Gunpowder God (20 page)

The arquebusiers stood at the ready while the artillery fired the first salvo. It struck the barrier like a tornado, throwing broken wood and shrapnel in every direction. When the smoke had cleared, Sarmoth could see that the Agrysi had completely retired from the field. It took two more volleys before the last of the wagons was torn into kindling wood.

He had his trumpeter sound the order to move forward. They made their way cautiously over the smashed carts, carriages, chunks of stone and brick, furniture and dead carcasses, picking up speed as they made their way onto the stone avenue. He could see columns of smoke pointing up to the sky from every direction in the city. Now that the siege was over, the townsmen were looting and burning whatever was left. He noted that most of the fires were coming from the waterfront area, which, according to Soton’s map, was where most of the nobles and rich merchants lived.

They encountered several parties of disheveled townspeople along the road. A few carried torches and one or two fired shots from antique calivers and arquebuses, but most just stared and pointed.

Great King Demistophon soiled his breeches again, when the Guard Captain came into the audience chamber to tell him that the Styphoni had broken their way through the city walls. Once again, he attempted to push his way off the Throne, but he was stuck like a cork in a bottle. He had been unable to get out of the Throne of Lights for over several candles and it appeared they would have to destroy it to liberate him. No matter what, he didn’t want the Styphoni to discover him like this, awash in a bed of his own filth unable to rise off his Throne.

Chancellor Tramoth danced around the chamber like one possessed by demons.

“Captain, order your men to pull me off my Throne!” he ordered.

The Captain laughed. “Your orders are meaningless now. You stinking, bloated piece of filth. If you’d stopped your eating while the rest of the City was starving, you wouldn’t have a problem!”

“How dare you talk to me like that!”

He spat into the King’s face. “I can’t believe I wasted a third of my life in service to you! I’m off to take my reward. Boys, come with me!”

“Stop them! Chancellor, find my soldiers. They’re going to steal my gold!”

“Then I’m going with them,” Chancellor Tramoth cried, as he skipped out of the chamber. “Maybe I can buy my way out of the Investigation.”

“To Regwarn with the lot of you!” the King cried. Only two or three guards remained and they were looking at him in a strange manner, as if he were a tempting morsel of food.

“Jannos, I want the crown,” the first guard said.

“It’s yours, I’m going after the jewels on the throne,” the other guard said as he removed a dagger from the sheath at his belt.

Demistophon watched as the guards approached. “Help, help!” he cried.

The one named Jannos smiled wickedly. “We
are
your help, only now we’re going to help ourselves, King Swineherd!”

He tried to push the other guard away, who was tugging on his crown. Then a hard fist struck him in the face, loosening several teeth. “Yeow! You can’t touch Our person. We are Your King!”

The guard grabbed his crown again, ripping it off his head.

“Stop this! I order you to!”

Both guards laughed and spit in his face. He started to cry, tears streaming down his face.

“What a pathetic bloated pig of a man,” Jannos said under his breath, as he ripped the gold chain from around the King’s neck. “That’s for my back wages!” He pulled a long pointed dagger from his doublet, suddenly stabbing the King in the eye. “And this is for those starving wretches outside!”

Demistophon screamed at the top of his lungs. His eye felt like it was on fire, but all he could see was a black swirl—

They hadn’t gone much over three or four marches from the breach, when a large party of Agrysi cavalry, with white and red banners, charged them from a side street. Sarmoth was surprised to see so many horses, their intelligencers had reported that most of the animals in the City had been eaten a moon half ago.
These must be the famed Royal Guardsmen
, he concluded.

Sarmoth had two choices: Wheel to meet their charge or keep going to the palace. Fighting now would put the Knights at a grave disadvantage, despite their greater numbers as well as better fed and rested horses. If they waited and wheeled around to face the Agrysi Guardsmen when they reached the palace, their ranks would be slowed by winded and hungry horses.

The Agrysi yelled taunts and some fired their pistols, mostly out of range except for the first two ranks. A Knight went down in a tangle of horseflesh and armor.

Lytris’ own luck
, thought Sarmoth, who knew that shooting a horsepistol from a cantering horse was usually a waste of good fireseed.

The Guardsmen quickly dropped behind as the Styphoni continued down the broad avenue toward the palace.

Well-rested and well-fed mounts made a lot of difference, Sarmoth observed. He could see the Palace clearly now; the king’s residence was at the top of a ridge that ran along the Agrys River and was surrounded by walls four to five rods, or two lances, tall, products of an earlier, ruder age. At one time this was the seat of Agrys City before the city’s growing population overflowed the ridgetop. Fortunately, the gates were open, as Soton had surmised, with courtiers and servants leaving the palace like rats running out of a burning warehouse.

They were about three blocks away from the ridgetop when they ran into another blockade of tree trunks, wagons and carts at a big intersection. Behind the barricade there were several companies of Agrysi musketeers and pikemen.

He quickly noted that there were blockades on the cross streets on each side of the intersection. If they continued on toward the palace, they’d be trapped between three bands of infantry, as well as the Guardsmen cavalry coming from behind. He made an instant decision and signaled to his trumpeter to bring the command to a halt, then wheel and face the enemy. It was a slow maneuver and they barely had time to wheel around fast enough to face the now galloping Agrysi cavalry less than a quarter of a march away.

Sarmoth gave the signal for charge. He was now at the back of the formation and could do little other than sit on Steel Hooves and watch. The heavier Order chargers, with their full horse armor, made a big difference; the Agrysi horse didn’t have either the room or any place to evade their charge without charging into alleys or onto wooden sidewalks.

The Knights slammed into the Agrysi cavalry as if they were a troop of ponies, knocking men out of their saddles and rolling up the smaller, frailer horses. They followed that with their horse pistols, shooting the Agrysi cavalrymen point-blank with their pistols until they were all discharged, then they slashed the enemy with their sabers, using the points Kalvan-style as well as the blades.

The Agrysi banner bearer took a sword blow that took off his arm and sent his banner flying. The rest of the Agrysi cavalry were taking a terrible beating from the Knights’ determined onslaught. Still, a lot had to be said for their bravery, since the Agrysi refused every request for surrender. When cut down to less than half of their original force, the Guardsmen finally broke off from the engagement, which was when the real slaughter began. The Knights chased them down like whipped dogs, sabering them, shooting them, cutting them down, even riding over them. Wounded, tired and their horses blown, the Agrysi were slaughtered almost to a man. Yet, not a man jack of them asked for terms.

It took almost another candle to reform his command. Sarmoth’s losses were surprisingly light, less than forty Knights dead and seventy wounded, only thirty of them grievously enough that they had to be taken off the active muster list.

Regardless of their victory over the King’s Guardsmen in this skirmish, he had failed in his greater objective. Without foot and artillery support, there was no way he was going to get past the barricades much less into King Demistophon’s palace. He signaled his men to mount up and return to the breach and Grand Master Soton.

T
he Grand Master sat upon his horse as frozen as a marble statue while Horse Master Sarmoth finished his report. “I turned back, rather than engage the Agrysi infantry, because it would have been a slaughter. I suggest we move the Order Foot and at least one battery of guns down Cylos Street and dispatch the Agrysi formations piecemeal. The Palace Gates were open but anyone inside with more sense than a bedbug will probably order them closed.”

“I concur,” Soton said. “I see no advantage to cavalry fighting infantry in a prepared position. Your judgment was sound, Horse Master.”

Sarmoth felt as if an anvil had been lifted off his shoulders.

“However, after so much time, we will be lucky to find a few phenigs when we do take the Treasury. Regardless, we now own this City and we will take back what is ours. I have men stationed at every gate and entryway with orders to take anyone who leaves prisoner. That should keep most of the gold and silver inside these walls until we can shake it loose.”

“All that gold will be a temptation even to the Order Foot,” Sarmoth noted.

Soton reared back and laughed. “Not when they learn that any man in possession of booty, be it clothes, coins or jewelry, will be presented before the Investigation.”

Sarmoth blanched. “I thought Roxthar was on his way to Balph.”

“He is, but as far as our men are concerned his Investigators are hiding behind every cot and straw-tick mattress in the Five Kingdoms.”

“This is true, they believe he has preternatural powers.”

Soton made the sign of two horns with his fist. “Sometimes, I almost believe that myself. Archpriest Roxthar’s a strange and powerful man, almost beyond mortal ken. I had a chance to take his head during the siege, but I was frozen as if in a nightmare. Before I could give the order, he was gone.”

Soton shook his body as if shrugging off a chill, then continued. “Before you returned, I found out that King Demistophon is dead, cut to pieces while upon his own Throne. Someone removed his head for a trophy; I pray we find enough of it that we can mount it on a pole before the City Gates. I had hoped you would find him before his people expressed their displeasure firsthand. As Styphon Wills: what will be, will be.

“I will let you see to the Agrysi infantry. You can take two artillery companies with you and all the Order Foot you can find that’s not on guard duty.”

“Yes, sir!”

“First, feed your men and water the horses. Remember, your men are only as good as their last meal.”

“Yes, Grand Master.”

Darnos had been resting in the sagging cot for three or four days, or however long it had been since the siege ended. He was inside an old nobleman’s home that had been stripped of furnishings and hangings down to the very walls. There were about thirty or so wounded and dying soldiers strewn about the great hall, lying on mattresses, old cots, straw ticks and bundles of old rags.

He could only rise with help; without aid he was too dizzy to walk to the latrine. He looked down at the brown bandage, which probably came from a discarded dress, that was wrapped around his chest. The bloodstain hadn’t grown any larger since the old lady who passed as their healer had changed it from the earlier one. If the stain grew bigger, the healer had told him, he would die for certain. It took most of his strength to reach for the clay bottle that contained some bitter wine heavily diluted with water.

He took a few sips, then carefully set it back down.

Still, he not only felt useless stretched out like a corpse, but about as worthless as one as well. He should be taking care of his family, if they had survived the sack that followed the Styphoni. It was the not knowing that was killing him inch by inch.

Even the old lady healer was surprised he’d survived such a hit to his chest. Most of his company had died in the trench when the Styphoni guns had fired into them. It was only a day later when a looter was scrounging through the dead bodies for purses and old armor that could be refurbished and reused that he was discovered. He’d lost consciousness when the man tried to lift him and had no idea how he arrived at the makeshift infirmary.

Someone was banging on the front door, which was hanging by one brass hinge and had been liberally gouged with sword cuts and pocked with bullet holes.

“Who is it?” the healer cried.

“Mistress, it’s a soldier down on his luck. I’m searching for a comrade….I heard you had several wounded soldiers from the breach quartered here.”

The voice was naggingly familiar.

“Aye,” she replied. “You may enter, kind sir.”

He heard someone rummaging around the room.

Finally the familiar and shaggy head of his friend Lathos peered down at him. “You did survive, Praise Allfather” He stopped in mid-phrase, placing a filth encrusted hand over his mouth. “Sorry, saying that name now is worth your life….”

“Then, it’s true; the Styphoni own the City.”

“Yes, curse them branch and tree. But the Allfather does work in mysterious ways; you are here and alive.”

Darnos coughed and it felt as though a mace had just slammed into his breastbone. He paused for awhile before continuing, “Just barely, my friend. How goes Agrys City?”

Lathos shook his head. “Badly. They say that Grand Master Soton gave orders that the city was not to be torched, only sacked. But you’d never know it by the number of fires that day and the burnt ruins that remain. We were all captives of their raging anger and lust for two days. Anyone outside, or even inside without a hideout, was fair game. Thousands died and women, from girls to grandmothers, were raped and abused. The dead from those terrible days are stacked outside the walls like cordwood.

Darnos shuddered. “What about my wife, Vasa?”

Lathos wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“Is she dead?”

“No, but wishes she was. She was attacked and held captive by three Styphoni soldiers. It appears they abused her grievously.”

A cry ripped its way out of Darnos’ throat.
I should have been there protecting them instead of fighting in some trench for naught
.