John Carr - Kalvan Kingmaker

Harmakros held his horse to a walk as he led his party up the muddy hillside, then reined in and saluted his Great King. The Captain-General's face was grimmer than ever, far more than could be blamed on fatigue and the strain of long campaign.

"Your Majesty, that floating barrier of spiked logs is no tale. There's no way through to the quay until the logs are removed."

"How long would that take?"

"With a few tarred barrels of fireseed and no enemy fire, an hour of any night. But they've got tarpots and what looks like bundles of arrows all laid out in the trenches right behind the quay. They could light up the engineers and pick them off like rats in a privy corner. Even if the barrier went, the trenches would be manned and ready for the landing party."

"So going for the quay would be a waste, even as a feint?"

"The Knights would get a good laugh and we would get a bloody nose," Harmakros said morosely. He did not put into words that which his tone added, and there was no need to send anyone up under the guns of the fortress to learn this. Once Your Majesty decided it had to be done, it became my duty. But, if I don't have any more such duties for a while, it won't break my heart.

"Harmakros, for at least the hundredth time-well done. If we find ourselves with a vacant princedom, would you consider taking it?"

"Once Your Majesty doesn't need my services in the field, I won't say no. But I have a nasty feeling that it's going to take a long time to finish this war with Styphon's House. We've driven the badger into his lair."

"Do we have any way of getting him out and taking his hide home?"

Again, tone spoke volumes. "Galzar Wolfshead might knock down those walls with his mace, Your Majesty, but nothing we have will even come close. As for a siege, unless you've figured out a way to feed an army on air, forget it."

Harmakros was right. Kalvan had known as much the moment he laid eyes on Tarr-Ceros. It reminded him of one of the great Crusader castles in the Holy Land-but an aerial picture of a ruin didn't give the same impact. You had to see one of those stone monsters armed and garrisoned in its prime, looming over you, ready to defy the worst you could do. And when that worst wasn't enough to do more than give the garrison a few sleepless weeks…

There wasn't a gun in the whole Hostigi artillery that could both be moved here and make an impression on the walls. There wasn't enough food to keep a third of the allied host alive long enough to make the Knights tighten their belts. A simple attempt to storm the place would kill half the attackers and demoralize the rest.

Summon Soton to negotiate? That at least would waste only breath, not blood. Grand Master Soton knew the strength of his walls and the men who manned them. Probably less than half his garrison were seasoned fighters, but behind those walls children with croquet mallets could be deadly foes.

"Well, then there it is," Kalvan said, "we can't do much at their front door. "Let's wait until the scouts to the east and south return with their reports. If it's good cavalry country, maybe we can do something at the back door."

That something was likely to be expensive in time, treasure, fireseed, horses and blood, but it had to be at least discussed.

The rest of the allies had very little notion of what a hollow victory they had won. They only knew that they'd seen the Knights in retreat for the better part of a moon. The Battle at Drynos Mines-if it even qualified for such a lofty designation-against the four Lances of the rearguard had given them a taste for the Knights' blood; they wanted more.

Kalvan remembered Napoleon's dictum about the advantages of making war against allies. Soton could wield his Knights as a single weapon, like his famous warhammer. Kalvan had to be chairman of a committee as much as commander-and-chief.

Maybe the Great Barbecue had given the Sastragathi the view that the Knights' blood came cheap; if so, they were badly mistaken. The four Lances and their allies had numbered perhaps four thousand men at the outset and out of that army less than fifty badly burned prisoners had finally emerged from the tunnels. Kalvan doubted that a dozen were still alive, and they faced a terrible future here-and-now with no 'real' medical help. The allies lost less than a thousand men, but then that was hardly a battle-more of a turkey roast.

At least Alkides had all the horse artillery ready to move. Where cavalry could go, the guns could follow. Something might be made of this-not much, but enough to keep the alliance from falling apart because the Great King of Hos-Hostigos abandoned his allies!

Something else that might help, even more than artillery, at least right now-"Harmakros! Do we have anymore of that wine we picked up with the first batch of loot?"

"Yes, I had the barrels loaded on pack mules under a trusted captain. I reckoned we might have a use for it. When I left the Battle at Drynos Mines, you, Sargos and Nestros were finishing off the last of Ermut's Best."

"Another well done. It's time to call a Council of War. Just a small one, so I think one barrel should be enough to keep even Sargos happy."

At least until he finds out that he's still going to have the Knights on his borders, almost as strong as ever and out for vengeance.

No one questioned Danar Sirna's bringing up the rear of Danthor Dras's entourage, as he led the party toward the Assembly Hall of Kalvan Subsector's Fifth-Level Depot. Sirna was the junior member of the party, at the Depot only for an inventory of replacement supplies scheduled for the 'new' Royal Foundry in Nostor. In spite of their egalitarian pretensions, University people were as devoted to hierarchy as Styphon's House.

So there was no one at Sirna's back, something she had been in a knife-and-dagger world long enough to appreciate. There was also no one able to pay attention to her grim frown or the set of her jaw, or ask awkward questions about them.

As the Scholar reached the axial corridor, he held up his hand. Two light haulers whispered past, both loaded with Styphon's House Subsector barrels. Danthor signaled his followers into movement again, and then stopped so abruptly that Sirna bumped into the man ahead of her. He was a professor of engineering history, slightly taller than her and half again as broad. She had to step out from behind him to see what had halted Danthor.

Verkan Vail was striding out of the Assembly Hall. The Paratime Chief lacked his usual bodyguards, but his physical presence was enough of an escort. The stares he exchanged with Scholar Danthor were exquisitely measured on both sides. Each man knew exactly where he stood with the other; both were determined to let no one else know.

"Putting telltales in our Assembly hall?" Danthor wore a wholly deceptive grin on his face.

"No, I just wanted to see if the Assembly Hall could be converted back into a storeroom in an emergency."

"What kind of emergency?"

"Needing to supply our Kalvan Subsector people with bulk supplies again."

"Our "people" includes the University Study Team, of course?"

"Of course, Scholar. The Paracops can live off the land or even go underground if necessary. I wouldn't say the same for most of your people. The best University orientation still isn't the Paratime Police Academy and five years of outtime experience."

Hostility rippled through the University people, like static electricity through a cat's fur. For once, Sirna was thankful for her divided loyalties. They let her find this confrontation darkly humorous rather than threatening.

"I think more highly of University training than you do, Chief Verkan. I also wonder why you need more storage space, particularly at our expense. Surely any bulk purchases can be stored either at the point of purchase or in the Kalvan Subsector."