by John F. Carr
"We called that a luau, where I came from," Kalvan said, suddenly remembering that Sargos wouldn't have the faintest idea of what he was talking about. "Beyond the Cold Lands a luau is a great feast of welcome in the Kingdom of Hawaii. Oh, I see what you're getting at. Why don't we roast the Knights out of those tunnels?"
Kalvan jumped up, his headache forgotten, and wrapped his arms around the Warlord. "Yes, yes, this is a vision from the gods."
Ranjar Sargos tried to jump up and down, found he couldn't, and began grinning so hard Kalvan was surprised his cheeks didn't split. Suddenly Kalvan was very aware that neither man had bathed in a month of Sundays. It was astounding what a man's sense of smell could grow accustomed to!
Kalvan disengaged from the nomad's embrace and said, "Let us have something to eat and then we will call a Council of War! Jaklon is my breakfast ready?"
"Yes, Your Majesty. Should I heat up the last of the chocolate?"
"Capital idea. Sargos your idea is absolutely inspired. It'll take time to get the wood we need, but nothing compared to what it would take to starve these stubborn iron heads out of those mines!"
FORTY
I
Dalla closed the collapsed-nickel door behind her and took a pack of cigarettes off the shelf. "Ahhh. I miss these when I'm playing Dalla, proper Greffan wifey of Trader Verkan. She lit up and smoke swirled around her head. Then she reached over and gave Verkan a big hug. "That doesn't mean I'm not glad to see you!"
Verkan followed with a smile of husbandly contentment. "We've got two ten-days away from Dhergabar and Paratime HQ to look forward to. I could get used to this."
The three-story mansion's in the heart of Greffa's—merchant district—was his official Grefftscharrer residence. The collapsium-shielded basement was Verkan's home headquarters—a piece of Home Time-Line on Fourth Level, Aryan Transpacific. The basement was large enough to accommodate, including sleeping quarters, a Paratime Police team of twenty men. The basement even had its own Paratemporal Conveyer—a small ten footer suitable for only six persons, except in an emergency when a whole team could squeeze inside for an evacuation. Not that that could ever happen here; the collapsed-nickel shielded basement was strong enough to ward off anything but a direct hit by a nuclear warhead.
The office was almost a double for Verkan's office on First Level, down to the horseshoe desk and large picture window. He even had a see-through case for his Kalvan's Time-Line souvenirs.
"It's time to see how Kalvan is doing." Verkan hit a button in the sitting room and what appeared to be a solid wall turned into a blank viewscreen. "The sky-eye we put up over Tarr-Ceros ought to pick up Kalvan pretty quickly."
The screen filled with a high earth shot of the Lydistros Valley, with Tarr-Ceros dominating the highest ridge. From this distance the great Order of Zarthani Knights castle looked like a toy model. "Dalon Salth is riding undercover as one of the Mounted Rifles so all I have to do is key-in his locater number and we should find Kalvan and the Army of the Trygath fairly quickly." The picture on the screen changed to a green hilly area with an enormous army bivouacked down below. "They're still there!"
"Why has Kalvan set fire to those hills?" Dalla asked.
Verkan peered closer. Smoke was pouring out of tunnels and pits at the peaks of the five hills. "You're right someone has lit them on fire! From what Dalon told me over the radio, Soton left four Lances behind him to hold Kalvan up—"
"How could a few thousand men hold up an army that big?" she pointed to the sprawling army below.
"It's a case of pre-industrial military honor. Kalvan's allies cannot honorably leave a large force behind them without losing face among their own troops. Since a large part of the cohesive force behind such a horde is based on oath-bonding and personal honor, Kalvan is forced to honor Warlord Sargos' and King Nestros' obligations. So he has to halt the army and finish off this detachment before following the Knights. To press forward would mean dishonoring his allies and as such they would lose not only prestige and manna, but many, if not most, of their retainers."
Dalla pursed her lips and blew out a series of smoke rings. "That means that Soton will escape to his hiddyhole. That's going to mean more problems for Kalvan next year."
"Exactly. Of course, when Soton finds out that Kalvan has roasted his men in this stone crockpot of his, Soton's not going to be very happy. Nor will he be pleased if Harmakros and the Mobile Force reach him before he gains Tarr-Ceros."
"You mean it's all right for Harmakros to hare off after Soton, but not okay if Kalvan does it."
"To the nomads, Harmakros is a sub-chief and only doing his Warlords' bidding. Since Harmakros only has a few thousand men—almost a scouting party in relation to the nomad host—honor is preserved."
Dalla took another puff on her cigarette. "Men, I'll never understand them."
"Women—ahhh! Wait until you see the mess that Rylla has gotten Kalvan into. I wanted to tell you about it earlier, but with the welcome back party upstairs and all."
"What's my friend done now?"
Verkan picked up the controller, switched to Hos-Harphax sky-eye and keyed-in the locater number for Ranthar Jard. This time the viewscreen showed a burning town, with what looked to be a fireworks display near Tarr-Phaxos.
Dalla blew out a cloud of smoke. "This is Rylla's handiwork!"
"Oh, yes. And in direct violation of her husband's orders."
"Then I don't blame her. Europo-American is still too patriarchic-centric for my taste."
"Seriously, Rylla went too far even in terms of the mores and customs of Aryan-Transpacific. You remember me telling you how Prince Araxes had ambushed our foundry team on its way to Nostor."
"Isn't that the same Araxes who renounced his allegiance to Hos-Hostigos last year, when it appeared that Kalvan was in trouble?"
"Same Prince."
"Then Rylla has local custom on her side."
"No, a woman does not lead an army on Aryan-Transpacific, but that's still the least of her transgressions and might well be forgiven since she is winning. The real public relations disaster is her actions have given the Hostigos the 'appearance' of being the aggressor. Remember, Aryan-Transpacific is not a place where you find monolithic kings and rulers; each kingdom is made up of princes and barons who owe their fealty and military support to their direct overlord or king. But, that support exists only so long as the lesser rulers are not afraid that their overlords' orders will infringe upon their feudal and historical rights. Until Rylla moved the army into Phaxos, most princes sympathized with Kalvan and Hos-Hostigos in the war against Styphon's House. Many of them suspected Kalvan of being tough on barons and princes who displeased him, but they weren't sure. Now, with Rylla's invasion of Phaxos, they have proof—and that's a Hos of another color.
"Let's take a closer look."
The lens now zoomed in on the town walls, at least, those that were still standing. "Is that what I think it is on that pole?" Dalla asked.
Verkan instructed the lens to zoom in for a closer shot. On the screen was a head, with its mouth stilled permanently in mid-scream, impaled on the pole. Next to that pole was a woman's head missing an ear and most of her hair.
"Pull back! I've seen enough. Rylla—this time maybe you have gone too far."
Verkan whistled. "Kalvan is not going to be happy about this. Let me see if I can reach Ranthar."
After a short wait, Ranthar's voice came alive. "Verkan, we've got problems here."
"We saw the poles with the heads."
"Those are Prince Araxes' close relations, with assorted war criminals and Styphoni priests. Rylla in her zeal has depopulated about half the noble houses of Phaxos, which includes any of them with ties to either Hos-Harphax or Styphon's House. I don't think this is going to play well in Hos-Agrys."
"Or at home in Hostigos Town when Kalvan returns!"
"She's having a good time, though. So is Prince Sarrask, who—believe it or not—has become the voice of moderation in the Ho
stigi councils of war. Most of the Hostigi have got caught up in the bloodlust of conquest and sacking a major town. I guess they've been on the receiving end so long that it's a pressure release to be giving it out for a change. There's a party atmosphere here; you know, while the Great King's away—"
"What's holding them back now?"
"Tarr-Phaxos. It's been under constant bombardment for over a moon quarter. Rylla just got a new shipment of shells in from Beshta so I don't think it will hold out much longer. Prince Araxes must be quaking in his boots!"
"If he isn't, he soon will be. I'm sure Rylla's picked out an appropriate punishment for him. Thanks Ranthar. I'll be in touch."
"Over and out, Chief!"
"How serious is this, Verkan?"
"Very. Rylla might have single-handedly changed the course of Kalvan's Time-Line. The one thing Kalvan doesn't need is more enemies. And Rylla's just given him a barrel full."
II
Kalvan sat on his horse and watched as here-and-now's biggest bonfire, at the bottom of the hills, was torched by screaming clansmen. Tree trunks, limbs and branches tumbled like matchsticks a third of the way up the hills. After four days of sunshine to dry them out—there was going to be quite a barbecue. Already, small clouds of smoke were pouring out of the old abandoned mines and iron pits. It had taken a week of hauling and a small forest of trees to fill every crevice and hole, and all that was accomplished between counter-attacks by the Knights. The counter-attacks had been the futile last gasp of the doomed; after all, what could a few thousand men do against a fifty times their number.
It hadn't take the Knights long to figure out the Warlords' diabolical plan, but—even after a short parlay—Knight Commander Drakmos refused categorically to surrender. He's buying time for the Order, thought Kalvan, but at what price!
The fire, set by a hundred torches, went racing up the hills. The heat was already so intense that the clansmen were drawing back from the hills. Many of the nomads darted back and forth to the flames, like children, daring them to do their worst. A score of black armored Zarthani Knights and their oath-brothers ran out of a hidden tunnel, searching for a bolt-hole. Moments later smoke came billowing out behind them. The men looked down at the racing fire and then back at the hole, which was now belching smoke like a locomotive. Kalvan aimed his rifle, pushed down the striker and fired. One of the armored men toppled. A lucky one, Kalvan thought.
The other riflemen in the King's Lifeguard followed his example and in two breaths, all the Knights were down. Then the fire leaped over their bodies and all that could be seen were flames and swirling smoke. The fire raged up and down the hills all day and through most of the night.
In the morning, the hillsides were covered by blackened trunks and tree limbs. Here and there in the mine entrances were blackened armors and an occasional skeleton. Kalvan sent out search teams to find any survivors. It took most of the morning, but none of the tunnels contained anything living, animal or human. The Hostigi soldiers who returned came back with blackened faces and desolate eyes.
Captain Simodes, a red-haired cavalryman whose hair was now charcoal-colored, told Kalvan, "It's like Regwarn in those tunnels, Your Majesty! I know the Knights are the enemy and all, but I wouldn't wish a death like that on a clutch of Styphon's House Archpriests! We found one point of sixty Knights all glued to one another. Their armor had melted together and we couldn't separate the bodies. It sickens a man to see brave men die like crayfish in a pot. The smell was so bad we had to soak pieces of our sashes in water and tie them around our noses, and still half the men puked their guts out. I don't think I'll ever eat pork again!"
Kalvan dismissed Simodes and called an impromptu council of war. "Warlord, you are to be commended for the battle plan."
Ranjar Sargos looked sick. "I had not imagined the screams and stench that would assault us! I can't imagine a more terrible kind of war."
Warchief Vanar Halgoth nodded in agreement. "The Raven Hag of War cares not how men die in battle, just that they go to Wind. It was truly bad medicine, but, if we could, I would say let us do it all over again at Tarr-Ceros."
The others nodded. Kalvan remembered the mustard gas of World War I and the atomic flames of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and wondered, for about the hundredth time, if he was leading these folk—now his people—down the same road.
"This was bad," Kalvan said. "In my land this type of warfare was called 'total war.'"
King Nestros drew back away from Kalvan. "I don't like the sound of that."
"It's neither honorable, nor fair. But it's the future."
Ranjar Sargos made a series of complex hand motions that Kalvan assumed were to ward of demons and evil spirits. "I pray to the gods you are wrong, King Kalvan. Did the gods speak to you, too?"
"Yes, in a manner of speaking." Kalvan had seen the future of warfare first hand, first in World War II newsreels, and then in person on the frozen battlefields of Korea fighting the Chinese. "I will do my best to see that it doesn't happen here." It sounds like whistling in the wind to me, but maybe one man can make a difference.
"May the gods give you the strength." The Warlord looked up at the sun. "We have almost a full day ahead of us. Let's find our fat rattlesnake before he hides in his den!"
III
"Toss oars!"
The cry floated up from the boat on the muddy Lydistros River, to the low-lying hill where Kalvan stood gazing at Tarr-Ceros. The great fortress of the Holy Order of the Zarthani Knights marched across nearly a mile of hills on the far side of the river. Some of those hills had clearly been flattened; others carved into the fortress's outworks. Kalvan counted three concentric layers of trenches and wooden palisades, each furnished with artillery positions and covered ways to let ammunition and reinforcements come up. There was a much smaller, older fort and several batteries of guns—bombards he was certain—on the opposite shore of the wide river.
The stonewalls only began beyond the trenches, rising like seats in a theatre up the central hill to the massive keep in the middle. Two, maybe three concentric circles of walls, each with its own moat and array of towers. Light glinted from the towers and the walls alike, evidence of armor and big guns.
In the center, the keep rose up a good thirty feet above the highest tower. And were Kalvan's eyes playing tricks on him, or was the keep faced with something shiny—marble? There were marble quarries up near the head of the Tennessee River in his own world: why not here? Certainly water transportation for the marble wouldn't have given the Knights any problem, not with their river fleet.
Marble was not the stone Kalvan would have chosen for a fortress. Under artillery fire, it would splinter and the splinters scatter like shell fragments.
But then, Tarr-Ceros had been built when the Zarthani Knights had no enemies who could bring artillery against their citadel. Until recently, neither the tribes nor the Trygathi had much to bring against Tarr-Ceros except numbers, archery, crossbows, a few arquebuses, and the occasional wrought-iron four-pounder.
Kalvan signaled to the horseholders, who led Harmakros' mount and those of his aides down to the bank. So far, the Tarr-Ceros garrison had paid their visitors less attention than cockroaches. If they changed their mind, some of the guns in the outer fortifications could certainly reach down river.
Harmakros held his horse to a walk as he led his party up the muddy hillside, then reined in and saluted his Great King. The Captain-General's face was grimmer than ever, far more than could be blamed on fatigue and the strain of long campaign.
"Your Majesty, that floating barrier of spiked logs is no tale. There's no way through to the quay until the logs are removed."
"How long would that take?"
"With a few tarred barrels of fireseed and no enemy fire, an hour of any night. But they've got tarpots and what looks like bundles of arrows all laid out in the trenches right behind the quay. They could light up the engineers and pick them off like rats in a privy corner. Even if the barrier went, the trenc
hes would be manned and ready for the landing party."
"So going for the quay would be a waste, even as a feint?"
"The Knights would get a good laugh and we would get a bloody nose," Harmakros said morosely. He did not put into words that which his tone added, and there was no need to send anyone up under the guns of the fortress to learn this. Once Your Majesty decided it had to be done, it became my duty. But, if I don't have any more such duties for a while, it won't break my heart.
"Harmakros, for at least the hundredth time—well done. If we find ourselves with a vacant princedom, would you consider taking it?"
"Once Your Majesty doesn't need my services in the field, I won't say no. But I have a nasty feeling that it's going to take a long time to finish this war with Styphon's House. We've driven the badger into his lair."
"Do we have any way of getting him out and taking his hide home?"
Again, tone spoke volumes. "Galzar Wolfshead might knock down those walls with his mace, Your Majesty, but nothing we have will even come close. As for a siege, unless you've figured out a way to feed an army on air, forget it."
Harmakros was right. Kalvan had known as much the moment he laid eyes on Tarr-Ceros. It reminded him of one of the great Crusader castles in the Holy Land—but an aerial picture of a ruin didn't give the same impact. You had to see one of those stone monsters armed and garrisoned in its prime, looming over you, ready to defy the worst you could do. And when that worst wasn't enough to do more than give the garrison a few sleepless weeks…
There wasn't a gun in the whole Hostigi artillery that could both be moved here and make an impression on the walls. There wasn't enough food to keep a third of the allied host alive long enough to make the Knights tighten their belts. A simple attempt to storm the place would kill half the attackers and demoralize the rest.