Big, white teeth flashing, the young chief grinned derisively at the furious thoheeks. “Ah, Chief Skaht, you have never been able to forgive my Uncle Moorehd for stealing your sister, have you? Yet he made her a far lustier husband than could any of your soft, womanly lowlanders. Do you know that he got at least one child a year on her for as long as she lived? Do you know that-”
The Skaht roared; his steel flashed clear as his chair crashed over and he commenced a stalking progress around the table, a hideous growl issuing from betwixt his bared teeth. The mountaineers’ hands moved toward their own hilts, and the guardsmen’s bows were drawn to the full.
“Damn you, Skaht, sit down!” Neither Milo’s voice nor mindspeak could penetrate the berserk nobleman’s rage. If this chief and his headmen were massacred here this night, there would be a full-scale war the length of the border.
But then Bili was blocking the Skaht’s progress. Smiling disarmingly, he extended his hand, saying, “Give me your sword, Kinsman.” But there was more than mere words to the encounter. Milo and Aldora, at least, could feel, could sense, some indefinable something being woven between the two men.
Suddenly the Skaht half-turned and lashed out with his blade. And Bili was on him. His sinewy arms locked about the older man’s body, pinning his arms to his sides. Even so, Milo was gashed ere he could wrest the sword from the Skaht’s hand.
Snapping, “Bind him until he’s in control of himself again!” the High Lord turned back to the delegation. “Your ancestors were both proud and brave Der Hyk, but you disgrace their memory for you are neither, you are only foolhardy! Sun and Wind help your people if you do not soon gain a measure of wisdom to match your advancing years. If you wish to commit suicide, name a successor and do so privately and decently. Do not ask your headmen to die with you. And have the courtesy to go to Wind somewhere other than in this camp. As I said, I wish no war with your tribe this year.
“As for the forts, your headmen would be wise to see that they are abandoned, else the army about you will be but the vanguard for that which will surely come. Many of your people will die and I will drive those who do not into the Hills of Homeless Rocks. We will pull down your villages, stone by stone. Your horses and kine will graze lowland pastures and your maidens will bear lowlanders’ sons. You all know that I can do these things, for many of them were done in the times of your ancestors.
“Keep the peace with me, go back into your fastnesses and leave my forts untenanted, and mayhap you and your children will live and die where your fathers were born.”
CHAPTER XIII
Drehkos had had reason to commend himself for reinstating Myros. The cashiered Confederation officer immediately understood portions of the books which Drehkos had had to strain his mind to comprehend. Under the direction of a man who was well grounded in the principles of defensive warfare, the work on the walls and outer works and the fabrication of engines and missiles had proceeded faster and more smoothly than ever they had under Drehkos’ sincere but oft-times bumbling aegis. Nor did the knowledge that those in Vawn-polis who did not fear him actively hated him seem to bother the Vahrohnos of Deskahti. Indeed, he seemed to revel in that fear, feed on that hate, and drive them all the harder for both.
But there were other aspects which frequently led Drehkos to question the sagacity of returning any degree of power to Myros. Chief among these, perhaps, were the man’s sudden and usually senseless rages, gradually increasing both in frequency and violence, so that Drehkos had found it necessary to forbid Myros to bear either sword or dirk and had felt constrained to assign “bodyguards” principally for the purpose of restraining, not protecting, the erratic nobleman. Equally alarming, to Drehkos’ way of thinking, were his deputy’s lapses into unconsciousness with little or no warning. And he might remain in such a state for days … or only minutes.