John Carr - Siege of Tarr-Hostigos

"We cannot afford to feed unreliable troops. Give them a choice: either they join the Royal Army or we muster them out."

"What about back-pay?"

"Pay them whatever we owe, not a phenig more." The treasury of Hos-Hostigos was in a small baggage train of fourteen wagons. They were not impoverished, not yet, but that gold could disappear faster than an ice cream cone on a hot day if he wasn't careful. However, it was important to maintain the reputation of a King who always paid his debts.

The big question was: what to do next? He was faced with an alarming number of choices: he could return to the vacant Princedom of Nyklos and attempt to hold off the Grand Host until winter when the change of seasons would provide some breathing room. Of course, by that token, it would have been smarter to try to hold Tarr-Hostigos and wait the Styphoni out. But, with the Princedom occupied by hostile troops, he would have been unable to care for or feed his people. Moving lock, stock and barrel into Nyklos would only postpone the inevitable.

Or, he could make nice with King Theovacar and hope that he needed a vassal punished or removed. In other words, sell the army to the highest bidder, knowing that Styphon's Grand Host would think twice about going up against Hos-Hostigos and Greffa, or Dorg. Unfortunately, that was another temporary solution to a permanent problem. As Tortha had pointed out in their talk last night, during their discussion about sending Tortha to Greffa to open diplomatic negotiations with King Theovacar, it still would not provide Kalvan and his people with a home base from which to operate.

He hoped Tortha and Theovacar, between themselves, could come up with a better solution because right now Kalvan was fresh out of ideas. At least when Napoleon was exiled to Elba he didn't have a quarter of a million mouths to feed.

Ptosphes was leading a cavalry charge at the climax of a great battle. The guns thundered and something else was growling like a whole forestful of hungry bears.

He looked down again. He wasn't riding a horse, but standing on top of one of Great King Truman's wagons with its strange gun. Except that the wagon wasn't quite as Kalvan had described it-it had the head and tail of a horse, the mane flying into his face. As they rode downhill toward the lines of an enemy flying the colors of Styphon's Red Hand, the wagon-horse turned its head to look at Ptosphes.

Its eyes glowed a sinister green, and he knew he was riding a creature possessed by demons.

He clawed for reins he couldn't find, trying to turn the creature so he wouldn't have to look into those eyes. No matter how desperately he groped, he couldn't find the reins. At last his fingers closed on something that felt like woolen cloth, which was a strange thing to make reins out of-

"Prince Ptosphes! Prince Ptosphes! Wake up!"

Nobody should be telling him to wake up in a dream and this was still a dream. He could still hear the thunder of guns, even if he couldn't hear the bear-like growling of the iron wagon.

"Prince Ptosphes! The Grand Host is coming!"

"Hu-rrrupppp!" Ptosphes lurched into a sitting position before he realized that he was awake and clutching his blanket.

He heard guns thundering and someone shouted in his ear that the Styphoni were attacking. The window showed gray instead of black. Two men ran toward it, carrying heavy rifled muskets, nearly tripping over Ptosphes as they came.

Ptosphes threw off the blanket and stood. The air of the keep already held a sodden heat. He felt obscurely resentful that so many men should have to fight their last battle on a miserably hot day.

Someone was pushing a cup of sassafras tea into his hands. He emptied it in three gulps and held it out again for more. The second cupful was half Ermut's brandy. He set the cup down on the nearest chest, retrieved his sword and buckled it on.

Harmakros was sitting in the chair of state, wide-awake and barking orders. His stump was propped up on a pillow-padded stool and two pistols hung from the arm of the chair.

"Good luck, Prince."

"The same to you, old son."

That was all the speech Ptosphes allowed himself, even if it was probably the last time he would see Harmakros. If the riflemen were taking position before the arrow slits, there was hardly time to talk.

Chroniclers a hundred years from now will probably make up fine farewell speeches for both of us. Tutors will torment children by forcing them to learn those speeches.

As Ptosphes passed through the keep door to the outer stairs, the gun-roar doubled, then doubled again. The mortars had opened fire. Whatever was coming at Tarr-Hostigos was now within their range.

Ptosphes hurried down the stairs as fast as he could without appearing uneasy. At the bottom he saw that the guards who saluted him were also busily piling tar-soaked brushwood under the timbers of the stairs. One torch and the easy way into the keep would go up in flames, making another line of defense for the last of the garrison.

From the tower over the gate between the courtyards, Ptosphes could see everywhere except directly behind the keep. In the last attack, they had given the Styphoni dogs heavy casualties with caseshot and supporting rifle fire, but in the end he had ordered the last of his command back to the keep in the inner bailey, where they could maximize the firepower of Tarr-Hostigos' small garrison. He hadn't the heart to call muster, but a lot of familiar faces, like Vurth's, were missing.

Three large storming parties were advancing, one toward the breach made by the siege guns, one by the main gate, and one holding well back on the northeastern side. At a single glance, Ptosphes knew that nearly half the Grand Host must be hurling itself at the castle.

The northeastern column was in fact so far away that Ptosphes wondered if they were the reserves, until he saw what was slowing them down. They had last night's mysterious wagons with them, except that they weren't wagons. They were stout-timbered wooden platforms mounted on immense solid wheels, each pushed by a hundred men with poles and pulled by hundreds more with ropes.

Except some of the 'men' wore skirts, and some were too small. Men, women and children from Hostigos Town, forced to haul the platforms forward until they reached the moat. The platforms would fill the moat most handily, offering a firm base for ladders. Of course the castle's defenders wouldn't fire on their own people to keep the platforms from reaching their destination…

This had to be the Arch-Butcher Roxthar's work! Behind the platforms marched a large body of infantry with pikes, halberds and glaives, leading ten bands of musketeers, each a thousand strong or more-the last, a Temple Band of Styphon's Red Hand, held aloft the Guard's black pinion with a red sun-wheel. Scores of two and three-man teams carried scaling ladders, while others carried coils of rope. Once the wooden platforms were in place, the Styphoni would pour into the castle like a mountain stream swollen by floodwaters.

Ptosphes used the name of every god he'd ever heard of but couldn't find words to describe the habits of Soton and Roxthar in this world or the fate he wished for them in another. To set women and children as targets-and to fight behind their skirts!

He started to add Phidestros to the cursing, then halted. After all, one does not swear at the whip when it strikes, but at the hand wielding it.

Ptosphes gripped the railing until his nails gouged the wood, and then shouted, "Gunners! Open fire on those platforms! Round shot, and aim at the wheels." Styphon himself couldn't start those landbound rafts moving again once their wheels were wrecked.

The gunners looked at each other, then at their Prince. They'd seen who was out there in front of their guns, maybe even seen their own kin. Thaimoth shouted, "Better clean Hostigi cannonballs than the Investigator's rack!" Then they began slewing the guns around. Ptosphes heard most of them cursing and praying, one or two weeping.