The Fireseed Wars

"Very well, sire. The gun carts worked marvelously well. As soon as the nomads drew within range, the Captain-General had us lower the tailgates and fire the case shot. At the same time, the hidden soldiers raised the canvas on their wagons and fired their muskets. The Urgothi slaughter was horrendous. They left behind almost two thousand bodies. We cut the throats of all the wounded and circled the wagons. Captain-General Phrames had me and my squad slip out before they regrouped for another attack."

By Galzar! Phrames had him cut their throats! Things must really be bad. "How many men are you up against?"

"Twenty to twenty-five thousand, Your Majesty. Although there may be more on the way."

Kalvan thought carefully before saying, "Phrames should have enough men to stop the nomads. Why were you sent ahead?"

"They were shooting fire arrows at the wagons, Your Majesty. The Captain-General believes they are trying to destroy our cargo, not our party. Every time we get wagons ready to go, they attack. Phrames suspects they may be waiting for reinforcements."

Kalvan nodded. That kind of strategy stinks of Theovacar's touch. The King must realize how short their rations were. "What does Phrames want?"

"He wants Your Majesty to send him enough men to protect the wagon train. He suggested you send Captain-General Hestophes with the Mobile Force."

Kalvan smiled. "Good timing." Hestophes and the Mobile Force were well rested after their journey from Rathon City. They would certainly prefer fighting barbarian tribesmen to moving dirt and rocks. "I'll send the Mobile Force, along with Captain-General Errock with five hundred Thagnori lancers and two thousand Royal Army heavy cavalry. Let's put the fear of Ormaz into these barbarians!"

"Aye, aye, Your Majesty!"

TWENTY-NINE

On this visit, Great King Lysandros was escorted straight through the White Palace to King Theovacar's private audience room by four of the King's Companions for a private meeting. Lysandros had spent the last moon quarter in one of the Theovacar's summer palaces, an old and drafty one. He was beginning to rue the day he decided to come to the City of Wind, as it was called by the Greffans. He hadn't known the meaning of the word cold until he'd been caught in the open in the streets of Greffa after attending a local banquet. Both his ears had turned blue and he'd almost lost two toes to frostbite.

King Theovacar, his eyes bloodshot around ice-blue pupils, motioned Lysandros to a chair. There were new lines in the King's face and it appeared as though he hadn't slept in two or three nights. The King bored right in, no formalities today. "We have been giving your words a lot of consideration. It has also come to Our attention, since Our last meeting that the Usurper Kalvan has sent out a large expedition to hunt our buffalo and espy our lands. We have encouraged some of our barbarian allies to attack their expedition. When will this false king's effrontery end?"

Lysandros had to make an effort to keep the smile he felt off his lips and out of his words. "The Usurper's ambition knows no bounds, as we in Hos-Harphax learned to our dismay. I have pledged my life and all my resources to his destruction and death. No kingdom, no princedom, no fiefdom anywhere will be safe until this bandit is captured and beheaded."

"I'm beginning to agree with you, Lysandros. Kalvan is a plague on both our Houses! I will make a treaty with you, but not with the false priests of Styphon. They have cheated and defrauded us for generations; I will not give them a foothold in Grefftscharr."

"You are wise not to do so, Theovacar. The priests of Styphon's House come into a kingdom offering gold and fireseed, but in reality they are golden chains and fool's fire. Soon they are ordering you and your people around, as if they are the lords and you are but a serf. I was forced to take their gold because my older brother, Great King Kaiphranos, was a witling, who neither tilled the fields nor fed the beasts. I inherited an empty larder and his mountainous debts to Styphon's House. One day our accounts will be balanced, in blood if necessary, but I will not carry Styphon's chains forever."

Theovacar appeared surprised by his blunt words. "I suspected it was such. You don't appear to me to be the kind of ruler that dances to another's flute."

"I'm not, but until I vanquish the Usurper, I have to act as their tool. However, this tool has two blades and after the Usurper is dead, I will balance my accounts. Until then, these things are best kept between the two of us."