Galzar was being a big help today. Have to do something nice for him.
That had been where the mercenary general, Klestreus, had been captured. Phratnes had taken his surrender; Kalvan and Harmakros had been too busy chasing fugitives. A lot of these had turned toward Narza Gap.
Hestophes, the Hostigi CO there, had been a real cool cat. He'd had two hundred and fifty men, two old bombards, and a few lighter pieces. Klestreus's infantry had attacked Nirfa Gap, the last one down, and, with the help of Netzigon's people from the other side, swamped it. A few survivors had managed to get away along the mountain top and brought him warning. An hour later, he was under attack from both sides, too.
He had beaten off three attacks, by a probable total of two thousand, and was bracing for a fourth when his lookouts on the mountain reported seeing the fugitives from Fitra and Systros streaming. east. Immediately he had spiked his guns and pulled his men up the mountain. The besieging infantry on the south were swept through by fleeing cavalry, and they threw the Nostori on the other side into confusion. Hestophes spattered them generously with small-arms fire to discourage loitering and let them go to spread panic on the other side. By now, they would be spreading it in Nostor Town.
Then, just west of the river, they had run into the wagon train and artillery, inching along under ox-power, accompanied by a thousand of Gormoth's subject troops and another five hundred mercenary cavalry. This had been Systros over again, except it had been a massacre. The fugitive cavalry had tried to force a way past, the infantry had resisted them, the four-pounders-only five of them, now; one was off the road just below Systros with a broken axle-arrived and began firing case-shot, and then two eight-pounders showed up. Some of the mercenaries attempted to fight-when they later found the pay chests in one of the wagons, they understood why-but the Nostori simply emptied their arquebuses and calivers and ran. Along with "Down Styphon! " the' pursuers were shouting "Dralm and no Quarter!" He wondered what Xentos would think of that; Dralm wasn't supposed to be that kind of a god, at all.
"You know," he said, getting out his pipe and tobacco, "we didn't have a very big army to start with. What do we have now?"
"Five hundred, and four hundred along the river," Phrames said. "We lost about five hundred, killed and wounded. The rest are guarding prisoners all the way back to Fitra." He looked up at the sun. "Back almost to Hostigos Town, by now."
"Well, we can help Ptosphes and Chartiphon from here," he said. "That gang Hestophes let through Narza Gap will be in Nostor Town by now, panting their story out, and the way they'll tell it, it will be five times worse than it really was." He looked at his watch. "By this time, Gormoth should be getting ready to fight the Battle of Nostor." He turned to Phrames. "You're in charge of this stuff here. How many men do you really need to guard it? Two hundred?"
Phrames looked up and down the road, and then at the prisoners, and then, out of the comer of his eye, at the boxes under the improvised table. They hadn't gotten around to weighing that silver yet, but there was too much of it to be careless with.
"I ought to have twice that many."
"The prisoners are mercenaries, and have agreed to take Prince Ptosphes's colors," the priest of Galzar said. "Of course, they may not bear arms against Prince Gormoth or any in his service until released from their oaths to him. In the sight of the war god, helping guard these wagons would be the same, for it would release men of yours to fight. But I will speak to them, and I will answer that they will not break their surrender. You will need some to keep the peasants from stealing, though."
"Two hundred:' Phrames agreed. "We have some walking wounded who can help."
"All right. Take two hundred; men with the worst beat up horses and those men who are riding double, and mind the store. Harmakros, you take three hundred and two of the four-pounders, and cross at the next ford down. I'll take the other four hundred and three guns and work north and east. You might split into two columns, a hundred men and one gun, but no smaller. There'll be companies and parts of companies over there, trying to re-form. Break them up. And burn the whole country out-everything that'll catch fire and make a smoke by daylight or a blaze at night. Any refugees, head them up the river, give them a good scare and let them go. We want Gormoth to think we're across the river with three or four thousand men. By Dralm, that'll take some pressure off Ptosphes and Chartiphon!"
He rose, and Phrames took his seat. Horses were brought, and he and Harmakros mounted. The messenger from Sevenhills Valley sat down, stretching his legs in front of him. He rode slowly along the line of wagons, full of food the Nostori wouldn't eat this winter, and would curse Gormoth for it, and fireseed the Styphon temple-farm slaves would have to toil to replace. Then he came to the guns, and saw one that caught his eye. It was a long brass eighteen-pounder, on a two-wheel cart, with the long tail of the heavy timber stock supported by a four-wheel cart. There were two more behind it, and an officer with a ginger-brown beard sat morosely smoking a pipe on the limber-cart of the middle one. He pulled up.
"Your guns, Captain?"
"They were. They're Prince Ptosphes's guns now, I suppose."
"They're still yours, if you take our colors, and good pay for the use of them. We have other enemies besides Gormoth, you know."
The captain grinned. "So I've heard. Well, I'll take Ptosphes's colors. You're the Lord Kalvan? Is it true that you people make your own fireseed?"
"What do you think we were shooting at you, sawdust? You know what the Styphon stuff's like. Try ours and see the difference."
"Well, Down Styphon, then!" They chatted for a little. The mercenary artilleryman's name was Alkides; his home, to the extent that any free-captain had one, was in Agrys City, on Manhattan Island. His guns, of which he was inordinately proud, and almost tearfully happy at being able to keep, had been cast in Zygros City. They were very good; if Verkan could collect a few men capable of casting guns like that, with trunnions…
"Well, go back there by that burned house, by those big trees. You'll find one of my officers, Count Phrames, and our Uncle Wolf there. You'll find a keg of something, too. Where are your men?"
"Well, some were killed before we cried quits. The rest are back with the other prisoners."
"Gather them up. Tell Count Phrames you're to have oxen-we have no horses to spare-and get your company and guns on the road for Hostigos Town as soon as you can. I'll talk to you later. Good luck, Captain Alkides
Or Colonel Alkides; if he was as good as he seemed to be, maybe Brigadier-General Alkides.
There were dead infantry all along the road, mostly killed from behind. Another case of cowardice carrying its own penalty; infantry who stood against cavalry had a chance, often a good one, but infantry who turned tail and ran had none. He didn't pity them a bit.
It grew progressively worse as he neared the river, where the crews of the four-pounders and the two eight-pounders were swabbing and polishing their pieces, and dark birds rose cawing and croaking and squawking when disturbed. Must be every crow and raven and buzzard in Hos-Harphax; he even saw eagles.
The river, horse-knee deep at the ford, was tricky; his mount continually stumbled on armor-weighted corpses. That had been case-shot, mostly, he thought.
SO your boy did it, all by himself," the lady history professor was saying. Verkan Vall grinned. They were in a seminar room at the University, their chairs facing a big map of Fourth Level Aryan-Transpacific Hostigos, Nostor, northeastern Sask and northern Beshta. The pin-points of light he had been shifting back and forth on it were out, now.
"Didn't I tell you he was a genius?"
"Just how much genius did it take to lick a bunch of klunks like that?" said Taigan Dreth, the outtime studies director. "The way I heard it, they licked themselves."
"Well, considerable, to predict their errors accurately and plan to exploit them," argued old Professor Shalgro, the paratemporal probability theorist. To him, it was a brilliant theoretical achievement, and the battle was merely
the experiment which had vindicated it. "I agree with Chief's Assistant Verkan; the man is a genius, and the fact that he was only able to become a minor police officer on his own time-line shows how these low-order cultures allow genius to go to waste."
"He knew the military history of his own time-line, and he knew how to apply it on Aryan-Transpacific." The historian wasn't letting her own subject be slighted. "Actually, I think Gormoth planned an excellent campaign against people like Ptosphes and Chartiphon. If it hadn't been for Kalvan, he'd have won."
"Well, Chartiphon and Ptosphes fought a battle of their own and won it, didn't they?"
"More or less." He began punching buttons on the arm of his chair and throwing on red and blue lights. "Netzigon was supposed to wait here, at Listra-Mouth, till Klestreus got up to here. Chartiphon began cannonading him-ordnance engineering by Lord Kalvan-and Netzigon couldn't take it. He attacked prematurely."
"Why didn't he just pull back? He had that river in front of him. Chartiphon couldn't have gotten his guns across that, could he?" Talgan Dreth asked.
"Oh, that wouldn't have been honorable. Besides, he didn't want the mercenaries to win the war; he wanted the glory of winning it himself."
The historian laughed. "How often I've heard that!" she said. "But don't these Hostigi go in for all this honor and glory jazz too?"
"Sure-till Kalvan talked them out of it. As soon as he started making fireseed, he established a moral ascendancy. And then, the new tactics, the new swordplay, the artillery improvements; now it's 'Trust Lord Kalvan. Lord Kalvan is always right'."
"He'll have to work at that now," Dreth said. "He won't dare make any mistakes. What happened to Netzigon?"
"He made three attempts to cross the river, which is a hundred yards wide, in the face of artillery superiority. That was how he lost most of his cavalry. Then he threw his infantry across here at Vryllos, pushed Ptosphes back into the gap, and started a flank attack up the south bank on Chartiphon. Ptosphes wouldn't stay pushed; he waited till Netzigon was between the river and the mountain, and then counter-attacked. Then Rylla took what cavalry they had across the river, burned Netzigon's camp, butchered some camp-followers, and started a panic in his rear. That was when everything came apart and the pieces began breaking up, and then the commander at Tarr-Dombra, there, took some of his men across, burned Dyssa, and started another panic."
"It was too bad about Rylla," the lady historian said. "Yes." He shrugged. "Things like that happen, in battles." That was why Dalla was always worried when she heard he'd been in one. "We had a couple of antigrav conveyers in, after dark. They had to stay up to twenty thousand feet, since we didn't want any heavenly portents on top of everything else, but they got some good infrared telephoto views. Big fires all over western Nostor, and around Dyssa, and more of them, the whole countryside, in the southwest-that was Kalvan and Harmakros. And a lot of hasty fortifying and entrenching around Nostor Town; Gormoth seems to think he's going to have to fight the next battle there."
"Oh, that's ridiculous," Talgan Dreth said. "It'll be a couple of weeks before Kalvan has his army in shape for an offensive, after those battles. And how much powder do you think he has left?"
"Six or seven tons. That came in just before I came here, from our people in Hostigos Town. After he crossed the river last evening, Harmakros captured a big wagon train. A Styphon's House archpriest, on his way to Nostor Town, with four tons of fireseed and seven thousand ounces of gold. Subsidies for Gormoth."
"Now that's what's called making war support war," the history professor commented.
"And another ton or so in Klestreus' supply train, and the pay-chests for his army," he added. "Hostigos came out of this all right."
"Wait till I get this all worked up," old Professor Shalgro was gloating. "Absolute proof of the decisive effect of one superior individual on the course of history. Kalthar Morth and his Historical Inevitability, and his vast, impersonal social forces, indeed!"
"Well, what are we going to do now?" Talgan Dreth asked. "We have the study-team organized, the five men who'll be the brass-founders, and the three girls who'll be the pattern-makers."
"Well, we have horseback travel-time between Zygros City and Hostigos Town to allow for. They've been familiarizing on adjoining near-identical time-lines? Send them all to Zygros City on the Kalvan time-line. I have a couple of Paracops planted there already. Let them make local contacts and call attention to themselves. Dalla and I will do the same. Then we won't have to worry about some traveler from Zygros showing up in Hostigos Town and punching holes in our stories."
"How about conveyer-heads?" He shook his head. "You'll have to have your team established in Hostigos Town before they can put one in there. You have a time-line for operations on Fifth Level, of course; work from there. You'll have to get onto Kalvan timeline by an antigrav conveyer drop."
"Horses and all?"
"Horses and all. That will be mounts for myself and Dalla, for two Paracops who will pose as hired guards, and for your team. Seventeen saddle horses. And twelve pack horses, with loads of Zygrosi and Grefftscharr wares. Lord Kalvan's friend Verkan is a trader; traders have to have merchandise."
Talgan Dreth whistled softly. "That'll mean at least two hundred-foot conveyers. Where had you thought of landing them?"
"Up here." He twisted the dial; the map slid down until he had the Southern corner of the Princedom of Nyklos, north and west of Hostigos. "About here," he said, making a spot of light.
GORMOTH of Nostor stood inside the doorway of his presence-chamber, his arm over the shoulder of the newly ennobled Duke Skranga, and together they surveyed the crowd within. Netzigon, who had come stumbling in after midnight with all his guns and half his army lost and the rest a frightened rabble. His cousin, Count Pheblon, his ransom still unpaid; he'd hoped Ptosphes wouldn't be alive to be paid by the moon's end. The nobles of the Elite Guard, who had attended him here at Tarr-Hostigos, waiting for news of victory until news of defeat had come in. Three of Klestreus' officers, who had broken through at Narza Gap to bring it, and a few more who had gotten over Marax Ford and back to Nostor alive. And Vyblos, the high priest, and with him the Archpriest Krastokles from Styphon's House Upon Earth, and his black-armored guard-captain, who had arrived at dawn with half a dozen troopers on broken-down horses.
He hated the sight of all of them, and the two priests most of all. He cut short their greetings.
"This is Duke Skranga," he told them. "Next to me, he is first nobleman of Nostor. He takes precedence over all here." The faces in front of his went slack with amazement, then stiffened angrily. A mutter of protest was hushed almost as soon as it began. "Do any object? Then it had better be one who's served me at least half as well as this man, and I see none such here." He turned to Vyblos. "What do you want, and who's this with you?"
"His Sanctity, the Archpriest Krastokles, sent by His Divinity, Styphon's Voice," Krastokles began furiously. "And how has he fared since entering your realm? Set upon by Hostigi heathens, hounded like a deer through the hills, his people murdered, his wagons pillaged…
"His wagons, you say? Well, great Galzar, what of my gold and my fireseed, sent me by Styphon's Voice in his care, and look how he's cared for them. he and Styphon between them."
"You blaspheme!" Archpriest Krastokles cried. "And it was not your gold and fireseed, but the god's, to be given you in the god's service at my discretion."
"And lost at your indiscretion. You witless fool in a yellow bed gown, didn't you know a battle when you were riding into one?"
"Sacrilege!" A dozen voices said it at once: Vyblos's and Krastokles's, and, among others, Netzigon's. By the Mace of Galzar, now didn't he have a fine right to open his mouth here? Anger almost sickened him; in a moment he was afraid that he would vomit pure bile. He strode to Netzigon, snatching the golden chief-captain's chain from over his shoulder.
"All the gods curse you, and all the devils take you! I told you to wait at Listra-Mouth for Klestreus, n
ot to throw your army away along with his. By Galzar, I ought to have you flayed alive!" He struck Netzigon across the face with the chain. "Out of my sight, while you're still alive!" Then he turned to Vyblos. "You, too-out of here, and take the Archpimp Krastokles with you. Go to your temple and stay there; return here either at my bidding or at your peril."
He watched them leave: Netzigon shaken, the black-armored captain stolidly, Vyblos and Krastokles stiff with rage. A few of Netzigon's officers and gentlemen attended him; the rest drew back from them as though from contamination. He went to Pheblon and threw the golden chain over his head.
"I still don't thank you for losing me Tarr-Dombra, but that's a handful of dried peas to what that son of a horse-leech's daughter cost me. Now, Galzar help you, you'll have to make an army out of what he left you."
"My ransom still needs paying," Phebion reminded him. "Till that's done, I'm oath-bound to Prince Ptosphes and Lord Kalvan."
"So you are; twenty thousand ounces of silver for you and those taken with you. You know where to find it? I don't."
"I do, Prince," Duke Skranga said. "There's ten times that in the treasure vault of the temple of Styphon."
COLONEL Netzigon waited until he was outside to touch a handkerchief to his check. It was bleeding freely, and had dripped onto his doublet. Now, by Styphon, the cleaning of that would cost Gormoth dear!
It wasn't his fault, anyhow. Great Styphon, was he to sit still while Chartiphon cannonaded him from across the river? And how had he known what sort of cannon Chartiphon had? The Hostigi really must be making fireseed; he hadn't believed that until yesterday. Three times he had sent his cavalry splashing into the river, and three times the guns had murdered them. He'd never seen guns throw small-shot so far. So then he'd sent his infantry over at Vryllos, and driven those with Prince Ptosphes back into the gap, and then, while he was driving against Chartiphon's right and the day had seemed won, Ptosphes had brought his beaten soldiers back, fighting like panthers, and that she-devil daughter of his-he'd heard, later, that she'd been killed. Styphon bless whoever did it!
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