Great Kings' War

by John F. Carr

  "I'll remember," Sirna said and covered her uneasiness with another drink.

  Eldra sat looking into space or maybe into the past for a moment, then keyed the big visiscreen on the wall behind her desk to life. A map of the current theatre of action in Kalvan's Time-line sprang into sight.

  "As you can see, things are building up rather quickly to as nice a pair of pitched battles as you ever want to be a long way from. Ptosphes has moved down into what Kalvan would call Chambersburg, Pennsylvania—Tenabra in Kalvan's Time-Line. The vanguard of the Knights and the Ktemnoi is up to Tarr-Corria—Hagerstown, Maryland. Ptosphes may be about to decide to give battle, because as far as he can see the enemy only has about seventeen thousand men assembled at Tarr-Corria. He knows the rest have to be catching up sooner or later but he doesn't think they've done so."

  "Do we know differently?"

  "We suspect Soton either knows something we don't or is just confident that he can fight and win against three-to-two odds. We don't have anybody on the ground with Soton, and we've done all the air reconnaissance we can do without giving any portents. We don't want that, not when we don't know to whom we'll be giving them!"

  Sirna looked up at the map again. "Wasn't there a battle in the American Civil War on the Europo-American Subsector fought near Tarr-Corria?"

  "Yes. Antietam—I think. That was the Northern victory that ended the War and made General McClellan President after Lincoln. No, wait a minute—that was another Europo-American Subsector, not Kalvan's. Have you been studying up on his home time-line?"

  Sirna nodded. "Mostly American history, but some European, too. Genghis Khan is fascinating in a horrid sort of way. Hitler is just plain horrid."

  "Wait until you've talked to a few people who've been out on timelines where the Third Reich won." Eldra made a face and took a long pull at her drink. "Some of them make Aryan Transpacific, Styphon's House Subsector look pleasant."

  "So Kalvan and the Army of Hos-Harphax will probably be going at it within the next few days?" Sirna asked.

  "It looks that way. Kalvan's Mobile Force has moved down to within three days' march of Harphax City itself without meeting any serious opposition."

  "Does he plan to besiege Harphax City?"

  "I don't think so. According Aranth Saln, our Study Team military expert, it appears that Kalvan is baiting a trap with the Mobile Force—using the smaller force to taunt the Harphaxi to come to battle. He's slowed his advance now to give Prince Philesteus and Duke Aesthes a chance to come out of their tarrs and meet Kalvan on the battlefield. Either that or face a prolonged siege that the Harphaxi are ill prepared to suffer, since they have less than two weeks provisions—if that!—in their storehouses in Harphax City and Tarr-Harphax.

  "Aesthes isn't much of a general, according to Records. They show he's only fought in four minor campaigns, usually princely rebellions or peasant uprisings, and in each engagement he dragged his heels; usually, the Harphaxi won because they had the bigger army and more supplies. There hasn't been a war this big in Hos-Harphax in over a century. Aesthes' tactics—if you can call them that—are not going to work against a large, very mobile army like Kalvan's Army of the Harph.

  "Saln's theory is that, beside being a family friend, King Kaiphranos appointed Duke Aesthes to head the Harphaxi Army as a counterpoint to young—that's only relative to Aesthes advanced age, since the Prince is some thirty-six winters old as the Zarthani count years—Philesteus, who is known to be hot-headed and rash."

  Eldra went on to explain how Kalvan did not want to engage in a siege as the opening move of the battle. "No siege guns and too few men to blockade the City. Also, Kalvan would run into supply problems, since the country between where he is now and the City will be foraged bare in another ten-day. It would also see him far removed from his storage depots in Sask and Beshta. In which case, he would have to depend on supply trains vulnerable to smaller Harphaxi units and local bandits. Protecting the supply trains, would tie up too much of his cavalry.

  "Nor, does Saln suspect, that Kalvan wants to spend the time and men it would take to pacify the territory between Beshta and Harphax City, which might take four or five ten-days and tie down much of his infantry guarding prisoners and pacified villages and towns. If Kalvan can 'convince' the Harphaxi to chase the Mobile Force to near Beshta, where he has the majority of his forces, it will be the Harphaxi who have stretched supply lines and re-supply problems. The Hostigi will be rested and able to maneuver the Harphaxi into a picked battlefield."

  "So what are the Harphaxi waiting for?" Sirna asked.

  "Philesteus and Aesthes are waiting for another shipment of Styphon's muskets and fireseed to re-arm the City Militia Bands and re-equip some of the worse-off mercenaries. If they march now, almost a quarter of the Harphaxi Army would be Styphon's House troops, the Temple Guardsmen and the Order of Zarthani Knights. Prince Philesteus doesn't know whether he'd rather be called a coward or give Styphon's forces the chance to claim credit for the victory."

  "He sounds like a fool," Sirna said.

  "He isn't really. Philesteus is an acceptable cavalry commander, but high-level politics and grand strategy are over his head. He's also caught up in a chivalrous code that was obsolete in the Five Kingdoms a hundred years ago. The same goes for most of the other Harphaxi nobility, which is why Kalvan is going to stamp them into the mud of the Harph, like the dinosaurs they are, when the shooting starts." There was no mistaking the positively bloodthirsty note of anticipation in Eldra's voice.

  "Anyway, the shooing is going to start within a ten-day at most. I want to take you to Kalvan's Time-Line in time to at least catch the aftermath."

  "Isn't that going to cut short our field orientation on Kalvan Control One?"

  Sirna was annoyed. She'd been looking forward to a month or so in the similar time-line the University used for orientating the Kalvan's Time-Line Team members to what Styphon's House Subsector, Fourth Level Aryan-Transpacific looked, sounded and smelled like."

  "There isn't any more Kalvan Control One," Eldra said grimly. "That's why we're leaving sooner than I'd planned."

  "But—I thought that was the safe one, where Gormoth of Nostor fell off his horse at Marrox Ford—"

  "—and dashed out his brains that none of us thought he had?"

  "Right!"

  "Unfortunately, somebody with even fewer brains forgot to check out the other changes between Kalvan's Time-Line and Kalvan Control One. One of them was a very good mercenary captain named Sthrathos. The other was Sarrask of Sask, a much abler and more thoroughly vicious Sarrask than the one on Kalvan's Time-Line. Hostigos had a one-year reprieve, then Sarrask and Sthrathos led twenty thousand men against it. Green shifted to show blue and red arrows writing all over the map of what was now Hostigos. The screen shifted over to show a night aerial view of a burning town.

  "That was Hostigos Town from the local sky-eye after we got all but two of our people out."

  Another shift. "Afterwards we were able to send in a few people disguised as traveling harness makers. Men only."

  Sirna recognized Bear Creek Bridge on the west side of Hostigos Town, or at least where the bridge had been. Now its stone abutments stood smoke-blackened on either side of a stream fouled with ashes, burned timbers and some floating...things?...Sirna was very glad she didn't have to smell.

  Shift. The Street of Coopers, formerly hard packed earth lined with the kind of solid wood and plaster houses skilled craftsmen could afford under the peaceful rule of a good prince. Now the street was churned into mud and littered with dead bodies and horse droppings. A few scavenger dogs gnawed at the corpses and from the ashes of houses, chimneys poked skyward like monuments to the dead.

  Shift. The road up to Hos-Hostigos lined with gallows with a corpse dangling from each one. Carrion birds were pecking at some of the bodies. Others had decomposed to the point where not even a bird would approach them.

  Shift. The gateway of Tarr-Hostigos, the gates themselves gon
e, the hinges pried loose by looters, smoke-blackened stones, dark blood stains on the flagstones of the courtyard, and over the gateway a row of spikes—

  "No! No!"

  Sirna's stomach twitched, then rolled. She closed her eyes briefly, swallowed and decided that she could live with the sight of the heads decorating those spikes. Harmakros, she noted, had his skull split from the forehead to the left ear. They must have taken his head when they picked up his body on the battlefield. Some of the others—Ptosphes and Chartiphon—must have suffered the same fate. There was also one empty spike.

  "What happened to—Rylla?"

  Eldra swallowed. "You don't want to know the details. As to what happened to her body—someone lifted it off the spike one night. Probably took it away for a decent funeral pyre, at least that's what Sarrask thought. He retaliated by herding two hundred Hostigi hostages into the local temple of Dralm, setting it on fire and having musketeers shoot down anybody who tried to get out."

  Eldra silently punched in an order for more drinks, then made an elaborate business of re-filling her pipe. When it was lighted again, she chuffed on it for a minute until there was a thick veil of smoke over her head. "So Kalvan Control One is gone and we haven't really staffed the other Control Lines for full scale orientation. You could learn something on one of them, but not enough in time to go out with me to Kalvan's Time-Line this season.

  "You could also go out with me to Kalvan's Time-Line with nothing but Hypno-mech orientation. You already have the language down very well, and your Greffan accent has at least some of the right flavor, so you wouldn't be completely a lost lamb. Normally I'm as strict about the 'No field orientation, no go' rule as anyone, but a time always comes when you have to bend the rules. If you're willing, I'll make this one of the times."

  If Sirna had thought any of the Zarthani gods existed to hear a prayer of thanks, she would have sent one that she hadn't lost control of her stomach. Those pictures of the sacked and ruined Kalvan Control One must have been a test, one she'd apparently passed—at least to the point of being given another test.

  Spend a safe summer of orientation in an unmolested but badly equipped Control Time-Line, or plunge headfirst into Kalvan's Time-Line in the middle of a major war with nothing but her hypnotic learning and experience in Greffa to arm her against all the deprivations and horrors of a Pre-Industrial Society at war.

  She knew she should analyze the situation before making her decision, as both a proper student and First Level Citizen. She also knew that only one factor really made a difference, and that was the knowledge that if she didn't go to Kalvan's Time-Line with Eldra, she would never be sure of her own courage again.

  Her ex-husband would doubtlessly have called that attitude a relic of barbarism, along with physical courage itself. He might even have called it a sign of reverting to her prole ancestry; that had been something he'd flung at her often enough when they were alone and he didn't have to be concerned about his image as an enlightened man utterly opposed to all class, sex or race considerations.

  "I'll go," Sirna said. Her ex-husband didn't matter. All that mattered suddenly was Baltov Eldra's triumphant grin as she raised her glass to toast Kalvan's victory. Sirna felt slightly guilty at that grin—after all, she was taking advantage of Eldra's kindness to spy on her—but not guilty enough to change her mind. Besides, her ex-husband would have called her guilt a reversion to pre-enlightened hygienic socialization.

  For once, Sirna agreed with him; raising her cup, she made her own toast: "To ex-husbands—and may they stay that way, with Dralm's Blessing!"

  Eldra enthusiastically joined her and clanked their glasses together hard enough to slosh out a good mouthful of ale.

  FOURTEEN

  I

  The Heights of Chothros were blocking the view to the northwest by the time Captain Phidestros reached the van. He could have reached it sooner if he hadn't wanted to spare his horse and inspect his columns. This was the first time the Iron Company had been the advance guard for the left flank of the Army of Hos-Harphax, and Phidestros knew that his men were on display even if they didn't.

  So far he'd seen nothing to concern him, or at least nothing that couldn't be handled by petty-captains—loose saddle girths, frayed musketoon slings and the like. Even had these minor flaws been ten times as common as they were, the Iron Company would still have made much of the rest of the Army of Harphax look like rabble. That would not have kept the other captains from trying to advance themselves or at least conceal their own ineptness by pointing out Phidestros' minor lapses.

  He spurred his horse at a trot along the Great Harph Road—a deeply rutted wagon trail that was Great only in name—until he was fifty paces ahead of the lead horseman of his center column. He would have given his next ten-winters' honors and booty for the Iron Company's horses to grow wings so that they might fly across the Harph and join the Holy Host of Styphon.

  In the eight days since the Harphaxi leaders, if such well-born milksops could be called leaders, had chosen to march against Kalvan, it was possible that there were mistakes they had not made, but Phidestros was not prepared to wager more than the price of a cup of bad wine on it. They had paid dearly in blood for every march they chased Kalvan's 'Army of Observation,' as the Hostigi prisoners called it—what few there were. Kalvan's new far-shooting muskets—"rifles"—had taken a stiff butcher's bill. Every day the army marched, there were a hundred to two hundred new casualties—many of them irreplaceable captains and petty-captains.

  Duke Aesthes, the nominal commander, kept saying that Kalvan was not fighting fairly; he should halt his army and fight like a civilized king, not like a Sastragathi warlord. Prince Philesteus was so angry he couldn't talk straight; instead he puffed and sputtered like an overheated teakettle.

  If they were taking a beating this bad from Kalvan's forward body, Phidestros wondered what the butcher's bill would be when they joined battle with Kalvan's Army of the Harph! He feared that the Army of Harphax was a sinking ship—a ship sinking, moreover, through the fault of its builders and crew. Unfortunately, it would be some time before the Iron Company could safely imitate rats.

  He wondered, for about the hundredth time, if he was fighting for the wrong side, that is, the losing side. He'd already fought against Kalvan at the Battle of Fyk; there he'd been lucky. In the confusion that followed the battle, he had found himself in charge of Prince Sarrask's baggage train. When word had arrived that the Prince had surrendered to the Hostigi, he had taken command of the baggage train and hot-footed it out of enemy territory. Of course, after giving short shares to another mercenary company, he had claimed the bulk of Sarrask's paychests.

  This had left him able to outfit his company with style, but at the expense of making an enemy of a Prince who was renowned for never forgetting a slight. Unfortunately, this had also wedded Phidestros to Kalvan's enemies, primarily the Harphaxi Royal Family and Styphon's House. Any captain worth his steel knew his best bargaining tool was his ability to change sides when the paychests showed bottom, or the war effort appeared doomed. For now, he had no other options, but new opportunities would arise if this war were to continue for a few winters.

  Especially, if Sarrask were to die in battle, as he likes to lead his Guard from the front. With Sarrask dead, he might find a place for the Iron Company in Kalvan's service. Maybe a bounty of a hundred gold rakmars on the Prince's head would help bring that day a little sooner.

  He topped a little rise and looked back at the Iron Company. At least the Harphaxi would have their scouting done well today. The center column was mostly Lamochares' men, armed with pistols and swords, ready to come to the aid of the flankers and meanwhile under Phidestros' eye. The left and right columns were the old Iron Company with musketoons, pistols and swords. The left was nearly invisible in the brush and small trees toward the Harph; the right was on more open ground that stretched toward the wooded base of the Heights of Chothros.

  He cantered down the far side of
the rise, opening the distance to the men behind him another twenty paces. It felt good to be out in the fresh air, not breathing the dust and sweat and dung smells of even his own men, let alone ten thousand more.

  He'd have to drop back into the center column before long, though. The Great Harph Road ran through the West Chothros Gap just ahead, with the Heights to the right and rugged, wooded country running down to the Harph on the left. The Hostigi had been foraging on this side of the gap; too many abandoned farms had been stripped bare to let Phidestros believe otherwise. Even without the signs of foragers, the West, Middle and East Gaps were places no one but fools like Philesteus and Aesthes would fail to picket. No point riding into an ambush, and being the Harphaxi's first—

  Four smoke puffs rose from behind a stone wall lying across the path of the Iron Company's right column. Phidestros heard the distant pop of the discharges and saw two riders and one horse at the head of the column go down. He measured the distance from the wall to the targets with his eyes and whistled.

  Three hits out of four shots at six hundred paces!

  To Phidestros, that meant Hostigi rifles. He'd felt their bite before at Fyk.

  Four more smoke puffs rose from behind trees on the near side of the wall, and two men nearly eight hundred paces away dropped from their saddles. That settled the matter for Phidestros. Few infantry weapons could reach that far, and those that could did well to hit a fair-sized barn at extreme range. Hostigi riflemen, for certain.

  The rightward column was bunching up, whether to help their comrades or organize for a charge he wasn't sure. He was sure that he didn't want them to present such a fine target while they made up their minds.

  He cantered back to the center column, shouting orders the moment he had their attention. Two men rode off to the leftward column to warn Petty-Captain Kyblannos, his second-in-command and titular commander of the Blue Company, of what was going on. Two others rode back along the column to order the gun team to bring up the eight-pounder. If he could have made a wager, he'd have bet Kyblannos would be near the eight-pounder. They'd had to leave the eighteen-pounder, the Fat Duchess, behind or risk killing a brace of horses dragging it up the Heights after the Hostigi. It was too heavy to be truly mobile, but Kyblannos had complained as if they were leaving behind one of the Petty-Captain's beloved children!