Great Kings' War

by Roland Green

  "What I want to know is," Baron Halmoth asked, "who is this Sarrask of Sask that Prince Ptosphes praises so highly? Was this the son-of-a-she-wolf who was promising to impale Ptosphes' and Rylla's heads on pikes outside Tarr-Hostigos?"

  "Right!" Phrames echoed.

  The late Reverend Morrison would have said Sarrask had been touched by the spirit of the Lord. Any number of English teachers or psychiatrists would have called it "Identification with the Aggressor." Kalvan thought it was the old adage whereby the schoolyard bully, after being thoroughly whipped by one of his victims, becomes best friends with the boy who beat him. Whatever the reason, it was good to know that Prince Sarrask could now be trusted—even if the price for this revelation was a bit steep!

  By the time everyone who could read had finished the letter, Hestophes arrived, looking like a cross between a hibernating bear and a candidate for a vagrancy arrest. Since Hestophes could only read haltingly and Harmakros couldn't read anything other than map symbols and tavern signs, Kalvan read Ptosphes' dispatch to them. Note: Find a way to get Harmakros and Hestophes to read without damaging their pride. Kalvan couldn't afford to allow one of his most valuable generals to remain illiterate.

  However, it might be difficult because of Harmakros' age, since reading was best taught at a young age. Here-and-now only the nobility and merchants could afford to hire scribes or priests as tutors for their children.

  When Kalvan finished briefing Harmakros and Hestophes, he said, "I'd like to spend a day or two here regrouping and planning the best way to relieve Ptosphes and the Army of the Besh. It will also have the advantage of making the Harphaxi panic, since they will assume we are planning the siege of Harphax City. We'll just remain here long enough to pick our march routes, collect the wounded and see what we can do about the captured Harphaxi guns. We've collected something like forty guns, and Ptosphes just lost thirty. If we can bring back just twenty of them, it will help."

  "We're going to need more horses for the gun-teams," Colonel Alkides said.

  Hestophes was nodding slowly, either in agreement or because he was about to fall asleep again.

  "I'll see what I can do, Alkides," Kalvan said. "I think we have more horses than we need to cover our own losses. We captured several hundred Harphaxi horses after the battle."

  And ten times that dead or grievously wounded on the battlefield, he thought. I feel worse about the dead horses than I do the soldiers we killed; at least, they had a choice. These poor dumb animals—and their screams! I'll be hearing them for the next ten years...

  Kalvan rose cautiously to his feet and bent over the map table. For a second he had to brace himself firmly on both legs and with both arms to avoid knocking the table over and setting HQ on fire with the lighted candles and oil lamps. "We'll have to use a march route well to the north of our old one anyway. I doubt there's enough forage left along that route to feed a scrawny pair of oxen. Not being able to go through southern Beshta isn't going to hurt much— But I swear on Dralm's Sacred Staff that Balthar's turn will come as soon as the Styphoni have been destroyed or pushed back to Hos-Ktemnos."

  Then Kalvan thought of Harmakros' son, Aspasthar. If the Beshtans found out who the boy was and found Tarr-Locra weakly defended—

  "Harmakros, you can send two squadrons of horse under a trusted captain to scout southern Beshta. Find out what the people think. Somewhere around here." Harmakros looked at the map—he was as good at map reading as he was bad at reading runes—then started when he saw where Kalvan's dagger was pointing.

  Harmakros let rip with a series of curses that included everything but the kitchen sink in regards to Balthar's privy habits and his questionable family tree. Then he paused, to catch his breath and collect himself. "Thank you, Your Majesty."

  Harmakros couldn't turn his back on his King, so Kalvan looked away briefly by turning to Alkides and asking if there was enough powder to blow up the Harphaxi guns that were damaged or just plain rusted inside and out, badly enough that the next shot might blow the breech or barrel.

  "We've got twelve wagon loads of Styphon's Best, some not worth the horsepower to haul it away."

  "Good, use that. We're short of Hostigos fireseed. Save some of it for use with the field guns; we can double-charge them if we need to."

  "We'll need to. It'll foul the barrels something awful, but if we have to—"

  "For the time being." Kalvan said.

  Alkides nodded.

  "Now, Phrames, I want you to take two thousand of your best cavalry and four light guns and do a repeat performance of your spring raids. Only this time you'll swing northeast, toward the Agrysi border. Make enough of the spectacle, burn some villages and sack a few towns—"

  "But, Your Majesty," Phrames sputtered.

  "Yes, I know this isn't how we make friends, and the people losing their homes are not our real enemies. But, after the disaster at Tenabra, it might just keep King Demistophon from joining the fray. And, at the moment, we've got all the enemies we can afford.

  "So, make enough of a mess to start the Agrysi worrying and tie down their garrisons, then swing back and rejoin Harmakros after—oh, no more than five days. A moon-quarter, if you can live off the land."

  He might hear something from Highpriest Xentos if the raid provoked King Demistophon into action against the Great Council of Dralm. On the other hand, Xentos would also hear something from his Great King if he expected him to run military risks in order to let priests argue. He didn't like what he'd been hearing so far in Xentos' dispatches from Agrys City, but there was little he could do outside of storming the City.

  Phrames nodded. His powder-blackened face set in the mask that meant he didn't like making war on civilians but would obey his Great King to the death. Phrames, Kalvan decided, was much too good a man for here-and-now; he really belonged at King Arthur's Round Table with Lancelot and Sir Gawain.

  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 th
e 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 land
s, 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.