in his youth to serve as a Freefighter in the Middle Kingdoms with Djeen Morguhn, as had so many others of the young Kindred nobility. If he had, at least, he might now have a bare glimmering of his best course to follow, might not now be in this sorry mess. Finally, he sent for the only professional officer left after the previous Bight’s chaos and carnage.

Shortly, the barbarian sublieutenant ambled in, his battered helmet sitting askew over his bandaged head. “You wanta talk to me, Lord Drehkos?”

Drehkos gestured at the other chair, charred slightly, like his own. When the skinny, long-bodied man had seated himself, the commander outlined the overall situation, admitted his own ignorance, and bluntly asked what he should do.

The reply was just as blunt. “Lord Drehkos, including me, it ain’t but twenny real soljers left. Mosta them Vawnees done been long gone, an” I cain’t say I blames ‘em none. The only ones in this whole kit-and-kaboodle what has any chance of getting back to Morguhnpolis is the horsemen and, mebbe, them there coaches. Them pike-toters is dead meat no matter how you riggers it, and you and us a-gittin’ ourselves kilt long with ‘em ain’t gonna do nobody no good.

“Way I sees it, there’s two things you can do, and I’ll tell ‘em to you. But I don’t think neither one’s gonna set in your craw too good.” He paused, raising his grizzled brows in an unspoken question.

“Don’t fear to speak, Lieutenant Hohguhn,” smiled Drehkos. “I’m not Lord Myros. I don’t punish men for speaking the truth as they see it, no matter how distasteful that truth may be to me.”

“Wai, Lord Drehkos, if I ’uz you, I’d ride up yonder and surrender and see if I couldn’t git my lord to go easy on my men, even if he wouldn’t on me!”

Drehkos shook his head slowly. “Would that I could, lieutenant, but I don’t think that that gesture would accomplish anything. I’ve met Thoheeks Bili, both in friendship and in enmity, and I’ve found him hard as steel. He was reared in Harzburk and tutored at the court of King Gilbuht, if you know what that means.”

Hohguhn nodded vehemently. “I shore do, Lord Drehkos, I shore do, and you’re right as rain, too. Won’t do no particle of good to expeck no mercy off one of the Iron King’s folks. Only thing you and your officers and them few Vawnees can do now is make tracks for Morguhnpolis, and I shorely do wish you luck.”

“You won’t be riding with us then, Hohguhn?”

The lieutenant looked the nobleman squarely in the eye. “No suh, I won’t, and neither will none of my men.”

“May I ask why, good Hohguhn? I’ll not hold your answer against you.”

The officer cracked his scarred knuckles before answering. “Wai, Lord Drehkos, it’s thisaway. We’s all Freefighters and we ain’t been paid in near three moons, but we ’uz all willing to stick around, long as it looked like we might get some loot, no matter how common Lord Myros treated us; but didn’t none of us sign on to fight the Confederation Army or to die in a losing fight for no pay but rotten rations and horsepiss wine and hard words.”

He glanced around uncomfortably, then leaned forward and spoke in a much-lowered voice. “Lord Drehkos, you done treated us better all along then any of the others’, so I’ll level with you. You cain’t hold Morguhnpolis! Them old walls ain’t near thick nor high enough, and mosta the engines whut wuz burnt up las’ night was took off of them walls, so Morguhnpolis ain’t nuthin’ now but a big ol’ rat trap. Don’t you git yourself caught in it, Lord Drehkos. You just keep on by. You don’t look like no Ehleen, so mebbe the mountain folks’ll take you in. This all’s just ‘tween you and me, you un-nerstan’.”

The skinny officer stood and extended his hand. Soberly, Drehkos arose and gripped the officer’s grubby, broken-nailed hand as if he had been an equal, saying, “I thank you, Hohguhn, I thank you for everything. Now, let me advise you, if I may. Your men may, of course, take anything left in the camps that strikes their fancy, but don’t linger too long, lest you be taken for a rearguard and attacked.”

From the top of the hill, the camps appeared deserted. Nonetheless, Bili rode with his visor down and his uncased axe laid ready across his wide-flaring pommel. While he had ridden through the dark, narrow passage to the gate, he had mindspoken his warhorse, Mahvros, reaffirming their brotherhood and telling him how much he regretted their enforced separation and how pleased he was to be once more able to ride into battle astride one on whom he could depend. Nor was any of it untrue, for Bili actually felt kinship with the devoted stallion, had felt his own wounds no more keenly than he had the horse’s at the embattled bridge where he and the High Lord and Vahrohneeskos Ahndee had stood off a score or more of mounted rebels. Had it only been less than a week since that affray? It seemed a lifetime—and he well knew how important to a warrior’s safety was the cooperation of a disciplined and courageous mount.

As for Mahvros, he all but purred! Once clear of the gate, he arched his steel-clad neck and lifted his white-stockinged feet high in his showiest parade strut, his powerful thews rolling under his glossy black hide. Mahvros loved nothing more than a good blood-spurting fight, and his brother had told him that soon there would be two-legs in plenty to savage and kick.

Bili spoke aloud, for though Chief Hwahltuh Sanderz, who rode at his right, could mindspeak, Captain Pawl Raikuh, on his left, could not.

“Captain, should I fall. Baron Spiros Morguhn will be acting duke until my brother, Tcharlee, can get here from Pitzburk. You are a brave and honorable man and you have served me well-serve them equally. Command of the present warband will devolve upon the Undying High Lord.

“Regarding the rebels, the only men I want taken alive are those damned priests and the treacherous nobles, but no man is to chance undue risks simply to capture them. I would like to have the bastards for public torture and execution, but none of them are worth the lives of any of your men, and I’ll settle for just their heads, if it comes to that

“As for the common scum, I want to see no living ones along our track. Understood?” At his companions’ grim nods, he went on.

“Save your darts and arrows for the unlikely event that someone persuades the pigs to make a stand, or for later, when the horses are too blown to run them down; for now, let’s have sword and axe and spear work. And, since our numbers be small, we’d best stay together until we’re certain there’s no organized rearguard to hack through. We-What’s this?”

A broadbeamed mindspeak from Chief Hwahltuh and a hand signal from Captain Raikuh brought troopers and clansmen into line of battle on the flanks of the three leaders. Then every eye was fixed upon the tall, broad form of the young thoheeks, awaiting his word or gesture to charge the small band which had emerged from a fold of ground and was now moving slowly up the hill.

Bili raised his visor for better visibility and kneed Mahvros forward a few yards, then a few yards more, until he could clearly see the approaching men. Only the leading six were mounted, though several others led limping horses or saddled mules. The foremost, a skinny man whose dented helmet bore the horsehair crest of a commoner officer, was gripping his sheathed sword by the tip and holding it high over his head. Noting Bill’s advanced position, the officer turned to halt his party, then spurred forward alone.

Bili unwound the thong from his wrist, grasped the central spike of his axe and waved the haft above his head.

“Now, what the hell is going on?” demanded the Sanderz of Raikuh.

His eyes still upon his young lord, the captain snapped, “Sword Truce. Those men must be Freefighters, probably part of Captain Manos’ two troops of dragoons. But keep your eyes peeled, lord chief, and your bow ready. Sword Truce is sacred to those of us who worship Steel, but others have been known to invoke it for purposes of unhallowed treachery.”

When but a yard separated the two riders, the lanky officer extended his weapon, hilt first, to Bili, who accepted it with one hand while proffering his axe with the other. Gravely, the officer raised the head of the upended axe to his lips and kissed the burnished metal. No less gravely, Bili partially drew the sword and reverently pressed his lips to the flat of the wide, well-honed blade, gently resheathed it, then returned it to its owner, accepting his axe in return. Moving up knee to knee, the men exchanged whispered words and a complicated handclasp.

Grinning, Bili laid his axe back across his pommel and relaxed against the high cantle of his warkak. “Well, Sword Brother, I hope that, if you and yours were a part of that sorry rabble just departed, you at least got paid.”

Lieutenant Hohguhn smiled ruefully. “Not for the last three moons, noble Sword Brother, but Lord Drehkos, he give us leave to loot the camp, after he ‘uz gone. ‘Course, we would’ve enyhow, pay or no pay, but she were a nice touch, having permission and all.”

“Well, what want you of me and the sacred Truce, Brother?” asked Bill, adding, “I must be brusque, for there is a day of bladework ahead.”

Hohguhn snorted. “Butcher’s work, it’ll be, and no mistaking, ‘less some o’ them Vawnee dig up enough gumption to stand and fight.”

An icy prickling crept under Bill’s backplate. “Vawnee, Sword Brother? Is Thoheeks Vawn involved, then, in this sorry affair?”

“If you’d a-lissuned to what all them Vawnee said, you’d of thought their Ehleen god’d done in the thoheeks and all his kin. But iffen you “uz raised in mountains, like me, you’d know what probly really happuned.”

“Thoheeks Vawn and his Kindred are then dead?” Bill’s voice was tight.

“Oh, aye, noble Sword Brother,” Hohguhn stated. “Seems as how him and his got drove up inta the mountains and holed up in a old Confederation fort and they ‘uz standing off the whole dang Ehleen force, then—and this here’s where them Vawnee gits all walleyed and sweaty—what I figger happened was a big ole thunderstorm come on and lightning struck their wall. I tell you, I seen the like happen, up near to Pahkuhzburk, where I ‘uz borned, Sword Brother. A hit like that, with a lotta thunder a-ratiling the rocks will real often set off a landslide, so when them Vawnee tolt me part o’ the fort slid down the mountain, I knowed didn’t no Ehleen god have nuthin to do with it.

“But, anyhow, five or six hundred of them Vawnee come a-riding in last night, fulla piss and vinegar and set to lick the whole Confederation. Leastways they wuz till all that ruckus got started. Half of ‘em wuz dead afore dawn. And that wuz a right fine piece of work, that sally. Did you lead her. Sword Brother?”

“No,” said Bili simply. “It was led by my birth brother, Djef, Tanist of Morguhn, now dead.”

Hohguhn clasped his cased sword in both hands, saying, “Honor of the Steel to his memory. Sword Brother.”

“Thank you, Sword Brother Hohguhn. But I repeat, what is it you want of me? Safe passage out of Morguhn, or employment?”

A note of ill-concealed eagerness entered the officer’s voice. “You … you’d hire us on, then, Sword Brother?”

“Of course,” Bili replied shortly. “Unless you’ve some compunction against drawing steel in my cause. I’ll confirm you as sublieutenant and pay you as such, but you’ll be under the command of Captain Raikuh, who leads my dragoons.”

Hohguhn’s bushy brows rose. “Pawl Raikuh, what useta be a gate sergeant at Morguhnpolis?”

Bill’s helmeted head bobbed once. “The same. You see, Brother Hohguhn, men of proven loyalty rise fast in my service.”

Hohguhn beamed a gap-toothed smile. “Then Bohreegahd Hohguhn’s your man, and no mistake! B’sides, I weren’t no officer till I signed on with Captain Manos, anyhow. Highest I’d ever been afore that ‘uz troop sergeant for Captain Feeliks Kahtruhl.”

Now Bili looked amazed. “You mean that some of you Freefighters actually got out of Behreezburk alive? With our lines drawn so tightly it seems hard to believe that anything larger than a rat could have wormed through them.”

All at once, Hohguhn’s mouth dropped open, his seamed and weathered face mirroring surprise. When, at length, he again spoke, his tone was less of respect than of utter awe. “By my Steel, you … you be Bili the Axe! It wuz you what slew the earl and two of his bodyguards in that fight under the north wall. I seen it!

“And now you be duke here? Well, my lord, me and my men, what’s left of us, we’d be purely honored to fight under your banner, we would!”

While Lieutenant Krahndahl conducted Hohguhn and his men up to the hall to get them outfitted and decently mounted, Bili and the warband picked through what was left of the string of camps, dispatching any wounded they came across, making certain that the dead really were deceased and earmarking usable spoils for later collection by the hall garrison.

Then Krahndahl and Hohguhn were cantering down the hill at the head of the reinforcements and, at Bili’s word, Raikuh’s bugler sounded the recall while the thoheeks and Milo mindcalled the rest. And the larger-by-a-third column reformed and negotiated the ford and set off in pursuit of the quarry, the great prairiecats—Whitetip, Lover-of-Water and Steelclaws—bounding well in the lead.

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 corraled 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. Well 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 Steel-claws 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 bad 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 leader!ess 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 he’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 Center knew the fact and used it against us.

“Gafnee was simply not enough provocation, unfortunately. You heard that mealy-mouthed Ahrkee’ehpeeskohpos 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. Ill resume contact when we halt. About a half-hour, I’d say.”

The stallion, Mahvros, was not as done in as Mile’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 die 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 Bili’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 mat 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.”