The Fireseed Wars

Prince Phidestros emptied the last of the dregs of wine from his goblet, then opened his tobacco pouch. It had been a long day and he was beat. He had just finished an exhaustive survey of Sashta, the former Hostigi Princedom, now the westernmost portion of his new Princedom of Greater Beshta. Unlike Beshta, which had missed most of the troop movements, Sashta had been both the crossroads and the gathering point for the Grand Host's invasion of Hos-Hostigos, and had suffered accordingly. These days Sashta was closer to a graveyard than a thriving princedom.

He had taken over the border town of Lemnos as his temporary headquarters while his men completed their survey and census. He was staying in the former Great Hall of the local castle, Tarr-Lemnos, which had taken a severe beating during the invasion. Most of the tapestries and hangings had been stripped and part of the ceiling and one of the walls were shored up with timbers, but Kyblannos had assured him it was safe enough for short-term habitation.

Mynos, his man servant, came into the chamber, asking, "Your Highness, can I offer you some more wine?"

"Bring in more goblets and one of the casks of Ermut's Best I was saving for my entry to Beshta Town. Kyblannos, Geblon and some of my advisors will be arriving soon. Show them in immediately."

By the time he had his pipe bowl filled and lit, his advisors were filling the hall. They were the former captains and petty-captains of the old Iron Company as well as the new companies that made up the Iron Band. All of them had fought at his side and could be trusted to guard his back against any knife thrusts, literal or verbal.

These men would be the new barons and lords of Greater Beshta; he'd use only those courtiers and servitors from Harphax City he absolutely had to use to please the King. Already, scores of lackeys and sycophants from all over Harphax were gathering at Beshta Town, according to his latest dispatch from Captain Cythros, to divide the spoils-or so they thought.

The reports his men gave were disquieting, to say the least. Captain Rydos of the Thirteen Moons Company finished his census report with this broadside: "There aren't enough able-bodied men left in Sashta to field a single company of shot! The only civilians who remain are either those who were too ill or too old to be Investigated; there's not enough of those to fill a town square. Most of the farms were burned or used for gun practice. The towns and villages are in ruins and the miserable skin-and-bone wretches who inhabit them are like wraiths from Regwarn! It's so bad here that it would take Appalon himself to convince the Harphaxi street rabble to move here."

"Well, Gentlemen, this is not acceptable," Phidestros replied. He had expected grim news, but nothing this bad. Still, he had several ideas of how to remedy the problem. "First, I refuse to fill Greater Beshta with the gaol droppings and deadbeats of the Five Kingdoms! Secondly, I have an army fit for a Great King, not a prince."

"By Galzar!" someone shouted.

The rest nodded. Currently under his colors, Phidestros had some twenty-eight thousand cavalry and infantry. When they'd left the Grand Host, they'd taken almost a quarter of its strength along with over half of the baggage train, most of whom had been happy to leave. Not even the most hardened camp follower saw much profit in wandering the wilderness in search of Kalvan and the Army of Hostigos.

"I suggest we follow one of King Kalvan's innovations. We muster out all those soldiers who would like to be farmers and shopkeepers. I'll give each man ten gold rakmars and twenty acres of farmland. Petty-captains will be given fifty ounces of gold and captains one hundred ounces of gold and a small fiefdom.

"You're talking about several hundred thousand ounces of gold, Captain General!" Captain Tyblon, the Iron Band's paymaster, objected. "That'll empty the Band's paychests."

Phidestros smiled. "I've got a promissory note from Grand Master Soton which will more than cover our expenses for the campaign. Furthermore, former Prince Phrames didn't have time to remove more than half his Treasury, so we have that to build upon."

"If it's still there!" one of the captains interjected.

"It's there," Phidestros said, with a wolfish grin. "After our victory at Ardros Field, I sent five hundred men, under Captain Cythros of the Blue Company, to secure Tarr-Beshta and govern the Princedom in my absence. Phrames was so eager to help his Great King that he left behind only a skeleton garrison; Cythros was able to take the old tarr in less than a quarter moon. He was lucky, too, in that most of the Hostigi loyalists were more interested in fleeing the Holy Investigation of Styphon than fighting their new overlord. Cythros' first act, after taking Tarr-Beshta, was to secure the treasury. He assured me that it contains more than fifty thousand ounces of gold and ten times that weight in silver ingots.