The Patrimony

17

As soon as the first company of Brotherhood Crusaders, that from the nearer south village, reached the hall, Mehleena ordered their captain, one Ahreestos, to batter down the thick, barred doors sealing the central portion of the hall off from the north wing. But all the while his men were laboriously lugging a long, foot-square oaken timber up the stairs, she screamed and screeched at them lest they damage the fine, carven paneling, wall hangings or carpets.

Once at the top of the stairs and ready to advance on the doors, the lady insisted that they first lay the makeshift ram aside for the space of time it took them and a few servants to strip the hallway of carpets, hangings and fine furniture. Only then would she allow them to get on with the business of forcing the door, which upon examination Ahreestos deduced was not going to be either quick or easy.

Nonetheless, he set his score of men to swinging the heavy length of well-cured oak against the spot where the two valves of the ironbound doors verged and on the level at which he reckoned the central bar was set. But before the men could establish a telling rhythm of strokes, the door of one of the suites between Ahreestos and the stairs opened, unnoticed.

Unnoticed, that is, until, to the twanging of bowstrings, two of his men screamed and fell. Key men, they were, and arrowed on the backstroke, their loss so unbalanced the rest as to cause them to lose grip on the timber—which, lacking proper handholds or shoulder ropes, was difficult to handle at best. The falling timber smashed one man’s kneecap and crushed another’s foot.

Nor had the two middle-aged archers been idle during it all. They had dropped another brace of Ahreestos’ shrinking command, faced about once to send a scratch force of servants retreating back down the stairs, leaving one dead and one wounded, then turned back to pierce through two more of the ram wielders, before reentering the door from which they had originally come.

Ahreestos sent one of his sergeants down to fetch the rest of his force, then led the thirteen living and unwounded bravos against the door through which the archers had disappeared. Save at its far end, the hallway was not of sufficient width to allow use of the timber, so they were compelled to axe down the suite door, ignoring the livid lady, who winced each time a blade bit into the carved and decorated fruit-wood panels.

But when the splintered door finally crashed open, the small entry foyer lay empty and they were confronted by another, even more ornate door through which they must hack. The first two bravos who crowded through the wreck of this second door apparently triggered some cunning device of boards and slender cords, for a bucket full of glowing coals was suddenly tipped and dumped to rain down upon them. And it was as well that the larger room stood empty, for the lady shrieked and cursed them all and would allow no more pursuit of the archers until the last of the coals had been scooped up and the blazing carpet brought under control.

Ahreestos now had ten men left of his score—during the demolition of the second door, one of the men had been working his axe blade loose from the wood when, in the cramped little room, a comrade’s stroke had gone astray and taken off most of his right hand—and these ten were tired, shaken, demoralized men. A couple crossed themselves, eyes rolling in superstitious horror, when a thorough search of the suite produced no archers nor any means by which they could have departed.

At that juncture, Lord Myron joined them with two retainers, all three fully armed. When Ahreestos had rendered his report, the bulking noble snorted derisively.

“Then either your scum didn’t search very well or they and you have hog turds in place of brains!” Then, striding impatiently over to what appeared but another expanse of paneled wall and had rung as solid under Ahreestos’ knuckles as had the areas flanking it, the arrogant lordling had fingered a carven rosette and, with a muted click, a five-foot-square section had sprung open a couple of inches.

Stepping back, the sneering young lord bobbed a mocking bow and waved a steel-encased arm toward the panel with silent contempt.

Ahreestos was reduced to physically shoving the sergeant and two others through the panel into the narrow tunnel beyond. Trembling like foundered horses, they mumbled prayers, gripping and regripping their weapons in sweat-slick hands. Ahreestos himself felt as nervous as a virgin bride when he ducked his head and entered into the dry darkness, his sword held at low guard before him. At his command, the sergeant halted his men until a brace of lamps could be lit and passed in to them.

The progress was slow and halting, for there were more movable panels along the way and Ahreestos could not feel safe unless the suites beyond each and every one of them was well searched before they crept onward up the tunnel.

And all the way, the lady’s strident voice rang and echoed from behind, bidding them have care with the lamps lest they set fire to the hall, bidding them on pain of direst consequences to leave no soot marks on walls or ceiling, bidding them exercise strictest caution that their weapons and equipment not chip stone or scar wood. Ahreestos soon became unclear in his own mind whether the true enemy lay ahead or behind and was thinking how much pleasure it would give him to still the fat, yapping bitch with a dirk in the gullet.

At the right-angle turn where the tunnel from the central section of the hall intersected that which ran the length of the south wing, there were three stone steps up to a yard-square landing, then three more to the level of the slightly higher main building. Just as the sergeant ascended to this landing, a warrior in an almost complete suit of plate descended from the blackness to cut the noncom down with a single, powerful stroke of a basket-hilted broadsword.

The second man had sheathed his sword to better manage the heavy, clumsy brass lamp, and he was given no time to draw it. The third man, pressed irresistibly on by the pressure of Ahreestos and those behind the captain, squealed like a pig at slaughtering time and never even tried to raise his sword to parry the blow that struck between the lower rim of his old-fashioned helm and his scale shirt and cleanly severed his dirty neck. The spouting, gory geysers took Ahreestos full in the face, through the bars of his visor.

Hampered by the twitching, jerking bodies beneath his feet and half-blinded by the stinging, salt blood, the veteran soldier still managed to turn two or three jarring, bone-numbing blows of that dripping, deadly sword with adroit handling of his own. Then his inferior steel snapped and he had a brief moment to stare in stunned wonderment at the scant foot of blade left below his hilt, before all the stars of heaven exploded in his head and he suddenly dropped into a bottomless pit of black nothingness.

By planting himself firmly and loudly shouting that the captain was down, the next man managed to prevent himself being pushed within range of that armored apparition and its death-dealing yard of steel. As fast as they might, but still far too slowly for the foremost men, the long line backed down the tunnel, the last one dragging the inert form of Captain Ahreestos.

In the thoheeks’ suite, Tim laid his blood-streaked sword aside and lifted off the helm after Giliahna’s deft, sure fingers had unbuckled it. Accepting a damp cloth, he rubbed his sweaty face and hairless scalp, then gratefully drained off the big tankard of beer proffered by Sir Geros.

At length, he said in a matter-of-fact tone, “They’re in retreat now, back up the passage, but young Tcharlee is out there watching lest they return. I downed four of the bastards. Three were clean kills, but the last man was in three-quarter plate and knew a bit more than the basic rudiments of swordplay. At best, I only wounded him, possibly just stunned him. Most of them are no soldiers, just an armed rabble. Is there any more of that beer, Sir Geros?”

By the time they got Captain Ahreestos back into the suite where the lady and her folk waited and got his helmet off, he was beginning to regain consciousness. He felt kitten-weak, shaky and with trickles of his own blood from nose, ears and mouth corners freshening the partly clotted gore that had sprayed through the front of his helm from the spurting arteries of the decapitated man.

“Captain Ahreestos! God curse you, you craven cur dog, answer me!” The lady bent as far forward as her girth would permit and slapped the man’s ashen cheeks smartly, heedless that the stones and settings of her many rings tore his flesh. But her shouts and buffets elicited only a wordless mumbling, and, when she grabbed a handful of his sweaty, black hair and raised his streaked face, his bloodshot eyes rolled, unfocused, and a fresh rivulet of blood coursed from one ear.

She had the unfortunate captain raised to his feet, but, immediately the two bravos released their holds upon him, he collapsed bonelessly and fell to the floor in a great crash and clashing of his armor.

Without turning, Mehleena snapped her pudgy fingers. “Ghrahgos, Broonos, drag this piece of useless filth out into the corridor where his bleeding can’t damage anything. Lootzeea, fetch water and cloths that I may wash his dirtiness from my hands. Tonos, get the blood cleaned off this carpet. Quickly, before it dries.”

While a serving girl carefully washed Mehleena’s extended hands, she ordered Ahreestos’ last living sergeant forward, snapping, “All right, you lowborn ape, what happened up there? There can be no more than a score or less including women, in that main section. So how is it that thirty big, brave men, who’ve lived high on my bounty for months, come scuttling back into this suite with their tails between their legs? You are all armed and armored at my expense and I was assured that all of you knew how to fight.”

“L … lady,” the fidgeting sergeant, one Limos, stuttered, “the passage in there … it’s so narrow thet cain’t but one man at the time go ‘long it an’ it’s no room to use a axe nor sword properlike. But them what kilt poor Ehmnos and them other boys was in full plate armor and more’n a foot higher’n us an’ in a higher’n wider place an’ thet give ‘em more room to fight right. It ain’t no room to carry targets in there, lady, so mens what hain’t in full plate or dang close to it won’t live no longern it takes t’ …”

“Never mind your stupid opinion, you stinking guttersnipe!” she snapped impatiently, then turned to her sons and the other two plate-armored men. “Myron, you and Xeelos take fifteen of these brave patriots, go downstairs, back into the rear half of this wing, then come up the rear stairs and enter the tunnel from some point beyond the T. May God damn Hwahltuh Sanderz for so ridiculously compartmenting the various sections of this hall; were it built along sane, logical Ehleen lines, this task of ours would be far easier to accomplish.”

“Speeros”—this, to her second-eldest son, at fifteen as tall as his elder brother, but though big-boned not yet filled out—“you and Mailos will lead the rest of this craven pack back from this suite whenever Myron and Xeelos are in position. Your arrival and theirs should be simultaneous, if possible.”

“But, mother,” Myron replied hurriedly, “should we not wait until … until the other two companies arrive from the villages? The heathen cannot get out of the hall. All the exits are either blocked or guarded, and only two horses are left in the hall stables. If we had more men we … we could attack this way and batter the doors at the same time.”

Mehleena’s layers of fat rippled as she shrugged. “What do we need more careless, dirty men in my hall for? They’d track dirt and damage furniture. No, the place for the rest of them, when at last they straggle in, is upon the walls; don’t forget, the rest of your pagan kin could ride up at any time. Now draw your sword, Myron, take these men down and around and show us all what you’re made of.” She patted the swell of his breastplate, on which was painted a black-rimmed white circle with, at the center, the cross—ancient symbol of their ancient religion—rendered in reddish violet.

“Strike for the True God and the True Faith, Myron, my son. Strike for me, for your sisters and brothers in Christ and for the rebirth of the ancient glories of our blessed race. And if you fall, know that your sufferings will be but brief and that through the rest of eternity you will dwell with our Holy Savior in Paradise.”

“But … but, Mother,” quavered Myron, his voice breaking, his face as pale as that of wounded Captain Ahreestos, now lying unattended in the hallway. “I … I’m to be … to be the chief. The chief must not … must never be placed in danger. Speeros will be tahneestos, it is his place to lead in war, not mine … never mine! Please, Mother … what if they … they kill me?” Myron’s full lips trembled on the last words and a tear crept downward on either side of his aquiline nose. All at once, the big man seemed to shrink upon himself and he whimpered in almost a whisper, “Mother … please, Mother … please don’t make me go.”

Mehleena shuddered and her eyes looked fit to burst from their sockets. Throwing back her head she emitted a scream of pure rage that could be heard even in the sealed-off and besieged central portion of the hall. Raising her thick, jiggling-fleshed arms high above her head, she shook both small fists at the ceiling and shouted.

“Why, God, why? Why did You in Your infinite wisdom see fit to immure my man’s soul in this hateful woman’s body? Despite Your lifelong sentence of torment, have I not always striven to serve You well? Why then was it needful to further torment me by giving me for a son this pitiful coward? Why, oh, God I have served and honored my life long? Why? Why? Why? Why?”

Recognizing the too-familiar signs, most of the servants rapidly and silently quit the chamber, the suite and close proximity to their infuriated mistress. Tonos and a few of the more courageous and/or agile servitors lingered in the foyer, but even they made certain of a clear line of retreat. Speeros, Xeelos and Mailos were among this smaller group.

To their sorrow, the score and a half of bravos clustered close about had never seen Mehleena Sanderz in one of her murderous tantrums and were completely unprepared when she suddenly whirled, wrenched an iron-shafted horseman’s axe from a nearby bravo and commenced to lay about her, concentrating upon the steel-clad body of Myron, her sobbing, shaking son, but careless of who or what the blade or shaft or knife-edged terminal spike encountered in its travels.

All the while, the blubbery woman screamed and ranted and raved. Half her utterances were incomprehensible, the other half damned first Myron, then every man in the suite, then every man in the hall, then every man in the duchy and, at last, every man on earth.

One of the bravos was down with his brains gushed out on the precious carpet and two others were badly hurt before the remainder of the thirty became one kicking, clawing, shouting mass as each strove to be first through the door. Myron, though his fine plates were battered somewhat and his chin had been cut by the tip of the terminal spike, was so far lost in his blue funk that he still stood unmoving. And his immobility saved him, for the ravening beast now possessing his mother was drawn to moving prey—the broil of panicky, struggling bravos—and she spun and waddled closer, still gripping the bloody axe in both hands.

Gone too far from sanity for words, only hisses, spittle and snarls of bestial fury came from between her skinned-back lips and bared, gnashing teeth. She beat on helmeted heads, stove in ribs and shattered shoulders through scale shirts and mail, hacked deeply and sanguineously into unprotected legs and arms and the occasional neck.

At length, one bravo—his lifelong respect for and fear of the nobility submerged in the agony of a deep thigh wound, terror for his threatened life and cornered-rat ferocity—turned about, drew his antique Ehleen short sword and drove its leaf-shaped blade into Mehleena’s flopping left breast to the very cross-guard, even as the last swing of her axe smashed the spine of the man behind.