John Carr - Kalvan Kingmaker

"I find it difficult to believe, but wasn't it Archpriest Roxthar who saved you from being the Inner Circle's scapegoat for the defeat at Phyrax Field?"

"Yes, but at the cost of my eardrums! And, I'm sure, Roxthar's price will be steep. Someday I may wish I was boiled in that barrel of tallow that Archpriest Dracar had set to bubbling."

"Blast the Inner Circle and all its machinations!" Aristocles cried. "The fools would boil alive the only commander in the Five Kingdoms who has defeated the Daemon Kalvan in his own lair. Next time we'll show this Usurper Kalvan the sharp points of our lance-heads. Although, first, we ought to smoke out that wasp's nest in Balph!"

"Watch your words, Aristocles! I've grown fond of your tough hide and there's Styphon's Own Ears everywhere-even among our own ranks. The Inner Circle trusts no one, not even it's own Holy Arm. But, speaking of the Usurper Kalvan, he is why we need a commander for the Third Wedge who has fought in the Northern Kingdoms. The Third hasn't been north of Tarr-Odra in a hundred years. Before he took his vows, Lestros served as a mercenary captain in Hos-Agrys."

"Then you plan to return to Hostigos, Grand Master?"

"Yes, but not this year. Of the four Lances that fought the Hostigi at Chothros Heights, only one returned. The others have their banners hung in the Hall of Heroes in Tarr-Ceros. At the Battle of Phyrax, we left enough Knights on the field to man three Lances more, and with better than three thousand dead Order Foot. Even with all the new recruits, it will take years of training before we can muster at our former strength again; that is, if we don't spend the next three winters fighting nomads!"

"Never in my lifetime, Grand Master, has their been such a stirring of the nomads as we have seen in these times. It is as if the Daemon Kalvan has loosed all of Hadron's demons and imps upon their backsides!"

"This is no demonic visitation, unless you count the devil priests of the Mexicotal-who dress in human skin-as demons, which surely those who live in Xiphlon do," Soton said. To advance their siege at Xiphlon, the Mexicotal had pushed the fierce desert Ruthani tribes into the Sea of Grass, thereby shoving the Urgothi, Zarthani, and Ruthani tribesmen living there both north and east. Those tribes, in turn, had put pressure on the clans living near Xiphlon, Wulfula and Dorg, forcing many of them to cross the Great River and move into the Lower Sastragath. Now all the Sastragath was a boil, with only the Knights between them and the Lower Kingdoms.

"Look, the Urgothi warriors draw closer!"

The warband was now completely out of the forest and almost halfway across the valley floor. About a third of the tribesmen were on horseback, armed with lance and sword, while the rest were on foot with their great swords and buffalo-hide shields. The deep-toned Zarthani war horns sounded and the two end Lances began to move out, a movement that would only be complete when they had encircled the warband. The five hundred mounted auxiliaries, mostly armed with bow or arquebus, on each side would form the glue between the Lances as they pressed the encirclement home.

In answer to the bellow of the Zarthani war horns, a loud roar went up from the Urgothi, who were screaming and beating their swords and spears against their shield hides. As individual warriors, thought Soton, the Urgothi were without peer: brave to a fault, fearless with the intoxication with their own battle prowess and anger, strong as bulls and able to fight without pause for hours. Fortunately, for the Knights-who were outnumbered in this battle at more than two to one-when the Urgothi fought as a unit, it was as a mindless rabble, each warrior fighting for his own glory and fame.

This, century after century, had always been their undoing.

The Urgothi were a handsome people, big, blond, and fair skinned, much like the Zarthani race, except taller and more bellicose. Their defeat here would be sorrowful, at least to Soton, who had grown up in a border village with its menials and field slaves. He had seen all the guises of slavery, and the Urgothi men, being too spirited and warlike for peaceful labor, would be sold as galley slaves or used as Styphon's House temple-farm slaves. The women would be sold, the fair ones as concubines, their uglier sisters as household servants or drabs to fill soldiers' brothels. A sad end for an honorable and warlike people.

There was another bellow of the Zarthani war horns and the Fourteenth and Seventeenth Lances began to move forward, linked behind to the Thirteenth, Eighteenth and Ninth. The warband was still in one great mass and it looked to Soton like the encirclement might well succeed. A coup for Lestros if it was successful and almost certain promotion to Knight Commander.

The Urgothi army was now within spear-throwing distance of the Knights now crescent-shaped line. There was a loud roar and the sky darkened with flying spears and arrows. A score or two of horses went down, toppling Knights out of their saddles, but most held the line protected by both the distance and their armor. As a rule the Knights were very heavily armored, with the leading hundred Brethren Knights of each Lance in full armor, the following two hundred Confrere Knights in three-quarter lobster-armor, and the next two hundred Sergeants in back-and-breast. Only the oath-brothers, the blood-sworn brother of each Knight, were lightly armored, with cotton-padded gambesons and chain mail shirts.

Soton heard the first screams from the wounded horses and felt his stomach wrench. Even after thirty years of warfare and two score battles, it was the cries from the wounded horses that bothered him most.

Blast and curse the Mexicotal priests who released these heathens upon his lands and domain like a plague of locusts. Let the Archpriests claim it was demons' work, a curse brought upon the land when the Daemon Kalvan gave the fireseed secret to all without Styphon's Blessing. Soton knew that for the poppycock it was; he didn't believe in demons of any sort, or gods, for that matter. Styphon himself was a fraud engineered by priests greedy for their own profit and comfort.

It was not Soton's belief in any god that bound him to Styphon's House, but the undeniable fact that the Temple had raised him from a simple peasant boy to the most important military leader in the Five Kingdoms. The Temple was his family, and, because of this, they owned his loyalty and his life. He knew that in great part it was his innate ability that had lifted him so high; yet he could never forget that Styphon's House was the instrument of his elevation.

The Urgothi nomads were now close enough to the Knights' line they were drawing stray pistol fire. Soton mentally cursed those fools who fired precious rounds before the enemy was within pistol range. Some of the shots were coming from the Urgothi ranks as well, since the ban on fireseed sales to the tribesmen was as much violated as honored-often by the Temple's own priests. Twice he had had to go to Balph in person to have the Inner Circle reprimand highpriests who were selling fireseed to the tribesmen. It was bad enough the Temple had sold fireseed in secret to the Mexicotal for many years, a secret-that if it got out-could do more harm than all of Kalvan's armies. The Inner Circle had finally stopped all fireseed sales to the Mexicotal, after the invasion of Xiphlon-even the most corrupt upperpriests realized that if Xiphlon fell, the Mexicotal would next move into the Sastragath and from there into the Five Kingdoms.

The front ranks of the Fourteenth and Seventeenth Lances were almost to the rear of the Urgothi warband, when Soton saw the first of several dozen war chariots leaving the forest. "By Ormaz's beard!" he cursed, slamming his fist against the saddle pommel.

"Aristocles, tell Lestros the nomads have forty to fifty war chariots coming his way. Order him to hold the line with the Eighteenth reserve-no matter what the Urgothi throw at him!"