by Robert Adams
Nonetheless, he was a normally cautious man, so he stopped before having come within actual striking distance of the stripling-sized, mud-daubed would-be ambusher, took a renewed grip on the wire-wound hilt of his Horseclans dirk and began a slow, crouching, bent-kneed advance on the balls of his feet. He held the dirk firmly and low, with the point higher than the pommel, ready to either slash or thrust or stab as an opportunity presented itself; a hurried glance had not shown him a fallen branch or anything else that might serve him as an auxiliary weapon, so he held the empty hand out, a little below the level of his eyes, wrist, elbow and fingers all slightly flexed.
Benee slashed at the flat belly of the inlander with his pointless skinning knife. His razor-edged steel missed its mark, but the equally sharp blade of the inlander's big dirk did not; it opened the skinny left forearm to the bone in a slash that curved from wrist to elbow. Bright red blood gushed up all along the terrible wound and began to wash the clots of drying mud from off the skin, and in his agony Benee did not even feel the worn hilt of the skinning knife slip from his weakening, now-nerveless grasp.
"Little snake's only got one fang left now." Gil grunted to himself in satisfaction. "Wonder why this breed never learned to fight face to face, like normal men?"
His mud-caked features distorted, the swamper screamed once and threw himself at Gil, the big hunting knife extended before him like a spear. It was absurdly simple for an experienced warrior: the Horseclansman swiveled his body obliquely to the left, took his opponent's right wrist in a crushing grip and allowed a portion of the skinny man's own momentum to drive his near-fleshless body onto the leaf-shaped blade of the dripping dirk.
The blade entered deep into Benee's bowels well below his navel. He gasped, and his eyes looked to burst from out their sockets. Then, as the inlander twisted his blade and removed it by way of a vicious, upward-slanting drawcut that literally gutted Benee, the boy-warrior shrieked in a nameless degree of agony. Such a noise so close to him hurt Gil's ears, so he stepped back and swung his gory weapon like a sword, all but decapitating Benee.
Back in camp, he hastened to show the blowpipe, holder of darts, two knives and a horn tube of poison paste to Tomos Gonsalos and Mahvros of Lohfospolis, with whose infantry unit—long accustomed to the proximity of pachyderms—he and Sunshine had been marching, and recount the tale of the brief, bloody encounter.
At the conclusion, Gonsalos nodded. "You were right and I was wrong, Mahvros, this clinches the fact. We're just too close to those damned salt fens and that race of murderous lunatics who inhabit them, so inbred that they don't know which end to wipe."
To Gil, he said, "Keep closer to camp from now on; find somewhere else to wash your elephant. And get rid of that pipe and those darts and that container of venom—just the sight of them makes my skin crawl. Throw them in the watchfire there."
Then, back to Mahvros, he ordered, "Best get back to your command and prepare to break camp. We're going to move our location a mile or so upstream. Those baltohtheesee stick at coming very far inland, even to avenge the execution of one of their sneak-thief murderers. But even so, we'll be having double pickets, overlapping perimeters and so on until we've put a goodly amount of distance between us and this area."
The camp was duly moved, the soldiers and noncoms grumbling, as soldiers always have and always will. Directional markings in the code of the army of Kehnooryos Ehlahs were left to indicate to those who could understand them where the units had gone. In the new encampment, Tomos Gonsalos ordered a ditched perimeter, but this was incomplete by nightfall, so Gonsalos settled for extra watchfires and an enlarged guard force and perimeter patrol, with the prairiecats prowling to the east and along the watercourses leading down into the fens.
On seeing the security precautions, Mahvros doubted aloud and in a joking manner that even a muskrat would be able to invade their new camp without raising an alarm that night.
But the next morning, when Gil awoke and rolled out of his blankets, there were 'wo elephants lying where only Sunshine had been when he had composed himself in sleep the night just past. Staring in silent wonderment, a bit stunned and a bit more disbelieving of the witness of his own eyes, he still noticed details about the newcomer—she was a cow, also, but a little bigger and seemingly fatter than his sister.
Rather than approach Sunshine and the strange elephant, he mindspoke her. Not until he had had the entire story, and been formally introduced to the other elephant and allowed her to give him a head-to-foot trunk-tip examination (as, too, had Sunshine, he recalled, on first meeting), did he saddle his sister and, side by side with the larger cow, cross the camp to the central headquarters area.
Tomos Gonsalos stood up from his breakfast to gape for a moment at the approaching pair of behemoths. Turning to Mahvros, who was still seated and chewing, his back to the sight that so astounded Tomos, Gonsalos demanded, "Why did you not tell me that elephants reproduce like ahmoeebahs—splitting into two identical parts, overnight?"
Mahvros swallowed hurriedly and looked up, grinning. "Is that wine you're drinking, or neat brandy? Man, elephants breed just like any other beast, but it takes about a year and a half from coupling to birthing, they say." He turned fully to look in the same direction as his friend, and it then was Mahvros' turn to gape and stare.
"Her Ehleenoee name is Ohxathees, or something like that," said Gil Djohnz, after he had dismounted and accepted an offered mug of watered breakfast wine. "But she wants to be called Tulip. It seems that she was the other half of the team that drew old King Zastros' pavilion wain, and she it was that turned about and ran back off the Lumbuh River bridge after it was fired and Sunshine had jumped into the river. She says that she just kept running until the camp was far behind her. After she had rested, she searched out food and water, then began to try to get off the elephant armor they had hung and strapped and tied on her. It took her several days of off-and-on tries, but she finally shucked it all. Since then, she has been wandering about the countryside, avoiding men. Then, yesterday, she cut the trail of Sunshine, followed it first back to the old camp, then here. She came into camp sometime last night, chatted with Sunshine for a while, then lay down and went to sleep beside her, and there they both were when I awakened, Chief Tomos."
"But how the hell did a full-grown elephant get into this camp without being seen?" demanded Mahvros. "Man, Tomos had guards tripping over guards last night, a ditch halfway around the camp, and those trained cats out beyond the perimeter, too."
Gil answered, "Chief Mahvros, Tulip says that she did not want to be seen and that so she was not seen but once. On that one occasion, however, she says she thinks that they who saw her in the dark there thought that she was Sunshine."
"So, you can telepath with her, too?" said Mahvros. "Man, down south, you and your ilk will soon put the damned, arrogant, overweening Epithiseesos family out of the elephant business in short order, I vow, and none too soon, either.
"But that still doesn't make my mind any easier for the here and now. Just how safe are any of us by night if a beast that stands at least three mehtrahee at the withers and weighs as much as a dozen big horses can just stroll into a supposedly tightly guarded camp? Man, the mere thought of it sets my mind aboggle and my nape hairs all aprickle. What if she'd had a dozen swamp scum on her back and had ridden them in here? What if . . . ?"
Tomos sighed. "Oh, come on, friend Mahvros, we could sit here and play 'what if?' until hell freezes over solid. Look, the elephant is here, with us, this morning, and she was not here last night. As there was no alarm last night, one would assume that any who did see her thought she was the elephant they knew about—after all, recall that the beasts are not native to this countryside hereabouts, so who would have or could have suspected that a stray one was running loose around here?—and just dismissed her as a wakeful but benevolent beast, which is just what she appears to me to be. As 1 recall, you were almighty pleased that you would have the one elephant to take south to this Th
oheeks Grahvos, so you should be twice as pleased to be able to take him two, right?"
"Yes, yes, of course," answered Mahvros. "Nonetheless, such laxity on the parts of the sentries and guards should be, must be, severely dealt with, punished, flogged, at least."
Tomos frowned and shook his head. "What you mete out to your troops, your retainers, is your business, of course, but please bear in mind that a thorough flogging often leaves a man unable to march as fast or as far as his fellows. As regards Hehluh's unit, you can bet that he'll flay yards of skin from off them with that acid-dripping tongue of his before all is said and done in this elephant matter. Nor do I think that Portos or Chief Pawl of Vawn will be pleased at all when they are apprised that their vaunted troopers failed to interdict or even see a titan like our Tulip wandering through our guardlines last night."
Captain Mahvros seemed a bit mollified. After another draft of the wine, he advised Gil, "Taking care of one of those beasts is a full-time job, as I'm certain you know by now. Therefore, I'd advise you to find one of your people who, if possible, can also telepath to an elephant. Let him take over the new one. Saddles aren't really needed for them, you know—feelahksee ride them even into battle without any saddle, down south."
Not only was the ancient royal palace of Thrahkohnpolis ghost-ridden with the shades of all the rulers who had died by violence within its walls, and a bit charred from the fire set by Zastros' immediate predecessor just before he fell on his sword, but Thoheeks Grahvos found to his chagrin that a fair bit of it had been at least partially looted since he and the rest had followed the. Green Dragon Banner up into Karaleenos with Zastros. Moreover, a goodly proportion of the career bureaucrats had left the capital city, and those few that he could have dug out and brought back indicated precious little desire to resume their previous functions under his or anyone else's aegis.
Nor could he even blame them, not really, for in the chaos of the last couple of decades in the Kingdom of the Southern Ehleenoee, such positions had become exceedingly high-risk jobs. But lacking them and
without more than a bare handful of experienced slaves remaining, he quickly realized that there was just no way possible to set the palace complex back into motion and keep it running for long. So very depopulated was Thrahkohnpolis itself become that there was not even a pool from which he could impress workers to possibly labor as they trained for jobs in the palace.
That was when he decided to move his erstwhile capital to his own principal seat, the city and duchy of Mehseepolis, lying somewhat south and west of Thrahkohnpolis.
"I know, I know," he told the Council of Thoheeksee upon his announcement of his decision, "there will be those who are sure to say that I mean to make myself king . . . but, gentlemen, there are those who are already saying that and many more that are thinking it, and only time and the actions of our Council will prove to these ones just how wrong are their present suppositions and slanders of me, the Council and our laudable aims."
"But, dammit, Grahvos," rumbled Thoheeks Bahos, "granted, your Mehseepolis is a strong city—it's never fallen in all of memory that I've ever heard of—and so, rich, but as I recall from visits, it's not all that large. Where could you put a capital complex?"
Grahvos shrugged. "Simple. I'll turn over the thoheeks' palace to the Council and government and move my personal seat to Eepseelospolis, my second city."
At this, young Thoheeks Vikos asked wonderingly, "Your pardon, Grahvos, but do you mean to cede all of Mehseepolis and its rich lands to Council? That's what it sounds like you're doing."
"If that were what it required to set things right in the lands we all call home, I'd not stick at giving half of all I own, Vikos," Grahvos declared sincerely, feelingly. "But in practice, here, no. Let us say that I am granting Council a long-term lease of as much of the city of Mehseepolis as they need to fulfill the functions of our new government, but the lands thereabout will remain mine.
"I had assumed Council approval of this decision—for it is clear that we cannot remain in this sprawling, damaged place, not with the ceilings falling down about our ears, vermin scuttling across rooms from every nook and cranny, the kitchen hearths drawing so poorly that all our food must be cooked outside over open fires, all of the complex wells polluted and so little furnishings remaining that we might as well be camping out in some hoary ruin. Because of my assumption, I have already put such few royal slaves and a detachment of my warband to loading the pitiful remnants of records and files as survived the looting and vandalisms, the fire and the violent turnovers this place has been seeing regularly onto some wagons and wains. If you are all amenable, we'll plan to quit this place and take the road down to Mehseepolis in two days.
"But it will not be a short trip, gentlemen. No, I think that we must use this opportunity to pause at every city and town and seat of power along the way in order to explain what happened up north and tell as many people as possible just what is now intended, make it clear to all of them that there will never be another king, despite the fact that our land will become more powerful than ever it was under any of the kings."
The noblemen who rode through the outer gate, up the passage that led through the thick walls to the inner gate and so up the ascending grade into the hilltop fortress-city of Mehseepolis were, after six weeks of riding through lands that had been bountiful, rich and very populous within very recent times, shaken, tight-lipped and silent, each buried in his own thoughts, his own impressions of the near-wasteland they had traversed since leaving the wrecked palace at what had been the royai capital, seat of the kings of the Southern Ehleenoee.
The first shock to them had been the deplorable condition of the very roads themselves, all weedy and overgrown with brush, the paving stones beginning to cant, here and there, the wooden boles of the corduroyed sections become so soft with rot that they were now a danger to horses or mules, not to mention riders. Cuts, for long untended, had eroded down to cover many stretches of roadway with red mud and rocks of all sizes. Overgrown shoulders now offered ready-made ambush points for brigands, and even though the size of Thoheeks Grahvos' party and the presence of so many armed and armored men saw them pass along the road unmolested, there were many grisly evidences of others not so strong or fortunate who had unwisely made to use the road before them.
As for the once-numerous unwalled villages and small towns along the Royal Road, not even one remained inhabited, all were become only charred, tumbled, well-looted and much-overgrown ruins, lairs for vermin and those beasts and birds for which vermin was prey—owl, skunk, weasel, wildcat and serpent. And right many of the walled towns, most of the smaller, weaker ones, were in little better shape.
The larger and stronger places that had weathered the chaos and endured were become distrustful, unfriendly or downright hostile to armed strangers of any description. Some of these places loosed arrows and stones and engine-spears at any attempted approach to their walls and gates of even small parties, most heard out what was shouted up to them and then ordered the parties away on pain of death, a very few allowed Grahvos and two or three of the other noblemen into their gates, treated them at least civilly, heard what they had to say and then ushered them out, bidding them welcome to return if they ever really did put the land back to peace and order.
The once-rich lands and pastures were mostly become ill-tended or completely unworked wildernesses of weeds and brush and encroaching woodlands; such few kine as they chanced across or sighted from afar were become as lean and chary as game beasts. Masterless dogs ran in large, dangerous packs, all of them bony, on the verge of starvation and willing to attack anything or anyone . . . except for the mean, muscular, long-tushed sounders of feral swine.
But hardest for the travelers to take were the onetime seats of the minor nobility—komeesee, vahrohnohsee, opokomeesee. Some few had been just abandoned and now were tenanted by commoners who probably were also bandits, but most had obviously fallen by storm, and some of these were occupied by folk who
claimed to be retainers and servants of the extirpated or scattered and absent lords. A handful of the larger or more cunningly placed and built holds had never fallen, for all that they showed the prominent traces of assaults and sieges, but not even in these was the present lord he who had been such a decade before—sons, grandsons, cousins, nephews and more distant kin now held the holds and the lands (such as most of those lands were become), and a few were illegally styling themselves with the vacated titles, as well.
It had not been until the party was within the bounds of Grahvos' double duchy that they found a hold still occupied by the man who had been confirmed to that inheritance by his overlord. Opokomees Eeahnos Ehreetheeos had lost two sons and been himself crippled while fighting for his overlord and then-Thoheeks Zastros during the first rebellion, years agone, and when High King Zastros made to commence his march of conquest northward and into the Kingdom of Karaleenos, the opokomees had been too infirm and aged to join and his two grandsons too young.
But they had not been incapable of fighting to retain their own from the hosts of would-be plunderers that had plagued the land in the absence of the monarch and so many men of fighting age. Not only had the crippled dotard and the two barely pubescent boys and their scratch-force warband repeatedly held their seat against hordes of bandits and escaped slaves, they had early on had the men of the hold-village erect a strong timber-and-earth ditched palisade around their hilltop homes, had shown them how to fashion weapons and then taught them how to use them; and the peasants had used those homemade weapons very well, too, for the village still stood, most of the folk still lived and worked their fields and watched from the top of their gradually strengthened palisade.