Myros, tied facedown behind Komees Djeen’s saddle, had recovered his breath as well as his supercilious manner. “Listen to me, Komees Djeen. Despite the crimes to which you were a party upstairs, if you and the others will surrender to me now, I give you my word that you’ll have an impartial hearing and a quick, painless death.”
Djeen snorted scornfully. “Your word, Myros? Your word pledged your loyalty to Bili and his father, when you were confirmed to your title and lands. Today has proven your precious word to not be worth a scant measure of turkey dung!”
“The House of Morguhn,” snarled Myros, “is and has always been usurping squatters, old man! My ancestors held this land when yours were scratching fleas on the Sea of Grass! The very first King of Karaleenos …”
“The very last King of Karaleenos,” the one-eyed Komees coldly interrupted, “is generations dead! You are a rebel, a traitor, a liar, a murderer, and, I doubt me not, much more and worse besides. In the Middle Kingdoms, such a one as you would be slowly whipped to death or impaled. When your mind runs to quick, painless deaths, you had best pray your obscene god for one. For do not forget, you forsworn pig, Bill’s upbringing was in the Middle Kingdoms!”
“Ha!” exclaimed Myros. “Dream on, dream on. You barbarians will never leave my city alive! You … gaaaagh!”
He broke off in a strangled scream, as the Komees sunk the needle point of his hook deep into the prisoner’s thigh. As he jerked out the brass hook, he grimly admonished, “Another word out of you, overassumptive degenerate, and I’ll jam my hook up your arse, and don’t think I won’t!”
But it began to appear that Myros might have been correct, for a growing rabble of Morguhnpolisee were beginning to mill about the foot of the formal garden which fronted the city palace. Few were armed at all and most of those ill armed, though more than a few pikepoints glittered above them. However, there were already several hundred there being harangued by priests, and the side streets and alleys were debouching more.
Slapping down his half visor, Bili uncased his axe, wishing for the umpteenth time that it was reliable Mahvros he bestrode, rather than this green, less than intelligent gelding. The others ranged out on his flanks, most now bearing one of the twelve-foot pikes, as well as the swords and light axes they had brought into the city.
Djehf hefted the heavy shaft, eyeing the wicked, two-foot blade. “I’ve never before used one of these for a lance, Lord Brother, and it’s not really weighted properly for that purpose, but,” he chuckled, “I trow I’ll spit me a few fat Ehleenoee ganders on it!”
Bili nodded shortly. “Aye, we must make do with the weapons to hand. Be sure that you ride well clear of me, youngster. I’d hate to axe you in error.”
Djehf laughed merrily. “Never you fear, Lord Brother, I’ve ridden the battle line with axemen, ere this. Besides, I’ve an odd aversion to being axed-in error or other-wise.”
Toeing his gelding forward of the line, Bili reined him about and visually inspected his minuscule force. Klairuhnz, having had second thoughts, had transferred Kooreeos Skiros’s limp body to the withers, where he could more easily keep an eye on him. As Bili watched, the Bard drew the saber that had served so well at the bridge fight and the sunlight flashed along its polished blade. Master Ahlee, like Djehf, bore a pike, as did all the others save for Komees Djeen. His troopers had helped him replace his hook with another, larger one with a cleaverlike blade welded to its flat side, while his one hand held his military broadsword. Most of the baggage had been unceremoniously dumped, that Feelos Pooleeos -wearing a too small cuirass and an infantry helm- might be mounted on the sumpter mule.
The Thoheeks’s oldest son addressed them soberly. “We must strive to remain together, but any man who is separated must fight free as best he can. Against so many, all must depend upon shock and speed. If we halt for any reason, we are lost. We…”
But Komees Djeen interrupted him, pointing with his sword at something behind the young leader. “Bili … look you yonder.”
Struck as much by the old nobleman’s paling face as by the tightness of his voice, Bili reined around to gaze in the direction indicated. A knot of armored horsemen had crested the next slope of the hilly city and were extending lines to completely block the street behind the mob. Nothing about their appearance was clear; they were just black figures against the blaze of the morning sun; but there seemed a goodly number of them, at least three times the number of Bill’s party.
“Well,” the young axeman remarked to no one in particular, “I suppose this is as good a place to die as any.”
CHAPTER X
When first Lord Myros had appointed him Warder of the East, Hahrteeos Kahrahmahnlees had had carpenters and stonemasons make certain alterations in the two rooms which were the second and third levels of the gate tower, where he would have to spend so much time. Then he had brought from his family mansion the furniture and appointments to allow him to, in his words, “live as an Ehleen gentleman should.” The sparsely furnished, dimly lit, stonewalled chambers above and below his rooms he deemed fit only for his gaunt, ragged barbarian mercenaries.
The moment the heathen devils had clattered in through his gate, he had dispatched his Ehleen sergeant, Toorkos, to Lord Myros, alerting the Vahrohnos of the imminent arrival of his victims-to-be at the city palace. Shortly thereafter, he had carefully locked his second-level sitting room-office-well aware that the long-unpaid mercenaries were not above theft of small valuables, as he had had the pleasure of watching two of them beheaded for that very offense on a recent occasion—then repaired to his luxurious bedroom on the third level, having in mind an hour’s diversion with Peeos, his well-trained catamite.
Despite the Undying High Lord’s abolishment of the institution of slavery nearly a hundred years before, some Ehleenoee still risked the ruinous fines and held one or two. Lord Drehkos was one such and Lord Myros owned an even dozen. Therefore, one of Hahrteeos’s first actions after the death of his father was to journey to the port city of Sahrahspolis and buy this boy from a ship captain with whom Myros had done much business over the years.
Naturally, the bootlegger did not say where or how he had come by the lad, but it was certain that the twelve- or thirteen-year-old had seen his birth in none of the Ehleen lands, for his skin was darker even than the skins of the folk of the Black Kingdoms, and his speech, to his new master, was a totally incomprehensible babble. Hahrteeos had brought his acquisition back to Morguhnpolis and had had his servants teach it at least a smattering of Ehleeneekos. It had been Hahrteeos’s personal pleasure to teach the slaveboy other things, breaking his will to resist by denial of food and application of pain.
But it seemed he had scarcely commenced his enjoyments in the tower bedchamber when several pairs of heavy feet clumped up the stairs beyond the door, then stamped thunderously about the guardroom above, their owners all the while chattering in the decidedly unlovely barbarian languages, of which Hahrteeos took pride in knowing not a word. Next, feet descended the stairs to the second level and a pounding on the door of his office ensued. Then one set of the feet reascended to the third level and knuckles rapped boomingly on his bedchamber portal.
Furious at this unwonted and unwanted invasion on his privacy, Hahrteeos pulled a tunic over his nakedness and threw open the door.