A Cat Of Silvery Hue (24 page)

And it was what he had dreaded all along, that presentiment which had for so long kept him quiet on this matter had come horribly to pass. The young
thoheeks
and this gruff, kindly officer he had come to respect, whose friendship he had treasured, both were laughing. Laughing at him. At Geros-the-coward!

Bili’s unusual mind, far more sensitive than most, was first to comprehend what their laughter was doing to the sergeant. He sobered immediately, saying, “Sergeant Geros, Sword Brother, had you been reared to arms, as were Captain Raikuh and I, you would know that fear is as much a part of a warrior’s life as are fleas and wet blankets. Captain, have you ever known a Freefighter who had no fear?”

Pawl shrugged. “One or two, my lord, but such never live through the next battle. You see, Geros, fear is what keeps a fighter alive, what gives a dog-tired man the agility to dodge that last spear, raise the sword for one more cut. I dislike being around men who’re truly without fear, for death hovers ever near to them.”

“You see, sergeant,” Bili continued gently, “all warriors know fear…and hide it Those who hide it most successfully, most consistently, are called ‘brave.’ Which be but a word saying that Sacred Sun has gifted a man with acting ability better than most.”

“But…but, my lord…” Geros’ guilt still felt painfully undischarged. “I…” He dropped his voice to a whisper and shame suffused his face. “I sometimes am so fearful that…that I…that I
wet
myself!”

Roaring with laughter, Raikuh once more squeezed Geros’ shoulders. “You only piss yourself, comrade? But my steel! I once had a captain who seldom failed to ride in from a battle but he was stinking like a farmer’s privy on a summer day. Sword help the man who was downwind of Dunghill Daituhn after any kind of a fight.”

Softly, Bili asked, “Captain, you really rode with him they called the Blood Mark? Then you must be older than I’d thought.”

Raikuh chuckled. “My house carry our ages well, my lord. I’ll be fifty next year. But, yes, I rode with Markee Daituhn, in my wild youth. Of course, that was ere he was ennobled. He was just a famous captain, then, but the youngest son of a younger son, like me, felt damned lucky to win a place in the ranks of his company just the same.”

“Now, you see, sergeant,” nodded Bili, “there be an excellent example of the glory to which even a common-born Freefighter can aspire. Daituhn was born the son of a smith. But ere he died, he’d hacked his way to power and prestige, with a title to leave his son and gold to dower his daughters. You heard what the captain said of him, yet you certainly couldn’t call such a man coward. For that matter, I’ve wet my own breeches more than once, and I’d lay you
thrahkmehs
to turds that the captain has too. So were I in your place, I’d accept his offer. A man with the kind of guts it took to admit, as you just did, to what you obviously felt were grievous faults—”

But there was no time to say more, for the High Lord’s mindspeak was clear and strong. “Bili, move your Freefighters down to
Strahteegos
Ahrtos’ position. I’ll be leading the attack on the left salient. Ahrtos will be in command of the assault on the right, but I want you with him because you own a quality he lacks—imagination. Take care of yourself, son. If anything happens to you, Aldora will no doubt make my life miserable for the next hundred years.”

In after years, Bili was to recall that attack as absolutely hellish, with almost all that could going wrong. Only narrow gaps had been cleared through the interlaced abatis, and the Confederation infantry took heavy losses while threading slowly through the gaps. Slingstones and arrows and darts hailed thickly from the summit of the hillock, despite the shafts rained on the defenders by Confederation archers. Then, once the survivors were through the deadly hedge and were forming for the charge against the bristling breastworks, no less than
three
catapult stones—from Confederation engines, too!—fell short and bounced a sanguinous path through their ranks. The hundredweight missiles sent scales flying and mashed leather and flesh and bone into one indistinguishable jelly. Then, less than halfway through the charge,
Strahteegos
Ahrtos, his beaver down so that he could better shout orders, had his jaw smashed by a slingstone and fell clashing at Bili’s feet.

The sub-
strahteegos
who immediately took the lead got but a few yards farther when a pitchball took him full on the breastplate, and Bili’s last view of the unfortunate officer was of a writhing, shrieking, flame-shrouded figure rolling on the ground. The
keeleeohstos
who took over made it almost to the outer works—a chest-high earth-and-timber rampart—when a thick-shafted, four-foot engine dart spitted him through the belly, going through his high-grade plate as cleanly as a warm knife through soft cheese.

Then Bili had no time to see the succession of commanders. He leaped aside barely in time to avoid a trayful of red-hot sand, though a hideous scream from behind attested that the sand had landed on someone, but he surged forward and the powerful sweep of his heavy axe cleanly severed the tray holder’s leg. And, somehow, Bili found himself atop the earthwork, wreaking bloody carnage on the swift succession of opponents who appeared for eyeblinks before him, dimly recording the shock of blows on his own plate and helm. Oblivious to the familiar cacophony of battle, he concentrated only on living—and on killing.

Then only the backs of rebels running up toward the stone-walled summit of the salient met his eyes, and someone—was that Raikuh’s voice?—was shouting, “…Bili, Duke Bili, if we tail those bastards now, we’ll take fewer casualties. The frigging archers won’t be able to range us without ranging their own as well.”

Bili tried to speak but had to work his tongue about in the desert of his mouth ere he could wet his throat enough to get the words out. “Whoever the new commander is, he’ll take time to dress his troops, however many of them are left. You’ve seen how these Regulars operate, man.”

Raikuh shook his armored head briskly. “There’re damn-all officers left, Duke Bili! The highest-ranking one I can see now is a lieutenant, and he’s missing a hand.”

“Then who led them up here?” demanded Bili. “Somebody must have led them onto this rampart.”

“If anyone did, it was you, Duke Bili!” snapped Raikuh bluntly. “They followed you once, they’ll do it again. If we wait around for them to forward another officer, damn few will make it up to those walls!”

Bili whirled to face the infantrymen and lifted his gory axe on high, roaring, “After them! After the bastards!”

For a moment, the Confederation Regulars wavered, partially reassured by the tone of command but on edge at the lack of formation.

“Sacred Sun fry your shitty arses!” bellowed a voice from their rear, its flavor unquestionably that of a parade ground and detail. “What are you pigfuckers waitin’ for? You heard the friggin’ order! Or has them there money fighters got more guts ‘n you? Move, damn you,
move
!”

And it was just as Raikuh had said. The defenders of the walls had the bitter choice of loosing at the retreating remnants of the rampart force or having the bulk of their attackers run the slope unscathed. So they tried what they took to be a middle path, loosing at a high angle and hoping their shafts fell on the proper heads. Most of the rebel archers lived just long enough to rue the error.

Not that there were not close moments before the eventual victory. And one such brought the prescient Pawl Raikuh’s predictions a few steps closer to fruition.

The shouting, cheering, screaming, howling broil of men swept over the gateless walls, their jabbing spears and dripping swords leaving red ruin behind them, while shrieking panic fled before them. Bili’s pitiless axe scythed ruthlessly through the press atop the wall. At its inner edge, he kicked over a ladder down which the less nimble defenders were fleeing, then jumped lightly to the stone paving of the inner court, briefly wondering where the defenders had lived in the absence of tents or huts within the fortification.

But the thought was necessarily short, for he was almost immediately confronted by a determined opponent with broadsword and huge bodyshield—a rebel officer, if the garish richness of the elaborately chased and inlaid full suit of plate was any indication. An experienced warrior, this one, for he handled longsword and weighty shield with practiced ease, catching Bili’s hard-swung axe on sloping shieldface and rushing inside, too close for the axe to be effective, his flickering blade feinting at Bili’s visorslits, before its needle point sank through leather and cloth and into the flesh and muscle high on the young
thoheeks’
thigh.

Roaring his pain and rage, Bili’s left hand let go the axehaft to pinion the wrist of that sword arm in an armor-crushing grip, and, heedless of the searing agony of the steel, he pivoted half around, slid his hand up the axehaft and ferociously rammed the thick central spike betwixt the gilded bars of his adversary’s visor.

With a gurgling, gasping scream, the swordsman stumbled back, his big shield dragging, his broadsword hanging by its knot. Bili disengaged his axe, whirled it up in both hands and swung a crashing blow against the side of that black-plumed helm. The swordsman was hurled to the pavement, where he lay, motionless and soundless, immense quantities of blood pouring from the slits of his visor.

And Bili strode on to his next encounter.

Geros, well protected by his two Freefighter guards and the big old infrantryman, Djim, had trailed the
thoheeks
and Pawl Raikuh as closely as was possible amid the chaos of shove, thrust, slash and cut. Leaden slingshot and various other missiles had holed and rent the Red Eagle Banner during that ghastly ascent of the hill, but Djim’s big infantry shield had sheltered Geros himself from all harm.

In the swirling court, both Pawl Raikuh and old Djim were swept out of the narrow view afforded Geros by his closed visor. Nonetheless, he kept doggedly on his lord’s heels, watching that gore-slimy axe down rebel after rebel—shattering shields, crumpling armor, severing limbs, smashing heads and chests. Behind Geros, wielding sabers and broadswords and a miscellany of pole arms, came twoscore Freefighters of the Morguhn Company and, after them, the battered remnants of the Confederation infantry, mostly spearless now but no less deadly with shortsword and shield.

The rebels fought hard, vicious as cornered rats, holding every inch of ground with a suicidal tenacity. But slowly they were driven back and back, their thinning line constricting around a central brick-and-stone platform mounting two large engines. Twice they tried to form a shield ring, but each time Bili’s terrible axe lopped off spearheads and beat down shields and the Freefighters poured, ravening, through the gaps, their blood-dimmed blades sending dozens more rebels down to gasp out their lives on the red-running ground.

Then the battle was boiling about the catapult platform and old Djim was once more at Geros’ side, only to disappear again a moment later. A sustained roar of cheering arose in the rear, loud enough that the sergeant could hear it even over the incredible, ear-splitting din engulfing him. He turned to see fresh companies of infantry, wave after wave of them, clamber atop the wall and jump down into the court.

He turned back just in time to see
Thoheeks
Bili, engaging a pair of swordsmen, beaten to earth by a giant of a man swinging a massive timber. Not noticing the blades beating on his cuirass, Geros hurled himself forward, ducked under the swing of the giant’s log, and jammed the ornamental brass point of the standard shaft deep into the monstrous man’s belly, just below the hornbuckled belt. With a high, soprano scream, the stricken rebel dropped the log, grabbed the shaft and pulled it free from his body with an ugly sucking sound. Then, whining, his face contorted, he lumbered toward the man who had hurt him, his ham-sized hands extended before him.

Geros instinctively realized that it would be his very life to chance within reach of those hands. Wedging the ferrule of the standard into a wide crack between the paves, he wasted precious moments fumbling at his belt before recalling that his broadsword hung now on his back. The giant was perilously close as the blade came free of the scabbard and Geros danced back out of reach as lightly as his tired, trembling legs would move.

Assuming a point fighter’s crouch, he awaited his huge foe’s slow advance, then aimed a wicked thrust at the unarmored chest…and almost fell into those deadly clutches, ere he noticed that those arms were as long as his arm and swordblade combined. As it was, the right hand locked about Geros’ blade and sought to jerk him closer to his death. Frantically, the sergeant pulled back with all his might. After a heart-stopping moment of resistance, the sharp edges sliced through callus and skin and flesh to grate on massy bone and slide free, its passage lubricated with hot red blood.

Raising his ruined, useless hand to eye level, the hulking creature rent the air with another of those shrill, womanish screams, then pressed the bleeding palm and fingers against his torn belly, from which a pinkish-purple loop of gut was working. But he did not halt his shuffling advance.

To fall or even stumble would presage a messy death. Geros backed cautiously, his knees flexed, his feet feeling a way across the uneven footing of blood-slick pavement, dropped weapons and still or twitching bodies. The sergeant was suffused with cold, crawling terror, for well he knew that no sane man would so stalk an armed and armored opponent, while lacking any sort of weapon but bare hands. And he would have run, save that the giant now stood between him and
Thoheeks
Bili, still lying stunned where he had fallen. And, despite his all but unmanning fear, he could not willingly desert his young lord.

The monster, though, was the one who stumbled and would have fallen on his face had he not slammed his wide palm on the slimy ground. And Geros danced in, his point quick as a striking viper, sinking deep, deep into the left eye of that upraised face. The shudder that racked the gargantuan body almost wrenched the broadsword from his grasp. Then the tree-thick left arm bent and the dead man’s huge head thumped the paving stones.