“Well?” he angrily demanded of the mercenary who had knocked. “What is it, you barbarian ape?”
It was Pawl Raikuh who stood before him, though this fact was unknown to Hahrteeos, who had not bothered to learn the names of any of “his” troops, other than Toorkos who was, after all, an Ehleen.
After saluting, the mercenary humbly requested permission to exchange some of the off-duty men for those presently on gate watch. Hahrteeos snorted his leave and, promising dire doom to the next man who saw fit to disturb him, slammed the door.
But less than a quarter hour later, another pair of feet sped up the steps. This time it sounded as if someone were attempting to split the door with a battleaxe! Hahrteeos was in a towering rage when he opened the door.
But this caller was not a mercenary. He was, rather, Stavros Klahreedees, Warder of the South and Hahrteeos’s military, if not exactly social, equal, so there was nothing to do but invite him in and proffer wine. While the Warder of the East was filling his associate’s goblet, more sets of big feet stomped up and past his door, but he ignored them.
The short, skinny, pockfaced visitor removed his gilded helm and laid it on a marbletopped table before he accepted, tasted, and savored a goblet of the wine. “Ahhh,” he sighed. “You certainly know how to live, my dear. Would that I could afford such a home away from home, such civilized delights, such fine wines…”
“You will,” Hahrteeos assured him, smilingly. “You will yet, once we’ve cleared the heathen from these lands of ours. Why, Lord Myros says…”
“Your pardon, please, love.” The caller, with a wrinkling of his brows, set down his silver goblet. “Your pardon, but that brings me to my reason for being here. I received word, a few minutes agone, that the Lord Drehkos has commanded all gates closed immediately. That farce at the palace is done. The pigs got away from the guards by seizing and holding the Holy Skiros and Lord Myros and they must not be allowed to escape the city.
“Would you like for me to issue the necessary orders?” he asked considerately. “After all, darling, you are hardly garbed for a stroll on the walls.”
Hahrteeos smiled. “How thoughtful, dear Stavros. I appreciate such kindness.”
Setting his helm back on his head, Stavros turned to open the door. Taking the pullring in hand, he pulled, but the door failed to budge. Several more pulls and the addition of his other hand produced no better results. Then his bigger, heftier host took his place, but the stubborn portal failed to yield to him either.
Stavros stamped his small foot in exasperation. “What’s wrong with the cursed thing? We’ve got to do something, you know. Those pet pigs you command are stupid enough to let the butterhaired heathens ride out of our city without a by-your-leave!”
“Patience, patience.” Hahrteeos patted his guest on the shoulder. “With all of the damp weather we’ve had, the door or the frame has probably just developed a warp, that’s all. Not that I’ll not have a few larcenous carpenters well striped for it. But there is another way to reach the guardroom. Here, I’ll need your help.”
Between them, the two warders managed to get an old, heavy wooden ladder from behind the wall hanging which had concealed it; then wrestled it across to the center of the room, raised it, and wedged the upper tips of its up-rights into ceiling grooves provided for the purpose.
Hahrteeos stepped back, breathing heavily. “These ladder and trapdoor arrangements are how they got from one level to another in the ancient days, before the outside stairway was built. See those two round holes up there? Put your fingers in them and slide the panel to the right and you’ll be in the middle of the guardroom.”
The boy Peeos had pulled a satin sheet over his nakedness when the caller had been admitted, turning his face to the wall and lying absolutely motionless. His master’s temper was hair-triggered and terrifyingly unpredictable. The tiniest word or gesture could draw down his wrath and savage cruelties. Peeos wanted no more scars, so he took no chances. But the sounds of the raising of the ladder piqued his curiosity. He slyly turned his head and watched from beneath lowered lids.
Stavros mounted the ladder until he could reach the fingerholes and followed Hahrteeos’s instructions. The long-unused panel was difficult at first, but he finally managed to get it out of the way. Then he climbed a couple of more rungs and his head, arms, and shoulders were in the guardroom.
Peeos and Hahrteeos heard him give his order; next he shouted something, then started a scream which suddenly ended in an odd gurgle. His legs commenced kicking and his arms came back into view, twitching strangely; it appeared that he was suspended by his head alone. It was so for but a brief moment, then legs and arms and body crashed down onto Hahrteeos’s fine carpet, soaking it with fantastic quantities of blood.
Shrieking mindlessly, Hahrteeos dashed to the door and frantically ripped at it, heedless of the ruination of his soft hands and carefully tended nails. But the door remained closed and the Warder of the East backed into the corner, as far as he could get from that bloody, still-twitching horror at the foot of the ladder.
Pawl Raikuh came down that ladder agilely, his gory sword in hand, followed by three of his men, all four of them generously splashed with fresh blood. At his shout, the “jammed” door swung open easily and several more Freefighters trooped in. When they had drained the last of the wine from the silver ewer, they began a hot argument over to whom it now belonged, but Pawl ended it.
“Henree, bundle the ewer and the goblets into that fancy cloak yonder. Plunder will be property of all the condotta. And get the rings and armlets and all else of value off this dead pig. But don’t kill that one behind the door. If I think aright, there’s one here has more claim on his worthless life than do any of us.”
Peeos did not fear death; indeed, only the strictest supervision by Hahrteeos and his servants had prevented the boy from taking his own life, after he came to realize for just what uses his master had purchased him. So as the huge, hard-looking soldier approached, Peeos bared his bony chest, pointed first at the naked sword, then at the area above his heart.
Captain Raikuh smiled and shook his head. “I don’t mean to slay you, lad. Do you want your freedom?”
Peeos stared at the figure looming over him and shook his blue black head with its covering of tight ebon curls.
Raikuh had spoken in Mereekuhn, or the Confederation dialect of that ancient tongue; now he repeated himself in Ehleeneekos.
Hesitantly, his lips painfully shaping the words, Peeos spoke. “Freedom? Mean when … no, what? Mean What, Lord Master? Peeos not under … not… ?”
Pawl whirled and strode purposefully over to the corner that held the trembling, pasty-faced Hahrteeos. Grabbing a handful of the Ehleen’s perfumed hair, he dragged him to the center of the room and demanded, “What language does yonder lad speak, you sad excuse for a man?”
Hahrteeos moved his well-chewed lips, but no sounds issued from them. Pawl tried raising his sword threateningly, but his captive’s only reactions were to start screaming again and to explosively befoul himself. Pawl dropped the Warder of the East disgustedly and paced back over to the bed. One after another, he tried the many languages and dialects he had learned in his nearly thirty years of Freefighting. Tune was very short, and he was getting desperate, when he asked his question in Kweebehkyuhn. He nearly dropped his sword when the black-skinned boy answered him, not in that far-northern tongue, but in one which sounded much like it.
Over his shoulder, Pawl called urgently, “Frahnswah? Where is Frahnswah?”
“Here. Pawl… uh, Captain, I mean.”
The situation was quickly explained and, in his own native tongue, Frahnswah stated, “We are leaving this city, little man. If you would leave with us and be free of your master and his vice contre natur, speak now.”