Grand Master Soton sat in his private audience chamber at the heart of the great fortress of Tarr-Ceros and stared blankly at the stonewalls. Too many good men dead, he thought, and four more banners to hang in the Hall of Heroes. During his term of Grand Master he had now hung a total of seven banners, representing seven decommissioned Lances; more than any other Grand Master in the past two hundred years. The Order will not soon forget me! Those seven Lances together accounted for almost a quarter of the Order's strength…
Am I destroying the Order to salvage my own pride?
No, Dralm damnit! I am trying to save the Temple of Styphon's House, and part of the Temple is the Order of Zarthani Knights-my part. Kalvan means to destroy the Temple and to do this he must destroy the Order and me. Kalvan is the enemy and must be stopped at any cost!
A gentle knocking at the plank door took his mind off Kalvan and these all too familiar thoughts. "Come in."
Knight Commander Aristocles entered the chamber. "Good news, Soton. The nomads are finally leaving-at last!"
"Finally, they leave! I hadn't expected the barbarians to stay even a day after Kalvan's departure. It's been almost a moon-half. They must be growing short of rations. Either that, or they have run out of farms and barns to burn."
"True. Sadly, with their passing they are now burning all the forests and stands of wood for three days ride in all directions!"
"There will be little produce to harvest, but we can bring in victuals by boat. The real cost has been to Kalvan in the one coin he cannot afford-time. There we have defeated the Usurper. Fall approaches and by the time Kalvan's tired army marches back to his not-so-grand kingdom, it will be too late in the year to mount a successful attack on Hos-Harphax, or any of our other allies."
Aristocles pulled a flask of wine from behind his back. "Let us share a drink. A drink to the real victory-the salvation of Hos-Harphax, and the war against the Usurper!"
Soton gave Aristocles a goblet up from his desk and watched his old friend fill it to the top. Aristocles then poured another cup for himself. "To victory!"
"A costly one, for the Order. But a sweet victory all the same."
Grand Master Soton frowned. "Our Harphaxi friends owe us a great debt. I pray that Prince Lysandros and Captain-General Phidestros use the time, our blood has bought, wisely."
"Grand Master, we will be there to see they spend it wisely!"
"Yes, the Inner Circle will demand it." Soton paused, offering another toast. "To next year's campaign! And that this time next year, when we make a toast to our success, it will be in Tarr-Hostigos!"
"And to the Usurper's death!"
"Yes! And now a toast to absent friends." Soton held his goblet up in the air. "Thank you, valiantly departed Drakmos. You have a great Honor Debt-may the gods honor you in their Halls."
Soton set down his empty goblet down and paused to strike a flame with his tinderbox and light his pipe.
There was a knock on the door.
"Come in!"
Sarmoth peered into the room anxiously. "Grand Master. A messenger from Balph waits outside."
Soton drained his goblet. "Send him in."
A Styphon's House highpriest, still wearing his travel cloak, entered the chamber. He opened a courier's pouch and presented a folded parchment to Soton, "For you, Grand Master from Styphon's Voice."
Soton started reading, then looked up at the highpriest and said, "You may leave."
The moment the priest was out the door, Soton handed the parchment to Aristocles. "What does it say?" Soton, as the son of peasants, had never learned to read as a child, and while he had worked hard over the years to learn numbers and decipher many words, he was still a slow and halting reader. Aristocles was one of the few who knew this secret.
Aristocles looked down at the letter, which was written with bold scrip. "From a scribe's hand, not Archpriest Sesklos'. I suspect Anaxthenes dictated it. Would you like a summary, or do you want me to read it word for word."
"By Galzar's Mace, I know how wordy these letters from the Inner Circle can be. Please summarize it."
Aristocles read for a quarter candle, his lips moving as he went along. Finally, he looked up. "It says here that while Kalvan was away with the Army of the Trygath, Queen Rylla mounted an attack on one of Hos-Harphax's vassals, Prince Araxes. She had Araxes' killed and punished his princedom dearly."
Soton nodded. "This is valuable news. Was the Hostigi vixen able to draw the Harphaxi Army into this attack?"
"No," Aristocles answered. "The Harphaxi Captain-General wisely stayed above the fray."
"Good. We don't have time to rebuild the Harphaxi Army again!"
"Or the blood, Soton! There is good news, too. According to the letter, 'this brazen attack upon the Princedom of Phaxos has displayed the Hostigos' greed and vainglory to all the rulers in the Five Kingdoms. Already, Styphon's Union of Friends has received offers of gold and soldiers from many princedoms in both Hos-Agrys and Hos-Zygros. The streets of Agrys City are filled with protestors.'
"The letter goes on to say that Prince Lysandros furthermore has used Rylla's sneak attack to convene a formal meeting of the Harphaxi Electors to discuss the Phaxos Crisis. Maybe our wily Prince Lysandros can use this annexation of one of the Harphaxi vassals to further his own ends with the Electors."
"Or Lysandros will use it to convince the Regency Council it's time to get off their collective hindquarters!" Soton paused, and drew deeply from his pipe. "Each and every one of the Regents is more interested in feathering his own nest than in solving the Succession Crisis. Now Lysandros will have a credible threat-Rylla's invading army-to hold over their heads."
"And that," Aristocles finished, "is truly a crisis hot enough to light a fire under their hind parts!"
"Good news on an auspicious day," Soton said. "Our friend Lysandros ought to be on his knees thanking Styphon that Queen Rylla didn't take her army to Harphax City, or there might be a Hostigi usurper sitting on the Iron Thrown of Hos-Harphax at this moment!"
"Very true, Soton. And, now that all this political wrangling is over, we can get back to our real work; rebuilding the Order's military strength."
Soton sighed heavily. "Maybe it's over for you, Aristocles. For me it's just beginning. I'm afraid you'll have to begin rebuilding and repairing the damage Kalvan's forces inflicted without me. I must go to Balph and take council with the Inner Circle. It is time to make further preparations for the war against the Usurper Kalvan. I will need the Archpriests' help to convince Great King Cleitharses to mobilize the Ktemnoi Squares for next spring. Also, the Inner Circle has been balking at Captain-General Phidestros' demands for more gold and victuals. I need to remind them that any credible invasion army against Hostigos will need many depots, well fed and well paid soldiers and more weapons and fireseed than have been assembled in living memory. Fortunately the Archpriests of the Inner Circle fear Kalvan almost as much as they do Archpriest Roxthar so that chore will not be too difficult."
"For this, they do indeed show wisdom."
"Call Sergeant Sarmoth, we have a trunk to pack. And a debt to settle with Kalvan-on a bill that is long overdue."