by John F. Carr
EIGHTEEN
The plank table that ran the full length of the upper chamber, or war room, was almost filled with the General Staff of the Royal Army of Hos-Hostigos. As Great King Kalvan looked down the table at his friends and advisors he felt blessed that so many were the same faces that had occupied these seats last year. Despite the years hard campaigning, the only members who were absent was Major Nicomoth, his former aide-decamp, one of the casualties of the Battle of Phyrax, General Hestophes, who was commanding the Army of Observation along the Harphaxi border, and Prince Phrames, who was up to his knees in beeswax as Prince of the troubled Princedom of Beshta.
Kalvan sat at the head of the table, while to his right sat Queen Rylla and to his left sat Colonel Krynos, his new aide-de-camp—one of Harmakros' top students of military science and a former mercenary captain. To Rylla's right sat Captain-General Harmakros, Duke Mnestros, as a friendly representative of the League of Dralm, Baron Zothnes, former Archpriest of Styphon, General Baldour a former mercenary Grand Captain from Hos-Ktemnos, who knew more about the southern Kingdoms than anyone else in the chamber, and Prince Sarrask of Sask, who'd just arrived to pay respects to his Great King—or as one wag put it, 'to try some more of the new Hostigi brandy at the Blue Halberd Grog Shop.'
At Colonel Krynos' left sat General Alkides, of the Royal Artillery, Captain-General Harmakros, just returned from Royal Army tour of the inspection, Captain Ranthar of the Mounted Rifles, who was sitting in for his superior Colonel Verkan, Prince Pheblon of Nostor, with his hand out for more foodstuffs for his war ravaged Princedom, and Prince Ptosphes.
Great Captain-General Chartiphon, nominal commander of the Royal Army and at this moment looking none too happy for it, sat at the foot of the table.
Just as Kalvan was about to start the General Staff Meeting without him, Klestreus came puffing into the room. The Chief of Intelligence was a boar of a man and Kalvan estimated that he, Harmakros, and Princess Demia could all fit inside his barrel-sized back-and-breast. "Sorry, I'm late, Your Majesty!" Klestreus wheezed. "But that third flight of steps is a killer."
"Too much sitting in wine shops, Klestreus," Prince Sarrask bellowed, while patting his own flat stomach. It appeared to Kalvan that not only had the Long March from Tenabra built Sarrask's character, but had removed most of the surplus gut as well—which surprisingly had not returned!
"What you need, my friend, is to get back into the saddle. I'm sure our Great King will do his best to see that that can be arranged next spring."
Several council members broke into open laughter and Rylla ended up in tears trying to hold her laughter in. Klestreus's face reddened as he squeezed into the chair between Duke Mnestros and Baron Zothnes. Over a year ago Klestreus' had been Captain-General of Nostor's mercenary army, which had unsuccessfully tried to conquer Hostigos; his ineptitude as a general had played no small part in Prince Gormoth's loss. Klestreus had joined the Hostigos Army, where Kalvan had been careful to keep him out of the field. His long service had made him invaluable as a source of information and gossip on all the major mercenary captains and the various noble houses throughout Hos-Agrys and Hos-Harphax.
Kalvan waited until the laughter had subsided, then lit his pipe and stood up. "First of all, I'd like to have Captain-General Harmakros give a status report on the state of preparedness of the Royal Army."
"Your Majesty," Chartiphon interrupted. "Could I be given leave to say a few words, before General Harmakros begins?"
Kalvan nodded and sat down. Chartiphon was a loyal, old-style soldier and very good as long as he stuck to pre-Kalvan tactics and strategy. Kalvan had promoted him as high as he could, to keep him off the field of battle, but there was going to be no changing his traditional beliefs. Chartiphon and Xentos were becoming Kalvan's greatest obstacles to progress. He was not going to win the war against Styphon's House, if he had to spend as much time trying to outflank his friends as his enemies.
"I know your Majesty's views on these new bayonets, but I question their performance on the field of battle. With my forty years of combat experience, first as a mercenary and later as Captain-General of Hostigos, I cannot see these metal twigs stopping a troop of lancers. By Dralm, I pray, I am wrong, but I fear that many of our pikemen will view them likewise."
Kalvan took a long draw on his pipe, then rose to his feet There had been a time in Hostigos—not all that long ago!—when no one would have questioned Kalvan's words, not even if it had been to ride their muskets like flying broomsticks. While Chartiphon's healthy skepticism was an improvement over his attitude of yesteryear, it had come at a particularly bad time.
"I don't believe it is all that big a problem, Chartiphon. I doubt the Styphoni cavalry will be able to make a direct hit on the front ranks of the Hostigi infantry. The wall of lead our lines can hurl will equal or better the Sacred Squares of Hos-Ktemnos. Not even the Zarthani Knights will be able to press home a charge against such a storm of firepower—much less the usual mercenary rabble."
Laurrey, Napoleon's Surgeon General, had checked his hospitals after several major battles and found very few examples of bayonet wounds. Most infantry and cavalry units broke off before contact, with one fleeing and the other pursuing. Ardant du Pica came to the conclusion that the traditional picture of an infantry charge, where the charging column smashes into the defending line, was mythical. At some point in a charge, either the column decided the line was going to hold and stopped, or the line decided the charging column was not going to halt and broke. It was this observation and his mastery of it that had put the "great" in Frederick the Great.
However, Kalvan wasn't just depending upon his infantry. With his mobile artillery he expected to rake the enemy pike and musket blocks before hitting them with massed salvo fire. The tremendous number of casualties would leave them shaken and vulnerable to cavalry or infantry charges. He could do the same to any mass cavalry charges. Most battlefield casualties were taken by broken and fleeing units, if the other side decided to pursue—not by those who stood their ground. Kalvan could not afford too many more battles with the butcher's bill as high as it had been at Fyk, Tenabra, or Phyrax.
"Also, Chartiphon—despite all the stories about gallant pike companies fighting to the last man, isn't it true that in more than half the battles the pikemen drop their pikes and run hell-bent-for leather the minute the cavalry reaches the front ranks? In our histories there is the story of Great King Maximilian who created the first pike armies in his Kingdom's history. Knowing his pikemens willingness to drop their pikes at push-of-pike he created double-pay soldiers to man the front and last ranks—those in the last rank to kill any of those who sought to escape by dropping their pike and running. That's why Styphon's Red Hand are as often deployed in the rear ranks, as in the front."
General Baldour nodded in agreement. "It is done that way in Hos-Ktemnos too. The veteran bill and shot troops are paid double to man the first and last rank, which may be why they are among the finest in the Great Kingdoms." The general was an exceptional soldier and proud of his former employers in Hos-Ktemnos. Kalvan expected that the last part of that statement was a sop to Hostigi egos rather than his measured opinion.
"There is no need to double-pay a Hostigi pikemen to get him to do his job," Chartiphon stated bluntly.
Seeing Baldour's face begin to burn, Kalvan quickly interjected, "It's not our place here to judge the quality of either Hostigi pikemen or Ktemnoi billmen. Both are among the finest soldiers I have ever fought with, or against. By the Wargod's Mace, musketeers are infamous for running the minute cavalry or enemy pike approach. The point with the 'New Model' Army is to put out enough firepower that no one will ever reach the Hostigi lines. But if they do, the bayonets will hold them until we can bring in cavalry or artillery support."
Kalvan made a slash with his arm that said the arguing was over, but he noted from the set of Chartiphon's face and Prince Ptosphes furrowed brow that he'd not yet won over the opposition. Ptosphes had ref
used to retire his own Princely pike even when Kalvan had offered him the muskets and bayonets to do so. It would probably take a field demonstration to change their minds and that he intended to give them more than one such this spring.
He nodded to Harmakros and his top officer began to give a breakdown of the capabilities of Kalvan's 'New Model' Army, with four one hundred and ten man companies per brigade rather than two, which meant a full strength regiment now mustered a thousand men—counting the headquarters units, too. "There are now eight foot regiments, including the new Hostigos Rifles—a line regiment with, four hundred riflemen and six hundred arquebusier. They're not at full strength now—not enough rifles, but they will be come spring. By the winter after the one coming up, they'll all have rifles."
That got their attention, Kalvan was happy to see, and even put a smile on old Chartiphon's face. Price Ptosphes practically beamed, although the name Hostigos Rifles had been Rylla's inspiration rather than his own. "The other three new regiments are the Third and Fourth Regiments of Foot and the Cordoba Regiment of Swords—named after a famous Captain of our Great King's homeland."
Machiavelli had always believed, based on the classic Roman legion versus the Greek phalanx model, that the sword-and-buckler man was the perfect counter to the Swiss and Landsknecht pike armies that had vanquished the Italian armies and brought ruin to the land during the French-Italian Wars. The Spanish sword-and-buckler men—although never in the numbers proposed by Machiavelli—went a long way to proving him right under Gonzalo de Cordoba, the Great Captain. Since Providence had given him a plenitude of sword-and-buckler men, mostly from Ulthor where the sword was favored, Kalvan had decided to test Machiavelli's theory on the field against a pike block or two.
He'd added two companies of musketeers to the Cordoba Regiment as insurance, though. Theories had a disarming way of going awry on the battlefield.
Kalvan had also doubled the size of the cavalry regiments, otherwise there would have been more colonels in the cavalry than captains, still adding eight new cavalry regiments. "The best news," Harmakros finished, "is that we've tripled the size of the Royal Mobile Force. We can now field two thousand dragoons armed with muskets and bayonets, and two full companies of the King's Mounted Rifles."
There was a loud whistle of appreciation from General Baldour who'd learned to respect the Mounted Rifles at the Battle of Phyrax, where he'd been a mercenary under the flag of the now deceased Captain-General Leonestros.
Kalvan next asked General Alkides to report on the Royal Artillery. The former mercenary ran his fingers nervously through his ginger-brown hair, which Kalvan noticed was beginning to gray at the sides. One of the penalties of high command. Rylla reminded him of his first gray hairs every time he complained about Princess Demia's crying in their bed when he was trying to sleep. The words Demia's wet-nurses used to exclaim this barbaric practice of letting an infant sleep with its parents would have made a gathering of infantry sergeants blush—fortunately, for his health and the respectability of wet-nurses, Rylla didn't indulge in this fancy too often. But she demonstrated no shame by referring to his few gray hairs as signs of incipient senility, whenever he did complain.
"By the Grace of Dralm and the Battleaxe of the Great King," Alkides opened, "we now have fifty four and six-pound demi-cannon or sakers, all mounted on carriages, for a total of five mobile light batteries. The Royal Artillery also has one complete battery of twenty-four and thirty-two pound brass guns for heavier work."
"Like the besieging of Tarr-Harphax and Harphax City, Praise Galzar!" Rylla cried out.
Her voice was echoed by a dozen cries of "Down with Hos-Harphax!"
The cat was out of the bag. Kalvan grinned and said, "This time we're not going to hit and run. We're going to blast Harphax City down to its foundation, if that's what it takes!"
Sarrask of Sask had his sword out and raised it to the sky. "Kill the Harphaxi devils. Burst their tripes! Down Styphon! Hail Great King Kalvan!"
When the hubbub had run its course, Harmakros continued, "We also have one new regiment of Sappers and Engineers to help with that siege work, By Galzar!"
When another round of "Down Hos-Harphax!" a short chorus of "Marching Through Harphax," and "Down Styphon!" had died down, Kalvan—realizing that little more in the way of work was going to be done this day—had Cleon bring in a cask of winter wine and goblets and led a toast "To Victory Over Styphon and All His Minions Wherever They Be." This toast soon led to more and Kalvan found himself in as bright a mood as he'd been in for some time.
And why not? This new crop of mercenaries was every bit as good as their predecessors—and they were the core of the victorious Royal Army—so there was every reason for high spirits. With hot lead and Galzar's help, this time next year they'd be making their rounds of toasts to the new Great King Phrames, King of the Great Kingdom of Hos-Harphax. Then let Styphon's House try and beat the team of Hos-Hostigos and Hos-Harphax!
WINTER
NINETEEN
Despite the early winter chill in the air, Grand Master Soton felt his tunic grow wet from the exertion of guiding his pack horse along the series of switch backs that cut through the cliffs of the south bank leading up to Harphax City. The rock-paved road was lined with swarms of beggars and hideously scarred veterans of the war with Hos-Hostigos. The fact that last year's maimed and their poor cousins kept their curses under their breaths showed that the Order's banner—a large white flag bearing a black, broken sun-wheel with curved arms was still feared in the Great Kingdom of Hos-Harphax, if not always respected.
Not that Soton relaxed the tight grip he maintained on the warhammer that rested against his saddle pommel in plain view. He had reasons to be cautious, the House of Styphon and its military arm, the Holy Order of Zarthani Knights, were held responsible by many in Hos-Harphax for the beating the Harphaxi took at the hands of the Usurper Kalvan at the Battle of Chothros Heights, where the heir to the throne and a quarter of the Harphaxi nobility had been slain.
Not surprisingly, the Harphaxi appeared to have forgotten that Soton himself had lost another equally disastrous battle to this self-proclaimed Great King Kalvan—who had appeared out of nowhere like a demigod—a moon later at the Battle of Phyrax. Despite the reform movement within Styphon's House, the Temple's control over its earthly allies was in great jeopardy. Fortunately, Archpriest Roxthar and his followers had put new mettle into Styphon's Will on Earth. They had given Soton an unlimited draft on the Temple's earthly resources; much of which, gold and arms especially, he was going to need if he were going to turn the broken Harphaxi Royal Army into any semblance of a military power.
Soton halted his party before the next steep grade and peered down onto Port Harphax, which was busy for this late in the year. Galleys, galleasses, and wide-bottomed carracks were scooting across the harbor below like water beetles. The Harphaxi warships were all going into dry dock on the island naval base. As he kneed his mount into reluctant motion, Soton cursed the memory of Erasthames the Great, the legendary king who had conquered the Iroquois Alliance. Four hundred years ago it might have made sense to put Tarr-Harphax up at the top of these cliffs, when the native Ruthani were an everyday threat.
Now it was a beastly nuisance, making the provisioning and feeding Harphax City and the castle, topping an even higher hill, a nightmare. Since the lower Harph flooded almost every spring, cutting off river transport, the city had to take in enough stores to last a long winter and spring as well. Food that arrived by sea had to be carted or packed up the Upper Road, at great expense in time and animals, or pulled up in great iron buckets by the rope tramway.
During a bad year such as this one, when fields had been trampled and burnt, most of Harphax City's food had to be imported by seagoing merchants, which explained the great number of boats crowding Harphax Port 's limited docking facilities. It was now dangerously late in the season and soon winter storms would make sea passage impossible. Most of the captains were less than pleased by c
hancing the seas this late in the year and only generous gifts of Styphon's gold kept them at sea at all.
As if this wasn't bad enough, the burnt fields and farms had brought tens of thousands of refugees into the already bursting-at-the-seams capital. Plus, all the war casualties who were too crippled or maimed to work, yet had to be housed and fed. Already the strain of short rations and overcrowding were visible on the lean faces of the city's beggars. Only great need could force them to take their chances on the steep Upper Road and the occasional visitor's generosity.
At the top of the cliffs, the city walls showed the abuse of a hundred years of neglect and civil complacency. Here and there teams of workmen were shoring up walls and replacing fallen stones, but as Soton could see—it was clearly a case of too little, too late. He was certain that Kalvan's four and six-pounder mobile field guns would quickly bring down these walls upon the head of the neglectful inhabitants of Harphax City. As for the old castle itself, Tarr-Harphax, Kalvan would have a dozen breaches in a moon-half with a few good siege guns.
Soton shuddered to think of the slaughter Kalvan's veterans would make upon the shattered remnants of the Harphaxi Army. It was a good thing that Prince Lysandros, since his brother King Kaiphranos's death three moons ago, had taken his advice and appointed the mercenary captain, Phidestros, Captain-General of the Royal Harphaxi Army, rather than one of his cronies or aging mercenary captains. Phidestros was young for such an important position, but he was one of the few captains to have fought against the Usurper Kalvan three times and lived to tell about it.
If anyone could turn this whipped rabble into a fighting force again, it was Phidestros. He had more ambition than an Archpriest of Styphon's Inner Circle and as much gall as Kalvan himself. Even so he would need Appalon's luck and Lyklos' cunning to forge this Harphaxi base metal into good fighting steel. Soton would have to watch his pupil did not come to best his master, for someday Phidestros' quest for glory and power might pose a threat to Styphon's House's own plans.