H. Piper - Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen

"Ha! The Archpriest Zothnes was there, sitting next to Sarrask, with the Chancellor of Sask shoved down one place to make room for him, which shows you who rules in Sask now. He didn't bawl like a calf; he screamed like a panther. Wanted Sarrask to have me seized and my head off right in the throne-room. Sarrask told him his own soldiers would shoot him dead on the throne if he ordered it, which they would have. The mercenary captain-general wanted Zothnes's head off, and half drew his sword for it. There's one with small stomach to fight for Styphon's House. And this Zothnes was screaming that there was no god at all but Styphon; now what do you think of that?"

Gasps of horror, and exclamations of shocked piety. One officer was charitable enough to say that the fellow must be mad.

"No. He's just a-" A monotheist, Kalvan wanted to say, but there was no word in the language for it. "One who respects no gods but his own. We had that in my own country." He caught himself just before saying, "in my own time"; of those present, only Ptosphes was security-cleared for that version of his story. "They are people who believe in only one god, and then they believe that the god they worship is the only true one, and all others are false, and finally they believe that the only true god must be worshiped in only one way, and that those who worship otherwise are vile monsters who should be killed." The Inquisition; the wicked and bloody Albigensian Crusade; Saint Bartholomew's; Haarlem; Magdeburg. "We want none of that here."

"Lord Prince," the priest of Galzar said, "you know how we who serve the war god stand. The war god is the Judge of Princes, his courtroom the battlefield. We take no sides. We minister to the wounded without looking at their colors; our temples are havens for the war-maimed. We preach only Galzar's Way: be brave, be loyal, be comradely; obey your officers; respect yourselves and your weapons and all other good soldiers; be true to your company and to him who pays you.

"But Lord Prince, this is no common war, of Hostigos against Sask and Ptosphes against Sarrask. This is a war for all the true gods against false Styphon and Styphon's foul brood. Maybe there is some devil called Styphon, I don't know, but if there is, may the true gods trample him under their holy feet as we must those who serve him."

A shout of "Down Styphon!" rose. So this was what he had said they must have none of, and an old man in a dirty shirt, a mug of wine in his hand and a black and brown mongrel thumping his tail on the floor beside him, had spelled it out. A religious war, the vilest form an essentially vile business can take. Priests of Dralm and Galzar preaching fire and sword against Styphon's House. Priests of Styphon rousing mobs against the infidel devil-makers. Styphon wills it! Atrocities. Massacres. Holy Dralm and no quarter!

And that was what he'd brought to here-and-now. Well, maybe for the best; give Styphon's House another century or so in power and there'd be no gods, here-and-now, but Styphon.

"And then?"

"Well, Sarrask was in a fine rage, of course. By Styphon, he'd meet Prince Ptosphes's demands where they should be met, on the battlefield, and the war'd start as soon as I took my back out of sight across the border. That was just before noon. I almost killed a horse, and myself, getting here. I haven't done much hard riding, lately," he parenthesized. "As soon as I got here, Harmakros sent riders out."

They'd reached Tarr-Hostigos at cocktail time, another alien rite introduced by Lord Kalvan, and found him and Ptosphes and Xentos and Rylla and Dalla in Rylla's room. Hasty arming and saddling, hastier good-bys, and then a hard mud-splashing ride up Listra Valley, reaching this village after dark. The war had already started; from Esdreth Gap they could hear the distant dull thump of cannon.

Outside, the Army of the Listra was still moving forward; an infantry company marched past with a song:

Roll another barrel out, the party's just begun.

We beat Prince Gormoth's soldiers; you oughta seen them run!

And then we crossed the Athan, and didn't we have fun,

While we were marching through Nostor!

Galloping hoofs; cries of "Way! Way! Courier!" The song ended in shouted imprecations from mud-splashed infantrymen. The galloping horse stopped outside. The march, and the song, was resumed:

Hurrah! Hurrah! We burned the bastards out!

Hurrah! Hurrah! We put them all to rout!

We stole their pigs and cattle and we dumped their sauerkraut,

While we were marching through Nostor!

A muddy cavalryman stumbled through the door, looked around blinking, and then made for the long table, saluting as he came.

"From Colonel Verkan, Mounted Rifles. He and his men have Fyk; they beat off a counter-attack, and now the whole Saski army's coming at him. I found some Mobiles and a four-pounder on the way back; they've gone to help him.

"By Dralm, the whole Army of the Listra's going to help him. Where is this Fyk place?"

Harmakros pointed on the map-beyond Esdreth Gap, on the main road to Sask Town. There was a larger town, Gour, a little beyond. Kalvan pulled on his quilted coif and fastened the throat-guard; while he was settling his helmet on his head, somebody had gone to the door and was bawling into the dripping night for horses.

THE rain had stopped, an hour later, when they reached Fyk. It was a small place, full of soldiers and lighted by bonfires. The civil population had completely vanished; all fled when the shooting had started. A four-pounder pointed up the road to the south, with the dim shape of an improvised barricade stretching away in the darkness on either side. Off ahead, an occasional shot banged, and he could distinguish the sharper reports of Hostigos-made powder from the slower-burning stuff put out by Styphon's House. Maybe Uncle Wolf was right that this was a war between the true gods and false Styphon; it was also a war between two makes of gunpowder.

He found Verkan and a Mobile Force major in one of the village cottages; Verkan wore a hooded smock of brown canvas, and a short chopping-sword on his belt and a powder-horn and bullet-pouch slung from his shoulder. The major's cavalry armor was browned and smeared with tallow. They had one of the pyrographed deerskin field-maps spread on the table in front of them. Paper, invention of; he'd made that mental memo a thousand times already.

"There were about fifty cavalry here when we arrived," Verkan was saying. "We killed them or ran them out. In half an hour there were a couple of hundred back. We beat them off, and that was when I sent the riders back. Then Major Leukestros came up with his men and a gun, just in time to help beat off another attack. We have some cavalry and mounted arquebusiers out in front and on the flanks; that's the shooting you're hearing. There are some thousand cavalry at Gour, and probably all Sarrask's army following."

"I'm afraid we're going to have to make a wet night of it," Kalvan said. "We'll have to get our battle-line formed now; we can't take chances on what they may do."

He shoved the map aside and began scribbling and diagramming an order of battle on the white-scrubbed table top. Guns to the rear, in column along a side road north of the village, four-pounders in front; horses to be unhitched, but fed and rested in harness, ready to move out at once. Infantry in a line to both sides of the road a thousand yards ahead of the village, Mobile Force infantry in the middle. Cavalry on the flank; mounted infantry horses to the rear. A battle-order that could be converted instantly into a march-order if they had to move on in the morning.

The army came stumbling in for the next hour or so, in bits and scraps, got themselves sorted out, and took their positions astride of the road on the slope south of the village. The air had grown noticeably warmer. He didn't like that; it presaged fog, and he wanted good visibility for the battle tomorrow. Cavalry skirmishers began drifting back, reporting pressure of large enemy forces in front.