John Carr - Siege of Tarr-Hostigos

"Any man who wants to leave can still do so. I'll say nothing against him nor let anyone else say a word. He'll have to hurry to catch up with our rearguard before nightfall, but there's an open road for any who wants to take it." He pointed toward the castle gate with his sword.

"For those who stay, you all know what kind of quarter Styphon's dogs gave us at Ardros. The lucky ones will have a quick death. The rest will have an appointment with Roxthar's Unholy Investigation."

A few hollow laughs sounded from the ranks; most faces were set and pale. All knew what had happened to the Hostigi prisoners after Ardros Field; only a few had not lost kin or friends in that butchery. Most of the prisoners not slaughtered outright were in the hands of the Investigation, doubtless envying their dead comrades.

Ptosphes lowered his sword and strode to the door of the woodshed on one side of the courtyard. Then he drew a line with the sword's point-like the one in the story Kalvan had told him in his cups one night-through the dirt and straw covering the flagstones of the courtyard, from the woodshed to the blacksmith's forge on the other side. He then took a deep breath, sheathed his sword, and turned to face his men.

"All who want to stay, cross over this line and join me. Those who want to die somewhere else-stay where you are!"

Silence. Ptosphes could hear the stamping of horses from the stables on the far side of the courtyard. An unnaturally complete silence to be hanging over five-hundred men. No one coughed, no one shuffled his feet. Ptosphes could have sworn some had ceased to breathe.

A thickset man in battered armor pushed his way from the rear into the open. Ptosphes tried not to stare too hard. It was Vurth.

Vurth, the peasant who'd been Kalvan's first host in this land, who owed his life and his family's to Kalvan's fighting skill. His son-in-law, Xykos, was Captain of Rylla's Own Guard. It was he who'd sent word of the Nostori raiders to Tarr-Hostigos, so that Rylla could lead out the cavalry who cut off the raiders and found Kalvan.

Vurth, a peasant who might really be called Dralm's first chosen tool for bringing about everything that had happened since that spring night almost four years ago. Ptosphes wondered briefly what Primate Xentos would have to say about the theological propriety of that notion-if presiding over the squabbles of the Council of Dralm in far-off Agrys City left him any time for such matters.

Much good may that do Xentos in the eyes of the gods, when the Council and League of Dralm sends only words of condolence instead of soldiers and muskets to those who fight its battles against Styphon.

Ptosphes examined the gray-haired peasant. His clothes and face were caked with mud and powder smoke, one shoulder was bandaged and he limped. He wore the breastplate of some Harphaxi nobleman, once etched and gilded, now hacked and tarnished, over his homespun smock. On his head was a battered morion helmet, on his feet cavalry boots from two different corpses. He still carried the Nostori cavalryman's silver-butted musketoon he'd acquired the night of Kalvan's coming, and both it and the horn powder flask at his belt were clean.

"First Prince, Captain-General Harmakros, people," Vurth began. "This isn't really a Council, so maybe I don't have the right to start off, as if I was Speaker for the Peasants like Phosg, may Dralm protect him. I think I've a right to be heard, though."

Ptosphes would have cut down anyone who disagreed. The men saw this, and Vurth went on.

"Prince, most of us here either can't run, don't want to run or don't have anywhere to run to. My farm has burned, my wife is dead and one son too. The other son's off with King Kalvan, in the Royal Dragoons, and my son-in-law Xykos is Captain of Queen Rylla's Beefeaters. Dralm keep all the daughters who ran off with mercenaries.

"Styphon's House has taken or chased off everything I had except my life. All I want to do with what's left of it is kill Styphon's dogs until they kill me. I'm too old to go climbing trees or hide in caves like a thief. I'd rather sit here and kill the bastards in comfort!"

Vurth shouldered his musketoon and stepped forward across the line before anyone could cheer.

Ptosphes felt his eyes burn and quickly blinked back the threatening tears. He stepped up beside Vurth and put his arm around the peasant's shoulders. Any land that bore men like these would be barren ground indeed for Styphon's House. Such men could be killed; they could not be frightened.

Harmakros' voice cut through the new silence.

"Lift that litter, you fools! You don't have to stay yourselves!"

The bearers' reply was nearly inaudible and totally disrespectful. They had the Captain-General across the line before Ptosphes stopped grinning.

Another man stepped out, then two more, then five, then a band often, then a band too numerous to count, and after that it was a steady stream.

Ptosphes saw one gray-haired man telling a club-footed boy no more than ten to stand where he was, then step out himself. The boy looked sullenly after his grandfather until he was sure the man couldn't see him, then slipped across the line.

Ptosphes turned his back on the men. He didn't want them to see his face until he could command it as a captain and a Prince ought to.

By the time he turned around, the space on the other side of the line was empty.

Ptosphes ran his eyes over the garrison, with the care of a man trained at the quick counting of large masses of men. There'd been just over five hundred before. No doubt a few had slipped off, perhaps as many as a man could count on his fingers and toes. Call it four hundred and eighty left behind, quite enough to do all the work Styphon's Grand Host would allow.

Ptosphes was fumbling for words of thanks when a sentry on the keep tower shouted. "Prince Ptosphes! Enemy scouts in Hostigos Town! On the east side, cavalry with two guns."

Guns up with the scouts meant they had orders to fight instead of hit and run. Who would have such orders? Perhaps the Zarthani Knights…

Ptosphes swallowed; the lump in his throat twitched but remained where it was. "What colors?" he managed to shout.

"King Cleitharses and a mercenary company's. Looks like a rearing white horse on a blue field."

The lump shrank. Regulars wouldn't burn a town they expected to provide them with dry beds and hot food, unless they had other orders-nor would they let mercenaries. Such orders might not be obeyed, either, unless the man who gave them was watching.

With Grandbutcher Soton not up yet and Phidestros himself- although a mercenary-the commander of a Great King's army, there might be no such man here. If Soton arrived after the Grand Host's advance guard had settled in well, making mercenaries in another king's pay burn their own shelter and food was a task Ptosphes wouldn't wish even on Soton.

The Holy Investigator's Inquiry Chamber, a former smokehouse outside the burned-out shell of a Hostigi farm, was unnaturally quiet, which worried Investigator Kynnos far more than the usual cries and sobs that had poured out of the thin walls when he had arrived late last night. Even the slave pens, filled now with hundreds of crowded peasants, were still. Only the occasional cry of a babe broke the early morning stillness.

He remembered some Hostigi merchant asking him, as he ransacked the man's house, what made one Hostigi a slave, while his neighbor was targeted for the Investigation. "The possession of the heretic's image," had been his answer. "But every house and hut in Hostigos has images of Allfather Dralm!" "Yes, but mercy is given to those who can buy their freedom." He had left that household with three gold rings, two silver coins and a tiny golden image of Dralm that he kept safely tucked into his boot. As soon as he was safely alone, he would start a fire and melt it down to metal.