Robert Adams - Madman's Army

“We sincerely thank our High Lord Milos of Morai,” said Thoheeks Grahvos with grave solemnity. “We regret that many of those who have strived so hard for and contributed so much to the rebirth of what was, and not too long since, a smitten, blighted land of chaos and disorder could not be on hand to welcome our overlord and to hear his generous words of praise; but few of the lands are even as yet on a firm, paying basis—be they thoheekseeahnee, komeeseeahnee, vahrohnohseeahnee or opokomeeseeahnee —and some of our peers simply could not absent themselves from their lands and still be assured that all their folk will be able to eat through the winter coming.”

Which was, thought Grahvos to himself, as good a way as any other of which he could think of putting the powerful man on notice that affairs within these Consolidated Thoheekseeahnee were just not as yet to a point at which any meaningful amounts of reparations could be paid to the sometime Kingdom of Karaleenos or to anyone else.

He had, of course, heard that Milo was telepathic, as too were a good many Horseclansmen, but even so he was shocked when the tall man nodded his head of black hair stippled with grey and said, “Thoheeks Grahvos, gentlemen, I fully realize that that which you all have so valiantly set out to do will assuredly take time, much more time than has thus far passed. My reasons for making this initial visit to your land has nothing to do with the collection of any monies. I am come to offer help rather than hindrance, you see.

“That which I have learned from the regular reports of Thoheeks Tomos Gonsalos, added to the information freely imparted me by your own Thoheeks Sitheeros and Vahrohnos Bralos of Yohyültönpolis, has confirmed my earlier thoughts of just where I and the might of our Confederation of Eastern Peoples can best be of aid to you, our newest member-state.

“Your northern marches are, I am assured by all, secure and at peace. Your southern marches are as secure as ever they will be with the Witch Kingdom abutting them—and I’ll be speaking more of them at a later date.

“Your eastern marches, too, are about as safe and as peaceful as anyone who knows the fen-men could expect them to be. These fen-men are treacherous killers, all seemingly at a never-ending war with all the world and all peoples. They make precious few treaties and they keep or abide by the terms of even fewer. If human vermin truly exist, they are of the race of the fen-men. The one good thing that I can say about them is that, at least in Kehnooryohs Ehlahs and northern Karaleenos, they appear to be a gradually dying race. It is to be hoped—and I sincerely do so hope!—that these scum dwelling on the periphery of your lands will register similar declines in numbers, for only thus can you, will you, ever be free of their unsavory ilk.

“In the west, however, you have a very real problem confronting fledgling naval forces. Considering the degree of destruction that the available seaborne effectives of the late High King Zastros suffered at the hands of Lord Alexandras and his fleet, some years back, it is indubitably to your credit that you have managed to raise any naval force at all within so short a space of time, and that they have proven ineffective in dealing successfully with the existing menace of these marauders is perhaps to be expected.

“Nonetheless, herein is a place and time that the Confederation can prove its worth to you and your people. Even as I speak to you all here, elements of Lord Alexandras’ fleet are assembling in and around one of the rivermouth ports of southern Karaleenos, awaiting only the word from one of my gallopers to set sail for Neos Kolpos. If he and his pack of recently reformed pirates cannot catch and put paid to these sea-raiders afflicting your western thoheekseeahnee , then be certain that no mortal man can do so, gentlemen.

“During this first part of my stay in your land, I would prefer to bide in your army camp, for I must quickly learn of that army’s best and worst features, that I may choose wisely those who will set out with me for the west, those who will make up the landward jaw of the nutcracker with which we will strive to crush and crumble those who now so sorely plague this land of the Consolidated Thoheekseeahnee.

“Considering the pressing need, I think that the civil side of affairs here must await the outcome of the military—the naval, to speak with more exactitude. But never you fear, any of you gentlemen; before I depart again for the north, I will appoint a surrogate, a satrapos whose title will be priehkips or, in the Merikan tongue, prince. This man will have four subordinates immediately under him and their title will be ahrkeethoheeks. My surrogate may or may not be one of you gathered here today, but all four of the ahrkeethoheeksee will, I solemnly assure you, be one of your own.”

Milo’s first private meeting with Tomos Gonsalos was conducted in the spacious, comfortably furnished and tastefully appointed parlor of those quarters that had been Pahvlos the Warlike’s. Immediately Tomos had spoken his latest and highly candid report to the High Lord, he arose and said, “Lord Milo, please come with me to the other side of this suite’s foyer. We found while inventorying the contents of this suite that one of the storerooms had a false rear wall, and behind it was found something I think will interest your High Lordship.”

When the section of wall shelving had swung aside and a lamp had been positioned properly, Milo hissed between his teeth at sight of what lay revealed within the secret recess. But he kept a blank face nonetheless and asked Tomos calmly, “What made you suppose that these artifacts would be of interest to me, in particular?”

“Because, Lord Milo,” was the reply, “they so resemble those somewhat larger and more ornate ones that were in the compartment of High King Zastros’ great mobile yurt, using which, you spoke to the king of the Witchmen.”

Milo smiled. “Yes, I had clean forgotten, you were there that day up on the Lumbuh, weren’t you, Tomos? All right, who lived in this suite besides the now-dead Grand Strahteegos ? Never mind, just see that every one of them on whom you can lay hands is put under lock and key until I can get around to examining and questioning them. For now, let’s see if this devilish device is working.”

When he had connected the male plugs of a thick insulated cable to the matching female receptacles on the two metal boxes, he raised the lid of the smaller of them, then searched vainly for something, before noticing that on this particular model, something was built into one front corner. Slowly, various things in the metal chest started to glow and a humming sound— first very low-pitched, but gradually getting louder— emanated from it.

After he had fingered a switch to a different position from that in which he had found it, he located a large silvery knob and began to turn it slowly and carefully, at the same time saying what sounded to Tomos vaguely like Merikan words, but in an incomprehensible dialect of that tongue that he only had heard once before—up on the Lumbuh River in southern Karaleenos, years ago, when this same lord had used that larger but similar device to talk with the Witch King, who had spoken that same obscure dialect, too.

“Is anyone receiving my transmission?” asked Milo yet again, hoping that he was, after so long, speaking a twentieth-century brand of English. Move the dial another tiny incremental distance. “Is anyone receiving my transmission?”

When he was just about to pack it in for that day, had decided to try later, a distant voice replied, “… is the … dy Center Base Communications. Who is calling, please?”