When Milo spoke to the Ehleen again, an edge had come into his voice. “Lord, you accuse me of treachery, of infamy! What, may I ask, do you call your own conduct? Is surrounding and preparing to attack the camp of a supposed ally not treachery? At this moment—as you well know, sir—your Kahtahphraktoee are in the process of moving into attack-positions on our camp perimeter. Should they be so unwise as to attempt an assault, they—and you—will find us well prepared for them, and they will take heavy casualties!
“Now, before this ‘meeting’ gets any more unpleasant, I’ll ask you once more: What possible justification have you for this night’s actions? What brought you, frothing at the mouth, to my lodge, to insult me and my chiefs?”
“You know why I am here!” hissed Lord Alexandras. “I want the culprits dragged before me immediately, or my men attack! There can be no excuse for the actions of the criminals you are sheltering, and I’ll not rest until I see them impaled—as they so richly deserve! I know what is right and just, and I have the troops to enforce my will.”
“Should you be sufficiently stupid to throw them against this camp, you blathering old doddard, you’ll not have them long!” declared Chief Djeri of Hahfmun, having taken all he could stomach. “The tribe will make the same hash of you and yours that we did of the last Ehleen jackanapes who tried to attack us!”
Turning to his hundred, Lord Alexandras waved an ana in Chief Djeri’s direction. “Seize me that grunting hog! He’s probably one of the very swine we came for; if not, he’ll do as hostage for their delivery!”
Warily, four troopers dismounted and started toward the gray-haired chief. With a wolfish grin, Chief Djeri drew both saber and dirk and, in the twinkling of an eye, Sami of Kahrtr, Bui of Esmith, and Chuk of Djahnsun had their own steel out and were ranged beside him. Even without armor, they obviously felt themselves more than a match for the four clanking Kahtahphraktoee.
At a pre-arranged signal from Lord Alexandras, the bugler raised his instrument to his lips, but found he was unable to force air past the shaft of the arrow which had suddenly spitted his throat! And that was the end of the ‘battle.’ The troopers were not fools and, as they became aware that at least ten bows were trained on each of them, their lances came clattering to the ground and their scabbarded swords quickly followed.
Milo advanced a few paces closer to the, still-mounted, Lord Alexandras. “Ill ask once more, my lord. Will you dismount and come hi and discuss this matter of contention? I have no desire to shed the blood of any more of your men, though many of my people would be overjoyed to muddy this earth with their blood.”
For a long, long minute, the Ehleen sat his mount, staring venomously; but, at length—bowing to the inevitable—he stiffly, correctly, dismounted. When Milo turned, the old noble followed him up the stairs and into the War Chiefs lodge.
Even unconscious, it required strenuous and concerted efforts from both Horsekiller and Old-Cat to force a breach in Lord Alexandras’ formidable mind-shield. When, through the cats, Milo and Mara and Hari had entered, their shock and agreement were simultaneous.
“Someone or something is controlling him!” stated Milo flatly. “Placing thoughts in his mind, overriding his will.”
Mara nodded. “I knew that that man out there was not ’Lekos. How long, do you suppose, has this entity been forcing him to its evil will?”
Milo shrugged. “No way of telling, really. Days, weeks, who knows? Days, certainly. I thought that that business, the other night, was damned odd, come to think of it. Because, in one of our early conferences—do you recall, Hari?—he made the remark that it was regrettable that he would have to retard the advance of his column, or something like that….”
“Yes,” affirmed the aged bard. “I, too, thought of that when he came storming in here that night. He knew, well beforehand, that the tribe’s average day’s march was something less than two leagues.”
“Then it must have taken him within the last week,” decided Milo. “So, we know when. What we must now determine is how and why and precisely what.”
Once more, the three humans and two felines entered the Ehleen’s mind and vainly strove to probe farther. At length, Milo sank back, perspiration beading his forehead.
“It’s no use! Even with the cats, we just haven’t the mental force necessary. That thing is unnaturally strong.”
“Milo, Hari,” Mara asked hesitantly. “How about Al-dora? True, she’s untrained, but we’re here to guide her and she has demonstrated fantastic strength and ability …”
When Aldora entered, she was still dangling her loaded sling and a pouch of stones for it hung around her neck. “You mind-called, Lady Mara.”
“Yes, child,” Hari answered. “We have need of your powers.”
22
When it was finally over, Aldora looked at them wonderingly. “There is much that puzzles me. This man or being, this Titus Backstrom, he thinks in Ehleenokos, but he thinks of strange places and unbelievable things and he is surely no Ehleen. And, too, he thinks, sometimes, words and phrases and names that are framed hi a language of utter strangeness. It is like to our tongue—of the Horsepeople, I mean—but oddly different. It… it must be terrible to be as he is …”
“What do you mean, dear?” prompted Mara. “Being someone that you are not for so many years, inhabiting another’s body and … and now … not even fully inhabiting that. He … he can only withdraw from this body,” she indicated the inert form of Lord Alexandras, “if it is conscious, you see. He expected it to be killed, knew that that would be dangerous to him, but he had done such things before and had planned to withdraw whilst it was dying, but still conscious. As it happened, he was only able to retrieve but little of his mind, before it became senseless and the way was closed. Now, he is terribly frightened that you will slay the body, without allowing it to regain consciousness, in which case, his mind can never re-enter the body—which, while not his own, he has become accustomed to. And if he cannot return in the body he has been using, to the place where is his own real body, he cannot return to it, when his work is done …” Aldora trailed off, seeming to but half-understand what she had said.
“Hari,” asked Milo urgently, “is there no way that I can project through her?”
Blind Hari shook his head. “No. Not even I can. There are many differences between her mind and ours.”
Milo turned back to Aldora. “Child, is it possible for you to ascertain where the controller’s body—the one he left to enter this old man’s, I mean—is located now?”
After a moment, she said, “In the camp of the Iron-shirts, War Chief Milo.”
Rapidly, Milo gave Mara and Hari instructions on how to keep Lord Alexandras unconscious, without either killing or waking him, then helped them to move the old man into the rear of the lodge, onto a sleeping pallet. Striding back to the lodge entrance, he stuck out his head and called for Hwil Kuk and the commander-of-hundred, who had accompanied Lord Alexandras’ escort. Shortly, the escort-commander hurried out, mounted, and spurred toward the outskirts of the camp, escorted for his mission by Horsekiller.
When Milo had finished speaking, Djeen Mai slammed his big right fist into his left palm, then nodded slowly. “Witchcraft! I should’ve known. My lord has been strangely unlike himself these past few days, but I thought it was something else.”
“What?” demanded Milo. “What untoward has happened?”