by John F. Carr
Ptosphes chuckled, as he thought of Rylla's mother for the first time in nearly a moon. Rylla had much of her mother in her; the great beauty, the strengths, the tongue and temper. Ptosphes remembered Demia asking (at the top of her lungs) whether he was afraid of war too much to hold even the little Princedom of Hostigos. He hadn't been afraid of a war with Nostor, Sask or Beshta; only afraid for his vassals, outnumbered and outgunned by ambitious neighbors on every border.
Well, Demia had been right in a way. He would have lost even that to Gormoth of Nostor if the gods hadn't sent Kalvan. Why, then, had those same gods turned their faces away when he needed their help most? What had he or Kalvan done to earn their wrath?
Great Dralm, I ask nothing for myself. Let your wrath fall on me, and spare Kalvan, Rylla, and my granddaughter Demia.
Ptosphes' breath came more easily now, and he badly wanted that pipe. He rose and was turning toward the stairs when he saw a horseman riding uphill toward the castle. He wore armor but no helmet, and a sash with Prince Phrames' colors. Probably one of Phrames' loyal Beshtans.
"Ahoooo! Prince Ptosphes! Prince Phrames has sent me back to warn you. The Styphoni are on the march once more. Their scouts are barely a candle from Hostigos Town!"
"Thank you, and carry my thanks to Prince Phrames." So the siege begins even sooner than we expected.
The trooper made no move to turn his mount; Ptosphes glared down at him. "No, you can't come into the castle. Your Prince and your Great King need you more than I do."
"Prince-"
"Now, Dralm-damn you, turn that horse around and get it moving! If you're not gone before I count to ten you'll be the first casualty of the siege of Tarr-Hostigos."
Ptosphes drew his pistol but his roar had already startled the horse into movement. It whickered and suddenly wheeled, nearly losing its footing on the steep slope, then broke into a canter. By the time Ptosphes had counted to five, it was out of pistol range. The Beshtan was still looking back at the castle. Ptosphes hoped he would turn around and look where he was going before he rode into a ditch.
Once his pipe was drawing well, Ptosphes walked around the walls to where he had a good view to the southeast. That was the likely direction for the Grand Host; or at least where he hoped most to see them. Anyplace else would mean they had a too-godless-good chance of cutting off at least Kalvan's rearguard.
The southwest was empty of smoke clouds, and so were all the other directions. Were the Styphoni advancing along roads where there was nothing left that even a fanatical believer would consider worth burning? Or was the Grand Host already thinking of having roofs over their heads and food in their bellies during the siege?
Tarr-Hostigos should have a bit of time before its walls had to be kept manned until the Styphoni stormed them. Plenty of time for what Ptosphes intended.
He pointed the stem of his pipe at the nearest sentry. "Take a message to Captain-General Harmakros. Summon everyone in the castle, except the sentries, to the outer courtyard."
"Every-?" the man began, and then broke off at Ptosphes' look. "Everyone. Captain-General Harmakros, too."
"Yes, my Prince."
The soldier hurried off, as if he wanted to open the distance between himself and his Prince before Ptosphes showed any more signs of madness.
Ptosphes followed at a more leisurely pace.
III
By the time the garrison was gathered in the outer courtyard, the sun was high overhead. Even the twenty-foot walls cast short shadows. Ptosphes sweated in his armor, wishing the laggards would hurry, and rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. It was a newly forged Kalvan-style rapier, balanced for fighting on foot but quite long enough for his purposes now. The Great Sword of Hostigos, which he'd belted on the day he was proclaimed Prince, was on its way westward with Kalvan and Rylla. His grandson would need that Sword some day, when he ruled a realm so huge that Old Hostigos would barely rank as a respectable Princedom.
If the gods are merciful.
Ptosphes saw no more men joining the crowd. He drew the sword and raised it overhead in both hands. Sunlight blazed from the steel.
"Men of Hostigos. You all know why you are here. You all were told, when you offered to hold Tarr-Hostigos until our Great King and his family might reach safety. Every one of you has already earned honor in the eyes of Allfather Dralm, Galzar Wolfhead and the other true gods, and the gratitude of your Prince and Great King and the goodwill of your comrades.
"Styphon's Grand Host is approaching faster than we thought. Within ten candles this castle will be surrounded by the mightiest army in the history of the Great Kingdoms. For every one of us, there will be a hundred of the enemy. When they camp, a mouse won't be getting out of this castle.
"Any man who wants to leave can still do so. I'll say nothing against him nor let anyone else say a word. He'll have to hurry to catch up with our rearguard before nightfall, but there's an open road for any who wants to take it." He pointed toward the castle gate with his sword.
"For those who stay, you all know what kind of quarter Styphon's dogs gave us at Ardros. The lucky ones will have a quick death. The rest will have an appointment with Roxthar's Unholy Investigation."
A few hollow laughs sounded from the ranks; most faces were set and pale. All knew what had happened to the Hostigi prisoners after Ardros Field; only a few had not lost kin or friends in that butchery. Most of the prisoners not slaughtered outright were in the hands of the Investigation, doubtless envying their dead comrades.
Ptosphes lowered his sword and strode to the door of the woodshed on one side of the courtyard. Then he drew a line with the sword's point-like the one in the story Kalvan had told him in his cups one night-through the dirt and straw covering the flagstones of the courtyard, from the woodshed to the blacksmith's forge on the other side. He then took a deep breath, sheathed his sword, and turned to face his men.
"All who want to stay, cross over this line and join me. Those who want to die somewhere else-stay where you are!"
Silence. Ptosphes could hear the stamping of horses from the stables on the far side of the courtyard. An unnaturally complete silence to be hanging over five-hundred men. No one coughed, no one shuffled his feet. Ptosphes could have sworn some had ceased to breathe.
A thickset man in battered armor pushed his way from the rear into the open. Ptosphes tried not to stare too hard. It was Vurth.
Vurth, the peasant who'd been Kalvan's first host in this land, who owed his life and his family's to Kalvan's fighting skill. His son-in-law, Xykos, was Captain of Rylla's Own Guard. It was he who'd sent word of the Nostori raiders to Tarr-Hostigos, so that Rylla could lead out the cavalry who cut off the raiders and found Kalvan.
Vurth, a peasant who might really be called Dralm's first chosen tool for bringing about everything that had happened since that spring night almost four years ago. Ptosphes wondered briefly what Primate Xentos would have to say about the theological propriety of that notion-if presiding over the squabbles of the Council of Dralm in far-off Agrys City left him any time for such matters.
Much good may that do Xentos in the eyes of the gods, when the Council and League of Dralm sends only words of condolence instead of soldiers and muskets to those who fight its battles against Styphon.
Ptosphes examined the gray-haired peasant. His clothes and face were caked with mud and powder smoke, one shoulder was bandaged and he limped. He wore the breastplate of some Harphaxi nobleman, once etched and gilded, now hacked and tarnished, over his homespun smock. On his head was a battered morion helmet, on his feet cavalry boots from two different corpses. He still carried the Nostori cavalryman's silver-butted musketoon he'd acquired the night of Kalvan's coming, and both it and the horn powder flask at his belt were clean.
"First Prince, Captain-General Harmakros, people," Vurth began. "This isn't really a Council, so maybe I don't have the right to start off, as if I was Speaker for the Peasants like Phosg, may Dralm protect him. I think I've a right to be
heard, though."
Ptosphes would have cut down anyone who disagreed. The men saw this, and Vurth went on.
"Prince, most of us here either can't run, don't want to run or don't have anywhere to run to. My farm has burned, my wife is dead and one son too. The other son's off with King Kalvan, in the Royal Dragoons, and my son-in-law Xykos is Captain of Queen Rylla's Beefeaters. Dralm keep all the daughters who ran off with mercenaries.
"Styphon's House has taken or chased off everything I had except my life. All I want to do with what's left of it is kill Styphon's dogs until they kill me. I'm too old to go climbing trees or hide in caves like a thief. I'd rather sit here and kill the bastards in comfort!"
Vurth shouldered his musketoon and stepped forward across the line before anyone could cheer.
Ptosphes felt his eyes burn and quickly blinked back the threatening tears. He stepped up beside Vurth and put his arm around the peasant's shoulders. Any land that bore men like these would be barren ground indeed for Styphon's House. Such men could be killed; they could not be frightened.
Harmakros' voice cut through the new silence.
"Lift that litter, you fools! You don't have to stay yourselves!"
The bearers' reply was nearly inaudible and totally disrespectful. They had the Captain-General across the line before Ptosphes stopped grinning.
Another man stepped out, then two more, then five, then a band often, then a band too numerous to count, and after that it was a steady stream.
Ptosphes saw one gray-haired man telling a club-footed boy no more than ten to stand where he was, then step out himself. The boy looked sullenly after his grandfather until he was sure the man couldn't see him, then slipped across the line.
Ptosphes turned his back on the men. He didn't want them to see his face until he could command it as a captain and a Prince ought to.
By the time he turned around, the space on the other side of the line was empty.
Ptosphes ran his eyes over the garrison, with the care of a man trained at the quick counting of large masses of men. There'd been just over five hundred before. No doubt a few had slipped off, perhaps as many as a man could count on his fingers and toes. Call it four hundred and eighty left behind, quite enough to do all the work Styphon's Grand Host would allow.
Ptosphes was fumbling for words of thanks when a sentry on the keep tower shouted. "Prince Ptosphes! Enemy scouts in Hostigos Town! On the east side, cavalry with two guns."
Guns up with the scouts meant they had orders to fight instead of hit and run. Who would have such orders? Perhaps the Zarthani Knights…
Ptosphes swallowed; the lump in his throat twitched but remained where it was. "What colors?" he managed to shout.
"King Cleitharses and a mercenary company's. Looks like a rearing white horse on a blue field."
The lump shrank. Regulars wouldn't burn a town they expected to provide them with dry beds and hot food, unless they had other orders-nor would they let mercenaries. Such orders might not be obeyed, either, unless the man who gave them was watching.
With Grandbutcher Soton not up yet and Phidestros himself- although a mercenary-the commander of a Great King's army, there might be no such man here. If Soton arrived after the Grand Host's advance guard had settled in well, making mercenaries in another king's pay burn their own shelter and food was a task Ptosphes wouldn't wish even on Soton.
THIRTY-THREE
The Holy Investigator's Inquiry Chamber, a former smokehouse outside the burned-out shell of a Hostigi farm, was unnaturally quiet, which worried Investigator Kynnos far more than the usual cries and sobs that had poured out of the thin walls when he had arrived late last night. Even the slave pens, filled now with hundreds of crowded peasants, were still. Only the occasional cry of a babe broke the early morning stillness.
He remembered some Hostigi merchant asking him, as he ransacked the man's house, what made one Hostigi a slave, while his neighbor was targeted for the Investigation. "The possession of the heretic's image," had been his answer. "But every house and hut in Hostigos has images of Allfather Dralm!" "Yes, but mercy is given to those who can buy their freedom." He had left that household with three gold rings, two silver coins and a tiny golden image of Dralm that he kept safely tucked into his boot. As soon as he was safely alone, he would start a fire and melt it down to metal.
Kynnos had shared half his booty, except the golden image, with the Guard Captain. They had then escorted the merchant and his family to the slave pens. The last thing they wanted was the merchant to talk about the gold he'd spent to save his miserable hide under one of the Upper Investigator's 'Blades of Truth'-especially if that Investigator turned out to be His Holiness, Archpriest Roxthar! Killing the merchant outright would have been easiest, but Roxthar frowned on killing peasants and commoners before they had been judged by the Investigation. And no one, least of all Kynnos, wanted the Holy Investigator's eye turned in their direction-no indeed!
Which was why he'd asked the Guard Captain to come with him, while he told Archpriest Roxthar about the botched takeover of the Royal Foundry. The Captain had laughed in his face. "You tell the Holy Butcher whatever you want, but leave my name out of it. Or taste my sword, under-priest!"
Kynnos rued the day he joined the Investigation. Like most underpriests new to Balph he had not liked what he had found upon his arrival at the Holy City: too many underpriests competing for too few jobs, too many upperpriests who viewed their underlings as little more than personal servants and too many older highpriests. He hadn't joined the Temple to fetch and carry. Since childhood he'd dreamed of becoming an upperpriest with his own retinue and large estate.
Many underpriests were able to curry favor with one of the highpriests, or even an Archpriest, and use the favor to rise through the Temple hierarchy. He was not so blessed. His wife blamed this on his lack of ambition; yet how could he earn respect from those above him if all they saw was his arse as he scraped and bowed?
Kynnos missed those carefree days of visiting the High Temple, watching the dignitaries and every so often being ordered to run an errand, usually to inform some mistress or wife that some Sanctity or other was delayed. Then Archpriest Roxthar had begun his Investigation of corruption within Styphon's House. In the early days, the Investigation had been exciting, pulling superiors from their night chambers and torturing them over heresies for which, not surprisingly, they all were found guilty. There were few believers of Styphon, even amongst the most rabid of the Investigators, so why should highpriests be any different? Along the way, he'd been able to pocket gold coins and other valuables, some from bribes, others 'discovered' during the course of the Investigation.
What profit was to be found in the hovels of Hostigi peasants, for Styphon's sake? The merchant had been his first good haul since he'd arrived in Hostigos.
A moon-quarter ago, he had taken a wound in the arm from a knife thrust during the fight at the foundry, saw his superior killed, been lost in the burning wasteland of Hostigos and finally, after days of wandering through this deserted land, located the Holy Investigator at this blasted ruin of a farm. The truth was none of the party, including the Guardsmen, had wanted to return to face Roxthar's wrath. When he had awakened in the morning, it was to learn that all had fled-leaving him to face the Investigator with their lone, crazed prisoner. He would not have been surprised had the madman turned into a bat and flown away during the night with the rest of them, leaving him alone to face the Holy Investigator.
In the false kingdom of Hos-Hostigos without the Inner Circle to distract him and rein in his powers, Roxthar was like a blood-crazed wolf loosed upon the countryside. Styphon's Temple Guard were in mercenary heaven with whole towns to loot, ravage and pillage with no accountability; it was Styphon's Own Work, as Roxthar blessed it! Kynnos found little sport in murdering helpless serfs and freed men, or the drabs they were married to. Not for a few coppers and bits of colored glass.
Any comely wench the Investigation happened upon qu
ickly disappeared into the clutches of Styphon's Own Guard. It was Balph all over again, only bloodier and dirtier and far less profitable! When he'd first heard about the expedition to Hos-Hostigos, he'd dreamed of untold riches and unheralded glory. Instead, he was sleeping in wet byres and herding frightened peasants. The only profit in this accursed land-unless a miracle occurred and Kalvan left his paychests in Hostigos Town-was in the slave pens. Already the Harphaxi slave dealers were gathering like the birds and flies above the dead littering Ardros Field as they made their way to Hostigos Town. And none of that gold would ever weigh in his purse.
The ambush of the Hostigos Foundry had been the biggest disaster of all. Roxthar had ordered them to take it at night before the Grand Host arrived; the Holy Investigator was worried that Grand Captain-General Phidestros would reach it first and take the Hostigi gunners captives and protect them from the Investigation. The plan had been that Kynnos and Gyff were to attack the Foundry under cover of the night and take them all prisoners, whereupon Roxthar would Investigate all those involved with the Daemon Kalvan's impious arts.
Unfortunately, the Foundry had been well guarded and even better booby-trapped, for when they went to fire the outbuildings, many of them exploded or burned as if covered in pitch. Investigator Gyff had been killed while capturing the main out-building along with several Guardsmen and mercenaries. Who had expected outlanders to fight so fiercely? As the only surviving Investigator he knew the blame for this misadventure would fall upon his head.
He hadn't had a good night's sleep for almost a moon-quarter. Now his sliced arm burned so badly he couldn't sleep even were he to be cradled in Styphon's Own Hand!
Roxthar's frightened little scribe, Myros, came out of the shed, saying, "The Holy Investigator will see you now, Investigator Kynnos."
