Down Styphon!, page 33
part #8 of Kalvan Series
Suddenly one of the gates slumped to the side and the other jerked free as tens of thousands of panic-stricken Styphoni tried to leave the city at once. Most of them were unarmed; in their panic even the soldiers had left their muskets and swords behind. Captain-General Alkides turned to look him in the eye, then turned back and gave the order to fire.
The roar of thirty guns, loaded with case shot, was as loud as if a train had derailed and hit a stone embankment.
Kalvan went momentarily struck deaf.
For a few moments, there was a bloody red splatter that reached the top of the walls, followed by flying body parts. But the crowd inside Balph didn’t appear to have noticed and was pushing their way through the gates when the second salvo struck. When the smoke and red haze had cleared, Kalvan could see dismembered bodies blocking the road like cord wood. Those still behind the gates were forced to push the dead out of their way, making it easier for the Black Guard marksmen to pick them off.
A red fog now surrounded the gates and the nearby area.
The surge continued as the panic-stricken inhabitants of Balph tried to fight their way out of the city and certain death. The artillery batteries continued firing as Alkides put the guns through their paces. Finally, the mountain of dead was too high for those trapped behind the gates to maneuver over and the exodus came to a stuttering halt.
Kalvan had to take a stiff drink of Ermut’s Best to still the roiling of his stomach. He’d seen some horrible things since his arrival here-and-now, but this was worse by whole orders of magnitude.
“By the Wargod’s Mace, I’ve never seen anything like this,” Halmoth cried out. “I almost feel sorry for the pox-ridden buggers. There’s no glory to this kind of war.”
Kalvan shook his head. “There never is, especially in a religious war. They forced this upon us, remember that. Styphon’s House is like a cancer; it has to be rooted out and destroyed, no matter what the cost.”
Suddenly, in the distance, they could hear the mass fire of guns as the citizens of Balph attempted to fight their way out of the other gate. Kalvan shook his head wearily; it was going to be a long day.
The crowd attempted two more assaults before they retired. Kalvan had the Black Guard douse the dead bodies with turpentine and light them on fire. No one inside the city was fool enough to attempt another breakout. Orange and red flames danced across the hills of corpses; the resulting stench was bad enough to make grown men run away crying.
II
Over the next moon-quarter there were four more half-hearted attempts by the inhabitants of Balph to break out of their prison. The numbers of those trying to flee were in the low thousands by now, and most were weakened by illness. They were halted at the gateways and the artillery made quick work of them. The big thirty-twos went back to pounding the walls into rubble.
The guns rumbled and thundered without pause. Kalvan did not want to imagine the hell that life had become inside those walls, buildings were burning and gunshots were fired off intermittently. The Balph corpse factory was working day and night.
The question that kept him awake at nights was: When did he send his soldiers into the city? Too soon, and many would catch the pox. Summer had arrived with a vengeance and it was getting hotter. This part of the south was known for its humidity and heat. He was determined to wrap up the siege as soon as possible.
Over the next few days things began to wind down. Fewer and fewer shots were fired inside Balph and most of the fires were out, either from lack of combustibles or those willing to light them. Not all of them had died of the Great Pox; many would survive. Still, there were no more suicidal attempts to storm the gates. He decided to wait another two days before sending the Black Guard inside to do a reconnaissance.
Kalvan was inside his headquarters when there was a knock at the door. “Colonel Mythames is here to report in,” one of the sentries called out.
“Send him in.”
Mythames’ face was lined and smudged with charcoal, and there was a twitch in his left eyelid; he looked a decade older than the man who had entered Balph only this morning.
“How did it go?” Kalvan asked.
“Your Majesty, it was as if we were cast into the Caverns of Regwarn. Dead and rotting bodies fill the streets, along with huge rats feasting on their flesh. We only ran into a few hundred stragglers; it was merciful to shoot them and end their miserable lives. Most were starving. Those fires we saw, some of them were set at the depots filled with provisions.” He paused to shake his head. “They must have been mad with terror to burn them. We found a few Styphoni highpriests nailed to the sides of buildings. And other sights that I will never banish from my eyes.”
“Was there any resistance?”
“No, Your Majesty. Most of the barracks were burned to the ground with armor and weapons scattered like leaves after an autumn thunderstorm. There was no organized resistance. Most of the surviving soldiers died trying to get out of the gates.”
“How long will it take for you and your men to do a complete reconnaissance of the city?”
“A moon-quarter, but longer if we set charges and knock all the buildings down. Plus we’ll have to set up work parties to remove the gold tiles and pillage the primary temples in the Great Hos-Plaza.”
“That will do, Colonel. I wish I could offer you more men, but I don’t want to expose the rest of the army to the plague. We’ve had less than a few handfuls of men coming down with symptoms of the pox and we’ve managed to quickly isolate them and anyone they’ve come in contact with.”
“I understand, sire. Now that we can work inside the city, we should have Balph looted and blasted to the ground within a moon or two.”
III
Kalvan looked out the window at the wrecked and blasted city that had once been the most majestic and richest city in the Five Kingdoms. Now it looked like Dresden after it was firebombed. Like the Nazis back home, Styphon’s House was officially out of business. I should be feeling great right now; we took this city without losing more than a regiment's worth of soldiers—and most of those to smallpox. Instead he felt down in the dumps. Was it because Balph fell too easily, or because he hadn’t fought fair? If fighting fair was losing tens of thousands of good men to gunshots, sword slashes and horrible wounds, then he’d rather fight by slick tricks or duplicity.
Still, Kalvan couldn’t shake the despondency that had gripped him for the past several days while he waited for the Black Guard to finish their mopping-up operation. They had stripped enough loot from Styphon’s Golden Temple, the Great Council Hall of Styphon and the Supreme Priest’s Palace to pay for the entire war, with enough left over to do it again—even after paying Phidestros his share.
Kalvan knew he should be planning the march on Ktemnos City with Skranga and Hestophes, not moping around. He wondered how Rylla was doing. In her last dispatch, she had written that she was returning to Hostigos Town with a large detachment. He wasn’t sure that was a good idea; but, typically, she hadn’t asked for his permission. Rylla had been full of praise about his diabolical attack on Balph and his success in ending the Styphoni menace.
Maybe it had all been too easy, he wondered. Could it be I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop? Or was it just a letdown from bringing a successful end to the Styphoni threat that has been hanging over our heads since my arrival and cost us so much?
He was wrenched from his musings by a knock at the door.
“Chief Skranga to see you, Your Majesty,” the sentry cried out.
“Let him in,” Kalvan replied.
Skranga’s eyes were sparkling and he was breathing hard. “Your Majesty!” he cried. “It looks like all of Hos-Ktemnos is headed our way!”
“An army?”
“No, sire. It’s a bleeding procession and treasure train. It must include every prince in Hos-Ktemnos, a wagon train over a hundred strong and a coffle of slaves over two marches long.”
“Any soldiers?” he asked.
“Only ceremonial soldiers and the usual princely bodyguards. Less than a thousand men. Shall I approach the party?”
“Yes, and have them send their representatives to my Headquarters.”
“Shall I send for your Bodyguard?”
“Yes, but just Vanar Halgoth and two of his men in their finest armor. That should be more than sufficient; otherwise there won’t be room to breathe.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Skranga replied as he skipped out of the room.
IV
It took about half an hour for his guests to arrive, but arrive they did; all the princes of Hos-Ktemnos save two. No advisors or guards were allowed in the room. They appeared sufficiently cowed by his presence and that of his massive bodyguards that he had no worries about an assassination attempt. While Kalvan didn’t know any of the princes by sight, his spies had purchased or commissioned pictures of them all and he had committed them to memory.
“Where are Prince Mydronos of Imbraz and Prince Prysigon of Chaliphax?” he asked.
The delegates appeared surprised that he knew the missing princes by name. Their spokesman, Prince Balros of the Princedom of Zacryth, said, “Your Majesty. They refused to recant their belief in the false god Styphon upon pain of death. So they were reunited with their ancestors.”
“A wise decision. What about Great King Lukthos?”
“We have him in shackles,” Balros said. “We will transfer him into your custody as soon as this meeting is over.”
“So exactly what is it that you require from Us?” Kalvan asked, although he had a good idea of what they wanted.
“We have a Declaration of Peace we have all signed. We would like Your Majesty to sign it.”
Prince Balros handed him a thick roll of parchment. He quickly perused the document. Essentially, the Ktemnoi princes were asking—no, begging—for peace and to make an alliance with Hos-Hostigos, renouncing all ties to Styphon’s House and the former ruling family.
“What about Styphon's priests?”
“We have captured every priest in Hos-Ktemnos that has not slipped over the border into the Sastragath—where they will not fare well—and put shackles on them. Those that resisted were killed. We had thought of beheading them, but reserved that pleasure for Your Majesty. They are outside in chains awaiting your judgement.”
Kalvan noticed that the assembled princes looked upon him as if he held their lives in the palm of his hand, which he supposed he did. Nervous glances went back and forth and several were as pale as alabaster.
He had grown weary of killing after the sack of Balph. The worst thing he could think of other than death was putting all the former priests in the mines with the slaves they had oppressed. He paused to speak sotto voce to Halgoth, who then left the room.
“I will have my men brand each one of them with an X upon their forehead so all will know they are the worshippers of the demon Styphon who dares to masquerade as a god.”
The Princes all nodded as if they agreed with his judgment.
“Rather than kill them all, let us use them to good purpose. Put all the priests to work in the lead mines.”
“It will be done,” Prince Balros said.
Kalvan knew that working in the lead mines was as good as a death sentence. “What about the Styphoni temples?” Kalvan asked.
Prince Balron looked him straight in the eyes. “Your Majesty, all the false temples have been torn down and stripped of valuable ornaments and their golden tiles. We have brought all the treasure we recovered in a wagon train as a sign of our good faith.”
“Good,” he replied. With all the gold coming into Hos-Hostigos he was going to have to be careful about how they used it, or runaway inflation would be the result.
“Is there anything else you want from me?” Kalvan asked.
“We want you to select our next great king,” Prince Balron said, “as Her Majesty did in Hos-Harphax. All the members of the previous dynasty are dead. We willingly submit to your will.”
Picking the next Ktemnoi great king was an obligation he did not want. Nor did he have anyone to propose. Skranga would take the job if he ordered him to, but in the end he would prove to be a disaster. He was not cut out to be ruling material, and had even admitted it. No one else, of sufficient stature among the surviving Hostigi, wanted the job. “I will not select your new ruler; instead I want the princes of the realm to elect their own ruler.”
There were startled looks and a few smiles among the assembled princes. This was not the answer they had expected, and already they were making plans.
“I look forward to uniting Our realms in peace and cooperation. As soon as our job here is done We will be returning home.” Home, he thought. I'm not sure where that is anymore. Is it Thagnor Town or Hostigos Town?
“Are you sure that it was smart letting them off so easily?” Halmoth asked after the princes had left their headquarters.”
“What was I supposed to do? They came to us voluntarily, and saved us from a long campaign fighting our way through Hos-Ktemnos, defeating each prince and destroying Styphon’s House’s temples. By my lights, they did us a big favor. Now, once Balph is cleared of survivors, we can depart from this godsforsaken place. Unless you’re interested in being the next great king of Hos-Ktemnos.”
“What me!?” Halmoth said. “No, sire; not for all the gold in those wagons. All I want to do is go back home.’
“Which one?” Kalvan asked.
“Now, that’s a damn good question ”
FORTY
I
It took another moon-half before all the smallpox survivors in Balph were hunted down and killed. Most of them were already weakened by the disease and were not hard to kill. The difficult part was finding them all. Skranga came up with the idea of torching different quadrants of the city to drive the survivors to the center where they could quickly be dispatched. About a third of Balph had already been fired so those areas were the most difficult to clear. This was the Black Guard’s responsibility and they cleared them block by block.
Finally, it was done and Colonel Mythames made his final report to Kalvan and the rest of the high command about the state of the former Holy City of Balph. He still looked bushed but the spark was back in his eyes now that he knew the operation was finally wrapped up.
“Your Majesty, Balph is officially sacked and destroyed.”
“Are there any survivors you might have missed?” he asked.
“If there are, they’re in bad shape. I’m sure there are a few holdouts, but we could spend from now until next winter digging them out. We found most of the Archpriests inside the Golden Temple dead from the Great Pox.”
“How about Styphon’s Voice Anaxthenes?” Chief Skranga asked.
“He was found in his bed in the Supreme Priest’s Palace, covered from head-to-toe with huge red pustules. It appears he died in great agony.”
Kalvan blew out a deep breath. “The web spinner is dead! Styphon’s House is really finished.”
Cheers of “Down Styphon!” broke out among the assembled commanders.
It was almost too good to be true. “What about Archpriest Grythos?”
Mythames shrugged. “We weren’t able to locate his body, Your Majesty. A lot of the corpses were badly deteriorated. Other bodies had been purposely mutilated, some so badly not even their mothers could have identified them. Commander Grythos probably died in one of the attempts to break through the gates.”
Kalvan nodded. That made sense, Grythos was more a soldier than a priest and probably would have died with his command. If by some twisted miracle he survived, he was in no shape to return to Agrys City and make a claim on the Throne of Lights. Still, he didn’t like loose ends. On the other hand, he couldn’t wait to get away from this dreary site of death and corruption.
He turned to Admiral Herad. “How many soldiers will your transports hold for the return journey to Thagnor?”
“Twenty thousand, easily, Your Majesty. More, if we have to.”
“Fine. You can start loading them tomorrow morning.”
“Good,” Herad replied. “I’d like to get away from here before the hurricane season peaks.”
“What about the rest of the troops?” Skranga asked.
“They’ll come with me. I’ve decided to return to Hostigos Town.” He didn’t mention the letter he had just received from Rylla asking him to meet her there. He missed her terribly and there was no one to stop them from being together now that the Fireseed Wars were finally over.
II
“What does it say, what does it say?” Great Queen Arminta asked her husband as he carefully handled the parchment that had just arrived from Hos-Ktemnos. All she knew was that it was a letter from Great King Kalvan. The other boats had been filled with gold and other treasures, but were of little interest to her. Although she knew their contents would set the mouth of their Royal Treasurer salivating.
Great King Phidestros looked up at her, but he was not smiling.
“What is it, my love?”
“Geblon is dead.” Phidestros looked down in the face, almost ready to cry. She’d never seen him display so much emotion before, except when viewing their newborn child.
“How?” she asked, her voice trembling. Please, by all the true gods, let it be in battle, or accidental. We do not need another war....
“By his own hand, or so it appears. Great King Kalvan pickled the corpse and sent it with the ships. I’ll have our chief healer look it over.”
“I’m sure he died by his own hand, if Kalvan says it is so. I thought he was inside Balph, so how did he get captured by the Hostigi?”
“The Styphoni attempted to use Geblon and the Harphaxi army as cannon fodder to cover a counterattack against the Hostigi. However, instead of charging the enemy, the Harphaxi surrendered en masse. Styphon’s House retaliated by killing those they could reach in the rear ranks. Kalvan says it was quite a slaughter.”
“What happened to Great King Geblon?” she asked.
