Great King_s war k-2

by Roland Green

  However, even Styphon's new fireseed was inferior to the Hostigi formula by about a fifth of the explosive force. Kalvan's fireseed had a finer grain and more punch.

  This piece of bureaucracy-in-action was the only intelligence sent so far by Verkan's on-the-ground agent with the Holy Host, a Paratime Policeman posing as an underpriest of Styphon, who'd finally come north with the reinforcements and supplies as part of what could laughingly be called the medical corps. Verkan had hoped for more intelligence before the battle, but even getting this little bit proved his man was alive, on the job and might provide more later.

  It also wasn't going to hurt that many of Kalvan's men were fighting on ground they knew well, with their backs to the wall and no illusions about what would happen to their homes if they lost. The Holy Host had only committed the normal run of here-and-now atrocities on its way north. If Kalvan lost the Battle of Phyrax, this would change and probably very much for the worse.

  Ptosphes' men had a score to settle with the Holy Host. Kalvan's veterans of the Army of the Harph had a tradition of victory a whole moon long to maintain; they too would take a lot of killing.

  In fact, "a lot of killing" seemed to be the best description of the coming battle that Verkan could think of.

  Meanwhile, Kalvan's ordering him back to Tarr-Hostigos gave him a chance to pay a visit to the University people at the Foundry. They were dug in about as well as could be expected with the labor and leadership available; Ranthar Jard couldn't be in two places at once. Talgan Dreth was grumbling a lot, but at least the Outtime Studies Director was cooperating to the extent of keeping some of his people from openly obstructing the work of fortification and cooperation with Brother Mytron's University refugees. Verkan had Scholar Varnath Lala mentally tagged as the leader of that faction, who appeared to have the delusion that if they maintained some sort of "neutrality," they could continue their work under the new management that would take over Hostigos if Kalvan lost.

  Verkan seriously doubted that Archpriest Roxthar, who had accompanied the Holy Host but so far had been kept on a tight rein by Soton, would agree.

  At the top of the stairs Verkan stopped and cleared his throat. There was no one on duty outside the royal apartments; the last sentry post was at the foot of this flight of stairs. He could hear the low murmur of voices through the thick door, but he knew that etiquette allowed him to knock only in an emergency, like the Holy Host storming the gates of the castles.

  The door swung open so quietly that Kalvan was coming out before Verkan could step back to a proper place. For a moment he had a clear view into the chamber beyond, a view of something he was quite sure he hadn't been meant to see-Ptosphes kneeling on the floor in front of Rylla, with head on her lap as she stroked his tangled gray hair. Then Kalvan was past and swinging the door shut behind him, heading down the stairs without a word to Verkan.

  Verkan saw in Kalvan's set face and slightly sagging shoulders a man who was suddenly feeling the full weight of being monarch and commander and husband who might lose his wife within a few days all at once. Verkan had planned to ask Kalvan how much palace duty he'd planned for him; royal aide was an honorable post but obviously an impossible one for him, and he'd rehearsed a set of arguments against the honor that sounded good-even to him.

  Rather, they had sounded good. Now, if Kalvan needed a friend-make that when Kalvan needed a friend-at his back for a few days, Verkan wouldn't make any arguments against taking the job for at least that long. It didn't seem very likely that anyone would have the time to be jealous of an outlander's friendship with the Great King.

  Verkan hurried down the dark stone stairs. He reached the bottom close enough to Kalvan to hear him talking with young Aspasthar, the new page who'd come into royal service from Count Harmakros.

  "-says the horses are ready, Your Majesty. And a messenger came who requests word with the Great King."

  "A messenger from whom, Aspasthar? You should always tell me who sent a messenger if he tells you himself. Also tell me if he doesn't."

  "Yes, my-Your Majesty. It's a messenger from General Chartiphon at Phyrax Field."

  Verkan saw Kalvan's grim smile. "I can guess what it says. Soton's scouts must be in sight. Thank you Aspasthar. Tell the scout to wait for me at the stables."

  "Yes, Your Majesty." Aspasthar appeared to be waiting for a word of dismissal, until Kalvan gently took him by the shoulder and turned him around. "When the Great King says gives you an order, you are dismissed."

  Aspasthar was too flustered to reply, and scurried off so fast he nearly stumbled. Kalvan laughed softly. "Harmakros was a little too kind with the boy's training, but he's bright. He'll learn."

  "Now, Colonel. I only called you back to Tarr-Hostigos because I wanted somebody to ride up with me who'll make better conversation than Major Nicomoth. He's not stupid, but today he'll have half his mind on whether he'll get to ride in another cavalry charge. However, if you think the Mounted Rifles will need you at once…"

  "If I'd thought that, Your Majesty, I would have sent a messenger. I'll gladly ride with you. I won't insult your army by expecting it to fall apart before we can get there or indeed at-"

  The change on Kalvan's face warned Verkan to silence as Ptosphes stepped out of the doorway, buckling on his sword. He wore all his armor except his helmet and his gauntlets; the latter hung from his belt, and on his hands were new riding gloves with his device of crossed halberds on the back. Ptosphes' face was red from the exertion of chasing down the stairs and he appeared to be having trouble catching his breath.

  Ptosphes took a couple of deep breaths, then snarled, "Your Majesty, Colonel Verkan. Shall we go and kill some of Styphon's whelps?"

  From the look on Ptosphes' face, Verkan only hoped it was Styphon's dogs that the First Prince of Hos-Hostigos intended to kill. Ptosphes commanded the left wing of horse, a choice forced upon Kalvan. There was no telling what Ptosphes might have done in his present condition if he hadn't been given a rank and post in the coming battle appropriate to his rank and title, as First Prince of Hos-Hostigos. Verkan was sure that Kalvan would rather have had someone else holding the crucial left wing-Harmakros, commanding the reserves, or Count Phrames, second in command of the right wing under Kalvan.

  Ptosphes' mental state was going to be almost as much a factor in this battle as the morale of Kalvan's troops.

  IV

  Sirna saw another horse-drawn cart with big wooden wheels pull up and cursed to herself at the need to organize another work party to unload it. Then she saw Brother Mytron himself sitting beside the driver. She leaped down the embankment in front of the trench, hiked her skirts above her boots, and ran over to the cart.

  "Brother Mytron! Are matters well?"

  "I think we lack the necessary time for discussing the basic nature of the universe," Mytron said with a grin. "On a more material plane, I was the last man out of the University. It seemed to me that something important must have been overlooked and sure enough it had." He pointed to the canvas-wrapped bundles in the back of the cart, and Sirna saw the glint of metal mesh in the corner of one. Her heart skipped a few beats until she realized that this mesh was much cruder than the mesh of a Paratime transposition conveyor dome.

  "What is it?" Mytron asked, pulling back his cowl. "Lady Sirna, you look as if you'd just spotted one of Styphon's demons!"

  "No. Just worried about the real Styphoni devils in human guise only a few marches away."

  "Verily," Mytron said, making a circle around the blue star over his chest.

  Sirna pointed to the canvas bundles and asked, "What are they?"

  "Two of the wire screens for the papermaking. I don't know how anyone came to overlook them. But there they were in one corner, all ready to be carted away and melted down by the Holy Host as demonical. We loaded them in the cart and were just turning around when we saw Nostori cavalry coming back in a rush. I decided they must know something we didn't and had the driver whip up the horses."


  "Dralm and Tranth bless you for that, Brother." Sirna cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted. "Urig! Bring three men out here. Another cart to unload."

  While Urig was rounding up his work gang, Sirna told Mytron that the other refugees from the University were safely bedded down in an empty storeroom. Then she asked about the battle.

  "It hadn't started yet when I passed through our army. They were all drawn up, with King Kalvan and Count Phrames on the right, Prince Ptosphes on the left and more guns than I've ever seen in the center. I heard that Kalvan has plans for those guns and that Captain-General Chartiphon, with help from General Alkides, will command the center. I'm afraid I have no idea what the Great King's plans are-the gods didn't make me a man of war. I'm honest enough to be grateful that I'll be spending the next few days watching over Queen Rylla."

  "Is her time near?"

  "The chief midwife says so, and who am I to argue with a woman of fifty winters at that art? She also says the baby is coming early, which is not so good."

  Sirna whistled. That could be a real problem with no creche wombs or even an incubator. No wonder that contraceptive implants for women were a necessity for outtime University work.

  "Will the baby be all right?"

  "The chief midwife appears to believe so."

  "But would she dare say otherwise about the Great Queen and her child?"

  Brother Mytron looked perplexed. Shrugged his shoulders and said, "Amasphalya would not have it otherwise! She would speak her mind to the Red Hand if they were to accost her."

  Sirna laughed; this Amasphalya sounded like a real harridan-maybe Rylla had finally met her match. She hoped the old dragon was as good as Mytron believed. She couldn't even imagine the pain of having a child die in childbirth; maybe that was why Sirna had never considered a live birth even when her husband pressed for it-they were all the rage ten years ago among the University elite.

  "Hey!" a voice shouted from beyond the cart. "Either move that Dralm-blasted cart on or bring it over here and join the circle."

  A mounted man was riding across the field toward the wagon, waving a cattle whip. "The Great King gave orders to-oh, your pardon, Brother Mytron!" he finished in an entirely different voice.

  Sirna swallowed a laugh. Brother Mytron grinned. "In fact, after I get a horse from the stable, I'm on my way to Tarr-Hostigos to see the Queen."

  "May the true gods give Her Majesty a safe birthing and an heir for the Great Kingdom," the trooper said. Then he turned his horse and rode back toward the huge circle of wagons, carts and baggage that penned in all the refugees' cattle. They were no longer bellowing as loudly as they had at dawn, but as it grew hotter an unmistakable smell was creeping across to the Foundry. Next year some Hostigi farmer was going to have at least one field very well fertilized.

  "Add your prayers to his," Mytron said softly. "Much of the luck of Hostigos rides with our Rylla, may the Allfather keep her safe."

  Sirna swallowed a sudden lump in her throat, then nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She cleared her throat and turned to meet Urig and his men. "Take these bundles from the cart into the driest corner of the new storehouse and wrap them well."

  Urig looked dubiously at the wire mesh. "Is it-that a weapon?"

  "It is something that the Great King thinks may become a weapon in time, but only against his enemies and the enemies of the True Gods."

  Urig nodded, with an if-you-say-so-Mistress expression on his face, then started shouting to his work party.

  That was only partly true, Sirna realized, or at least only partly true in the short run. If Kalvan succeeded in inventing paper and following it up with printing, the processes wouldn't remain secrets for long. Styphon's House could print its propaganda just as enthusiastically as its enemies. In the long run, though, Kalvan was working toward mass literacy and mass education, which were the most potent enemies of superstition and ignorance-and they were his worst enemies.

  While the cart was being emptied, Mytron left on a small horse, waving farewell. Sirna made a Grefftscharri gesture of aversion. She didn't know whom she was trying to save from bad luck, but there seemed to be a lot of it going around, rather like fleas…

  "You made that gesture as if you believed it," said a voice behind her.

  Sirna whirled, ready to shove Lathor Karv into the nearest trench if he were mocking her tolerance toward the Zarthani. Instead she saw Aranth Saln, and she couldn't find anything to say to the expression on the Scholar's face.

  In any case, before she could have said two words, they both heard a distant dull thudding off in the heat haze toward the southwest.

  "Cannon," Aranth said. "That means the main armies are engaged, not just the skirmishers."

  TWENTY-TWO

  From the top of a small rise at the rear of the right wing, Kalvan could see that the entire center of both the Holy Host and the Hostigos army were lost in a steadily swelling cloud of white smoke. Kalvan was surprised by the number of guns the Styphoni had managed to haul up, almost equal to the Hostigi in numbers although decidedly inferior in rate of fire. Soton clearly learned fast.

  Periodically the noise of the big guns rose as one side or the other fired a ragged salvo. It reminded Kalvan of scrap iron being dumped on a concrete floor.

  Captain-General Chartiphon commanded the center, almost twenty thousand infantry with the recent Ulthori and Zygrosi reinforcements-men anxious for gold and glory. General Alkides was in command of the Hostigi artillery and Kalvan mentally wrote him down for the Battle of Phyrax Honors List, if there was one. Alkides had done everything but haul bombards on his shoulders to assemble the Hostigi artillery and the Great Battery in particular. He had thirty guns in the Great Battery, his own three eighteen-pounders, four sixteen-pounders, assorted field pieces with defective carriages and a miscellany of heavy older pieces, mostly bombards, collected from every fortress within dragging distance of Hostigos Town.

  Behind the Great Battery the Hos-Hostigos regular infantry were drawn up, with the Royal Army anchoring the right and the surviving veterans of Old Hostigos holding the left. The center was composed of the veterans of the Heights of Chothros, while four thousand mercenary Ktethroni pikemen from a distant Hos-Zygrosi Princedom held the rear.

  The Ktethroni were a tangible sign of support from King Sopharar; Kalvan only hoped they were as good as advertised. They generally reminded him of the early Swiss pike squares and appeared to know their business. However, pike squares were vulnerable to well-handled artillery and, in any case, he wasn't about to commit untested soldiers too soon in the most important battle of his life.

  If he lost this battle, his allies would melt away; there wouldn't be enough Hostigi manpower left to raise two companies. That is, if the Styphoni didn't raze every building in Hostigos to the ground and sow the earth with salt, as the Romans had done to Carthage.

  So far it was a case of "things could be better, but then again they could be worse." Prince Ptosphes, in command of the Army of the Besh on the left, had on his initiative led his cavalry out against the right wing of the Holy Host under Grand Master Soton. Kalvan was sure that Ptosphes had been drawn out by insults from the Zarthani Knights; it was a disquieting demonstration of Ptosphes' shaken state of mind that he'd attacked without orders from Kalvan.

  The Knights quickly broke Ptosphes' precipitous charge, and he was only saved from disaster by the veteran infantry of Old Hostigos, who'd quickly reformed their pike line along the left flank. They pinned the Zarthani Knights long enough for Harmakros to bring up the cavalry of the Army of Observation from the reserve. Suddenly facing the fire of fifteen hundred dragoon musketeers, Soton had retired quickly-but in good order. The major casualty of this action was the morale of the Army of the Besh and Prince Ptosphes, both suffering from a massive inferiority complex. Kalvan was either going to have to bolster their confidence or relieve Ptosphes of his command, something he did not want to do unless he had absolutely no other choice.

  T
his artillery duel couldn't go on much longer; one side or the other was going to have to commit itself. It looked as if it was going to be up to him; either that, or wait for the Holy Host to run out of rations. He didn't know how long that would take, and in any case they might forage until Hostigos looked like Georgia after Sherman's march to the sea. Lord High Marshall Mnephilos wasn't about to march his Sacred Square up to the Great Battery, nor was Soton about to charge with his Knights through the Grove of the Badger King, where Hestophes and Harmakros' pet Sastragathi were holding back the Knights' auxiliary horse-archers.

  General Hestophes had been wounded, but not before he'd smashed one attack by mercenaries and a second by horse-archers. His people were now digging in around the Grove of the Badger King. Its name might be seen as a good omen, while its trees would keep the heavy cavalry out of their hair. Hestophes' last message before he was surrounded was that he could hold out as long as he had fireseed and arrows, and that fortunately Soton's auxiliaries were being generous with the latter even if they were proving stingy with Styphon's Best.

  Kalvan's remaining problem was tactical. Unfortunately, history was short on examples of pike armies against bills. The bill had been an English national weapon during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, but they hadn't fought many major Continental battles during the Sixteenth Century. The only major pike vs. bill engagement he could recall was the Battle of Flodden Field, where the French-armed Scots knights under James IV were shorn of their nobility by the English bills.

  Pikemen were most effective against other pole-armed infantry when moving forward in formation. Once they were halted, they could be chopped up far too easily by the shorter and more maneuverable bills. Thus at Flodden, the Scots took the initiative: King James, and the cream of the Scottish nobility, led fifteen thousand men downhill in a charge against the Earl of Surrey's dismounted men-at-arms and seven thousand Yorkshire billmen. The shock of impact drove the English downhill several hundred yards, but they held their formation and took a terrible toll of the front ranks of pikes. At close quarters, the Scottish pikes and swords were overcome by the heavier English bills. When the battle ended, King James and ten thousand of his subjects lay dead on the field.