The Savage Mountains

II

“And so, gentlemen,” the grave-faced young thoheeks soberly concluded, “we may, even now, be proceeding on borrowed time. Winter has ever been the favorite raiding season of the mountain folk, so the first blow could fall at any moment anywhere along more than five hundred miles of borderlands. That is why ending this siege quickly is so imperative.”

“But Sun and Wind, Bili,” burst out old Komees Hari Daiviz of Morguhn, “to grant amnesty to my no-good brother and the rest of those treacherous, murdering swine? Whose harebrained idea was that?”

“The High Lord’s!” snapped the Morguhn. “Present your objections to him, if you wish, Hari. But, I warn you, mine own did scant good, nor did those of the Duhnkin or the ahrkeethoheeks”

Ever the apologist in all matters concerning the Confederation he had so long served, retired Strahteegos Komees Djeen Morguhn, the thoheeks’ sixtyish cousin-german, nodded sagely, stated stiffly, “My lord thoheeks, the High Lord dare not concern himself with but this single, relatively unimportant facet of the overall problem. You see, the entire Confederation be his responsibility. I like pardoning known backstabbers no better than Hari, but I also can appreciate Lord Milo’s position.”

Vahrohnos Spiros Morguhn, Bill’s second cousin, gingerly shifted on the padded litter which had conveyed him here, finally reaching down with both hands to ease his splinted and bandaged left leg into a more comfortable position. “But, dammit, Bili, how can we be expected to go traipsing off on a campaign into the mountains, or wherever, leaving our lands filled with unrepentant rebels and a batch of bloodthirsty priests? You’ve seen, the High Lord has seen, we all have seen what they did to Vawn. By my steel, they’ll not do the like to Morguhn!”

“They’ll not get a chance to.” Bili shook his head. “It’s been decided that most of the rebel fighting men will be dragooned into the campaign force; dribbled out, a few to this unit, a few to that. The amnesty is to exclude the priests and monks; those bastards will spend the length of the campaign enjoying the comforts provided by our Morguhnpolis prison.

“Noncombatants in Vawnpolis will remain there, as will a garrison of our troops. The city will be base supply for operations immediately west of Vawn.”

Pawl Raikuh sighed. “Fortunes of war, I suppose. All us Freefighters had been hopefully anticipating an intaking, a sack, a bit of booty, some old-fashioned rapine. Well, there’ll be other wars … for some.”

“How will we get word to the rebels that we now wish to treat?” This from Djaik Morguhn, Bili’s younger brother—war-trained, like Bili and all his other brothers, in the Middle Kingdoms; acknowledged, despite his bare fifteen years, as one of the three best swordsmen in all the besieging army.

Vahrohneeskos Ahndros Theftehros of Morguhn was but distantly related to Bili, actually being more closely related to certain of the rebels, but, like Komees Djeen, he was a former Confederation Army officer … also, he was in love with one of Bili’s widowed mothers. Nonetheless, he had been occasionally sullen since, disregarding his advices and wishes, Bili and the High Lord had seen fit to honor and enoble his former servant, Geros.

Smoothing back a lock of his raven’s-wing hair with a languid gesture, he put in, “Yes, Bili, there is that factor, too. We have been anything but cordial in our responses to the two or three peace overtures the rebels have made. If, during the High Lord’s absence, you and the High Lady had seen fit to heed the expert advice which Komees Djeen and I proffered you …”

Tried to ram down our throats, thought Bili, who sometimes of late had had to forcefully remind himself that this supercilious man had sat his horse knee to knee with him and the High Lord last summer at the Forest Bridge, and had suffered grievous wounds in his behalf. Ever since the vahrohneeskos had recovered sufficiently to join the army before Vawnpolis, he had been a divisive element among the nobles of Morguhn, immediately taking the part of any who opposed the young thoheeks and offering his own opposition when none other arose.

“Kinsman,” said Bili, with as much forebearance and patience as he could muster, “none of us could have known that affairs would so arrange themselves, and it was the High Lord himself who rejected the first effort of the rebels to parley, ere the siege had even commenced. Him it was who first declared that we were to neither give nor ask quarter—”

“Untrue!” snapped Ahndros coldly. “To the extent, at least, that it was you, with your barbaric, blood-hungry, northern notions of conduct, who put the idea into the High Lord’s head.”

Bili shook his shaven poll bewilderedly. “Kinsman, I am afraid that you credit me with far more influence over the affairs of the mighty than ever I have owned … or wished to own.”

“Have you not, my lord?” Ahndros sneered. “Did not the High Lord, on the morning which saw the breaking of the siege of your hall, allow you first to throw a childish temper tantrum and publicly, brutally, humiliate Komees Djeen, when he sagely advised you to await the arrival of Confederation Cavalry ere you pursued the rebels? Did not the High Lord then accompany you on that pursuit, riding as but another nobleman under your command?”

“That was the High Lord’s expressed desire, vahrohneeskos” growled Bili, fighting to control the temper he could feel beginning to fray under the continued insult and insubordination.

“Then what of that morning’s butchery, eh?” Ahndros prodded on. “Why, even the barbarian mercenaries, on whom you so dote, call those miles of massacre The Bloody Ride’! The High Lord I knew, with whom and under whom I served for so many years, would never have countenanced such inexcusable savageries.”

The knuckles stood out whitely on Bili’s clenched fists and he grated his reply from between tight-locked teeth. “Lord Ahndros, I owe you no explanation of my conduct or of the High Lord’s. You forget your place and station, and you sorely try my patience. Nonetheless, I will tell you this much: I believe that the scope and the suddenness of the rebellion, the depth of the depravaties of the rebels, shocked the High Lord to his very core. On that morning, he admonished me to put down the Morguhn rebels in the manner of Harzburk, deal with them as would the Iron King, under whose tutelage I served more than half my life.”

Ahndros either failed to notice or chose to ignore the young thoheek’s rising rage. “And you took Lord Milo at his word, didn’t you? You did it up brown! No unwashed, stinking, illiterate, barbarian burk lord could have been more callously thorough. Not only did you and your howling savages chase down and slay hundreds of fleeing men, many of them completely unarmed, that terrible morning, but you hunted the poor bastards for weeks, hunted them as if they had been beasts, dangerous vermin.”

Spiros Morguhn turned himself enough to see Ahndros, grimacing with the pain of the effort. “Dangerous vermin, is it, Ahndee? Yes, I consider that an apt simile for treacherous, backbiting dogs who turn on masters. I, too, took a most willing part in that hunt. Are you going to name me a burk barbarian, too? And I agree with Bili, you’ve far overstepped yourself … for some little time now.”

Komees Djeen clashed the brass hook which had replaced the missing hand on his left wrist loudly against his thigh plate, and his single, blue eye flashed fire as he came to Ahndros’ defense. “I think me not, Spiros. Ahndee is but stating truths which long have needed airing.

“As I affirmed in the very beginning, that pursuit from Morguhn Hall was a senseless and savage vanity of our young and vastly inexperienced thoheeks. And what followed the reoccupation of deserted Morguhnpolis was inexcusable, on any grounds.

“Why, man, the Duchy of Morguhn lies more than half depopulated. Whole villages were burned to the ground, after being plundered by the arsonists. There are damned few living common women who are not well-raped widows, damned few Morguhn trees that don’t dangle the rotting carcass of some poor, misled peasant pikeman.

“You all know that I … uhh, had my differences with our late thoheeks. But Hwahruhn, at least, was loved and respected by all his folk. Bili, his son, will never own anything save their fear and hate.”

Bili smiled humorlessly. “Regrettably, my late father was often ill and almost always weak-willed, Komees Djeen. As you have learned, I am neither. If love and respect bred this damned rebellion, I can well do without both.

“As regards the ‘airing of truths,” had not you and the vahrohneeskos so well served me and the Confederation, of late, I might think you both closet rebels, such is your concern for the gentle treatment and welfare of traitors.”

“Why, you arrogant young whelp!” The white-haired nobleman sprang to his feet, his hand going to his swordhilt “I was serving the Confederation when you were being given suck! How dare you question my loyalty … or that of Ahndee, who is a better man than ever you’ll be!”

Dark, slender Djaik Morguhn sidled himself to block the direct path between his brother and the furious komees. Nor was he the only one in the pavilion to have risen. Vaskos Daiviz, son and heir of Komees Hari, stood fingering the pommel of his broadsword; so, too, did all three Freefighter officers … and Sir Geros.

Arising suddenly, old Komees Hari Daiviz slapped his son’s hand from proximity to his hilt and strode purposefully toward the dais, his rolling gait bespeaking the percentage of his fifty-odd years spent on the back of a horse.

“Now, by Sun and Wind, gentlemen, I never thought me to live to see my own kindred, the nobility of Morguhn, brawling like drunken Ehleenee trollops and pimps!

“Djaik Morguhn, resume your seat, please. Your brother stands in no danger. Djeen, if you draw that blade, you’ll be needing a hook for the other hand, as well … and you have known me long enough to know I mean it.”

“Damn it, Hari!” the one-eyed komees burst out petulantly. “You heard what this young whippersnapper said about me and Ahndee! And we’ve the right to be heard!”

“Just shut up and sit down!” Komees Hari snapped impatiently. “You’ve said more than enough already.”

Ahndros opened his mouth, but Komees Hari spotted the movement from the corner of his eye and whirled on the vahrohneeskos, barking, “So, too, have you, Ahndee. This be a war council, not a Thirds Meeting. You, all of us, are here to receive our chief’s orders, to advise him if he requests such. And I’ve heard no request.

“Now, I don’t much cotton to the idea of granting amnesty to rebel dogs, but the High Lord has no choice; that much is plain as horse turds on snow. Nor have any of us any choice, gentlemen. The High Lord has given his orders to his thoheeksee; our own thoheeks and chief has dutifully transmitted those orders to us. It be our sworn and rightful duty to learn how best we can obey, not launch yet another senseless round of who-struck-Djahn to the point where tempers rise and swords come clear. We all be supposedly responsible, adult noblemen and officers. Let us act the parts, eh?”

He turned to Bili and offered formal salute of clansman to chief. “What would you of my son and me, Bili?”

Drehkos Daiviz did not really begin to believe it until the third message arrow was brought to him. Carefully, he unrolled the vellum bound behind the hollow brass head, smooth it out and laid it beside the two others on his cluttered desktop. The three were identical, obviously written by the same hand.

In Modern Ehleeneekos, they read:

“Milos Morai, High Lord of the Confederation of Southern Peoples, sends greetings to Vahroneeskos Drehkos Daiviz of Morguhn. The High Lord would confer with said vahrohneeskos, at his earliest convenience, that conditions may be agreed upon for the honorable capitulation of the garrison, inhabitants and city of Vawnpolis. Penned under the direction of the High Lord by Pehtros Makintahsh, Adjutant. Signed: Milos Moral.”

Drehkos rested his head between his hands, his bare elbows on the desk, protruding through his well-worn shirt. Furiously, he massaged his gray-shot temples, then opened his eyes and read the message through again … and yet again. And still it was as a dream.

This was exactly what he had promised his ragtag garrison, never for a moment deluding himself that such would ever truly come to pass. He had felt himself and every other soul within Vawnpolis irrevocably doomed and the rejections of his three attempts to treat, combined with the besiegers’ steadfast refusal to suffer prisoners to live, had but reinforced his conviction. Nonetheless, he had dangled the carrot of hope before his starveling ragamuffins. Over and over, he had assured them that, could they but cost the besiegers enough losses and hold out until planting time, terms would surely be granted to spare at least the lives of the common folk.

And now the impossible dream was become fact … hard fact.

As the first rays of the rising sun illumined the small, spartan room, the vahrohneeskos’ servant entered to find his master slumped over the desk, his body racked with heaving sobs.

Drehkos arrived at the pavilion of the High Lord attended only by a pair of commoner-officers, all three of them astride guardsmen’s horses, escorted by Keeleeohstos Sahndros Druhmuhnd, commander of the High Lord’s horseguards. Inside the brazier-heated pavilion, the rebels were led to where the High Lord, the High Lady Aldora and Ahrkeethoheeks Lahmahnt sat ranged behind a heavy table.

After saluting, the keeleeohstos gruffly reported, “My Lord Milo, here be Vahrohneeskos Drehkos Daiviz of Morguhn. The other two rebels be commoner-officers of the vahrohneeskos’. Would my lord be wanting guards within?”

Milo slowly shook his head. “No need, good Sahndros. Go back and find yourself a brazier and a tipple. I’ll mindcall when and if I want you.”

From the moment he had been ushered in, Drehkos had stood open-mouthed, staring at the lean, saturnine figure of the High Lord. As the keeleeohstos clanked out, the rebel leader suddenly exclaimed, “But … what witchery be this? You … you be the bard … Klairuhnz, wasn’t it? I had wine with you at … at my brother’s hall last spring, before any of this unpleasantness commenced.”

A smile flitted briefly across Milo’s lips. “I had reason, then, Lord Drehkos, for concealing my identity. A traveling bard is always welcome in village or city or hall, among Kindred or Ehleenee. So, can you think of a better guise?”

Before Drehkos could frame an answer, Milo’s smile vanished and his voice cooled and hardened. “But we are not met to discuss the past, vahrohneeskos. Where are your other two nobles, Vahrohnos Myros Deskahti of Morguhn and Vahrohneeskos Kahzos Boorsohthehpsees of Vawn? I had thought that you would bring them to this gathering.”

“My lord,” replied Drehkos, “I am empowered to speak for all, noble or common, within Vawnpolis. I left poor Kahzos in command of the city, since unhealed wounds have rendered him incapable of sitting a horse.”

“And Myros?” prodded Aldora. “Is that thieving murderer also wounded … I hope?”

“No,” Drehkos answered. “Even during the assaults, I have been loath to allow Lord Myros within proximity to weapons, for more and more frequently he lapses into violent and completely pointless rages; indeed, I have found it necessary to detail an officer and a squad to … to look after him.”

Milo nodded once, then turned to Aldora. “It’s as I said years back, my dear. The reason I opposed executing him. The man’s mad, always has been, and whatever drugs that so-called kooreeos fed him have obviously worsened his condition.”

Drehkos looked from one to the other in bewilderment. “My lord, my lady, I confess I don’t understand. Drugs?”

“Just so, vahrohneeskos, drugs.” Milo gestured at the empty chairs opposite him. “But it’s a long tale. You and your officers sit down and help yourselves to the wine.”

Before seating himself, Drehkos spoke with crisp formality. “My lords, my lady, please allow me to introduce my officers.” At Milo’s nod, he went on. “On my right stands Captain Pehtros Naimos, commander of the north wall; on my left, Captain Djaimz Trohahnos, commander of the east wall. They are not of noble birth and they are … ahh, have been your enemies, but they have been unswervingly faithful to me, and I have never met men who more truly epitomize the word ‘gentlemen.’ “

Aldora watched the two officers, saw the younger, fair-skinned Djaimz Trohahnos flush red at the unexpected public praise. This man obviously had some measure of mindspeak ability, for his mindshield was impenetrable, even in his embarrassment. The other, dark, middle-aged Pehtros Naimos, was completely unshielded and his mind literally oozed devotion to his leader.

Next, the High Lady turned her attention to Drehkos. The rebel leader bore a quite striking resemblance to Hari and Vaskos Daiviz, his brother and nephew, respectively—most of his thinning hair was white, but this was the only indication of his age; otherwise, all five and a half feet of his big-boned, wide-shouldered body looked lean and hard and fit. His helm had left a dent in his high forehead, and beneath it his eyes were bloodshot and dark-ringed with lack of sleep, his face lined with worry and care. But, withal, he was still a handsome man.

Aldora sent her mind questing forth, recoiled in shocked surprise, immediately beamed to Milo on a mindspeak level unattainable to most. “I thought you said this rebel lordling had no mindspeak.”

“So everyone, all his relatives and former friends, assured me,” the High Lord replied on the same level. “Why? Has he a shield?”

“Try him and see.”

“Whew!” Milo tried to mask the amazement from his face. “It’s like running headlong into a brick wall, isn’t it?”

“It’s the conscious shield of a very powerful mind, Milo,” she assured him. “Yours is that strong, and so is Mara’s, but I’ve never met another such. Not even dear old Hari Kruhguh’s mind had such a formidable defense.”

As is true of mindspeak “conversations,” these exchanges had taken bare microseconds.

Aloud, Milo smiled again, saying, “Very well, Lord Drehkos. I believe you know Ahrkeethoheeks Lahmahnt, of old. On my right sits the Undying High Lady, Aldora Linsee Treeah-Pohtohmas Pahpahs.”

Aldora inclined her small head slightly, the light of the lamps picking out bluish highlights in her long black hair. But beneath her slender brows, her almond-shaped black eyes never ceased their careful scrutiny of Drehkos.

“Do we all mindspeak?” asked Milo as soon as all goblets were full.

The older officer shook his raggedly barbered head. “No, my lord, I be almost kathahrohs, and my kind lack such heathenish … ahh, such talents.”

Milo smiled. “Captain, both the High Ladies—my wife, Mara, and Aldora, here—be true kathahrohsee, yet they pose high degrees of mindspeak ability. Kindred heritage, or the lack of it, is not the determinant factor in whether a man can or cannot mindspeak. Nor are we Undying and Kindred unique, as you should very well know. Large numbers of your own Ehleenee nobles and commoners are mindspeakers, the Vahrohnos Myros Deskati of Morguhn amongst them.”

He looked down the table at the younger officer. “And what of you, Captain Trohahnos?”

The red-haired officer squirmed, uncomfortable to be seated in the presence of such high nobility. “A … a little, my … my lord. Papa didn’ mindspeak an’ … an’ Mama died ‘fore she could … could teach me much, an’ …”

“And you, Lord Drehkos?” inquired Milo in a voice smooth as warm honey, guileless as the coo of a dove.

The rebel lord rolled his goblet slowly between his big, scarred, weather-browned hands for a moment, then raised his eyes, grinning. “For most of my mispent life, my lord, I thought that I totally lacked that ability … along with many another. But last spring, when we were battling our way through the mountains, I discovered that either I had acquired it almost overnight or I’d had it all along. Yes, I do mindspeak.”

“You were in the western mountains, man? Where”! Were! Why!” demanded Milo, leaning across the table, his fists clenched, his voice and manner now intense.

Despite his obvious puzzlement, Drehkos freely answered. “Yes, my lord, I—rather, those of us who escaped from Morguhnpolis after the rout under the walls of Morguhn Hall along with a contingent of Vawnee cavalry—circled through the mountains to get to Vawnpolis. As to where, we crossed the river into the Duchy of Skaht at Bloody Ford, rested for a few days at the old, deserted border fort, then rode west, through Raider Gap, and angled south. Or tried to.”

He shuddered strongly. “If I never again hear another Ahrmehnee war-screech, it will be centuries too soon, my lord. It was a running battle every day, and nights as well, sometimes. They reverence the moon, you know, and won’t fight on nights when it is in the sky. Fortunately, almost the entire hellish journey was made in clear, cloudless weather. Even so, I left nearly a third of my poor, brave fellows dead in those damned mountains!”

The High Lord’s brows rose sharply and he regarded the vahrohneeskos with a new measure of respect. “And you won through to Vawn then. You’re to be congratulated on that feat, Lord Drehkos. You apparently don’t recognize just how lucky you were. Why, man, in the long-ago campaign which won Vawn and Skaht and Baikuh lands for the Confederation, whole battalions of professional soldiers were wiped out to the last man by those Ahrmehnee. The fact that you took a mounted column through the very heart of their territory and got out at all is remarkable; that you lost so few men is near miraculous.

“And your brother insisted you’d never soldiered. So, where did you learn cavalry tactics?” He gave another tight smile. “Or siegecraft?”

Drehkos shrugged tiredly. “In the mountains, I but did what seemed right to me, what seemed the best way of extricating my command from our various difficulties and predicaments. Hari was being candid with you, my lord; I never had soldiered prior to my involvement in this … this insanity.”

He sat back and met the High Lord’s gaze squarely. “I won through the mountains only because the men who accompanied me were the best and the bravest these lands have ever known. Both Pehtros and Djaimz, here, were among them. Of the rest, alas, far too many are since slain in this beastly, senseless prolongation of what was a lost cause before its inception.

“As regards my defense of the city, I discovered some ancient books within the Citadel and applied certain of their contents to the problems confronting me when the overall command of Vawnpolis was thrust onto my shoulders.”

All at once, he dropped his gaze to the brilliant carpet. “I still do not know why I ever agreed to take part in this stupid foolishness. I can but ascribe it to a temporary insanity engendered by the loss of my dear wife and the ensuing loneliness, for ever have I considered warfare a monumental stupidity. Nor did I truly crave to possess my brother’s lands and title.”

He straightened then and once more met the High Lord’s eyes. “My lords, my lady, I offer those words not as excuse, only as explanation … as best I, myself, can understand. Lord Sahndros, my officers and I, all of us admit our crimes and are ready and willing to submit to appropriate dooms, but only on the ironclad condition that our soldiers and the noncombatants within Vawnpolis be spared their lives, and their few meager possessions and be quickly furnished food. As for poor, sick Myros, I cannot answer, but I think my lord must agree that it were pointless to slay a madman for his actions, no matter how heinous.”

Drehkos arose and the two officers quickly followed suit. “I am prepared to surrender my person to you now, my lords, if you agree to my stipulations.”

Milo shook his head curtly. “But I do not agree, vahrohneeskos. Sit down.”

Slowly, Drehkos sank back into his chair. Of course, he bad known from the beginning that his position was not sufficiently strong to allow him to dictate the terms of the capitulation … but he had had his hopes, now dashed. His face and bearing mirrored his disappointment.

The High Lord once more leaned across the table. “Are any of you three Initiates of the Inner Mysteries of the Faith?”

The two officers just shook their heads, and Drehkos replied, “No, my lord, there never were very many of them, and only the kooreeoee who initiated them and their fellow initiates ever knew them. For some reason, I was never approached, nor, I think, was Lord Kahzos.”

“Then,” said the High Lord, “you may thank whatever gods may be for your good fortune. My offer for the capitulation of Vawnpolis is full pardon and amnesty to all within its walls, saving only priests, monks and those laymen who are Initiates of the Inner Mysteries. Think you my offer fair and acceptable, Lord Drehkos?”

Drehkos could not speak, could not move, could hardly even think or breathe. At the very best he had expected for himself and his immediate subordinates a lengthy period of suffering and humiliation followed by a painful death; at worst, he had seen a continuation of the agonies of the siege until the city eventually fell by storm and/or starvation, with all the horrors of a sack to be visited upon the survivors of that last battle.

Pardons and amnesties had never even entered his suppositions, not for himself and the surviving layman—leaders of the rebellion, anyway. And a hope leaped wildly into his thoughts, to see good old Brother Hari again, to try to, in some unknown way, make up for all the ills he had wrought and attempted on both Hari and Nephew Vaskos. First, he would…

“Well?” the High Lord prodded. “Can you accept my offer, Lord Drehkos? Or will you need to return to Vawnpolis to confer with your staff?”

By great force of will, Drehkos managed to stop the dizzy spinning of his brain and to frame a reply of sorts. “In many respects, my lord, your offer is most generous. But why must you persecute the priests and monks? I know of no one of them who ever has lifted steel against the established order, either here or in Morguhn.”

Milo looked grim. “No, Lord Drehkos, they but set others to do their dirty work for them; consciously aiding and abetting the evil designs of their devilish kooreeoee, they worked upon the minds of their followers, inflamed them with fiery oratory, and cleverly administered drugs when the time was ripe, and set them on a course of murder and destruction which was completely against the best interests of those poor, deluded followers.

“No, Lord Drehkos, I’ll not suffer such conscienceless, merciless cowards to roam at large in my domains. As for the Initiates, I … Tell me, what know you of their rites?”

Drehkos shrugged. “Very little, I fear, my lord. After all, had the rites not been kept secret, there would have been no Mysteries, would there?”

“Quite true,” smiled the High Lord, then became once more serious of mien, deadly serious. “Know you then, Lord Drehkos, that these Mysteries were a debauched, depraved, hideously perverted distortion of true Christianity. In the foul rites of the Inner Mysteries, men and women were tortured and mutilated, innocent little children—babes, even—were hacked apart and the hot blood of their living, screaming bodies mixed with wine and other substances to be greedily guzzled by these same Initiates.”

Captain Pehtros had paled visibly. Captain Djaimz looked greenish and ill; Drehkos sat, rigid, in his chair, his big hands clenched together so that the scarred knuckles shone white as new snow. He had, secretly, long suspected that some awful practices were part and parcel of the Inner Mysteries, but it had been simply a gut feeling with no real grounds for its existence. Nonetheless, he found the High Lord’s words, terrible as they were, easy to believe.

“Such was the worst,” Milo continued to his abashed audience, “but it was far from all. Sexual orgies frequently were the climax to their ‘services,’ and, since a child to sacrifice was not always available, they also filled their communion cup with animal blood, human urine and even women’s moonblood.”

Captain Djaimz’s chair crashed over and the young officer stumbled hurriedly from the chamber, both hands pressed to his lips.

“But … but, my lord, why?” Drehkos shook his head in wonderment. “Such practices are no part of any religion I’ve ever heard of, and I’ve read of many, both modern and ancient”

Mile’s wide shoulders rose and fell. “There are some similarities to the old Ehleen monster cults which flourished in the last few years before the coming of the Horse-clans, a hundred and fifty years ago. But, beyond those, I can but surmise that the witchmen—kooreeoee extemporaneously concocted their ceremonies, since there were significant differences between those described by Spiros and those described by Mahreeos.

“As to why? Principally, because they are evil men to whom the sufferings and debasements of others mean absolutely nothing. In order to draw one foot closer to their goals, they would cheerfully bring about the deaths of half the population of the Confederation. And such is about what would have happened had their nefarious scheme come to full fruition.”

Drehkos looked his puzzlement. “I … I don’t understand …” he began, but Milo cut him off.

“Nor will you, vahrohneeskos, until yon city is once more in Confederation hands and I have your oaths of fealty. Officially, you’re still a rebel, an enemy, and I’m too old a dog to willingly give you an edge.”

The rebel commander drained off the last of his wine and stared for a long minute into the empty cup. At length, he set it on the table before him, rose from his chair, unhooked his cased sword from his baldric and laid it on the board, its worn hilt near the High Lord’s hand. Following his lead, Captain Pehtros did the same. Captain Djaimz, his face and armor splashed with water, reentered just in time to add his own weapon to the formal surrender.