John Carr - Siege of Tarr-Hostigos

"Our agent managed to talk with Gorath-he's completely unbalanced! Doesn't even remember his name; a ten-day with Roxthar has pushed him completely over the edge. No one, other than Roxthar, would take anything he says seriously."

"What does the University say?"

"They're embarrassed. They want him back for a visit to the Bureau of Psy-Hygiene before some newsie catches word about all this. We'll pick him up when Roxthar tires of him and dumps him at one of his slave depots. If we took him now, it might convince Roxthar that there was some truth to his words-the poor bastard."

"His troubles make Kalvan's look small. It looks like the political fallout from Kalvan's disaster has been minimal. So, Vall, why do you look so miserable?"

"There's some dust-up on the Europo-American, Islamic Caliphate Subsector, Hartley Belt; it appears that India has just fallen to the Communists and the entire Subsector is on red alert. The Commissioner wants me to visit personally and decide whether to quarantine the Hartley Belt."

"Isn't that the Belt where this Hartley kid, now President Hartley, claims to have visited the future and witnessed World War III?"

"That's the one, it divaricated from Europo-American about ten years ago. It seems like most of Hartley's fixes have created more problems than they solved! His Belt is closer to nuclear meltdown than any other sector or subsector on Europo-American."

"It's a pretty open and shut case; if they're about to go nuclear, you shut down the Belt. Vall, you're a realist and a historian as well as a Paracop. What's really bothering you?"

"Tortha, you really know how to get to the heart of things. Maybe I will too after I've sat at the big desk another century or so."

Not much chance of that if he keeps taking every friend's bad luck so personally, thought Tortha. A shame, really, because apart from this Kalvan problem Verkan showed every sign of being an above-average Chief for the Paracops.

"Now, once again. What's eating you this way?"

"This Hartley assignment is going to keep me away from Kalvan's Time-Line and up to my elbows in work for the next four or five ten-days. I need to be here, helping Kalvan find a place to winter his people. I have all this power and I can't do a Dralm-damned thing to help my friends without upsetting some bureaucrat or breaking some Paratime reg."

"Vall, let me give you some good advice. Take care of your First Level problems first, then worry about your outtime hobby-if that's what it still is. If it isn't, then maybe it's time to change jobs."

Verkan winced as if he'd been slapped, then laughed. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm not cut out for Chief."

"I didn't say that. You have the potential to be a good Chief, but you've got to learn to put your priorities in the proper order. I suggest you think about that all the way to the Hartley Belt."

Phidestros awoke the instant a hand pressed hard over his lips. Instinctively his right hand snaked underneath the bedroll on which his head rested to grasp the handle of the poniard.

Now another hand gripped his right wrist. Phidestros used his left hand to reach for the single-shot widow-maker he kept in a pouch next to his heart.

"For Galzar's sake, sir! It's me, Kyblannos!"

Phidestros stopped struggling when he recognized the voice, but didn't let go of the still un-drawn widow-maker.

"What in Regwarn's Hideyhole is up now?"

"A parley, sir. Some of the mercenary captains would like a private word with you before the storming-out of Arch-Torturer Roxthar's hearing."

"By the Wargod's Mace, couldn't they pick a more civilized hour?" Phidestros groaned.

At least the captains had picked the right place. The tent Phidestros used when he spent the night in the siege lines was a thousand paces from the nearest other camp. Men like Geblon guarded it, men who had been with Phidestros in the days of the Iron Company, men who had no fear of priests or torturers. Men who had guarded him with their lives and would go on doing so.

Phidestros cursed again and sat up. "Who wants to talk with me?"

"Grand-Captains Brakkos, Demmos and Thymestros; Captain Phidammes; Highpriest Olmnestes and three other captains I did not recognize."

Included were some of the best freelances in the Grand Host, leading about a sixteenth of its strength. Now that he was awake enough to think clearly, Phidestros found himself not altogether surprised.

The first attempt to storm Tarr-Hostigos had been a disaster. The attack up the mountainside at the breach and up the draw toward the gate had been bloodily repulsed. The Hostigi had thrown everything from explosive shells to ordinary rocks at the storming parties, reducing them to bloody rags fifty paces from the walls.

In the northern works, a handful of Hostigi had slaughtered twenty besiegers for every man they lost before the scaling ladders finally reached the walls. The Hostigi might have held as firmly as they had in the main castle, if it hadn't been for the newly arrived rifle companies back from the vanguard under Captain-General Anaphon.

Once in action, they pinned even a Hostigi rifleman perched on a tower. Two companies of them had given the Grand Host the northern work of Tarr-Hostigos. Five might have given them the main castle.

At least they now had a place where heavy guns might play against the keep, once they were hauled up there. Given time, those guns would finish the work with no need for another attack.

Time, though, is exactly what I won't have. If the freelance captains don't take it away, Roxthar will. He knows only one way of solving this problem, and it's always the bloodiest. Does he plan to bleed the Grand Host to a shell, so it cannot turn against him after Kalvan is overthrown?

Phidestros began pulling on his clothes. "Kyblannos, what do they want? More gold?"

"I don't know, sir. Truly."

"Help me get my breastplate on, then let them in."

The captains slunk into the tent like foxes into a turkey yard. Uncle Wolf Olmnestes was in the lead, chief among the Host's Uncle Wolfs and formerly a freelance Captain-General of some note in his own right. His hair was almost white and his beard iron gray, but his face was still ruddy and his back straight as a musket barrel.

When everyone was inside, Phidestros rose. "I won't apologize for poor hospitality. It's too late for that. What can I do for you gentlemen?"

Olmnestes spoke first. "In the name of Galzar, can you bring this mad siege to an end?"

"Not without putting my jewels between the blades of Roxthar's clipping shears."

Nervous laughter skittered around the tent.

Grand-Captain Brakkos spoke up next. "I thought you led this army, Grand Captain-General, not Roxthar's regiment of bedgowns."

"I command, but only so long as I do nothing to offend Styphon's House or Great King Lysandros. Where do you think I would be now if we had lost at Ardros Field? In chains, I tell you! Even now, I have Grand Master Soton, Roxthar, and would-be successors all tugging at my sword arm-especially Captain-General Anaphon! He is Lysandros' pet lapdog.

"The real commander of this Host is the one who fills your paychests with gold and you damn-well know it!"

"Isn't there some way you can stop this senseless assault on Tarr-Hostigos?" Olmnestes asked.

"No, Uncle Wolf. Were it up to me I'd leave a blockading force with our heavy guns, to starve the Hostigi out of their fortress or knock it down upon their thick heads. I would take the rest of the Host after Kalvan until I caught him, and then pickle his head as a gift for Lysandros.

"But our Holy Investigator decrees otherwise. As I would like to survive this siege, I am not going to disobey."

"May Thanor strike that blasphemer of Galzar dead with a lightning bolt!" Brakkos shouted.