Great King_s war k-2

by Roland Green

  He decided to explain some of his reasoning to aid Phrames' conscience. "We want to make Soton worry about our crossing the Harph and hitting him in the rear, but we can't do that by staying here in Harphax. I'd like to have you lay siege to Harphax City, but I don't have enough troops for both the up coming battle with the Holy Host and to invest the Harphaxi capital. However, we can help Ptosphes by scaring the Agrysi badly enough that all the Princes and merchants will scream if Great King Demistophon sends one more mercenary or one more pound of fireseed against Hostigos."

  Phrames and the general staff either understood or didn't have the strength left to argue. Kalvan realized that if they didn't all get some sleep, the HQ staff of the Army of the Harph were going to be as useless as the beer-sodden mercenaries.

  "Now, if you don't all want to be accused of attempted regicide, will one of you get me some food and wine? Also a bed, if there's any straw left within a day's ride."

  He was too tired to eat the unleavened bread and cheese when it arrived, but not to drink the wine or even notice that it was pretty awful. After the wine, he wasn't surprised to find himself falling asleep easily, but he was pleasantly surprised not to have any nightmares.

  Apparently, "great murthering battles" were good for something.

  NINETEEN

  I

  The Fifth Level conveyor-head rotunda that provided the direct paratemporal link with Fourth Level Aryan-Transpacific, Kalvan's Time-Line, was as large as some commercial depots that Sirna had seen. Inside the rotunda were five domes of metal mesh containing two thirty-foot conveyors, two fifty-foot conveyors and one hundred-footer, the standard for passenger or commercial transport. Baltrov Eldra was standing in front of one of the fifty-footers, giving the Kalvan Study Team new members their final briefing while the University technicians prepared the conveyor for paratemporal transposition.

  "So Kalvan had to retreat, with twenty-two captured guns and a lot of other miscellaneous booty, including a hundred thousand ounces of silver, before he started back to Hos-Hostigos. He also added more troops than he lost in the battle; when most of the mercenaries he took prisoner swore oaths to Kalvan after he offered pay each one a signing bonus of five gold Crowns."

  "What about the Hostigi mercenaries?" Aranth Saln asked. With his waxed moustache and shaved head, Aranth was so at odds with his companions' appearance he could have been easily mistaken for an outtimer, or a Paratime Policeman on assignment. His only concession to Kalvan's Time-Line was to wear a wig, although he refused to have it bonded to his scalp until they arrived. His specialty was Pre-industrial Military Science. "Weren't they upset about the bonus?"

  "No as a victory bonus," Eldra answered, "Kalvan gave everyone in the Hostigi army-mercenaries included-ten Crowns. It made everyone happy-especially the camp followers. Well, everyone except Styphon's House."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Kalvan took almost half a million ounces of gold from the Styphon's House temples that he burned down and looted on his way through Hos-Harphax so he'll have more than enough gold to replace the bonus money. The desecration of so many of Styphon's temples, as well as the loss of so much gold, set up an uproar that was probably heard in the innermost chamber of Styphon's Great Temple!"

  Saln shrugged his shoulders. "A bonus is good morale builders, but it could set a bad precedent."

  "Kalvan is more worried about surviving this campaign season, than next years' fighting, since he has to run through the buzz saw of the Holy Host in a ten-day or two. Besides, his victory over the Harphaxi army was a great triumph and his victory speech was just as good."

  Several of the Study Team members raised thumbs in appreciation, including Sirna who had watched the recording on the visiscreen with the rest of the team. Kalvan's generous praise for his commanders and soldiers had made every soldier there a part of the Hostigi victory.

  When she had everyone's attention again, Eldra returned to her briefing, "Before he started back to Hostigos, Kalvan released Captain-General Duke Aesthes with only a token ransom, to escort Prince Philesteus' body back to Harphax City."

  "Of course, of course," Gorath Tran, a tall man with spider-thin limbs, interrupted. "Kalvan couldn't release Aesthes without any ransom at all because that would be an insult, implying the Duke was so incompetent that his services were of no value at all."

  "As it happened, they were of value only to Kalvan since over half of the Harphaxi Army is either dead, wounded, captured or surrendered! All Aesthes has to show Great King Kaiphranos for his services is his dead son." Eldra mimed Kaiphranos pulling out his hair in clumps.

  Sirna thought she spoke somewhat brusquely. Eldra obviously didn't like being interrupted by pointless displays of erudition in her own field. Nor did she appeared to like spindly University administrators who took up valuable space that could be better be used by historians or other trained scholars.

  "Now Kalvan was free to start for home."

  With the point of her dagger, Eldra traced the lines of Kalvan's homeward march on the map. "He didn't need to worry about the Harphaxi, but he took precautions against any move by the Agrysi or the Beshtans.

  "To frighten the Agrysi-"

  A series of clunks and clanks followed by a burst of electronic beeps and whistles interrupted her.

  She thrust her dagger clear through the map into the wooden tabletop. "Can't you work more quietly?"

  "Professor, do you want to leave, or don't you?" came the reply from inside the mesh dome. "Besides, that was the next to last test. One more and either this old lady will be ready to go or else you'll have to find another conveyor."

  Eldra frowned and Sirna didn't blame her. Styphon's Holy Host was rapidly approaching the borders of Hos-Hostigos and the Hostigi were digging in for a last ditch stand. Any more delays, and the Kalvan Study Team might find themselves in the midst of a battle, or at least in a country overrun with cavalry patrols, from both sides, inclined to shoot first and ask questions later. A day more or less wouldn't have made any difference on a Styphon's House time-line where war was being conducted in the old leisurely pre-Kalvan way, but Kalvan's Time-Line seemed to have discovered-what was the Europo-America words for it-the blitzkreek.

  Nor was it helping Eldra's mood that the maintenance tech insisted she use a paper map; a screen display would affect his tests. He explained why and Eldra seemed to be convinced, but Sirna didn't understand more than one word in three. She understood the theory of the Ghaldron-Hesthor Paratemporal Field and the workings of a conveyor well enough to pass her Safety and Emergencies Procedures Test, but anything more, she knew, would always remain arcane knowledge beyond her grasp-rather like Hadron Tharn's financial affairs.

  "Why did Kalvan send Count Phrames to the north?" Varnath Lala asked. She was an expert on Pre-industrial Metallurgy, a member of the University's Faculty Council and the oldest person on the Hostigos Kalvan Study Team.

  "As I was about to say, Kalvan sent Phrames with a raiding force to frighten the Agrysi and keep them neutral. He did a good job, as far as we can tell. He blew up bridges and minor forts in Thaphigos, looted a Styphon's House temple-farm of forty thousand ounces of gold and ten thousand ounces of silver, freed and armed its slaves and finally met the Household Guard of Thaphigos under the Prince himself in a pitched battle just short of the Phaxos border. The Thaphigi lost about eight hundred men to Phrames' two hundred and Prince Acestocleus was badly wounded. If he dies that will be as good as winning another battle for Kalvan.

  "Acestocleus is the son of the man who usurped the Princedom of Thaphigos twenty years ago. The kin of the old Princely House was either executed or driven to exile in Hos-Agrys. King Kaiphranos did nothing more than dither so they moved to Agrys City. They have about five candidates for the crown; two of them with marriage ties to the Agrysi Royal House which has always wanted to add Thaphigos to the Great Kingdom of Hos-Agrys. So, if Prince Acestocleus dies there may be a civil war interrupting the major trade route between Hos-Harphax and
Hos-Agrys, possibly even a war between the two Great Kingdoms. This won't be the only case of this kind of trouble in Hos-Harphax, either. It's been thirty years since anybody took King Kaiphranos seriously and the Princes have fallen into the habit of doing more or less as they please."

  "I still feel sorry for Kaiphranos," Sankar Trav said, the Team's medico and psychist. "His favorite son is dead, his kingdom's falling apart-"

  "And it's his own Dralm-damned fault, so don't waste any tears on him," Aranth Saln said. "Besides, Philesteus knew how to lead a cavalry charge and nothing else. He couldn't have undone the mess his father left behind in a hundred years, even without the Styphon's House/Kalvan war."

  "Well, Kaiphranos doesn't exert much influence on events now. The Harphaxi Study Team reports that he's so grief-stricken that he's confined to his bed. There's a nasty rumor going around that a Styphon's House agent has poisoned him.

  "But enough of rumors," Eldra went on. "Next, Count Phrames then moved still farther north, through Phaxos. Prince Araxes wouldn't provide him with supplies, but he was able to buy some with the temple-farm loot. Next, he crossed into Nostor, joined up with the reinforcements Prince Pheblon's captain-general was sending, and is now nearly back in Hostigos."

  Eldra's dagger traced out another line of march, this one across the Harph into southern Beshta, up the west bank of the Harph and across the Besh River into Hostigos. "That was a detachment sent by Harmakros. They stopped for a day at Tarr-Locra, which is still in Hostigi hands since the castellan remained loyal to Kalvan, but otherwise kept moving. They lived off the land, since Beshta is now enemy territory, and I imagine Prince Balthar will be wanting to ride home and defend his lands."

  "Will Soton let him?" Sankar Trav asked.

  "My guess would be that Balthar will be expected to stay with his new 'allies' until he proves himself in one more battle," Aranth Saln put in. "Grand Master Soton is a professional soldier and isn't going to give up three or four thousand men to soothe the traitorous Prince's nerves. High Marshal Mnephilos might be more considerate of Balthar's desire to defend his lands, but he's from Hos-Ktemnos where the Princes know their place in the scheme of things. I doubt if he will go strongly against Soton in this matter."

  "That should keep Balthames of Sashta faithful to Kalvan," Sirna said.

  "Absolutely," Eldra said. "Balthames hates his older brother so much he'd swear black was white to annoy him. Also, he may harbor hopes of being proclaimed Prince of Beshta after Balthar is deposed and executed, which he certainly will be if Kalvan wins the coming battle."

  "What are his chances of that?" Sirna asked, hoping her question didn't sound too stupid.

  Aranth Saln made a nasty little chuckle. "Not very good, since he's as big a weasel as Prince Balthar is a back-stabbing rat! From this point on, Balthames won't be able to go to the princely privy without one of Skranga's agents stepping on his cape."

  Sirna shook her head. Great Kingdom politics was almost as complicated as the academic feuds in the Outtime History Department back at Dhergabar U.

  Eldra was now discussing how Kalvan had sent Harmakros back to Hostigos with the Mobile Force to reinforce Prince Ptosphes when the maintenance tech let out a whoop of triumph.

  "Done, Citizens! As soon as I call the operators in, you'll be ready to go."

  Under his breath, but loud enough that everyone could hear, Lathor Karv said, "I doubt that Verkan Vall or his errand boy Ranthar Jard have to wait here three hours for an obsolete conveyor to be brought on line."

  Sirna noticed that Aranth Saln's body language showed the only sign of disagreement among the knowing smiles and nodding heads of the Team. Eldra acted as if she hadn't heard Lathor's comment. Sirna wonder how Eldra viewed the Paratime cops and Home Time Line politics in general; probably only as it affected her opportunities to travel outtime. Like so many Home Timeliners, Eldra rarely returned to First Level, using it primarily as a supply base for her outtime forays.

  The professor certainly appeared too much the maverick to be a Management Party supporter, with their devotion to the status quo and their complete support of Paratime Police policy. For the same reason one wouldn't expect her to be a member of the Opposition Party, who were just as predictable and rigid in their resistance to the Paratime Police as Management was in its support. At a guess, she probably leaned toward the Right Moderates with their theme of "the appeal to reason."

  By the time the two conveyor operators had taken their seats at the controls, Sirna and her teammates were seated on the passenger couches. Sirna looked up at the metal mesh dome which would soon disappear into the indescribable flicker of a paratemporal transposition field. Then she looked at Eldra; the professor's long fingers were twined around the stem of the pipe she didn't dare smoke during the transposition, twisting and untwisting themselves into knots like a nest of snakes.

  Sirna rubbed her right leg where the top of her riding boot chafed it and grinned. It was nice to know that she wasn't the only nervous member of this team.

  II

  Kalvan decided to call a halt for a meal in another half hour. Without a watch it was difficult to tell time here-and-now. Most people here-and-now used burning candles to measure time, but they weren't of much use on horseback. Note: find some way to reinvent the clockwork mechanism. He'd already introduced sundials, but he needed a more reliable clock. Next time he was at the University he would talk to Ermut who was probably the first scientist here-and-now.

  His detachment was getting close to home, but not so close that he felt like riding all the way on an empty stomach even if it would save time. They could eat-what to call it? As the first meal of the day, it should be breakfast; measured by how long they'd been on the road it should be lunch, even if it wasn't yet midmorning. Anyway, they could eat and rest the horses before pushing on to Tarr-Hostigos, and Kalvan could close his ears to the well-bred grumbling about Great Kings who insisted on rising before dawn.

  Kalvan was no longer afraid of what he might finally see when he rode into view of the heartland of Hostigos. Even before the Mobile Force arrived, Soton's cavalry hadn't pushed more than a few raids and a lot of patrols into Hostigos, and now that Harmakros and Phrames had reinforced Ptosphes, they weren't even doing that. The Holy Host of Styphon was camped in Sashta, laying it to waste as they foraged for the supplies they would need before they could fight another pitched battle.

  That was hard on Prince Balthames and his subjects, but it was an undisguised blessing for Kalvan and the Princedom of Hostigos. The way Soton and Mnephilos drove their men after Ptosphes had been a little frightening even for Kalvan, reading it second-hand in Ptosphes' letters. If Ptosphes hadn't fought the Battle of Tenabra within reach of his supply magazines-so that for the first week he could retreat fast enough to break contact with the Holy Host-he might have been brought to battle and smashed before he could regroup.

  Kalvan would not have been prepared to believe that here-and-now heavy cavalry could fight that well or infantry march that fast, but when you were dealing with the Zarthani Knights and the Sacred Squares, you had to be prepared to believe quite a lot that didn't apply elsewhere.

  As it was, Ptosphes had done damned well to bring ten thousand men in fighting condition out of Sashta! The Styphoni had been on his heels all the way, scouting and raiding far into his rear, snapping up stragglers and every so often sending a weak van into an apparently vulnerable position to tempt him to turn and attack.

  That was a trick that couldn't work twice-not with Prince Ptosphes. He had kept retreating, ignoring the curses and occasional desertions by men who thought more of vengeance or an honorable death than of the best way to win this war. Kalvan suspected that those curses hurt Ptosphes more than the careful phrases of his letters would ever show, but he knew his father-in-law would have sacrificed even his honor to bring his army back, a loss that would hurt more than merely losing his life.

  The Styphoni paid the price for a swift advance across the Sashtan countr
yside whose major fortresses and walled towns were held against them. By the time they'd reached Hostigos they'd marched the shoes off their horses' hooves and the soles out of their soldiers' boots, and left behind most of their artillery because their half-starved teams couldn't haul it. They still might have won a battle against Ptosphes alone by sheer weight of numbers but for the arrival of Harmakros and the Mobile Force.

  There was nothing for the Holy Host to do after that but forage in Sashta and hope the Sashtan garrisons wouldn't send out too many raiding parties against the convoys coming across from Beshta to the east and the Ktemnoi wagon trains coming through Syriphlon from the south.

  It was a race between Hostigi reinforcement and Styphoni supplies, and at the moment the race was in a dead heat. Anything that gave one side or the other a major lead during the next week or two was likely to be political rather than military.

  Politics was Kalvan's main reason for riding on ahead of his army. There were too many things he needed to know that couldn't safely be put in letters even by the people who could tell them. What was this new League of Dralm that Xentos had mentioned in his latest letter from Agrys City? From the name, it sounded as though the League would be a natural ally against Styphon's House, but would the League be willing to commit gold, arms and soldiers to the fight? Or was it another pointless debating society like the Council of Dralm?

  What had Phrames heard or seen in Phaxos that might tell Kalvan which way Prince Araxes was likely to jump-and when?

  What about the Beshtan situation: What did the people in Beshta think of their Prince's treachery, and could any of them be persuaded to rebel against him so that Balthar would have to worry about his back while the Army of Hos-Hostigos fought him in front? How was the loyalty of Sarrask's garrisons going to be guaranteed, assuming it could be, with their Prince off to war? And a dozen other questions, each defining a potential Great King's headache, none of them likely to be answered until Kalvan rode up to Tarr-Hostigos.