The tall captain shook his head. “Oh, they’re all tough little bastards, I’ll be the first to grant you that much. High Lord Milos chose well when he chose such as them. I’m told that they went through the best that Kehnooryos Ehlahs could field, years agone, like shit through a goose. And they went on to clobber you Karaleenoee pretty thoroughly, too, didn’t they?”
Tomos sighed and nodded soberly. “That they did, friend Portos, that they assuredly did, over and over again, year after year. We kept on fighting . . . and losing men and lands and battles, for we of Karaleenos are as stubborn and as proud as any other people of the Ehleen race. Hell, we’d probably still be fighting them had not your late and unlamented High King Zastros poised so great a threat that King Zenos decided to make stand with High Lord Milo, Lord Djefree, Lord Alexandros and the rest against a common foe.
“But back to the here and now, Portos. Did you see on your march aught of the mercenary cavalry troop formerly employed by Hahkmukos? Grahvos seemed to think they might be headed back here seeking an employer.”
“Oh, yes, I’d meant to mention that matter earlier, Tomos,” Portos answered. “They’re with my cavalry column, what’s left of them as can still sit a horse, that is. About two thirds of the original troop are alive or were this morning, but most of them are wounded to one degree or another. We came on them camped and licking their wounds three days’ march out of the Duchy of Ahndros.”
“They ran into bandits, did they?” asked Tomos.
Portos pursed his lips. “In a manner of speaking, yes. But, no, just another rendition of the same sad old story: their newly elected captain and a brace of his close friends tried to sneak away one night with the best of the loot of Hahkmukos’ camp, they were caught and killed, and then a general melee ensued. A day later, we came across them. We put down the ones who were clearly death-wounded, of course, and stuffed the ones who couldn’t ride into the ambulance wagons. Our eeahtrohsee have done the best they could for them, but even so, two or three a day have died on the march. What disposition do you want made of them?”
Tomos shrugged. “Well, Grahvos wanted to hire them on for our army, but parcel them out to various existing units. I’ll tell you, take the ones you want of them, if any, and funnel the rest into that squadron of light cavalry that’s being raised. That’s the best I can figure, just now.
“By the way, while the force was down there, Thoheeks Sitheeros brought over an officer from Iron Mountain and introduced him to me. He’s the thoheeks’ war-elephant trainer, one Master of Elephants Laskos. What’s wrong? You know him or something of him, Portos?”
“I’ve never met him, no, Tomos, but, yes, I surely do know of him,” replied Portos, “and I wonder just who twisted just what tails to get him down here. Sitheeros treasures him, and rightly so, too. That man was King Hyamos’ captain-general of the war-elephants. He developed ways of using elephants that no one had ever before known or thought about.
“But he and the usurper, Fahrkos, couldn’t get along. He was declared outlaw and disappeared; for all that Fahrkos had the lands scoured over and over, he never could catch him. Now we know that most of the years he was missing, he was holed up at Iron Mountain with Thoheeks Sitheeros.
“He’s not an Ehleen, you know.”
Tomos nodded. “Yes, I’d thought he didn’t look like one, and he owns a singular accent in his speech, too; I’ve never heard one like it, I don’t believe. Where did he come from?”
Portos shrugged. “Maybe Sitheeros knows, but I don’t. There’re tales about him, though; some say that he came south from the Black Kingdoms, up near Kehnooryos Mahkedohnya, others aver that he is from some land beyond the Eastern Ocean and came by way of Lord Alexandros’ Pirate Isles, long ago, then there are those who think that he came from some place far to the west, beyond the Sea of Grass. I’ve never given much thought to it, any of it.
“What would you, who have at least seen him, say is his age?”
Tomos knitted up his weathered brows. “Oh, I don’t know, fifty, sixty, maybe. Why?”
“Because,” said Portos, “not only was he King Hyamos’ elephant trainer, he also served Hyamos’ father, old King Vitahlyos, which means that the man—who was a man grown, they say, when first he came to these lands of ours—must be in his eighties anyway, if not looking back at his ninetieth year.”
Tomos’ dark eyes widened perceptibly. “You think . . . ? Could it be possible? Might he be one such as High Lord Milo and the High Lady Aldora, then?
But surely, sometime over the years he has dwelt in Ehleen lands, some kooreeos or other has put him to the Test?”
Portos shook his head. “Maybe, in Karaleenos or Kehnooryos Ehlahs or some other land where religion, the old religion, has maintained a stronger hold than here, in the south. But the last dynasty—that of which Hyamos was the last king—had little use for the church and did much to weaken it, strip it of its onetime wealth and power over the nobles and commoners.
“At one time, a century or more back now, kooreeohsee were high noblemen in all save name or title, alone. They held lands and great wealth—supposedly for the Church, of course—they traveled about the kingdom in retinues that included hundreds—sub-kooreeohsee, priests, all manner of servants, fully armed retainers, female concubines or male catamites or both together depending upon their tastes, cooks, servers, all manner of artisans, grooms, entertainers, professional torturers and executioners, scribes, too many others to recount. They owned and right often exercised the power of life and death over commoners and the lower grades of nobility, and they made of extortion a fine art.
“But then, in the time of King Vitahlyos’ great-greatgrandfather, Hyamos the First, they overreached themselves. They first tried to wring more concessions from him who was to be second of his house to rule, and when that failed, they refused to take part in his coronation, then plotted a rebellion against him. But he and his father before him had a broad base of support amongst the nobility, the gentry, even the commoners, and he rode out the troubles.
“Now the Church of that period had for long ruled by fear, and fear breeds hatred, so people supported King Hyamos Kooreeos-bane even more than they had before the Church tried to deny him his father’s throne and have him killed for refusing to become their tool.
“None of that first King Hyamos’ successors ever forgot, and all of them openly persecuted the Church and the kooreeohsee, encouraging all other folk of all classes to emulate them. King Fahrkos, however, was far too busy most of his short reign trying to keep the crown from wobbling off his head, the lands under his control and the life in his body to worry about the Church, but the disturbances of the period between the defeat of the first great rebellion and Zastros’ return from exile affected and afflicted the Church as much as they did all other people of the kingdom.
“We thoheeksee of the Council are not in any manner of means persecuting the Church and the kooreeohsee . . . but, then, we’re not going out of our way to help them or give them power, either. We’re making certain that lands and cities and wealth and power rest in the hands of lay nobility of the proper mindset; if some of them want to give lands or wealth to the Church, that’s their personal business. That’s the way most of us feel about it, though there are a few old-fashioned types—Thoheeks Bahos is an example—who would grind the Church down much farther and far finer.
“But back to Master Laskos. I would be surprised to hear that he ever was put to that brutal, painful, degrading test, not whilst he dwelt here, for under the last dynasty and since, the Church has consistently maintained a very low profile and the kooreeohsee have run scared; they would no more have suggested the testing of a man in service to the king or a powerful thoheeks than they would have suggested testing the king himself.”