The Fireseed Wars

FORTY-TWO

From his perch on the top platform of the watchtower to the right of the gatehouse, Tortha Karf watched the Hostigi Army pour out of the West Gate toward the quickly approaching Grefftscharr Army. He had asked the closest Kalvan Study Team, which was now based in Thagnor City, to run a sky-eye up over the city to record the battle. Prince Sarrask was rash and impatient and Tortha hoped that he didn't betray Rylla's trust. If Sarrask lost control of himself, or his men, the Royal Army could be caught between the advancing Grefftscharr Army and Great King Lysandros' twenty to twenty-five thousand reinforcements.

From his position, Tortha could now make out the Grefftscharr Army's formation. Behind a thin screen of light horse skirmishers, the Army had a thick ribbon of crossbowmen in front of four squares of spearmen, with mounted knights and crossbowman at both flanks. This was the traditional formation of a Middle Kingdoms army which had only a few handguns. He suspected that the Grefftscharri calivermen and arquebusiers would be near the middle of the ribbon.

He took out his pocket visiscreen, camouflaged as a soap stone writing tablet, tapped out the combination that made the fake cover recess and, with the screen visible, used the remote to focus the sky-eye on the Greffan missile infantry. The high-resolution eye was capable of depicting a wart on the end of a pikeman's nose, so he had no problem discerning individual weapons. Theovacar was either smarter than he'd have credited, or didn't have much faith in his new fireseed smoothbores, as the calivermen were interspersed among his crossbowmen.

Certainly the King could not have been happy with the pitiful collection of rusted battlefield leavings, mostly obsolete arquebuses and calivers, he'd received from the Grand Host. On the other hand, a Middle Kingdoms' ruler might not see these in their true light, having little knowledge and experience of firearms. Nor was it easy to convert soldiers who were long familiar with true and tested weapons to new and less reliable types. Tortha estimated that there were about three thousand soldiers with missile weapons of which less than a thousand had handguns.

The four blocks of spearmen were of roughly equal size, each made up of around fifteen hundred men. The Grefftscharri were all proven veterans of numerous nomad invasions, but as of yet untested by firearms. It was too bad that Kalvan had taken both flying batteries with him to Greffa, as they might have had a spectacular impact on the battle to come.

The men-at-arms were mostly armed with lance and sword, only a select few showed pistol holsters on their mounts. There were around fifteen hundred men-at-arms at each flank with a reserve of another thousand, primarily the King's Companions and Theovacar's high command. In the van were several hundred skirmishers, light Urgothi and Ruthani cavalry armed with light bows and spears.

Prince Sarrask had most of his units out of the City now. He had the Hostigi infantry formed into nine pike blocks with each block consisting of roughly five hundred pikemen. Each pike block had roughly eight hundred musketeers who overlapped the pike blocks at the flanks, creating a sleeve of musketeers at both ends. As the last of the mounted cuirassiers and heavy horse left the gatehouse, the Hostigi line began to move forward with the cavalry flanking both sides.

The twelve-marches wide no-man's-land that Kalvan had created beyond the outer walls of Thangor was mostly prairie farm land with only some slight depressions and small rises. Kalvan had removed most of the higher terrain for his embanked earthworks. Thus, this battle would be that rarity in real life, a chessboard set piece, since there was no cover for maneuvering and surprise attacks. It would be interesting to see how much of Kalvan's tactics Sarrask had soaked up. While a loss here wouldn't be fatal to the siege, it would certainly cripple Kalvan's future plans and further erode morale, already dampened after the long Trail of Blood from Hostigos.

It looked as if it would take about ten to fifteen minutes before the forward elements of both armies maneuvered within missile range. While he waited, Tortha wondered whether or not the King of Hos-Harphax's problems back home would affect his sojourn in the Middle Kingdoms. He looked around to see if he was being watched, but only his guard Sindar Rain was within hearing range.

He quickly called Paratime Police Field Agent Maldar Dard on his kit-phone disguised as an idol of Galzar; no one thought twice about a man talking to a facsimile of the Wargod on a battlefield.

"How are things in Harphax City?"

"We've had almost a ten-day of riots after the new play titled King Kaiphranos was debuted at the Harphaxi Palace theatre," Maldar replied.

"What idiot puts on a play about their murdered king?" he asked.

Maldar replied, "It gets even worse. King Kaiphranos is loosely based on a Europo-American play by Shakespeare entitled King Lear!"

"I remember that one. I see the problem. Do we have another trans-temporal hitchhiker loose on Aryan-Tanspacific?"

"No, Tortha. It turns out the playwright is none other than one of the missing members of the Kalvan Study Team, Danar Sirna."

"This skirts right up to the border of Paratime contamination, especially if Kalvan gets word of it. What was she thinking? Cross that out-she wasn't thinking. This is why we don't let undergrads take walkabouts out-time. This is a textbook case. What has the Harphax Study Team had to say about it?"

"If the Paratime Commission ever hears about it, there might be problems, sir. I'm the only one here who recognized the text; these University dome-tops are too busy arguing about the relative merits of forced industrialization versus organic industrialization-whatever the Styphon that is! Do you want me to snatch Sirna, or leave her there to cause more trouble? When Lysandros gets wind of what's going on back in Harphax City, he's going to scoot right back home. That'll be good news for Kalvan."

"Have they closed the play?" Tortha asked.

Maldar nodded. "Yes, two performances and Harphax City was convulsed with riots. Of course, by now most of them have forgotten the flash point. There's a new controversy; it seems that former Prince Selestros has had some sort of miraculous religious conversion and is now a faithful worshipper of Allfather Dralm!"

Tortha whistled, then looked around to make sure no one was standing nearby. "That's a real turnabout! This could be a serious problem. The last time we ignored some carpenter's son from Bethlehem, he had created a rift that split Europo-America into a hundred different subsectors and belts."

"I think it's a local phenomenon, sir, but I will check with the Kalvan Control Study Teams to see what they've observed with their Selestros analogs."

"I wonder what brought about this sudden conversion," Tortha said. "Was he influenced by drugs, hypno-mech or was it a vision? This sounds like the kind of spoof you might expect from Hadron Tharn; start up a religious controversy and blame it on Paratime Police meddling."

"I'll have Selestros kidnapped, given some knockout drops and then taken to our secret facility. We'll question him under hypno-mech and see if there's any chance of outtime contamination. If not, we'll release him and bug his quarters with micro-transmitters."

"Good idea, Maldar. But be careful. Now that Selestros has become a public figure again, we don't want to cause any alarm. Make it a nighttime snatch-and-grab and have him back by morning."

"Right, Chief. What about Sirna?"

"Ex-chief, please! Dalla's the current Chief and I wish her well. These days I'm not in a position to give any orders, but Dalla's a long ways away and Verkan is busy. He and Kalvan are off besieging Greffa City-"

"What!"

"I know, Maldar. It's nuts. I don't know what Verkan's doing anymore since he resigned as Chief. He won't open up to me, for Dralm's sake! Although that's nothing new, since he bristles like a porcupine at any mention of his resignation, or just what in Visthargg's Egg he's doing on Kalvan's Time-Line!"

"I can't believe he'd just dump all the Department's problems into Dalla's lap, especially now! He'd better watch it or the Paratime Commission is going to recommend a Bureau of Psych-Hygiene reconditioning session."

"Don't even go there, Maldar! I'm hoping that a few dozen ten-days with Kalvan will show him he's not the only one who's swimming in rough waters. At least, that's what I told Dalla in the last communication ball I sent out."

"Any idea, boss, on what I ought to do with Danar Sirna?"

"How did she get into this mess anyway?"

"The story we've unraveled is that she was picked up by some peasant after the Foundry debacle and dumped off at a Hostigi house of prostitution for a few pieces of silver. It turns out this house, the Gull's Nest, was Captain-General Phidestros' temporary headquarters! You can guess the rest; she became his healer, then his mistress. After Phidestros returned to Greater Beshta, he brought Sirna and the new Great Queen Lavena with him. Then he got hitched in an arranged marriage to Princess Arminta, oldest daughter of the Prince of Argros. She's got a first-class mind, but a face like a horse. Turns out Phidestros is more interested in legitimacy than illegitimacy; he dismisses his mistress and turns into a right solid ruler.

"Sirna, the spurned woman, turns to her new friend, the Great Queen of Hos-Harphax, who doesn't know a soul in Harphax City, and the two become best friends. It's really a great setup for a Paratime Study Team member; you couldn't put something together like this in a hundred years."

"I agree," Tortha said. "She's an inside window into the Royal family of Hos-Harphax. But, Maldar, make sure you keep a close watch on Sirna to make sure she doesn't get into any more trouble. My advice is not to initiate any contact with her at this time; she's too much a novice at undercover work to act as our agent if she thinks we're watching her every move."

"What about the University dome-heads?"

"Don't tell them anything. We want to keep Sirna's miraculous survival as much a secret as she does. Remember, Verkan believed she was one of the leaks on the Royal Foundry Study team. We can't risk word of her reappearance leaking to First Level until we know what she was up to. If we notified the University she was alive, it would be the same as sending a message ball to Yandar Yadd or to the Opposition Party."

"Do you think her survival at the Foundry was planned ahead of time?"

"No, no one could have foreseen the events that took place at the Foundry unless they're clairvoyant. My thinking is we give her lots of room to run and watch where she goes. My guess is she's just somebody's pawn and reacting to events beyond her control."

"Good thinking, boss. Dralm damnit, this is just like old times!"

"You cut that right out! Remember I'm just here in an advisory capacity. Let Dalla make all the tough decisions. At first opportunity, send Chief Hadron a message detailing everything we know about Danar Sirna and what she's doing in Harphax City."

"Right, boss."

"Now, how is Soton's siege of Agrys City going?"

"Slowly, as the Grand Master wasn't able to bring enough guns from Hos-Ktemnos to take down the walls. Agrys City is the richest and largest of the Great Kingdom capitals and has been besieged several times since its founding. The walls are thick and mostly granite. Also, the City is perched on ridges, meaning Soton has to advance uphill, which is a big headache, and eliminates the use of siege towers. At his current rate of progress, it might take him the entire summer to crack the city walls. However, the Host of Styphon's Deliverance did dispatch a large Agrysi sortie party, killing several thousand Agrys soldiers. Once the walls are breached, Soton's veterans will have no trouble taking the city. I don't believe King Demistophon has more than ten thousand men in arms, many of them poorly trained militia."

"What about the League of Dralm?" Tortha asked "Haven't they raised an army yet?"

"Yes, but it's only about twelve thousand men, not enough to defeat Soton's veteran Knights and the three Sacred Squares he brought from Hos-Ktemnos. From what our inside man tells us, they put one of their own princes as commander rather than Captain-General Hestophes. Even if they outnumbered Soton, they'd still have big problems."

"It'll be interesting to see how that plays out. I've got to go, the battle here is heating up," Tortha finished, turning his attention back to the battle.

The Hostigi, having the advantage of large numbers of fireseed weapons, halted and fired their first musket volley, causing the Grefftscharri light cavalry skirmishers significant casualties, many from bucking and out of control horses that were not used to the loud noise of massed gunfire and clouds of foul-smelling fireseed smoke. The survivors recoiled, with most riding off the battlefield either to regroup or desert; it was too early to tell.

The Hostigi got off two more volleys before the crossbowman fired their first salvo, as they had to wait until their own skirmishers cleared the field before firing. If it affected the Hostigi shot, Tortha couldn't tell from the overhead sky-eye camera. He pulled in for a close-up. Some of the Hostigi musketeers were down with crossbow bolts, but the line was unshaken. When the Hostigi fired their next volley, the entire Grefftscharri front line began to waver and break-up. Some of the crossbowman reloaded and returned fire, but it had very little effect on the musketeers who began firing salvos by rank. Under concentrated musket fire, the ribbon of crossbowman faltered, wilted and then retired.

The spear blocks held firm as the crossbowman retired from the front. The Hostigi musketeers fired several more salvos before retiring. The Grefftscharri men-at-arms began to move forward to cover their otherwise vulnerable flanks. Suddenly the front ranks of the Hostigi pikemen lowered their pikes in the forward waist-high position and began their forward march, with the Hostigi light cavalry covering their flanks. The spearmen set their spears to receive the attacking pikeman. Those spearmen are going to receive a quick education on superior arms, Tortha decided, since the pikes had about a six-foot length advantage.

The forward ranks of Hostigi pikemen smashed into the Grefftscharri squares of spearmen. The pikes ripped through the spear blocks like a warm sword through a snow bank. At the flanks, the Grefftscharri men-at-arms threw themselves at the pikemen, but the pikes went up to meet their charge. For the most part their horses shied away but those horses who continued their charge were skewered on pike points.

While the Grefftscharri cavalry was pinned down, the Hostigi heavy lancers and cuirassiers charged from the rear, hitting both flanks and inflicting heavy casualties. From where he stood, Tortha watched as King Theovacar committed his cavalry reserve to keep the Hostigi heavy horse from outflanking both ends of his army. It was a good call, but not good enough to keep the Grefftscharri center from collapsing as the spearmen gave way to Kalvan's pikes.

The musketeers began to fire en masse. Soon it was hard to see through the swirling masses of smoke and dust. The only thing Tortha knew was that King Theovacar's Army was getting the tar walloped out of it.

Suddenly a green signal rocket for recall exploded overhead, signaling the arrival of the Styphoni forward element. This is the tipping point, Tortha thought. If Sarrask refuses to break off the attack, he'll have to fight the Grand Host's reinforcements. Through the battle haze he could see the mass of reinforcements who were several miles away.

For a few moments it appeared that the Grefftscharri slaughter, as their army was now in full retreat, would continue, then the Hostigi trumpets called for a halt. The pikemen reformed ranks and with the rest of the troops began to pull back toward the West Gate. The skirmishers remained behind to help the Uncle Wolf mercy teams remove the casualties.

Not even the Styphoni would blatantly disregard the rules of war and attack the Uncle Wolf teams: to do so would turn every worshipper of Galzar in the Five Kingdoms against them. The Hostigi cavalry reserve covered their evacuation.

Well, I'll be double Dralm-damned! Even an old dog like Sarrask can learn a new trick.