The moon came out just after Verkan Vall sighted the Mounted Rifles' campfires. Trust my men to be as good at scrounging little comforts such as dry wood as at fighting or at caring for their dead and wounded. In the far distance he could hear the popping of smoothbores; it sounded like the shots were coming from the Grove of the Badger King. Somebody was mopping up the last of the Knights' light cavalry. As long as they didn't call on the Mounted Rifles for backup, he was happy to leave them to their work.
He rode slowly toward the fires, hoping the moonlight would keep his horse from stepping on dead bodies even if it did not do anything about his exhaustion. He felt that he needed about a week's uninterrupted sleep, preferably with Dalla-except that then it wouldn't be uninterrupted…
A sentry challenged him. "Halt! Who's there?"
"Colonel Verkan of the Mounted Rifles."
The man looked at him close up, nodded his head, saying, "Pass, Colonel."
It won't be long before we'll be needing codes and passwords, Verkan thought as he rode into the firelight. The faces it displayed were almost as dead as those he'd seen on the corpses, except for the red-rimmed eyes and the slowly working jaws as they munched salt pork and hard cheese. Someone took his horse's bridle and two other someones helped him dismount, which saved him the embarrassment of falling flat on his face.
Neither firelight nor moonlight lit the open ground between the foot of the slope and the woods. Verkan was just as happy about that. Before nightfall he'd seen enough of that field to last him a thousand-year lifetime. For hundreds of yards a man could walk from body to body without ever touching the muddy ground. Six thousand of the Sacred Squares lay there; about a third as many had escaped, including the Ktemnoi Royal Princes. According to one of his agents with the Holy Host-despite rumors to the contrary-both the Princes were still alive. Another fifteen hundred Ktemnoi had been taken prisoner after the Hostigi had worked off their fury at the treachery and both sides were too exhausted to lift their weapons in the downpour.
That was only the beginning of the casualty list for the Holy Host: three thousand of Styphon's Own Guard dead to a man (the Hostigi had left no wounded alive, nor taken any of Styphon's Red Hand prisoners), over three thousand Order Foot, a thousand to fifteen hundred Zarthani Knights, most of Leonnestros' Pistoleers and Royal Guard (along with Leonnestros himself), thousands of mercenaries dead and two thousand Holy Warriors who would never again fight for Styphon or anyone else.
Nor were all the bodies down there Styphoni-of course.
Half the Mounted Riflemen were casualties, close to two-thirds of Harmakros' Army of Observation, half of Phrames' troopers. Count Euphrades of Ulthor who'd charged a little too far, all his plots and schemes now forever beyond the reach even of hypno-truth drugs, unless one encountered him in his next incarnation. Thousands of Ptosphes' men, and far too many of the Hostigi regular infantry. Verkan recalled, toward the last the standards of five regiments flying over a body of men hardly large enough to make two. Much of the fighting nobility of Ulthor, Nyklos, Sashta and Sask were dead or wounded, and as for the Nostori-Verkan doubted there was enough left of the cavalry, infantry and militia put together to make a single respectable battalion.
Eleven or twelve thousand Hostigi casualties was the estimate Verkan had heard, and it matched his own. Many of the wounded would not last a ten-day. Too many more such victories and Kalvan would come to ruin; no matter how many more opponents he smashed as thoroughly as he'd crushed the Holy Host and the Harphaxi before them. The Styphoni casualties might run to twenty thousand dead, wounded or missing-with another eight thousand taken prisoner. Some of the wounded would recover, but still Soton would be lucky to take a third of the Host he'd taken north with him back to Hos-Ktemnos!
And they would get away; the Hostigi were not only exhausted, but very nearly out of fireseed. In fact, Hos-Hostigos was practically where Old Hostigos had been pre-Kalvan-not enough fireseed in the entire Princedom to load all the artillery at once.
Great King Cleitharses the Scholar would have his sons back, but not his High Marshal or much else of what he'd sent north. Cleitharses would probably throw a royal snit, and Styphon's House's support within Hos-Ktemnos would be diminished and shaken-especially when the butcher's bill of Phyrax became public knowledge. He and his Princes would certainly have no illusions that making war on behalf of Styphon's House was a cheap way to win friends in the Inner Circle or annex new territory.
Nor Verkan thought would there were be many smiles in the Inner Circle when that news arrived.
Over the crackling of the fire and the distant moans of the dying, Verkan heard a horse approaching. Kalvan or a messenger, probably. He forced himself to his feet, saw the rider take shape at the edges of the firelight, and then noticed that both mount and rider seemed oddly shrunken. The rider reined in and Verkan recognized young Aspasthar.
"Good evening, Colonel Verkan," the boy said. "I bear a message for the Great King. Do you know where he is?"
"Out there, somewhere," Verkan said, pointing along the ridge. He'd last seen Kalvan riding that way and hadn't seen him riding back, although it would have been easy to miss a whole regiment in the darkness before the moon came out. "If you'll tell me what the message it, I'll carry it. You don't want to be riding around in the dark on that pony by yourself."
Too late, Verkan realized he'd just mortally insulted the lad. Aspasthar bristled like a cat with its fur stroked the wrong way. "It is a message for the Great King's ears alone, Colonel. I cannot entrust it-"
Verkan felt his stomach drop to the level of his bootsoles. There was only one message he could think of that would be for Kalvan's ears only, and he'd be damned if his friend was going to learn about his wife's death from some pipsqueak Aspasthar underestimated the speed of Verkan's speed and the length of his arms; well, he wasn't the first to make that mistake. Suddenly the page found himself hauled from the saddle and dangling with his collar firmly griped in two strong hands and his feet well clear of the ground. He kicked futilely at Verkan's shins, then used a number of words that suggested the boy had been associating with too many cavalry troopers.
Verkan waited until the lad ran out of breath, conscious of the snickers of the Riflemen, and not quite sure he wasn't making an awful fool of himself. "Let's compromise, Aspasthar. You tell me the message privately and I'll ride with you to find the Great King."
The peace offering fell flat. The boy took a deep breath and shouted: "Colonel Verkan has no honor, but his brave Riflemen do, so I will tell them. Great Queen Rylla is safe and well and delivered of a daughter!"
The Riflemen cheered.
Verkan's hands opened by sheer reflex, dropping Aspasthar to the ground. He bounced up in a moment, grinning impudently and bushing off his trousers. Verkan stood stiffly, now sure that he'd made a fool of himself, then was cheering along with everyone else. Someone started beating a drum, two or three men leaped to their feet and started a Sastragathi war dance, a few soldiers fired their guns into the air, someone else began to sing Marching Through Harphax in a voice that had to be drunk with fatigue because there wasn't anything stronger than water within miles "Long live Queen Rylla and the Princess of Hostigos!" shouted Verkan. He heard the cheering taken up as the word spread, and suddenly he felt as if he could ride twenty miles and fight another battle at the end of the ride. He knew the feeling was purely an adrenaline fantasy, but he did think his new strength might last long enough to find Kalvan.
"Aspasthar, if you don't mind the company of a man without honor-"
The lad bowed with positively courtly grace. "I have cast doubts on my own honor by doubting yours, Colonel." Then he was wide-eyed and eager again. "Don't worry about Redpoll, Colonel. He's very sure-footed."