Gunpowder God

by John F. Carr

  He could practically hear Arminta’s teeth grind. “Every time I hear that poor baby’s name, I will have to think of you and that—”

  “As you always say, my love, time heals all wounds.”

  The punch she delivered to his upper arm convinced him that she was completely recovered from childbirth. “Ouch!”

  “Sorry, my love. That was meant for Duchess Sirna.”

  “Better there, than elsewhere,” he said, thinking of his privy parts.

  They both laughed.

  “Now, back to neutral ground. I’ve been thinking over names for our son.”

  “Yes,” she replied. “So have I.”

  “My first thought was of your father, but your oldest brother has already named his son Soligon. And your other brother has named his son after your grandfather.”

  “True. I was thinking of naming our son after his father.”

  “Me! No, I would not lay that burden on anyone. I was thinking of naming him Simocles.”

  “After the Great Warlord. Now, that’s a name impossible to live up to.”

  Phidestros smiled, “Not for our son.”

  “You’re crazy, I swear to all the True Gods. He will hate us both.”

  “No, it will inspire him to greatness.”

  She nodded. “Like his father. Fine, but if he blames us for his name, it’s on your head.”

  II

  Kalvan was resting in his easy chair, in front of the hearth, smoking his pipe with his foot up on an ottoman he’d had specially designed. One advantage to being Great King was that people went out of their way to please you, especially if they saw a profit in it. He was sure the Master Carpenter that he’d commissioned to make the ottoman was now selling knock-offs advertised as “the same as the footrest used by Great King Kalvan in his own chambers.” He hoped he made a good profit, although demand wouldn’t be great except among the newly rich merchant and manufacturing classes that were beginning to emerge.

  Inflation had reared its ugly head in Thagnor and the nobles were beginning to complain that their rents weren’t high enough to allow them to live in the style in which their parents had lived. They got short shrift with those complaints from him. Let them get jobs, or take a commission in the Royal Cavalry, was his answer.

  He was just thinking of calling his manservant for another cup of chicory when Cleon came into his study.

  “Sorry, Your Majesty, but Grand Duke Vinaldos is here to see you.

  “Cleon, please bring the Duke a goblet of wine and another cup of chicory for me.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  Cleon returned with the beverages and Duke Vinaldos. “At your service, Your Majesty.”

  “And what service brings you here this afternoon?” Kalvan asked.

  “A packet arrived from Agrys City, sire. It contains urgent information on the state of the Host of Styphon’s Deliverance and other matters relating to the war in Hos-Agrys.”

  His head of intelligence offered Kalvan a packet containing a dozen or more parchments. Some were ripped or torn and others were stained by travel. All were in the substitution code he’d written. “I assume you’ve already deciphered all the messages. Can you summarize their contents? I’ll go over them with Rylla later at my convenience.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty. It appears that Grand Master Soton is bringing some fifteen to twenty thousand new troops into Agrys City from Hos-Ktemnos, many of them Knights and Styphon’s Temple Guard. With the addition of the Princely armies of Cythor, Arbelon and Kryphlon, he will be fielding an army between fifty to sixty thousand men.”

  “Dralm-damnit! That is bad news,” Kalvan replied. “That means the League will be outnumbered by two to one, maybe more, even after we send them the five thousand men we promised. After Warlord Sargos’ invasion last year, I thought Soton would be more concerned about reinforcing his forts than fighting Styphon’s war of conquest in Hos-Agrys.”

  Vinaldos frowned. “Your Majesty, as much as it pains me to say this, you will be sending those men to their deaths unless you send the Royal Army. I believe you could muster forty thousand men without calling up the reserves, and still leave ten thousand at home to keep our neighbors out of mischief. Fifty thousand, if we took the Army of Rathon with us. I’m sure King Chartiphon would be more than willing to provide as many men as he could spare, as will Prince Phrames and Prince Sarrask.”

  “Yes, and to what purpose?” Kalvan returned. “To save a bunch of weak sisters who couldn’t be bothered to send troops to Hos-Hostigos when the Grand Host was on the march in Our Kingdom. I’m not going to sacrifice the Hostigos Army and Our gains here to pull their bacon out of the fire—TO REGWARN WITH THE ENTIRE LEAGUE OF DRALM!”

  All Kalvan’s anger, pent-up rage and disappointment with Xentos and the League of Dralm came boiling up out of his guts like poison. He paused to take a deep breath when he realized he’d been shouting. Fortunately, here-and-now doors were made of hardwood planks, reinforced with iron stays, and solid as rocks.

  Vinaldos had stepped back as though facing a drawn sword.

  Kalvan hadn’t blown up like that in a long time. In some of the here-and-now kingdoms, it wasn’t uncommon for messengers bearing bad news, like his intelligence chief had just brought, to have their heads taken off or be thrown in the dungeon. So he understood the Duke’s trepidation.

  He raised his hands, palms out. “I’m not angry with you, Vinaldos. Just the terrible position this news has put the Kingdom in. If we send enough troops to guarantee success, which would be almost the entire armed forces of Nos-Hostigos, what will we have purchased with their blood? A new home, unlikely. A graveyard is the most likely answer.

  “Because—and, believe me, there is no guarantee we’ll win—Soton’s men are as tough as horseshoe nails, most of them veterans of the Fireseed Wars. And all we’ll have fought for is the survival of the League of Dralm.”

  “I understand, Your Majesty. However, if we just send the soldiers you’ve promised to send the League, they will not come back.”

  “I do not believe that sending more men to their death for a bunch of ingrates will solve the problem. On the other hand, I won’t become a king who doesn’t stand behind his word.”

  “That’s good, but not in this situation,” Vinaldos intoned. Suddenly his blue eyes brightened. “I’ve got an idea. I’ve got files on certain noblemen and soldiers who are dissatisfied with life here in Thagnor and complain that you have not attempted to restore their lost lands in Hos-Hostigos.”

  “I know that faction well,” Kalvan said. In fact, my lovely wife is its unofficial head. Were it not for Demia and baby Ptosphes, Rylla would demand to be the commander of the Army of Hos-Agrys.

  “Instead of allowing them to spread their rancor, why don’t we include the dissidents among the soldiers that will be going into Hos-Agrys?”

  “Duke, that’s a Dralm-damned good idea! I will ask for volunteers and many of them will demand to be in the rescue force. Then I will personally pick the officers from among my worst critics.”

  Vinaldos all but rubbed his hands in joy. “This will not only get rid of a lot of chronic complainers, but will make my job much easier.”

  Of course, it also meant abandoning one of his best officers and friends, Captain-General Hestophes, to certain defeat. No matter what the outcome, he would have a heavy load of guilt resting on his shoulders.

  “There’s more, Your Majesty. It appears that Great King Eudocles, the new king of Hos-Zygros—”

  “You mean the Regicide.”

  “Yes, sire. Eudocles has long been in debt to Styphon’s House and our spies picked up word of troop movements within Hos-Zygros. It’s very likely that the Royal Army of Hos-Zygros will weigh in and invade the Agrysi Princedoms of Kelos or Meligos. There are also rumors that Prince Phidestros is King Eudocles’ bastard son.”

  “Unbelievable!” Kalvan cried. “So the Five Kingdom’s best general, who had one of his underlings enthroned as Great King
of Hos-Harphax, is now in league with the new Great King of Hos-Zygros?”

  “We don’t know that for certain, sire. There are rumors of bad blood between them. So it’s unlikely that Phidestros will support his father’s army. Nor is Phidestros a ‘friend’ of Styphon’s House; not after they kidnapped Princess Arminta.”

  “Phidestros is a Machiavellian, if there ever was one.”

  “Machiavellian? What does that mean, sire?”

  “Machiavelli was a prince in the Cold Lands who believed that the ends justified the means, especially by cunning and duplicity. He also believed in winning over the people, but tempered it with harsh treatment of his opponents. One of his sayings was: ‘It should be noted that when he seizes a state the new ruler ought to determine all the injuries that he will need to inflict. He should inflict them once and for all, and not have to renew them every day.’ Another of his aphorisms was: ‘It is much more secure to be feared than to be loved.’”

  “A wise ruler methinks, sire.”

  “Machiavelli had many such maxims, and many of them were dead-on regarding human nature. This one pertains to our own situation in the Upper Middle Kingdoms: ‘Kingdoms that rise quickly, just as all the other things of nature that are born and grow rapidly, cannot have roots and ramifications; the first bad weather kills them.’ Which is exactly why I do not want to pull Our Army out of Thagnor to go chasing Styphon’s House’s armies in the Five Kingdoms. We still have enemies here, such as the King of Dorg and Theovacar. Our roots here in Thagnor and the other princedoms of Nos-Hostigos are very fragile.”

  “So, what you are telling me, sire, is that even though Styphon’s Voice committed an act of treachery against Prince Phidestros, he may still have plans that may include using Styphon’s House to his own advantage.”

  “Very good, Duke. As I see it, Phidestros cannot afford to antagonize Styphon’s House, despite the fact that in an all-out war, he might be able to defeat them. Certainly, with Soton’s Army in Hos-Agrys, Phidestros could take his army straight to Balph and pull the Temple down to its very foundations, either killing all the Archpriests of the Inner Circle or taking them prisoner.”

  Vinaldos nodded. “But, the end result would be that Grand Master Soton would take his Army of Styphon’s Deliverance into Greater Beshta and strike back at Phidestros the moment he learned of his attack on Balph.”

  “Exactly. After the war ended, even if Phidestros defeated Soton, the result would be what my people would have called a Pyrrhic Victory. The ensuing war with Styphon’s House would be so vicious it will have destroyed all the cities and towns of both kingdoms so in the end there wouldn’t be much left to rule over.”

  “Ahh. Like the Grand Host’s victory over Hos-Hostigos left the kingdom a wasteland that will take decades or more to revive.”

  “Exactly,” Kalvan answered. “Besides the game of revolving Great Kings in Hos-Harphax, this is the primary reason why none of the Great Kings have put rulers in Nostor or Ulthor. The lands are so depleted and the population so low that none of the great Harphaxi nobles want to be exiled there.”

  Vinaldos nodded. “Yes, I see it. I also see that if the war continues for long in Hos-Agrys that kingdom will find itself in the same state as Hos-Hostigos.”

  “The sad part is there is nothing that we can do to stop it without destroying ourselves, which is why I am forced to sacrifice both my best general and five thousand soldiers….”

  “Kingship is a heavy weight, Your Majesty.”

  Yes, Kalvan thought, much heavier than I’d ever anticipated when I was catapulted out of that cross-time flying saucer, or whatever it was. And, lonelier, too. I can’t even tell my wife the truth, because she will refuse to believe it. Her dream is to return to Hostigos and nothing will ever make her abandon it—not even the truth.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  I

  In the flickering candlelight, Grand Master Soton took a moment to examine his top commanders: first there was his aide, Horse Master Sarmoth; Prince Simias of Cythor; High Marshal Xenophes, commander of Styphon’s Own Guard; Knight Commander Orocles, former commander of the Army of the Besh; Captain-General Eukides, head of the Union’s Army; Lord High Marshal Zythannes, head of the Ktemnoi Sacred Squares; Marshal Albides of Styphon’s Own Guard and Archpriest Grythos, Prince-Regent of Hos-Agrys. Gathered together in this one room were Styphon’s House’s most decorated and accomplished generals, representing the largest gathering of Temple commanders since the Grand Host broke up. If they did their job, Hos-Agrys would be conquered and the followers of Dralm dead or on the run by mid-summer.

  Noticeable by his absence was Archpriest Roxthar, who had not been informed of this strategic council; the last thing Soton needed was the Investigator’s hectoring and unwelcome advice.

  They were gathered in the highest chamber in the keep of Tarr-Agrys. To ensure that no intelligencers were listening, the floors below had been emptied of people and there were guards stationed at the keep’s entrance. Storm clouds were gathering outside and the only light was from flickering candles and oil lamps set into sconces along the walls.

  “As you know,” Soton continued, “I just returned from Hos-Ktemnos, where I wintered in Balph. I brought back with me some eight thousand troops: five thousand mercenary cavalry, two Lances of Zarthani Knights, two companies of the Sephrax Guard and eighteen hundred infantry recruits for our Sacred Squares. The Lord High Marshal Xenophon and Marshal Albides followed my sailing ships with twelve Temple Bands of Styphon’s Own Guard, consisting of some six thousand guardsmen and their auxiliaries.”

  There were smiles and nods from everyone around the table. Soton paused to take out his corncob pipe and fill it with good leaf fresh from Ktemnos. “Knight Commander Orocles followed behind us with his Army of the Besh, three thousand mercenary horse, five hundred arquebusiers, five Temple Bands, some two thousand guardsmen and a Lance of Knights; all totaled some six thousand men.”

  Knight Commander Orocles nodded. “We’d have more, but we lost over two thousand men besieging Besh Town. There we faced the Iron Band and some of the best troops in the Five Kingdoms. Fortunately, the walls were not at full strength as Phidestros the Upstart had pulled most of his army away for his strike against Great King Lysandros.” He paused to spit a stream of tobacco on the straw covered floor. “Here we face nothing more than rabble.”

  Captain-General Eukides, a famous mercenary captain in his youth, appeared to take offense. “I beg to differ, Commander, but many of us won our spurs during the Meligos/Arbelon Border Wars. I’ve fought throughout the Five Kingdoms and those were some of the fiercest battles I’ve ever witnessed.”

  “Fah! They were renowned in their day, but things have changed. In those wars the field of battle might have contained seven or eight thousand mercenaries, most of them more concerned about booty and their pay than winning the war”

  Eukides’ face was burning and he jabbed his pipe at Orocles like a pistol. “Yes, in any mercenary army you’ll always find cutpurses and malcontents posing as soldiers, but most of us fought for the honor of our banner and our prince. While Hos-Agrys has been slumbering when it comes to warfare, there are still some fine soldiers and captains who know Galzar’s Way.”

  Soton angrily expelled a cloud of smoke. He hated seeing his commanders already forming schisms before the first gunshot was fired. Orocles has all the tact of one of Roxthar’s Investigators, he thought, one more reason why he will never rise to the post of Grand Master of the Order as long as I’m alive. “In some regards, Knight Commander, you may be correct, but do not underestimate the Agrysi soldiers. They may have sat out the Fireseed Wars, but among their ranks reside some of the best soldiers in the Five Kingdoms.”

  Orocles shrugged as if to say, “We’ll see about that.”

  Captain-General Eukides appeared mollified. His reputation as a captain was legendary, but he was almost seventy winters old and hadn’t fought in a major battle in a long time. His hair was snow-white, but
his limbs were still stout and he held himself like a man half his age. Soton was glad to have him as co-commander of the Union’s Army with Prince Simias.

  “It’s not just the Dralm followers we have to worry about,” Soton continued. “Our agents tell us that King Kalvan is sending a small army to aid the League of Dralm. Rumors and gossip put its numbers anywhere from eight thousand to fifteen thousand men.”

  “Pshaw. I wouldn’t give those rumors much credence,” Archpriest Grythos pronounced. “Last summer we were told the Usurper had sent the League some five thousand troops; instead they numbered less than a thousand.”

  Soton nodded, reining in his temper. Since becoming Prince-Regent, Grythos had grown increasingly insufferable. “One of Kalvan’s top commanders, Captain-General Hestophes, is slated to be the commander of the League’s army. Last summer, Kalvan was faced with fighting the Grand Host of Styphon and the Grefftscharri Fleet. Now, he is at loose ends; thus, it is not wise to draw conclusions based on different conditions.

  “We do know that the former Highpriest of Dralm in Hostigos, Primate Xentos, is the spiritual leader of the League of Dralm. We also know that the Usurper Kalvan has said publicly that he will return to reconquer his former lands in Hos-Hostigos. Kalvan knows that he will need allies in the future. If he aids the League of Dralm, they will then owe him their support upon his return. The Usurper has defeated all his enemies in the Middle Kingdoms, or has them at bay, so he is in a position where he can send his troops to Hos-Agrys to aid in the League’s defense.

  “In my mind, it is in Kalvan’s self-interest to aid the League with both troops and gold. Having recently added the treasury of Greffa City to his coffers, he will have plenty of gold to spend.”

  Everyone around the table nodded, except Archpriest Grythos who appeared as if he’d bitten into a bad olive.

  “Lord High Marshal Zythannes, what is the current disposition of the Host of Styphon’s Deliverance?”