Chapter 12

My troops reformed and we gathered up the casualties. I sent most of the men back to Oricantha with them and the rest of us rode to Imhab's castle. I left Wogal and his men at the gate, over his strenuous objections, but I went alone to the castle, proper, to confront Imhab.

He was in his receiving chamber sitting on his throne when I arrived. Of course, I was escorted in the moment I arrived. I was not surprised to see that there were no people in the chamber other than Imhab and his guards.

"Ah, John Winter. I am so glad to see you. I have heard of the treachery you met this morning, and I am happy to see that you escaped."

"Imhab, you are a lying bastard. The whole thing was a setup to get me and my Olgars killed. The one thing that I don't understand is why you did it. I thought that we were friends. Why did you try to have me killed?"

"The answer is simple: you were becoming too strong and important. I needed to remove you and your men from the scene if I expected to continue as ruler here."

"If that was the case, then why the sham of arranging a marriage?"

"If you were married to my daughter, it would be easier for me to take over the remnants of the Olgars. You messed that up by postponing the marriage, but that is of minor concern."

"Well, Imhab, I guess you know that I can never trust you again. You are now my bitter enemy, and I will have to kill you."

"Ah, John Winter, that is so funny! You talk of killing me, and you are the one surrounded by my bodyguards. It looks like I misjudged you. You are a fool! GUARDS, KILL HIM!"

All I had to do was to flip the safety off and start shooting. I had selected solid rounds instead of explosive rounds because I wanted to do as little damage to the mosaics as possible. I put three rounds into Imhab's chest before sweeping around me with automatic fire. I felt the arrows hit me and bounce off my armor, as I had expected. It only took moments for me to kill Imhab and all of his bodyguards. I was glad that I was still wearing my helmet, because a few arrows did bounce off of it.

Once the shooting was over and they were all dead, I rang for the chamberlain. He was a bit reluctant to face me, but I told him that he was not a target unless he fouled up later on. That relaxed him a little bit, and I instructed him to clean up the mess and send someone down to the gate for my men.

I was sitting on the throne by the time Wogal and the rest of the men showed up. Wogal took one look at me and laughed. "Why was I worried about you? I should have known that you could take care of yourself."

I chuckled a little at that, and invited him to have a seat in one of the chairs I had instructed the chamberlain to scatter about the room. "I guess that I am now the official warlord of this district. What do you think of having all of the Olgars move in here with me? The castle is certainly large enough."

"I guess that we could give it a try, but I don't know how well it would work out over the long run. You know how restless the people get if they sit in one place too long."

"Yeah, but I wonder what the women really think. They seemed to do well on those occasions when we were forced to sit still for a long time. Maybe they move just because their men want to. Don't you think that the men would be happy in one place if I could find something interesting for them to do?"

"Yes, I suppose so, but what do you have in mind?"

"Well, I haven't worked it all out in my own mind, yet, so I would like to hold off answering that for a little while longer. Meanwhile, we have that other warlord to settle with. Do you think that the men would be interested in teaching him a lesson?"

"Hey, that sounds like fun! Yes, there is no doubt that the men would enjoy a little revenge over this morning's treachery. What do you propose doing?"

"Before we get into that, we need to consolidate our hold on the castle. All we really control is this room and the hallway leading up to it. I couldn't guarantee that entry courtyard to be completely safe right now. I think that I should have the chamberlain conduct us to the harem. I suspect that most of the real power inside the castle can be found there."

Wogal and I went to a receiving room next to the harem where we met Imhab's chief wife, Sarafin. She was noticeably older than Imhab had been, and was torn between being scared of us and defiant. I tried to put her at ease by assuring her that no harm would come to any of the people she was responsible for. She relaxed a little at that assurance, but was still a little wary.

I started to explain to her what had happened this morning, but she interrupted with the statement that she knew all about it and had tried to talk Imhab out of the plan. She also knew all about the preliminary negotiations that had led up to the incident.

Sarafin told me of how Imhab and Elrog, the other warlord, had cooked up the scheme. They both had been afraid of my growing power and were anxious to get rid of me. Sarafin had warned them that somebody who was so favored by the gods was not going to be caught by such a scheme, but they were so enamored of their cleverness that they were sure that they could not lose.

Sarafin also said that I should move on that other warlord right away, before he had a chance to recover from the debacle. Wogal and I agreed, and I asked if she was willing to help us plan an attack. Sarafin agreed immediately, and we started to plan an attack to take place tomorrow.

I asked Sarafin if the castle could take on 223 more residents, and she assured me that it could. I said that I wanted to move all of the Olgars who would come into the castle until I could get fully organized. Sarafin had never really liked Imhab and was eager to establish good relations with me.

Wogal returned to Oricantha to gather up the people for a move to the castle, which he was now calling "Johnshome." He was not going to force anybody to move, but he was going to strongly recommend it. Meanwhile, Sarafin called in all of the former wives and children of Imhab and I had a chance to meet them. In general, I thought that they were a nice bunch of people, and I was glad that they were on my side. I just hoped that I didn't inherit that many wives!

In about the shortest possible time, my wives and children showed up at the castle. They were awed by the beauty of the place. The bullet marks were already undergoing repair, and it should only be a few days until the whole castle was as beautiful as it had originally been. They were delighted when I told them that I wanted us to live here, right up until the time that I mentioned Imhab's widows. Well, it worked out that, according to Olgar custom, I now had 17 wives of various ages. Shit, I was glad that I could delegate the selection of sleeping arrangements.

The wives went into conference, and I made a point of finding urgent business elsewhere. The upshot was that four of the wives, two from Umgallah's group and two from Imhab's group were perfectly happy to forgo sleeping with me as a regular routine. Once they had been ritualistically initiated into my family, those four women would happily be done with me. The remaining 13 would work out something. Fortunately, all of my first group of wives, except for Ai Chee, were now old enough that they had no interest in any more pregnancies and were willing to back off a bit on their demands from me. The same was true for Umgallah's widows, so some of the pressure was being relieved by that.

The same was pretty much true for Imhab's widows, so I actually had gained some time with Ai Chee, who still wanted another baby. I knew as much as most men knew about the female fertility cycle, so I conspired with Helgor to schedule Ai Chee for those nights that seemed to give her the best chance of conceiving.