Great Kings' War (38 page)

"Not in any way that I can discern, Highpriest Tharses."

Tharses smiled, a grim tight-lipped smile. "Nor I, Your Majesty. Therefore, it is my Judgment, as Highpriest of Galzar of all Hos-Hostigos and the army of Hos-Hostigos, that the former Harphaxi mercenaries are not under the command of the Holy Host and are free to fight under Hostigi colors—Galzar's Judgment."

Phrames looked like someone who'd just seen a rabbit pulled out of a hat for the first time.

Kalvan returned the Uncle Wolf's smile with one of his own. "Thank you for your judgment, Highpriest Tharses. I will thank Galzar at the next shrine. You may return to your duties."

With that pronouncement from Tharses, the Army of the Harph has just replaced most of its casualties, and then some. Now, the next crisis: what to do with the thousands of regular Harphaxi prisoners?

He decided to carry out his original plan of releasing most of the disarmed Harphaxi prisoners tomorrow, after the Hostigi had brought up supplies, tended their wounded and policed up the battlefield. Right now it was littered with discarded weapons, which might tempt a disarmed Harphaxi soldier to rearm himself and make trouble—if not for the Hostigi at least for his own people. Phrames was right; there was no point in making the lot of the losing civilians any more miserable than it was already.

Kalvan sat on his horse as his soldiers bound their prisoners. Even allowing for their bedraggled condition, these regulars were like too many of the Harphaxi troops Kalvan had seen this day: "...discarded unjust serving-men, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters and ostlers trade fall'n; the cankers of a calm world and a long peace; ten times more dishonorable ragged than an old-faced ancient" There'd been plenty of those all right, as well as a few boys not much older than Harmakros' son. Like Falstaff before them, the Harphaxi captains could say: "If I be not ashamed of my soldiers I am a soused gurnet. I have misused the king's press damnably"—not to mention losing their Great King a battle.

Kalvan didn't recall what a gurnet was, but he certainly recalled seeing some of the Harphaxi captains properly soused. Not just the captains, either; he'd helped round up about a hundred mercenaries who'd found a wagon load of beer and drunk until they could barely stand, let alone fight.

That was one of the few times Kalvan had to restrain his men from killing prisoners—when they discovered the beer was all gone!

It took Kalvan nearly an hour to grope his way through the aftermath of the battle to Army HQ. By the time he saw its campfires in the distance, he knew that either he was getting a second wind or he was too tired to sleep. Just as well—it never hurt royal dignity to stay awake until your generals had finished reporting.

Headquarters proper had been moved into the cellar of a Tudor-style manor house, once a fine, fortified dwelling—now little more than a ruin above ground. It stood in a patch of second-growth timber, and so many Hostigi had pitched tents and lit campfires in and around the trees that Kalvan had to dismount and lead his horse the last hundred yards for fear of treading on a sleeping soldier.

Kalvan groped his way down the dark stairs to the torch lit War Room and was pulling off his gloves when he noticed a pile of bloodstained bandages on the corner of the map table, and under it a pair of boots that had obviously been cut off someone's feet. A policeman's instinct for something being wrong, as well as a soldier's, had him uneasy before he saw the faces of the men in the room. The generals were all there except Hestophes, which was strange in itself considering how badly they must need sleep, and—

"What's wrong?"

Everybody looked at everyone else, waiting for someone to speak out. About the time the silence was beginning to grow uncomfortable, Count Phrames stepped forward. "We've just received a dispatch from the Army of the Besh."

Kalvan took a close look at the grim faces surrounding him and sat down upon an upended barrel.

"It's from Prince Ptosphes."

Kalvan sighed.
Praise Dralm!
he thought. At least he wouldn't have to tell his wife her father was dead or mortally wounded. Phrames looked as shaken as if were about to face a band of Styphon's Red Hand by himself. "Out with it, man!" Kalvan said, much louder than he'd intended.

"The messenger told us that Ptosphes lost a big battle to the Styphoni at Tenabra!" Now that it was finally out in the open, Phrames looked as if he'd just cast off a hundred-pound sack.

"It was no shame to the Prince," Harmakros said hastily.

"Of course not," Kalvan replied, moving his hand through the air as if to push the words away."

"It was treachery most foul," Harmakros continued. "Balthar the Black of Beshta broke out of our left flank and Soton saw the gap." Then they were all trying to talk at once, until Kalvan had to shout for silence. They looked at him with widened eyes, and he realized for the first time that his royal anger had the power to reduce these tough generals and noblemen to guilty schoolboys. It wasn't a pleasant feeling, still less so on top of Phrames' bad news.

"I think one of us should speak for all," Prince Armanes said. He had a bloody bandage around his right ear, and the hair of that temple had been roughly hacked off. "I will yield that honor to General Harmakros."

Kalvan threw the Prince a grateful look for his tact and nodded to Harmakros. 
 

"As the Uncle Wolf told it, Balthar's treachery left a gap in our left flank when his Army turned and ran from the battlefield. The cowards flew as if their horses had wings. The first troops Grand Master Soton sent through were his mercenary cavalry, but they held it open while he brought up the Knights. When the Zarthani Knights attacked, our left disintegrated. Meanwhile, Chartiphon and Sarrask of Sask drove back the Styphoni left wing under Lord High Marshal Mnephilos and Mnephilos was barely able to rally his Ktemnoi Squares against Chartiphon. Ptosphes ordered the infantry in the center to hold on to the death. They held firm, while the Prince pulled our right back, gathered in the survivors from the left wing, then ordered a retreat."

"Who brought in the news?"

"An Uncle Wolf with an escort. They stole fresh horses as their own died. The priest himself was wounded. He also brought the dispatch from Ptosphes."

"Has anyone read it?"

"No." Harmakros held the dispatch tube as gingerly as though it were filled with hot coals. "It is addressed to Your Majesty."

Kalvan mentally counted to ten, and when that didn't work, to twenty. "The next time Ptosphes, or anyone else, sends a dispatch with bad news, anyone who needs to know what it contains can read it. That means all of you. Please don't ever wait for me when a day or two can make the difference between victory and defeat."

The schoolboy expression was back on their faces as he removed the roll of parchment with Ptosphes' seal on it. "And wake up Hestophes. It's time for a Council of War." He drew his knife and cut through the red wax seal with Ptosphes' crossed halberds insignia stamped into it.

The dispatch told the same story as Harmakros, but in more detail. It struck Kalvan as odd to be reading the tale of a disaster in Ptosphes' usual firm, neat runes; horror stories ought to be scrawled and scribbled. It was a horror story, too, even if it seemed a little less horrible toward the end—

—must commend the good service of Sarrask of Sask. He fought most valiantly on the field, and has done further good work since. Thanks to him, several Saski castles will be properly garrisoned and fit to receive our wounded and defend them. Without his labors, we would have been forced to abandon more than three thousand of our wounded, including Prince Pheblon of Nostor.
I have with me, fit for battle, not more than ten thousand men, the greater part of them cavalry. Two-thirds of our infantry, apart from the loss of the Traitor Balthar's two thousand foot, is taken or slain. We have only six guns left. However, some three thousand mercenary cavalry have fled; some may return to their duty before we have crossed into Sask. Also, Sarrask's plans to defend several Saski castles will force Soton to slow his advance, to blockade them, storm them or even besiege them, a task for which he has as of yet no proper artillery train. Prisoners say that one may be among the reinforcements he is expected to receive in the moon-half, but they are not sure. 
 

"They usually aren't," Kalvan muttered, then apologized when he realized he'd spoken out loud.

I fear that Sask and southern Hostigos will still lie open to the cavalry of the Holy Host, as the Styphoni are calling themselves, particularly the Zarthani Knights under Grand Master Soton. Both, I must admit, have lived up to their reputation. Therefore, I can see no hope for anything but a prompt retreat to Hostigos to prepare for a stand there. With the garrison troops and the reserve militia to add to my strength I may be able to meet Soton and Marshal Mnephilos with not less than fifteen thousand men, but it is clearly urgent that we receive additional strength from the Army of the Harph as soon as Your Majesty can spare them.
 

"He'll receive the whole Dralm-blasted army," Kalvan said, then read the last paragraph:

I have prepared a list of men who have done particularly good service in this battle, so that they or their families may be rewarded by the Throne of Hos-Hostigos. That list I am sending north at once with a messenger who will entrust it to Rylla for safeguarding if I do not survive the retreat.
With most earnest hopes for Your Majesty's continued good health and good fortune, I am:
Your Obedient Servant 
Ptosphes 
First Prince of Hostigos 
Commander, Army of the Besh  
 

"Here," Kalvan said, handing the letter to Phrames. "Actually, it's not as bad as I'd feared." This didn't seem to console anybody, but they all took turns with the letter while Kalvan tried to organize his thoughts so that when he had to speak he could give a convincing imitation of a man who knew just what he was talking about.

One decision he'd already taken: all future operations against the Harphaxi were going to have to be canceled. That was irritating to say the least, since that killed the best chance he'd ever have of dictating peace terms to Great King Kaiphranos. With his elder son dead, his younger son fit only to be King of Brothels, his Captain-General a prisoner and his brother, Lysandros, the scheming son of fifty fathers—not to mention an army either nonexistent or useless—Kaiphranos might actually be brought to make peace with Hostigos. Regardless of what Styphon's House wanted, or wished... A precarious peace, to be sure—it would last just as long as Kaiphranos did, and he could literally die any day. Still, peace was better than a war on two fronts—and now it was impossible.

"What I want to know is," Baron Halmoth asked, "who is this Sarrask of Sask that Prince Ptosphes praises so highly? Was this the son-of-a-she-wolf who was promising to impale Ptosphes' and Rylla's heads on pikes outside Tarr-Hostigos?"

"Right!" Phrames echoed.

The late Reverend Morrison would have said Sarrask had been touched by the spirit of the Lord. Any number of English teachers or psychiatrists would have called it "Identification with the Aggressor." Kalvan thought it was the old adage whereby the schoolyard bully, after being thoroughly whipped by one of his victims, becomes best friends with the boy who beat him. Whatever the reason, it was good to know that Prince Sarrask could now be trusted—even if the price for this revelation was a bit steep!

By the time everyone who could read had finished the letter, Hestophes arrived, looking like a cross between a hibernating bear and a candidate for a vagrancy arrest. Since Hestophes could only read haltingly and Harmakros couldn't read anything other than map symbols and tavern signs, Kalvan read Ptosphes' dispatch to them.
Note: Find a way to get Harmakros and Hestophes to read without damaging their pride.
Kalvan couldn't afford to allow one of his most valuable generals to remain illiterate.

However, it might be difficult because of Harmakros' age, since reading was best taught at a young age. Here-and-now only the nobility and merchants could afford to hire scribes or priests as tutors for their children.

When Kalvan finished briefing Harmakros and Hestophes, he said, "I'd like to spend a day or two here regrouping and planning the best way to relieve Ptosphes and the Army of the Besh. It will also have the advantage of making the Harphaxi panic, since they will assume we are planning the siege of Harphax City. We'll just remain here long enough to pick our march routes, collect the wounded and see what we can do about the captured Harphaxi guns. We've collected something like forty guns, and Ptosphes just lost thirty. If we can bring back just twenty of them, it will help."

"We're going to need more horses for the gun-teams," Colonel Alkides said.

Hestophes was nodding slowly, either in agreement or because he was about to fall asleep again.

"I'll see what I can do, Alkides," Kalvan said. "I
think
we have more horses than we need to cover our own losses. We captured several hundred Harphaxi horses after the battle."

And ten times that dead or grievously wounded on the battlefield, he thought. I feel worse about the dead horses than I do the soldiers we killed; at least, they had a choice. These poor dumb animals—and their screams! I'll be hearing them for the next ten years... 

Kalvan rose cautiously to his feet and bent over the map table. For a second he had to brace himself firmly on both legs and with both arms to avoid knocking the table over and setting HQ on fire with the lighted candles and oil lamps. "We'll have to use a march route well to the north of our old one anyway. I doubt there's enough forage left along that route to feed a scrawny pair of oxen. Not being able to go through southern Beshta isn't going to hurt much— But I swear on Dralm's Sacred Staff that Balthar's turn will come as soon as the Styphoni have been destroyed or pushed back to Hos-Ktemnos."