“But you are right, Bili,” Milo beamed gently. “You have followed the best course available to you, are pursuing the only choice that this time, this place, this world will allow you. It is your lord who is truly in the wrong!
“Just last night, I chided the witchman who calls himself Skiros for attempting to apply the standards of a long-dead time and world to the here and now. This morning, I find myself guilty of the same folly.
“If any erred, it was me, young Bili; and that was long years before ever your grandfather’s grandfather first saw Sacred Sun. I should have realized that the Ehleen Church would never forget, never forgive me for weakening their stranglehold on their adherents, for discrediting their motives and for depriving them of most of their ill-gotten gains.
“I should have known that they would always provide a chink in the Confederation’s armor and than, sooner or later, some enemy would discover and utilize that opening. And now we know that an enemy did just that.
“Bili, do you recall the conversation we had at Horse Hall? How I compared rebellion to a festered wound?”
Unconsciously, the thoheeks moved his head in an affirmative, the blood-draggled plume nodding above the blued-steel bear which surmounted his helm. “Yes, my lord,” he beamed.
“Then you are aware that that evil infection has all but gobbled up Vawn and is deeply seated in Morguhn. So, regrettably, our surgery must be most extreme. You and I and the Undying Lady Aldora must be the physicians, Bili. Your brave Kinsmen and retainers, Chief Hwahltuh and his clansmen, and the Confederation troops must be our instruments.
“The initial cuts were made last night and this morning, but we must cut far deeper, deeply enough to be certain that we have excised the last trace of the infection. So heed you not those who would gainsay you in this, the work you know best. Sacred Sun was watching over our Confederation on the day you were sent to the court of King Gilbuht, for he has made of you the man whom I need in the present unpleasantness.
“I am displeased, Bili, but by the circumstances only. All that I have thus far seen of you is very pleasing, and when Morguhn and Vawn are both cleansed and again at peace, you shall experience the gratitude of the High Lord.”
II
Sweat-soaked and dust-coated. Lord Drehkos Daiviz came within sight of the City of Morguhnpolis and vainly spur-raked his mount’s heaving, foam-flecked barrel. Valiantly, the well-bred gray gave his best remaining effort, little as that was; but both he and his rider might have saved their exertions, for the east gate remained tightly closed, even when the_ weary vahrohneeskos drew his sword and pounded its pommel upon the thick old timbers.
Kneeing the staggering, trembling horse out from the gate arch, the rebel nobleman craned his neck until he could see to the top of the gate tower.
“Damn your eyes, Toorkos!” he roared at the gate sergeant, who was leaning on a merlon. “You know who I ami Open the goddam gatel It is imperative that I see Lord Myros at once!”
But the dark, chunky man shook his balding head. “We dare not raise a single bar, Lord Drehkos. Were we to so much as crack any of the gates, we’d never get them closed, we wouldn’t, ere most of the esteemed citizens of this city were gone, and Lord Myros says that we’ll need them all for either defenders or hostages.”
Drehkos shrugged. “Then drop me a rope, man.”
From atop the wall, the city streets resembled nothing so much as an overturned anthill. Women and children, girls and boys and a few men scurried to and fro, seemingly aimlessly. The cacophony of shouts and screams and wails smote painfully upon Drehkos’ ears and helped him to understand why the gate guards appeared so surly and vicious. Half a dozen arrow-studded corpses lay sprawled on the bloody stones just shy of the gate, and, ignored by the throngs, a middle-aged woman dragged herself, slowly, painfully, up High Street, a heavy iron dart shaft standing out from the small of her back.
“The cowardly pack tried to rush the gate, my lord,” offered the sergeant, Toorkos, when he saw Drehkos eyeing the carnage. “Tried to shift the bars by brute strength, they did. But Lord Myros give us our orders when he posted us here. And we persuaded them to leave them gates be, we did!”
“Rather sharp persuasion, I’d say,” remarked Drehkos wryly. But the witticism was lost on the sergeant. Drehkos then ordered, “I’ll need a horse, Toorkos, and, from the look of things, probably an escort, as well.”
But, ignoring alike importunings and orders, Toorkos flatly refused to part with even a single archer or spearman. And of horses he had none, but he at least gave Drehkos a hooded cloak to cover his armor and, hopefully, conceal his identity from the ugly, dangerous mob, until he might win to the city governor’s palace.
When at last he stood before the huge, ornate, brass-sheathed doors of the building, he was presented with another problem—how to rap loudly enough to gain the attention of those within without also bringing the mob, which he had thus far largely avoided. But he had only put hand to swordhilt, when a small door set within one of the larger ones swung open to reveal the beak-nosed visage of Gahlos Gahlahktios, Lord Myros’ guard captain.
“Thank God you’re safe, lord vahrohneeskosl You are …” he began.
But Drehkos roughly shouldered him aside as he stepped over the high sill and entered the abbreviated courtyard of the palace. “Where,” he snarled, “is your thrice-damned coward of a master? Where cowers the self-proclaimed, oft-proclaimed, ‘Savior of Morguhn,’ eh? In a cellar? In a closet? Under his bed?”
Before the stuttering officer could frame an answer, Vahrohnos Myros stood in the doorway of the palace proper, his handsome, regular features drawn with worry and tension. But his voice was calm and unruffled, albeit a little sad.
“I am most relieved to see you, Drehkos. You would have ridden with me, had we been able to find you in that unholy mess last night. Have you seen aught of Nathos or Djaimos or Captain Manos?”
Myros’ evident self-control took some measure of the edge from Drehkos’ anger, and he answered shortly, “Manos is dead, trampled to death in a stampede of his own troops’ horses. The valiant Nathos was found wandering, witless with terror; I had him knocked in the head and put on one of the coaches with the wounded. Of Djaimos I know nothing. But Myros, why did you not wait long enough to help us, at least, in organizing a decent withdrawal? The Confederation cavalry weren’t all that close—not when you must have left.”
Eyes widening, Myros’ face paled and he tottered back, clutching at the doorframe for support. “Con-Confederation cavalry? You… you’re certain?”
Drehkos strode forward, his lips skinned back in a wolfish grin, amused at the abrupt collapse of Myros’ bravado. “Oh, aye, I’m certain, Myros. Where else would several thousand fully armed and equipped kahtahfrahktoee and some hundreds of lancers come from, hey?”
The … the troops of Vawn… ? The re-reinforcements we ex-expected … ?” stuttered the shaking vahrohnos.
Drehkos laughed gratingly. “Hardly, Myros, hardly. Not riding in from the northwest. And the Vawnee scouts recognized none of them. And,” he casually added, “their banners bore prairiecats … all save one, and that one was a fish and something like a weasel, or so I was told.” Then he fell silent, aghast, as the vahrohnos’ appearance and demeanor underwent so sudden and radical a change that he seemed in the throes of a seizure.
Features contorted, body and limbs jerking, twitching, the vahrohnos stumbled back into the foyer, then crashed back full-length upon the floor, sprawled across a mosaic representing the Red Eagle of Morguhn. Abruptly, his eyes rolled back and consciousness left him.
The shock mirrored on the faces of servants and bodyguards alike, as they rushed to the assistance of their swooning master, answered Drehkos’ unspoken query; such paroxysms must never before have occurred during their service to Vahrohnos Myros.