Great Kings' War

by John F. Carr

  "I suppose not," Kalvan said, "But Soton's a consecrated Archpriest of Styphon's House and, thusly, a member of the Inner Circle. I suppose the Knights also take vows of some sort. Can they refuse obedience to Styphon's Voice?"

  "Not if Sesklos gives them a simple order to come north and wage holy war against us. But if Soton receives no such order—well, he's not only an Archpriest of Styphon's House, he's also the prince of more land than most Great Kings—Kaiphranos, for one—never mind what the law says. If those lands under the Order's suzerainty were endangered, Soton could behave like their Prince if Sesklos would let him. He may do it anyway."

  Harmakros walked over to the deerskin map hung on the wall, drew his sword and ran the point along the western borders of Hos-Bletha and Hos-Ktemnos. "Our friend Soton wears three helmets. One is Grand Master of the Holy Order of the Zarthani Knights, consecrated to defend Styphon's House from all martial enemies; another is Archpriest of Styphon's House; lastly, he's a general in the armies of Hos-Ktemnos and Hos-Bletha. The Knights are the principal weapons against the clans and tribes of the Lower and Upper Sastragath. Great Kings neither have to spend a single piece of silver to keep it, nor worry about princes winning battles and becoming ambitious.

  "If Styphon's House wants to take away that weapon and use it somewhere else, they're going to have to persuade the Great Kings of the south that it's a good idea. If the nomads are on the move, that may take a while. It may not even happen at all. Hos-Hostigos may be a headache to Hos-Ktemnos and Hos-Bletha, but a nomad invasion could be more like a kick in the guts!"

  Harmakros' explanation made sense to Kalvan, even if it probably erred on the side of optimism. No point in raising that objection now, when they knew so little about Styphon's House's plans.

  "Put Klestreus on to interrogating everybody who's ever been near the Sastragath. Talk to Colonel Verkan when he returns from Grefftscharr, and see if he would discreetly question fellow traders." They got around, and usually kept their eyes open. They kept their mouths shut, too. But gold, silver and trading privileges—or losing them—could do something about that.

  Kalvan poured himself some more wine and relaxed. The Zarthani Knights were here-and-now's 'Afrika Korps,' but they were also widely scattered and no cavalryman was much good on a half-starved horse. They couldn't begin their move north until they could cut fodder on the way; cavalry mounts couldn't maintain their strength by grazing.

  Spring was coming late in the south. It would be another month before there was any chance of bringing thousands of heavy cavalry, remounts and all their support troops north. The Sacred Squares of Hos-Ktemnos would be even harder to recruit for a blitzkrieg since they would also have to walk and be fed while they did; although their rations could be carried by wagons whose oxen could graze...

  Kalvan wasn't going to object if Dralm did decide to swallow up the Knights in Chesapeake Bay. God or no gods, it was best to be prepared for the worst, and there was a great deal that could be done along those lines right now.

  Let Harmakros buy fodder as well as rations from the Blethan merchants; five hundred well-fed horses were better than two thousand starving one. Another shop to make field carriages for artillery; the Royal Foundry would scream if it had to give up more of its trained people. But he'd see if Verkan could recruit replacements in Greffa or Zygros City. Bring a squadron of Mounted Rifles south to add to the Army of Observation; he'd been holding off on that to keep the Harphaxi from learning about rifles but they wouldn't be a secret much longer.

  Meanwhile a few points of Zarthani Knights ambushed at three times the range they were used to might encourage the others to stay...

  Kalvan refilled his wine cup and carried it with him as he went to stand beside Harmakros and Phrames at the map.

  NINE

  I

  Phidestros, Captain of the Iron Company, strode into the alley as if he were walking into his favorite tavern. Behind him Xelos imitated his captain's manner; it would be hard for them to avoid being seen sooner or later. As long as no one saw them behaving as if they didn't have a perfect right to be in this dark, smelly alley behind the Drunken Harlot their chances for success were much greater.

  Phidestros checked his pistols, then watched while Xelos did the same. They both had two horsepistols, while Phidestros also carried a sword and a pocket pistol. The smaller pistol was no good against an armored man or even an unarmored one at much more than arm's reach, but within those limits it had provided a nasty surprise to several of Phidestros' late foes on the battlefield.

  Xelos started to roll an empty barrel toward the rear door of the Drunken Harlot. Phidestros clutched the man's shoulder and shook his head emphatically. Xelos looked confused but obeyed. There was no point in explaining to Xelos again how Lamochares' men were supposed to come out; Xelos had the strength of two men but only half a man's wits and neither was going to change tonight.

  Phidestros put his ear against the rear door to listen for signs that the brief rattling of the barrel had been heard. All he could hear was the tinker shop rattle of pots and plates in the kitchen, and beyond it the rumble of the crowd in the front rooms and the occasional sound of a lyre. There was too much noise to let anyone inside hear street noises easily, and even if someone did, he would probably not be suspicious. By law, Harphax City had a curfew and a City Watch to enforce it. Although ever since mercenaries from all over the Five Kingdoms had started swarming into the City for the coming war of the Great Kings, the Watch had found it wiser to look the other way at men on the prowl after dark.

  This, thought Phidestros, was only just. The mercenaries might occasionally brawl and rape but they'd driven the common thieves and footpads of the nighttime streets to skulking in dark corners like rats—at least, that is, those who'd learned in time that mercenaries were well-armed, deadly opponents. Phidestros was about to back away from the door when he heard shouts rising above the usual crowd noises. One was unmistakably a woman's voice, shouting a stream of obscene accusations against his Banner-Captain. He didn't need to hear the actual words to know what was being said; he'd rehearsed Clynia in her part often enough.

  He'd been both impressed by Clynia's quick memory and her insistence on being given half the silver in advance, but then he hadn't been looking for a common whore when he'd found her. He'd been on the look out for someone intelligent enough to learn quickly to act like a common whore and in the meantime keep her mouth shut, without being so intelligent that she'd realize that the climate in Harphax City would soon be to hot for her continued health.

  Clynia was supposed to proposition Petty-Captain Ephentros and lead him toward the back of the tavern; meanwhile Geblon, pretending to be soused, would claim Clynia's favors for himself. When refused, he would launch an attack on Ephentros person. The whore would then scream a litany of curses against Geblon. A familiar enough tavern scene that Lamochares' soldiers would sit back to watch the fun instead of suspecting foul play. Next Geblon was to feign a fall, while Clynia told Ephentros: "Let's escape out the back way."

  At least, that's what they'd rehearsed; however, plans on—and off—the battlefield had a habit of going awry. Phidestros was taking no chances. He stepped back from the door, then moved to the left. Now anyone coming out would be illuminated by the light from the second-floor bedroom window just above the door, while Phidestros would be as invisible as one of Styphon's fireseed demons.

  A sudden explosion of howls and curses told Phidestros that someone had knocked down the torches in the front rooms. Geblon was doing double duty, picking a fight with Lamochares' men now that the slattern was gone. The dozen or so Iron Company soldiers inside the Drunken Harlot knew nothing about the plot, but would step in front of loaded pistols to protect their Banner-Captain. The fewer who know the real reason for this night's work, the less chance he and any of his men faced of meeting the Royal Executioner.

  Phidestros had too little belief in any god to ask Galzar to ask him for aid in this plot; instead he
made a Sastragathi gesture of aversion against snakebite. Two pistols went off practically together, then a third, then two more. Chairs stopped going over and started smashing as men fell over them or picked them up for use as weapons, while women screamed—the girls of the house—who hadn't expected the war to start in their own tavern.

  Now Phidestros ordered Xelos to wrestle the barrel into the middle of the alley, where it wouldn't block the door but would confuse anyone bolting into the alley. He heard no more pistol shots, but an appalling amount of every other kind of noise. It reminded Phidestros of the bear pit in the Royal Menagerie of Hos-Zygros.

  Without any warning the door flew open, crashing against the wall so hard that loose chunks of brick splashed into the mud. Five men burst out, followed by a cloud of thick smoke and the heartfelt curses of the Drunken Harlot's cook. Four of them were soldiers, two each from Lamochares' and Phidestros' companies. The fifth was Petty-Captain Ephentros, the only man fit to keep Lamochares' company together now that the Captain himself was too fever stricken to command it in the field. Phidestros would not have wasted time in prayers or thanks even if he'd known where to send them. He drew his pocket pistol and shot Ephentros through the head.

  Then Phidestros threw his hideout pistol as far as his arm could propel it, over the alley and onto a rooftop.

  In his fall, Ephentros knocked over the barrel. Between the pistol shot and the clatter of the barrel, the other four men seemed to think they'd run into a thieves' ambush. Three of them dashed madly for one end of the alley while the fourth headed in the opposite direction at a slightly more dignified pace. Halfway to the street he raised his pistol, saw Xelos trying to set the barrel upright again, and shot him in the throat. Xelos gave a horrible gurgling scream as he fell.

  The inhuman sound frightened the couple in the second-floor bedroom into putting out their light, plunging the alley into complete darkness. It also made the man who shot Xelos stop at the mouth of the alley. The faint moonlight reflecting off the man's armor told Phidestros two things: first, that he wasn't a member of the Iron Company; and second that he was a fool not to darken his armor so that it wouldn't reflect the treacherous moonlight. Phidestros fired his pistol, and was raising the other pistol when the man collapsed with a groan and lay kicking in the mud.

  Xelos was dead. He made certain of this after re-loading his pistols. He heard the thump of a bar dropping into place, the scrape of furniture against the kitchen door of the Drunken Harlot. Whoever or whatever was screaming and shooting off pistols in the alley, the people inside wanted to keep it outside.

  He quickly exchanged his still smoking pistol for the one in Xelos' belt.

  Phidestros hurried towards the south end of the alley, stopping briefly to see if the man he'd shot needed finishing off. While he wasn't completely dead yet, he was bleeding so profusely that nothing short of Styphon's Own Blessing would save him, or even let him speak before he died. Phidestros stepped out into the cobblestone street just as a party of the watch rounded the corner at a brisk trot, more than a dozen men with half-pikes as well as a few boys carrying torches.

  Phidestros holstered his remaining pistol and strode toward the approaching watchmen, half of whom kept straight on and disappeared in the direction of the Drunken Harlot's front door. His troopers in the front rooms would do what they could to prove their innocence; he would have to do most of the work, both tonight and during the next few days. The stakes were high; he could end up with the authority over Lamochares' company, a hundred and sixteen good men, less the two he'd just shot, and two guns. He could also end up facing the axe as a traitor, or the noose as a common murderer.

  At least he would not be breaking one of his iron bound rules. He would not be risking his authority over the Iron Company by wantonly expending them to advance himself. If he lost this gamble, the good will of the Iron Company toward a man under sentence of death would hardly matter all that much.

  Two torch boys and four men of the watch approached Phidestros, their hands on the hilts of their swords.

  "Greetings, Captain," he said, to the man who was obviously in charge, wearing a plate back-and-breast instead of leather jack.

  "What are you doing back here, sir?"

  Obviously the Guard Captain was aware of City politics and the practice of nobles to roam the city streets as armed soldiers. No need to unnecessarily offend one of Prince Selestros' favorites by accident.

  "Forgive me, but I'm somewhat uneasy for my men."

  "Your name?"

  "Captain Phidestros of the Iron Company."

  "Where are your men?"

  "In that tavern. I was coming to join them for a drink when I heard shots in the alleyway. I ran back to help and found one of my troopers shot in the throat behind the kitchen. The cook has barred the back door and I was through the alley to make my way to the entrance."

  "Please, give me your pistols."

  "May I keep my sword?" Phidestros asked, while handing over the pistol from his belt holster. Then he bent down to remove the one holstered in his boot.

  "Of course, you're not under arrest." Although the tone of the captain's voice indicated that might well be happening shortly, given the absence of any other suspects.

  The watch captain sniffed both of Phidestros pistols. "Well, neither of these has been fired this eve."

  Phidestros shrugged his shoulders.

  The captain looked at his with squinted eyes. "Come with us, Captain. "I want to examine those dead men."

  "What about my soldiers?"

  "They will be dealing with the laws of Hos-Harphax and the will of His Majesty, King Kaiphranos," the watch captain said. "You, follow me."

  One of Phidestros' men tripped and was promptly smacked across the face with the back of a halberd head. Phidestros clenched his fists, holding them low so the watch wouldn't see, swallowing curses, and fell in behind the watch captain.

  II

  The rabbit peered impudently from beneath the gnarled surface root of a lemon tree just downhill from Tortha Karf. Tortha could have sworn it also wiggled its ears at him.

  Tortha reached for his needler, then remembered he was unarmed except for the muzzle-loading pistol from Kalvan's Time-Line he'd brought out for target practice after lunch. It was primed and loaded and maybe he could hit the rabbit with it; on the other hand, he hadn't had much practice. If the bullet kept going, it might reach the workers in the nearest grove before it fell to the ground. Solid projectile weapons weren't like needlers or beam weapons; those solid projectiles could bounce.

  The workers would probably forgive him for accidentally shooting one of them, or maybe even doing it on purpose. They didn't think of Tortha Karf as quite a god perhaps, but certainly as the sort of hero entitled to a whim or two now and then. Considering their history, this wasn't altogether surprising. The Altides were descended from a Madagascar tribe on the Afro-Sinic Sector of the Yangtzee-Mekong Basic Sector Grouping. Tortha Karf's father had found them suffering not only from famine but also from slave raiders let loose by a civil war in China that kept the Chinese Imperial Fleet's patrol squadrons at home. Bringing them to Fifth Level Agricultural Sector as a work force for the Tortha family estate had earned their enduring, if not necessarily eternal, gratitude.

  That was all the more reason for being careful with his shooting. An early lesson for any Paracop was not to take advantage of people's hospitality, women or superstitions for his own pleasure. One seldom knew when their patience was going to run out until it was much too late. Even if you escaped the people you abused, you were apt to become careless, then some other outtimer would save the Paratime Police Bureau of Internal Control the trouble of putting you up on charges.

  Tortha Karf firmly put away both temptation and the pistol, then noticed he'd forgotten to turn off the recorded message playing on the portable recorder perched on top of the picnic basket. He played it back and listened to Verkan Vall's description of the latest crisis on Fourth Level Europo-America
n, where a number of penetrated subsectors were getting thoroughly embroiled in a war in a place called locally Viet Nam. A map showed it as part of the coastline on the southeast corner of the Major Northern Land Mass.

  "The situation in Europo-American has grown worse since our last conversation, increasing the possibility that this war could finally trigger a full scale nuclear slugfest. Even if this doesn't happen, suspicion of anything unusual will increase and internal surveillance has become much more efficient throughout these subsectors since the Second Global War. There are also authors making fortunes with stories of aliens from space dropping in unannounced, making abductions and spying on the world. All we need is for the KGB or the CIA or the Vatican to start taking them seriously. Our dis-information program has been a great success to date, but increasing technological development in the areas of communications and electronics may hamper our present operations and force us to curtail future commercial operations.

  "The odds definitely favor our having to pull out of other Fourth Level Europo-American, Hispano-Colombian Subsectors as well. The commercial interests that opposed you twenty years ago are going to make an even bigger stink now, so I'm not going to rush into things. I'm going to recommend that the Paratime Commission appoint a study group to analyze the whole Europo-American Sector, with representatives from everybody who thinks they have something useful to say.

  "That will make it a committee much to big to do anything except talk, of course. However, nobody will be able to claim he didn't get a chance to be heard. Also, if we keep an eye on them, we may learn who are the real idiots and who, or who cannot, be trusted. I'm going to give Dalla the main responsibility for watching the Europo-American Study Group. I'm afraid that means she and I won't be going outtime this year, but she sees why."