The Coming of the Horseclans

26

Lord Alexandras’ eyes goggled at his visitor, Lord High Strahteegohs Mahrk Hailee. At last, he shouted, “Has all of the world gone suddenly mad? He wants to meet me? There must be trickery somewhere! That spineless, quivering tub of flab …”

“My Lord!” Strahteegohs Hailee cut him off, coldly courteous. “My dread sovereign, Demetrios, High Lord of Kehnooryohs Ehlahs, has bid me offer you honorable combat. This combat is to be of a personal nature and is to be fought in clear sight of the opposing forces.” Hailee began to recite the rote. “Such an offer denotes courage and honor and battle-prowess, though deep respect for one’s enemy is indicated hi such willingness to accept a death—if need be—at his hands.” He returned to a normal tone. “My Lord realizes that he has earned your antipathy.”

Lord Alexandras snorted and, glowering, started to snarl a reply. But Hailee raised his hand. “Please, my lord, have the courtesy to allow me to finish.”

“Courtesy!” yelped Lord Alexandras. “Who are you to demand courtesy from me?”

Hailee drew himself to stiffly formal attention. “Lord Mahrk Hailee, High Strahteegohs of Kehnooryohs Atheenahs and, presently, War-Herald of my puissant Lord, Demetrios Treeah-Pohtahmohs!”

“Oh, sweet Jesus Christ!” Lord Alexandras threw himself against the canvas back of his folding camp-chair. “The world that I knew has turned upside down and no mistake! What have we here? A barbarian is Lord High Strahteegohs of an Ehleenoee city. Another is commander of that city’s Civil Guard and Governor of its prison. Three quarters of that city’s adult, male nobility are imprisoned. The fact that most of them have deserved at least that for years has no bearing upon the present issue. And ninety percent of the adult, male slaves have been declared to be free citizens of the city and are bearing arms in its defense.

“I arrive before city walls that I had expected to be ail-but deserted, to find them literally bristling with spearmen. For five years, this city has been misruled, as has all of Kehnooryohs Ehlahs, to the benefit of certain unscrupulous noble families; yet, who are the first persons who come to me begging asylum and protection from their benefactor, but representatives of these same rapacious noble families! As late as two moons agone, Demetrios was almost universally hated. He had well earned the hatred of slaves, foreigners, citizens, soldiery, all the minor nobles, and many of the greater, especially those of the older houses; but, who comprises the group which comes to me, but representatives of all these classes, warning me that they and those that they represent will fight to the death, that I will have to pull the city down, stone by stone, to unseat their well-loved High Lord! I, who came to free them from the domination of a half-mad tyrant, am given the greeting of a foreign invader!

“And now, this! To add insult to injury, a gross, loathsome creature, whose only accomplishments consist of wine-swilling and buggery, sends me a so-called War-Herald. A thing who is Ehleenoee only by accident of birth, who doesn’t know one end of a sword from the other and who probably can’t even lift a shield, challenges me—Lord Alexandras Pahpahs, the foremost Strahteegohs of the age—to personal combat! Pah! On those rare occasions Demetrios is not besotted, he’s so hung over that he’d have great difficulty in finding his posterior with both hands! I’ll not take part in such a farcial non-combat. It would be pure butchery and would dishonor me. Tell your piggish lord: No, I’ll not fight him!”

“My Lord,” said Lord Mahrk, “in full realization of your advanced years, with their attendant physical debility, bade me inform you that he would as willingly face any surrogate you saw fit to choose, so long as he be Ehleenoee and nobly-born. My Lord deskes that all things be equal and he would not take unfair advantage of an age-weakened, old man.”

“WHAAT?” Lord Alexandras, livid, sprang up so suddenly and violently that he sent his chair flying and all but overturned his table. “That … that… that swinish young … that arrogant pup! Old man, am I? Age-weakened, eh? I’ll cut him in half! Ill split him, like a goddam mackerel, from crown to crotch! I’ll …

Lord Mahrk suppressed his smile. “I take it, then, that you accept my Lord’s offer.”

With an effort, Lord Alexandras regained control of himself. After a long moment, he chuckled, shook his head ruefully. “I fell directly into that one, like a panther into a pit! Tell me, did the High Lord of Perverts really frame those words, or were they your extemporaneous invention?”

“You have my word on it, Lord Alexandras,” Lord Mahrk assured him. “Each word and nuance of phrasing originated from my Lord. It is what I was to repeat, should you see fit to refuse his honorable offer.”

Lord Alexandras shrugged. “Though your word means little or nothing, of course—you and all your cursed condotta are well known, up and down this seaboard, to be foresworn—nonetheless, I do believe you. Demetrios chose just the proper words and tone to obtain the reaction he desired; Basil, his father, couldn’t have done it better!”

It was decided and arranged. The combatants were to engage along the lines of a formal Ehleenoee duel and were to meet and exchange the customary greetings and toasts at a spot to be one hundred paces from the city walls and one hundred paces from the lines of Lord Alexandras’ army. Each was to bear one javelin—unbarbed and not to exceed one meter in length or one kilo in weight. Each was to be dressed and armored in the style of the Old Ehleenoee: tight, white, cotton shirt with short sleeves; cotton trunk-hose of any color; high-laced, leather buskins; stiff, white linen kilt; quilted canvas cap. Their armor, too, was to be of the Old Ehleenoee pattern: the jazeran—knee-length, leather hauberk, to which were riveted overlapping iron scales; brass or iron rerebraces; elbow-length, leather gauntlets, lined or scaled with metal; molded greaves, with knee-cop; unlined steel helmet, with cheek-pieces, but no nasal, visor, or beavor. In addition to the javelins, their armament was to consist of: a double-edged sword of the ancient Thehkahehseentah pattern—a cut-and-thrust weapon with the blade ten centimeters wide, immediately below the cross-guard and tapering to a point, along a blade sixty centimeters long; a convex-surfaced body-shield of hide-covered wood, one and one-half meters high by one meter wide (when measured around the curve of its outer surface), bossed and banded and edge-shod with iron; style and numbers of daggers, dirks and/or throwing-knives, left to the discretion of the individual combatants. Each was to be conveyed to the scene in a chariot and, in addition to the chariot driver, might bring three attendants. These attendants might bear sidearms only and were to take no part in the contest.

The fight, it was understood, would be to the death: the victor, automatically becoming or remaining High Lord. There was quick agreement as to the fate of the city. Lord Alexandras had never intended to allow a sack or to execute reprisals against the bulk of the city’s population. Most of those Lord Alexandras had intent to avenge himself upon, Demetrios had already jailed, therefore, they would not be difficult to find. It was agreed that if Lord Alexandras should win, the Civil Guard and White Horse Squadron would be retained in their present positions—the sole exceptions being Lords Mahrk and Szamyul, as Lord Alexandras felt Ehleenoee should fill their current posts. It was further agreed that those slaves Demetrios had freed and enfranchised should remain free citizens. Many, many smaller but no less important issues were agreed upon as well. The only request that Demetrios made, which could in any way be construed as personal, was that the tombs and remains of his parents and ancestors remain inviolate.

When Demetrios descended to the palace courtyard—fully-armed, shield slung on his back, javelin and throw-ing-stick in his right hand and helmet in the crook of his left arm—it was to find, not only his chariot and driver and the three horsemen who were to accompany him: Lord Mahrk, Lord Szamyul, and M’Gonda, leader of his Black Spearmen, but the entire White Horse Squadron. The officers and men were mounted, armored, and fully armed.

Clapping on his helmet and snapping down the cheek-pieces, the High Lord strode over to where his escort sat their horses. “What means this, Lord Mahrk?”

The Strahteegohs dismounted and said, “My Lord, those western nomads of Lord Alexandras’ love to fight. I will ask once more, let us request that this battle be between opposing forces of equal strength? There are nearly eight hundreds of the White Horse….”

“And,” interjected M’Gonda suddenly, “ten times twenty-three of my people. We are all yours. Let us fight with you.”

Choking, Demetrios grasped each man’s hand in turn. “No, I cannot. Such would be certain death for far too many of you.”

“What, my Lord, do you think this madness is?” Lord Mahrk burst out. “In weeks past, you have become a middling swordsman; but Lord Alexandras is a past-master! His age means nothing; he has the muscles and wind and stamina of a man of forty. The only possible way for you to survive this, is to down him with your javelin. Barring that, you go to your death!”

“I know, Mahrk,” said Demetrios softly. “I have known from the first that Alexandras would slay me. I so planned it, for I have committed crimes which only my death can expiate. All my life, excepting the past few weeks, I have lived as swine. I wish to die as a man.”

So saying, he walked back to and mounted the chariot. “Let us go, Agostinos,” he told the driver. “It would not do to keep your new High Lord waiting.”

Lord Alexandras was first to throw his javelin. Demetrios surprised even himself by adroitly turning the missile on his shield. Then, remembering everything that M’Gonda had told him, Demetrios hurled his own. By some fluke, the assegai pierced the hide of Lord Alexandras’ shield and sunk deeply into the wood and the older man freed it only just in time to take Demetrios’ sword-cut on the shield and, slamming its iron boss at the High Lord’s face, fend him off long enough to draw his own weapon.

They circled each other warily, Lord Alexandras talking to himself under his breath. “By God, the bastard came far too close to getting me that time! Whoever taught him to cast a dart knew what he was about. He doesn’t look as fat as I’d remembered and there’s strength in his sword-arm, too. He really looks much like Basil, his father. That barbarian Who calls himself Lord Mahrk was right. He is more a man, now, than ever he has been. He’s the kind of fighter, the kind of ruler, he’d have been if his father had taken the time to see to the proper rearing of him. Now, let’s see—HAAGGHH!”

Lord Alexandras leapt in, down-slanted shield held before him, and delivered a vicious, backhand slash at his opponent’s neck. Demetrios easily caught it on his own sword and the iron-shod edge of his hard-swung shield slammed agonizingly into Lord Alexandras’ exposed right side. Disengaging his blade, Demetrios hopped backward just in time to avoid the uprushing shield of his adversary. With a speed which was astounding for one of his girth, Demetrios chopped up with the inner edge of his shield, catching Lord Alexandras’ and forcing it even higher, at the same time, stabbing at the spot where the elder man’s hauberk stopped, an inch or so above the knee.

This time it was Lord Alexandras who hopped hurriedly back, thinking, “Sweet Jesus, the boy’s fast as a greased pig! What a fighting High Lord he’d have made. Saints above, with but a few weeks training, he’s come close to killing me twice over!”

After two more attacks, producing nothing more rewarding than lightening counter-attacks from Demetrios, Lord Alexandras settled to a routine of hack and slash, forehand and backhand, high and low, figure-eight and circle; but never did bis edge contact other than shield or parrying sword. When he had established an attack pattern and felt the time to be right, he feinted an up-‘ slash and ended hi a high thrust for the face; Demetrios beat the thrusting weapon against its owner’s own shield, then capped the sword-sandwich with his own close-held shield, immobilizing his opponent’s blade, while his own remained free.

No one of the watchers took breath. Lord Alexandras was momentarily defenseless and all realized it. Demetrios could drive his point into face or back of neck or through the lacings of Lord Alexandras’ jazeran with impunity; and that would be that!

The men’s strained, flushed, sweat-streaked faces were bare inches, one from the other. “Well?” panted Lord Alexandras. “Get it over with! You tortured and butchered the rest of my family. Why do you stick at me?”

“You … good fighter … good man!” gasped Demetrios. “Too bad … couldn’t … been friends. Be great honor … die by … your hand.”

Alexandras started. “You want me to kill you?” “Many sins …” Demetrios went on. “Heavy … must pay. Sat and … sipped wine … laughed … when your daughters … grandchildren … tormented to death. You have … dirk. Use it! Had many … things … done to … your kin.” He went on to haltingly describe the gruesome and incredible brutalities which his tortures had inflicted upon the old nobleman’s family until, foaming with rage, the Strahteegohs let go his hilt, drew his dirk, and plunged it into Demetrios’ neck, just under the left ear! Hilt-deep, he drove the wide-bladed dirk, so that it transfixed the High Lord’s thick neck—a good eight centimeters of the blade protruding from the opposite side.

Demetrios half-screamed at the bite of the steel. Dropping his sword, he wrenched Lord Alexandras’ hand from the dirk. Stepping back, he saluted his slayer, then crumpled to the ground, eyes closed, lips smiling up at the sun.

Demetrios’ descriptions had been accurate and revolting and Alexandras was still half-berserk and the smile further infuriated him. Furiously, he kicked at the dying man’s face, then, picking up his sword, used its edge to sever the shoulder-strap of his shield, slipped free of the arm-bands, and dropped the buckler. Stepping to his fallen foe, he kicked off Demetrios’ helmet, tore away the padded cap, and, raising the High Lord’s head by the hair, he lifted his sword with the obvious intent of decapitating the body.

“NO!” shouted M’Gonda. With unbelievable swiftness, the black quitted his saddle, snatched a javelin from the holder on the side of the chariot, and fitted it to his silver spear-thrower. Just as Lord Alexandras’ blade commenced its hard-swung descent, M’Gonda took three running steps forward and made his cast. The use of a throwing-stick imparts tremendous velocity to a javelin and such was the force of this cast that the entirety of the seven-teen-centimeters of blade length penetrated the Strahteegohs’ exposed right side, the needle-point tearing into his mighty heart!

Seconds after he had thrown his javelin, M’Gonda’s body was pin-cushioned with arrows.

For a long, long moment, there was no movement, in any quarter—all knew that one untoward motion would surely precipitate a pitched battle. Then, above the stillness, sounded a clattering-clanging thud, as Lord Mahrk dropped his round buckler. With his gauntleted left hand, he drew his broadsword and, grasping it by the blade-tip, waved it above his head before casting it down beside his shield. This done, he toed his white charger forward, to rein and dismount beside the bodies of the two Ehleenoee. Shortly, he was joined by Milo, Mara, Djeen Mai, and Lord Szamyul; and the watchers relaxed, starting to breathe again.

Lord Alexandras Pahpahs was dead, though a trickle of blood was yet running from one corner of his mouth. Djeen Mai set his foot against his slain lord’s armored side and withdrew the imbedded javelin, then closed the glazed eyes and wiped the blood from the old Strahteegohs’ chin. Wordless, Mara looked down on this dead, old man, trying to visualize the vibrantly alive boy she had loved so long ago.

Sadly, Lord Mahrk bent over Demetrios’ body and, as gently as possible, pulled out Lord Alexandras’ dirk. All at once, he straightened and reeled back, his face ashen, the dirk dropping from suddenly nerveless fingers.

“He … my Lord is not … he is still alive! He … he moaned when I took out the dirk!” The Lord High Strahteegohs gasped, half-unbelievingly. Milo bounded over to the downed High Lord and hastily ascertained that he was, indeed, yet sentient, not even truly unconscious. Then he noticed something else.