“Cease firing!” ordered Genera! Jay Corbett into his transceiver mouthpiece. “All sections cease firing. Cease firing and dismantle weapons. Horse handlers forward. Out.”
Turning to Gumpner, he said, “All right, Gump, you take over from here. Get the mortars and everything else repacked and get ready to march.”
“There’re a few rockets and some mortar bombs left, sir,” replied the colonel. “It might be interesting to see what the effect of them would be on a stone-walled city ... ?”
“No,” responded Corbett, shaking his head. “I’ve no desire to kill or hurt any more of those poor buggers. The barrage was simply to keep them occupied, off our necks until Dr. Arenstein could get away and join us. We’ve accomplished that and, so far as I’m concerned, the action is over and done.”
He turned to his waiting chief-of-scouts. “Johnny, you and Merle find me the shortest, easiest route back to the site of the landslide. My fondest desire, at this moment, is to get my original mission completed and get us all back to Broomtown in one piece.”
As the scouts conferred one with the other, Corbett strode over to where the three Skohshun prisoners sat and dismissed the armed guards, ordering them to fetch back the prisoners’ mounts and arms.
“Gentlemen, I’m releasing you, as I promised I would do once my mission was accomplished. Where you go now is up to you, but I would imagine they could use your help over in that camp, what’s left of it. There are certain to be wounded men in there.”
Then he turned to the youngest of the Skohshuns, a peglegged boy whose face looked somewhat older than his chronological age. “Ensign Thomas Grey, please convey upon your next meeting with your mother, the Lady Pamela Grey, my sincerest regards and my best wishes for her future happiness. She is a splendid woman, sir, a true lady in every conceivable way. Had I met a woman like her long, long, long ago ... well, never mind. God speed you safely home, gentlemen, all of you.”
In the early evening of the day of that duel interrupted by fiery, deadly thunders, Duke Bili the Axe again occupied his accustomed place at the head of the table of the royal councilors of the Kingdom of New Kuhmbuhluhn, but that table and the chamber itself were both far more crowded than was usual. Extra chairs and stools had been lugged in from hither and yon, space made at the table sides to seat twice as many men, with others ranged against the walls on stools and a brace of benches.
They had all just heard what had really happened to drive them and their followers, willy-nilly, up here into New Kuhmbuhluhnburk that afternoon. Those who had recounted the fantastical tale—a one-legged boy-warrior a few years Bili’s junior and a brace of Skohshun officer-gallopers, all of whom had been prisoners of the strange, alien force which had wrought such havoc—had been sincerely thanked and dismissed from the chamber. The first to speak, then, was Bili.
“Well, gentlemen, at least we now know the truth of that scary business down there today. The Eastern Confederation, of which my Duchy of Morguhn is a vassal state, has suffered much in recent years from the sinister plottings and incursions of those damned Witchmen, and I’m right sorry to see them this far west. But they seem to thrive best where there is warfare and dissension, nor are they at all loath to foment chaotic conditions where none formerly existed. They cannot seem to exist in a land of peace and order, and so, if you Kuhmbuhluhn and Skohshun folk don’t want them back in your laps again, it is imperative that you settle your differences and begin to live amicably, one with the other.”
Noting the dark, sullen glances at each other of the two, previously warring races, the young commander went on to say, “Understand, gentlemen, I don’t give a real damn whether or not you all chop each other into gobbets, once I am gone. It’s none of my affair, to speak true. My contracts all are discharged and as soon as I can gather all my followers and set them on the march, I mean to recross the mountains, collect the cubs—human and feline—that we left in Sandee’s Cot last spring, and return back whence we came.
“You men all are my elders, and, it is bruited about at least, age imparts wisdom. Surely you men are wise enough to see that you must reconcile your differences and merge your two races into one, else you will soon be easy prey to the Witchmen or to any other united and disciplined force that comes your way. Such a race are your eastern neighbors, the Ahrmehnee stahn, nor can I truly believe that you have seen the last of the outlaw-Ganiks, the cannibals.
“I have talked with Sir Ahrthur, Sir Djahn, Sir Djaimz and Captain Baron Devernee, this day, and all agree that this war has been an ill-starred business from start to date. They admit to being as much at fault for the inception of hostilities as were you Kuhmbuhluhners, which is, I trow, a good place to commence the ending of it.
“They have no desire to extirpate the folk of New Kuhmbuhluhn. They are only seeking land to farm and live upon and raise their families on, having been driven from off their own lands by a hostile invader. Now, in the wake of the departures of the Ganiks, there are huge tracts of empty, tenantless, but potentially rich land south of the mountains, and there are nowhere near to approaching enough New Kuhmbuhluhn folk to adequately settle and work them. You know that and I know that, no matter how much you may protest the contrary.
“Now, the House of Mahrloh is extinct, so there is presently no king in New Kuhmbuhluhn, and, barring a miracle, I cannot imagine you councilors soon agreeing upon one of your number for that office.”
Archcount Sir Daifid Howuh sneeringly asked, “And I suppose that your grace expects us to choose and try to live under one of these damned savage brutes of Skohshuns? Methinks your grace today took some stray buffet that addled your grace’s brains. A Skohshun king of New Kuhmbuhluhn, indeed!”
Bili shook his shaven head. “No, Archcount Howuh, a king of any sort—Kuhmbuhluhner or Skohshun—was not really that of which I was thinking.”
“Well, what the hell else is there, sir duke,” demanded Duke Klyv Wahrtuhn, exasperatedly, “save anarchy?”
Bili steepled his thick, callused fingers and gazed over their tips at the men ranged along the two sides of the table. “There is the path that the Republic of Eeree took long ago when faced with similar difficulties; now that republic is every bit as strong and as prosperous as the kingdoms of Harzburk or Pitzburk.”
“Ah, yes,” responded Archcount Howuh, “I think I recall hearing tales from Old Kuhmbuhluhn regarding that strangely governed state. Please, your grace of Morguhn, say on.”
Naturally, it was not as easy as all that. Sectarian differences ran too deep and wide in both New Kuhmbuhluhn and Skohshun, not to even mention the basic hostility of the one race for the other in the wake of the recent unpleasantnesses. It all required the best part of two weeks of almost ceaseless, day- and nightlong discussions, arguments, name-callings, shouting matches, table poundings, wall poundings and other clear evidences of strong wills and adult temper tantrums. And it all devolved into no worse only because Bili wisely barred even the smallest, least innocuous edge weapons from the chamber and tried to see to it that the various factions were lodged as far from one another as was possible in the overcrowded palace and city.