Great Kings' War (50 page)

Not to mention no word about Rylla or the baby, either. Her delivery had come at the worst of all possible times. If only he knew whether she was alive and doing well, or... Hell and damnation, if something happened to the baby—! Well, they could always try again. Or adopt an heir if they had to.

This not knowing was the worst. Now was no time to worry, though...

He had to relieve the pressure on Harmakros before the center went into an uncontrollable rout—and all was lost. That, and pray that Ptosphes could hold back the Zarthani Knights a bit longer.

Kalvan looked back at his command; it was a smaller and less orderly group than he'd led across Phyrax pasture an hour ago. Yet, their spirits were high and most of the gaps in the ranks had been closed. Since he couldn't reach the Sacred Squares, he was going to do the next best thing: hit the mercenary foot on the flank, roll right over them and smash the Order foot.

"Major Nicomoth, signal advance!"

Kalvan checked the loads in his pistols, raised his sword and joined his voice to six thousand others in a single shout:

"DOWN STYHPON!"

The mercenary foot, attacked in the flank and from the rear, displayed little of the fight that the mercenary cavalry had.
Perhaps they're not as well led?
Kalvan wondered. A few of the pikemen put their helmets on their pikes and raised them in formal surrender, but most threw down their arms and cried "Oath to Galzar!" or simply took to their heels. About eight hundred were shot, run through or simply ridden down; twenty-five hundred surrendered.

The Zarthani Order Foot were made of stouter stuff and used the time it took Kalvan's cavalry to ride through the mercenary lines to wheel and face the Hostigi charge. Fortunately, the Order infantry had three pikes to every firearm and no artillery. And Kalvan had another surprise for them.

He gave the order for the caracole, a difficult maneuver the cavalry had practiced but never used in such strength, or on the battlefield. He knew it would take luck and the help of Galzar or
Somebody
to bring it off even with troopers he trusted completely. The caracole required both discipline and iron nerves for successive ranks of cavalry to ride within ten feet of the enemy line, fire both pistols, then wheel away to let the next rank to follow.

The endless hours practicing the caracole on the drill ground paid off. Despite the steady fire from the Order's shot, and the unearthly screams of wounded horses, the for-real caracole went off in a surprisingly good imitation of how it had been practiced on the parade ground. The Order's arquebusiers emptied more than a few Hostigi saddles in the beginning, but the cumulative effect of continuous heavy fire beat them down, then began to shred the ranks of pikemen. The pike ranks showed gaps, wavered and began to leak deserters. The Order Foot were brave men and veterans, but no unit could stand helpless taking casualties like this without something breaking. It was the pikemen who could not stand it any longer and charged the Hostigi horse wildly, in no particular order and hardly under the control of their officers.

Finally!
thought Kalvan. Pikemen on the move who weren't keeping their ranks tight were comparatively easy meat for cavalry. He ordered the countercharge.

The Hostigi cavalry smashed through the disordered pikemen and rode them into the ground, sabers rising and falling. Few asked for quarter, fewer yet were granted it; these were Styphon's soldiers and killing them was like killing rattlesnakes. Most died where they stood. Kalvan watched from the rear, knowing that whoever won today, Grand Master Soton of the Order of Zarthani Knights would never forget the price his Order paid.

"Fire!" 
 

Or at least that's what Harmakros thought his battle-numb ears had heard. A moment later the crash of the gun proved him right. After the redoubt explosion, he wondered if he would ever hear well again. If he survived this nightmare-of-the-gods battle, he might find out!

The ball gouged a huge clod out of the slope, spraying the Sacred Square of Imbraz with grass, dirt and pebbles. It bounced high, crashed through a cluster of billheads with a weird clanking, then dropped to the ground out of Harmakros' sight. He couldn't see or hear if it did any damage.

That was probably the demicannon that had run out of case shot. It wasn't the only one, not after the Great Battery had been lost and retaken. The Ktemnoi infantry must be running short of fireseed and shot, too; their musketeers were only firing a half-company at a time and aimed fire instead of volleying by ranks. Not that aiming at two hundred paces with a smoothbore did much good, but it couldn't hurt. Harmakros had been knocked on his back once since they'd recaptured the Grand Battery. Fortunately, the cotton gambeson he wore underneath his breastplate—at Kalvan's recommendation—had left him with bruised, but not broken, ribs.

Harmakros wasn't exactly sure in the confusion what was responsible for the temporary retreat of the Holy Host. One messenger had claimed that Kalvan had attacked them in the rear, but if that were true, why had the retreat stopped so quickly? It was Chartiphon's tardy arrival with the Ktethroni pikemen who had brought the Sacred Squares to a standstill in the first place, giving the battered Hostigi infantry time to regroup and mount their own counterattack. It was during this counterattack that the Styphoni had begun to fall back.

Now the Holy Host was back on the march. So far the Hostigi had been able to hold them back from the top of the slope and the Great Battery until the Styphoni center now formed a gigantic arc with the Royal Square of Ktemnos now at Harmakros' right, stretching through the Second Great Square to the First on the left. Directly in front of Harmakros the ground was mostly defended by the fire of the Great Battery itself, but he could see the surviving Mounted Riflemen and his own Mobile Force dragoons tying in with the First Hostigos Royal Foot beyond.

Another gun fired, a sixteen-pounder from the sound of it, and this ball cut a bloody furrow in the Sacred Square of Cynthlos. Another far-off gunshot came like an echo to the first. The Great Battery's few remaining guns on the left were firing occasionally, to do what they could to discourage the Zarthani Knights. From what little intelligence Harmakros had been able to gather in this potmess of a battle, the Knights had run Ptosphes and most of the left wing into the forest. Phrames, Sarrask and maybe fifteen hundred heavy cavalry were all that was keeping the Grand Master from committing his Knights in support of the Sacred Squares. If that happened, neither Great King Kalvan nor Galzar himself would be able to save the Army of Hos-Hostigos.

Harmakros heard the sixteen-pounder fire again, then a great shout.

"Long live King Kalvan!"

He turned, raised his hands to shield his eyes, and saw in the distance the red plumes of Hostigos pushing into the black plumes of the Zarthani Knights.

Praise Allfather Dralm and Galzar Wolfhead, was Harmakros' one thought.

He watched for a moment long, then knelt and said sort prayer of thanks to gods who had clearly not forgotten Hostigos.

Soton muttered curses under his breath as he saw the shrunken line of Hostigi defenders once again re-forming to meet the Knights' charge.
Blast and curse them!
he railed to himself. He would have cursed at the top of his lungs, but after nearly a half day of continuous fighting, he had little voice left and needed to save that for giving orders to his messengers.

How in the name of all the gods, and everything else a man might swear by, could hardly more than a thousand men go on holding out against three times their number? Yet these Hostigi continued to do so; he'd lost count of the times the Knights had charged. When Soton had begun the attack he'd been certain that one or two would be enough.

There was that madman Prince Sarrask and the noblemen of his Household Guard, countercharging with sword, mace, warhammer and pistol butt! Soton remembered his first glimpse of the Saski at Tenabra, when their armor looked like table service. Now, if it looked like table service, it was the sort of ware provided for the lesser servants and slaves in a cheap inn. Sarrask and his men had been to the wars: so what was Almighty Styphon thinking of to let a warrior like this, who could have been a pillar of the God of Gods, become instead a bulwark of the Usurper's cause?

There was no answer to that question forthcoming. And none, Soton suspected, to be found on this battlefield. They were going to have to slug it out without divine intervention. He took a firm grip on his war hammer and guided his lathered mount to the left, where there seemed more room to swing his favorite weapon.

The two masses of horsemen collided with the sound of an anvil dropping on a stone floor. The clang of steel rose, and for perhaps an eighth of a candle Soton's world narrowed down to the man he was facing and perhaps the Knight on either side of him. When the two sides lurched apart again, he was pleased to see the Hostigi had left the better part of a hundred casualties on the ground as they withdrew from the melee to reform.

Soton was not so pleased to see that nearly the same number of Knights had gone down. At least the Knights were still mostly mounted, while the Hostigi had no more than one horse for every two men. The dismounted Hostigi were fighting with halberds and poleaxes picked up from the battlefield. Now if that messenger he'd sent to the rear for a few mule-loads of fireseed would just do his job...

Fireseed or no, another charge or two should be enough, unless they really were facing a demon in the shape of Sarrask of Sask. Soon the Knights would ride the Hostigi into the dirt and ride to support the Sacred Squares. With the Knights spurring them on, the Ktemnoi would finally break the Hostigi center and
end
this Ormaz-spawned battle!

"GRAND MASTER! Grand Master! We are doomed!"

Soton raised his warhammer and turned. He saw Knight Commander Aristocles, his face white with more than the day's accumulation of dust.

"What is it? Speak, man, speak!"

Aristocles paused to catch his breath, then said, "It's the Daemon Kalvan! He's ridden down the Red Hand and is attacking us from behind!"

Soton slammed his gauntleted left fist into the pommel of his saddle, causing his mount to whinny in surprise. "What about the Order Foot?"

"Dead. Crushed. Scythed to the nub! Not enough left to make a small band."

Soton sagged in his saddle. To himself he muttered, "All is lost." Then he straightened. "Summon the trumpets, old friend. Give the order to form up. It's time to retire."

Relief was written all over Aristocles' face as he turned to ride away and attend to orders.

Soton felt no such relief. His choice was clear: he could either stay here and fight to the last man, a disaster from which his Knights might never recover, or retreat and live to fight another day. As much as it stuck in his craw, he had no choice but to retire. Only the Order of Zarthani Knights stood between the fertile lands of Hos-Bletha and Hos-Ktemnos and the clans and tribes of the Lower Sastragath—and beyond. Word had it that the barbarians across the Sea of Grass were on the move. With the Order's losses at the Heights of Chothros and now the slaughter of the Order Foot, every man-at-arms he could bring back to Tarr-Ceros from this Ormaz-blasted battlefield would be needed—no matter the price to his pride.

And cost him it would—in other ways as well. Even if he went unpunished by Marshall Mnephilos and Great King Cleitharses, there were still many in the Inner Circle of Styphon's House who would savor his defeat and see it as a slap in the face to the First Speaker and his supporters, those Archpriests who had put him forward as the commander of the Holy Host.

Truth was he had seriously miscalculated both Hostigi resolve and Kalvan's military abilities. And he deserved whatever punishment they dished out. If he had to retire from his position, so be it. Let someone else reap this Hostigi whirlwind!

From her post on the Foundry roof, Sirna was the first to see the six horsemen riding toward the Foundry gate with her disguised mini-telescope. She whistled to signal Aranth Saln and his Foundry guards, who were posted along the wall and watchtowers, strangers were approaching. She sighed with relief when she saw the riders were wearing the red colors of Hos-Hostigos. She whistled twice telling Saln that the unknowns were 'friendlies'—or wearing 'friendly' colors. She doubted that the Styphoni would bother with subterfuge to take a mere foundry. After alerting the farmhouse that 'friendlies' were on the way, she scaled down the ladder.

Sirna reached the gate just moments ahead of the leading horseman, a broad-beamed captain in yellow and gold Saski colors overlaid with a red sash.

"What is the word from the battle?" Aranth asked.

"They're sending back the captured mercenaries and the Foundry is to take five hundred."

"But what about the battle?" Sirna asked.

The Saski captain shrugged. "Well enough. We chewed up the Knights and sent them packing back to Tarr-Ceros..."

The shrug did it; Sirna recognized him as Captain Strathos, the mercenary captain who on one of the Kalvan Control Lines helped Sarrask defeat the Hostigi! She had to fight the urge to scream; in her mind's eye she saw the heads of Ptosphes and the rest decorating Tarr-Hostigos.

"...Our Prince did the biggest share of that, let me tell you. If only you'd seen him after Prince Ptosphes fled the field, rallying the Saski and Nostori cavalry. Well, it's true that Count Phrames helped, but our Prince—"

The captain went off into a rambling litany of praise for that paragon of military virtues who was obviously supposed to be Prince Sarrask of Sask. This gave Sirna some useful insights into how romances of chivalry get started, but very little knowledge about whether the Foundry people should be prepared to celebrate or run for their lives. With Captain Ranthar still gone...

Finally Aranth's voice interrupted the captain's steady flow of praise for his Prince. "Is His Majesty sending the mercenaries back to split them up and protect them from any rescue attempts?"