Gunpowder God Read Online Free

his army there after he got his arse whipped outside Thagnor City. Theovacar conscripted thousands of young Ragyathi men and took others as slaves…women and children, too. The black-hearted bastard!”
    “Now,” Kalvan continued, “what’s happened to you on a small scale, Sarrask, has happened here in Thagnor and everywhere else in Nos-Hostigos. Remember just last summer, after we lost the battle of Ardros Field, we had to abandon our homes and move the entire Army and many of our subjects from Hos-Hostigos to Thagnor City—all this with the Grand Host of Styphon on our tail. Once we arrived in Thagnor, we had to lay siege to Thagnor City, and forcibly take it from Prince Varrack and his Grefftscharri allies. Then, before the dust of that action had settled, we had the Grand Host of Styphon before our new walls laying siege to us, again.
    “Our men are exhausted and weary from five winters of constant warfare. They need time to recover and to set down roots in our new lands. Every year the Royal and princely armies have taken horrendous casualties.” More than Kalvan liked to think about, maybe twenty-five to thirty percent casualties year after year. It was only the constant influx of mercenaries taking Hostigi colors and the desperate recruitment measures he had undertaken—right up to taking able-bodied men right out of the fields and putting them onto the battlefield—that had given the Army of Hos-Hostigos enough manpower to try to counter Styphon’s House’s advances.
    Sarrask nodded. “I see the truth in your words, Your Majesty, it’s just that I’m not used to not fighting….”
    “Of course, you’re not. But you do understand that all of us—me included—as well as our subjects, need time to rest, recoup and solidify our position here in these new lands before we undertake any major campaigns.”
    Sarrask nodded. “Rylla and I thought this might be a good time to track down that rat-bastard Theovacar and end his miserable life, once and for all, while we had him on the run.”
    Aha! I thought I saw my wife’s hand in all of this .
    “King Chartiphon shares the same problems. On top of which, he has had to lead punitive raids against Great King Lysandros as he’s retreated through Baltor and Vesthar, as well as Knight Commander Aristocles. We all need to recoup and rebuild up our supply base. Did you know that our fireseed supply is approaching critical?”
    Sarrask shook his head.
    “We don’t have enough sulfur to rebuild our stocks. Right now I have men out looking for new sulfur springs so that we can make more fireseed. True, we have wagonloads of Styphon’s fireseed that we captured, but I don’t trust their pathetic fireseed for anything but old bombards. And that’s just the beginning of the list of things on my ‘Must Have List.’ Right now, Prince Phrames is out on the Sea of Grass hunting buffalo so that we’ll have enough food to get through the coming winter. We certainly don’t have enough foodstuffs to supply a large expedition to go haring all over the Saltless Seas for King Theovacar.”
    Sarrask held his hands up in surrender. “I see, Your Majesty. But what about Warlord Sargos? Why don’t you have him bring his barbarians up into Grefftscharr?”
    “That sounds like a good idea, use one of your allies to do your dirty work. However, while Ranjar Sargos may be the warlord of the nomads, he is not their leader. They do as they wish, except when they go to war. Sargos did us a big favor last summer when he led the clans across the Great River and into the Sastragath, where they destroyed several of the Order’s tarrs. The clansmen had a great victory, but it was a costly one as well. Tens of thousands were killed attacking the Knights’ tarrs, thousands more were killed in the invasion of Hos-Ktemnos. Right now, most of the chiefs and headmen are counting their losses along with their booty.
    “It will be another spring or two before the clans are ready again