Several minutes later, Milo landed on the balls of his feet, his knees flexed to absorb the impact. After a deliberate roll, he came to a stop beside Whitetip, who had preceded him down the slope. In his own ears, the muted clashing of his armor had sounded loud as an alarum bell, but so tumultuous was the hurrah from the siege lines, that he doubted any had remarked upon his noise.
Gliding into a patch of more Stygian darkness, he stood up and brushed at the ankle-length, black cassock which covered his armor. Dropping his helm but retaining the steel skullcap, he donned a flatcrowned, brimless hat of fine black felt. He gingerly patted and tugged at the false beard-full and black and square-cut-to see that it had not loosened during his descent from Morguhn Hall. After another pat to be sure that the jewelled, pectoral cross of Skiros/Gold still hung from his neck, he again crouched and trotted down toward the camp, paced by Whitetip.
They halted just beyond the light of a watchfire and Milo rapidly took in the scene spread before him. Far to his left, perhaps a hundred yards away, lay the pavilions of the officers and priests with several scores of figures clustered about the largest. Some of these figures held horses, some stood in groups talking earnestly, some scurried to and fro. Just as a party emerged from the big pavilion, Milo’s attention was distracted by happenings nearer to hand.
A huge wain, drawn by two span of brawny white mules, trundled into the circle of red yellow light, conveyance and draft animals still wet and muddy from the ford. Two bawling, whip-wielding horsemen preceded it, mercilessly clearing a right of way by dint of pain and curses. Four mounted subpriests flanked the high-wheeled cart, a full priest drove the team, and a big man in the rich robes of a Kooreeos bestrode a fine, white-stockinged chestnut behind. On this last cleric’s broad chest, the firelight was reflected in the jewels of a cross identical to that now worn by Milo.
Absently, the High Lord fingered the cross, and under a finger, one of the jewels sank smoothly into its setting. The cross commenced a low, persistent buzzing then, and from its right arm, a rounded plastic cone popped out to dangle from a slender wire.
The mounted Kooreeos suddenly raised his cross to his lips, at the same time placing his right hand to his ear. His bearded lips moved and from a seemingly vast distance Milo heard a tinny voice, though he could make out no words.
Wonderingly, he brought his own big cross near his mouth. A tentative pull at the cone caused a bit more wire to emerge, just enough to allow him to insert the cone in his ear.
“. . . dy? Where in hell are you?” The voice came in clearly. “These damned transceivers never have worked consistently. Those five-thumbed apes that Dumb-dumb Bob May has in Electronics Engineering-I doubt if any one of them can wipe their butts properly! Goldy? Goldy, can you hear me?”
Slurring his words, Milo answered, “Loud and clear.”
“Have they still got you chained up in that cellar, Goldy?” demanded the voice, adding, “There’s some sort of distortion in my reception, you sound odd.”
Milo thought fast, then slurred his transmission even more. “No, ish not your shet. Get hit in mouf. Shwollen.”
“Sadistic bastards!” snarled the other. “Well, we’ll have you out of there soon, Goldy, just hold on. I’ve brought enough impact bombs to level a city, much less that mole-hill up there!”
Face still puffy and discolored from the beating cheerfully given him by the bodyguards of Vahrohnos Myros, a spike-bearded man Bili would have recognized as the enemy leader at the bridge fight sat in a small, ill-equpped tent with a couple of his subordinates, circulating a skin of inferior wine. Their minuscule condotta of professionals constituted the only reliable troops in the “army” and said professionals knew it, even if their employers affected to not know.
During the months that the three officers, their sergeants, and men had devoted to almost uniformly vain attempts to make soldiers of rabble, they had come to hate their students almost as much as they despised their mealy-mouthed, pennypinching employers. Now all of them-the officers in the sole tent they had been allowed, and the sergeants and men squatting about the fires- were softly chortling over various aspects of the late after-noon’s abortive assault and trading gallows-humorous speculations on exactly what would transpire when next their “comrades in arms” could be beaten or chivvied up the hill to once more face the tough little band within Morguhn Hall.