Grand-Captain Phidestros looked at the eastern sky turning pale. In another few minutes it would be light enough for his men to see him. He stood up and walked back and forth beside Snowdrift, stopping now and then to rub his knee. It had healed enough so that he could fight on foot today, even in three-quarter armor if he had to.
Snowdrift whickered and nuzzled at Phidestros' belt pouch. "Very well, you godsforsaken brat unworthy of either dam or sire." He reached into the pouch and pulled out a half-slab of ration bread. Snowdrift whickered again and munched vigorously, while he scratched the big gelding up and down his neck the way he liked it. He hoped Snowdrift was fit to carry him through what would surely be a long and wearing battle, but hoping was all he could do.
He'd done all any man could do to make sure that his men and their mounts were properly fed after the ride from the Harph to join the Holy Host, but that "all" had not been much. He supposed he should have expected that Grand Master Soton, commander of the Host, would be pushing forward hard on the heels of the Hostigi, and that any company of horse that had held together in a moon-quarter and-a-half's ride across unknown country was worth having well up toward the front. Certainly both proved that Soton knew his business, and being toward the front had given the Iron Company several chances to fight under the Grand Master's own eye. Praise Galzar that that would make up for the wear on the horses and weapons!
It was most likely the major reason why he was now a Grand-Captain, commanding a band-the Iron Band-the three hundred survivors of those who'd crossed the Harph and the remnants of several other companies following the Holy Host. One had joined his banner on the ride north; the One-Eyed Boar Company whose Captain had lost a leg when his horse rolled while navigating the Vynar Pass. The others had joined a moon-quarter ago when Soton raised him to his present rank.
"Grand-Captain Phidestros." It had an agreeable ring to it, but the meeting with the Grand Master had hardly been all sweetness and light. Darkness had long fallen, the candles on the table between them burned almost to stubs, the hard planes and angles of Soton's face still harsher in the orange-red light, his voice rasping like a file with weariness and anger as he questioned Phidestros.
"Do you think yourself fit to lead a band?"
"Yes. That is, if they are horse and not too untrained or badly mounted." Something that was the truth and would also sound well, the best combination. "I would grieve to abandon the Iron Company on the eve of victory, though. We have endured much together and know each other's ways. The One-Eyed Boar Company is also proving itself to be good comrades in battle and in camp."
"You would not be giving up either company. You would be leading three more under-strength companies, the Silver Wolf Company, the Thirteen Moons Company and the Bloody Sabers. They meet your conditions, I believe."
"I am honored by your confidence, Grand Master, and by theirs-if they have asked me to lead them. However, I know little about these companies or their commanders, other that they are under the command of Prince Balthar."
"Were. They are three of the companies formerly in the service of Balthar of Beshta."
Phidestros was too tired to think of any subtle response, but anything was better than gape-jawed silence. "Am I to believe that the Massacre of Tarr-Catassa actually happened?"
"You thought it was a camp rumor?"
"I had no reason to think otherwise. Stranger tales have crawled out of barrels of bad ale and the terrors of men far from home."
"Well, you may rest easy," Soton said in a flat voice. "It is no rumor that Prince Balthar's castellan of Tarr-Catassa killed a hundred and twenty-five free companions who would not swear to join the Holy Host in the service of Balthar of Beshta-or Balthar the Black as he is called now after his treason at Tenabra." For the first time, distaste registered in the Grand Master's voice. "Their women were given to the Beshtans, then killed also."
Soton spit on the ground. "Styphon's gold bought his treachery, but I will not ride beside Balthar even though he turned traitor to a Usurper and enemy of the God of Gods."
Phidestros nodded in agreement: By the laws governing the employment of mercenary free companies and the Code of Galzar, when an employer changed sides during a war or battle, their oath to him was still binding until he released them or their term of service expired. A wise Prince usually released doubtful mercenaries as quickly as possible, since a thousand reliable men were worth two thousand who might surrender on the slightest pretext.
Soton explained, "If the mercenaries of Tarr-Catassa had sworn to serve under Balthar of Beshta 'against all enemies, in field or fortress, wheresoever he may find them,' then they would have been violating their oaths to Prince Balthar. As it was, they were a company sworn in only as the garrison of an isolated tarr. They could not have been a very good company, but nonetheless they had been slaughtered for refusing to do something their Prince's castellan had no right to ask of them.
"It's hardly surprising that Balthar's name now reeks to the Sky Thrones of the Gods. The six companies who placed themselves in his pay before he joined the Holy Host do not wish to be released from their oaths, however, or to leave our ranks."
That means one of two things, thought Phidestros, either they believe that Kalvan will lose the war against Hos-Harphax-well, really, Styphon's House-or they'd had no real choice. Not a safe bag of talk to open with the Grand Master.
"Three of these Companies no longer wish to serve under Balthar's banner, his Captain-General or their own elected captains. They say all are too friendly with Prince Balthar. At the end of this campaign, once word of their action reaches the High Temple of Galzar in Hos-Agrys, both Balthar and his castellan-who was in his pay-will be placed under the Ban of Galzar."
The Ban of Galzar meant that no free companion of the Brotherhood could swear an oath to Prince Balthar, under threat of expulsion. Thus, the only men Balthar would be able to command would be his own sworn vassals, outcasts and criminals. The only thing worse than the Ban of Galzar was the Interdict, where no man, vassal or not, could fight for a war leader and still receive the Rites of Galzar.
Had Balthar ordered the slaughter himself he might well have faced the Interdict, but no sane man-even a Prince of Princes or Great King-would so risk offending the Wargod or his priests. Only a madman would knowingly commit such an offense against Galzar; and while Balthar exhibited many characteristics of such-including fears of bathing and the outdoors-he appeared to be at worst a miser and skinflint.
"The three companies I offer, which allow you the rank of Grand-Captain, have voted to follow you if you are so willing. They have heard the tales of your ride from the Harph and of how under you the Iron Company won free of two lost battles-Fyk and Chothros Heights."
Was there a note of irony in those last words of Soton's? Phidestros didn't particularly care, since he'd also been freely given a gift he would otherwise have had to ask or even beg for. The three companies were not composed of men who wanted a safe road out of the war, or at least to the other side, and would shoot their Captain the moment they found him barring it. They were instead merely free companions exercising their ancient privilege of choosing who would lead them into battle-a privilege only fools like Balthar's castellan denied them.