“Then, in the time of my father’s grandfather, it all began to change. We had been too successful and, with success, had come decadence. War had been the delight and avocation of our people, now our young men found it beneath their dignity, unnecessarily dangerous folly and, above all, too uncomfortable for their pampered bodies to endure. The old religion, which had endured for thousands of years and had been brought here by our fighting priests, began to die, to be replaced by polytheism and the unnatural worship of monsters. As the pursuit of money took precedence over the pursuit of honor, our free-farmers were tricked and deluded into their present state-ruthlessly ground peasants, virtual slaves of the land, no longer decent material for soldiers as they have nothing for which to fight anymore.
“In our days of glory, Sam, the spine and body of our arms were the spear-levy, the head and limbs, the swords and axes of my class. Now, alas, three-quarters of the body has forgotten how to fight and nine-tenths of my class have become too soft and craven to risk life or limbs or pretty looks in the forefront of a battle. What was once an honorable relationship of brotherhood and love of warrior for strong warrior, has become a sick rapine of small slave-boys. The sacred quality of marriage has evaporated, and I would wager much that fully half of our women who bear children are unsure of those children’s true paternity.
“For nearly one hundred years, now, Sam, the bulk of the truly effective troops in the armies of the Ehleenoee states has been of you and your kind. To your credit, your people have learned from us, learned selectively though. You have taken the good grain that we were and rightly discarded the poisonous chaff that we are become. Could your people but unite, you could easily sweep all this coast clear of the useless parasites called Ehleenoee, regain your ancient holdings, and—pray God—prove yourselves better masters of land and peoples than those you dispossess. For long have I said that your folk needed but a strong and resolute leader, perhaps this man you name, this western barbarian with his uncanny battle-skill, he whom our friend Hwil Kuk now serves, is the man I have prophesied and you have awaited.
“In any case, I think that, can it be arranged, we four should quickly meet with him and decide for ourselves whether to enlist in his service.”
The three mercenaries exhibited broad smiles. “You will join us then, Lord Alexandras?” queried Djeen Mai anxiously. “You will be our Strahteegohs once again?”
Lord Alexandras smiled. “Why, of course. I’ve been champing at the bit, since first I laid eyes upon you all again.”
17
Within a fortnight of Lord Alexandras’ fateful meeting with his three old friends, the god-haunted ruins of Lintchburk were beginning to come to life again. His ready acceptance of the proffered generalship had been all that was required to send messengers at the gallop north, south, east, and west. Their guarded communications had been whispered into just the proper ears, ears which had been awaiting such a communication for nearly five years.
And the word spread like wildfire. In ones and twos and dozens and occasional scores, old soldiers—those who remembered and some who had only heard—dodged roving bands of Horse clansmen or probing patrols of Karaleenoee to ride or tramp into the growing camp. But there were more. Before the new moon, Rahdnee, Prince of Ashbro, rode in with two hundred troopers, apologizing that he could not bring more, but the bulk of his fighting men were already contracted to the High Lord of Karaleenos and their contracts would not expire for six months yet. The next large arrival was that of a contingent of veteran mercenaries—one and one-half thousands of heavy infantry, the mercenaries of Djim Brawuh, dusty and tired from over two weeks of forced marches, which had brought them from the vicinity of Pitzburk. These were put to immediate work, training the spear-levy caliber peasants who kept wandering in—all having heard of Lord Alexandras’ resurgence and drawn by the undimmed luster of his name and fame.
By the time that Hwil Kuk arrived to emotionally greet his old Strahteegohs and conduct him, Djeen Mai, and Sam Tfflhartuhz to Green-Walls and a meeting with Milo Morai, the well-built castra had become home to some thirty hundreds of foot and nearly eighteen hundreds of cavalry. The nomads with Kuk’s escort were visibly impressed
“Understand,” said Milo, “that my last contact with the Ehleenoee was some two hundred years ago, a«d that was with the North Ehleenoee, not with these people. If I’m to deal with this man—and, along with Hwil Kuk, you seem almost in awe of this Alexandras, dear wife—I'll want to know as much as is possible about him.”
Mara drew a puff from the stem of her jeweled pipe. “My love, before the chaos which resulted from the Great Earthquake, all these lands—from the barbarian kingdoms a few days’ ride north of here to the very borders of the ill-omened Witch Kingdom—was one domain called Kehnooryohs Ehlahs; the Ehleenoee with whom you lived were, even then, a separate state and the Sea Islands had not yet been settled.
“Though located upon the Blue River, the capital of this huge realm, Kehnooryohs Atheenahs, was only some twenty miles from the sea. It was all but obliterated and thousands of its population died when the first huge wave struck in the middle of the night. Of the entire ruling family, only the High Lord and two of his sons survived the disaster—and they, only because at the time of the calamity, they happened to be campaigning in the mountains with their troops; his second wife and two younger sons, also, because they were in a villa near here.
“It was weeks before the High Lord and his forces could win back to the location of the capital. Passes had been partially or completely blocked, rivers had changed their courses, inland cities had been shaken down, and almost every coastal city had been drowned. Stretches of coastline had sunk many feet, creating the Salt Fens of today, and much of the richest and most productive farmland in the realm had been rendered sterile by saltwater. More than nine-tenths of the then sizable fleet was destroyed and the only army left was the twelve thousand or so who had been campaigning with the High Lord. “Then in his early forties, Pavlos of the House of Pahpahs was a man of tremendous vitality and purpose and, had he lived longer, he might have held his shattered realm together despite all that had happened and all that was to come. He established his military headquarters in the relatively undamaged area some fifty miles up the Blue River from the ruins of Kehnooryohs Atheenahs at the place where the river ceased to be generally navigable—the Kehnooryohs Atheenahs of today occupies that same site. There, he began to gather together the salvage of this portion of the realm, began to reorganize the government and reestablish lines of communication with the other provinces.
“Most members of the hereditary ruling families of Karaleenos and the Southern Province had been extirpated along with their capital cities, both of which had been located on the ocean coast, lacking the relative protection of headlands and bays and rivermouths enjoyed by Kehnooryohs Atheenahs. The disaster had taken place a month or so prior to harvest time, so—in addition to the chaos resulting from a total breakdown of the central authority and ever more punishing raids by the mountain barbarians—the gaunt specter of starvation was approaching with the winter.
“It only required some three months for Pavlos to restore some semblance of order to the capital and its province. When it was secured, he left it under the co-regency of his young second wife and one of his ablest strahteegohee, Vikos Pohtahmohs; he left them half his army, and he and his two sons marched south with the other half, reinforced by two thousand mountain barbarian horsemen—these being the first mercenaries ever hired by an Ehleenoee lord—who were with his army not so much because he felt he needed them, as because he preferred to have them with him than behind him.