When, gathered at the appointed time, they finally pushed into the mobile pavilion of Zastros, it was to find Queen Lilyuhn lying dead on the floor of the audience room. Within the bedchamber, on the great bed, lay High King Zastros. He was not dead, but so stupefied with drugs or alcohol or, more likely it was felt, a concoction ofboth that not even shaking or slapping would induce him to even twitch or open his eyes.
After making one last try, Grahvos turned from the sleeper and shrugged, saying, “He’s out like a snuffed torch, gentlemen.
But it makes no difference, awake or asleep, the bastard’s still deposed. Let High Lord Milos waken him. We came mainly for the jewels and the gold and the other emblems and symbols; those treasures belong to our race, and what used to be the Kingdom of the Southern Ehleenoee is going to need their value before we get reorganized. Let’s find them and the pay-chests and get on the march for home.
“One of youpull off Zastros’ signet and find his sword—they should go to his young nephew, Kathros. But, gentlemen, please, no obvious plundering hereabouts; if you must steal, please steal small. I don’t want our prospective overlord to think ill of us . . . nor should any of you, for remember, our future now lies tied up into his new Confederation.”
There was a short, sharp battle with Zastros’ bodyguard officers when the chests and treasures were borne out of the pavilion and men made to load them into a waiting wagon, but the thoheeksee and their retainers ruthlessly cut down any man who made to draw sword or level spear against them, and with their officers now all dead or dying, the rest of the Green Dragon Guards wisely slipped away, tearing off their embroidered tabards as they went, for there was nothing to be gained by support of a deposed and probably dead king.
Well aware that whatever was left unguarded would certainly be thoroughly looted by the unattached camp followers, Thoheeks Grahvos stationed Captain Vahrohnos Mahvros and two hundred heavy infantry to guard the ex-king’s hilltop encampment until the High Lord’s troops arrived. He also entrusted to the younger man a large parchment package of documents—all of them signed, properly witnessed and sealed—containing written oaths of fealty to the Confederation from every landholder in the dispersing army.
Within thirty-six hours after the deposing of Zastros, all of the organized warbands were on the march southward and the Green Dragon Banner atop the pavilion waved over a scene of desolation. Outside the still-guarded royal enclosure, precious few tents remained erect or whole. Only discarded or broken equipment was left, and a horde of human scavengers flitted through swarms of flies feasting on latrines, garbage pits and scattered corpses of men and animals.
Grahvos was the last thoheeks to depart, having seen most of the troops on the march before dawn. Leaving his personal detachment at the foot of the hill, he rode up to the royal enclosure and, when admitted, rode on to dismount before the pavilion.
“Any trouble so far, Mahvros?” he asked of the captain.
The younger nobleman shook his head. “Nor do I expect any, my lord. Oh, my boys had to crack a few pates and wet a few blades before they convinced the scum that we meant business here, but we’ve been avoided since then.”
“But what of after the rest of us are well down the road?” asked the thoheeks skeptically.
Mahvros shrugged. “My lord, there’re damned few real soldiers—men trained to arms—left down there. And anyway, none of the skulkers areorganized, it’s every man for himself. No, I assure my lord, everything will remain just as it now is here, when the Confederation troops come.”
“What of Zastros, Mahvros?” inquired the thoheeks. “Has he awakened yet?”
“No, my lord.” The captain shook his head. “He still lives and breathes, but he also still sleeps. But I ordered the Lady Lilyuhn . . . ahhh, disposed of. Her death-wound was acrawl with maggots, and it was a certainty she’d be too high to bear by the time the High Lord came.”
Grahvos sighed. “It couldn’t be helped, you know. That guard most likely was the one who killed her. There was fresh blood on his spearbutt, and that butt fitted perfectly the depression in her skull. Nonetheless, please tell the High Lord that I’m sorry.
“Also, Mahvros, tell him that I’ll see the Thirty-three all convened in the capital whenever he so desires. I am certain that he and King Zenos will want some form and amount of reparations—they deserve it and I’d demand such in their place—but please emphasize to them that some few years are going to pass before we can any of us put our lands back on a paying basis.”
Walking back over to his horse, he put foot into stirrup, then turned back. “One other little thing, Mahvros, my boy. The Council met for a very brief session just before dawn, this morning. Thoheeks Pahlios was your overlord, was he not?”
Brows wrinkled a bit in puzzlement, thevahrohnos nodded. “Yes, my lord, but he was slain nearly two years ago at—”
“Just so,” Grahvos interrupted. “He and all his male kin in the one battle. We’re going to have to affirm or reaffirm or replace the Thirty-three rather quickly, and, quite naturally, we want men that we know in advance will loyally support us and the Confederation. That’s why we chose you, this morning, to succeed the late Pahlios.”
Delving into the top of his right boot, Grahvos brought out a slender roll of vellum and placed it in the hand of the stunned captain, saying, “Guard this well, Thoheeks Mahvros. When you’re back home, ride to the capital or to my seat and you will be loaned troops enough to secure your new lands, if that’s what it takes.
“Now, I must be gone.” He mounted and, from his saddle, extended his hand. “May God and His Saints bless and keep you, lad. And may He bring you safely home.”
Reining about, Strahteegos Thoheeks Grahvos rode down the low hill to where his personal retainers awaited him.
After turning over the onetime-royal enclosure and ail that it contained to the High Lord, Milo Morai, Mahvros dutifully delivered the package of documents and the oral messages to the great man. That much done, he showed him the smaller document, shyly accepted the congratulations heaped upon him by the High Lord and the others of his retinue, then gave his own oaths of loyalty, in person, witnessed by all then present.
Then that night, while Confederation Army infantry guarded the hilltop enclosure in their places, Thoheeks Mahvros saw his retainers treated to all that they could eat from off the broiling carcasses of a brace of fat cattle, several casks of pickled vegetables, rounds of army bread and watered wine. He himself sat that night at a groaning feast-board with the High Lord and a select company.
That night saw his initial introductions to three men who were to become his lifelong friends and whose names were to be writ large upon the pages of the early history of the Consolidated Southern Duchies of the new Confederation of Peoples.
Sub-strahteegos Komees Tomos Gonsalos was the first. The red-haired half Ehleen, half mountain Merikan was a full first cousin of none other than King Zenos of Karaleenos himself. He was, announced the High Lord, to be commander of the mixed force of Confederation troops he was sending along with Mahvros and his retainers to be turned over to Thoheeks Grahvos, his for as long as he needed them to help restore order to the lands of the Thirty-three Thoheeksee.
The second man was a Kindred chief of one of the Horseclans, the Merikan race from off the faraway Sea of Grass who had, thirty years agone, conquered Kehnooryos Ehlahs. Pawl Vawn, chief of that ilk, was typical of his ancestral stock—blond, blue-eyed, small-boned and very wiry, with flat muscles and great endurance. Under Tomos Gonsalos, he would be leading some hundreds of Horseclans horse-archers and a small contingent of the leopard-sized felines called prairiecats.