“Damn you, Milo!” she raged. “You just tell that to the horses I’ve foundered this blasted night and morning. And you and the young duke had better not bite off too much out there, either, because he’ll not bring any more men than I can find remounts for. And I doubt there’re a hundred horses here.”
Aloud, Milo sighed. “All right, Aldora, I’ll suggest a halt to rest and clean our weapons. As I recall, the road crosses a sizable rill just ahead. But send the troops, don’t come yourself—there’re two witchmen in the cellars of Morguhn Hall and you’re the only person I’m willing to entrust them to. They’re drugged now and I want them kept that way until we can get them up to Kehnooryos Atheenahs.”
‘Tired and filthy as I am, I’ll not protest that order, Milo. Besides,” she added, “it will give me a chance to see sweet Ahndee again. You did say that he’s recuperating here, did you not?”
Milo grinned broadly at the bloody ground and broken cornstalks before him. “Lord Ahndros is being tended by the woman he loves, Aldora, and I don’t think the lady would appreciate your overtender solicitude for the welfare of the man she will wed. Why don’t you save yourself for that woman’s son, eh? Thoheeks Bili Morguhn is your kind of man—strong, brave, outspoken, ruthless toward his foes, virile and handsome. And he’s every bit as bloodthirsty as you are, my dear. He only spares the lives of those men he means to see tortured to death.”
“If you don’t like what he’s doing, Milo, why don’t you Stop him?” Aldora asked.
He sighed again, shaking his steel-encased, sweating head. “No, I don’t like it, sweetheart. What’s left of my twentieth-century conscience cringes at this morning’s work. But I also recognize facts, no matter how unpalatable to a man of my century. What Bili is doing is brutal, but it will be as effective as was the Gafnee affair. If he’s allowed to put down the rebellion in his way, he’ll provide a meaningful example to every thoheekahtohn in the Confederation, for one thing; for another, if he manages to net all the rebellious nobles, the commoners will never again dare to even think of rebellion within his lifetime. Nor will he need to worry about the Ehleen priests inciting any more of this kind of trouble.”
“Sacred Sun be praised!” the woman exclaimed feelingly. “Mara will be pleased to know that you’re finally going to scotch those black-robed vultures.”
“I’ve never liked them any more than have you and Mara, Aldora, but they do happen to have a following, both noble and common. Proscribing their hierarchy without damned good cause would have been tantamount to bringing about a Confederation-wide rebellion … and the directors of that goddam Center knew the fact and used it against us.
“Gafnee was simply not enough provocation, unfortunately. You heard that mealy-mouthed Ahrkee’ehpeeskohpos Grehgohreeos whine and grovel and avow that it was an isolated incident of which he’d had no prior knowledge.”
“Yes,” agreed Aldora. “I recall his performance and I wondered, at the time, if he might not sing a different tune under the skillful direction of good Master Fyuhstohn. Do you want me to tell Mara to have him arrested?”
Leading his drooping horse around a fly-buzzing huddle of hacked bodies, Milo shook his head again. “No, not yet, not until this present business is more widely publicized. Just tell her to make damned sure the old buzzard doesn’t leave the city—for any reason!”
“You think then that he, too, is a witchman?” Aldora inquired.
“No,” he assured her. “Our precious archbishop isn’t clever enough to be one of those vampires. Oh, he’s shrewd, I grant you that, but he’s made errors of judgment of which a really intelligent man would never have been guilty. Nonetheless, I’m damned sure that he knows far more of this conspiracy than he would have us believe. After all, it was he who appointed our three murderous witchmen-cum-kooreeohee at Gafnee, Vawn and here in Morguhn.”
She questioned sadly, “All of the Clan Vawn kindred are truly gone to Wind, then, Milo?”
“It appears so, I’m sorry to say, for the get of brave old Djoh have been good men and quite valuable to the Confederation, over the years. But, from all I’ve heard of their passing, I think he’d have been proud of them. They took more than a few of the rebels with them. It’s said they held the entire mob at bay for weeks, holed up in old Fort Brohdee. And they’d probably still be there, had they faced steel alone.
“And that reminds me, Aldora. Place a heavy round-the-clock guard on that big, gilded wain. Keep it well away from any fires and see that no one touches it or any of its contents. According to what I can comprehend of the instructions, those bombs are all safe to handle and transport, but we dare not take chances, since there’re enough explosives in that wain to vaporize the hall and the hill and every living creature in or on or around it.
“But I’ve got to speak to Duke Bili, now. Ill resume contact when we halt. About a half-hour, I’d say.”
The stallion, Mahvros, was not as done in as Mile’s horse, but he too was obviously tired, standing docilely while cropping half-heartedly at a patch of weeds. He had lost his white stockings; they were now red-blood red. His cheeks and spiked faceplate, his massive barrel and the mail protecting his neck and withers, all were liberally splashed with crimson gore.
Astride the stallion sat an apparition of death incarnate. From sole to crest, Bili’s boots and armor were besplattered with large splotches of dusty, crusty blood, the whole being sprinkled with gobbets of flesh and chips of winking-white bone. His terrible axe rested across the saddlebow, dripping slow, clotting droplets onto the steel cuishe which covered his left thigh.
But, beneath the raised visor, his blue eyes sparkled and a smile of grim satisfaction partially erased the lines of fatigue in his weather-browned face. When he sighted the High Lord approaching, his smile broadened and he raised his blood-slimy gauntleted hand in greeting.
“Ho, my lord! It’s a good morning’s work thus far. I doubt that an equal number of Blue Bear Knights could have done as well. Why, there must be near on a thousand of the would-be pikepushers dead in this field alone!”
A shadow glided across Milo’s path and he glanced up at a wide-banking turkey buzzard, one of an increasing number that were awaiting die departure of the living from the cornfield which was to be their feasting ground. The buzzards, at least, were silent. Unlike the brazen black carrion crows who were already flocking to the tons of still-quivering man-flesh, while filling the air with harsh cries.
“My only regret,” added the young thoheeks, frowning for a moment, “is that there were just too few of us, so far too many of those murderous swine got away. But”—his smile returned—“I warrant they’ll not stop running until their damned legs will no longer bear them; then they’ll crawl for a while—and it will take more than a gaggle of demented priests abetted by a pack of perverted nobles to persuade them to again bear arms against their lawful lord!”
Though he made his lips return the young warrior’s smile, Milo thought that he had not pictured his thoheeksee ever ruling their demesnes as Bili must now rule this one in years to come—owning not his people’s love but their fear and hatred. That fear and hatred engendered by the brutal butchery, the victims of which lay stiffening in this field, as well as by the ravagings and savageries which must surely come ere the witchmen’s poison be rooted out of Morguhn and Vawn.
It was a surface thought and unshielded, so easily grasped by Bili’s sensitive mind. “But what other course can be taken, my lord? What else can I do?” came his powerful mindspeak. His own thoughts were a roil of disappointment and sorrow that he had so displeased his respected overlord, simply by doing mat which his instinct and training assured him was right.