Summer heat had come as the allied armies moved south toward the Lydistros River. The rain had not stopped completely, but it had diminished. So had the depth of the streams and the mud. While saddling up that morning, Kalvan had received a message from General Alkides, who had ridden ahead to the banks of the Lydistros to meet the boats coming downriver from Kyblos.
Chancellor Chartiphon, who had a talent for stating the obvious, said, "The high water has left no shallows and few rapids. It has also left less dry ground than one could wish. However, we may thank the gods for this, too. Prisoners say that the Zarthani Knights have withdrawn most of their river galleys and other vessels to Tarr-Ceros."
Thank the gods indeed, thought Kalvan. Counting bottoms, the Zarthani Knights had the second-largest navy here-and-now. Few of their ships could navigate beyond the mouths of the Great River, but they didn't need to. The rivers of the Sastragath, the Dellos (Tennessee) and Ellystros (Alabama) systems, were their domains.
Captain-General Harmakros was less grateful for what he saw as dubious favors. "His Grand Craftiness Soton may just be planning to lure us across the river. Then he can strike us bogged down before the fortress of Tarr-Ceros with the river at our backs."
Harmakros' son, Aspasthar, was seated next to Kalvan, but his eyes were on his father.
Prince Ptosphes, who was lighting his pipe, added, "You have to watch that one. He'd love to get us caught between Tarr-Ceros and his ships."
"We'll play that one by ear when we reach the Lydistros," Kalvan said. "Meanwhile, I won't have to answer to the Kyblosi for wrecked boats and drowned subjects."
Harmakros cleared his throat to get everyone's attention. "Your Majesty, with all due respect, I suggest we decide beforehand. Right now the Sastragathi see us as a gift from the gods. We give them hope of final vengeance on their ancient foes. If we don't cross the Lydistros and besiege Tarr-Ceros, the alliance may wash away down the river with the snags and dead pigs."
"We shall see," Kalvan replied. Now he wished he'd delayed his meeting to question Harmakros more closely. He should have remembered that Harmakros had commanded Sastragathi irregulars in the original Army of Observation, during the Year of the Wolf. The Captain-General knew more about handling them than his Great King, who was so damned tired he forgot to listen to advice even when he had it ready to hand.
Suddenly sheet lightning played along the darkening western sky. At the foot of the hill torches flared, drawing sparks of light from the mountain of armor, weapons and equipment left by the fleeing Knights. The big guns were destroyed and most of the swords blunted, but there was enough left to equip an army, and that fact hadn't escaped the nomad warriors. They were swarming over the piles like ants on a heap of honey.
Shouts of anger joined the shouts of triumph. Kalvan recognized Trygathi accents. He signaled to Colonel Krynos, his aide-de-camp. "Take a troop of Horse Guard and find out what's happening down there!"
Krynos took sixty men, leaving the rest around Kalvan. The Great King dismounted to spare his horse. If the united host didn't end its campaign with everybody walking and half of them barefoot, it would be Tranth's own miracle.
Kronos and the Royal Horse Guard rode up as the shouts reached a climax, then faded. Minutes later the shouting began anew.
A messenger breasted the hill, flinging himself out of his saddle as he reached Kalvan. "Your Majesty. The Sastragathi wish to claim all the Knights' gear, against your orders. They said they're under orders from Warlord Sargos, and you had promised them first choice."
"Dralm-damnit!" Kalvan growled. "First choice" was a fair offer to the unarmored, sometimes unclothed nomads. It wasn't the same as "everything," but try to tell that to an inflamed Sastragathi warrior! It was like telling a hungry wolf to take only one bite.
Captain-General Harmakros was carefully avoiding looking at his Great King. Then he turned in the saddle, and Kalvan saw his I-told-you-so expression, quickly replaced by surprise. A moment later Kalvan knew he must be matching expressions with Harmakros.
Sargos himself was riding up the hill. The Warlord rode at the head of a gaggle of his guards and subchiefs. Maybe they thought they were keeping a precise formation, but Kalvan couldn't tell which was the main body and which were the stragglers.
"Great King Kalvan! Is this the way you keep your promise to the clans? Your men have laid hands on mine, to keep them from there due. A great treasure lies down there! Will you have us put it to use, or have blood-feud with the tribes and clans?"
"I might ask you the same question," Kalvan replied, more patiently than he felt. Not all of the impatience was with Sargos either. "If blood has been shed, it was without my orders or consent and against my will. Those who shed the blood of tribesmen will be punished (tough luck, Krynos, but you were sent to find out what the trouble was, not to make it worse) and a blood-price will be paid."
"Will blood money guard the backs of men from the Black Knights' swords?" someone cried in a high-pitched voice. Kalvan saw that Sargos' teenage son Larkander was riding with his father tonight.
"No," Kalvan said, raising his voice to keep the argument from turning into a mob scene. There was too much steel and firepower to make this safe; one hothead could blow the alliance sky-high.
"No," he repeated. When Kalvan saw that the nomads were giving him at least half the attention a Great King deserved, he continued, "Yet not all the bare backs are tribesmen. Will not men of the Trygath fight better against our common foe with armor and weapons from the pile down there."
"We of the tribes have fought the Black Knights longer," one of the chief's said.
"This is well known. Yet if the Zarthani Knights are cast down from their castles and the land cleansed of Styphon's minions, who loses? If they survive to fight us again, who wins? Let us all join together and fight as one army."
Kalvan rested his hand on the butt of his pistol; the gold and silver chasing sparkled with each lightning burst. It was a presentation weapon from the Hostigos Gunsmiths' Guild, an unsuccessful effort to prove that they could produce elegant weapons quickly.
"Let us divide the loot into two piles, one for the clansmen and one for those of the Trygath. Then let each chief judge those most in need and give them their pick." This would cost them more than a day's travel, (he could almost hear Soton's chuckle) but if it would keep his so-called allies from each other's throats it would be worth the delay.
"I will begin the first pile with this pistol of mine. Whoever carries it, Trygathi or tribesman, he will carry it with my blessing. So speaks-"
"He seeks our Warlord's life!" somebody shouted. Kalvan's hand completed the drawing of the pistol before his ears could signal his mind to stop the motion. Then the sky seemed to fall upon him, a sky consisting of armored bodies.
Two shots crashed overhead, followed by a scream, a babble of curses and war cries, and Harmakros roaring above everything, "Take the bastard alive!"
The weight lifted from Kalvan, enough to let him draw breath for cursing. There was an audible sigh of relief from his Horse Guard. He spat out mud and grass, and then rose to his knees. A Sastragathi subchief was lying on his back, with Aspasthar kneeling on one arm and several hefty Sastragathi warriors holding other portions of the chief's anatomy-none too gently.
"What the Styphon-!"
Ranjar Sargos answered. "This fool thought you sought to take my life. He drew a pistol. Your war leader's son seized his arm so that his shot went wide of you. It struck my son in the arm. Yet with his other hand he joined-Aspasthar-in dragging the fool from his saddle."
"There is more, father," Larkander said. "Aspasthar shed blood too in the fight, and it mingled with mine."
"You are blood-brothers?" Both fathers seemed to speak at once, then stared at each other. Kalvan swallowed a laugh; he knew just enough about the Sastragathi to know that blood-brotherhood was a deadly serious business among them.
"It is an omen," cried one of the chiefs.
"This seems to be so," Larkander said, as he held his arm against his side. His father's face was as white as if he'd seen a premonition of his own death-or that of his line.
Aspasthar stood up proudly, holding his hand over a shoulder wound.
Since nobody else seemed to have the wits to do so, it fell on Kalvan to call a medic. Uncle Wolf Ramakros dismounted and limped over to the boys, bent down and began to bandage Larkander, who had the more serious wound, first. The question of dividing the loot dropped from everyone's mind until both Larkander's arm and Aspasthar's wound were tightly bound.
"Question him rigorously," Sargos said. "It must be known, whether he was only a witling, or a tool of Styphon's House. Has anyone seen this man before today?"
Everyone within hearing distance shook his heads. Which was not a definitive answer, since there were so many tribes and clans that no one man of the horde knew even half of them. Still, Kalvan relaxed. If Sargos was ready to torture one of his own captains to help the alliance, the worst danger of the split was already past. Note: Have to give Aspasthar something really impressive as reward-consulting with his father and blood-brother first, of course.
As the subchief was carried off, Sargos dismounted. He almost stumbled as he touched the ground. Kalvan realized that the Sastragathi Warlord had driven himself to the edge of exhaustion.
"I don't think our dignity will suffer if we sit down and share some wine," Kalvan said. He wanted to wash the grit and grass out from between his teeth. Sargos looked ready to lie down and sleep for a week.
Well, the man's in his forties. He'd probably be just as happy if being Warlord of the Sastragathi was a headquarters job, in a headquarters equipped with cool ale and warm women. By Hadron's flames, that sounds good to me, too!
That brought to Kalvan's mind a picture of his own warm woman. He wondered what Rylla was doing. Her last letter had promised to take no drastic action against the Harphaxi unless provoked, but to patrol the borders heavily and keep the Army of Hostigos ready to move swiftly.
Knowing Rylla, Kalvan knew far to well how "border patrols" could be turned into scouts, and then into the vanguard of an invasion. And 'provoked'-in Rylla's mind-was a sufficiently ambiguous term as to leave the gate wide open. Good thing Dalla, Colonel Verkan's wife, was in Greffa with her husband, when Dalla and Rylla got together trouble was never far away. From this distance, however, he couldn't do much but hope and consider praying to Dralm.