The elderly prairiecat who lives at my hall, old Steelclaws, was farspoken by Ahl Sanderz. Tim Sanderz is alive and has returned to Vawn. He’s at the hall now, preparing to defend it against some rabble the bitch, Mehleena, has sneaked into the duchy and armed. It smacks to me of the Great Rebellion reborn!”
With Komees Dik commanding the main body, Tahm Adaimyuhn took the strong vanguard, maintaining a quarter-mile of distance between the two groups, riding as warily as ever he had in his five years of raiding. When they came to the outskirts of a village—one of the three hall villages, as Tahm recalled—he had it carefully scouted out before he led his men down the dusty street between the silent houses.
The only things in sight that moved were a few chickens, a pig rooting in a garbage heap and a couple of shaggy dogs. A quick search of the cottages, hovels and outbuildings showed signs of a hasty departure—hearthfires were still alight. Pots bubbled and chores were left half-done. But the only sign of humans was in the form of a red-haired boy-child lying dead in a lean-to shelter, the grayish little body evidencing the unmistakable marks of shameful abuse.
Tahm sent a rider back to Komees Dik, then had his patrol remount and ride on, drawing his flankers in tighter since the broad, cultivated fields to either side left insufficient cover to hide ambushers, and if any force should come out of the distant woods, the open stretches they would be forced to cover would allow for more than adequate warning. The road, moreover, showed the recent progress of a sizable body of men, moving in close order, four, maybe five horses, the rest on foot, Tahm estimated their numbers at some four tens, horse and foot, together.
Grudging the loss—for he led only fifteen men—he sent another galloper back to the main body to tell of his discovery and urge that the column close the distance rapidly, for a bare mile ahead the road entered a twisting, turning, forest-flanked way.
Mahrkos squirmed, raised himself off the sharp, bony ridge of the plow mule’s spine, but could find no comfortable way of sitting the beast. Cursing under his breath, he simultaneously envied Deemos his saddle and wondered for the umpteenth time why he and the other sergeants must ride the bags of bones and could not trudge in comfort along with the men. After the ride between the mile or more of fields, under the blazing, baking sun, the coolness of the trees around and about was pleasant. So too was splashing through several tiny streams, still bitingly cold from the mountains that gave them birth.
After marching in that pace that Deemos called quickstep for half a mile, the men were set to a jogging run for the same distance, before, panting and huffing, they were allowed to slow back to the march. Mahrkos held his bruised rump and crotch up from his jolting, bony seat as long as his thigh muscles would allow, then sank back, groaning.
Beyond a tall, broad cairn of moss-grown rocks, Deemos abruptly halted and Mahrkos all but rode into the horse’s shiny rump before he could make the mule stop. In the roadway before them, three noblemen sat their warhorses, blocking the narrow track, which here wound between gradual, grassy slopes grown with brush and small trees.
One of the three armored men kneed his mount a few paces forward and exposed his face—eyes, skin tone and an errant lock of black hair spoke of the kath-ahrohs or pure-blood Ehleen.
“You come from the Lady Mehleena, my lord?” asked Deemos.
The strange noble nodded, his right hand resting easily on his thigh, nowhere near the haft of the light axe lying across his saddlebow.
Deemos advanced a few feet closer, opened the front of his helm and asked, “You are of the Brotherhood, then, my lord?”
Again, the stranger simply nodded silently.
“My lord must give me a sign,” said Deemos, tracing some complicated pattern in the air before him with the forefinger of his right hand.
“Aye, I’ll give you a sign,” agreed the stranger in flawless, cultured Ehleeneekos, smiling. Still smiling, he raised his hand and, with a flick of his gauntleted wrist, sent something shiny spinning through the air between him and Captain Deemos.
The officer grunted, then his horse screamed and reared and, in the split second before Deemos’ body tumbled from the animal’s back and the deadly sleet of arrows began to fall, Mahrkos saw the polished bone hilt of a knife jutting out from Deemos’ left eyesocket.
Komees Dik rode slowly along the gentle slope, viewing the road, now littered with bodies and weapons and liberally besplattered with blood. Across the road, Vahrohneeskos Tahm came out of the forest and trotted down the hill, three fresh-severed heads dangling by their hair from his big right hand. He and all his Ahrmehnee relatives who had ridden out in pursuit of the few survivors of the road slaughter were smiling and happy, even those who did not carry heads.
“Did any of the bastards get away?” demanded the old man.
Tahm shrugged. “Maybe one, certainly no more than two.
One of those was mule-mounted, but he was wounded severely, I trow. He’ll not ride far.”
The old komees nodded brusquely. “That was good work, Tahm. A brilliant plan, brilliantly executed. But there’re more of these late bastards’ kind about, or so Ahl bespoke old Steelclaws, so let’s collect such of these weapons and armor as we can use and get back on the road to the hall.”
Chapter XVII
As soon as the first company of Brotherhood Crusaders, that from the nearer south village, reached the hall, Mehleena ordered their captain, one Ahreestos, to batter down the thick, barred doors sealing the central portion of the ball off from the north wing. But all the while his men were laboriously lugging a long, foot-square oaken timber up the stairs, she screamed and screeched at them lest they damage the fine, carven paneling, wall hangings or carpets.
Once at the top of the stairs and ready to advance on the doors, the lady insisted that they first lay the makeshift ram aside for the space of time it took them and a few servants to strip the hallway of carpets, hangings and fine furniture. Only then would she allow them to get on with the business of forcing the door, which upon examination Ahreestos deduced was not going to be either quick or easy.
Nonetheless, he set his score of men to swinging the heavy length of well-cured oak against the spot where the two valves of the ironbound doors verged and on the level at which he reckoned the central bar was set. But before the men could establish a telling rhythm of strokes, the door of one of the suites between Ahreestos and the stairs opened, unnoticed.
Unnoticed, that is, until, to the twanging of bowstrings, two of his men screamed and fell. Key men, they were, and arrowed on the backstroke, their loss so unbalanced the rest as to cause them to lose grip on the timber—which, lacking proper handholds or shoulder ropes, was difficult to handle at best. The falling timber smashed one man’s kneecap and crushed another’s foot
Nor had the two middle-aged archers been idle during it all. They had dropped another brace of Ahreestos’ shrinking command, faced about once to send a scratch force of servants retreating back down the-stairs, leaving one dead and one wounded, then turned back to pierce through two more of the ram wielders, before reentering the door from which they had originally come.
Ahreestos sent one of his sergeants down to fetch the rest of his force, then led the thirteen living and unwounded bravos against the door through which the archers had disappeared. Save at its far end, the hallway was not of sufficient width to allow use of the timber, so they were compelled to axe down the suite door, ignoring the livid lady, who winced each time a blade bit into the carved and decorated fruit-wood panels.
But when the splintered door finally crashed open, the small entry foyer lay empty and they were confronted by another, even more ornate door through which they must hack. The first two bravos who crowded through the wreck of this second door apparently triggered some cunning device of boards and slender cords, for a bucket full of glowing coals was suddenly tipped and dumped to rain down upon them. And it was as well that the larger room stood empty, for the lady shrieked and cursed them all and would allow no more pursuit of the archers until the last of the coals had been scooped up and the blazing carpet brought under control.
Ahreestos now had ten men left of his score—during the demolition of the second door, one of the men had been working his axeblade loose from the wood when, in the cramped little room, a comrade’s stroke had gone astray and taken off most of his right hand—and these ten were tired, shaken, demoralized men. A couple crossed themselves, eyes rolling in superstitious horror, when a thorough search of the suite produced no archers nor any means by which they could have departed.