At that juncture, Lord Myron joined them with two retainers, all three fully armed. When Ahreestos had rendered his report, the bulking noble snorted derisively.
“Then either your scum didn’t search very well or they and you have hog turds in place of brains!” Then, striding impatiently over to what appeared but another expanse of paneled wall and had rung as solid under Ahreestos’ knuckles as had the areas flanking it, the arrogant lordling had fingered a carven rosette and, with a muted click, a five-foot-square section had sprung open a couple of inches.
Stepping back, the sneering young lord bobbed a mocking bow and waved a steel-encased arm toward the panel with silent contempt.
Ahreestos was reduced to physically shoving the sergeant and two others through the panel into the narrow tunnel beyond. Trembling like foundered horses, they mumbled prayers, gripping and regripping their weapons in sweat-slick hands. Ahreestos himself felt as nervous as a virgin bride when he ducked his head and entered into the dry darkness, his sword held at low guard before him. At his command, the sergeant halted his men until a brace of lamps could be lit and passed in to them.
The progress was slow and halting, for there were more movable panels along the way and Ahreestos could not feel safe unless the suites beyond each and every one of them was well searched before they crept onward up the tunnel.
And all the way, the lady’s strident voice rang and echoed from behind, bidding them have care with the lamps lest they set fire to the hall, bidding them on pain of direst consequences to leave no soot marks on walls or ceiling, bidding them exercise strictest caution that their weapons and equipment not chip stone or scar wood. Ahreestos soon became unclear in his own mind whether the true enemy lay ahead or behind and was thinking how much pleasure it would give him to still the fat, yapping bitch with a dirk in the gullet
At the right-angle turn where the runnel from the central section of the hall intersected that which ran the length of the south wing, there were three stone steps up to a yard-square landing, then three more to the level of the slightly higher main building. Just as the sergeant ascended to this landing, a warrior in an almost complete suit of plate descended from the blackness to cut the noncom down with a single, powerful stroke of a basket-hilted broadsword.
The second man had sheathed his sword to better manage the heavy, clumsy brass lamp, and he was given no time to draw it. The third man, pressed irresistibly on by the pressure of Ahreestos and those behind the captain, squealed like a pig at slaughtering time and never even tried to raise his sword to parry the blow that struck between the lower rim of his old-fashioned helm and his scale shirt and cleanly severed his dirty neck. The spouting, gory geysers took Ahreestos full in the face, through the bars of his visor.
Hampered by the twitching, jerking bodies beneath his feet and half-blinded by the stinging, salt blood, the veteran soldier still managed to turn two or three jarring, bone-numbing blows of that dripping, deadly sword with adroit handling of his own. Then his inferior steel snapped and he had a brief moment to stare in stunned wonderment at the scant foot of blade left below his hilt, before all the stars of heaven exploded in his head and he suddenly dropped into a bottomless pit of black nothingness.
By planting himself firmly and loudly shouting that the captain was down, the next man managed to prevent himself being pushed within range of that armored apparition and its death-dealing yard of steel. As fast as they might, but still far too slowly for the foremost men, the long line backed down the tunnel, the last one dragging the inert form of Captain Ahreestos.
In the thoheeks suite, Tim laid his blood-streaked sword aside and lifted off the helm after Giliahna’s deft, sure fingers had unbuckled it Accepting a damp cloth, he rubbed his sweaty face and hairless scalp, then gratefully drained off the big tankard of beer proffered by Sir Geros.
At length, he said in a matter-of-fact tone, “They’re In retreat now, back up the passage, but young Tcharlee is out there watching lest they return. I downed four of the bastards. Three were clean kills, but the last man was in three-quarter plate and knew a bit more than the basic rudiments of swordplay. At best, I only wounded him, possibly just stunned him. Most of them are no soldiers, just an armed rabble. Is there any more of that beer, Sir Geros?”
By the time they got Captain Ahreestos back into the suite where the lady and her folk waited and got his helmet off, he was beginning to regain consciousness. He felt kitten-weak, shaky and with trickles of his own blood from nose, ears and mouth corners freshening the partly clotted gore that had sprayed through the front of his helm from the spurting arteries of the decapitated man.
“Captain Ahreestos! God curse you, you craven cur dog, answer me!” The lady bent as far forward as her girth would permit and slapped the man’s ashen cheeks smartly, heedless that the stones and settings of her many rings tore his flesh. But her shouts and buffets elicited only a wordless mumbling, and, when she grabbed a handful of his sweaty, black hair and raised his streaked face, his bloodshot eyes rolled, unfocused, and a fresh rivulet of blood coursed from one ear.
She had the unfortunate captain raised to his feet, but, immediately the two bravos released their holds upon him, he collapsed bonelessly and fell to the floor in a great crash and clashing of his armor.
Without turning, Mehleena snapped her pudgy fingers. “Ghrahgos, Broonos, drag this piece of useless filth out into the corridor where his bleeding can’t damage anything. Lootzeea, fetch water and cloths that I may wash his dirtiness from my hands. Tonos, get the blood cleaned off this carpet Quickly, before it dries.”
While a serving girl carefully washed Mehleena’s extended hands, she ordered Ahreestos’ last living sergeant forward, snapping, “All right, you lowborn ape, what happened up there? There can be no more than a score or less including women, in that main section. So how is it that thirty big, brave men, who’ve lived high on my bounty for months, come scuttling back into this suite with their tails beween their legs? You are all armed and armored at my expense and I was assured that all of you knew how to fight.”
“L… lady,” the fidgeting sergeant, one Limos, stuttered, “the passage in there… it’s so narrow thet cain’t but one man at the time go ‘long it an’ it’s no room to use a axe nor sword properlike. But them what kilt poor Ehmnos and them other boys was in full plate armor and more’n a foot higher’n us an’ in a higher’n wider place an’ thet give ’em more room to fight right. It ain’t no room to carry targets in there, lady, so mens what hain’t in full plate or dang close to it won’t live no longern it takes’t’…”
“Never mind your stupid opinion, you stinking guttersnipe!” she snapped impatiently, then turned to her sons and the other two plate-armored men. “Myron, you and Xeelos take fifteen of these brave patriots, go downstairs, back into the rear half of this wing, then come up the rear stairs and enter the tunnel from some point beyond the T. May God damn Hwahltuh Sanderz for so ridiculously compartmenting the various sections of this hall; were it built along sane, logical Ehleen lines, this task of ours would be far easier to accomplish.
“Speeros”—this, to her second-eldest son, at fifteen as tall as his elder brother, but though big-boned not yet filled out—”you and Mailos will lead the rest of this craven pack back from this suite whenever Myron and Xeelos are in position. Your arrival and theirs should be simultaneous, if possible.”
“But, mother,” Myron replied hurriedly, “should we not wait until… until the other two companies arrive from the villages? The heathen cannot get out of the hall. All the exits are either blocked or guarded, and only two horses are left in the hall stables. If we had more men we… we could attack this way and batter the doors at the same time.”
Mehleena’s layers of fat rippled as she shrugged. “What do we need more careless, dirty men in my hall for? They’d track dirt and damage furniture. No, the place for the rest of them, when at last they straggle in, is upon the walls; don’t forget, the rest of your pagan kin could ride up at any time. “Now draw your sword, Myron, take these men down and around and show us all what you’re made of.” She patted the swell of his breastplate, on which was painted a black-rimmed white circle with, at the center, the cross—ancient symbol of their ancient religion—rendered in reddish violet