“Strike for the True God and the True Faith, Myron, my son. Strike for me, for your sisters and brothers in Christ and for the rebirth of the ancient glories of our blessed race. And if you fall, know that your sufferings will be but brief and that through the rest of eternity you will dwell with our Holy Savior in Paradise.”
“But… but, Mother,” quavered Myron, his voice breaking, his face as pale as that of wounded Captain Ahreestos, now lying unattended in the hallway. “I… I’m to be… to be the chief. The chief must not… must never be placed in danger. Speeros will be tahneestos, it is his place to lead in war, not mine… never mine! Please, Mother… what if they… they kill me?” Myron’s full lips trembled on the last words and a tear crept downward on either side of his aquiline nose. All at once, the big man seemed to shrink upon himself and he whimpered in almost a whisper, “Mother… please, Mother… please don’t make me go.” Mehleena shuddered and her eyes looked fit to burst from their sockets. Throwing back her head she emitted a scream of pure rage that could be heard even in the sealed-off and besieged central portion of the hall. Raising her thick, jig-gling-fleshed arms high above her head, she shook both small fists at the ceiling and shouted.
“Why, God, why? Why did You in Your infinite wisdom see fit to immure my man’s soul in this hateful woman’s body? Despite Your lifelong sentence of torment, have I not always striven to serve You well? Why then was it needful to further torment me by giving me for a son this pitiful coward? Why, oh, God I have served and honored my life long? Why? Why? Why? Why?”
Recognizing the too familiar signs, most of the servants rapidly and silently quit the chamber, the suite and close proximity to their infuriated mistress. Tonos and a few of the more courageous and/or agile servitors lingered in the foyer, but even they made certain of a clear line of retreat. Speeros, Xeelos and Mailos were among this smaller group.
To their sorrow, the score and a half of bravos clustered close about had never seen Mehleena Sanderz in one of her murderous tantrums and were completely unprepared when she suddenly whirled, wrenched an iron-shafted horseman’s axe from a nearby bravo and commenced to lay about her, concentrating upon the steel-clad body of Myron, her sobbing, shaking son, but careless of who or what the blade or shaft or knife-edged terminal spike encountered in its travels.
All the while, the blubbery woman screamed and ranted and raved. Half her utterances were incomprehensible, the other half damned first Myron, then every man in the suite, then every man in the hall, then every man in the duchy and, at last, every man on earth.
One of the bravos was down with his brains gushed out on the precious carpet and two others were badly hurt before the remainder of the thirty became one kicking, clawing, shouting mass as each strove to be first through the door. Myron, though his fine plates were battered somewhat and his chin had been cut by the tip of the terminal spike, was so far lost in his blue funk that he still stood unmoving. And his immobility saved him, for the ravening beast now possessing his mother was drawn to moving prey—the broil of panicky, struggling bravos—and she spun and waddled closer, still gripping the bloody axe in both hands.
Gone too far from sanity for words, only hisses, spittle and snarls of bestial fury came from between her skinned-back lips and bared, gnashing teeth. She beat on helmeted heads, stove in ribs and shattered shoulders through scale shirts and mail, hacked deeply and sauguineously into unprotected legs and arms and the occasional neck.
At length, one bravo—his lifelong respect for and fear of the nobility submerged in the agony of a deep thigh wound, terror for his threatened life and cornered-rat ferocity— turned about, drew his antique Ehleen shortsword and drove its leaf-shaped blade into Mehleena’s flopping left breast to the very crossguard, even as the last swing of her axe smashed the spine of the man behind.
Chapter XVIII
At the same moment Mehleena was decimating her own ragtag little army, Uhlos, the wine steward, now commanding the walls, was notified by a tower sentinel of a cloud of dust rapidly approaching from the direction of the west hall village. Jumping to the sadly erroneous conclusion that said dust cloud heralded the arrival of the expected company of Captain Deemos, Uhlos set his few men to the laborious tasks of lowering the drawbridge spanning the twenty-foot width of the deep ditch fronting the hall, raising the oak-and-iron grille that served to protect the outer gate from rams, then unbarring and swinging wide both the outer and inner gates.
These lowerings and raisings and openings took much time and effort for the undermanned, inexperienced contingent to accomplish, and by the time Uhlos became aware of his fatal error, it would have been too late to even attempt to reclose the approaches to the hall. Far too late even had not he and the few survivors of his force been cowering in the low, central tower, while the rest of the unarmored men lay still or feebly twitching on the wall walk, with bright-feathered arrows jutting from various portions of their anatomies.
While their retainers went about retrieving their arrows and such weapons as were on or about the fallen, then shoving dead and dying alike through the crenels to thump onto the bottom of the boulder-strewn ditch forty feet down, the nobles got quick and complete answers to all their questions from the pale and trembling wine steward, Uhlos.
When they had returned to the main courtyard below, Tahm Adaimyuhn stepped to his horse long enough to unstrap a case containing his silver-mounted throwingstick and six Ahrmehnee darts—short, heavy and infamous. He tightened the carrystrap over his armor and baldric so that they jutted in easy reach over his left shoulder.
As he returned to his three peers, Komees Dik was saying, “Well, to put it all in a walnutshell, Tim and the loyal folk hold the central portion of the hall, that bastard didn’t know how many levels and neither do we; the Ehleen bitch and her whelps, most of the servants and one company of those ruffian-soldiers hold the rest of the hall; but we hold the walls and this courtyard and those murdering rebel dogs don’t know that fact yet
“So there’s one company in the hall, one feeding the crows back up the road yonder and one unaccounted for. Now it’s a pretty fair bet that the other company wont have engines or rams, but let’s play it safe and raise that bridge. If we do that and place guards on the posterns, the dung-spawned rebels will be rats in a pit and we, my lads, will be the terriers. Too bad none of us is much good at farspeak, for I know good old Sir Geros will regret missing the fun.”
Leaving a dozen men to man the walls and guard the small rear gates, the four gentlemen clanked into the south wing at the head of thirty-two fighters. The intaking was ferocious, brutal and quickly done. No quarter was expected or proffered, but at Komees Dik’s express command, Speeros Sanderz and his two maternal cousins. Xeelos and Mailos, were taken alive—battered but alive. So, too, were the younger, prettier Ehleen serving women—at no one’s command, rather by an unvoiced but general agreement Mehleena’s younger children were in the north, wing and were not found until long after the heat of blood lust had cooled.
It was near sunset before the company marched in from the eastern village. Captain Plehkos spurred ahead of his men and reined up at the edge of the ditch, demanding that the bridge be lowered. In the dusk, he failed to recognize the stiff, grayish, naked corpses of Mehleena and Captain Ahreestos, dangling by their ankles above the gate. His armor saved him from the arrows, but his horse lacked any such protection. Captain Plehkos executed a retrograde movement at a limping run, commandeered the mule from a sergeant then led his forty-eight bravos far enough down the hill to be well out of bow range.
Komees Dik, Vahrohneeskos Tahm and the others were all for mounting and sallying out to finish the job of rebel eradication, but Tim—who had assumed overall command with natural ease and without argument—shook his head.
“No, Kinsmen, you have had your fun. There are those coming who have not so leave yon bandits to them.” Then he added, on a serious note, “If you want an occupation for your men, set them to finding that whoreson Myron. We found his armor in that room where his bitch-mother was killed, but sword, dirk and the pervert himself are gone, along with his bumboy, the cook, Gaios. You say you had all exits guarded so he must still be in this hall. I charge you, Kindred, find that precious pair. I’ve a stake prepared that will no doubt tickle his arse to such a degree that the folk off in Morguhnpolis will hear his shrieks of pleasure!”