John Carr - Siege of Tarr-Hostigos

Galzar's muster-clerks are going to be working long hours today, Ptosphes thought.

Chrunngggg!

Something struck the outside of the wall-a solid shot, the report of its firing lost in the roar of musketry. "Not bad," Ptosphes said. "Sounds as if they hit just to the left of the door."

It took three more shots before the smashing of wood and the ringing of iron signaled a direct hit on the outer door. Two more shots completed the work. A rifleman crept up the stairs and into the doorway, peering through the wreckage.

"They're reloading, but they've lined up a storming party too. They can't be going to fire right over-here it comes-ayyyyhhhh!"

The pieces of the door flew into the keep chamber hall. So did the pieces of the rifleman. A cannonball rolled in after them, making the Hostigi do spritely dances to avoid it.

Harmakros unhooked his pistols from the arm of the chair of state, cocked them, and laid them in his lap, then raised an empty wine cup in salute to Ptosphes. "I'll claim that brandy, Prince. If they had shells, they'd have used one then."

"So it would seem."

Then, from all the firing slits, the sentries shouted that the storming party was on the way. The gun on the roof let fly, although no one bothered to tell Ptosphes if it hit anything. It fired a second time… a third.

As the fourth shot went off, the Styphoni burst into the chamber hall.

A ragged volley of pistols and muskets half-deafened Ptosphes. He saw the leading rank of the enemy stagger and go down, but realized the men behind them now had shields of once-living flesh. He drew his own pistol and fired it over the heads of the six men who'd appointed themselves his last bodyguard. Then the Styphoni were everywhere.

Ptosphes decided that if demons ever really came into the world, they might look like Styphon's soldiers. The attackers wore every sort of armor and clothing except for those who wore little of either. They were black-faced, red-eyed, stinking, shrieking cries in no language intended for human ears, and waving strange weapons in more arms than the gods gave men.

The massed Styphoni gave Vurth a fine target for his musketoon. He shot one man, smashed in a second's face, then got a third in a wrestler's headlock and broke his neck before someone else ran him through. Vurth's diversion let Ptosphes break away from his bodyguards toward the fireplace and the concealed ladder leading down to the cellar. He had to be down there to do his last duty as Prince of Hostigos-not the last Prince; the gods grant it!-and knew he might have already waited too long.

Four of the bodyguards stayed alive to reload their weapons and see that their Prince no longer needed them. They fired into the Styphoni, and then closed with steel.

The first man to make a way past them Harmakros shot in the head. The second man ran Harmakros through the stomach; the Duke returned the compliment with his second pistol. A third man hesitated, uncertain whether to help his comrades or see if Harmakros was dead. Harmakros snatched the pistol from the man's belt, rammed the muzzle up under its owner's jaw, and pulled the trigger. The chair of state fell over, spilling out Harmakros' body as Ptosphes swung himself into the chimney.

The room was filling with Styphoni, many of them Temple Guardsmen with dented plate and fouled capes. Ptosphes forced himself to go down the iron rungs of the ladder one at a time. It would help nobody except Styphon's House if he failed in his last duty by falling down the chimney and dashing out what the siege had left of his brains.

By the time he reached the bottom, he knew that if he had to climb back up again his heart would burst before he finished the climb. He'd been right; he would not have lived to see his grandchildren grow up even without this Dralm-damned war! However, this way he was at least spared years of listening to old Tharses and Rylla fussing at him, making him eat and sleep and rest as they thought proper, and generally trying to turn him into a corpse while he was still alive.

The blessed coolness of the cellar revived him a little. He found that he'd brought his pipe, tobacco and tinderbox with him, started to light up, stopped as he remembered the ironclad rules about smoking near fireseed, then laughed. It made precious little difference what anybody did down here now.

Ptosphes found the fireseed intact, all twelve tons of it minus a barrel or two. He also found the last of the magazine-keepers sitting at the foot of the stairs, along with his clubfooted grandson. The keeper was an old soldier past campaigning, with the grandson to support and no other kin. Ptosphes had given him the magazine by way of a pension.

"What can we do for you, my Prince?"

"If you have pistols-?"

The keeper showed an old cavalryman's matchlock. The boy produced a heavy-barreled boar-hunter's pistol.

"Good. Keep watch on the stairs."

With his pipe in his mouth, Prince Ptosphes walked over to a row of small barrels, chose one from the top, cracked it open, and then laid a trail of fireseed a thumb wide and a finger deep to the center of the larger barrels. Just to be safe, he borrowed one of the keeper's handspikes and knocked in the head of one of the larger barrels. Fireseed cascaded out until a helmetful lay waiting at the end of the train, with the twelve tons waiting beyond.

By the time Ptosphes was finished, fists were hammering on the outside of the cellar door. Then he heard the more solid sounds of a chest or bench being swung against it. Wood cracked and metal pulling out of stone screeched as a hinge gave way. The door half-swung, half-fell inward.

All three Hostigi fired together at the first silhouettes to appear. The answering volley sent bullets spanging around the cellar. One hit the boy in the stomach. The Styphoni drew back except for the one who fell forward and rolled down the stairs to land at Ptosphes feet.

He was as filthy as all the others and no more than eighteen. He was crying for his mother as he clasped his hands over a belly wound that under other circumstances would have killed him slowly over the next few days. Well, he'd be spared that and he'd already lived longer than the keeper's grandson would, or Harmakros' son would-if the Grand Host overtook Kalvan.

Except that the Styphoni wouldn't. Ptosphes knew this although he couldn't have explained how he knew it. He was sure it was true knowledge, not a dead man's dreaming to make his death easier.

My mind is wandering, he thought. He was having trouble breathing, too.

Since he was dead, why wait any longer, in case one of those Styphoni cursing so loudly at the top of the stairs wanted to come down and argue the point?

Ptosphes finished tamping the ball and wadding of his new load, checked the pan, and then rested the pistol on one knee as he knocked the live coal from his pipe into the trail of fireseed.

Damn you, Sirna! What are you using in the wound? Galzar's Mace?" Sirna ignored Phidestros' blustering. She knew she must be causing him agony, probing his wounded thigh with her limited skills and instruments improvised by the Iron Band's armorers from Menandra's kitchen utensils. He'd refused a sandbag, though, and she had to go on and extract that last piece she felt in the wound. Otherwise he would certainly lose his leg and probably his life. Then what would happen to her? Sirna told herself that her concern was thoroughly practical and continued digging.

Finally the probe clicked on the fragment again, this time loosening it until she could grip it between two blood-slimed fingers. It was a piece of stoneware, sharp-edged but solid. It wouldn't leave any more fragments in the wound (or so she told herself, because she knew that her hands would start shaking uncontrollably if she had to burrow back into that mangled flesh).