Robert Adams - A Cat of Silvery Hue

The … the troops of Vawn… ? The re-reinforcements we ex-expected … ?” stuttered the shaking vahrohnos.

Drehkos laughed gratingly. “Hardly, Myros, hardly. Not riding in from the northwest. And the Vawnee scouts recognized none of them. And,” he casually added, “their banners bore prairiecats … all save one, and that one was a fish and something like a weasel, or so I was told.” Then he fell silent, aghast, as the vahrohnos’ appearance and demeanor underwent so sudden and radical a change that he seemed in the throes of a seizure.

Features contorted, body and limbs jerking, twitching, the vahrohnos stumbled back into the foyer, then crashed back full-length upon the floor, sprawled across a mosaic representing the Red Eagle of Morguhn. Abruptly, his eyes rolled back and consciousness left him.

The shock mirrored on the faces of servants and bodyguards alike, as they rushed to the assistance of their swooning master, answered Drehkos’ unspoken query; such paroxysms must never before have occurred during their service to Vahrohnos Myros.

But, as he had earlier this morning, he immediately took command, snapping, “Don’t put him to bed, get him on a horse litter. We’re leaving Morguhnpolis as soon as the Vawnee rearguard gets here!”

The guard captain looked up from where he squatted at the Vahrohnos’ head. “But I only have thirty men, Lord Drehkos, and some of them are wounded, and that’s not enough to fight our way through that scum in the streets—not and protect Lord Myros, too. Besides, it was his order that we remain and defend the city.”

Drehkos snorted disparagingly. “And a piss-poor order that was, my good Gahlos. This city is a deathtrap. It can’t be defended, and the esteemed Myros should have known as much, considering his training and experience. As for the dear citizens, captain, if they are properly handled, they’ll pose no threat to us. Indeed, they may even be of help to us.”

The tunnel was old, very old. So ancient was it that no living man had been aware of its existence a year before. Its rediscovery had been accidental, Myros having secretly commissioned workmen to excavate just such a passage, as well as a clandestine meeting place and armory, below the lowest cellars of the governor’s palace. But when the first heavy stones of the cellar paving had been raised, it had been discovered that under them was not the expected earth and clay, but, rather, tightly packed rubble. When cleared, the find proved to be an oval, high-ceilinged chamber, walled and columned and paved with finely worked stone, boasting two wide staircases and a long, gradual ramp leading upward, requiring only removal of certain areas of pavement to provide easy access to the subcellar by man or beast.

Examination and careful measurement established the subcellar to be even larger than the palace above it. And in the center of the north wall was plain evidence of a sealed opening—unmatched stones of inferior workmanship spanning a width of two metrobee and a height of nearly three.

The passage far exceeded any of Myros’ expectations, being stone-walled and cobbled for most of its length. It was wide enough to accommodate a warcart or two horses abreast and exited in a long-abandoned quarry a quarter-mile beyond the north wall of the city. Myros had had entrance and exit carefully recamoufiaged and seen to h that only nobles, officers and priests were apprised of where and how to find it Nor was Myros worried that his workmen might betray the secret—since he had had his bodyguards murder them all.

At Drehkos’ direction, Captain Gahlos used the heliograph mounted on the palace roof to signal the immediate unbarring and opening of the south and west gates. The message continued with an order for all guards to report to the governor’s palace as soon as the mob was out and the gates again closed and secured.

While carefully rehooding the device, Gahlos asked, “Please, my lord, I don’t understand. We unbar the gates and let the rabble flee, then rebar them on what will soon be an empty city?”

Drehkos chuckled good-naturedly. “And you can’t comprehend, eh, Gahlos? Well, look you, you’ve seen the sleight-of-hand practiced by the traveling tricksters? Seen them make a host of meaningless gestures to mask the one, practiced movement which causes coins or objects to suddenly and mysteriously disappear or reappear?”

Gahlos nodded hesitantly. “Yes, my lord, but—”

Drehkos continued. “And I am essaying a similar feat of legerdemain, and, Gahlos, let us pray that it succeeds. You see, we can’t fight, cant defend Morguhnpolis against the forces now approaching it, and no noble or officer or priest in his right mind should allow—should even dream of allowing—Bili Morguhn to take him alive, so our only hope is to flee.

“But we can only mount half our men, and Fll be damned if I’ll leave any one of them to the ‘tender mercies’ of the Morguhns, so we couldn’t move too fast, even were we not burdened with Lord Myros. And our pursuers are all cavalry; they’ll be moving faster than we can.

“However, Gahlos, they’ll think Myros still commands and, knowing his obsession for this city, they’ll be certain he’ll try to hold it. Of course, none of them knows about our bolt hole down below, so let us pray that when they find the gates barred from within, even with no men visible on the walls, they’ll be sufficiently wary of a trap to halt and regroup and possibly bring up or make scaling ladders—anything, any reason that will delay them long enough for us to put some distance between us and them.”

Gahlos nodded again, but firmly this time. “So you freed the mob that they might not open the gates or give the trick away.”

“Partially, captain, partially,” Drehkos agreed, adding, “but also because fleeing along the south and west roads, they force the goddam Morguhns to split their forces, since both roads lead to Vawn, and when they’ve discovered we’re not in Morguhnpolis, they’ll surely know that we’re bound for Vawn.”

“Hmmmn.” Understanding flickered in the captain’s eyes. “But we’ll not be on either road, then, my lord?”

“Exactly, Gahlos. Well hie us out due west from the quarry, crosscountry. Well cross the river at Bloody Ford, strike the Old Trace up through Raider Gap, then angle southward into Vawn. It will certainly take longer, perhaps two or three days, but if it saves our necks, none can say it wasn’t worth the effort, eh?”

Astride a big, red-chestnut mare—the finest animal he had ever been allowed to ride—Geros Lahvoheetos trotted beside Staisee Ehlyuht, prehsvootehros of the squadron of Confederation lancers, some hundred of whom were marching in the wake of Thoheeks Bili and his party. Gero’s scaleshirt was heavy and hot and devilishly uncomfortable, the weight of the saber on his baldric made it difficult to keep his shoulders squared—as he felt the warrior everyone now thought him to be should ride—and, if push came to shove, he had no idea of how he would control the mare, what with seven feet of wolfspear in his right hand and an iron-rimmed target strapped to his bridle arm. But for all the discomforts, he would not have been in other circumstances or another place than this.

Since the night of the bridge fight when, in a panic of fear, he—Geros the valet, who knew as much of weapons and warfare as a turtle knew of flying—had accidentally lanced one rebel and cut the throat of a second while his mule trampled down a third, he had been living in the very lap of his former fantasies. With his young master, the Vahrohneeskos Ahndros, kept unconscious by the arts of Master Ahlee, the physician, there was no one to betray him, to reveal the sad truth that he had never been aught save a body servant and musician, who had always privately considered himself to be a coward.