The first blaze of optimism, he was pleased to observe, had died down on the upper echelon.
"Dralm-damn fools!" Chartiphon was growling. "One keg of fireseed-they'll want to shoot that all away tonight celebrating-and they think we're saved. Making our own fireseed's given us a chance, and that's all." He swore again, this time an oath that made Xentos frown. "We have three thousand under arms; if we take all the boys with bows and arrows and all the old peasants with pitchforks, we might get that up to five thousand, but not another child or dotard more. And Gormoth'll have ten thousand: four thousand of his own people and those six thousand mercenaries he has."
"I'd call it eight thousand," Harmakros said. "He won't take the peasants out of the fields; he needs them there."
"Then he won't wait till the harvest's in; he'll invade sooner," Ptosphes said.
He looked at the relief-map on the long table. The idea that maps were important weapons of war was something else he'd had to introduce. This one was only partly finished; he and Rylla had done most of the work on it, in time snatched from everything else that ought to have been done last week at the latest. It was based on what he remembered from the US. Geological Survey quadrangle sheets he'd used on the State Police, on interviews with hundreds of soldiers, woodsmen, peasants and landlords, and on a good bit of personal horseback reconnaissance.
Gormoth could invade up the Li star Valley, crossing the river at the equivalent of Lock Haven, but that wouldn't give him a third of Hostigos. The whole line of the Bald Eagles was strongly defended everywhere. but at Dombra Gap. Tarr-Dombra guarding it, had been betrayed seventy-five years ago to Prince Gormoth's grandfather, and Sevenhills Valley with it.
"Then we'll have to do something to delay him. This Tarr-Dombra… say we take that, and occupy Sevenhills Valley. That'll cut off his best invasion route."
They all stared at him, just as he'd been stared at when he'd first spoken of making fireseed. It was Chartiphon who first found his voice
"Man! You never saw Tarr-Dombra or you wouldn't talk like that! Nobody can take Tarr-Dombra unless they buy it, like Prince Galtrath did, and we haven't enough money for that."
"That's right," said the retread "captain" who was GI and part of G4. "It's smaller than Tarr-Hostigos, of course, but it's twice as strong."
"Do the Nostori think it can't be taken, too? Then it can be. Prince, are there any plans of that castle here?"
"Well, yes. On a big scroll, in one of my coffers. It was my grandfather's, and we've always hoped that some time… "
"I'll want to see that. Later will do. Do you know if any changes have been made since the Nostori got it?"
None on the outside, at least. He asked about the garrison; five hundred, Harmakros thought. A hundred of Gormoth's regulars, and four hundred mercenary cavalry to patrol Sevenhills Valley and raid into Hostigos.
"Then we stop killing raiders who can be taken alive. Prisoners can be made to talk." He turned to Xentos. "Is there a priest of Dralm in Sevenhills Valley? Can you get in touch with him, and will he help us? Explain to him that this is not a war against Prince Gormoth, but against Styphon's House."
"He knows that, and he will help as much as he can, but he can't get into Tarr-Dombra. There is a priest of Galzar there for the mercenaries, and a priest of Styphon for the lord of the castle and his gentlemen, but among the Nostori, Dralm is but a god for the peasants."
Yes, and that rankled, too. The priests of Dralm would help, all right. "Good enough. He can talk to people who can get inside, can't he? And he can send messages, and organize an espionage apparatus. I want to know everything that can be found out about Tarr-Dombra, no matter how trivial. Particularly, I want to know the guard-routine, and I want to know how the castle is supplied. And I want it observed at all times. Harmakros, you find men to do that. I take it we can't storm the place. Then we'll have to get in by trickery."
VERKAN the pack-trader went up the road, his horse plodding unhurriedly and the three pack-horses on the lead-line trailing behind. He was hot and sticky under his steel back-and-breast, and sweat ran down his cheeks from under his helmet into his new beard, but nobody ever saw an unarmed packtrader, so he had to endure it. A paratimer had to be adaptable, if nothing else. The armor was from an adjoining, nearly identical time-line, and so were his clothes, the short carbine in the saddle-sheath, his sword and dagger, the horse-gear, and the loads of merchandise-all except the bronze coffer on one pack-load.
Reaching the brow of the hill, he started slowly down the other side, and saw a stir in front of a whitewashed and thatch-roofed roadside cottage. Men mounting horses, sun-glints on armor, and the red and blue colors of Hostigos. Another cavalry post, the third since he'd crossed the border from Sask. The other two had ignored him, but this crowd meant to stop him. Two had lances, and a third a musketoon, and a fourth, who seemed to be in command, had his holsters open and his right hand on his horse's neck. Two more, at the cottage, were getting into the road on foot with musketoons.
He pulled up; the pack-horses, behind, came to a well-trained stop. "Good cheer, soldiers," he greeted.
"Good cheer, trader," the man with his hand close to his pistol-butt replied. "From Sask?"
"Sask latest. From Ulthor, this trip; Grefftscharr by birth." Ulthor was the lake port in the north; Grefftscharr was the kingdom around the Great Lakes. "I'm for Agrys City."
One of the troopers chuckled. The sergeant asked "Have you fireseed?" He touched the flask on his belt. "About twenty charges. I was going to buy some in Sask Town, but when the priests heard I was passing through Hostigos they'd sell me none. Doesn't Styphon's House like you Hostigi?"
"We're under the ban." The sergeant didn't seem greatly distressed about it. "But I'm afraid you'll not get out of here soon. We're on the edge of war with Nostor, and Lord Kalvan wants no tales carried to him, so he's ordered that none may leave Hostigos."
He cursed; that was expected of him. The Lord Kalvan, now? "I'd feel ill-used, too, in your place, but you know how it is," the sergeant sympathized. "When lords command, common folk obey, if they want to keep their heads on. You'll make out all right, though. You'll find ready sale for all your wares at good price, and then if you're skilled at any craft, work for good pay. Or you might take the colors. You're well horsed and armed, and Lord Kalvan welcomes all such."
"Lord Kalvan? I thought Ptosphes was Prince of Hostigos. Or have there been changes?"
"No; Dralm bless him, Ptosphes is still our Prince. But the Lord Kalvan, Dralm bless him, too, is our new war leader. It's said he's a Prince himself, from a far land, which he well could be. It's also said he's a sorcerer, but that I doubt."
"Yes. Sorcerers are more heard of than seen," Vall commented. "Are there many more traders caught here as I am?"
"Oh, the Styphon's own lot of them; the town's full of them. You'd best go to the Sign of the Red-Halberd; the better sort of them all stay there. Give the landlord my name"-he repeated it several times to make sure it would be remembered-"and you'll fare well."
He chatted pleasantly with the sergeant and his troopers, about the quality of local wine and the availability of girls and the prices things fetched at sale, and then bade them good luck and rode on.
The Lord Kalvan, indeed! Deliberately, he willed himself no longer to think of the man in any other way. And a Prince from a far country, no less. He passed other farmhouses; around them some work was going on. Men were forking down dunghills and digging under them, and caldrons steamed over fires. He added that to the cheerfulness with which the cavalrymen had accepted the ban of Styphon's House.
Styphon, it appeared, had acquired a competitor.. Hostigos Town, he saw, was busier and more crowded than Sask Town had been. There were no mercenaries around, but many local troops. The streets were full of carts and wagons, and the artisans' quarter was noisy with the work of smiths and joiners. He found the inn to which the sergeant had directed him, mentioning his name to make sure he got his rake-off, put up his hors
es, safe-stowed his packs and had his saddlebags, valise and carbine carried to his room. He followed the inn-servant with the bronze coffer on his shoulder. He didn't want anybody else handling that and finding out how light it was.
When he was alone, he went to the coffer, an almost featureless rectangular block without visible lock or hinges, and pressed his thumbs on two bright steel ovals on the top. The photoelectric lock inside responded to his thumbprint patterns with a click, and the lid rose slowly. Inside were four globes of gleaming coppery mesh, a few instruments with dials and knobs, and a little sigma-ray needier, a ladies' model, small enough to be covered by his hand but as deadly as the big one he usually carried.
There was also an antigrav unit attached to the bottom of the coffer; it was on, with a tiny red light glowing. When he switched it off, the floorboards under the coffer creaked. Lined with collapsed metal, it now weighed over half a ton. He pushed down the lid which only his thumbprints could open, and heard the lock click.
The command-room downstairs was crowded and noisy. He found a vacant place at one of the long tables, across from a man with a bald head and a straggling red beard, who grinned at him.
"New fish in the net?" he asked. "Welcome, brother. Where from?"
"Ulthor, with three horse-loads of Grefftscharr wares. My name's Verkan."
"Mine's Skranga." The bald man was from Agrys City, on the island at the mouth of the Hudson. He had been trading for horses in the Trygath country.
"These people here took the lot, fifty of them. Paid me less than I asked, but more than I expected, so I guess I got a fair price. I had four Trygathi herders-they all took the colors in the cavalry. I'm working in the fireseed mill, till they let me leave here'
"The what?" He made his voice sound incredulous. "You mean they're making their own fireseed? But only the priests of Styphon can do that."
Skranga laughed. "That's what I used to think, too, but anybody can do it. It's easy as boiling maple-sugar. See, they get saltpeter from under dunghills… "
He detailed the process step by step. The man-next to him joined the conversation; he even understood, roughly, the theory the charcoal was what burned, the sulfur was the kindling, and the saltpeter made the air to blow up the fire and blow the bullet out of the gun. And there was no secrecy about it, Vall mused as he listened. If a man who had been a constabulary corporal, and a combat soldier before that, wasn't keeping any better security it was because he didn't care. Lord Kalvan just didn't want word getting into Nostor till he had enough fireseed to fight a war with.
"I bless Dralm for bringing me here," Skranga was saying. "When I can leave here, I'm going somewhere and set up making fireseed myself. Hos-Ktemnos-no, I don't want too close to Styphon's House Upon Earth. Maybe Hos-Bletha, or Hos-Zygros. But I'll make myself rich at it. So can you, if you keep your eyes and ears open."
The Agrysi finished his meal, said he had to go back to work, and left. A cavalry officer, a few places down, promptly picked up his goblet and flagon and moved into the vacated seat.
"You just got in?" he asked. "From Nostor?"
"No, from Sask." The answer seemed to disappoint the cavalryman; he went into the Ulthor-Grefftscharr routine again. "How long will I have to stay here?"
The officer shrugged. "Dralm and Galzar only know. Till we fight the Nostori and beat them. What do the Saski think we're doing here?"
"Waiting for Gormoth to cut your throats. They don't know you're making your own fireseed."
The officer laughed. "Ha! Some of those buggers'll get theirs cut, if Prince Sarrask doesn't mind his step. You say you have three pack-loads of Grefftscharr wares. Any sword-blades?"
"About a dozen; I sold a few in Sask Town. Some daggers, a dozen gunlocks, four good shirts of rivet-link mail, a lot of bullet-moulds. And jewelry, and tools, and brassware."
"Well, take your stuff up to Tarr-Hostigos. They have a little fair in the outer bailey each evening; you can get better prices from the castle-folk than here in town. Go early. Use my name." He gave it, and his cavalry unit. "See Captain Harmakros; he'll be glad of any news you can give him."
Late in the afternoon, he re-packed his horses and went up the road to the castle on the mountain above the gap. The workshops along the wall of the outer bailey were all busy. Among other things, he saw a new carriage for a field-piece being put together-not a four-wheel cart, but two big wheels and a trail, to be hauled with a limber, which was also being built. The gun was a welded iron four-pounder, which was normal for Styphon's House Subsector, but it had trunnions, which was not. Lord Kalvan, again.
Like all the local gentry, Harmakros had a small neat beard. His armor was rich but commendably well battered; his sword, instead of the customary cut-and-thrust (mostly cut) broadsword, was a long rapier, quite new. Kalvan had evidently introduced the revolutionary concept that swords had points, which should be used. He asked a few exploratory questions, then listened to a detailed account of what the Grefftscharr trader had seen in Sask, including mercenary companies Prince Sarrask had lately hired, with the names of the captains.
"You've kept your eyes and ears open," he commended, "and you know what's worth telling about. I wish you'd come through Nostor instead. Were you ever a soldier?"
"All free-traders are soldiers, in their own service."
"Yes; that's so. Well, when you've sold your loads, you'll be welcome in ours. Not as a common trooper-I know you traders too well for that. As a scout. You want to sell your pack-horses, too? We'll give you a good price for them."
"If I can sell my loads, yes."
"You'll have no trouble doing that. We'll buy the mail, the gunlocks, the sword-blades and that sort of thing ourselves. Stay about; have your meals with the officers here. We'll find something for you."
He had some tools, both for wood and metal work. He peddled them among the artisans in the shops along the outer wall, for a good price in silver and a better one in information. Besides rapiers and cannon with trunnions, Lord Kalvan had introduced rifling in firearms. Nobody knew whence he had come, except that it was far beyond the Western Ocean. The more pious were positive that he had been guided to Hostigos by the very hand of Dralm. The officers with whom he ate listened avidly to what he had picked up in Sask Town. Nostor first and then Sask seemed to be the schedule. When they talked about Lord Kalvan, the coldest expressions were of deep respect, shading from there up to hero-worship. But they knew nothing about him before the night he had appeared to rally some fleeing peasants for a counter-attack on Nostori raiders and had been shot, by mistake, by Princess Rylla herself.
Vall sold the mail and sword-blades and gunlocks as a lot, and spread his other wares for sale in the bailey. There was a crowd, and the stuff sold well. He saw Lord Kalvan, strolling about from display to display, in full armor probably wearing it all the time to accustom himself to the weight, Vall decided. Kalvan was carrying a.38 Colt on his belt along with his rapier and dagger, and clinging to his arm was a beautiful blonde girl in male riding dress. That would be Prince Ptosphes's daughter, Rylla. The happy possessiveness with which she clung to him, and the tenderness with which he looked at her, made him smile. Then the thought of his mission froze the smile on his lips. He didn't want to kill that man, and break that girl's heart, but…
They came over to his display, and Lord Kalvan picked up a brass mortar and pestle.
"Where did you get this?" he asked. "Where did it come from?"
"it was made in Grefftscharr, Lord; shipped down the lakes by boat to Ulthor."
"It's cast. Are there no brass foundries nearer than Grefftscharr?"
"Oh, yes, Lord. In Zygros City there are many." Lord Kalvan put down the mortar. "I see. Thank you. Captain Harmakros tells me he's been talking to you. I'd like to talk to you, myself I think I'll be around the castle all morning, tomorrow; ask for me, if you're here."
Returning to the Red Halberd, Vall spent some time and a little money in the common-room. Everybody, as far as he could learn
, seemed satisfied that the mysterious Lord Kalvan had come to Hostigos in a perfectly normal manner, with or without divine guidance. Finally, he went up to his room.
Opening the coffer, he got out one of the copper-mesh globes, and from it drew a mouthpiece on a small wire, into which he spoke for a long time.
"So far," he concluded "there seems to be no suspicion of anything paranormal about the man in anybody's mind. I have been offered an opportunity to take service with his army as a scout. I intend doing this; assistance can be given me in performing this work. I will find a location for an antigrav conveyer to land, somewhere in the woods near Hostigos Town; when I do, I will send a message-ball through from there."
Then he replaced the mouthpiece, set the timer for the transposition-field generator, and switched on the antigrav. Carrying the ball to an open window, he tossed it outside, and then looked up as it vanished in the night. After a few seconds, high above, there was an instant's flash among the many visible stars. It looked like a meteor; a Hostigi, seeing it, would have made a wish.
KALVAN sat on a rock under a tree, wishing he could smoke, and knowing that he was getting scared again. He cursed mentally. It didn't mean anything-as soon as things started happening held forget about it but it always happened, and he hated it. That sort of thing was all right for a buck private, or a platoon-sergeant, or a cop going to arrest some hillbilly killer, but, for Dralm's sake, a five-star general, now!
And that made him think of what Churchill had called Hilter the lance corporal who had promoted himself to commander-in-chief at one jump. Corporal Morrison had done that, cut Hitler's time by quite a few years, and gotten into the peerage, which Hitler hadn't.
It was quiet on the mountain top, even though there were two hundred men squatting or lying around him, and another five hundred, under Chartiphon and Prince Ptosphes, five hundred yards behind. And, in front, at the edge of the woods, a skirmish line of thirty riflemen, commanded by Verkan, the Grefftscharr trader.
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