Thessalonica

by Harry Turtledove

  Only when wolves burst out at them from left and right at the same time did the centaurs suddenly seem to catch on to what George had meant. He hoped that wasn’t so late, it would get them all lolled--and him with them.

  A wolf sprang at Xanthippe’s flank. The female centaur whirled, startlingly quick, and kicked out with its hind legs. The hooves slammed into the wolf s snout. It rolled away, yowling in pain. Blood spurting from its wounds. Any natural creature, any creature of flesh and blood, would have had its head caved in.

  Demetrius let out a sound half-scream, half-whinny, as a wolf raked the young--but not so young--centaur’s side with its teeth. The wolf rammed the centaur, overbore it, and came darting back to tear out its throat.

  Shouting, George ran to the--colt’s?--aid. The first swipe of his sword lopped off a couple of digits’ worth of the wolf s tail. That got its attention. It whirled away from Demetrius and toward George. The end with the teeth looked much more dangerous than the end with the tail.

  The wolf-demon leaped straight for his face. He got his shield up--Rufus would have been proud of him--and cut at the creature. He felt his blade bite into its side, but it didn’t seem to mind in the least. It hit him like a boulder. Try as he would to keep his feet, he went over backwards.

  He did all the things he’d reminded himself to do when the first wolf-demon had been about to attack him. He kept his shield up; the wolf s fangs scraped on the leather facing. He kept slashing with his sword. None of that would have mattered very long. The wolf was immensely stronger than he, and his sword seemed unable to do it much harm.

  But then, just as it was scrabbling with paws unnaturally clever to pull down the shield so its teeth could do their deadly work, thud! thud!--two stones struck it blows hard enough to make it roll off him and away. If those stones hadn’t broken ribs, the wolf owned none.

  George scrambled to his feet. Elatus grabbed the wolf with human arms and hands, lifted it off the ground in an amazing display of strength, and then threw it down, hard. The male centaur trampled the wolf-demon with both pairs of equine hooves.

  The wolf howled and twisted and then clamped its jaws on Elatus’ left hindmost leg. The centaur cried out in anguish as George rushed to its aid. He stabbed the wolf-demon in the belly with his sword. It screamed; supernatural or not, it was sorely hurt. Its blood smelled hot and metallic and almost spicy: an odor much stronger and more distinctive than that of the blood of ordinary living things.

  Elatus was bleeding, too. That did not keep the centaur from flailing away with its three good horse’s legs at the wolf-demon, which finally broke away and fled, not just from the male centaur but from the right as a whole.

  “We can’t go forward,” George said. “There are still too many of them. We have to go back.”

  “A truth may be bitter but a truth naytheless,” Elatus said. The male dipped its shaggy head to George. “And I own myself in your debt, mortal. That was bravely done.” It twisted so it could look at its wounded leg. Scabs were already forming over the bites. In a day or two, George supposed, Elatus would be altogether healed. And, in a day or two, the wolf-demon the shoemaker had stabbed would probably be well again, too. He sighed. Had he been a proper hero out of myth, he would have slain it.

  Elatus shouted: a great sound without words George could discern, but one that must have had meaning to the other centaurs. They began to retreat down the path Ampelus and Stusippus had taken. George went with them. The wolves made as if to pursue, but gave up when the centaurs, having opened a little distance from them, bombarded them with showers of stones.

  None of the centaurs had escaped without wounds, but all of them were well on the way toward healing by the time they got back to the encampment from which they’d set out. George counted himself lucky to have got away with nothing worse than cuts and scrapes and bruises; no sharp teeth had pierced his tender flesh. He ached and stung as things were. Being in the company of the supernatural beings did not make him so close to immune to hurt as they were.

  “Manifest it is,” Crotus said, scratching what had been a bite and was now a rough red scar, “that these folk and their powers desire not your return to the city whenee you were abstracted.”

  “I didn’t want to be abstracted from it,” George said. When he thought of Menas, his hands bunched into fists. “I didn’t get what I wanted. I don’t see any reason the Slavs and Avars should get what they want.”

  “One reason doth suggest itself,” Nephele observed: “namely and to wit, that they have the power to enforce that which they desire.”

  Ampelus came up to George. All the centaurs glared at the satyr, who had been of such little use in the fight against the wolf-demons. Sensitive to that scorn, Ampelus spoke with something like embarrassment: “Not good to go in day. Maybe good to go in night.”

  George clapped a hand to his forehead. “When I wanted to do that, everyone said it would be worse than trying it in the daytime.”

  “What can be worse than that?” the satyr asked reasonably. “Try in day, not go. Try in night, likely not go, but maybe go.”

  George could see one way in which things might be worse. He’d come out of this try alive, even if unsuccessful. If things went wrong again .. .

  He wondered what was happening back at Thessalonica. The sally from inside the city had driven back the Slavs undermining the walls beneath the shelter of their tortoises, but had the barbarians attacked again? Had the Avar priest or wizard found yet another set of demigods to hurl against the protective power that came from St. Demetrius and from God?

  And on those questions depended the answer to the truly important one: how were Irene and Theodore and Sophia?

  “We’d better try and get back, any way we possibly can,” George said. “If it can’t be by day, it will have to be by night.” The children of Israel had traveled by night as well as by day, he reminded himself, with a pillar of fire to light their way as they went.

  He did not expect God to give him a pillar of fire. Thinking of the children of Israel made him think of Benjamin the Jew, and thinking of Benjamin made him think of Dactylius and Rufus and John and drunken Sabbatius and Claudia and Paul and the rest of his friends back in Thessalonica. He also thought again of Menas back in Thessalonica. As they had before, his hands formed fists. Without Menas, he wouldn’t have been in this predicament. Rich though Menas was, noble though Menas was, George resolved he would have his revenge. One more reason to go back, he thought.

  Daylight hours were short at this season of the year. Time seemed to crawl by anyhow. The satyrs went out hunting, and came back with rabbits and roots and herbs. They presented these to the centaurs as what George took to be a peace-offering. Nephele looked as if she wanted to fling the food in Stusippus’ face. But if the female did that, everyone would go hungry. Into the pot everything went.

  George had seen the day before that centaurs had appetites in keeping with their size. He got only a few mouthfuls of stew, and a bit more dried fruit to go with it. After two days straight of fighting for his life, that didn’t feel like enough. His stomach made noises that might have come from the throat of a Slavic wolf-demon.

  When darkness finally came, the shoemaker shivered. Part of that, he was not ashamed to admit to himself, was fear. Part, too, was cold. His teeth had chattered up on the wall when he’d drawn night duty. Being out in the woods was worse. He would have welcomed the company of a couple of rampantly erect satyrs in a bed of leaves--they would have helped keep him warm.

  Instead, having bolted his meager meal, he slipped out of the encampment with Ampelus. None of the centaurs accompanied them. “For,” Crotus said as they were leaving, “strength having faded, stealth needs must serve. There the lustful ones surpass us, they being every inclined to sneak up on mortal women and so debauch themselves.” The male’s lip curled in scorn. “Mayhap their skulking habits shall this once prove of advantage to us.”

  “Huh,” Ampelus said. “He not so smart as he t
hink he is. One of these days, I climb up on rock back of Nephele, show that mare what loving can be.” The satyr’s hips twitched in lewd anticipation. George noted, however, that for all of Ampelus’ bravado, it made sure it was well out of earshot of the encampment before making a boast like that.

  They walked quietly through the woods, down toward Thessalonica. All George heard were their footfalls, scuffing through fallen leaves. Or rather, all he heard were his own footfalls scuffing through fallen leaves.

  Ampelus paced along beside him, silent as a shadow. No insects chirped: too late in the year. No nightjars called, no owls hooted.

  Bare-branched trees raised their boughs to the sky, as if surrendering to robbers. Those boughs passed black in front of the nearly full moon that poured pale radiance over the hillside. Normally, George would have been delighted to have all the light he could if he was crazy enough to go through the forest at night. Now--. Now he said, “Won’t the moon make it easier for the wolves and whatever else is out there to find us?”

  “Easier, yes.” The satyr played with itself for a little while, as it did whenever it was worried. “But they not need much light to see. Maybe they not need to see at all. Maybe they. . . know.”

  “What will you do if they know?” George pronounced the word as portentously as Ampelus had done. “Run away again?”

  “This” --the satyr gripped its swollen phallus with both hands-- “this is no sword. Can’t kick like donkey, like stupid centaurs do. Can maybe throw rocks. Maybe. What good in fight, I? Made to be lover” --that hip-rocking motion again-- “not fighter.”

  “Well, even so--” George began, admitting to himself if not to the satyr that it had a point.

  Ampelus cut him off. “Shut up, mortal George, or see how mortal you be. Not get through by fighting anyhow. Get through by sneaking. Sneaking, you be quiet.”

  The satyr had another point there, even if it had been doing more talking than George. The shoemaker trudged along. Most of the time, he and Ampelus headed downhill toward their goal, pushing through the spell of resistance the Slavs and Avars had established against such ventures. Every so often, they climbed rises lying athwart their path, Ampelus judging that quicker than walking around. From one of those bits of higher ground, George caught a glimpse of Thessalonica, lamps and torches bravely burning inside the wall. The city hadn’t fallen, then. Relief made him feel as if he’d walked fewer miles on more food than was really so.

  That remained true despite his also having seen the campfires of the Slavs and Avars around the besieged city. He hadn’t expected the barbarians to have cleared out since he was locked away from Thessalonica. As long as they were outside the wall, not within it, something might yet be done.

  Ampelus suddenly grabbed George’s arm and pulled him to one side, ever so carefully skirting what looked to the shoemaker like a stretch of ground no different from any other. “What’s wrong?” George whispered. “Did you see a wolf?”

  “Worse,” the satyr answered with a fearful shudder. “Saint do something holy there, who knows when? Ground hurt to go on.”

  “St. Demetrius?” George asked.

  Ampelus turned to stare at him. The satyr’s eyes flashed. The light, George thought, was their own, not reflected moonlight. “Who cares St. Who?” the creature burst out. “Is saint. Is holyfied ground. Is hurt. We go different way.”

  “If we did go through the hallowed ground,” George said thoughtfully, “we would be doing something the Slavs and Avars and their powers don’t expect. It might gain us an edge.”

  “I do not go through holyfied ground,” Ampelus insisted. “Hurt me too much. And like I tell you, I watch wolf eat one of your priests. Wolf not care about ground like I do.”

  That was true. It was also depressing. And standing around in the woods arguing did not strike George as a good idea. Standing around in the woods for any reason did not strike George as a good idea. Being in the woods did not strike him as a good idea. But when all the other ideas looked worse ... All the other ideas’ looking worse did not make this a good one. Of that the shoemaker was convinced.

  He and the satyr pressed on toward Thessalonica. How they were going to get through the encirclement the Slavs and Avars had round the city bulked larger and larger in his mind. He had, at the moment, no idea. He decided to worry about it when the time came. He had plenty of other things to worry about till the time came.

  An old man stepped out into the path ahead of George and Ampelus. His long beard and bushy eyebrows were green, and glowed brighter than Ampelus’ eyes had flashed. “Well,” George said, “it’s a good bet he’s not a wandering peasant, isn’t it?” He drew his sword.

  “I am Vucji Pastir,” the old man said, his voice sounding in George’s mind rather than his ears: “the shepherd of the wolves.” His eyes, which shone almost as brightly as his beard and eyebrows, seemed ready to pop from his head. Though he stood in the moonlight, he cast no shadow.

  “I am a good Christian man,” George said. “Begone, evil spirit!” He made the sign of the cross.

  That had pained the wolf-demon at the start of the daylight fight, even if it hadn’t routed the creature. Vucji Pastir smiled. When he did, he showed his teeth, which were as sharp and pointed as any wolf s. The holy sign did him no harm. He raised his right hand. Off in the distance, howling rose. “My sheep, they come for you,” he said.

  George was not inclined to wait for them. He rushed at the shepherd of the wolves, slashing as he came. His blade shortened the Slavic demigod’s beard by several inches. The severed hairs glowed as brightly as they had while still attached to their master.

  Vucji Pastir bellowed in surprise and anger and--fear? He vanished, leaving behind the results of George’s impromptu barbering. “Bravely did!” Ampelus cried. “Now we can get away.”

  “No,” George said. “Now we can go on.” He snatched up the tuft of shining green hairs. “And now we have a holy relic--no, an unholy relic, I suppose--of our own. If that ugly thing is the shepherd of the wolves, they should pay attention to his beard.”

  “Yes--when they eat you, they not eat the beard,” the satyr said gloomily. But it went on with George instead of turning back as it plainly would rather have done.

  They had not gone far before a wolf-demon snarled at them. Instead of slashing at it with his sword, George thrust the fragment of Vucji Pastir s beard in its face. It let out a startled yip, then a doglike yelp of greeting. Having the bit of beard in his possession made George a shepherd of wolves in his own right.

  “See, I told you so,” he said to Ampelus--a privilege he would not have taken with Irene. But--God be praised!--he wasn’t married to the satyr. The wolf-demon rolled onto its belly, then placed itself at George’s left heel, exactly as a well-trained dog would have done if it was going for a walk. In the moonlight, the shoemaker grinned at Ampelus. “Come on--we’ve got our own escort.”

  Warily, the satyr moved closer to the wolf. The wolf accepted Ampelus as a friend of George’s. “Strange business,” the satyr said, and stroked itself for reassurance.

  They had not gone far before another fierce wolf-demon tried to bar their way. Before George could thrust his fluffy talisman at it, the first wolf, the one he’d tamed with Vucji Pastir’s whiskers, snarled--but at the newcomer, not at him. The second wolf-demon whined appeasingly and fell into place beside the one that had warned it.

  “Maybe I’ll have the whole pack of them by the time we get to Thessalonica,” George said gaily. Ampelus didn’t answer, but he didn’t run away or masturbate, either, which meant he was happy enough.

  And then, without warning, Vucji Pastir reappeared right beside George. The wolves stared at the Slavic demigod and the shoemaker, as if realizing they might have made a mistake. Vucji Pastir snatched back the bit of beard George had trimmed from him. He set it against the rest of his green whiskers; it grew fast to them almost at once. “Mine,” he said, and disappeared again.

  George thought he w
as a dead man. By the way Ampelus moaned, the satyr expected the wolves to tear them to pieces in the next instant, too. But they didn’t. Some small part of Vucji Pastir’s glamour still clung to George. The wolves, however, did whine and growl when he tried to go forward. When he turned around and started uphill, the way he had come, they were silent.

  “I think,” he said carefully, “we’d better head back.”

  “See?” Ampelus said. “I told you so.”

  “You’ll make someone a fine wife one day,” George snapped. The satyr laughed at him. He looked over his shoulder. The wolves were not tagging along at his heels, as they had before. That made him more glad than otherwise: sooner or later, they were going to figure out that he’d duped them. He didn’t want them anywhere near his heels then.

  As things happened, he’d put most of a mile between himself and the wolves before a furious howling broke out at his back. They didn’t catch up with him and Ampelus before the two of them had returned to the encampment from which they’d set out. Nor did they prove willing to attack the centaurs there. After more hideous howls, they went away.

  “I can’t go to Thessalonica in the daytime,” George muttered, “and I can’t go at night, either. What does that leave?” He didn’t think it left anything, but there had to be a way into the city. No--he wanted a way into the city. There was, unfortunately, all too often a difference between what he wanted and what there was.

  X

  A satyr named Ithys, whom George hadn’t met before, came into the camp the next morning. Where the satyrs and centaurs there moped, Ithys bounced and sparkled. “Tell me why,” Ampelus said, scowling, “or I throw something at you.”