John Carr - Siege of Tarr-Hostigos

Stratego Dono wheeled up to Arch-Stratego Zarphu and saluted. He paused to remove his silver facemask. "Arch-Stratego, I believe we have now crippled enough firetubes to call for a general advance."

Zarphu turned as a firetube exploded in a burst of light, rocking the front lines. It was useful to know the Hostigi would blow their own tubes if they could take enough enemies with them. Zarphu appreciated such acts of heroic folly. This battle would already be over were the Hostigi as worthless as much of this so-called Grand Host. The insults his soldiers had been subjected to ever since they'd entered this cold land had almost been beyond endurance, even from barbarians. Were it not for duty…

The Hostigi firetubes had inflicted heavy casualties, far more than the fire-tubes they had encountered at the Iron City. King Kalvan had several times the firetubes of the Grand Host. Truly, Kalvan was a great Stratego-even though he was a barbarian.

The firetubes were deadly, as this army had learned on the Iron Trail. Still his iron-hearted soldiers had proven that the firetubes could be silenced if the men who fed them their fireseed were killed. It was easier to silence the firetubes since Stratego Phidestros had taught his soldiers to destroy their wheels and burn their wooden frames, which kept the enemy from recapturing them and turning them back on his troops.

Less than a dozen of the Hostigi firetubes were still firing upon his men. Even so, a direct charge into the Hostigi front would result in thousands of casualties. To wait would also be a disaster. The Hostigi were bringing up more and more of their firesticks to replace the lost firetubes. While the firesticks were not as deadly as the bigger tubes, en masse they were as dangerous as arrow flights. The time had come to take the fight to the enemy.

"It is time to move, Dono. Sound the horns!" The great battle horns sounded and the entire army began beating spears and lances against shields and body armor. The noise was deafening to him and even more terrifying to those hearing it for the first time. He would not have been surprised if the entire Hostigi flank had collapsed. That it did not, showed that his men's steel was being whetted on worthy foes.

"Fire!"

Syllon pulled the trigger and felt his arquebus buck. He didn't hear it fire, not with hundreds of smoothbores firing to either side. All he heard was an ear-pounding roar. Then everything was obscured in a fog of gray-streaked white smoke.

"First rank, fall back! Fourth rank, forward!"

The wind lifted the smoke for a moment as he turned to fall back through the files, and Syllon saw scores of writhing horses and men in iron scales being ridden over by their own men. He shuddered despite the intense heat that left rivers of sweat to run beneath his boiled leather jack.

Syllon was no coward; no man who had survived the Battles of Fyk, Chothros Heights, and Phyrax could be called such. Yet, in those battles he had fought with his pike, a pole of ash, six rods long, topped with a frog's-mouth of sharp steel, not a stubby musket with a knife at the end! Some pike.

As he walked back through the ranks, he passed by the Second Regiment's banner: Styphon's head impaled on a red ax on a blue field. He reached the rear rank and took his position, while his petty-captain began the familiar litany. "Up flint!"

Syllon raised the striker. The rest of the drill was so familiar he did not even have to listen to the commands, just the cadence of his petty-captain's voice. He removed one of the new paper cartridges from his bandolier, tore it open with his teeth, and put a pinch of fireseed in the pan. He then lowered the striker. Next, Syllon set the musket butt on the ground with the gun barrel angled so he could quickly pour the fire-seed down the muzzle.

"Pour charges!"

He then poured the remaining fireseed from the paper cartridge down the barrel, followed by the lead ball and the wadded up paper cartridge. He used his ramrod to ram the ball and paper well down into the breech.

"Raise muskets!"

Syllon took a quick look at the battle again; for an instant he saw a moving wall of Ros-Zarthani, then another cloud of gray smoke obscured everything but the rank of soldiers directly in front of him. He watched as they advanced to the front. There was another roar and then he heard the order, "First rank, forward!"

He noticed the files and ranks of the Regiment were growing ragged; bodies stitched with arrows and javelins, made walking difficult. There was a bone-jarring clang as an arrow bounced off his morion helmet; he stopped to shake his head and was almost pushed aside by the man behind him.

"You Dralm-damned fool! Keep moving."

Syllon stumbled forward, somehow keeping his balance. He had a feeling in the pit of his stomach that if he lost his footing and fell he would never get up again. Pushing through the smoke and over fallen bodies, he reached the front. He lifted his musket and pulled down the striker, set the flint down and squeezed the trigger. He was shocked to discover that the Ros-Zarthani had advanced to within a few rods of the Hostigi line. One of the lancers was coming straight for him, so instead of waiting for the command to "fire" he shot the rider's horse in the chest. The horse stumbled, catapulting the lancer out of his saddle. The lancer rolled to the ground and bounced up, to Syllon's great surprise.

A ragged volley followed the command to 'fire,' but it only dropped a few handfuls of the enemy.

Meanwhile, the barbarian lancer had dropped his lance, so he drew a wicked hand-axe from a loop on his belt and ran straight at Syllon! Syllon dropped his useless smoothbore and from his blue sash pulled the pistol he'd taken from a dead cavalry officer at Phyrax Field. He shot the lancer at point-blank range.

The lancer staggered backwards and dropped to the ground. The polished iron scales over his breast were bent and splayed, but not penetrated. Syllon said a short prayer to Galzar as he stuck the unloaded pistol back in his sash and pulled out his sword. He stuck the lancer, who was starting to rise, in the face-unleashing a fountain of blood. The lancer fell back to the ground, twitched a few times and lay still.

"To Regwarn with you!" he cried, hoping this time the lancer was truly dead.

A quick look to either side showed that the entire Hostigi line was collapsing, some of the musketeers were dropping their weapons and running. Syllon felt his own heart leap. It took all his will power to keep himself from turning to join the runners; instead, he remembered Captain-General Harmakros' words, "Most of the dead and dying on any battlefield are shot or stabbed in the back while fleeing." It was as if Harmakros were speaking into his ear and he felt his pulse grow calm. Syllon would not go to Hadron's Realm so easily!

He heard a petty-captain shout. "Mount bayonets!"

Syllon would have obeyed, but he'd dropped his musket and was too busy using his sword to fend off a charging lancer to search for it. He managed to knock aside the lance, but when the horse reared he fell under its slashing hooves and the world went black-

Suddenly Syllon was in a white tunnel, seeing friends and family long dead. "Where am I?" he asked. They smiled, patted him on the back, then took him before a huge hearth, made of rich marble with gold veins; it was grander than any hearth he had ever seen-even greater than Prince Ptosphes' great hearth at Tarr-Hostigos. A giant with a wolfshead turned away from the fire, haloed by the light, and toasted him with a huge flagon of ale. His eyes burned like embers. Then soldiers came from everywhere, some in armor unlike any he had ever seen, some who had fought at his side. So this is Galzar's Great Hall, he told himself. He took an offered flask and began to drink…