Poor Ahndee recovered brief, screaming consciousness, but quickly and mercifully lapsed back into insensibility.
Upon Komees Djeen’s return, it was decided that since a physician was known to be in residence to attend the ailing Thoheeks, the wounded men would be borne to Morguhn Hall, guarded by him and his troopers, while the remainder of the party returned to Horse Hall with the captured weapons, gear, and horses, most of which Hari recognized as his anyway. The broken, bloody corpses would be fetched in after sunrise.
None of Komees Djeen’s faithful Freefighters made mention of the armored man they had found wandering the forest in a daze, nor did the old Strahteegos for he had recognized his prisoner as Komees Hari’s valet, Kreestofohros.
It was a long, slow journey, for horse litters could not move so rapidly as riders. Dawn was paling the sky ere the van pounded their saberpommels on the thick, barred gates of Morguhn Hall.
At about the same time, in the town of Morguhnpolis, another nobleman was hearing the report of a spikebearded visitor. The visitor knelt before the lord, still in his hacked and dented armor, a bloodcrusty rag wrapped around his head and another around his right hand.
When he had mumbled the last word of his summary, the nobleman hissed, “You clumsy, witless, bungling fool!”
Jerkily, the armored man crawled a few feet closer and, raising his hands in supplication, stuttered, “Please … if it please my Lord … we did all that mortal flesh…”
A chopping motion of the nobleman’s head silenced the supplicant. Leaning far back in his chair, he jerked a dark red rose from a silver vase on the table beside him and pressed it to his nostrils, snarling around the stem, “Get away, you pig! Your mortal flesh stinks, and nothing you have done or countenanced this cursed night pleases me!
“What made you think we wanted the Thoheek’s son killed, you witless ape? Who gave you leave to think, anyway? Better, far better, for you had you heeded the good Lady’s advice!”
“But . . . but, the men . . .” the spikebearded one started.
“Damn you!” growled the nobleman. “You were represented to me as a veteran soldier, who had command experience. If you truly commanded soldiers, why can you not handle a pack of oafish servants and stupid peasants and city gutterscum? Never mind. I don’t wish to hear any more of your excuses. You answer my questions, no more!
“Succinctly, then, thanks to your ill-conceived and amateurishly staged little skirmish, the Staheerforeeah has at least twelve members dead and as many more missing or unaccounted for, not to mention the losses of painfully collected arms and equipment. And what did this blood sacrifice buy our Holy Cause? Hah! Two barbarian mercenaries and possibly a traveling bard slain; and two nobles wounded! And one of these nobles is a Kath’ahrohs, to all intents and purposes, whom we still have reason to think we can convert to the True Faith. As for the other . . . what in God’s name did you dimwits expect to accomplish in the death of Thoheek’s son, Bili?”
Eagerly, the soldier grasped at this straw which might possibly redeem him. “It has worked very well, Lord, in other places. Slay the heir and you put question to the lawful succession, and…”
The nobleman’s fleshy lips curled back to expose his even teeth-amazingly white for a man of his middle years. “You ambulatory dungheapl This is not ‘other places’!” he snarled. “True, the present Thoheeks is in ill health and, I have been reliably informed, is partially paralyzed and assuredly dying, though slowly. But-and of this matter you might have inquired before you did the irrevocable, the Lady could have told you every bit as easily as I-the death of Bili would lawfully throw the succession to Djehf, his junior by about six months. The death of Djehf would lawfully make Thoheeks of Tchahrlee, Bili’s younger by roughly a year. The death of Tchahrlee would see the accession of Gilbuht, and the death of Gilbuht would give the title to Djaikuhb; and so on. Dammit, the Thoheeks has nine living sons! How many do you think the Staheerforeeah could assassinate, ere we all had a Confederation expeditionary force breathing down our necks, eh? You and those fools you presumably lead may have suicidal tendencies, but I, for one, have no wish to adorn a damned cross!