Trumpets of War

IX

As he stared into the dark contents of his winecup, swirling to the motion of his hand, Thoheeks Grahvos reflected, “Six years now. Six years tomorrow since we few moved the capital from Thrahkohnpolis to Mehseepolis here. Although I tried to project to the others sincere confidence that our aims would, could, do no other but succeed, I didn’t really feel that confident, not at all. But it worked, by God; it has succeeded. We are once more three-and-thirty thoheeksee, ruling over all of what was for so long the Kingdom of Southern Ehleenohee .

“Most of the lands are once again under lords, they’re being planted and harvested, crops are coming in . . . and taxes, too; why, Sitheeros and I were even paid back a little of the monies we advanced Council, they voted the amounts to us at the last meeting and there was even talk to the effect of either buying Mehseepolis outright from me or at least paying rent for the central government’s use of it and the lands used by the army. And that’s a sign of maturity, that, an indicated willingness to begin to undertake the discharge of responsibilities.

“Speaking of responsibilities, Thoheeks Mahvros is doing every bit as good a job as ever I did as chairman of the Council; even Bahos, who wanted the chair himself, has had to admit that we chose well in selecting Mahvros. Besides, neither Bahos nor Sitheeros nor I is any of us getting a bit younger, and while wisdom is required in council, a young, vibrant, vital hand on the reins is needed, too, on occasion.

“The next order of business, I think, is going to have to be the reorganization of a naval presence. The raids of those non-Ehleen pirates on the far-western thoheekseeahnee are getting beyond bearing, more frequent and in larger and larger force. And I just can’t see begging the High Lord for help until we’ve gotten to where we can at least make a token payment of the reparations for Zastros’ folly. I must remember to bring that up in Council next time, too.

“I do miss blunt, honest Chief Pawl Vawn.” He sighed to himself. “But it’s understandable that he had to get back to his clan and his family; after all, he’d been down here for around five years, and some several months away on campaign in Karaleenos before that. I had so hoped, however, that we could convince him to take a title and lands here, bring down his family and become one of us.

“But at least a few of those Horseclanners stayed here. Rahb Vawn was granted the right by Chief Pawl to found a full sept of Clan Vawn here, and Pawl agreed to tell of the fact to his clan and allow any who wanted to come down and join Rahb to do so.

“Gil Djohnz and most of the other elephant Horseclanners, too, are staying. So, too, are some dozen more of the younger unmarried men of Pawl’s squadron. Tomos Gonsalos has agreed to stay on here, at least until the High Lord sends down or appoints a commander to succeed him, which last is a blessing, for our Grand Strahteegos couldn’t do all that’s necessary with the army all alone.

“There are many, especially in the army, who wish Pahvlos would retire, and maybe he should; after all, he’s pushing seventy-five . . . though he’d die before he’d admit to the fact. Ever since he executed that victory at Kahlkopolis, the old bastard’s been marching the very legs off the army, hieing them north, south, east and west, cleaning up the tag ends of the chaos that preceded this government. Those on Council who criticized him, berate the expenses of his constant campaigning, just don’t or won’t realize how very much the old man and that very campaigning has done and is doing for this government and for our lands and folk.

“That business last year, for example, now. He not only drove the damned mountain barbarians back across the border, retook all the lands and forts they’d overrun during the years of civil war, then moved his columns up into the very mountains themselves, but so decimated and intimidated the savages that no less than nine of the barbarian chiefs have signed and sworn to trade treaties and nonaggression treaties and sent down hostages to be held against their keeping their words. Yes, it all cost some men and supplies and the like, but real peace is ever dear, and I can’t see why certain of my peers can’t get that fact through their thick heads.

“Thoheeks Tipos, in particular, from the moment Council voted to confirm his rank and lands, has proceeded to balk at anything that was for the common weal. Were it up to him alone, we’d have taxes so high that we’d shortly have a full-scale rebellion that would make that first one against King Hyamos look like little boys at play. Nor would there be any army to put it down or at least try, because he would’ve disbanded the army entirely, the taxed funds thus saved to go toward rebuilding ducal cities, roads, fords, bridges and the clearing of canals, none of which would do him or any of the rest of us any good were internal discord and the constant threat of invasion by the barbarians staring us in the face, but the stubborn bastard, his brain well pickled in wine, refuses to see plain facts directly under his big red nose.

“And then there’s Thoheeks Theodoros, too; what a precious pair of obstructionists those two make in Council. At best, Theodoros is but the dregs of a vintage the best of which was of questionable merit.

One would think that he might have learned something from the examples of his sire and his elder brothers, but he is every bit as despotically minded as were any of them. His latest brainstorm was to suggest a law which would forbid, under penalty of enslavement to the state, the ownership of bows or crossbows by any man not in either the army or the employ of some nobleman or himself a nobleman, which is pure poppycock to any rational man.

“But worse than that, he visibly cringes at the mention of monies to be spent on the army and its needs. And he seems to be of theopinion that were we to surrender all of the border marches to the barbarians, they would leave us in peace forever. Had he ever been a warrior, I might think that he’d taken one too many blows to the helm; as it is, I’m of the mind that his wet nurse must have dropped him on his head.

“The one, saving grace is that neither of them is a spring chicken. Theodoros is almost my own age and Tipos is a good ten years my senior, so they won’t—God willing—be around to bedevil Mahvros for too much longer. Mayhap their heirs will be of sound mind, though in the case of Theodoros, I much fear that it’s in the bloodline of his house.

“Tipos, now, lacks an heir of direct line to succeed him. I would imagine he’ll name his young catamite, but Council is in no way bound to confirm that young man. Perhaps he has a nephew or a grandnephew or two of unselfish nature and open mind. We’ll see.

“But back to thinking about those who had soldiered here and have then been persuaded to stay on, I consider it a real accomplishment to have gotten Guhsz Hehluh not only to accept a vahrohnoseeahn in one of my duchies, but to also take to pensioning off wounded men of his regiment in others of my lands and cities and towns to seek wives and establish crafts and trades and businesses, few of them seeming to be inclined toward agriculture or animal husbandry. But with the way the mountain barbarians are flocking in at the offer of free land to farm and the way the Horseclanners who’ve stayed here all seem dead set on a life of breeding cattle or horses or sheep or, in the cases of Gil Djohnz and a couple of others, elephants, we’ll probably have enough folk to till the lands and produce beasts for us, shortly.

“And those pensioned-out Middle Kingdoms men are doing really great things for us all, producing items that have never before been made here, things that we’ve always had to buy at vastly inflated prices from the traveling traders. Not only that, they’re developing, introducing new ways of doing mundane things, easier, more economical ways. Their coming has put new vitality and drive into every trade and craft and business in my lands.

“Naturally, they haven’t made the more old-fashioned native tradesmen and craftsmen any too happy, but it’s just as I told the deputation of them—if they want to stay in their chosen fields, they’ll just have to ape the practices and quality of products of their new competition. And that damned Kooreeos Ahndraios, who came to me blustering and issuing veiled threats because the Middle Kingdoms men who have taken to lending money here and there are offering it at better terms and lower interests than the Holy Church ever has; well, he may have, like the month of Mahrteeos, come in like a lion, but after he’d heard my thoughts on the matter, he left like a cross between a lamb and a well-whipped cur-dog, soaking his oiled beard with his tears. The Church has never had even a scintilla of competition in that field ere this, and if he and the Church intend to stay in the profession of usury, they are just going to have to match or better the terms and rates now being offered by these newcomers, that’s all there is to it.

“Moreover, I promised the sanctimonious old fraud that should he sic any of that pack of ruffians he dignifies with the name ‘Knights of the Ancient Ehleen Faith’ on his new competition, I and the Council will do with them and him and all the other kooreeohsee precisely as High Lord Milos and King Zenos did with their like in the other Ehleen provinces of our Confederation—disband the ‘Knights’ (I’ve always thought the Church bullies called that because nighttime is when they ride to do their worst, being ashamed or afraid to show their faces in sunlight), round up the kooreeohsee, declare them all to be slaves of the state and put them to work on the roads or the rebuilding of city walls.

“But when I mentioned that I thought it was high time that agents of Council have an in-depth look at the tally sheets and books of records of all of the kooreeohseeahnee, throughout the realm, I then honestly thought that the old bastard was going into an apoplectic fit, then and there. Hmmm, maybe it might be wise to do just that. I’m sure that for all their holy-mouthing, these priests and kooreeohsee are as crooked as any other set of thieves in all the lands, and the amounts of illegally earned gold and silver that the High Lord and King Zenos were able to reclaim for their treasuries would surely be of great value to our own more modest one.

“I think I know just the man to put to the job of finding out just how much Holy Church is hiding, just how many fingers there are in just how many pies, just how many businesses of how many differing kinds are being funded with Church monies; and I think that this man will undertake this particular mission as a labor of love, too, for he has scant reason to love the Church and more than enough to truly hate it and all its clergy.”

Stehrgiahnos Papandraios had been so ill when he stumbled, filthy, bearded, long-haired and miserable in his heavy, clanking chains, out of the cage in which he and his two fellow unfortunates had been borne all the weary, dusty, bumpy miles from Kahlkopolis to Mehseepolis that he was not even put up for sale with them, because everyone thought him to be dying, and he very nearly did do just that.

Deep in fever as he then had been, he recalled only bits and pieces of someone’s having come into the slave pens, sought him out where he lay shivering and moaning, with his teeth chattering, and carried him out and away. He recalled only snatches of being bathed, shaved from pate to ankles, then bathed again and thoroughly deloused. Under skillful and careful nursing and feeding and care, he slowly regained his health, and that was when he began to wonder why anyone had taken such interest, invested so much in a state prisoner sure to be soon condemned either to a quick, relatively merciful death or to a longer and far less merciful one slaving away on road-building projects; that was where his two cagemates had been taken.

Then, of a day, when the last of the fever had departed and the worms had been purged from out his intestines, he was decently if rather plainly clothed and led from the spartanly furnished bedroom through a succession of corridors, up stairs, down stairs, and into and out of richly decorated rooms to finally find himself standing before a late-middle-aged nobleman seated in what looked to be a small study and writing room. While the seated man studied Stehrgiahnos with a pair of piercing black eyes, the slave studied him every bit as assiduously.

What he saw was a stocky, powerful-looking man of a bit over middle height for an Ehleen. From his facial looks and his frame, he was most clearly of pure Ehleen stock, from his dress and bearing a nobleman, probably a high-ranking one—at least a komees, maybe even a thoheeks, thought Stehrgiahnos—and from his scars and the little bits and pieces of him missing here and there a veteran warrior. His black hair and beard were now heavily streaked with grey, wrinkles now furrowed his brow like a well-plowed field, and brown age spots were beginning to make their appearances on his muscular forearms and the backs of his big hands.

One of the two guardsmen who had brought him in shoved him rather ungently to his knees—not a difficult thing to do, that, for just then Stehrgiahnos still was more than a little weak from his long siege of illness—saying, “Who do you think you are? Only freemen may stand before the lord thoheeks!”

The seated nobleman then waved the two out. When they seemed loath to leave him alone with the tall, younger slave, he airily waved a hand and said, “You forget, my good man, I’m a soldier, too. I’ll know what to do in the event he misbehaves himself.” He smiled, patting the hilt of the short, broad-bladed dirk cased at his belt.

When the two spearmen had grudgingly closed the door behind them, the nobleman said, “Get up and seat yourself on that stool yonder, Stehrgiahnos.” When he had been obeyed, he went on, “I strongly doubt that you remember me, for when you and the other two renegades were dragged up to confront and be judged by Council, you were swooning and raving with fever. I am Thoheeks Grahvos, just now your owner. I bought you from the state at a very reasonable price, since everyone else thought you dying.”

“You did not, my lord master?” asked Stehrgiahnos.

The nobleman frowned. “When we two are completely alone, as at this time, Stehrgiahnos, you may get away with it, but if ever you speak without being asked to speak when others are about, you will have to be made to suffer for your impertinence. Remember that well, for I do not ever make false threats toward anyone, slave or free.

“But, in answer, no. You struck me as a survivor, a basically tough man, who could live out the fever and the parasites infesting your body if anyone could do so, just as you had survived your many wounds, as attested by your scars. It was those very war scars, in fact, plus what I learned of you from your two companions, from Grand Strahteegos Komees Pahvlos and from certain others of his officers that set me to thinking that there might be a far better use for a rogue like you than slowly grinding his life away at the bestial labor of road-building and suchlike.

“You were born and bred into a noble family, an old and respected Ehleen family, and you know the customs and usages of that world. You were once a lord of lands and a city, which means that you know that world, as well. You were a noble officer, at one time, and this fact gives you yet another sphere of in-depth knowledge. Then, for years, you ran with outlaws and bandits, lived cheek by jowl with the lowest scum of our lands—thieves, burglars, footpads, ruffians, rogues, rapists, slave-stealers, horse- and cattle- and sheep-lifters, cutpurses, highwaymen, kidnappers, professional bullies, abortionists, tomb robbers, army deserters and God alone knows what else and worse. This fact, which many would and do consider disgraceful, does, however, add to your possible value to me for my purposes.

“In my capacity as chairman of Council, as well as in more personal businesses, there are times when the covert use of an intelligent, educated, thoroughly unprincipled and honorless rogue who owns an ability to move easily and knowledgeably in many strata of our society could be of some use to me. He must, of course, be a survivor, a strong, ruthless, shrewd man, skilled at prevarication and at acting parts in everyday living. From all that I’ve learned of you, I think that you are just that sort of man.

“Of course, Stehrgiahnos, the ever constant, ever present danger of employing such men as you in any capacity at all is that of making certain that their baser instincts do not lead them to forget their loyalties to their employer or patron—or, in this particular case, owner and master. However, I think that I have come up with the best solution to maintaining your firm loyalty and fervent support.

“You are an officially registered slave, and you will shortly be undergoing a branding, though on a very unobtrusive part of your body; so long as you behave yourself and remain useful to me, you will not be fitted with a slave collar, only an easily removable bronze bracelet bearing my seal, such as all my personal retainers—slave, free, common and noble—wear while in service to me.

“Should you ever try to run away, or give me strong cause to suspect you of having done so or be seriously considering so doing, I will make of you a gift to the state and you will then be gelded and put to work alongside your two fellow renegades, assuming that they still live at thatpoint. State slaves just do not seem to live long at the tasks of building roads and walls; perhaps the loss of their testicles lowers their masculine vitality.

“Also, should you ever forget who owns you and allow yourself to become disloyal to my interests or those of Council, if it is for it that I then have you working, I will consider that disloyalty to be your prelude to an escape attempt and deal with you appropriately, as earlier detailed. Do I make myself quite clear to you, Stehrgiahnos?”

The old man assuredly had made himself and his terrifying intentions clear to his newest slave. Even sunk deep in his fever, he still could remember hearing the sobbing pleas and then the hideous screams as his two companions had been thrown, pinned down by strong, laughing men, then gelded, cauterized with one red-hot iron, branded with another, and dragged, sobbing and gasping, from out the slave pens.

At the command of Thoheeks Grahvos, he had related all that had befallen him in his life, the good and the bad, the honorable and the dishonorable, telling the full, unadorned truth for the first time in full many a year, omitting nothing.

Stehrgiahnos Papandraios had been born heir to a city and lands, eldest son of the late Komees Zeelos Papandraios of Pahtahtahskeera. With the sole exception of his twin, Hohrhos, he was the only male offspring of his sire to live past childhood; all their other siblings were females, so the two boys were brought up like the precious jewels that their family considered them, and when the time came to ride off to serve a stint with the Royal Heavy Horse of King Hyamos, the two had forked fine riding horses, while their arming-men and servants had led splendid fully war-trained chargers and pack beasts laden with the very best of armor, weapons, clothing and equipment. Both of these new ensigns had ridden, shortly, into their first battle, a brief war against the mountain barbarians; during the short campaign, Hohrhos had suffered a crippling wound and Stehrgiahnos had distinguished himself in fighting bravely against odds to protect his twin brother and another wounded officer until a squad had reached him and driven off the savages. Praise and promotion had been his reward, while poor crippled Hohrhos, borne back to his natal hold in a horse litter, had slowly recovered, his army days now done forever.

By the time that King Hyamos’ senile despotism had sparked a full-scale rebellion led by Thoheeks Zastros, Stehrgiahnos was become a troop captain of the Leopard Squadron of the Royal Heavy Horse and had led his men in numerous smaller engagements prior to the great, crashing battle at Ahrbahkootchee, where the rebel army was crushed and scattered. In that battle, he had personally seized the Green Dragon banner of the rebel leader, and although it had been his commander’s commander who had presented the prize to Strahteegos Komees Pahvlos, that same man had been so impressed with his subordinate’s rare feat that he had, on the spot and before witnesses, offered the still-young man command of a squadron at a dirt-cheap price.

Stehrgiahnos, not of course having that kind of money himself, at once fired off a letter to his sire, not needing to point out the signal honor of the offer for an officer so young and lowly in civil rank; almost all commanders of squadrons were at least heirs of some thoheeks or other, if not already thoheeksee themselves. Some length of time passed, which Stehrgiahnos then attributed to the unsettled conditions in the intervening territory, but then the gold was duly delivered and paid, and he became one of the youngest squadron captains in King Hyamos’ army.

And that army was kept constantly busy, riding and marching hither and yon, usually in small units, for years, trying to put down a rebellion that never really died, despite the loss of the flower of its army at Ahrbahkootchee and the flight into exile of many of the rest, including its charismatic leader, Thoheeks Zastros. But it then seemed that as fast as one head of the rebellion was severed, two or three more sprang up into full life in as many distantly separated spots around the far-flung thoheekseeahnee that made up the Kingdom of the Southern Ehleenohee .

Not only were the soldiers, troopers and their officers all overworked throughout these difficult years, but with conditions in the capital at Thrahkohnpolis in utter turmoil following the death of the old king and the contested accession of his son, the troops were no longer in any manner well cared for, often having to forage the areas through which they marched, even pillage, in order to keep themselves and their animals fed and clothed and equipped, having to strip dead or wounded rebels for arms and armor to replace their own battered or broken gear, taking remounts at swordpoint, war-trained or no, whenever and wherever they could find them in the suffering lands. And naturally in such an army in such condition, desertions were common, with scant hope of replacements.

Then, in a manner often afterward questioned but never yet explained, the new king, Hyamos’ son, and his entire family had suicided for no apparent reason, some of them doing so before unimpeachable witnesses, all in

a single day and night, leaving no direct-line heirs to take the now-vacant throne and grasp the loose, dangling reins of the kingdom now virtually reeling about in a state of near-anarchy. That had been when a former-rebel thoheeks, who had managed to purchase a full pardon of King Hyamos after the debacle at Ahrbahkootchee, one Fahrkos Kenehdos of Bahltoskeera, which triple duchy abutted the royal lands, marched in with an overwhelming force scraped up who knew where and first seized Thrahkohnpolis, then had himself crowned king.

King Fahrkos had summoned all units of the widely dispersed Royal Army back to Thrahkohnpolis and then had set about purging it of any and all officers who had remained loyal to their king and their oaths during Thoheeks Zastros’ disastrous rebellion, replacing them with a host of rebels. Because of his intemperate, vengeful actions, a large proportion of the Royal Army simply rode or marched away, some in whole units, some piecemeal. Nor did those troops who stayed make any move to stop their old comrades, though they did prevent King Fahrkos’ rebel forces from interfering with or interdicting the departures.

Of course, not one thrahkmeh of the long-overdue back pay had been proffered or collected by any officer, soldier or trooper, so by the time that Squadron Captain Stehrgiahnos and his few hundred officers and troopers finally rode onto his ancestral lands, they were become a force of de facto bandits, simply in order to survive the course of the long, hard journey.

Their arrival was timely, to say the least. A relatively small band of rebels were besieging the hold of the komees, which hold had been fighting off attacks and slowly starving for some weeks. However, although possessed of slightly larger numbers, most of these rebels were at best amateurs at real warfare, and the tough, professional warriors of Stehrgiahnos went through them like a hot knife through butter, killing or wounding more than half of them, capturing their camp and baggage and loot, and chasing the survivors of the fight like so many hunted deer, coldly butchering those they managed to catch and so horrifying the rest that many of them ran their horses to death or near it, then staggered on until they fell of utter exhaustion miles from the hold they had sought to take, having along the way discarded anything and everything that might weigh them down or retard their flight. Many a man of these wished to have kept at least a spear or a sword when found by the farmers and villagers he and his band had been robbing and abusing during recent weeks.

Stehrgiahnos had entered the hold to find that he now was komees, his sire having died of a wound taken in one of the earlier attacks, his crippled brother, Hohrhos, and the elderly castellan, Behrtos, having ordered the defense masterfully, despite the many things they had lacked and the few ill-trained effectives they had commanded.

As soon as affairs permitted, he had closeted himself with his twin. “Hohrhos, this was bad enough, but I think it to be only the bare beginning, and it will assuredly get worse as it progresses. That rebel bastard Fahrkos has had himself crowned king, and the army is deserting him in droves for good and sufficient cause. Soon there will be no army worthy of the name in all of the kingdom; then all hell is certain to break loose on us, and this hold is indefensible for long and against any really strong force, especially against one whose commander might know what he is about.

“Therefore, I think we should abandon the hold, strip it of all usable or valuable and move into the city. With my men and the folk already resident, plus those from the countryside who’re sure to seek shelter with us, we should be able to hold those walls against most any force we’re likely to see away out here in the far provinces. We can start collecting supplies of all sorts, weapons, armor, horses and mules, kine of all kinds. . . .” He noted his twin’s frown and asked, “What’s wrong with the plan?”

“With the plan, nothing,” sighed Hohrhos. “It’s the city. We don’t own the City of Pahtahtahspolis anymore, my lord brother.”

“Have you gone mad of siege fever, Hohrhos?” demanded the new komees, “What the hell are you talking about? Of course we own the City of Pahtahtahspolis, it’s part of my patrimony, it’s been a part of this komeeseeahn since the very beginning of our house, time out of mind!”

“Well, maybe so, but it’s not ours anymore, my lord brother,” said his crippled twin brother flatly. “The Church owns it now, it and its plowlands and pastures.”

Stehrgiahnos had never known his brother to lie about anything of importance, and he just then felt as if an iron mace swung by a giant had crashed against his battle-helm. “But . . . but, how . . . ?”

There was a bare trace of bitterness in the cripple’s voice then as he said, “Your damned promotion after Ahrbahkootchee, my lord brother, that’s how! Our sire didn’t have that kind of money, not the amount you needed, but he was hungry for the honor for you, for him and for the House of Papandraios, so he rode up to the thoheeks and tried to borrow it, but the thoheeks didn’t have it either, and it was he suggested that our sire seek out the kooreeos, and he did, ending by mortgaging the city and its lands to the Church for enough to buy you that blasted promotion and outfit you properly for your new rank and status. Even 1 approved of what he did . . . then.

“But after that, ill luck dogged us. One year, a drought made the crop yields skimpy. The next year, the rains came too soon and too heavy. Then there was trouble on the land, with rebels and bandits—I can’t see much difference between the two stripes, if there is any—trampling grain fields and driving off livestock and raping and looting in the villages.

“What it boils down to, my lord brother, is that our sire could not manage to pay the enormous interest on time, much less touch upon the principal, so six months or so back a sub-kooreeos and a detachment of hired pikemen marched into the komeeseeahn, served our sire with a document signed by the a hrkeekooreeos in Thrahkohnpolis, the kooreeos of this duchy and our own dear thoheeks, then entered the city and occupied it, claiming everything of ours in it.”

The three hundred heavy horse of the Royal Army wound down the dusty road to the City of Pahtahtahspolis with the Leopard Banner unfurled and snapping smartly in the wind, the men all erect in their saddles, with polished leather and burnished weapons and armor, the horses all well groomed in the aligned ranks.

At the barbican that guarded access to the lowered bridge across the broad, muddy ditch that the moat became in the dry season, one of the flashy, bejeweled officers rode up to the barred gate and roared in a voice dripping with hauteur, “Open up the gate of your pigsty! We’re on king’s business, you baseborn swine!”

“Uhhh . . . but we-alls heared the king was dead, my lord,” said one of the pikemen.

“Oh, a king died, right enough.” Scorn dripped from the officer’s voice. “But whenever a king dies, you thick-witted bumpkin, a new king is crowned. He’s king of us all, and we ride on his royal writ. Now open this gate and signal the inner gate to be opened for us or I’ll have you fed a supper of your ears, eyes and nose, you yapping dog!”

The barriers were raised, the gates swung inward, and the column clattered and boomed across the bridge, then through the inner gates and onto the main street, thence in the direction of the palace of the komeesee. The sub-kooreeos was very easily intimidated, and at his squeaked command, his mercenary pikemen obediently laid down their arms before the bared swords of the Leopard Squadron regulars.

With the sub-kooreeos reflecting on the state of his soul in a cell far below, Captain Komees Stehrgiahnos found himself to be in possession of the city, two hundred mercenary pikemen and their officers who had been paid for six more months only a week previously and did not seem to care to whom they rendered that service so long as they could bide on in the safety and comfort of the city, his own troops, some pipes of a passable wine that had been the sub-kooreeos’ and a goodly quantity of silver and gold that he had found after he had smashed open a locked chest found under the great bed in which the cleric had been sleeping since seizing the city.

With shrewd use of the treasure, Stehrgiahnos had been able to add to the static defenses of the city and to provide and equip it well with provender and weapons, so it had ridden out the bad years before the death of King Fahrkos. He had lost his twin during the only attack that came anywhere near to succeeding, the bad leg having failed at a time and place that had caused him to stumble into two men, be suddenly drenched by the contents of the pot of boiling oil they were bearing and then to fall, screaming, from off the wall to the cobblestones forty feet below. By the time Stehrgiahnos had time to see to his only brother, Hohrhos’ terribly burned body had already been cold and stiff, his helm deeply dented and filled with blood and brains that had leaked from the cracked-open skull.

Then, after long years of absence, the outlawed rebel, Thoheeks Zastros, had returned to the Kingdom of the Southern Ehleenohee and had marched around much of the kingdom for months, fighting here and there, his following burgeoning to intimidating size as he went and fought. He had not come near to the lands of Komees Stehrgiahnos, of course, but word of him, his return with a Witch Kingdom wife and his recent exploits traveled far and wide, along with the measure of order that he had brought to the troubled realm.

When he had marched, finally, against the usurper, Fahrkos, he had triumphed, Fahrkos had suicided, and Zastros had been coronated High King of the Southern Ehleenohee . After announcing his firm intention to invade and conquer the lands to his north, to make himself High King of all Ehleenohee and every barbarian people from the borders of the Witch Kingdom to Kehnooryos Mahkedohnya and possibly beyond, he had sent out military units to scour the lands for troops to make up his great, formidable host, to be of a size not seen on the face of the continent since the time of Those Who Lived Before—more than a half million fighting men.

At length, a force of royal officers and lancers had arrived under the battered but still sound walls of the City of Pahtahtahspolis . Upon being admitted, the officers had proclaimed the new High King’s announcement of a general amnesty to all who had deserted the army of his usurping predecessor if they now would return to his service and join him on his path of conquest. Despite the fact that many of them now had wives and families and friends in Pahtahtahspolis, the surviving men of what once had been the Leopard Squadron of the Royal Heavy Horse were stirred like old warhorses on hearing the trumpet calls of war, even Komees Stehrgiahnos himself.

Planning to delay only long enough to set his city and lands in good order under a noble deputy, he sent his remnant of a squadron and as many of the onetime mercenary pikemen off with the troops of the new, powerful king, promising to report to Thrahkohnpolis himself within the space of a couple of months.

Due to the still unsettled conditions, when he rode the journey to the hold of the thoheeks, he rode armed and accompanied by a few also armed retainers. These men were skillfully separated from him at the ducal residence, and while he was awaiting his audience, well-armed ducal guardsmen disarmed him, led him to a secure if comfortable chamber and locked him in it.

Shortly after he had been fed, he was visited by the thoheeks, who came alone and seemed rather embarrassed about this imprisonment of a loyal vassal. “Look you, my boy,” he had begun, looking anywhere but at Stehrgiahnos, “I don’t like what I’ve had to do here, and I like even less what certain other men have in mind for you, do I obediently deliver you into their hands. Now what the Church hierarchy did to your sire and house was not right—legal, but not in any way moral—but neither was what you did in taking back your city, clapping asub-kooreeos who was only doing what his superiors had ordered him to do, after all, in a dungeon cell after terrifying him, and robbing him and hiring his troops out from under him.

“Now I know what your defense is going to be. Had that sad specimen of supposed masculinity stayed in ownership and control of the city, it would’ve fallen to the first warband that came along and would today be a charred, broken-walled ruin as so many others are now. But even so, you broke civil laws and your intemperate actions drove the previous kooreeos into such a rage that he suffered a fit and died on the same day that he heard the news. Therefore, his successor means to see you charged with and tried by a Church court for murder in addition to a plethora of other crimes. That trial will only be a mere form, of course; they consider you guilty of everything and mean to burn you or crucify you, after suitable torments and maimings and mutilations.”

The thoheeks ended by giving Komees Stehrgiahnos back all of his effects, adding a small purse of old, worn, clipped coins, plus a warning to ride far and fast and keep clear of the lands that had been his patrimony and, above all, to not allow himself to be taken alive by the Church or its agents. He regretted it, he said, but in order to maintain important relations with the Church, he would have to declare this son of his old friend outlaw and himself lead out a fast pursuit of him within days.

Only some week into his flight, the broken, outlawed komees found himself confronted by a dozen armed men as he rounded a brushy curve in a road. Without thinking twice, he snapped down his visor, unslung his shield, drew his sword and spurraked his horse into a startled lunge, determined to take as many of the bastards as possible down into death with him. He had cut down two and incapacitated yet another when a crashing blow of a mace hurled him down, out of his saddle, unconscious.

When he regained his senses, he was lying on the ground and looking up at an ill-matched pair of warriors—one thin and wiry, the other big and beefy, Mainahkos and Ahreekos by name. When he realized that his captors were bandits, not agents of the Church, he admitted to his recent outlawry and ended by being offered a place of command in the sizable force led by the two warlords. Stehrgiahnos had accepted.