John Carr - Siege of Tarr-Hostigos

Yet those skills would be learned. Ermut had made six or seven of the long farseer tubes that brought far away closer. Kalvan had praised Ermut, but truth they were only two or three times better than the naked eye-not like the far-seers Kalvan talked about. Yet, what the gods had taught once, they could teach again-and more easily, because they would be teaching men who were trying to learn and knew what power the new knowledge might give them.

If Kalvan's luck continued to hold, his children might live to look at a battlefield through farseers, or even ride into battle aboard one of those armored wagons that moved without horses and carried guns that fired many times while a man was drawing a deep breath.

Ptosphes put aside thoughts of the future he wouldn't live to see and looked to where the rifleman was pointing. The man was right. Things that looked vaguely like enormous carts were rolling slowly along behind the trenches. It was too dark to make out more, but they must be heavy. The wheels of the carts looked to be solid wood and as high as a man.

"Should we try a few ranging shots, just to remind them that we're awake?" Harmakros asked.

"Not with the mortars. We want to save their shells."

"That little rifled bronze three-pounder on the inner gate, though it might not have the range."

"Kalvan said we shouldn't use case shot with rifled guns," Ptosphes said. "It damages the rifling. With solid shot, that three-pounder will do more good up here."

Harmakros' face asked what he was too tactful to put into words: 'how likely is it that any gun in Tarr-Hostigos will last long enough to damage itself, once the Grand Host advances?' Perhaps he was chafing at having to wait like a bear tethered in a pit, as the dogs circled just of reach.

The hoisting tackle on the keep easily hauled the three-pounder up to the roof, but not before darkness fell. Half a dozen shots produced a satisfactory outburst of shouts and curses from the Styphoni, but otherwise they seemed to have fallen off the edge of the world. After the half dozen failed to start a fire, Ptosphes ordered the gun to cease.

He made a final inspection, counting with special care the torches and tarpots laid ready, in case the Styphoni came at night. It wasn't likely; the chance of hitting friends in a night attack would not please the mercenary captains. It wasn't impossible either, and Ptosphes was determined to follow Kalvan's teachings to the end (not far away now): prepare for everything that isn't impossible.

At last Ptosphes returned to the Great Hall, to find Harmakros asleep in the chair of state and snoring like volley fire from a company of musketeers. Ptosphes rolled himself in his cloak without taking off his armor, on a pallet as far from Harmakros as he could find.

He'd thought he might be too tired or uneasy to sleep, but instead he drifted off into oblivion almost as soon as he stretched out his legs and lowered his head onto the dirt-stiffened cloth.

Phidestros brushed the sleep out of his eyes and stared through the valley's early-morning shadows at the Grand Host's encampment. A splendid sight with its thousands of campfires-until one remembered that all these tens of thousands of men were chained to this desolate valley by a castle held by three or four hundred old men and walking wounded. Meanwhile, the Usurper Kalvan fled into the wilderness.

As it was, he was chief over the Grand Host only in name. In truth, he was first among equals, all of them hamstrung by Archpriest Roxthar-including Great King Lysandros who was in debt to Styphon's House up to his eyebrows. The Investigator was utterly convinced that the root of Kalvan's heresy was to be found in the Princedom of Hostigos and equally determined to extricate it if he had to Investigate every man, woman and child still remaining in the Princedom. Roxthar would not allow any stone to be left unturned, including that mother-of-all-stones, Tarr-Hostigos. Against that particular stone the Grand Host had bruised its foot for the best part of a moon, while Kalvan's real army slipped away. But, with Galzar's blessing, today that was about to change!

A small forest of poles already held the bodies of about a fifth of Hostigos Town's townspeople, those who had failed the Investigation. Add to that number those who fled with Kalvan, and by spring there would hardly be enough Hostigi left to bury their dead.

If the Investigation came to his lands again, Phidestros resolved it would not be his new subjects who decorated the gallows. He doubted the Investigators would do as well with their hot irons and boning knives against soldiers as they did against women and children. It might cost his own head to take Roxthar's, but at least he would have the pleasure of harvesting the madman's first!

The shadows began to fade. From his vantage point, Phidestros saw the camps coming to life, like kicked anthills. He'd wanted to lead the Iron Band in the first assault himself, but Soton insisted that Phidestros keep himself safely in the rear. Captain-Generals, Soton stated emphatically, were not meant to be fired off like Kalvan's rockets.

Soton was right, of course. Had Phidestros been in the vanguard during the first storming attempt, he might be dead along with so many others from Ptosphes' exploding cannonballs.

It still rankled, though, to be leading from behind. One more thing he would have to get used to, he supposed, along with asking who had married whom before he swore unquestioning obedience. Great King Lysandros' support was reluctant because the Great King owed his throne to Styphon's House and knew that Roxthar and the Inner Circle had to be placated before he could allow his commanders to do their jobs. At least Lysandros had shown the good judgment to forestall Galzar's Ban and ride to Hostigos Town to recast the Grand Host in such a manner than when the Ban was made public it would have already lost much of its force.

Phidestros cupped his hands around his pipe bowl and used the tinder-box to get a spark. When the pipe was drawing, he blew out a long plume of smoke, watching the rising morning breeze chase it away.

"Please, Captain-General," Geblon said. "Would you get down? Otherwise the Hostigi will aim at your smoke."

Phidestros doubted that in this breeze even a Hostigi rifleman could hit a man at this distance, but obeyed anyway. He could see as well, and make Geblon happy to boot.

The guns newly emplaced in the battery at the foot of the draw thumped. Their shots tore masonry from a gate tower. Another salvo followed, and white smoke rose in place of the morning mist.

Phidestros puffed on his pipe and prayed to all the true gods that today the butcher's bill would be a light one.

Kalvan watched as Xykos, Captain of Rylla's Beefeaters-in polished silver dinner plate yet-opened the tent flap so that he could enter the makeshift Council Hall. Rylla walked beside him, her face set like stone, careful not to accidentally brush up against her husband. She had been frozen like this ever since she had been unable to talk Prince Ptosphes out of leaving Tarr-Hostigos. Possibly she blamed herself for this, or her father-or him.

With all that was going on in the exodus from Hostigos, Kalvan had neither the time nor the patience to draw it out of her. Rylla was too proud to talk about her problems without a struggle. A fight between the Great King and his Queen, with no privacy and things so uncertain, would be bad for army morale. Still, he should be doing something, but what? Nothing coming to mind, he squeezed her arm affectionately. That she didn't shake his hand loose he took as a good sign.

All the surviving Princes of what was once the Great Kingdom of Hos-Hostigos, and most of the generals, were seated upon barrels, boxes and chests facing the Fireseed Throne, which had been shipped out of Tarr-Hostigos by wagon at no small cost in space. Kalvan knew that it had displaced a load of foodstuffs, but symbols were as important as food-maybe in cases like this, more important. His people needed a visible reminder that their homeland was not forgotten and that their migration was temporary-not permanent.