Trumpets of War

IV

“Get out of here, you little shoat!” Hahkmukos snarled at the young slave boy still squatting in the corner of the tent. Having suffered his master’s anger before, the child bundled his garment under a skinny arm and ran out into the drizzly cold.

“Will you grant me privacy to use the pot, Lieutenant?” asked the thoheeks-designate.

But upon the officer’s departure, it was not the brass chamberpot that Hahkmukos sought; rather did he depress what looked like just another stud set in the lower corner of a traveling chest. Out of the secret drawer that then silently opened, he took a leathern belt, the pockets of which bulged with weighty contents. When he had buckled the belt around his waist, he quickly covered it with a shirt of soft cotton, then a longer one of silk, which he stuffed into silk drawers.

Seating himself on the side of the sleeping couch, he pulled off the ankle boots, swathed his feet in two thicknesses of cotton cloth, then wrapped his lower legs in similar cloth, cross-gartering them before pulling on padded trousers that tied in place a few inches below each knee.

When the lieutenant reentered the tent, Hahkmukos had stamped into a pair of jackboots and was buckling the sides of a padded arming shirt. The officer helped finish the buckling, then his nimble fingers did up the leathern points that held on the sleeves of the garment. That done, the armor chests were opened and, one sitting, the other squatting, Hahkmukos and the officer inserted the steel splints into the sheaths let in the legs of the boots for the purpose, buckled on spurs, then knee-cops and plate cuishes above them.

The lieutenant grunted approval upon seeing the hauberk. Though decorated to the point of gaudiness, it was good, thick, first-quality, all-riveted rings that went to make it up, triple mail, split at front and back for riding, as well as on either side for ease of movement afoot, and with sleeves that descended to a bit below the elbow.

When Hahkmukos had wriggled into the mail shirt, he donned a padded coif—cotton inside, thick, sturdy silk outside—and the officer lifted out of its fitted place in the chest the backplate, whistling softly through his teeth as he recognized the rare quality of it. While he held the plate in place, the thoheeks-designate did up the straps and buckles crisscrossing shoulders and chest, then he held the breastplate secure while the officer matched the halves of the hinges and inserted the hingepins on the one side, then snapped closed the catches on the other.

Elbow-cops were buckled below brassarts which themselves were overlapped by spauldrons of steel scales riveted to thick leather. When he had cinched the waist with a studded swordbelt, the officer fitted the cased sword and a broad-bladed battle-dirk to it, then handed Hahkmukos his armored gauntlets and the battle-helm—a fine, Pitzburk-made helm, with hinged visor and gorget and feeling to be of a weight of eight or nine pounds.

But when he inquired, Hahkmukos told him, “I don’t have a shield with me. I’ll have to take one from one of my guards. Where are the two you brought to be my arming-men?”

The lieutenant made a wry face. “Lord, the camp of your guards is deserted. The picket lines are empty, and have been stripped of anything usable or small and valuable. Your servants say that the guards hurriedly packed and rode off with their pack train at a hard gallop while we were at the headquarters pavilion. However, your own horses are left, and the servants should have two of them outside the tent by now. I’m certain we can get a shield from one of my men.”

Outside the tent, two saddled horses had been tied, but not one servant or slave was within sight. “Lieutenant, it’s been some time since I tried to mount while wearing armor and weapons. Give me a leg up,” said Hahkmukos blandly.

The young officer shrugged and obliged him. But no sooner was the thoheeks-designate firmly in the saddle than he smashed his muddy bootsole full into the officer’s face, grabbed the reins of the second horse and spurred his own into a fast canter out of the camp, not galloping solely because he did not wish to attract undue attention.

“The fools,” he thought, “I saw right through them from the very start. No, they had no plans on my life, that mewling old bastard of a Grahvos swore. No, they didn’t, not that pack from Mehseepolis, no, they just meant to rob me and humiliate me, then to let that damned usurper of a Klaios cut me down. They must have known that I’m not a fighter, that my armor and weapons were bought only for appearance and because in the grades of Pitzburk I bought, they are damned good investments, just as these blooded horses are.”

Not until he was completely out of sight of the camp, only the more lofty reaches of the city of Ahndropolis still barely visible in the drizzly mist, did Hahkmukos rein up long enough to throw the hooded cloak he had grabbed off a hook as they had left the tent over his gaudy panoply, remove the devilishly uncomfortable helmet and hang it from his pommel and fold the hood up so that the cold water would no longer drip and run down his face. Then he set the horse to a gallop, heading northwestward, away from both Ahndropolis and Mehseepolis.

In the spartanly furnished little office, Thoheeks Grahvos finished his perusal of the sheaf of witnessed oaths of Klaios, the surviving landholders of the Duchy of Ahndros and those of the men that the acting-thoheeks had carefully picked to fill the many vacancies. As the elder man tucked the documents into first a waxed-parchment folder, then a waxed-leather tube, he said, “The Horseclanners will be in the saddle at dawn and I with them, so these should be in Mehseepolis by the end of the week. Never you fear, my boy, you’ll be confirmed, for you’re just the sort of thoheeks we want in these lands. When you’ve set things in order hereabouts and can do so, come to Mehseepolis and take your place on the Council. Until then, I’ll vote your proxy as we discussed.

“Save for the troops we’re loaning you and Ahndros, all Council forces should be on the march back by noonday tomorrow. The order is set for dawn, but I’ve never yet seen an army set out on time and I doubt that I ever will.” He chuckled ruefully. “Yes, the Horseclanners always leave on time, but then they are barbarians and can’t fathom the senseless and inevitable delays of civilized armies. I like them and respect them, they’re probably the finest, the most dependable and effective troops Council just now owns, and I mean to persuade some of them to stay down here, take lands and breed up more of their race.”

As he stood and hitched his light dress sword around to make for easier walking, he admonished, “But, son Klaios, you’ll be wise to keep some sturdy, faithful bodyguards by you and the Lady Ahmahleea and the children at all times, hire a food-taster or two as well, and make constant use of their services. Hahkmukos is a coward—he would not fight anyone breast to breast, not if that opponent was armed—but he is highly dangerous, I feel, nonetheless. I doubt not that that empty drawer that gaped from the side of his travel chest contained gold, so you can be certain that he doesn’t lack the hire of an assassin or three.”

“You feel then that he and his troop of hired bravos will not be back to openly harass the duchy, Lord Grahvos?” asked Klaios, looking a bit worried.

The thoheeks chuckled and shook his head again. “No, I don’t. They didn’t leave together, you know. When Lieutenant Bralos slew their captain, then dragged their employer off almost naked and at the points of spears, they at once elected a new captain, looted everything that could be speedily grabbed up, then rode off headed northeast, while Rahb Vawn tells me that Hahkmukos’ trail veers almost due west. So far as the troop are concerned, I’ll not be surprised at all are they in the camp under the walls of Mehseepolis trying to enlist in our army . . . and I’ll probably recommend taking them on, for they seem to be good, experienced fighters, survivors, and such types Council can always use.”

“How goes it with the young officer?” inquired Klaios, with patent and sincere concern. “When last I set eyes to him, he looked as if a herd of cattle had run over him.”

Grahvos smiled. “Yes, he was a mess when he staggered back to the pavilion—all mud and blood and bruises, and barely able to talk coherently or even see where he was going. He almost brought the roof down atop us all when he walked into that main post.

“But he’ll live. His nose was broken, of course, and a few teeth loosened, but the swelling has subsided enough for him to be able to see and drink broth and wine easily now.”

Klaios nodded. “Good. However, I feel that I owe him suffering-price, since he was, in effect, injured in service to me and to the Duchy of Ahndros.”

Grahvos reached over and gripped the komees’ shoulder firmly and said in a grave tone, “You, Lord Klaios, are a true gentleman of the old school, and I thank the good God that He sent us such as you to rule these lands.

“But worry yourself not in this matter. Lieutenant Bralos has been paid in full for his injuries. I awarded him Hahkmukos’ tent, baggage and furnishings, plus some of the pack mules that the bravos didn’t lift to bear his new possessions back to Mehseepolis. I also gave him to understand that his name is now high on my personal list of young officers deserving preferment.”

Sub-strahteegos Tomos Gonsalos greeted Thoheeks Grahvos warmly when he rode into camp with Captain Sub-chief Rahb Vawn’s clansmen. The older man staggered up the steps and through the anterooms, then virtually collapsed into a chair in Tomos’ office, looking to be utterly drained, thoroughly exhausted.

Deep concern on his face and in his tone, Gonsalos filled a mug with watered brandy and asked, as he proffered it, “Are you quite well, my lord Grahvos?”

“Oh, I’m not ill, Tomos, not really,” groaned Grahvos. “But one more week of hell-riding with those Horseclanners would have seen me dead. Man, those little bastards ride day and night, they stop only long enough to unsaddle their mounts, slap the saddles onto remounts from the remuda, perhaps have a quick piss, then they’re mounted and off again, both eating and sleeping in the saddle—at a fast amble, most often, at that.”

He grinned tiredly. “But by Christ I kept up with the bastards. It became a point of personal and racial honor to me that they not be able to boast that they rode an Ehleen nobleman into the ground.”

Tomos shook his head. “My lord, you are perhaps the most valuable man the Confederation has, our strongest and most faithful supporter in these southern lands, and you are no longer a young man. You could have burst your heart, killed yourself, at such foolishness. Please say that you’ll not again be so stubbornly ...”

Grahvos waved his hand. “Oh, never you fear, my good Tomos, I’ve had a crawful and more of cavalry marching for a good long while. But I also now have even deeper respect for those damned Horseclanners of yours. Lord God, what a weapon they make for our arms. Give them enough of a remuda and I don’t doubt but that they could cover the full distance from east coast to west of this onetime kingdom within three or four weeks . . . and like as not fight and win a battle when they got there.”

The older man drained off his mug of brandy-water and, while his host refilled it, inquired, “Have you seen anything of a stray troop of Ehleenoee mercenary horsemen about in the last few days, Tomos?” Then he recounted all that had transpired with the wretched and craven Hahkmukos in Ahndropolis, ending with the admonition, “So, if they do ride into camp, I’d accept their enlistments, but I’d also break them up, spread them out as far as possible among existing units of our cavalry; otherwise they just might decide to bolt in a tight place, and leave us with a gap in our battle line when and where we least can afford one.”

As he stood to leave for the city, he remarked, “By the way, I have hired away one of your officers, Captain Rahb Vawn, to be my personal bodyguard; he’s even now explaining his decision to Chief Pawl of Vawn. I pay well for service; besides, I’m hoping that Rahb will learn to like it well enough to stay here, marry and breed more of his kind among us. There are still rich lands lacking lords within my and many another demesne . . . which is something that all of you northerners might take into consideration when you plan for your futures.

“Now, I’m off for the palace, a hot bath and a soft, warm bed.”

Four days later, Captain Thoheeks Portos marched the rest of the cavalry, the infantry, the elephants and the trains into the permanent camp below Mehseepolis—men, animals and vehicles all mud-caked, half frozen and miserable. Even the sturdy, uncomplaining elephants were showing irritability bred of the exhaustion of pushing and pulling wagon after wagon out of mudhole after mudhole day after day in icy rain or clammy mist.

“That abortion of a so-called road,” Portos told Tomos after the troops had been formed up and dismissed, “has got to go to the top of the repair list. All the logs are rotted out; the only bridge that is still there, even, is the old, narrow stone one over Yahlee River ; to cross the rest of the streams we had to send out patrols to seek fords. In one place there was no ford to be found, so the artificers and pioneers had to swim a treacherous and powerful current with lines in their teeth, haul over and set cables, then set the elephants to stand upstream in six feet of rushing water to partially break its force while men and horses were swum and wagons were floated across. That had to be done twice—once on the march down there, once on the march back—and that is what cost us our only deaths—nine men, two horses and two mules.

“If I hadn’t believed fully that those barbarians can really talk to those elephants, Tomos, I’d have to, after this campaign. They can get those beasts to do things that I’ve never before seen either a draught elephant or a war-elephant perform, not in all my years of warring with and against armies that utilized them.

“And the efforts of those three elephants is all that got our trains back up here over those quagmire roads, too. Without them, we’d have been putting down draught animals right and left; as it was, when a wagon mired too deeply for the animals and the men to drag and pry it out, one of the elephants would put her forehead against the back of it and pop it out like the stopper from a bottle, then the team would be rehitched and so proceed to the next impassable stretch of slimy road.

“We didn’t get to better roads and slightly drier weather until yesterday. Did the barbarian cavalry and Thoheeks Grahvos make it back yet?”

Tomos nodded, smiling. “Four days ago.”

Portos hissed between his teeth. “And how many horses did they kill and founder?”

“None,” the sub-strahteegos replied, adding, “I know, I know, it sounds impossible, but it’s true, nonetheless. Their secret, so Thoheeks Grahvos avers, is that they never push any one mount too hard for too long. That’s what their oversized remuda is for, you see. They change horses several times each day; they seldom ride really fast, but they stay in the saddle and moving for eighteen and twenty hours a day, every day, until they get where they’re headed.”

The tall captain shook his head. “Oh, they’re all tough little bastards, I’ll be the first to grant you that much. High Lord Milos chose well when he chose such as them. I’m told that they went through the best that Kehnooryos Ehlahs could field, years agone, like shit through a goose. And they went on to clobber you Karaleenoee pretty thoroughly, too, didn’t they?”

Tomos sighed and nodded soberly. “That they did, friend Portos, that they assuredly did, over and over again, year after year. We kept on fighting . . . and losing men and lands and battles, for we of Karaleenos are as stubborn and as proud as any other people of the Ehleen race. Hell, we’d probably still be fighting them had not your late and unlamented High King Zastros poised so great a threat that King Zenos decided to make stand with High Lord Milo, Lord Djefree, Lord Alexandros and the rest against a common foe.

“But back to the here and now, Portos. Did you see on your march aught of the mercenary cavalry troop formerly employed by Hahkmukos? Grahvos seemed to think they might be headed back here seeking an employer.”

“Oh, yes, I’d meant to mention that matter earlier, Tomos,” Portos answered. “They’re with my cavalry column, what’s left of them as can still sit a horse, that is. About two thirds of the original troop are alive or were this morning, but most of them are wounded to one degree or another. We came on them camped and licking their wounds three days’ march out of the Duchy of Ahndros.”

“They ran into bandits, did they?” asked Tomos.

Portos pursed his lips. “In a manner of speaking, yes. But, no, just another rendition of the same sad old story: their newly elected captain and a brace of his close friends tried to sneak away one night with the best of the loot of Hahkmukos’ camp, they were caught and killed, and then a general melee ensued. A day later, we came across them. We put down the ones who were clearly death-wounded, of course, and stuffed the ones who couldn’t ride into the ambulance wagons. Our eeahtrohsee have done the best they could for them, but even so, two or three a day have died on the march. What disposition do you want made of them?”

Tomos shrugged. “Well, Grahvos wanted to hire them on for our army, but parcel them out to various existing units. I’ll tell you, take the ones you want of them, if any, and funnel the rest into that squadron of light cavalry that’s being raised. That’s the best I can figure, just now.

“By the way, while the force was down there, Thoheeks Sitheeros brought over an officer from Iron Mountain and introduced him to me. He’s the thoheeks’ war-elephant trainer, one Master of Elephants Laskos. What’s wrong? You know him or something of him, Portos?”

“I’ve never met him, no, Tomos, but, yes, I surely do know of him,” replied Portos, “and I wonder just who twisted just what tails to get him down here. Sitheeros treasures him, and rightly so, too. That man was King Hyamos’ captain-general of the war-elephants. He developed ways of using elephants that no one had ever before known or thought about.

“But he and the usurper, Fahrkos, couldn’t get along. He was declared outlaw and disappeared; for all that Fahrkos had the lands scoured over and over, he never could catch him. Now we know that most of the years he was missing, he was holed up at Iron Mountain with Thoheeks Sitheeros.

“He’s not an Ehleen, you know.”

Tomos nodded. “Yes, I’d thought he didn’t look like one, and he owns a singular accent in his speech, too; I’ve never heard one like it, I don’t believe. Where did he come from?”

Portos shrugged. “Maybe Sitheeros knows, but I don’t. There’re tales about him, though; some say that he came south from the Black Kingdoms, up near Kehnooryos Mahkedohnya, others aver that he is from some land beyond the Eastern Ocean and came by way of Lord Alexandros’ Pirate Isles, long ago, then there are those who think that he came from some place far to the west, beyond the Sea of Grass. I’ve never given much thought to it, any of it.

“What would you, who have at least seen him, say is his age?”

Tomos knitted up his weathered brows. “Oh, I don’t know, fifty, sixty, maybe. Why?”

“Because,” said Portos, “not only was he King Hyamos’ elephant trainer, he also served Hyamos’ father, old King Vitahlyos, which means that the man—who was a man grown, they say, when first he came to these lands of ours—must be in his eighties anyway, if not looking back at his ninetieth year.”

Tomos’ dark eyes widened perceptibly. “You think . . . ? Could it be possible? Might he be one such as High Lord Milo and the High Lady Aldora, then?

But surely, sometime over the years he has dwelt in Ehleen lands, some kooreeos or other has put him to the Test?”

Portos shook his head. “Maybe, in Karaleenos or Kehnooryos Ehlahs or some other land where religion, the old religion, has maintained a stronger hold than here, in the south. But the last dynasty—that of which Hyamos was the last king—had little use for the church and did much to weaken it, strip it of its onetime wealth and power over the nobles and commoners.

“At one time, a century or more back now, kooreeohsee were high noblemen in all save name or title, alone. They held lands and great wealth—supposedly for the Church, of course—they traveled about the kingdom in retinues that included hundreds—sub-kooreeohsee, priests, all manner of servants, fully armed retainers, female concubines or male catamites or both together depending upon their tastes, cooks, servers, all manner of artisans, grooms, entertainers, professional torturers and executioners, scribes, too many others to recount. They owned and right often exercised the power of life and death over commoners and the lower grades of nobility, and they made of extortion a fine art.

“But then, in the time of King Vitahlyos’ great-greatgrandfather, Hyamos the First, they overreached themselves. They first tried to wring more concessions from him who was to be second of his house to rule, and when that failed, they refused to take part in his coronation, then plotted a rebellion against him. But he and his father before him had a broad base of support amongst the nobility, the gentry, even the commoners, and he rode out the troubles.

“Now the Church of that period had for long ruled by fear, and fear breeds hatred, so people supported King Hyamos Kooreeos-bane even more than they had before the Church tried to deny him his father’s throne and have him killed for refusing to become their tool.

“None of that first King Hyamos’ successors ever forgot, and all of them openly persecuted the Church and the kooreeohsee, encouraging all other folk of all classes to emulate them. King Fahrkos, however, was far too busy most of his short reign trying to keep the crown from wobbling off his head, the lands under his control and the life in his body to worry about the Church, but the disturbances of the period between the defeat of the first great rebellion and Zastros’ return from exile affected and afflicted the Church as much as they did all other people of the kingdom.

“We thoheeksee of the Council are not in any manner of means persecuting the Church and the kooreeohsee . . . but, then, we’re not going out of our way to help them or give them power, either. We’re making certain that lands and cities and wealth and power rest in the hands of lay nobility of the proper mindset; if some of them want to give lands or wealth to the Church, that’s their personal business. That’s the way most of us feel about it, though there are a few old-fashioned types—Thoheeks Bahos is an example—who would grind the Church down much farther and far finer.

“But back to Master Laskos. I would be surprised to hear that he ever was put to that brutal, painful, degrading test, not whilst he dwelt here, for under the last dynasty and since, the Church has consistently maintained a very low profile and the kooreeohsee have run scared; they would no more have suggested the testing of a man in service to the king or a powerful thoheeks than they would have suggested testing the king himself.”

“So then,” mused Tomos, “it might be entirely possible that this young-appearing very elderly man is really an Undying. Hmmm. I think that I must send a galloper to the High Lord at Kehnooryos Atheenahs at tomorrow’s dawn; I’d be remiss in my responsibility to both my king and his overlord did I do less.”

Portos squinted under his brows at Gonsalos. “You truly believe, then, that this High Lord Milos is what he and his aver?”

“You do not?” asked the sub-strahteegos.

“Look you, Tomos,” replied Portos evenly, “the man is a fine ruler, an honorable and a generous man, he is a superlative military leader—warrior, tactician and strategist, all rolled into one—and I am much beholden to him personally, but I cannot bring myself to believe him to be an Undying, some seven centuries old, no. His clans all firmly believe in him, yes, but then they are not at all a very sophisticated lot, I think you’ll admit.”

“Then what do you think him to be, Portos?” demanded Tomos.

“I’ve yet to make up my mind,” said Portos flatly, but added, “Physically, he looks very much like one of us, and his Ehleenokos is almost accentless, but what accent remains is that of Pahlahyos Ehlahs—the homeland of our ancestors—or of Kehnooryos Mahkedohnya, whose speech most resembles the archaic patterns and usages. He was clearly born and bred a nobleman and trained to war, whatever his actual place of origin.”

“Think hard before you answer this question, Portos,” said Tomos in warning. “Will your doubts, your distrust of the High Lord’s age and point of origin, affect your military or civil service to the Council and the Confederation?”

Portos snorted. “Of course not! As I said earlier, be he what he is said to be or be he something else entirely, he still is probably the best ruler between here and the Great Northern Sea, and, also, I am beholden to him. I swore him and the Council oaths, and I mean to keep my word and my honor.”

Tomos Gonsalos smiled and nodded. “Fine. Here, have some more of the brandy.”

Captain of Elephants Gil Djohnz, although he had been constrained to give the appearance of being a “good officer,” still harbored an abysmally low opinion of military routine. Taking full advantage of the special status of his war-elephant command, he simply peeled his unit off from the returning column and headed for the river shallows whereat it had become customary to wash his huge beasts in garrison.

By the time that he and the other two feelahksee had laved their charges, their mounts, their dear friends, of an estimated ton of the sticky, gooey red-clay mud and had arrived back at the lofty building that housed both them and the elephants, it was almost dark and the three cow-elephants were yet to be fed, which would entail Gil organizing enough elephant-barn hands to make certain that he and the other two did not get stuck with doing it all.

It was for this reason that he was shocked to the point of utter speechlessness to find the full staff, even the ones who had been on the march with him and had returned here while the elephants were being bathed and whom he fully expected to have decamped to the Kindred horse lines in the interval, waiting and ready to unharness the three massive beasts and lay their food before them. Stunned, it was only on her third attempt that he realized that Newgrass was trying to range him mentally.

“Yes, sister of my sister,” he finally beamed in response.

“The master of elephants from home, he is here, brother of my sister, I can smell him,” she announced.

Peer as he might into the deepening gloom which was only partially dispelled by the light of the wind-blown torches, Gil could not spy a strange Ehleen. Deciding that the long-awaited Master Laskos must be somewhere inside the cavernous barn, the Horseclansman slid easily down to the ground and began to work at loosening the buckles of Sunshine’s harness, his lead being at once followed by the other two feelahksee, the waiting men moving forward to lend a hand at the tasks.

He was approached by a stranger, but he noted that this one was assuredly no Ehleen, either. Though darkly weathered, his skin tone was as fair as that of a Horseclansman, his lips were thin, his close-cropped hair was either blond or white, and in the tricky light of the torches his eyes looked light, too. His clothes were more of an Ehleen cut than Horseclans, but the frame that they swathed was in no way Ehleen-like, being slender, flat-muscled and wiry, no more than a finger or so higher than Gil’s own height.

Gil said, “You can get the buckles on her off side.”

But the stranger just stood looking at Sunshine for a moment; he made no move to help with the work. Finally, he spoke, his Ehleenokos sounding almost pure to Gil, to whom it was not a native language. “Very good, young man, very good. You keep her clean, and that is a something of great importance as regards the proper management of elephants. However, you do not really need a heavy, clumsy, bulky war-saddle like that; a simple pad of folded wool would suffice.”

“Not that it’s any of youraffair ,” blurted out Gil, a bit peeved that the man still had made no move to help him unharness Sunshine, “but I prefer a saddle, and she doesn’t mind. Why should you? Who the hell are you, anyway, and what are you doing here? You obviously are not come to work, to care for my elephants.”

A fleeting smile creased the stranger’s thin lips. “Oh, but you are wrong in that assumption, Captain of Elephants Gil Djohnz. I am come here for precisely that purpose and, I am given to understand, at your expressed request. I am Rikos Laskos, summoned from Iron Mountain by my patron, Thoheeks Sitheeros. I arrived while still you were out on campaign.

“This is your personal elephant, then, the cow called Sunshine? Yes. Well then, will she allow others to do for her? Fine. Then let us go to a place wherein we can converse privately, eh?”

In the cluttered tack room where Gil maintained a sometime office, Laskos seated himself upon a folded barding, such as was draped over war-elephants before mail and plate armor was attached. He flexed a leg, clasped his hands on the knee and leaned back. “Now, tell me the complete truth—what is this business about you being able to talk to elephants and horses, man?” All at once, he mindspoke, very powerfully, “Are you a telepath, then?”

“Yes,” beamed Gil, “and so are you. So why cannot you mindspeak elephants and horses, too?”

“I can mentally communicate with equines, mules, dogs and, to some extent, camels and a number of other animals. But, for some reason, I have never been able to reset my telepathic patterns to those of elephants . . . and I have been trying for more years than you could imagine,” replied Laskos. “How did you learn, Gil Djohnz? Did someone teach you?”

Gil frowned. “Well, not exactly. On the day that Sunshine came out of the river, God Milo approached her and mindspoke her. I and a fellow clansman were with him and helped him and her to take off the armor that was hurting her. I don’t clearly remember just when I started mindspeaking her, but I did. Then, God Milo had me ride her back to our great camp and feed her all of the hay and other foods that she could eat, and after that day, he had my chief free me from all other tasks to allow me to devote all of my time to feeding and otherwise caring for her.

“But I have taught several other Horseclans mindspeakers how to mindspeak elephants, so I can easily show you how, if that is what you and Thoheeks Sitheeros want of me. But what I want of you, in return, is to teach me and the elephants and the other men how to do the things it is necessary for elephants to do in war. Newgrass, the cow that the thoheeks brought down from Iron Mountain, has imparted to us all of her own war training, but she says that there is more that she was never taught or that she now does not recall.

“For instance, she has told us of elephants she has seen hurl spear-sized darts and boulders the size of a man’s head, and wield swords with six-foot blades.”

Laskos flitted another smile, shrugging. “It’s true, some few elephants can be taught to throw oversized darts and big rocks with a fair degree of consistent accuracy, but most cannot, and it is an utter waste of time—yours and theirs—to try to teach them the knack. As for the massive sword business, I suppose that it would work in battle, for a while, though as you’ve no doubt noted, it is the natural inclination of elephants to roll up and safeguard their precious and sensitive and vulnerable trunks in any time of danger.

“Gil Djohnz, there are two major purposes for elephants in warfare, if we disregard their frequent and most sensible roles as draught animals. One use of the two is to armor them heavily and use them to smash through formations of pikemen, spearmen or shield-walls; the other is to use them as moving platforms for dartmen or archers or slingers—fast-walk them along the enemy’s front that the missile-men may bleed the enemy a bit and so soften them up just prior to one’s own lines moving forward in the attack. All other maneuvers of elephants on the field of battle are but variants of these two basics.

“I’ll willingly teach you and the others elephant warfare, but you must understand from the very onset that these beasts have some very definite limitations and a host of weaknesses and vulnerable points; in some ways, indeed, they’re more delicate than horses.

“But first”—he abruptly stood up—“let us go outside and talk to your elephants, you and I.”