Klairuhnz puffed at his pipe and eyed his audience through a cloud of bluish smoke. “The sect is old, Bili, ancient really. It’s at least as old as the first Ehleen kingdoms say, seven hundred years. But the Ehleenoee apparently brought it and its priests with them when they crossed the Great Sea and invaded these lands, and I have talked with Ehleen scholars who held that their religion was two thousand years old at the time of the War of the Gods. And men say that that calamity occurred nearly twelve hundred ‘years ago! Of course, many doubt that contention, but who can say truly, after so much time?
“Ere the Kindred came, the Ehleen sect had been slowly dying for a hundred or more years, and what few followers it retained were mostly lower or middleclass peasants, mechanics, tradesmen, small merchants, and suchlike. Most of the Ehleen nobility had adopted some odd and rather sinister cults the worship of monstrous animals, fish, and serpents, to whom they frequently sacrificed living humans. But as more of the Ehleenoee became dispossessed of their lands and cities, during the Wars of Confederation and the sporadic rebellions, the Eeyehrefsee advertised themselves and then religion as a rally point for those of their race, and many of the nobles went back to what they called the Ancient Faith.
“Now the Horseclansmen were ever tolerant of the harmless beliefs of other peoples. Once the High Lord had exposed the misdeeds of the Eeyehrefsee of Kehnooryos Ehlahs which ranged from shady business practices and smuggling to whoremongering and slaving broken their power, stripped them of most of their ill-gotten profits, and smashed their financial empire, they were allowed to practice their rites almost unmolested.
“But the last twenty years have seen rapid and very ominous changes in the sect. Certain of the darker practices of the monster cults have crept into the rites of the Ancient Faith, and here and there a priest or a Kooreeos has taken it into his head to foment disorder and even open, armed rebellion on the order of the Djeehahd or ‘Holy War’ in which certain of the Black Kingdoms sometimes engage.
“Mostly, such insanities have been scotched before they got much out of hand. Alert Kindred nobles who weren’t afraid to shed a little blood for the good of all their peoples simply seized the squarebeards and their lay ringleaders, publicly tried them, publicly executed them, and then imported new Eeyehrefsee who had more interest in keeping their heads attached to their bodies.
“But Komees Peetuh, who was Regent of Gafnee for a Thoheeks son who was not yet of age, lived and died a very foolish man.” Then the Bard went on to describe the highlights of the Gafnee Horror-a loathsome tale of a rabble risen at the urgings of priests and led by noble Ehleen malcontents; of halls besieged, overrun, looted, then burned; of Kindred men tortured to death; of Kindred ladies dying horribly beneath the lusts of hundreds of attackers; of the blood-drenched sacrifices of Kindred children and babes to the dark god of the gory-pawed Ehleen priests.
It was Klairuhnz’s profession to spin good tales and he was a past master at his art. The pictures he spoke were real-terribly real Both Bili and Vaskos could see the surging, bloodthirsty mobs and hear their savage roarings, could hear the clash of arms and the crackling of the fires and the screams of the wounded or tormented or dying, could smell the smoke of burning halls and the stink of burning flesh in the Bard’s words.
The priests had been shrewd in the timing of their rising, choosing the beginning of what promised to be a bad winter, when communications between principalities would be sketchy at best. And what few travelers did enter the Duchy of Gafnee never left it; the sinister Eeyehrefsee saw to that. When, with the late arrival of spring, it came time for the New Year Council, all the nobles of the Archduchy were surprised at the absence of Komees Peetuh, who had ere been one of the first arrivals at Lohfospolis.
Ahrkeethoheeks Eevahnos delayed the Council for a couple of days and sent an officer of his guard to see what might be detaining his old friend. When that officer failed to return, another officer was sent, along with a half troop of horseguards. None of those men ever came back either, but a couple of wounded troophorses stumbled in. The saddle of one was covered in crusted blood, and a mind speaker got from both animals a story of deceit and butchery.
“At that juncture,” Klairuhnz continued, “Lord Eevahnos had the hillfires lit and called up the levy. With the spearlevymen and the Kindred cavalry and the Freefighters of his guard, he sealed the borders of Gafnee and initiated tentative scoutings into it, while his messengers rode north, west, and south.
“It so happened that Strahteegos Vahrohnos Fil Kuk of Kukpolis was on the march to the Southern Duchies with three thousand kahtahfrahktoee. He and his two squadrons were encamped near Gastohnya, when one of the Ahrkeethoheeks gallopers happened that way.
“He at once broke camp. By dawn, he was on Gafnee’s northern border, where he picked up a few Kindred cavalry and a troop of Freefighters, then swept down into Gafnee, to the very gates of Gafneepolis. And there they camped until Eevahnos and his ragtag army joined them.
“Now the original city of Gafneepolis was razed by King Zastros’s army a hundred years ago, and wasn’t rebuilt for about ten years. Having nothing to fear, they thought, those who built its walls made them neither thick nor high and pierced them for double the usual number of gates. Such a position, defended as it was principally by priests, peasants, and tradesmen, had not a chance against the attack of professionals. It fell quickly.”
Pausing to take a pull of his mug, Klairuhnz would have taken time to relight his pipe, but Bili could not wait.
“And then?” he urged. “What then, Kinsman?” Vaskos spoke. “Apply you to your pipe, Bard Klairuhnz. Til try to finish the tale. True, I was not there, but as I said, I’ve friends who were.
“Well, Bili, when the Ahrkeethoheeks and his nobles became aware of just what had transpired in Gafnee that winter, they commenced to tremble in their boots, as well they should’ve. First, they scoured all of Gafnee for survivors and found not one living noble Kindred in all the duchy … nor did the searchers leave any living person behind them priest, peasant, or villager, man, woman, or child, those who did not surrender quickly died!”
“Good!” Bili nodded. “That was good work.”
Vaskos stared levelly at the young man for a moment, not noticing the odd smile on the Bard’s face. “Think you so, Kinsman? Then hear the rest.
“The Ahrkeethoheeks had hundreds of people put to savage tortures and got the names of all the lay ringleaders. All who were still living on that list of names, he cast into the town dungeons, along with the priests.
“With all the living Gafneeans completely disarmed and confined, helpless as babes in the city, the Ahrkeethoheeks gave the Confederation troops and his own complete freedom of the city for seven days allowed them to loot and burn and rape and torment and kill to the point of utter satiation. He and his nobles sent wagon after groaning wagon of loot back to Lohfospolis, as well as all the grain and livestock on which they could lay hands!
“It took the pitiful wretches who survived that week of carnage another week to breach their walls to their conquerors’ satisfaction, pull down their gates, and dig a long, deep trench just outside the city. Then the Ahrkeethoheeks assembled the couple of thousand Gafneeans under guard by all his forces. He had the priests and lay leaders dragged out and stripped naked, even the women!”
“Women?” Bill looked bewildered.