Revenge of the Horseclans

XI

The village of Hohryos Morguhn-service and garden village of Morguhn Hall-lay not quite two Ehleenkaiee from the Hall. Beyond it, a few hours by horse and half a day by wagon, lay the city of Kehnooryos Deskati, squarely athwart the north-south Traderoad and consequently the main commercial center of the Duchy.

The village was deserted, as Bili had felt it would be. But the evacuation had been very recent, for the blacksmith’s forgefire still was very hot and a scytheblade, which had snapped while being straightened, was yet warm to the touch. All wagons and carts, all mules and oxen were missing, along with their owners, which meant that the villagers must have gone by road, and since the patrol had encountered not a single person on their ride down from the Hall, the people must have fled to Kehnooryos Deskati.

The young Thoheeks sent one of the troopers galloping back to the Hall to fetch the wagons and guards. It was a safe bet, considering the amount of loot they had appropriated along with the horses, that most of Pawl Raikuh’s men were old hands at pillaging and could go through the outbuildings and the village’s twenty-odd homes like the proverbial dose of salts.

By the roadside, just beyond the village, they found a savagely mutilated corpse. From its general build and masculature, they assumed it to be a man’s body. There was no remaining way to tell the sex, much less the identity of the hacked, charred, incomplete carcass. Bili could only hope that the poor creature had been dead before the dreadful mutilations had been done.

Leaving the grisly discovery where it lay, Bili led his five troopers in a wide crosscountry sweep to the south and west. At the crest of the first hill, they spied a mounted party laboring up its south slope-half a dozen appeared to be women and twice that number well-armed men. As the party neared Bill’s concealed position, he recognized the leader and trotted downslope to meet him.

”Thoheek’s son Bili, you are a welcome sight to clap eyes to!” Vaskos reined up knee-to-knee and gripped Bill’s hand with fierce geniality. The thick-thewed man had a few fresh cuts on his face, a bulky wad of bandage protruded from under his helm, and he rode somewhat stiffly, as if his armor might conceal other wounds, but he greeted Bili with a smile. “And how fares my father? Have you seen aught of him?”

The smile was infectious and Bili found himself sharing it. “Komees Hari is at Morguhn Hall, Vaskos, and he’s well enough, physically; but sight of you will do wonders for his spirit. Your loving uncle, Drehkos, swore that he’d had you murdered, you know.”

“Aye!” Vaskos’s grin faded and his dark eyes clouded with anger. “His dogs and those of Hehrah-the-bitch very nearly did slay me, would have, but for the warning of my half sisters, bless them. My poor Frahnkos gave his life that the four of us might get away. We arrived at Komees Djeen’s hall just after the Clan Bard had left. Lady Ahnah and her women bandaged our hurts and provided me with armor, then they took over the care of my sisters and I took command of the mercen … uh, Freefighters.”

After formally greeting the ladies of the party—Lady Ahnah, Komees Djeen’s vivacious wife, her daughter, and the three Daiviz girls—Bili detached one of his troopers to guide Vaskos on the quickest route to the Hall, commandeering a brace of Vaskos’s Freefighters to fill out the patrol.

When he had seen the refugees on their way, Bill instructed the troopers in the location of their rendezvous point, then all set out in a wide-spreading crescent. They rode on and on through the deserted fields, meadows, and woodlands. At the beginning, the westering sun bore upon their right, then directly into their faces, finally bathing their left sides. Bili allowed the new horse his head in walking across a freshly plowed field, then warily traversed a narrow strip of woods. He mounted grassy knolls at the trot, galloped over the rolling leas, leaping lichened fences and the deep-cut brooks which chuckled amongst rounded stones.

Then, all at once, the cold prickling began in Bili’s far-gathering mind and he knew that he was approaching a danger. Though it seemed imminent, it lacked the strength of human minds, so he did not uncase his axe, unslinging his boarspear instead.

He never had an opportunity to use that spear, however. Beneath the spread of a thick-foliaged old tree, a heavy form hurled itself down upon Bili, driving him from the saddle, smashing him to earth. The last sound he heard, ere darkness claimed him, was the terrified screaming of his horse.

It was with a sense of mild satisfaction that Hwahltuh Sanderz of Sanderz withdrew his hand from inside the waistband of his loose, filthy trousers. That pestersome flea would never again taste of blood. Absently, he wiped his thumbnail on a grimy shirtsleeve and ruminated on the journey so far.

True, the lands lay fair enough, but there were far too many people on them. It virtually teemed with people, and almost all of them were Dirtmen too, living—if such a life could be truly called living—in immovable lodges amid their own stink from birth to death. And the way that all of them stared and stared at him and his clanmen, especially at the Cat Brothers. Why, one might think that they had never before even seen Prairie Cats!

Even those who claimed the ancient Kinship with him—claimed descent from the Horseclansmen of Ehlai-dwelt in stonewalled lodges. Of course, he ruminated, he was not sure but that some of these had lied in their teeth, for only two of them had even looked like Kindred. One of these two, who had represented himself as the Kahrtuh of Kahrtuh, had had so little mindspeak that it would have been a great compliment to call his talents marginal-and what clan would have for Chief a man who could not mindspeak Cat and Horse and other Chiefs? As for the other, he had been fat, his hands as soft as a woman’s breast.

But, Hwahltuh thought on, so much soaking in water the temperature of fresh blood might very well make a man that soft. And that was yet another thing that set the Sanderz’s teeth edge-to-edge, the washings and scrubbings and senseless-and certainly unhealthful-bathings which seemed to so obsess these strange people. Although all the clanspeople made use of a sweatlodge on occasion, they seldom immersed their bodies in water more than a couple of times a year, and then it was in a river or lake. But the odd people of this weird land sometimes bathed twice in one day, and in heated water at that!

Hwahltuh had been born with a better than average nose-thank Sacred Sun for that gift! With eyes and ears hooded and stopped, he could identify each of his warriors by smell, alone. So it made him distinctly uneasy when he was confronted by persons who bore so little odor that he could rarely even distinguish the women from the men, without seeing or hearing them.

One of the clansmen riding behind him suddenly guffawed and it was picked up by several of the others; then came a snarled curse. He glanced back over his shoulder in time to see his sister’s youngest son, Rik, leap from his kak, his hands working frantically at the drawstring of his trousers and his snubnosed face twisted in distress.

Hwahltuh halted the column, for it was not good to leave a Kinsman alone in unknown territory. Rik squatted beneath a tree, glaring at his Kinsmen from under his thick, reddish blond brows and grunting insulting comments on their appearances and personal habits, while they serenaded him with a chorus of jeers, laughter, and ribald suggestions.

The Sanderz shook his graying head in sympathy, for he too had suffered from that violent griping of the guts, as had they all, many times since they began to traverse this land. After discussion of the matter, they had decided that the problem was the dearth of decent food and the overabundance of wine. All their lives, they had been nurtured principally on the produce of their herds-milk and its products, flesh of cattle and sheep and goats. Although they sometimes traded (or raided) for dried beans or grain and the occasional pig, most of their accustomed plant foods had been wild, hunted as a matter of course, like game. The Chief could have counted upon the fingers of one hand the number of times he had tasted of wine, ere they had come to this land. Not that he and his did not like the stuff, but, Sun and Wind, it roiled the guts!

Rik had finished his business and was about to remount when Hwahltuh received the mindspeak of one of the three Cat Kindred who had been ranging ahead.

“Keep cased your bows, Brothers-of-Cats, for Whitetip comes with another Brother, a Chief!”

Bili was bereft of consciousness for but a moment, but his vision remained blurred longer, and he could not immediately tell just who or what had unhorsed him and was presently pinning him down with its considerable weight. He could hear points of some description rasping on his armor and there was a hot, acrid smell close to his face.

Abruptly, his vision cleared to disclose a cavernous red pink expanse of open mouth, equipped with a rough-looking tongue of incredible width and a full complement of big white teeth, crowned by a pair of glistening fangs at least three inches in length. Bili had never seen the like, but he knew from the very presence of those fangs that it could be no other animal but that one described in the ancient bardsongs.

Confidently, he mindspoke. “You would slay your Kinsman, Cat-brother?”

The heavy body started in surprise. “You mindspeak, then, Dirtman-who-wears-steel? This is truly a land of wonders.”

“I must have erred,” retorted Bili. “I had supposed yon of the Cat Clan. A one of the true Clan of Cats would not seek the life of a Morguhn. So you most certainly are just an animal!”

The attacker rippled a snarl and the claws rasped again across Bili’s breastplate. “Whitetip is no animal, Dirrman! He is a Cat of the Sept of Sanderz. But how is he to know that you are a Cat-brother?”

After a long moment of cudgeling his memory, Bili beamed, “I will care for your kittens and nursing females, and vouchsafe you a clean death when your teeth have dulled and the pains of age rest upon you.”

The crushing weight lifted from Bili, while a four-inch width of sandpaper tongue gently scraped over his sweaty face. Stiffly, he sat up and stared at this creature of bard-song and legend.

The Cat’s paws were large, as was the head, and intelligence sparkled in the amber depths of the eyes. The pelt was shortfurred, of a golden chestnut hue, with the ghosts of slightly darker rosettes speckling the graceful, muscle-rippling body. Whitetip stood a good nine hands at the withers and Bili estimated the weight at possibly three hundred pounds, for the Cat was bigboned, with a deep chest and forelegs much more thickly muscled than those of Treecats or lynxes. The white-tipped tail was short, its two feet or so giving him an overall length of some seven feet.

Seating himself nearby, Whitetip raised a paw to his fearsome mouth, licked it, and commenced leisurely washing his face, mindspeaking the while. “Ah, Kinsman, ever is it heartening to find a new Brother-of-Cats, especially so in such a new, strange land. But you are certainly the biggest Kinsman Whitetip has ever mindspoken … near nineteen hands, anyway. Are all of your Clan so large? How big is your Chief?”

”I am Chief,” Bili informed the curious Cat. “I am Chief Bili, Morguhn of Morguhn.”

Bili readily agreed to allow Whitetip to conduct him to his Chief, but pointed out that thanks to the big cat, he no longer had a horse. Contritely, the feline offered to find Chief Morguhn’s mount and bring him back. Bili consented, though he doubted that such would come to pass, suspecting the gelding to be halfway to Kehnooryos Deskati by that time.

Therefore, he was rather surprised to see his horse trot placidly over the nearest hill less than ten minutes later, with Whitetip crouched awkwardly on the kak and two similar Cats loping along behind.

On introduction, the newcomers were disclosed to be: Lover-Of-Water, a female and three years older than Whitetip, though only some two-thirds of his size and weight; and Steelclaws, two years old and already nearly adult-size, a son out of the first litter sired by Whitetip.

After Bili had opened his mind to Clan Bard Gil Sanderz, that middleaged warrior solemnly informed his Chief and clansmen, “All that has been mindspoken is true, Brothers. He is Morguhn of Morguhn of the Tribe of Ehlai and ruler of this land through which we now ride. But it is not so peaceful a land as we had thought. Chief Bili’s stonelodge must soon be attacked by Dirtmen; he has need of every arm that can pull a bow!”

This last delighted the bored clansmen and the decision to ride with and fight for Chief Bili was unanimous. The whole of the ride to the tiny village of Geertohnee, at which the patrol had arranged to rendezvous, they laughed and joked and boasted and roared out warsongs, keeping time by clanging their saberblades against their targetbosses and twanging bowstrings over helms.

Not knowing who might choose to tap his thoughts, Bili sought to bury certain of them deeply-as deeply as possible-for he knew well that he needed the help these men offered; the addition of more than a dozen expert archers was indeed a gift of Sun. But he was appalled, shocked to the very core of his being, at the appearance of these latter-day Kindred Horseclansmen! He had known, of course, that his ancestors had been short men, but he had always supposed them to have been short as Komees Hari and the treacherous Duhkos were short- very broad and bigboned and thickthewed. Everything about the Sanderz men was small though-hands, feet, even heads-and he doubted if even the heaviest of them could possibly weigh more than sixty Ehleen kilohee. Furthermore, his new allies were undoubtedly the filthiest men he had ever seen-or smelled!

However, regardless of their heights or weights or degrees of cleanliness, they all handled and exuberantly tossed their well-kept weapons like men who had cut their teeth on such hardware. Their sabers were wide, single edged, thickbladed, and averaged some two-and-a-half feet around the slight curve. All bore the short, powerful, composite hornbows which were a hallmark of Horse-clansmen; several had light axes dangling from the pommels of their beautifully worked and highly decorated kaks, and about half of them carried odd, almost uniform pole arms a seven or eight-foot shaft, mounting a knife-edged blade like the point of a boarspear at both ends. All the Sanderz’s cuirasses were wrought of boiled leather, reinforced with strips of horn and metal, and lacquered. The helms of a few of the younger men were also of reinforced leather, but most wore steel helms of various shapes and patterns.

As for the “horses” of the clansmen, Bili thought that “ponies” would be a more accurate description of the ugly, shaggy, big headed little steeds. The very tallest was no more than thirteen-two and some of them stood a full hand less! But their mindspeak talents were the best Bili had ever encountered and most seemed even more intelligent than Mahvros. And their size notwithstanding, they could clear any obstruction as easily as Bili’s big bay hunter; nor did they indicate strain at maintaining the stiff pace.

The kaks were works of art. The wood and bone trees, covered with the finest leather, were set atop cured sheep-skins and gorgeous blankets. Every visible inch of the leather was tooled and tinted and lacquered, the outside surfaces of the high, flaring cantles and pommels set with strips, studs and hooks of brass, silver, and polished steel. Bridles were nonexistent, since the mounts were guided solely by mindspeak and knee pressure.

The heel of Sacred Sun had sunk into the line of bluish haze which was the foothills of the Kahpneezon Mountains, when Bili had Hwahltuh and his clansmen halt within the concealment afforded by the woods which flanked the ploughlands of Geertohnee. At the older Chiefs command, the three Cats set out to reconnoiter the village and its environs.

Presently, Whitetip was beaming back to both Chiefs, “Five men in this place. They wear steel, but it is not the same as Chief Bili’s, being small pieces on leather shirts, like the scales of a fish. Whitetip thinks they have seen or smelled you, for they have hidden their horses and strung their bows and now face you across the open space. Shall we stampede their mounts and take the men in the rear, while you attack?”

“No!” Bili hastily mindspoke. “For they are almost certainly my fighters, Cat-brother, though there should be six, not five.” Then to Hwahltuh, “They are watching for me alone, so let me ride in first. I will signal you.” With that, he rode out into the open.

Only the tiniest, copperhued arc of Sacred Sun still showed above the western mountain haze when the Thoheeks and his band came within sight of Morguhn Hall. The stout little bastion lay already invested by the rebellious rabble, whose broad track the three cats and eighteen horsemen had cautiously paralleled for near two hours.

Forty yards from the main gate sat a wagon-mounted ram blazing merrily, while the slope roundabout the front and the west side of the hall was randomly littered with discarded shields, weapons, scaling ladders, and some twoscore arrowquilled bodies, very few of these within fifty yards of their objective. And Bili breathed a sigh of relief. At least the initial assault had been rebuffed … bloodily rebuffed.

Just beyond bowshot of the walls and towers, mounted nobles were slowly and painfully reforming their heterogeneous mob for a second attack. That it was a difficult job was attested by the shouted obscenities, screams of profane rage, and the thwacks of ridingwhips and sword flats which were clearly audible to the watchers.

The rebels were an army in name only. They had just seen friends and neighbors and relatives suffer or die on the now gory path to those forbidding walls, and their priests and officers had yet to convince them that another sally against those bristling fortifications would result in aught save ever more wounds and deaths. Those who had for so long secretly drilled them and taught them weapons usage, they now felt, had unjustly kept from them the hard facts of warfare—the utter exhaustion and dry-mouthed terror which so weighted a man’s limbs when he saw of what horrors arrows and darts and catapult stones were capable.

Thick black smoke roiled up from within the walls and the lowing of cattle could be plainly heard, along with the creaking of ropes and groaning of timbers as a catapult was wound and set. After a brief pause, there was a wheee-WHUNNK and a headsized blob of burning pitch traced a high, smoketrailing parabola across the darken-ing sky, to fall squarely into the milling midst of the rebel ‘formation’! It was all that the priests and nobles could then do to prevent an outright rout. Wisely, they elected to form several hundred yards farther away.

Bili, Hwahltuh, Gil, and one of the Freefighters slid down from their observation point at the brushy summit of a hill. The Sanderz snorted his disgust at the quality of the men opposing them.

“Kinsman Bili, a stand of prairiegrass would slow us more than cowards like those. Let us ride through them now.”

But Bili shook his shaven head. “No, we are too many to just ride up to the walls, especially since it is now almost dark. My clansmen and Freefighters are expecting no more than seven riders. When they spied a party of this size, they surely would bring us under their bows. We must find a way to let them know that we are friends. Are any of your clansmen far-speakers, by chance?”

“Ask anything but that, Kinsman,” groaned Hwahltuh. “I heard that that talent is common amongst the folk of some clans, but our last far-speaker went to Wind when I was yet a lad. Whitetip can farspeak, to a limited extent, but only, alas, if he knows the mind to which he is to beam.”

Gil spoke up. “If there are mindspeakers in the stone-lodge, why not wait until full dark and let a Cat-brother go close enough to range them?”

Atop the front wall, amidst the archers and catapult crews, old Komees Djeen limped stiffly up and down, snapping and snarling at all and sundry out of his worry over the fate of Thoheeks Bili. The wagons were long since returned before even the van of the rebel host had appeared. Since Vaskos was the last man to have clapped eyes on Bili, he had suffered questioning and requestioning by the retired Strahteegos, until at length the Keeleeohstos—grumpy anyway at being bedridden by order of Master Ahlee—had bluntly inquired as to which his questioner was actually losing, his hearing or his memory. And the Lady Ahnah and Komees Hari had had to be fetched, ere the shouting and insults were done, to persuade the two officers to keep their steel cased!

His threequarter armor clanking, the grizzled nobleman stalked up to a group of fledgling engineers being put through a crash course in catapult service. “You!” he barked at a tall Freefighter who was lowering a fifty-pound stone into the basket. “Don’t you know better than to wear a crested helm when you’re serving an engine? If the lip of that basket hooks that crest, it’ll take the empty head off your shoulders. I’ve seen it happen, soldier!”

Not awaiting an answer, he swung off to confront an archer seated in a crenel. “Behind a merlon, fool! Keep sitting between them and you’ll have an arrow up your arse or in your back! And replace that bowstring immediately. It’s beginning to fray at the lower curve.”

“If Bili’s not back soon,” muttered Spiros to Bard Klairuhnz, “we’ll have to give Djeen a horse and let him go searching for that patrol, ere he rides these men into mutiny! Next, he’ll be ordering them to polish all the fornicating spearpoints, or having them down there aligning all the cattle by height, sex, and age!”

“There’ll be no mutiny here, My Lord,” stated Captain Raikuh, who was standing with them near the gate tower. “As is Duke Bili, so is Count Djeen. Both are born war-leaders, and all the professionals can sense the fact. His words may ring harsh, but his criticisms are both sound and constructive, and we all know it.”

A thousand yards from the west wall on the creekbank, wagons and wains were unloading tents and gear amid a twinkling of torches and new-kindled fires. At long last, the priests and nobles had despaired of whipping their cowed aggregation of commoners into mounting another assault… not this night, at least. Even to those at the hall it was clear that the rebels had had enough for one day and were going into camp.

Spiros was still worried and annoyed by Djeen’s ceaseless nitpicking at the men, so he sought to distract the old soldier, calling, “Komees Djeen, if you please? Djeen, come over here and tell us, do you think they’ll come for us again tonight?”

Yellow teeth glinting, the old man cackled harshly. “I only wish that they would, Kinsman! You would then see what disastrous effects flaming pitchballs and firearrows have on the morale of undisciplined troops at night. Heh, heh. That piss-poor excuse for an army wouldn’t stop running until they reached the Sea of Grass, most likely. But no, Spiros, they’ll not attack tonight, for men who lack the grit to fight in broad day will murder their officers before they’ll mount a night offensive.”

His lobstertail neckguard grated on his backplate as he slowly shook his head. “That damned boylover Myros … d’you know, he was a middling-good officer, once upon a time? But did you see the inexcusable way he marshaled that abortion of an assault? Clear it is, he’s long since forgot every principle of tactics he ever learned!”

Winking slyly at Raikuh and Klairuhnz, Spiros innocently asked, “Your pardon, Djeen, but I thought they came up that hill in pretty fair form … of course, I’m no professional soldier …”

“True enough, Kinsman!” snapped the Komees. “Were you, you’d have been painfully aware of the glaring errors of judgment of which the Vahrohnos of Pederasty was guilty. He’d no need to lose either his engine or half the men we slew, you know? Here, let me show you what I mean…”

Drawing a short dagger from the top of his boot, he stumped over to a section of tower wall between two torches, and commenced to scratch a rough sketch on the surface of the stones, talking all the while. Spiros, his purpose now achieved, was careful to ape meticulous attention to each detail of the aged Strahteegos’s discourse. Raikuh on the other hand hung on every word, feeling personal instruction from so famous and respected a strategist and tactician to be a rare privilege.

Klairuhnz wandered away from the absorbed nobleman and bis little audience to stand beside young Djehf, who leaned between a pair of merlons, staring at the bright, bustling camp of the besiegers.

“Didn’t you hear Komees Djeen’s admonition to that archer, Kinsman?”

Half turning, the Tahneest clanked the side of his gauntlet against his breastplate. “This be good, honest Pitzburk plate, and princegrade, at that! Good Bard, the bowman’s unspawned who can put a shaft through such metal.”

Klairuhnz smiled thinly. “Be not too sure, Kinsman. I’ve seen Horseclansmen stipple an armored man until he looked like a porcupine! Why, on the Prairie, once …”

.A note of eagerness entered the young warrior’s voice, and out of that eagerness peeped the small boy of recent memory. “You’ve really ridden with real Horseclansmen then, Kinsman? On the Prairie? The Sea of Grass? Truly? Tell me, please, tell me of them.”

“Yes,” stated the Bard. “Yes, I rode the Prairie with Horseclansmen, Kinsman Djehf, but it was long, long years ago, and I…”

His voice stopped as the unexpected and quite powerful mindspeak burst in. “I know your mind, Cat-brother-of-Cat-brothers, who these men know as Bard Klairuhnz. This one is Whitetip, Subchief of the Cat Sept of Sanderz. We mindspoke in the south, in the hot land.”

In the rear courtyard of Morguhn Hall, Bili lifted his cased axe from his weary mount, before an armed servant led the gelding away. Silent but for the clank of his armor, he paced over to Mother Behrnees and kissed her freckled forehead, then took her hand, saying, “Come, Mother, I wish you to meet our new friends.”

He led her over to the knot of curiously staring clans-men and halted before Gil and the Chief. “Chief Hwahltuh of Sanderz, allow me to present one of my Lady Mothers. This is My Lady Behrnees of Morguhn, widow of my late father, Hwahruhn Morguhn of Morguhn, and presently cochatelaine of Morguhn Hall.”

Hwahltuh immediately knew that this tall, blond beauty was the loveliest woman he had ever before seen. Everything about her was perfect, he thought, and no dream that he could recall had produced even a vision like to that now before him. He knew that he should speak, acknowledge the introduction, introduce Gil and the others, but with his mind awhirl with thoughts totally removed from the torchlit courtyard, he was experiencing difficulty in framing words.

Before he could regain his control, Behrnees stepped forward, took his callused, grubby hand, and bore it to her seemingly perfect pink lips, saying gravely, “My sincere thanks, Lord Hwahltuh, for bringing my son safely back to us. We all are in your debt. Come, you and your Kinsmen must sup with us ere you leave. But leave you must, for this hall lies invested by a great host, with no hope of reinforcement or aid.”

When the clan had decided to leave the high plains and rejoin their Kindred who had trekked east, Hwahltuh had had three wives. But over the course of the long, difficult, dangerous journey, all these had gone to Wind, one by one. For three years now had he relied on the widows of his sons to see to the Chiefs lodge, taking such pleasures as he desired of borrowed concubines, for the Couplets of the Law forbade marriage within the clan and custom forbade an unmarried man to hold ownership of concubines. And he was a lonely man. Until that moment, he had not realized just how lonely.

“I’ll be more than happy to share milk and meat with you, Kinswoman, and so too will my Kindred. But why this talk of leaving, before we’ve even bloodied our sabers? My Clan-brothers and I, we were promised a good fight by your son, Chief Bili, and … What is this, Kins-woman? Are you ill?”

Behrnees had dropped to her knees before him, once more pressing her shellpink lips to his scarred, filthy knuckles.

Bili enlightened the mystified, and more than a little perturbed Chief. “In my Lady Mother’s homeland, homage is so rendered, Hwahltuh.”

Behrnees, taller and with bigger bones, probably weighed as much as did the Sanderz, but the little man grasped her shoulders and lifted her slowly and without apparent strain, saying gruffly, “It is I who am guesting in your lodge, Kinswoman. Nor am I your Chief. You owe me no homage.”

Behrnees met his eyes with her limpid blue ones and he felt his heart beating very fast under his cuirass, felt his weatherbrowned face flushing, found his breath as short as if he had been fighting all day … and found his hands very loath to release those well-muscled but so pleasant-to-hold shoulders.

Humbly Behrnees said, “I would do homage to your courage, My Lord. Your wives and your sons know much pride in so strong and valiant a husband and father.”

Now Gil had been slyly prying into the unshielded minds of both his chief and the woman. He recognized the utter sincerity of her admiration of Hwahltuh, as well as the Sanderz’s quite different admiration of her. She certainly was not an old woman-he estimated her age at no more than thirty-four summers-was a more than handsome female, threw good get if Chief Bili was any indication, and was the widow of a Chief. He thought that the Clan might go far and far without finding any better wife for their Chief. So he stepped forward.

“Chief’s mother, I am Gil, Clan Bard of Sanderz, and I am indeed proud of my Chief, as are all his Clan-Brothers. But as you are a widow, so is he a widower. He has had no wife for near three summers, and all his strong sons went to Wind in honor and to the glory of their Clan.”

Behrnees’s eyes misted. She drew closer to Hwahltuh, and when he tilted back his head to keep sight of her face, she laid a hand alongside one of his stubbled, dust-grimy cheeks and softly lipbrushed the other, saying gently, “I grieve with and for you, Kinsman. When time and the enemy allow, we must try to comfort each other.”

And from that moment, Hwahltuh Sanderz of Sanderz was hers, heart and soul! With her by his side, he moved as in a blissful dream, greeting Chief Bili’s brother and his father’s other widow and the remaining notables. Her delicate, subtly feminine odor was, he knew, the sweetest scent to which his keen nose had ever attained.

Even when he was conducted to another of those cursed washingplaces and the herbed and spiced bathwater-steaming like a bucket of fresh milk on a whiter morning-enveloped him and the servants began to scrub him, did he keep his peace, his mind too filled with Behrnees to even think the curses and threats which he had heretofore blasted at bathservants. For the first time in his nearly fifty years of life, Hwahltuh was in love.

Only one good had come out of the day, so far as Myros was concerned. Thoroughly trounced and resultantly cowed as they were, his ill-disciplined mob at least obeyed orders and followed instructions with unaccustomed alacrity. Therefore, as soon as the tents were up and the rabble fed on jerked meat, hard bread, strong cheese, and weak, vinegary wine, he had them set to assembling the six big catapults, making pitchballs and scaling ladders and collecting stones from up and down the streambed. He had hoped to capture Morguhn Hall without too much structural damage to the place with that loudmouthed fool, Paulos, choked to death on his own blood and teeth back in the Council Chamber, there would now be no questions concerning the new ownership of the hall. He felt a slight gratitude to the hulking Djehf Morguhn-but now realized that he would probably have to burn or batter down a fair stretch of those walls, ere he could use his large but unwieldy and very undependable force to any advantage.

While whip-snapping overseers kept the commoners at their assigned tasks, Myros retired to his spacious pavilion, there to dine and confer with his fellow concilmen, his military subordinates, and the higher ranking clergy. Of the Council, there were but three remaining to sit with him—Drehkos, Djaimos, and Nathos Evrehos, now recovered from his morning funk and hysterics and prating loudly of bloody deeds to be wreaked upon the persons of any Kindred taken alive.

As each of his guests came under his roof of golden silk, Myros’s servants helped them out of their hot armor and sweatsoaked clothing, sponged their sweaty bodies, and proffered soft tunics and big mugs of chilled wine, a soothing balm to shouted-raw throats and a strong soporific for jangled nerves. By the time the viands-juicy roasts, savory vegetables, crisp salads, breads, and delicate pastries-were served, most of the guests were at least a bit tiddly.

Half through the meal, Myros was called to his headquarters tent that he might receive a messenger. He returned wreathed in smiles, to announce:

“Gentlemen, three days ago did the True Faith triumph in what the heathens call the Duchy of Vawn!” He allowed the drunken cheering and hubbub to continue for a few minutes, then raised a hand for silence. “Wait, Brothers-in-God, there is more. The Army of the Faithful saw a miracle in Vawn. As our brethren held the cities and countryside, the sinful pagans fled to a very strong hall built into the side of a steep cliff. Only one side could be attacked, and it was protected by a wall so high and thick than an entire week of hurling stones against it did no real damage. Then did the men of weak faith talk most shamefully of forsaking the Holy Cause.

“But the Most Holy Kooreeos Marios did pray mightily that our loving Father might deliver into his hands the cursed heathens. And the Lord answered the Blessed Marios, sending an Angel to instruct him. Then were certain Sacred objects placed in a casket of iron, laid in the basket of the largest engine and hurled against that unholy wall. The very moment that the hallowed missile touched the wall of the place of sinfulness, did all the land tremble to God’s awful Voice. Though the Lord allowed no man to see the bolt, His lightning did shatter the wall of the unbelievers, did rend stone from huge stone and crumble them to dust. And all of those heathen within were slain in a moment, most with no wound upon their bodies, yet with blood having gushed from every orifice.

“And that victorious army, led by the Most Blessed Kooreeos Marios, is marching to our aid. Even now is the bulk of their force crossing our western border, while the Holy Marios and their cavalry will be amongst us within the hour!”

Within Morguhn Hall, however, the evening meal was a most subdued one. At the lengthened high table were most of the loyal Kindred still alive in the Duchy. Bili, in the center chair, was flanked by his mothers. Djehf was on the walls, along with old Komees Djeen, Feelahks Sami, and Lieutenant Krahndahl. Beyond Mother Behrnees, who sat at the young Thoheeks’s right, Chief Hwahltuh happily applied himself to a shoulder of mutton and a brimming flagon of fresh, creamy milk. At his right, Eeyohahnah Daiviz sipped watered wine, toyed with her food, and pouted, since the handsome young Rik Sanderz seemed more interested in his disgusting dish of chopped meat and curds than he did in her. Actually, Hwahltuh’s nephew was mindspeaking with Spiros and Pawl Raikuh, regaling them with gory anecdotes of the trek from the high plains.

On Rik’s right were the other Daivizes-Komees Hari, the two younger girls, and the heavily bandaged Vaskos, on whom all three were lavishing so much attention that the Keeleeohs was embarrassed.

At Mother Mahrnee’s left was Vahrohnos Spiros, and beside him the Lady Ahnah Morguhn. Between her and her daughter, Sairuh, sat Clan Bard Gil Sanderz, patiently answering questions of mother and child, both evincing interest in every facet of the lives of the females of his clan. On the left of the girl, Captain Raikuh wolfed roast mutton and pickled cabbage, gulped wine, and occasionally chuckled at young Rik’s stories.

Dark, dour Komos Morguhn, Bili’s second cousin and though Kindred not really a nobleman, hulked between Bard Klairuhnz and Master Ahlee. That day, Komos had seen a pack of his neighbors, some of them related to him, senselessly butcher his wife, his children, and his aged, crippled father. Only the fortuitous arrival of Clan Bard Hail and his two troopers in the village had saved the farmer; and the fact that he had been able to get to his grandfather’s sword and fight off his attackers until his rescue. He had spoken to no one throughout the meal, nor had aught save wine passed his lips. He sat staring at his winecup, clenching and unclenching his big, work-roughened hands.

Trestle tables had been arranged around the walls of the large chamber and thereon dined the off-duty troops, serving themselves as did the very nobles, since all the servants were either in armor among them or chained in the cellars. So because the surroundings were so noisy, Bili attempted to mindspeak his scarcely known cousin.

But Bard Klairuhnz beamed. “Apparently, Kinsman Komos is not a mindspeaker, Thoheeks Bili. However, I took the liberty of scanning his mind earlier, and he knows not one whit more than he has recounted. He and the trooper who escorted him rode directly here; Hail and the other trooper rode for the hall of Lord Bahr Morguhn.

“My Lord, Clan Bard Hail is presently either dead, captured, or safe. In any case, there’s nothing that you or any of us can do for him, and Wind knows, you’ve more than sufficient worry material, without taking on that as well!”

“But it was my order sent him out, Kinsman,” Bili silently replied. “Perhaps I should have sent a younger man … or gone myself.”

“Nonsense, Lord Thoheeks! It was your duty to command and his duty to obey.” Bard Klairuhnz seemed about to add more when he was interrupted.

Lieutenant Krahndahl had hurried into the room, helm under his arm and unease wrinkling his seamed face. The scales of his plain hauberk clashed as he rapidly rounded the high table and first bowed to Bili, then bent and whispered a brief message into the young lord’s ear. His message spoken, he stepped back and assumed the posture of attention.

Bili did not need to call for silence, for all noise had ceased upon the appearance of the officer. He stood and announced, “My people, Komees Djeen reports a spate of activity within the lines of the enemy. Such could presage an attack, so we had best to the walls.”

An immediate clatter and bustle ensued at the high and lower tables, a metallic din that commenced as armor doffed for the meal was redonned and adjusted, swordcases were snapped to belt or baldric, and helms were dragged from beneath the tables.

All at the high table had arisen. Bili caught Lieutenant Krahndahl’s eye and gestured at the armor rack which held his scarred Pitzburk. “Please help me to arm, Krahndahl.” Then he turned back to the table and its group.

“Chief Hwahltuh, you and your clansmen will report to my Subchief, Komees Djeen. He commands the walls and will place you all where your bows will do the most good.” The wiry little man nodded once, slapped on his helm, and stepped briskly toward the door, mindcalling his kinsmen.

Bili strode down the length of the table to where Ahlee and Klairuhnz, having despaired of locating a cuirass big enough, were buckling an outsize brigandine, a pair of greaves, and a set of oldfashioned armlets over the powerfully convex chest and the rolling-muscled limbs of Cousin Komos.

“Kinsman Klairuhnz, you know that I well know your value as a warrior, so I beg you not take offense at the post I would have you fill. I had intended said post for Kinsman Vaskos, he being wounded, ere I was informed of his training and skills in use of engines, of which our garrison owns little enough. I charge you with the magazines, the dungeons, and their occupants. Two of our older servingmen will assist you. Should our foes enter the hall itself, you must strongly secure the cellar entry, slay every prisoner, and set fire the stores. Do you understand?”

At the Bard’s curt nod, he turned to Komos. “Cousin, you are not trained to arms, but Sun has granted you great strength. Therefore, report you to Kinsman Vaskos and say that you are to help serve the engines. I doubt that a sixty-pound boulder will be any unchancy burden for your thews.

“Master Ahlee, summon your people and take your place on the walls.”

He continued to issue crisp orders. Ahnah Morguhn was set to supervising those women and girls who were stoking the fires under great cauldrons of oil, water, and iron trays of sand in the outer courtyard. Mother Mahrnee took charge of a half-dozen more women, putting them to fetching and heading arrows, while Mother Behrnees formed a similar group to melt lead and cast sling bullets.

Within ten minutes of the lieutenant’s entry, the dining hall lay deserted.

Klairuhnz unlocked the heavy door, stepped into the tiny cell, and thrust the butt of his torch into the wall bracket. Kooreeos Skiros awkwardly struggled to a sitting posture, his movements painfully hampered by the weight and placement of his iron fetters and chains. His black silken robes were dust stained and his hair and beard were matted; but his black eyes still shot out their message of defiance and bottomless hatred.

Leaning his saber against the wall, well out of the prisoner’s reach, the Bard put his back to the door and sank onto his haunches, then thrust a hand under his brigandine and withdrew the weapon he had taken from Skiros. Depression of a stud on one arm of the “club” caused a steel box to slide smoothly out of that arm and plop into his hand. At one end of the box was a fat brass cylinder, flat on one end and dully pointed on the other. He regarded box, cylinder, and “club” for several moments, then slid the box back into place.

Speaking in the language of the Confederation, he asked, “What is your name? Your real name, that is.”

“All men here know me, heathen.” The Kooreeof deep, rich baritone boomed hollowly in the narrow, high-ceilinged cubicle. “I am Skiros, Kooreeos of …”

“Cut the crap, chum!” Klairuhnz had not spoken the language he now used in many years, except in his dreams, so his speech was slightly halting. Nevertheless, its effect on Skiros was instantaneous. Paling visibly, the cleric recoiled, as if from a buffet.

But he recovered quite rapidly, replying in Old Ehleeneekos, “I cannot understand you, heathen dog. Try barking in a civilized tongue!”

The Bard vented a humorless laugh. “Oh, you understand me, right enough, witchman. Just as the late Titus Backstrom understood, as the late Lillian Landor would have understood, as Doctor Manuel Kornblau understands!” He grasped the small “club” by the arm which contained the small box and squinted down the other arm at the prisoner, his thumb pulling back a grooved protrusion of metal with a sharp click.

“How many of these little toys have you scattered about this Duchy, witchman? Or are they reserved as a last resort for your kind only?”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d not point that gun at me. It’s a twelve-point-five millimeter magnum, you know, one of the Center’s developments, and powerful enough to punch through plate armor or stop a charging bison bull. The shock alone would stop the heart of this body, no matter where it was struck.” Skiros’s manner was relaxed, conversational. His language however, would have been meaningless to anyone in the duchy save his listener, since he spoke a cultured, nondialectal twentieth-century American English!

Klairuhnz smiled broadly. “So, Reverend Bishop, you really are a witchman, eh? Now, once again, what’s your name?”

“Gold,” the blackbeard answered easily. “William Gold. And you? You must be one of the mutants. Which one, may I ask?”

The Bard nodded. “Yes, Mr. Gold, you may ask. I’m Milo Moray.”

Gold’s eyes widened. “Well I’ll be damned! The Undying God of the Horseclans himself. Then I’ll not ask why you’re here. I’ll just assume that Manny was one of the ‘lucky ones’ who made it to Kehnooryos Atheenahs alive. But, tell me, is he still alive or have you killed him, too?”

Mile’s head bobbed again. “When last I saw him, he lived. Of course, he wasn’t any too comfortable. In addition to the alterations which were performed on him in Gafnee, because of his mindshield and his stubbornness- which latter quality I am glad to see you don’t share-my persuasion specialists were required to perform some rather extreme exercises upon his body.”

“Damn!” spat Gold. “You’re as much a barbarian as the swine you root among!”

“Barbarism is a survival trait in this world,” Milo smiled. “It has been for several hundred years … or didn’t you ivory tower boys know? Yes, Father Gold, I am a barbarian, but before you throw any more such epithets my way, be damned sure your own conscience is clean. This Old Time Religion you clowns have dreamed up is far more bloodthirsty and barbaric than anything these people have developed on their own!”

A hint of his sanctimonious facade crept back into the prisoner’s tone. “We are simply striving to reestablish the faith which you so ruthlessly suppressed in the course of the last century, Moray.”

“In a pig’s ass!” snapped Milo. “For all that its fat-cat hierarchy were secretly engaged in such little sidelines as slavetrading, whoremongering, and smuggling-not to mention oppressing the humbler Ehleenoee with a quasi-military, quasi-religious masked force of bravos who would have made the sixteenth-century Spanish Garduna look like a troop of Boy Scouts—their religion was basically Eastern rite Christianity. Yours sounds more like Satanism, what with the carving up of helpless children on your altars, the mixing of their lifeblood with the wine for your so-called Communion, and all the other obscene parodies of worship you engage in.”

The chained man shrugged, his face expressionless. “If a pack of hounds serve you well, you endeavor to keep them contented. Most of our worshipers are well pleased with this kind of religion.”

“I suspect,” said Milo wryly, “that those fools are less enchanted by your sanguinary religion than they are by the Utopian promises with which you’ve been deluding them. Need I ask what the hell you and your fellow ghouls are up to?”

In lieu of answers, the prisoner abruptly asked, “How old are you, Moray? When were you born, was it before the War?”

Milo did not need to ask which war, because for the few who had survived it, there could be but the one that three-day holocaust which had irrevocably wrecked the civilization of their world and the worldwide plagues which had almost extirpated all the races of mankind. He shrugged. “I think I was born sometime around the turn of the century … the twentieth century, that is. That would put my age at a bit less than nine hundred years. Why?”

The manacles clanked as Gold steepled his fingers. “That means, Moray, that you were alive at the very apogee of man’s culture and scientific achievements. Wouldn’t you like to see the reestablishment of that culture and most of its appurtenances and civilized comforts?”

He leaned as far forward as his chains would permit, his black eyes gleaming, his voice now husky with his fervor. “Can’t you understand, Moray? We at the J. and R. Kennedy Memorial Center are all that’s left of The United States of America. We are simply trying to perform the patriotic duty of any good citizens: to bring about the recovery of our country. Our country, Moray, yours and mine! As it was before the War. Cities-real cities, man-research facilities, laboratories, universities, hospitals, electricity, flush toilets, automobiles, theatres, television, telephones, newspapers. Think of it, Moray!”

Milo cracked a knuckle aimlessly. “No sale, Gold. I’ve heard that spiel before from your director, when I spoke with him on the Landor woman’s radio a hundred years ago. He told me all about your plans to establish a dictatorship and call it by the name of a long dead republic. I want no part of such infamy! I warned him at that time to keep his parasites out of my lands. For your sake and for the sakes of those others he sent to trespass and agitate, I’m sorry he chose not to listen to me.”

“I cannot, just cannot understand you, Moray,” sighed Gold. “Why on earth are you so antagonistic toward us? We should be allies, should be working together, since we’re so much alike, have so much in common.”

Milo’s expression became ugly. “I have nothing in common with you, Gold!”

The prisoner smiled warmly. “Of course you have, my good Moray. After all we are both of us immortal. In that way, at least, you are like me and I am like you.”

A strong shudder coursed the length of Milo’s body and utter loathing weighted his voice, reflected on his face as well. “No, Gold, not like me, never like me! I did nothing to bring about my longevity, nor did those who truly are like me. Our differences from ordinary humans are the gifts of Nature. The long lives of you and your ilk could not be less natural! You really deserve the appellation ‘witchmen,’ you know. Although I think that ‘vampires’ might be a better term.

“Yes, you’ve lived as long as I have, maybe longer, but in those seven or eight hundred years, how many vibrant young bodies have you personally usurped, Gold? In even one hundred years’ time, how much human flesh and blood is needed to keep a warped, demonic thing like you alive?”

“Two, sometimes three transfers are necessary for survival of the mind, barring illness or accident. In the early days, it was a more frequent process, of course; but since we commenced selective breeding for strength, health and longevity … and also, we strive to take exceedingly good care of our bodies, Moray.

“You see, the process of mind displacement and transference is not a pleasant experience. Generally, it requires hours to days of suffering to accomplish, so naturally we don’t look forward to repeating it any more often than is absolutely necessary.”

“You’re lying, Gold,” snapped Milo. “I saw Titus Backstrom effect a transfer within minutes! And God knows how many times Lillian Landor switched back and forth from King Zastros’s body to her own. If you’re going to start trying to get cute, buster, I might be smart to drug your next meal… and keep you semiconscious until I get you back to Kehnooryos Atheenahs.”

The fetters jangled as the prisoner raised his hands conciliatorily. “Wait just wait a minute, Moray, you don’t fully comprehend.”

Milo, on the point of arising, settled back against the door. “Okay, so tell me, Reverend Father.”

Gold held out his arms, painfully working back the wide iron cuffs to expose the raw, bleeding flesh beneath. “First of all, Moray, why don’t you take these things off me. Can’t you see what they’re doing to this body? Tetanus can kill just as surely as a sword, and I could tell you damned little if I contract lockjaw. I’ll not try to escape, you have my word on it. Besides, you have my pistol.”

Milo’s shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “As it happens, I can’t. The castellan has the keys and he’s on the walls. But even if I could, I wouldn’t. You see, I’ve had sufficient experience with your kind to recognize just how slippery you are. As for your word, I’d not trust you any farther than I could throw my warhorse!”

The prisoner grinned ruefully. “Well, I did try. But it doesn’t really matter. I’ll be free soon enough. Do you think your fellow mutants would trade Manny-assuming that he is still alive-for you?”

“Anything is possible, Gold,” Milo chuckled. “But aren’t you counting your chickens before they’re hatched? I’ve seen weaker fortifications than these, manned by less well armed and less experienced fighters, stand off forces far superior to that ragtag horde of cannonfodder you and the Vahrohnos Myros have scraped up for your little Djeehahd. Til be charitable and say only that they are not firstclass troops … or second-, or even third-. Their only assault so far was smashed a full fifty yards from the walls, and nothing the officers and priests could do or say persuaded them to mount another, so they’ve gone into camp.

“Saddled with amateur officers and without you to harangue them into a religious frenzy, your troops are impotent against this stout little garrison. No, your peasant crusaders will be good for no more than one more full-scale assault. Then the bulk of the survivors will desert and the diehards will hole up in Morguhnpolis or, possibly, Deskati. Whichever city they choose, the Confederation siege train will have its gates down and its walls breached in short order.”

Gold threw back his head and chortled merrily. “Not quite, my good Moray, not quite! Now it is you who are counting chickens. The walls of this pitiful dungheap will be flat to the ground and its gates blown to smithereens before noon tomorrow, and there’s not a damned thing you can do to prevent it either! And don’t hold your breath until your precious Confederation Army gets here, for we’ve not been letting a living soul out of this Duchy for weeks, so you couldn’t have gotten any message to them… not without a radio, anyway.”

Milo replaced the pistol under his brigandine, stood erect, and locked his saber into the frog of his baldric. “You obviously know far less than you think you do about me and my people, Gold. When I get you back to Kehnooryos Atheenahs, we’ll resume our little chat, unless a streak of stubbornness arises, in which case I’ll see that you make the acquaintance of the artisans who cured the mulishness of your friend Manny.”

He jerked the torch from the bracket and left the dank cell, slamming the heavy door and securing the thick bar in place, leaving Gold alone in the unrelieved darkness.

Under the travel-stained canvas of an officer—model campaign tent, on a narrow folding cot, lay a woman. She was strikingly lovely, with the red-gold flame of the watchlantern casting highlights throughout the glossy mane of blue black hair which framed her fine-boned face. Her lips were full and dark red, and although her long, sooty lashes lay upon her light olive cheeks and the proud swell of her firm breasts rose and fell rhythmically, she was not sleeping.

On the farspeak level of her infinitely complex and highly trained mind, she asked, “Where have you been? I knew not but that you’d drowned or smothered. If the men and cats and horses hadn’t been so done in, we’d have marched on tonight. I thought you said you’d contact me at least once each day.”

“Sorry, Aldora, but it couldn’t be helped,” beamed Milo’s thought. “You know my farspeak won’t range more than ten or twelve miles, even under optimum conditions. So without the use of Major Ahndros’s fine mind…”

The woman’s thought then became halting and tinged with pain. “Ahndee? He … he’s dead, then? So … so young and vital and… and sweet.”

“No, Aldora, not dead, not yet, but according to Master Ahlee, it’s still touch-and-go. There was a nasty little skirmish the evening I last spoke with you. He wasn’t really hurt too badly, but he went into shock before Ahlee got to him and the good doctor is now afraid to let him stay conscious for very long at one time.”

“Whom are we speaking through then?” she inquired.

“The handsome, young heir to old Hwahruhn you mentioned? He truly does have farspeak, then?”

“Bili is now Thoheeks, my dear. Hwahruhn is gone to Wind. And I feel sure he has much, much more than just farspeak. Even without training, he may well be a very valuable man, though I’ve had no chance to make certain. You see,” he went on, “a great deal has happened here in a very short time; things are moving much faster than we’d anticipated, much faster than they’d been planned to go, unless that bastard, Kornblau, misled us … and there’s always that possibility. Actually, I’m contacting you through the mind of one of the Sanderz Sept Prairie Cats, Whitetip.”

“Thank Sun and Wind!” Aldora mindspoke vociferously. “There’s been too much inbreeding in recent years and more and more kittens are being born dead or retarded or crippled. And breeding in Treecats just isn’t the answer. Oh, sweet Sun be praised, not only new blood, but farspeak blood at that!”

Mile’s exasperation was transmitted with his thought. “That’s all very well, Aldora, but it will wait, there are other matters which will not! First of all, I managed to take one of the witchmen alive. Tell Mara that he says his name is William Gold and that he was working under the name of Kooreeos Skiros. I want her to learn as much as she can about him from Kornblau, especially whether or not he customarily works with a partner. I need that information quickly too.

“Second, Gold appears to have some deviltry up his sleeve. I took a pistol-you know what that is, remember I described it to you once-away from him and who knows what else he has in circulation around here. In fact, I think that he was hinting that this hall was going to be reduced with explosives tomorrow!”

Beneath her warm blankets, Aldora’s shapely body shuddered. “Sun grant not, Milo! What you have told me of those ancient terrors sounds horrible beyond imagining… and what the Song of Prophecy tells of that long-ago time, the gods’ monstrous death arrows, which obliterated whole, huge cities in fire and invisible death …”

“Now don’t panic, girl!” Milo reproved. “I hardly think the whoresons would go so far as to use nuclear weapons, not with one or more of their own well within range and unprotected. But as I’ve often said before, I don’t want to see the ancient technology reintroduced. I want this new world to develop its own.

“At any rate, I want you here as soon as possible, you and the troops. Knowing you, you’ve probably ridden ahead with most of the cavalry. Just how close are you? How much of a force is with you? And how far back is the main body?”

Beaming, “Just a moment,” she threw off the blankets and padded the few steps to the small folding table. Dis-regarding the night chill which prickled every square inch of her bare skin, she extracted a map from a tooled leather case, unrolled it, and anchoring one end with the watch lantern, pored over it for a few moments. “About sixty-three kaiee, Milo, a little less than forty clanmiles. If I break camp at dawn, I can have my immediate force there by midafternoon. I’ve got only a little over twenty-seven hundred horsemen with me-two thousand kahtahfrahktoee, five hundred lancers, and two hundred of my bodyguard. The rest of the cavalry is with the infantry and the trains, and they’re on the Traderoad, maybe two days behind us.”

“Does your map show Morguhn Hall, Aldora?”

After a brief pause, “Yes, near a tributary to the river we just forded. Roughly nine kaiee north of Morguhnpolis and a little east, perhaps an hour less marching time… say we’ll be there by early afternoon, then.”

“No, not good enough,” Milo retorted. “That still might be too late. Break camp now and be on the march within the hour.”

She protested, “But Milo, both the men and the horses are worn very thin, and many of the cats have had to be mounted. The entire force needs one good night’s rest, if they’re to be in any decent shape to fight tomorrow.”

“It just can’t be helped,” he brusquely replied. “I want you here as soon as possible, for we’re under siege even now-several thousands of them against a garrison of perhaps a hundred. True, most of the rebels are poorly armed rabble at best, but with the suspicion of Gold’s wild card in the game … besides, I doubt your force will have to do any fighting when they get here. The mob we’re facing have damn-all discipline and were very nearly routed when we beat off the first attack. Show them two-and-a-half thousand mounted Regulars, and chances are they’ll scatter to every point of the compass.”

Grudgingly, she acquiesced. “All right, all right, Milo, we’ll march tonight. Can we use the roads?”

“It doesn’t really matter, Aldora. Most of the rebels are here, and so too are most of the loyalists. A small party of Kindred, led by Clan Bard Hail Morguhn is missing, but I’ve scant hope for them.

“It will have to be the Gafnee Drill, I suppose. Individuals or groups will be considered hostile until definitely proven to be friendly. Any who refuse to surrender immediately are to be slain. When you’re within my farspeak range, let me know. Questions?”

“Yes. Should I send a galloper to the main column? Do you want them to force their marches as well?”

“It might not be a bad idea,” he assented. “Tell Lukos to secure Kehnooryos Deskati—since it’s the home city of that bastard Myros, it’s probably rotten to the core with this rebellion. He’s to kill or lock up everyone with even a soupson of authority. As for those damned priests, it might be well if they all die while trying to escape. Then he’s to camp there until sent for.”

Aldora was an old campaigner and wasted no time. While she was donning her thick, soft cotton undergarments, she mindspoke the two squadron commanders of her kahtahfrahktoee (Bili would have called such troops “dragoons”), the Subkeeleeohstos of the lancers, and the captain of her bodyguard. While still she was lacing leather shirt to leatherfaced canvas breeches, bugles commenced to blare. Then two of her horse archers entered the tent. Without a word, one began to repack her saddlebags and roll her blankets, while the other assisted her into boots and cuirass. He cinched the dirk belt with its depending skirt of mail round her slender waist, then thrust the heavy dirk into its frog, buckled the brassarts about her upper arms and the shoulder pieces above them. When the palettes protecting her armpits were in place, he deftly arranged the long ebon hair into two thick braids and lapped them over the crown of her small head, Horseclans-fashion, to provide helmet padding. Once her neck and throat were wound with several thicknesses of absorbent cotton cloth, a gorget of Pitzburk was buckled on.

She drew on her gold-stitched gauntlets while the spearman was adjusting her wide baldric from which was suspended her ancient Horseclans saber.

Then the archer spoke his first words. “Which helm, My Lady?”

She shrugged. “The Cat, I suppose.”

The first archer was securing the last of her gear to her charger’s saddle as she strode from her tent. She was barely in that saddle before the tent had been struck. Thirty minutes after the cessation of the farspeak conversation, her squadrons were on the move, light cavalry and Prairie Cats screening van and flanks.

Arrived upon the walls, Bili did not wonder that Komees Djeen had called out the garrison, for all the watchfires down by the creek were blazing, throwing clouds of red, winking sparks high into the black moonless sky. Countless dark forms scurried in and out of the rings of firelight, while a medley of shouts, the roll of drums, neighs of horses, ceaseless hammerings, and the occasional creakings of ungreased axles all blended into waves of sound which rolled up the hill and lapped against the walls.

When Bili joined the Komees and Captain Raikuh atop the corner tower closest to the enemy camp, the old man shook his hehneted head. “I don’t know now. Possibly I erred in taking you all from your food, but when those bastards started milling about like flies on a dungheap, my first thought was that somehow or other that mob had been persuaded to launch a night assault, but they appear to be making no efforts to form up, so …”

“Ho, Chief Bili,” Hwahltuh Sanderz clambered up to the aerie, armed with dirk, saber, light axe, hornbow, and no less than three cases of arrows. Grinning happily he said, “My kin are all in the places Subchief Djeen said was best. Now when do we fight? Will it be soon, Kinsman?”

The old Komees frowned and shrugged. “Maybe yes, maybe no, Chief Hwahltuh. All we can be certain of is that something unusual is going on down there. It can’t be the arrival of the rebels’ siege tram, for their engines—such as the slapdash, jerry-built contraptions are-rolled in at twilight, along with their tents and baggage. I’ll tell you all, it sounds to me like reinforcements coming into camp, which would also account for all the hubbub round about the commander’s pavilion.”

“But where, My Lords,” asked Captain Raikuh, “would Lord Myros get more troops? Not in this Duchy certainly. Now were this the Middle Kingdoms, any one or more of your neighbor lords could well be bringing his men in to augment whichever side offered the most in the way of land or loot, but…”

“Your pardon, Captain,” Bili interrupted. “There’s but one way to find out the truth of what’s causing the rebels to so bestir themselves, when they should be licking their wounds and getting ready to die tomorrow.”

“Now, hold!” snapped Komees Djeen. “I agree, a sortie may be just the thing, especially if we can capture an officer or priest alive. But I’ll not see you leading that sortie, Thoheeks Biji! If that’s what you had in mind, think you you’ve not yet fully recovered from your wounds of that affray at the bridge. Besides, you’re Chief now. It’s not your place to lead attacks. You’re the clan’s strategist, to use army terminology; the Tahneest and the Subchiefs are the tacticians. Tahneest Djehf may not own your skill with that overgrown axe you fancy, but he’s a stark warrior for all that, and he’s a sound head on his shoulders. I’ve conversed with him—I know!”

Bill’s left hand, gripping his swordhilt, was the only visible strain in his demeanor; its knuckles shone white as snow. However, when he spoke his voice was controlled, though steely-cold as a drawn blade. “Komees Djeen, I’ve deferred to your wisdom and experience in most aspects of warfare, as should all men here, for your knowledge of combats and sieges and weapons is truly encyclopedic. But if you think that on your word alone I’m going to climb up on the shelf and allow my brother or other men to do my fighting for me, you have seriously misjudged both my mettle and your own importance!”

Hwahltuh Sanderz laid his hand on Bili’s rigid forearm. “Kinsman Chief, your words make my heart warm. From what I had seen riding through the lands south of here, I had thought that courage and honor and love of fighting had been bred out of all the eastern Kindred. But in you, I see I was mistaken. You eat Dirtman food and you wash too much, true, but for all that you live to the Law.”

Then the wiry little Chief turned to the Komees, saying reprovingly, “Subchief Djeen, you give shameful advice to your Chief. He is Chief and son of a Chief. As such, his duty under The Law is to lead his clan, while your duty under The Law is to follow him. The Couplets of The Law say:

“You are far older than Chief Bili, even older than am I. So why is it that you needs must be instructed in your proper duty?”

Komees Djeen gritted his teeth, painfully swallowing the rejoinder he would have loved to but dared not make. These wild Horseclansmen were well known both for inordinate pride and the quick tempers of stud bulls. One wrong word from him, he knew, and the feisty little bastard’s steel would be out and the fat would be in the fire for fair. So he chose his words, framing his answer with exacting care.

“Chief Hwahltuh, the Law which was given the Sacred Ancestors by the Undying God Milo was formulated centuries ago for a race of man. They were for long the very salvation of that race. But, Chief Hwahltuh, they were drafted to fit the needs of a specific lifestyle. Clan Morguhn and the other forty-one clans trekked and fought their way to the sea under that Law. Their swords and their Courage and the Law sustained them through thousands of kaiee of hostile country, filled with savage beasts and bloodthirsty peoples.

“But look about you, Chief Hwahltuh, the descendants of those Horseclansmen are no longer nomads. They still breed horses and cattle, sheep and goats, some still mindspeak and hunt game, but they have adapted to a settled way of life. They have interbred with the Ehleenoee, who were the previous lords of these lands, with mountain folk and with men and women from the northern principalities.

“Over the generations since the Coming of the Horseclans, we are become a different race from those whose swords hacked their marks of ownership onto duchies such as this one. As we changed racially, so too did our laws and our customs. They had to, else we would have remained but a host of barbarians, squatting amidst the charred ruins of a once civilized land.

“The number of these changes of the Law is legion, but the change which here affects us is this: Our Clan Chief is expected to be ruler, administrator, judge. It is thought good for him to be an experienced warrior, aggressive and unafraid to see blood spilled or to have swords drawn when such be necessary, and to know warfare well. But it is frowned upon, and highly unusual, for a Chief to lead into actual combat, for the loss of a good Chief would be crushing. So while the Chief plans the movements of his forces, it is the function of the Tahneest to see that those plans are carried out-it is almost the only function of the Clan Tahneest, in our society.

“Bili has been Chief for less than a day, Chief Hwahltuh. Further, for the last ten years he dwelt in a distant and alien land. That he now recalls as much as he does of our laws and customs is in itself amazing and indicative of his rare mental abilities and the priceless value of his Chieftainship in years to come. I feel sure that he will prove the best Morguhn of Morguhn within memory, if I and the others can keep him alive.

“Now Bili’s uncle, who was Tahneest under his father, is dead, murdered by those would-be soldiers down there. Djehf Morguhn, who as Bili’s oldest brother is now Tahneest, lacks our Bili’s phenomenal memory, so remembers less than he. Under these conditions, it should be the function of Clan Bard Hail to cleave to the new Chiefs side, instructing and counseling him until he is conversant with all aspects of his new position, but I fear that poor Hail too has gone to Wind, so the Clan Bard’s task is fallen upon Komees Hari, Vahrohnos Spiros, and me, who are the senior Subchiefs.

“Chief Hwahltuh, Chief Bili’s youthful impetuosity must be curbed, and the sooner the better. For a Chief who is ruled by his emotions, rather than by law and custom and considered judgment, is dangerous to the wellbeing of his clan!”

They left by way of rope ladders, down one of the darkest sections of wall, all except the two Cats, who simply jumped **to them, piddling-fifteen feet. Djehf and Pawl Raikuh led a dozen hardboiled Freefighters, while Chief Hwahltuh and Subchief Mak Sanderz headed six of their best bowmen, Komees Djeen having flatly refused to permit any more of the valuable Horseclans archers to be risked-and Hwahltuh’s temper be damned.

Several minutes later, Milo landed on the balls of his feet, his knees flexed to absorb the impact. After a deliberate roll, he came to a stop beside Whitetip, who had preceded him down the slope. In his own ears, the muted clashing of his armor had sounded loud as an alarum bell, but so tumultuous was the hurrah from the siege lines, that he doubted any had remarked upon his noise.

Gliding into a patch of more Stygian darkness, he stood up and brushed at the ankle-length, black cassock which covered his armor. Dropping his helm but retaining the steel skullcap, he donned a flatcrowned, brimless hat of fine black felt. He gingerly patted and tugged at the false beard-full and black and square-cut—to see that it had not loosened during his descent from Morguhn Hall. After another pat to be sure that the jewelled, pectoral cross of Skiros/Gold still hung from his neck, he again crouched and trotted down toward the camp, paced by Whitetip.

They halted just beyond the light of a watchfire and Milo rapidly took in the scene spread before him. Far to his left, perhaps a hundred yards away, lay the pavilions of the officers and priests with several scores of figures clustered about the largest. Some of these figures held horses, some stood in groups talking earnestly, some scurried to and fro. Just as a party emerged from the big pavilion, Milo’s attention was distracted by happenings nearer to hand.

A huge wain, drawn by two span of brawny white mules, trundled into the circle of red yellow light, conveyance and draft animals still wet and muddy from the ford. Two bawling, whip-wielding horsemen preceded it, mercilessly clearing a right of way by dint of pain and curses. Four mounted subpriests flanked the high-wheeled cart, a full priest drove the team, and a big man in the rich robes of a Kooreeos bestrode a fine, white-stockinged chestnut behind. On this last cleric’s broad chest, the firelight was reflected in the jewels of a cross identical to that now worn by Milo.

Absently, the High Lord fingered the cross, and under a finger, one of the jewels sank smoothly into its setting. The cross commenced a low, persistent buzzing then, and from its right arm, a rounded plastic cone popped out to dangle from a slender wire.

The mounted Kooreeos suddenly raised his cross to his lips, at the same time placing his right hand to his ear. His bearded lips moved and from a seemingly vast distance Milo heard a tinny voice, though he could make out no words.

Wonderingly, he brought his own big cross near his mouth. A tentative pull at the cone caused a bit more wire to emerge, just enough to allow him to insert the cone in his ear.

“… dy? Where in hell are you?” The voice came in clearly. “These damned transceivers never have worked consistently. Those five-thumbed apes that Dumb-dumb Bob May has in Electronics Engineering-I doubt if any one of them can wipe their butts properly! Goldy? Goldy, can you hear me?”

Slurring his words, Milo answered, “Loud and clear.”

“Have they still got you chained up in that cellar, Goldy?” demanded the voice, adding, “There’s some sort of distortion in my reception, you sound odd.”

Milo thought fast, then slurred his transmission even more. “No, ish not your shet. Get hit in mouf. Shwollen.”

“Sadistic bastards!” snarled the other. “Well, we’ll have you out of there soon, Goldy, just hold on. I’ve brought enough impact bombs to level a city, much less that mole-hill up there!”

Face still puffy and discolored from the beating cheerfully given him by the bodyguards of Vahrohnos Myros, a spike-bearded man Bili would have recognized as the enemy leader at the bridge fight sat in a small, ill-equpped tent with a couple of his subordinates, circulating a skin of inferior wine. Their minuscule condotta of professionals constituted the only reliable troops in the “army” and said professionals knew it, even if their employers affected to not know.

During the months that the three officers, their sergeants, and men had devoted to almost uniformly vain attempts to make soldiers of rabble, they had come to hate their students almost as much as they despised their mealy-mouthed, pennypinching employers. Now all of them—the officers in the sole tent they had been allowed, and the sergeants and men squatting about the fires- were softly chortling over various aspects of the late after-noon’s abortive assault and trading gallows-humorous speculations on exactly what would transpire when next their “comrades in arms” could be beaten or chivvied up the hill to once more face the tough little band within Morguhn Hall.

“If I thought for even one moment-” the captain moved his lips as little as possible and his words hissed through the void created by the recent loss of a couple of front teeth. “-that those feisty bastards up there stood even an outside chance of winning, of holding off this stinking mob …”

The younger of the two lieutenants slowly nodded. “I think that most of us feel just that way too. The Thoheeks is all man and he commands men. We’re here surrounded by a vast herd of rooting swine!”

“We’ll be smart not to talk what-all we feels,” put in the older lieutenant brusquely. “How do we know who’s a-listnin’? And I sure-lord don’t wanta be the one as is caught plottin’ against the Vahrohnos! ‘Sides, the reinforcements what come in tonight and the others what’ll be here t’morra from Thoheekseen Vawn, they all knows what it is to win, so they’ll really fight. And the half a hunnerd the Thoheeks is got jest ain’t enough to hol’ thet place aginst no real assault.”

The younger lieutenant assumed an exaggeratedly sanctimonious pose and expression, while his .voice mocked the emoting tones of a priest. “And forget you not, Brothers in God, we fight not for base gold, but for The True Faith; not for crass loot, but for our souls’ salvation!”

The captain made a rude noise and instantly regretted the pain it brought to his battered face.

“Mebbe!” snorted the other lieutenant. “But me, I don’t give a cowpat fer them furfaces and alia this here religious hogwash!” He slapped his wellworn hilt. “You guys is Ehleenee. Well I ain’t, and Uncle Sharptooth here. He’s the onlies’ deesunt god fer a soljer. And when I fights, by cracky I fights for loot!”

“Yes,” agreed the younger. “Loot is the reason most soldiers fight. But there is honor, as well. The Steel God of you barbarians demands that, above all.”

The spikebeard took another long draught of the foul wine, then commented, “Well, it’s scant honor any of us will bear from this campaign. I thought this was to be an honest civil war when I took gold and swore my oath and set about recruiting most of you. Fah! And here we are, helping a lunatic pervert and a gaggle of fanatic priests and a gang of gallows-bait commoners murder their rightful lords. We … Now what in thunder has got into the horses?”

Although theirs was but a small picketline, a certain amount of noise was a normal occurrence throughout any night, for these were all high-spirited warhorses, many of them uncut stallions and all bred and trained to fight. Of course, it was standard operating procedure in any war-camp that mares were picketed well away from full horses, but even so random bites and the occasional shrill combat were not uncommon. So the veteran cavalrymen had ignored the stampings and snortings and whinnyings, and even the first scream or two.

But now there had erupted a veritable chorus of high-pitched screams, screams not of rage but fear! The entire length of the horselines were vocalizing unmistakable terror. Nostrils dilated and eyes rolling whitely, they reared and jerked at the restraints without visible cause.

Abruptly, a picketline went down and twoscore of the fear-mad chargers fled mindlessly through the crowded camp, trampling or savaging all who sought to halt them! And unseen in the darkness and confusion, Lover-Of-Water and young Steelclaws loped away toward their next assignment, leaving Myros’s tiny cavalry-arm in utter chaos.

But the cavalry encampment was concealed from the sight of the headquarters area by an undulation of the terrain. The tumult was effectively swallowed by distance and the general racket of the intervening camps. It was not until screams of mortal agony smote their ears that some score of officers and priests came boiling out of Myros’s pavilion, the men of Vawn tired and worn by their long, forced march and those of Morguhn all in some measure tiddly of a surfeit of the Vahrohnos’s strong wines.

By then it was too late. Dozens of Sanderz firearrows had set the wagons and the stores and most of the newly assembled war engines ablaze. Out of the darkness, swarms of black-lacquered shafts buzzed, bearing the sting of death to any and all who sought to subdue the blazes. A cask of strong cordial in one of the wagons exploded with a dull boom, showering glowing sparks and bits of flaming wood onto the fringes of the closely grouped officers’ tents. The blue and green flames from the waterproofed canvas were soon rising higher and hotter than the red and yellow conflagration of the siege train.

While the knot of temporal and spiritual leaders reeled in exhausted or drunken confusion, shouting meaningless or contradictory orders to servants or horseholders or empty air, a volley of heavy, well-aimed darts thudded in among them. A second volley took out most of the horse-holders. Then a horde of coal black, demonic figures were among the terrified survivors, their swords and sabers and light axes hacking a wide swath of bloody ruin.

Myros had donned his ornate dress armor for the purpose of meeting his incoming allies, but the armor of his officers still lay within his pavilion; so they and the unarmed priests had suffered most heavily from the darts. The armed and armored officers of Vawn valiantly drew their steel and at least slowed the attackers. The Vahrohnos tore a target from the deathgrip of an officer whose eyesocket sprouted two feet of dartshaft, then trotted over with naked sword to take his place amongst the dwindling ranks of the Vawnee.

Those officers and priests not dead or dying fled in every direction, their terrified shrieks lost in the cacaphony of the burning camps. For his own part, “Captain” Nathos Evrehos, the goldsmith-moneylender, ran sobbing into the inky void, his face streaked with his tears and his legs streaked with his dung.

“But, ‘m not inna hall,” slurred Milo into the pectoral cross. “Shcaped.”

“Capital, Goldy!” crowed the mounted Kooreeos, his broad grin distinct from where Milo stood. “Capital! Where are you, now?”

Whitetip’s farspeak had reached first the familiar mind of Rik Sanderz, and it was that young clansman and one of his kin who opened the rear gates that Milo might drive the mules and the heavy burden they drew-now increased by the weight of the unconscious Kooreeos of Vawn. The handsome chestnut, captivated by Milo’s mindspeak, trotted along behind the warn. The faces of the two clansmen were wreathed in grins at the Bard’s successful exploit.

But there was no hint of a smile on the hard face of the Thoheeks, only restrained ferocity. Not even the warm glow of the torches could thaw the icy stare which bored into the blackrobed back, as Milo descended from the lofty driver’s seat and ripped off the hot, itchy “beard.”

Bili’s words were clipped and cold rage was in his voice. “Bard Klairuhnz, I assigned you to a critically important post. You saw fit to desert that post. There is but one fitting punishment for such an action at so grave a time as the present.” His huge axe was gripped in his right hand and with his left he drew his dirk, saying, “You once fought well and faithfully for me, Kinsman, so I now allow you a choice. Will I take your head with my axe or heart-thrust you with the dirk?”

The corner of Milo’s eye caught a stiff flickering of a white-tipped tail, as the great feline crouched and tensed to spring. “No!” he beamed urgently. “Let be, Cat-brother. This is as quick a way as any to confirm to the lad my true identity.”

“The dirk, I think, Lord Bili,” answered Milo, gravely. “But, for that, I must remove my brigandine.”

At that, he doffed the robe and cross, loosened the crotch strap, grasped the hem of the steel-lined garment, and started to pull it over his head. In a blur of movement, Bili tossed axe to left and dirk to right hand, and his hard, true, straight-armed thrust thudded home between Milo’s ribs, the force of the blow slamming him back against the high wheel of the warn.

Rik and the other Sanderz man gripped their sun medallions, but took in the deed with impassive faces. For Bill was a Chief and Bard Klairuhnz apparently had been his oathman. He had not attempted to dissuade his Chief, nor to stave off the execution, so obviously had he deemed death his just punishment. Their own Chief had admonished them that they must all bide by the ways of this land. Besides, they recognized their unpleasant affair to be none of Clan Sanderz’s business.

Komees Djeen’s limping run brought him to his young lord’s side just as the dirk came free with ah obscene, sucking pop, and blood, glistening black in the torchlight, gushed forth to soak the shut above the wound.

“You damned thick-skulled young fool!” snarled the old man, furiously jerking Bili about. “You’re not in Harzburk, dammit, what you’ve just done is murder! You … Sun and Wind!” His contorted, livid features suddenly slackened and blanched to the hue of curds, while his faded-blue eye seemed about to spring from its socket.

Bili whirled around, then unconsciously stepped back, his own eyes flitting back and forth between his blood-slimed dirk and his “victim.”

Milo finished pulling the brigandine over his head and with it the blue black wig which had covered his own, close-cropped grey-and-black hair. He smiled fleetingly at the stunned Thoheeks, then inserted a forefinger into first one cheek, then the other, wincing as he tore loose lumpy strips of some substance which had served to alter the shape of his face.

Then the “dead man” pulled off his shirt and Bili could see that the wide wound his blade had inflicted had almost ceased to bleed. His confused brain spun frenetically, registering what it saw, yet knowing that such could not be … unless …

Komees Djeen’s sword came from its case in one smooth movement; then its hilt crashed against his breast-plate in a stiff, military salute, as he croaked, “My Lord, My Dear Lord…!”

Almost simultaneously did two Sanderz sabers come out to render Horseclan honors, while two awestruck voices murmured, “God Milo!”

It was nearly an hour more before the sortiers straggled back to the hall. Although they had failed to capture any officer or priest, they had retired in good order, bearing with them both their wounded and their dead. But even when the last of them were sprawled gasping within the walls, the clash of arms still sounded from the creekside camps, as leaderless bands of hopelessly bewildered men took similar bands for the enemy in the darkness between fires. And the murderous chaos went on until the first roseate streaks of dawn were tinting the eastern sky.

When the coppery vanguard of Sacred Sun breasted the horizon, most of the garrison of the beleaguered hall gathered in the rear courtyard. While Clan Bard Gil sang first The Lament of Morguhn, then The Lament of Sanderz, the bodies were borne from indoors**in stately procession, laid upon the enlarged pyre, and torches were set to its four corners by Bili, Spiros, Hwahltuh, and Raikuh.

Slowly at first, then ever more rapidly, the tongues of flame took hold and crept higher and higher, then began to nibble at the pitch-soaked boards whereon lay the seven corpses. Bili gazed woodenly but once more upon the faces of his kin and those who had fought for him, and stepped back as the heat became uncomfortable.

The column of smoke rose up and up and up, high into the pale-blue dawning sky, until a high-altitude current struck it powerfully and sent its tendrils roiling away to the west.

Hwahltuh and his clansmen stood bunched together, touching one another for comfort, whilst unashamed tears streaked their faces-tears not only for the losses of two loved kinsmen, but for pride that the smoke of Sanderz men should be borne to the Home of Sacred Wind in company with that of a Chief and his brave son. The Freefighters stood at attention behind their captain, with no need to force the appearance of emotionlessness, for-like eating, drinking, wenching, gambling, and fighting-death was but another facet of the existence of a professional soldier.

Despite himself, old Komees Djeen, standing ramrod-stiff at Milo’s left rear, felt moisture creeping from his eye and down the folds and puckers and wrinkles of his leathery cheek. For his part Vahrohnos Spiros wept as openly as the Sanderz men.

Bili was the first upon the walls when the tower watch winded the alarm bugle. But he could see nothing other than individuals and small groups shuffling about the charred and bloody wreckage of the rebel encampments. So he quickly ascended the nearest tower. And there he did not need the guard’s pointing spear to show him.

When the leading elements of Confederation cavalry were reported by the Vawnee scouts, the few remaining officers betook themselves to the commander’s pavilion, but it stood empty and stripped of all small valuables. Vahrohnos Myros, the senior subpriest, Rikos, and their guards were nowhere to be found! As the highest ranking noble remaining, Vahrohneeskos Drehkos Daiviz found himself in command of the self-battered siege forces.

If no soldier, Drehkos was at least a good administrator; so after sending the scouts back to their posts with orders to keep him informed of the progress of the leading force and the approximate size of the main element, he assembled such staff as was available and commenced a riding tour of the wrecked, wretched camps to assess just what he was in command of. Within the hour, he had ordered and was supervising immediate and rapid withdrawal to Morguhnpolis!

Leaning between the merlons, Bili shouted down to the Freefighter bugler, “You, trooper! Sound first the Officers’ Call, then the Assembly!”

The Freefighter had not completed the first call ere the young Thoheeks was down from the tower and racing along the wallwalk toward the hall. The large central chamber was still filling up when he arrived, buckling on his gorget, the straps of his hastily donned cuirass dangling loose. As he gained the dais and strode to his place at the high table, Komees Djeen stumped up to confront him, angrily demanding:

“Now just what in hell do you think you’re up to? Have you no respect for the rites due your father and the honors for your poor, brave brother?”

“Who would not be dead, remember, had I not, against my better judgment, heeded your overly cautious advice and given into his leadership the raid I planned and should have led!” Ice crackled in Dili’s voice and stare, and his tone brooked no argument. “Now you heed me, Lord Djeen, and heed me well, for I shall not repeat my words! You are a man grown old in war and there is much I may learn from you, but I will learn when and as I wish to learn, not at your pleasure!

“Sacred Sun has made of me your rightful lord, not the reverse. Do not delude yourself into the belief that I will longer tolerate your browbeating. In the future, you will either obey my orders, or you have my leave to forthwith depart my presence! I tell you this before the face of Him who is the Ancient God of our ancestors and present overlord of us all.

“I know that you have meant well and that command is become habitual with you, but you have left me no choice, Lord Djeen. You must realize that although you are a Count and have been a General, I am a Duke and, my age notwithstanding, your temporal superior!

“Am I understood, Lord Djeen?”

“Perfectly, My Lord Thoheeks.” The Komees’s, words came as stiff as his military posture, but his eye showed grudging respect. “I await your orders.”

“Very good,” Bili nodded, then signed Raikuh’s lieutenant to do up the loose straps of his armor while he spoke on. “Our erstwhile besiegers are breaking camp and withdrawing in some haste. Even as I quitted the watch-tower, a large body of cavalry forded the creek and rode west, toward Morguhnpolis, I assume. Without horsemen to protect them, those rebel foot will be ripe for the slaughter and I mean to butcher me as many as I can lay axe to.

“You and Kinsman Sami will again have command of the hall. I will leave you Kinsman Vaskos, the six walking wounded, and your personal Freefighters.”

Wordlessly, the old Strahteegos saluted, turned about, and stumped off, trailed by Vaskos and the castellan.

“Chief Hwahltuh, Captain Raikuh, get your men armed and mounted. Ill expect the column to be formed up and ready in fifteen minutes.”

The little Chief whooped delightedly, vaulted the table, and sped toward the door, his shouting, laughing clansmen close behind him. Raikuh nodded his acknowledgment and saluted, but even he could not repress a grin.

Komees Hari stepped forward. “Bili … uh, My Lord Thoheeks, I may be old, but…”

Bili smiled warmly. “But you’re not too old to swing a sword, eh? I had no thought of leaving you and our other Kinsmen behind, Lord Hari. It is only because he is wounded that I ordered your son to remain. But all of you hurry and get armed, for I want no unnecessary delay. I want to rout those bastards!”

When the nobles were gone, only Milo and Master Ahlee remained with Bili on the dais. “And I?” inquired the whiterobed physician. “What would the Lord Thoheeks have me to do?”

Bili smiled again. “Whatever you wish, Lord Ahlee, for you have served me and my House well. I know you to be a stark warrior, for all that you profess to be a man of peace. You may remain with your patients or you may ride with me.”

Ahlee’s gentle smile answered Bili’s. “Young Eeshmaheel is become as accomplished a physician as am I.

Indeed, he already has a Volunteer apprentice, so the wounded here can receive no better care from me. I had long forgotten how exhilarating is combat. I will fetch my blade and see to my horse.”

“And me, Bili?” inquired Milo.

The smile slipped from the young Thoheeks’ face. “Who am I to give orders to My Lord?” he answered uncomfortably, the memory of his attempt to execute this more-than-man still painfully fresh in his mind.

“No, Bili,” Milo mindspoke. “Put that from your thoughts. I knew your intention and could easily have stopped you, had I so desired.

“But that was last night. May I ride with your force this morning?”

“Any sound horse in my stables is yours, My Lord,” Bili silently assured him. “I will be most honored to do whatever the High Lord commands.”

Milo grinned. “Remember that promise, Bili; for are you truly that which I believe you to be. I have great plans for you.

“But for now, for a little while longer, think of me only as your distant-Kinsman Klairuhnz, and command me as you would him. You see, young Bili, the life of a High Lord is often boring, and I must return to that life soon enough.

“Now,” he smiled, “shall we go and see if that witchman’s big chestnut is the charger he claims to be?”