Bili the Axe

Prologue

Those who spoke did not think the dying old man could hear them, but he could. Despite the drugs and other arts which the Zahrtohgahn physicians had administered to him to eliminate the pain of his infected wounds, Prince Bili Morguhn of Karaleenos could still hear his overlord and the others who now were discussing his long, long life and his imminent demise.

“If only he had been as are we,” said Bili’s half brother, the Undying Lord Tim Sanderz. “As it was, I had hoped for long, as he got older and older and stayed fit and far more hale than many far younger men…“He sighed sadly.

“No more than I had hoped, Tim,” said the Undying High Lord Milo of Morai, concern for his realm mingling with the sorrow in his eyes and tone. “Bili of Morguhn is a remarkable man in a multitude of ways, and he’s going to be devilish hard to replace. I’m sure that you and Giliahna will give it your best shot, but even with your great natural gifts and abilities, you are going to find it damned hard to fill the shoes of Bili the Axe.”

Now it was the High Lord who sighed and sadly shook his head. “And it’s my fault, really. Long years ago I knew that I should start grooming a likely man—if such exists—to take over the Principality of Karaleenos when Bili died or became too ill or senile to longer handle it properly, but he just lived on and on and on, never becoming even marginally inefficient, the reins of all the affairs of the principality always tightly in hand. So it was so much easier for me to just leave it all to him, who did it so well, and apply my own efforts to other affairs in other places, rationalizing falsely, deluding myself with the thought that it was better not to give offense to this most valuable and valued vassal.”

He sighed again. “And now it’s too late to take more than stopgap measures. At least, you’ll have old Lehzlee for a few more years, he has been Bill’s right hand for the last twenty or so years. I’ll send your great-grandnephew, Djaik Sanderz of Morguhn, down here from Theesispolis for a farspeaker. It’s possible that you’ll have widespread support from Bili’s people, since you’re related to him, but don’t go wasting a lot of time trying to woo or win over any who seem hostile or uncooperative—replace them immediately they demonstrate an unwillingness to change their ways to suit the new regime. Your strefigth lies in the west, among your relatives, so recruit there, in the western duchies and the Ahrmehnee stahn—Morguhn, Sanderz-Vawn, Baikuh, Skaht, and Kam-ruhn—and you might farspeak Prince Roodee of Kuhmbuhluhn; perhaps he has some likely men he can send you. You two are related, aren’t you?”

“Rather distantly,” replied Tim. “His grandmother… no, great-grandmother, I think… was my father’s get by his second wife, Mehleena, the fat, treacherous sow. Princess Deeahna was the youngest of that brood, too young to have absorbed very much of her mother’s madness, religious fanaticism and treason; Giliahna had promised the then prince, her stepson, a bride of her own blood, and when this Deeahna was old enough, she was sent to Kuhmbuhluhn.

“The Princess and young Speeros Sanderz-Vawn were the only two of that pack who didn’t die in disgrace. As you know, Bili had Mehleena’s eldest, that buggering swine Myron, impaled right after that rebellion… after suitable public torture and maiming, of course. And although I was roundly criticized and castigated for the deed, I saw the young bitch who slew my sergeant so treacherously atop a stake, too. The eldest daughter, Dohlohrehz, married an Ahrmehnee who beat her to death when he caught her in bed with another man.”

“And what of this brother, Speeros? Did he find a prince charming to marry, too?” queried Milo a bit caustically.

Tim shook his head. “For some reason, Speeros shared none of the insanity and perversions of his mother and elder brother. Except for his height and big-boned build, he didn’t even look Ehleen. He and his sisters were taken as wards by various Clan Sanderz kith and reared by them and Chief Tahm, although, you may recall, Gil had little Deeahna brought up to Theesispolis a couple of years before she sent her to wed Prince Gy of Kuhmbuhluhn. It was Chief Tahm found a husband for Dohlohrehz amongst his Ahrmehnee kin. But even before either of the girls were placed, Speeros had ridden up to Goohm and enlisted in a squadron of dragoons— enlisted, mind you, the third-eldest surviving son of a Kindred thoheeks.”

Milo’s dark brows rose. “Oh, yes, I’m beginning to recall. I gave that man a Golden Cat, Third Class, and a commission, didn’t I? But… but I seem to recall that he died a thoheeks himself, Tim.”

“Just so.” The blond man nodded briskly. “By the time you sent me to take over the cavalry arm of the army, that boy had clawed his way to a senior sergeantcy in the lamtha troop of the Kóhkeenos F’tehró Squadron. They and two battalions of the Seventeenth Regiment of Heavy Infantry held the whole damned West Ahfut Tribe off for almost two weeks after the disaster at Bleak Meadow.”

Milo’s lips tightened at the grim old memories. “Better than six regiments of my Regulars, wiped out to the last man! That idiotic swine of a Strahteegos Tohnyos of Kahvahpolis never knew how lucky he was to die with those men he so stupidly misled; if he’d come back alive, I’d have had the bastard impaled before the entire army… on a thick, blunt stake, at that!

“But that stand that was made at Maizuhn Gap was magnificent. There’s no other word fit to describe it, Tim. Three battered, understrength units, plus a handful of packers and engineers and various other service-troop types, holding off in the neighborhood of ten thousand blood-mad mountain tribesmen for the time it took the westernmost settlements to prepare for trouble and relief columns to get within striking range.

“But if the stand was magnificent, how does one describe that fighting withdrawal from the Gap? It was this Speeros commanded the withdrawal, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. By that time, he was the highest-ranking man left in any of the units who was capable of command; the only two officers not then dead were too seriously wounded to matter. He had them retreat slowly and in excellent order, and he saw the mountaineers bleed well for every rod and mile of the way, too. He made it back to Thorohspolis with about a thousand foot and almost half the original strength of the squadron.

“I had ridden up with a strong advance party of the relief column, Milo, so I was there when those bloody, filthy, unshaven, ragamuffin heros marched into the city—and I’m here to tell you that they marched in, with their drums marking the pace and their tattered banners unfurled, and a stirring sight that was. I don’t think there was a man or horse that wasn’t wounded in some way or other, Milo, yet even some of them who were hobbling along on makeshift crutches did their pitiful damnedest to strut.

“Speeros formally turned over his assumed command to me, then dropped his well-nicked saber and tumbled from off his horse. My surgeon found no less than nine wounds on that man’s body, Milo, two of them so serious and so long untended that it was for long doubtful he would even live.”

“As I remember, now,” said Milo, “he looked none too hale when 1 put the chain of that Cat over his head. He retired soon after that, didn’t he?”

Tim shook his head. “Yes, he retired, but not on account of those wounds. He served on at least two more campaigns in his new rank of squadron commander, but then Tahm of Lion Mountain died without issue and Clan Sanderz of Vawn chose Speeros to replace him as chief.”

“What sort of officer did he turn out to be, did you hear?” asked Milo. “As I recall, after all these years, it’s damned seldom I’ve heard a man’s Cat cheered as enthusiastically as was his that day at Goohm.”

“Most spoke very highly of Colonel Speeros. Those few who did not were Academy officers who dislike and distrust a mustang and always show it,” Tim replied, adding, “His last campaign before he retired and returned to become Chief of Sanderz-Vawn was directly under my command, and I can recall no slightest reason to complain of his or his squadron’s performance; that was the year we finally crushed the Western Ahfut Tribe, when we took back those standards they’d taken at Bleak Meadow.”

“Well,” grumbled Milo, “if lose a good senior officer I must, I’d far liefer he become a noble administrator for the Confederation than a useless corpse. I assume he was a good thoheeks?”

“Those few who could recall our late father—his and mine—likened Speeros to him. They said that he was hard but unstintingly fair in his treatment of all. Before he died, even poor old Bili over there had forgiven Chief Speeros his treasonous maternal antecedents and begun to not only address him as cousin, but even have him up here on occasion for hunts and the like.”

“He wed and bred, then, did he?” inquired Milo. “You said earlier that one of his descendants is now chief.”

Tim nodded again. “Yes, one of his wives was a noblewoman of Getzburk, who had been a member of the entourage of his sister, the Princess Deeahna of Kuhmbuhluhn; another—he had three wives, two of whom survived him— was a girl of the Vrainyuhn Tribe, an Ahrmehnee relative of his predecessor, Chief Tahm; the third was a Kindred chit, daughter of a far-southwestern thoheeks, Chief Breht Kahrtuh of Kahrtuh—you know, Milo, the clan that breeds our war elephants.”

“One of the clans,” answered Milo. “Clan Djohnz was the first clan in that pursuit; Kahrtuh and Steevuhnz came down there two or three generations later.. I know—I was with them.”

They talked on, and old Bili would have enjoyed joining in their discussions and reminiscences, but death was very near now, and he could no longer speak aloud easily. He might have used his powerful mindspeak abilities, had not the drugs fuzzed his mind in that direction. So, as the two low voices droned on, he let his mind sink into memories of far happier days of the distant past.