A Cat Of Silvery Hue (2 page)

“As you well know, Bili had envisaged and laid out a plan to simply fire the stores and engines, then slay as many of the officers and priests as darts or arrows could reach, capturing an officer or two, if they chanced to run in the proper direction, but on no account closing with enemies who so far outnumbered the sally band. But Djef, in his youthful inexperience, chose to disregard not only his brother’s very good plan but the equally good advice of Captain Raikuh. He charged an armed and fully aroused camp with only a dozen dragoons, and no one of them even mounted! It was only because Chief Hwahltuh, seeing their predicament, led his clansmen to their aid and then covered the withdrawal with his bowmen, that they—any of them!—got back here.”

“Well, Count Djeen, your insistence that all men’s lives be so ordered as to always accord with your selfish dictates has exacted a high price. Six of those brave dragoons are now dead, along with two of the Sanderz clansmen. Djef paid the ultimate cost for his rashness, and Bili, because he is a man who accepts full responsibility for his actions—no matter whose words may have influenced those actions—will probably castigate himself for the rest of his life.”

At last he managed to get a few words past the rage-constricted tightness of his throat. “I will now return to my duties, ladies, I—”

“You’ll withdraw when you’ve our leave, Count Djeen!” stated Mother Behrnees. “For we are not the ‘barbarian trollops’ you once saw fit to name us, when you were attempting to dissuade our late husband from marrying us. No, we are the granddaughters of a duke, the daughters of a duke, the cousins-german of a duke, the sisters of a duke, the widows of a duke and the mothers of a duke! You’ll accord us the respect due us or, by Sun and Wind, you’ll suffer the consequences!”

“Yes, Count Djeen, you might do well to remember that you no longer are dealing with poor, weak-willed Hwahruhn, whom you could accuse of foolishness and cowardice with virtual impunity. An open affront to my sister or me will be an open affront to our son; and Bili, already quite wroth at you and your arrogances, just might decide to treat you as King Gilbuht, long his mentor, would treat an impertinent noble.”

“Now, by Sacred Sun, madam,” grated the
komees
, from betwixt bared, yellow teeth, “I’ll not see
my
homeland ruled in the bloody manner of an unlettered northern barbarian!”

“It is you who are the fool,” hissed Mother Mahrnee, “not our late husband! You make a loud noise of despising the Ehleenee and their ways, yet you talk just like one, as well you should, since you are at least half-Ehleen by blood. You, of all men in this duchy, after your years of soldiering in the Middle Kingdoms, should be aware that they and their peoples are in no way barbarian. Our civilization is much different from that to which you were born, but it is in no wise inferior and, in many ways, superior to yours!”

Hate lanced from his eye as he cackled, “Ha! Hit a nerve, did I? Your kind have always been thin-skinned, proud as peacocks of the stinking middens which spawned you. Yes, I peddled my sword from Hwehlzburk to Hahrbuhnburk, and right often did I find it hard not to laugh at the unlearned apes you call noblemen—who marveled at a noble officer’s abilities to read and write—even while I tried not to gag at the stenches of their long-unwashed bodies! When did one of your kind ever do anything to support your claim of civilized status, eh? They can but fight and kill, breed and wallow in their own filth and ignorance. You’re, none of you, any better than the mountain barbarians; you’re even of the same race!”

“Yes,” nodded Mother Mahrnee. “We are of the same, ancient race as the mountain folk, and you Ehleenee would do well to remember that fact. Our race is descended in direct line from the demigods, the Mehruhkuhnz, untainted by the blood of effete Ehleenee.”

“When first the Ehleenee came to this land, driving our race north and west, they were strong and valiant and honorable foemen, but in the centuries since, while we progressed, they have either remained static or have actually regressed. It required the Coming of the Horseclans and the unstinting efforts of the Undying High Lord to infuse new purpose along with new blood and inaugurate the snail-slow process of snapping your Ehleenee ancestors out of their course of certain racial suicide.”

“As for what you have said of our people, some of it is true. No, we do not take to books and quills and soaps and scented water, but you who do so would not long be contented or safe as you now are without certain of the creations and products of our own civilization, Count Djeen.”

“Your good sword bears the hallmark of the Kingdom of Pitzburk, as does each piece of your armor and, indeed, most of the decent weapons and armor in this duchy! That fine velvet you wore last night at dinner was woven in the capital of our own homeland, the Duchy of Zunburk, while your boots look to be from the County of Pahtzburk. And who but Middle Kingdoms Freefighters fought the Ehleenee’s wars, ere God Milo crossbred Ehleenee with Horseclansmen and forced them to become other than effeminate fops?”

“And, speaking of God Milo, Count Djeen,” interjected Mother Behrnees, “he knows the folk of the Middle Kingdoms far better than do you, yet he has never slandered us. Why, then, do you take such joy in it, not just here and now, but right often in the past?”

“You may be certain,” the old man smiled thinly, “that my dear lord feels precisely as I do, but he must be diplomatic in any congress with your barbarians, since your dungheaps adjoin his northern and northwestern borders, just as he must call common mercenaries ‘Freefighters.’ But I need not be so careful of treading on barbarian toes, for I am but—”

“You are but a fool!” The mindspeak was of terrible intensity and was broad beamed into the minds of every mindspeaker in the hall. “You were a hidebound, opinionated, self-righteous
young
fool, forty years ago, Djeen Morguhn, and I can see that age has not brought you wisdom!”

Then the alarm trumpet pealed from the watchtower and
Feelahks
Sami bellowed, “They have forded the stream and they now approach the hall.
Open the gates
! Now comes the Undying High Lady Aldora Linszee Treeah-Pohtohmahs Pahpahs!”

Vahrohneeskos
Drehkos Daiviz had gotten the last contingent of his peasant-pikemen across the stream and jogging toward Morguhnpolis before the Vawnee scouts galloped in to report the Confederation cavalry’s van to be no more than some two miles distant. He was distractedly rubbing an unshaven cheek and wondering whether he should try to cover the retreat of the hapless infantry with his mere handful of mounted men when the senior of the remaining sub-priests intruded upon his reverie with a demand.

“Lord Drehkos, if it be true that the hordes of the cursed Undying be not a mile away, I must insist that our coaches be returned to us, for the lives of those who do God’s work are certainly of more importance than are those of the wretches you have ordered our conveyances filled with!”

Drehkos was not at all religious. He had joined the rebellion for the avowed purpose of gaining his brother’s lands and title. His answer was heavily larded with studied irreverence. “Reverend Father, if you and your fellow ‘servants of God’ expect to reach Morguhnpolis other than on your well-shod feet, perhaps you had best start praying that God quickly grant you wings. You can blame Lord Myros and Father Rikos for the fact you have to walk; for had they not taken the last of the sound and usable wagons when they—ahhhh, shall we say, ‘preceeded’ our departure last night—you’d be able to ride in the style to which you feel entitled. But I’ll be damned if I intend to leave behind wounded officers and men, simply so priestly feet might be spared a few honest blisters!”

“Now, go away and leave me alone! I’ve weightier things to consider than your possible discomforts.”

With the departure of the glowering priest, Drehkos returned to his ponderings. For the first time in his life, he regretted not riding north in his youth to serve as a Freefighter in the Middle Kingdoms with Djeen Morguhn, as had so many others of the young Kindred nobility. If he had, at least, he might now have a bare glimmering of his best course to follow, might not now be in this sorry mess. Finally, he sent for the only professional officer left after the previous night’s chaos and carnage.

Shortly, the barbarian sublieutenant ambled in, his battered helmet sitting askew over his bandaged head. “You wanta talk to me, Lord Drehkos?”

Drehkos gestured at the other chair, charred slightly, like his own. When the skinny, long-bodied man had seated himself, the commander outlined the overall situation, admitted his own ignorance, and bluntly asked what he should do.

The reply was just as blunt. “Lord Drehkos, including me, it ain’t but twenny
real
soljers left. Mosta them Vawnees done been long gone, an’ I cain’t say I blames ‘em none. The only ones in this whole kit-and-kaboodle what has any chance of getting back to Morguhnpolis is the horsemen and, mebbe, them there coaches. Them pike-toters is dead meat no matter how you figgers it, and you and us a-gittin’ ourselves kilt long with ‘em ain’t gonna do nobody no good.”

“Way I sees it, there’s two things you can do, and I’ll tell ‘em to you. But I don’t think neither one’s gonna set in your craw too good.” He paused, raising his grizzled brows in an unspoken question.

“Don’t fear to speak, Lieutenant Hohguhn,” smiled Drehkos. “I’m not Lord Myros. I don’t punish men for speaking the truth as they see it, no matter how distasteful that truth may be to me.”

“Wal, Lord Drehkos, if I ‘uz you, I’d ride up yonder and surrender and see if I couldn’t git my lord to go easy on my men, even if he wouldn’t on me!”

Drehkos shook his head slowly. “Would that I could, lieutenant, but I don’t think that that gesture would accomplish anything. I’ve met
Thoheeks
Bili, both in friendship and in enmity, and I’ve found him hard as steel. He was reared in Harzburk and tutored at the court of King Gilbuht, if you know what that means.”

Hohguhn nodded vehemently. “I shore do, Lord Drehkos, I shore do, and you’re right as rain, too. Won’t do no particle of good to expeck no mercy off one of the Iron King’s folks. Only thing you and your officers and them few Vawnees can do now is make tracks for Morguhnpolis, and I shorely do wish you luck.”

“You won’t be riding with us then, Hohguhn?”

The lieutenant looked the nobleman squarely in the eye. “No suh, I won’t, and neither will none of my men.”

“May I ask why, good Hohguhn? I’ll not hold your answer against you.”

The officer cracked his scarred knuckles before answering. “Wal, Lord Drehkos, it’s thisaway. We’s all Freefighters and we ain’t been paid in near three moons, but we ‘uz all willing to stick around, long as it looked like we might get some loot, no matter how common Lord Myros treated us; but didn’t none of us sign on to fight the Confederation Army or to die in a losing fight for no pay but rotten rations and horsepiss wine and hard words.”

He glanced around uncomfortably, then leaned forward and spoke in a much-lowered voice. “Lord Drehkos, you done treated us better all along then any of the others’, so I’ll level with you.
You cain’t hold Morguhnpolis
! Them old walls ain’t near thick nor high enough, and mosta the engines whut wuz burnt up las’ night was took off of them walls, so Morguhnpolis ain’t nuthin’ now but a big ol’ rat trap. Don’t you git yourself caught in it, Lord Drehkos. You just keep on by. You don’t look like no Ehleen, so mebbe the mountain folks’ll take you in. This all’s just ‘tween you and me, you understan’.”

The skinny officer stood and extended his hand. Soberly, Drehkos arose and gripped the officer’s grubby, broken-nailed hand as if he had been an equal, saying, “I thank you, Hohguhn, I thank you for everything. Now, let me advise you, if I may. Your men may, of course, take anything left in the camps that strikes their fancy, but don’t linger too long, lest you be taken for a rearguard and attacked.”

From the top of the hill, the camps appeared deserted. Nonetheless, Bili rode with his visor down and his uncased axe laid ready across his wide-flaring pommel. While he had ridden through the dark, narrow passage to the gate, he had mindspoken his warhorse, Mahvros, reaffirming their brotherhood and telling him how much he regretted their enforced separation and how pleased he was to be once more able to ride into battle astride one on whom he could depend. Nor was any of it untrue, for Bili actually felt kinship with the devoted stallion, had felt his own wounds no more keenly than he had the horse’s at the embattled bridge where he and the High Lord and
Vahrohneeskos
Ahndee had stood off a score or more of mounted rebels. Had it only been less than a week since that affray? It seemed a lifetime—and he well knew how important to a warrior’s safety was the cooperation of a disciplined and courageous mount.

As for Mahvros, he all but purred! Once clear of the gate, he arched his steel-clad neck and lifted his white-stockinged feet high in his showiest parade strut, his powerful thews rolling under his glossy black hide. Mahvros loved nothing more than a good blood-spurting fight, and his brother had told him that soon there would be two-legs in plenty to savage and kick.

Bili spoke aloud, for though Chief Hwahltuh Sanderz, who rode at his right, could mindspeak, Captain Pawl Raikuh, on his left, could not.

“Captain, should I fall. Baron Spiros Morguhn will be acting duke until my brother, Tcharlee, can get here from Pitzburk. You are a brave and honorable man and you have served me well—serve them equally. Command of the present warband will devolve upon the Undying High Lord.”

“Regarding the rebels, the only men I want taken alive are those damned priests and the treacherous nobles, but no man is to chance undue risks simply to capture them. I would like to have the bastards for public torture and execution, but none of them are worth the lives of any of your men, and I’ll settle for just their heads, if it comes to that.”

“As for the common scum, I want to see no living ones along our track. Understood?” At his companions’ grim nods, he went on.