Siege of Tarr-Hostigos k-4

by John F. Carr

  It was the Royal Army pikemen who were giving Kalvan fits. They felt that using an arquebus or musket was a demotion; it was going to take time and success on the battlefield to convince them otherwise.

  He'd had more success with the blacksmiths. His new leaf springs had made everyone happy, from the guild masters to the wagon drivers. The design had been based on the springs of a side-swiped Amish carriage he'd once attended to while a Pennsylvania State Trooper. No one had been badly hurt in the accident and he'd had ample opportunity to inspect the buggy's undercarriage.

  The leaves of the springs had been easy to duplicate, but it had taken over a year for the Hostigi blacksmiths to figure out how to connect the leaves at the end of the spring. Once they'd solved that problem, the local artisans were soon at work fitting the Conestoga-style wagons they used locally with springs. They'd even installed them on the Royal Coach. The springs would be a good source of export income the day the Fireseed Wars came to an end.

  The new semaphore system was up and running, and he was able to send and receive messages to the Royal Army of Observation based in Beshta in less than an hour, instead of a day by way of pony express. Now they could follow the movement of Styphon's Grand Host, as the Harphaxi were calling it now, when the campaign season arrived. The Hostigi army command would have as close to instantaneous communication with the Beshtan border as was possible here-and-now.

  Styphon's House had been a faster learner and nastier opponent than he had expected in the military department. Not only did they have good generals in Grand Master Soton and Captain-General Phidestros, but some of the best troops in the Seven Kingdoms in the Order of Zarthani Knights and the Sacred Squares of Hos-Ktemnos. Phidestros' surprise capture of Tarr-Veblos had been a great propaganda victory for the Harphaxi as well as a big morale boost. Suddenly Great King Kalvan didn't look invincible anymore, even though he'd been a couple hundred miles away when the castle had been taken. Of course, since when had truth taken a front seat to the Big Lie..?

  It didn't help that the war against Styphon's House was taking a lot longer to wrap up than anyone had predicted, even on the other side of the divide. That Styphon's House had deep pockets, with the Temple Treasury and Styphon's Great Banking Houses, was no surprise. What Kalvan hadn't expected was Styphon's House initiating a Counter-Reformation in the guise of Archpriest Roxthar and his Holy Investigation, a brutal witch-hunt that echoed Torquemada's Inquisition. The rumors were vile enough to make Kalvan and everyone else in Hostigos glad they lived a long way from Balph.

  The recent illness of Sesklos, Styphon's Own Voice, had hit the Inner Circle like bacon fat on a campfire. According to Skranga's spy network in Balph, there was growing resistance to the Holy Investigation among the Inner Circle. Unfortunately, there was little good news for Kalvan with this development as both parties were intent on dismembering Hos-Hostigos and the 'Daemon Kalvan' should he be unlucky enough to survive the defeat of his forces.

  The surprising news was reports of growing resistance among the normally placid inhabitants of Hos-Ktemnos towards the excesses of the Investigation. Unfortunately, it was too little and too late to help Hostigos. Great King Cleitharses' reputation as a bookworm meant that he'd rubber stamp any proposal Styphon's Inner Circle proposed regarding the forthcoming spring campaign. It was unfortunate for Hos-Hostigos that the Ktemnoi tercios, man for man, were the best troops in the old Five Kingdoms.

  Kalvan was all for the venal and greedy Old Guard; they were easy to understand and counterattack. Reformers like Roxthar bred discontent and fanaticism. The Investigator's excesses were worse than those of Savonarola, and it appeared to Kalvan that he had out-heroded Herod- the tyrant who destroyed all the babes in Bethlehem. Hostigos needed a gung-ho Styphon's House like it needed an outbreak of the Great Pox!

  The Plague was another one of his ever-present worries, considering the sorry state of here-and-now hygiene. He had, with Rylla's enthusiastic help, introduced soap to the middle and upper classes, but it was too expensive for the average Hostigi to buy. Once this war was over he was going to see that every Hostigi got ten acres, a plow and a bar of soap.

  Outside, the wind howled past the tower. The fire blazed, and in the sudden illumination, Kalvan hefted the chunk of limestone from the nearby Heartridge Quarry and studied its surface as though it might reveal the key to how it was turned into Portland cement. He'd lived among cement buildings and driven over cement roadways, but he had not given any thought to how it was manufactured. Just a quick trip to the hardware store in Bellefonte to buy a bag of concrete: mix with sand, gravel and water-voila, cement!

  He seemed to remember something about baking the limestone, but the new iron smelters had proved too hot. The limestone had to be ground into a powder, but they had gristmills for that. Thankfully, the waterwheel was commonplace here-and-now. Kalvan had given a lot of thought to introducing steam engines, but he had to be careful how quickly he accelerated the pace of mechanical innovation. The last thing he wanted to see was the lovely Pennsylvania countryside filled with smokestacks, sweathouses and tenements like Nineteenth Century London. It could happen-look at New Delhi or Hong Kong.

  Maybe concrete wasn't such a wonderful idea after all! Unfortunately, with the introduction of gunpowder and cannon shells he'd already released the Genie of Modern Technology. Maybe he'd have to come up with some kind of atonement, like Albert Nobel with his Peace Prize, after the newspapers confused his brother's death with his own and he got an 'opportunity' to read his own obituary. Somehow the Lord Kalvan Peace Prize didn't have the same ring to it, not with here-and-now armies growing from late medieval minuscule numbers to the massed ranks of the Thirty Years' War-all within the space of a few years!

  Kalvan sometimes wondered what would have happened if the sideways time traveling machine had spit him out while he'd been stationed in Germany, during his remaining tour of duty after the Korean Armistice. Judging from the fact that there was no known contact with Europe or Asia, things must have taken a very different turn in Europe from his own world. It was possible that the Indo-Aryans, who'd migrated over the Himalayas through the Gobi desert and across the Aleutians, were the ones who'd settled Greece-the Dorians. He remembered his freshman history professor telling the class that the Shepherd Kings, the Hittites and even the Medes and Persians were Indo-Europeans. Had the ancestors of these civilizations bypassed the Middle East for a migration route to the New World? If so, how would this have changed the course of European/Middle Eastern history?-profoundly, if the civilization here in North America was any example.

  The lack of contact between the Old World and the New World told him, using Occam's Razor, that Europe was still in a pre-industrial state. He had heard rumors of a warlike people who lived in the far north of Hos-Zygros and spoke a strange tongue, which sounded similar to the Norsemen-but it was all hearsay. When the war with Styphon's House was over he meant to travel as far as Labrador and find out for himself.

  In his freshman year at Princeton, his philosophy instructor had claimed that without the Greek philosophical and mathematical underpinnings of technology and invention, Western Civilization would have been stillborn and history would have taken a completely different course, more similar to the religious and God Emperor tyrannies of the Middle East and China. There would have been no Macedonian Empire, no Roman Empire, no Middle Ages and no Enlightenment-just an interminable, endless Dark Age.

  At best, the Old World nations were at the same pre-industrial level of civilization as the Zarthani, who had a civilization with some medieval trappings-castles, pikes, gunpowder weapons-but whose gods and philosophies were little advanced over those of ancient Babylonia. Maybe someday the course of here-and-now civilization would be reversed, from the 'New World' back to the 'Old World.' He wondered if he'd live long enough to see it. He hoped so.

  He went to refill his goblet with Ermut's Best and found the flask empty. He used the pull to summon Cleon, who arrived, half out of breath, wi
th a small wooden cask and another goblet. "Your visitor just arrived, Your Majesty. I didn't believe a mere flask would do."

  Kalvan nodded. Knowing Vanar Halgoth, Cleon was correct. "Send him in."

  There was a clanging, stomping noise and the massive Sastragathi headman came into the chamber. Kalvan rose and got a body hug that would have done Freddie Blassie the wrestler proud back on otherwhen. The huge Sastragathi warrior, with his horned helmet, always reminded him of a Viking prince and he almost expected one day to see a dragonship moored in the Harph River.

  Then Halgoth started to get down on one knee-Kalvan restrained him as best he could. "No need for that, Vanar. We are friends."

  A smile split the big Urgothi's face that would have done a jack o' lantern proud. "We just brought the last wagons of orphans to the Academy. With the fresh teams of horses Your Majesty supplied, we had no trouble following the Nyklos Trail."

  "Good. I think the children will do well here in Hos-Hostigos."

  Halgoth nodded. "Yes, very well. The Academy is a better home than these children have seen in all their lives."

  "We were lucky to finish the Academy dormitories before the first snow. I had the entire Hostigi corps of Engineers and six regiments of regulars building them."

  "Sargos is pleased. He asked me to thank you for honoring your word and to tell you he owes you a boon. He was most pleased that you honored the spirit of his request as well as the deed."

  Kalvan nodded. He was certain that someday the boon would come in handy. It was unfortunate he couldn't call it in this spring.

  "I have also brought the last of your guard."

  Not being a dictator, Kalvan had no need for his own Praetorian Guard; not only were they expensive, eating kingdoms out of house and home, but after a while they began to take a personal interest in who was going to be their next paymaster. By the middle of the Roman Empire the Praetorians were changing emperors almost on an annual basis, although a few, like Gaius Julius Maximinus, were among the best Emperors of the period.

  Unfortunately, Kalvan couldn't turn down the well-meaning offer from Sargos' best friend and confidant without irreparably damaging relations between the two kingdoms, and offering a deadly insult to Vanar Halgoth-probably the single most dangerous warrior Kalvan had ever met. As a berserker, Halgoth was somehow able to alter his mind and arrive at a state of complete fury and fearlessness. Kalvan had read about such warriors, among the Irish and Vikings, who fought without personal fear and without pain-able to withstand the loss of limbs and suffer grievous wounds, and still fight on-oblivious to even life-ending wounds.

  It wasn't until the Battle of Spirit Grove that he saw the Urgothi berserkers in action. They were warriors who fought without fear, against all odds and didn't die easily. Yet, like most primitive warriors, they were emotional, subject to whims and capriciousness. On first reflection they were not an ideal bodyguard for the Great King of an army numbering in the tens of thousands. However, they would die to a man for their King and with Halgoth in command he knew his orders would be obeyed to the letter.

  "Good," Kalvan answered. "We have completed their barracks inside the outer bailey. You and twenty of your men who speak our tongue will live with Us inside the Citadel."

  Kalvan wasn't exactly sure how Rylla was going to take to this latest development, but Halgoth was certainly pleased.

  "Our bodyguard will be called the Tymannian Guard." Kalvan had used the Byzantine's Viking guard, the Varangian Guard, as his model. They had served the Eastern Empire well, far better than Rome's Praetorians. "Your banner will be the Black Raven Hag of War on a white field. I will have Master Cathron, our armorer, design your uniforms."

  Halgoth looked worried.

  "You will still wear your horned helms and mail hauberks, but we'll add silvered back-and-breasts with my design, the keystone, on the breastplate. Each of you will be issued a regulation sword, two pistols, a powder horn and bullet molds. You can keep your own battleaxes-if you wish. Halgoth, you will be Grand-Captain of the Royal Bodyguard."

  Halgoth smiled happily. Kalvan had tried to completely change here-and-now military ranks, but had found considerable resistance to his new order of command, especially among the ex-mercenaries in the Royal Army. So he'd done the next best thing, incorporated them into his own command structure.

  Instead of sergeants, he had petty-captains; "sergeants" were common only in the Order of Zarthani Knights and the Sacred Squares so they'd been rejected. "Captain" was the catchall designation for everything from company leader to regimental head. In the Royal Army of Hostigos, captains commanded companies, grand-captains (majors) commanded battalions, while colonels commanded regiments. Hostigi brigades were commanded by generals, while armies were commanded by captain-generals. He'd had to drop the designation "brigadier" as too confusing to the locals. The "Grand Captain-General" of the entire Royal Army was Chartiphon, although in fact it was an honorary post, since Kalvan was the commander-in-chief and Rylla his second.

  He poured them both another goblet of brandy and offered a toast to his new bodyguard.

  Vanar Halgoth responded with his own toast. "To easy women and good fighting!"

  Kalvan laughed. "I don't know about the women of Hostigos, but I can guarantee you all the fighting you can handle-and that's a promise."

  Halgoth looked as if he'd just been invited to a feast of all his favorite foods. "My men will do their best to prove themselves worthy of the great honor you have bestowed upon them, Your Majesty." The big Sastragathi warrior re-filled their goblets. "To sharp blades and straight arrows!"

  "All right down Styphon's gullet!" Kalvan added, quaffing his drink.

  SEVENTEEN

  Kalvan moved closer to the hearth so he could get a better look at the polished lump of green glass presented to him by Rector Ermut. Outside he heard the whumph of a cannon shot in the outer courtyard as General Thalmoth proof-tested one of the new brass six-pounders. He could even hear the drill chants in the bailey where, despite the falling snow, the petty-captains were valiantly-and probably vainly-doing their best to combat the low morale of the long and idle winter months.

  He imagined his enemies were doing much the same thing in Tarr-Veblos where they made preparations for the largest invasion in here-and-now history. Talk about getting the ball rolling! This was going to be a long and bloody war no matter who won. He wished, for about the thousandth time, that the survival of Hostigos was not totally borne on his own not so wide shoulders!

  "Do you see the milkiness, Your Majesty?"

  "Yes. It's better than the last lot, but still too cloudy for a lens." Ermut and Kalvan were meeting in the royal bedchamber, since keeping Tarr-Hostigos warm was in the same category as heating a Wisconsin football stadium in the winter. Queen Rylla, wearing a blanket over her lap, was in the corner in her rocking chair-which Kalvan had designed himself as a Name Day present-with little Demia in her arms. It had taken a master wheelwright to cut the runners on the bottom of the chair.

  "I can't understand it," Ermut said, tugging at his blonde beard. "I'm at my wit's end. I know how badly you want the farseers for this coming spring."

  "It's not your fault, Ermut. There must be something wrong with the sand we're using. We've taken all the lime out of the formula so it has to do with the purity of the sand itself. Let me see the sand you're using again."

  Ermut passed over a small leather pouch. Kalvan poured a spoonful into his palm. "It looks like clean quartz river sand to me." He moved his hand closer to the log fire. "Ah ha! Look at this!"

  Ermut pointed to the small chalk pebble. "Limestone!"

  "Yes, limestone must be the problem. We'll have to carefully clean the sand we've already collected. Unfortunately, this is no time of the year to go looking for a new source. I should have spent more time on this during the summer."

  "But when, Your Majesty? You spent most of the summer fighting in the Trygath."

  "I know… Maybe next year I can spend some
time at the University."

  "Didn't I hear just those words last year?" Rylla asked.

  "I'm afraid so. At least our winters are peaceful. Now back to our glass."

  "Shall I use the water method to separate out the limestone?"

  "No, Ermut. That will take too long and still might not do the job. Limestone dissolves in acid… We have so little sulfuric acid-"

  "What about vinegar, Your Majesty. I have a storeroom full of bad wine we couldn't use for the brandy still."

  "Good thinking, Ermut. Vinegar will work just fine. But first, you need to distill it the same way you distill wine to make brandy. Vinegar is a dilute form of acetic acid: it won't work as well as sulfuric acid, but it will do the job.

  "Once you have concentrated acetic acid, here is what you do: Wrap the sand in cloth and wash it with the strong vinegar solution. Do it three or four times until the acetic acid has dissolved the limestone. What's left will be mostly quartz sand-"

  WHUUMP!

  A loud explosion shook the keep to its foundation.

  "What the Styphon was that?" Kalvan cried.

  Rylla pulled out a horsepistol from underneath her blankets and said, "It's the Harphaxi! They're attacking Tarr-Hostigos in the dead of winter!"

  But how? Kalvan asked himself, as Rylla gave Demia to a nursemaid and proceeded to prime and load her pistol. Even if by some miracle the Harphaxi were able to move a small detachment over a hundred and fifty miles of snow, what could they do to a castle like this? Surely they couldn't bring guns over these roads, not without my getting a message from the Beshtan semaphore.

  Cleon rushed through the door. "King Kalvan, there has been an explosion! One of the guns! Men are hurt."

  Kalvan ran to the door only to be met by Captain Xykos and a score of the Queen's Bodyguard. "Follow me, Your Majesty. Make way for the King!"