Great Kings' War

by John F. Carr

  III

  Soton muttered curses under his breath as he saw the shrunken line of Hostigi defenders once again re-forming to meet the Knights' charge. Blast and curse them! he railed to himself. He would have cursed at the top of his lungs, but after nearly a half day of continuous fighting, he had little voice left and needed to save that for giving orders to his messengers.

  How in the name of all the gods, and everything else a man might swear by, could hardly more than a thousand men go on holding out against three times their number? Yet these Hostigi continued to do so; he'd lost count of the times the Knights had charged. When Soton had begun the attack he'd been certain that one or two would be enough.

  There was that madman Prince Sarrask and the noblemen of his Household Guard, countercharging with sword, mace, warhammer and pistol butt! Soton remembered his first glimpse of the Saski at Tenabra, when their armor looked like table service. Now, if it looked like table service, it was the sort of ware provided for the lesser servants and slaves in a cheap inn. Sarrask and his men had been to the wars: so what was Almighty Styphon thinking of to let a warrior like this, who could have been a pillar of the God of Gods, become instead a bulwark of the Usurper's cause?

  There was no answer to that question forthcoming. And none, Soton suspected, to be found on this battlefield. They were going to have to slug it out without divine intervention. He took a firm grip on his war hammer and guided his lathered mount to the left, where there seemed more room to swing his favorite weapon.

  The two masses of horsemen collided with the sound of an anvil dropping on a stone floor. The clang of steel rose, and for perhaps an eighth of a candle Soton's world narrowed down to the man he was facing and perhaps the Knight on either side of him. When the two sides lurched apart again, he was pleased to see the Hostigi had left the better part of a hundred casualties on the ground as they withdrew from the melee to reform.

  Soton was not so pleased to see that nearly the same number of Knights had gone down. At least the Knights were still mostly mounted, while the Hostigi had no more than one horse for every two men. The dismounted Hostigi were fighting with halberds and poleaxes picked up from the battlefield. Now if that messenger he'd sent to the rear for a few mule-loads of fireseed would just do his job...

  Fireseed or no, another charge or two should be enough, unless they really were facing a demon in the shape of Sarrask of Sask. Soon the Knights would ride the Hostigi into the dirt and ride to support the Sacred Squares. With the Knights spurring them on, the Ktemnoi would finally break the Hostigi center and end this Ormaz-spawned battle!

  "GRAND MASTER! Grand Master! We are doomed!"

  Soton raised his warhammer and turned. He saw Knight Commander Aristocles, his face white with more than the day's accumulation of dust.

  "What is it? Speak, man, speak!"

  Aristocles paused to catch his breath, then said, "It's the Daemon Kalvan! He's ridden down the Red Hand and is attacking us from behind!"

  Soton slammed his gauntleted left fist into the pommel of his saddle, causing his mount to whinny in surprise. "What about the Order Foot?"

  "Dead. Crushed. Scythed to the nub! Not enough left to make a small band."

  Soton sagged in his saddle. To himself he muttered, "All is lost." Then he straightened. "Summon the trumpets, old friend. Give the order to form up. It's time to retire."

  Relief was written all over Aristocles' face as he turned to ride away and attend to orders.

  Soton felt no such relief. His choice was clear: he could either stay here and fight to the last man, a disaster from which his Knights might never recover, or retreat and live to fight another day. As much as it stuck in his craw, he had no choice but to retire. Only the Order of Zarthani Knights stood between the fertile lands of Hos-Bletha and Hos-Ktemnos and the clans and tribes of the Lower Sastragath—and beyond. Word had it that the barbarians across the Sea of Grass were on the move. With the Order's losses at the Heights of Chothros and now the slaughter of the Order Foot, every man-at-arms he could bring back to Tarr-Ceros from this Ormaz-blasted battlefield would be needed—no matter the price to his pride.

  And cost him it would—in other ways as well. Even if he went unpunished by Marshall Mnephilos and Great King Cleitharses, there were still many in the Inner Circle of Styphon's House who would savor his defeat and see it as a slap in the face to the First Speaker and his supporters, those Archpriests who had put him forward as the commander of the Holy Host.

  Truth was he had seriously miscalculated both Hostigi resolve and Kalvan's military abilities. And he deserved whatever punishment they dished out. If he had to retire from his position, so be it. Let someone else reap this Hostigi whirlwind!

  IV

  From her post on the Foundry roof, Sirna was the first to see the six horsemen riding toward the Foundry gate with her disguised mini-telescope. She whistled to signal Aranth Saln and his Foundry guards, who were posted along the wall and watchtowers, strangers were approaching. She sighed with relief when she saw the riders were wearing the red colors of Hos-Hostigos. She whistled twice telling Saln that the unknowns were 'friendlies'—or wearing 'friendly' colors. She doubted that the Styphoni would bother with subterfuge to take a mere foundry. After alerting the farmhouse that 'friendlies' were on the way, she scaled down the ladder.

  Sirna reached the gate just moments ahead of the leading horseman, a broad-beamed captain in yellow and gold Saski colors overlaid with a red sash.

  "What is the word from the battle?" Aranth asked.

  "They're sending back the captured mercenaries and the Foundry is to take five hundred."

  "But what about the battle?" Sirna asked.

  The Saski captain shrugged. "Well enough. We chewed up the Knights and sent them packing back to Tarr-Ceros..."

  The shrug did it; Sirna recognized him as Captain Strathos, the mercenary captain who on one of the Kalvan Control Lines helped Sarrask defeat the Hostigi! She had to fight the urge to scream; in her mind's eye she saw the heads of Ptosphes and the rest decorating Tarr-Hostigos.

  "...Our Prince did the biggest share of that, let me tell you. If only you'd seen him after Prince Ptosphes fled the field, rallying the Saski and Nostori cavalry. Well, it's true that Count Phrames helped, but our Prince—"

  The captain went off into a rambling litany of praise for that paragon of military virtues who was obviously supposed to be Prince Sarrask of Sask. This gave Sirna some useful insights into how romances of chivalry get started, but very little knowledge about whether the Foundry people should be prepared to celebrate or run for their lives. With Captain Ranthar still gone...

  Finally Aranth's voice interrupted the captain's steady flow of praise for his Prince. "Is His Majesty sending the mercenaries back to split them up and protect them from any rescue attempts?"

  "That's most likely the way of it. But the Great King doesn't sit down with me over the wine to tell me why, he just gives orders. Our own Prince has much the same—"

  "We have no room to house all these soldiers! Kalvan will have to find some other place to quarter them," Talgan Dreth interrupted.

  Sirna hadn't seen Talgan leave the farmhouse where he'd been cowering all day. Most of the Study Team had bugged out to Fifth Level; Talgan, as Team leader, had reluctantly stayed behind. Now that he knew Styphon's Holy Host wasn't on the way, he'd gathered his courage.

  The captain, obviously shocked by such open disrespect for his Great King, started to draw his sword. Then he stopped, as though realizing he was dealing with outlanders who couldn't really be expected to know any better. "You are speaking of our Great King. Great King Kalvan to you!" He rapped his knuckles on his sword hilt for emphasis.

  Talgan Dreth turned deathly pale, as if he'd suddenly realized how close he'd come to achieving a bad end to his long life. "My apologies, Captain."

  Sirna and Eldra smiled at each other behind Talgan's back. She doubted they were the only ones enjoying the Director's predicament.

>   "It's not what you want or what I want that matters," Captain Strathos continued, as though the interruption had never happened. "It's what the Great King wants that matters, and what he wants is to split the mercenaries up and give some of them to you. They've sworn Oaths to Galzar, so they won't be troublesome."

  He fixed Talgan Dreth with a singularly cold eye. "If you don't treat them right, they may think they're released from their Oath. If five hundred mercenaries run wild in Hostigos Town because you mucked up your job, you'd all better run like the flux before the Great King wins the battle and comes looking for you!"

  "We shall do the Great King's will," Aranth Saln said. "Remember that if we treat the men well while we have care of them, we will find favor in the eyes of the Wargod and his priests. We shall then have reason to expect honorable treatment."

  "Please yourself, as long as you please the Great King," Captain Strathos said. "Now I'll assume you'll be ready for the prisoners and won't need any more dry-nursing. Farewell," he ended, with a wink at Sirna, then was off in a spray of dirt clods.

  "He said 'before Kalvan wins," Sirna began, "does that mean—?"

  "Very little," Aranth said. "The captain didn't mention their having broken the Zarthani Knights, who won the decision at Tenabra. Meanwhile, we'd better get ready for our guests. Most of them can camp in the courtyard, but the wounded will need shelter."

  "You take care of this, Aranth," the Director said. "I've got more important things to do than worry about somebody else's prisoners."

  Eldra's lips twitched, then she whispered in a voice loud enough for the Director to hear. "Yeah, you need to get the rest of those cowards back from Fifth Level and at the Foundry before anyone learns the truth about how they ran away on your watch!"

  The Director harrumphed, spun around and stomped back to the farmhouse with all the dignity he could muster.

  Sirna and Eldra both laughed until Aranth Saln silenced them with a frown. "We've got more important matters to deal with your than infighting." Then he turned back to the guards and Foundry workers. "We'll need more guards here," he added. "We don't want anyone wandering inside the Foundry stealing tools."

  The workers turned and headed back to the Foundry. Aranth directed the guards back to their posts, with, "The battle isn't over yet. Take your positions."

  When all the Foundry workers and guards were out of hearing range, Aranth said, "It might be better if the prisoners saw everything except the papermaking equipment. We'll just have to keep an eye on them. The more they see, the more they'll realize that it's just an improved version of a regular cannon foundry. Not a fireseed devil or imp in sight."

  Eldra looked ready to argue about 'betraying Kalvan's secrets' when Medico Sankar Trav broke in. "If we're going to be treating wounded, I suggest we start cleaning out one of the storerooms about ten minutes ago! Sirna, you'll be my assistant, although they'll probably have at least one priest of Galzar with them and some mercenaries trained in first aid. Break out the med kit of yours, then go to the kitchen and have every pot we have filled and put on boil."

  Sirna looked a question. The medico shook his head. "Not full antisepsis, no. But you can boil the Styphon out of the instruments and dressings. Also, they understand removing foreign matter from a wound. But we're servants of 'the servant of demons,' and Mytron really hasn't persuaded even the Hostigi that antisepsis is a Dralm-sent blessing—yet."

  He shrugged. "A pity Kalvan wasn't able to introduce distilling. Then we'd be able to sterilize, anesthetize and toast Kalvan all at once!"

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  I

  Kalvan watched from the top of the Great Battery as the recently re-supplied Hostigi artillery raked red furrows into the Sacred Squares of Hos-Ktemnos. After Soton and the Zarthani Knights had retired, Kalvan had put Count Phrames in command of the cavalry with orders to hit the Squares from the rear. The time had come for him to return to the role of supreme commander, rather than the more exciting one of cavalry general.

  As he watched an eight-pound ball roll through the Ktemnoi ranks, knocking men aside like bowling pins, Kalvan wondered just how much more punishment the Sacred Squares could take before retiring. Their claws were not yet blunted, he noted, as a cluster of Hostigi horsemen drew handgun fire from below. A couple went down; the rest dismounted and came toward Kalvan.

  Prince Ptosphes, in his battered armor, was in the lead. Blood had trickled from a scalp wound down into his beard and caked there. He was carrying an antique battle-axe instead of a sword and his face was downcast.

  "Welcome, father. Are you all right?"

  Ptosphes looked around wide-eyes, as though waking from a dream. "I am still alive?"

  "Yes. We are on the verge of a great victory."

  "It is all yours, Your Majesty. Not mine. I failed you again, letting the Knights drive my command from the field. I am sorry—"

  "You owe me no apologies, father. I couldn't expect you to hold the Knights for the entire battle. No man could have done any better with the forces you had."

  In a low, toneless voice, Ptosphes said, "Phrames did."

  Kalvan pretended he hadn't heard, then turned the conversation to a topic in which they both were in accord. "Have you heard anything about Rylla and the baby?"

  "No. Has—she died?"

  "No! She's gone into labor. At least she had, according to the last message I received from Brother Mytron several candles ago."

  "Praise Yirtta Allmother! May the Goddess keep a watch over Rylla and the baby."

  "Amen," Kalvan said. Under his breath, Kalvan heard Ptosphes add, "A better watch than She kept over her mother."

  "Other messengers from Mytron could have been killed or lost their way, but I'm beginning to wonder..." Kalvan kept the rest of his worries to himself. If Mytron was hiding bad news to keep his Great King and Prince in shape to win their battle, the priest might soon find himself guest of honor at a hide-pinning party. But, why assume the worst?

  Why indeed? Nonetheless, Kalvan knew that if he could have sold his soul for Rylla's safety, he would have signed on the spot. If the deal had also included ten rifled sixteen-pounders and a thousand shells with reliable fuses, he wouldn't have bothered reading the fine print.

  "I had hoped to die before I gave way to the Knights again," Ptosphes said with a moan. "But Galzar did not hear my prayer."

  "Do not despair, father. You were not the only one today who gave way before the Holy Host. Harmakros was forced to give up the Great Battery."

  Which Harmakros probably could have held if he hadn't had to wait so long for Chartiphon to commit the Ktethroni reserve. Memo: Find an honorable way of kicking Chartiphon upstairs to where he will no longer be commanding in the field.

  The Duke appeared to be developing General Longstreet's problem: obeying orders in his own sweet time. Robert E. Lee had tolerated Longstreet and probably lost a war because of it; Kalvan I of Hos-Hostigos, on the other hand—

  From below the rise the Ktemnoi trumpets reverberated. They had a deep bellowing tone, like the ancient bucinae of the Roman Legions.

  Ptosphes hefted his axe. "That's their signal for a charge. They must know it is madness now."

  Maybe, but what a magnificent lunacy, he thought.

  Ptosphes' voice was lost in the rumble of musket volleys from below and answering fire from both muskets and artillery from above.

  The Sacred Square of the Princedom of Imbraz was the one heading straight towards Kalvan. The musket bullets whistled about him, spanged off rocks, thunked into the ground and occasionally made the unmistakable smack of sinking into flesh. Ptosphes let out a yell as a bullet struck the head of his axe, jarring his whole arm. A Hostigi heavy gun fired; Kalvan saw the white smoke-puff of a shellburst in the oncoming Square. Galzar's Teeth would be a lot sharper for about ten or twelve more rounds—

  Case shot smashed into the front ranks of the Imbrazi Square from several guns at once. Bodies and parts of bodies, weapons and hunks of armor flew in a
ll directions. The front ranks were a mob, but they were an armed and dangerous mob—and they were still coming on.

  Kalvan shot one arquebusier, felt a hammer blow across his ribs as another hit him with a glancing bullet, shot that man, then dropped his empty pistols and drew his sword. A billman swung a mighty blow in an attempt to part Kalvan's helmet, but misjudged his distance and sank the billhead into the earth. Kalvan slashed at him, but the soldier jerked up his weapon. The bill shaft knocked Kalvan's sword up and to the side, while another billman ran in, too close to swing at but not too close to thrust hard enough to dent Kalvan's breastplate—

  Ptosphes charged from Kalvan's right side, swinging his axe and shouting what sounded like war cries. The first billman had his bill chopped in two with one blow, his arm chopped off with the next, his helmet and head split with the third. The old Prince was fighting like a man possessed. His fierce charge gave Kalvan a chance to run in under the second man's guard, as he raised his bill hook, and stab him in the face. He fell, and both Great King and Prince gave ground with more concern for haste than dignity.

  To the left the Imbrazi seemed to be carrying everything before them, although it was now bills and clubbed muskets, with nobody stopping to reload. Kalvan backed a way to the right without looking behind him until he tripped over a corpse and fell hard enough to knock the wind out of himself.

  He sat up to see Ptosphes crouched beside him, shielding him and looking anxious. On the other side was Harmakros, lying behind a dead horse and carefully picking off Imbrazi with two pistols and a musketoon. A cluster of his troopers lay just behind him, reloading the weapons as fast as he emptied them and passing them back to him.

  Improbably, Harmakros was smoking one of the royal stogies from the box Kalvan had presented him for his good work at the Heights of Chothros.

  Then Kalvan's ears rang to the sound of massed musketry and the war cries of the Ktethroni pikemen as their countercharge went in. The dragoon pikemen were fitting themselves into the Ktethroni lines wherever they could, while the arquebusiers and musketeers darted along the flanks and between the files, firing their smoothbores as targets presented themselves.