“If I thought for even one moment-” the captain moved his lips as little as possible and his words hissed through the void created by the recent loss of a couple of front teeth. “-that those feisty bastards up there stood even an outside chance of winning, of holding off this stinking mob …”
The younger of the two lieutenants slowly nodded. “I think that most of us feel just that way too. The Thoheeks is all man and he commands men. We’re here surrounded by a vast herd of rooting swine!”
“We’ll be smart not to talk what-all we feels,” put in the older lieutenant brusquely. “How do we know who’s a-listnin’? And I sure-lord don’t wanta be the one as is caught plottin’ against the Vahrohnos! ‘Sides, the rein-forcements what come in tonight and the others what’ll be here t’morra from Thoheekseen Vawn, they all knows what it is to win, so they’ll really fight. And the half a hunnerd the Thoheeks is got jest ain’t enough to hol’ thet place aginst no real assault.”
The younger lieutenant assumed an exaggeratedly sanctimonious pose and expression, while his .voice mocked the emoting tones of a priest. “And forget you not, Brothers in God, we fight not for base gold, but for The True Faith; not for crass loot, but for our souls’ salvation!”
The captain made a rude noise and instantly regretted the pain it brought to his battered face.
“Mebbe!” snorted the other lieutenant. “But me, I don’t give a cowpat fer them furfaces and alia this here religious hogwash!” He slapped his wellworn hilt. “You guys is Ehleenee. Well I ain’t, and Uncle Sharptooth here. He’s the onlies’ deesunt god fer a soljer. And when I fights, by cracky I fights for loot!”
“Yes,” agreed the younger. “Loot is the reason most soldiers fight. But there is honor, as well. The Steel God of you barbarians demands that, above all.”
The spikebeard took another long draught of the foul wine, then commented, “Well, it’s scant honor any of us will bear from this campaign. I thought this was to be an honest civil war when I took gold and swore my oath and set about recruiting most of you. Fah! And here we are, helping a lunatic pervert and a gaggle of fanatic priests and a gang of gallows-bait commoners murder their rightful lords. We . . . Now what in thunder has got into the horses?”
Although theirs was but a small picketline, a certain amount of noise was a normal occurrence throughout any night, for these were all high-spirited warhorses, many of them uncut stallions and all bred and trained to fight. Of course, it was standard operating procedure in any war-camp that mares were picketed well away from full horses, but even so random bites and the occasional shrill combat were not uncommon. So the veteran cavalrymen had ignored the stampings and snortings and whinnyings, and even the first scream or two.
But now there had erupted a veritable chorus of high-pitched screams, screams not of rage but fear! The entire length of the horselines were vocalizing unmistakable terror. Nostrils dilated and eyes rolling whitely, they reared and jerked at the restraints without visible cause.
Abruptly, a picketline went down and twoscore of the fear-mad chargers fled mindlessly through the crowded camp, trampling or savaging all who sought to halt them! And unseen in the darkness and confusion, Lover-Of-Water and young Steelclaws loped away toward their next assignment, leaving Myros’s tiny cavalry-arm in utter chaos.
But the cavalry encampment was concealed from the sight of the headquarters area by an undulation of the terrain. The tumult was effectively swallowed by distance and the general racket of the intervening camps. It was not until screams of mortal agony smote their ears that some score of officers and priests came boiling out of Myros’s pavilion, the men of Vawn tired and worn by their long, forced march and those of Morguhn all in some measure tiddly of a surfeit of the Vahrohnos’s strong wines.
By then it was too late. Dozens of Sanderz firearrows had set the wagons and the stores and most of the newly assembled war engines ablaze. Out of the darkness, swarms of black-lacquered shafts buzzed, bearing the sting of death to any and all who sought to subdue the blazes. A cask of strong cordial in one of the wagons exploded with a dull boom, showering glowing sparks and bits of flaming wood onto the fringes of the closely grouped officers’ tents. The blue and green flames from the waterproofed canvas were soon rising higher and hotter than the red and yellow conflagration of the siege train.