"You'd better send over a detail now to cut our horses out of the permanent herd and another detail to the depot to harness teams and hitch them to our wagons, then drive them back here to be loaded. Set my servants to packing my own effects, and if thesub-strahteegos sends over a small, heavy chest, put it in my largest trunk."

He might have said more, but a pounding of ap-proaching hoofbeats heralded the arrival of Captain-of-squadronOpokomees Ehrrikos, his face streaming salt sweat and twisted by a frown of worry. Flinging himself from the saddle of the heaving horse, he ran up the steps and burst into the room, gasping, "Bralos, the old man is even now on his way to arrest you for inciting to mutiny. One of my boys was on an errand to army headquarters and saw and heard them forming up a strong party of both horse- and foot-guards, plus a company of foot-archers. Chief Pawl was there and was ordered to add a troop of his Horseclansmen to the party, but he politely told them to do their own dirty work, that he was not down here nor his men either to help overweening dotards con-duct vendettas against their own officers. My boy says that at that, some of the old man's own horse-guard officers had to physically keep him from drawing steel and going after Chief Pawl. It's a crying shame they did it, too; Pawl would've minced his lights nicely.

"Well, good G.o.d, man, what are you dawdling for, get your a.r.s.e in a saddle, I'll delay them for as long as I can . . ."

"Hymos," said Bralos calmly, "send out those gal-lopers, now, to the sub-strahteegosand Senior CaptainThoheeks Portos; you need not now send to the other two, since they obviously have been otherwise apprised. Set all of the other wheels in motion, if you please. I'll stay here and chat with my comrade until it is necessary for me to go elsewhere."

Sub-strahteegos ThoheeksTomos Gonsalos stalked into the army headquarters building, his face fire-red and streaming sweat, his brick-colored beard and mous-taches bristling. Just behind him came Captain-of-squadron Chief Pawl Vawn of Vawn and several of his sub-chiefs, Senior Captain-of-brigadeThoheeks Por-tos, Captain-of-pikes Guhsz Hehluh and Captain-of-foot Ahzprinos.

No guardsman still in his right mind would have essayed to try to stop or even to slow such an aggregation of grim-faced senior officers. And none did.

Before their dogged onslaught, members of the head-quarters staff scattered like a covey of quail.

Before they all could flit away, Portos reached out a big, hard hand and snagged a junior lieutenant by hisflabby biceps, terrified him with a look that smacked of a quick, b.l.o.o.d.y death, then put him to the question.

"Where is Captain-of-squadronVahrohnos Bralos?"

"In ... in ... out in the rear court, See . . . See . . . Senior C-Captain," the unfortunate quavered, his voice cracking several times.

"And where is the GrandStrahteegos ?"demanded Portos.

"He ... he is ... he is there, t-too. To oversee the ... the first f-flogging, and it p-please your grace." The man sniffled, and when Portos hurled him into a heap in a corner, he wet his crotch and began to shudder and sob, then, suddenly, retch up his last meal. Sub-chief Myk Vawn, as he pa.s.sed the wretched officer, wrinkled up his nose, suspecting that the next-to-last meal had found another means of egress from the staff officer.

Before the party had reached the back of the building, they heard the drums begin to roll, and before they all were outside, they heard the regular, whistling cracks of the whip commence. But these last contin-ued only until Portos grabbed the weighted tip of the lash on the backswing and jerked the surprised wielder from off his feet.

The GrandStrahteegos Thoheeks Pahvlos jumped up from his chair, upsetting it, the small table and the bowl of fresh grapes he had been sharing with the boy, Ilios, who himself voiced a shrill shriek, though not leaving the cushioned chair.

"What is this, Mutiny Day, gentlemen?" burst out Pahvlos. "You, Captain Portos, give that man back his whip and let's get on with the punishment. This will be but the first of many, of course, but I mean to have that pig singing nicely before this day be done. Next week, when everything has been arranged, I mean to see the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's spine and shoulder blades and ribs, before I see his traitorous neck stretched."

Disgustedly, Tomos Gonsalos s.n.a.t.c.hed the whip from Portos and flung it high atop the roof of the building. "You old fool," he said to Pahvlos. 'Don't you know your kind of senseless super-discipline and sadism is well on the way to tearing Council's army apart at the seams? Do you even care? Or it that really your aim, to dissolve the army first, then the ConsolidatedTho-heekseeahnee? Would you be king, is that it? Or . . ." He frowned for a moment, trying to recall just how the High Lord had phrased it in his most recent, most secret letter, then he had it. "Or do you serve other, more sinister interests, my lord?

Are they per-haps far-southern interests?"

The GrandStrahteegos continued to stare his indig-nation and rage at the group, but from out the corner of his eye, Tomos Gonsalos saw the cryptic verbal barb find lodging in the b.u.mboy, Ilios, who started as if touched with a red-hot iron.

But now Portos stalked forward and faced his furi-ous commander, stating flatly, "You had no right to do any more than arrest CaptainVahrohnos Bralos and hold him in custody until he was brought to face the officers' panel, and you know it full well, my lordThoheeks. You are, by this heinous act, yourself guilty of criminal activity . . . and you know that, too, my lordThoheeks."

"This man," declared the GrandStrahteegos, "freed a common sergeant who had tried to cross the perime-ter contrary to my promulgated orders, had fought with and grievously injured some of the obedient men who stopped him, and was therefore undergoing pun-ishment on the wooden horse. This man not only freed the malefactor, but he had three of my fine foot-guards beaten severely by his troops,then bound them and placed them, most unjustly, on the punishment horse, leaving them there to scream and writhe in agony until someone decided that no one man alone could make so much noise and came finally to their rescue."

"I knew you'd bring that up," said Pawl Vawn, "and I investigated the matter early on. The sergeant's wife was near death of the fever, and word was sent to him that she was calling for him. What else was a loving husband to do, stupid rules or no stupid rules?"

"My rules are in no way stupid," declared the old man. "At least, in no way that a civilized, cultured Ehleen gentleman could understand. Of course, you barbarians are a crude, rude, uncultured and often quite obnoxious race at your best. I possibly should not expect men of your limited intellectual capacities to ever comprehend, but I will, nonetheless, try one last time to explain to you.

"Three primary things are the utter ruination of your old-fashioned common soldier. These are un-wonted luxuries such as hot baths, too much armor and too little work; an overabundance of drink; and women. I sincerely hope that that insubordinate ser-geant's wife is dead, for he will be the better man and soldier without her.

"Women rob a man of his vitality, and often by sucking the life clear out of him. They ..."

"And what, pray tell," muttered one of the Horseclans sub-chiefs from somewhere within the crowd, "does that overprettypooeesos of yours suck out of you, lordy boy?"

The old man turned crimson and clapped hand to his swordhilt. He stepped forward and demanded, "What creature of slime said that? Dare you to show your face to me, you ill-bred pig?"

"Enough and more than enough!" snapped Tomos Gonsalos. "We are come to free Captains Bralos and Ehrrikos. They will be held for a hearing, my lordThoheeks, but until and if the officers' panel says them guilty of some crime, they are not going to be further punished. Pawl, would you and yours kindly see to Bralos and Ehrrikos? Thank you."

"Guards, stop them!" the old man half-shouted at the quintet of his foot-guards, who had wisely kept still and silent through it all.

Old Guhsz Hehluh slouched forward, hitching his swordbelt around for quicker, easier access to the weapon, and Captain Ahzprinos was not far to his rear. "Tell me, boys," asked the captain of mercenary pikemen, in tones of friendly conversation, "is all this here really worth you dying for?"

The Horseclansmen freed Captain Ehrrikos-seized for "aiding and abetting the attempted escape of the notorious malefactor and mutineer who calls himself Bralos of Yohyultonpolis" and promised three dozens of lashes after Bralos had had his share-while others loosened the deep-biting ropes from Bralos' wrists and ankles, then eased him to the ground and flung his torn shirt over his b.l.o.o.d.y back and shoulders.

Walking to his friend's side, Ehrrikos squatted and asked-a bit stupidly, as he later admitted to all and sundry-"Does it hurt much, Bralos?"

Through tight-clenched and b.l.o.o.d.y teeth, the flogged man gritted, "Only when I laugh, Ehrrikos."

While the officers were being chosen for the trial panel-they would act as both jury and judges, could find guilt or innocence, set punishments or rewards for anyone connected with the trial, not just the accused officers, and had the power during their tenure to call anyone they wanted to hear, military or civilian, n.o.ble or commoner, man or woman, and could demand to peruse any doc.u.ments save only state secrets-Bralos was cared for in his tightly guarded quarters by his servants, his officers and the senior among hiseeah-trohsee. His own bodyguards-save only for the con-valescing Sergeant Tahntos, who was being nursed in the settlement beyond the perimeter by his newly dead wife's sister-took watch-on-watch so that there never were fewer than two of them outside his door. His officers haunted the outer rooms, both by day and by night, and a constant cordon of troopers and sergeants surrounded the headquarters building, brusquely dis-arming any officer or man not of their own who made to enter, a.s.sured that the officers just inside would back them up with authority should anyone try to pull rank on them.

Of a day, Sub-strahteegos ThoheeksTomos Gonsalos and Senior Captain-of-brigadeThoheeks Portos of Pithahpolis, willingly, smilingly handed over their cut-lery to the zealous troopers, then pa.s.sed in to find Bralos seated in a backless chair, his weals all shiny with unguents, conferring with his senior lieutenant, Hymos.

Drawing up stray chairs, the two visiting officers asked for wine, and Hymos himself went to fetch it, for the two bodyguards still were close to their squad-ron commander and the two visitors were, after all, unarmed and presumably friendly, besides.

"How is the empanelment going?" asked Bralos.

Portos snorted. "Slowly, thanks to that obtuse old man, thank you. He wants it packed with his toadies, naturally, and we are just as dead set that it will be packed in no such way, but a fair, honest aggregation of honorable gentleman-officers. It helps us mightily that you hold the ranks-civil and military-that you do, for the most of the old man's proven toadies are unt.i.tled and low-ranking young men, and we can all thank also the narrow-a.r.s.ed Ilios for much of that, for he didn't like Pahvlos' old staff, said that they all were aged and ugly and, for all their experience and exper-tise, not at all the kind of men that should be always around. Of course, the infatuated Pahvlos indulged the whims of the littlepooeesos, and now he shortly will be hoist up by his own catapult.

"You see, the panel may consist of any number of officers above the minimum of eight for hearing of a case against any captain-of-squadron or -battalion; how-ever, the panel must be entirely composed of officers of your rank or higher. In order to be even consid-ered, a man of lower than your military rank must be your superior in his civil rank."

"So the GrandStrahteegos," put in Tomos Gonsalos, "has found himself to be lodged between a rock and a hard place, to his distress. Almost every officer of your rank or higher has recently come to fear or hate and despise the GrandStrahteegos, and we have stoutly fought off his every attempt to insinuate officers not technically qualified for inclusion. We have received, today, earlier, a tentative roll of the panel. Of the ten, seven are men well known to you: me, to head it; Portos, here; Biszahros and Ahzprinos; Nathos, the elephant-man; Pintos, the senior quartermaster since Pahvlos booted him from off his staff because his looks didn't please sweet Ilios; and yet another former staff officer, Lahreeos."

"And the other three?" queried Bralos. "What of them, Tomos?"

Tomos grimaced as if he had just tasted something a bit rotten. "Until three days ago, Captain-of-staff Gaios of Thehsmeeyee was a mere lieutenant, not even a senior lieutenant, he'd not been in the army long enough to have earned a senior lieutenancy; he's one of Pahvlos' and no mistaking it ... but we may beable to find a way of disqualifying the b.u.g.g.e.r yet. We can't be sure of the other two-they could be his, they could be ours, they could be strictly neutral, too, men who'll make a decision based solely upon testimonies and evidence heard and seen."

"Why not Guhsz Hehluh, or Pawl Vawn?" asked Bralos. "There's the captain of the artificiers, too, for that matter; Nikos is a good man."

Tomos sighed. "Because the first two are not Ehleenohee, and because Pahvlos declares that all three are mercenaries, not his regular troops, and are there-fore completely unqualified to sit on the panel and try a regular officer."

"Now, wait a d.a.m.ned minute," protested Bralos heatedly. "The last I heard from that old b.a.s.t.a.r.d was that I was a mercenary who had had regular foot-guards a.s.saulted by other mercenaries. If you need a witness, just go ask Ehrrikos, he was there."

Tomos flashed a glance at Portos, and then both nodded. Tomos said to Bralos, "Be that as it may, for the nonce, the GrandStrahteegos has declared and avowed before us both that at no time did he truly consider you and Wolf Squadron to be anything save regular Ehleen light cavalry. He states that it was you and you only he tagged with the name 'mercenary scoundrel' and that if that appellation was not prop-erly understood by you and others, he now regrets it."

"Is it then so?" said Bralos. "Then, pray tell me why the old b.u.g.g.e.r has not paid this squadron's wages in going on six months? I and Wolf Squadron seem to be and have been mercenary troops when it pleases this lying, conniving GrandStrahteegos, but regular Ehleen troops when it does not so please him."

"Well," put in Portos, "there's precious little we can do about that matter at this juncture. But who knows what the futures of any of us may hold? Rest well and long and recover quickly as you can, son Bralos, for by this time next week, we just may have agreed upon an officers' panel to settle everything . . . I hope and pray."

Tomos shrugged. "Hopes and prayers are all well and good, my friends, but judging only upon what has happened, and not happened, recently, I must be pes-simistic and conclude that the firm choice of a full panel may take longer than merely one more week."

However, before any panel of officers could be for-mally invested, the most displeased Grand Strahteegos played one of his hole cards, ordering almost all of Council's army on the road to Sahvahnahspolis, far and far to the east of the ConsolidatedThoheekseeahnee. It was a march that no single officer or man in his command was at all anxious to undertake, calling as it did for some two or three days and nights of marching through and camping in swamps and salt fens which happened to be the territory of huge, scaly, predaceous monsters, deadly snakes, strange and hideous fevers, bot-tomless concealed pits of quicksand and, by far the worst of all the terrors awaiting them, the barbarian swamp-dwellers or fen-men.

Not a few of the officers and soldiers were terrified at thoughts of even entering that dim, damp, death-crawling realm of the sinister fen-men, who were sel-dom seen and who killed from a distance with blowgun darts steeped in poisons-estimates of the actual dis-tance, accuracy and lethality of the poisons varied greatly, dependent mostly upon just how close was the individual speaker to fear-induced hysteria at the time of the telling. But it was cold, hard, incontestable fact that entire companies and battalions of well-armed and -led troops had marched into those fens that bordered most of the eastern and southern coasts and never returned, their bodies not even being found, nor any traces of their weapons and equipment. Such incidents as this had most recently occurred during the infamous "March of Royal Conquest" of the late, unlamented and last king of the Kingdom of the Southern Ehleenohee, which land was now metamorphosed into the ConsolidatedThoheekseeahnee of Southern Ehleenohee. Leading his vast host of hundreds of thousands, High King Zastros I had marched into the southernmost lands of the Kingdom of Karaleenos on an ill-starred, poorly planned military operation that had ended in disaster and the deaths of him and his queen on the banks of the Lumbuh River.*

On the march north, however, when hara.s.sed on his right flank by fen-men, he had sent units into the swamps after the raiders. Smaller units had been lost entirely; of larger ones, ten to fifteen percent of the original units had returned, stumbling from out the swamps all bearded and filthy and starved, afflicted with strange fevers, skin diseases never before seen by theeeahtrohsee, b.l.o.o.d.y dysentery and degrees of mad-ness that bred sleeping and waking nightmares. When he once had debriefed a few of the officer-survivors of the largest unit to come out of the swamps more or less alive, High King Zastros had never again sent

*SeeSwords of the Horseclans (HORSECLANS #2) by Robert Adams, Signet Books, 1981.

troops into the deadly swamps and had, indeed, seen that the march-route of his columns was narrowed so as to be well to the westward of the peripheries of the salt fens and the barbarians who dwelt therein, for all that it slowed the progress of his horde considerably.

That the GrandStrahteegos Thoheeks Pahvlos was now clearly intent on forcing his entire army into another patch of these brooding places of death was, in the eyes of his already more or less disaffected men, but more evidence that their once-revered commander had changed, drastically and for the worse, and now meant them all no slightest good. Even so, they had taken their oaths, sacred oaths, and so they all, per-force, felt that they must obey . . . all, that is, save for the individuals who found or made the time and the opportunity to take hopefully-permanent leave of their insane commander, the army and all.

The traditional Ehleen punishment for apprehended deserters was simply death-by hanging or decapita-tion, usually. But despite his well-earned reputation as an army traditionalist, there was nothing traditional about the manners in which the GrandStrahteegos dealt with deserters or with any other common sol-diers who chanced to break one of his new plethora of rules and edicts-which seemed to ever expand in quant.i.ty, even as the earlier ones became ever stricter.

In the little cleared s.p.a.ce behind army headquar-ters, wherein he and Ilios, his catamite, lived in a suite of ground-floor rooms, he had had erected two whipping-frames of heavy lumber, a rack and a ma.s.sive table fitted with straps and manacles. There, shaded by an awning, he and Ilios would sit and drink cooled wine and nibble at fruits and bits of cheese or crisp biscuits while men were slowly whipped to death or perma-nently crippled on the rack or blinded with sharp stakes or otherwise mutilated while chained and strapped to the bloodstained table. And the men used so atrociously for his enjoyment were not deserters, but mere troopers who had tried to visit women beyond the perimeters of the sprawling camp, had been caught bringing women into the camp, had been apprehended with unwatered wine or any other potable than wine, had been caught with pipes, tobacco or hemp in their possession or had transgressed in any way against the hordes of near-senseless rules and regulations that his brain continuedto invent and his staff continued to churn out for distribution to his command.

For deserters and those guilty of crimes of a truly capital nature, the old commander had had the official army execution site adjacent to the drill field enlarged to include four permanent poles for crosses, two dou-ble gallows, and a raised platform fitted for either a whipping-frame or an impalement stake; another plat-form held the frame of a rack and a table that was the mate of the one behind his headquarters building. Beneath each of the platforms were low sheds wherein were kept the smaller but necessary implements- braziers, whips, pincers, branding-irons, manacles, straps, ropes, prepared oaken impalement stakes, an a.s.sortment of sharp knives of various sizes and shapes, hand-bellows for making coals burn hotter, iron bars for breaking bones, mauls for pulping hands or feet, differing sizes of pliers for drawing or breaking off teeth or for tearing out tongues.

Now the common soldiers drilled beneath the shad-ows of wheeling buzzards and of flocks of black car-rion crows winging swiftly to the grisly feast which awaited them, dangling from gallows-beams or roped to crosses, pretenderized by floggings and savage tortures.

At two meetings of senior officers of the army with their GrandStrahteegos, old Pahvlos had blamed the increasingly high incidences of sell-back of rank among officers and desertions of common soldiers on a general breakdown in discipline engendered by excessive coddling of the troops. A prime and flagrant example of this distressing trend was, he noted, that of the thief and mutineer CaptainVahrohnos Bralos, onetime com-mander of the lancers of the Wolf Squadron. He had then harangued his captive audience for almost an hour, each time, on the deadly dangers to discipline and order of treating the common soldier like more than the dumb, unfeeling, seldom thinking brute that he actually was. Such dangerous and larcenous officers asVahrohnos Bralos, he noted, who frittered away ill-gotten monies on such things as expensive clothing, extra-and completely unauthorized by traditional practices-items of armor, food as good as some ju-nior officer messes, better wines than the army could afford and even tobacco, were underminers of morale among the unindulged soldiers and the very bane of an overall commander's existence.

The senior officers heard him out-what else could they do?-but the few who took his diatribes to heart had been of his personal clique before he had begun. Most of the officers recognized just what he was trying to accomplish and knew full well just why he was trying to accomplish it. Unimpressed by him, they all knew exactly why their soldiers were deserting or trying to desert or purposefully injuring themselves; they were doing so for the same reasons that so many junior officers were either trying to sell back their ranks or just resigning and riding off to their homes the poorer. The combination of old Pahvlos' dogged determination to convert the entire army to total absti-nence from women, unwatered wine, and the use of either hemp or tobacco if he had to flog, maim, muti-late or kill half of them to do it would have been enough, but with a useless, senseless march into the swamps and salt fens looming in the near futures of them all, it did not take an intellectual giant to perceive that Council's army, now commanded by an obvious madman, was become a distinctly unhealthy place in which to remain longer.

Indeed, not a few of the senior officers were thinking seriously of early and quick retirement to their lands or cities, had the old man but known.

Far-flung expeditionary forces had been summoned to return to the base camp under the walls of Mehsee-polis, and as these smaller units trickled in to be confronted with the hosts of new rules and list of now-forbidden activities-each one, to the minds of the average man, more nonsensical and stupid than the one preceding it-and the halved pay and the frenetic activity in preparation for an extremely dan-gerous expedition that, were truth known, no one but him responsible for its inception really antic.i.p.ated with any emotions save fear and horror, whole bodies of not only common soldiers but sergeants and specialists began to desert. They went over the perimeter by dark of night, or they did not come back from errands or details outside the heavily guarded military enclave. Members of units sentout in pursuit of deserters took to not returning, and it was found that punishing the officers in charge of these units did nothing but to increase the rate at which junior officers departed the army.

At length, the mess had begun to stink so foully that Council was moved to calling as full an a.s.sembly as possible and hearing a move to force the retirement of its GrandStrahteegos. But old Pahvlos owned vehe-ment supporters on the Council and, as athoheeks in civil life, was himself a member. He had, of course, hotly defended his methods of discipline and punish-ment, refusing to retire, regardless of his age, which was approaching eighty years, and his supporters on Council had spoken so forcefully in his defense that Council Guardsmen had had to be summoned three times to break up brawls between n.o.blemen. Several duels and at least one attempted a.s.sa.s.sination had been the eventual and only result of the session, and the disgusted chairman,Thoheeks Grahvos, had ended by dismissing everyone with nothing in the way of business settled.

With the captains of both lancer squadrons under arrest, confined to their respective quarters and await-ing hearings by a not yet formed board of officers, the GrandStrahteegos dispatched orders to Senior Captain and Commander of the Cavalry BrigadeThoheeks Por-tos to appoint the senior lieutenant of each squadron acting-captain-of-squadron and have them take over command during the campaign, wherein the lancers would as usual ride point, flanks and rearguard, back up the scouts whenever necessary and, themselves, scout out from the perimeters of nightly camps. This order resulted in both senior lieutenants immediately selling back their ranks and in one departing the camp soon thereafter. Nor would any of the troop-lieutenants deign to take over their function even when offered them at no cost.

That had been when the GrandStrahteegos had decided to merge the seven troops of lancers into a new "great squadron" and place it under the com-mand of one of his favorite staff officers, Captain Gaios of Thehsmeeyee. This signal honor the tall, willowy officer sought to decline, first pointing out that he was more than fulfilled in his present function, then mentioning at some length his unworthiness for such an honor and his patent inexperience in com-mand of combat troops. These points being all poo-pooed by old Pahvlos, the staff officer had first offered to sell back his rank, then begged the army com-mander to allow him to forfeit his investment and revert to lower rank. He was brusquely refused and ordered to pack his gear, mount his horse and ride over to the heavy cavalry enclave, present himself to the commander of the brigade of cavalry and tell him that he was to henceforth be captain of the great squadron of lancers.

Seemingly dutifully, Captain Gaios mounted his horse and rode off, leaving his servants to pack his effects, but he did not ride into the cavalry enclave; rather was he last seen headed west on the main trade road, having left a hastily scrawled letter of resignation on his writing desk.

The GrandStrahteegos still was fulminating against the cowardly and backbiting Captain Gaios when Captain-of-brigadeThoheeks Portos-outwardly grave, but secretly gleeful-dropped the next bit of bad news.

"My lordStrahteegos, Captain Chief Pawl Vawn of Vawn says that no one of his Horseclansmen or prairiecats will be on the Sahvahnahspolis operation; rather are they all preparing to return to Kehnooryos Ehlahs, saying that they have been absent long enough from their wives and families. Before they go, Captain Chief Pawl demands that he be paid the seven months' pay now due them. He adds that he must have the full amount agreed upon in his original contract with Coun-cil, not the half-pay that now is being given other units."

The old man's face darkened perceptibly and veins began to bulge ominously in his forehead, but before he could commence an outburst, CaptainThoheeks Portos, with skillful cunning, dropped the other shoe. "Moreover, my lordStrahteegos, Captain Guhsz Hehluh refuses to go anywhere for any purpose until the month's pay owed his pikemen is paid along with six more months in advance, their beer ration is re-stored to replace the watered wine, they are given back the right to come and go as they wish, on and off the campgrounds, on their off-duty hours and are no longer hindered or hara.s.sed in their bringing back, possessing and enjoying hwiskee, brandy, winter wine, honey wine, double beer, ales, hemp and tobacco. Captain Hehluh states that if your paymaster does not pay him all that he wants in full and to the last half-copper, then he will march his full unit into Mehseepolis under arms and demand the money of Council."

"He wouldn't dare!" hissed Pahvlos. "Like all bar-barians, he is only moving his lips and tongue to hear himself talk."

"My lord should not be so certain that Captain Hehluh will not do just what he threatens," cautioned Portos solemnly. "Remember, he and his men were proven veterans of formal warfare long before they came down to serve the ConsolidatedThoheekseeahnee. They terribly resent the unaccustomed strictures put upon their lives by my lord's modes of army discipline, and the reduction of their pay by half and the delays in giving them even that have infuriated them."

"Well," snarled Pahvlos, "if the unwashed swine of barbarian, alien sows don't care to serve me in a strictly organized army, let them just march back to their sties and thus remove their hateful stink from under the noses of decent, cultured Ehleenohee!"

"They probably will do just that, in the end, does my lord not indulge them," said Portos. "But they want all monies now due them, and my lord can be a.s.sured that they can be expected to take whatever steps they feel necessary to receive it, no matter how drastic or embarra.s.sing to my lord."

Chapter VIII.

While the GrandStrahteegos spent his time planning for the march to Sahvahnahspolis, fuming at the pre-viously unsuspected depths of treachery and outright cowardice of soldiers and trusted officers alike, daw-dling of afternoons and early evenings in that slice of very h.e.l.l behind his headquarters watching and listen-ing to sights and sounds of horror and protracted death with the boy, Ilios, Council's once-fine, once-large, once-effective army went about disintegrating.

As a last step before actually doing as he had threat-ened, old Guhsz Hehluh, the grizzled captain of the Keebai pikemen, sent down to aid the new govern-ment of the lands that had been a kingdom by Milo Morai, High Lord of Kehnooryos Ehlahs, rode into Mehseepolis with a few of his officers and drew rein before the Council palace.

When, after many delays, he actually found himself closeted withThoheeks Grahvos, he spoke very bluntly, as was his wont. "It's d.a.m.n good brandy, my lord Duke, but I ain't here to drink your brandy. I come because I got a contract was signed by you and a couple other dukes away back when. I think me and my Keebai boys has given you good service."

Grahvos nodded. "That you and they most a.s.suredly have, old friend. You were and are the very backbone of our army."

"Well," said Hehluh, "we won't be for much longer, not unless that old fart of a GrandStrahteegosCouncil wished off on us slacks off his crazy ideas some and starts paying us in full and regular. Our next six months' pay is already more'n thirty days overdue now, and added to this loony plan of his to march the whole f.u.c.king army into the frigging salt fens to no other purpose than to pick a fight with the d.a.m.n frigging fen-men-and you know d.a.m.n good and well how many of them men he takes in is likely to come out, you know, you was with Zastros' army-plus his c.o.c.k-eyed new-model rules that soldiers can't go out of the camp nights to dip their wick, shouldn't have wives or females of any kinds, can't drink nothing 'cept of that pukey watered wine, can't smoke hemp or even to-bacco and gets flogged for even owning a f.u.c.king pipe, I ain't at all sure just how long my sergeants and officers and me can keep the boys in the line this feather-brain b.a.s.t.a.r.d has done drawn."

Grahvos just sat, motionless and silent, for long moments after the middle-aged professional soldier had finished. When at last he spoke, it was to say contritely and with utter sincerity, "Guhsz, my dear old friend, I have been for long aware that Pahvlos has been changing in strange ways for the last couple of years, and I and some others of us have made efforts to first persuade him, then compel him to give up his military rank and retire. But Council consists of men, and all men are fallible, so Council is divided into cliques, some of them in favor of retiring Pahvlos, some of them very violently opposed, regardless of his mishandling of the army, its officers and its men. Those of us who recognize what he is doing to our army have, all else having been foiled by his fanatic partisans on Council-and I tell you this next in strict-est confidence and then only because I know you of old, know you for the sort of man you are and, there-fore, trust you implicitly-even tried to have him as-sa.s.sinated, no less than three times, but he is always heavily guarded and, obviously, very lucky, so our hirelings all have failed us.

"Unfortunately, he was appointed GrandStrahteegos of Council's army for life or until he saw fit to retire. No provision was made to remove him for cause, because, based on his previous reputation, no one of us could just then suspect that ever there would be any cause to forcibly remove him; as I said, all men are fallible, alas. Therefore, until Pahvlos dies, from what-ever agent-illness, mishap, battle wound or murder-or until certain cretins on Council learn what brains are for and begin to make use of them, we are stuck with the old man and all his many faults.

"Now I doubt that I can do much to protect the bulk of the army from their nominal commander, but I can d.a.m.ned well take you and your valuable men from under his insanities. When you leave here, you will have been paid every copper owed you according to your contract with Council and you will be bearing a doc.u.ment stipulating that your pikemen are, until further notice, a part of the Mehseepolis city garrison, under direct command of the city castellan. There are some acres just outside Tomos Gonsalos'

enclave, near to the road between there and the lower city, as I recall; I own this land and will give it to Council's use, this day. Move your camp there as soon as possible, and between now and autumn, state-slaves and mate-rials will be diverted there to build you and your force snug, permanent quarters, stables, wash-houses, priv-ies, cook-houses, storehouses and whatnot.

"That should take care of you and your lot. Now, what is the case with Chief Pawl-more of the same?"

"Worse, in several ways," replied Hehluh. "He and his have not been paid anything for over seven months now. He has been borrowing from poor Captain Baron Bralos, generous man that he is, in order to give his Horseclansmen just enough for to keep body and soul together. But he's done had enough and he's remem-bered he's got a home and family, up north, and that's just where he and his kin are all set to head for."

Grahvos frowned worriedly. "Soon?"

"Not tomorrer, but while the weather's still warm and good," was Hehluh's reply. "I tried to talk him around to coming here to see you today, but he al-lowed as how he'd been down here more'n longenough anyhow, and it was time he and his folks all went back home and let the High Lord send some more Horse-clansmen down here to take his place. I couldn't fault him for thinking that way; in his place, I guess as how I would too, Duke Grahvos. Not every man jack of them is riding north, of course, but then you know about that a'ready, since you're the one talked them into staying down here and taking up vacant lands and raising stock on them."

Grahvos felt disappointed, however, for he had strongly hoped that, in the end, he could convince even more of the northern hors.e.m.e.n to remain in the ConsolidatedThoheekseeahnee, and given a bit more time, he believed that he might have accomplished it. Yet another black mark to be charged to Grand Strahteegos Thoheeks Pahvlos.

The next blow to fall for old Pahvlos was the plague that struck the elephants, not just one or two, as was usual, but all of them, both the war-trained bulls and the three draught cows; only the young, immature and untrained bull seemed to have not contracted the pest. Neither of the captains-of-elephants and none of thefeelahksee seemed to have any inkling of just what was wrong with the huge beasts, much less know how to doctor them. The symptoms were recurrent at odd intervals rather than constant, but serious and terrify-ing, all the same. At one minute, an elephant bull or cow would be its normal, well-behaved, obedient self, and then, in a mere eyeblink of time, it would become wild, uncontrollable and almost murderous, often need-ing to be chained to solid objects until the symptoms had abated, which might take minutes or hours or a whole day.

The GrandStrahteegos felt compelled to count out the elephants in his plans for the march to Sahvah-nahpolis. But just then he had more than that to trouble and infuriate him.

With the loss of the medium-cavalry Horseclansmen and their great cats, which latter had proven so useful at scouting and patrolling, he knew that he simply had to have the lancers and gifted veteran senior officers to lead and command them. The only two of these now available and close to hand were under arrest, stripped of their commands and awaiting trial.

He talked the matter over with Ilios, now his most trusted confidant, then-gritting his teeth in suppressed rage-he dropped all charges against Captain-of-squadronVahrohnos Bralos and Captain-of-squadronOpokomees Ehrrikos . . . only to watch helplessly as the wretched Bralos packed his wagons, mounted up his squadron and led them out of the camp, headed southwest.