“Whaaat?” Myros set down his cup with a thump. “Why, Name of God, man, you’ve wrought no less than miracles along those lines. True, my station has been rather lowly of past weeks: nonetheless, I have heard and seen what you are doing, for all the city is a-babble with your exploits.”
He shook his shaggy head in wonder. “Just take that pair of salients, for example. A man with one eye and half a brain could have noted the inherent weakness of that stretch of wall, and it virtually infiladed by those two little knolls, but the quickest thought to most minds would have been to either raise the level of the wall, lower the heights of the knolls, or both together. Drehkos, I have school training and much experience at fortifications and siegecraft but I would never have conceived of so brilliant an answer to that problem.
“You are heightening the wall, yes, but you are also making two trusty little strongpoints of those knolls. Strongpoints, furthermore, which can be safely supplied and reinforced from within the city, via the tunnels you had those refugee miners sink. And when the strongpoints fall—as fall they must—you’ll be able to get any survivors out, then, still from within the city, and fire those oil-soaked supporting timbers so that tunnels and strongpoints will come crashing down into a heap of rubble useless to the enemy for aught save engine missiles!
“It is a stroke of sheer genius, Drehkos. But more than that, it indicates the workings of a mind well versed in the intricacies of defensive warfare. I had thought that I knew all about you, but obviously I was wrong. Now, I know that you never served the Confederation, so where did you acquire such superb knowledge of siegecraft?”
Drehkos smiled slightly. “From King Buhk Headsplitter of Pitzburk and Kahleefah Ahnbahr Nahseerah of Zahrtohgah.”
Myros froze, sat stockstill, a glimmer of fear flitting in his eyes. Then he hastily signed himself, whispering, “Are … are you then one of them, an Undying? Such you must be if you are speaking truth, for King Buhk has been dead at least four hundred years, while the Nahseerah Dynasty was deposed more than two centuries ago!”
When Drehkos had brought out the books and Myros had examined mem, he again shook his head. “These are real treasures, Drehkos. I’m familiar, of course, with Gabos’ work, and the High Lady’s book is a standard text for cavalrymen. Greemnos’ is much rarer, however. I have never seen a copy outside the Confederation Library in Kehnooryos Atheenahs. As for the other two, I was unaware that King Buhk had ever made record of his views and experiences. Do you think it authentic?”
Drehkos shrugged. “Who can say, Myros? But that parchment is very ancient, and whoever wrote it certainly knew his business. So, too, did the author of this one.” He tapped a nail on the worm-eaten binding of the last book.
Myros picked it up and, opening it, once more peered helplessly at the flowing, esoteric characters in which it was penned. “As to that, Drehkos, I’ll have to take your word, since such barbaric hentracks are beyond me. Where did you learn to decipher such?”
Smiling sadly, Drehkos answered, “Along with his fortune, I inherited my father-in-law’s library, which was large and varied since he and his kindred do business in many lands. My dear Rehbehkah taught me how to read this script, which is called Ahrahbik, as she had learned from her sire along with the writing, though that last I could never get the hang of.”
“A most wise and erudite folk,” commented Myros. “I once heard the Holy Skiros attest that our Faith was in very, very ancient days, an outgrowth of theirs. Did your wife ever discourse on such matters?”
Drehkos sighed. “Alas, no. I think me she thought not well of her father’s religion, since she so soon cleaved to Sun and Wind—or perhaps she did such for love of me. Her love, unlike mine, flowered quickly, and that blossom flourished grandly all her life, Wind bear her gently. You know, cousin, often of late I—” He broke off with a “Harumpf,” straightened in his chair and stared across at his seedy guest.
“Well, what say you? Will you help me—us? After all, the young thoheeks wants your head and balls every bit as badly as he wants mine.”
“There’s that, true enough,” nodded Myros. “And God knows, I’d much prefer a soldier’s existence to that which I’ve recently led. But with these wondrous books and the knowledge you’ve gained from them, what need have you of me? Compared to such as authored this library, I am amateurish, indeed. Or is your overgenerous request but charity? Even humbled as I am now, I do not think what pride remains mine could bear to accept such a sop—not of you.”
“Let’s not fence,” snapped Drehkos. ‘Time is the one commodity we all lack. I have always detested you, Myros, and the decadent Ehleen perversions which you embody. But that is neither here nor there. I need your help; it is only incidental that, in order to make use of your help, I must help you to regain your previous station and grant you a degree of power. But be forewarned, Myros, none who were there—Vawnee or Morguhnee—have forgotten that night under the walls of Morguhn Hall or your craven conduct; with or without my order, you’ll be closely watched and every word you utter will be borne back to me.
“I ask your help for but one reason. With your training, you stand to gain more, and more quickly, from these books than can I, and while you are supervising the fortification projects, I can better occupy myself with the multitude of other necessities now weighing upon me. I need an answer now, Myros. Will you say ‘yea’ or ‘nay”?”
X
Midsummer was three weeks gone when the vanguard of the Confederation forces passed the cairns marking the Morguhn-Vawn border and trotted southwest along the ascending grade of the traderoad, the force strung out for miles behind them—heavily armed noble cavalry, kahtahfrahktoee, Freefighters, rank upon rank of the various types of infantry, sappers and engineers with their dismantled engines and wagonloads of other equipment, “flesh tailors” or medical personnel and their wagons, then the seemingly endless baggage and supply train, followed by a strong mounted rearguard and flanked by scattered lancers, Freefighters and the Sanderz clansmen. The great cats had all been left in Morguhn, since their value in static warfare was practically nil and their dietary requirements—fresh meat, many pounds per day per cat—would have placed an added burden on an already harried supply service, but Milo had promised them all that when the time for the intaking of Vawnpolis came they would be speedily fetched.
That night’s camp was pitched among the hills of Vawn, centered about what had been the hall of Vahrohnos Hehrbuht Pehree, now looted and empty, but still habitable. In the high-ceilinged dining chamber were gathered the ahrkeethoheeks, the ten thoheeksee, Milo, Aldora and the siegemaster of the Confederation, just down from Kehnooryos Atheenahs.
On the high table about which they stood or sat reposed a huge box of sand containing a representation of Vawnpolis and its immediate environs—the countryside reproduced from army maps and the city layout from the original plans, brought from the capital.
The siegemaster, one Ehdt Gahthwahlt, a Yorkburker veteran of twenty years of campaigning across the length and breadth of the Middle Kingdoms, ere he sold his sword to the High Lord and settled in the Confederation to instruct officers in the arts of siegecraft, had personally constructed the mockup. Scratching at his grizzled, balding head, he said self-deprecatingly, “Of course, noble gentlemen and lady, we were wise to draft but the most superficial plans and stratagems at this time, for, though I followed faithfully the rendering”—he used his pointer to indicate the ceramic miniatures of walls, gates and towers, and the minuscule citadel, from whose highest point jutted a tiny pennon bearing the Ehleen Cross, emblem of the rebels—“the place was founded more than fifty years ago, and cities have a way of changing.”