"Toss oars!"
The cry floated up from the boat on the muddy Lydistros River, to the low-lying hill where Kalvan stood gazing at Tarr-Ceros. The great fortress of the Holy Order of the Zarthani Knights marched across nearly a mile of hills on the far side of the river. Some of those hills had clearly been flattened; others carved into the fortress's outworks. Kalvan counted three concentric layers of trenches and wooden palisades, each furnished with artillery positions and covered ways to let ammunition and reinforcements come up. There was a much smaller, older fort and several batteries of guns-bombards he was certain-on the opposite shore of the wide river.
The stonewalls only began beyond the trenches, rising like seats in a theatre up the central hill to the massive keep in the middle. Two, maybe three concentric circles of walls, each with its own moat and array of towers. Light glinted from the towers and the walls alike, evidence of armor and big guns.
In the center, the keep rose up a good thirty feet above the highest tower. And were Kalvan's eyes playing tricks on him, or was the keep faced with something shiny-marble? There were marble quarries up near the head of the Tennessee River in his own world: why not here? Certainly water transportation for the marble wouldn't have given the Knights any problem, not with their river fleet.
Marble was not the stone Kalvan would have chosen for a fortress. Under artillery fire, it would splinter and the splinters scatter like shell fragments.
But then, Tarr-Ceros had been built when the Zarthani Knights had no enemies who could bring artillery against their citadel. Until recently, neither the tribes nor the Trygathi had much to bring against Tarr-Ceros except numbers, archery, crossbows, a few arquebuses, and the occasional wrought-iron four-pounder.
Kalvan signaled to the horseholders, who led Harmakros' mount and those of his aides down to the bank. So far, the Tarr-Ceros garrison had paid their visitors less attention than cockroaches. If they changed their mind, some of the guns in the outer fortifications could certainly reach down river.
Harmakros held his horse to a walk as he led his party up the muddy hillside, then reined in and saluted his Great King. The Captain-General's face was grimmer than ever, far more than could be blamed on fatigue and the strain of long campaign.
"Your Majesty, that floating barrier of spiked logs is no tale. There's no way through to the quay until the logs are removed."
"How long would that take?"
"With a few tarred barrels of fireseed and no enemy fire, an hour of any night. But they've got tarpots and what looks like bundles of arrows all laid out in the trenches right behind the quay. They could light up the engineers and pick them off like rats in a privy corner. Even if the barrier went, the trenches would be manned and ready for the landing party."
"So going for the quay would be a waste, even as a feint?"
"The Knights would get a good laugh and we would get a bloody nose," Harmakros said morosely. He did not put into words that which his tone added, and there was no need to send anyone up under the guns of the fortress to learn this. Once Your Majesty decided it had to be done, it became my duty. But, if I don't have any more such duties for a while, it won't break my heart.
"Harmakros, for at least the hundredth time-well done. If we find ourselves with a vacant princedom, would you consider taking it?"
"Once Your Majesty doesn't need my services in the field, I won't say no. But I have a nasty feeling that it's going to take a long time to finish this war with Styphon's House. We've driven the badger into his lair."
"Do we have any way of getting him out and taking his hide home?"
Again, tone spoke volumes. "Galzar Wolfshead might knock down those walls with his mace, Your Majesty, but nothing we have will even come close. As for a siege, unless you've figured out a way to feed an army on air, forget it."
Harmakros was right. Kalvan had known as much the moment he laid eyes on Tarr-Ceros. It reminded him of one of the great Crusader castles in the Holy Land-but an aerial picture of a ruin didn't give the same impact. You had to see one of those stone monsters armed and garrisoned in its prime, looming over you, ready to defy the worst you could do. And when that worst wasn't enough to do more than give the garrison a few sleepless weeks…
There wasn't a gun in the whole Hostigi artillery that could both be moved here and make an impression on the walls. There wasn't enough food to keep a third of the allied host alive long enough to make the Knights tighten their belts. A simple attempt to storm the place would kill half the attackers and demoralize the rest.
Summon Soton to negotiate? That at least would waste only breath, not blood. Grand Master Soton knew the strength of his walls and the men who manned them. Probably less than half his garrison were seasoned fighters, but behind those walls children with croquet mallets could be deadly foes.
"Well, then there it is," Kalvan said, "we can't do much at their front door. "Let's wait until the scouts to the east and south return with their reports. If it's good cavalry country, maybe we can do something at the back door."
That something was likely to be expensive in time, treasure, fireseed, horses and blood, but it had to be at least discussed.
The rest of the allies had very little notion of what a hollow victory they had won. They only knew that they'd seen the Knights in retreat for the better part of a moon. The Battle at Drynos Mines-if it even qualified for such a lofty designation-against the four Lances of the rearguard had given them a taste for the Knights' blood; they wanted more.
Kalvan remembered Napoleon's dictum about the advantages of making war against allies. Soton could wield his Knights as a single weapon, like his famous warhammer. Kalvan had to be chairman of a committee as much as commander-and-chief.
Maybe the Great Barbecue had given the Sastragathi the view that the Knights' blood came cheap; if so, they were badly mistaken. The four Lances and their allies had numbered perhaps four thousand men at the outset and out of that army less than fifty badly burned prisoners had finally emerged from the tunnels. Kalvan doubted that a dozen were still alive, and they faced a terrible future here-and-now with no 'real' medical help. The allies lost less than a thousand men, but then that was hardly a battle-more of a turkey roast.
At least Alkides had all the horse artillery ready to move. Where cavalry could go, the guns could follow. Something might be made of this-not much, but enough to keep the alliance from falling apart because the Great King of Hos-Hostigos abandoned his allies!
Something else that might help, even more than artillery, at least right now-"Harmakros! Do we have anymore of that wine we picked up with the first batch of loot?"
"Yes, I had the barrels loaded on pack mules under a trusted captain. I reckoned we might have a use for it. When I left the Battle at Drynos Mines, you, Sargos and Nestros were finishing off the last of Ermut's Best."
"Another well done. It's time to call a Council of War. Just a small one, so I think one barrel should be enough to keep even Sargos happy."
At least until he finds out that he's still going to have the Knights on his borders, almost as strong as ever and out for vengeance.