Great Kings' War

by John F. Carr

  "We'll be wanting the Foundry workers to dig trenches and gun positions, proof against cavalry. We'll also be using the new warehouse to store supplies. No fireseed, naturally, so you'll be able to go right on working."

  She thought it was polite and politic of Kalvan to act as if he were soliciting their cooperation, as though they were in charge of the Foundry, when in fact its status as the Royal Foundry made it quite clear who was in command. True, their credentials were as foundry 'contract' workers from Zygros City and Grefftscharr. Still, Kalvan didn't have to worry about any of them packing up and leaving for home—not with an army of Styphon's fanatical soldiers some thirty thousand strong out there!

  "In fact," Kalvan continued, "I expect you'll be able to go right on working through the entire battle. We don't intend to let Styphon's Unwholesome Host reach the second line or anywhere near it. However, even Great Kings' intentions do not bind the gods. We will have to prepare for the worst and work for the best.

  "Colonel Verkan of the Mounted Rifles has very kindly offered one of his best officers, Captain Ranthar, to command the defenses of the Foundry. He will choose positions for the trenches, train workers in arms and take command if it does come to a fight.

  "I'm trusting the loyalty you've all shown so far to continue until Styphon's wolves are driven from the land."

  "Down Styphon!" a foundry worker cried. The workers all repeated the cry, then someone—it sounded like Eldra—shouted, "Long Live King Kalvan!"

  It started up another round of cheers from the Foundry workers; the Team Members joined in, not wanting to be conspicuous; although Sirna could see that several of them—particularly Varnath Lala and Lathor Karv—were having problems making the proper cheering noises and their faces looked as if they were chewing bitter lemons. A good thing the Hostigi workers weren't paying attention to anything but their gods'-anointed Great King. Still, not even Allfather Dralm could help them, if Kalvan saw those faces—being accused of treason would be the least of the Team's problems. And nothing Kalvan would do to them would compare, later, to what Paratime Chief Verkan Vall would do!

  Kalvan acknowledged the cheers with a half salute, half wave, then Colonel Verkan helped him remount. A moment later the royal party was riding back the way they'd come, except for Captain Ranthar and his groom, who stood holding the reins of two horses with one hand and roll of parchment under the other arm.

  Ranthar dismissed his groom, directing him to the stables, then turned to the assembled Study Team members. "The first thing to do is find a room where we won't be overheard—"

  Talgan Dreth, the Outtime Studies Director and Team Leader, interrupted him. "The first thing you can do is explain by what authority—oh," he broke off suddenly when he saw the hand signals "Captain" Ranthar was making.

  Eldra laughed out loud at the older man's embarrassment, and even Sirna couldn't help smiling. The Director took himself so seriously, even though it wasn't particularly funny that the Kalvan Study Teams were now under the watchful eye of one of Chief Verkan's most trusted—say observers, to be polite. Talgan must have thought he was an outtimer appointed by Kalvan! For the Director's peace of mind and the state of his health, it was a good thing that Captain Ranthar was undercover Paratime Police...

  Sirna wondered how long Ranthar Jard had been Captain Ranthar on Kalvan's Time-Line. Some time, obviously, or he wouldn't be an officer in the Mounted Rifles. That was most likely a clue about what he'd been brought here to do—or prevent, but she couldn't be sure which.

  She began to think that perhaps she should have insisted a little harder with Hadron Tharn that she wasn't the stuff of which good spies are made.

  II

  A moon-quarter after the meeting at the Royal Foundry, word reached Hostigos Town that the Holy Host was on the march again. Kalvan's General Staff held its Council of War at Prince Sarrask's temporary residence, an inn called the Silver Stag. The improvised council chamber, if not regal, at least had enough benches, as well as a table that if not exactly groaning was at least muttering darkly to itself under the weight of food and drink piled upon it. Sarrask, it appeared, was determined to be a gracious host to the end, if this was the end—and Verkan Vall was unpleasantly aware that it might be.

  Not just for the Hostigi and Kalvan, either. This was the kind of situation that had killed many a Paratimer—a fast-moving battle that could go either way on very short notice. The only sure way to be safe was to leave so soon you'd obviously be deserting your friends. If they won, you'd lose all chance of working with them again, apart from the risk of being executed for treason or desertion. If they lost, you still might not be able to deal with the victors—and you'd have to live with yourself whether you could or not.

  All this was true even if you hadn't developed any deep loyalties to your outtime comrades. That happened more often than the Paratime Commission like to admit; in fact, it most often happened to the best outtime operatives—one reason why Verkan Vall had been Tortha Karf's third choice to succeed him. It was small consolation to Verkan that at least he'd never assumed he was immune to Outtime Identification Syndrome (as the Bureau of Psychological Hygiene's jargon called it) so he hadn't been surprised when he realized that his body might very well be one of those picked up after Kalvan's Last Stand.

  Prince Sarrask was the only member of the Council present when Verkan arrived. He was seated at the far end, munching his way through a large plate heaped with sausages; it appeared he was well on his way to gaining back most of the weight he'd lost on the road back from Tenabra.

  Sarrask waved Verkan to a chair, finished a sausage, then grinned. "I saw one of your new girls at the Foundry giving me the eye the other day," Sarrask said. "You know, the tall redhead with the big nose and the big—" His hands out outlined in the air two of Danar Sirna's most prominent features.

  Verkan tried hard not to laugh. "I have to warn you, Your Grace, that Sirna is the daughter of a blood-brother of my father. So she must be considered under my protection."

  Sarrask chuckled. "Under your—protection? Whatever would your wife Dalla say about you protecting Sirna?"

  "She'd say Sarrask of Sask talks too much," Kalvan said, sticking his head into the room.

  Sarrask grunted like a boar stuck in a bog, then shrugged. "She'd probably be right, too. Dralm-blast it! I apologize, Colonel Verkan."

  "Accepted," Verkan said with a bow. Sarrask wouldn't be a problem after Kalvan's public reprimand, but it struck him that as the University Teams' strength increased, the Prince might not be the only man with an eye for their unattached females. Suggest to Kalvan that the Foundry be formally declared part of the Royal Household? That would solve the legal requirements, at least, and Rylla could probably help. In the long run, it would also set useful precedents for when—call it "international trade"—really began again in Kalvan's Time-Line after half a millennium of strangulation by Styphon's House.

  That was as far as Verkan's thoughts took him before the rest of the Council started arriving. By the time everyone had arrived, it was the largest and most rank-heavy Council of War Verkan had ever attended in Kalvan's Time-Line, and was in the running for the prize in all the time-lines where he'd attended Councils of War.

  There was Kalvan himself, four Princes (Ptosphes, Sarrask, Armanes and Balthames), six Generals (Chartiphon, Harmakros, Phrames, Klestreus, Hestophes and Alkides the artilleryman), the Ulthori Count Euphrades and at least a dozen noble and mercenary captains whom Verkan knew only by sight and name; First Level recall didn't help with information you didn't have!

  It occurred to Verkan that if the Silver Stag collapsed, the rest of the Holy Host's campaign would probably be recorded as "mopping-up operations."

  It also struck him that the Council was much too large to do more than give everyone a chance to be heard, whether they had anything to say or not beyond praise for Kalvan's victory and sympathy for Ptosphes' bad luck. Kalvan had almost certainly arranged for a smaller meeting to do the real busine
ss, either before or after this huge, unwieldy Council of War.

  The Council ran on until all the food was gone and everybody had said his piece—or sometimes several of them. It also managed to hammer out a surprisingly complete strategy, and Verkan realized that perhaps he'd underestimated the hold Kalvan had over these people, particularly after his victory at Chothros Heights. That, it appeared, had been such a victory as no Great Kingdom had won over another in two centuries—since about the time Styphon's House really started clamping down on wars that threatened to create large and dangerous independent political units.

  It also helped that the military situation was so simple that a nine-year-old child could probably have planned the campaign. Hostigos Town was something the Holy Host had to take and the Hostigi had to defend.

  The Holy Host could not even stay where it had been camped much longer without sending larger and larger foraging parties farther a field. Long before Hostigos was eaten bare, the Hostigi could march on the weakened main body and force it to fight against odds, then cut off the foraging parties at their leisure.

  After a while it became clear to Verkan that there weren't going to be any disagreements where his voice had to be heard, or even suggestions he needed to make about the best use of the Mounted Rifles. So he studied his fellow commanders.

  Ptosphes: a man who looked as if he were being eaten alive by the shame of defeat. Sarrask: loud and lewd, but who seemed to be finding something in himself that hadn't been there before he had a leader worth following. The men Verkan had begun to call (after one of Dalla's favorite Fourth Level, Europo-American novels) "The Three Musketeers"—Harmakros, Phrames and Hestophes. Chartiphon: big and bluff, and not quite up to the demands of the new kind of war that would be fought in Kalvan's Time-Line from now on, but useful within his limits and probably wise enough to know what they were.

  Balthames of Sashta, looking daggers at his father-in-law Sarrask every time he thought he was unobserved—a prime candidate for a dose of hypno-truth drug. Alkides, who looked almost as grim as Ptosphes, after being ordered to blow up much of the captured Harphaxi artillery train at Chothros Heights—which to an artilleryman must have been like losing an adopted child. Verkan decided to keep a particularly close eye on Alkides, since he could be the key to victory in a battle where Kalvan's artillery superiority might mean everything.

  Count Euphrades of Ulthor, thin and remote, with obvious plans of his own he was telling no one—another prime candidate for hypno-truth drugs. And three or four others who might prove as interesting as Euphrades once Verkan knew something about them.

  A good company, not quite a "band of brothers" yet (and they were much rarer in fact than in fiction or hagiographical history, Verkan knew), but formidable enemies and fine friends.

  Too fine to abandon, if it came to that. Verkan knew he wasn't going to deliberately put himself in a position where he had to go down with Kalvan. On the other hand, if he found himself in that position with no way out that let him keep a clear conscience—well, this time he was glad that Dalla was back on First Level. She wasn't Rylla, who would try not to outlive Kalvan by more than five minutes if she could help it, but she would have some hard decisions to make that he was just as glad she didn't have to face now.

  TWENTY-ONE

  I

  Grand-Captain Phidestros looked at the eastern sky turning pale. In another few minutes it would be light enough for his men to see him. He stood up and walked back and forth beside Snowdrift, stopping now and then to rub his knee. It had healed enough so that he could fight on foot today, even in three-quarter armor if he had to.

  Snowdrift whickered and nuzzled at Phidestros' belt pouch. "Very well, you godsforsaken brat unworthy of either dam or sire." He reached into the pouch and pulled out a half-slab of ration bread. Snowdrift whickered again and munched vigorously, while he scratched the big gelding up and down his neck the way he liked it. He hoped Snowdrift was fit to carry him through what would surely be a long and wearing battle, but hoping was all he could do.

  He'd done all any man could do to make sure that his men and their mounts were properly fed after the ride from the Harph to join the Holy Host, but that "all" had not been much. He supposed he should have expected that Grand Master Soton, commander of the Host, would be pushing forward hard on the heels of the Hostigi, and that any company of horse that had held together in a moon-quarter and-a-half's ride across unknown country was worth having well up toward the front. Certainly both proved that Soton knew his business, and being toward the front had given the Iron Company several chances to fight under the Grand Master's own eye. Praise Galzar that that would make up for the wear on the horses and weapons!

  It was most likely the major reason why he was now a Grand-Captain, commanding a band—the Iron Band—the three hundred survivors of those who'd crossed the Harph and the remnants of several other companies following the Holy Host. One had joined his banner on the ride north; the One-Eyed Boar Company whose Captain had lost a leg when his horse rolled while navigating the Vynar Pass. The others had joined a moon-quarter ago when Soton raised him to his present rank.

  "Grand-Captain Phidestros." It had an agreeable ring to it, but the meeting with the Grand Master had hardly been all sweetness and light. Darkness had long fallen, the candles on the table between them burned almost to stubs, the hard planes and angles of Soton's face still harsher in the orange-red light, his voice rasping like a file with weariness and anger as he questioned Phidestros.

  "Do you think yourself fit to lead a band?"

  "Yes. That is, if they are horse and not too untrained or badly mounted." Something that was the truth and would also sound well, the best combination. "I would grieve to abandon the Iron Company on the eve of victory, though. We have endured much together and know each other's ways. The One-Eyed Boar Company is also proving itself to be good comrades in battle and in camp."

  "You would not be giving up either company. You would be leading three more under-strength companies, the Silver Wolf Company, the Thirteen Moons Company and the Bloody Sabers. They meet your conditions, I believe."

  "I am honored by your confidence, Grand Master, and by theirs—if they have asked me to lead them. However, I know little about these companies or their commanders, other that they are under the command of Prince Balthar."

  "Were. They are three of the companies formerly in the service of Balthar of Beshta."

  Phidestros was too tired to think of any subtle response, but anything was better than gape-jawed silence. "Am I to believe that the Massacre of Tarr-Catassa actually happened?"

  "You thought it was a camp rumor?"

  "I had no reason to think otherwise. Stranger tales have crawled out of barrels of bad ale and the terrors of men far from home."

  "Well, you may rest easy," Soton said in a flat voice. "It is no rumor that Prince Balthar's castellan of Tarr-Catassa killed a hundred and twenty-five free companions who would not swear to join the Holy Host in the service of Balthar of Beshta—or Balthar the Black as he is called now after his treason at Tenabra." For the first time, distaste registered in the Grand Master's voice. "Their women were given to the Beshtans, then killed also."

  Soton spit on the ground. "Styphon's gold bought his treachery, but I will not ride beside Balthar even though he turned traitor to a Usurper and enemy of the God of Gods."

  Phidestros nodded in agreement: By the laws governing the employment of mercenary free companies and the Code of Galzar, when an employer changed sides during a war or battle, their oath to him was still binding until he released them or their term of service expired. A wise Prince usually released doubtful mercenaries as quickly as possible, since a thousand reliable men were worth two thousand who might surrender on the slightest pretext.

  Soton explained, "If the mercenaries of Tarr-Catassa had sworn to serve under Balthar of Beshta 'against all enemies, in field or fortress, wheresoever he may find them,' then they would have been violating their oaths to Pri
nce Balthar. As it was, they were a company sworn in only as the garrison of an isolated tarr. They could not have been a very good company, but nonetheless they had been slaughtered for refusing to do something their Prince's castellan had no right to ask of them.

  "It's hardly surprising that Balthar's name now reeks to the Sky Thrones of the Gods. The six companies who placed themselves in his pay before he joined the Holy Host do not wish to be released from their oaths, however, or to leave our ranks."

  That means one of two things, thought Phidestros, either they believe that Kalvan will lose the war against Hos-Harphax—well, really, Styphon's House—or they'd had no real choice. Not a safe bag of talk to open with the Grand Master.

  "Three of these Companies no longer wish to serve under Balthar's banner, his Captain-General or their own elected captains. They say all are too friendly with Prince Balthar. At the end of this campaign, once word of their action reaches the High Temple of Galzar in Hos-Agrys, both Balthar and his castellan—who was in his pay—will be placed under the Ban of Galzar."

  The Ban of Galzar meant that no free companion of the Brotherhood could swear an oath to Prince Balthar, under threat of expulsion. Thus, the only men Balthar would be able to command would be his own sworn vassals, outcasts and criminals. The only thing worse than the Ban of Galzar was the Interdict, where no man, vassal or not, could fight for a war leader and still receive the Rites of Galzar.

  Had Balthar ordered the slaughter himself he might well have faced the Interdict, but no sane man—even a Prince of Princes or Great King—would so risk offending the Wargod or his priests. Only a madman would knowingly commit such an offense against Galzar; and while Balthar exhibited many characteristics of such—including fears of bathing and the outdoors—he appeared to be at worst a miser and skinflint.