Great Kings' War (30 page)

"Isn't that going to cut short our field orientation on Kalvan Control One?"

Sirna was annoyed. She'd been looking forward to a month or so in the similar time-line the University used for orientating the Kalvan's Time-Line Team members to what Styphon's House Subsector, Fourth Level Aryan-Transpacific looked, sounded and smelled like."

"There isn't any more Kalvan Control One," Eldra said grimly. "That's why we're leaving sooner than I'd planned."

"But—I thought that was the safe one, where Gormoth of Nostor fell off his horse at Marrox Ford—"

"—and dashed out his brains that none of us thought he had?"

"Right!"

"Unfortunately, somebody with even fewer brains forgot to check out the other changes between Kalvan's Time-Line and Kalvan Control One. One of them was a very good mercenary captain named Sthrathos. The other was Sarrask of Sask, a much abler and more thoroughly vicious Sarrask than the one on Kalvan's Time-Line. Hostigos had a one-year reprieve, then Sarrask and Sthrathos led twenty thousand men against it. Green shifted to show blue and red arrows writing all over the map of what was now Hostigos. The screen shifted over to show a night aerial view of a burning town.

"That was Hostigos Town from the local sky-eye after we got all but two of our people out."

Another shift. "Afterwards we were able to send in a few people disguised as traveling harness makers. Men only."

Sirna recognized Bear Creek Bridge on the west side of Hostigos Town, or at least where the bridge had been. Now its stone abutments stood smoke-blackened on either side of a stream fouled with ashes, burned timbers and some floating...things?...Sirna was very glad she didn't have to smell.

Shift. The Street of Coopers, formerly hard packed earth lined with the kind of solid wood and plaster houses skilled craftsmen could afford under the peaceful rule of a good prince. Now the street was churned into mud and littered with dead bodies and horse droppings. A few scavenger dogs gnawed at the corpses and from the ashes of houses, chimneys poked skyward like monuments to the dead.

Shift. The road up to Hos-Hostigos lined with gallows with a corpse dangling from each one. Carrion birds were pecking at some of the bodies. Others had decomposed to the point where not even a bird would approach them.

Shift. The gateway of Tarr-Hostigos, the gates themselves gone, the hinges pried loose by looters, smoke-blackened stones, dark blood stains on the flagstones of the courtyard, and over the gateway a row of spikes—

"No! No!"

Sirna's stomach twitched, then rolled. She closed her eyes briefly, swallowed and decided that she could live with the sight of the heads decorating those spikes. Harmakros, she noted, had his skull split from the forehead to the left ear. They must have taken his head when they picked up his body on the battlefield. Some of the others—Ptosphes and Chartiphon—must have suffered the same fate. There was also one empty spike.

"What happened to—Rylla?"

Eldra swallowed. "You don't want to know the details. As to what happened to her body—someone lifted it off the spike one night. Probably took it away for a decent funeral pyre, at least that's what Sarrask thought. He retaliated by herding two hundred Hostigi hostages into the local temple of Dralm, setting it on fire and having musketeers shoot down anybody who tried to get out."

Eldra silently punched in an order for more drinks, then made an elaborate business of re-filling her pipe. When it was lighted again, she chuffed on it for a minute until there was a thick veil of smoke over her head. "So Kalvan Control One is gone and we haven't really staffed the other Control Lines for full scale orientation. You could learn something on one of them, but not enough in time to go out with me to Kalvan's Time-Line this season.

"You could also go out with me to Kalvan's Time-Line with nothing but Hypno-mech orientation. You already have the language down very well, and your Greffan accent has at least some of the right flavor, so you wouldn't be completely a lost lamb. Normally I'm as strict about the 'No field orientation, no go' rule as anyone, but a time always comes when you have to bend the rules. If you're willing, I'll make this one of the times."

If Sirna had thought any of the Zarthani gods existed to hear a prayer of thanks, she would have sent one that she hadn't lost control of her stomach. Those pictures of the sacked and ruined Kalvan Control One must have been a test, one she'd apparently passed—at least to the point of being given another test.

Spend a safe summer of orientation in an unmolested but badly equipped Control Time-Line, or plunge headfirst into Kalvan's Time-Line in the middle of a major war with nothing but her hypnotic learning and experience in Greffa to arm her against all the deprivations and horrors of a Pre-Industrial Society at war.

She knew she should analyze the situation before making her decision, as both a proper student and First Level Citizen. She also knew that only one factor really made a difference, and that was the knowledge that if she didn't go to Kalvan's Time-Line with Eldra, she would never be sure of her own courage again.

Her ex-husband would doubtlessly have called that attitude a relic of barbarism, along with physical courage itself. He might even have called it a sign of reverting to her prole ancestry; that had been something he'd flung at her often enough when they were alone and he didn't have to be concerned about his
image
as an enlightened man utterly opposed to all class, sex or race considerations.

"I'll go," Sirna said. Her ex-husband didn't matter. All that mattered suddenly was Baltov Eldra's triumphant grin as she raised her glass to toast Kalvan's victory. Sirna felt slightly guilty at that grin—after all, she was taking advantage of Eldra's kindness to spy on her—but not guilty enough to change her mind. Besides, her ex-husband would have called her guilt a reversion to pre-enlightened hygienic socialization.

For once, Sirna agreed with him; raising her cup, she made her own toast: "To ex-husbands—and may they stay that way, with Dralm's Blessing!"

Eldra enthusiastically joined her and clanked their glasses together hard enough to slosh out a good mouthful of ale.

The Heights of Chothros were blocking the view to the northwest by the time Captain Phidestros reached the van. He could have reached it sooner if he hadn't wanted to spare his horse and inspect his columns. This was the first time the Iron Company had been the advance guard for the left flank of the Army of Hos-Harphax, and Phidestros knew that his men were on display even if they didn't.

So far he'd seen nothing to concern him, or at least nothing that couldn't be handled by petty-captains—loose saddle girths, frayed musketoon slings and the like. Even had these minor flaws been ten times as common as they were, the Iron Company would still have made much of the rest of the Army of Harphax look like rabble. That would not have kept the other captains from trying to advance themselves or at least conceal their own ineptness by pointing out Phidestros' minor lapses.

He spurred his horse at a trot along the Great Harph Road—a deeply rutted wagon trail that was Great only in name—until he was fifty paces ahead of the lead horseman of his center column. He would have given his next ten-winters' honors and booty for the Iron Company's horses to grow wings so that they might fly across the Harph and join the Holy Host of Styphon.

In the eight days since the Harphaxi leaders, if such well-born milksops could be called
leaders
, had chosen to march against Kalvan, it was possible that there were mistakes they had not made, but Phidestros was not prepared to wager more than the price of a cup of bad wine on it. They had paid dearly in blood for every march they
chased
Kalvan's 'Army of Observation,' as the Hostigi prisoners called it—what few there were. Kalvan's new far-shooting muskets—"rifles"—had taken a stiff butcher's bill. Every day the army marched, there were a hundred to two hundred new casualties—many of them irreplaceable captains and petty-captains.

Duke Aesthes, the nominal commander, kept saying that Kalvan was not fighting fairly; he should halt his army and fight like a civilized king, not like a Sastragathi warlord. Prince Philesteus was so angry he couldn't talk straight; instead he puffed and sputtered like an overheated teakettle.

If they were taking a beating this bad from Kalvan's forward body, Phidestros wondered what the butcher's bill would be when they joined battle with Kalvan's Army of the Harph! He feared that the Army of Harphax was a sinking ship—a ship sinking, moreover, through the fault of its builders and crew. Unfortunately, it would be some time before the Iron Company could safely imitate rats.

He wondered, for about the hundredth time, if he was fighting for the wrong side, that is, the losing side. He'd already fought against Kalvan at the Battle of Fyk; there he'd been lucky. In the confusion that followed the battle, he had found himself in charge of Prince Sarrask's baggage train. When word had arrived that the Prince had surrendered to the Hostigi, he had taken command of the baggage train and hot-footed it out of enemy territory. Of course, after giving short shares to another mercenary company, he had claimed the bulk of Sarrask's paychests.

This had left him able to outfit his company with style, but at the expense of making an enemy of a Prince who was renowned for never forgetting a slight. Unfortunately, this had also wedded Phidestros to Kalvan's enemies, primarily the Harphaxi Royal Family and Styphon's House. Any captain worth his steel knew his best bargaining tool was his ability to change sides when the paychests showed bottom, or the war effort appeared doomed. For now, he had no other options, but new opportunities would arise if this war were to continue for a few winters.

Especially, if Sarrask were to die in battle, as he likes to lead his Guard from the front. With Sarrask dead, he might find a place for the Iron Company in Kalvan's service. Maybe a bounty of a hundred gold rakmars on the Prince's head would help bring that day a little sooner.

He topped a little rise and looked back at the Iron Company. At least the Harphaxi would have their scouting done well today. The center column was mostly Lamochares' men, armed with pistols and swords, ready to come to the aid of the flankers and meanwhile under Phidestros' eye. The left and right columns were the old Iron Company with musketoons, pistols and swords. The left was nearly invisible in the brush and small trees toward the Harph; the right was on more open ground that stretched toward the wooded base of the Heights of Chothros.

He cantered down the far side of the rise, opening the distance to the men behind him another twenty paces. It felt good to be out in the fresh air, not breathing the dust and sweat and dung smells of even his own men, let alone ten thousand more.

He'd have to drop back into the center column before long, though. The Great Harph Road ran through the West Chothros Gap just ahead, with the Heights to the right and rugged, wooded country running down to the Harph on the left. The Hostigi had been foraging on this side of the gap; too many abandoned farms had been stripped bare to let Phidestros believe otherwise. Even without the signs of foragers, the West, Middle and East Gaps were places no one but fools like Philesteus and Aesthes would fail to picket. No point riding into an ambush, and being the Harphaxi's first—

Four smoke puffs rose from behind a stone wall lying across the path of the Iron Company's right column. Phidestros heard the distant
pop
of the discharges and saw two riders and one horse at the head of the column go down. He measured the distance from the wall to the targets with his eyes and whistled.

Three hits out of four shots at six hundred paces!

To Phidestros, that meant Hostigi
rifles
. He'd felt their bite before at Fyk.

Four more smoke puffs rose from behind trees on the near side of the wall, and two men nearly eight hundred paces away dropped from their saddles. That settled the matter for Phidestros. Few infantry weapons could reach that far, and those that could did well to hit a fair-sized barn at extreme range. Hostigi
riflemen
, for certain.

The rightward column was bunching up, whether to help their comrades or organize for a charge he wasn't sure. He was sure that he didn't want them to present such a fine target while they made up their minds.

He cantered back to the center column, shouting orders the moment he had their attention. Two men rode off to the leftward column to warn Petty-Captain Kyblannos, his second-in-command and titular commander of the Blue Company, of what was going on. Two others rode back along the column to order the gun team to bring up the eight-pounder. If he could have made a wager, he'd have bet Kyblannos would be near the eight-pounder. They'd had to leave the eighteen-pounder, the
Fat Duchess
, behind or risk killing a brace of horses dragging it up the Heights after the Hostigi. It was too heavy to be truly mobile, but Kyblannos had complained as if they were leaving behind one of the Petty-Captain's beloved children!

The eight-pounder was a good deal handier for this kind of work anyway, so for now that did no harm.

A dozen troopers gathered around Phidestros himself and followed him off the Great Harph Road along a glorified track that led across two farms toward the right flank. He was working up to a canter when he came to a narrow but steep-banked stream cutting between the two fields. He trotted onto the rough log bridge that carried the track across the stream, and was halfway across when from underneath he heard wood creak and begin to crack.  
 

Suddenly the whole floor of the bridge tilted to the right, spilling Phidestros and his mount into the cold stream.

Phidestros was kicking his feet free of the stirrups from the first cracking sound, so he and Snowdrift parted company in midair. Somehow the horse landed on his feet, to come up snorting and dripping foul-smelling mud but undamaged except for temper.

He wasn't quite so lucky. Most of him landed in the muck, but his right knee met a stone that felt like a blacksmith's hammer. He could raise his face and upper body out of the mud, but for a terrifyingly long moment he couldn't move his legs.