by John F. Carr
“It’s too bad he didn’t take time to save some of these Masters--I could use them now. However, thanks to your words, I believe I have a better measure of the man, and for that, I thank you, Lady Sirna.”
She felt like standing up and curtsying, but instead she said, “You’re welcome, Captain-General. Do you have any idea as to how much longer we’re going to be cooped up in this place?”
Phidestros shook his head. “No, it’s a Dralm-blasted curse that we’re still here! But, without a single leader, there is no one man in charge of the Host.”
“I thought Great King Lysandros was the head of the Grand Host.”
“True, he created it and claims it’s his to command. However, it’s not that simple. Styphon’s House pays the bills, which leaves Grand Master Soton as co-commander. Lysandros can make decisions, but without Soton’s and Styphon’s House approval they may not be funded or obeyed. Since Lord High Marshal Zythannes, commander of the Ktemnoi Sacred Squares, was killed in battle along with his successor Prince Leonnestros, Prince Anaxon is now in charge of the Ktemoni troops. He’s in favor of disbanding the Grand Host, or at least the Ktemnoi contingent. Were it not for the Grand Master’s intransigence on the subject, Anaxon would already have departed. Presently, the Prince is awaiting further orders from Great King Cleitharses.”
“Ohhh. I didn’t think it was that complicated.”
“Oh yes, My Lady, it is--and it gets worse. Great King Lysandros, by virtue of the fact he is Great King of Hos-Harphax--the Kingdom most harmed by the Usurper Kalvan--believes he should solely command the Grand Host. Of course, it doesn’t appear to matter to him that he’s never commanded an army this large or fought against Kalvan, who has advanced the arts of war more than any man since King Simocles of legend.
“Meanwhile, it is Styphon’s paychests that are paying our salaries and providing all our supplies and fireseed. The Archpriest Roxthar--due to Styphon’s Own Call (which only he has heard, by the way)--believes he should be put in sole command to do Styphon’s Will, as he puts it. Of course, he has neither military experience or proven leadership qualities. In the meantime, he wants to Investigate every Hostigi in Hos-Hostigos to see if they still believe in All-Father Dralm. However, when those who clearly do not--mostly knaves and cutthroats--tell him they do not, he doesn’t believe them and is well on his way to completely depopulating the entire Kingdom!
“Lysandros, who should care, doesn’t. He’s either too involved in his own machinations, or is just too frightened of Roxthar--and who can blame him, if he is?--to stop this madman before he kills every Hostigi within three hundred marches. On the other hand, Grand Master Soton, who does care, acts as if he doesn’t, for some deep purpose of his own or the Inner Circle’s.
“Meanwhile, as Lysandros’ handpicked commander, I spend my time smoking and drinking Ermut’s Best in a bordello, wondering if and when I’ll ever be allowed to do the job I’m being paid to do: Which is, quite simply, find Kalvan, force him to fight and then destroy him and all his armies.”
“That was very clear and concise,” she replied, wishing some of her professors at Dhergabar University had been able to sketch their lessons half so well.
“Thank you, Sirna. What bothers me most, and what these fools don’t seem to realize--or care about--is that the more time we give Kalvan to escape and reorganize his army, the tougher he’s going to be to stop. If I had it to do over, I would have put a muzzle on Lysandros, left Soton to his care and chased Kalvan straight to the Saltless Seas. I could have done it, but I wanted to please my liege lord.”
“Now, I’m so disgusted with what’s going on that all I want to do is leave and go home to rebuild my new Princedom. Styphon only knows what damage has been done while I’ve been playing mother hen to Lysandros and Archpriest Roxthar and all the rest.”
Phidestros wasn’t the only one cast adrift here in the ruins of Hostigos Town. Only Dralm knew how many years she might be left to her own wits before she was rescued by the Paratime Police. Or abandoned forever when some crisis pulled their attention from this time-line. She had gone missing during a vicious war and might well be considered dead; maybe it wasn’t so bad to have an outtime lover and protector, after all.
“I’ll have a cup of Ermut’s Best, after all,” she said.
Phidestros looked at her in surprise, then smiled. He picked up a golden goblet and started to fill it himself.
SIX
Kalvan stood at the edge of the western pier running out of the Great Wharf and watched the comings and goings of galleys, boats, schooners, pinnaces and barges in and out of the Ulthor docks. A busy harbor in ordinary times, Ulthor Port had been in a flurry of activity since the advance elements of the Army of Hostigos had reached Ulthor. There were boats bringing in supplies and food stocks. Others had come in hopes they could sell passage to the more desperate Hostigi émigrés. Kalvan was hoping that Trader Tortha would soon be disembarking from one of the ships; it had been several moons since he and Prince Phrames had left for Greffa to seek an audience with King Theovacar. He was anxious to hear what they had learned. Time was growing short.
Many of the large boats were coastal galleys and galleasses, galleys with sails. The Saltless Seas (Great Lakes) boats did not need a lot of endurance; you could always paddle to shore if becalmed. But they did need strong hulls because of ice. They also had a constant battle with the lee shores. There was a need for a sailing rig that could sail into the wind quite well and on which sail could be dropped in a hurry if a storm came up suddenly, as they frequently did. So it was no surprise that the rest of the boats were gaff-rigged schooners, mostly trading vessels or fishing boats.
Kalvan wasn’t an authority on boats or building, which was unfortunate, but as a teenager he had helped a friend build a small sailboat and for a while had done some sailing at Lock Haven back in Otherwhen. Another friend, a newspaper reporter, did a lot of sailing, openly dreaming of sailing around the globe. They used to discuss various sails and ship types over Myers’s Rum and coke. It was too bad he hadn’t paid more attention.
It was also unfortunate that he’d never had time to visit this part of Hos-Hostigos and lay the foundation for a real navy. The few boats they had purchased or commandeered from Prince Kestophes weren’t large enough to transport more than a regiment of infantry, much less the Army of Hos-Hostigos. He suspected any Ulthori who remained behind would switch sides the minute their Great King moved his army out of their territory.
The local inhabitants, including Prince Kestophes, had reacted to his arrival as if an invading force had descended upon the town instead of their lawful king and his army. As Kalvan had long suspected, those Zarthani princedoms bordering the Saltless Seas never really saw themselves as belonging to any of the northern Kingdoms; it was all just a convenient fiction to keep the more avaricious Upper Middle Kingdom kings and princes, like King Theovacar and Prince Varrack of Thagnor, at bay.
With communications and transportation tied to the local equivalents of the Pony Express and Overland stage, it had been a long and profitable ploy. The princes could pretend loyalty and pretty much do as they wished. Now with Styphon’s Grand Host about to pay a visit they were having to face unforeseen calamities.
Prince Kestophes of Ulthor was holed up in one of his duke’s castles, like an ostrich with its head in the sand. He was sending dispatches to Kalvan saying that he would undertake the command of the reserve force that would hold the Port from the Styphoni--as if Kalvan was going to leave a single Hostigi soldier behind. Ever since his outburst at their temporary headquarters, Kalvan didn’t trust Prince Ketophes to turn out the lights. He suspected that if he allowed Kestophes to stay behind, he would attempt to broker a deal with either Lysandros or Demistophon the moment the last of Kalvan’s troops departed Ulthor Port. Not that Kalvan was about to let that happen.
In Nyklos, one of the three Hostigi princedoms that edged Hos-Agrys, a new prince reigned. With Prince Armanes dead from a halberd blow
, his son--with Kalvan’s tacit approval--was the new Prince of Nyklos. Prince Carvros had some previous experience, after his father took a serious gut wound at the Battle of Chothros Heights, as pro-tem ruler of Nyklos. At that time his voice had just changed and, without his father’s behind the scene coaching, he would have made a terrible mess of things. Kalvan didn’t suppose the last couple of years had matured Carvros much; Armanes had kept him off the battlefield as the boy was his only male offspring. He would bet dollars to doughnuts that the young Prince would attempt to come to terms with the Styphoni the moment Kalvan left Ulthor.
Klestreus’ spies had told him that Prince Carvros was trying to build a power base in Nyklos Town (Port Allegany), by openly criticizing Kalvan’s scorched-earth policy along the Nyklos Trail to Port Ulthor. They may not have realized it yet, but times had changed for the western Hostigi princes. Their Great King was here in force. And would be until he figured how the hell he was going to get out of the mess they were in--
Kalvan heard the jangle of armor and thwunking of boots on the wooden planks of the pier. He turned to see Chancellor Chartiphon, with Highpriest Mytron and Captain Nathros of the Royal Engineering Corps in tow, heading his way. Behind Kalvan were Vanar Halgoth and three huge specimens of Kalvan’s Tymannian Guard. Captain Halgoth wouldn’t let him leave Kestophes’ former palace without at least four guardsmen, and was unhappy with less than two score. His Bodyguard had twice foiled Styphoni assassination attempts, one a primitive grenade that killed one of the big Tymannians and wounded several others. Halgoth had come off with a dent in his breastplate and ringing in his ears that hadn’t stopped for a moon quarter.
The last attack had convinced Rylla that he should stay at the palace and not roam around Ulthor Port, but Kalvan had too much nervous energy to remain a hostage in a cage, even a gilded one like Kestophes’ palace. His mind was ablaze with plans and counterplans to re-take Hos-Hostigos, or find a place of refuge for his people.
But first, he needed some answers so he could formulate some kind of escape plan before the Grand Host came riding over the horizon. And with over half a million refugees in his wake, such an arrival would be a disaster of horrendous proportion. If only he could have held onto Hostigos for another year or two; by then the political situation would have changed with the fireseed monopoly broken and Styphon’s House on the defensive, but it was not to be.
“Here we are, Your Majesty,” Chancellor Chartiphon said, as though he were tired of chasing around town at His Majesty’s beck and call. The former Captain-General looked as if he’d been sucking on limes. The old general thought retreat was ignoble and the only honorable thing was to fight off the invading Grand Host until they either turned and fled, or the Hostigi had died to the last man. He’d told Kalvan that so many times that Chartiphon had been forbidden to discuss the subject. It was this kind of backward thinking--typical for here-and-now--that had kept him off the Royal Army muster list as a commander.
Regardless, old Chartiphon was one of former Prince Ptosphes’ most loyal and trusted commanders and such loyalty demanded a worthy sinecure.
“Highpriest Mytron,” Kalvan said, “What are the latest census figures?”
Now that they were at rest, Mytron had regained some of his body fat and didn’t look like a concentration camp version of himself. It turned out that for the first week after they’d left Hostigos, he hadn’t eaten a thing; instead he’d given his rations to the children--of which there were no end. That is, until Rylla caught on to what he was doing and practically force-fed him for the rest of the journey.
“Your Majesty, I have asked the priests of Dralm and Tranth and the priestesses of Yirtta to count the refugees and the latest figure, as of yesterday, was five hundred-and sixty-eight thousand, seven hundred and fourteen men, women and children. That’s not counting the Royal or Princely armies, which account for another thirty-eight thousand, four hundred and twenty-three men.”
Kalvan shook his head in exasperation. “So many mouths .. .”This was a mass migration on a scale unknown in the Five Kingdoms, or anywhere else here-and-now. In normal times, a mass movement often percent of the population of a kingdom would have been acknowledged as large migration. However, Archpriest Roxthar’s Holy Investigation and his wholesale murder of innocents--whose only crime was to not recognize Styphon as their god--had put coals into everyone’s breeches, convincing almost anyone who could walk or crawl in Bestha, Sashta, Hostigos, Nostor, and Sask to leave Hos-Hostigos as fast as possible. The Nostori, the farthest away, were still arriving in groups as small as two and as large as several hundred. Since Roxthar’s Investigation had pretty much turned the Princedom of Hostigos into a ghost princedom, the un-Holy Investigation had now moved into Sask and western Nostor. Already, Mytron and his Council of Priests, reckoned that over a quarter of a million Hostigi had been Investigated, most killed or sold off as slaves. Less than ten percent had been cleansed and were now working as serfs under their new masters in Hostigos.
It made Kalvan sick to think about it. It was worse than the Spanish Inquisition by a factor often! And, deep down inside, he knew it was all his doing. If he hadn’t broken Styphon’s monopoly on gunpowder, none of this would have happened. He had caused this as surely as Martin Luther had laid the fuse for the Thirty Years War with his Augsburg Confession.
The previous informal census conducted by the priests of Dralm had extrapolated the population of Hos-Hostigos to be around one million, eight hundred and fifty-six thousand subjects--plus or minus ten percent. In a backwoods pre-industrial civilization, there were a lot of hunters, trappers and hermits, as well as bandits and robbers, all of whom preferred not to be counted. To say nothing of merchants and wandering peddlers, tramps and soothsayers. Still, before the Battle of Ardros Field, the population had been expanding with newcomers from all over the Five Kingdoms and the Trygath eager to test out Hostigos’ new freedoms and economic success.
“How many of the refugees are women and children?” These were the ones who preyed on Kalvan’s mind.
Mytron sighed. “Sire, I would say eight out of ten. We have counted about one hundred and three thousand men of which half are elderly, sick or maimed by the wars of the past three years.”
Fifty-one thousand able-bodied men! This was what he had to start his new dynasty, or whatever it was. Maybe they could take a page from that story in Astounding Science Fiction he’d read a few years back where the male population of a desolate planet sold themselves as mercenaries to the highest bidder--The Dorsai, that was what they were called. As he recalled, it was a smashing yarn, but then they didn’t have to drag their women and children along with them in their spaceships ... Stop woolgathering!
What he needed was to learn more about the Upper Middle Kingdoms. He already had Halgoth teaching him Urgothi. But that didn’t answer the real questions: Was there any place they could overrun that was far enough away the Styphoni would have problems reaching them? Would King Theovacar prove to be an ally or foe? What about all these other pumpernickel principalities spread out all over the map: Were they potential allies or enemies? What was the military capability of these states? And did any have ties to Styphons House?
He hoped that Tortha and Prince Phrames would have the answers to some of these questions when they returned from Greffa. If only General Verkan were here, he’d have answers, I know it.
“Your Majesty--” Chartiphon broke in. “I just met with Prince Kestophes. He was complaining that his food stocks are growing low. He’s afraid that after another moon or two of feeding the refugees, there won’t be enough victuals left for winter.”
Kalvan had to stop himself from laughing hysterically. “Enough left-- there won’t be any food left, period, Chartiphon! Not after Styphons Grand Host comes to visit. Is Kestophes a complete idiot, or does he have something else in mind?”
Obviously, from Chartiphon’s startled expression, Kalvan should have kept that last thought to himself and not said it out loud. C
hartiphon was from an era when a good ruler never said anything bad about a vassal, no matter how much he deserved it. Kalvan wished he could lift him up and shake him into the new world, but, of course, he couldn’t since Chartiphon was beloved by Rylla.
Were it possible, he would have traded ten Chartiphons for one Harmakros. He rued the day he allowed the Duke to remain behind at Tarr-Hostigos--his final resting place and that of too Dralm-damned many other fine men.
“Mark my words, Chancellor. As soon as the Grand Host is on the move, Kestophes will be begging to join us--wherever we go! So, ignore his whining and tell him to see me if he has any more complaints.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Chartiphon’s face was beet red, but he kept his composure.
Kalvan hoped Tortha came back from Greffa City soon. He needed his counsel in the worst way.
II
Soton was in his tent going over the parchment that had just arrived from Balph when he heard the sounds of a carriage arriving--then raised voices. The barking orders coming out of the unseen mouth could be no other than that of Archpriest Roxthar. He had just had a nocturnal visit from him a quarter moon ago, after the first of the whipped curs from the Battle of Librox Ford came straggling into camp. Roxthar had implied that it was his fault for allowing King Lysandros to put the now deceased incompetent Harphaxi Captain-General in charge of the Army of Pursuit. Had Roxthar some new charge to throw at his feet? By Galzar’s Mace, keep this madman from my presence before I dash out his brains with my warhammer!
The Holy Investigator charged through the tent flap, pushing his way past Sergeant Sarmoth. Roxthar was waving a rolled-up parchment, similar to the one Soton had been reading, as if it were a broadsword. “Have you read this?” the Archpriest screeched, fire and brimstone all but streaming through his nostrils.