by Robert Adams
While an officer in the Confederation Army, Ahndros had been lover to Aldora and an honored favorite of the High Lord. Even after he had succeeded to his father’s title and lands and resigned his commission, he had been a person whom the High Lord contacted frequently, and he had been the only soul in all of Morguhn who had known that Milo would visit the duchy in the guise of a traveling bard. Consequently, it had come as an especially bitter pill to find, upon his recovery from wounds and joining of the army before Vawnpolis, that Thoheeks Bili had replaced him in both capacities.
Early on, he had found his relative lack of status unbearable and had tried to rewin his former place with both High Lord and High Lady. He had failed miserably. To Aldora, unashamedly in love with Bili, Ahndros was just one more in the scores of former bedmates she had had over the century and a half she had lived. Milo, for his part, had come to admire, respect and love Bili in his own way; Bili’s astounding mental abilities — not yet fully explored or completely understood — his natural leadership and aptitude for inspiring his followers, his quick and accurate assessments of situations and problems, his personal valor and cleanly habits and blunt candor, all had impressed the High Lord.
Deep within himself, Ahndros had been able to understand, for he too had had an instant liking for the stark young warrior who had ridden down from the north to assume his patrimonial duties. Moreover, there was the link of shared combat and dangers, for he and Bili and the High Lord had held a bridge for almost an hour against a horde of mounted rebels. In that springtime skirmish had he taken the wounds which for so long had invalided him. Lastly, he lusted after one of Bili’s mothers, the late Thoheeks Hwahruhn’s eldest widow.
Even so, his sickening envy for the stations once his and now held by Bili soon blossomed into hate. Assiduous nitpicking produced no dearth of fuel for stoking the fires of that hate. Also, he found a willing fire tender in the person of old Komees Djeen Morguhn, whose earlier, overbearing efforts to browbeat Bili had ultimately resulted in his own public humiliation, an act for which he could never forgive his young overlord. Throughout the siege, these two had been able to cause Bili and Aldora — the High Lady having been left in charge of the besieging forces during the High Lord’s lengthy absence — considerable annoyance and not a little real trouble.
Nonetheless, the habitual caution of the elderly komees had in some measure restrained Ahndros’ less calculating nature from open and violent defiance. But Komees Djeen had been in command of the farthest-eastward squadron, and so was presently withdrawing with his force to the south. Ahndros was now completely on his incautious own.
Though Bili answered the barb as calmly as possible, it was from betwixt tightly clenched jaws, above which his eyes blazed blue fire. “When once more we are our own men, Lord Ahndros, without mission and orders and responsibilities for those we lead, you will find me more than happy to let Steel decide our differences. For the nonce, however, we are all under the High Lord’s command to fulfill his behests, and, as I have before told you, we are far from the Confederation and in the midst of a hostile land. It was the High Lord’s express wish that I captain this special enterprise, and I will not surrender that captaincy to you or anyone else without the Lord Milo’s order.
“My farspeak summons to you instructed you to join this column at the specified rendezvous with a half-dozen troopers or officers and a bare minimum of equipment. Since we were to move far and fast, I said nothing about bodyservants, yet you appeared with five, plus a half-troop and a packtrain near as long as this entire squadron’s. Tents and scents and oils and fine clothing have no place in the High Lord’s plans, Lord Ahndros, nor in mine; this is why the baggagemaster dumped your three packloads, and I had intended to so inform you, though, for your pride’s sake, I’d not have done so in public.
“The grain and dried beans are being retained to keep our warhorses in proper flesh, since, unlike the ponies, they cannot thrive on dry grass and treebark. Even the lowliest trooper seems to understand this, Lord Ahndros. Why can’t you?”
During Bili’s long reply, Ahndros’ blood had cooled enough to allow his brain to register a few very important facts: Bili was not wearing a sword; it hung, along with his axe and helm, on the saddle of Mahvros, his black stallion, some paces to his rear. His sneer intensified and he hitched his swordbelt forward and closed his right hand about the wire-wound hilt.
“I don’t think these noble gentlemen and northern officers are willing to follow the lead or orders of a craven, no matter his hereditary rank or who misplaced him in command.” He raised his voice and glanced about him. “What say you, gentlemen? The thoheeks of Morguhn has done me injury, yet he refuses to meet me in honorable combat, and such refusal brands him craven. Do you now follow him or me?”
Lord Hari, his face fire-red, made to step forward, but Djaik Morguhn was there before him. “Lord Ahndros, I know not the customs and usages of the Confederation Army, but I had assumed it at least as civilized and well ordered a force as the armies of the Middle Kingdoms. In the Army of Eeree, now, a nobleman — no matter how high his birth — who saw fit to insult his commander, openly question that commander’s judgment and tender a challenge which he knew the commander’s oaths would not let him take up would be brought before a drumhead court-martial and, most probably, a Steel Cult Council, as well.
“The Order would likely bid him do combat with a weapons master in full plate and him with but a sword and his bare skin. If, by wildest chance, he survived that encounter —”
“Fagh!” Ahndros burst out. “Your barbarian practices would sicken a hog. Find someone else to yap at, puppy, I have business with grown men.”
Grave-faced, the younger Morguhn turned to Bili. “Brother, I ask Sword-leave. Be it your will?”
At Bili’s mindcall, Mahvros gave over his browsing and paced to Bili’s side, his harness jingling. Feeling the supercharged emotional atmosphere, the sensitive horse mindspoke with rising eagerness. “Do we fight soon, brother?”
“Not me, Mahvros, but possibly you with my brother, Djaik, astride you. Will you serve him as you would me?”
“My brother’s brother is my brother.” the horse answered simply.
Bili lifted his baldric from off the pommel, uncased the sword and dropped baldric and sheath to the ground. Turning back to Djaik and the assemblage, he raised the broadsword to his lips, kissing the blade just below the guard.
Djaik drew his own sword and did likewise, then he extended his hilt to Bili, accepting Bili’s sword in return.
“No, not Sword-leave, my brother.” stated Bili formally. “Rather, this. You are me, until my Steel runs lifeblood.”
Stiffly, Djaik nodded. “I will serve your honor well, lord brother. Honor to Steel.” Once more, the two men kissed their blades.
“What are you two yammering about?” shouted Ahndros, peevishly. “Is the craven thoheeks going to fight me or not?
Still gripping Djaik’s bare blade, Bili stalked forward, saying, “Count Hari, I beg you and Sir Geros attend and advise Lord Ahndros, as I doubt me he knows aught of Sword Cult usages.”
Once again confronting Ahndros, Bili grounded the point of his brother’s sword, crossing his big, scarred hands upon its pommel-ball. “You were insistent on a duel, eh? Well, a duel you are to have, sirrah. Were I free to do so, I’d meet you myself, on horseback, with axes. But I’m not, as you well know.
“However, Lord Ahndros, you have challenged and my surrogate has taken up that challenge. You will meet my brother, Djaik Morguhn, as soon as he has fully armed. It will be a combat conducted by Sword Cult customs, in which Count Hari and Sir Geros Lahvoheetos of Morguhn will presently instruct you.
“You have been most provocative, Lord Ahndros, but, even so, I would prefer reconciliation and comradeship to combat. Therefore, I offer you the opportunity to withdraw your challenge, apologize for your insults and rejoin us as a loyal and obedient Kinsman.”
It was not working out as Ahndros had ho
ped. He did not really fear Djaik, though he respected the boy’s unquestioned expertise, but he had no desire to fight him, nothing to gain in wounding or killing him, save the enmity of all of Clan Morguhn. He would have been happy to live with that enmity, could he only have hacked the life out of the thoheeks, but, once again, circumstances had conspired to cheat him of his rightful deserts. Utter frustration was compounded with his rage and the mixture suddenly bubbled over, completely out of control.
His sword sang clear of its scabbard, flashing blindingly in the westering sun. “Christ damn you, you heathen bastard! It’s not your brother’s blood I want, it’s yours. You’ve got a sword. Use it!” And with that he stamped forward, his forehand slash aimed at Bili’s helmless head.
Chapter VIII
Ahndros should have known better; he had, after all, seen Bili fight. For all his thick waist and hips almost as wide as his shoulders, the young thoheeks was in no manner clumsy or slow, else he would not have lived through over five years of almost continuous warfare. His quick reflexes had saved his life in more than one fierce encounter. They did again.
Experience told him that he could not get the long, heavy sword up quickly enough to effectively parry the attack. To duck would only make him more vulnerable, and to hop back off the small mound would be to give Ahndros the advantage of high ground. Dropping the sword, he threw himself forward, his meaty shoulder striking the center of Ahndros’ breastplate, his left hand closing on his adversary’s right wrist with bone-crushing force.
Ahndros crashed over backward, his cuirass striking sparks from the rocky ground. They rolled over and over, the gathered men scattering from their path. The fall had sent Ahndros’ helm spinning, but Bili could not spare a fist to batter the exposed head or fingers to gouge the eyes or ram up the nostrils, for he needs must use both hands to protect himself from Ahndros’ strength.
Cursing in all the languages or dialects he had ever heard, Komees Hari danced about as close to the combatants as their unpredictable writhings would permit, his blade bared, seeking a safe opening through which to thrust or slice some unarmored portion of Ahndros’ anatomy.
As for Ahndros, he knew that to release his grip on his hilt was sure death, yet he also knew that he could not retain it much longer. Bili had actually bent the fine steel cuff of his right gauntlet and his relentless pressure was collapsing the high-grade plate more and more, slowly crushing the wrist beneath. Then, while their bodies gasped and thrashed and strained, Bili mindspoke him.
“Ahndee, I don’t want to kill you or to see you killed on my account. My mother loves you and I once thought you my friend. What’s made you so unreasonable in these last months? Simply that I felt constrained to bring Count Djeen to heel? Why, the High Lord himself averred that the old man had asked for just what be got, and many times over, too.”
Ahndros answered telephathically. “You expect me to take your unadorned word on that, do you?”
“If my word isn’t sufficient, Ahndee, than why not ask Lord Milo? You have farspeak, he told me, and Whitetip will be happy to assist you.”
“I doubt the High Lord would receive my transmission, since I left Vawnpolis without his august leave, lord thoheeks. And, even if he did, I’m certain he’d lie to back anything you chose to say. It must have been quite a strain to keep up with the demands of both of them — swiving that slut, Aldora-the-Undying-Whore, then being poheestos to Milo.”
For a moment, Bili’s shock at the accusations sent his mind whirling, then he beamed back, albeit sadly. “You are surely mad, Ahndee, mad as Vahrohnos Myros, back in Vawnpolis, gibbering in his cell. I had been warned that there was madness in your house, that too much inbreeding had rendered your strain rotten. Drop your sword, man, stop fighting me, and I’ll send you back in honor. Mayhap Master Ahlee can help you return to normalcy.”
For a few heartbeats longer, Ahndros maintained the struggle, then he went suddenly limp and his sword clattered from his grasp.
Bili slowly regained his feet, then helped his late opponent to stand. But he missed the feral gleam in Ahndros’ black eyes. As the thoheeks half-turned to speak to his brother, now standing fully armed at the forefront of the circle of watchers, the vahrohneeskos drew his heavy dirk and, screaming, lunged at the hated foe.
Komees Hari’s powerful thrust entered the temple, spitting Ahndros’s head like an apple on a stick. The black eyes bulged out of their sockets, then a torrent of blood gushed from eyes, ears, nostrils and mouth. The body stiffened, then collapsed bonelessly, the head pulling free of the swordblade with a sucking, popping sound.
During the next few days, Bili took each nobleman and officer aside, separately, and swore them to silence. He loved his mothers and meant to make sure that neither ever would know of how dishonorably Vahrohneeskos Ahndros Theftehros of Morguhn had died. To that end, he knew that the late Ahndros’s servants would have to be permanently silenced, but to slay all five so close to the death of their master might cause comment amongst the Freefighters, so he simply dragooned them to his own service, where he and his striker could keep tabs on them.
Late the next morning, the vanguard came up to an old battleground, obviously the site of an Ahrmehnee victory, since most of the hacked corpses had been stripped, beheaded and sickeningly mutilated. Due to the almost total absence of artifacts, no one could say for certain just who the more than five score dead men had been; Bili and the others could only assume that they had found a part of Pawl Raikuh’s still missing squadron.
In addition to the man-made disfigurements, annuals had been at the bodies, and at least a week of sundrenched days in the open had the dead flesh well on the way to putrefaction, despite the freezing nights. Nonetheless, Bili had troopers examine each cadaver in hopes of establishing his assumption. That was how the odd point was found.
The man who found it, under a reeking corpse, brought it to his captain, and the Freefighter officer immediately rode to the center of the clearing, where Bili and a knot of nobles sat their horses amid the stench.
Captain Krawzmyuh had to almost shout to make himself heard above the angry cawings of the crows and ravens, the flapping of the wings of low-flying buzzards anxious to return to their grisly feasting.
“Duke Bili, Trooper Hwehlbehk found this underneath a body, he did. All the years I been a-soldierin’, I ain’t seen the like. She ’pears too big and long to be no dart point, but nobody’s fool enough to forge barbs on the point of a stabbin’ spear.”
Bili accepted the piece of metal and scrutinized it. It was about as long as his hand, as the captain had said, too long and heavy to have tipped a hand dart. The steel seemed of poor quality and the forging was rough and sloppy, the hammer marks jaggedly positioned on the faces. Down each edge ran a row of curved barbs, and a couple of inches of sourwood shaft still remained in the band-socket, held by an iron pin. He decided that, whatever had been its use, it was a crude, savage weapon.
While the nobles passed it about amongst themselves, Bili thought aloud. “Barring evidence to the contrary, gentlemen, I think we are safe to assume that these poor bastards were of Captain Raikuh’s squadron. But that missile point, if such it actually is, gives one to wonder if their nemesis was really the Ahrmehnee. I find myself doubting it for a number of reasons.
“First, though Ahrmehnee are known to take weapons and armor, horses and their equipage from slain foemen, as well as heads, I’ve yet to hear of any tribe stripping bodies of clothing and boots. Any nonmetallic item — one which cannot be purified by fire — which was worn touching the skin of a dead enemy is taboo to them, since they much fear the spirits of vengeful victims.”
“Yet, my lord.” mused Airuhn Mahkai of Duhnkin, “they do take heads . . . ?”
“Which they keep in special, spell-locked houses. And their very real fear is one reason they take heads, Lord Airuhn.” Bili had, at the first mention of this campaign, put his keen mind to the task of learning all he could of Ahrmehnee and their ways, so he n
ow spoke with some authority. “Their shamans are of the mind that, so long as they are not unduly angered, maleficent spirits can be kept trapped within their skulls, which never leave the spell-house. But were a spirit to see an Ahrmehnee wearing clothing which once had been worn on that spirit’s corporeal body, such would be its anger that it could overcome the spells and wreak terrible vengeance on those who took its life.
“But back to the point, gentlemen. We all are by now aware of the excellence of Ahrmehnee metalworking. They have a passionate love of fine artifacts and are masters at fabricating them. If the High Lord can bring them into the Confederation, give them steady and plentiful sources of raw materials, they’ll soon be a very wealthy people, without doubt. Therefore, can any of you imagine an Ahrmehnee warrior willingly entering battle against well-armed men with so ill-wrought and clumsy a weapon? I cannot.”
“But, Bili.” commented Komees Hari, “who else could have mustered the force to slay over a hundred men?”
“Perhaps that tribe the High Lord mentioned, the Muhkohee. They must be powerful if the Ahrmehnee fear them.”
“But, my lords.” said Vahrohnos Rai Graiuhm of Makintahsh, absently massaging the thick neck of his destrier, “according to the maps, we’re still two days’ march within the borders of the Soormehlvuhn Tribe.”
Bili nodded. “According to the maps, baron, but recall if you will what I said at our last meeting before inaugurating the raids. These maps, especially the western borders of them, are of questionable accuracy. Too, even if we are still within the lands of the Ahrmehnee, consider, the bulk of their warriors are long leagues to the northeast and we are not the only men who ever took it into their heads to raid the lands of folk we knew to be occupied with another foe.
“No, gentlemen, I think we had best assume that we could see action at any moment from here on. Accordingly, we’ll tighten the march order of the column, bringing the trains from the rear to the center. The cats will still scout our projected route and our extended flanks. But now, between them and the column, a stronger vanguard will ride and, where terrain will permit, flank riders, as well.