John Carr - Kalvan Kingmaker

The Sastragathi would probably all desert before Kalvan was within a day's ride, but the Auxiliaries would keep Drakmos from being stung to death by the light nomad cavalry. It was the least he could do.

"More orders," Soton snapped. "All the baggage, everything except a man's weapons and what he wears on his back is to be left for Drakmos."

Aristocles asked, "Everything?"

Soton shrugged. "Drakmos will need what supplies we have left. For the rest of us, it is as true as when I said it before and left most of our supplies. The gold of Balph can buy new armor, new tents, new fireseed, before the snow falls. If we lose the seasoned Knights, not all the gold of Balph will be able to rebuild the Order before Kalvan has crushed and cast down Styphon's House on Earth. If we do not think to the future, there will be none."

But there will be a large debt to pay, Kalvan Servant of Demons. A very large debt indeed.

For once the incessant rains had halted and it was a beautiful summer day. As far as King Kalvan could tell, the host was still in Ohio. Kentucky and the famed Zarthani Knight's castle, Tarr-Ceros, were within a three or four days ride. His men had been on the move for over two and a half months, their rust splotched armor was testament to the hard trail and constant fighting. Without his own personal batman, Kalvan wouldn't have his armor polished and sparkling in the sunlight. Jaklon was a former bootmaker and member of the Hostigi militia who had refused to retire after taking a bad wound in the chest at the Battle of Chothros Heights. Still, marching attendance upon the Great King wasn't the safest job in the Royal Army, Kalvan's last orderly had taken a sword blow to the head that had left him with a crooked jaw and a slash from the corner of his mouth to his throat. Kalvan had stopped counting the number of bannerbearers who'd fallen in action two battles ago.

Great King Nestros was riding along his right side, asking about how Kalvan had arrived in Hostigos. Kalvan had kept him off the subject, with a series of anecdotes about the mercenary who kept showing up in the oddest places and was now Captain-General of Hos-Harphax. Nestros was a good and staunch ally, but as a conversationalist, he was a complete bore.

Up ahead of the pathway, through some trees, Kalvan heard shouting. It didn't sound like an attack, or there would have been a rising cloud of black and gray smoke and the crack of gunpowder. Captain-General Harmakros rode from the front of the main body toward the two kings, his red and blue plumes bouncing at the top of his high-combed morion helmet. "What's going on?" Kalvan asked as he drew within earshot.

"Maybe an ambush. There were some shots up ahead, about half a mile up the road."

The lightly armored nomads made up most of the van and Kalvan, not for the first time, wished he didn't have to play courtier to his fellow Great King and could join Warlord Sargos at the front-if Harmakros allowed! Prince Ptosphes, who had been riding behind and talking to Duke Nestros and Chartiphon, asked, "What's all the commotion?"

Half a dozen nomads with brightly colored war paint came galloping through the trees. Kalvan recognized one of them as Sargos' son, Larkander. As the pair drew closer, he realized it was his page, wearing the same style buckskins as Larkander, riding beside him. The only thing stopping Aspasthar from looking like a true Sastragathi was the missing war paint-give him another few days! Both boys were wearing cast-off Order helms-of the medieval sort-with the visors up and the black plumes plucked. If these two hellions didn't know what the hubbub was, it was certain no one else did, either.

"King Kalvan!" Aspasthar shouted, his voice breaking. "We bring greetings and news from Warlord Sargos. He has made contact with either the rearguard of the Zarthani Knights, or the van of their army. He thinks they're planning a counter-attack!"

"What's all this about an ambush?" Kalvan asked.

"The Black Knights attacked our van, Great King," Larkander replied, proving that both boys were learning new concepts as well as means of dress. "The first clansmen were halfway through the pass when the hills sprouted Knights and oath-brothers alike!"

"How bad were the losses?"

The young nomad grimaced. "Several hundred clansmen went to Wind."

"Then the Knights must have left a sizeable force behind," Kalvan said. He signaled for King Rathon, Ptosphes, Chartiphon, Mnestros and the rest of the royal party to follow behind. To the boys, Kalvan said, "Lead the way to the ambush site."

When they reached the head of the column, Warlord Sargos was there with his subchiefs. He motioned Kalvan over. "See those hills?"

Kalvan nodded. Ahead was a series of big hills-not quite mountains-covered at the bottom with trees and grass. Up higher there was a series of rock faces, almost quarry-like, with tunnel mouths and switchback trails. "What is this?"

"King Kalvan, this is Pythar." Sargos pointed to a tall, stringy Sastragathi with almost white blonde hair, a tanned leather face, a beaked nose and a feather headdress, illustrating the mixed up gene pool of the area. "His clan lives over there beyond these hills."

Pythar nodded. "In my grandfather's time, the men of Hos-Ktemnos used to work the Drynos Mines on this range for iron. The local clansmen still get their ore here. Those mountains are honeycombed with tunnels and pits. The Black Knights are scattered all through them."

Sargos dismissing Pythar with a nod, "Our scouts were allowed through, but as soon as the front of the vanguard was halfway through that pass, the Knights came down from their positions, firing pistols and arrows."

The nomads were still warily removing bodies from the pass, many pin cushioned with arrows, probably from the Knights' oath-brothers and Sastragathi allies. Occasionally, when a clansman would get too close to the hills, shots would ring out. After such a fusillade, a band or tribe of nomads would ride out from the main horde-bottled up in the valley before the hills-shooting arrows, darts, crossbow bolts and the occasional firearm into the hills with the predictable and lamentable negative result. The nomads seemed to enjoy the game and he was sure that somewhere Soton was smoking his pipe with a big smirk on his face.

The big question was: How many of the Knights were holed up in these hills? Kalvan couldn't imagine that Grand Master Soton would be anywhere within fifty miles of this death trap.

The problem was convincing his allies, neither of them sophisticated in the art of war, that this was a ploy to salvage the larger part of Soton's army. Somehow Kalvan suspected that was not going to be easy. "This ambush is Soton's way of bottling up our armies."

Sargos looked at Kalvan as though he were speaking English. Nestros, too, looked as though he'd rather be off in those hills searching out Knights, rather than discussing strategy.

"Soton has left behind several of his Lances to halt our advance. There must be many passes through these hills. Our best move is to leave these Knights behind, with a suitable force to keep them pinned down, and continue to chase Soton. We must be close or he would not consider sacrificing his precious Knights."

Sargos choked. "Retreat. We cannot allow them to escape their deaths; it is our sworn duty to kill every Black Knight in those hills. How do we know that the Grand Master himself is not hidden in those mines?

Nestros shook his head in agreement. "My men would think it cowardly to leave such a large force at our back."

Kalvan could have chewed the frizzen off his flintlock pistol! "We could leave behind more men than are in Soton's entire army to hold this position and still have ten times Soton's number when we catch up with him." This seemed to go over both their heads.