The Thousand Cities ttot-3

by Harry Turtledove

  «Ha!» Romezan said in a voice so full of doubt, a Videssian would have been proud to claim it. «I know you better than that, lord. You'll have scouts wake you half a dozen times in the night to tell you what they can see of the Videssian camp.»

  «After most fights I'd do just that,» Abivard said. «Not tonight.»«Ha!» Romezan said again. Abivard maintained a dignified silence.

  As things worked out, scouts woke Abivard only four times during the night. He couldn't decide whether that demolished Romezan's point or proved it.

  The news the scouts brought back was so utterly predictable, so utterly normal, that Abivard could have neglected to send them out and still have had almost as good a notion of what the

  Videssians were doing. The foe kept a great many fires going through the first watch of the night, fewer in the second, and only those near their guard positions for the third. Maniakes' men would have done the same had they not just fought a great murdering battle. They gave the Makuraners no clue to their intentions.

  But when morning came, all that lay on the Videssian campsite were the remains of the fires and a few tents, enough to create the impression in dim light that many more were there. Maniakes and his men had decamped at some unknown hour of the night.

  Following them was anything but hard. An army of some thousands of men could hardly slip without a trace through the grass like an archer gliding ever closer to a deer. Thousands of men rode thousands of horses, which left tracks and other reminders of their presence.

  And in retreat an army often discarded things its men would keep if they were advancing. The more things soldiers threw away, the likelier their retreat was to be a desperate one.

  By that standard the Videssians did not strike Abivard as desperate. Yes, they were running away from Abivard and his men. But they were a long way from jettisoning everything that kept them from running faster.

  Abivard did some jettisoning of his own: not without regret he let Turan's foot soldiers fall behind. «The Videssians are all counted,» he told his lieutenant. «If you stay with us, we can't move fast enough to catch up with them. You follow behind. If it looks as if Maniakes is turning to offer battle again, we'll wait till you catch up to start fighting if we can.»

  «Meanwhile, we eat your dust,» Turan said. A couple of years campaigning as an infantry officer seemed to have made him forget he'd served for years as a horseman before. But, however reluctantly, he nodded. «I see the need, lord, no matter how little I like it. I aim to surprise you, though, with how fast we can march.»

  «I hope you do,» Abivard said. Then he summoned Sanatruq, having a use for an intrepid, aggressive young officer. «I am going to put the lightly armed cavalry in your hands. I want you to course ahead of the heavy horse, the way the hounds course ahead of the hunters when we're after antelope. Bring the Videssians to bay for me. Harass them every way you can think of.»

  Sanatruq's eyes glowed. «Just as you say, lord. And if Tzikas is still heading up Maniakes' rear guard, I have a small matter or two to discuss with him as well.»

  «We all have a small matter or two to discuss with Tzikas,» Abivard said. He drew his sword. «I've been honing my arguments, you might say.» Sanatruq grinned and nodded. He rode off, shouting to the Makuraner horse archers to stop whatever they were doing and get busy doing what he told them.

  Be careful, Abivard thought as the light cavalry went trotting out ahead of the more heavily armored riders. Tzikas was liable to be trouble no matter how careful you were; that was why so many people had so much to discuss with him.

  Almost as an afterthought, Abivard dashed off a quick letter to Sharbaraz, detailing not only the victory he had won over the imperials but also Tzikas' role in making that victory less than it should have been. Let's see the cursed renegade try to get back into the good graces of the King of Kings after that, he thought with considerable satisfaction.

  The farther south Maniakes rode, the closer to the source of the Tutub he drew. The land rose. In administrative terms it was still part of the land of the Thousand Cities, but it was unlike the floodplain on which those cities perched. For one thing, the hills here were natural, not the end product of countless years of rubble and garbage. For another, none of the Thousand Cities was anywhere close by. A few fanners lived by the narrow stream of the Tutub and the even narrower tributaries feeding it. A few hunters roamed the wooded hills. For the most part, though, the land seemed empty, deserted.

  Abivard wondered what Maniakes had in mind in such unpromising country. He understood why this part of the region remained unfamiliar to him: it wasn't worth visiting. He wished the Videssians joy of it. At an officers' council he said, «If they try to stay here, they'll starve, and in short order, too. If they try to leave, they'll have to cross a fair stretch of country worse than this before they come to any that's better.»

  Sanatruq said, «If they leave, we'll have driven them out of the land of the Thousand Cities. That was what Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase, set us to do at the start of the campaigning season. I'm not sure anyone thought we could do it, but we've done it.»

  «We had a certain amount of expert help, for which I'm grateful,» Abivard said to Romezan.

  «You wanted to force battle,» the noble of the Seven Clans said. «You were forcing battle when I rode up and found you. Anyone who goes out and fights the enemy deserves to win, so I was glad to give whatever little help I could.» Get in there and fight and worry later about what's supposed to happen next should have been blazoned on Romezan's surcoat and painted in big letters on the front of his armor.

  «Looks to me like good country for scouring with light cavalry,» Abivard said, nodding to Sanatruq. «The rest of us can follow after they've developed whatever positions the Videssians are holding.»

  «What do you think the Videssians are doing here, lord?» Romezan asked. «Are they really finished for this campaigning season, or do they aim to give us one more boot in the crotch if we let'em?»

  «From what I know of Maniakes, I'd say he wants to hit us again if he finds the chance,» Abivard said. «But I admit that's only a guess.» He grinned at the noble of the Seven Clans. «You asked me just to hear me guess so you can twit me for it if I turn out to be wrong.»

  «Ha!» Romezan said. «I can figure you for foolish without getting as complicated as that.»

  Abivard waited till his subordinates were done laughing, then said, «We'll go ahead as if we're certain Maniakes is lying in wait for us. Better to worry and be wrong than not to worry—and be wrong.» Not even Romezan could argue with him there.

  Up close, the ground was worse than it appeared. The road through the highlands from which the Tutub sprang wound into little rocky valleys and over hillsides so packed with thorny, spiky scrub plants that going off it cut your speed not in half but to a quarter of what it was on the track.

  No, that wasn't true. Going out into the scrub cut your speed to a quarter of what it would have been if the road had been unobstructed. The road, however, was anything but. The Videssians had thoughtfully sown it with caltrops, the exact equivalent for this terrain of breaking canals in the floodplain. Abivard's men had to slow down to clear the spikes, which let Maniakes' force increase its lead.

  And to complicate things further, every so often the Videssians would post archers in the undergrowth by the side of the road and try to pot a few of the Makuraners who were picking up the caltrops. That meant Abivard had to send men after them, and that meant he lost still more time.

  Seeing Maniakes getting ever farther ahead ate at him. He wanted to keep moving through the night. That made even Romezan raise an eyebrow. «In this wretched country,» he rumbled, «it's hard enough to move during the day. At night—»

  If Romezan didn't think it could be done, it couldn't. «But Maniakes is going to get away from us,» Abivard said. «We haven't been able to slow him down no matter how we've tried. And if he can travel two or three more days, he'll strike
the river that runs south and east to Lyssaion, and he'll have ships waiting there. Ships.» As he often had of late, he made the word a curse.

  «If we take Lyssaion, he may have ships, but he won't have anywhere they can land,» Romezan said.

  Abivard shook his head with real regret. «Too late in the year to besiege the place,» he said, «and we haven't got the supplies with us to undertake a siege, anyhow.» He waited to see whether Romezan would argue with that. The noble from the Seven Clans looked unhappy but kept quiet. Abivard went on, «We have driven him out of the land of the Thousand Cities. At the start of the campaigning season I would have been happy to settle for that.»

  «Generals who are happy to settle for less than the most they can get mostly don't end up with much,» Romezan observed. That made Abivard bite his lip, for it was true.

  Coming to a town in the middle of that rugged country was a surprise. The Videssians had burned the place in passing, but it had been little more than a village even before they had put it to the torch. They'd dumped dead animals into the wells that were probably the town's reason for being, too. After that, though, they seemed to have relented, for they stopped leaving caltrops in the roadway. That might, of course, have indicated a dearth of caltrops rather than a sudden surge in goodwill.

  «Now we can make better time,» Romezan said, noting the absence of the freestanding spiked obstructions. He shouted for the vanguard to speed up, then turned to Abivard, saying, «We'll catch the bastards yet; see if we don't.»

  «Maybe we will,» Abivard replied. «The God grant we do.» He scratched his head. «It's not like the Videssians to make things easy for us, though.»

  «They can't do everything right all the time,» Romezan grunted. «When they squat over a slit trench, it's not rose petals that come out.» He shouted again for more speed. Abivard pondered his analogy.

  As the day went on, Abivard began to think the noble from the Seven Clans might have had a point. The army hadn't moved so fast since it had gotten into the uplands, and the Videssians couldn't be very far ahead. One more engagement and Maniakes might not be able to get his army back to Lyssaion.

  And then, not long before Abivard was going to order his forces out of their column and into a line of battle despite the rugged terrain, a rider came galloping up the path from the southeast, from the Videssian force toward the Makuraners. He was shouting something in the Makuraner tongue as he drew near. Before long Abivard, who was riding at the front of the column, could make out what it was: «Stop! Hold up! It's a trap!»

  Abivard turned to the horn players. «Blow halt,» he commanded. «We have to find out what this means.»

  As the call rang out and the horsemen obediently reined in, Abivard studied the approaching horseman, who kept yelling at the top of his lungs. Because the fellow was bawling so hoarsely, Abivard needed longer than he should have to realize he recognized that voice. His jaw fell.

  Before he could speak the name, Romezan beat him to it: «That's Tzikas. It can't be, but it is.»

  «It really is,» Abivard breathed. By then he could see the renegade's face; Videssians usually didn't go in for chain mail veils. «What is he doing here? Did he try killing Maniakes one more time and botch it again? If he did kill him, he'd do us a favor, but if he killed him, he'd be back with the Videssian army, not coming up to ours.»

  Tzikas rode straight up to Abivard, as he had in battle a few days before. This time, though, he did not draw the sword that hung on his hip. «The God be praised,» he said in his lisping Videssian accent. «I've gotten to you before you rode into the trap.» The gelding on which he was mounted was blowing and foam-flecked; he'd come at a horse-killing pace.

  «What are you talking about, Tzikas?» Abivard ground out. Nothing would have pleased him more man slaying the renegade. No one could stop him now, not with Tzikas coming alone to him in the midst of his army. But the Videssian never would have done such a thing without a pressing reason. Until Abivard found out what that reason was, Tzikas would keep breathing.

  Tzikas wasn't breathing well now; gasping was more like it. «Trap,» he said, pointing over his shoulder. «Magic. Back there.»

  «Why should I believe you?» Abivard said. «Why should I ever believe you?» He turned to the men of the vanguard, who were gaping at Tzikas as if he were a ghost walking among men. «Seize him! Drag him off his horse. Disarm him. The God alone knows what mischief he's plotting.»

  «You're mad!» Tzikas shouted as the Makuraners carried out Abivard's orders. «Why would I stick my head in the lion's mouth if I didn't wish you and the King of Kings well?»

  «Escaping from Maniakes comes to mind,» Abivard replied. «So does looking for another chance to drag my name through the dirt for Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase.» For a despised foreigner like Tzikas, he appended Sharbaraz' honorific formula.

  «Why should I want to escape Maniakes when you're just as eager to do me in?» Tzikas asked bitterly. «He gloated about that—by the God, how he gloated about it.»

  «He gloated so hard and made you hate him so much that you commanded his rear guard, you rode out to challenge me to single combat, and your counterattack wrecked our last chance of beating him,» Abivard said. «You were swearing by Phos then, or at least your hand was, though your mouth didn't tell it everything. By the God, Tzikas—» He put into the oath all the contempt he had in him. «—what would you have done if you'd decided you liked the Avtokrator?'

  «My hand? I don't know what you're talking about,» Tzikas said sullenly. It might even have been true. He went on, «Go ahead—mock me, slay me, however you please. And go ahead, run right after the Videssian army. Maniakes will give you a kiss on the cheek for helping him along. See if he doesn't.»

  He had, if not all the answers, enough of them to make Abivard doubt himself and his purpose. But then, Tzikas usually had a great store of answers, plenty to make you doubt yourself. Videssians bounced truth and lies back and forth, as if in mirrors, till you couldn't tell what you were seeing. Abivard sometimes wondered whether the imperials themselves could keep track.

  One thing at a time, then. «What sort of magic is it, Tzikas?»

  «I don't know,» the renegade answered. «Maniakes didn't tell me. All I know is, I saw his wizards hard at work back there after he and his wife—his cousin who is his wife—had been closeted with them for a couple of hours before they started doing whatever they were doing. I didn't think it was for your health and well-being. I was commanding the rear guard—he'd come to trust me that far again. When I saw my chance, I galloped here. And look at the thanks you give me for it, too.»

  «You can check this, lord,» Romezan rumbled. He'd listened to Tzikas with the same mixture of fascination and doubt Abivard felt.

  I know I can. I intend to,» Abivard said. He turned to his men and said to one of them, «Fetch Bozorg and Panteles up here. If there's any magic up ahead, they'll sniff it out. And if there's not, Tzikas here will wish he'd stayed to suffer Maniakes' tender mercy when he finds out what we end up doing to him.» As the soldier hurried off, Abivard shifted to the Videssian to ask a mocking question: «Do you follow that, eminent sir?»

  «Perfectly well, thank you.» Tzikas had sangfroid, no two ways about it. But then, a man would hardly arrive at a position where he could commit treason—let alone repeated treason—without a goodly helping of sangfroid.

  Abivard fretted and stewed. While he waited, Maniakes and his army were getting farther away every moment After what seemed an interminable delay, Bozorg and Panteles came trotting up behind the soldier Abivard had sent to bring them. He watched Tzikas watching the Videssian in his service and made up his mind not to let the two of them be alone together if he could help it.

  No time to worry about that, though. Abivard spoke to the two mages: «This, as you know, is the famous and versatile Tzikas of the Videssian army, our army, the Videssians again, and now– maybe—ours once more.»

  «One of those transfers
was involuntary on my part,» Tzikas said. Yes, he had sangfroid and to spare.

  As if he hadn't spoken, as if Bozorg and Panteles weren't staring wide-eyed at the famous and versatile Tzikas, whom they could not have expected to find returned to allegiance to the King of Kings—if he had returned to allegiance to the King of Kings– Abivard went on, «Tzikas says the Videssians are planning something unpleasantly sorcerous for us up ahead. I want you to find out whether that's so. If it is, I suppose Tzikas may have earned his life. If not, I promise he will keep it longer than he wants to but not long.»

  «Aye, lord,» Bozorg said.

  «It shall be as you say, eminent sir,» Panteles added in Videssian. Abivard wished he hadn't done that. The soldiers of the vanguard, from the lowliest trooper up through Romezan, looked from him to Tzikas and back again, tarring both of them with the same brush. Abivard didn't want Panteles getting any ideas, from any source, about disloyalty.

  The two wizards worked together smoothly enough, more smoothly than they had when they had been trying to cross the canal, when Bozorg had reckoned the Voimios strap only a figment of Panteles' imagination and a twisted figment at that. Now, sometimes chanting antiphonally, sometimes pointing and gesturing down the road in the direction from which Tzikas had come, sometimes roiling the dust with their spells, they probed what lay ahead.

  At last Bozorg reported, «Some sort of sorcerous barrier does lie ahead, lord. What may hide behind it I cannot say: it serves only to mask the sorceries on the farther side. But it is there.»

  «That's so,» Panteles agreed. «No possible argument. There's a sorcerous fog bank, so to speak, dead ahead of us.»

  Abivard glanced over at Tzikas. The renegade affected not to notice that he was being watched. I've told the truth, his posture said. I've always told the truth. Abivard wondered if he really grasped the difference between the posture of truth and truth itself.