“What?” said Hahfos sarcastically. “Only duke-grade? Shameful!” Then in his normal tone, “Even with the sizable pension for your Golden Cat, you’d have to live on air for a good five years to save enough to buy a sword like that.”
“But I ... but Djim Bohluh dint buy the sword, my lord.”
In mock horror, Hahfos asked, “You stole, Djim? A good, honest, honorably retired veteran of the Confederation Army stole?”
Old Djim forgot himself long enough to show worn yellow teeth in a sly grin. “Near enough as, my lord. I won the dirk and the sword, too, off the captain of the bodyguards of the ambassador of the King of Pitzburk, up to Kehnooryos Atheenahs.”
Hahfos, too, grinned. “Two dice or five, Djim?”
“Five ... and my old dicecup,” the oldster replied.
“And beautifully, unnoticeably tapered, without a doubt,” laughed Hahfos. “The old army game, played by a past master. Didn’t the poor barbarian bastard even suspect he’d been had?”
“Not until that next mornin’,” answered Bohluh. “Summa his frin’, they come up t’ me and ’lowed as how I hadda give back his thangs or faht him. So I fit him, down to the guards barricks, thet aftuhnoon. He won’ worth a damn with a shortsword and a army shield, but the bugger had guts, put up a dang good fight, he did.”
“Did you kill him, Djim?” inquired Hahfos, as the old man paused to wet his throat from the contents of his silver cup.
“No sir, my lord, jes’ smashed his kneecap and mashed in his nose and all, both of ’em with the shield, too, never evun laid the shortsword to any part of him won’t armored, I dint.”
“I assume, to have been an officer of the ambassador’s guards, this man must have been a nobleman of the Middle Kingdoms. So what was the upshot of your crippling him, Djim?”
“Wal, my lord, sir, the ambassador’d been watchin’ I come to fin’ out. Raht then and there, he offered fer to hire me to go up nawth to Pitzburk and teach shieldwork to his king’s whole dang army. I tol’ him I’d have to thank on it, but I couldn’ do it nohow til aftuh I done a job fer the High Lord and High Lady. He gimme this here ring and said whenever I wuz to come to Pitzburk, to give it to enybody at the palace and ast fer Archduke Brytuhn.”
Hahfos whistled softly. “Sun and Wind, man, that’s the king’s half brother. As I said earlier, you have powerful friends in high places.” He paused, then asked, “He knighted you, too, didn’t he, Djim?”
The broad, beefy old man flushed. “Don’ mean diddly, my lord, sir, not in the Confederation, it don’t. ’Sides, it ain’ like I earned it or nuthin’, like I done fer to git my Cat.”
“Oh, but it does mean something, Sir Djim Bohluh,” said Hahfos gently. “It means a great deal. As for earning it, the archduke obviously felt you deserved it for a notable combat. And I’m more than certain that you earned that and more many times, when there was no officer surviving to bear witness, over the forty-odd years you soldiered in our army. Djim, even in officer circles, you were a living legend; you’d have been an officer yourself, had you not been such a boozing, brawling, profane, insubordinate rakehell, when in garrison. But that’s all years agone, Sir Djim, I’m no longer an officer of that army and you’re no longer a sergeant. However, I’ll issue you this one, last command: start wearing that order, today, now! It may not mean much to you, yet, but it will mean a great deal to the only disciplined troops I can just now let you have to take west with you. They’re all Freefighters from the Middle Kingdoms, one and all, and I’ve no slightest doubt but that they’ll be happier following the banner ... you do have a banner? Well, never you mind, you’ll have one before you leave here; these Ahrmehnee women are marvelously skilled at all manner of embroidery.
“Anyhow, these Freefighters would rather be led by a Knight of the Black Bull of Pitzburk than by anyone else present in this area, I’ll wager. There are a hundred and ninety-two of them—all dragoons, well mounted, well armed, good soldiers, as their type goes. Of course, you’ll need guides, translators, and it just so happens that I can help you there, too.
“You’ll dine at my home tonight, and I’ll there introduce you to Freefighter Captain Guhntuh and a couple of Ahrmehneewarriors I think you’ll like. Oh, and Sir Djim, be sure to wear that ring and your order, eh?”
When the Ahrmehnee messenger, a Taishyuhn tribesman, had departed Sir Geros Lahvoheetos’ house-cum-headquarters to dine with Soormehlyuhn distant-cousins, the young knight drained off his jack of brandy-water and, while absently refilling it from the ewer, remarked, “A Knight of the Order of the Black Bull of Pitzburk, that Ahrmehnee said, Pawl. On his way down here with nearly tenscore Freefighters, three more Moon Maidens and more than threescore Ahrmehnee warriors he’s paid the rent on from a couple of the dehrehbeh,
“I could understand it if it were old Komees Hari or even the High Lord sending us reinforcements, but what the hell is a nobleman of Pitzburk doing down here?”
“Sir Geros, lad,” replied the gray-haired, fiftyish Freefighter officer, “Duke Bili’s dam, you must remember, is a daughter of the Duke of Zuhnburk. That means that he has relatives of varying degrees of kinship all over the Middle Kingdoms. No doubt some of the returning Freefighters took word of his disappearance in these mountains up to Pitzburk, and this is the response of some cousin or other ... and he must be a well-heeled cousin, son Geros, for you know these Ahrmehnee don’t rent their fighters cheap.”
“But, damn it all!” swore Sir Geros, “We could have marched tomorrow ... or the day after, anyway. Why in hell must we wait another fortnight or more for this damned Pitzburker?”
Captain Pawl Raikuh took his own jack down from his lips and said, matter-of-factly, “Because the addition of him and his force will give you something on the order of six hundred swords at your back, that’s why; this Pitzburker comes well dowered indeed, Sir Geros. I say that despite the fact that I’m a native Harzburker, and as is well known, we Harzburkers own damn-all love for any shoat out of the Pitzburk sty.”
He sighed, then, cracking his prominent knuckles loudly, added, “All the same, I’ll feel considerably better to be riding off into those mountains and into the lap of Steel knows how many more Ganiks in the company of six hundred rather than a mere four hundred fighters, Pitzburkers or no.
“Yes, Sir Geros, you’d be well advised, I think, to wait for this Black Bull knight ... for a moon, if necessary.”
Captain Djeri Guhntuh had grown old in professional soldiering—which was adequate statement of his luck, survival instincts and combat skills. He was well over fifty years of age, only some ten years younger, truth to tell, than was Sir Djim Bohluh. Unlike most Freefighter officers, he was not noble-born, though years of command under, with and over born nobility had rubbed a certain amount of polish onto his bearing and manner. He was quite simply a born leader of men and a well-proven combat commander; soldiers all followed him or heeded him automatically. The same was true of old Sir Djim, and the two men recognized their mutual and close similarities on first meeting. Before they finally rode forth from the principal village of the Taishyuhn Tribe and headed southwest, they were become fast friends and they shared command with a natural ease.
As they wound their way through the territories of the various tribes which constituted this southern branch of the Ahrmehnee stahn, their native contingent grew, apace, as the Ahrmehnee-wise march warden, Hahfos, had bade them expect. The messenger sent ahead to Sir Geros Lahvoheetos—thought to still be bivouacked in Behdrozyuhn lands with his own force of Freefighters and Moon Maidens—had alerted any Ahrmehnee warriors with itchy feet or a need for hard money that a low-lander with a need for fighters and the wherewithal to pay their hire was coming.